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+{"text":"\n\nFor Misheel\n\nWith thanks to Ben and Sarah at Full Circle Yurts; Sue Kendall; The Brunswick Boys Club, Bootle; Anna McGrath for her coat; Caroline Wheatley at Linacre Primary School, Bootle; Cheryl Mackie at SPACE; Ermek Tleikhan, Batkhishig Luvsanpurev and Tsogtgerel Namsraijav; and Conor Lawrenson, Molly Lawrenson, Lewis O'Brien and Shannonn Byrne.\n\nI hadn't seen this photograph since the day it was taken, until now. Even so, I can tell you anything you want to know about it. The boy on the left is Shocky. The one on the right is Duncan, who used to come to school with biscuits in his pocket. He's married now, inexplicably. The girl on the left is Mimi Toolan and the one on the right is me.\n\nAt the moment the picture was taken, I was mostly wondering whether Mimi would ask me back to hers after school. Mimi's mother let her play with her make-up, which my mother definitely did not, even though I was mature and sophisticated.\n\nI was also thinking Oh. My. Days. Shocky has put his hand on my shoulder! Once, just before Christmas, I had managed to manipulate Shocky into being my partner in a classroom activity. This should have resulted in a moment of physical contact because it was a trust game, only it turned out that Shocky was not to be trusted. And by the time this photograph was taken, Shocky had completed an unbroken run of two hundred and thirty-seven days of failing to notice my existence.\n\nHow do I remember my thoughts so clearly? Because those were the only thoughts I had in the first two terms of Year Six:\n\n**1. Mimi, can I come back to yours?**\n\n**2. Shocky, please notice me.**\n\nAlso, this photograph was taken in the summer term of Year Six. And doesn't everyone remember everything about their last summer in primary school? The sports day. The leavers' trip. The leavers' photograph. The endless discussion of which school you were going to next, the promise to stay friends even though you were going to different schools. Everyone signing their names on everyone else's shirts on the last afternoon. And all the time, you had the feeling that day by day, inch by inch, a door was opening and sunshine was pouring in, and any day now you would be allowed out through that door, laughing and yelling so loud that you wouldn't even hear when it closed behind you, for ever.\n\nI can tell you when it was taken. It was the second week of the summer term. During morning break, Mimi spotted two kids \u2013 one big and one little, the big one holding the little one's hand \u2013 staring through the railings of the playground. The little one was wearing a furry hat and they had identical coats. Mad coats \u2013 long, like dressing-gowns, with fur inside. But any coat would have looked mad. The sun was beating down. The tarmac in the car park was melting. Everyone else was wearing T-shirts.\n\nMimi went over and said, \"What are you two looking at?\"\n\nThe big one put his finger on his lips, shushing her, and said, \"Pay attention to your teacher.\" He pointed at Mrs Spendlove, and the very minute he did, she blew the whistle for the end of break, like he knew she was going to do it.\n\nWhen we were all lined up, somehow these two were standing right behind me. I was looking at the littlest one, who had his hat pulled down right over his eyes. It looked so uncomfortable; I wanted to fix it for him \u2013 but the big one put his hand under my chin and turned my head away. \"Don't look at him,\" he said.\n\nHe was asking for a slap, quite honestly. But before I could do anything about that, Mrs Spendlove was walking us into class. The two boys went straight to the back and the little one made himself at home in what was supposedly my seat. I stood there, staring right at him, thinking he'd take a hint. But no.\n\nMrs Spendlove said, \"Everyone, I'd like you all to say a big hello to a new face in our class. A happy new face, I hope. This is Chingis.\"\n\nEveryone said hello except me. I said, \"What about the other one, Miss? What's he called?\"\n\nShe hadn't noticed the little one until then. \"Oh. Chingis,\" she said, \"I'm afraid your little brother isn't in this class. He's in Miss Hoyle's class just along the corridor.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Chingis, \"my little brother is in this class. Look, he's here next to me.\"\n\nEveryone laughed except Mrs Spendlove. \"Sorry, sorry,\" she said. \"I mean he _belongs_ in Miss Hoyle's class.\" She was flapping her hands at the rest of us to be quiet, mortified because she thought we were laughing at him and it was her fault. But I was standing next to him and I could see he hadn't made a mistake. He was digging in.\n\n\"Julie, would you show Chingis's brother to Miss Hoyle's class?\"\n\nI certainly would. For one thing, I wanted my seat back.\n\nAs soon as I stepped towards the little one, though, the big one put his hand up, right in my face, and said, \"No.\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\"\n\n\"He must stay with me. I am bound to take care of him. Protect him. I must stay with him.\"\n\n\"Well, it doesn't really work like that, Chingis. For one thing, once he's in Miss Hoyle's class, she'll protect him. And besides, he won't really need protecting because...\"\n\nHe wasn't even listening. He just took out some pencils and stuff and settled down to do a bit of drawing.\n\nMrs Spendlove opened up her laptop and poked around for a while. \"Ah,\" she said, talking to the little one directly. \"You need to go to a different class, Kub\u2014\" and started trying to spell out this unbelievable name, syllable by syllable. Before she got to the third syllable, Chingis looked up and said, \"No,\" again.\n\n\"No,\" just like that.\n\nIt was the second time he'd said no to her. Once might be a mistake. Twice was game on. Definitely. We were witnessing a struggle for power.\n\nMrs Spendlove made the first play. \"Excuse me?\" she said.\n\n\"Call him Nergui,\" he said. \"It's easier.\" Which was definitely cheek in her face, telling Mrs Spendlove what to do, telling her she wouldn't be up to the job of pronouncing someone's actual name.\n\nMrs Spendlove slapped that down. \"Well, that's not what I've got here,\" she said, and tried spelling out the long name again.\n\nChingis stood up.\n\nShe looked him in the eye.\n\nHe said, \"Please.\"\n\n_Please_ was good. _Please_ was some kind of stand-down. _Please_ was definitely points to her.\n\nShe closed the laptop really, really slowly. \"OK,\" she said. \"Just for today, you can stay in this class, Nergui.\"\n\nChingis said thank you and sat back down. It looked like victory to Mrs Spendlove. Except that somehow this kid had ended up with everything he wanted \u2013 his little brother was sitting next to him, being called by some unofficial name. Maybe Mrs Spendlove sensed this. Maybe that's why she decided she had to push it.\n\n\"So, if you take your hat off, Nergui,\" she said, \"we can all get started.\"\n\nThe kid didn't move and neither did Chingis. They both just sat there, with _What're you going to do about it?_ faces. Pretending they didn't understand.\n\nShe tried again. \"I'm afraid you have to take your hat off, Nergui.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Chingis.\n\nNow everyone looked at Mrs Spendlove.\n\n\"We can't have people wearing hats in class, Chingis.\"\n\nEveryone looked at Chingis.\n\nThis was like watching high-tension tennis.\n\n\"It will be dangerous to take off my brother's hat.\"\n\n\"How can it be dangerous to take off his hat? Is his head not securely fastened to his neck?\"\n\nShe got a laugh for that. The laugh gave her some edge.\n\n\"Not dangerous for him. Dangerous for you.\"\n\nMrs Spendlove frowned. Was he threatening her?\n\n\"If I take off his hat,\" he continued, \"maybe he will go insane and kill everyone.\"\n\nHe was definitely threatening her. Threatening all of us. With his little brother.\n\n\"Chingis...\"\n\n\"When you need your eagle to be calm, what do you do?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\" She looked around the class. Did anyone know? Why _would_ anyone know?\n\n\"Of course,\" he said, \"you cover its eyes with a hood. When you want the eagle to fly and kill, you take off the hood. My brother is my eagle. With his hood on, he is calm enough. Without his hood, I don't know what he will be like.\"\n\nYear Six. We had been at school for six years and until that moment I thought I had probably learned all I would ever need to learn. I knew how to work out the volume of a cube. I knew who had painted the \"Sunflowers\". I could tell you the history of St Lucia. I knew about lines of Tudors and lines of symmetry and the importance of eating five portions of fruit a day. But in all that time, I had never had a single lesson in eagle-calming. I had never even heard the subject mentioned. I'd had no idea that a person might need eagle-calming skills.\n\nAnd in that moment, I felt my own ignorance spread suddenly out behind me like a pair of wings, and every single thing I didn't know was a feather on those wings. I could feel them tugging at the air, restless to be airborne.\n\nI wanted to talk to the new boy. I wanted to talk about eagles. But Mimi seemed to regard the whole Chingis incident as a minor interruption in the ongoing global cosmetics conversation. Only the boys were interested. At lunchtime, dozens of them crowded round Chingis and Nergui, asking them if they really had eagles, and how big they were, and whether Chingis was a liar or not.\n\n\"Where d'you get eagles from, then? Eagles R Us?\"\n\n\"Everyone has eagles where I come from.\"\n\n\"Where's that, then?\"\n\n\"Mongolia.\"\n\nThey poked and pestered little Nergui, who still had his hat pulled right down, hiding his eyes. They kept telling him to make eagle noises. The kid \u2013 Nergui \u2013 huddled down in his coat, pulled his arms out of his sleeves and crossed them over his chest. His sleeves were flapping loose and he did fully look like a bird.\n\nThen Chingis spotted me over their heads and shouted, \"You. You must come and help me.\"\n\nI didn't know what he expected me to do. But I was fully delighted to be asked. I slid past the boys and then turned on them. \"All right,\" I said. \"Move on. Haven't you seen a pair of Mongolian brothers before?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well, you have now. So move on.\"\n\n\"As if they're Mongolian, anyway.\" It was Shocky. \"Why would they come here from Mongolia? They're probably from Speke.\"\n\nEveryone agreed that the brothers were probably from Speke and then went back to their footie.\n\n\"Please stand still,\" said Chingis. He moved me back a bit and pulled something out of his bag that looked like an old-fashioned radio. When he pressed a button, it made this whirring sound, the top half shot open and a lens popped out.\n\nI know now that it was a Polaroid camera. At the time I think I thought it was some kind of mad, starey cuckoo clock.\n\n\"I need a picture,\" he said, \"so I can remember which one you are. You are to be our Good Guide here. OK?\"\n\nMimi had come over by this point \u2013 she could hear a camera being deployed at five hundred metres. We both did our loveliest smiles, and that would be when Shocky and Duncan came over and tried to get into the picture. Almost as soon as Chingis had clicked the button, a strip of paper rolled out of the front of the camera. He peeled off some kind of label, then waved the paper around in the air, and there we all were. Caught for ever. He wrote something on the photo, which I didn't see at the time.\n\nI saw it for the first time today. He'd written, \"Our Good Guide.\"\n\n\"You will be our Good Guide,\" he said. \"In Mongolia we are nomads. When we come to a new country, we need to find a Good Guide. You will be our Good Guide in this place. Agree?\"\n\nOf course I agreed. No one had ever asked me to be anything before, definitely not anything involving a title. And that was when I stopped thinking about make-up, lips and Shocky. That was when I started walking round the place thinking, Hi, I'm the Good Guide.\n\nI really did want to be a good guide.\n\nThat's not Nergui's coat in the picture. That's Chingis's coat. I saw that coat today for the first time since we all left. I'd heard that they were going to knock the school down this summer. As it was the last day of term and my last chance to take a look, I went over on my way back from work.\n\nMrs Spendlove was still working there, incredibly, and she recognized me right away. Thirty-four years she's taught there. Imagine that. She let me go round with her while she collected her stuff and some souvenirs. The old store cupboards, the cloakroom, her classroom. And there at the back of our old classroom was a big blue plastic tub with **LOST PROPERTY** written on it. Mostly trainers and socks and a few books, a lockable Miffy diary, a couple of _In the Night Garden_ lunchboxes. And the coat.\n\nThe unforgettable coat of Chingis Tuul.\n\nI lifted it out and held it up at arm's length. I wish I could say it looked like a bird, but it was more like a big hairy bat, just hanging there. I went through the pockets, the way you do.\n\nAnd that's how I found these pictures.\n\nI really did take my Good Guide duties seriously. I took Chingis and Nergui to the dining hall every lunchtime and made sure they could sit together \u2013 even though I didn't have dinners myself. I made sure they knew what they had to bring for games and swimming. I told them to lose their weird-looking coats and wear something normal. And when it was our class assembly, I lobbied for it to be \"All About Mongolia\", thinking that Chingis would join in and maybe even be pleased. But it didn't work out that way.\n\nI brought in pictures and looked stuff up on Wikipedia for the first time in my life. He did nothing. Even on the day, he just stood there, looking Mongolian, while I told the school all I had learned about how Mongolia, a landlocked presidential republic in Central Asia, was the most sparsely populated country in the world, where a lot of the people were still nomads who lived in big tents called yurts and the men liked to hunt wolves with eagles. And how there was a city there called Xanadu, which was the fifth Great Khan's summer capital. It had fountains and brooks and meadows and woods that were full of every kind of wild beast, and the Khan went hunting with his eagles there. The palace itself was made of tightly woven bamboo so that it could be taken apart and moved. Inside, it was all painted with birds and animals and trees so that you couldn't really tell if you were inside or out.\n\nWhen someone said, \"Is it really like that where you come from?\" Chingis said, \"Yes. Nothing has changed.\"\n\n\"What did you come to Bootle for, then?\"\n\nWhen everyone sniggered, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, \"We are nomads. We move around.\"\n\nI didn't do all this out of the goodness of my heart. It was part of my plan: I wanted to be asked back to their house. I imagined it would be stuffed with silks, with a horse-head fiddle in one corner and a samovar bubbling in the other. I really had done my homework.\n\nThanks to my obsession with Mimi's make-up, I already knew a bit about getting yourself asked back to places. All you had to do was walk with someone until they were nearly home then say, \"Oh, is this where you live?\" and if that wasn't enough, just say you needed the toilet. Once you were through the door, their mother usually asked you to stay.\n\nThis didn't work with Chingis and Nergui, though, for the simple reason that they seemed to take a different route home every day. One day they'd head left up Hawthorne Road, so the next day I'd go that way and wait for them to catch up. I'd wait for ages and then discover they'd gone off down the Avenue. So the next day I'd go that way, only to see them turn round and walk back the way they had come, heading straight past me. Sometimes they'd disappear into the terraces. Sometimes they'd even slide off into the back alleys.\n\nI gave up trying to follow them, but whenever I was out I would look at the windows of the houses and flats, wondering if one of them was theirs and feeling certain that somewhere in the narrow streets or tower blocks there was a room with the silks and the samovar, like a secret gateway.\n\nSomewhere in Bootle, Xanadu was buried like treasure.\n\nThen one day I went into Savedra's shop for a packet of Monster Munch and a bottle of Sunny Delight, and there they were, the two of them, standing in the doorway looking at me. Chingis said, \"Are they good?\" pointing at the Monster Munch. I offered him some and started walking slowly towards my house.\n\nChingis crunched the Munch. \"Yes, it is good. You can give some to Nergui.\"\n\nWe walked along, with them dipping into my Monster Munch every couple of metres. I subtly changed course whenever they changed theirs. I chugged some Sunny Delight so I could be convincing when I asked for the toilet. But somehow, we ended up outside my house, not theirs.\n\n\"I need the toilet,\" said Chingis. \"And so does Nergui. You have toilets?\"\n\n\"Sure. Come in.\"\n\nAs soon as they came through the door, my mum asked if they wanted to stay to tea.\n\n\"Sure,\" said Chingis.\n\nHe and Nergui went up to the toilet. Mum asked me if I thought they'd like fish fingers. \"Or is that against their religion?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure what religion they are. They eat normal school dinners.\"\n\nWe heard the toilet flush but the boys did not come down. We could hear them walking around upstairs, opening doors and even drawers.\n\n\"That's a bit much, you know. Doors are one thing but I draw the line at drawers.\"\n\nShe couldn't, in fact, draw the line, though, because Chingis walked into the kitchen and said, \"Please, we need to bake something right away. You have flour?\"\n\nSomething in his voice managed to infect Mum with baking panic. Personally, I'd never heard of emergency baking before. But Mum was yanking a mixing bowl out of the cupboard like it was a fire extinguisher. Bags of flour, slabs of butter \u2013 she threw them onto the table like medical supplies.\n\n\"Yeast?\"\n\n\"Yeast?! We don't have yeast!\"\n\nIt seemed that we might all be doomed by lack of yeast and that only Chingis could save us.\n\n\"It's OK,\" he said. \"This time I'll do it without yeast. Stand back, please. And warm the oven.\"\n\nMum more or less ran to the oven and Chingis started throwing stuff into the mixing bowl and bashing the dough about. Nergui stood there watching as though this was heart surgery and it was his heart in the mixing bowl.\n\nIt was only when I said, \"What is it exactly that you're doing?\" that things started to calm down.\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Mum. \"What is it exactly that you're doing?\"\n\n\"You have some raisins?\" asked Chingis.\n\n\"Sure.\" She passed him a bag of raisins. He squeezed the dough into the shape of a little boy and added raisins for teeth and eyes.\n\n\"You know, if we're going to eat this, you should have washed your hands.\"\n\n\"This is not for eating. Not for _us_ to eat, anyway. We need something else to eat. What do you have?\"\n\nMum said that she was thinking of eating fish fingers if it wasn't against their religion.\n\n\"There is a religion in this country that forbids fish fingers?\" asked Chingis.\n\n\"No, I don't think so. I'll put them on. Do you want to phone your mother and tell her you're staying to tea?\"\n\n\"No. We are nomads. She doesn't expect us to come home like children who are not nomads. Maybe we will be staying here for the night.\"\n\n\"Oh, will you, maybe?\" said Mum. \"Maybe you won't, either.\"\n\nChingis glanced at Nergui. Then he looked around the room, as if checking that no one was listening. Mum had this mirror near the back door next to the See How I Grow chart. Chingis went over, took the mirror off the wall and turned it face down on the table. Then he closed the blind.\n\n\"We are telling you something in secret,\" he said. He looked at Nergui again and Nergui nodded. \"My brother believes he is being chased by a certain demon.\"\n\n\"A demon?\" said Mum. \"In Bootle? Are you sure there's only one?!\"\n\n\"We have to take steps to save him. For instance, Nergui is not his name. We never speak his name. Nergui means no one, so if the demon hears us speaking to Nergui, it thinks we are speaking to no one.\"\n\n\"Right,\" said Mum. \"Well. Obviously. Don't know why I didn't think of it myself.\"\n\n\"Also, we take a different route home from school each night so that it can't easily find where we live.\"\n\n\"But it does know where you go to school?\"\n\n\"He saw it in school. Twice.\"\n\n\"So he has actually seen this demon, then?\"\n\n\"Of course. Or how would he know it was following him? We are not people who are afraid for no reason.\"\n\n\"Course not. So what does it look like?\"\n\n\"It's in disguise. It looks like an ordinary man.\"\n\n\"So... how do you know it's a demon?\"\n\n\"Because it wants to make him vanish. It's a demon that makes things vanish.\"\n\n\"Right,\" said Mum.\n\n\"That's why we had to leave Mongolia. This demon was there. It wanted to make us vanish. So we had to leave. We walked along the railway track that led out of our country. We followed the railway for days and days. Until we came to here.\"\n\n\"There's a direct rail link from here to Mongolia?! Really?\"\n\n\"Not direct, no. We make many changes. We do it to confuse the demon. And now I have made this boy out of dough. If we leave him on your doorstep, then maybe if the demon has followed us, it can think that this is Nergui. And maybe that will vanish instead.\"\n\n\"Great plan,\" said Mum. \"Now if you're going to eat fish fingers, go and wash your hands.\"\n\nSo they stayed to supper. Before they ate, they put the dough boy on the doorstep. While we were eating, we watched the door. We couldn't help it. The lights as the cars went by, the voices of passing people, they all seemed like demon-related activities to me.\n\nA few weeks before, I had not known that there was any such thing as a portable bamboo palace. I hadn't even known there was such a person as Chingis Khan, who had been born with a clot of blood grasped in his fist and who had conquered nearly the entire world in hardly any time at all, sweeping over the steppe into Central Asia and right up to the very gates of Europe. I hadn't even known there was such a place as the steppe! The steppe that was flat as a pavement but wide as a sea, with nothing but grass and Great Bustards. Wide as a sea and I hadn't even known it was there. If there were seas of grass and woven palaces in this world, why wouldn't there be demons too? And why wouldn't one of them be crouched on our doorstep in William Morris Road right that minute, munching a boy made of dough?\n\nChingis cleared the plates without being asked. Nergui stayed staring at the door, looking tense.\n\n\"I think that little fella wants his mother,\" said Mum.\n\n\"I'll see if it's safe,\" said Chingis.\n\nHe opened the door and looked down at the step. The dough boy had disappeared.\n\n\"Honestly,\" said Mum, \"you could leave a bucket of nuclear waste on your doorstep round here and it would be gone in five minutes. They really will nick anything.\"\n\n\"We can go home,\" said Chingis. \"The demon has eaten the dough boy. It won't need to eat again tonight.\"\n\nI remember this one too. One day, Mrs Spendlove made this announcement that we were going to do an experiment the next day and we were all supposed to bring in a little canister, like an old-fashioned plastic film canister. \"You are bound to have one hanging around your house,\" she said. \"We're going to make our own rockets.\"\n\nBut when the next day came, no one had brought one in. She seemed disappointed. \"I wanted you all to do this yourselves,\" she said. \"I've only got three so I'm afraid you'll all have to watch instead.\"\n\nAnyway, she did this experiment where she stuck an Alka-Seltzer to the inside of the lid of one of the canisters with Blu-Tack, then she poured some water in the canister, put the lid on and turned it upside down. No one was that interested, until about two minutes later when the canister shot up to the ceiling and hit a light bulb, spraying water everywhere. Suddenly everyone wanted a go but Mrs Spendlove made this big speech about how you only get out what you put in, and how since none of us had gone to the bother of finding a canister, we would all just have to copy out some diagrams about the expansion of gases and propulsion and stuff, instead of having fun.\n\nAs soon as little playtime began, Chingis went to the quiet-corner benches and announced that he had film canisters, Blu-Tack and Alka-Seltzer all available for a pound a time. He opened his bag. He must have had thirty plastic film canisters, a massive slab of Blu-Tack and a catering pack of Alka-Seltzer.\n\n\"You can buy from me your own small rocket,\" he said. \"One film canister, one stick of Blu-Tack and an Alka-Seltzer \u2013 a pound.\"\n\nEveryone wanted one. People were pushing around him, handing over money.\n\nI said, \"You brought these in but you didn't tell Mrs Spendlove? Why?\" I'd felt sorry for her.\n\nHe said, \"Why would I use them in the lesson? Last night, I collected all of these from neighbours to sell.\"\n\n\"You could have sold them to us _before_ the lesson. Then everyone would have had one and she would have been really happy.\"\n\n\"Before she showed how it works, no one wanted one. No one would pay a pound when they don't know what it does. Now Mrs Spendlove explains, everyone wants one. Her lesson was good advertising.\"\n\n\"But you brought Blu-Tack and Alka-Seltzer as well as the canisters \u2013 how did you know?\"\n\n\"Rockets were invented in Mongolia. Propulsion is in our blood.\"\n\nA lad called Backy \u2013 he's in the police now \u2013 said, \"They're my canisters. You can't make me pay for my own canisters.\"\n\nApparently, the night before, Chingis had gone and knocked on every door in his block of flats \u2013 including Backy's \u2013 and asked if they had any film canisters.\n\n\"I give you the canister free,\" said Chingis. \"Blu-Tack is free also. Just one pound for the Alka-Seltzer.\"\n\nPoor old Backy went for that. Honestly, they didn't know they'd been cut in half until they tried to walk away. Chingis got little Nergui to help him count all the cash. Thirty-four quid they made, and all day the school was full of popping sounds and quietly fizzing puddles.\n\nThere is only so much Good Guiding you can do in a primary school playground. Even though I really tried to spin it out, I'd pretty much pointed out every stone and weed by the end of ten playtimes. Mrs Harrison was the dinner lady \u2013 she had the power to give you a plaster if you cut yourself. The big red box held outdoor play equipment \u2013 you could take what you wanted but you had to put it back when you were finished (Mrs Harrison was watching). The numbers and squares painted on the floor were for playing hopscotch but no one ever did, because no one really knew how. The quiet corner \u2013 a little ring of apple trees with the bench in the middle \u2013 had been made in memory of a boy who'd died just before we came to the school. Everyone said he was buried under the trees and there were bits of him in the apples \u2013 but it wasn't true; he was buried in a graveyard like everyone else.\n\nUntil Chingis came, I had mostly spent playtime with Mimi, walking up and down beside the railings, talking about the inevitable future success of our imaginary girl group, the Surfing Eskimos. Until I took on the Good Guide duties, I'd had no idea there was a small tribe of sad-looking Year Five lads who more or less lived in the clump of trees that had been planted to hide the bins. They spent their time playing on their DSes and avoiding Shocky and Duncan. I'd had no idea that Mrs Harrison spoke French because she came from the Congo. I hadn't known that you could find frogs in the big clump of nettles between the playground and the car park. And I hadn't known there were hula hoops in the outdoor play box.\n\nChingis took one out and asked me what it was. I put it over my head and tried to spin it round my waist but it just clattered straight onto the floor.\n\n\"Oh,\" he said, \"it's a hula hoop. You do it like this.\"\n\nHe took it off me, dropped it over his head and, barely moving his hips, made it spin like a blender. He could carry on walking and talking at the same time. Nergui too.\n\nMrs Harrison laughed and said, \"You don't often see boys doing that.\"\n\nChingis stood still. The hoop dropped to the floor. He looked around the playground. \"This place is nearly nothing but girls. Where are the boys?\"\n\n\"This is the red playground,\" I said, \"it's for anyone. If you want to play football, you go on the blue playground. It's through there... Nearly all the boys play football.\"\n\nChingis led Nergui through the little gap between the dining hall and the Portakabin and I followed. The two of them stood there for the rest of break, watching the boys charging up and down the blue playground, yelling and pointing and chasing the ball.\n\nChingis said, \"Does this have rules?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" I said.\n\n\"You need to find them out. We need to play this.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\nSo the two of them came back to ours and made me explain the rules of football. I had to borrow a ball from next door and, in the end, I had to borrow the little boy too. Jordan, he was called. He couldn't understand why they didn't know how to play.\n\nI said, \"They're from Mongolia.\"\n\n\"Even so, they must have footie. They have footie everywhere.\"\n\n\"Not in Mongolia.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Chingis. \"Mongolia is just horses, horses, horses. If we want to play with a ball, we get on a horse first. If we want to throw something or shoot something, we get on a horse. If we want to hunt, we get on a horse. If we get married, we take the bride on a horse. Only exception is wrestling. Wrestling is on the ground.\"\n\nJordan had heard of countries that had floods and disease and war but he'd never heard of anywhere so bad that it had no football. He was nearly in tears. He taught them skills, rules and tricks, and after that they sat on the pavement and he taught them the entire history of Liverpool FC.\n\nChingis said, \"In football, it is just as much talking as it is playing.\"\n\nFrom then on, Chingis spent little playtime trying to get me to talk to him about the offside rule, the transfer window and the history of the Champions' League. He didn't play, though. He made Nergui play and took me to watch him. He'd point to him running up and down, barging into people, and say, \"On the ball, yes, he's a bit of a donkey, but off the ball, he's a real workhorse.\" Even when he was talking about football, he was still quite horsey in his thinking.\n\nAny football word he used \u2013 foul, penalty, you've got to be kidding, yes! \u2013 he said with a strong Liverpool accent. I'd been hoping he would turn me into some kind of Mongolian princess but instead he was turning into a Scouser. \"See our kid?\" he said, pointing at the pitch. \"Can you even tell which one he is from here?\"\n\n\"He's the one with his hat pulled down over his eyes.\"\n\n\"That means nothing. Know the best way to hide a needle in a haystack?\"\n\n\"I don't think there is a best way. Once the needle is in the haystack, it's really hard to find. I think that's the point, really.\"\n\n\"What if you've got a metal detector?\"\n\n\"Do demons have metal detectors?\"\n\n\"Don't talk about demons. Don't even mention them. OK? The point is: he looks just like any other kid now.\" And he did look just like any other kid. \"The best way to hide a needle in a haystack is to disguise the needle as a piece of hay.\"\n\nThe truth was: the boys weren't just learning English; they were hiding themselves _inside_ English, burying themselves in footie and insults, swearing and buzz words. They were _learning_ themselves ordinary. And in our school, ordinary boys did not hang out with girls. Soon they didn't need a Good Guide any more, and I found myself back at the railings with Mimi, planning our future fame and deciding what to wear on Own Clothes Day.\n\nOwn Clothes Day was when you were allowed to wear what you liked to school as long as you gave money to charity. I think there'd been a tidal wave or an earthquake. I say you were allowed to wear whatever you liked. In fact, if you were a boy you were allowed to wear an Everton football strip \u2013 and risk being skitted by Liverpool fans \u2013 or a Liverpool football strip \u2013 and risk being skitted by Everton fans \u2013 or something other than a football strip \u2013 and risk being beaten up by everyone. Girls were allowed to wear basically anything they liked as long as it was really, really short and involved a huge bag. For some reason, I decided to go in the boy next door's Everton kit. I probably thought it was my chance to remind Chingis that I was the one who'd taught him about footie.\n\nWhen I got to school, he was waiting with Nergui at the gate. The two of them were standing completely still. They were wearing their mad coats again \u2013 the furry dressing-gown coats they'd worn on their first day. And they were both wearing hats with fur inside. They looked mighty.\n\nChingis looked at me in my Everton kit. \"Perfect.\"\n\nI thought he was paying me a compliment. I said, \"It's just a footie kit. It's not even an official one. It's a rip-off and it's not even a rip-off of this season's kit.\"\n\n\"Please come with us.\"\n\nHe made me wait outside the boys' toilets while they went inside. A few minutes later, he came out carrying Nergui's coat. \"You wear this,\" he said. \"Nergui will have your football kit.\"\n\nIn the girls' toilets, a million tiny hooks of static tried to cling on as I peeled myself out of the nylon Everton top. Then I stepped into Nergui's coat as if I was stepping into another country. The cuffs were frayed and worn \u00ad\u2013 I imagined that was where the eagle used to perch. The corners of the pockets were packed with grit \u2013 probably sand from the Gobi Desert. I was half expecting to find the rest of the desert waiting for me when I opened the toilet door. It wasn't.\n\nChingis was waiting for me, though. And after Nergui had disappeared back into the toilets with the football kit, the two of us stood there in the corridor, letting people look at us. No one said anything bad. We looked too scary.\n\nWhen Nergui came out, it was the first time I'd seen him without his hat. He had long hair.\n\nI said, \"Nergui! You've got long hair! You look like a girl!\"\n\n\"He thinks if he looks like a girl, his demon won't recognize him.\"\n\nNergui said, \"You look like a boy in there. Maybe my demon will take you.\"\n\nIt was the first time I'd heard him talk too. He sounded just like any other boy in our school.\n\nI just said, \"Maybe.\"\n\nObviously I knew they'd only asked me to swap clothes to confuse their demon. Did I care about being used as demon-bait? No, because by then I didn't believe in demons. Plus, wearing that fur coat made me one of a pair with Chingis, one of a pair of swaggering nomads with eagle-calming skills and strings of horses somewhere in the desert.\n\nIn the afternoon, Mrs Spendlove asked Chingis to tell the class a little bit about the clothes we were wearing. I stood up and explained that they had to be thick and warm because it could get so cold on the steppe, even in the desert, at night. Minus fifty. And even though they hadn't asked me, I told them about Chingis Khan \u2013 who Chingis was named after, just like lots of Mongolian boys. Because I knew all about him, I said how when he was dying, he asked to be buried in a secret place with no monument so that the whole of his empire could be his gravestone. After his friends had laid his body in the ground, they stampeded a thousand horses over it to churn up the soil and disguise his grave. Then they all rode home and killed each other so that no one would ever tell the secret.\n\n\"What about you, Chingis? What can you tell us about your country?\" said Mrs Spendlove. Thinking about it now, that may have been a pointed remark as I seemed to be doing all the talking.\n\nHe said, \"Well, there's the desert. And then there are some oasis things in the desert, you know, with trees that look like giant flowers.\" I didn't know about them. \"They're sort of magical. And we have mountains that are made of metal and they are shiny in the sun.\" I didn't know about them, either. \"And if you're in trouble, you can make a pile of stones and maybe put some horse's skull on it, or a prayer flag, and walk around it three times clockwise, and that'll help. It's called an ovoo.\"\n\n\"How will that help?\" someone asked.\n\n\"I'm not sure. If you see one that someone else has built, you should walk round that three times too. I'll show you a photo if you like.\"\n\nAnd he did. He had photos of the desert. Of the magical oasis with the flower-like trees. Of the pile of stones.\n\nTalking about these things made school and Hawthorne Road and all of Bootle feel temporary and little, as though we were just passing through on our way to some indescribable adventure.\n\nI kept that feeling all the way home, through the front door and into the kitchen, where Mum looked up from the washing machine and said, \"What the hell do you think you're wearing?!\"\n\n\"It was Own Clothes Day.\"\n\n\"And those are not your own clothes.\"\n\n\"They're Nergui's \u2013 we swapped.\"\n\n\"Julie, I'm not being held responsible for someone else's coat. You take it round to theirs right now.\"\n\n\"But I don't know where they live.\"\n\nIt took Mum two phone calls to find out what I'd been burning to know for weeks \u2013 where did Chingis and Nergui live? Where was Xanadu? Turns out it was up on the tenth floor of Roberts Tower \u2013 the tower block nearest the flyover.\n\n\"And we're going over there right now,\" she said.\n\nShe packed the coat into a big plastic bag and drove me over to the Tower. When we got there, though, she decided she didn't like the look of the place \u2013 there was a pile of rubble in the middle of the car park, like a lookout tower, with two kids perched on top of it.\n\n\"I'm not leaving the car here with no one in it. They'd have it ransacked by the time we called the lift.\"\n\n\"That's all right. You stay with the car. I'll go in.\"\n\n\"I'm not letting you walk into that place on your own, either.\"\n\n\"So what are you going to do? Drive the car into the lift?\"\n\n\"Maybe leave it till the morning after all.\"\n\n\"No. No, I'm happy to go in.\" I didn't wait for her answer. I was running into Xanadu.\n\nThe lift was working but smelly. As it clanked up to the tenth floor, I pulled the coat out of the bag and put it on. I walked up to the door, thinking, This is it. Their mum will see me in it and ask me in. \"Come in and lounge about on the silks while the samovar is bubbling,\" she'll say. \"Father, give us a tune on your horse-head fiddle.\"\n\nI rang the bell. I heard it ringing somewhere inside the flat. There were some voices. A door opened. Or maybe closed. Then it all went quiet.\n\nI waited.\n\nNothing.\n\nMaybe some whispering.\n\nI knew it wasn't polite to ring twice but I wasn't going to walk away. I'd been searching for this place for weeks. I'd been longing for it for weeks. I rang the bell again.\n\nSilence.\n\nA tense, holding-your-breath type of silence.\n\nAgain.\n\nNothing.\n\nA deep, rasping growl behind me made me jump. For some reason, I was thinking of their demon. But it was the lift. The doors opened and Mum stepped out.\n\nI said, \"I thought you were waiting in the car?\"\n\n\"Of course I'm not waiting in the car. As if I'm going to leave my own daughter to her fate just so I can look after the car. Did you smell that lift? Dear me. Have you rung the doorbell?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Didn't they answer?\"\n\n\"Not yet.\"\n\n\"So they're not in. So let's get back to the car.\"\n\n\"Shush. Listen.\" We could hear hushed voices arguing and water running from a tap.\n\n\"So they're in but they don't want to answer the door. They're probably having their dinner. Leave it till tomorrow.\"\n\nShe'd already pressed the button for the lift to come back. I said, \"Maybe the bell is broken,\" and I hammered on the door.\n\nThe voices stopped. The tap stopped. I hammered again.\n\nMum grabbed my hand. \"Don't do that,\" she hissed. \"It's rude.\"\n\nBut there were footsteps in the hallway now and someone pulled the door open. A woman...\n\nShe was not wearing the traditional jewelled Mongolian headdress. She was not wrapped in silk. She was not happy to see me. She didn't see me at all to start with.\n\nShe looked at Mum.\n\nMum said, \"I'm Julie's mother. A friend of your Chingis. This is his coat.\" The woman didn't answer. She just stared at Mum and then at me. As if she was trying to work out the answer to a puzzle. I knew she wasn't going to ask us in. She stood and watched me as I struggled out of the coat. I got a glimpse of the flat \u2013 the long, empty corridor, the bare light bulb at the far end and, near the door, a line of bags and suitcases, bulging and fastened, as if the family were about to leave.\n\nI tried to hand back the coat but she didn't take it. Instead, she covered her eyes with her hands and I realized she was crying. I stood there holding the coat while she held her face. Then a door opened at the far end of the corridor and suddenly Chingis was striding towards me. He didn't say anything. He didn't look at me. He just took the coat, threw it over his shoulder with one hand and took hold of his mother's elbow with the other. He steered her back into the flat, then slammed the door in my face.\n\nI thought Mum would go on about how rude they were, or how she was sure the car had been stolen. But she didn't say a word all the way down in the lift and all the way home in the car. It was only when we were safely parked in William Morris Road that she said, \"Well, what was that all about?\"\n\nI knew exactly what it was all about. I didn't know the details or the reasons. But I knew it was all about fear.\n\nI didn't know why. But I knew that everyone in that house was afraid.\nThe next day, Chingis came to school in his coat again and didn't take it off even when it was time to go to class. When I said, \"Hey, it's not Own Clothes Day any more,\" he didn't even look at me.\n\nWhen he sat down, Mrs Spendlove also said, \"Chingis, it's not Own Clothes Day any more.\"\n\n\"Yeah, and these aren't me own clothes, are they?\" said Chingis. \"They're me grandad's, see what I'm saying?\"\n\nHe was doing his pretending-not-to-understand thing again but it wasn't really that convincing now he had a thick Scouse accent. Mrs Spendlove said, \"Just step outside, go to the cloakroom and hang the coat up.\"\n\nChingis slouched out of the room. Mrs Spendlove rolled her eyes and Shocky said something like, \"What d'you expect? He is named after Chingis Khan.\"\n\nI said, \"And what do you know about Chingis Khan, then?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mrs Spendlove. \"And what do you know about Chingis Khan?\"\n\nHe was supposed to say, \"Nothing, Miss,\" but in fact he stood up and delivered this whole lecture. \"Chingis Khan was born in 1100 and something. He had red hair. When he grew up, he conquered and what for? All he was ever interested in was horses. He just went round conquering countries and killing loads of people so he could have more horses. Like, he'd capture a city and they'd say, 'What d'you want to do with it?' And he'd be like, 'I know! Let's knock it down and we'll have a bit more room for our horses.' Or someone would come to him who'd discovered a new country and they'd be like, 'The people there have wings and they can read minds and they've got a city that floats in the air,' or something, and he'd be like, 'Have they got any horses? No? Can't be bothered then.'\"\n\nI said, \"But they were nomads. Horses were very important. They needed horses to survive. And for status. People nowadays, they use their cars to show their status.\"\n\n\"So if Chingis was alive today,\" said Shocky, \"it would be cars instead of horses. He'd kill everyone so he could grab their cars and then he'd tarmac the whole of Europe so he could drive wherever he wanted.\"\n\nIt was hard to believe that I was actually having any kind of conversation with Shocky, let alone one about the history of the Mongol Empire. Afterwards, Mimi put it like this: \"He obviously fancies you \u2013 otherwise why would he look up all that stuff about horses or whatever?\"\n\nMrs Spendlove broke into the Great Mongolian History Debate to ask, \"Where actually _is_ Chingis? He was only supposed to go and hang up his coat. Duncan, go and get him.\"\n\nSo Duncan went to get him. But he'd already gone. His coat was hanging up in the cloakroom but there was no sign of him. Mrs Spendlove said we should just concentrate on the lesson and let him sulk if he wanted to.\n\n\"He's probably gone to kill someone and then have a drink out of his skull. That's what the original Chingis did \u2013 and they're still naming their kids after him! Imagine that. Imagine if Germans called their kids Adolf. And then imagine if people followed those kids home every night and taught them how to play football and swapped coats with them and everything.\" Shocky was bright red by the time he'd finished.\n\nI said, \"At least they're polite enough to talk to people and not just ignore someone for an entire year!\"\n\n\"Excuse me,\" said Mrs Spendlove, \"could you two old married people take your domestic disputes somewhere else?\"\n\nMarried?! What was she on about?\n\nBy lunchtime there was still no sign of Chingis, and when I looked on the blue playground there was no sign of Nergui, either. No one else seemed that worried. Kids did sag from our school quite a bit \u2013 and anyway, Chingis seemed like he could look after himself. Only I had seen those faces at the door the night before. I knew about the fear that was in their house.\n\nSo I went through the pockets of the coat. I was trying to help. I found two tiny plastic chairs and a table, like from a doll's house. I seemed to know them from somewhere but I couldn't think where. There was also a rolled-up notebook, with all his Polaroids stuck inside like Top Trumps cards. I flicked through the Polaroids. I came across the one of the oasis in the Gobi Desert \u2013 the one with the strange, flower-like trees. Under the trees was a table and two chairs, the same chairs and table I was holding in my hand. I looked at the photograph again. They weren't flower-like trees at all. They were just flowers. And I knew which flowers.\n\nI took the pictures, the notebook and the doll's furniture out to the clump of trees where the Lost Tribe of Year Five lived. There were long, skinny flowers growing between the trees. I put the doll's furniture in between them, then crouched down and squinted. It took me about two minutes to find a perfect match. I swear I even found the tiny imprints of the table legs in the soil.\n\nThe magical Mongolian oasis was behind the bins in our school yard.\n\nThe ovoo with the horse's skull \u2013 when I looked again \u2013 was the pile of rubble in the car park of Roberts Tower.\n\nWhat other wonders of the world were actually in Bootle?\n\nThere was also a Polaroid of two railway lines striking out across a flat prairie. Probably this was the railway line they had followed by foot on the epic journey across the steppe and along the Silk Road when they were trying to escape from the terrible demon.\n\nEither that or it was the Merseyrail to Southport, which runs behind our school.\n\nI rolled up the notebook, put it back in the coat pocket and sneaked out through the blue playground. It was the easiest way out. If anyone stopped you, you could say you were going after a stray football. I walked up to the station, stood on the platform and peered down the track. It looked completely different from the photo \u2013 it was all houses and flyover \u2013 except that the rails were identical. So I started to follow them.\n\nI had been crashing through the nettles and broken bottles along the tracks for about five minutes when I heard this strange, high-pitched singing coming from the rails. I looked behind me. There was a blob of bright blue light hovering over the rails. A train was coming. I didn't think about it. I ran back to the platform and jumped on board the train.\n\nFor five minutes there was nothing outside the window but more houses and the rest of the flyover. Then something flashed in the sun. A mountain of scrap metal, towering over the Seaforth dock, shining in the hot afternoon sun. Metal mountains.\n\nAfter that came the fields. I'd had no idea till then how close our house was to cows and horses. How come no one had ever mentioned it? Maybe no one knew. Maybe I was discovering an unknown country that everyone had missed even though it was so near by.\n\nAfter the fields came the trees. I put the Polaroid of the Mongolian forest up against the window as the train clunked into Freshfield Station. They were the same trees. Definitely.\n\nSo I got off. And I walked up the road and into the trees. Someone went by with a dog and smiled at me. Like it was fine for me to be there. A couple went past with a pushchair with massive wheels. They said hello too. Then it was just trees and dark, worrying shadows in among the trees, and sometimes scratching sounds, though I could usually tell that it was just birds. And once I saw a squirrel. I was off the road now, following a sandy path. Every now and then there was a little white post with a number on it. Which made me feel like I was going the right way for something, though I didn't know what...\n\nThen, all of a sudden, Nergui was walking next to me.\n\nI didn't see it happen. I just sort of felt someone there and then I saw him from the corner of my eye. \"Where's Chingis?\" I asked.\n\n\"Just coming. How come you got here before us? We thought we'd have to wait all night for you to catch up.\"\n\n\"I caught the train.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"How did you know I was coming?\"\n\n\"You're our Good Guide. It's your job.\"\n\nWe sat on a log and waited for Chingis.\n\nChingis didn't seem that surprised to see me, either. \"Which way now?\" was all he said.\n\nI was quite buzzed by the way they just expected me to be there, in a forest. No one else has ever expected me to just be there in a forest for them. I liked being the Good Guide so I said, \"This way,\" like I knew what I was doing, and carried on following the numbered posts. Although it looked like we were at the end of the world, I knew there was a train every fifteen minutes that would take us back to Bootle in twenty-three minutes.\n\nThe whole thing reminded me of when a dream gets weird and you're sort of scared but you also somehow know that you could wake yourself up and you'd be in your own bed, so you carry on dreaming just a bit longer. And that's what we did. We carried on walking.\n\nWhen we spotted a pile of logs and twigs up ahead, I pointed at them like I'd arranged for them to be there and said, \"I thought you might want to make an ovoo or something.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Good idea.\"\n\nSo the three of us piled the wood up into a pyramid and Nergui went off and found a long branch to stick in the top like a flagpole. We tied my school jumper to it for a flag \u2013 even though it was getting cold. Then Chingis opened his bag and pulled out a horse skull.\n\n\"Where did you get that?\"\n\n\"From my grandad's horse.\"\n\n\"Right. Well, obviously _that_ would be in your schoolbag.\"\n\nHe put the skull on top of the ovoo.\n\nI said, \"Are we going to walk round it now three times in a clockwise direction?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Chingis. \"Which way is clockwise?\"\n\nI showed them, but Nergui was unconvinced. \"Anyway,\" he said, \"it all depends on the clock, doesn't it?\"\n\nI pointed out that all clocks go the same way.\n\n\"Of course they do,\" said Chingis. \"You are so stupid.\"\n\nSo we agreed that all clocks went the same way but none of us could agree which way that was. Even I wasn't sure \u2013 we've only got a digital clock on our computer. So we went round what I thought was clockwise and then we went the other way \u2013 just in case. And then Nergui started to worry that by going one way and then the other, we were undoing what we'd only just done.\n\nI said, \"We could make a fire but it's illegal.\"\n\n\"I don't want to break the law,\" said Nergui.\n\n\"We could dance. Dancing's not illegal.\"\n\nThey both stared at me.\n\n\"You're supposed to light a fire and then dance around it.\"\n\nThey both stared at me even more.\n\nThen Chingis said, \"Let's move on, then, lads.\"\n\nSo we moved on. And I explained to them that you could build a mental ovoo in your head if you wanted, and put all your good memories on it and a mental flag on top.\n\nThe trees grew thinner and then we came to a field. It might have been a cornfield \u2013 some kind of long grass, anyway. I said we definitely weren't supposed to walk through that. You could see that no one else ever had. But Chingis was dead keen. \"It will fully baffle that demon,\" he said. \"You walk next to me and Nergui will walk behind me so it'll look like the tracks of two people, not three. It will sack him off completely.\"\n\nWe trudged through the waist-high grass. Frightened birds flew up around us, whistling and beeping like little fax machines. And the corn rustled like wrapping paper. Chingis pulled the Polaroid camera out of his bag and took a picture of the tracks.\n\nI said, \"Chingis, where did you get that camera?\"\n\n\"Refugee Project Summer Holiday Party in St Anne's, Overbury Street. Won it on the tombola.\"\n\n\"They had a bouncy castle too,\" added Nergui.\n\nSo that was this summer here in Liverpool? So you didn't have that camera when you were in Mongolia? So none of your photos is actually of Mongolia? Are you even from Mongolia? But I didn't say any of that.\n\nChingis shook the Polaroid dry and showed it to me. The funny thing was, it looked like Mongolia, as though he could turn bits of Liverpool into bits of Mongolia just by pointing his camera at them.\n\nWe carried on making our way through the field until we came out the other side. Now it was just sand in front of us, all the way to the sky.\n\n\"The desert,\" said Nergui.\n\n\"We are back in the desert, where we belong,\" said Chingis.\n\nI said, \"I think this is the beach, to be honest.\"\n\n\"If it's the beach, where's the sea?\"\n\n\"Over there, behind the dunes.\"\n\n\"Honestly, this is the desert. Welcome to our desert!\" And he took another picture \u2013 and he turned the beach into the desert with his camera. He gave me this photo and the one of the cornfield.\n\nI made the boys slog up the dunes. The wind was throwing sand in our eyes and that really sharp grass was cutting my legs. I didn't care \u2013 I just wanted to show them that the sea was there and that they were wrong.\n\nBut when we got to the top of the dunes, there was no sea. Nothing. Just miles and miles of sand and mud shining in the sun.\n\n\"See!\" said Chingis. \"The desert.\"\n\nI said, \"The tide is out.\"\n\n\"No tide goes that far out,\" said Chingis.\n\nWe scrambled down the other side of the dunes. They started to walk straight out towards the horizon but the wind was blasting in now, and bit by bit we ended up following the line of the dunes. I pointed out that since the sand was wet and muddy and there were shells and seaweed and even starfish, this was clearly the sea.\n\n\"So where's it gone, then?\"\n\n\"Maybe it's vanished. Maybe your demon made it vanish. That's what it does, isn't it? Make things vanish.\"\n\n\"Will you stop talking about it? Don't you know it can hear you when you talk about it? If it does get us, it'll be your fault.\"\n\n\"If it does get you, I'll be fully surprised. Don't you know it's not real? And people don't just vanish.\"\n\n\"A lot of people just vanish. Practically everyone we know vanished. That's why we had to leave home \u2013 because people kept vanishing.\"\n\nIt was windy on the beach and I wished my jumper wasn't being used as a prayer flag. There was no one around and nothing seemed to be moving. I said, \"Maybe we've already vanished. Maybe this is where you come to when you vanish.\"\n\n\"You'll get used to vanishing,\" said Chingis, who seemed to think he owned the whole beach.\n\nI was worried that the tide would come back in without us noticing and sweep us all out to sea. Also, the wind was cold, even though Chingis said it wasn't cold and went on about how in Mongolia you knew when it was cold because there was frost and snow on the hump of your camel.\n\nI led them back into the dunes, away from the wind and the possibility of sudden drowning. They never asked me where I was going or why. I was the guide and they were following.\n\n\"The less we know,\" said Chingis, \"the less the demon can find out from us.\"\n\nThere was a rough path made from logs laid out on the sand, with gorse and nettles growing up in between the wood and on either side of the path. And poking out of the gorse there were one or two of the numbered wooden posts. Without saying anything, I followed them to the top of a high dune, where we stopped and looked down, and for a minute we didn't say anything, but they each grabbed one of my hands and squeezed it...\n\nDown beneath us, sheltered from the wind, was a cluster of plump Mongolian yurts.\n\n\"How did you do this?\" asked Nergui. \"Are we home? Is this Mongolia?\"\n\nIt definitely looked like Mongolia. I had no idea how I'd done it but didn't want to admit it. I just said, \"Let's see.\"\n\nThe yurts were all empty and there was no sign of life, except that the tents themselves seemed to be breathing as the wind moved in and out of them.\n\n\"Why is there no one here?\" said Nergui.\n\n\"Is it all right to go in one?\" said Chingis.\n\nI had no idea whether it was all right or not, though I told him of course it was.\n\nSo we did. Inside, the air was warm and still, like the air of a different country. There was some kind of bamboo matting on the floor and a huge pile of cushions in one corner. We spread them in a circle on the floor and I noticed a gas heater. It had an ignition button, so I turned it on and we clustered round it. The air started to smell of slightly toasted sand.\n\nNergui said, \"Why have the people who lived here vanished?\"\n\n\"I don't think they've vanished. I think they don't come here till the holidays.\"\n\nChingis had found some kind of storm lantern hanging from the central post. He lit it using the heater and took it outside.\n\n\"Where is he going?\" I asked.\n\n\"Ssssh, watch.\"\n\nChingis set up the lantern on top of a log so that it threw a pool of light onto the side of the tent. Then he stood between the lantern and the tent and made shadows with his hands. Sitting inside looking at the shadows he was casting on the canvas we saw amazing shapes and stories. Chingis reached out his arm so that it looked like a horse's neck stretched out across the canvas, whinnying and neighing. He made a demon shape out of some cardboard he had in his bag.\n\nNergui screamed and told me to go out and make him stop.\n\nI said, \"Don't be thick \u2013 the pretend demon is putting fear in the real demon's face.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah. I never thought of that.\"\n\nWhen Chingis made a girl shape with some grass for hair and did kissing noises, Nergui laughed till I thought he'd hurt himself.\n\nThen Chingis came back inside and we all sat staring at the lantern. Someone's stomach started to complain. I was thinking, These two are nomads. Are they going to use their nomad skills to get food and water for us? I don't think so. In fact we wouldn't even be warm if the stove didn't have an ignition button. In my bag I still had my lunch. I spread out the food \u2013 a packet of Dairylea Lunchables, some Quavers, a Capri-Sun and a ham sandwich. The two of them just stared at it like these were the riches of Kublai Khan. Then I said, \"Go ahead,\" and they dived on it. There was a bit of a discussion about how to share the Lunchables but we worked it out in the end and then just lay there, not chewing, just letting the cheese dissolve in our mouths. We took turns with the Capri-Sun. First we sucked the juice out and then we sucked the air. The noise it made as the plastic collapsed was hilarious for a while. Then it was really quiet. Except for when Nergui said, \"What's that?!\" every time a twig snapped or a pine cone fell outside.\n\nI thought, These two don't know anything about being on your own and soon it'll be dark. Somehow I've come out here with two nomads and they've put me in charge!\n\nI said, \"Back in Mongolia they tell stories round the fire.\"\n\n\"Go on, then.\"\n\n\"OK. I'll tell you a ghost story. Unless you'd be scared.\"\n\n\"Scared?!\" Chingis laughed. \"We wouldn't be scared, would we, Nergui?\"\n\n\"Not ever,\" said Nergui, looking around. \"Where do you think everyone has gone?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I said, and started the story. \"There was this old man, in Italy I think it was...\" I was telling them the only story I knew. \"He was an undertaker \u2013 do you know what that is? He buried people. When they were dead. And he was also very greedy. He loved jewellery the most. Anyway, one day, someone brings him the body of an old lady to bury\u2014\"\n\n\"Exactly how scary is this story?\" asked Nergui.\n\n\"Completely scary. Want me to stop?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"So someone brings him the body of this old lady and she has a fabulous ring on one hand\u2014\"\n\n\"How fabulous?\"\n\n\"Rubies.\"\n\n\"They're unlucky.\"\n\n\"Diamonds.\"\n\n\"OK.\"\n\n\"So he decides it'd be a waste to bury the ring. He's going to try and steal it. Well, he tries to pull it off. Won't come. He rubs her hands with soap. Nothing. Still can't get the ring off. But the more he can't get it off, the more he wants it. So what does he do in the end?\"\n\n\"Cuts off her hand.\" Chingis smiled. \"That's what I'd do.\"\n\n\"And that's what he does \u2013 cuts off her hand. Then he folds her arms so no one will see. Then he sells the ring and buys himself a nice new car. Of course it's very hard to get rid of a hand without someone finding it and making a fuss, so he hides it in the glove compartment of his car.\n\n\"Anyway, one night, he's out driving in that nice new car and he comes to a crossroads. And he sees someone at the crossroads, standing there in the rain. So\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, he doesn't stop, does he? Never stop at a crossroads,\" said Nergui.\n\n\"Well, _he_ doesn't know that. And it's raining really hard and the person standing there is old. An old woman. So he feels sorry for her and stops. 'Do hop in,' he says. 'I'll take you where you want to go.'\n\n\"This old woman starts to climb in but it is quite a high-up car and not that easy to get into so the man very kindly says, 'Here, give me your hand.'\n\n\"And the old woman says\" \u2013 I did this next bit in a spooky voice \u2013 \"'You already have my hand...'\"\n\nAs soon as I said that, Nergui screamed and ran out towards the woods.\n\nWe ran after him. But outside the tent, everything had changed. The sun had dropped by now. Our shadows stretched out in front of us, like wriggling flags, and the whole landscape seemed to be glowing. Chingis just went charging off, yelling, crunching twigs and scaring birds. I went after him, grabbed him and put my hand over his mouth to shut him up.\n\n\"Listen. We can't see him. So we've got to listen.\"\n\nWe held our breath. We listened. There was a scuffling somewhere off to the left. I picked up the storm lantern Chingis had used for the shadow show earlier and lifted it over my head as we walked slowly towards the sound.\n\nEyes. Bright-green luminous eyes staring into the light. They seemed to be floating in the air.\n\n\"The demon!\" gasped Chingis.\n\n\"A fox,\" I said. I could see it trotting off into the long grass, its head and tail both pointing down.\n\nA cry came from somewhere in the long, golden grass. Something was in there, making the grass wave, sending ripples of gold across the field.\n\nI shouted, \"Nergui, stay still. We're coming.\"\n\nWe trudged through the grass but we couldn't see him.\n\n\"He's vanished,\" said Chingis.\n\n\"Of course he hasn't vanished. Nergui! Shout to us again!\"\n\nHe shouted but the voice seemed to come from nowhere. Or from everywhere.\n\n\"He's vanished. He's just a voice in the air.\"\n\nThen a thought struck me. \"Nergui, are you crouching down?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Can you just stand up?\"\n\nAnd there he was, right in front of us.\n\n\"Idiot!\" said Chingis.\n\nI said, \"Right, follow me.\" I could see the yellow of the gorse and it led me to the little white numbered posts. I counted them down \u2013 13-12-11-10 \u2013 leading us back towards the road. Chingis and Nergui never asked where we were going. They just followed. Followed me all the way to the station and onto the train. We got off at Bootle New Strand. And they followed me, still not asking questions, all the way to Roberts Tower, clockwise round the pile of rubble, in at the main door and up in the lift. They just padded along behind me.\n\nBut then when I knocked on their door, Chingis exploded. \"What?!\" he shouted, as if he'd just woken up. \"What're you doing? What've you brought us here for?\"\n\n\"It's where you live. I can't look after you.\"\n\n\"You've cheated. You've cheated us. She's done us. Nergui, quick...\"\n\nNergui spat at me. He was crying and shivering. Chingis was pounding on the lift button. You could barely hear the lift clunking up the shaft over Chingis's shouting. Then the door of the flat opened and he went quiet. His mother walked onto the landing. She didn't even look at me. She picked Nergui up and carried him inside.\n\nThe lift arrived. Its doors creaked open. Chingis stood there staring into it as if he might still step inside. His mother stood in the doorway watching him. Two doors. Two places to go. The lift doors began to close. Chingis turned around and walked through the lighted door, into the flat.\n\nWhen I stepped towards the lift, the doors started to re-open. I looked back at the flat to see if the boys would say anything. Ask me in maybe. But nothing. Their mother closed the door and I stepped into the lift. The doors closed me in.\n\nWhen I got home, I told my mum I'd been to Mimi's.\nOn the way to school the next day I talked to Mimi about it. \"They were idiots. They thought they could run away but Chingis didn't even bring his coat. Hunting with eagles? They were scared of a fox. I saved their lives. They'd've died of hunger without me.\"\n\n\"What were they running away for, anyway?\"\n\nI didn't want to tell her about the demon because it was so stupid, so I just said, \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Maybe their mum is a bit of a witch. She never comes to get them, does she?\"\n\n\"No. But honestly, they were on the beach and they didn't even know it was the beach. If the tide had come in, they would have drowned. I saved their lives.\"\n\n\"I don't know why you bothered. I don't know why you hang around with them, anyway.\"\n\n\"Well, I won't now, anyway.\"\n\nWhich I didn't.\n\nBecause in the first lesson Mrs Spendlove came in and stood in front of the class without saying anything for ages. She did this so long that in the end, everyone went quiet.\n\n\"I've got some very sad news,\" she said into the unexpected quietness. \"I got a phone call this morning, in the very early hours of the morning. It was from Chingis.\"\n\nEveryone sat up. _Who phones a teacher?!_\n\n\"It's a complicated situation and I don't know all the details but basically, because of things to do with the law, Chingis's family were not supposed to be in this country. They didn't have the right papers, and though they'd been trying to get them, they ran out of time. I'm afraid the police came very early this morning to take them away and send them back to their own country. That's why Chingis rang me. He wanted to say goodbye to you all.\"\n\nAnd that was that. We never saw him again.\n\nI thought about things, talked about things. Mostly with Shocky, funnily enough. He was the only one who seemed to grasp how bad this was.\n\nI think Chingis knew that something was going to happen. Of course he did. Their bags were packed and in the hall. His mother was terrified when there was an unexpected knock on the door. He knew it was going to happen. They were going to come.\n\nI think he had some idea that if he ran away with Nergui then maybe when the police \u2013 or whoever \u2013 came, they wouldn't make their parents leave because the kids were missing. I think he thought that if he could hide out for a while, maybe it would be OK.\n\nBut I found him. The Good Guide. I took him home. And that's where they got him. I'd led him straight back to them.\n\nThe day Mrs Spendlove made the announcement, I waited in the cloakroom after school, wondering what to do. I watched all the coats go one by one, until only one was left.\n\n\"Miss!\" I shouted as she came out of the classroom. \"Look, Chingis's coat. It's still here.\" How could his coat be here and not him? \"They'll have to let him come back for his coat, Miss, won't they, Miss?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure, Julie. No, I don't think so.\"\n\n\"But temperatures reach as low as minus fifty on the steppe in winter. There's frost on the humps of the camels, Miss. How can they send someone there without a coat?\"\n\n\"Maybe someone will give him another one.\"\n\n\"It's a special coat, though, Miss \u2013 for extreme conditions. It's a traditional Mongolian coat.\"\n\n\"I'll take it. How about that? When we find out where they are, I'll post it to him.\"\n\n\"That'd be best, Miss. Can you do that?\"\n\n\"I'll do it first thing.\"\n\nBut she left the coat hanging there when she went. And it was still there the next morning. And here it is now, all these years later, in the lost property box. It was never returned.\n\nI can see now that it wasn't anything like a traditional Mongolian coat. It's some kind of big, ancient hippy coat. An Afghan coat. There's a label inside that says BIBA \u2013 LONDON. They probably got it from a charity shop or the box of donations at the refugee centre.\n\nAnd in the pocket are the photographs. Photographs of a Mongolia cobbled together from bits of Bootle. Chingis's Mongolia was one big mental ovoo.\n\n\"Did you ever hear from him again, Miss?\"\n\n\"Call me Claire, now that you're a grown-up, Julie.\"\n\n\"Yes, Miss.\"\n\n\"No. I don't know how bad things were for them. It really was true that they'd walked out of Mongolia following the railway line. I don't suppose they did that because they were having fun.\"\n\n\"You don't happen to have any pictures of him, do you? All these photos, he took them himself so he's not in any of them.\"\n\n\"No. I'm sorry.\"\n\nThat night, I pick up my little one from the childminder, take her home, feed her, and while she is playing with her Playmobil, I root out the Polaroids he'd given me that day on the beach and put them in Chingis's notebook with the others. In bed later, I flick through the notebook with her and make up a bit of a story to go with the photos, pretending it's a picture book. I examine every photo in case he appears in one of them. But no. How could he? He took them all himself.\n\nThen, wedged in the middle, I find one Polaroid that's completely black...\n\nThe black is the cover you pull off a Polaroid when it's developed. So this one has never been exposed. Maybe he took a picture of himself. I dig into the black with my fingernails and the cover starts to come up. I can peel it off. So I do...\n\nPolaroids don't work like that, though. If you leave them too long, the light turns back into darkness. Polaroids are like people.\n\nIt's only when I close the notebook and see his name written in full on the front page that I realize I could just google him.\n\nIt turns out that Tuul is the third most common surname in Mongolia and every single boy is called Chingis. That's if his name really was Chingis. There were pages and pages of Chingis Tuuls. I'd also forgotten that I didn't read Mongolian. So there were pages and pages of strange-looking letters with his name highlighted every now and then. Maybe he's the president now or the winner of _Mongolia's Got Talent_ or something.\n\nOf course, Julie O'Connor's not an unusual name, either. If he was googling me from Mongolia, what would he find? Pages and pages about a girl who runs a kayak school in California. A woman who makes coats to order in Cleveland. An aromatherapist in Newcastle. Even \"Julie O'Connor + Liverpool\" gives you a dieting blog, a barrister, two grief counsellors and street dance lessons. Even if you just search Facebook there are more than two dozen of us, with only our profile pictures to identify us. And I'm sure none of us look like we did when we were eleven.\n\nAnd anyway, why would he be looking for me? He probably still thinks it was my fault he got deported.\n\nI scan the Polaroids and add them to my Facebook page. I even change my profile picture to that photo of the coat hanging in the cloakroom.\n\nTwo days later, he tries to add me as a friend. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe he's been checking all the Julie O'Connors in the world every day for years. I don't know. But he's tried to add me. So I accept the add, say thanks and ask if he wants the coat back.\n\nHe puts \"yes please\" and messages me his address. And he tags me in this photograph...\n\n# Afterword\n\nA few years back, just after my book _Millions_ came out, a teacher asked me to come and visit her primary school. The teacher's name was Sue Kendall and the school was Joan of Arc Primary in Bootle. It was my very first \"author visit\" \u2013 the first time I'd ever heard myself described as an author, the first time I'd ever strolled into an unfamiliar building and had a bunch of strangers sit in a circle and listen while I told a story. Amazing. I felt like Homer.\n\nI've done it hundreds of times since, but it still feels full of ancient magic to me. And I remember pretty much every detail of that first time. There was a big boy there called Christian, who was one of the inspirations for the overgrown Liam in my book _Cosmic_. Mrs Kendall and Joan of Arc Primary are always popping up in my stories. But the thing I remember most is meeting a girl called Misheel. She was a refugee from Mongolia and she just lit up the room. The other children were touchingly proud of her and told me about the time Misheel turned up to the school disco in full Mongolian costume with her elaborate headdress and fabulous robes. They knew all about Mongolia \u2013 its customs and epic landscape \u2013 because of her. Her presence massively enriched their lives. Everyone must have felt the same way because she was chosen to lead the Lord Mayor's procession that year. There's a line in this book about Xanadu being hidden in the heart of Bootle, and that's what she seemed to be \u2013 a wonder of the world living among them.\n\nThen one day the Immigration Authorities came and snatched her and her family in the middle of the night. Misheel managed to get one phone call through to Sue Kendall before one of the officers grabbed her phone. And, of course, she has not been seen since. I don't know much about immigration policy or the politics of our relationship with Mongolia. Maybe there is some complicated reason why a depopulated and culturally deprived area like Bootle shouldn't be allowed generous and brilliant visitors. I do know that a country that authorizes its functionaries to snatch children from their beds in the middle of the night can't really be called civilized.\n\nThe Joan of Arc children were upset, of course, and one of the things that most worried them was that Misheel had left her coat behind. They knew that it was cold in Mongolia and worried about how she would manage without it. That image of the left-behind coat really haunted me. I talked to my friends Carl Hunter and Clare Heney at the time, and we planned to make a documentary in which we took some of the kids to Mongolia to look for Misheel and give her back her coat. But it never happened.\n\nThen last year Jane Davis asked me to write a book for Our Read. I went to meet her with a pocketful of stories \u2013 stories about the Gold Rush, about the future, about ghosts \u2013 all of them thought through and ready to go \u2013 but somehow I found myself talking about Misheel instead. I said, \"But actually that's not a story, that's just something that happened.\" But we both knew that this was the one I wanted to write really. And that Carl and Clare should be working on it with me.\n\nI changed Misheel into a boy for this book. Because this isn't Misheel's story. It's a made-up story. I didn't want to tell Misheel's story because I didn't want that story to be over. Strangely, as I was putting the finishing touches to this book, I bumped into Sue Kendall and she told me that Misheel had \u2013 for the first time ever \u2013 rung her that morning from Mongolia. I wanted to know everything that had happened to her. But that really is a different story...\n\n#    \nCarl, Clare and Frank\n\n**Frank Cottrell Boyce** won the 2004 Carnegie Medal for his first children's book, _Millions_. He has since written three novels for children, including _Framed_ , which was shortlisted for the 2005 Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award, and _Cosmic_ , which was shortlisted for the 2009 Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. Frank is an accomplished, successful and well-known screenwriter. He lives with his family in Liverpool.\n\n**Carl Hunter** is a film-maker and also plays bass guitar for Liverpool-based band The Farm. **Clare Heney** is a film\u2011maker and photographer. She and Carl both lecture in media at Edge Hill University.\n\nFrank, Carl and Clare have collaborated on a number of projects, including the film _Accelerate_.\n\nFrank Cottrell Boyce wrote _The Unforgotten Coat_ to support The Reader Organisation, helping them in their aim to bring about a Reading Revolution.\n\nThe Reader Organisation is a pioneering charity, working across the UK and beyond, making it possible for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to enjoy and engage with reading. The work they do is driven by a love for great literature and a strong belief that shared reading is a deeply powerful activity that can significantly enrich and improve lives and the communities we live in.\n\nThrough their hundreds of \"read aloud\" Get into Reading groups, Read to Lead training, Our Read campaign, Community Theatre and Reader-in-Residence projects in NHS trusts, care homes, prisons, schools and libraries, The Reader Organisation is transforming society's collective approach to reading \u2013 making literature accessible, available, emotionally rewarding and fun.\n\nThis book is part of the Reading Revolution! Please go out there and share it with someone you know.\n\nVisit www.thereader.org.uk to learn more.\nThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously.\n\nThis Walker edition first published 2011 by Walker Books Ltd  \n87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ\n\nText \u00a9 2011 Frank Cottrell Boyce  \nPhotographs \u00a9 2011 Carl Hunter and Clare Heney  \nPhotograph on page 106 by Chay Heney  \nCover photograph \u00a9 2011 Eva Garcia Iba\u00f1ez de Opacua\n\nThe right of Frank Cottrell Boyce, and Carl Hunter and Clare Heney to be identified as author and photographers respectively of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988\n\nAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.\n\nBritish Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library\n\nISBN 978-14063-3561-3 (ePub)\n\nwww.walker.co.uk\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\n\n\nProduced by Chris Curnow, Christian Boissonnas and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http:\/\/www.pgdp.net\n(This file was produced from images generously made\navailable by The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  TEN THOUSAND\n  WONDERFUL THINGS\n\n  COMPRISING\n\n  WHATEVER IS MARVELLOUS AND RARE, CURIOUS\n  ECCENTRIC AND EXTRAORDINARY\n\n  IN ALL AGES AND NATIONS\n\n  ENRICHED WITH\n\n  _HUNDREDS OF AUTHENTIC ILLUSTRATIONS_\n\n  EDITED BY\n\n  EDMUND FILLINGHAM KING, M.A.\n\n  LONDON\n  GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED\n\n  BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL\n  MANCHESTER AND NEW YORK\n\n  1894\n\n\n\n\nSTANDARD WORKS OF REFERENCE.\n\n_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME._\n\n\nLEMPRIERE'S CLASSICAL DICTIONARY.\n\nWALKER'S RHYMING DICTIONARY.\n\nMACKAY'S THOUSAND AND ONE GEMS OF ENGLISH POETRY.\n\nD'ISRAELI'S CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.\n\nBARTLETT'S FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS.\n\nCRUDEN'S CONCORDANCE TO THE BIBLE.\n\nTHE FAMILY DOCTOR.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nA BOOK OF WONDERS requires but a brief introduction. Our title-page\ntells its own tale and forms the best exposition of the contents of the\nvolume.\n\nEverything that is marvellous carries with it much that is instructive,\nand, in this sense, \"Ten Thousand Wonderful Things,\" may be made useful\nfor the highest educational purposes. Events which happen in the\nregular course have no claim to a place in any work that professes to\nbe a register of what is uncommon; and were we to select such Wonders\nonly as are capable of familiar demonstration, we should destroy their\nright to be deemed wondrous, and, at the same time, defeat the very\nobject which we profess to have in view. A marvel once explained away\nceases to be a marvel. For this reason, while rejecting everything that\nis obviously fictitious and untrue, we have not hesitated to insert\nmany incidents which appear at first sight to be wholly incredible.\n\nIn the present work, interesting Scenes from Nature, Curiosities\nof Art, Costume and Customs of a bygone period rather predominate;\nbut we have devoted many of its pages to descriptions of remarkable\nOccurrences, beautiful Landscapes, stupendous Water-falls, and sublime\nSea-pieces. It is true that some of our illustrations may not be\nbeautiful according to the sense in which the word is generally used;\nbut they are all the more curious and characteristic, as well as\ntruthful, on that account; for whatever is lost of beauty, is gained by\naccuracy. What is odd or quaint, strange or startling, rarely possesses\nmuch claim to the picturesque and refined. Scrape the rust off an\nantique coin, and, while you make it look more shining, you invariably\nrender it worthless in the eyes of a collector. To polish up a fact\nwhich derives its value either from the strangeness of its nature, or\nfrom the quaintness of its narration, is like the obliterating process\nof scrubbing up a painting by one of the old masters. It looks all the\ncleaner for the operation, but, the chances are, it is spoilt as a work\nof art.\n\nWe trust it is needless to say that we have closed our pages against\neverything that can be considered objectionable in its tendency; and,\nwhile every statement in this volume has been culled with conscientious\ncare from authentic, although not generally accessible, sources, we\nhave scrupulously rejected every line that could give offence, and\nendeavoured, in accordance with what we profess in our title-page, to\namuse by the eccentric, to startle by the unexpected, and to astonish\nby the marvellous.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX TO ENGRAVINGS\n\n\n                                                              PAGE\n\n  ABYSSINIAN ARMS,                                             509\n\n  ---- LADIES,                                                 492\n\n  ---- ORNAMENTS OF,                                           493\n\n  ---- LADY TATTOOED,                                          496\n\n  ALTAR-PIECE OF SAN MINIATO,                                  601\n\n  AMULET WORN BY EGYPTIAN FEMALES,                             452\n\n  AMULET BROTCHE,                                              332\n\n  ANCIENT METHOD OF KEEPING A WASHING ACCOUNT,                   3\n\n  ---- NUT-CRACKERS,                                           236\n\n  ---- SNUFF-BOXES,                                            210\n\n  ANGLO-SAXONS, SEPULCHRAL BARROW OF THE,                       27\n\n  APTERYX, THE, OR WINGLESS BIRD,                              308\n\n  ARCH, A BEAUTIFUL, IN CANNISTOWN CHURCH,                     433\n\n  ---- OF TRAJAN AT BENEVENTUM,                                445\n\n  ARCHITECTURE FOR EARTHQUAKES,                                324\n\n  ARMLET, AN ANCIENT,                                          425\n\n  ARMOUR, ANCIENT, CURIOUS PIECE OF,                           341\n\n  ASH, THE SHREW,                                              397\n\n  AZTEC CHILDREN, THE,                                          37\n\n\n  BAGPIPES,                                                    505\n\n  BANDOLIERS,                                                  560\n\n  BANNERS AND STANDARDS, ANCIENT,                         584, 585\n\n  BASTILLE, STORMING OF THE,                                   195\n\n  BEAU BRUMMELL (A), OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY,                61\n\n  BECTIVE ABBEY,                                               392\n\n  BEDESMEN IN THE TIME OF HENRY VII,                           593\n\n  BELLOWS, A PRIMITIVE PAIR OF,                                637\n\n  BELL SHRINE, AN ANCIENT,                                     348\n\n  ---- OF SAINT MURA,                                          412\n\n  BIBLE USED BY CHARLES I. ON THE SCAFFOLD,                    271\n\n  BILLY IN THE SALT BOX,                                       181\n\n  BLACKFRIARS, PARIS GARDEN AT,                                465\n\n  BLIND GRANNY,                                                 70\n\n  ---- JACK,                                                    23\n\n  BOAT, A BURMESE,                                             668\n\n  BOOK-SHAPED WATCH,                                           328\n\n  BRACELET, A MAGICIAN'S,                                      345\n\n  BRAMA, THE HINDOO DEITY,                                     556\n\n  BRANK, THE,                                                    2\n\n  BRASS MEDAL OF OUR SAVIOUR,                                  241\n\n  BRITANNIA TUBULAR BRIDGE,                                    173\n\n  BROOCH, ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN,                                401\n\n  BRICKS OF BABYLON,                                           613\n\n  BRIDGE OVER THE THAMES, THE FIRST,                           428\n\n  ---- A CHINESE,                                              440\n\n  ---- CROMWELL'S, AT GLENGARIFF,                              648\n\n  BUCKINGER, MATTHEW,                                           53\n\n  BUCKLER OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, WITH PISTOL INSERTED,       30\n\n  BUNYAN'S (JOHN) TOMB,                                        157\n\n  BURMESE PRIEST PREACHING,                                    266\n\n  BUST, AN ANCIENT ETRURIAN,                                   677\n\n\n  CAMDEN CUP, THE,                                             250\n\n  CANDLESTICK, A REMARKABLE, IN FAYENCE,                       592\n\n  ---- OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS,                                436\n\n  CARFAX CONDUIT,                                              333\n\n  CARRIAGE, A TURKISH,                                         656\n\n  CASCADE DES PELERINES,                                       135\n\n  CATACOMBS AT ROME,                                            87\n\n  CAVE, PORT <DW53>,                                             516\n\n  ---- THE TIGER, AT CUTTACK,                                  361\n\n  CHAIR BROUGHT OVER TO AMERICA BY THE PILGRIM FATHERS,        186\n\n  ---- DAGOBERT'S, ANCIENT,                                    421\n\n  ---- HENRY VIII.'S,                                          488\n\n  ---- THE DUCHESS OF LAUDERDALE'S,                            401\n\n  CHAPTER-HOUSE, A, IN THE TIME OF HENRY VII.,                 600\n\n  CHARLEMAGNE, CROWN OF,                                       377\n\n  CHIEFTAIN, ANCIENT SCOTTISH,                                 500\n\n  CHINESE METHOD OF FISHING,                                   316\n\n  ---- PUNISHMENT OF THE KANG, OR WOODEN COLLAR,               134\n\n  CHRISTMAS, PROCLAIMING THE NON-OBSERVANCE OF,                 19\n\n  CISTERN OF MAJOLICA WARE,                                    597\n\n  COFFEE POT, IN STONEWARE, A CURIOUS,                         649\n\n  COIN, THE FIRST, WITH BRITANNIA ON IT,                       468\n\n  COLLARS, ANCIENT STONE,                                      665\n\n  COLUMN AT CUSSI,                                             533\n\n  COMB, A CURIOUS INDIAN,                                      657\n\n  CORAL REEFS,                                                  74\n\n  CORPSE BEARER DURING THE PLAGUE,                             284\n\n  COSTUMES, ANCIENT,       18, 71, 78, 86, 212, 213, 220, 296, 297\n\n  ---- GERMAN, OF THE 16TH CENTURY,                            548\n\n  COSTUME, FOREIGN, IN 1492,                                   543\n\n  ---- OF A GERMAN NOBLE,                                      536\n\n  COUTEAU-DE-CHASSE,                                           633\n\n  CRADLE OF MOSS,                                              325\n\n  ---- HENRY V.,                                               416\n\n  CROSBY, SIR JOHN, HELMET OF,                                 520\n\n  CROSS OF CONG,                                               457\n\n  ---- MUIREDACH,                                              369\n\n  CUCKING STOOL,                                                 1\n\n  CUPID OF THE HINDOOS, THE,                                   552\n\n  CURFEW BELL, THE,                                             33\n\n  CURIOUS FIGURES ON A SMALL SHRINE,                           203\n\n\n  DAGGER OF RAOUL DE COURCY,                                   263\n\n  ---- AN ANCIENT,                                             673\n\n  DAGOBERT, ANCIENT CHAIR OF,                                  421\n\n  DANCING NATIVES OF NEW SOUTH WALES,                          225\n\n  DARNEY (JENNY), A HARMLESS ECCENTRIC OF THE YEAR 1790,       187\n\n  DERVISHES DANCING,                                           669\n\n  DIAL AND FOUNTAIN IN LEADENHALL STREET,                      553\n\n  DINNER PARTY IN THE 17TH CENTURY,                            609\n\n  ---- TABLE, AN EGYPTIAN,                                     537\n\n  DIOGENES IN A PITHOS--NOT TUB,                               524\n\n  DOG-WHEEL, THE OLD,                                          101\n\n  DRINKING CUP, A CURIOUSLY SHAPED,                            413\n\n  ---- EARLY GERMAN,                                           460\n\n  ---- VESSEL, A DECORATIVE,                                   336\n\n  ---- GLASS, ANCIENT,                                         153\n\n  DROPPING WELL OF KNARESBOROUGH,                              143\n\n  DRUID'S SEAT, THE,                                           464\n\n  DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS, OR ORNITHORYNCHUS PARADOXUS,           273\n\n  DYAK WITH HEADS, SKULL HOUSE, AND HOUSE OF SEA DYAKS,   276, 277\n\n  ---- WAR BOAT IN BORNEO,                                     540\n\n  DYAKS OF BORNEO, WAR DANCE OF THE,                           541\n\n\n  EAST INDIA HOUSE, THE FIRST,                                 206\n\n  EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE,                                        109\n\n  EGYPTIAN TOYS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM,                         130\n\n  EMBROIDERED GLOVE, PRESENTED BY MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTLAND,\n    TO AN ATTENDANT ON THE MORNING OF HER EXECUTION,           263\n\n  EXTRAORDINARY CATARACT,                                      224\n\n  ---- SITUATION FOR A TREE,                                   313\n\n  ---- TREE,                                                   183\n\n\n  FASHIONABLE DISFIGUREMENT OF THE TIME OF CHARLES I.,         213\n\n  FAWKES HALL, OLD MANOR HOUSE OF,                             380\n\n  FETE OF THE FEDERATION OF THE NATIONAL GUARDS OF\n    FRANCE, 1790,                                              289\n\n  FIGG (JAMES), THE CHAMPION PRIZE-FIGHTER OF 1733,            113\n\n  FISH, SHOOTING,                                              432\n\n  FISHERMAN, BULGARIAN,                                        497\n\n  FLOATING CITY OF BANKOK,                                     309\n\n  FONT AT KILCARN, THE,                                        417\n\n  FRENCH ASSIGNATS, FAC-SIMILE OF THE FORMS IN WHICH THEY\n        WERE ISSUED TO THE PUBLIC,                             254\n\n  FULLERTON'S (COLONEL) DEVICE FOR PASSING A MOUNTAIN TORRENT, 194\n\n  FUNEREAL JAR,                                                481\n\n\n  GARDEN, EGYPTIAN,                                            349\n\n  GARRICK'S CUP,                                               232\n\n  GATE, THE, ON OLD LONDON BRIDGE,                             561\n\n  GAUNTLET OF HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES,                          661\n\n  GIANT TREE,                                                  229\n\n  GLAIVE, A,                                                   504\n\n  GRACE KNIVES,                                                641\n\n  GRAVES OF THE STONE PERIOD,                                  364\n\n  GREAT WALL OF CHINA,                                         233\n\n  GREY MAN'S PATH, THE,                                        528\n\n  GUN, A CELEBRATED,                                           568\n\n  GUY, THOMAS, PORTRAIT OF,                                    605\n\n\n  HACKNEY COACHMAN OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II.,                 258\n\n  HACKNEY COACH, THE EARLIEST,                                 211\n\n  HEAD-BREAKER, A,                                             665\n\n  ---- ORNAMENT, ANTIQUE,                                      393\n\n  HEART OF LORD EDWARD BRUCE AND CASE,                    246, 247\n\n  HELMET, AN EARLY ENGLISH,                                    632\n\n  HELMET OF SIR JOHN CROSBY,                                   520\n\n  HENRY V., CRADLE OF,                                         516\n\n  ---- VII., BEDESMEN IN THE TIME OF,                          393\n\n  ---- VIII., CHAIR OF,                                        488\n\n  ---- I. (KING) DREAM OF,                                      26\n\n  ---- VIII.'S WALKING STICK,                                   30\n\n  HINDOO ADORATION OF THE SALAGRAM,                            588\n\n  HOLY-WATER SPRINKLER,                                        532\n\n  HOOPS, LADIES', IN 1740,                                       6\n\n  HUDSON, JEFFERY, THE DWARF OF THE COURT OF CHARLES I.,       472\n\n\n  IMPLEMENTS USED IN BUDDHIST TEMPLES,                         621\n\n  INCENSE CHARIOT, AN ANCIENT,                                 513\n\n  INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE:--THE EXECUTIONER'S AXE; THE BLOCK\n        ON WHICH LORDS BALMERINO AND LOVAT WERE BEHEADED; THE\n        SCAVENGER'S DAUGHTER; SPANISH BILBOES; MASSIVE IRON\n        COLLAR FOR THE NECK; THUMB SCREW. BRAND FOR MARKING\n        FELONS: IMPRESSION OF BRAND; PUNISHMENT FOR DRUNKARDS,\n        FORMERLY IN USE AT NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE; THE WHIRLIGIG,\n        A MILITARY METHOD OF PUNISHMENT; PILLORY, STOCKS, AND\n        WHIPPING-POST FORMERLY ON LONDON BRIDGE,            60, 90\n\n  IRRIGATION, TURKISH MACHINE FOR,                             681\n\n\n  JAMES I., CURIOUS JEWEL WHICH BELONGED TO,                   456\n\n  ---- II., AND THE CHURCH OF DONORE,                          557\n\n  JEWEL PRESENTED BY MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, TO EARL HUNTLEY,    243\n\n  JOHNSON'S (DR. SAMUEL), RESIDENCE IN INNER TEMPLE LANE,       48\n\n  ---- OLD STAIRCASE IN,                                        49\n\n  JOY (WILLIAM), THE ENGLISH SAMPSON,                          177\n\n\n  KING'S STONE, THE,                                           461\n\n  KNIGHT'S COSTUME OF THE 13TH CENTURY,                        480\n\n\n  LAMPS, ANCIENT ROMAN,                                        437\n\n  LOCOMOTIVE, THE FIRST,                                        96\n\n  ---- THE PRESENT, AND TRAIN,                                  97\n\n  LORD OF MISRULE,                                              15\n\n  LOUIS XII., IVORY SCEPTRE OF,                                476\n\n  LOUIS XVI., EXECUTION OF,                                    255\n\n  LUTHER'S (MARTIN) TANKARD,                                   150\n\n  LYNCH'S CASTLE, GALWAY,                                      581\n\n\n  MAGICIAN'S MIRROR,                                           344\n\n  ---- BRACELET,                                               345\n\n  MAY-POLES,                                                   101\n\n  MAIL, ANCIENT SUIT OF,                                       484\n\n  MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS', CANDLESTICK,                          436\n\n  MEDMENHAM ABBEY,                                             429\n\n  MILITARY HATS IN THE OLDEN TIME,                              75\n\n  MILL AT LISSOY,                                              469\n\n  MIRROR, A MAGICIAN'S,                                        344\n\n  MONSOONS,                                                    180\n\n  MONSTROUS HEAD-DRESS OF 1782,                                242\n\n  MONUMENTS, WAYSIDE,                                          588\n\n  ---- ROCK CUT, OF ASIA MINOR,                                444\n\n  MORAYSHIRE FLOODS,                                           126\n\n  MOSQUE OF OMAR,                                              317\n\n  ---- ST. SOPHIA,                                             104\n\n  MUMMERS, OR ANCIENT WAITS,                                    14\n\n  MUMMY CASES,                                                 409\n\n  MUSICAL INSTRUMENT, HINDOO,                                  684\n\n  ---- ---- A CURIOUS BURMESE,                            628, 629\n\n  ---- ---- EGYPTIAN,                                          405\n\n\n  NAORA, THE,                                                  636\n\n  NEBUCHADNEZZAR, MASK OF,                                     105\n\n  NECKLACE, ANCIENT JET,                                       529\n\n  NELL GWYNNE'S LOOKING-GLASS,                                 237\n\n  NEWTON CHURCH, DOORWAY OF,                                   473\n\n  NEWTON'S (SIR ISAAC) OBSERVATORY,                             10\n\n  ---- HOUSE, ST. MARTIN'S STREET,                              11\n\n  NORMAN CAPS,                                                  44\n\n  NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN WAR DESPATCH,                           45\n\n\n  OLD LONDON BRIDGE, GATE ON THE,                              561\n\n  ---- ---- SIGNS,                                             120\n\n  ORNAMENTS ABYSSINIAN FEMALE,                                 493\n\n  ---- ANTIQUE HEAD,                                           393\n\n  ---- FEMALE, OF THE IRON PERIOD,                             400\n\n  ---- EGYPTIAN FEMALE,                                        448\n\n  ---- PERSONAL, OF EGYPTIANS,                                 453\n\n  ---- OF FEMALE DRESS IN THE TIMES OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS,     79\n\n\n  PAGODA, THE GREAT SHOEMADOO,                                 572\n\n  PAILOOS, CHINESE,                                            625\n\n  PAPYRUS ROLL, FROM A SPECIMEN IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM,          82\n\n  ---- SYRIAN, WITH AND WITHOUT FLOWERS,                        83\n\n  PARIS GARDEN AT BLACKFRIARS,                                 465\n\n  PASS OF KEIM-AN-EIGH,                                        329\n\n  PENN'S (WILLIAM) SILVER TEA SERVICE,                         202\n\n  PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL, FAC-SIMILE OF THE HEADING OF\n        THE LAST NUMBER, 1765,                                  63\n\n  PEST HOUSE DURING THE PLAGUE IN TOTHILL FIELDS,              573\n\n  PETER THE GREAT, HOUSE OF, AT ZAANDAM,                       545\n\n  PLOUGHING, ANCIENT MODE OF,                                   66\n\n  POISON CUP, THE,                                             485\n\n  PONT DU GARD, THE GREAT AQUEDUCT OF,                         312\n\n  POPE'S CHAIR,                                                577\n\n  POPULAR AMUSEMENTS IN 1743,                                   56\n\n  PORCELAIN FIGURES,                                           517\n\n  POTTERY IN CHINA, THE ART OF,                                321\n\n  POWERSCOURT FALL, PHENOMENON AT,                             305\n\n  PREACHING FRIAR,                                             221\n\n  PRE-ADAMITE BONE CAVERNS,                                    199\n\n  PRIESTS OF SIKKIM,                                           664\n\n  PRINCE RUPERT, HEAD QUARTERS OF, DURING THE SIEGE\n        OF LIVERPOOL, IN 1644,                                 292\n\n  PULPIT OF JOHN KNOX AT ST. ANDREW'S,                         270\n\n  PUNISHMENT, ANCIENT INSTRUMENT OF,                           680\n\n  PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT,                                           131\n\n\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH'S STATE COACH,                               198\n\n  ---- ---- SIDE SADDLE OF,                                    340\n\n\n  RAFFAELLE, TOMB OF,                                          569\n\n  RALEIGH'S (SIR WALTER) ANCIENT RESIDENCE AT BLACKWALL,       161\n\n  REVOLVER, A, OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY,                        30\n\n  RING, FORMERLY THE PROPERTY OF CHARLES I.,                   263\n\n  RINGS, CALCINATED,                                           408\n\n  ---- SARDONYX, WITH CAMEO HEAD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH,           372\n\n  ---- A TOAD STONE,                                           424\n\n  ROCK OF CASHEL, THE,                                         352\n\n  RUINS OF CLONMACNOIS,                                        612\n\n\n  SACK-POT, OLD ENGLISH,                                       521\n\n  SAINT GEORGE, TOMB OF,                                       281\n\n  SAINT GEORGE'S HALL, GIBRALTAR,                                7\n\n  SALAGRAM, HINDOO ADORATION OF THE,                           589\n\n  SARDONYX RING, WITH CAMEO HEAD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH,           373\n\n  SCEPTRE, IVORY, OF LOUIS XII.,                               476\n\n  SCHOOL, A CHINESE,                                           525\n\n  SCRIPTURAL ANTIQUITIES:--DRUM, OR TIMBREL; DRUM IN USE\n        IN THE EAST; HARP; LUTES; INSCRIBED STONE; SANDALS;\n        DISTAFF; ROMAN FARTHING; STONEMONEY-WRIGHTS; HAND\n        MILL; EASTERN WINE AND WATER BOTTLES,                  217\n\n  SELKIRK (ALEXANDER) AND THE DANCING GOATS,                    22\n\n  SEPULCHRAL VASE,                                        320, 608\n\n  SHAKESPEARE'S JUG,                                           576\n\n  SHIELD, ANCIENT DANISH,                                      420\n\n  SHRINE OF ST. SEBALD AT NUREMBERG,                           604\n\n  SILVER LOCKET IN MEMORY OF THE EXECUTION OF CHARLES I.,      263\n\n  SNAKE CHARMER,                                               300\n\n  SOUTH STACK LIGHTHOUSE,                                      240\n\n  SPANISH DAGGER OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY,                     263\n\n  SPIDER, THE TRAP-DOOR,                                       384\n\n  ---- NEST OF THE,                                            385\n\n  ST. WINIFRED'S WELL,                                         304\n\n  STAMP, MEDICINE, ANTIQUE ROMAN,                              449\n\n  STANDARDS, EGYPTIAN,                                         396\n\n  ---- ASSYRIAN,                                          584, 585\n\n  STEAM BOAT, FAC-SIMILE OF THE FIRST,                         301\n\n  STICKS, OLD WALKING,                                         388\n\n  SWORD BREAKER, ANCIENT,                                      672\n\n  ---- AN EXECUTIONER'S,                                       676\n\n  ---- CURIOUS ANTIQUE,                                        596\n\n  ---- THE HAWTHORNDEN,                                        353\n\n  ---- THE SETON,                                              357\n\n  SUMMERS' MAGNET, OR LOADSTONE,                                41\n\n\n  TEMPLAR'S BANNER, CALLED BEAUSEANT,                          565\n\n  TEMPLE AT SIMONBONG, INTERIOR VIEW OF,                       620\n\n  THRASHING CORN, ANCIENT METHOD OF,                            67\n\n  TILBURY FORT, WATER-GATE OF,                                 190\n\n  TOILET BOXES, EGYPTIAN,                                      381\n\n  TOMB, ANCIENT GREEK, INTERIOR VIEW OF,                       617\n\n  ---- A CHINESE,                                              508\n\n  ---- OF RAFFAELLE,                                           569\n\n  TOMB OF CAECILIA METELLA,                                     477\n\n  TOPE, THE SANCHI,                                            389\n\n  TORTURE CHAMBER AT NUREMBERG,                                616\n\n  TOWER OF THE THUNDERING WINDS,                                93\n\n  TRAJAN, ARCH OF, AT BENEVENTUM,                              445\n\n  TREATY STONE AT LIMERICK,                                    564\n\n  TRIPOD, AN ANCIENT,                                          549\n\n  TUMBREL, THE,                                                  2\n\n  TUNISIAN TURNER, A,                                          652\n\n  TYRIAN PURPLE, THE SHELL FISH FROM WHICH IT IS OBTAINED,     644\n\n\n  UMBRELLA, ANGLO-SAXON,                                       624\n\n\n  VASES, ANCIENT,                                              337\n\n  ---- GREEK,                                                  501\n\n  ---- ROMAN, IN BLACK WARE,                                   372\n\n  ---- A SEPULCHRAL, OF ANCIENT EGYPT,                         608\n\n  VASES TEUTONIC, HUT-SHAPED,                                  580\n\n  VAUXHALL,                                                    380\n\n  VESSEL, A CURIOUSLY SHAPED,                                  376\n\n  VESUVIUS, CRATER OF, IN 1829,                                165\n\n  VISHNU, THE GOD,                                             645\n\n  VOLCANO OF JORULLO, MEXICO,                                  161\n\n\n  WAR CHARIOT OF EGYPT,                                        365\n\n  WATCH, ANTIQUE,                                              368\n\n  ---- PRESENTED BY LOUIS XII. OF FRANCE TO CHARLES I.\n        OF ENGLAND,                                            640\n\n  ---- PRESENTED BY MARY OF SCOTLAND TO MARY SKATON,           285\n\n  WATER CARRIER OF THE OLDEN TIME,                             259\n\n  WEAPON, AN ANCIENT,                                          660\n\n  ---- A POISON,                                               672\n\n  WEAVER BIRD, SOCIAL NEST OF,                                 441\n\n  WIGS OF VARIOUS PERIODS,                                      31\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n                                                              PAGE\n\n  Abbey Buildings, The Arrangement of,                         658\n\n  Abraham and Sarah,                                           101\n\n  Abyssinian Ladies, Dress of the,                             491\n\n  Abyssinian Lady, Tattooed,                                   495\n\n  Advertisement, an American,                                  111\n\n  Advertisements, Curious,                      406, 447, 455, 478\n\n  ---- in the last Century,                                    207\n\n  ---- of a Dying-speech Book,                                 116\n\n  ---- New Style of,                                           249\n\n  ---- a Pudding as an,                                        228\n\n  ---- of a Fleet Parson,                                      116\n\n  A False Find,                                                 31\n\n  A Female Sampson,                                             62\n\n  A Fine Old Soldier,                                          314\n\n  A Floating City,                                             308\n\n  A Funeral appropriately conducted,                           235\n\n  Aged Persons, instances of many Dying,                       283\n\n  Ages of Celebrated Men,                                      102\n\n  A Great Marvel seen in Scotland,                             138\n\n  A Happy Family,                                               28\n\n  A Harmless Eccentric,                                        186\n\n  Albertus Magnus, Receipts from,                               91\n\n  Ale Too Strong,                                              267\n\n  Alexandria, Pharos at,                                       274\n\n  Algerine Invasion of Ireland,                                176\n\n  A Last Chance,                                               103\n\n  All Humbugs,                                                  85\n\n  A Lucky Find,                                                  6\n\n  A Man in a Vault Eleven Days,                                 69\n\n  ---- Carries his House on his Head,                          290\n\n  ---- Selling his own Body,                                    95\n\n  ---- aged One Hundred Years,                                 256\n\n  A Monster,                                                   287\n\n  Ambassador, French, Entry into London,                       262\n\n  ---- why Held by the Arms,                                   162\n\n  Amphitheatres,                                               102\n\n  Amulets worn by Egyptian Females,                            120\n\n  ---- Brotche,                                                332\n\n  Amusements in the 15th Century,                              254\n\n  ---- in 1743, Popular,                                        56\n\n  An apparent Singularity accounted for,                        93\n\n  An Eccentric Tourist,                                        139\n\n  Ancients, Credulity of the,                                  144\n\n  Anglo-Saxons, Sepulchral Barrow of,                           26\n\n  Animals, Food of,                                             24\n\n  ---- Communication between,                                  294\n\n  Animation, Suspended,                                        374\n\n  Anne Boleyn, Execution of,                                   375\n\n  Antimony,                                                    570\n\n  Antipathies,                                                 391\n\n  ---- Unaccountable,                                          196\n\n  Antiquities, Egyptian,                                       642\n\n  Apollo, Oracles of, in France,                               675\n\n  Arabian Horses,                                              291\n\n  Arabs, Horses of the,                                        498\n\n  Archbishop, an, Washing Feet,                                  5\n\n  Arch, A Beautiful,                                           433\n\n  A remarkable Old Man,                                        214\n\n  Armlet, Ancient,                                             425\n\n  Armour, Ancient, Curious Piece of,                           341\n\n  Arms, Abyssinian,                                            509\n\n  Artists, Duration of Life amongst,                           196\n\n  A Sea above the Sky,                                          81\n\n  Ash, the Shrew,                                              397\n\n  Ass, The,                                                    116\n\n  Assiduity and Perseverance,                                  304\n\n  Attar of Roses, Origin of,                                   343\n\n  Attar of Roses,                                              298\n\n  A Woman takes the Lighted Match,                              40\n\n  ---- Defends a Post singly,                                   52\n\n  Authors, some Learned, Amusements of,                        137\n\n  A Unique Library,                                            211\n\n  Aztec Children,                                               37\n\n\n  Babes of Bethlehem, The,                                     660\n\n  Bagpipes, Irish,                                             505\n\n  Ballot, Origin of the,                                       673\n\n  Bandoliers,                                                  560\n\n  Bank, A Mattrass for a,                                      323\n\n  Banner, The Templars', called Beauseant,                     564\n\n  Banquets of the Ancients,                                    439\n\n  Bara, a Machine used in Sicily,                              415\n\n  Barbers,                                                      94\n\n  Barometer, Incident connected with,                          136\n\n  Bartholomew Fair in 1700, Handbill of,                       148\n\n  Bastille of Paris, Storming of the,                          194\n\n  Bazaar, a Turkish,                                           614\n\n  Bear, a Shaved,                                               17\n\n  Beard, Care of the,                                          503\n\n  Beau Brummell (a) of the 17th Century,                        61\n\n  Bective Abbey,                                               392\n\n  Bedesmen in the time of Henry VII.,                          593\n\n  Bedford Missal, The,                                         407\n\n  Bee, The Queen,                                               25\n\n  Bees, Obedient to Training,                                   95\n\n  Beggars, Severe Enactment against,                           302\n\n  ---- selected as Models by Painters,                         281\n\n  Bell, The Great, of Burmah,                                  559\n\n  ---- of Rouen,                                               650\n\n  Bells,                                                       193\n\n  ---- of the Ancients,                                        279\n\n  ---- of St. Mura,                                            411\n\n  Bell-Shrine, an Ancient,                                     347\n\n  Bellows, Primitive Pair of,                                  637\n\n  Bible, 118, 372,                                             490\n\n  ---- Bunyan's,                                               121\n\n  ---- Summary of the,                                         169\n\n  ---- used by Charles I. on the Scaffold,                     271\n\n  Billy in the Salt-box,                                       181\n\n  Birds, The Ear of, not to be Deceived,                       228\n\n  Blind Jack,                                                   23\n\n  ---- Granny,                                                  70\n\n  ---- Workman,                                                155\n\n  Boat, Burmese,                                               667\n\n  Bobart, Jacob,                                                22\n\n  Boiling to Death,                                            663\n\n  Bolton Abbey, Origin of,                                     273\n\n  Bombardier Beetle, The,                                       68\n\n  Bones, Adaptation of to Age,                                  52\n\n  Book-shaped Watch,                                           328\n\n  Boots an object of Honour,                                   232\n\n  Boydell, Alderman,                                             9\n\n  Brama, the Hindoo Deity,                                     555\n\n  Bramins, Philosophy of the,                                  371\n\n  Brank, The,                                                    2\n\n  Brass Medal, of our Saviour,                                 241\n\n  Breakfasting Hut in 1745,                                    158\n\n  Bribery,                                                     141\n\n  Bricks of Babylon, The,                                      612\n\n  Bridge, Old London, The Gate of,                             561\n\n  ---- Chinese,                                                439\n\n  ---- Suspension, at Freybourg,                               166\n\n  Britannia Tubular Bridge,                                    172\n\n  British Islands, Size of the,                                245\n\n  Brooch, Ancient Scandinavian,                                401\n\n  Bruce, Lord Edward, Case containing the Heart of,            215\n\n  Brunswick, House of, Anecdote of the,                        459\n\n  Buckinger, Matthew,                                           53\n\n  Buddist Temples, Instruments used in,                        621\n\n  Bumper,                                                      153\n\n  Bunyan's, John, Tomb,                                        156\n\n  Burial Places of Distinguished Men,                          390\n\n  Burmah, Elephant God of,                                     537\n\n  Bust, Etrurian, An Ancient,                                  677\n\n  Byng, Admiral, Execution of,                                 182\n\n\n  Cader Idris,                                                 118\n\n  Cagots, The,                                                 638\n\n  Calculation, Interesting,                                    474\n\n  Cambridge Clods,                                              20\n\n  Camden Cup,                                                  250\n\n  Camel, as a Scape-Goat,                                      522\n\n  Cameleon, The Eye of the,                                    479\n\n  Candles in the Church,                                       449\n\n  Cannon, Ancient, raised from the Sea,                         40\n\n  ---- at the Siege of Constantinople,                          69\n\n  ---- First Iron,                                             320\n\n  Canute, The Discovery of the Body of,                        176\n\n  Cardinals, Colour of the Hat for,                            234\n\n  Cards, Games with, in the 16th Century,                      618\n\n  Carfax Conduit,                                              333\n\n  Carronades,                                                  149\n\n  Carrara, Francis, Cruelty of,                                504\n\n  Carriage, Turkish,                                           655\n\n  Cascade des Pelerines,                                       135\n\n  Cat, Instinct in a,                                          353\n\n  Catacombs at Rome,                                            87\n\n  Cataract, Extraordinary,                                     223\n\n  Cat-Clock, A,                                                631\n\n  Cats, White,                                                  51\n\n  ---- with Knotted Tails,                                     238\n\n  Caves, The Hawthornden,                                      382\n\n  Chaffinch Contest,                                           651\n\n  Chalice, Iona, The Golden,                                   422\n\n  Changes of Fortune,                                          371\n\n  Chaplain, Instructions to a,                                 458\n\n  Chapter-House in Henry VIIth's time,                         599\n\n  Charing Cross, Autobiography of,                             128\n\n  Charity instead of Pomp,                                     407\n\n  ---- Rewarded by a Mendicant,                                257\n\n  Charlemagne, Clock presented to,                             145\n\n  Charles I., Anecdote relative to,                            174\n\n  ---- II., Privy Purse, Expenses of,                          234\n\n  Cherry Tree,                                                 458\n\n  Chess, in India, How it Originated,                          305\n\n  Chieftain, Ancient Scottish,                                 500\n\n  Chilcott, the Giant,                                          71\n\n  Child, Test of Courage in a,                                 132\n\n  Children of Aged Parents,                                    319\n\n  China, Origin of the Great Wall of,                          233\n\n  Chinese Dainties,                                             91\n\n  ---- Ivory Balls,                                            144\n\n  ---- Method of Fishing,                                      315\n\n  ---- Punishment of the Kang,                                 134\n\n  ---- Ladies, Small Feet of,                                  475\n\n  ---- Mirrors,                                                425\n\n  ---- School,                                                 525\n\n  ---- Therapeutics,                                           369\n\n  Chocolate, Early use of,                                      52\n\n  Christmas Customs, Bygone,                                14, 19\n\n  Christening, Novel Mode of Celebrating a,                    393\n\n  Chronology of Remarkable Events,                             218\n\n  Church of Donore, James II. and the,                         557\n\n  Cigars, Extraordinary Fashion in,                            274\n\n  Circumstance, a Curious,                                     430\n\n  ---- Extraordinary,                                           15\n\n  Cistern of Majolica Ware,                                    597\n\n  Clock at Hernhuth, Watchmen Imitating,                        20\n\n  ---- Wonderful,                                              167\n\n  Clocks, Early,                                               171\n\n  Clonmacnois, Ruins of,                                       289\n\n  Coachmen of the Time of Charles II.,                         257\n\n  Cock Fighting at Schools,                                    219\n\n  Coffee,                                                      153\n\n  Coffee and Tea,                                              122\n\n  Coffee-house in London, the First,                             4\n\n  ---- Attractions in 1760,                                     41\n\n  Coin, The First, with Britannia on it,                       468\n\n  Coinage, Variations in the,                                  650\n\n  Coincidences, some Curious,                                  434\n\n  Collars, Stone, Ancient,                                     665\n\n  Column at Cussi,                                             533\n\n  Comb, Curious Indian,                                        657\n\n  Conecte, Thomas,                                             433\n\n  Confectionary Art in 1660,                                   373\n\n  Conjuring, Public Taste for in 1718,                         122\n\n  Conway Church, Inscription in,                               112\n\n  Coral Reefs,                                                  73\n\n  Coronations, Prices for Seats at,                            160\n\n  ---- Expenses at,                                            283\n\n  Corpulent Man,                                                78\n\n  Corpulence, Cure for,                                         80\n\n  Cost of Articles in the 14th Century,                        330\n\n  Costume, Ancient Female,                                  71, 78\n\n  Costumes,                      395, 437, 536, 544, 547, 630, 651\n\n  Couteau-de-Chasse, Ancient,                                  633\n\n  Cranmer's (Archbishop) Dietary,                              137\n\n  Credulity, Extraordinary Instance of,                        311\n\n  Cricket-Matches, Extraordinary,                              408\n\n  Criminal, a Rich and Cruel,                                  450\n\n  Criminals, Old Custom Relating to,                           598\n\n  Cromwell's Bridge at Glengariff,                             648\n\n  Cross of Cong, The,                                          457\n\n  ---- ---- Muiredach,                                         369\n\n  ---- Ordeal of the,                                          463\n\n  Crown of Charlemagne,                                        377\n\n  Cucking-Stool, The,                                            1\n\n  Cupid, The, of the Hindoos,                                  230\n\n  Curious Feats,                                          181, 239\n\n  ---- Law,                                                      8\n\n  ---- Manuscript,                                             214\n\n  Curiously-shaped Vessel,                                     376\n\n  Curiously-shaped Drinking Cups,                              413\n\n  Curiosities, Strange,                                        457\n\n  Custom, Means of attracting,                                 683\n\n  Customs, Singular Local,                                     653\n\n\n  Daffeys' Elixir,                                             173\n\n  Dagger, An Ancient,                                          673\n\n  Dagobert, Ancient Chair of,                                  421\n\n  Dance, Curious Provincial in France,                         679\n\n  Dances, Fashionable of the last Century,                     220\n\n  Dancing Rooms,                                                57\n\n  Dead, Fashions for the,                                      523\n\n  Dead Bodies, Preservation of,                      251, 280, 638\n\n  Death, Boiling to,                                           663\n\n  ---- Lunar Influence in,                                     346\n\n  ---- Pressing to,                                            515\n\n  Decorative Drinking Vessel,                                  336\n\n  Della Robbia Ware,                                           601\n\n  Demons, Bribing the,                                         531\n\n  Dervishes, Dancing,                                          669\n\n  Desolation, Scene of,                                        329\n\n  Destitute Cats, Asylum for,                                  280\n\n  Dial and Fountain in Leadenhall Street,                      553\n\n  Dilemma,                                                     499\n\n  Dinner, an Egyptian,                                         537\n\n  ---- in China,                                               596\n\n  ---- Party in the 17th Century,                              609\n\n  Diogenes in a Pithos, not Tub,                               101\n\n  Disorders Cured by Fright,                                   307\n\n  Dispute and appropriate Decision,                            140\n\n  Dog (A) Extinguishing a Fire,                                 20\n\n  ---- Combination of Instinct and Force,                      284\n\n  ---- A Sensible, Refusing to Bait a Cat,                      76\n\n  ---- Persevering,                                             80\n\n  ---- Friendship,                                              84\n\n  ---- A Piscatorial,                                          367\n\n  ---- Sensible,                                               376\n\n  ---- in Japan,                                               622\n\n  ---- Figures of on Ancient Tombs,                            682\n\n  Dog-wheel, The Old,                                          101\n\n  Dole in consequence of a Dream,                              503\n\n  Doles,                                                       399\n\n  Down among the Dead Men,                                     185\n\n  Dress, Forty years ago,                                      212\n\n  Dress in London,                               18, 114, 253, 295\n\n  ---- Fastidiousness at an Old Age,                           243\n\n  ---- of the Ancient Britons,                                  79\n\n  Drinking Bouts in Persia,                                    547\n\n  Drinks, Intoxicating, Antiquity of,                          611\n\n  Dropping Wells,                                              142\n\n  Druids' Seat,                                                464\n\n  Drunkenness, the Offspring of,                               666\n\n  Duns in the Mahratta Country,                                379\n\n  Dyaks of Borneo,                                             275\n\n\n  Ears, Character Indicated by,                                 65\n\n  Earthenware, English,                                        575\n\n  Earthquake Panic,                                            520\n\n  ---- Swallowed up by an,                                     329\n\n  ---- at Lisbon,                                              200\n\n  ---- Nottingham, in 1816,                                    280\n\n  Earthquakes,                                            398, 432\n\n  East India House, the First,                                 206\n\n  Eating for a Wager,                                            4\n\n  Eccentric Englishman, An,                                    438\n\n  Eccentrics, a Couple of,                                     318\n\n  Echo, Extraordinary,                                         341\n\n  Eddystone Lighthouse,                                        108\n\n  Edicts against Fiddlers,                                     328\n\n  Eel, Large,                                                   10\n\n  Egypt,                                                       491\n\n  ---- Pyramids of,                                            130\n\n  Egyptian Toys in the British Museum,                         129\n\n  Elephant Detects a Robber, An,                                99\n\n  Elephants Frightened at Pigs,                                  9\n\n  Energy, A Triumph of,                                        193\n\n  England before the Romans,                                    86\n\n  Englishman, A Fat,                                            28\n\n  Epitaph, an Inculpatory,                                     268\n\n  Etna, Mount, Great Eruption of,                              451\n\n  ---- Changes of,                                             406\n\n  Europa, Ruins of,                                            567\n\n  Exchequer-bills, Origin of,                                  676\n\n  Execution, in 1793,                                           84\n\n  Extraordinary Tree,                                          183\n\n  Extravagance at Elections,                                   149\n\n  ---- Oriental,                                               499\n\n  Eyam, The Desolation of,                                     226\n\n\n  Fallacy of the Virtues of a Seventh Son,                     315\n\n  False Accusers, Punishing,                                   230\n\n  Farmers, Illustrious,                                        304\n\n  Fashionable Disfigurement,                                   213\n\n  Fayence, The, of Henry II. of France,                        591\n\n  Feasts, Anglo-Saxon,                                         517\n\n  Federation, Fete of the,                                     288\n\n  Female Intrepidity, Extraordinary,                           248\n\n  Ferrers, Earl, Execution of,                                 107\n\n  Figg, Champion,                                              113\n\n  Finger Rings, Porcelain,                                     486\n\n  Fire at Burwell, Cambridgeshire,                             293\n\n  Fire-arms in the Tower of London,                             29\n\n  Fire-engines, When first made,                               223\n\n  Fish, Shooting,                                              432\n\n  ---- High Price of, in London,                               312\n\n  ---- Extraordinary Ponds and,                                561\n\n  ---- Tame,                                                   659\n\n  ---- Wonderful,                                              542\n\n  Fishermen, Bulgarian,                                        497\n\n  Fleet Marriages, about 1740,                                 299\n\n  Floods, the Morayshire,                                      126\n\n  Flying Coach,                                                228\n\n  Fog of 1783, The Great,                                      414\n\n  Font at Kilcarn, The,                                        417\n\n  Food of the Ancients,                                        450\n\n  Foot-Racing in 1699,                                         457\n\n  Foreigners in London in 1567,                                371\n\n  Fortune, Change of,                                          371\n\n  Fox Killed by a Swan,                                          4\n\n  Francis I., Funeral Oration of,                              363\n\n  Franklin's Celebrated Letter to Strahan,                      39\n\n  Frederick the Great at Table,                                579\n\n  French Dress,                                                102\n\n  ---- Assignats, the Origin,                                  253\n\n  Friars, Preaching,                                           221\n\n  Frost Fairs,                                                  67\n\n  ---- Extraordinary,                                          209\n\n  Funeral, an Eccentric,                                       395\n\n  ---- Jar,                                                    481\n\n  ---- Obsequies, Strange,                                     108\n\n\n  Game Preserves at Chantilly,                                 362\n\n  Gamblers, Chinese, Playing for Fingers,                      593\n\n  Gambling, Legalised,                                         141\n\n  ---- Extraordinary,                                          359\n\n  Gaming, a National Taste for,                                267\n\n  Gander, an Old,                                               27\n\n  Garden, an Egyptian,                                         349\n\n  ---- at Kenilworth, when in its Prime,                       641\n\n  ---- Love of,                                                419\n\n  ---- Sacred,                                                 420\n\n  ---- The Hanging, of Babylon,                                558\n\n  Garrick's Cup,                                               232\n\n  Gauntlet of Henry, Prince of Wales,                          661\n\n  George II., Proclamation for,                                200\n\n  Georgians as Topers,                                         511\n\n  Giant Tree,                                                  229\n\n  Gibraltar, Siege of,                                           6\n\n  Gigantic Bones,                                              248\n\n  Glaives,                                                     504\n\n  Glove Money,                                                 503\n\n  Gloves, Anne Boleyn's,                                       600\n\n  ---- Origin of \"Pin Money\",                                  275\n\n  Grace Knives,                                                641\n\n  Graham Island,                                               443\n\n  Graves of the Stone Period,                                  363\n\n  Greek Vases,                                                 501\n\n  Gretna Green Marriages,                                      159\n\n  Grey Man's Path, The,                                        528\n\n  Grinning for a Wager,                                         13\n\n  Groaning Boards,                                              66\n\n  Groat, a Castle for a,                                       470\n\n  Grotto, Remarkable, and Story connected with it,             625\n\n  Guillotine, Decapitation by the,                               8\n\n  Gun, Celebrated,                                             568\n\n  Gunpowder, Making a Candlestick of,                          249\n\n\n  Hackney Coach, The Earliest,                                 211\n\n  Hair, Ancient, Quantity and Colour of the,                     4\n\n  ---- Price of Human,                                         242\n\n  ---- Remarkable Preservation of,                             122\n\n  ---- Transplantation of,                                      40\n\n  ---- Turned Grey by Fright,                                  327\n\n  ---- Two of the Fathers, on False,                            24\n\n  Hamster Rat, The,                                            265\n\n  Handbills, Distributing,                                     178\n\n  ---- from Peckham Fair, in 1726,                              72\n\n  Hanging a Mayor,                                             140\n\n  \"Happy Dispatch\" in Japan, The,                              578\n\n  Head Breaker, A.,                                            338\n\n  Head-dress, Monstrous,                                       242\n\n  ---- Ornament, Antique,                                      393\n\n  Hejirs, The,                                                 222\n\n  Helmet, Early English,                                       632\n\n  ---- of Sir John Crosby,                                     520\n\n  Henry I., Dream of,                                           26\n\n  ---- II., Stripped when Dead,                                 39\n\n  ---- V., Cradle of,                                          416\n\n  ---- the VIIIth's Chair,                                     488\n\n  ---- VIII., Curious Extracts from the Household Book\n        of Lady Mary, Daughter of,                             399\n\n  Highlander, A Remarkable,                                    238\n\n  Highwaymen in 1782,                                            5\n\n  Hindoo Computation,                                          507\n\n  ---- Rites, Cruelty of,                                      627\n\n  Historical Anecdote,                                         156\n\n  Holy Water Sprinkler,                                        532\n\n  Homer in a Nutshell,                                         127\n\n  Hooking a Boy Instead of a Fish,                             319\n\n  Hoops, in 1740,                                                6\n\n  Horse, A, Getting himself Shod,                               76\n\n  Horse-race, Indenture of a,                                   52\n\n  Horses of the Arabs,                                         498\n\n  Horses, Different Sorts of, in the 16th Century,             634\n\n  ---- Feeding one another,                                    368\n\n  ---- Vicious, Novel Way of Curing,                           174\n\n  Hot Cross Buns,                                              251\n\n  House, Novel Way of Designating a,                           539\n\n  ---- of Hens' Feathers,                                      646\n\n  Household Rules of the 16th Century,                         518\n\n  How Distant Ages are Connected,                              200\n\n  Hudson, Jeffery, the Dwarf of the Court of Charles I.,       472\n\n  \"Humbug,\" Origin of the Term,                                 97\n\n  Hume, David, on his own Death,                               215\n\n  Hundred Families' Lock,                                      435\n\n  Hunting Party, a Regal,                                      391\n\n  Husband, Novel way of Purchasing a,                          275\n\n  Hydra, Extraordinary Reproductive Power of the,              490\n\n\n  Ice, Ground,                                                 506\n\n  Ignorance and Fear,                                          290\n\n  Impostor, An,                                                 50\n\n  Impudence or Candour? Which is it?                           239\n\n  Incense Chariot, An Ancient,                                 513\n\n  Incremation, Instance of,                                    353\n\n  Indian Jugglers, European Balancing,                         293\n\n  Inhumanity, Extraordinary Instances of,                      436\n\n  Innkeeper's Bill in 1762,                                    431\n\n  Insects, Wonderful Formation of the Eye in,                  467\n\n  Insect Life, Minuteness of,                                  338\n\n  Instinct of Animals,                                         410\n\n  Insurance Agent, Canvass of an,                              465\n\n  Interesting and Fanciful Relique,                            243\n\n  Inventors, The Perils of,                                    141\n\n  Irrigation, Turkish Machine for,                             349\n\n  \"It's much the same Now\",                                     94\n\n\n  James II. and the Church of Donore,                          557\n\n  James II., Spent by the Corporation of Coventry at the\n        Entertainment of, in his Progress through Coventry,    378\n\n  Javanese, Superstition of the,                               244\n\n  Jenny's Whim,                                                174\n\n  Jewel, A Curious, which belonged to James I.,                456\n\n  Jews, Wealth of the,                                         359\n\n  Johnson, Dr., A Visit to the Residence of,                    48\n\n  Joy, William, the English Sampson,                           176\n\n  Judas Iscariot, Legends of,                                  339\n\n  Judges attending Public Balls,                               303\n\n  ---- Salaries,                                               446\n\n  Jugglers in Japan,                                           529\n\n  ---- of Modern Egypt,                                        342\n\n\n  Kildare, Death of the Earl of,                               172\n\n  Killed by eating Mutton and Pudding,                          73\n\n  King Edward I., Household Expenses of,                       231\n\n  ---- Fine for Insulting a,                                   149\n\n  ---- of Kippen, The,                                         139\n\n  ---- John and Pope Innocent,                                 463\n\n  King-Maker, Warwick the,                                     527\n\n  King's Bed, Ceremonial for Making the,                       562\n\n  ---- Cock Crower, The,                                       137\n\n  ---- Dishes with the Cook's Name,                            235\n\n  ---- Stone, The, at Kingston,                                461\n\n  Kitchen, Spacious,                                           383\n\n  Knight's Costume of the 13th Century,                        480\n\n  Knives and Forks,                                            133\n\n  Knox, John, The Pulpit of, at St. Andrews,                   269\n\n\n  Lady, Origin of the Word,                                    147\n\n  Lagmi, and the Use made of it,                               623\n\n  Lambeth Wells, the Apollo Gardens,                           272\n\n  Lamps, Roman,                                                437\n\n  Land, Change in the Value of,                                196\n\n  Landslip at Colebroke, Shropshire,                           184\n\n  Lantern, Curious,                                            100\n\n  Lauderdale, The Duchess of,                                  403\n\n  Law of the Mozcas,                                           454\n\n  Law and Order in the Streets of London,                      131\n\n  Laws, a Hundred years ago, Severity of,                      234\n\n  Leadenhall Street, Old Dial and Fountain in,                 553\n\n  Legend, A Superstitious,                                     351\n\n  Legends among Savage Nations,                                146\n\n  Length of Life without Bodily Exercise,                      274\n\n  Lepers, Treatment of, in England,                            493\n\n  Leprosy, Lazars, and Lazar Houses,                           169\n\n  Letter, Extraordinary,                                       322\n\n  Lettsom's (Dr.) Reasons,                                      71\n\n  Lewson, The Eccentric Lady,                                  221\n\n  Life, An Eventful,                                           427\n\n  ---- in Death,                                               443\n\n  Lighting the Streets, Bequests for,                          310\n\n  Lightning, Calmuc's Opinion of,                               63\n\n  Living, Style of, among the Nobility of the 15th Century,    533\n\n  ---- in the 16th Century,                                    357\n\n  Lizards, Swallowing,                                          41\n\n  Loaf Sugar,                                                  166\n\n  Locomotives, the First,                                       96\n\n  Locusts,                                                     151\n\n  London Localities in the 16th Century,                       526\n\n  London Water Carrier in Olden Time,                          258\n\n  ---- in 1756, State of,                                      147\n\n  London Resorts a Hundred Years Ago,                          197\n\n  Longevity,                                                   269\n\n  Long Meg and her Daughters,                                  394\n\n  Lord Mayor's Feast in 1663,                                  551\n\n  Lotteries,                                                   619\n\n  Louis XVI., Execution of,                                    258\n\n  Luther's (Martin) Tankard,                                   149\n\n  Luxury in 1562,                                              418\n\n  Lynch's Castle, Galway,                                      581\n\n\n  Mackarel, Price of,                                          576\n\n  Madness, Sudden Recovery from,                               168\n\n  Madyn, the Capital of Persia, Magnificence of,\n        when invaded by the Saracens A.D.                 636, 554\n\n  Magic Rain Stone,                                            168\n\n  Magician's Mirror and Bracelet,                              344\n\n  Magnet, The Summers' or Loadstone,                            41\n\n  Magnificence of Former Times,                                111\n\n  Magpie Stoning a Toad,                                        92\n\n  Mahomet, Personal Appearance of,                             571\n\n  Mail, Ancient suit of,                                       483\n\n  Malady, Extraordinary,                                       670\n\n  Mandrin, the Smuggler,                                       167\n\n  Manners, Ancient, of the Italian,                            585\n\n  Man without Hands,                                            77\n\n  Manufacture, One of the Effects of,                          142\n\n  Marat, Funeral of,                                           375\n\n  Marriage Custom, Curious,                                    543\n\n  ---- Lottery,                                                 91\n\n  ---- Vow,                                                    419\n\n  Mary, Queen of Scots, her First Letter to English,           370\n\n  Mary Queen of Scots, her Candlestick,                        436\n\n  Maternal Affection in a Dumb Woman,                          140\n\n  May-pole in the Strand,                                      534\n\n  ---- Fate of the Last, in the Strand,                        682\n\n  May-poles,                                                   100\n\n  Mecca, The Black Stone at,                                   550\n\n  Medmenham Abbey,                                             429\n\n  Memento-Mori Watch,                                          285\n\n  Mental Affection, A Curious,                                 335\n\n  Merman, A,                                                    16\n\n  Mexican Tennis,                                              375\n\n  Michaelmas-day, Origin of eating Goose on,                   198\n\n  Military Hats in Olden Time,                                  75\n\n  Mill at Lissoy,                                              469\n\n  Miraculous Escape,                                           266\n\n  Misers, Two,                                                 459\n\n  Missal, The Bedford,                                         163\n\n  Mob Wisdom,                                                  294\n\n  Monasteries, Libraries of destroyed,                         334\n\n  Monkeys Demanding their Dead,                                415\n\n  Monkish Prayers,                                             383\n\n  Monks, Gluttony of the,                                      347\n\n  ---- and Friars,                                             680\n\n  Monsey (Dr.) bequeaths his own Body,                          93\n\n  Monsoons,                                                    179\n\n  Monument, Rock-cut, of Asia Minor,                           441\n\n  Monuments, Wayside,                                          587\n\n  Mosque of Omar,                                              316\n\n  Mother Mapp, the Bone Setter,                                158\n\n  Mountains, Height of,                                        148\n\n  Mouth, Character of the,                                     106\n\n  M.P.'s and Mayors, Privateers,                               176\n\n  Mulgrave, Origin of the House of,                            602\n\n  Mullet and Turbot, with the Romans,                          488\n\n  Mummy Cases,                                                 409\n\n  Murderess, a Young but Cruel,                                392\n\n  Music, Effect of, on a Pigeon,                                64\n\n  ---- of the Hindoos,                                         683\n\n  ---- ---- ---- Sea,                                          351\n\n  Musical Instrument, A Curious,                               628\n\n  Musical Instruments, Burmese,                                629\n\n  ---- ---- Egyptian,                                          404\n\n\n  Names, Strange Custom about,                                 295\n\n  Naora, The,                                                  635\n\n  Narrow Escape,                                               121\n\n  Nature, Wonderful Provision of,                               55\n\n  Nebuchadnezzar, Gold Mask of,                                105\n\n  Necklace, Ancient Jet,                                       529\n\n  <DW64>, Bill of Sale for a, in 1770,                           39\n\n  Nell Gwynne's Looking-Glass,                                 237\n\n  Never Sleeping in a Bed,                                     331\n\n  Newspapers, Vacillating,                                     514\n\n  New South Wales, Dances of the Natives of,                   225\n\n  Newton, A Visit to the Observatory of,                        10\n\n  New Zealand, The Wingless Bird of,                           307\n\n  Norman Caps,                                                  44\n\n  North American Indian War Dispatch,                           45\n\n  Nose, Effect of a New,                                       102\n\n  Nostrums,                                                     63\n\n  Nun, The First English,                                      330\n\n  Nut Crackers, Ancient,                                       236\n\n\n  Oaks, Extraordinary,                          310, 426, 466, 455\n\n  ---- Remarkable,                                             405\n\n  Old Age, Dying of, at Seventeen Years,                        47\n\n  Old Books,                                                   360\n\n  Old London Signs,                                            118\n\n  Opera, The First,                                            567\n\n  Opium, Best Position for Smoking,                            675\n\n  Oraefa Mountain, in Ireland,                                  356\n\n  Ornaments, Personal Antique,                  293, 400, 447, 452\n\n  Orthography in the Sixteenth Century,                         17\n\n\n  Pagoda, The Great Shoemadoo,                                 572\n\n  Pailoos, Chinese,                                            625\n\n  Panama, Isthmus of, Passage through,                         148\n\n  Paper,                                                       619\n\n  Papyrus, The,                                                 82\n\n  Parental Authority, Too Much,                                513\n\n  Paris Garden at Blackfriars,                                 465\n\n  Parlour Dogs,                                                320\n\n  Passport, A Traveller's,                                     679\n\n  Pastimes, Popular,                                           514\n\n  Pates de Foies Gras,                                         142\n\n  Peacocks,                                                    366\n\n  Pear-Tree, Great,                                            454\n\n  Pearls, British,                                             363\n\n  ---- Fondness of the Romans for,                             208\n\n  Pedestrian Feat, Wonderful,                                  327\n\n  Peg Tankards,                                                 43\n\n  Penn, Tea Service which belonged to,                         201\n\n  Penny Post, Origin of the,                                    47\n\n  Pennsylvania Journal,                                         63\n\n  Perfumes,                                                    253\n\n  Persecution,                                                 430\n\n  ---- in the Reign of Queen Mary,                             587\n\n  Perseverance rewarded by Fortune,                            287\n\n  Persia, Drinking Bouts in,                                   547\n\n  Personal Charms Disclaimed,                                  118\n\n  Peru, Condor in,                                             170\n\n  Peruvian Bark,                                                51\n\n  Pest-house, during the Plague, in Tothill Fields,            573\n\n  Pestilence, The Black,                                       402\n\n  Peter the Great at Zaandam,                                  544\n\n  Physic, A Friend to,                                         267\n\n  Physick for the Poor, Choice Receipts for,                   117\n\n  Pigeon Catching near Naples,                                 437\n\n  Pig, Roast, Advertisement of, in 1726,                        46\n\n  Pike, An Old,                                                667\n\n  Pilgrim Fathers, Chair belonging to,                         186\n\n  Pillory for Eating Flesh in Lent,                             68\n\n  Plague in England, The,                                      183\n\n  ---- Corpse Bearers during the,                              283\n\n  Plantagenets, Yellow Hair in the Time,                       103\n\n  Plate, Use of, in the time of Henry VIII.,                   523\n\n  Platypus, the Duck-billed,                                   273\n\n  Playbill, Curious,                                           227\n\n  ---- in the time of William III.,                            530\n\n  Ploughing and Threshing, Ancient,                             66\n\n  Poets, English, Fates of the Families of,                    471\n\n  Pogonias Vocal Fish,                                         478\n\n  Poison Cup, The,                                             485\n\n  Poisoning the Monarch,                                        12\n\n  Police, London, Disgraceful State of,                        193\n\n  Pont du Gard, Great Aqueduct of,                             312\n\n  Pope's Chair,                                                577\n\n  Porcelain, Anecdote in,                                      517\n\n  Port <DW53> Cave,                                              516\n\n  Poet Haste One Hundred Years ago,                            182\n\n  \"Postman,\" The, Paragraph from, in 1697,                     219\n\n  Pottery in China, Art of,                                    321\n\n  Powerscourt Fall, Phenomenon at the,                         304\n\n  Prayers, Unusual Locality for Saying,                        171\n\n  Praying by Machinery,                                        314\n\n  ---- by Wheel and Axle,                                      539\n\n  Pre-Adamite Bone Caverns,                                    199\n\n  Precocious Children,                                          64\n\n  Presence of Mind--Escape from a Tiger,                       330\n\n  Priests in Burmah, Knavery of the,                           266\n\n  ---- of Sikkim,                                              663\n\n  Prince of Wales, Origin of the Crest of the,                 115\n\n  Prince Rupert, at Everton,                                   291\n\n  Prolific Author,                                             320\n\n  Proteus Anguinus, The,                                       152\n\n  Psalm, Value of a Long,                                      512\n\n  Pterodactylus, The,                                          360\n\n  Pulpit, Refreshments for the,                                262\n\n  Punishing by Wholesale,                                      680\n\n  Punishment, Ancient Instrument of,                           680\n\n  ---- Russian,                                                654\n\n  ---- and Torture, Ancient Instruments of,                 58, 88\n\n  Puritan Zeal,                                                579\n\n  Purple, Tyrian,                                              643\n\n\n  Quackery in the Olden Time,                                  671\n\n  Queen Elizabeth, Banquets of,                                414\n\n  ---- ---- Dresses of,                                        501\n\n  ---- ---- Old Verses on,                                     204\n\n  ---- ---- saddle of,                                         340\n\n  ---- ---- State Coach of,                                    128\n\n  ---- ----'s Laws,                                            151\n\n\n  Raffaelle, Tomb of,                                          568\n\n  Raffle, A, in 1725,                                           47\n\n  Raleigh, Sir Walter, Residence of,                           160\n\n  Ranelagh,                                                    204\n\n  Ranz des Vaches,                                             173\n\n  Rats, Destructive Force of,                                  463\n\n  Ravilliac, Execution of,                                     132\n\n  Receipts, Quaint,                                            153\n\n  Red Sea, Luminous Appearance of the,                         454\n\n  Regiments, The Modern Names of,                              639\n\n  Reichstadt, The Duke de,                                     435\n\n  Relics,                                                      393\n\n  ---- A Group of,                                             261\n\n  ---- Rescued,                                                618\n\n  Remarkable Events and Inventions,                            145\n\n  Revenge, New Mode of,                                        423\n\n  Rheumatism, Strange Cure for the,                            201\n\n  Rhinoceros, First in Europe,                                 655\n\n  Richardson, the Showman,                                     251\n\n  Ringing the Changes,                                         192\n\n  Rings, Calcinated,                                           408\n\n  Rites, Hindoo, Cruelty of,                                   627\n\n  Roads in 1780,                                               327\n\n  Rock of Cashel,                                              352\n\n  Romans in Britain, Dress of Native Females at that Period,    86\n\n  Rouen, The Great Bell of,                                    650\n\n  Royal Touch, The,                                             42\n\n  Royal Giants, Specimens of,                                  121\n\n  ---- Prisoner, Expenses of,                                  260\n\n\n  Sack Pot, Old English,                                       521\n\n  Sacro Catino, The,                                           608\n\n  Sadler's Wells,                                              112\n\n  Saint George, Tomb of,                                       281\n\n  Saint Lawrence,                                              464\n\n  Salagram, Hindoo Adoration of the,                           589\n\n  Sand Columns in Africa,                                      610\n\n  Sandwiches, Origin of the,                                   563\n\n  Sardonyx Ring, with Cameo Head of Queen Elizabeth,\n        in the possession of Rev. Lord Thynne,                 373\n\n  Scape Goat, Camel as a,                                      190\n\n  Sceptre, Ivory, of Louis XII.,                               476\n\n  School, Chinese,                                             525\n\n  School Expenses in the Olden Time,                           427\n\n  Science and Perseverance, Triumphs of,                       123\n\n  Scottish Wild Cattle,                                        278\n\n  Scriptural Antiquities,                                      215\n\n  Sea, Phosphorescence of the,                                 418\n\n  Sea Serpent, Immense,                                         42\n\n  Sea-Urchin, Wonderful Construction of,                       475\n\n  Second Sight,                                                 65\n\n  Seeing Two Generations,                                      211\n\n  Self-Nourishment,                                            315\n\n  Selkirk and the Dancing Goats,                                22\n\n  Sepulchral Vase from Peru,                                   320\n\n  Sermons, Anecdotes in,                                       147\n\n  Serpent, Anecdote of a,                                       85\n\n  Seven, The Number,                                           354\n\n  Sevres Porcelain, Prices of,                                 487\n\n  Sex, Change of,                                              189\n\n  \"Sforza,\" Origin of the Title,                               554\n\n  Shakspeare's Jug,                                            575\n\n  Sham Prophets,                                               319\n\n  Sharks, The Queen's,                                         203\n\n  Sheba, The Queen of,                                         518\n\n  Sheep Killer, Hunting a,                                     268\n\n  Shell Fish, in 1675, Price of,                               178\n\n  Shetland, The Noss in,                                       324\n\n  Shield, Ancient Danish,                                      420\n\n  Shilling, Cutting a Wife off with a,                         359\n\n  Shocking Depravity,                                          117\n\n  Shoes, Long-toed, Origin of,                                 646\n\n  Shrine, Curious Figures on a,                                202\n\n  Shrine of St. Sebald at Nuremberg,                           271\n\n  Simoom, The,                                                 662\n\n  Skin, Human, a Drum made of,                                 398\n\n  Slave Advertisements,                                         25\n\n  Slave Trade, Iniquities of the,                              175\n\n  Slaves, Recent Prices of,                                    435\n\n  Sleep, Protracted,                                           483\n\n  ---- State of the Mind during,                               350\n\n  Sleeper, An Extraordinary,                                    28\n\n  Smoking, Attachment to,                                      322\n\n  Snake Charmers,                                              299\n\n  Snakes, Power of Fascination in,                              64\n\n  Snow Storm, Memorable,                                       327\n\n  Snuff Boxes, Ancient,                                        209\n\n  Snuff, Time Wasted in taking,                                512\n\n  Something like a Feast,                                      129\n\n  Somnambulism,                                                 72\n\n  Sound, Phenomena of,                                         367\n\n  Southcottian Delusion, A Phase of the,                       230\n\n  South-stack Lighthouse,                                      239\n\n  Spain, Wealth of, under the Moors,                           235\n\n  Spider, Bite of the Tarantula,                                13\n\n  Spiders Fond of Music,                                       157\n\n  Spirit Drinker, An Aged,                                     228\n\n  Spontaneous Combustion,                                      431\n\n  Sports of the Lower Classes,                                 155\n\n  Sportsman, A Royal,                                          443\n\n  Springs, Intermittent,                                       455\n\n  Stage Coach in 1760,                                         155\n\n  Stag-Hunt in the 16th Century,                               511\n\n  Stags like Cattle, Driving,                                  208\n\n  Stamps, Antique Roman,                                  448, 643\n\n  Standards, Ancient Banner and,                          396, 583\n\n  State Coach in 1796,                                         156\n\n  Statue, Metal, the Largest in the World,                     454\n\n  Steam boat, Facsimile of the First,                          301\n\n  Stevens's Specific,                                           50\n\n  St. George's Cavern,                                         421\n\n  St. James's Square,                                          123\n\n  St. Paul's, Old,                                             162\n\n  St. Paul and the Viper,                                      125\n\n  St. Winifred's Well,                                         303\n\n  Sticks, Old Walking,                                         387\n\n  Stirrups,                                                    571\n\n  Stomach Brush,                                                55\n\n  Stoneware,                                                   649\n\n  Strasburg, Curious Custom at,                                185\n\n  Strength, Feats of, in 1789,                                   9\n\n  Street Cries of Modern Egypt,                                401\n\n  Stuff Ball at Lincoln, Origin of the,                         49\n\n  Sultan, City of the,                                         103\n\n  Sun and Moon, Worship of the,                                 81\n\n  Superstition in 1856,                                        538\n\n  ---- Curious,                                                424\n\n  ---- Death caused by,                                        124\n\n  ---- in France,                                              519\n\n  ---- Vitality of,                                            474\n\n  Sweating Sickness,                                           110\n\n  Sweets, Artificial,                                          579\n\n  Sword, Curious Antique,                                      596\n\n  ---- Executioner's,                                          340\n\n  ---- The Hawthornden,                                        353\n\n  ---- The Seton,                                              356\n\n  ---- Fish and Whales,                                        565\n\n  Sword-Breaker, An Ancient,                                   672\n\n\n  Taking a Man to Pieces,                                       79\n\n  Tapestry, The Bayeux,                                        642\n\n  Tar and Feather, Notices to,                                  38\n\n  Taxation, Universality of,                                   318\n\n  Tea,                                                          94\n\n  Tea-Drinkers, The First, Puzzled,                            532\n\n  Teapot, The,                                                 482\n\n  Temple of Pou-tou, The,                                      673\n\n  ---- at Simonbong,                                           620\n\n  Temples of Brambanam,                                        442\n\n  Terrier, Anecdote of a,                                      358\n\n  Thames, Frost Fair on the,                                   106\n\n  ---- The First Bridge over the,                              428\n\n  Thanksgiving Day in 1697,                                    527\n\n  Theatre, Roman, at Orange,                                   366\n\n  Theatres in the Time of Shakespeare,                         597\n\n  The First Hermits--Why so Called,                            125\n\n  The Ruling Passion,                                      32, 188\n\n  Theodora de Verdion,                                         207\n\n  Thief Caught in his own Trap, The,                            77\n\n  ---- Singular Discovery of a,                                115\n\n  Thugs, The,                                                  574\n\n  Tiger Cave at Cuttack,                                       361\n\n  Tilbury Fort,                                                189\n\n  Time, Division of, in Persia,                                633\n\n  Tobacco, Origin of the Use of,                                57\n\n  Toilet, Absurdities of the,                                  536\n\n  ---- Boxes, Egyptian,                                        381\n\n  Tomb, Chinese,                                               508\n\n  ---- of Caecilia Metella,                                     477\n\n  ---- of Darius,                                              560\n\n  Tomb of the Emperor Maximilian at Inspruck,                  590\n\n  \"Too Late,\" quoth Boice,                                     489\n\n  Tope, the Sanchi,                                            389\n\n  Topers, Georgians as,                                        511\n\n  Toping in the Last Century,                                  314\n\n  Torture,                                                     639\n\n  ---- Chamber at Nuremberg,                                   615\n\n  Tower of the Thundering Winds,                                93\n\n  Trajan, Arch of, at Beneventum,                              112\n\n  Trance, A,                                                   354\n\n  ---- at Will,                                                462\n\n  Trap-door Spider,                                            383\n\n  Travelling, Common,                                          220\n\n  ---- in Olden Times,                                     108,162\n\n  ---- in the United States,                                   208\n\n  Treaty-Stone at Limerick,                                    563\n\n  Tree, Extraordinary Situation for a,                         313\n\n  Trees, Age of,                                               521\n\n  ---- that Grow Shirts,                                        62\n\n  Tripod, Ancient,                                             549\n\n  Trivial Circumstances, A Great Result from,                  605\n\n  Tumbrel, The,                                                  2\n\n  Tunisians, Ingenuity of the,                                 652\n\n  Turban, The, in Arabia,                                      618\n\n  Turkish Mode of Reparation,                                  326\n\n  Twin-Worm, Extraordinary Formation of the,                   136\n\n  Types, the Invention of,                                     152\n\n\n  Umbrella, Anglo-Saxon,                                       624\n\n  Upas Tree,                                                   123\n\n  Useful and the Beautiful,                                    647\n\n\n  Vampire, The Blood-sucking,                                  417\n\n  Varnish-Tree of the Japanese,                                615\n\n  Vases, Ancient,                                              337\n\n  ---- Greek,                                                  169\n\n  ---- Greek, Prices of,                                       385\n\n  ---- Roman, in Black Ware,                                   373\n\n  ---- Sepulchral, of Greek Pottery,                           616\n\n  ---- Sepulchral, of Ancient Egypt,                           607\n\n  ---- Teutonic, Hut-shaped,                                   580\n\n  Vauxhall,                                                    380\n\n  Venetians, The,                                              428\n\n  Vengeance, Novel Mode of taking,                             586\n\n  Ventriloquist, a Female,                                      62\n\n  Vesuvius, Crater of, in 1829,                                165\n\n  Vinegar on the Skin, Effect of,                              115\n\n  Vishnu, Incarnations of,                                     645\n\n  Volcanic Eruption in Japan,                                  601\n\n  Volcano of Jurullo, Formation of the,                        163\n\n  Volition, Suspended,                                         199\n\n  Voltaire, English Letter of,                                 422\n\n  Vow, Singular Hindoo,                                        658\n\n\n  Wagers, Curious,                                             373\n\n  Walking-Sticks, Old,                                         387\n\n  Wall, Governor, Execution of,                                154\n\n  Wallace, the Hero of Scotland,                                99\n\n  War Boat, A Dyak, in Borneo,                                 540\n\n  ---- Dance of the Dyaks of Borneo,                           540\n\n  ---- Chariot of Ancient Egypt,                               365\n\n  Warwick, the King-Maker,                                     527\n\n  Washing Account, Method of Keeping,                            3\n\n  Washington,                                                  583\n\n  Watch, An Antique,                                           368\n\n  ---- presented by Louis XIII. to Charles I. of England,      640\n\n  Watches, the First in England,                               515\n\n  Water for Old London, Supply of,                             282\n\n  ---- Preservative Power of Coal-pit,                          25\n\n  ---- Supply of, for London, in Olden Times,                  546\n\n  ---- Snakes, Battle of,                                      470\n\n  \"We hae been\",                                                47\n\n  Weapon, Ancient,                                             660\n\n  ---- A Poison,                                               672\n\n  Weaver-Bird, The Sociable,                                   440\n\n  Wedding, A, A Hundred Years Ago,                             640\n\n  Weight, Reducing,                                             85\n\n  Whipping Prisoners,                                          175\n\n  Whitehall, Ceiling of,                                       121\n\n  Whitsuntide, at Durham Cathedral,                              8\n\n  Why a Man Measures more in the Morning than in the Evening,   75\n\n  Wife, Diving for a,                                          479\n\n  Wigs,                                                     17, 31\n\n  Will, Eccentric,                                             209\n\n  William the Conqueror, Courtship of,                         555\n\n  Willow, Weeping, Introduction of the,                        148\n\n  Wind Mills, The First,                                       577\n\n  Witch-Testing, at Newcastle, in 1649,                         21\n\n  Wolves in England,                                           441\n\n  Woman, The Hairy, of Burmah,                                 677\n\n  Woman's Cleverness,                                          260\n\n  Women of England, The,                                       159\n\n  ---- in Former Times,                                        127\n\n  Wonderful Escape,                                       215, 300\n\n  Wren's (Sir Christopher) Cost of Churches,                   171\n\n  ---- ---- ---- Report,                                       183\n\n  Writing Materials,                                           481\n\n  Writings, Terra Cotta,                                       466\n\n\n  Yorkshire Tike, The,                                          24\n\n  Yorkshire in the Last Century,                               283\n\n\n\n\nTEN THOUSAND WONDERFUL THINGS.\n\n\nPUNISHMENTS IN PROVINCIAL TOWNS IN THE OLDEN TIME.\n\nThe instruments most in vogue with our ancestors were three--the\ncucking-stool, the brank, and the tumbrel.\n\nThe Cucking-stool was used by the pond in many village greens about one\nhundred years ago or little more, and then deemed the best corrective\nof a scolding woman.\n\n[Illustration: The Cucking-stool.]\n\nBy the sea, the quay offered a convenient spot. The barbican, at\nPlymouth, was a locality, doubtless terrible to offenders, however\ncareless of committing their wordy nuisance of scolding. Two pounds\nwere paid for a cucking-stool at Leicester in 1768. Since that it\nhas been placed at the door of a notorious scold as a warning. Upon\nadmission to the House of Correction at Liverpool, a woman had to\nundergo the severity of the cucking-stool till a little before the year\n1803, when Mr. James Neild wrote to Dr. Lettsom. The pump in the men's\ncourt was the whipping-post for females, which discipline continued,\nthough not weekly.\n\n              _Kingston-upon-Thames._                   _s._  _d._\n\n  1572, The making of the cucking-stool                   8    0\n        Iron work for the same                            3    0\n        Timber for the same                               7    6\n        Three brasses for the same, and three wheels      4   10\n                                                     -----------\n                                                     L1   3    4\n\n     At Marlborough, in 1625, a man had 4_d._ for his help at the\n     cucking of Joan Neal.\n\n              _Gravesend._\n\n  1636, The porters for ducking of Goodwife Campion       2    0\n        Two porters for laying up the ducking-stool       0    8\n\n[Illustration: The Brank.]\n\nThe Brank, for taming shrews, was preferred to the cucking-stool in\nsome counties, and was used there for the same purpose. The brank was\nin favour in the northern counties, and in Worcestershire, though there\nwere, notwithstanding, some of the other instruments of punishment\nused, called in that county gum-stools.\n\nThe brank was put over the head, and was fastened with a padlock. There\nare entries at Worcester about mending the \"scould's bridle and cords\nfor the same.\"\n\nThe cucking-stool not only endangered the health of the party, but also\ngave the tongue liberty 'twixt every dip. The brank was put over the\nhead, and was fastened with a padlock.\n\n[Illustration: The Tumbrel.]\n\nThe tumbrel was a low-rolling cart or carriage (in law Latin,\n_tumberella_) which was used as a punishment of disgrace and infamy.\nMillers, when they stole corn, were chastised by the tumbrel. Persons\nwere sometimes fastened with an iron chain to a tumbrel, and conveyed\nbareheaded with din and cry through the principal streets of towns.\n\n\n_Court of Hustings Book, 1581._ (_Lyme._)\n\n\"The jury present that the tumbrel be repaired and maintained from time\nto time, according to the statute.\"\n\nIn 1583, Mr. Mayor was to provide a tumbrel before All Saints Day,\nunder a penalty of 10_s._\n\n\nANCIENT METHOD OF KEEPING A WASHING ACCOUNT.\n\nShakerley Marmion, in his \"Antiquary,\" says:--\n\n  \"I must rev'rence and prefer the precedent\n  Times before these, which consum'd their wits in\n  Experiments; and 'twas a virtuous\n  Emulation amongst them, that nothing\n  Which, might profit posterity should perish.\"\n\n[Illustration: [++] Washing Tablet.]\n\nWithout a full adherence to this dictum, we would nevertheless admit\nthat we are indebted to the past for the germ of many of our most\nimportant discoveries. The ancient washing tablet, although of humble\npretensions to notice, is yet a proof of the simple and effective means\nfrequently adopted in olden times for the economy of time and materials.\n\nA reference to the engraving obviates a lengthened explanation. It\nwill there be seen that if the mistress of a family has fifteen\n_pillow-covers, or so many collars, or so many bands_, to be mentioned\nin the washing account, she can turn the circular dial, by means of\nthe button or handle, to the number corresponding with the rough\nmark at the bottom of the dial, above which is written _sheets_,\n_table-cloths_, &c. This simple and ingenious contrivance, obviates the\nnecessity of keeping a book.\n\nThe original \"washing board,\" from which the engraving is taken, was of\na larger size, and showed the numbers very distinctly. Similar dials\nmay be made of either ivory or metal.\n\n\nTHE HAIR.\n\nThe quality and colour of the hair was a subject of speculative theory\nfor the ancients. Lank hair was considered indicative of pusillanimity\nand cowardice; yet the head of Napoleon was guiltless of a curl!\nFrizzly hair was thought an indication of coarseness and clumsiness.\nThe hair most in esteem, was that terminating in ringlets. Dares, the\nhistorian, states that Achilles and Ajax Telamon had curling locks;\nsuch also was the hair of Timon, the Athenian. As to the Emperor\nAugustus, nature had favoured him with such redundant locks, that no\nhair-dresser in Rome could produce the like. Auburn or light brown\nhair was thought the most distinguished, as portending intelligence,\nindustry, a peaceful disposition, as well as great susceptibility to\nthe tender passion. Castor and Pollux had brown hair; so also had\nMenelaus. Black hair does not appear to have been esteemed by the\nRomans; but red was an object of aversion. Ages before the time of\nJudas, red hair was thought a mark of reprobation, both in the case\nof Typhon, who deprived his brother of the sceptre of Egypt, and\nNebuchadnezzar who acquired it in expiation of his atrocities. Even the\ndonkey tribe suffered from this ill-omened visitation, according to the\nproverb of \"wicked as a red ass.\" Asses of that colour were held in\nsuch detestation among the Copths, that every year they sacrificed one\nby hurling it from a high wall.\n\n\nTHE FIRST COFFEE HOUSE IN LONDON.\n\nCoffee is a native of Arabia, supposed by some to have been the chief\ningredient of the old Lacedemonian broth. The use of this berry was not\nknown in England till the year 1657, at which time Mr. D. Edwards, a\nTurkey merchant, on his return from Smyrna to London, brought with him\none Pasquet Rossee, a Greek of Ragusa, who was used to prepare this\nliquor for his master every morning, who, by the way, never wanted\ncompany. The merchant, therefore, in order to get rid of a crowd of\nvisitants, ordered his Greek to open a coffee-house, which he did in\nSt. Michael's Alley, in Cornhill. This was the first coffee-house\nopened in London.\n\n\nEATING FOR A WAGER.\n\nThe handbill, of which the subjoined is a literal copy, was circulated\nby the keeper of the public-house at which the gluttony was to happen,\nas an attraction for all the neighbourhood to witness:--\n\n\"_Bromley in Kent_, July 14, 1726.--A strange eating worthy is to\nperform a Tryal of Skill on St. James's Day, which is the day of our\n_Fair_ for a wager of Five Guineas,--viz.: he is to eat four pounds of\nbacon, a bushel of French beans, with two pounds of butter, a quartern\nloaf, and to drink a gallon of strong beer!\"\n\n\nFOX KILLED BY A SWAN.\n\nAt Peusey, a swan sitting on her eggs, on one side of the river,\nobserved a fox swimming towards her from the opposite side; rightly\njudging she could best grapple with the fox in her own element, she\nplunged into the water, and after beating him off for some time with\nher wings, at length succeeded in drowning him.\n\n\nHIGHWAYMEN IN 1782.\n\nOn Wednesday, the 9th January, 1782, about four o'clock in the\nafternoon, as Anthony Todd, Esq., Secretary to the Post-office, was\ngoing in his carriage to his house at Walthamstow to dinner, and\nanother gentleman with him, he was stopt within a small distance of his\nhouse by two highwaymen, one of whom held a pistol to the coachman's\nbreast, whilst the other, with a handkerchief over his face, robbed\nMr. Todd and the gentleman of their gold watches and what money they\nhad about them. As soon as Mr. Todd got home all his men-servants were\nmounted on horses, and pursued the highwaymen; they got intelligence\nof their passing Lee-bridge, and rode on to Shoreditch; but could not\nlearn anything farther of them.\n\nThe same evening a gentleman going along Aldermanbury, near the church,\nwas accosted by a man with an enquiry as to the time; on which the\ngentleman pulled out his gold watch. The man immediately said, \"I\nmust have that watch and your money, sir, so don't make a noise.\" The\ngentleman seeing nobody near, he delivered his gold watch and four\nguineas, with some silver. The thief said he was in distress, and\nhoped the gentleman would not take away his life if ever he had the\nopportunity.\n\nSunday, the 13th January, 1782, about twelve o'clock, a man was, by\nforce, dragged up the yard of the French-Horn Inn, High Holborn, by\nsome person or persons unknown, and robbed of his watch, four guineas,\nand some silver; when they broke his arm and otherwise cruelly treated\nhim. He was found by a coachman, who took him to the hospital.\n\n\nAN ARCHBISHOP WASHING THE FEET OF THE POOR.\n\nIn the _Gentleman's Magazine_, we find the following\nobservance:--_Thursday, April 15, 1731_.--Being Maunday-Thursday, there\nwas distributed at the Banquetting-house, Whitehall, to forty-eight\npoor men, and forty-eight poor women (the King's age 48) boiled beef\nand shoulders of mutton, and small bowls of ale, which is called\ndinner; after that, large wooden platters of fish and loaves, viz.,\nundress'd, one large old ling, and one large dry'd cod; twelve red\nherrings, and nineteen white herrings, and four half quartern loaves;\neach person had one platter of this provision: after which was\ndistributed to them shoes, stockings, linnen and woolen cloath, and\nleathern bags, with one penny, two penny, three penny, and four penny\npieces of silver, and shillings: to each about L4 in value. His Grace\nthe Lord Archbishop of York, Lord High Almoner, performed the annual\nceremony of washing the feet of a certain number of poor in the Royal\nChapel, Whitehall, which was formerly done by the Kings themselves, in\nimitation of our Saviour's pattern of humility, &c. James II. was the\nlast King who performed this in person. His doing so was thus recorded\nin the _Chapel Royal Register_.--\"On Maunday Thursday April 16 1685 our\ngracious King James y{e} 2{d} wash'd wip'd and kiss'd the feet of 52 poor\nmen w{th} wonderful humility. And all the service of the Church of\nEngland usuall on that occasion was performed, his Maty being psent all\nthe time.\"\n\n\nA LUCKY FIND.\n\n_Sunday, April 1._--A few days ago, Sir Simon Stuart, of Hartley, in\nHampshire, looking over some old writings, found on the back of one\nof them a memorandum noting that 1,500 broad pieces were buried in a\ncertain spot in an adjoyning field. Whereupon he took a servant, and\nafter digging a little in the place, found the treasure in a pot, hid\nthere in the time of the late civil wars, by his grandfather, Sir\nNicholas Stuart.--_Gentleman's Magazine_, 1733.\n\n\nHOOPS IN 1740.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Ladies Hoops in 1740.]\n\nThe monstrous appearance of the ladies' hoops, when viewed behind, may\nbe seen from the following cut, copied from one of Rigaud's views.\nThe exceedingly small cap, at this time fashionable, and the close\nup-turned hair beneath it, give an extraordinary meanness to the head,\nparticularly when the liberality of gown and petticoat is taken into\nconsideration: the lady to the left wears a black hood with an ample\nfringed cape, which envelopes her shoulders, and reposes on the summit\nof the hoop. The gentleman wears a small wig and bag; the skirts of his\ncoat are turned back, and were sometimes of a colour different from the\nrest of the stuff of which it was made, as were the cuffs and lappels.\n\n\nSIEGE OF GIBRALTAR.\n\nGibraltar had been taken by a combined English and Dutch fleet in 1704,\nand was confirmed as a British possession, in 1713, by the peace of\nUtrecht; but in 1779 it was assailed by the united forces of France\nand Spain, and the siege continued till the 2nd of February, 1783. The\nchief attack was made on the 13th September, 1782. On the part of the\nbesiegers, besides stupendous batteries on the land side, mounting two\nhundred pieces of ordnance, there was an army of 40,000 men, under the\ncommand of the Duc de Crillon. In the bay lay the combined fleets of\nFrance and Spain, comprising forty-seven sail of the line, beside ten\nbattering ships of powerful construction, that cost upwards of L50,000\neach. From these the heaviest shells rebounded, but ultimately two of\nthem were set on fire by red-hot shot, and the others were destroyed to\nprevent them from falling into the hands of the British commander. The\nrest of the fleet also suffered considerably; but the defenders escaped\nwith very little loss. In this engagement 8,300 rounds were fired by\nthe garrison, more than half of which consisted of red-hot balls.\nDuring this memorable siege, which lasted upwards of three years, the\nentire expenditure of the garrison exceeded 200,000 rounds,--8,000\nbarrels of powder being used. The expenditure of the enemy, enormous\nas this quantity is, must have been much greater; for they frequently\nfired, from their land-batteries, 4,000 rounds in the short space of\ntwenty-four hours. Terrific indeed must have been the spectacle as the\nimmense fortress poured forth its tremendous volleys, and the squadron\nand land-batteries replied with a powerful cannonade. But all this\nwaste of human life and of property was useless on the part of the\nassailants; for the place was successfully held, and Gibraltar still\nremains one of the principal strongholds of British power in Europe.\n\n[Illustration: Saint George's Hall, Gibraltar.]\n\nDuring the progress of the siege, the fortifications were considerably\nstrengthened, and numerous galleries were excavated in the solid rock,\nhaving port-holes at which heavy guns were mounted, which, keeping up\nan incessant fire, proved very efficacious in destroying the enemy's\nencampments on the land side. Communicating with the upper tier of\nthese galleries are two grand excavations, known as Lord Cornwallis's\nand St. George's Halls. The latter, which is capable of holding several\nhundred men, has numerous pieces of ordnance pointed in various\ndirections, ready to deal destruction on an approaching enemy.\n\n\nKEEPING WHITSUNTIDE AT DURHAM CATHEDRAL.\n\nThe following curious account of the consumption of provisions in the\ncathedral of Durham, during Whitsun week, in 1347, together with the\nprices of the articles, is taken from the rolls of the cellarer, at\npresent in the treasury at Durham:--six hundred salt herrings, 3s.;\nfour hundred white herrings, 2s. 6d.; thirty salted salmon, 7s. 6d.;\ntwelve fresh salmon, 5s. 6d.; fourteen ling, fifty-five \"kelengs;\"\nfour turbot, 23s. 1d.; two horse loads of white fish, and a \"congr,\"\n5s. 10d.; \"playc,\" \"sparlings,\" and eels, and fresh water fish, 2s.\n9d.; nine carcases of oxen, salted, so bought, 36s.; one carcase and\na quarter, fresh, 6s. 11-3\/4d.; a quarter of an oxe, fresh, bought in\nthe town, 3s. 6d.; seven carcases and a half of swine, in salt, 22s.\n2-1\/4d.; six carcases, fresh, 12s. 9d.; fourteen calves, 28s. 4d.;\nthree kids, and twenty-six sucking porkers, 9s. 7-1\/2d.; seventy-one\ngeese with their feed, 11s. 10d.; fourteen capons, fifty-nine chickens,\nand five dozen pidgeons, 10s. 3d.; five stones of hog's lard, 4s. 2d.;\nfour stones of cheese, butter, and milk, 6s. 6d.; a pottle of vinegar,\nand a pottle of honey, 6-1\/2d.; fourteen pounds of figs and raisins,\nsixteen pounds of almonds, and eight pounds of rice, 3s. 7d.; pepper,\nsaffron, cinnamon, and other spices, 2s. 6d.; one thousand three\nhundred eggs, 15s. 5d.--sum total, L11 4s. Similar consumptions took\nplace during the week of the feast of St. Cuthbert, and other feasts,\namong the monks of Durham, for a long period of years.\n\n\nCURIOUS LAW.\n\nThe following curious law was enacted during the reign of Richard I.\nfor the government of those going by sea to the Holy Land:--\"He who\nkills a man on shipboard, shall be bound to the dead body and thrown\ninto the sea; if the man is killed on shore, the slayer shall be bound\nto the dead body and buried with it. He who shall draw his knife to\nstrike another, or who shall have drawn blood from him, to lose his\nhand; if he shall have only struck with the palm of his hand without\ndrawing blood, he shall be thrice ducked in the sea.\"\n\n\nDECAPITATION BY THE GUILLOTINE.\n\nA gentleman of intelligence and literary attainments, makes, in an\naccount of his travels on the continent, the following most singular\nremarks on an execution he witnessed, in which the culprit was beheaded\nby the guillotine:--\"It appears,\" says he, \"to be the best of all\npossible modes of inflicting the punishment of death; combining the\ngreatest impression on the spectator, with the least possible suffering\nto the victim. It is so rapid, that I should doubt whether there were\nany suffering; but from the expression of the countenance, when the\nexecutioner held up the head, I am inclined to believe that sense and\nconsciousness may remain for a few seconds after the head is off. The\neyes seemed to retain speculation for a moment or two, and there was a\nlook in the ghastly stare with which they stared upon the crowd, which\nimplied that the head was aware of its ignominious situation.\"\n\n\nALDERMAN BOYDELL.\n\nIt was the regular custom of Mr. Alderman Boydell, who was a very early\nriser, at five o'clock, to go immediately to the pump in Ironmonger\nLane. There, after placing his wig upon the ball at the top of it, he\nused to sluice his head with its water. This well-known and highly\nrespected character, who has done more for the British artist than all\nthe print-publishers put together, was also one of the last men who\nwore a three-cornered hat.\n\n\nFEATS OF STRENGTH IN 1739.\n\nApril 21.--The following notice was given to the public:--\"For the\nbenefit of Thomas Topham, the strong man, from Islington, whose\nperformances have been looked upon by the Royal Society and several\npersons of distinction, to be the most surprising as well as curious\nof any thing ever performed in England; on which account, as other\nentertainments are more frequently met with than that he proposes, he\nhumbly hopes gentlemen and ladies, &c., will honour him with their\npresence at the Nag's Head, in Gateshead, on Monday the 23d of this\ninstant, at four o'clock, where he intends to perform several feats of\nstrength, viz.:--He bends an iron poker three inches in circumference,\nover his arm, and one of two inches and a quarter round his neck; he\nbreaks a rope that will bear two thousand weight, and with his fingers\nrolls up a pewter dish of seven pounds hard metal; he lays the back\npart of his head on one chair, and his heels on another, and suffering\nfour men to stand on his body, he moves them up and down at pleasure;\nhe lifts a table six feet in length, by his teeth, with a half hundred\nweight hanging at the further end of it; and, lastly, to oblige the\npublick, he will lift a butt full of water.\" \"Each person to pay one\nshilling.\" This \"strong man\" fell a victim to jealousy, as is proved by\nthe following:--\"August 10th, 1749, died, Mr. Thomas Topham, known by\nthe name of the strong man, master of a publick house in Shoreditch,\nLondon. In a fit of jealousy, he stabbed his wife, then cut his own\nthroat and stabbed himself, after which he lived two days.\"\n\n\nELEPHANTS FRIGHTENED AT PIGS.\n\n\"Then on a tyme there were many grete clerkes and rad of kyng\nAlysaunder how on a tyme as he sholde have a batayle with ye kynge\nof Inde. And this kynge of Inde broughte with hym many olyphauntes\nberynge castelles of tree on theyr backes as the kynde of the is to\nhaue armed knyghtes in ye castell for the batayle, them ne knewe\nAlysaunder the kynge, of the olyphauntes that they drad no thynge more\nthan the jarrynge of swyne, wherefore he made to gader to gyder all\nye swyne that myghte be goten, and caused them to be dryuen as ny the\nolyphauntes as they myghte well here the jarrynge of the swyne, and\nthenne they made a pygge to crye, and whan the swyne herde the pygges a\nnone they made a great jarrynge, and as soone as the olyphauntes herde\nthat, they began to fle eche one, and keste downe the castelles and\nslewe the knyghtes that were in them, and by this meane Alysaunder had\nye vyctory.\"--_Liber Festivalis, printed by W. Caxton in_ 1483.\n\n\nA VISIT TO THE OBSERVATORY OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.\n\nThe memory of a great and good man is imperishable. A thousand years\nmay pass away, but the fame that has survived the wreck of time remains\nunsullied, and is even brighter with age.\n\n        \"The actions of the just\n    Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.\"\n\nIn an age of progress like our own we have frequently to regret the\ndestruction (sometimes necessary) of places associated with the genius\nof the past; but in the case of Sir Isaac Newton we have several\nrelics existing, none of which, perhaps, are more interesting than\nthe house in which he resided, still standing in St. Martin's Street,\non the south side of Leicester Square. The engravings of the interior\nand exterior of this building have been made from drawings made on\nthe spot. The house was long occupied as an hotel for foreigners, and\nwas kept by a M. Pagliano. In 1814 it was devoted to the purposes of\neducation. The Observatory, which is at the top, and where Sir Isaac\nNewton made his astronomical researches, was left in a dilapidated\ncondition until 1824, when two gentlemen, belonging to a committee of\nthe school, had it repaired at their own expense, and wrote a brief\nmemoir of the philosopher, which was placed in the Observatory, with a\nportrait of him.\n\n[Illustration: Interior of Sir Isaac Newton's Observatory.]\n\n[Illustration: House of Sir Isaac Newton, St. Martin's Street,\nLeicester Square.]\n\nIn this house Sir Isaac Newton resided for many years; and it was\nhere, according to his biographer, that he dispensed, under the\nsuperintendence of his beautiful niece, an elegant hospitality. Our\nsketch gives a good idea of the appearance of the exterior of the\nhouse at the present day; the front, it will be seen, has been well\nplastered, which, although clean and pleasant-looking to some eyes,\nseems to us to destroy the character of the building. The old doorway,\nwith a projecting top, has also been removed. The interior of the\nhouse is in excellent repair, and has undergone very little change.\nThe cornices, panelling, and the spacious staircase, are not altered\nsince the days of Newton. The rooms are very large. Tradition states\nit was in the back drawing-room that the manuscript of his work, the\n\"New Theory of Light and Colours,\" was destroyed by fire, caused by a\nfavourite little dog in Sir Isaac's absence. The name of this canine\nincendiary was Diamond. The manner in which the accident occurred is\nthus related:--The animal was wantoning about the philosopher's study,\nwhen it knocked down a candle, and set fire to a heap of manuscript\ncalculations upon which he had been employed for years. The loss was\nirretrievable; but Sir Isaac only exclaimed with simplicity, \"Ah,\nDiamond, Diamond, you little know what mischief you have been doing!\"\n\nPassing upstairs, and looking slightly at the various rooms, which\nare all well panelled, but which do not require particular notice, we\nreached the little observatory shown in the engraving. There, in the\nroom in which Sir Isaac has quietly studied, and in which he may have\nheld conferences with the most distinguished of his contemporaries,\nwe found two shoemakers busily at work, with whom we had some\npleasant conversation. Our artist has represented the interior of\nthe observatory, with its laborious occupants, worthy sons of St.\nCrispin. Shoemakers are well known to be a thoughtful class of men,\nalthough sometimes they unfortunately do not make the best use of their\nknowledge. Brand, the historian and author of the excellent book on\n\"Popular Antiquities,\" was at one time a shoemaker; so was Bloomfield,\nthe poet, who, when working at the \"last\" in Bell Alley, near the Bank,\nstrung together the charming recollection of his plough-boy life. We\ncould give a long list of shoemakers who have been eminent for talents.\n\nWe have not the exact date at which Newton came to reside here, but\ncertainly he was living in this house, at intervals, after 1695, when\nhe was appointed Warder of the Mint, of which establishment he rose to\nbe Master in the course of three years. The emoluments of this office\namounted to L1200 a-year, which enabled him to live in ease and dignity.\n\nIn 1703 he was chosen President of the Royal Society--an honourable\npost, to which he was annually elected until the time of his death.\n\n\nPOISONING THE MONARCH.\n\nAn idea of the popular notions about poisoning in the middle of the\nseventeenth century, may be formed from the following extract from an\nold tract, published in 1652, with the title of \"Papa Patris, or the\nPope in his Colours\":--\"Anno Dom: 1596; one Edward Squire, sometimes a\nscrivener at Grenewich, afterwards a deputy purveyor for the Queene's\nstable, in Sir Francis Drake's last voyage was taken prisoner and\ncarried into Spaine, and being set at liberty, one Walpole, a Jesuite,\ngrew acquainted with him, and got him into the Inquisition, whence\nhe returned a resolved <DW7>, he persuaded Squire to undertake to\npoyson the pummell of the Queene (Elizabeth's) saddle, and, to make\nhim constant, made Squire receive the Sacrament upon it; he then gave\nhim the poyson, showing that he should take it in a double bladder,\nand should prick the bladder full of hoales in the upper part, when he\nshould use it (carrying it within a thick glove for the safety of his\nhand) should after turne it downward, pressing the bladder upon the\npummell of the Queene's saddle. This Squire confest. Squire is now in\nSpaine, and for his safer dispatch into England it was devised that\ntwo Spanish prisoners taken at Cales should be exchanged for Squire\nand one Rawles, that it might not be thought that Squire came over but\nas a redeemed captive. The Munday sennight after Squire returned into\nEngland, he, understanding the horses were preparing for the Queene's\nriding abroad, laid his hand, and crushed the poyson upon the pummell\nof the Queene's saddle, saying, 'God save the Queene,' the Queene\nrode abroad, and as it should seem laid not her hand upon the place,\nor els received no hurt (through God's goodnesse) by touching it.\nWalpole, counting the thing as done, imparted it to some principall\nfugitives there, but being disappointed of his hope, supposing Squire\nto have been false, to be revenged on him sent one hither (who should\npretend to have stolne from thence) with letters, wherein the plot of\nSquires was contained; this letter was pretended to be stolne out of\none of their studies. Squire, being apprehended, confessed all without\nany rigor, but after denied that he put it in execution, although he\nacknowledged he consented to it in the plot, at length he confessed the\nputting it in execution also.\"\n\n\nGRINNING FOR A WAGER.\n\n_June 9, 1786._--On Whit-Tuesday was celebrated at Hendon, in\nMiddlesex, a burlesque imitation of the Olympic Games. One prize was a\ngold-laced hat, to be grinned for by six candidates, who were placed on\na platform, with horses' collars to exhibit through. Over their heads\nwas printed in capitals,--\n\n  Detur Tetriori; or\n  The ugliest grinner\n  Shall be the winner.\n\nEach party grinned five minutes _solus_, and then all united in a\ngrand _chorus_ of distortion. This prize was carried by a porter to a\n_vinegar_ merchant, though he was accused by his competitors of foul\nplay, for rinsing his mouth with _verjuice_. The whole was concluded\nby a hog, with has tail shaved and soaped, being let loose among nine\npeasants; any one of which that could seize him by the _queue_, and\nthrow him across his shoulders, was to have him for a reward. This\noccasioned much sport: the animal, after running some miles, so tired\nhis hunters that they gave up the chase in despair. A prodigious\nconcourse of people attended, among whom were the Tripoline Ambassador,\nand several other persons of distinction.\n\n\nBITE OF THE TARANTULA SPIDER.\n\nA Neapolitan soldier who had been bitten by a tarantula, though\napparently cured, suffered from an annual attack of delirium, after\nwhich he used to sink into a state of profound melancholy; his face\nbecoming livid, his sight obscure, his power of breathing checked,\naccompanied by sighs and heavings. Sometimes he fell senseless, and\ndevoid of pulsation; ejecting blood from his nose and mouth, and\napparently dying. Recourse was had to the influence of music; and the\npatient began to revive at the sound, his hands marking the measure,\nand the feet being similarly affected. Suddenly rising and laying hold\nof a bystander, he began to dance with the greatest agility during\nan uninterrupted course of four-and-twenty hours. His strength was\nsupported by administering to him wine, milk, and fresh eggs. If he\nappeared to relapse, the music was repeated, on which he resumed his\ndancing. This unfortunate being used to fall prostrate if the music\naccidentally stopped, and imagine that the tarantula had again stung\nhim. After a few years he died, in one of these annual attacks of\ndelirium.\n\n\nBYGONE CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS.\n\n  ------------\"Now, too, is heard\n  The hapless <DW36>, tuning through the streets\n  His _carol_ new; and oft, amid the gloom\n  Of midnight hours, prevail th' accustom'd sounds\n  Of wakeful _waits_, whose harmony (composed\n  Of hautboy, organ, violin, and flute,\n  And various other instruments of mirth),\n  Is meant to celebrate the coming time.\"\n\n[Illustration: The Mummers, Or Ancient Waits.]\n\nThe manner in which this period of the year has been observed has often\nvaried. The observances of the day first became to be pretty general\nin the Catholic church about the year 300. By some of our ancestors\nit was viewed in the double light of a religious and joyful season of\nfestivities. The midnight preceding Christmas-day every person went\nto mass, and on Christmas-day three different masses were sung with\nmuch solemnity. Others celebrated it with great parade, splendour, and\nconviviality. Business was superseded by merriment and hospitality;\nthe most careworn countenance brightened on the occasion. The nobles\nand the barons encouraged and participated in the various sports: the\nindustrious labourer's cot, and the residence of proud royalty, equally\nresounded with tumultuous joy. From Christmas-day to Twelfth-day there\nwas a continued run of entertainments. Not only did our ancestors make\ngreat rejoicings on, but before and after Christmas-day. By a law in\nthe time of Alfred, the \"twelve days after the nativity of our Saviour\nwere made festivals;\"[1] and it likewise appears from Bishop Holt, that\nthe whole of the days were dedicated to feasting.\n\n[1] Thus we have the origin of Twelfth-day.\n\nOur ancestors' various amusements were conducted by a sort of master\nof the ceremonies, called the \"Lord of Misrule,\" whose duty it was to\nkeep order during the celebration of the different sports and pastimes.\nThe universities, the lord mayor and sheriffs, and all noblemen and\ngentlemen, had their \"lords of misrule.\" These \"lords\" were first\npreached against at Cambridge by the Puritans, in the reign of James\nI., as unbecoming the gravity of the university.\n\n[Illustration: The Lord of Misrule.]\n\nThe custom of serving boars' heads at Christmas bears an ancient date,\nand much ceremony and parade has been occasionally attached to it.\nHenry II. \"served his son (upon the young prince's coronation) at the\ntable as server, bringing up the _boar's head_ with trumpets before it.\"\n\nThe custom of strolling from street to street with musical instruments\nand singing seems to have originated from a very ancient practice\nwhich prevailed, of certain minstrels who were attached to the king's\ncourt and other great persons, who paraded the streets, and sounded the\nhour--thus acting as a sort of watchmen. Some slight remains of these\nstill exist, but they no longer partake of the authoritative claim\nas they originally did, as the \"lord mayor's music,\" &c. It may not,\nperhaps, be generally known, that even at the present day \"waits\" are\nregularly sworn before the \"court of burgesses\" at Westminster, and act\nunder the authority of a warrant, signed by the clerk, and sealed with\nthe arms of the city and liberty; in addition to which, they were bound\nto provide themselves with a silver badge, also bearing the arms of\nWestminster.\n\nIn the north they have their _Yule log_, or _Yuletide log_, which is\na huge log burning in the chimney corner, whilst the Yule cakes are\nbaked on a \"girdle,\" (a kind of frying-pan) over the fire; little lads\nand maidens assemble nightly at some neighbouring friends to hear the\ngoblin story, and join in \"fortune-telling,\" or some game. There is a\npart of an old song which runs thus:\n\n    \"Now all our neighbours' chimneys smoke.\n       And _Christmas logs_ are burning;\n     Their ovens they with baked meate choke,\n       And all their spits are turning.\"\n\nAmong the plants usual to Christmas are the rosemary, the holly, and\nthe mistletoe. Gay says:\n\n    \"When _rosemary_ and _bays_, the poet's crown,\n     Are bawled in frequent cries through all the town,\n     Then judge the festival of Christmas near--\n     Christmas, the joyous period of the year.\n     Now with bright _holly_ all your temples strow,\n     With _laurel_ green and sacred _mistletoe_.\"\n\n\nA MERMAN.\n\n\"The wind being easterly, we had thirty fathoms of water, when at ten\no'clock in the morning a sea monster like a man appeared near our ship,\nfirst on the larboard, where the master was, whose name is William\nLomone, who took a grappling iron to pull him up; but our captain,\nnamed Oliver Morin, hindered him, being afraid that the monster would\ndrag him away into the sea. The said Lomone struck him on the back, to\nmake him turn about, that he might view him the better. The monster,\nbeing struck, showed his face, having his two hands closed as if he\nhad expressed some anger. Afterwards he went round the ship: when he\nwas at the stern, he took hold of the helm with both hands, and we\nwere obliged to make it fast lest he should damage it. From thence he\nproceeded to the starboard, swimming still as men do. When he came\nto the forepart of the ship, he viewed for some time the figure that\nwas in our prow, which represented a beautiful woman, and then he\nrose out of the water as if he had been willing to catch that figure.\nAll this happened in the sight of the whole crew. Afterwards he came\nagain to the larboard, where they presented to him a cod-fish hanging\ndown with a rope; he handled it without spoiling it, and then removed\nthe length of a cable and came again to the stern, where he took hold\nof the helm a second time. At that very moment, Captain Morin got a\nharping-iron ready, and took it himself to strike him with it; but\nthe cordage being entangled, he missed his aim, and the harping-iron\ntouched only the monster, who turned about, showing his face, as he\nhad done before. Afterwards he came again to the fore part, and viewed\nagain the figure in our prow. The mate called for the harping-iron; but\nhe was frightened, fancying that this monster was one La Commune, who\nhad killed himself in the ship the year before, and had been thrown\ninto the sea in the same passage. He was contented to push his back\nwith the harping-iron, and then the monster showed his face, as he had\ndone at other times. Afterwards he came along the board, so that one\nmight have given him the hand. He had the boldness to take a rope held\nup by John Mazier and John Deffiete, who being willing to pluck it out\nof his hands, drew him to our board; but he fell into the water and\nthen removed at the distance of a gun's shot. He came again immediately\nnear our board, and rising out of the water to the navel, we observed\nthat his breast was as large as that of a woman of the best plight.\nHe turned upon his back and appeared to be a male. Afterwards he swam\nagain round the ship, and then went away, and we have never seen him\nsince. I believe that from ten o'clock till twelve that this monster\nwas along our board; if the crew had not been frighted, he might have\nbeen taken many times with the hand, being only two feet distant.\nThat monster is about eight feet long, his skin is brown and tawny,\nwithout any scales, all his motions are like those of men, the eyes\nof a proportionable size, a little mouth, a large and flat nose, very\nwhite teeth, black hair, the chin covered with a mossy beard, a sort of\nwhiskers under the nose, the ears like those of men, fins between the\nfingers of his hands and feet like those of ducks. In a word, he is a\nwell-shaped man. Which is certified to be true by Captain Oliver Morin,\nand John Martin, pilot, and by the whole crew, consisting of two and\nthirty men.\"--_An article from Brest, in the Memoirs of Trevoux._--This\nmonster was mentioned in the Gazette of Amsterdam, October 12, 1725,\nwhere it is said it was seen in the ocean in August, same year.\n\n\nA SHAVED BEAR.\n\nAt Bristol I saw a shaved monkey shown for a fairy; and a shaved\nbear, in a check waistcoat and trousers, sitting in a great chair\nas an Ethiopian savage. This was the most cruel fraud I ever saw.\nThe unnatural position of the beast, and the damnable brutality of\nthe woman-keeper who sat upon his knee, put her arm round his neck,\ncalled him husband and sweet-heart, and kissed him, made it the most\ndisgusting spectacle I ever witnessed! Cottle was with me.--_Southey._\n\n\nTHE ORIGIN OF WIGS.\n\nAs for the origin of wigs, the honour of the invention is attributed\nto the luxurious Sapygians in Southern Italy. The Louvain theologians,\nwho published a French version of the Bible, affected, however, to\ndiscover the first mention of perukes in a passage in the fourth\nchapter of Isaiah. The Vulgate has these words: \"Decalvabit Dominus\nverticem filiarum Sion, et Dominus crinem earum nudabit.\" This, the\nLouvain gentlemen translated into French as follows: \"Le Seigneur\ndechevelera les tetes des filles de Sion, et le Seigneur decouvrira\nleurs perruques;\" which, done into English, implies that \"The Lord will\npluck the hair from the heads of the daughters of Sion, and will expose\ntheir periwigs.\"\n\n\nDRESS IN 1772.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Maccaronies.]\n\nThe year 1772 introduced a new style for gentlemen, imported by a\nnumber of young men of fashion who had travelled into Italy, and\nformed an association called the Maccaroni Club, in contradistinction\nto the Beef-steak Club of London. Hence these new-fashioned dandies\nwere styled Maccaronies, a name that was afterwards applied to ladies\nof the same genus. The accompanying cut delineates the peculiarities\nof both. The hair of the gentleman was dressed in an enormous toupee,\nwith very large curls at the sides; while behind it was gathered and\ntied up into an enormous club, or knot, that rested on the back of\nthe neck like a porter's knot; upon this an exceedingly small hat\nwas worn, which was sometimes lifted from the head with the cane,\ngenerally very long, and decorated with extremely large silk tassels;\na full white handkerchief was tied in a large bow round the neck;\nfrills from the shirt-front projected from the top of the waistcoat,\nwhich was much shortened, reaching very little below the waist, and\nbeing without the flap-covered pockets. The coat was also short,\nreaching only to the hips, fitting closely, having a small turn-over\ncollar as now worn; it was edged with lace or braid, or decorated\nwith frog-buttons, tassels, or embroidery; the breeches were tight,\nof spotted or striped silk, with enormous bunches of strings at the\nknee. A watch was carried in each pocket, from which hung bunches of\nchains and seals: silk stockings and small shoes with little diamond\nbuckles completed the gentleman's dress. The ladies decorated their\nheads much like the gentlemen, with a most enormous heap of hair, which\nwas frequently surmounted by plumes of large feathers and bunches of\nflowers, until the head seemed to overbalance the body. The gown was\nopen in front; hoops were discarded except in full-dress; and the gown\ngradually spread outward from the waist, and trailed upon the ground\nbehind, shewing the rich laced petticoat ornamented with flowers and\nneedlework; the sleeves widened to the elbow, where a succession of\nruffles and lappets, each wider than the other, hung down below the\nhips.\n\n\nCHRISTMAS OBSERVANCES PUT DOWN BY THE PURITANS.\n\nDuring the Commonwealth, when puritanical feelings held iron sway\nover the rulers of the land, and rode rampant in high places, many\nstrong attempts were made to put down what they were pleased to term\nsuperstitious festivals, and amongst these was that of Christmas\nDay. So determined was the Puritan party to sweep away all vestiges\nof evil creeds and evil deeds, that they were resolved to make one\ngrand attempt upon the time-honoured season of Christmas. The Holly\nand the Mistletoe-bough were to be cut up root and branch, as plants\nof the Evil One. Cakes and Ale were held to be impious libations to\nsuperstition; and the Roundheads would have none of it.\n\n[Illustration: Proclaiming the Non-observance of Christmas.]\n\nAccordingly, we learn that, in the year 1647, the Cromwell party\nordered throughout the principal towns and cities of the country, by\nthe mouth of the common crier, that Christmas Day should no longer\nbe observed--it being a superstitious and hurtful custom; and that\nin place thereof, and the more effectually to work a change, markets\nshould be held on the 25th day of December.\n\nThis was attacking the people, especially the country folks, in\ntheir most sensitive part. It was hardly to be expected that they\nwould quietly submit to such a bereavement; nor did they, as the\nstill-existing \"News-letters\" of those days amply testify.\n\n\nTHE MANNER OF WATCHMEN INTIMATING THE CLOCK AT HERRENHUTH IN GERMANY.\n\n  VIII. Past eight o'clock! O, Herrenhuth, do thou ponder;\n        Eight souls in Noah's ark were living yonder.\n\n  IX.   'Tis nine o'clock! ye brethren, hear it striking;\n        Keep hearts and houses clean, to our Saviour's liking.\n\n  X.    Now, brethren, hear, the clock is ten and passing;\n        None rest but such as wait for Christ embracing.\n\n  XI.   Eleven is past! still at this hour eleven,\n        The Lord is calling us from earth to heaven.\n\n  XII.  Ye brethren, hear, the midnight clock is humming;\n        At midnight, our great Bridegroom will be coming.\n\n  I.    Past one o'clock; the day breaks out of darkness:\n        Great Morning-star appear, and break our hardness!\n\n  II.   'Tis two! on Jesus wait this silent season,\n        Ye two so near related, will and reason.\n\n  III.  The clock is three! the blessed Three doth merit\n        The best of praise, from body, soul, and spirit.\n\n  IV.   'Tis four o'clock, when three make supplication,\n        The Lord will be the fourth on that occasion.\n\n  V.    Five is the clock! five virgins were discarded,\n        When five with wedding garments were rewarded.\n\n  VI.   The clock is six, and I go off my station;\n        Now, brethren, _watch yourselves for your salvation_.\n\n\nA DOG EXTINGUISHING A FIRE.\n\nOn the evening of the 21st February, 1822, the shop of Mr. Coxon,\nchandler, at the Folly, Sandgate, in Newcastle, was left in charge of\nhis daughter, about nine years of age, and a large mastiff, which is\ngenerally kept there as a safeguard since an attempt was made to rob\nthe shop. The child had on a straw bonnet lined with silk, which took\nfire from coming too near the candle. She endeavoured to pull it off,\nbut being tied, she could not effect her purpose, and in her terror\nshrieked out, on which the mastiff instantly sprang to her assistance,\nand with mouth and paws completely smothered out the flame by pressing\nthe bonnet together. The lining of the bonnet and the child's hair only\nwere burnt.\n\n\nCAMBRIDGE CLODS.\n\nAbout sixty years since, two characters, equally singular in their way,\nresided at Cambridge: Paris, a well-known bookseller, and Jackson, a\nbookbinder, and principal bass-singer at Trinity College Chapel in that\nUniversity; these two gentlemen, who were both remarkably corpulent,\nwere such small consumers in the article of bread, that their\nabstemiousness in that particular was generally noticed; but, to make\namends, they gave way to the greatest excess and indulgence of their\nappetites in meat, poultry, and fish, of almost every description. So\none day, having taken an excursion, in walking a few miles from home,\nthey were overtaken by hunger, and, on entering a public-house, the\nonly provision they could procure was a clod of beef, weighing near\nfourteen pounds, which had been a day or two in salt; and this these\ntwo moderate bread consumers contrived to manage between them broiled,\nassisted by a due proportion of buttered potatoes and pickles. The\nlandlord of the house, having some knowledge of his guests, the story\ngot into circulation, and the two worthies were ever after denominated\nthe Cambridge Clods!\n\n\nWITCH-TESTING AT NEWCASTLE IN 1649.\n\nMarch 26.--Mention occurs of a petition in the common council books\nof Newcastle, of this date, and signed, no doubt, by the inhabitants,\nconcerning witches, the purport of which appears, from what followed,\nto have been to cause all such persons as were suspected of that crime\nto be apprehended and brought to trial. In consequence of this, the\nmagistrates sent two of their sergeants, viz.--Thomas Shevill and\nCuthbert Nicholson, into Scotland, to agree with a Scotchman, who\npretended knowledge to find out witches, by pricking them with pins, to\ncome to Newcastle, where he should try such who should be brought to\nhim, and to have twenty shillings a piece, for all he should condemn as\nwitches, and free passage thither and back again. When the sergeants\nhad brought the said witch-finder on horseback to town, the magistrates\nsent their bellman through the town, ringing his bell and crying,\nall people that would bring in any complaint against any woman for a\nwitch, they should be sent for, and tried by the person appointed.\nThirty women were brought into the town-hall, and stripped, and then\nopenly had pins thrust into their bodies, and most of them were found\nguilty. The said reputed witch-finder acquainted Lieutenant-Colonel\nPaul Hobson, deputy-governor of Newcastle, that he knew women whether\nthey were witches or no by their looks; and when the said person\nwas searching of a personable and good-like woman, the said colonel\nreplied, and said, surely this woman is none, and need not be tried,\nbut the Scotchman said she was, and, therefore, he would try her; and\npresently, in the sight of all the people, laid her body naked to the\nwaist, with her cloathes over her head, by which fright and shame all\nher blood contracted into one part of her body, and then he ran a pin\ninto her thigh, and then suddenly let her cloathes fall, and then\ndemanded whether she had nothing of his in her body, but did not bleed!\nbut she being amazed, replied little; then he put his hands up her\ncloathes and pulled out the pin, and set her aside as a guilty person,\nand child of the devil, and fell to try others, whom he made guilty.\nLieutenant-Colonel Hobson, perceiving the alteration of the aforesaid\nwoman, by her blood settling in her right parts, caused that woman to\nbe brought again, and her cloathes pulled up to her thigh, and required\nthe Scot to run the pin into the same place, and then it gushed out of\nblood, and the said Scot cleared her, and said she was not a child of\nthe devil. The witch-finder set aside twenty-seven out of the thirty\nsuspected persons, and in consequence, fourteen witches and one wizard,\nbelonging to Newcastle, were executed on the town moor.\n\n\nALEXANDER SELKIRK AND THE DANCING GOATS.\n\nThe adventures of Alexander Selkirk, an English sailor, who, more than\none hundred and fifty years since, was left alone on the island of Juan\nFernandez are very wonderful.\n\nThis extraordinary man sought to beguile his solitude by rearing kids,\nand he would often sing to them, and dance with his motley group around\nhim. His clothes having worn out, he dressed himself in garments made\nfrom the skins of such as run wild about the island; these he sewed\ntogether with thongs of the same material. His only needle was a long\nslender nail; and when his knife was no longer available, he made an\nadmirable substitute from an iron hoop that was cast ashore.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Alexander Selkirk.]\n\nUpon the wonderful sojourn of this man, Defoe founded his exquisite\ntale of \"Robinson Crusoe,\" a narrative more extensively read and better\nknown than perhaps any other ever written.\n\n\nJACOB BOBART.\n\nA curious anecdote of Jacob Bobart, keeper of the physic garden at\nOxford, occurs in one of Grey's notes to _Hudibras_--\"He made a dead\nrat resemble the common picture of dragons, by altering its head and\ntail, and thrusting in taper sharp sticks, which, distended the skin on\neach side till it resembled wings. He let it dry as hard as possible.\nThe learned immediately pronounced it a dragon; and one of them sent\nan accurate description of it to Dr. Magliabecchi, librarian to the\nGrand Duke of Tuscany; several fine copies of verses were wrote on so\nrare a subject; but at last Mr. Bobart owned the cheat. However, it was\nlooked upon as a masterpiece of the art; and, as such, deposited in the\nMuseum.\"\n\n\nBLIND JACK.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Blind Jack.]\n\nThe streets of London, in the reigns of Queen Anne and Georges I. and\nII., were infested with all sorts of paupers, vagabonds, impostors,\nand common adventurers; and many, who otherwise might be considered\nreal objects of charity, by their disgusting manners and general\nappearance in public places, rather merited the interference of the\nparish beadles, and the discipline of Bridewell, than the countenance\nand encouragement of such persons as mostly congregated around common\nstreet exhibitions. One-eyed Granny and Blind Jack were particular\nnuisances to the neighbourhoods in which the first practised her\nmad-drunk gambols, and the latter his beastly manner of performing on\nthe flageolet. John Keiling, alias _Blind Jack_, having the misfortune\nto lose his sight, thought of a strange method to insure himself a\nlivelihood. He was constitutionally a hale, robust fellow, without\nany complaint, saving blindness, and having learnt to play a little\non the flageolet, he conceived a notion that, by performing on that\ninstrument in a different way to that generally practised, he should\nrender himself more noticed by the public, and be able to levy larger\ncontributions on their pockets.\n\nThe manner of _Blind Jack's_ playing the flageolet was by obtruding\nthe mouthpiece of the instrument up one of his nostrils, and, by long\ncustom, he could produce as much wind as most others with their lips\ninto the pipe; but the continued contortion and gesticulation of his\nmuscles and countenance rendered him an object of derision and disgust,\nas much as that of charity and commiseration.\n\n\nTHE YORKSHIRE TIKE.\n\n    Ah iz i truth a country youth,\n    Neean us'd teea Lunnon fashions;\n    Yet vartue guides, an' still presides,\n    Ower all mah steps an' passions.\n\n    Neea coortly leear, bud all sincere,\n    Neea bribe shall ivver blinnd me,\n    If thoo can like a Yorkshire tike,\n    A rooague thoo'll nivver finnd me.\n\n    Thof envy's tung, seea slimlee hung,\n    Wad lee aboot oor country,\n    Neea men o' t' eearth booast greter wurth,\n    Or mare extend ther boounty.\n\n    Oor northern breeze wi' uz agrees,\n    An' does for wark weel fit uz;\n    I' public cares, an' all affairs,\n    Wi' honour we acquit uz.\n\n    Seea gret a moind is ne'er confiand,\n    Tu onny shire or nation;\n    They geean meeast praise weea weel displays\n    A leearned iddicasion.\n\n    Whahl rancour rolls i' lahtle souls,\n    By shallo views dissarning,\n    They're nobbut wise 'at awlus prize\n    Gud manners, sense, and leearnin.\n\n\nTWO OF THE FATHERS ON FALSE HAIR.\n\nTertullian says, \"If you will not fling away your false hair, as\nhateful to Heaven, cannot I make it hateful to yourselves, by reminding\nyou that the false hair you wear may have come not only from a\ncriminal, but from a very dirty head; perhaps from the head of one\nalready damned?\" This was a very hard hit indeed; but it was not nearly\nso clever a stroke at wigs as that dealt by Clemens of Alexandria. The\nlatter informed the astounded wig-wearers, when they knelt at church\nto receive the blessing, that they must be good enough to recollect\nthat the benediction remained on the wig, and did not pass through\nto the wearer! This was a stumbling-block to the people; many of\nwhom, however, retained the peruke, and took their chance as to the\npercolating through it of the benediction.\n\n\nFOOD OF ANIMALS.\n\nLinnaeus states the cow to eat 276 plants, and to refuse 218; the goat\neats 449, and declines 126; the sheep takes 387, and rejects 141;\nthe horse likes 262, and avoids 212; but the hog, more nice in its\nprovision than any of the former, eats but 72 plants, and rejects 171.\n\n\nSLAVE ADVERTISEMENTS.\n\nThe following announcements are curious, as showing the merchandise\nlight in which the <DW64> was regarded in America while yet a colony of\nGreat Britain:--\n\n  _FRANCIS LEWIS, Has for SALE_,\n\n  A Choice Parcel of Muscovado and Powder Sugars, in Hogsheads,\n  Tierces, and Barrels; Ravens, Duck, and a <DW64> Woman and <DW64>\n  Boy.--The Coach-House and Stables, with or without the Garden\n  Spot, formerly the Property of Joseph Murray, Esq; in the Broad\n  Way, to be let separately or together:--Inquire of said Francis\n  Lewis.\n\n  _New York Gazette_, Apr. 25, 1765.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  This Day Run away from _John M' Comb_, Junier, an Indian Woman,\n  about 17 Years of Age, Pitted in the face, of a middle Stature and\n  Indifferent fatt, having on her a Drugat, Wastcoat, and Kersey\n  Petticoat, of a Light Collour. If any Person or Persons, shall\n  bring the said Girle to her said Master, shall be Rewarded for\n  their Trouble to their Content.\n\n  _American Weekly Mercury_, May 24, 1726.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  A Female <DW64> Child (of an extraordinary good Breed) to be given\n  away; Inquire of Edes and Gill.\n\n  _Boston Gazette_, Feb. 25, 1765.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  _To be Sold, for want of Employ._\n\n  A Likely <DW64> Fellow, about 25 Years of Age, he is an\n  extraordinary good Cook, and understands setting or tending a\n  Table very well, likewise all Kind of House Work, such as washing,\n  scouring, scrubbing, &c. Also a <DW64> Wench his Wife, about 17\n  Years old, born in this City, and understands all Sorts of House\n  Work. For farther Particulars inquire of the Printer.\n\n  _New York Gazette_, Mar. 21, 1765.\n\n\nPRESERVATIVE POWER OF COAL-PIT WATER.\n\nThe following is extracted from the register of St. Andrew's, in\nNewcastle:--\"April 24th, 1695, wear buried, James Archer and his son\nStephen, who, in the moneth of May, 1658, were drowned in a coal-pit\nin the Galla-Flat, by the breaking in of water from an old waste. The\nbodys were found intire, after they had lyen in the water 36 years and\n11 months.\"\n\n\nTHE QUEEN BEE.\n\nReaumur relates the following anecdote of which he was a witness:--A\nqueen bee, and some of her attendants, were apparently drowned in a\nbrook. He took them out of the water, and found that neither the queen\nbee, nor her attendants were quite dead. Reaumur exposed them to a\ngentle heat, by which they were revived. The plebeian bees recovered\nfirst. The moment they saw signs of animation in their queen, they\napproached her, and bestowed upon her all the care in their power,\nlicking and rubbing her; and when the queen had acquired sufficient\nforce to move, they hummed aloud, as if in triumph!\n\n\nDREAM OF KING HENRY I.\n\nA singular dream, which happened to this monarch when passing over\nto Normandy in 1130, has been depicted in a manuscript of Florence\nof Worcester, in Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The rapacity and\noppressive taxation of his government, and the reflection forced on\nhim by his own unpopular measures, may have originated the vision. He\nimagined himself to have been visited by the representatives of the\nthree most important grades of society--the husbandmen, the knights,\nand the clergy--who gathered round his bed, and so fearfully menaced\nhim, that he awoke in great alarm, and, seizing his sword, loudly\ncalled for his attendants. The drawings that accompany this narrative,\nand represent each of these visions, appear to have been executed\nshortly afterwards, and are valuable illustrations of the general\ncostume of the period. One of them is introduced in this place.\n\n[Illustration: [++] King Henry I. Dreaming.]\n\nThe king is here seen sleeping; behind him stand three husbandmen,\none carrying a scythe, another a pitchfork, and the third a shovel.\nThey are each dressed in simple tunics, without girdles, with plain\nclose-fitting sleeves; the central one has a mantle fastened by a\nplain brooch, leaving the right arm free. The beards of two of these\nfigures are as ample as those of their lords, this being an article\nof fashionable indulgence within their means. The one with the scythe\nwears a hat not unlike the felt hat still worn by his descendants in\nthe same grade: the scroll in his left hand is merely placed there to\ncontain the words he is supposed to utter to the king.\n\n\nSEPULCHRAL BARROW OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.\n\nThe engraving on the next page is copied from a plate in Douglas's\n_Neniae_ and represents one of the most ancient of the Kentish barrows\nopened by him in the Chatham Lines, Sept. 1779; and it will enable the\nreader at once to understand the structure of these early graves, and\nthe interesting nature of their contents. The outer circle marks the\nextent of the mound covering the body, and which varied considerably in\nelevation, sometimes being but a few inches or a couple of feet from\nthe level of the ground, at others of a gigantic structure. In the\ncentre of the mound, and at the depth of a few feet from the surface,\nan oblong rectangular grave is cut, the space between that and the\nouter circle being filled in with chalk, broken into small bits, and\ndeposited carefully and firmly around and over the grave. The grave\ncontained the body of a male adult, tall and well-proportioned, holding\nin his right hand a spear, the shaft of which was of wood, and had\nperished, leaving only the iron head, 15 inches in length, and at the\nbottom a flat iron stud (_a_), having, a small pin in the centre, which\nwould appear to have been driven into the bottom of the spear-handle;\nan iron knife lay by the right side, with remains of the original\nhandle of wood. Adhering to its under side were very discernible\nimpressions of coarse linen cloth, showing that the warrior was buried\nin full costume. An iron sword is on the left side, thirty-five and\na quarter inches in its entire length, from the point to the bottom\nof the handle, which is all in one piece, the wood-work which covered\nthe handle having perished; the blade thirty inches in length and two\nin breadth, flat, double-edged, and sharp-pointed, a great portion of\nwood covering the blade, which indicates that it was buried with a\nscabbard, the external covering being of leather, the internal of wood.\nA leathern strap passed round the waist, from which hung the knife and\nsword, and which was secured by the brass buckle (_b_), which was found\nnear the last bone of the vertebrae, or close to the os sacrum. Between\nthe thigh-bones lay the iron umbo of a shield, which had been fastened\nby studs of iron, four of which were found near it, the face and\nreverse of one being represented at (_c_.) A thin plate of iron (_d_),\nfour and a half inches in length, lay exactly under the centre of the\numbo, having two rivets at the end, between which and the umbo were\nthe remnants of the original wooden (and perhaps hide-bound) shield;\nthe rivets of the umbo having apparently passed through the wood to\nthis plate as its bracer or stay. In a recess at the feet was placed a\nvase of red earth, slightly ornamented round the neck with concentric\ncircles and zigzag lines.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Anglo-Saxon Sepulchral Barrow.]\n\n\nAN OLD GANDER.\n\nWilloughby states in his work on Ornithology, that a friend of his\npossessed a gander eighty years of age; which in the end became so\nferocious that they were forced to kill it, in consequence of the\nhavock it committed in the barn-yard. He also talks of a swan three\ncenturies old; and several celebrated parrots are said to have attained\nfrom one hundred to one hundred and fifty years.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY SLEEPER.\n\nM. Brady, Physician to Prince Charles of Lorraine, gives the following\nparticulars of an extraordinary sleeper:--\n\n\"A woman, named Elizabeth Alton, of a healthful strong constitution,\nwho had been servant to the curate of St. Guilain, near the town\nof Mons, about the beginning of the year 1738, when she was about\nthirty-six years of age grew extremely restless and melancholy. In\nthe month of August, in the same year, she fell into a sleep which\nheld four days, notwithstanding all possible endeavours to awake her.\nAt length she awoke naturally, but became more restless and uneasy\nthan before; for six or seven days, however, she resumed her usual\nemployments, until she fell asleep again, which continued eighteen\nhours. From that time to the year 1753, which is fifteen years, she\nfell asleep daily about three o'clock in the morning, without waking\nuntil about eight or nine at night. In 1754 indeed her sleep returned\nto the natural periods for four months, and, in 1748, a tertian ague\nprevented her sleeping for three weeks. On February 20, 1755, M. Brady,\nwith a surgeon, went to see her. About five o'clock in the evening,\nthey found her pulse extremely regular; on taking hold of her arm it\nwas so rigid, that it was not bent without much trouble. They then\nattempted to lift up her head, but her neck and back were as stiff as\nher arms. He hallooed in her ear as loud as his voice could reach; he\nthrust a needle into her flesh up to the bone; he put a piece of rag\nto her nose flaming with spirits of wine, and let it burn some time,\nyet all without being able to disturb her in the least. At length, in\nabout six hours and a half, her limbs began to relax; in eight hours\nshe turned herself in the bed, and then suddenly raised herself up,\nsat down by the fire, ate heartily, and began to spin. At other times,\nthey whipped her till the blood came; they rubbed her back with honey,\nand then exposed it to the stings of bees; they thrust nails under her\nfinger-nails; and it seems these triers of experiments consulted more\nthe gratifying their own curiosity than the recovery of the unhappy\nobject of the malady.\"\n\n\nA FAT ENGLISHMAN.\n\nKeysler, in his travels, speaks of a corpulent Englishman, who in\npassing through Savoy, was obliged to make use of twelve chairmen. He\nis said to have weighed five hundred and fifty pounds, or thirty-nine\nstone four pounds.\n\n\nA HAPPY FAMILY.\n\nA gentleman travelling through Mecklenburg, some years since, witnessed\na singular association of incongruous animals. After dinner, the\nlandlord of the inn placed on the floor a large dish of soup, and gave\na loud whistle. Immediately there came into the room a mastiff, an\nAngora cat, an old raven, and a remarkably large rat, with a bell about\nits neck. They all four went to the dish, and, without disturbing each\nother, fed together; after which the dog, cat, and rat, lay before\nthe fire, while the raven hopped about the room. The landlord, after\naccounting for the familiarity of these animals, informed his guest\nthat the rat was the most useful of the four; for the noise he made had\ncompletely freed his house from the rats and mice with which it was\nbefore infested.\n\n\nANCIENT FIRE-ARMS IN THE TOWER OF LONDON ARMORY.\n\nWe have just now before us a drawing of an old piece of ordnance,\nformed of bars of iron, strongly hooped with the same material, which\nforms a striking contrast with the finely-wrought cannons which may be\nseen in store at Woolwich Arsenal, and elsewhere, at the present day.\nThe exact date and manner of the introduction of cannon is a matter\nwhich has caused much dispute. The earliest mention of the use of\ncannon on shipboard is in Rymer's \"Foedera.\" It is an order to Henry\nSomer, Keeper of the Private Wardrobe in the Tower, to deliver to Mr.\nGoveney, Treasurer to Queen Philippa, Queen of Sweeden, Denmark, and\nNorway, (who was then sent by her uncle, Henry the Fourth, to her\nhusband, in the ship called the Queen's Hall,) the following military\nstores: 11 guns, 40 petras pro gunnes, 40 tumpers, 4 torches, 1 mallet,\n2 fire-pans, 40 pavys, 24 bows, 40 sheaves of arrows.\n\nAfter the old cannon composed of bars of iron, hooped together, had\nbeen some time in use, hand-cannon, a simple tube fixed on a straight\nstake, was used in warfare, charged with gunpowder and an iron bullet.\nThis was made with trunnions and casabel precisely like the large\ncannon. In course of time, the touch-hole was improved, and the barrel\ncast in brass. This, fixed to a rod, had much the appearance of a large\nsky-rocket. What is now called the stock was originally called the\nframe of the gun.\n\nVarious improvements were from time to time made in the hand-gun,\namongst which was a pan fixed for containing the touch-powder. In rainy\nweather, this became a receptacle for water; to obviate which, a small\npiece of brass made to turn on a pin was placed as a cover. This done,\nthere was a difficulty in preserving the aim in consequence of the\nliability of the eye to be diverted from the sight by the motion of the\nright hand when conveying the lighted match to the priming. This was,\nto a certain extent, prevented by a piece of brass being fixed to the\nbreech and perforated. The improved plan for holding the lighted match\nfor firing the hand-guns is shown in the engraving of the Buckler and\nPistol; it consists of a thin piece of metal something in shape of an S\nreversed, the upper part slit to hold the match, the lower pushed up by\nthe hand when entended to ignite the powder.\n\nAfter the invention of the hand-cannon, its use became general in a\nvery short space of time in most parts of the civilized world.\n\nPhilip de Comines, in his account of the battle of Morat, in 1476, says\nhe encountered in the confederate army 10,000 _arquebusiers_.\n\nThe arquebusiers in Hans Burgmain's plates of the \"Triumph of\nMaximilian the First,\" have suspended from their necks large powder\nflasks or horns, a bullet bag on the right hip, and a sword on the\nleft, while they carry the matchlock in their hands.\n\nHenry the Eighth's Walking-stick, as the Yeomen of Guard at the Tower\ncall it, is a short spiked mace, in the head of which are three short\nguns or pistols, which may be fired at very primitive touch-holes by a\nmatch.\n\nThe Revolver has four barrels, and although clumsy in construction, is\nnot very different in principles from those recently introduced.\n\n[Illustration: 1. Henry the Eighth's Walking-stick. 2. A Revolver of\nthe Fifteenth century. 3. Buckler, with Pistol inserted.]\n\nThe use of the pistol inserted inside the buckler is obvious as the\nlatter affords protection to the person while using the former.\n\n\nWIGS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Wigs.]\n\nIn 1772 the Maccaronies, as the exquisites of that time were called,\nwore wigs similar to 1, 2, 3, with a large toupee, noticed as early as\n1731, in the play of the _Modern Husband_: \"I meet with nothing but a\nparcel of _toupet_ coxcombs, who plaster up their brains upon their\nperiwigs,\" alluding to the pometum with which they were covered. Those\nworn by the ladies in 1772 are given as 4, showing the rows of curls at\nthe sides. The pig-tails were worn hanging down the back, or tied up in\na knot behind, as in 5. About 1780 the hair which formed it was allowed\nto stream in a long lock down the back, as in 6, and soon afterwards\nwas turned up in a knot behind. Towards the end of the century, the\nwig, as a general and indispensable article of attire to young and old,\nwent out of fashion.\n\n\nA FALSE FIND.\n\nAt Falmouth, some years ago, the sexton found coal in digging a grave;\nhe concluded it must be a mine, and ran with the news and the specimen\nto the clergyman. The surgeon explained that they had stolen a French\nprisoner who died, and filled his coffin with coal that the bearers\nmight not discover its emptiness.\n\n\nBELLS.\n\nAs far back as the Anglo-Saxon times, before the conclusion of the\nseventh century, bells had been in use in the churches of this country,\nparticularly in the monastic societies of Northumbria; and were,\ntherefore, in use from the first erection of parish churches among us.\nThose of France and England appear to have been furnished with several\nbells. In the time of Clothaire II., King of France, and in the year\n610, the army of that king was frightened from the siege of the city of\nSens, by ringing the bells of St. Stephen's Church. They were sometimes\ncomposed of iron in France; and in England, as formerly at Rome, they\nwere frequently made of brass. And as early as the ninth century many\nwere cast of a large size and deep note.\n\nWeever, in his work on funeral monuments, says--\"In the little\nsanctuary at Westminster, King Edward III., erected a clochier, and\nplaced therein three bells, for the use of St. Stephen's Chapel. About\nthe biggest of them were cast in the metal these words:--\n\n    \"King Edward made mee thirty thousand weight and three;\n     Take me down and wey mee, and more you shall find mee.\"\n\n\"But these bells being taken down in the reign of Henry VIII., one\nwrote underneath with a coal:--\n\n    \"But Henry the Eight,\n     Will bait me of my weight.\"\n\nThis last distich alludes to a fact mentioned by Stow, in his survey\nof London--ward of Farringdon Within to wit--that near to St. Paul's\nSchool stood a clochier, in which were four bells, called _Jesus'\nbells_, the greatest in all England, against which Sir Miles Partridge\nstaked an hundred pounds, and won them of Henry VIII., at a cast of\ndice.\n\nMatthew Paris observes, that anciently the use of bells was prohibited\nin time of mourning. Mabillon adds, that it was an old practice to\nring the bells for persons about to expire, to advertise the people\nto pray for them--whence our passing-bell. The passing-bell, indeed,\nwas anciently for two purposes--one to bespeak the prayers of all good\nChristians for a soul just departing; the other to drive away the evil\nspirits who were supposed to stand at the bed's foot.\n\nThis dislike of spirits to bells is mentioned in the Golden Legend, by\nWynkyn de Worde. \"It is said, evill spirytes that ben in the regyon\nof thayre, doubte moche when they here the belles rongen; and this is\nthe cause why the belles ben rongen when it thondreth, and when grete\ntempeste and outrages of wether happen; to the ende that the fiends and\nwycked spirytes shold be abashed and flee, and cease of the movynge of\ntempeste.\" Another author observes, that the custom of ringing bells at\nthe approach of thunder is of some antiquity; but that the design was\nnot so much to shake the air, and so dissipate the thunder, as to call\nthe people to church, to pray that the parish might be preserved from\nthe terrible effect of lightning.\n\nWarner, in his history of Hampshire, enumerates the virtues of a bell,\nby translating the lines from the \"Helpe to Discourse:--\n\n    \"Men's death's I tell by doleful knell;\n     Lightning and thunder I break asunder.\n     On Sabbath all to church I call;\n     The sleepy head I raise from bed;\n     The winds so fierce I doe disperse;\n     Men's cruel rage I doe assuage.\"\n\n[Illustration: The Curfew Bell.]\n\nFour of the bells of the ancient Abbey of Hexham were dedicated or\nbaptised; and although the old bells no longer exist, the legends upon\nthe whole six have been preserved, and a free translation given by Mr.\nWright, is as follows:--\n\n    1. Even at our earliest sound,\n       The light of God is spread around.\n\n    2. At the echo of my voice,\n       Ocean, earth and air, rejoice.\n\n    3. Blend thy mellow tones with mine,\n       Silver voice of Catherine!\n\n    4. Till time on ruin's lap shall nod.\n       John shall sound the praise of God.\n\n    5. With John in heavenly harmony,\n       Andrew, pour thy melody.\n\n    6. Be mine to chant Jehovah's fame,\n       While Maria is my name.\n\nThese epigraphs or legends on bells, are not uncommon. The Rev. W. C.\nLukis, in his notices on church bells, read at the Wilts Archaeological\nMeeting, gave the following instances:--\n\nAt Aldbourne, on the first bell, we read, \"The gift of Jos. Pizzie and\nWm. Gwynn.\n\n    \"Music and ringing we like so well,\n     And for that reason we gave this bell.\"\n\nOn the fourth bell is,--\n\n    \"Humphry Symsin gave xx pound to buy this bell,\n     And the parish gave xx more to make this ring go well.\"\n\nA not uncommon epigraph is,--\n\n    \"Come when I call\n     To serve God all.\"\n\nAt Chilton Foliatt, on the tenor, is,--\n\n    \"Into the church the living I call,\n     And to the grave I summon all.\n     Attend the instruction which I give,\n     That so you may for ever live.\"\n\nAt Devizes, St. Mary, on the first bell, is,--\n\n    \"I am the first, altho' but small.\n     I will be heard above you all.\"\n\nAnd on the second bell is,--\n\n    \"I am the second in this ring,\n     Therefore next to thee I will sing.\"\n\nWhich, at Broadchalk, is thus varied:--\n\n    \"I in this place am second bell,\n     I'll surely do my part as well.\"\n\nOn the third bell at Coln is,--\n\n    \"Robert Forman collected the money for casting this bell\n     Of well-disposed people, as I do you tell.\"\n\nAt Bath Abbey, on the tenth bell, is,--\n\n    \"All you of Bath that hear me sound,\n     Thank Lady Hopton's hundred pound.\"\n\nOn the fifth bell at Amesbury is,--\n\n    \"Be strong in faith, praise God well,\n     Frances Countess Hertford's bell.\"\n\nAnd, on the tenor,--\n\n    \"Altho' it be unto my loss,\n     I hope you will consider my cost.\"\n\nAt Stowe, Northamptonshire, and at St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, we\nfind,--\n\n    \"Be it known to all that doth me see,\n     That Newcombe, of Leicester, made me.\"\n\nAt St. Michael's, Coventry, on the fourth bell, is,--\n\n    \"I ring at six to let men know\n     When to and from their work to go.\"\n\nOn the seventh bell is,--\n\n    \"I ring to Sermon with a lusty bome,\n     That all may come and none can stay at home.\"\n\nOn the eighth bell is--\n\n    \"I am and have been called the common bell\n     To ring, when fire breaks out to tell.\"\n\nAt St. Peter's-le-Bailey, Oxford, four bells were sold towards\nfinishing the tower, and in 1792 a large bell was put up, with this\ninscription:--\n\n    \"With seven more I hope soon to be\n     For ages joined in harmony.\"\n\nBut this very reasonable wish has not yet been realized; whereas at St.\nLawrence's, Reading, when two bells were added to form a peal of ten,\non the second we find--\n\n    \"By adding two our notes we'll raise,\n     And sound the good subscribers' praise.\"\n\nThe occasion of the erection of the Westminster Clock-tower, is said\nto have been as follows:--A certain poor man, in an action for debt,\nbeing fined the sum of 13s. 4d., Radulphus Ingham, Chief Justice of\nthe King's Bench, commiserating his case, caused the court roll to\nbe erased, and the fine reduced to 6s. 8d., which being soon after\ndiscovered, Ingham was amerced in a pecuniary mulct of eight hundred\nmarks, which was employed in erecting the said bell-tower, in which\nwas placed a bell and a clock, which, striking hourly, was to remind\nthe judges in the hall of the offence of their brother. This bell was\noriginally called Edward; \"but,\" says a writer in the \"Antiquarian\nRepertory,\" \"when the Reformation caused St. Edward and his hours to\nbe but little regarded; as other bells were frequently called Tom, as\nfancied to pronounce that name when stricken--that at Lincoln, for\ninstance, and that at Oxford--this also followed the fashion, of which,\nto what I remember of it before it was hung up, I may add another proof\nfrom a catch made by the late Mr. Eccles, which begins--\n\n    \"'Hark, Harry, 'tis late--'tis time to be gone,\n      For Westminster Tom, by my faith, strikes one.\"\n\nHawkins, in his \"History of Music,\" says,--\"The practice of ringing\nbells in change, or regular peals, is said to be peculiar to England:\nwhence Britain has been termed the _ringing island_. The custom seems\nto have commenced in the time of the Saxons, and was common before the\nConquest. The ringing of bells, although a recreation chiefly of the\nlower sort, is, in itself, not incurious. The tolling of a bell is\nnothing more than the producing of a sound by a stroke of the clapper\nagainst the side of the bell, the bell itself being in a pendant\nposition, and at rest. In ringing, the bell, by means of a wheel and\na rope, is elevated to a perpendicular; in its motion, the clapper\nstrikes forcibly on one side, and in its return downwards, on the\nother side of the bell, producing at each stroke a sound.\" There are\nstill in London several societies of ringers. There was one called the\nCollege Youths (bell-ringers, like post-boys, never seem to acquire old\nage). Of this it is said Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice of the\nKing's Bench, was, in his youthful days, a member; and in the life of\nthat upright judge, by Burnet, some facts are mentioned which favour\nthis relation. In England the practice of ringing has been reduced to\na science, and peals have been composed which bear the names of their\ninventors; some of the most celebrated of these were composed about\nfifty years ago by one Patrick. This man was a maker of barometers.\nIn the year 1684, one Abraham Rudhall, of the city of Gloucester,\nbrought the art of bell-founding to great perfection. His descendants\nin succession have continued the business of casting bells; and by a\nlist published by them at Lady Day, 1774, the family, in peals and odd\nbells, had cast to the amount of 3,594. The peals of St. Dunstan's\nin the East, St. Bride's, London, and St. Martin's-in-the-Fields,\nare among the number. The following \"Articles of Ringing\" are upon\nthe walls of the belfry in the pleasant village of Dunster, in\nSomersetshire. They are dated 1787:--\n\n    \"1. You that in ringing take delight,\n          Be pleased to draw near;\n        These articles you must observe,\n          If you mean to ring here.\n\n    \"2. And first, if any overturn\n          A bell, as that he may,\n        He forthwith for that only fault\n          In beer shall sixpence pay.\n\n    \"3. If any one shall curse or swear\n          When come within the door,\n        He then shall forfeit for that fault\n          As mentioned before.\n\n    \"4. If any one shall wear his hat\n          When he is ringing here,\n        He straightway then shall sixpence pay\n          In cyder or in beer.\n\n    \"5. If any one these articles\n          Refuseth to obey,\n        Let him have nine strokes of the rope,\n          And so depart away.\"\n\n\nBILL OF SALE FOR A <DW64> IN 1770.\n\n\"Know all Men by these Presents, That I, Elizabeth Treat, of Boston,\nin the county of Suffolk, widow, in consideration of the sum of L25\n13s. 4d. to me in hand, paid before the ensealing hereof by Samuel\nBreck, of Boston aforesaid, merchant, the receipt whereof I do hereby\nacknowledge, have granted, bargained, and sold, and by these presents\ndo fully and absolutely grant, bargain, and sell unto the said Samuel\nBreck, my <DW64> man named Harry, aged about forty years, with his\napparel, to have and to hold the said <DW64> man Harry, with his\napparel, unto the said Samuel Breck, his executors, administrators,\nand assigns, to his and their only proper use, benefit, and behoof for\never; And I, the said Elizabeth Treat, for myself, my heirs, executors,\nand administrators, do covenant, that at the time of ensealing, and\nuntil the delivery hereof, I am the true and lawful owner of the said\n<DW64> man, and that he is free from all former sales, charges, and\nincumbrances whatsoever, and that I will warrant and defend the said\n<DW64> man unto the said Samuel Breck, his heirs, and assigns for ever,\nagainst the lawful claims and demands of all persons whomsoever.\n\n\"Witness my hand and seal, this tenth day of October, Anno Domini, one\nthousand seven hundred and seventy, in the tenth year of His Majesty's\nreign.\n\n\"Signed, sealed, and delivered in presence of us.\n\n  \"THOMAS MELVILLE.\n  \"MARY WHITE.\n  \"ELIZABETH TREAT.\"\n\n\nTHE AZTEC CHILDREN.\n\n[Illustration: The Aztec Children, As Exhibited in England.]\n\nAmong the animated curiosities which are occasionally exposed to\nthe gaze of the wonder-loving public, we may prominently notice the\nAZTEC CHILDREN--two singular Lilliputians who were recently exhibited\nthroughout the kingdom. Maximo and Bartolo (for by these names the two\nAztec children have been baptized) are by some medical men supposed\nto be of the respective ages of twenty-two and sixteen. Professor\nOwen, stated them to be ten or twelve, and seven or nine in 1853. The\nheight of the boy (the elder is about three feet, and the girl does\nnot reach quite two feet six inches). Their limbs, though slender,\nare proportionate and well formed, and the general development of\ntheir figures is remarkably graceful. The cranium is peculiar, being\nnarrower than that of any other races of beings known to the world;\nand though the face is somewhat prominent, the features are regular\nand the countenances agreeable, and, after a short acquaintance,\nhighly interesting. Each has a beautiful head of jet black hair, which\nflows gracefully in curls. They are lively and intelligent, showing\nconsiderable aptitude for mental training, and have already learned to\ngive utterance to several expressions which can be readily understood\nby visitors.\n\nSince the arrival of these prodigies from the United States, they have\nbeen the objects of curious ethnological speculations. Dr. Latham does\nnot consider them as a new species of the _genus homo_. Professor Owen\nregards them as instances of impeded development, and Dr. Conolly was\nstruck with their resemblance to idiots.\n\n\nNOTICES TO TAR AND FEATHER.\n\nThe original handbills of the committee for Tarring and Feathering\nsubjoined, are of singular interest, as they were the earliest\nemanations of the spirit that led to England's losing her American\ncolonies, and the consequent rise of the United States:--\n\n\n_To the Delaware Pilots._\n\nThe Regard we have for your Characters, and our Desire to promote your\nfuture Peace and Safety, are the Occasion of this Third Address to you.\n\nIn our second Letter we acquainted you, that the Tea Ship was a Three\nDecker; We are now informed by good Authority, she is not a Three\nDecker, but an _old black Ship_, _without a Head_, or _any Ornaments_.\n\nThe _Captain_ is a _short fat_ Fellow, and a little _obstinate_\nwithal.--So much the worse for him.--For, so sure as he _rides rusty_,\nWe shall heave him Keel out, and see that his Bottom be well fired,\nscrubb'd and paid.--His Upper-Works too, will have an Overhawling--and\nas it is said, he has a good deal of _Quick Work_ about him, We will\ntake particular Care that such Part of him undergoes a thorough\nRummaging.\n\nWe have a still _worse Account of his Owner_;--for it is said, the Ship\nPOLLY was bought by him on Purpose, to make a Penny of us: and that\n_he_ and Captain _Ayres_ were well advised, of the Risque they would\nrun, in thus daring to insult and abuse us.\n\n_Captain Ayres_ was here in the Time of the Stamp-Act, and ought to\nhave known our People better, than to have expected we would be so mean\nas to suffer his _rotten_ TEA to be funnel'd down our Throats, with the\n_Parliament's Duty_ mixed with it.\n\nWe know him well, and have calculated to a Gill and a Feather, how much\nit will require to fit him for an _American Exhibition_. And we hope,\nnot one of your Body will behave so ill, as to oblige us to clap him in\nthe Cart along Side of the _Captain_.\n\nWe must repeat, that the SHIP POLLY is an _old black Ship_, of about\nTwo Hundred and Fifty Tons burthen, _without a Head_, and _without\nOrnaments_,--and, that CAPTAIN AYRES is a _thick chunky Fellow_.--As\nsuch, TAKE CARE TO AVOID THEM.\n\n  Your Old Friends,\n  THE COMMITTEE FOR TARRING AND FEATHERING.\n  _Philadelphia, December 7, 1773._\n\n\n_To Capt. Ayres, of the Ship Polly, on a Voyage from London to\nPhiladelphia._\n\n  SIR,\n\nWe are informed that you have, imprudently, taken Charge of a Quantity\nof Tea; which has been sent out by the _India_ Company, _under the\nAuspices of the Ministry_, as a Trial of _American_ Virtue and\nResolution.\n\nNow, as your Cargo, on your Arrival here, will most assuredly bring you\ninto hot water; and as you are perhaps a Stranger _to these Parts_,\nwe have concluded to advise you of the present Situation of Affairs\nin _Philadelphia_--that, taking Time by the Forelock, you may stop\nshort in your dangerous Errand--secure your Ship against the Rafts of\ncombustible Matter which may be set on Fire, and turned loose against\nher: and more than all this, that you may preserve your own Person,\nfrom the Pitch and Feathers that are prepared for you.\n\nIn the first Place, we must tell you, that the _Pennsylvanians_\nare, _to a Man_, passionately fond of Freedom; the Birthright of\n_Americans_; and at all Events are determined to enjoy it.\n\nThat they sincerely believe, no Power on the Face of the Earth has a\nRight to tax them without their Consent.\n\nThat in their Opinion, the Tea in your Custody is designed by the\nMinistry to enforce such a Tax, which they will undoubtedly oppose; and\nin so doing, give you every possible Obstruction.\n\nWe are nominated to a very disagreeable, but necessary Service.--To our\nCare are committed all Offenders against the Rights of _America_; and\nhapless is he, whose evil Destiny has doomed him to suffer at our Hands.\n\nYou are sent out on a diabolical Service; and if you are so foolish and\nobstinate as to compleat your Voyage; by bringing your Ship to Anchor\nin this Port; you may run such a Gauntlet, as will induce you, in your\nlast Moments, most heartily to curse those who have made you the Dupe\nof their Avarice and Ambition.\n\nWhat think you Captain, of a Halter around your Neck--ten Gallons of\nliquid Tar decanted on your Pate--with the Feathers of a dozen wild\nGeese laid over that to enliven your Appearance?\n\nOnly think seriously of this--and fly to the Place from whence you\ncame--fly without Hesitation--without the Formality of a Protest--and\nabove all, Captain _Ayres_ let us advise you to fly without the wild\nGeese Feathers.\n\n  Your Friends _to serve_\n  THE COMMITTEE _as before subscribed_.\n  _Philadelphia, Nov. 27, 1773._\n\n\nB. FRANKLIN'S CELEBRATED LETTER TO STRAHAN.\n\nAs a sequel to the foregoing notices, we give Dr. Franklin's celebrated\nletter, written in the actual heat of the first outbreak.\n\n  Philadelphia, July 5, 1775.\n\nMr. STRAHAN,--You are a member of Parliament, and one of that majority\nwhich has doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to burn our\ntowns, and murder our people. Look upon your hands! They are stained\nwith the blood of your relations! You and I were long friends; you are\nnow my enemy, and\n\n  I am, yours,\n  B. FRANKLIN.\n\n\nHENRY II. STRIPT WHEN DEAD.\n\n1189. Immediately upon his death, those that were about him applied\ntheir market so busilie in catching and filching awaie things that\nlaie readie for them, that the king's corps laie naked a long time,\ntill a child covered the nether parts of his body with a short cloke,\nand then it seemed that his surname was fulfilled that he had from his\nchildhood, which was Shortmantell, being so called, because he was the\nfirst who brought short clokes out of Anjou into England.\n\n\nTRANSPLANTATION OF HAIR.\n\nThe Signor Dottore Domenico Nardo addressed a letter to the Academy of\nPadua, in 1826, on the subject of the growth of hair after death, and\neven after its separation from the body. The latter property had been\npreviously observed by Krafft. The Signor Nardo recounts the results of\nexperiments made on his own person in the transplantation of hair, and\nrelates, that by transplanting quickly a hair, with its root, from a\npore of his head, into a pore of his chest, easily to be accomplished\nby widening the pore somewhat with the point of a needle, introducing\nthe root with nicety, and exciting within the pore itself, by friction,\na slight degree of inflammation, the hair takes root, continues to\nvegetate, and grows; in due season changes colour, becomes white, and\nfalls.\n\n\nANCIENT CANNON RAISED FROM THE SEA.\n\nA fisherman of Calais some time since, drew up a cannon, of very\nancient form, from the bottom of the sea, by means of his nets. M. de\nRheims has since removed the rust from it, and on taking off the breech\nwas much surprised to find the piece still charged. Specimens of the\npowder have been taken, from which, of course, all the saltpetre has\ndisappeared after a submersion of three centuries. The ball was of\nlead, and was not oxidized to a depth greater than that of a line.\n\n\nCOFFEE-HOUSE ATTRACTIONS IN 1760.\n\nThe great attraction of Don Saltero's Coffee-house was its collection\nof rarities, a catalogue of which was published as a guide to the\nvisitors. It comprehends almost every description of curiosity, natural\nand artificial. \"Tigers' tusks; the Pope's candle; the skeleton of\na Guinea-pig; a fly-cap monkey; a piece of the true Cross; the Four\nEvangelists' heads cut on a cherry-stone; the King of Morocco's\ntobacco-pipe; Mary Queen of Scot's pincushion; Queen Elizabeth's\nprayer-book; a pair of Nun's stockings; Job's ears, which grew on a\ntree; a frog in a tobacco-stopper;\" and five hundred more odd relics!\nThe Don had a rival, as appears by \"A Catalogue of the Rarities to be\nseen at Adams's, at the Royal Swan, in Kingsland Road, leading from\nShoreditch Church, 1756.\" Mr. Adams exhibited, for the entertainment\nof the curious, \"Miss Jenny Cameron's shoes; Adam's eldest daughter's\nhat; the heart of the famous Bess Adams, that was hanged at Tyburn with\nLawyer Carr, January 18, 1736-7; Sir Walter Raleigh's tobacco-pipe;\nVicar of Bray's clogs; engine to shell green pease with; teeth that\ngrew in a fish's belly; Black Jack's ribs; the very comb that Abraham\ncombed his son Isaac and Jacob's head with; Wat Tyler's spurs; rope\nthat cured Captain Lowry of the head-ach, ear-ach, tooth-ach and\nbelly-ach; Adam's key of the fore and back door of the Garden of Eden,\n&c., &c.\" These are only a few out of five hundred others equally\nmarvellous.\n\n\nA WOMAN TAKES THE LIGHTED MATCH FROM A BOMB.\n\nDuring the siege of Gibraltar, in 1782, the Count d'Artois came\nto St. Roch, to visit the place and works. While his highness was\ninspecting the lines, in company with the Duke de Crillon, they both\nalighted with their suite, and all lay flat upon the ground, to avoid\nthe effects of a bomb that fell near a part of the barracks where a\nFrenchwoman had a canteen. This woman, who had two children in her arms\nat the time, rushed forth with them, and having seated herself, with\nthe utmost _sang-froid_, on the bomb-shell, she put out the match,\nthus extricating from danger all that were around her, many of whom\nwitnessed this courageous and devoted act. His highness rewarded this\nintrepid female by bestowing on her a pension of three francs a day,\nand engaged to promote her husband after the siege; while the Duke de\nCrillon, imitating the generous example of the prince, ensured to her\nlikewise a daily payment of five francs.\n\n\nTHE SUMMERS MAGNET, OR LOADSTONE.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Summers Magnet.]\n\nAmong the great naval officers of Elizabeth's reign must be ranked\nSir George Summers, the discoverer of the Bermudas, often called the\nSummers Islands from that circumstance. Here is a representation given\nof what the descendants of Sir George Summers call the \"Summers magnet,\nor loadstone.\" It is in the possession of Peter Franklin Bellamy, Esq.,\nsurgeon, second son of Dr. Bellamy, of Plymouth. The tradition in the\nfamily is that the admiral before going to sea used to touch his needle\nwith it. The stone is dark-, the precise geological formation\ndoubtful. This curious stone, with armature of iron, was probably an\nancient talisman.\n\n\nSWALLOWING LIZARDS.\n\nBertholin, the learned Swedish doctor, relates strange anecdotes of\nlizards, toads, and frogs; stating that a woman, thirty years of age,\nbeing thirsty, drank plentifully of water at a pond. At the end of a\nfew months, she experienced singular movements in her stomach, as if\nsomething were crawling up and down; and alarmed by the sensation,\nconsulted a medical man, who prescribed a dose of orvietan in a\ndecoction of fumitory. Shortly afterwards, the irritation of the\nstomach increasing, she vomited three toads and two young lizards,\nafter which, she became more at ease. In the spring following, however,\nher irritation of the stomach was renewed; and aloes and bezoar being\nadministered, she vomited three female frogs, followed the next day by\ntheir numerous progeny. In the month of January following, she vomited\nfive more living frogs, and in the course of seven years ejected as\nmany as eighty. Dr. Bertholin protests that he heard them croak in her\nstomach!\n\n\nIMMENSE SEA SERPENT.\n\nA species of sea-serpent was thrown on shore near Bombay in 1819. It\nwas about forty feet long, and must have weighed many tons. A violent\ngale of wind threw it high above the reach of ordinary tides, in which\nsituation it took nine months to rot; during which process travellers\nwere obliged to change the direction of the road for nearly a quarter\nof a mile, to avoid the offensive effluvia. It rotted so completely\nthat not a vestige of bone remained.\n\n\nTHE ROYAL TOUCH.\n\nFor many ages one of the regal prerogatives in this country was to\ntouch for the cure of _regius morbus_, or scrofula; a disease too\nwell known to need any description. At different periods hundreds of\npersons assembled from all parts of the country annually to receive\nthe royal interposition. Lists of the afflicted were published, to\nafford a criterion for determining as to its success; and from Edward\nthe Confessor to the reign of Queen Anne, its efficacy appears to have\nobtained a ready and general belief.\n\nThe ceremony was announced by public proclamations; one of which we\ncopy from \"The Newes,\" of the 18th of May, 1664. \"His Sacred Majesty\"\n(Charles II.) \"having declared it to be his royal will and purpose to\ncontinue the healing of his people for the Evil during the month of\nMay, and then to give over until Michaelmas next, I am commanded to\ngive notice thereof, that the people may not come up to town in the\ninterim, and lose their labour.\"\n\nAn extract from the \"Mercurius Politicus\" affords additional\ninformation. \"Saturday,\" says that paper, \"being appointed by His\nMajesty to touch such as were troubled with the Evil, a great company\nof poor afflicted creatures were met together, many brought in chairs\nand flaskets, and being appointed by His Majesty to repair to the\nbanqueting-house, His Majesty sat in a chair of state, where he stroked\nall that were brought unto him, and then put about each of their necks\na white ribbon, with an angel of gold on it. In this manner His Majesty\nstroked above six hundred; and such was his princely patience and\ntenderness to the poor afflicted creatures, that, though it took up\na very long time, His Majesty, who is never weary of well-doing, was\npleased to make inquiry whether there were any more who had not yet\nbeen touched. After prayers were ended, the Duke of Buckingham brought\na towel, and the Earl of Pembroke a basin and ewer, who, after they\nhad made obeisance to His Majesty, kneeled down, till His Majesty had\nwashed.\"\n\nThis sovereign is said to have touched nearly one hundred thousand\npatients.\n\nWith Queen Anne the practice was discontinued. But so late as the\n28th of February, 1712, little more than two years before her death,\nthe following proclamation appeared in the \"Gazette\":--\"It being Her\nMajesty's royal intention to touch for the Evil on Wednesday, the\n19th of March next, and so to continue weekly during Lent, it is Her\nMajesty's command that tickets be delivered the day before at the\noffice in Whitehall; and that all persons shall bring a certificate\nsigned by the Minister and Churchwardens of their respective parishes,\nthat they have never received the royal touch.\" Dr. Johnson, when\nan infant, was brought, with others, for this purpose; \"and when\nquestioned upon the subject, confessed he had a faint recollection of\nan old lady with something black about her head.\"\n\nA religious service, of which Dr. Heylin, Prebendary of Westminster, in\nhis \"Examen Historicum,\" has given us the particulars, accompanied the\nceremony; which, as a document of pious interest, we transcribe:--\"The\nfirst Gospel is the same as that on the Ascension-day, Mark xvi. 14,\nto the end. At the touching of every infirm person these words are\nrepeated: 'They shall lay their hands on the sick, and they shall\nrecover.' The second Gospel begins with the first of St. John, and ends\na these words: (John i. 14:) 'Full of grace and truth.' At the putting\nthe angel about their necks were repeated, 'That light was the true\nlight, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.'\n\n\"'Lord, have mercy upon us.'\n\n\"'Christ have mercy upon us.'\n\n\"'Lord have mercy upon us. Our Father, &c.'\n\n\"'_Minister._--O Lord, save thy servants:'\n\n\"'_Response._--Which put their trust in thee.'\n\n\"'_M._--Send unto them help from above:'\n\n\"'_R._--And ever more defend them.'\n\n\"'_M._--Help us, O God, our Saviour!'\n\n\"'_R._--And for the glory of thy name sake deliver us: be merciful unto\nus, sinners, for thy name sake!'\n\n\"'_M._--O Lord, hear our prayer:'\n\n\"'_R._--And let our cry come unto thee.'\n\n\"'_The Collect._--Almighty God, the eternal health of all such as\nput their trust in thee, hear us, we beseech thee, on the behalf of\nthese thy servants, for whom we call for thy merciful help; that they\nreceiving health, may give thanks unto thee in thy holy Church, through\nJesus Christ our Lord! Amen.'\n\n\"'The peace of God,' &c.\"\n\n\nPEG TANKARDS.\n\nThe pegging, or marking the drinking cups, was introduced by St.\nDunstan, to check the intemperate habits of the times, by preventing\none man from taking a larger draught than his companions. But the\ndevice proved the means of increasing the evil it was intended to\nremedy; for, refining upon Dunstan's plan, the most abstemious were\nrequired to drink precisely to a peg or pin, whether they could soberly\ntake such a quantity of liquor or not. To the use of such cups may be\ntraced the origin of many of our popular phrases. When a person is much\nelated, we still say, \"He is in a merry pin;\" and, \"He is a peg too\nlow,\" when he is not in good spirits. On the same principle we talk of\n\"taking a man down a peg,\" when we would check forwardness.\n\n\nNORMAN CAPS.\n\nThere is nothing more amusing to the traveller on the continent, than\nto observe the extraordinary variety of those head-appendages, many\nof them heirlooms for generations in some families, all more or less\nprized according to the richness of materials employed upon them, and\nthe peculiarity of shape. There is no article of dress more important\nto the _Normande_, whatever may be her means, than the cap which so\njauntily and triumphantly asserts the dignity of the wearer. The\nwives of fermieres who can afford such luxuries as expensive lace and\ntrimmings, spend a little income in the decoration of their caps.\nMany cost upwards of three thousand francs for the materials and\nmanufacture; and these, as we have before observed, are handed from\nmother to daughter through successive years, and are highly prized.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Norman Caps.]\n\nIn the primitive villages of Normandy, on some holidays, it is a\npleasing sight to see the dense army of caps, with flaps fanning the\nair, and following the gesticulatory movements of their talkative and\nvolatile owners. When the weather is doubtful, the cap-wearers take\ncare to be provided with a red umbrella of a clumsy construction,\nremarkably heavy, and somewhat similar, perhaps, to the original with\nwhich Jonas Hanway braved the jeers of a London populace in first\nintroducing it.\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN INDIAN WAR DESPATCH.\n\nThe following is a _facsimile_ of a gazette of a tribe of North\nAmerican Indians, who assisted the French forces in Canada, during the\nwar between France and England:--\n\n[Illustration: [++] Gazette of North American Indians.]\n\n_Explanation of the Gazette, giving an account of one of their\nexpeditions. The following divisions explain those on the plate, as\nreferred to by the numbers_:--\n\n1. Each of these figures represents the number ten. They all signify,\nthat 18 times 10, or 180 American Indians, took up the hatchet, or\ndeclared war, in favour of the French, which is represented by the\nhatchet placed over the arms of France.\n\n2. They departed from Montreal--represented by the bird just taking\nwing from the top of a mountain. The moon and the buck show the time to\nhave been in the first quarter of the buck-moon, answering to July.\n\n3. They went by water--signified by the canoe. The number of huts, such\nas they raise to pass the night in, shows they were 21 days on their\npassage.\n\n4. Then they came on shore, and travelled seven days by\nland--represented by the foot and the seven huts.\n\n5. When they arrived near the habitations of their enemies, at\nsunrise--shown by the sun being to the eastward of them, beginning,\nas they think, its daily course, there they lay in wait three\ndays--represented by the hand pointing, and the three huts.\n\n6. After which, they surprised their enemies, in number 12 times 10, or\n120. The man asleep shows how they surprised them, and the hole in the\ntop of the building is supposed to signify that they broke into some of\ntheir habitations in that manner.\n\n7. They killed with the club eleven of their enemies, and took five\nprisoners. The former represented by the club and the eleven heads, the\nlatter by the figures on the little pedestals.\n\n8. They lost nine of their own men in the action--represented by the\nnine heads within the bow, which is the emblem of honour among the\nAmericans, but had none taken prisoners--a circumstance they lay great\nweight on, shown by all the pedestals being empty.\n\n9. The heads of the arrows, pointing opposite ways, represent the\nbattle.\n\n10. The heads of the arrows all pointing the same way, signify the\nflight of the enemy.\n\n\nRECEIPTS FROM ALBERTUS MAGNUS.\n\n_If thou wylt make a Carbuckle stone, or a thyng shyning in the\nnyght._--Take verye many of the lyttle beastes shyninge by nyghte, and\nput them beaten smale in a bottel of glasse, and close it, and burye\nit in hoate horses doung, and let it tarye xv dayes, afterwarde thou\nshalte destyll water of them Peralembicum, which thou shalt put in a\nvessel of Christal or glasse. It giueth so great clearnesse, that euery\nman may reade and write in a darke place where it is. Some men make\nthis water of the gall of a snale, the gal of a wesel, the gall of a\nferet, and of a water dogge: they burie them in doung and destyll water\nout of them.\n\n_If thou wylt see that other men can not see._--Take the gall of a male\ncat, and the fat of a hen all whyte, and mixe them together, and anoint\nthy eyes, and thou shalt see it that others cannot see.\n\nIf the hart, eye, or brayne of a lapwyng or blacke plover be hanged\nvpon a mans necke it is profitable agaynste forgetfulnesse, and\nsharpeth mans vnderstanding.--\"_Albertus Magnus._\" _Black Letter: very\nold._\n\n\nADVERTISEMENT OF ROAST PIG IN 1726.\n\n\"On Tuesday next, being Shrove Tuesday, there will be a fine _hog\nbarbyqu'd_ whole, at the house of Peter Brett, at the Rising Sun, in\nIslington Road, with other diversions.--_Note._ It is the house where\nthe ox was roasted whole at Christmas last.\"\n\nA hog barbecu'd is a West Indian term, and means a hog roasted whole,\nstuffed with spice, and basted with Madeira wine. Oldfield, an eminent\nglutton of former days, gormandised away a fortune of fifteen hundred\npounds a-year. Pope thus alludes to him,--\n\n    \"Oldfield, with more than harpy throat endu'd,\n     Cries, 'Send me, O, gods, a whole hog _barbecu'd!_'\"\n\n\nDYING OF OLD AGE AT SEVENTEEN YEARS.\n\nMarch 19th, 1754, died, in Glamorganshire, of mere old age and a\ngradual decay of nature, at seventeen years and two months, Hopkins\nHopkins, the little Welchman lately shown in London. He never weighed\nmore than seventeen pounds, but for three years past no more than\ntwelve. The parents have still six children left, all of whom no way\ndiffer from other children, except one girl of twelve years of age, who\nweighs only eighteen pounds, and bears upon her most of the marks of\nold age, and in all respects resembles her brother when at that age.\n\n\n\"WE HAE BEEN.\"\n\nIn Ayrshire there is a tradition, that the family motto of De\nBruce--\"We have been,\" originated from a lady named Fullarton, married\nto a cadet of the family of Cassilis. They had been gained to favour\nEngland during the chivalrous achievements of Wallace, and still\ncontinued zealous partisans of Edward. Before Bruce avowed his purpose\nto emancipate his country, he came, disguised as a palmer, to acquaint\nhimself how far he could rely on aid from the people. A storm compelled\nhim, and a few faithful adherents, to take shelter on the coast of\nAyrshire. Extreme darkness, and the turbulence of the billows, deprived\nthem of all knowledge where they landed; and as, in those unhappy\ntimes, the appearance of a few strangers would create alarm, the chiefs\ndispersed in different directions. Bruce chanced to go into the house\nof Mr. Kennedy, where the servants treated him with great reverence.\nThe lady had gone to bed, and the prince wished they would not disturb\nher, but permit him to sit by the fire till day; however, one damsel\nhad given her immediate notice of the visitor. He was ushered into her\npresence. She eyed him with scrutinizing earnestness. \"We hae been--we\nhae been fause,\" said she, in the Scottish dialect, \"but a royal ee\ntakes me back to haly loyalty. I seid ye, mes royal de Bruce, I ken\nye weel. We hae been baith untrue to Scotland, but rest ye safe: and\nalbiet a' that's gane, Meg Fullarton wad dee in your cause.\"\n\n\nORIGIN OF THE PENNY POST.\n\nThe penny-post was devised in 1683, by one Mr. David Murray, an\nupholder in Paternoster Row. It soon became an object of attention to\nGovernment; but so low were its profits that one Dockwra, who succeeded\nMurray, had a pension of only L200 a year given him in lieu of it. This\noccurred in 1716.\n\n\nA RAFFLE IN 1725.\n\nMay 8. The following copy of an advertisement, in the _Newcastle\nCourant_ of this date, may be considered curious:--\"On Friday in the\nrace week, being the 28th of May, at the Assembly House, in Westgate,\nwill be raffled for, 12 fine Fans, the highest three guineas, the worst\n5s., at half a Crown per Ticket. Note: the lowest throw is to have the\nsecond best Fan, value L3, the other according to the height of the\nnumbers which shall be thrown. There will be an assembly after for\nthose who raffle.\"\n\n\nA VISIT TO THE RESIDENCE OF DR. JOHNSON, IN INNER TEMPLE LANE, LONDON.\n\nIn one of the dreary, old-fashioned houses leading from the arched\nentrance to the Temple, which almost every passenger through Temple\nBar must have remarked, whether he is a stranger, or a resident in the\nmetropolis, Dr. Johnson, who occupies one of the most distinguished\npositions in the literature of our country, resided for several years.\n\n[Illustration: Dr. Johnson's Residence in Inner Temple Lane.]\n\nIt was in this place that Dr. Johnson became acquainted with his future\nbiographer, Boswell, who thus describes their first meeting:--\n\n\"A few days afterwards I called on Davies, and asked him if he thought\nI might take the liberty of waiting on Mr. Johnson at his chambers\nin the Temple. He said I certainly might, and that Mr. Johnson would\ntake it as a compliment. His chambers were on the first floor of No.\n1, Inner Temple Lane, and I entered them with an impression given me\nby the Rev. Dr. Blair, of Edinburgh, who described his having found\nthe giant in his den. He received me very courteously; but it must be\nconfessed, that his apartment, and furniture, and morning dress, were\nsufficiently uncouth. His brown suit of clothes looked very rusty; he\nhad on a little, old, shrivelled, unpowdered wig, which was too small\nfor his head; his shirt neck and knees of his breeches were loose, his\nblack worsted stockings ill drawn up, and he had a pair of unbuckled\nshoes by way of slippers;--but all these slovenly particulars were\nforgotten the moment he began to talk.\"\n\nThe \"den\" in which the \"giant\" lived, the staircase leading to it, and\nindeed the whole appearance of the locality, has recently undergone\ndemolition, and its interesting features knocked down to the highest\nbidder, to be, let us hope, preserved in some museum or other place of\nsafety.\n\n[Illustration: Old Staircase in the Residence of Dr. Johnson.]\n\nDr. Johnson resided at various times in Holborn, the Strand, and other\nplaces, and died, as it is well known, in No. 8, Bolt Court, Fleet\nStreet, in 1784. His remains were placed in a grave under the statue\nof Shakspere, in Westminster Abbey, and near the resting-place of his\nfriend and companion, David Garrick.\n\n\nORIGIN OF THE STUFF BALL AT LINCOLN.\n\nDuring the want of employment in the manufactories in 1801, Mrs.\nChaplain, of Blankney, in Lincolnshire, formed a patriotic institution\nfor the encouragement of the local trade of the district. A ball was\ngiven at Lincoln for the benefit of the stuff manufactory, at which\nladies were admitted gratis, on their appearance in a stuff gown and\npetticoat, spun, wove, and finished within the county, and producing a\nticket signed by the weaver and dyer at Louth, one of which tickets\nwas delivered with every twelve yards of stuff. The gentlemen were\nrequired to appear without silk or cotton in their dress, stockings\nexcepted. The impulse thus given to trade, was of the most signal\nservice in relieving distress, and at the same time promoting habits of\nindustry.\n\n\nSTEVENS'S SPECIFIC.\n\nIn the reign of Charles II., Dr. Jonathan Goddard obtained 5,000_l._\nfor disclosing his secret for making a medicine, called \"_Guttae\nAnglicanae_.\" And in 1739, the Parliament of England voted 5,000_l._ to\nMrs. Stevens for a solvent for stone.\n\nThe celebrated David Hartley was very instrumental in procuring this\ngrant to Joanna Stevens. He obtained also a private subscription to the\namount of L1,356, published one hundred and fifty-five _successful_\ncases, and, by way of climax to the whole, after eating _two hundred\npounds weight_ of soap! David himself died of the stone.\n\n\nAN IMPOSTOR.\n\nFrom the Testament of Jerome Sharp, printed in 1786:--\"I entered,\"\nsays the narrator, \"with one of my friends, and found a man resembling\nan ourang-outang crouched upon a stool in the manner of a tailor. His\ncomplexion announced a distant climate, and his keeper stated that he\nfound him in the island of Molucca. His body was bare to the hips,\nhaving a chain round the waist, seven or eight feet long, which was\nfastened to a pillar, and permitted him to circulate out of the reach\nof the spectators. His looks and gesticulations were frightful. His\njaws never ceased snapping, except when sending forth discordant cries,\nwhich were said to be indicative of hunger. He swallowed flints when\nthrown to him, but preferred raw meat, which he rushed behind his\npillar to devour. He groaned fearfully during his repast, and continued\ngroaning until fully satiated. When unable to procure more meat, he\nwould swallow stones with frightful avidity; which, upon examination\nof those which he accidentally dropped, proved to be partly dissolved\nby the acrid quality of his saliva. In jumping about, the undigested\nstones were heard rattling in his stomach.\"\n\nThe men of science quickly set to work to account for these feats,\nso completely at variance with the laws of nature. Before they had\nhit upon a theory, the pretended Molucca savage was discovered to\nbe a peasant from the neighbourhood of Besancon, who chose to turn\nto account his natural deformities. When staining his face for the\npurpose, in the dread of hurting his eyes, he left the eyelids\nunstained, which completely puzzled the naturalists. By a clever\nsleight of hand, the raw meat was left behind the pillar, and cooked\nmeat substituted in its place. Some asserted his passion for eating\nbehind the pillar to be a proof of his savage origin; most polite\npersons, and more especially kings, being addicted to feeding in\npublic. The stones swallowed by the pretended savage were taken from\na vessel left purposely in the room full of them; small round stones,\nencrusted with plaster, which afterwards gave them the appearance of\nhaving been masticated in the mouth. Before the discovery of all this,\nthe impostor had contrived to reap a plentiful harvest.\n\n\nPERUVIAN BARK.\n\nIn 1693, the Emperor Kanghi (then in the thirty-second year of his\nreign, and fortieth of his age) had a malignant fever, which resisted\nthe remedies given by his physicians; the emperor recollected that\nTchang-tchin, (Father Gerbillon), and Pe-tsin, (Father Bouret) two\njesuit missionaries, had extolled to him a remedy for intermittents,\nbrought from Europe, and to which they had given the name of chin-yo\n(two Chinese words, which signify \"_divine remedies_;\") and he proposed\nto try it, but the physicians opposed it. The emperor, however, without\ntheir knowledge took it, and with good effect. Sometime afterwards,\nhe experienced afresh several fits of an intermittent, which, though\nslight, made him uneasy; this led him to proclaim through the city,\nthat any person possessed of a specific for this sort of fever, should\napply without delay at the palace, where patients might also apply to\nget cured. Some of the great officers of his household were charged\nto receive such remedies as might be offered, and to administer them\nto the patients. The Europeans, Tchang-tching, (Gerbillon) Hang-jo,\n(Father de Fontenay, jesuit) and Pe-tsin, (Bouret) presented themselves\namong others, with a certain quantity of quinquina, offered it to the\ngrandees, and instructed them in the manner of using it. The next\nday it was tried on several patients, who were kept in sight, and\nwere cured by it. The officers, or grandees who had been appointed\nto superintend the experiment, gave an account to the Emperor of the\nastonishing effect of the remedy, and the monarch decided instantly on\ntrying it himself, provided the hereditary prince gave his consent.\nThe prince, however, not only refused, but was angry with the grandees\nfor having spoken so favourably of a remedy, of which only one\nsuccessful trial had been made; at last, after much persuasion, the\nPrince reluctantly grants his consent, and the emperor takes the bark\nwithout hesitation, and permanently recovers. A house is given by the\nemperor to the Europeans, who had made known the remedy, and through\nthe means of Pe-tsin (Father Bouret) presents were conveyed to the King\nof France, accompanied with the information, that the Europeans (that\nis, the French jesuits) were in high favour.--_Histoire Generale de la\nChine, &c._ tome xi. p. 168, 4to. Paris, 1780.\n\n\nWHITE CATS.\n\nIn a number of \"Loudon Gardener's Magazine,\" it is stated that white\ncats with blue eyes are always deaf, of which extraordinary fact there\nis the following confirmation in the \"Magazine of Natural History,\" No.\n2, likewise conducted by Mr. Loudon:--Some years ago, a white cat of\nthe Persian kind (probably not a thorough-bred one), procured from Lord\nDudley's at Hindley, was kept in a family as a favourite. The animal\nwas a female, quite white, and perfectly deaf. She produced, at various\ntimes, many litters of kittens, of which, generally, some were quite\nwhite, others more or less mottled, tabby, &c. But the extraordinary\ncircumstance is, that of the offspring produced at one and the same\nbirth, such as, like the mother, were entirely white, were, like her,\ninvariably deaf; while those that had the least speck of colour on\ntheir fur, as invariably possessed the usual faculty of hearing.\n\n\nA WOMAN DEFENDS A FORT SINGLY.\n\nLord Kames in his \"Sketches of the History of Man,\" relates an\nextraordinary instance of presence of mind united with courage.\n\nSome Iroquois in the year 1690, attacked the fort de Vercheres, in\nCanada, which belonged to the French, and had approached silently,\nhoping to scale the palisade, when some musket-shot forced them to\nretire: on their advancing a second time they were again repulsed, in\nwonder and amazement that they could perceive no person, excepting\na woman who was seen everywhere. This was Madame de Vercheres, who\nconducted herself with as much resolution and courage as if supported\nby a numerous garrison. The idea of storming a place wholly undefended,\nexcept by women, occasioned the Iroquois to attack the fortress\nrepeatedly, but, after two days' siege, they found it necessary to\nretire, lest they should be intercepted in their retreat.\n\nTwo years afterwards, a party of the same nation so unexpectedly made\ntheir appearance before the same fort, that a girl of fourteen, the\ndaughter of the proprietor, had but just time to shut the gate. With\nthis young woman there was no person whatever except one soldier, but\nnot at all intimidated by her situation, she showed herself sometimes\nin one place, sometimes in another, frequently changing her dress,\nin order to give some appearance of a garrison, and always fired\nopportunely. In short, the faint-hearted Iroquois once more departed\nwithout success. Thus the presence of mind of this young girl was the\nmeans of saving the fort.\n\n\nINDENTURE OF A HORSE-RACE BETWIXT THE EARLS OF MORTON AND ABERCORN AND\nTHE LORD BOYDE.\n\nAs indicating the state of the English language amongst the nobility of\nScotland in 1621, the following is curious:--\n\n\"_Ane Indentour of ane Horse-raise betuix my Lords Mortoun, Abercorne,\nand Boyde._--The erle of Mortoun obleissis himselff to produce George\nRutherfuirdis Barb Naig: The erle of Abercorne obleissis him to produce\nhis gray Naig: My lord Boyd obleissis him to produce his bay horse;\nUpone the conditions following. Thay ar to run the first Thursday\nNovember nixtocum, thrie mett myleis of Cowper raise in Fyff. The\nwaidger to be for euery horse ten dowbill Anegellis. The foirmest horse\nto win the hail thretty. Ilk rydare to be aucht scottis stanewecht.\nAnd the pairtie not comperaud, or refuisand to consigne the waidger,\nsall undergo the foirfaltour of this sowme, and that money foirfaltit\nsalbe additt to the staik to be tane away be the wynner. Forder, we\ndeclair it to be lesum to ony gentilman to produce ane horse and the\nlyk waidger, and thay salbe welcum. Subscrybith with all our handis, at\nHammiltoune the fyfteine day off August 1621. MORTON, ABERCORNE, BOYDE.\"\n\n\nEARLY USE OF CHOCOLATE.\n\nAn advertisement in \"The Public Adviser,\" from Tuesday, June 16th, to\nTuesday, June 23d, 1657, informs us that \"in Bishopsgate-street, in\nQueen's-head-alley, at a Frenchman's House, is an excellent West India\ndrink, called _Chocolate_, to be sold, where you may have it ready at\nany time, and also unmade, at reasonable rates.\"\n\n\nMATTHEW BUCKINGER.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Matthew Buckinger.]\n\nOf all the imperfect beings brought into the world, few can challenge,\nfor mental and acquired endowments, any thing like a comparison to\nvie with this truly extraordinary little man. Matthew Buckinger was\na native of Nuremberg, in Germany, where he was born, June 2, 1674,\nwithout hands, feet, legs, or thighs; in short, he was little more\nthan the trunk of a man, saving two excrescences growing from the\nshoulder-blades, more resembling fins of a fish than arms of a man. He\nwas the last of nine children, by one father and mother, viz. eight\nsons and one daughter; after arriving at the age of maturity, from the\nsingularity of his case, and the extraordinary abilities he possessed,\nhe attracted the notice and attention of all persons, of whatever rank\nin life, to whom he was occasionally introduced.\n\nIt does not appear, by any account extant, that his parents exhibited\nhim at any time for the purposes of emolument, but that the whole of\nhis time must have been employed in study and practice, to attain the\nwonderful perfection he arrived at in drawing, and his performance on\nvarious musical instruments; he played the flute, bagpipe, dulcimer,\nand trumpet, not in the manner of general amateurs, but in the style of\na finished master. He likewise possessed great mechanical powers, and\nconceived the design of constructing machines to play on all sorts of\nmusical instruments.\n\nIf Nature played the niggard in one respect with him she amply repaid\nthe deficiency by endowments that those blessed with perfect limbs\ncould seldom achieve. He greatly distinguished himself by beautiful\nwriting, drawing coats of arms, sketches of portraits, history,\nlandscapes, &c., most of which were executed in Indian ink, with a pen,\nemulating in perfection the finest and most finished engraving. He was\nwell skilled in most games of chance, nor could the most experienced\ngamester or juggler obtain the least advantage at any tricks, or game,\nwith cards or dice.\n\nHe used to perform before company, to whom he was exhibited, various\ntricks with cups and balls, corn, and living birds; and could play\nat skittles and ninepins with great dexterity; shave himself with\nperfect ease, and do many other things equally surprising in a person\nso deficient, and mutilated by Nature. His writings and sketches of\nfigures, landscapes, &c., were by no means uncommon, though curious;\nit being customary, with most persons who went to see him, to purchase\nsomething or other of his performance; and as he was always employed\nin writing or drawing, he carried on a very successful trade, which,\ntogether with the money he obtained by exhibiting himself, enabled\nhim to support himself and family in a very genteel manner. The late\nMr. Herbert, of Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, editor of \"Ames's History\nof Printing,\" had many curious specimens of Buckinger's writing\nand drawing, the most extraordinary of which was his own portrait,\nexquisitely done on vellum, in which he most ingeniously contrived to\ninsert, in the flowing curls of the wig, the 27th, 121st, 128th, 140th,\n149th, and the 150th Psalms, together with the Lord's Prayer, most\nbeautifully and fairly written. Mr. Isaac Herbert, son of the former,\nwhile carrying on the business of a bookseller in Pall-Mall, caused\nthis portrait to be engraved, for which he paid Mr. Harding fifty\nguineas.\n\nBuckinger was married four times, and had eleven children, viz., one\nby his first wife, three by his second, six by his third, and one by\nhis last. One of his wives was in the habit of treating him extremely\nill, frequently beating and other ways insulting him, which, for a\nlong time, he very patiently put up with; but once his anger was so\nmuch aroused, that he sprung upon her like a fury, got her down, and\nbuffeted her with his stumps within an inch of her life; nor would he\nsuffer her to arise until she promised amendment in future, which it\nseems she prudently adopted, through fear of another thrashing. Mr.\nBuckinger was but twenty-nine inches in height, and died in 1722.\n\n\nWONDERFUL PROVISION OF NATURE.\n\nThe insects that frequent the waters, require predaceous animals to\nkeep them within due limits, as well as those that inhabit the earth;\nand the water-spider (_Argyroneta aquatica_) is one of the most\nremarkable upon whom that office is devolved. To this end, her instinct\ninstructs her to fabricate a kind of diving-bell in the bosom of that\nelement. She usually selects still waters for this purpose. Her house\nis an oval cocoon, filled with air, and lined with silk, from which\nthreads issue in every direction, and are fastened to the surrounding\nplants. In this cocoon, which is open below, she watches for her prey,\nand even appears to pass the winter, when she closes the opening. It\nis most commonly, yet not always, under water; but its inhabitant has\nfilled it for her respiration, which enables her to live in it. She\nconveys the air to it in the following manner: she usually swims on her\nback, when her abdomen is enveloped in a bubble of air, and appears\nlike a globe of quicksilver. With this she enters her cocoon, and\ndisplacing an equal mass of water, again ascends for a second lading,\ntill she has sufficiently filled her house with it, so as to expel all\nwater. How these little animals can envelope their abdomen with an\nair-bubble, and retain it till they enter their cells, is still one\nof Nature's mysteries that has not been explained. It is a wonderful\nprovision, which enables an animal that breathes the atmospheric air,\nto fill her house with it under water, and by some secret art to clothe\nher body with air, as with a garment, which she can put off when it\nanswers her purpose. This is a kind of attraction and repulsion that\nmocks all inquiries.\n\n\nSTOMACH BRUSH.\n\nOne of the Court Physicians, in the reign of Charles II., invented an\ninstrument to cleanse the stomach, and wrote a pamphlet on it; and\nridiculous as a chylopoietic-scrubbing-brush may appear, it afterwards\ngot a place among surgical instruments, and is described as the\n_Excutor Ventriculi_, or cleanser of the stomach; but the moderns not\nhaving _stomach_ for it, have transferred it to the wine merchant, who\nmore appropriately applies it to the scouring the interior of bottles.\nHeister gives a minute description of it, and very gravely enters on\nthe mode and manner of using it: the patient is to drink a draught\nof warm water, or spirit of wine, that the mucus and foulness of the\nstomach may be washed off thereby: then, the brush being moistened in\nsome convenient liquor, is to be introduced into the oesophagus, and\nslowly protruded into the stomach, by twisting round its wire handle.\nWhen arrived in the stomach, it is to be drawn up and down, and through\nthe oesophagus, like the sucker in a syringe, till it be at last\nwholly extracted. Some recommend plentiful drinking in the operation,\nto be continued till no more foulness is discharged. But though this\ncontrivance is greatly extolled, and said to prolong life to a great\nage, especially if practiced once a week, month, or fortnight; yet,\nthere are very few (probably, because tried by very few) instances of\nits happy effects.\n\n\nPOPULAR AMUSEMENTS IN 1743.\n\nIn _Merrie England of the Olden Time_, we find the following copy of a\nhandbill announcing performances:--\n\nBy a company of English, French, and Germans, at Phillips's New Wells,\nnear the London Spa, Clerkenwell, 20th August, 1743.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Rope Dancing.]\n\nThis evening, and during the Summer Season, will be performed several\nnew exercises of Rope-dancing, Tumbling, Vaulting, Equilibres,\nLadder-dancing, and Balancing, by Madame Kerman, Sampson Rogetzi,\nMonsieur German, and Monsieur Dominique; with a new Grand Dance,\ncalled Apollo and Daphne, by Mr. Phillips, Mrs. Lebrune, and others;\nsinging by Mrs. Phillips and Mrs. Jackson; likewise the extraordinary\nperformance of Herr Von Eeckenberg, who imitates the lark, thrush,\nblackbird, goldfinch, canary-bird, flageolet, and German flute; a\nSailor's Dance by Mr. Phillips; and Monsieur Dominique flies through\na hogshead, and forces both heads out. To which will be added The\nHarlot's Progress. Harlequin by Mr. Phillips; Miss Kitty by Mrs.\nPhillips. Also, an exact representation of the late glorious victory\ngained over the French by the English at the battle of Dettingen, with\nthe taking of the White Household Standard by the Scots Greys, and\nblowing up the bridge, and destroying and drowning most part of the\nFrench army. To begin every evening at five o'clock. Every one will be\nadmitted for a pint of wine, as usual.\n\n\nDANCING ROOMS.\n\nDancing rooms were much frequented a century or so ago in London, which\nwas then pretty well supplied with this means of recreation. We find\nthat there were rare dancing doings at the original dancing room\n\n                                                             in the year\n  at the _field_-end of King-Street, Bloomsbury,                    1742\n  Hickford's great room, Panton-Street, Haymarket,                  1743\n  Mitre Tavern, Charing-Cross,                                      1743\n  Barber's Hall,                                                    1745\n  Richmond Assembly,                                                1745\n  Lambeth Wells,                                                    1747\n  Duke's long room, Paternoster Row,                                1748\n  Large Assembly Room at the Two Green Lamps, near Exeter Change,\n        (at the particular desire of Jubilee Dickey!)               1749\n  The large room next door to the Hand and Slippers, Long-lane,\n        West Smithfield,                                            1750\n  Lambeth Wells, where a _Penny Wedding_, in the _Scotch_\n        manner, was celebrated for the benefit of a young couple,   1752\n  Old Queen's Head, in Cock-lane, Lambeth,                          1755\n\nand at Mr. Bell's, at the sign of the Ship, in the Strand, where, in\n1755, a _Scotch_ Wedding was kept. The bride \"to be dressed without any\nlinen; all in ribbons, and green flowers, with Scotch masks. There will\nbe three bagpipes; a band of Scotch music, &c. &c. To begin precisely\nat two o'clock. Admission, two shillings and sixpence.\"\n\n\nORIGIN OF THE USE OF TOBACCO.\n\n\"Maister John Nicot, Counsellor to the Kyng, beeyng Embassadour for\nthe Kyng in Portugall, in the yeres of our Lorde, 1559, 60, 61, wente\none daye to see the Prysons of the Kyng of Portugall, and a gentleman\nbeeyng the keeper of the saide Prisons presented hym this hearbe, as\na strange Plant brought from Florida; the same Maister Nicot, hauyng\ncaused the saide hearbe to be set in his garden, where it grewe and\nmultiplied marveillously, was vpon a tyme aduertised, by one of his\nPages, that a young man, a kinne to that Page, made a saye of that\nhearbe bruised, both the herbe and the joice together upon an ulcer\nwhiche he had vpon his cheeke nere vnto his nose, coming of a _Noli\nme tangere_ whiche bega to take roote already at the gristles of the\nNose, wherewith he founde hym self marveillously eased. Therefore the\nsaid Maister Nicot caused the sicke yong man to be brought before hym,\ncausing the said herbe to be continued to the sore eight or tenne\ndaies, this saide _Noli me tangere_, was vtterly extinguished and\nhealed: and he had sent it, while this cure was a working to a certaine\nPhysition of the Kyng of Portugall of the moste fame, for to see the\nfurther workyng and effect of the said _Nicotiane_, and sending for the\nsame yong man at the end of tenne daies, the said Phisition seeyng the\nuisage of the said sicke yong man certified, that the saide _Noli me\ntangere_ was utterly extinguished, as in deede he never felt it since.\nWithin a while after, one of the Cookes of the said Embassadour hauyng\nalmost cut off his Thombe, with a great choppyng knife, the steward\nof the house of the saide gentleman ranne to the saide _Nicotiane_,\nand dresssed him there with fyve or sixe times, and so in the ende\nthereof he was healed: from that time forwarde this hearbe began to\nbee famous throughout all _Lisborne_, where the court of the Kyng of\nPortugall was at that presente, and the vertue of this saide hearbe was\npreached, and the people beganne to name it the Ambassadour's hearbe!\nWherefore there came certaine daies after, a gentleman of the country,\nFather to one of the Pages of the Ambassadour, who was troubled with\nan vlcer in his Legge, hauyng had the same two yeres, and demaunded\nof the saide Ambassadour for his hearbe, and vsing the same in suche\norder as is before written, at the ende of tenne or twelve daies he\nwas healed. From that time fourth the fame of that hearbe encreased in\nsuch sorte, that manye came from all places to have that same herbe.\nEmong all others there was a woman that had her face covered with a\nRingworme rooted, as though she had a Visour on her face, to whom the\nsaide L: Ambassadour caused the herbe to be given her, and told how she\nshould vse it, and at the ende of eight or tenne daies, this woman was\nthoroughleye healed, she came and shewed herself to the Ambassadour,\nshewing him of her healyng. After there came a captain to presente\nhis sonne, sick of the Kinges euill to the saide L: Ambassadour, for\nto send him into France, vnto whom there was saye made of the saide\nhearbe, whiche in fewe daies did beginne to shewe greate signes of\nhealing, and finally was altogether healed of the kinges euill. The\nL: Ambassadour seeing so great effectes proceeding of this hearbe,\nand hauing heard say that the Lady Montigny that was, dyed at Saint\nGermans, of an vlcer bredde in her breast, that did turn to a _Noli\nme tangere_, for which there could never be remedey bee founde, and\nlikewise that the Countesse of Ruffe, had sought for all the famous\nPhisitions of that Realme, for to heale her face, unto whom they\ncould give no remedy, he thought it good to communicate the same into\nFraunce, and did send it to Kyng Fraunces the seconde; and to the\nQueen Mother, and to many other Lords of the Courte with the maner of\ngovernyng the same: and how to applie it vnto the said diseases, even\nas he had found it by experience; and chiefly to the lorde of Jarnac\ngovernour of Rogell, with whom the saide Lorde Ambassadour had great\namitie for the service of the Kyng. The whiche Lorde of Jarnac, told\none daye at the Queenes Table, that he had caused the saide _Nicotiane_\nto be distilled, and caused the water to be dronke, mingled with\nwater _Euphrasie_, otherwise called eyebright, to one that was shorte\nbreathed, and was therewith healed.\"--_Joyfvll News ovt of the newe\nfound worlde, &c._, 1577.--_Black Letter._\n\n\nANCIENT INSTRUMENTS OF PUNISHMENT AND TORTURE IN THE TOWER OF LONDON.\n\nThere are few things among the valuable collection of antiquities\npreserved in the Tower of London, which excite so much interest as the\ngrim-looking objects forming the group figured in the accompanying\nengraving.\n\nWith the executioner's axe, that long list of unfortunates who have met\ntheir fate within the walls of the Tower, or on Tower Hill, since the\ntime of Henry VIII., have been beheaded. Among them may be enumerated\nQueen Anne Boleyn, whom Henry first presented to his people as their\nQueen while standing with her on the Tower Stairs, after she had been\nconveyed thither from Greenwich with every possible pomp. Crowds of\ngilded barges, with gay banners waving at their sterns, then lined the\nstream. The noblest of the land were in the young Queen's train or were\nwaiting to receive her. Loud rounds of cannon, and soft, merry strains,\nannounced her arrival; and the burly King stepped forward to kiss her\nin the sight of the assembled multitude. On the same day, three short\nyears afterwards, she was led forth to execution within the Tower\nwalls. The good Sir Thomas More and the chivalrous Earl of Surrey, Lady\nJane Grey and her young husband, the gallant Raleigh, and a host of\nothers, also perished by that sad symbol of the executioner's office.\n\nThe block is said to be of less ancient date, but is known to have been\nused at the execution of three Scotch lords--the unfortunate adherents\nof the Pretender--a little more than a century ago. On the top part of\nthe block, there are three distinct cuts, two of them very deep and\nparallel, and the other at an angle and less effective.\n\nThe horrible instrument of torture called the \"Scavenger's Daughter,\"\nwas, in the \"good old days,\" used as a means of extorting confession.\nThe head of the culprit was passed through the circular hole at the\ntop, and the arms through those below. The whole of this part of the\nmachine opens in somewhat the same manner as a pair of tongs, the upper\npart being fixed round the neck and arms, and the semicircular irons\nplaced on the legs. The body was then bent, and a strong iron bar was\npassed through the irons connected with the head and arms, and those\nin which the legs were placed. \"The culprit would then,\" as one of the\n\"Beefeaters\" who attends on visitors makes a point of observing, \"be\ndoubled up into very small compass, and made exceedingly uncomfortable.\"\n\nThe Bilboes need little explanation, being only a strong rod of iron,\nwith a nob at one end, on which are two moveable hoops, for the purpose\nof holding the legs; these being fixed, and a heavy iron padlock put on\nthe proper part--the wearer was said to be in a _Bilboe_. Instruments\nof this description were much used on board of ship for the purpose of\nsecuring prisoners of war.\n\nThe Iron Collar is a persuader of a formidable description, for it\nweighs upwards of 14 lbs., and is so made that it can be fixed on the\nneck and then locked. Such a necklace would, we think, be sufficiently\ninconvenient; but it is rendered still more uncomfortable by sundry\nprickles of iron knowingly placed.\n\nThe Thumb-screw, also preserved in the Tower, is a characteristic\nexample of a species of torture at one time much resorted to. The\nengraved example has been constructed so as to press both thumbs;\nnevertheless, it is a convenient little instrument, which might be\neasily carried about in the pocket. We have met with varieties of the\nthumb-screw in several collections--some for the accommodation of one\nthumb only. In the Museum of the Royal Antiquarian Society of Scotland\nthere are some thumb-screws which are said to have been used upon the\nCovenanters.\n\n[Illustration: 1. The Executioner's Axe. 2. The Block on which Lords\nBalmerino, Lovat, &c., were beheaded. 3. The Scavenger's Daughter. 4.\nSpanish Bilboes. 5. Massive Iron Collar for the Neck. 6. Thumb-Screw.]\n\nTimes have changed for the better since the \"Scavenger's Daughter,\" and\nthe other matters represented, were amongst the mildest of the methods\nused for the purposes of punishment and intimidation. The stocks,\nthe public whipping-posts, boilings, and burnings in Smithfield and\nelsewhere, the exhibition of dead men's heads over gateways, the boot,\nthe rack, the pillory, the practice of making men eat their own books\nin Cheapside, drawing on hurdles to the place of execution, and then\nhanging, drawing, and quartering, chopping off hands and ears, and\nother revolting punishments, have gone out of use, and it is gratifying\nto know that we are all the better for it.\n\n\nA BEAU BRUMMELL OF THE 17TH CENTURY.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Picture of an English Anticke.]\n\nThis very curious representation of a first-rate exquisite is copied\nfrom a very rare broadside, printed in 1646, and styled _The Picture\nof an English Anticke, with a List of his ridiculous Habits and apish\nGestures_. The engraving is a well-executed copperplate, and the\ndescription beneath is a brief recapitulation of his costume: from\nwhich we learn that he wears a tall hat, with a bunch of riband on\none side, and a feather on the other; his face spotted with patches;\ntwo love-locks, one on each side of his head, which hang upon his\nbosom, and are tied at the ends with silk riband in bows. His beard on\nthe upper lip encompassing his mouth; his band or collar edged with\nlace, and tied with band-strings, secured by a ring; a tight vest,\npartly open and short in the skirts, between which and his breeches\nhis shirt protruded. His cloak was carried over his arm. His breeches\nwere ornamented by \"many dozen of points at the knees, and above them,\non either side, were two great bunches of riband of several colours.\"\nHis legs were incased in \"boot-hose tops, tied about the middle of the\ncalf, as long as a pair of shirt-sleeves, double at the ends like a\nruff-band; the tops of his boots very large, fringed with lace, and\nturned down as low as his spurres, which gingled like the bells of a\nmorrice-dancer as he walked;\" the \"feet of his boots were two inches\ntoo long.\" In his right hand he carried a stick, which he \"played with\"\nas he \"straddled\" along the streets \"singing.\"\n\n\nPRAYING FOR REVENGE.\n\nIn North Wales, when a person supposes himself highly injured, it is\nnot uncommon for him to go to some church dedicated to a celebrated\nsaint, as Llan Elian in Anglesea, and Clynog in Carnarvonshire, and\nthere to offer his enemy. He kneels down on his bare knees in the\nchurch, and offering a piece of money to the saint, calls down curses\nand misfortunes upon the offender and his family for generations to\ncome; in the most firm belief that the imprecations will be fulfilled.\nSometimes they repair to a sacred well instead of a church.\n\n\nA FEMALE SAMPSON: FROM A HANDBILL.\n\nSeptember 4th, 1818, was shown at Bartholomew Fair, \"The strongest\nwoman in Europe, the celebrated French Female Hercules, Madame\nGobert, who will lift with her teeth a table five feet long and\nthree feet wide, with several persons seated upon it; also carry\nthirty-six weights, fifty-six pounds each, equal to 2,016 lbs., and\nwill disengage herself from them without any assistance; will carry\na barrel containing 340 bottles; also an anvil 400 lbs. weight, on\nwhich they will forge with four hammers at the time she supports it\non her stomach; she will also lift with her hair the same anvil,\nswing it from the ground, and suspend it in that position to the\nastonishment of every beholder; will take up a chair by the hind stave\nwith her teeth, and throw it over her head, ten feet from her body.\nHer travelling caravan, (weighing two tons,) on its road from Harwich\nto Leominster, owing to the neglect of the driver, and badness of the\nroad, sunk in the mud, nearly up to the box of the wheels; the two\nhorses being unable to extricate it she descended, and, with apparent\nease, disengaged the caravan from its situation, without any assistance\nwhatever.\"\n\n\nTREES THAT GROW SHIRTS.\n\n\"We saw on the <DW72> of the Cerra Dnida,\" says M. Humboldt, \"shirt\ntrees, fifty feet high. The Indians cut off cylindrical pieces two feet\nin diameter, from which they peel the red and fibrous bark, without\nmaking any longitudinal incision. This bark affords them a sort of\ngarment which resembles a sack of a very coarse texture, and without\na seam. The upper opening serves for the head, and two lateral holes\nare cut to admit the arms. The natives wear these shirts of Marina\nin the rainy season; they have the form of the ponchos and manos of\ncotton which are so common in New Grenada, at Quito, and in Peru. As in\nthis climate the riches and beneficence of nature are regarded as the\nprimary causes of the indolence of the inhabitants, the missionaries\ndo not fail to say in showing the shirts of Marina, 'in the forests of\nOroonoko, garments are found ready made upon the trees.'\"\n\n\nA FEMALE VENTRILOQUIST.\n\nA female ventriloquist, named Barbara Jacobi, narrowly escaped being\nburnt at the stake in 1685, at Haarlem, where she was an inmate of\nthe public Hospital. The curious daily resorted thither to hear her\nhold & dialogue with an imaginary personage with whom she conversed\nas if concealed behind the curtains of her bed. This individual, whom\nshe called Joachim, and to whom she addressed a thousand ludicrous\nquestions, which he answered in the same familiar strain, was for some\ntime supposed to be a confederate. But when the bystanders attempted to\nsearch for him behind the curtains, his voice instantly reproached them\nwith their curiosity from the opposite corner of the room. As Barbara\nJacobi had contrived to make herself familiar with all the gossip of\nthe city of Haarlem, the revelations of the pretended familiar were\nsuch as to cause considerable embarrassment to those who beset her with\nimpertinent questions.\n\n\nCALMUC OPINION OF LIGHTNING.\n\nThe Calmucs hold the lightning to be the fire spit out of the mouth of\na dragon, ridden and scourged by evil Daemons, and the thunder they make\nto be his roarings.\n\n\nTHE HEADING OF THE EXPIRING PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL.\n\nJournalism has had its trials and difficulties in England as well as in\nAmerica; but we do not remember to have ever seen a more quaint last\nNumber, than the subjoined _facsimile_ exhibits:--\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  The TIMES are\n  Dreadful\n  Dismal,\n  Doleful\n  Dolorous, and\n  Dollar-less.\n\n  An Emblem of the Effect\n  of the Stamp\n  Of the Fatal Stamp\n\n  Adieu Adieu to the LIBERTY OF THE PRESS\n\n  Thursday, October 31. 1765\n\n  NUMB. 1195\n\n  THE\n\n  PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL;\n\n  AND\n\n  WEEKLY ADVERTISER.\n\n  EXPIRING: In Hopes of a Resurrection to LIFE again.\n\n  I am sorry to be obliged to acquaint my Readers, that as The\n  STAMP-ACT, is fear'd to be obligatory upon us after the _First of\n  November_ ensuing, (the _fatal To-morrow_) the Publisher of this\n  Paper unable to bear the Burthen, has thought it expedient TO STOP\n  awhile, in order to deliberate, whether any Methods can be found to\n  elude the Chains forged for us, and escape the insupportable Slavery;\n  which it is hoped, from the last Representations now made against the\n  Act, may be effected. Mean while, I must earnestly Request every\n  Individual of my Subscribers, many of whom have been long behind Hand,\n  that they would immediately Discharge their respective Arrers, that I\n  may be able, not only to support myself during the Interval, but be\n  better prepared to proceed again with this Paper, whenever an opening\n  for that Purpose appears, which I hope will be soon.\n\n  WILLIAM BRADFORD.]\n\n\nNOSTRUMS.\n\nUnsuccessful gamesters used formerly to make a knot in their linen, of\nlate years they have contented themselves with changing their chair\nas a remedy against ill-luck. As a security against cowardice, it was\nonce only necessary to wear a pin plucked from the winding sheet of a\ncorpse. To insure a prosperous accouchement to your wife, you had but\nto tie her girdle to a bell and ring it three times. To get rid of\nwarts, you were to fold up in a rag as many peas as you had warts, and\nthrow them upon the high road; when the unlucky person who picked them\nup became your substitute. In the present day, to cure a toothache, you\ngo to your dentist. In the olden time you would have solicited alms in\nhonour of St. Lawrence, and been relieved without cost or pain.\n\n\nPRECOCIOUS CHILDREN.\n\nBaillet mentions one hundred and sixty-three children endowed with\nextraordinary talents, among whom few arrived at an advanced age. The\ntwo sons of Quintilian, so vaunted by their father, did not reach their\ntenth year. Hermogenes, who, at the age of fifteen, taught rhetoric to\nMarcus Aurelius, who triumphed over the most celebrated rhetoricians of\nGreece, did not die, but at twenty-four, lost his faculties, and forgot\nall he had previously acquired. Pica di Mirandola died at thirty-two;\nJohannes Secundus at twenty-five; having at the age of fifteen composed\nadmirable Greek and Latin verses, and become profoundly versed in\njurisprudence and letters. Pascal, whose genius developed itself at ten\nyears old, did not attain the third of a century.\n\nIn 1791, a child was born at Lubeck, named Henri Heinekem, whose\nprecocity was miraculous. At ten months of age, he spoke distinctly;\nat twelve, learnt the Pentateuch by rote, and at fourteen months, was\nperfectly acquainted with the Old and New Testaments. At two years\nof age, he was as familiar with Ancient History as the most erudite\nauthors of antiquity. Sanson and Danville only could compete with him\nin geographical knowledge; Cicero would have thought him an \"alter\nego,\" on hearing him converse in Latin; and in modern languages he was\nequally proficient. This wonderful child was unfortunately carried off\nin his fourth year. According to a popular proverb--\"the sword wore out\nthe sheath.\"\n\n\nEFFECT OF MUSIC ON A PIGEON.\n\nBingley gives a singular anecdote of the effect of music on a pigeon,\nas related by John Lockman, in some reflections concerning operas,\nprefixed to his musical drama of Rosalinda. He was staying at a\nfriend's house, whose daughter was a fine performer on the harpsichord,\nand observed a pigeon, which, whenever the young lady played the song\nof \"Speri-si,\" in Handel's opera of Admetus (and this only), would\ndescend from an adjacent dove-house to the room-window where she sat,\nand listen to it apparently with the most pleasing emotions; and when\nthe song was finished it always returned immediately to the dove-house.\n\n\nPOWER OF FASCINATION IN SNAKES.\n\nSome animals are held in universal dread by others, and not the least\nterrible is the effect produced by the rattle-snake. Mr. Pennant\nsays, that this snake will frequently lie at the bottom of a tree,\non which a squirrel is seated. He fixes his eyes on the animal, and\nfrom that moment it cannot escape: it begins a doleful outcry, which\nis so well known that a passer by, on hearing it, immediately knows\nthat a snake is present. The squirrel runs up the tree a little way,\ncomes down again, then goes up and afterwards comes still lower. The\nsnake continues at the bottom of the tree, with his eyes fixed on the\nsquirrel, and his attention is so entirely taken up, that a person\naccidentally approaching may make a considerable noise, without so\nmuch as the snake's turning about. The squirrel comes lower, and at\nlast leaps down to the snake, whose mouth is already distended for\nits reception. Le Vaillant confirms this fascinating terror, by a\nscene he witnessed. He saw on the branch of a tree a species of shrike\ntrembling as if in convulsions, and at the distance of nearly four\nfeet, on another branch, a large species of snake, that was lying with\noutstretched neck and fiery eyes, gazing steadily at the poor animal.\nThe agony of the bird was so great that it was deprived of the power of\nmoving away, and when one of the party killed the snake, it was found\ndead upon the spot--and that entirely from fear--for, on examination,\nit appeared not to have received the slightest wound. The same\ntraveller adds, that a short time afterwards he observed a small mouse\nin similar agonizing convulsions, about two yards from a snake, whose\neyes were intently fixed upon it; and on frightening away the reptile,\nand taking up the mouse, it expired in his hand.\n\n\nSECOND SIGHT.\n\nAbout the year 1725, the marvellous history of a Portuguese woman\nset the whole world of science into confusion, as will be found by\nreferring to the \"Mercure de France.\" This female was said to possess\nthe gift of discovering treasures. Without any other aid than the keen\npenetration of her eyes, she was able to distinguish the different\nstrata of earth, and pronounce unerringly upon the utmost distances at\na single glance. Her eye penetrated through every substance, even the\nhuman body; and she could discern the mechanism, and circulation of\nall animal fluids, and detect latent diseases; although less skilful\nthan the animal magnetisers, she did not affect to point out infallible\nremedies. Ladies could learn from her the sex of their forthcoming\nprogeny.\n\nThe King of Portugal, greatly at a loss for water in his newly built\npalace, consulted her; and after a glance at the spot, she pointed out\nan abundant spring, upon which his Majesty rewarded her with a pension,\nthe order of Christ, and a patent of nobility.\n\nIn the exercise of her miraculous powers, certain preliminaries were\nindispensable. She was obliged to observe a rigid fast; indigestion, or\nthe most trifling derangement of the stomach, suspending the marvellous\npowers of her visual organs.\n\nThe men of science of the day were of course confounded by such\nprodigies. But instead of questioning the woman, they consulted the\nworks of their predecessors; not forgetting the inevitable Aristotle.\nBy dint of much research, they found a letter from Huygens asserting\nthat there was a prisoner of war at Antwerp, who could see through\nstuffs of the thickest texture provided they were not red. The\nwonderful man was cited in confirmation of the wonderful woman, and\n_vice versa_.\n\n\nCHARACTER INDICATED BY THE EARS.\n\nAccording to Aristotle, large ears are indicative of imbecility; while\nsmall ones announce madness. Ears which are flat, point out the rustic\nand brutal man. Those of the fairest promise, are firm and of middling\nsize. Happy the man who boasts of square ears; a sure indication of\nsublimity of soul and purity of life. Such, according to Suetonius,\nwere the ears of the Emperor Augustus.\n\n\nGROANING BOARDS.\n\nGroaning boards were the wonder in London in 1682. An elm plank was\nexhibited to the king, which, being touched by a hot iron, invariably\nproduced a sound resembling deep groans. At the Bowman Tavern, in\nDrury Lane, the mantel-piece did the same so well that it was supposed\nto be part of the same elm-tree; and the dresser at the Queen's Arm\nTavern, St. Martin le Grand, was found to possess the same quality.\nStrange times when such things were deemed wonderful; even to meriting\nexhibition before the monarch.\n\n\nANCIENT PLOUGHING AND THRESHING.\n\nThe ancient plough was light, the draught comparatively easy; but then\nthe very lightness required that the ploughman should lean upon it with\nhis whole weight, or else it would glide over the soil without making\na single furrow. \"Unless,\" said Pliny, \"the ploughman stoop forward,\nto press down the plough, as well as to conduct it, truly it will turn\naside.\"\n\n[Illustration: Ancient Mode of Ploughing.]\n\nOxen were anciently employed in threshing corn, and the same custom is\nstill retained in Egypt and the east. This operation is effected by\ntrampling upon the sheaves, and by dragging a clumsy machine, furnished\nwith three rollers that turn on their axles. A wooden chair is attached\nto the machine, and on this a driver seats himself, urging his oxen\nbackwards and forwards among the sheaves, which have previously been\nthrown into a heap of about eight feet wide and two in height. The\ngrain thus beaten out, is collected in an open place, and shaken\nagainst the wind by an attendant, with a small shovel, or, as it is\ntermed, a winnowing fan, which disperses the chaff and leaves the grain\nuninjured:--\n\n    \"Thus, with autumnal harvests covered o'er,\n     And thick bestrewn, lies Ceres' sacred floor;\n     While round and round, with never-wearied pain,\n     The trampling steers beat out th' unnumber'd grain.\"\n\n              HOMER.\n\nHorace further tells us, that the threshing floor was mostly a smooth\nspace, surrounded with mud walls, having a barn or garner on one side;\noccasionally an open field, outside the walls, was selected for this\npurpose, yet uniformly before the town or city gates. Such was the void\nplace wherein the king of Israel, and Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, sat\neach of them on his throne, clothed in his robes, at the entering in of\nthe gate of Samaria, and all the prophets prophesied before them. In\nthe marginal reading we are informed, that this void space was no other\nthan a threshing floor; and truly the area was well adapted for such an\nassemblage, being equally suited to accommodate the two kings and their\nattendants, and to separate them from the populace.\n\n[Illustration: Oxen Threshing Corn.]\n\nEastern ploughshares were of a lighter make than ours, and those who\nnotice the shortness and substance of ancient weapons, among such as\nare preserved in museums, will understand how readily they might be\napplied to agricultural uses.\n\n\nFROST FAIRS.\n\nIn 1788-9, the Thames was completely frozen over below London-bridge.\nBooths were erected on the ice; and puppet-shows, wild beasts,\nbear-baiting, turnabouts, pigs and sheep roasted, exhibited the\nvarious amusements of Bartholomew Fair multiplied and improved. From\nPutney-bridge down to Redriff was one continued scene of jollity during\nthis seven weeks' saturnalia. The last frost fair was celebrated\nin the year 1814. The frost commenced on 27th December, 1813, and\ncontinued to the 5th February, 1814. There was a grand walk, or mall,\nfrom Blackfriars-bridge to London-bridge, that was appropriately\nnamed _The City Road_, and lined on each side with booths of all\ndescriptions. Several printing-presses were erected, and at one of\nthese an orange- standard was hoisted, with \"_Orange Boven_\"\nprinted in large characters. There were E O and Rouge et Noir tables,\ntee-totums, and skittles; concerts of rough music, viz. salt-boxes\nand rolling-pins, gridirons and tongs, horns, and marrow-bones and\ncleavers. The carousing booths were filled with merry parties, some\ndancing to the sound of the fiddle, others sitting round blazing fires\nsmoking and drinking. A printer's devil bawled out to the spectators,\n\"Now is your time, ladies and gentlemen,--now is your time to support\nthe freedom of the press! Can the press enjoy greater liberty? Here you\nfind it working in the middle of the Thames!\"\n\n\nMAGIC RAIN STONE.\n\nThe Indian magi, who are to invoke Yo He Wah, and mediate with the\nsupreme holy fire that he may give seasonable rains, have a transparent\nstone of supposed great power in assisting to bring down the rain, when\nit is put in a basin of water, by a reputed divine virtue, impressed on\none of the like sort, in time of old, which communicates it circularly.\nThis stone would suffer a great decay, they assert, were it even seen\nby their own laity; but if by foreigners, it would be utterly despoiled\nof its divine communicative power.\n\n\nTHE BOMBARDIER BEETLE.\n\nThe bombardier beetle (_Carabus crepitans_) when touched produces a\nnoise resembling the discharge of a musket in miniature, during which\na blue smoke may be seen to proceed from its extremity. Rolander says\nthat it can give twenty discharges successively. A bladder placed near\nits posterior extremity, is the arsenal that contains its store. This\nis its chief defence against its enemies; and the vapour or liquid\nthat proceeds from it is of so pungent a nature, that if it happens to\nbe discharged into the eyes, it makes them smart as though brandy had\nbeen thrown into them. The principal enemy of the bombardier is another\ninsect of the same tribe, but three or four times its size. When\npursued and fatigued it has recourse to this stratagem; it lies down in\nthe path of its enemy, who advances with open mouth to seize it; but on\nthe discharge of the artillery, this suddenly draws back, and remains\nfor a while confused, during which the bombardier conceals itself in\nsome neighbouring crevice, but if not lucky enough to find one, the\nother returns to the attack, takes the insect by the head, and bears it\noff.\n\n\nTHE PILLORY FOR EATING FLESH IN LENT.\n\nEven in this kingdom, so late as the Reformation, eating flesh in\nLent was rewarded with the pillory. An instance of this occurs in\nthe \"Patriot King,\" the particulars of which, quoted in \"Clavis\nCalendaria,\" are somewhat amusing. Thomas Freburn's wife, of\nPaternoster-row, London, having expressed a particular inclination\nfor pig, one was procured, ready for the spit; but the butter-woman\nwho provided it, squeamish as to the propriety of what she had done,\ncarried a foot of it to the Dean of Canterbury. The Dean was at\ndinner, and one of his guests was Freburn's landlord, and Garter King\nat Arms, who sent to know if any of his family were ill, that he ate\nflesh in Lent. 'All well,' quoth Freburn, (perhaps too much of a\nDissenter for the times,) 'only my wife longs for pig.' His landlord\nsends for the Bishop of London's apparitor, and orders him to take\nFreburn and his pig before Stocksly, the Bishop, who sent them both\nto Judge Cholmley; but he not being at home, they were again brought\nback to the Bishop, who committed them to the Compter. Next day, being\nSaturday, Freburn was carried before the Lord Mayor, who sentenced\nhim to stand in the pillory on the Monday following, with one half\nof the pig on one shoulder, and the other half on the other. Through\nCromwell's intercession, the poor man at last gained his liberty by a\nbond of twenty pounds for his appearance. The mischief-making pig was,\nby the order of the Bishop, buried in Finsbury-field, by the hand of\nhis Lordship's apparitor; but Freburn was turned out of his house, and\ncould not get another in four years. Hence we may infer his ruin.\n\n\nHUGE CANNON AT THE SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.\n\nIn 1432, several kinds of artillery are mentioned, cannons, bombards,\nvulgaires, coulverins. The vulgaires were ordinary artillery. In the\nyear 1460, James II. of Scotland was killed by the accidental bursting\nof a cannon. The artillery of the Turks, in the year 1453, surpassed\nwhatever had yet appeared in the world. A stupendous piece of ordnance\nwas made by them; its bore was twelve palms, and the stone bullet\nweighed about 600 lbs.; it was brought with great difficulty before\nConstantinople, and was flanked by two almost of equal magnitude:\nfourteen batteries were brought to bear against the place, mounting 130\nguns; the great cannon could not be loaded and fired more than seven\ntimes in one day. Mines were adopted by the Turks, and counter-mines\nby the Christians. At this siege, which was in 1453, ancient and\nmodern artillery were both used. Cannons, intermingled with machines\nfor casting stones and darts, and the battering-ram was directed\nagainst the walls. The fate of Constantinople could no longer be\naverted: the diminutive garrison was exhausted by a double attack; the\nfortifications were dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon;\na spirit of discord impaired the Christian strength. After a siege\nof fifty-three days, Constantinople, which had defied the power of\nChosroes, the Chagan, and the Caliphs, was subdued by the arms of\nMahomet II.\n\n\nA MAN IN A VAULT ELEVEN DAYS.\n\n_St. Benedict Fink._--\"1673, April 23, was buried Mr Thomas Sharrow,\nCloth-worker, late Churchwarden of this parish, killed by an accidental\nfall into a vault, in London Wall, Amen Corner, by Paternoster Row,\nand was supposed had lain there eleven days and nights before any\none could tell where he was, _Let all that read this take heed of\ndrink._\"--Truly, a quaint warning!\n\n\nBLIND GRANNY.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Blind Granny.]\n\nThis miserable, wretched, drunken object, who was blind of one eye,\nused to annoy the passengers in the streets of London, while sober,\nwith licking her blind eye with her tongue, which was of a most\nenormous length, and thickness; indeed, it was of such a prodigious\nsize, that her mouth could not contain it, and she could never close\nher lips, or to use a common expression, keep her tongue within\nher teeth. This wonderful feat of washing her eye with her tongue\nwas exhibited with a view of obtaining money from such as crowded\naround her, and no sooner had she obtained sufficient means, but\nshe hastened to the first convenient liquor-shop, to indulge her\npropensity in copious libations, and when properly inspired, would\nrush into the streets with all the gestures of a frantic maniac, and\nroll and dance about, until she became a little sobered, which was\nsometimes accelerated by the salutary application of a pail of water,\ngratuitously bestowed upon her by persons whose doorway she had taken\npossession of, as shelter from the persecuting tormentings of boys and\ngirls who generally followed her.\n\n\nANCIENT FEMALE COSTUME.\n\n[Illustration: [++] costume of a female of the higher classes.]\n\nA good specimen of the costume of a female of the higher classes is\nhere given, from an effigy of a lady of the Ryther family, in Ryther\nchurch, Yorkshire, engraved in Hollis's _Monumental Effigies_. She\nwears a wimple, covering the neck and encircling the head, the hair\nof which is gathered in plaits at the sides, and covered with a\nkerchief, which falls upon the shoulders, and is secured by a fillet\npassing over the forehead. The sleeves of the gown hang midway from\nthe elbow and the wrist, and display the tight sleeve with its rows of\nbuttons beneath. The mantle is fastened by a band of ribbon, secured\nby ornamental studs. The lower part of the dress consists of the wide\ngown, lying in folds, and completely concealing the feet, which have\nbeen omitted, in order to display the upper part of this interesting\neffigy to greater advantage.\n\n\nCHILCOTT, THE GIANT.\n\n1815. Died at Trenaw, in Cornwall, a person known by the appellation\nof Giant Chilcott. He measured at the breast six feet nine inches, and\nweighed four hundred and sixty pounds. One of his stockings held six\ngallons of wheat.\n\n\nDR. LETTSOM'S REASONS FOR DISMISSING A SERVANT.\n\nThe Doctor was in the practice of carrying the produce of his fees\ncarelessly in his coat-pocket. His footman being aware of this, used to\nmake free with a guinea occasionally, while it hung up in the passage.\nThe Doctor, having repeatedly missed his gold, was suspicious of the\nfootman, and took an opportunity of watching him. He succeeded in\nthe detection, and, without even noticing it to the other servants,\ncalled him into his study, and coolly said to him, \"John, art in want\nof money?\" \"No;\" replied John. \"Oh! then, why didst thou make so free\nwith my pocket? And since thou didst not want money, and hast told me a\nlie, I must part with thee. Now, say what situation thou wouldst like\nabroad, and I will obtain it for thee; for I cannot keep thee; I cannot\nrecommend thee; therefore thou must go.\" Suffice it to say, the Doctor\nprocured John a situation, and he went abroad.\n\n\nHANDBILL FROM PECKHAM FAIR IN 1726.\n\nOur ancestors just 133 years ago had but limited opportunities for\ngratifying a taste for Natural History if we may judge from the supply\nof animals deemed sufficient to attract attention in 1726:--\n\n\"_Geo. I. R._\n\n\"To the lovers of living curiosities. To be seen during the time of\n_Peckham Fair_, a Grand Collection of Living Wild Beasts and Birds,\nlately arrived from the remotest parts of the World.\n\n\"1. The _Pellican_ that suckles her young with her heart's blood, from\nEgypt.\n\n\"2. The Noble _Vultur Cock_, brought from _Archangell_, having the\nfinest tallons of any bird that seeks his prey; the fore part of his\nhead is covered with hair, the second part resembles the wool of a\nBlack; below that is a white ring, having a Ruff, that he cloaks his\nhead with at night.\n\n\"3. An _Eagle of the Sun_, that takes the loftiest flight of any bird\nthat flies. There is no bird but this that can fly to the face of the\nSun with a naked eye.\n\n\"4. A curious Beast, bred from a _Lioness_, like a foreign _Wild Cat_.\n\n\"5. The _He-Panther_, from Turkey, allowed by the curious to be one of\nthe greatest rarities ever seen in _England_, on which are thousands of\nspots, and not two of a likeness.\n\n\"6 & 7. The two fierce and surprising _Hyaenas_, Male and Female, from\nthe River _Gambia_. These Creatures imitate the human voice, and so\ndecoy the <DW64>s out of their huts and plantations to devour them.\nThey have a mane like a horse, and two joints in their hinder leg more\nthan any other creature. It is remarkable that all other beasts are to\nbe tamed, but _Hyaenas_ they are not.\n\n\"8. An _Ethiopian Toho Savage_, having all the actions of the human\nspecies, which (when at its full growth) will be upwards of five feet\nhigh.\n\n\"Also several other surprising Creatures of different sorts. To be seen\nfrom 9 in the morning till 9 at night, till they are sold. Also, all\nmanner of curiosities of different sorts, are bought and sold at the\nabove place by John Bennett.\"\n\n\nSOMNAMBULISM.\n\nSome years ago a Hampshire Baronet was nearly driven to distraction\nby the fact that, every night, he went to bed in a shirt, and every\nmorning awoke naked, without the smallest trace of the missing garment\nbeing discovered.\n\nHundreds of shirts disappeared in this manner; and as there was no fire\nin his room, it was impossible to account for the mystery. The servants\nbelieved their master to be mad; and even he began to fancy himself\nbewitched. In this conjuncture, he implored an intimate friend to\nsleep in the room with him; and ascertain by what manner of mysterious\nmidnight visitant his garment was so strangely removed. The friend,\naccordingly, took up his station in the haunted chamber; and lo! as the\nclock struck one, the unfortunate Baronet, who had previously given\naudible intimation of being fast asleep, rose from his bed, rekindled\nwith a match the candle which had been extinguished, deliberately\nopened the door, and quitted the room. His astonished friend followed:\nsaw him open in succession a variety of doors, pass along several\npassages, traverse an open court, and eventually reach the stable-yard;\nwhere he divested himself of his shirt, and disposed of it in an old\ndung-heap, into which he thrust it by means of a pitchfork. Having\nfinished this extraordinary operation, without taking the smallest heed\nof his friend who stood looking on, and plainly saw that he was walking\nin his sleep, he returned to the house, carefully reclosed the doors,\nre-extinguished the light, and returned to bed; where the following\nmorning he awoke as usual, stripped of his shirt!\n\nThe astonished eye-witness of this extraordinary scene, instead of\napprising the sleep-walker of what had occurred, insisted that the\nfollowing night, a companion should sit up with him; choosing to have\nadditional testimony to the truth of the statement he was about to\nmake; and the same singular events were renewed, without the slightest\nchange or deviation. The two witnesses, accordingly, divulged all they\nhad seen to the Baronet; who, though at first incredulous, became of\ncourse convinced, when, on proceeding to the stable-yard, several\ndozens of shirts were discovered; though it was surmised that as many\nmore had been previously removed by one of the helpers, who probably\nlooked upon the hoard as stolen goods concealed by some thief.\n\n\nKILLED BY EATING MUTTON AND PUDDING.\n\n_Teddington._--\"James Parsons, who had often eat a shoulder of mutton\nor a peck of hasty pudding, at a time, which caused his death, buried\nMarch 7, 1743-4, aged 36.\"\n\n\nCORAL REEFS.\n\nCoral reefs are produced by innumerable small zoophytes, properly\ncalled _Coral-insects_. The Coral insect consists of a little oblong\nbag of jelly closed at one end, but having the other extremity open,\nand surrounded by tentacles or feelers, usually six or eight in number,\nset like the rays of a star. Multitudes of these diminutive animals\nunite to form a common stony skeleton called _Coral_, or _Madrepore_,\nin the minute openings of which they live, protruding their mouths\nand tentacles when under water; but suddenly drawing them into their\nholes when danger approaches. These animals cannot exist at a greater\ndepth in the sea than about ten fathoms, and as the Coral Islands often\nrise with great steepness from a sea more than three hundred fathoms\ndeep, it would seem that a great alteration must have taken place in\nthe depth of the ocean since the time when these little architects\ncommenced their labours. Throughout the whole range of the Polynesian\nand Australasian islands, there is scarcely a league of sea unoccupied\nby a coral reef, or a coral island; the former springing up to the\nsurface of the water, perpendicularly from the fathomless bottom,\n\"deeper than did ever plummet sound;\" and the latter in various stages,\nfrom the low and naked rock, with the water rippling over it, to an\nuninterrupted forest of tall trees.\n\n\"Every one,\" says Mr. Darwin, \"must be struck with astonishment when\nhe first beholds one of these vast rings of coral rock, often many\nleagues in diameter, here and there surmounted by a low verdant island\nwith dazzling white shores, bathed on the outside by the foaming\nbreakers of the ocean, and on the inside surrounding a calm expanse of\nwater, which, from reflection, is of a bright but pale green colour.\nThe naturalist will feel this astonishment more deeply after having\nexamined the soft and almost gelatinous bodies of these apparently\ninsignificant creatures; and when he knows that the solid reef\nincreases only on the outer edge, which, day and night, is lashed by\nthe breakers of an ocean never at rest.\"\n\n[Illustration: [++] Coral Reefs.]\n\nCoral being beautiful in form and colour, is sought after for purposes\nof ornament; and its fishery or gathering gives employment to many\npersons in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean, and other\nplaces. In the Straits of Messina, the rocks which yield coral are from\nabout 350 to 650 feet below the surface of the water. The coral here\ngrows to about the height or length of twelve inches, and requires\neight or ten years to come to perfection. In the general mode of\nfishing for coral, the instrument used consists of two heavy beams of\nwood, secured together at right angles, and loaded with stones to sink\nthem.\n\n\nMILITARY HATS IN OLDEN TIME.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  No. 1, Charles I.\n  No. 2, William III.\n  No. 3, Nivernois.\n  No. 4, Kevenhuller.\n  No. 5, Ramilies.\n  No. 6, Wellington.]\n\n\nWHY A MAN MEASURES MORE IN THE MORNING THAN IN THE EVENING, &c.\n\nThere is an odd phenomenon attending the human body, as singular as\ncommon: that a person is shorter standing than lying; and shorter in\nthe evening when he goes to bed, than in the morning when he rises.\n\nThis remark was first made in England, and afterwards confirmed at\nParis, by M. Morand, a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in\nFrance, and by the Abbot Fontana likewise.\n\nThe last-mentioned person found, from a year's experience, that\nordinarily in the night he gained five or six lines, and lost nearly as\nmuch in the day.\n\nThe cause of which effect, so ancient, so common, but so lately\nperceived, proceeds from the different state or condition of the\nintervertebral annular cartilages.\n\nThe vertebrae, or joints of the spine, are kept separate, though joined\nby particular cartilages, every one of which has a spring. These yield\non all sides, without any inflexion on the spine, to the weight of\nthe head and upper extremities; but this is done by very small and\nimperceptible degrees, and most of all when the upper parts of the body\nare loaded with any exterior weight. So that a man is really taller\nafter lying some time, than after walking, or carrying a burthen a\ngreat while.\n\nFor this reason it is that, in the day and evening, while one is\nsitting or standing, the superior parts of the body that weigh or press\nupon the inferior, press those elastic annular cartilages, the bony\njointed work is contracted, the superior parts of the body descend\ntowards the inferior, and proportionably as one approaches the other,\nthe height of the stature diminishes.\n\nHence it was, that a fellow enlisting for a soldier, by being measured\nover-night, was found deficient in height, and therefore refused; but\nby accident being gauged again the next morning, and coming up to the\nstature, he was admitted.\n\nOn the contrary, in the night-time, when the body is laid a-bed, as\nit is in an horizontal situation, or nearly so, the superior parts\ndo not weigh, or but very little, upon the inferior; the spring of\nthe cartilages is unbent, the vertebrae are removed from one another,\nthe long jointed work of the spine is dilated, and the body thereby\nprolonged; so that a person finds himself about half an inch, or more,\nhigher in stature in the morning than when going to bed. This is the\nmost natural and simple reason that can be given, for the different\nheights of the same person at different times.\n\n\nA SENSIBLE DOG REFUSING TO BAIT A CAT.\n\nA dustman of the name of Samuel Butcher, residing at Mile-end, who\nkept a large dog, having taken it into his head to divert himself and\nothers, a few days ago, by the cruel sport of cat baiting, which the\ndog refusing to perform to the satisfaction of his master, was beat by\nhim in a most brutal manner, when the animal at length, in retaliation,\nflew at his unmerciful keeper, and inflicted very severe wounds about\nhis face, limbs, and body, in some instances tearing large mouthfuls of\nhis flesh quite clean out, and at one time clung so fast to the man,\nthat before he disengaged from him the animal's throat was obliged to\nbe cut. The man was promptly conveyed to the London Hospital, and there\ndied of the injuries he received.\n\n\nA HORSE GETTING HIMSELF SHOD.\n\nA horse having been turned into a field by its owner, Mr. Joseph Lane,\nof Fascombe, in the parish of Ashelworth, was missed therefrom the\nnext morning, and the usual inquiries set afoot, as to what could have\nbecome of him. He had, it seems, been shod (all fours) a few days\nbefore, and _as usual_ got pinched in a foot. Feeling, no doubt, a\nlively sense of proper shoeing, and desirous of relieving the cause of\npain, he contrived to unhang the gate of his pasture with his mouth,\nand make the best of his way to the smithy, a distance of a mile and a\nhalf from Fascombe, waiting respectfully at the door until the bungling\n_artist_ got up. The smith relates that he found him there at opening\nhis shed; that the horse advanced to the forge and held up his ailing\nfoot; and that he himself, upon examination, discovered the injury,\ntook off the shoe, and replaced it more carefully, which having done,\nthe sagacious creature set off at a merry pace homewards. Soon after,\nMr. Lane's servants passed by the forge in quest of the animal, and\nupon inquiry, received for answer--\"Oh, he has been here and got shod,\nand is gone home again.\"\n\n\nMAN WITHOUT HANDS.\n\nThe following account is extracted from a letter sent to the Rev. Mr.\nWesley by a person named Walton, dated Bristol, October 14, 1788:--\n\n\"I went with a friend to visit this man, who highly entertained us at\nbreakfast, by putting his half-naked foot upon the table as he sat,\nand carrying his tea and toast between his great and second toe to\nhis mouth, with as much facility as if his foot had been a hand, and\nhis toes fingers. I put half a sheet of paper upon the floor, with a\npen and ink-horn: he threw off his shoes as he sat, took the ink-horn\nin the toes of his left foot, and held the pen in those of his right.\nHe then wrote three lines, as well as most ordinary writers, and as\nswiftly. He writes out all his own bills, and other accounts. He then\nshowed how he shaves himself with a razor in his toes, and how he combs\nhis own hair. He can dress and undress himself, except buttoning his\nclothes. He feeds himself, and can bring both his meat or his broth to\nhis mouth, by holding the fork or spoon in his toes. He cleans his own\nshoes; can clean the knives, light the fire, and do almost every other\ndomestic business as well as any other man. He can make his hen-coops.\nHe is a farmer by occupation; he can milk his own cows with his toes,\nand cut his own hay, bind it up in bundles, and carry it about the\nfield for his cattle. Last winter he had eight heifers constantly to\nfodder. The last summer he made all his own hay-ricks. He can do all\nthe business of the hay-field (except mowing), as fast and as well,\nwith only his feet, as others can with rakes and forks. He goes to the\nfield and catches his horse; he saddles and bridles him with his feet\nand toes. If he has a sheep among his flock that ails anything, he can\nseparate it from the rest, drive it into a corner, and catch it when\nnobody else can. He then examines it, and applies a remedy to it. He is\nso strong in his teeth, that he can lift ten pecks of beans with them.\nHe can throw a great sledge-hammer as far with his feet as other men\ncan with their hands. In a word, he can nearly do as much without, as\nothers can with, their arms. He began the world with a hen and chicken;\nwith the profit of these he purchased an ewe; the sale of these\nprocured him a ragged colt (as he expressed it) and then a better;\nafter this he raised a few sheep, and now occupies a small farm.\"\n\n\nTHE THIEF CAUGHT IN HIS OWN TRAP.\n\nA man having, some years since, stolen a sheep at Mitcham, in Surrey,\ntied its hind legs together, and put them over his forehead to carry it\naway, but in getting over a gate the sheep, it is thought, struggled,\nand, by a sudden spring, slipped its feet down to his throat; for they\nwere found in that posture, the sheep hanging on one side of this gate\nand the man dead on the other.\n\n\nCOSTUME OF THE LADIES IN THE TIME OF THE PLANTAGENETS.\n\nThe ladies' costume may be seen to advantage in the annexed engraving\nfrom the Sloane MSS., No. 3983. A wimple or gorget is wrapped round\nthe neck, and is fastened by pins at the sides of the face, which are\ncovered above the ears; a gown of capacious size, unconfined at the\nwaist and loose in the sleeves, trails far behind in the dirt. The\nunder-garment, which is darker, has sleeves that fit closely; and\nit appears to be turned over, and pinned up round the bottom. The\nunnecessary amount of stuff that was used in ladies' robes rendered\nthem obnoxious to the satirists of that period.\n\n[Illustration: [++] proud woman who wore a white dress.]\n\nIn Mr. Wright's collection of Latin stories, published by the Percy\nSociety, there is one of the fourteenth century, which is so curious an\ninstance of monkish satire, and is so apt an illustration of the cut\nbefore us, that I cannot resist presenting it to my readers. It runs\nthus:--\n\n\"_Of a Proud Woman._--I have heard of a proud woman who wore a white\ndress with a long train, which, trailing behind her, raised a dust as\nfar as the altar and the crucifix. But, as she left the church, and\nlifted up her train on account of the dirt, a certain holy man saw a\ndevil laughing; and having adjured him to tell why he laughed, the\ndevil said, \"A companion of mine was just now sitting on the train of\nthat woman, using it as if it were his chariot, but when she lifted her\ntrain up, my companion was shaken off into the dirt: and that is why I\nwas laughing.\"\n\n\nCORPULENT MAN. NOTTINGHAM, 1819.\n\nNovember 10.--Death of Mr. Henry Bucknall, confectioner,\nChandlers-lane, aged forty-nine. He was excessively corpulent, weighing\nmore than twenty-five stone, and died very suddenly, immediately after\neating a hearty breakfast. In Lord Howe's memorable engagement, on the\n1st of June, 1794, he had served as a marine on board the Brunswick.\nHis interment, at St. Mary's New Burial-ground, on the 14th, drew\ntogether a large concourse of spectators. The coffin was of enormous\nsize, and nearly equalled the body in weight. It was made of excellent\noak, was 6 feet 8 inches in length, and 2 feet 11 inches across the\nbreast; the bottom was 2-1\/2 inches thick, the sides 1-1\/2, and the\nlid 1. The whole, including the body, considerably exceeded five\nhundred-weight.\n\n\nTAKING A MAN TO PIECES AND SETTING HIM UP AGAIN.\n\n\"Don John, of Austria,\" says Staveley, \"Governor of the Netherlands for\nPhilip the 2d of Spain, dying at his camp at Buge (Bouges, a mile from\nNamur), was carried from thence to the great church at Havre, where his\nfuneral was solemnised, and a monument to posterity erected for him\nthere by Alexander Farnese, the Prince of Parma. Afterwards his body\nwas taken to pieces, and the bones, packed in mails, were privately\ncarried into Spain, where being set together with small wires, the\nbody was rejointed again, which being filled or stuffed with cotton,\nand richly habited, Don John was presented to the king entire, leaning\non his commander's staff. Afterwards the corpse being carried to the\nchurch of St. Laurence, at the Escurial, was there buried near his\nfather, Charles V., with a fitting monument for him.\"\n\n\nORNAMENTS OF FEMALE DRESS IN THE TIMES OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Necklace of Beads.]\n\nFig. 1 is a necklace of beads, each bead being cut so as to represent\na group of several, and give the effect of many small round beads to\nwhat are in reality long and narrow ones. Fig. 2 is a necklace of\nsimpler construction, consisting of a row of rudely-shaped beads, its\ncentre being remarkable for containing a rude attempt at representing a\nhuman face, the only thing of the kind Hoare discovered of so ancient\na date in Britain. Fig. 3 is another necklace, consisting of a series\nof curious little shells, like the hirlas horn used by the Britons,\nwhich are perforated lengthways, and thus strung together. Fig. 4 is a\npin of iron, supposed to have been used as a fastening for a mantle; it\nis ornamented with two movable rings. Fig. 5 is a small gold ornament,\ncheckered like a chessboard, and suspended from a chain of beautiful\nworkmanship, which, in taste and execution, bears a striking similarity\nto our modern curb-chains. Fig. 6 is an ear-ring, a bead suspended\nfrom a twisted wire of gold. Fig. 7 is a brass ornament, and Fig. 8 a\nsimilar one of gold: such ornaments are usually found upon the breasts\nof the exhumed skeletons of our barrows, and were probably fastened on\ntheir clothes as ornaments. Their cruciform character might lead to a\ndoubt of their high antiquity, if we were not aware of the fact, that\nthe symbol of the cross was worn, as an amulet or ornament, ages before\nthe Christian era.\n\n\nLARGE EEL.\n\nLately, near Malden, an eel was taken, measuring _five feet six inches\nin length, seventeen in girth_, and weighing _26 pounds_, the largest\nof the species ever caught, or described in natural history.\n\n\nPERSEVERING DOG.\n\nA boast being made of the obedience of a Newfoundland dog in fetching\nand carrying, the master put a marked shilling under a large square\nstone by the road side, and, having ridden on three miles, ordered\nthe dog to go back and fetch it. The dog set off, but did not return\nthe whole day. He had gone to the place, and being unable to turn the\nstone, sat howling by it. Two horsemen came by and saw his distress,\nand one of them alighting removed the stone, and finding the shilling,\nput it in his pocket, not supposing that the dog could possibly be\nlooking for that. The dog followed the horses for upwards of twenty\nmiles, stayed in the room where they supped, got into the bed-room, got\nthe breeches in which the fatal shilling had been put, made his escape\nwith them, and dragged them through mud and mire, hedge and ditch, to\nhis master's house.\n\n\nCURE FOR CORPULENCE.\n\nA few years ago, a man of about forty years of age, hired himself as a\nlabourer, in one of the most considerable ale-breweries in the City: at\nthis time he was a personable man; stout, active, and not fatter than a\nmoderate-sized man in high health should be. His chief occupation was\nto superintend the working of the new beer, and occasionally to set up\nat night to watch the sweet-wort, an employment not requiring either\nactivity or labour; of course, at these times, he had an opportunity of\ntasting the liquor, of which, it appears, he always availed himself;\nbesides this, he had constant access to the new beer. Thus leading a\nquiet inactive life, he began to increase in bulk, and continued to\nenlarge, until, in a very short time, he became of such an unwieldy\nsize, as to be unable to move about, and was too big to pass up the\nbrewhouse staircase; if by any accident he fell down, he was unable to\nget up again without help. The integuments of his face hung down to\nthe shoulders and breast: the fat was not confined to any particular\npart, but diffused over the whole of his body, arms, legs, &c., making\nhis appearance such as to attract the attention of all who saw him. He\nleft this service to go into the country, being a burthen to himself,\nand totally useless to his employers. About two years afterwards he\ncalled upon his old masters in very different shape to that above\ndescribed, being reduced in size nearly half, and weighing little\nmore than ten stone. The account that he gave of himself was, that as\nsoon as he had quitted the brewhouse he went into Bedfordshire, where\nhaving soon spent the money he had earned, and being unable to work,\nhe was brought into such a state of poverty, as to be scarcely able to\nobtain the sustenance of life, often being a whole day without food;\nthat he drank very little, and that was generally water. By this mode\nof living he began to diminish in size, so as to be able to walk about\nwith tolerable ease. He then engaged himself to a farmer, with whom he\nstayed a considerable time, and in the latter part of his service he\nwas able to go through very hard labour, being sometimes in the field\nploughing and following various agricultural concerns, for a whole day,\nwith no other food than a small pittance of bread and cheese. This was\nthe history he gave of the means by which this extraordinary change was\nbrought about. He added, his health had never been so good as it then\nwas.\n\n\nWORSHIP OF THE SUN AND MOON.\n\nThe Sun was first worshipped, probably, as a bright manifestation of\nGod, but soon began to be regarded as the Deity himself. The Moon,\nin the absence of the Sun, and next in splendour, would succeed\nit in superstitious attention. And so we find the Romans, as well\nas the Saxons, dedicating the first and second days of the week\nrespectively to these \"great lights.\" Formerly, festivals were held\non the appearance of a New Moon; and in some parts of England it is\nstill customary to bless it, and in Scotland at the same time to drop\na courtesy. And in times not long past, the influence of the Moon was\nconsidered to be so great as to regulate the growth of air, and the\neffect of medicine, and to cause steeples and other elevated buildings\nto bend from their upright positions.\n\n\nA SEA ABOVE THE SKY.\n\nThis belief is curiously illustrated by two legendary stories preserved\nby Gervase of Tilbury. \"One Sunday,\" he says, \"the people of a village\nin England were coming out of church on a thick cloudy day, when they\nsaw the anchor of a ship hooked to one of the tombstones; the cable,\nwhich was tightly stretched, hanging down from the air. The people were\nastonished, and while they were consulting about it, suddenly they saw\nthe rope move as though some one laboured to pull up the anchor. The\nanchor, however, still held fast by the stone, and a great noise was\nsuddenly heard in the air, like the shouting of sailors. Presently a\nsailor was seen sliding down the cable for the purpose of unfixing the\nanchor; and when he had just loosened it, the villagers seized hold of\nhim, and while in their hands he quickly died, just as though he had\nbeen drowned. About an hour after, the sailors above, hearing no more\nof their comrade, cut the cable and sailed away. In memory of this\nextraordinary event, the people of the village made the hinges of the\nchurch doors out of the iron of the anchor, and 'there they are still\nto be seen.'--At another time, a merchant of Bristol set sail with\nhis cargo for Ireland. Some time after this, while his family were at\nsupper, a knife suddenly fell in through the window on the table. When\nthe husband returned, he saw the knife, declared it to be his own, and\nsaid that on such a day, at such an hour, while sailing in an unknown\npart of the sea, he dropped the knife overboard, and the day and hour\nwere known to be exactly the time when it fell through the window.\nThese accidents, Gervase thinks, are a clear proof of there being a sea\nabove hanging over us.\"--_St. Patrick's Purgatory. By Thos. Wright._\n1844.\n\n\nTHE PAPYRUS.\n\nPaper as we now have it, that is to say, paper made of the pulp of\nfibrous materials, pressed into thin sheets, dried, and, when intended\nfor writing or printing purposes, sized, is of comparatively modern\nintroduction to Europe and Western Asia; although the Chinese appear to\nhave formed paper out of silk pulp, mixed with the inner pith of the\nbamboo, as early at least as 95 A.D.:--not from time immemorial, as\nsome authors have stated, because the circumstance is well attested,\nthat in the time of Confucius, the Chinese wrote with a style on the\ninner bark of trees.\n\n[Illustration: Papyrus Roll, from a Specimen in the British Museum.]\n\nBefore the invention of paper, the surfaces employed for writing upon\nwere numerous. Surfaces of lead or other metal; tables covered with\nwax, skins of animals,--(parchment in fact)--all were used; but no one\nof these was ever so extensively employed as the Egyptian papyrus,\nwhenever the latter material could be obtained. So soon, however, as\nthe Saracens in the seventh century conquered Egypt, the exportation of\npapyrus was at an end; and writing surfaces became so scarce in Europe\nthat many ancient documents of great value were erased in order to\nrender them adapted for being written on once more. Thus perished many\ntreasures of antiquity.\n\nAs the Saracens closed the avenue of supply for the ancient papyrus,\nso they compensated to Europe for this deprivation by discovering the\nmanufacture of ordinary paper--at least paper made in the ordinary\nmodern fashion,--though the material was cotton, not linen. This\ndiscovery was made some time anterior to the year 706 A.D., for at\nthat period a manufactory of paper existed at Samarcand. In the\neighth century the Saracens conquered Spain, and introduced into the\nPeninsula, amongst other arts, that of the manufacture of paper, which\nart was a long time finding its way into other parts of Europe,--in\nItaly not until the eleventh or twelfth century. The vast amount of\npapyrus which must have been employed in Italy, may be inferred\nfrom the number of rolls or _scapi_ of this substance discovered in\nHerculaneum and Pompeii; also from a perusal of many existing documents\nbearing directly or indirectly on this branch of commerce. Even so late\nas the commencement of the sixth century, Cassiodorus congratulated the\nworld on the abolition, by King Theodoric, of the high duty on papyrus\nfrom Egypt; and he spoke in high flown terms of the great utility of\nthe material. The latest papyrus roll known is of the twelfth century,\ncontaining a brief of Pope Paschal II., in favour of the Archiepiscopal\nsee of Ravenna.\n\n[Illustration: Syrian Papyrus Without Flowers.]\n\n[Illustration: Syrian Papyrus With Flowers.]\n\nThe various species of papyrus plants belong to the natural order\n\"Cyperaceae,\" or sedges, of botanists; a main characteristic of which is\na certain triangularity of stem. The method of constructing a writing\nsurface from these stems was as follows:--The available portion being\ncut off (it was seldom more than twelve inches in length), and split,\nor, more properly speaking, unfolded into thin sheets, which were glued\ntogether transversely in such a manner that the original length of the\npapyrus stem became the breadth of the future sheet; the length of\nwhich might be increased at the pleasure of the operator. Frequently\nthe manufactured scrolls were more than thirty feet long. As different\nmethods prevail in the manufacture of our ordinary paper, so in like\nmanner there were different processes of fashioning the papyrus into\nshape. The rudest manufacture appears to have been that of Egypt, and\nthe best papyrus sheets appear to have been made in Rome during the\nAugustine AEra. The preceding sketch represents a papyrus roll, copied\nfrom a specimen in the Egyptian Room of the British Museum.\n\nConsidering the numerous pieces entering into the composition of the\nroll, of which our illustration represents a portion, the lines of\njuncture are remarkably well concealed, only a sort of grain being\nvisible. The surface, moreover, is smoothed, and its colour very\nmuch like that of India paper. The hieroglyphics are  as is\nusual, red is the predominant tint, and the colours are no less well\ndemarcated and separate than they would have been on glazed paper.\n\nOur preceding wood-cuts represent the Sicilian or Syrian papyrus,\nhitherto termed _cyperus papyrus_, in two states of development--one\nwith flowers, the other without. In order that inflorescence may take\nplace, the plant requires to be well supplied with water.\n\n\nEXECUTION IN 1733.\n\n_Friday, March 9_--Was executed at Northampton, William Alcock, for the\nmurder of his wife. He never own'd the fact, nor was at all concerned\nat his approaching death; refusing the prayers and assistance of any\npersons. In the morning he drank more than was sufficient, yet sent and\npaid for a pint of wine, which being deny'd him, he would not enter\nthe cart before he had his money return'd. On his way to the gallows\nhe sung part of an old song of \"Robin Hood,\" with the chorus, \"Derry,\nderry, down,\" &c., and swore, kick'd, and spurn'd at every person that\nlaid hold of the cart; and before he was turn'd off, took off his\nshoes, to avoid a well known proverb; and being told by a person in the\ncart with him, it was more proper for him to read, or hear somebody\nread to him, than so vilely to swear and sing, he struck the book out\nof the person's hands, and went on damning the spectators and calling\nfor wine. Whilst psalms and prayers were performing at the tree he did\nlittle but talk to one or other, desiring some to remember him, others\nto drink to his good journey, and to the last moment declared the\ninjustice of his case.\n\n\nDOG FRIENDSHIP.\n\nAt Bishops Stortford there were two dogs, which belonged to nobody, and\nlived upon the quay of the river or canal there. They took the greatest\ndelight in rat hunting, and when the maltsters went about at night to\nsee that all was safe, these dogs invariably followed them. Their mode\nof proceeding was very ingenious. As soon as the door of the malt-house\nwas unlocked, one rushed in and coursed round the warehouse, not\nchasing any rat which might start, but pursuing its way among the malt.\nThe other stood at the door and snapped at the rats as they endeavoured\nto escape. The one standing at the door was known to kill six rats,\nall of which had rushed to the door at the same time. The next room\nthey came to, they would change posts; the one which hunted before,\nnow standing at the door and seizing the prey. By this means the dogs\nkilled in the malting-houses of one maltster alone, upwards of 2,000\nrats in the course of one year. One of them on one occasion killed\nsixty-seven in less than five minutes. They seemed to pursue the sport\nsimply for their amusement.\n\n\nALL HUMBUGS.\n\nJust as a strolling actor at Newcastle had advertised his benefit, a\nremarkable stranger, no less than the _Prince Annamaboo_, arrived, and\nplacarded the town that he granted audiences at a shilling a-head. The\nstroller, without delay, waited on the proprietor of the _Prince_, and\nfor a good round sum prevailed on him to command his Serene Highness\nto exhibit his august person on his benefit night. The bills of the\nday announced that between the acts of the comedy _Prince Annamaboo_\nwould give a lively representation of the _scalping operation_, sound\nthe _Indian war-whoop_ in all its melodious tones, practice the\ntomahawk exercise, and dine _a la cannibal_. An intelligent mob were\ncollected to witness these interesting exploits. At the conclusion of\nthe third act, his _Highness_ marched forward flourishing his tomahawk,\nand shouting, \"_Ha, ha!--ho, ho!_\" Next entered a man with his face\nblacked, and a piece of bladder fastened to his head with gum; the\n_Prince_, with an enormous carving-knife, began the scalping part of\nthe entertainment, which he performed in a truly _imperial_ style,\nholding up the piece of bladder as a token of triumph. Next came the\nwar-whoop, an unearthly combination of discordant sounds; and lastly,\nthe banquet, consisting of raw beef-steaks, which he rolled up into\nrouleaus, and devoured with right royal avidity. Having finished\nhis delicate repast, he wielded his tomahawk in an exulting manner,\nbellowed \"_Ha, ha!--ho, ho!_\" and made his exit. The _beneficiaire_\nstrolling through the market-place the following-day, spied the most\npuissant _Prince Annamaboo_ selling penknives, scissors, and quills,\nin the character of a Jew pedlar. \"What!\" said the astonished _Lord\nTownley_, \"my _Prince_, is it you? Are you not a pretty circumcised\nlittle scoundrel to impose upon us in this manner?\" Moses turned round,\nand with an arch look, replied, \"_Princh_ be d--d! I _vash_ no Princh;\nI _vash_ acting like you. Your troop _vash_ Lords and Ladies last\nnight; and to-night dey vil be Kings, _Prinches_, and Emperor! I _vash\nhumpugs_, you _vash humpugs_, all _vash humpugs_!\"\n\n\nREDUCING WEIGHT.\n\nA gentleman, of great respectability in the mercantile world, who\nweighed thirty-two stone nine pounds, put himself upon a strict diet of\n_four ounces of animal food_, _six ounces_ of bread, and _two pounds\nof liquid_, in twenty-four hours. In one week he lost thirty pounds\nweight, and in six months he was diminished the astonishing quantity of\none hundred and thirty-four pounds. His health and spirits were much\nimproved, and considering his remaining size of twenty-three stone, he\nwas very active.\n\n\nANECDOTE OF A SERPENT.\n\nLord Monboddo relates the following singular anecdote of a serpent:--\"I\nam well informed of a tame serpent in the East Indies, which belonged\nto the late Dr. Vigot, once kept by him in the suburbs of Madras. This\nserpent was taken by the French, when they invested Madras, and was\ncarried to Pondicherry in a close carriage. But from thence, he found\nhis way back again to his old quarters, though Madras was above one\nhundred miles distant from Pondicherry.\"\n\n\nENGLAND BEFORE THE ROMANS.\n\n[Illustration [++] Shoes of Raw Cow-Hide.]\n\nBefore the Roman invasion, the dress of its chieftains consisted of\na close coat or covering for the body, called by Dio a tunic, and\ndescribed as checkered with various colours in divisions. It was open\nbefore, and had long close sleeves to the wrist. Below were loose\npantaloons, called by the Irish _brigis_, and by the Romans _brages_\nand _bracae_; whence the modern term \"breeches.\" Over their shoulders\nwas thrown the mantle or cloak, called by the Romans _sagum_, and\nderived from the Celtic word _saic_, which signified a skin or hide,\nand which was the original cloak of the country. Diodorus tells us\nthat it was of one uniform colour, generally either blue or black, the\npredominating tint in the checkered trousers and tunic being red. On\ntheir heads they wore a conical cap, which derived its name from the\n\"cab,\" or hut of the Briton, which was of similar form. On their feet\nwere shoes made of raw cow-hide, that had the hair turned outward, and\nwhich reached to the ankles. Shoes so constructed were worn within the\nlast few years in Ireland; and we engrave two from specimens in the\nRoyal Irish Academy. One is of cow-hide, and drawn together by a string\nover the foot; and the other has a leather thong, which is fastened\nbeneath the heel inside, and, passing over the instep, draws the shoe\nlike a purse over the foot. It is of untanned leather.\n\n\nROMANS IN BRITAIN--DRESS OF NATIVE FEMALES AT THAT PERIOD.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Female Roman Shoes.]\n\nThe British _gwn_, from whence comes the modern \"gown,\" descended to\nthe middle of the thigh, the sleeves barely reaching to the elbows:\nit was sometimes confined by a girdle. Beneath this a longer dress\nreached to the ancles. The hair was trimmed after the Roman fashion;\nand upon the feet, when covered, were sometimes worn shoes of a\ncostly character, of which we know the Romans themselves to have\nbeen fond. An extremely beautiful pair was discovered upon opening a\nRoman burial-place at Southfleet in Kent, in 1802. They were placed\nin a stone sarcophagus, between two large glass urns or vases, each\ncontaining a considerable quantity of burnt bones. They were of\nsuperb and expensive workmanship, being made of fine purple leather,\nreticulated in the form of hexagons all over, and each hexagonal\ndivision worked with gold, in an elaborate and beautiful manner.\n\n[Illustration: The Catacombs. Rome.]\n\nAmid the ruins of stately temples, and numerous remains of the \"Eternal\nCity,\" there are no objects which have such great and general interest\nas the subterranean churches, dwellings, and places of sepulchre of the\nearly Christians, which perforate, by a network of excavations, the\nneighbourhood of Rome.\n\nThe great increase in the extent and magnificence of Rome during\nthe times of the Republic, led to the formation of quarries in the\nsurrounding parts. The peculiar nature of the soil has caused the\nexcavations to be made in a manner similar to that used in the working\nof coal, iron, stone, lime, &c. The useful material has, in fact, been\ncleared away, leaving long ranges of dark caves and passages. After\nthe stone had been removed from these underground quarries, it was,\nfor many centuries, customary to work out the sand for the purpose of\nmaking cement. Vitruvius has stated that the sand obtained from the\nEsquiline pits was preferable to any other. Ultimately the quarries\nand sandpits extended to a distance of upwards of fifteen miles on\none side of Rome. Parts of this large range of excavations were from\ntime to time used as burial-grounds by such of the Romans as could not\nafford the cost of burning the bodies of their dead relations. And, in\naddition, the Esquiline hills became infested by banditti, and was from\nthese various causes rendered almost impassable.\n\nIn these excavations, it is said, that not only persons, but cattle,\ncontrived to support existence; and although it was well known that\nlarge numbers were lodged in these dismal dwellings, their intricacy\nand numberless entrances rendered them a comparatively secure retreat.\nIt is related that attempts were made to cover the galleries with\nearth, in order to destroy those who were concealed within.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Inscription in the Catacombs.]\n\nIn course of time the catacombs became, with the exception of one or\ntwo, neglected and filled up with rubbish, and remained for a period\nof upwards of one thousand years untouched and almost unknown. In the\nsixteenth century the whole range of the catacombs were reopened, and\nnumerous inscriptions and other matters connected with the struggles\nand hardships of the early Christians brought to light. The annexed\nbrief memorial will show the general style of the lettering.\n\n\nOBSOLETE MODES OF PUNISHMENT.\n\nAnte page 60, we gave representations of some ancient instruments of\npunishment and torture, all more or less terrible in their character,\nthe use of which, for many a long year, has been happily abandoned. As\na companion to this group, we have engraved a few of the instruments\nof punishment by which criminals of a vulgar character were sought\nto be reformed. The first of these is the felon's brand, the mark of\nwhich rendered a man infamous for life. Figure 1, p. 90 represents the\ninstrument itself. Figure 2, the mark branded in, which latter has\nbeen engraved the exact size. The device, which is deeply cut into the\nmetal, is a gallows, such as was used before the invention of the Drop\nand the Wheel for Execution and torture.\n\nThe Stocks and Whipping-post, although long since removed from London\nBridge, may be met with in retired country places. We have noticed\nsome characteristic examples in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire,\nwhere some of the may-poles, day-wheels, and other curious relics, may\nstill be seen.[2] In some instances the Stocks and Whipping-posts were\nrichly carved, and clamped with iron work of an ornamental character.\nWe remember seeing the stocks used within the last thirty years, once\nat Newcastle-on-Tyne, and once at Gateshead, the adjoining town. The\nculprit in the one instance was an elector, who, in the excess of zeal\nand beer, during an old-fashioned contested election, rushed into one\nof the churches during the Sunday's service, and shouted out, \"Bell\n(one of the candidates) for ever.\" He was speedily taken hold of,\nand placed for several hours in the stocks in the churchyard; and,\nas the stimulating effect of the strong drink passed away, he looked\na deplorable object, decked as he was with numerous cockades, the\n\"favours\" of the candidate, whose cause he so indiscreetly supported.\n\n[2] A good specimen was demolished at Tottenham not long ago.\n\nThe punishment of the barrel we should think to have been adapted for\ndrunkards who could preserve a perpendicular position.\n\nIn the histories of London, it is mentioned that bakers and other\ndealers caught giving false weight, or in any other ways cheating the\npoor, were exhibited occasionally in this manner; but more frequently\nthey were placed in the parish dung-cart, and slowly drawn through the\nstreets of the district.\n\nThe Whirligig, a circular cage which could be moved swiftly round on\na pivot, was, in bygone days, in use for offenders in the English\narmy. There was another instrument used for the same purpose called\nthe Horse, which was made in rude resemblance of the animal whose\nname it bore. The body was composed of planks of wood, which formed a\nsharp angle along the back. On this the soldier was seated, and his\nlegs fastened below to several heavy muskets. This is said to have\nbeen a very severe and dangerous punishment. In addition to the above,\nand flogging, imprisonment, &c., there were three ancient methods of\npunishment in the English army--viz., beheading, hanging, and drowning.\nThe latter of these, according to Grose, was in use only in the reign\nof Richard I. This author observes that, some centuries ago, capital\npunishment was rare in our army, the men having generally property,\nwhich was confiscated in case of ill conduct. He, however, refers\nto some terrible means which were resorted to for the purpose of\npreserving discipline. Hanging was chiefly confined to spies; who were\ntaken to a tree in sight of the camp, and yet sufficiently distant, and\nthere hung up. In many instances, when a corps or a considerable body\nof men were guilty of crime, for which the established punishment was\ndeath, to prevent too great a weakening of the army, the delinquents,\nGrose says, \"were decimated, that is, only every tenth man was taken. A\nnumber of billets, equal to that of the body to be decimated, were put\ninto a helmet, every tenth billet being marked with the letter D, or\nsome other character signifying death; the helmet was then shaken, in\norder to mix them, and the soldiers, filing off singly from the right,\npassed by the commanding officers, before whom, on a table, stood the\nhelmet; as they passed, each drew a billet and presented it to an\nofficer placed to receive them. If the billet had the fatal mark; the\nsoldier was seized and marched into the rear.\"\n\nThis wholesale method of capital punishment must have been a solemn\naffair. At times, it was customary to punish the man at the right hand\nof companies; without giving them the chance of the billet--on the\nprincipal that these were the most influential persons, and must, from\ntheir companionship with the others, have been acquainted with and have\npossessed the means of checking or giving information, which would\nprevent dangerous offences.\n\n[Illustration: 1. Brand for Marking Felons. 2. Impression of Brand. 3.\nPunishment for Drunkards, formerly in use at Newcastle-on-Tyne. 4. The\nWhirligig, a military method of punishment. 5. Pillory, Stocks, and\nWhipping Post, formerly on London Bridge.]\n\nThe regulations of the English army during the time of Henry VIII., and\nprevious reigns, may be met with in \"Grose's Military Antiquities.\"\n\n\nORIGIN OF THE TERM \"HUMBUG.\"\n\nThis, now, common expression, is a corruption of the word Hamburgh, and\noriginated in the following manner:--During a period when war prevailed\non the Continent, so many false reports and lying bulletins were\nfabricated at Hamburgh, that at length, when any one would signify his\ndisbelief of a statement, he would say, \"You had that from Hamburgh;\"\nand thus, \"That is Hamburgh,\" or Humbug, became a common expression of\nincredulity.\n\n\nMARRIAGE LOTTERY.\n\nIt has often been said figuratively that marriage is a lottery; but we\ndo not recollect to have met with a practical illustration of the truth\nof the simile, before the following, which is a free translation of an\nadvertisement in the Louisiana Gazette:--\"A young man of good figure\nand disposition, unable, though desirous to procure a wife, without\nthe preliminary trouble of amassing a fortune, proposes the following\nexpedient to attain the object of his wishes. He offers himself as\nthe prize of a lottery to all widows and virgins under 32. The number\nof tickets to be 600, at 50 dollars each. But one number to be drawn\nfrom the wheel, the fortunate proprietor of which is to be entitled to\nhimself and the 30,000 dollars.\"\n\n\nCHINESE DAINTIES.\n\nThe common people of the country seem to fare hardly and sparingly\nenough, but one of our envoys praises much of the good cheer he found\nat the tables of the great men. They had pork, fish, and poultry,\nprepared in a great variety of ways, and very nice confectionery in\nabundance. The feasts, moreover, were served up in a very neat and\ncleanly manner. But there was one dainty which much offended their\nnostrils, and nearly turned their stomachs when it was named to them.\nIt was not stewed dog or fricaseed pup. No; it consisted of three\nbowls of _hatched eggs_! When the Englishmen expressed some surprise\nat the appearance of this portion of the repast, one of the native\nattendants observed that hatched eggs formed a delicacy beyond the\nreach of the poor--a delicacy adapted only for persons of distinction!\nOn inquiry, it was found that they cost in the market some thirty\nper cent. more than fresh eggs. It seems that they always form a\ndistinguished part of every great entertainment, and that it is the\npractice, when invitations are sent out, to set the hens to hatch.\nThe feast takes place about the tenth or twelfth day from the issuing\nthe invitations,--the eggs being then considered as ripe, and exactly\nin the state most agreeable and pleasant to the palate of a Chinese\nepicure.\n\n\nRECEIPTS FROM ALBERTUS MAGNUS.\n\n\"Bubo a shrick owle, is a byrd wel inough knowen, which is called\nMagis of the Chaldes, and Hysopus of the Greekes. There bee maruaylous\nvertues of this Fowle, for if the hart and ryght foote of it be put\nupon a man sleeping, hee shall saye anone to thee whatsoever thou shalt\naske of him. And thys hath beene prooued of late tyme of our brethren.\nAnd if any man put thys onder his arme hole, no Dog wyll barke at hym,\nbut keepe silence. And yf these thynges aforesayde ioyned together with\na wyng of it be hanged up to a tree, byrdes wyl gather together to that\ntree.\"\n\n\"When thou wylt that thy wyfe or wenche shewe to thee all that shee\nhath done, take the hart of a Doove, and the heade of a Frog, and drye\nthem both, and braie them vnto poulder, and lay them vpon the brest of\nher sleeping, and shee shall shew to thee all that shee hath done, but\nwhen shee shall wake, wipe it awaye from her brest, that it bee not\nlifted vp.\"\n\n\"Take an Adders skyn, and Auri pigmentum, and greeke pitch of\nReuponticum, and the waxe of newe Bees, and the fat or greace of an\nAsse, and breake them all, and put them all in a dull seething pot full\nof water, and make it to seeth at a slowe fire, and after let it waxe\ncold, and make a taper, and euery man that shall see light of it shall\nseeme headlesse.\"--_The Secreetes of Nature, set foorth by Albertus\nMagnus in Latine, newlye translated into English._ Imprinted at London\nby me Wyllyam Copland. No date. _Black letter_, very old.\n\n\nTHE MAGPIE STONING A TOAD.\n\nThere is a story told of a tame magpie, which was seen busily employed\nin a garden, gathering pebbles, and with much solemnity, and a\nstudied air, dropping them in a hole, about eighteen inches deep,\nmade to receive a post. After dropping each stone, it cried, Currack!\ntriumphantly, and set off for another. On examining the spot a poor\ntoad was found in the hole, which the magpie was stoning for his\namusement.\n\n\nADAPTATION OF BONES TO AGE IN THE HUMAN FRAME.\n\nGrowth produces in the species a somewhat remarkable change in the\nmechanical qualities of the bones. This important part of our organism\nconsists of three constituents--fibre, cartilage, and the earthy matter\nalready mentioned called _phosphate of lime_. From the fibre they\nderive their toughness; from the cartilage their elasticity; and from\nthe lime their hardness and firmness. Nothing can be more admirable\nin the economy of our body than the manner in which the proportion of\nthese constituents adapts itself to the habitudes of age. The helpless\ninfant, exposed by a thousand incidents to external shocks, has bones,\nthe chief constituents of which being gristly and cartilaginous, are\nyielding and elastic, and incur little danger of fracture. Those of the\nyouth, whose augmented weight and increased activity demand greater\nstrength, have a larger proportion of the calcareous and fibrous\nelements, but still enough of the cartilaginous to confer upon the\nsolid framework of his body the greatest firmness, toughness, and\nelasticity. As age advances, prudence and tranquil habits increasing,\nas well as the weight which the bones have to sustain, the proportion\nof the calcareous constituent increases, giving the requisite hardness\nand strength, but diminishing the toughness and elasticity.\n\nWhile the bones thus change their mechanical qualities as age advances,\nthey diminish in number, the frame consequently having fewer joints\nand less flexibility. The bones of a child, whose habits require\ngreater bodily pliability, are more numerous than those of an adult,\nseveral of the articulations becoming ossified between infancy and\nmaturity. In like manner, the bones at maturity are more numerous than\nin advanced age, the same progressive ossification of the joints being\ncontinued.\n\nIt has been ascertained by anatomists that, on attaining the adult\nstate, the number of bones constituting the framework of the human body\nis 198; of which 52 belong to the trunk, 22 to the head, 64 to the\narms, and 60 to the legs.\n\n\nTOWER OF THE THUNDERING WINDS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Tower of the Thundering Winds.]\n\nThe Great Wall is certainly a wonderful monument of ancient times; but\nit is almost the only one that we read of in China, except a famous\nTemple, or Tower, partly in ruins, which stands on an eminence in\nthe neighbourhood of Hang-chow-foo. It is called the \"Tower of the\nThundering Winds,\" and is supposed to have been built about 2,500 years\nago.\n\n\nDR. MONSEY BEQUEATHS HIS OWN BODY.\n\nThis eccentric person died at the great age of 96, and was for half\na century, physician to Chelsea Hospital. He left his body for\ndissection, and a few days before he died, wrote to Mr. Cruikshanks,\nthe Anatomist, begging him to know, whether it would suit his\nconvenience to do it, as he felt he could not live many hours, and Mr.\nForster, his surgeon, was then out of town. He died as he predicted,\nand his wishes with respect to his body, were strictly attended to.\n\n\nTEA.\n\nA folio sheet of the time of Charles II. entitled \"An Exact Description\nof the Growth, Quality, and Virtues of the Leaf Tea, by Thomas Garway,\nin Exchange Alley, near the Royal Exchange, in London, Tobacconist, and\nSeller and Retailer of Tea and Coffee,\" informs us that \"in England\nit hath been sold in the leaf for six pounds, and sometimes for ten\npounds the pound weight; and in respect of its former scarceness and\ndearness, it hath been only used as a regalia in high treatments, and\nentertainments, and presents made thereof to princes and grandees till\nthe year 1657. The said Thomas Garway did purchase a quantity thereof,\nand first publikely sold the said Tea in leaf and drink, made according\nto the direction of the most knowing merchants and travellers in those\neastern countries: and upon knowledge and experience of the said\nGarway's continued care and industry, in obtaining the best Tea, and\nmaking drink thereof, very many noblemen, physicians, merchants, and\ngentlemen of quality, have ever since sent to him for the said leaf,\nand daily resort to his house, in Exchange Alley, to drink the drink\nthereof.\"\n\n\nIT'S MUCH THE SAME NOW.\n\nThe following lines, from the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of 1733, will give\nus some idea of what fashionable life was at that period:--\n\n_The Town Lady's Answer to_,--\"_What tho' I am a Country Lass_.\"\n\n    What tho' I am a London dame,\n      And lofty looks I bear, a?\n    I carry, sure, as good a name,\n      As those who russet wear, a.\n\n    What tho' my cloaths are rich brocades?\n      My skin it is more white, a\n    Than any of the country maids\n      That in the fields delight, a.\n\n    What tho' I to assemblies go,\n      And at the Opera's shine, a?\n    It is a thing all girls must do,\n      That will be ladies fine, a:\n\n    And while I hear Faustina sing,\n      Before the king and queen, a\n    By Eyes they are upon the wing,\n      To see, if I am seen, a.\n\n    My Peko and Imperial Tea\n      Are brought me in the Morn, a.\n    At Noon Champaign and rich Tokay\n      My table do adorn, a.\n\n    The Evening then does me invite\n      To play at dear Quadrille, a:\n    And sure in this there's more delight,\n      Than in a purling rill, a.\n\n    Then since my Fortune does allow\n      Me to live as I please, a;\n    I'll never milk my father's cow\n      Nor press his coming cheese, a.\n\n    But take my swing both night and day,\n      I'm sure it is no sin, a:\n    And as for what the grave ones say,\n      I value not a pin, a.\n\n\nBARBERS.\n\nThe barber's pole, one of the popular relics of Merrie England, is\nstill to be seen in some of the old streets of London and in country\ntowns, painted with its red, blue, and yellow stripes, and surmounted\nwith a gilt acorn. The lute and violin were formerly among the\nfurniture of a barber's shop. He who waited to be trimmed, if of\na musical turn, played to the company. The barber himself was a\nnimble-tongued, pleasant-witted fellow. William Rowley, the dramatist,\nin \"A Search for Money, 1609,\" thus describes him:--\"As wee were but\nasking the question, steps me from over the way (over-listning us) a\nnews-searcher, viz. a _barber_: hee, hoping to attaine some discourse\nfor his next patient, left his baner of basons swinging in the ayre,\nand closely eave-drops our conference. The saucie treble-tongu'd knave\nwould insert somewhat of his knowledge (treble-tongu'd I call him, and\nthus I prove't: hee has a reasonable mother-tonger, his barber-surgions\ntongue; and a tongue betweene two of his fingers, and from thence\nproceeds his wit, and 'tis a snapping wit too). Well, sir, hee (before\nhee was askt the question,) told us that the wandring knight (Monsier\nL'Argent) sure was not farre off; for on Saterday-night hee was faine\nto watch till morning to trim some of his followers, and its morning\nthey went away from him betimes. Hee swore hee never clos'd his eyes\ntill hee came to church, and then hee slept all sermon-time; (but\ncertainly hee is not farre afore, and at yonder taverne showing us\nthe bush) I doe imagine hee has tane a chamber.\" In ancient times the\n_barber_ and the _tailor_, as news-mongers, divided the crown. The\nbarber not only erected his _pole_ as a sign, but hung his _basins_\nupon it by way of ornament.\n\n\nBEES OBEDIENT TO TRAINING.\n\nThough it is customary in many rural districts of England, when bees\nare swarming, to make a clanging noise with metal implements, under the\nimpression--an erroneous one we believe--that it will induce the swarm\nto settle, it is not generally supposed that bees are susceptible of\nbeing trained to obey in many respects the orders of their teacher.\nSuch, however, is the fact, and an instance of it occurs in the\nfollowing advertisement, which we have copied from an old newspaper. We\ngive it as we find it, but it is not very clear what locality is meant\nby \"their _proper_ places\":--\n\n\"At the Jubilee Gardens, Dobney's, 1772. Daniel Wildman rides, standing\nupright, one foot on the saddle, and the other on the horse's neck,\nwith a curious mask of bees on his face. He also rides, standing\nupright on the saddle, with the bridle in his mouth, and, by firing a\npistol, makes one part of the bees march over a table, and the other\npart swarm in the air, and return to their proper places again.\"\n\n\nA MAN SELLING HIS OWN BODY.\n\nAnatomists and surgeons have frequently incurred the odium of being\nprecipitate in their post mortem examinations. It has been charged\nupon the illustrious Vessalius, and, in more modern times, on Mons. de\nLassone, and others; nay, credulity has gone so far, as to suppose,\nthat subjects have occasionally been kept till wanted; nor is such\na notion altogether extravant, when we find an article of this kind\noffered to Joshua Brookes, the anatomical lecturer, in the following\nterms:--\n\n\"Mr. Brooke, i have taken it into consideration to send this poor man\nto you, being greatly in distress, hopeing you will find sum employment\nfor him in silling the dead carcases; and if you can find him no\nemployment, the berer of this wishes to sill himself to you, as he is\nweary of this life. And I remain your humble servant,\n\n  \"JOHN DAVIS.\"\n\n\nTHE FIRST LOCOMOTIVES.\n\n[Illustration: The First Locomotive.]\n\nIt is little more than thirty years ago, when, on the river Tyne, a\nlarge fleet of peculiarly-formed vessels was to be seen daily employed\nin the carriage of coals to the ships from the \"staiths,\" which\nprojected into the river from the various colliery tramways. At that\nperiod, there was only one very small and ill-constructed steam-packet\nfor the conveyance of passengers between Newcastle and Shields, and\nagainst which so much prejudice existed, that the majority of persons\npreferred the covered wherries, which, for some centuries before,\nhad been in use; yet so slow and uncertain was this means of transit\nbetween the two towns, that persons in a hurry often found it advisable\nto walk the intervening distance, which is about eight miles.\n\n[Illustration: The Present Locomotive and Train.]\n\nThe collieries situated away from the river had tramways of wood let\ninto the ordinary roads, in such a manner as to form wheel-tracks for\ncarriages. These, drawn by horses, were the only means thought of for\nbringing the coals to the river bank. Some of these tramways were\nnearly as old as the times of Queen Elizabeth or James I., when the\nincrease of London and other causes began to overcome the prejudice\nagainst the use of \"sea-coal.\" Many of the tramways passed amid green\nand shadowy woods and other pleasant places, and we have often thought\nwhen wandering through them, of the difficulties that beset travellers\nat that time. Even at a more recent date, in 1673, day coaches were\nconsidered dangerous, and it was suggested that the multitude of them\nin London should be limited, and not more than one be allowed to\neach shire, to go once a week backwards and forwards, and to perform\nthe whole journey with the same horses they set out with, and not to\ntravel more than thirty miles a day in summer, and twenty-five in\nwinter. The arguments advanced in favour of these proposals were, that\ncoaches and caravans were mischievous to the public, destructive to\ntrade, and prejudicial to the land--because, firstly, they destroyed\nthe breed of good horses, and made men careless of horsemanship;\nsecondly, they hindered the breed of watermen, who were the nursery of\nseamen; thirdly, they lessened the revenue.\n\nIn 1703, the road from Petworth to London (less than 50 miles) was so\nbad that the Duke of Somerset was obliged to rest a night on the road.\n\nIn March, 1739 or 1740, Mr. Pennant, the historian, travelled by the\n_stage_, then no despicable vehicle for country gentlemen, and in the\nfirst day, with \"much labour,\" got from Chester to Whitechurch--twenty\nmiles; and, after a \"wondrous effort,\" reached London before the\ncommencement of the sixth night.\n\nWithout entering into an account of the rapid improvement of the\nEnglish roads soon after the time of Pennant, we may mention that,\nat about the date 1765, the colliery tramways underwent considerable\nimprovement, by plating the wooden rails in many parts with iron:\nstone-ways were tried in some instances, but were not found successful;\nand in course of time the old tramways were covered with cast-iron\nrails laid on the old foundations. Inclined planes, with fixed\nsteam-engines, also came into use; and at the same time the idea of\na locomotive engine was attracting attention in various directions.\nIn 1805 a machine was used on a tramway near Merthyr Tydvil, and soon\nafter this the \"Iron Horse,\" shown in the engraving, was placed upon\nthe wagon way of the Wylam Colliery, from Wylam to Newburn, on the\nTyne, near Newcastle, and greatly astonished all who saw it drawing\nalong, at the rate of three miles and a half per hour, from fifteen to\ntwenty wagons of coals, making all the while a horrible and snorting\nnoise, difficult to describe, and sending forth at the same time fire\nand dense clouds of black smoke. George Stephenson was then beginning\nto make way, and had provided several improved locomotives for Heaton\nColliery. In 1816-1817, patents for improvements in locomotives were\ntaken out by George Stephenson, in connexion with Messrs. Dodd and\nLosh; and in 1825 the projection of the Liverpool and Manchester\nRailway afforded a further opportunity for their development. The\nopposition to the use of steam-engines on this line of railway seems\nsingular enough at the present day; still it was very great. The use of\nhorses was, however, found to be too expensive, and George Stephenson\nhaving stated that he could work a locomotive with safety at a rate\nof from six to eight miles an hour (\"I knew,\" said he, \"that if I\ntold them more than that, they would look upon me as more fit for a\nlunatic house than to give evidence in the House of Commons\"), a reward\nof 500_l._ was offered for the best locomotive engine. A trial took\nplace in October, 1829--_only twenty-seven years ago!_--of the steam\nlocomotive engines which were offered in competition. Of these, one\nwas withdrawn at the commencement of the experiment. The \"Novelty,\" by\nBraithwait and Ericsson, met with an accident; and the \"Sanspareil,\" by\nHackworth, attained a velocity of fifteen miles an hour, with a gross\nload of nineteen tons, but at length gave way, owing to an accident;\nthe remaining engine, constructed by Robert Stephenson and Mr. Booth,\nsucceeded in performing more than was stipulated.\n\nThe contrast between the date mentioned at the commencement of our\narticle and the present time is remarkable: the old and clumsy fleet\nhas vanished from the Tyne; a railway carries passengers from Newcastle\nto Shields in a few minutes; numerous steam vessels sail upon the\nriver, some of large size; which travel to various and distant ports.\nOn the colliery railway hundreds of locomotives are at work, and\nhundreds of thousands of miles of iron rails spread over a wide extent\nof the civilized world; and, in addition to other wonders, the electric\ntelegraph will, ere long, outrival the power of Puck, the fairy, and\n\"put a girdle round the world in (less than) forty minutes.\"\n\n\nSIR WILLIAM WALLACE THE HERO OF SCOTLAND.\n\n1305.--This year was marked by the capture of Sir William Wallace.\nIt appears that the King of England had anxiously sought to discover\nhis retreat, and that, tempted by the prospects of the rewards his\nbaseness might earn for him, Ralph de Haliburton, one of the prisoners\ntaken a short time previously at Sterling, had proffered his services\nfor that purpose. Upon being seized, he was conveyed to the castle\nof Dumbarton, and thence to England. He was brought to London, \"with\ngreat numbers of men and women,\" says Stow, \"wondering upon him. He\nwas lodged in the house of William Delect, a citizen of London, in\nFenchurch-street. On the morrow, being the eve of St. Bartholomew, he\nwas brought on horseback to Westminster, John Segrave and Geoffrey,\nknights, the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen of London, and many others,\nboth on horseback and on foot, accompanying him; and in the great\nhall at Westminster, he being placed on the south bench, crowned with\nlaurel--for that he had said in times past that he ought to bear a\ncrown in that hall, as it was commonly reported--and being appeached\nfor a traitor by Sir Peter Malorie, the king's justice, he answered,\nthat he was never traitor to the king of England, but for other things\nwhereof he was accused, he confessed them.\" These circumstantial and\nminute details, inartificially as they are put together, and homely or\ntrivial as some of them may be thought, are yet full of interest for\nall who would call up a living picture of the scene. Wallace was put to\ndeath as a traitor, on the 23rd of August, 1305, at the usual place of\nexecution--the Elms in West Smithfield. He was dragged thither at the\ntails of horses, and there hanged on a high gallows, after which, while\nhe yet breathed, his bowels were taken out and burnt before his face.\nThe barbarous butchery was then completed by the head being struck\noff, and the body being divided into quarters. The head was afterwards\nplaced on a pole on London-bridge; the right arm was sent to be set\nup at Newcastle, the left arm to Berwick, the right foot and limb to\nPerth, and the left to Aberdeen.\n\n\nAN ELEPHANT DETECTS A ROBBER.\n\nAn officer in the Bengal army had a very fine and favourite elephant,\nwhich was supplied daily in his presence with a certain allowance of\nfood, but being compelled to absent himself on a journey, the keeper of\nthe beast diminished the ration of food, and the animal became daily\nthinner and weaker. When its master returned, the elephant exhibited\nthe greatest signs of pleasure; the feeding time came, and the keeper\nlaid before it the former full allowance of food, which it divided into\ntwo parts, consuming one immediately, and leaving the other untouched.\nThe officer, knowing the sagacity of his favourite, saw immediately the\nfraud that had been practiced, and made the man confess his crime.\n\n\nMAY-POLES.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Village May-pole.]\n\nThe May-pole, decked with garlands, round which the rustics used to\ndance in this month, yet stands in a few of our villages through the\nwhole circle of the year. A May-pole formerly stood in the Strand,\nupon the site of the church by Somerset House, but was taken down in\n1717. The village May-pole we engrave still remains by the ruins of St.\nBriavel Castle, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, and forms an object\nof considerable interest to the visitor. Several in the village could\nremember the May-day dancers, and the removal and setting up of the\nMay-pole. No notice whatever of this old English festival has, however,\nbeen taken for some years. The May-pole is about sixty feet high; about\nhalf-way up is the rod to which it was usual to fasten the garlands\nand ribbons. Let us observe, that in many parts of Dean Forest, those\nwho love to trace the remains of old manners and customs will find\nample employment. The people are civil and hospitable; their manner of\naddress reminds us of the wording of the plays of Shakspere's times;\nand in most houses, if a stranger calls, cider and bread are offered,\nas in the olden time.\n\n\nTHE OLD DOG WHEEL.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Old Dog Wheel.]\n\nAbout a century and a half ago, the long-backed \"turnspit\" dog, and\nthe curious apparatus here shown, yclept the \"Old Dog Wheel,\" were\nto be found in most farm houses; simple machinery has, however, now\nbeen substituted for the wheel which the dog was made to turn round,\nlike the imprisoned squirrels and white mice of the present day; and\nnot only the dog wheels, but also the long-backed \"turnspit\" dog have\nalmost disappeared. That which we engrave, however, still exists, and\nmay be seen by the curious, at the Castle of St. Briavel, which stands\non the borders of the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire.\n\n\nABRAHAM AND SARAH.\n\nThe Talmudists relate that Abraham, in travelling to Egypt, brought\nwith him a chest. At the custom-house the officers exacted the duties.\nAbraham would have readily paid them, but desired they would not open\nthe chest. They first insisted on the duties for clothes, which Abraham\nconsented to pay; but then they thought by his ready acquiescence that\nit might be gold. Abraham consents to pay for gold. They now suspect\nit might be silk. Abraham was willing to pay for silk, or more costly\npearls--in short, he consented to pay as if the chest contained the\nmost valuable of things. It was then they resolved to open and examine\nthe chest; and, behold, as soon as the chest was opened, that great\nlustre of human beauty broke out which made such a noise in the land\nof Egypt--it was Sarah herself! The jealous Abraham, to conceal her\nbeauty, had locked her up in this chest.\n\n\nAGES OF CELEBRATED MEN.\n\nHippocrates, the greatest physician the world has ever seen, died at\nthe age of one hundred and nine, in the island of Cos, his native\ncountry. Galen, the most illustrious of his successors, reached the\nage of one hundred and four. The three sages of Greece, Solon, Thales,\nand Pittacus, lived for a century. The gay Democritus outlived them\nby two years. Zeno wanted only two years of a century when he died.\nDiogenes ten years more; and Plato died at the age of ninety-four,\nwhen the eagle of Jupiter is said to have borne his soul to heaven.\nXenophon, the illustrious warrior and historian, lived ninety years.\nPolemon and Epicharmus ninety-seven; Lycurgus eighty-five; Sophocles\nmore than a hundred. Gorgias entered his hundred and eighth year;\nand Asclepiades, the physician, lived a century and a half. Juvenal\nlived a hundred years; Pacuvius and Varro but one year less. Carneades\ndied at ninety; Galileo at sixty-eight; Cassini at ninety-eight; and\nNewton at eighty-five. In the last century, Fontenelle expired in\nhis ninety-ninth year; Buffon in his eighty-first; Voltaire in his\neighty-fourth. In the present century, Prince Talleyrand, Goethe,\nRogers, and Niemcewicz are remarkable instances. The Cardinal du Belloy\nlived nearly a century; and Marshal Moncey lately terminated a glorious\ncareer at eighty-five.\n\n\nEFFECT OF A NEW NOSE.\n\nVan Helmont tells a story, of a person who applied to Taliacotius to\nhave his nose restored. This person, having a dread of an incision\nbeing made in his own arm, for the purpose of removing enough skin\ntherefrom for a nose, got a labourer, who, for a remuneration, suffered\nthe skin for the nose to be taken from his arm. About thirteen months\nafter, the adscitious nose suddenly became cold, and, after a few days,\ndropped off, in a state of putrefaction. The cause of this unexpected\noccurrence having been investigated, it was discovered that, at the\nsame moment in which the nose grew cold, the labourer at Bologna\nexpired.\n\n\nFRENCH DRESS.\n\nSigebert was buried in St. Medrad's church, at Soissons, where his\nstatue is still seen in long clothes, with the mantle, which the Romans\ncalled _chlamys_. This was the dress of Colvil's children, whether as\nmore noble and majestic, or that they looked on the title of Augustus\nas hereditary in their family. However it be, long clothes were, for\nseveral ages, the dress of persons of distinction, with a border of\nsable, ermine, or miniver. Under Charles V. it was emblazoned with all\nthe pieces of the coat of arms. At that time, neither ruffs, collars,\nnor bands were known, being introduced by Henry II. 'Till this time\nthe neck of the French king was always quite bare, except Charles\nthe _Wise_, who is everywhere represented with an ermin collar. The\nshort dress anciently worn in the country and the camp, came to be the\ngeneral fashion under Louis XI. but was laid aside under Louis XII.\nFrancis I. revived it, with the improvement of flashes. The favourite\ndress of Henry II. and his children was a tight, close doublet, with\ntrunk hose, and a cloak scarce reaching the waist. The dress of French\nladies, it may be supposed, had likewise its revolutions. They seem\nfor nine hundred years, not to have been much taken up with ornament.\nNothing could require less time or nicety than their head-dress, and\nthe disposition of their hair. Every part of their linen was quite\nplain, but at the same time extremely fine. Laces were long unknown.\nTheir gowns, on the right side of which was embroidered their husband's\ncoat of arms, and on the left that of their own family, were so close\nas to shew all the delicacy of their shape, and came up so high as to\ncover their whole breast, up to their neck. The habit of widows was\nvery much like that of the nuns. It was not until Charles VI. that they\nbegan to expose their shoulders. The gallantry of Charles the VII.'s\nCourt brought in the use of bracelets, necklaces, and ear-rings. Queen\nAnne de Bretagne despised those trinkets; and Catherine de Medicis made\nit her whole business to invent new.\n\n\nA LAST CHANCE.\n\nJohn Jones and Jn. Davis, condemn'd for robberries on the highway,\nwere executed at Tyburn. Davis feign'd himself sick, and desir'd he\nmight not be ty'd in the cart: But when he came to the tree, while the\nhangman was fastening the other's halter, he jumpt out of the cart,\nand ran over two fields; but being knock'd down by a countryman, was\nconvey'd back and hang'd without any more ceremony. Jones confessed\nhe had been confederate in several robberies with Gordon, lately\nexecuted.--_Gentleman's Magazine 1733._\n\nA convict running away over two fields at Tyburn, and then being caught\nby a countryman! How strange this seems, when we look at the streets\nand squares which now cover the locality, and when the only countrymen\nnow seen there are those who come up from the rural districts!\n\n\nYELLOW HAIR IN THE TIME OF THE PLANTAGENETS.\n\nYellow hair was at this time esteemed a beauty, and saffron was used by\nthe ladies to dye it of a colour esteemed \"odious\" by modern ladies.\nElizabeth also made yellow hair fashionable, as hers was of the same\ntint. In the romance of _King Alisaunder_, we are told of Queen\nOlympias:--\n\n    \"Hire yellow hair was fair atyred\n     With riche strings of gold wyred,\n     And wryen hire abouten all\n     To hire gentil myddel small.\"\n\n\nTHE CITY OF THE SULTAN.\n\n[Illustration: The Mosque of St. Sophia.]\n\nThe Mosques of Constantinople are the most wonderful objects of\nthat renowned city. More than 300 are picturesquely distributed in\nconspicuous parts, and form a most attractive feature to the eye of\nthe traveller. The city itself is built upon seven gentle hills,\nwhich is the main cause not only of its grandeur of appearance, but\nalso of its salubrity and comparative cleanliness. There are fourteen\nchief or imperial mosques, all lofty, and magnificent in their general\ndimensions, and built from base to dome, of enduring materials, chiefly\nof white marble, slightly tinged with grey. Some of these have two,\nsome four, and one (that of Sultan Achmet) has even six of those light,\nthin, lofty, arrowy, and most graceful towers called minarets. The\nmosque of Santa Sophia was once a Christian cathedral, and is rich in\nhistorical recollections. This mosque ranks as one of the grandest\nedifices. The ridge of the first hill on which the city stands, setting\nout from the north eastern part, is covered by the Serai or palace of\nthe Sultan, behind which, a little on the reverse of the hill, the dome\nof Santa Sophia shows itself. The colleges and hospitals, which are\ngenerally attached to or near the great mosques, offer no striking\narchitectural features; but some of the detached chapels or sepulchres\n(_turbes_), where sultans, viziers, and other great personages repose,\nare handsome.\n\n\nGOLD MASK FROM THE BANKS OF THE EUPHRATES.\n\n[Illustration: Mask of Nebuchadnezzar.]\n\nThis interesting relic of remote antiquity is at present preserved in\nthe Museum of the East India Company. It was found by Colonel Rawlinson\nwhile engaged in prosecuting the discoveries commenced by Layard and\nBotta, at Nineveh and Babylon; and is supposed to have belonged to\nKing Nebuchadnezzar. In exhuming from the mounds of these long-lost\nrival cities, the instructive remains of this once gigantic Power, the\nColonel discovered, in a perfect state of preservation, what is well\nbelieved to be the mummy of Nebuchadnezzar. The face of the rebellious\nmonarch of Babylon, covered by one of those gold masks usually found in\nAssyrian tombs, is described as very handsome--the forehead high and\ncommanding, the features marked and regular. The mask is of thin gold,\nand independent of its having once belonged to the great monarch, has\nimmense value as a relic of an ancient and celebrated people.\n\nThe Arab tribes encamping about Wurka and other great mounds search\nin the loose gravel with their spears for coffins. Gold and silver\nornaments, which have been buried in these graves for centuries, are\nworn by the Arab women of the present day; and many a rare object\nrecovered from them is sold and melted by the goldsmiths of the East.\nThe Arabs mention the discovery, by some fortunate shepherd, of Royal\ntombs, in which were crowns and sceptres of solid gold.\n\n\nFROST FAIR ON THE THAMES.\n\n\"I went crosse the Thames,\" says Evelyn, January 9, 1683-4, \"on the\nice, which now became so thick as to bear not only streetes of boothes,\nin which they roasted meate, and had divers shops of wares, quite\nacrosse as in a towne, but coaches, carts, and horses passed over.\nSo I went from Westminster Stayres to Lambeth, and din'd with the\nArchbishop. I walked over the ice (after dinner) from Lambeth Stayres\nto the Horseferry.\n\n\"The Thames (Jan{y} 16) was filled with people and tents, selling all\nsorts of wares as in a citty. The frost (Jan{y} 24) continuing more and\nmore severe, the Thames before London was still planned with boothes\nin formal streetes, all sorts of trades and shops furnished and full\nof commodities, even to a printing-presse, where the people and ladyes\ntook a fancy to have their names printed on the Thames. This humour\ntook so universally, that 'twas estimated the printer gained L5 a-day,\nfor printing a line only, at sixpence a day, besides what he got by\nballads, &c. Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from\nseveral other staires to and fro, as in the streetes, sleds, sliding\nwith skeates, a bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet playes and\ninterludes, cookes, tipling, and other lewd places, so that it seem'd\nto be a bacchanalian triumph, or carnival on the water.\"\n\n\"It began to thaw (Feb. 5), but froze againe. My coach crossed from\nLambeth to the Horseferry at Millbank, Westminster. The booths were\nalmost all taken down; but there was first a map, or landskip, cut\nin copper, representing all the manner of the camp, and the several\nactions, sports, and pastimes thereon, in memory of so signal a frost.\"\n\n\nTHE CHARACTER OF THE MOUTH.\n\nWe give the following extract from a very old work; not only because\nit contains several shrewd observations, but also because it is a good\nspecimen of the spelling and diction which prevailed in the sixteenth\ncentury, at which period there is internal evidence that the book was\nwritten, though it bears no date on the title page:--\n\n\"The mouth greate and wyde betokeneth wrath, boldnes and warre.\nAnd such men are commonly glottons. A wyde mouth withoute meesure,\nas thought it were cutte and stretched out, sygnifieth ravening\ninhumanitie, wickednes, a warlyke hart and cruell, like unto beastes\nof the sea. Such men are greate talkers, boasters, babblers, enuious,\nlyars, and full of follye. The mouthe that hathe but a lyttle closynge\nand a lyttle openynge, sygnyfyeth a fearful man, quyet, and yet\nunfaithfull. The mouthe that is verye apparent and rounde with thycknes\nof lyppes, sygnyfyeth vnclenlynes, follye, and cruelltye. The mouth\nwhyche hath a quantitie in his sytuation with a lyttle shutting, and\nsmylynge eyes wyth the reste of the face, sygnyfyeth a carnall man,\na lover of daunces, and a greate lyar. When the mouthe turneth in\nspeakinge it is a sygne that it is infected with some catarre or murre\nas is manyfest ynough. The long chynne declareth the man to be very\nlyttle subiecte to anger, and of a good complexion: and yet he is\nsomewhat a babbler and a boaster of hymselfe. They that have a lyttle\nchinne, are much to be avoyded and taken heede of, for besydes all\nvices with the whyche they are fylled they are full of impietye and\nwyckednes and are spyes, lyke unto serpents. If the ende of the chynne\nbe round it is a sygne of feminine maners and also it is a sygne of a\nwoman. But the chynne of a man muste be almoste square.\"--\"_The most\nexcellent, profitable, and pleasant booke of the famous doctour and\nexpert Astrologien Arcandam or Aleandrin._\" * * *. _Now ready turned out\nof French into our vulgare tonge, by Will. Warde. Black letter. No\ndate._ Printed by J. Rowbothum.\n\n\nEXECUTION OF EARL FERRERS FOR MURDER, 1760.\n\nLord Ferrers was hung for the deliberate and cruel murder of his\nsteward, Mr. Johnson, and his execution at Tyburn furnishes a curious\ninstance of the exhibition of egregious vanity in a man who was just\nabout to meet an ignominious death, and of misplaced pride in his\nfamily who could actually decorate the scaffold with the emblems of\nrespectful mourning.\n\nHis lordship was dressed in his wedding-clothes, which were of light\ncolour, and embroidered in silver. He set out from the Tower at nine\no'clock, amidst crowds of spectators. First went a large body of\nconstables, preceded by one of the high constables; next came a party\nof grenadiers and a party of foot; then the sheriff, in a chariot\nand six, the horses dressed with ribbons; and next, Lord Ferrers, in\na landau and six, escorted by parties of horse and foot. The other\nsheriff's carriage followed, succeeded by a mourning-coach and six,\nconveying some of the malefactor's friends; and lastly, a hearse and\nsix, provided for the purpose of taking the corpse from the place of\nexecution to Surgeons' Hall.\n\nThe procession was two hours and three-quarters on its way. Lord\nFerrers conversed very freely during the passage. He said, \"the\napparatus of death, and the passing through such crowds of people,\nare ten times worse than death itself; but I suppose they never saw a\nlord hanged, and perhaps they will never see another.\" He said to the\nsheriff. \"I have written to the king, begging that I might suffer where\nmy ancestor, the Earl of Essex, the favourite of Elizabeth, suffered,\nand was in great hopes of obtaining that favour, as I have the honour\nof being allied to his Majesty, and of quartering part of the royal\narms. I think it hard that I must die at the place appointed for the\nexecution of common felons.\"\n\nThe scaffold was hung with black by the undertaker, at the expense of\nLord Ferrers' family. His lordship was pinioned with a black sash,\nand was unwilling to have his hands tied, or his face covered, but\nwas persuaded to both. On the silken rope being put round his neck,\nhe turned pale, but recovered instantly. Within seven minutes after\nleaving the landau, the signal was given for striking the stage, and in\nfour minutes he was quite dead. The corpse was subjected to dissection.\n\n\nSTRANGE FUNERAL OBSEQUIES.\n\nThe following, taken from an old magazine, is a singular manifestation\nof eccentricity in a person who, from the books he selected to be\nburied with him, was evidently a man of an educated and refined mind:--\n\nDied, May 4, 1733, Mr. John Underwood, of Whittlesea, in\nCambridgeshire. At his burial, when the service was over, an arch was\nturn'd over the coffin, in which was placed a small piece of white\nmarble, with this inscription, \"_Non omnis moriar_, 1733.\" Then the six\ngentlemen who follow'd him to the grave sung the last stanza of the\n20th Ode of the 2d book of Horace. No bell was toll'd, no one invited\nbut the six gentlemen, and no relation follow'd his corpse; the coffin\nwas painted green, and he laid in it with all his cloaths on; under his\nhead was placed Sanadon's \"Horace,\" at his feet Bentley's \"Milton;\"\nin his right hand a small Greek Testament, with this inscription in\ngold letters, \"eimientobaus [Greek: ei mi en to bausa], J. U,\" in his\nleft hand a little edition of \"Horace\" with this inscription, \"_Musis\nAmicus_, J. U.;\" and Bentley's \"Horace\" under his back. After the\nceremony was over they went back to his house, where his sister had\nprovided a cold supper; the cloth being taken away the gentlemen sung\nthe 31st Ode of the 1st Book of \"Horace,\" drank a chearful glass,\nand went home about eight. He left about 6,000_l._ to his sister, on\ncondition of her observing this his will, order'd her to give each of\nthe gentlemen ten guineas, and desir'd they would not come in black\ncloaths. The will ends thus, \"Which done I would have them take a\nchearful glass, and think no more of John Underwood.\"\n\n\nQUICK TRAVELLING IN OLD TIMES.\n\nSaturday, the seventeenth day of July, 1619, Bernard Calvert, of\nAndover, about three o'clock in the morning, tooke horse at St.\nGeorge's Church in Southwarke, and came to Dover about seaven of the\nclocke the same morning, where a barge, with eight oares, formerly sent\nfrom London thither, attended his suddaine coming: he instantly tooke\nbarge, and went to Callice, and in the same barge returned to Dover,\nabout three of the clocke the same day, where, as well there as in\ndiverse other places, he had layed sundry swift horses, besides guides:\nhe rode back from thence to St. George's Church in Southwarke the\nsame evening, a little after eight o'clock, fresh and lusty.--_Stow's\nAnnals._\n\n\nEDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE.\n\n[Illustration: The Eddystone Lighthouse.]\n\nAs the arts and sciences improved, so did the construction of\nLighthouses, until one of the greatest accomplishments of engineering\nskill, ever attempted upon such works, was exhibited in the\nconstruction of the Eddystone Lighthouse, which is, indeed, much\nmore entitled than the Pharos of Alexandria to be considered one of\nthe wonders of the world. The rock on which this tower is built is\nplaced about twelve miles south-west of Plymouth, and consists of a\nseries of submarine cliffs, stretching from the west side (which is so\nprecipitous that the largest ship can ride close beside them) in an\neasterly direction, for nearly half a mile. At the distance of about\na quarter of a mile more is another rock, so that a more dangerous\nmarine locality can hardly be imagined. Both these rocks had proved the\ncause of many fatal shipwrecks, and it was at last resolved to make an\nattempt to obviate the danger. In the year 1696, a gentleman of Essex,\nnamed Winstanley, who had a turn for architecture and mechanics, was\nengaged to erect a lighthouse upon the Eddystone rock, and in four\nyears he completed it. It did not, however, stand long, for while some\nrepairs were in progress under his direction in 1703, on the 26th\nNovember, a violent hurricane came on which blew the lighthouse down,\nand Mr. Winstanley and all his workmen perished--nothing remaining of\nthe edifice but a few stones and a piece of iron chain.\n\nIn the spring of 1706 an Act of Parliament was obtained for rebuilding\nthe lighthouse, and a gentleman named Rudyerd, a silk mercer, was the\nengineer engaged. He placed five courses of heavy stones upon the\nrock and then erected a superstructure of wood. The lighthouse on the\nBell Rock, off the coast of Fife, and the one placed at the entrance\nof the Mersey on the Black Rock, are similarly constructed, so that\nthere seemed to be good reason for adopting the principle. Mr. Smeaton\nthought that the work was done in a masterly and effective manner; but\nin 1755 the edifice was destroyed by fire, and he was next retained as\nthe engineer for this important building.\n\nThe result of his labours has justly been considered worthy of the\nadmiration of the world, for it is distinguished alike for its\nstrength, durability, and beauty of form. The base of the tower is\nabout twenty-six feet nine inches in diameter, and the masonry is so\nformed as to be a part of the solid rock, to the height of thirteen\nfeet above the surface, where the diameter is diminished to nineteen\nfeet and a half. The tower then rises in a gradually diminishing curve\nto the height of eighty-five feet, including the lantern, which is\ntwenty-four feet high. The upper extremity is finished by a cornice, a\nbalustrade being placed around the base of the lantern for use as well\nas ornament.\n\nThe tower is furnished with a door and windows, and the whole edifice\noutside bears the graceful outline of the trunk of a mighty tree,\ncombining lightness with elegance and strength. Mr. Smeaton commenced\nhis labours in 1756, and completed the building in four years. Before\ncommencing operations he took accurate drawings of the exterior of the\nrock, and the stones, which were brought from the striking and romantic\ndistrict of Dartmoor, were all formed to fit into its crevices, and so\nprepared as to be dovetailed together, and strung by oaken plugs. When\nput into their places, and then firmly cemented, the whole seemed to\nform, and does indeed constitute, a part of the solid rock.\n\n\nSWEATING SICKNESS.\n\nThe Sweating Sickness first visited England Anno Dom. 1483, and\nrepeated its visitations 1485, 1506, 1517, 1528, and last of all, 1551.\n\nThis epidemic disease raged with such peculiar violence in England,\nand had so quick a crisis, that it was distinguished by the name of\n_Ephemera Britannica_. This singular fever seems to have been of the\nmost simple, though of the most acute kind, and notwithstanding princes\nand nobles were its chief victims, the physicians of the day never\nagreed upon the method of treating it.\n\nThe splendid French embassy, which arrived in England in 1550, found\nthe court-festivities damped by a visitation of that strange and\nterrific malady.\n\n\"This pestilence, first brought into the island by the foreign\nmercenaries who composed the army of the Earl of Richmond, afterwards\nHenry VII., now made its appearance for the fourth and last time in\nour annals. It seized principally, it is said, on males, on such as\nwere in the prime of their age, and rather on the higher than the\nlower classes: within the space of twenty-four hours, the fate of the\nsufferer was decided for life or death. Its ravages were prodigious;\ntwo princes died of it; and the general consternation was augmented,\nby a superstitious idea which went forth, that Englishmen alone were\nthe destined victims of this mysterious minister of fate, which tracked\ntheir steps, with a malice and sagacity of an evil spirit, into every\ndistant country of the earth whither they might have wandered, whilst\nit left unassailed all foreigners in their own.\"\n\n\nAN AMERICAN ADVERTISEMENT.\n\nThe following is an early specimen of that system of poetical\nadvertising which in recent times has become so common. It is always\ninteresting to note the origin of customs with which we subsequently\nbecome familiar:--\n\n_Notice to the Public, and especially to Emigrants, who wish to settle\non Lands._--The Subscriber offers for Sale, several Thousand Acres\nof Land, situated in well settled Front Townships, in Lots to suit\nPurchasers.\n\n    Particulars about Location,\n    May be known by application.\n    For quality of soil, and so forth,\n    Buyers to see, on Nag must go forth.\n    This much I'll tell ye plainly,\n    Of big trees ye'll see mainly.\n    'Bout Butter Nut and Beach,\n    A whole week I could preach;\n    But what the plague's the use of that?\n    The lands are nigh, low, round, and flat.\n    There's rocks and stumps, no doubt enough,\n    And bogs and swamps, just _quantum-suff_\n    To breed the finest of Musquitoes;\n    As in the sea are bred Bonitos,\n    No lack of fever or of ague;\n    And many other things to plague you.\n    In short, they're just like other people's,\n    Sans houses, pigsties, barns, or steeples\n    What most it imports you to know,\n    'S the terms on which I'll let 'em go.\n    So now I offer to the Buyer,\n    A Credit to his own desire,\n    For butter, bacon, bread, and cheese,\n    Lean bullocks, calves, or ducks and geese,\n    Corn, _Tates_, flour, barley, rye,\n    Or any thing but _Punkin-Pie_.\n    In three, four years, _Aye, five or six_,\n    If that won't do, why let _him_ fix.\n    But when once fix'd, if payment's slack,\n    As sure as Fate, I'll take 'em back.\n\n              THOMAS DALTON.\n\n    Kingston Brewery, (Canada,) Nov. 2, 1821.\n\n\nMAGNIFICENCE OF FORMER TIMES.\n\n_Account how the Earl of Worcester lived at Ragland Castle in\nMonmouthshire, before the Civil Wars, which began in 1641._\n\nAt eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the Castle gates were shut, and the\ntables laid; two in the dining-room; three in the hall; one in Mrs.\nWatson's apartment, where the chaplains are, (Sir Toby Mathews being\nthe first;) and two in the housekeeper's room for the lady's women.\n\nThe Earl came into the dining-room attended by his gentlemen. As soon\nas he was seated, Sir Ralph Blackstone, Steward of the house, retired.\nThe Comptroller, Mr. Holland, attended with his staff, as did the\nSewer, Mr. Blackburne; the daily waiters, Mr. Clough, Mr. Selby, and\nMr. Scudamore; with many gentlemen's sons, from two to seven hundred\npounds a year, bred up in the Castle; my Lady's Gentleman Usher, Mr.\nHarcourt; my Lord's Gentlemen of the Chamber, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Fox.\n\nAt the first table sat the noble family, and such of the nobility as\ncame.\n\nAt the second table, in the dining-room, sat Knights and Honourable\nGentlemen, attended by footmen.\n\nIn the hall, at the first table sat Sir Ralph Blackstone, Steward; the\nComptroller, Mr. Holland; the Secretary; the Master of the Horse, Mr.\nDelewar; the Master of the Fish Ponds, Mr. Andrews; my Lord Herbert's\nPreceptor, Mr. Adams; with such Gentlemen as came there under the\ndegree of a Knight, attended by footmen, and plentifully served with\nwine.\n\nAt the second table in the hall, (served from my Lord's table, and with\nother hot meats,) sat the Sewer, with the Gentlemen Waiters and Pages,\nto the number of twenty-four.\n\nAt the third table in the hall, sat the Clerk of the Kitchen, with the\nYeomen Officers of the House, two Grooms of the Chamber, &c.\n\nOther Officers of the Household were, Chief Auditor, Mr. Smith; Clerk\nof the Accounts, Mr. George Wharton; Purveyor of the Castle, Mr.\nSalsbury; Ushers of the Hall, Mr. Moyle and Mr. Croke; Closet Keeper,\nGentleman of the Chapel, Mr. Davies; Keeper of the Records; Master of\nthe Wardrobe; Master of the Armoury; Master Groom of the Stable for the\nWar Horses; Master of the Hounds; Master Falconer; Porter and his man.\n\nTwo Butchers; two Keepers of the Home Park; two Keepers of the Red Deer\nPark.\n\nFootmen, Grooms, and other menial Servants, to the number of 150. Some\nof the footmen were brewers and bakers.\n\nOut Officers.--Steward of Ragland, William Jones, Esq.; the Governor of\nChepstow Castle, Sir Nicholas Kemys, Bart.; Housekeeper of Worcester\nHouse, in London, James Redman, Esq.\n\nThirteen Bailiffs.\n\nTwo Counsel for the Bailiffs to have recourse to.\n\nSolicitor, Mr. John Smith.\n\n\nSADLER'S WELLS.\n\n\"T. G., Doctor in Physic,\" published, in 1684, a pamphlet upon\nthis place, in which he says:--\"The water of this well, before the\nReformation, was very much famed for several extraordinary cures\nperformed thereby, and was thereupon accounted sacred, and called\nHolywell. The priests belonging to the priory of Clerkenwell using to\nattend there, made the people believe that the virtue of the water\nproceeded from the efficacy of their prayers; but at the Reformation\nthe well was stopped, upon the supposition that the frequenting of\nit was altogether superstitious; and so by degrees it grew out of\nremembrance, and was wholly lost until then found out; when a gentleman\nnamed Sadler, who had lately built a new music-house there, and being\nsurveyor of the highways, had employed men to dig gravel in his garden,\nin the midst whereof they found it stopped up and covered with an arch\nof stone.\" After the decease of Sadler, Francis Forcer, a musician of\nsome eminence in his profession, became proprietor of the well and\nmusic-room; he was succeeded by his son, who first exhibited there the\ndiversions of rope-dancing and tumbling, which were then performed in\nthe garden. The rural vicinity of the \"Wells,\" long made it a favourite\nretreat of the pleasure-seeking citizens.\n\n[Illustration: Champion Figg.]\n\nJames Figg, a native of Thame, in Oxfordshire, was a man of remarkable\nathletic strength and agility, and signalized himself greatly over any\nof his country competitors in the art of cudgel-playing, single-stick,\nand other gymnastic exercises. Having acquired a considerable knowledge\nof the broadsword, he came to London, and set up as master in that\nscience, undertaking to teach the nobility and gentry of his day\nthe noble art of self defence; and championed himself against all\ncomers. He took a waste piece of ground, the corner of Wells and\nCastle-streets, Oxford-road, and erected a wooden edifice, which,\nin imitation of the Romans, he denominated an amphitheatre; and\nestablished here a regular academy, to train pupils in the practice of\ncudgeling, broadsword, &c. &c., as well to use it, on fixed occasions,\nfor the exhibition of prizefighting. He had many followers, and we find\nhim commemorated and praised by most of the wits of his time. \"The\nTattler,\" \"Guardian,\" and \"Craftsman,\" have equally contributed to\npreserve his memory, as have several writers. Bramstone, in his \"Man of\nTaste\" tells us:--\n\n    \"In Figg the prize-fighter by day delight,\n     And sup with Colley Cibber every night.\"\n\nAnother writer notices him in the following lines:--\n\n    \"To Figg and Broughton he commits his breast,\n     To steel it to the fashionable test.\"\n\nSutton, the pipe-maker of Gravesend, was his rival, and dared the\nmighty Figg to the combat. Twice they fought, with alternate advantage;\nbut, at the third trial, a considerable time elapsed before victory\ndecided for either party; at length the palm of victory was obtained\nby Figg. In short, neither Ned Sutton, Tom Buck, nor Bob Stokes, could\nresist, or stand against his skill and valour. He was never defeated\nbut once, and then by Sutton, in one of their previous combats, and\nthat was generally supposed to have been in consequence of an illness\nhe had on him at the time he fought.\n\nWhen Faber engraved his portrait from a painting by Ellys, he was at\na loss what he should insert, as an appropriate motto, and consulting\nwith a friend what he should put, was answered, \"_A Figg for the\nIrish._\" This was immediately adopted, and the print had a rapid sale.\n\nFigg died in 1734. William Flander a noted scholar of his, fought at\nthe amphitheatre, in 1723, with Christopher Clarkson, from Lancashire,\nwho was called the Old Soldier. The fashion of attending prizefighting\nmatches had attained its highest zenith in Figg's time, and it was\nlooked upon as a very great proof of self-denial in an amateur if he\nfailed a meeting on those occasions.\n\n    From Figg's theatre he will not miss a night,\n    Though cocks, and bulls, and Irish women, fight.\n\nFigg left a widow and several children; so recently as 1794 a\ndaughter-in-law of his was living, and resided in Charles-street,\nWestminster, where she kept a house, and supported herself very\ndecently by letting lodgings, aided by a very small income.\n\n\nDRESS IN 1573.\n\nThe wardrobe of a country gentleman is thus given from a will, dated\n1573, in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, in Brayley and Britton's\n_Graphic Illustrator_--\"I give unto my brother Mr. William Sheney\nmy best black gown, garded and faced with velvet, and my velvet cap;\nalso I will unto my brother Thomas Marcal my new shepe  gowne,\ngarded with velvet and faced with cony; also I give unto my son Tyble\nmy shorte gown, faced with wolf (skin), and laid with Billements lace;\nalso I give unto my brother Cowper my other shorte gowne, faced with\nfoxe; also I give unto Thomas Walker my night gown, faced with cony,\nwith one lace also, and my ready (ruddy)  hose; also I give\nunto my man Thomas Swaine my doublet of canvas that Forde made me, and\nmy new gaskyns that Forde made me; also I give unto John Wyldinge a\ncassock of shepes colour, edged with ponts skins; also I give unto John\nWoodzyle my doublet of fruite canvas, and my hose with fryze bryches;\nalso I give unto Strowde my frize jerkin with silke buttons; also I\ngive Symonde Bisshoppe, the smyth, my other frize jerkyn, with stone\nbuttons; also I give to Adam Ashame my hose with the frendge (fringe),\nand lined with crane- silk; which gifts I will to be delivered,\nimmediately after my decease.\"\n\n\nORIGIN OF THE CREST OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.\n\nThe loss of the French at the battle of Crecy was immense. There fell\n1,200 knights; 1,400 esquires; 4,000 commissioned officers; 30,000 rank\nand file; Dukes of Lorraine and Bourbon; Earls of Flanders, Blois,\nHarcourt, Vaudemont, and Aumale; the King of Bohemia; the King of\nMajorca. The English lost one esquire, three knights, and less than one\nhundred rank and file. Here did they first use field artillery; and\non this battle-field did the young Prince of Wales adopt the ostrich\nplumes and motto of the slain King of Bohemia, who, being blind,\ndesired to be led at a gallop between two knights into the thick of\nthe fight, and thus met death. Those feathers and the two words \"Ich\ndien,\" \"I serve,\" are to this day the heraldic bearings of the Prince\nof Wales, whom God preserve! So much for Crecy or Cressy!\n\n\nSINGULAR DISCOVERY OF A THIEF IN 1822.\n\nOn February 20, as a servant in the employ of J. L. King, Esq., of\nStogumber, was entering a field, his attention was attracted by a\nmagpie, which appeared to have escaped from a neighbouring house. The\nbird spoke so uncommonly plain that the man was induced to follow it.\n\"_Cheese for Marget, Cheese for Marget_,\" was its continual cry, as\nit hopped forward, till it stopped behind a hay-stack, and began to\neat. On inspection, a number of hams, a quantity of cheese, &c., were\ndiscovered, which had been stolen, a short time previously, from Mr.\nBowering, of Williton. The plunder was deposited in sacks, on one of\nwhich was marked the name of a person residing in the neighbourhood,\nwhich led to the apprehension of four fellows, who have been committed\nto Wilton gaol.\n\n\nEFFECT OF VINEGAR ON THE SKIN.\n\nBy the use of vinegar the Spanish General Vitellis, made his skin hang\nabout him like a pelisse; but of the wonderful dilatability of the\nskin, no instance equals the Spaniard who showed himself to Van-Horn,\nSilvius, Piso, and other learned men at Amsterdam. Taking up with his\nleft hand the skin of his right shoulder, he would bring the same up\nto his mouth: again he would draw the skin of his chin down to his\nbreast like a beard, and presently put it upwards to the top of his\nhead, hiding both his eyes therewith; after which, the same would\nreturn orderly and equally to its proper place.\n\n\nADVERTISEMENT OF A DYING SPEECH BOOK IN 1731.\n\nNewgate literature was more popular in the last century than it is now.\nThe following is an advertisement in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of the\nabove date:--\n\n\"A General History of Executions for the year, 1730. Containing the\nlives, actions, dying speeches, confessions and behaviour, of sixty\nmalefactors executed at Tyburn, and elsewhere; particularly three\nunfortunate young gentlemen, viz., Mr. Goodburn, a Cambridge scholar,\nMr. Johnston, and Mr. Porter, son to the late Lord Mayor of Dublin:\nand of several notorious highwaymen, foot-pads, street-robbers, and\nhousebreakers, as Dalton, Everet, Doyle, Newcomb, &c., and of the five\nyoung highwaymen taken at Windsor, said to have formed a design to rob\nthe Queen there. To which is added, the trial of William Gordon at\nChelmsford for a robbery on the highway; an account of the incendiaries\nat Bristol, and the apprehending John Power, for sending threatening\nletters, and firing Mr. Packer's house; also the life of Col. Ch--s.\nTogether with an alphabetical list of all the persons indicted or\ntried at the Old Bailey, the year past. With the judgment of the court\nrespectively passed upon each, referring to the pages in the session\nbooks for the trials at large. Printed for R. Newton at St. John's\nGate, and sold by the booksellers price bound 2_s._ 6_d._\"\n\n\nADVERTISEMENT OF A FLEET PARSON.\n\nIn the last century, when marriages were allowed to be transacted--we\ncannot say solemnized--in the Fleet Prison, and the adjacent taverns,\nthe profligate wretches who disgraced their sacred profession by taking\npart in such iniquities, were obliged to bid against one another for\ncustom--here is one of their advertisements:--\n\n  G. R.\n\n  At the true Chapel\n  at the old Red Hand and Mitre, three doors from Fleet Lane and\n  next Door to the White Swan;\n  Marriages are performed by authority by the Reverend Mr. Symson\n  educated at the University of Cambridge, and late Chaplain to the\n  Earl of Rothes.\n\n  N.B. Without Imposition.\n\n\nTHE ASS.\n\nIn all countries, this sure-footed and faithful animal is adopted as\nan emblem of stupidity, from the patience with which it submits to\npunishment and endures privation. A pair of ass's ears is inflicted\nupon a child in reproof of his duncehood; and through life we hear\nevery blockhead of our acquaintance called an ass. Whereas the ass is\na beast of great intelligence; and we often owe our safety to its sure\nand unerring foot beside the perilous precipice, where the steps of the\nman of science would have faltered.\n\nThe Fathers of the Church, and the Disciples of the Sorbonne, persuaded\nof the universal influence of the Christian faith, believed the dark\ncross on the back of the ass to date only from the day on which our\nSaviour made his entry into Jerusalem. The ass of the desert was an\nanimal of great price. Pliny mentions that the Senator Arius paid\nfor one the sum of four hundred thousand sesterces. Naturalists have\nfrequently remarked the extraordinary dimensions of an ass's heart,\nwhich is thought an indication of courage; and it is the custom of the\npeasantry of some countries to make their children wear a piece of\nass's skin about their person. The ass's skin is peculiarly valuable,\nboth for the manufacture of writing-tablets and drums; which may be\nthe reason why a dead ass is so rarely seen. It is too valuable to be\nleft on the highway. In many places, the ass serves as a barometer.\nIf he roll in the dust, fine weather may be expected; but if he erect\nhis ears, rain is certain. Why should not these animals experience the\nsame atmospheric influences as man? Are we not light-hearted in the\nsunshine, and depressed in a heavy atmosphere?\n\n\nCHOICE RECEIPTS FROM \"PHYSICK FOR THE POOR. LONDON, 1657.\"\n\n_To make any one that Sleepeth answer to whatsoever thou ask._--Take\nthe heart of an oul, and his right legg, and put them upon the breast\nof one that sleepeth, and they shall reveal whatsoever thou ask them.\n\n_To know any Man or Woman's minde when they are Asleep._--Take the hart\nof a dove, and the legg of a frog, dry it well, and beat them to powder\nin a morter, put this up in a linnen cloth, with three or four round\npibble stones, as big as wallnuts, then lay this upon the parties pit\nof their stomach, and they shall tell you all things that they have\ndone, if there is anything remarkable that troubles them.\n\n_To make the Nose Bleed._--Take the leaves of yerrow, put it up in thy\nnose; this will make the nose bleed immediately.\n\n_To make a Tooth Drop out._--Mizaldus saith that if you make a powder\nof earth-worms and put it in the hollow of a rotten tooth, it will\nimmediately drop out.\n\nHow strange must have been the education and intelligence of the\nperiod, when people could write, publish, and practice such incredible\ntrash!\n\n\nSHOCKING DEPRAVITY.\n\nThe following account, from an old magazine, affords a strange and\nlamentable instance of a wretch just about to die, being only intent\nwith his latest breath to defame his own mother:--\n\nMary Lynn, condemn'd last Assizes for the County of Norfolk, was burnt\nto ashes at a stake, for being concern'd in the murder of her mistress;\nand Smith, the principal, was hang'd for the same fact. She deny'd her\nbeing guilty, and said Smith could clear her if he would. She behaved\nwith decency, and died penitent. Smith was drunk at the gallows; and\nseem'd to have but little sense either of his crime or punishment;\nhowever, desired all masters to pay their servants' wages on Saturday\nnight, that they might have money to spend, and not run in debt. Said,\n\"My mother always told me I should die in my shoes, but I will make her\na liar;\" so threw them off.\n\n\nPERSONAL CHARMS DISCLAIMED.\n\nIf any human being was free from personal vanity, it must have been\nthe second Duchess d'Orleans, Charlotte Elizabeth of Bavaria. In one\nof her letters (dated 9th August, 1718), she says, \"I must certainly\nbe monstrously ugly. I never had a good feature. My eyes are small, my\nnose short and thick, my lips broad and thin. These are not materials\nto form a beautiful face. Then I have flabby, lank cheeks, and long\nfeatures, which suit ill with my low stature. My waist and my legs\nare equally clumsy. Undoubtedly I must appear to be an odious little\nwretch; and had I not a tolerable good character, no creature could\nendure me. I am sure a person must be a conjuror to judge me by my eyes\nthat I have a grain of wit.\"\n\n\nCADER IDRIS.\n\nOn the very summit of Cader Idris there is an excavation in the solid\nrock, resembling a couch; and it is said that whoever should rest a\nnight in that seat, will be found in the morning either dead, raving\nmad, or endued with supernatural genius.\n\n\nOLD LONDON SIGNS.\n\nSome notion of the houses and shops of old London may be gathered by\na visit to Bell Yard, near Temple Bar; Great Winchester Street, near\nthe Bank; the wooden houses near Cripplegate Church; and a few other\ndistricts which were spared by the Great Fire of 1666. In Bell Yard,\nfor instance, the national feeling for improvement has from time to\ntime effected changes; the lattices of diamond-shaped lead-work, carved\npendants, and the projecting signs of the various tradesmen, have\ndisappeared, and here and there sheets of plate glass have been used,\nto give a somewhat modern appearance to the places of business. Still\nthe projecting and massive wood-work of the shops, and the peculiar\npicturesque appearance of the houses, cannot be altogether disguised;\nand if any of our readers, who may be curious in such matters, will\nwalk up Bailey's Court, on the west side of Bell Yard, he will there\nsee a group of wooden buildings exactly like the great mass which was\ncleared by the fire. In some of the pictures of London of about this\ntime, the shops of the various tradesmen were chiefly unglazed, and\nabove the door of each was suspended the silver swans; the golden\nswans; the chained swans; the golden heads; mitres; bells--black, red,\nwhite, and blue; rising and setting suns; moons of different phases;\nmen in the moon; sceptres; crowns, and many other devices, which, even\nat that time, were necessary to distinguish one shop from another. The\nchequers; St. George and the dragon; royal oaks; king's heads; and\ndouble signs, such as the horseshoe and magpie; bell and crown; bell\nand horns, and such like, were more particularly set apart for the use\nof the various hostelries. Everyone, however, who had a London shop of\nany kind or consequence, had his sign. Many of them were well carved in\nwood, and ornamented with emblazonry and gilding.\n\nNo doubt if it were possible to find at the present time the same\npicturesque architectural displays as were to be met with in London in\nQueen Elizabeth's days, our artistic friends would be able to pick up\nmany a nice subject for their pencils, but in those days there were\nplenty of drawbacks; the pavement was bad, the drainage was worse, and\nfrom the eaves of the houses and pents of the shops, streams of water\nran down in wet weather upon the wayfarers, and, by lodging in the\nthoroughfares, made the London streets something in the same state as\nthose of Agar Town and some other neglected parts of the metropolis.\nWe must not forget that in the days to which we allude there were no\nflagged footpaths, and that the only distinction from the horse and\ncart roads, and that for the foot passengers, was a separation by\nwooden posts, which, in genteel places, were made supports for chains.\nPeople, however, got tired of this bad state of things, and measures\nwere taken to put a stop to the streams of water from the roofs, &c.\nAfter the Great Fire, an enactment was made for an alteration in\nthe spouts, &c.; all barbers poles, and projecting signs, and other\nprojections were to be done away with, and other changes made for the\nbetter. Up to the reign of Queen Anne, we find, by reference to views\nof Cheapside and the neighbourhood of the Monument, that the projecting\nsigns were still in use; and that even at that recent date, many of\nthe London shops in the important neighbourhoods above mentioned were\nwithout glazing, and looked much like some of the greengrocers' sheds\nin use now in Bermondsey and some other places.\n\nSevere measures seem to have been at length taken against the\nprojecting signs, and most of them disappeared, and then it became\na most difficult matter either to address letters, or find a man's\nshop. In Dr. Johnson's day, he and other persons gave the address\n\"over against\" a particular sign, or so many doors from such a sign.\nIn consequence of this uncertainty, many houses in London, which from\ntheir association with eminent men would possess much interest now,\ncannot be pointed out; and it was a wonderful benefit to the metropolis\nwhen the plan of numbering the houses in each street was hit upon. But\nfor this, considering that the population has doubled in the last fifty\nyears, it is difficult to know how the genius of Rowland Hill would\nhave worked his plan of London post-office delivery, or business could\nbe carried on with any kind of comfort.\n\nThe booksellers and publishers seem to have been the last, with the\nexception of the tavern-keepers, to give up the old signs. After the\nGreat Fire, some of the ancient signs which were cut in stone, and\nwhich had escaped the conflagration, were got out of the ruins, and\nafterwards placed in the front of the plain, yet solid, brick buildings\nwhich were erected after that event. Some of these--the \"Chained\nBear,\" the \"Collared Swan,\" the \"Moon and Seven Stars,\" and \"Sun,\" in\nCheapside, and some others which we now engrave--are still preserved.\nThe carved wooden sign of the \"Man in the Moon,\" in Wych Street,\nStrand, is a rare example; and the \"Horse-shoe and Magpie,\" in Fetter\nLane, is one of the last of the suspended signs to be now found in the\nCity.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Painted Signs of London Taverns.]\n\nAmongst the painted signs of London taverns worth notice, is one in\nOxford-street (nearly opposite Rathbone-place), said to have been\npainted by Hogarth. The subject is \"a man loaded with mischief.\" He has\na stout woman on his shoulders, together with a monkey, magpie, etc.\nThe male figure shown in this street picture seems to bear up pretty\nwell under his burden.\n\n\nNARROW ESCAPE.--CALM RELIANCE ON PROVIDENCE.\n\nIn the year 1552, Francis Pelusius, of sixty-three years old, digging a\nwell forty foot deep in the hill of St. Sebastian, the earth above him\nfell in upon him to thirty-five foot depth; he was somewhat sensible\nbefore of what was coming, and opposed a plank, which by chance he had\nwith him, against the ruins, himself lying under it; by this means he\nwas protected from the huge weight of earth, and retained some room\nand breath to himself, by which he lived seven days and nights without\nfood or sleep, without any pain or sorrow, being full of hope, which\nhe placed in God only. Ever and anon he called for help, as being yet\nsafe, but was heard by none, though he could hear the motion, noise\nand words of those that were above him, and could count the hours as\nthe clock went. After the seventh day, he being all this while given\nfor dead, they brought a bier for his corpse, and when a good part of\nthe well was digged up, on a sudden they heard the voice of one crying\nfrom the bottom. At first they were afraid, as if it had been the\nvoice of a subterranean spirit; the voice continuing, they had some\nhope of his life, and hastened to dig to him, till at last, after they\nhad given him a glass of wine, they drew him up living and well, his\nstrength so entire that to lift him out he would not suffer himself to\nbe bound, nor would use any help of another. Yea, he was of so sound\nunderstanding, that, jesting, he drew out his purse and gave them\nmoney, saying _He had been with such good hosts, that for seven days it\nhad not cost him a farthing_.\n\n\nCEILING OF WHITEHALL.\n\nThe celebrated painting on the roof of the Banqueting House, has been\nrestored, re-painted, and refreshed, not fewer than three times. In the\nreign of James II., 1687, Parrey Walton, a painter of still life, and\nthe keeper of the king's pictures, was appointed to re-touch this grand\nwork of art, which had then (as appears by the Privy Council Book)\nbeen painted only sixty years. Walton was paid L212 for its complete\nrestoration, which sum was considered by Sir Christopher Wren, \"as very\nmodest and reasonable.\" It was restored a second time by the celebrated\nCipriani; and for a third time by a painter named Rigaud.\n\n\nBUNYAN'S BIBLE.\n\nJohn Bunyan's Bible (printed by Bill and Barker) bound in morocco, and\nwhich had been his companion during his twelve years' unjustifiable\nconfinement in Bedford gaol, where he wrote his \"Pilgrim's Progress,\"\nwas purchased at the sale of the library of the Rev. S. Palmer, of\nHackney, March, 1814, for the late Samuel Whitbread, Esq., for the\nsum of L21. This Bible, and the \"Book of Martyrs,\" are said to have\nconstituted the whole library of Bunyan during his imprisonment.\n\n\nSPECIMENS OF ROYAL GRANTS.\n\nIn 1206, King John grants to W. de Camville a licence to destroy game\nin any of the royal forests, which proves the origin of the Game Laws.\n\n1238. Henry III. gave 500_l._ to Baldwyn, Emperor of Constantinople.\n\n1342. King Edward III. forgives to the mayor and citizens of London the\nindignation and rancour of mind that he had conceived against them.\n\n1344. The king grants to Adam Thorp, the trimmer of his beard, certain\nlands at Eye, near Westminster. The scrupulous attention which Edward\nIII. paid to that ornament of his face, may be seen in his bronze\neffigy in Westminster Abbey, which was taken from a mask after his\ndeath.\n\n1409. The king settles on Joan of Navarre, his queen, 10,000_l._ per\nannum.\n\n1417. Henry V. grants to Joan Warin, his nurse, an annuity of 20_l._\nduring life.\n\n1422. The jewels which had belonged to King Henry V., and were valued\nat so large a sum as 40,000_l._, were delivered to Sir Henry Fitz Hugh,\nand his other executors, for the payment of his personal debts.\n\n1422. The \"Pysane,\" or great collar of gold and rubies, was pawned by\nthe king to his uncle, Cardinal Beaufort, who is supposed, at the time\nof his death, to have amassed more wealth than any subject in England.\n\n\nCOFFEE AND TEA.\n\nThe bill for attendance at the Dorchester Assizes in 1686 of Mr. John\nBragge, the town-clerk of Lyme, presents this novelty--the article\n_coffee_ is charged 2d. This may have been drunk at a coffee-house.\nCoffee was introduced from Turkey in 1650.\n\nAn advertisement in the \"Mercurius Politicus,\" Sept. 30, 1658,\ninstructs how \"That excellent and by all physitians approved _China_\ndrink, called by the Chineans Tcha, by other nations, _tay_ alias\n_tee_, is sold at the Sultana's Head Coffee-house, in Sweeting's-rents,\nby the Exchange, _London_.--\"\n\nThere was a \"cophee-house\" in St. Michael's-alley, Cornhill, about\n1657. Tea, coffee, and chocolate were placed under the excise. There\nwas no tax upon these commodities when imported, but when made into\ndrink, as tea was, at 8d. a gallon, and sold at these houses.\n\n\nREMARKABLE PRESERVATION OF HUMAN HAIR SINCE THE NORMAN PERIOD.\n\nIn 1839 a coffin was discovered in the abbey church of Romsey, which\nhad originally contained the body of a female of the above early time.\nThe bones had entirely decayed, but the hair, with its characteristic\nindestructibility, was found entire, and appeared as if the skull had\nonly recently been removed from it, retaining its form entire, and\nhaving plaited tails eighteen inches in length. It is still preserved\nin a glass case, lying upon the same block of oak which has been its\npillow for centuries.\n\n\nPUBLIC TASTE FOR CONJURING IN 1718.\n\nOne of the amusements of 1718 was the juggling exhibition of a\nfire-eater, whose name was De Hightrehight, a native of the valley\nof Annivi in the Alps. This tremendous person ate burning coals,\nchewed flaming brimstone and _swallowed_ it, licked a red-hot poker,\nplaced a red-hot heater on his tongue, kindled coals on his tongue,\nsuffered them to be blown, and broiled meat on them, ate melted pitch,\nbrimstone, bees-wax, sealing-wax, and rosin, with a spoon; and, to\ncomplete the business, he performed all these impossibilities five\ntimes _per diem_, at the Duke of Marlborough's Head, in Fleet-street,\nfor the trifling receipts of 2s. 6d., 1s. 6d., and 1s. Master\nHightrehight had the honour of exhibiting before Lewis XIV., the\nEmperor of Germany, the King of Sicily, the Doge of Venice, and an\ninfinite number of princes and nobles--and the Prince of Wales, who had\nnearly lost this inconceivable pleasure by the envious interposition of\nthe Inquisition at Bologna and in Piedmont, which holy office seemed\ninclined to try _their mode of burning_ on his _body_, leaving to him\nthe care of resisting the flames and rendering them harmless; but he\nwas preserved from the unwelcome ordeal by the interference of the\nDutchess Royal Regent of Savoy and the Marquis Bentivoglia.\n\n\nTHE TRIUMPHS OF SCIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE.\n\nDistance seems not to have entered into the calculations of the\nengineers who built those monuments of human skill--carriage-roads\nover the Alps. They were after a certain grade, and they obtained it,\nthough by contortions and serpentine windings that seem almost endless.\nThus the Simplon averages nowhere more than one inch elevation to a\nfoot, and, indeed, not quite that. Thirty thousand men were employed on\nthis road six years. There are six hundred and eleven bridges in less\nthan forty miles, ten galleries, and twenty houses of refuge, while\nthe average width of the road is over twenty-five feet. The Splugen\npresents almost as striking features as the Simplon. From these facts,\nsome idea may be gathered of the stupendous work it must be to carry a\ncarriage-road over the Alps.\n\n\nCHRISTMAS PIE.\n\nThe following appeared in the _Newcastle Chronicle_, 6th January,\n1770:--\n\n\"Monday last was brought from Howick to Berwick, to be shipped for\nLondon, for Sir Henry Grey, bart., a pie, the contents whereof are as\nfollows:--2 bushels of flour, 20 lbs. of butter, 4 geese, 2 turkeys, 2\nrabbits, 4 wild ducks, 2 woodcocks, 6 snipes, 4 partridges, 2 neats'\ntongues, 2 curlews, 7 blackbirds, and 6 pigeons: it is supposed a very\ngreat curiosity, was made by Mrs. Dorothy Patterson, housekeeper at\nHowick. It was near nine feet in circumference at bottom, weighs about\ntwelve stones, will take two men to present it at table; it is neatly\nfitted with a case, and four small wheels to facilitate its use to\nevery guest that inclines to partake of its contents at table.\"\n\n\nTHE UPAS, (POISON) TREE.\n\nWe give here an instance of the extravagancies of ancient travellers,\nthis tissue of falsehoods being taken from \"Foersch's Description of\nJava:\"--\n\nThe _Bohon Upas_ is situated in the Island of Java about twenty-seven\nleagues from Batavia, fourteen from Soulis Charta, the seat of the\nEmperor, and between eighteen and twenty leagues from Tinkjoe, the\npresent residence of the Sultan of Java. It is surrounded on all sides\nby a circle of high hills and mountains; and the country round it,\nto the distance of ten or twelve miles from the tree, is entirely\nbarren. Not a tree, nor a shrub, nor even the least plant or grass is\nto be seen. I have made the tour all around this dangerous spot, at\nabout eighteen miles distant from the centre, and I found the aspect\nof the country on all sides equally dreary. The easiest ascent of the\nhills is from that part where the old Ecclesiastick dwells. From his\nhouse the criminals are sent for the poison, into which the points of\nall warlike instruments are dipped. It is of high value, and produces\na considerable revenue to the Emperor. The poison which is procured\nfrom this tree is a gum that issues out between the bark and the tree\nitself, like the _camphor_. Malefactors, who for their crimes are\nsentenced to die, are the only persons who fetch the poison; and this\nis the only chance they have of saving their lives. After sentence is\npronounced upon them by the Judge, they are asked in Court, whether\nthey will die by the hands of the executioner, or whether they will go\nto the Upas-tree for a box of poison? They commonly prefer the latter\nproposal, as there is not only some chance of preserving their lives,\nbut also a certainty, in case of their safe return, that a provision\nwill be made for them in future by the Emperor. They are also permitted\nto ask a favour from the Emperor, which is generally of a trifling\nnature, and commonly granted. They are then provided with a silver or\ntortoise-shell box, in which they are to put the poisonous gum, and are\nproperly instructed how to proceed while they are upon their dangerous\nexpedition. They are always told to attend to the direction of the\nwind, as they are to go towards the tree before the wind; so that the\neffluvia from the tree is always blown from them. They go to the house\nof the old ecclesiastick who prepares them by prayers and admonitions\nfor their future fate; he puts them on a long leathern cap with two\nglasses before their eyes, which comes down as far as their breast; and\nalso provides them with a pair of leather gloves. They are conducted by\nthe priest, and their friends, and relations, about two miles on their\njourney. The old Ecclesiastick assured me that in upwards of thirty\nyears, he had dismissed above seven hundred criminals in the manner\ndescribed, and that scarcely two out of twenty have returned. All the\nMalayans consider this tree as an holy instrument of the great prophet\nto punish the sins of mankind, and, therefore, to die of the poison of\nthe Upas is generally considered among them as an honourable death.\nThis, however, is certain, that from fifteen to eighteen miles round\nthis tree, not only no human creature can exist, but no animal of _any\nkind_ has ever been discovered, there are no fish in the waters, and\nwhen any birds fly so near this tree that the effluvia reaches them,\nthey drop down dead.\n\n\nDEATH CAUSED BY SUPERSTITION.\n\nIn Hamburg, in 1784, a singular accident occasioned the death of a\nyoung couple. The lady going to the church of the Augustin Friars,\nknelt down near a Mausoleum, ornamented with divers figures in marble,\namong which was that of Death, armed with a scythe, a small piece\nof the scythe being loose, fell on the hood of the lady's mantelet.\nOn her return home, she mentioned the circumstance as a matter of\nindifference to her husband, who, being a credulous and superstitious\nman, cried out in a terrible panic, that it was a presage of the death\nof his dear wife. The same day he was seized with a violent fever,\ntook to his bed, and died. The disconsolate lady was so affected at\nthe loss, that she was taken ill, and soon followed him. They were\nboth interred in the same grave; and their inheritance, which was very\nconsiderable, fell to some very distant relations.\n\n\nST. PAUL AND THE VIPER.--THE CHURCH AT MALTA.\n\nNot far from the old city of Valetta, in the island of Malta, there\nis a small church dedicated to St. Paul, and just by the church, a\nmiraculous statue of the Saint with a viper on his hand; supposed to be\nplaced on the very spot on which he was received after his shipwreck\non this island, and where he shook the viper off his hand into the\nfire, without being hurt by it. At which time the Maltese assure us,\nthe Saint cursed all the venomous animals of the island, and banished\nthem for ever; just as St. Patrick treated those of his favourite isle.\nWhether this be the cause of it or not, we shall leave to divines to\ndetermine, though if it had, St. Luke would probably have mentioned it\nin the Acts of the Apostles; but the fact is certain, that there are no\nvenomous animals in Malta.\n\n\nTHE FIRST HERMITS--WHY SO-CALLED.\n\nHermits, or _Eremites_, (from the Greek [Greek: _eremos_], a desert\nplace,) were men who retired to desert places to avoid persecution;\nthey lodged in caves and cells:--\n\n    \"Where from the mountain's grassy side,\n       Their guiltless feast they bring;\n     A scrip with herbs and fruit supply'd,\n       And water from the spring.\"\n\nThe first hermit was Paul, of Thebes, in Egypt, who lived about the\nyear 260; the second, was St. Anthony, also of Egypt, who died in 345,\nat the age of 105.\n\n\nST. JAMES'S SQUARE.\n\nThe author of _A Tour through the Island of Great Britain_ (Daniel\nDefoe), second edition, 1738, gives us the following particulars of\nthis aristocratic locality:--\"The alterations lately made in St.\nJames's Square are entitled to our particular notice. It used to be in\na very ruinous condition, considering the noble houses in it, which are\ninhabited by the first quality. But now it is finely paved all over\nwith heading-stone; a curious oval bason full of water, surrounded with\niron rails on a dwarf wall, is placed in the middle, mostly 7 feet\ndeep and 150 diameter. In the centre is a pedestal about fifteen feet\nsquare, designed for a statue of King William III. The iron rails are\noctagonal, and at each angle without the rails, is a stone pillar about\n9 feet high, and a lamp on the top. The gravel walk within the rails\nis about 26 feet broad from each angle to the margin of the basin.\nIt was done at the expense of the inhabitants by virtue of an act of\nparliament. The house that once belonged to the Duke of Ormond, and\nsince to the Duke of Chandos, is pulled down and makes three noble\nones, besides fine stables and coach-houses behind, and two or three\nmore good houses in the street leading to St. James's Church. This\nnoble square wants nothing but to have the lower part of it, near Pall\nMall, built of a piece with the rest, and the designed statue to be\nerected in the middle of the basin.\n\n\"His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has taken the Duke of Norfolk's\nhouse, and another adjoining to it, which are now (October, 1737),\nactually repairing for his town residence; Carlton House being too\nsmall for that purpose.\"\n\n\nTHE MORAYSHIRE FLOODS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] The Morayshire Floods.]\n\nIn the month of August, 1829, the province of Moray and adjoining\ndistricts were visited by a tremendous flood. Its ravages were most\ndestructive along the course of those rivers which have their source\nin the Cairngorm mountains. The waters of the Findhorn and the Spey,\nand their tributaries, rose to an unexampled height. In some parts\nof their course these streams rose fifty feet above their natural\nlevel. Many houses were laid desolate, much agricultural produce\nwas destroyed, and several lives were lost. The woodcut in our text\nrepresents the situation of a boatman called Sandy Smith, and his\nfamily, in the plains of Forres. \"They were huddled together,\" says\nthe eloquent historian of the Floods, \"on a spot of ground a few feet\nsquare, some forty or fifty yards below their inundated dwelling. Sandy\nwas sometimes standing and sometimes sitting on a small cask, and, as\nthe beholders fancied, watching with intense anxiety the progress of\nthe flood, and trembling for every large tree that it brought sweeping\npast them. His wife, covered with a blanket, sat shivering on a bit of\na log, one child in her lap, and a girl of about seventeen, and a boy\nof about twelve years of age, leaning against her side. A bottle and\na glass on the ground, near the man, gave the spectators, as it had\ndoubtless given him, some degree of comfort. About a score of sheep\nwere standing around, or wading or swimming in the shallows. Three cows\nand a small horse, picking at a broken rick of straw that seemed to be\nhalf-afloat, were also grouped with the family.\" The account of the\nrescue of the sufferers is given with a powerful dramatic effect, but\nwe cannot afford space for the quotation. The courageous adventurers\nwho manned the boat for this dangerous enterprise, after being\ncarried over a cataract, which overwhelmed their boat, caught hold\nof a floating hay-cock, to which they clung till it stuck among some\nyoung alder-trees. Each of them then grasping a bough, they supported\nthemselves for two hours among the weak and brittle branches. They\nafterwards recovered the boat under circumstances almost miraculous,\nand finally succeeded in rescuing Sandy and his family from their\nperilous situation.\n\n\nTREATMENT AND CONDITION OF WOMEN IN FORMER TIMES.\n\nFrom the subversion of the Roman Empire, to the fourteenth or fifteenth\ncentury, women spent most of their time alone, almost entire strangers\nto the joys of social life; they seldom went abroad, but to be\nspectators of such public diversions and amusements as the fashions of\nthe times countenanced. Francis I. was the first who introduced women\non public days to Court; before his time nothing was to be seen at\nany of the Courts of Europe, but grey-bearded politicians, plotting\nthe destruction of the rights and liberties of mankind, and warriors\nclad in complete armour, ready to put their plots in execution. In\nthe thirteenth and fourteenth centuries elegance had scarcely any\nexistence, and even cleanliness was hardly considered as laudable. The\nuse of linen was not known; and the most delicate of the fair sex wore\nwoollen shifts. In Paris they had meat only three times a week; and\none hundred livres, (about five pounds sterling,) was a large portion\nfor a young lady. The better sort of citizens used splinters of wood\nand rags dipped in oil, instead of candles, which, in those days,\nwere a rarity hardly to be met with. Wine was only to be had at the\nshops of the Apothecaries, where it was sold as a cordial; and to ride\nin a two-wheeled cart, along the dirty rugged streets, was reckoned\na grandeur of so enviable a nature, that Philip the Fair prohibited\nthe wives of citizens from enjoying it. In the time of Henry VIII. of\nEngland, the peers of the realm carried their wives behind them on\nhorseback, when they went to London; and in the same manner took them\nback to their country seats with hoods of waxed linen over their heads,\nand wrapped in mantles of cloth to secure them from the cold.\n\n\nHOMER IN A NUTSHELL.\n\nHuet, Bishop of Avranches, thus writes in his autobiography:--\"When\nhis Highness the Dauphin was one day confined to his bed by a slight\nillness, and we who stood round were endeavouring to entertain him by\npleasant conversation, mention was by chance made of the person who\nboasted that he had written Homer's Iliad in characters so minute,\nthat the whole could be enclosed in a walnut shell. This appearing\nincredible to many of the company, I contended not only that it might\nbe done, but that I could do it. As they expressed their astonishment\nat this assertion, that I might not be suspected of idle boasting, I\nimmediately put it to the proof. I therefore took the fourth part of\na common leaf of paper, and on its narrower side wrote a single line\nin so small a character that it contained twenty verses of the Iliad:\nof such lines each page of the paper could easily admit 120, therefore\nthe page would contain 2400 Homeric verses: and as the leaf so divided\nwould give eight pages it would afford room for above 19,000 verses,\nwhereas the whole number in the Iliad does not exceed 17,000. Thus by\nmy single line I demonstrated my proposition.\"\n\n\nAUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHARING CROSS AND CHEAPSIDE CROSS.\n\nThe following interesting \"Autobiographies\" of the Old London Crosses,\nare extracted from Henry Peacham's _Dialogue between the Crosse in\nCheap and Charing Cross, confronting each other, as fearing their fall\nin these uncertaine times_, four leaves, 4to. 1641.\n\n\"_Charing Cross._--I am made all of white marble (which is not\nperceived of euery one) and so cemented with mortar made of the purest\nlime, Callis sand, whites of eggs and the strongest wort, that I defie\nall hatchets and hammers whatsoever. In King Henry the Eighth's daies\nI was begged, and should have been degraded for that I had:--Then in\nEdward the Sixe, when Somerset-house was building, I was in danger;\nafter that, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, one of her footmen had\nlike to have run away with me; but the greatest danger of all I was in,\nwhen I quak'd for fear, was in the time of King James, for I was eight\ntimes begged:--part of me was bespoken to make a kitchen chimney for a\nchiefe constable in Shoreditch; an inn-keeper in Holborn had bargained\nfor as much of me as would make two troughes, one to stand under a\npumpe to water his guests' horses, and the other to give his swine\ntheir meate in; the rest of my poore carcase should have been carried\nI know not whither to the repaire of a decayed stone bridge (as I was\ntold) on the top of Harrow-hill. Our royall forefather and founder,\nKing Edward the First you know, built our sister crosses, Lincolne,\nGranthame, Woburne, Northampton, Stonie-Stratford, Dunstable, Saint\nAlbanes, and ourselves here in London, in the 21st yeare of his raigne,\nin the yeare 1289.\"\n\n\"_Cheapside Cross._--After this most valiant and excellent king had\nbuilt me in forme, answerable in beauty and proportion to the rest,\nI fell to decay, at which time one John Hatherley, maior of London,\nhaving first obtained a licence of King Henry the Sixt, anno 1441, I\nwas repaired in a beautiful manner. John Fisher, a mercer, after that\ngave 600 markes to my new erecting or building, which was finished\nanno 1484, and after in the second yeare of Henry the Eighth, I was\ngilded over against the coming in of Charles the Fift Emperor, and\nnewly then gilded against the coronation of King Edward the Sixt, and\ngilded againe anno 1554, against the coronation of King Philip. Lord,\nhow often have I been presented by juries of the quest for incombrance\nof the street, and hindring of cartes and carriages, yet I have kept my\nstanding; I shall never forget how upon the 21st of June, anno 1581,\nmy lower statues were in the night with ropes pulled and rent down, as\nin the resurrection of Christ--the image of the Virgin Mary, Edward\nthe Confessor, and the rest. Then arose many divisions and new sects\nformerly unheard of, as Martin Marprelate, _alias_ Penrie, Browne, and\nsundry others, as the chronicle will inform you. My crosse should have\nbeen taken quite away, and a _Piramis_ errected in the place, but Queen\nElizabeth (that queen of blessed memory) commanded some of her privie\ncouncell, in her Majesties name, to write unto Sir Nicholas Mosely,\nthen Maior, to have me againe repaired with a crosse; yet for all this\nI stood bare for a yeare or two after: Her Highness being very angry,\nsent expresse word she would not endure their contempt, but expressly\ncommanded forthwith the crosse should be set up, and sent a strict\ncommand to Sir William Rider, Lord Maior, and bade him to respect my\nantiquity; for that is the ancient ensigne of Christianity, &c. This\nletter was dated December 24, anno 1600. Last of all I was marvellously\nbeautified and adorned against the comming in of King James, and\nfenced about with sharp pointed barres of iron, against the rude and\nvillainous hands of such as upon condition as they might have the\npulling me down, would be bound to rifle all Cheapside.\"\n\nIt is scarcely necessary to say that both crosses have long since\ndisappeared, and their sites become uncertain, although the name of\nCharing Cross still distinguishes an important London district.\n\n\nSOMETHING LIKE A FEAST.\n\nLeland mentions a feast given by the Archbishop of York, at his\ninstallation, in the reign of Edward IV. The following is a\nspecimen:--300 quarters of wheat, 300 tuns of ale, 100 tuns of wine,\n1,000 sheep, 104 oxen, 304 calves, 304 swine, 2,000 geese, 1,000\ncapons, 2,000 pigs, 400 swans, 104 peacocks, 1,500 hot venison pasties,\n4,000 cold, 5,000 custards hot and cold. Such entertainments are a\npicture of manners.\n\n\nEGYPTIAN TOYS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.\n\nThe truth of the old proverb, that \"there is nothing new under the\nsun,\" will be recognised on an examination of the interesting group\nwhich forms the subject of our engraving. Here are dolls of different\nshapes, some of them for good children, and some, perhaps, for bad;\nfoot-balls, covered with leather, &c., the stitches in parts still\nfirmly adhering; models of fishes and fruit; and round pellets, which\nthe \"small boys\" of the present day would call \"marbles.\" These toys\nhave been played with by little Egyptians who have been dead and buried\nthree or four thousand years.\n\nMany of the toys that hold places in the English and other markets\nare, so far as fashion is concerned, of considerable antiquity, having\nbeen made, without any alteration in pattern, by certain families for\nseveral generations. In the mountainous districts of the Savoy and\nSwitzerland, large numbers, both of children and grown persons, are\nconstantly employed in the manufacture of Noah's-arks, milkmaids &c.\nSome of the animals carved in wood, and sold here for small prices,\nshow considerable skill in the imitation of the forms of nature, and\ncould only be produced at their present cost, owing to the cheapness of\nliving in those districts, and to the systematic division of labour.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Egyptian Toys.]\n\nNear the birthplace of Prince Albert is a very large manufactory of\nmilitary toys, such as drums, trumpets, helmets, &c.; and in parts of\nHolland--\n\n      \"----The children take pleasure in making\n    What the children of England take pleasure in breaking.\"\n\n\nTHE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT.\n\nThe Pyramids of Egypt, especially the two largest of the Pyramids of\nJizeh, are the most stupendous masses of building, in stone, that human\nlabour has ever been known to accomplish. The Egyptian Pyramids, of\nwhich, large and small, and in different states of preservation, the\nnumber is very considerable, are all situated on the west side of the\nNile, and they extend, in an irregular line, and in groups, at some\ndistance from each other, from the neighbourhood of Jizeh, in 30 deg. N.\nlat. as far south as 29 deg. N. lat., a length of between 60 and 70 miles.\nAll the Pyramids have square bases, and their sides face the cardinal\npoints.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Pyramids of Jizeh.]\n\nThe Pyramids of Jizeh are nearly opposite to Cairo. They stand on a\nplateau or terrace of limestone, which is a projection from the Libyan\nmountain-chain. The surface of the terrace is barren and irregular,\nand is covered with sand and small fragments of rock; its height,\nmeasured from the base of the Great Pyramids, is 164 feet above the\nNile in its low state, taken at an average of the years 1798 to 1801.\nThe north-east angle of the Great Pyramid is 1700 yards from the canal\nwhich runs between the terrace and the Nile, and about five miles from\nthe Nile itself.\n\nHerodotus was informed by the priests of Memphis that the Great Pyramid\nwas built by Cheops, King of Egypt, about 900 B. C., or about 450 years\nbefore Herodotus visited Egypt. He says that 100,000 men were employed\ntwenty years in building it, and that the body of Cheops was placed\nin a room beneath the bottom of the Pyramid, surrounded by a vault\nto which the waters of the Nile were conveyed through a subterranean\ntunnel. A chamber under the centre of the Pyramid has indeed been\ndiscovered, but it does not appear to be the tomb of Cheops. It is\nabout 56 feet above the low-water level of the Nile. The second Pyramid\nwas built, Herodotus says, by Cephren, or Cephrenes, the brother and\nsuccessor of Cheops; and the third by Mycerinus, the son of Cheops.\n\n\nTEST OF COURAGE IN A CHILD.\n\nIn the education of their children, the Anglo-Saxons only sought to\nrender them dauntless and apt for the two most important occupations\nof their future lives--war and the chase. It was a usual trial of a\nchild's courage, to place him on the sloping roof of a building, and\nif, without screaming or terror he held fast, he was styled a stout\nherce, or brave boy.--_Howel._\n\n\nEXECUTION OF RAVILLIAC, WHO ASSASSINATED HENRY THE FOURTH OF FRANCE.\n\nThe scene is thus described in a volume published in 1728:--\n\n\"This Francis Ravilliac was born in Angoulesme, by profession a lawyer,\nwho, after the committing of that horrid fact, being seized and put\nupon the rack, May 27; the 25th he had sentence of death passed on him,\nand was executed accordingly in the manner following. He was brought\nout of prison in his shirt, with a torch of two pound weight lighted in\none hand, and the knife wherewith he murdered the king chained to the\nother; he was then set upright in a dung-cart, wherein he was carried\nto the greve or place of execution, where a strong scaffold was built;\nat his coming upon the scaffold he crossed himself, a sign that he dyed\na <DW7>; then he was bound to an engine of wood made like St. Andrew's\ncross; which done, his hand with the knife chained to it was put into\na furnace, then flaming with fire and brimstone, wherein it was in a\nmost terrible manner consumed, at which he cast forth horrible cries\nyet would he not confess any thing; after which the executioner having\nmade pincers red hot in the same furnace, they did pinch the brawn of\nhis arms and thighs, the calves of his legs, with other fleshy parts of\nhis body, then they poured into the wounds scalding oil, rosin, pitch,\nand brimstone melted together; but to make the last act of his tragedy\nequal in torments to the rest, they caused four strong horses to be\nbrought to tear his body in pieces, where being ready to suffer his\nlast torment, he was again questioned, but would not reveal any thing,\nand so died without calling upon God, or speaking one word concerning\nHeaven: his flesh and joints were so strongly knit together, that\nthese four horses could not in a long time dismember him, but one of\nthem fainting, a gentleman who was present, mounted upon a mighty\nstrong horse, alighted, and tyed him to one of the wretch's limbs, yet\nfor all this they were constrained to cut the flesh under his arms\nand thighs with a sharp razor, whereby his body was the easier torn\nin pieces; which done, the fury of the people was so great, that they\npulled his dismembered carcass out of the executioner's hands, which\nthey dragged up and down the dirt, and, cutting off the flesh with\ntheir knives, the bones which remained were brought to the place of\nexecution, and there burnt, the ashes were cast in the wind, being\njudged unworthy of the earth's burial; by the same sentence all his\ngoods were forfeited to the king. It was also ordained that the house\nwhere he had been born should be beaten down, a recompence being given\nthe owner thereof, and never any house to be built again upon that\nground; that within fifteen days after the publication of the sentence,\nby sound of trumpet in the town of Angoulesme, his father and mother\nshould depart the realm, never to return again; if they did, to be\nhanged up presently: his brethren, sisters, and other kindred were\nforbidden to carry the name of Ravilliac, but to take some other, and\nthe substitute of the king's attorney-general had charge to see the\nexecution of the sentence at his peril.\"\n\n\nKNIVES AND FORKS.\n\n\"In all ancient pictures of Eating, &c. knives are seen in the hands of\nthe guests, but _no Forks_.\"--_Turner's Saxons._\n\n\"Here I will mention a thing,\" says Coryat in his 'Crudities,' \"that\nmight have been spoken of before in the discourse of the first Italian\ntoun. I obserued a custome in all those Italian cities and townes\nthrough which I passed, that is not vsed in any other country that\nI saw in my traules, neither doe I think that any other nation of\nChristendome doth vse it, but only Italy. The Italians, and also most\nstrangers that are commorant in Italy, doe alwaies at their meales vse\na _little forke_ when they cut their meate. For while with their knife,\nwhich they hold in one hand, they cut their meate out of the dish, they\nfasten their forke, which they hold in their other hand, upon the same\ndish, so that whatsoever he be that sitting in the company of others at\nmeate, should vnaduisedly touch the dish of meate with his fingers from\nwhich all at the table doe cut, he will give occasion of offence unto\nthe company, as hauing transgressed the laws of good manners, in so\nmuch that for his error he shall be at the least broue-beaten, if not\nreprehended in words.\n\nThis form of feeding, I vnderstand, is generally vsed in all places of\nItaly, their forkes being for the most part made of yron or steele, and\nsome of siluer; but those are used only by gentlemen. The reason of\nthis their curiosity is, because the Italian cannot by any means indure\nto have his dish touched with fingers, seeing all men's fingers are\nnot alike clean. Hereupon I myself thought good to imitate the Italian\nfashion by this forked cutting of meate, not only while I was in Italy,\nbut also in Germany, and oftentimes in England, since I came home:\nbeing once quipped for that frequent vsing of my forke, by a certain\ngentleman, a familiar friend of mine, one Mr. Laurence Whitaker, who\nin his merry humour doubted not to call me at table _furcifer_, only\nfor vsing a forke at feeding, but for no other cause.\"--_Coryat's\nCrudities_, 1611.\n\nEven when Heylin published his Cosmography, (1652,) forks were still a\nnovelty. See his Third Book, where having spoken of the ivory sticks\nused by the Chinese, he adds, \"The use of silver forks, which is by\nsome of our spruce gallants taken up _of late_, came from thence into\nItaly, and from thence into England.\"--_Antiquarian Repertory._\n\n\nCHINESE PUNISHMENT OF THE KANG OR WOODEN COLLAR.\n\nThe Chinese are very quiet and orderly; and no wonder, because they are\nafraid of the great bamboo stick.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Kang or Wooden Collar.]\n\nThe mandarins (or rulers of towns) often sentence offenders to lie upon\nthe ground, and to have thirty strokes of the bamboo. But the wooden\ncollar is worse than the bamboo stick. It is a great piece of wood with\na hole for a man to put his head through. The men in wooden collars are\nbrought out of their prisons every morning and chained to a wall, where\neverybody passing by can see them. They cannot feed themselves in their\nwooden collars, because they cannot bring their hands to their mouths;\nbut sometimes a son may be seen feeding his father, as he stands\nchained to the wall. There are men also whose business it is to feed\nthe prisoners. For great crimes men are strangled or beheaded.\n\n\nCASCADE DES PELERINES.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Cascade des Pelerines.]\n\nThere is a waterfall in Chamouni which no traveller should omit going\nto see, called the Cascade des Pelerines. It is one of the most curious\nand beautiful scenes in Switzerland. A torrent issues from the Glacier\ndes Pelerines, high up the mountain, above the Glacier du Bossons, and\ndescends, by a succession of leaps, in a deep gorge, from precipice\nto precipice, almost in one continual cataract; but it is all the\nwhile merely gathering force, and preparing for its last magnificent\ndeep plunge and recoil of beauty. Springing in one round condensed\ncolumn out of the gorge, over a perpendicular cliff, it strikes, at\nits fall, with its whole body of water, into a sort of vertical rock\nbasin, which one would suppose its prodigious velocity and weight would\nsplit into a thousand pieces; but the whole cataract, thus arrested,\nat once suddenly rebounds in a parabolic arch, at least sixty feet\ninto the air; and then, having made this splendid airy curvature,\nfalls with great noise and beauty into the natural channel below. It\nis beyond measure beautiful. It is like the fall of divine grace into\nchosen hearts, that send it forth again for the world's refreshment,\nin something like such a shower and spray of loveliness, to go winding\nits life-giving course afterwards, as still waters in green pastures.\nThe force of the recoil from the plunge of so large a body of water, at\nsuch a height, is so great, that large stones, thrown into the stream\nabove the fall, may be heard amidst the din striking into the basin,\nand then are instantly seen careering in the arch of flashing waters.\nThe same is the case with bushes and pieces of wood, which the boys\nare always active in throwing in, for the curiosity of visitors, who\nstand below, and see each object invariably carried aloft with the\ncataract, in its rebounding atmospheric gambols. When the sun is in\nthe right position, the rainbows play about the fall like the glancing\nof supernatural wings, as if angels were taking a shower-bath. If you\nhave \"the head and the legs of a chamois,\" you may climb entirely above\nthis magnificent scene, and look out over the cliff right down into the\npoint where the cataract shoots like the lightning, to be again shot\nback in ten thousand branching jets of diamonds.\n\n\nINTERESTING INCIDENT CONNECTED WITH THE BAROMETER.\n\nIn navigation, the barometer has become an important element of\nguidance, and a most interesting incident is recounted by Capt. Basil\nHall, indicative of its value in the open sea. While cruising off the\ncoast of South America, in the Medusa frigate, one day, when within\nthe tropics, the commander of a brig in company was dining with him.\nAfter dinner, the conversation turned on the natural phenomena of the\nregion, when Captain Hall's attention was accidentally directed to\nthe barometer in the state-room where they were seated, and to his\nsurprise he observed it to evince violent and frequent alteration. His\nexperience told him to expect bad weather, and he mentioned it to his\nfriend. His companion, however, only laughed, for the day was splendid\nin the extreme, the sun was shining with its utmost brilliance, and\nnot a cloud specked the deep blue sky above. But Captain Hall was too\nuneasy to be satisfied with bare appearances. He hurried his friend to\nhis ship, and gave immediate directions for shortening the top hamper\nof the frigate as speedily as possible. His lieutenants and the men\nlooked at him in mute surprise, and one or two of the former ventured\nto suggest the inutility of the proceeding. The captain, however,\npersevered. The sails were furled; the topmasts were struck; in short,\neverything that could oppose the wind was made as snug as possible. His\nfriend, on the contrary, stood in under every sail.\n\nThe wisdom of Captain Hall's proceedings was, however, speedily\nevident; just, indeed, as he was beginning to doubt the accuracy of his\ninstrument. For hardly had the necessary preparations been made, and\nwhile his eye was ranging over the vessel to see if his instructions\nhad been obeyed, a dark hazy hue was seen to rise in the horizon,\na leaden tint rapidly overspread the sullen waves, and one of the\nmost tremendous hurricanes burst upon the vessels that ever seaman\nencountered on his ocean home. The sails of the brig were immediately\ntorn to ribbons, her masts went by the board, and she was left a\ncomplete wreck on the tempestuous surf which raged around her, while\nthe frigate was driven wildly along at a furious rate, and had to scud\nunder bare poles across the wide Pacific, full three thousand miles,\nbefore it could be said that she was in safety from the blast.\n\n\nARCHBISHOP CRANMER'S DIETARY.\n\nIn this curious document, quoted by Warton (Hist. of Poet, iii., 177,\nedit. 1840) an archbishop is allowed to have two swans or two capons in\na dish, a bishop one; an archbishop six blackbirds at once, a bishop\nfive, a dean four, an archdeacon two. If a dean has four dishes in\nhis first course, he is not afterwards to have custards or fritters.\nAn Archbishop may have six snipes, an archdeacon two. Rabbits, larks,\npheasants, and partridges, are allowed in these proportions. A canon\nresidentiary is to have a swan only on a Sunday; a rector of sixteen\nmarks, only three blackbirds in a week.\n\n\nTHE KING'S COCK CROWER.\n\nA singular custom, of matchless absurdity, formerly existed in the\nEnglish Court. During Lent, an ancient officer of the crown, styled the\nKing's Cock Crower, crowed the hour each night within the precincts\nof the Palace. On the Ash Wednesday, after the accession of the house\nof Hanover, as the Prince of Wales (afterwards George II) sat down to\nsupper, this officer abruptly entered the apartment, and in a sound\nresembling the shrill pipe of a cock, crowed past ten o'clock! The\nastonished prince, at first conceiving it to be a premeditated insult,\nrose to resent the affront, but upon the nature of the ceremony being\nexplained to him, he was satisfied. Since that period, this silly\ncustom has been discontinued.\n\n\nCHINESE DELICACIES.\n\nThe Chinese eat, indiscriminately, almost every living creature which\ncomes in their way; dogs, cats, hawks, owls, eagles and storks, are\nregular marketable commodities: in default of which a dish of rats,\nfield-mice, or snakes, is not objected to. Cockroaches, and other\ninsects and reptiles are used for food or for medicine. Their taste\nfor dogs' flesh is quite a passion. Young pups--plump, succulent, and\ntender--fetch good prices at the market-stalls, where a supply is\nalways to be found. A dish of puppies, prepared by a skilful cook,\nis esteemed as a dish fit for the gods. At every grand banquet it\nmakes its appearance as a hash or stew. A young Englishman attached to\nour Canton factory, dining one day with a wealthy Hong merchant, was\ndetermined to satisfy his curiosity in Chinese gastronomy by tasting\nall or most of the numerous dishes which were successively handed\nround. One dish pleased him so well that he ate nearly all that was put\nbefore him. On returning homewards some of his companions asked him\nhow he liked the dinner, and how such and such dishes; and then began\nto imitate the whining and barking of half a dozen puppies. The poor\nyoung man then understood, for the first time, that he had been eating\ndog, and was very angry, and very sick at the stomach. Other Europeans,\nhowever, have been known to declare that they succeeded in conquering a\nprejudice, and that a six weeks old pup, properly fattened upon rice,\nand dressed _a la Chinoise_, was really a _bonne bouche_.\n\n\nA GREAT MARVEL SEEN IN SCOTLAND.\n\nThe following strange and almost incredible account is given by\nLindsay, of Pitscottie:--\"About this time (the beginning of the\nsixteenth century) there was a great marvel seen in Scotland. A bairn\nwas born, reckoned to be a man-child, but from the waist up was two\nfair persons, with all members pertayning to two bodies; to wit, two\nheads, well-eyed, well-eared, and well-handed. The two bodies, the\none's back was fast to the other's, but from the waist down they were\nbut one personage; and it could not be known by the ingene of men\nfrom which of the bodies the legs, &c., proceeded. Notwithstanding\nthe King's Majesty caused great care and diligence on the up-bringing\nof both bodies; caused nourish them, and learn them to sing and play\non instruments of music. Who within short time became very ingenious\nand cunning in the art of music, whereby they could play and sing two\nparts, the one the treble, and the other the tenor, which was very\ndulce and melodious to hear; the common people (who treated them also)\nwondered that they could speak diverse and sundry languages, that is\nto say, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, English, and Irish.\nTheir two bodies long continued to the age of twenty-eight years, and\nthe one continued long before the other, which was dolorous and heavy\nto the other; for which, when many required of the other to be merry,\nhe answered, \"How can I be merry which have my true marrow as a dead\ncarrion about my back, which was wont to sing and play with me: when I\nwas sad he would give me comfort, and I would do the like to him. But\nnow I have nothing but dolour of the having so heavy a burthen, dead,\ncold, and unsavoury, on my back, which taketh all earthly pleasure from\nme in this present life; therefore I pray to God Allmighty to deliver\nme out of this present life, that we may be laid and dissolved in the\nearth, wherefrom we came, &c.\"\n\nBuchanan, who relates the same strange tale, avers that he received it\nfrom \"many honest and credible persons, who saw the prodigy with their\nown eyes.\" He adds that the two bodies discovered different tastes\nand appetites; that they would frequently disagree and quarrel, and\nsometimes would consult each other, and concert measures for the good\nof both; that when any hurt was done to the lower parts, each upper\nbody felt pain; but that when the injury was above the junction, then\none body only was affected. This monster, he writes, lived twenty-eight\nyears, but died wretchedly; one part expiring some days before the\nother, which, half-putrified, pined away by degrees.\n\n\nTHE KING OF KIPPEN.\n\nThe following anecdote is valuable, inasmuch as it gives us an idea of\nthe manners which a King of Scotland could practice without offence to\nhis subjects:--\n\nKing James V. was a very sociable, _debonnaire_ prince. Residing at\nStirling in Buchanan of Arnpryor's time, carriers were very frequently\npassing along the common road with necessaries for the use of the\nking's family. One of these being near Arnpryor's house, and he having\nsome extraordinary occasion, ordered him to leave his load at his house\nand he would pay him for it; which the carrier refused to do, telling\nhim he was the king's carrier, and his load was for his majesty's use.\nTo which Arnpryor seemed to have small regard, compelling the carrier,\nin the end, to leave his load; telling him, if King James was King of\nScotland, he was king of Kippen, so that it was reasonable he should\nshare with his neighbour king in some of these loads so frequently\ncarried that road. The carrier representing this usage, and telling the\nstory as Arnpryor spoke it, to some of the king's servants, it came\nat length to his majesty's ears, who, shortly thereafter, with a few\nattendants, came to visit his neighbour king, who was, in the meantime,\nat dinner. King James having sent a servant to demand access, was\ndenied the same by a tall fellow with a battle-axe, who stood porter at\nthe gate, telling him there could be no access till dinner was over.\nThis answer not satisfying the king, he sent to demand access a second\ntime; upon which he was desired by the porter to desist, otherwise\nhe would find cause to repent his rudeness. His majesty finding this\nmethod would not do, desired the porter to tell his master that the\ngood man of Ballangeich desired to speak with the King of Kippen. The\nporter telling Arnpryor so much, he, in all humble manner, came and\nreceived the king, and having entertained him with much sumptuousness\nand jollity, became so agreeable to King James, that he allowed him to\ntake so much of any provision he found carrying that road as he had\noccasion for; and, seeing he made the first visit, desired Arnpryor in\na few days to return him a second at Stirling, which he performed, and\ncontinued in very much favour with the king, always thereafter being\ntermed King of Kippen while he lived.\n\n\nAN ECCENTRIC TOURIST.\n\nSir Hildebrand Jacob, of Yewhall, in Oxfordshire, died at Malvern\nin 1790. He succeeded his grandfather, Sir John, 1740, his father,\nHildebrand, having died in 1739. He was a very extraordinary character.\nAs a general scholar, he was exceeded by few; in his knowledge of the\nHebrew language he scarcely had an equal. In the earlier part of his\nlife, one custom which he constantly followed was very remarkable. As\nsoon as the roads became pretty good, and the fine weather began to\nset in, his man was ordered to pack-up a few things in a portmanteau,\nand with these his master and himself set off, without knowing whither\nthey were going. When it drew towards evening, they enquired at the\nfirst village they saw, whether the great man in it was a lover of\nbooks, and had a fine library. If the answer was in the negative,\nthey went on farther; if in the affirmative, Sir Hildebrand sent his\ncompliments, that he was come to see him; and there he used to stay\ntill time or curiosity induced him to move elsewhere. In this manner\nSir Hildebrand had, very early, passed through the greatest part of\nEngland, without scarcely ever sleeping at an inn, unless where the\ntown or village did not afford one person in it civilized enough to be\nglad to see a gentleman and a scholar.\n\n\nHANGING A MAYOR.\n\nOn the right of the road leading towards Caergwrle, and about a mile\nfrom Mold, is an old structure, which presents a singular specimen\nof the style of domestic architecture during the ages of lawless\nviolence in which it was erected: it consists of an ancient square\ntower of three stories, and appears to have been designed as a place of\nfortified habitation. During the wars between the houses of York and\nLancaster, it was inhabited by Reinallt ab Gruffydd ab Bleddyn, who was\nconstantly engaged in feuds with the citizens of Chester. In 1495, a\nconsiderable number of the latter came to Mold fair, and a fray arising\nbetween the hostile parties, great slaughter ensued on both sides; but\nReinallt, who obtained the victory, took the mayor of Chester prisoner,\nand conveyed him to his mansion, where he hung him on the staple in\nhis great hall. To avenge this affront, a party of two hundred men\nwas despatched from Chester to seize Reinallt, who, retiring from his\nhouse into the adjoining woods, permitted a few of them to enter the\nbuilding, when, rushing from his concealment, he blocked up the door,\nand, setting fire to the house, destroyed them in the flames; he then\nattacked the remainder, whom he pursued with great slaughter; and such\nas escaped the sword were drowned in attempting to regain their homes.\nThe staple on which the mayor was hung still remains fixed on the\nceiling of the lower apartment.\n\n\nMATERNAL AFFECTION IN A DUMB WOMAN.\n\nMary, Countess of Orkney, was both deaf and dumb; she was married in\nthe year 1753, by signs. Shortly after the birth of her first child,\nthe nurse, with considerable astonishment, saw the mother cautiously\napproach the cradle in which the infant was sleeping, evidently full\nof some deep design. The Countess, having perfectly assured herself\nthat the child really slept, raised an immense stone which she had\nconcealed under her shawl, and, to the horror of the nurse, (who\nwas an Irishwoman, and like all persons of the lower orders in her\ncountry, and indeed in most countries, was fully impressed with an\nidea of the peculiar cunning and malignity of \"dumbies,\") lifted it\nwith an apparent intent to fling it down vehemently. Before the nurse\ncould interpose, the Countess had flung the stone,--not, however, as\nthe servant had apprehended, at the child, but on the floor, where,\nof course, it made a great noise. The child immediately awoke, and\ncried. The Countess, who had looked with maternal eagerness to the\nresult of her experiment, fell on her knees in a transport of joy. She\nhad discovered that her child possessed the sense which was wanting\nin herself. She exhibited on many other occasions similar proofs of\nintelligence, but none so interesting.\n\n\nTHE PERILS OF INVENTORS.\n\nThe dangers which inventors have frequently to encounter are very\ngreat. Among many instances we may mention the following:--\n\nMr. Day perished in a diving bell, or diving boat of his own\nconstruction, at Plymouth, in June, 1774, in which he was to have\ncontinued for a wager, twelve hours, one hundred feet deep in water,\nand probably, perished from his not possessing all the hydrostatic\nknowledge that was necessary. Mr. Spalding was professionally\ningenious in the art of constructing and managing the diving bell,\nhe had practised the business many years with success. He went down,\naccompanied by one of his young men, twice to view the wreck of the\nImperial East Indiaman, at Kish Bank, in Ireland; on descending the\nthird time, in June, 1783, they remained about an hour under water, and\nhad two barrels of air sent down to them, but on the signals from below\nnot being repeated, after a certain time, they were drawn up by their\nassistants, and both found dead in the bell.\n\n\nBRIBERY.\n\nThe triumphant exposure and punishments of corrupt bribe-takers on a\ngrand scale belongs to the close of the seventeenth century. In 1695\nSir John Trevor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, was compelled\nto put the question himself that he should be expelled. A bill for\nsecuring the right application to poor orphans of freemen of London of\nfunds belonging to them could not be carried without purchasing the\nsupport of influential members and of the Speaker himself, at a bribe\nfor the latter of 1,000 guineas!\n\nSir Thomas Cook, the governor of the East India Company, paid L167,000\nin one year for bribes to members of the House, of which Sir Basil\nFirebrace took for his share L40,000. Corruption was universal,\ntherefore deemed venial.\n\n\nLEGALISED GAMBLING.\n\nThe following statement shows the extent to which lotteries encouraged\na spirit of gambling among the people, and we may hence appreciate the\nsoundness of the policy which dictated their suppression:--\n\nThe _Post Boy_ of December 27, says:--\"We are informed that the\nParliamentary Lottery will be fixed in this manner:--150,000 tickets\nwill be delivered out at 10_l._ each ticket, making in all the sum\nof 1,500,000_l._ sterling; the principal whereof is to be sunk, the\nParliament allowing nine per cent. interest for the whole during the\nterm of 32 years, which interest is to be divided as follows: 3,750\ntickets will be prizes from 1,000_l._ to 5_l._ per annum during the\nsaid 32 years; all the other tickets will be blanks, so that there\nwill be 39 of these to one prize, but then each blank ticket will be\nentitled to fourteen shillings a year for the term of 32 years, which\nis better than an annuity for life at ten per cent. over and above\nthe chance of getting a prize.\" Such was the eagerness of the publick\nin subscribing to the above profitable scheme, that Mercers'-hall was\nliterally crowded, and the Clerks were found incompetent to receive the\ninflux of names. 600,000_l._ was subscribed January 21; and on the 28th\nof February, the sum of 1,500,000_l._ was completed.\n\n\nONE OF THE EFFECTS OF MANUFACTURES.\n\nHow greatly does the introduction of a manufacturing establishment into\na town where none previously existed, alter its whole character and\ncondition!\n\nIt is said that the burgh of Lanark was, till very recent times, so\npoor that the single butcher of the town, who also exercised the\ncalling of a weaver, in order to fill up his spare time, would never\nventure upon the speculation of killing a sheep till every part of\nthe animal was ordered beforehand. When he felt disposed to engage\nin such an enterprise, he usually prevailed upon the minister, the\nprovost, and the town-council, to take shares; but when no person came\nforward to bespeak the fourth quarter, the sheep received a respite\ntill better times should cast up. The bellman or _skellyman_, as he\nis there called, used often to go through the streets of Lanark with\nadvertisements such as are embodied in the following popular rhyme:--\n\n    \"Bell-ell-ell!\n     There's a fat sheep to kill!\n     A leg for the provost,\n         Another for the priest,\n     The bailies and deacons,\n         They'll tak the neist;\n     And if the fourth leg we connot sell,\n     The sheep it maun leeve and gae back to the hill!\"\n\n\nPATES DE FOIES GRAS.\n\nStrasbourg is the great market for _pates de foies gras_, made, as it\nis known, of the livers of geese. These poor creatures are shut up\nin coops, so narrow they cannot turn round in them, and then stuffed\ntwice a day with Indian corn, to enlarge their livers, which have been\nknown to swell till they reached the enormous weight of two pounds and\na half. Garlick, steeped in water, is given them, to increase their\nappetites. This invention is worthy of the French nation, where cooks\nare great as nobles.\n\n\nINSCRIPTION IN CONWAY CHURCH.\n\nHere lyeth the body of Nicholas Hookes, of Conway, gentleman, (who was\nthe forty-first child of his father, Wm. Hookes, Esq., by Alice, his\nwife,) the father of twenty-seven children, who died the 27th day of\nMarch, 1637.\n\n\nDROPPING-WELLS.\n\nIf you journey through Yorkshire, be sure to stop opposite the ruins\nof Knaresborough Castle, because, on the south-west bank of the river\nNidd, you will observe the petrifying spring of Knaresborough,--the\ncelebrated dropping-well--where the peasants and the needy crowd to\nmake their humble fortunes by afterwards retailing small sprigs of\ntrees, such as the elder or ash, or pieces of the elegant geranium, the\nwild angelica, or the lovely violet, turned into \"obdurate stone.\"\n\n[Illustration: [++] The Petrifying Spring of Knaresborough.]\n\nEvery spring does not possess the petrifying properties of that\nof Knaresborough; but there are, doubtless, many dropping-wells\ndistributed over the earth's crust; and some of these are well known\nto possess the property of petrifying various objects submitted to the\naction of their waters. For example: we have seen birds' nests, with\nthe eggs, and delicate sprigs of moss surrounding them, and even the\nfibres of wool turned into stone, aye, and delicate flowers. Whence is\nthis extraordinary power? From the soil over which the waters flow!\nThe limpid streams absorb the silicious particles, and deposit them in\nthe intimate structure of the materials submitted to the action of the\nwaters; and thus we find the materials of which the earth's crust is\ncomposed, always undergoing a change.\n\nTwenty gallons are poured forth every minute from the top of the\nKnaresborough cliff, and the beauty of the scene can only be\nappreciated by those who have stood upon the margin of those \"stony\nwaters\" and beheld the crystal fluid descend from above with metallic\nfall.\n\n\nCHINESE IVORY BALLS.\n\nNothing can afford a greater proof of the patience and perseverance,\nas well as of the taste of a Chinese handicraftsman, than one of these\nelegant baubles, each ball being exquisitely carved, and no two alike\nin pattern. Each of the balls rolls freely within that which encloses\nit, and is visible through apertures; so that however many there be,\nthe beauties of each can be examined, and the number of the whole\ncounted. Much time is spent upon the carving of these toys, for the\ncleverest artist will employ a whole month in the execution of each\nseparate ball; consequently the labour of two years is not unfrequently\nbestowed on the production of a single toy, which is formed out of a\nsolid globe of ivory, and has no junction in any part. The outside\nof this globe is first carved in some very open pattern, and is then\ncarefully cut with a sharp, fine instrument, through the openings, till\na complete coating is detached from the solid part inside, as the peel\nof an orange might be loosened with a scoop from the fruit, without\nbeing taken off. One hollow ball is thus formed, with a solid one\ninside of it. The surface of the inner ball is then carved through the\ninterstices of the outer one, and when finished, is subjected to the\nsame operation as the first; and thus a second hollow ball is produced,\nstill with a solid one of smaller dimensions inside. This process is\nrepeated again and again, the difficulties increasing as the work\nproceeds, till at length only a small ball, of the size of a marble, is\nleft in the centre, which is also ornamented with figures cut upon it,\nand then the ingenious but useless bauble is complete. This process is\nsaid to be performed under water.\n\n\nCREDULITY OF THE ANCIENTS.\n\nThe credulity of even the learned men in the early ages may be judged\nof by the following facts:--\n\nMarcus Varro writeth, that there was a town in Spain undermined with\nrabbits; another likewise in Thessaly by moles or molewharps. In Africa\nthe people were compelled by locusts to leave their habitations;\nand out of Gyaros, an island, one of the Cyclades, the islanders\nwere forced by rats and mice to fly away; moreover in Italy the city\nof Amyclae was destroyed by serpents. In Ethiopia there is a great\ncountry lies waste and desert, by reason it was formerly dispeopled\nby scorpions; and if it be true that Theophrastus reporteth, the\nTreriens were chased away by certain worms called scolopendres.\nAnnius writes, that an ancient city situate near the Volscian Lake,\nand called Contenebra, was in times past overthrown by pismires, and\nthat the place is thereupon vulgarly called to this day, the Camp of\nAnts. In Media, saith Diodorus Siculus, there was such an infinite\nnumber of sparrows that eat up and devoured the seed which was cast\ninto the ground, so that men were constrained to depart from their old\nhabitations, and remove to other places.\n\n\nCLOCK PRESENTED TO CHARLEMAGNE.\n\nThe French historians describe a clock sent to Charlemagne in the\nyear 807, by the famous eastern caliph, Haroun al Raschid, which was\nevidently furnished with some kind of wheelwork, although the moving\npower appears to have been produced by the fall of water. This clock\nwas a rather wonderful affair, and excited a great deal of attention\nat the French court. In the dial of it were twelve small doors forming\nthe divisions for the hours, each door opened at the hour marked by the\nindex, and let out small brass balls, which, falling on a bell, struck\nthe hours--a great novelty at that time. The doors continued open\nuntil the hour of twelve, when twelve figures representing knights on\nhorseback came out and paraded round the dial plate.\n\n\nREMARKABLE EVENTS, INVENTIONS, &c.\n\nMemnon, the Egyptian, invents the letters, in the year 1822, _before_\nChrist.\n\nThe Alexandrian library, consisting of 400,000 valuable books, burnt by\naccident, B. C. 52.\n\nSilk first brought from India, 274: the manufactory of it introduced\ninto Europe by some monks, 551: first worn by the clergy in England, in\n1534.\n\nGlass invented in England by Benalt, a monk, A. C. 400.\n\nThe University of Cambridge founded A. C. 915.\n\nPaper made of cotton rags was in use, 1000; that of linen rags in 1170:\nthe manufactory introduced into England, at Dartford, 1588.\n\nMusical notes invented, 1070.\n\nJustices of the Peace first appointed in England in 1076.\n\nDoomsday-book began to be compiled by order of William, from a survey\nof all the estates in England (and finished in 1086), 1080.\n\nGlass windows began to be used in private houses in England in 1186.\n\nSurnames now began to be used, first among the nobility, in 1200.\n\nThe houses of London and other cities in England, France, and Germany,\nstill thatched with straw in 1233.\n\nTallow candles so great a luxury, that splinters of wood were used for\nlights, 1298.\n\nWine sold by apothecaries as a cordial, 1298.\n\nGunpowder and guns first invented by Swartz, a monk of Cologn, 1340;\nEdward 3rd had four pieces of cannon, which contributed to gain him the\nbattle of Cressy, 1346; bombs and mortars were invented in the same\nyear.\n\nCards invented in France for the king's amusement in 1391.\n\nWindsor Castle built by Edward 3rd, 1386.\n\nGuildhall, London, built 1410.\n\nAbout 1430, Laurentius, of Haarlem, invented the art of Printing,\nwhich he practised with separate wooden types. Guttenburg afterwards\ninvented cut metal types: but the art was carried to perfection\nby Peter Schoeffer, who invented the mode of casting the types in\nmatrices. Frederick Corsellis began to print at Oxford, in 1468, with\nwooden types; but it was William Caxton who introduced into England the\nart of printing with fusile types, in 1474.\n\nShillings first coined in England, 1505.\n\nSilk stockings first worn by the French King, 1543; first worn in\nEngland by Queen Elizabeth in 1561.\n\nTobacco first brought from Virginia into England, 1583.\n\nWatches first brought into England from Germany, in 1597.\n\nRegular Posts established from London to Scotland, Ireland, &c., 1635.\n\nThe Plague rages in London, and carries off 68,000 persons, 1665.\n\nThe great fire of London began, September 2nd, and continued three\ndays, in which were destroyed 13,000 houses, and 400 streets, 1666.\n\nTea first used in England, 1666.\n\nThe Habeas Corpus act passed, 1678.\n\nWilliam Penn, a Quaker, receives a charter for planting Pennsylvania,\n1680.\n\nBank of England established by King William 1693.\n\nThe first public Lottery was drawn same year.\n\nThe first British Parliament, 1707.\n\nThe Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London, rebuilt by Sir Christopher\nWren, in 37 years, at one million expense, by a duty on coals, 1710.\n\nWestminster Bridge, consisting of 15 arches, begun 1738, finished in\n1750, at the expense of 389,000_l._, defrayed by parliament.\n\nCommodore Anson returns from his voyage round the world, 1774.\n\nThe British Museum erected at Montagu House, 1753.\n\n149 Englishmen are confined in the black-hole at Calcutta, in the East\nIndies, by order of the Nabob, and 123 found dead next morning, 1755.\n\n\nLEGENDS AMONG SAVAGE NATIONS.\n\nIt is curious to note how savages endeavour to account for the\nprodigies of nature. In the island of Samoa, one of the Sandwich group,\nthere is the following legend.\n\nMafuie is their god of earthquakes, who was deemed to possess great\npower, but has, according to the Samoans, lost much of it. The way in\nwhich they say this occurred is as follows:--One Talago, who possessed\na charm capable of causing the earth to divide, coming to a well-known\nspot, cried, \"Rock, divide! I am Talago; come to work!\" The earth\nseparating at his command, he went down to cultivate his taro patch.\nHis son, whose name was Tiitii, became acquainted with the charm, and\nwatching his father, saw him descend, and the earth close after him. At\nthe same spot, Tiitii said, \"Rock, divide! I am Talago; come to work!\"\nThe rock did not open, but on repeating the words and stamping his foot\nviolently, the earth separated, and he descended. Being a young man,\nhe made a great noise and bustle, notwithstanding the advice of his\nfather to be quiet, lest Mafuie would hear him. The son then asked,\n\"Who is Mafuie, that I should be afraid of him?\" Observing smoke at\na distance, he inquired the cause of it. Talago said, \"It is Mafuie\nheating his oven.\" Tiitii determined to go and see, notwithstanding\nall the persuasions of his father, and met Mafuie, who inquired who he\nwas, \"Are you a planter of taro, a builder, or a twister of ropes?\" \"I\nam a twister of ropes,\" said Tiitii; \"give me your arm, and I shall\nshow you.\" So, taking the arm of Mafuie, he twisted it off in a moment.\nSuch a practical illustration of his powers soon made Mafuie cry out,\n\"Na fia ola, na fia ola!\"--I desire to live, I desire to live! Tiitii\nthen took pity upon him, and let him go. The natives, on feeling an\nearthquake, exclaim, \"Thanks that Mafuie has but one arm! if he had\ntwo, he would shake the earth to pieces.\"\n\n\nORIGIN OF THE WORD LADY.\n\nIt was the custom at the time of the Plantagenets, and previously, for\nladies of distinction and wealth regularly to distribute money or food\nto the poor. The title of _lady_, is derived from the Anglo-Saxon, and\nliterally signifies _giver of bread_. The purse, with similar meaning,\nwas named as a receptacle for _alms_, and not as an invention for the\npreservation of money.\n\n\nANECDOTES IN SERMONS.\n\nThe fashion which once prevailed of introducing historical anecdotes\ninto addresses from the pulpit, is illustrated by the following extract\nfrom a sermon by the Martyr Bishop Ridley:--\n\nCambyses was a great emperor, such another as our master is; he had\nmany lord-deputies, lord-presidents, and lieutenants under him. It is\na great while ago since I read the history. It chanced he had under\nhim, in one of his dominions, a briber, a gift-taker, a gratifier of\nrich men; he followed gifts as fast as he that followed the pudding,\na hand-maker in his office, to make his son a great man; as the old\nsaying is, \"Happy is the child whose father goeth to the devil.\" The\ncry of the poor widow came to the emperor's ear, and caused him to flay\nthe judge quick, and laid his skin in his chair of judgment, that all\njudges that should give judgment afterward should sit in the same skin.\nSurely it was a goodly sign, a goodly monument, the sign of the judge's\nskin: I pray God we may once see the sign of the skin in England.\n\n\nSTATE OF LONDON IN 1756.\n\nThe state of the police regulations in the metropolis at the above\ndate, is exhibited in the following extract from an old magazine:--\n\n\"At one o'clock this morning (Oct. 4, 1756), the Hon. Captain Brudenel\nwas stopped in his chair, just as it entered Berkeley-square, from\nthe Hay-hill, by two fellows with pistols, who demanded his money; he\ngave them five-sixpences, telling them he had no more, which having\ntaken, they immediately made off. The captain then put his purse and\nwatch under the cushion, got out, drew his sword, and being followed\nby one of the chairmen with his pole, and the watchman, pursued them\nup the hill, where the Hon. Captain West, who was walking, having\njoined them, one of the fellows having got off, they followed the other\ninto Albemarle-mews, where finding himself closely beset, he drew a\npistol, and presented it, upon which the captain made a lunge at him,\nand ran him through the body. The fellow at the same time fired his\npistol, which, the captain being still stooping, went over his head\nand shot the watchman through the lungs; at the instant the pistol was\ndischarged, while the fellow's arm was extended, the chairman struck\nit with his pole and broke it; he was then seized and carried with\nthe watchman to the round-house in Dover-street, where Mr. Bromfield\nand Mr. Gataker, two eminent surgeons, came; but the captain would\nnot suffer the villain to be dressed, till he discovered who he and\nhis confederates were; when he acknowledged they were both grenadiers\nin Lord Howe's company. The poor watchman died in half an hour after\nhe was shot; and the soldier was so disabled by his wound that he was\ncarried in a chair to Justice Fielding, who sent him to New Prison,\nwhere he died.\"\n\n\nFROM A HANDBILL OF BARTHOLOMEW FAIR IN 1700.\n\nThe following extract is worth notice, inasmuch as it shows that in the\nmatter of amusement, the tastes of the lower orders of the present day\nare not much improved since the last century:--\n\n\"You will see a wonderful girl of ten years of age, who walks backwards\nup the sloping rope driving a wheelbarrow behind her; also you will see\nthe great Italian Master, who not only passes all that has yet been\nseen upon the low rope, but he dances without a pole upon the head of a\nmast as high as the booth will permit, and afterwards stands upon his\nhead on the same. You will be also entertained with the merry conceits\nof an Italian scaramouch, who dances on the rope with two children and\na dog in a wheelbarrow, and a duck on his head.\"\n\n\nPASSAGE THROUGH THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA SUGGESTED THREE HUNDRED TEARS AGO.\n\n_Ancient Globe._--In the Town Library (_Stadt Bibliothek_) of Nuremberg\nis preserved an interesting globe made by John Schoner, professor of\nmathematics in the Gymnasium there, A.D. 1520. It is very remarkable\nthat the passage through the Isthmus of Panama, so much sought after in\nlater times, is, on this old globe, carefully delineated.\n\n\nHEIGHT OF MOUNTAINS.\n\nThe perpendicular height of Snowdon is, by late admeasurements, 1,190\nyards above the level of the sea. This makes it, according to Pennant,\n240 yards higher than Cader Idris. Some state Whernside, in Yorkshire\nto be the highest mountain in South Britain, and more than 4,000 feet.\nHelvellyn is 3,324 feet, Ben Lomond 3,262. Mont Blanc rises 15,680\nfeet; the American Chimborazo is 20,909 feet, the highest ground ever\ntrodden by man; and the mountains of Thibet above 25,000 feet, the\nhighest at present known.\n\n\nINTRODUCTION OF THE WEEPING WILLOW INTO ENGLAND.\n\nThe _Salix Babylonica_, that is the Willow of Babylon, or our English\nweeping Willow, is a native of the Levant, the coast of Persia,\nand other places in the East. The manner of its introduction into\nEngland is curious; the account is as follows: Pope, the celebrated\npoet, having received a present of Turkey figs, observed a twig of\nthe basket, in which they were packed, putting out a shoot. The twig\nhe planted in his garden: it soon became a fine tree, and from this\nstock, all our weeping Willows have descended. This species of Willow\nis generally planted by a still pool, to which it is a beautiful\nappropriate ornament; and when in misty weather, drops of water are\nseen distilling from the extremities of its branches, nothing can be\nmore descriptive than the title it has obtained of _the weeping Willow_.\n\n\nFINE FOR INSULTING A KING.\n\nThe use of gold and silver was not unknown to the Welsh in 842, when\ntheir laws were collected. The man who dared to insult the King of\nAberfraw, was to pay (besides certain cows and a silver rod) a cup,\nwhich would hold as much wine as his majesty could swallow at a\ndraught; its cover was to be as broad as the king's face; and the whole\nas thick as a goose's egg, or a ploughman's thumb-nail.\n\n\nCARRONADES.\n\nThis species of great gun, so much used on board of ships, is generally\naccounted a modern invention, taking its name from the Carron foundry\nwhere they were made. In the patent office, however, will be found\na notice dated September, 1727, to the following effect: \"That his\nMajesty was pleased to grant to Henry Brown, Esquire, a patent for the\nsole use and benefit of his new invention of making cannon and great\nguns, both in iron and brass, which will be much shorter and lighter,\nand with less powder will carry farther than those of equal bore now in\nuse, and which, it is said, will save great expense to the public.\"\n\n\nEXTRAVAGANCE AT ELECTIONS.\n\nOn the death of Sir James Lowther, his son William stood for the shire\nof Cumberland, and entertained 3,650 gentlemen freeholders at a dinner,\nat which were consumed 768 gallons of wine, 1,454 gallons of ale, and\n5,814 bottles of punch. Sir James appears to have been eccentric in\nsome of his habits, for after his decease L30,000 in bank notes were\ndiscovered in a closet, and L10,000 in the sleeve of an old coat.\n\n\nMARTIN LUTHER'S TANKARD.\n\nThis interesting relic of the great Reformer is of ivory, very richly\ncarved, and mounted in silver gilt. There are six medallions on its\nsurface, which consist, however, of a repetition of two subjects. The\nupper one represents the agony in the garden, and the Saviour praying\nthat the cup might pass from Him; the base represents the Lord's\nSupper, the centre dish being the incarnation of the bread. This\ntankard, now in the possession of Lord Londesborough, was formerly in\nthe collection of Elkington of Birmingham, who had some copies of it\nmade. On the lid, in old characters, is the following inscription--\"C.\nM. L., MDXXIIII.\" This drinking vessel, which, independent of its\nartistic merit, was no doubt highly valued as a mere household\npossession, brings to mind many recollections of the life of him who\nraised himself from a very lowly position to one of great power and\nusefulness.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Martin Luther's Tankard.]\n\nMartin Luther, who was the son of John Lotter or Lauther (which name\nour Reformer afterwards changed to Luther) and Margaret Lindenen, was\nborn in the little town of Islebern, in Saxony, on November 10th,\n1483. His father was a miner. Luther died in 1546, and princes, earls,\nnobles, and students without number, attended the funeral of the\nminer's son in the church of Islebern. On this occasion, Melancthon\ndelivered the funeral oration.\n\n\nHOT CROSS BUNS.\n\nHow strange the following reads from an old journal! and how odd the\nstate of things to give rise to such an intimation!\n\n                  1793.\n          _Wednesday, 27th March._\n  ROYAL BUN HOUSE, CHELSEA, GOOD FRIDAY.\n              _No Cross Buns._\n\nMrs. Hand respectfully informs her friends, and the public, that in\nconsequence of the great concourse of people which assembled before her\nhouse at a very early hour, on the morning of Good Friday; by which her\nneighbours (with whom she has always lived in friendship and repute,)\nhave been much alarmed and annoyed; it having also been intimated, that\nto encourage or countenance a tumultuous assembly at this particular\nperiod, might be attended with consequences more serious than have\nhitherto been apprehended; desirous, therefore, of testifying her\nregard and obedience to those laws by which she is happily protected,\nshe is determined, though much to her loss, not to sell _Cross Buns_ on\nthat day, to any person whatever; but Chelsea Buns as usual.\n\nMrs. Hand would be wanting in gratitude to a generous public, who, for\nmore than fifty years past, have so warmly patronized and encouraged\nher shop, to omit so favourable an opportunity of offering her sincere\nacknowledgments for their favours; at the same time, to assure them she\nwill, to the utmost of her power, endeavour to merit a continuance of\nthem.\n\n\nLOCUSTS.\n\nThe locusts are remarkable for the hieroglyphic that they bear upon the\nforehead. Their colour is green throughout the whole body, excepting a\nlittle yellow rim that surrounds their head, and which is lost at the\neyes. This insect has two upper wings, pretty solid. They are green,\nlike the rest of the body, except that there is in each a little white\nspot. The locust keeps them extended like great sails of a ship going\nbefore the wind. It has besides two other wings underneath the former,\nand which resemble a light transparent stuff pretty much like a cobweb,\nand which it makes use of in the manner of smack sails, that are along\na vessel. But when the locust reposes herself, she does like a vessel\nthat lies at anchor; for she keeps the second sails furled under the\nothers.\n\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH'S LAWS.\n\nThe following extract from a very old book is truly curious:--\n\n\"Queene Elizabeth, in the xiiii and xviii yeres of hir gracious rayne,\ntwo Actes were made for ydle vagrante and maisterlesse persons, that\nvsed to loyter, and would not worke, should for the first offence\nhaue a hole burned through the gristle of one of his eares of an\nynch compasse. And for the second offence committed therein, to be\nhanged. If these and such lyke lawes were executed iustlye, treulye,\nand severelye (as they ought to be,) without any respect of persons,\nfavour, or friendshippe, this dung and filth of ydlenesse woulde\neasily be reiected and cast oute of thys Commonwealth, there woulde\nnot be so many loytering ydle persons, so many Ruffians, Blasphemers,\nSwinge-Buckelers, so many Drunkards, Tossepottes, Dauncers, Fydlers,\nand Minstrels, Dice-players, and Maskers, Fencers, Theeves,\nEnterlude-players, Cut-purses, Cosiners, Maisterlesse Seruantes,\nJugglers, Roges, sturdye Beggars, counterfaite Egyptians, &c., as there\nare, nor yet so manye Plagues to bee amongst vs as there are, if these\nDunghilles and filthe in Commonweales were remooued, looked into, and\ncleane caste oute, by the industrie, payne, and trauell of those that\nare sette in authoritie, and haue gouernment.\"--\"_A Treatise against\nDicing, Dauncing, Vaine playes or Enterluds._\" _Black Letter; no date._\n\n\nTHE INVENTION OF TYPES.\n\nThe honour of the invention of movable types has been disputed by\ntwo cities, Haarlem and Mentz. The claims of Haarlem rest chiefly\nupon a statement of Hadrien Junius, who gave it upon the testimony\nof Cornelius, alleged to be a servant of Lawrence Coster, for whom\nthe invention is claimed. The claims of Mentz, which appear to be\nmore conclusive, are in favour of Peter Schaeffer, the assistant and\nson-in-law of John Faust, better known as Dr. Faustus. The first\nedition of the _Speculum humanae salvationis_ was printed by Coster at\nHaarlem, about the year 1440, and is one of the earliest productions of\nthe press of which the printer is known. The celebrated Bible, commonly\nknown as the Mentz Bible, without date, is the first important specimen\nof printing with moveable metal types. This was executed by Gutenberg\nand Faust, or Fust, as it is sometimes spelt, between the years 1450\nand 1455. The secret of the method then becoming known, presses were\nspeedily established in all parts of Europe, so that before the year\n1500 there were printing-offices in upwards of 220 different places in\nAustria, Bavaria, Bohemia, Calabria, the Cremonese, Denmark, England,\nFlanders, France, Franconia, Frioul, Geneva, Genoa, Germany, Holland,\nHungary, Italy, Lombardy, Mecklenburg, Moravia, Naples, the Palatinate,\nPiedmont, Poland, Portugal, Rome, Sardinia, Upper and Lower Saxony,\nSicily, Silesia, Spain, Suabia, Switzerland, Thessalonica, Turkey,\nTuscany, the Tyrol, Venice, Verona, Westphalia, Wurtemberg, &c.\n\nThis vast and rapid extension of the art, combined with the skill which\nthe earlier printers displayed in it, seems to be totally incompatible\nwith the date assigned to the invention, and it is more than probable,\nthat the art having been long practised in private under continued\nattempts at secrecy, it at length broke into publicity after it had\nalready attained a considerable degree of perfection.\n\n\nTHE PROTEUS ANGUINUS.\n\nIt has been satisfactorily proved that the polypus cannot see its\nprey, but is only aware of its presence by the actual agitation of\nthe water, from its remaining altogether passive when a thin piece\nof glass is interposed between them. There are many Monads, which,\nwithout possessing any trace of an eye, are yet susceptible of light.\nAn equally extraordinary phenomenon presents itself in the Proteus\nAnguinus. This singular animal is found in the subterranean lakes of\nthe interminable stalactital caverns in the limestone range of the\nCarniolan Alps, where the author saw it. In appearance it is between a\nfish and a lizard; it is of a flesh-colour, and its respiratory organs,\nwhich are connected with lungs, so as to enable it to breathe above or\nbelow the water, form a red crest round the throat, like a cock's comb.\nIt has no eyes, but small points in the place of them, and light is so\nobnoxious to it, that it uses every effort to exclude it, by thrusting\nits head under stones. It is reported also to exist in Sicily, but is\nknown nowhere else.\n\n\nBUMPER.\n\n[Illustration: [++] A Bumper.]\n\nThe jolly toper is so fond of the thing we call a _bumper_, that he\ntroubles not himself about the name, and so long as the liquor is but\nfine and clear, cares not a farthing in how deep an obscurity the\netymology is involved. The sober antiquarian, on the contrary, being\nprone to etymology, contemplates the sparkling contents of a full glass\nwith much less delight than he does the meaning, the occasion, and the\noriginal of the name. The common opinion is, that the _bumper_ took\nits name from the _grace-cup_; our Roman Catholic ancestors, say they,\nafter their meals, always drinking the Pope's health in this form, _au\nbon Pere_. But there are great objections to this; the Pope was not the\n_bon Pere_, but the _Saint Pere_; amongst the elder inhabitants of this\nkingdom, the attribute of sanctity being in a manner appropriated to\nthe Pope of Rome, and his see. Again, the grace-cup, which went round\nof course, after every repast, did not imply anything extraordinary,\nor a full glass. Drinking-glasses were not in use at the time here\nsupposed, for the grace-cup was a large vessel, proportioned to the\nnumber of the society, which went round the table, the guests drinking\nout of one cup, one after another.\n\n\nCOFFEE.\n\nFrom a number of the \"_Public Advertiser_,\" of May 19 to May 26, 1657,\nwe have 'In Bartholomew-lane, on the back side of the Old Exchange, the\ndrink called _Coffee_ is advertised as to be sold _in the morning_, and\nat _three of the clock_ in the afternoon.'\n\n\nQUAINT RECEIPTS.\n\nThe following Receipts are taken from a work entitled, \"_New\nCuriosities_ in _Art_ and _Nature_, or a _Collection_ of the most\nvaluable _Secrets_ in all _Arts_ and _Sciences_. Composed and\nExperimented by Sieur Lemery, Apothecary to the French King. London:\nJohn King, Little Britain. 1711.\"\n\n_To make one Wake or Sleep._--You must cut off dexterously the head of\na toad alive, and at once, and let it dry, in observing that one eye be\nshut, and the other open; that which is found open makes one wake, and\nthat shut causes sleep, by carrying it about one.\n\n_Preservative against the Plague._--Take three or four great toads,\nseven or eight spiders, and as many scorpions, put them into a pot well\nstopp'd, and let them lye some time; then add virgin-wax, make a good\nfire till all become a liquor, then mingle them all with a spatula, and\nmake an ointment, and put it into a silver box well stopp'd, the which\ncarry about you, being well assured that while you carry it about you,\nyou will never be infected with the plague.\n\nWe give the above as indicating the delusions which prevailed with\nrespect to certain nostrums as late as the year 1711.\n\n\nEXECUTION OF GOVERNOR WALL IN 1802.\n\nAs the following account, by a gentleman who witnessed the scene,\navoids all disgusting details, we give it as containing a description\nof some of the circumstances which attended the execution, at the\ncommencement of the present century, of a criminal of the higher class.\nThe wretched man was hung for murder and barbarity: his victims were\nthe men he had under his charge as Governor of the Island of Goree:--\n\n\"As we crossed the Press-yard, a cock crew; and the solitary clanking\nof a restless chain was dreadfully horrible.\n\n\"The prisoner entered. He was death's counterfeit, tall, shrivelled,\nand pale; and his soul shot so piercingly through the port-holes of\nhis head that the first glance of him nearly petrified me. I said in\nmy heart, putting my pencil in my pocket, God forbid that I should\ndisturb thy last moments! His hands were clasped, and he was truly\npenitent. After the yeoman had requested him to stand up, 'he pinioned\nhim,' as the Newgate phrase is, and tied the cord with so little\nfeeling that the governor, who had not given the wretch the accustomed\nfee, observed 'You have tied me very tight;' upon which Dr. Ford,\nthe chaplain, ordered him to slacken the cord, which he did, but not\nwithout muttering, 'Thank you, sir,' said the governor to the doctor:\n'it is of little moment.' He then observed to the attendant, who had\nbrought in an immense iron shovel-full of coals to throw on the fire,\n'Ay, in one hour that will be a blazing fire,' then turning to the\ndoctor, questioned him: 'Do tell me, sir: I am informed I shall go down\nwith great force; is it so?' After the construction and action of the\nmachine had been explained, the doctor questioned the governor as to\nwhat kind of men he had at Goree:--'Sir,' he answered, 'they sent me\nthe very riff-raff.' The poor soul then joined the doctor in prayer;\nand never did I witness more contrition at any condemned sermon than he\nthen evinced.\n\n\"The sheriff arrived, attended by his officers, to receive the prisoner\nfrom the keeper. A new hat was then partly flattened on his head,\nfor owing to its being too small in the crown, it stood many inches\ntoo high behind. As we were crossing the Press Yard, the dreadful\nexecrations of some of the felons so shook his frame that he observed,\nthe clock had struck; and quickening his pace, he soon arrived at the\nroom where the sheriff was to give a receipt for his body, according to\nthe usual custom. Owing, however, to some informality in the wording of\nthis receipt, he was not brought out as soon as the multitude expected;\nand it was this delay which occasioned a partial exultation from those\nwho betted as to a reprieve, and not from any pleasure in seeing him\nexecuted.\n\n\"After the execution, as soon as I was permitted to leave the prison,\nI found the Yeoman selling the rope with which the malefactor had\nbeen suspended, at a shilling an inch; and no sooner had I entered\nNewgate-street, than a lath of a fellow, passed threescore years\nand ten, who had just arrived from the purlieus of Black Boy Alley,\nwoe-begone as _Romeo's_ apothecary, exclaimed, 'Here is the identical\nrope at sixpence an inch.'\"\n\n\nSTAGE-COACH IN 1760.\n\n_Ayscough's Nottingham Courant_ of this date, contained the following\nadvertisement:--The flying machines on steel springs set off from the\nSwan with Two Necks Inn, Lad-lane, London, and from the Angel Inn in\nSheffield, every Monday and Thursday morning at five o'clock, and lies\nthe first night from London at the Angel Inn in Northampton, the second\nat the Blackmoor's Head Inn, Nottingham, and the third at Sheffield.\nEach passenger to pay 1_l._ 17_s._, and to be allowed fourteen pounds\nof luggage. Performed (if God permit) by John Hanforth and Samuel\nGlanville.\n\n\nBLIND WORKMAN.\n\nA young man, in Greenock, of the name of Kid, who was blind from his\ninfancy, finished the model of a sixty-four gun ship, of about five\nfeet keel, planked from the keel, with carriages for the guns, and\nevery necessary material and apparelling of a ship of that rate,\nwithout any assistance whatever, or other instrument than a small knife\nand hammer.\n\n\nSPORTS OF THE LOWER CLASSES IN 1749.\n\nThe following handbill is curious, on account of the light it sheds on\nwhat was considered attractive to the million a hundred years ago:--\n\n\"_According to Law. September 22, 1749._ On Wednesday next, the 27th\ninst., will be run for by _Asses_ (!!) in _Tothill Fields_, a purse\nof gold, not exceeding the value of Fifty Pounds. The first will be\nentitled to the gold; the second to two pads; the third to thirteen\npence half-penny; the last to a halter fit for the neck of any ass in\nEurope. Each ass must be subject to the following articles:--\n\n\"No person will be allowed to run but _Taylors_ and _Chimney-sweepers_;\nthe former to have a cabbage-leaf fixed in his hat, the latter a\nplumage of white feathers; the one to use nothing but his yard-wand,\nand the other a brush.\n\n\"No jockey-tricks will be allowed upon any consideration.\n\n\"No one to strike an ass but the rider, lest he thereby cause a\nretrograde motion, under a penalty of being ducked three times in the\nriver.\n\n\"No ass will be allowed to start above thirty years old, or under ten\nmonths, nor any that has won above the value of fifty pounds.\n\n\"No ass to run that has been six months in training, particularly above\nstairs, lest the same accident happen to it that did to one nigh a town\nten miles from London, and that for reasons well known to that place.\n\n\"Each ass to pay sixpence entrance, three farthings of which are to be\ngiven to the old clerk of the race, for his due care and attendance.\n\n\"Every ass to carry weight for inches, if thought proper.\"\n\nThen follow a variety of sports, with \"an ordinary of _proper\nvictuals_, particularly for the riders, if desired.\"\n\n\"_Run, lads, run! there's rare sport in Tothill Fields!_\"\n\n\nSTATE COACH AT THE PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT IN 1796.\n\nNever was a greater assemblage of persons collected together than on\nthis occasion: in the Park and in Parliament-street there were at least\n20,000 people. By the repair of the state coach, which has undergone\nseveral material alterations since the damage it received at the\nopening of the last session, the king is now secluded from the sight.\nHitherto, the upper pannels of it had always been of glass, so that\nthe multitude could see the king in all directions, through the front,\nthrough the sides, as well as through the windows in the doors: it has\nbeen newly glazed, and the whole of the carriage is lined with sheet\ncopper, musket proof; between the crimson lining of the carriage is a\nwadding of fine wool, coated with buffalo skin, the nature of which is\nso close that no bullets can penetrate it.\n\n\nHISTORICAL ANECDOTE.\n\nOn the dollars, stivers, &c., coined at the town of Dordrecht in\nHolland, is the figure of a milk-maid sitting under her cow, which\nfigure is also exhibited in relievo on the water-gate of the place. The\noccasion was as follows: In the noble struggle of the United Provinces\nfor their liberties, the Spaniards detached a body of forces from the\nmain army, with the view of surprising Dordrecht. Certain milkmaids,\nbelonging to a rich farmer in the vicinity of the town, perceived as\nthey were going to milk, some soldiers concealed under the hedges.\nThey had the presence of mind to pursue their occupation without any\nsymptoms of alarm. On their return home they informed their master of\nwhat they had seen, who gave information to the Burgomaster, and the\nsluices were let loose, by which great numbers of the Spaniards were\ndrowned, and the expedition defeated. The States ordered the farmer a\nhandsome revenue for the loss he sustained by the overflowing of his\nlands, rewarded the women, and perpetuated the event in the manner\ndescribed.\n\n\nTOMB OF JOHN BUNYAN.\n\n\"Who has not read the \"Pilgrim's Progress,\" \"that wonderful book,\"\nwrites Mr. Macaulay, \"which, while it obtains admiration from the most\nfastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it?\"\nWe can remember our own delight on reading, for the first time, the\nprecious volume. This was in the days of our childhood, when we were\ndeeply imbued with the fairy lore which at that time was so plentifully\nsupplied, and so eagerly devoured.\n\nJohn Bunyan was buried in Bunhill Fields burying-ground, City-road; and\nthe tablet on his tomb, which the engraving very correctly represents\nis as follows:--\"Mr. John Bunyan, author of the 'Pilgrim's Progress,'\nob. 12 Aust. 1688, aet. 60.\" Formerly there were also the following\nlines:--\n\n    \"The Pilgrim's Progress now is finished.\n     And death has laid him in his earthly bed.\"\n\n[Illustration: [++] Tomb of John Bunyan.]\n\nBunhill Fields burying-ground was opened as a suburban cemetery\nin 1665, in the time of the great plague, and was a favourite\nburying-place with the Dissenters. Here are buried Daniel Defoe; Dr.\nIsaac Watts; Joseph Ritson the antiquary; Dr. Thomas Goodwin, the\nchaplain who attended Cromwell's death-bed; George Fox, the founder\nof the Quakers; the mother of John Wesley; Lieut.-General Fleetwood,\nson-in-law of Oliver Cromwell; Thomas Stothard, R.A., and other eminent\nmen.\n\n\nSPIDERS FOND OF MUSIC.\n\nSpiders hear with great acuteness, and it is affirmed that they are\nattracted by music. Disjonval relates the instance of a spider which\nused to place itself on the ceiling of a room over the spot where a\nlady played the harp, and which followed her if she removed to another\npart; and he also says that the celebrated violinist Berthome, when a\nboy, saw a spider habitually approach him as soon as he began to play,\nand which eventually became so familiar that it would fix itself on his\ndesk, and on his arm. Bettina noticed the same effect with a guitar, on\na spider which accidentally crossed over it as she was playing.\n\n\nBREAKFASTING HUT IN 1745.\n\nThis quaint announcement, in a handbill of the time, shows how cheaply\nthose who lived a century or so past could enjoy suburban pleasures in\nmerrie Islington:--\n\n\"This is to give notice to all Ladies and Gentlemen, at Spencer's\noriginal Breakfasting-Hut, between Sir Hugh Middleton's Head and St.\nJohn Street Road, by the New River side, fronting Sadler's Wells, may\nbe had every morning, except Sundays, fine tea, sugar, bread, butter,\nand milk, at fourpence per head; coffee at threepence a dish. And in\nthe afternoon, tea, sugar, and milk, at threepence per head, with good\nattendance. Coaches may come up to the farthest garden-door next to the\nbridge in St. John Street Road, near Sadler's Wells back gate.--_Note._\nLadies, &c., are desired to take notice that there is another person\nset up in opposition to me, the next door, which is a brick-house,\nand faces the little gate by the Sir Hugh Middleton's, and therefore\nmistaken for mine; but mine is the _little boarded place_ by the river\nside, and my backdoor faces the same as usual; for\n\n    I am not dead, I am not gone,\n      Nor liquors do I sell;\n    But, as at first, I still go on,\n      Ladies, to use you well.\n\n    No passage to my hut I have,\n      The river runs before;\n    Therefore your care I humbly crave,\n      Pray don't mistake my door.\n\n    \"Yours to serve,\n              S. SPENCER.\"\n\n\nSPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION.\n\nIn Leroux's Journal de Medicine, is an account of a very fat woman,\ntwenty-eight years of age, who was found on fire in her chamber, where\nnothing else was burning. The neighbours heard a noise of something\nlike frying, and when the body was removed it left a layer of black\ngrease. The doctor conceives that the combustion began in the internal\nparts, and that the clothes were burnt secondarily.\n\n\nMOTHER MAPP THE BONE-SETTER.\n\nShe was the daughter of a man named Wallis, a bone-setter at Hindon, in\nWiltshire, and sister to the celebrated \"Polly Peachem,\" who married\nthe Duke of Bolton. Upon some _family quarrel_, Sally Wallis left\nher professional parent, and wandered up and down the country in a\nmiserable manner, calling herself \"Crazy Sally,\" and pursuing, in her\nperambulations, a course that fairly justified the title. Arriving at\nlast at Epsom, she succeeded in humbugging the worthy bumkins of that\nplace, so decidedly, that a subscription was set on foot to keep her\namong them; but her fame extending to the metropolis, the dupes of\nLondon, a numerous class then as well as now, thought it no trouble\nto go ten miles to see the conjuror, till at length, she was pleased\nto bless the afflicted of London with her presence, and once a week\ndrove to the Grecian Coffee-house, in a coach and six with out-riders!\nand all the appearance of nobility. It was in one of these journeys,\npassing through Kent-street, in the Borough, that being taken for a\ncertain woman of quality from the Electorate in Germany, a great mob\nfollowed and bestowed on her many bitter reproaches, till Madame,\nperceiving some mistake, looked out of the window, and accosted them in\nthis gentle manner, \"Confound you, don't you know me? I am Mrs. Mapp,\nthe _bone-setter_!\" upon which, they instantly changed their revilings\ninto loud huzzas.\n\n\nTWO CERTIFICATES OF GRETNA-GREEN MARRIAGES AT DIFFERENT DATES.\n\n\"This is to sartfay all persons that my be consernid, that A B from the\nparish of C in the County of D and E F from the parish of G and in the\ncounty of H and both comes before me and declayred themseless both to\nbe single persons, and now mayried by the form of the Kirk of Scotland,\nand agreible to the Church of England, and givine ondre my hand, this\n18{th} day of March 1793.\"\n\n  \"Kingdom of Scotland\n  \"County of Dumfries\n  \"Parish of Gretna\n\n\"These are to certify, to all whom it may concern, that John N....\nfrom the parish of Chatham in the County of Kent, and Rosa H.... from\nthe Parish of St. Maries in the County of Nottingham, being both here\nnow present and having declared to me that they are single persons,\nbut have now been married conformable to the Laws of the Church of\nEngland, and agreeable to the Kirk of Scotland. As witness our hands at\nSpringfield this 4th day of October 1822.\n\n  \"Witness                  \"Witness me.\n    Jane Rae                  David Lang.\n    John Ainslie.\"            John N....\n                              Rosa H....\"\n\n\nTHE WOMEN OF ENGLAND.\n\nThe women here are generally more handsome than in other places,\nsufficiently endowed with natural beauties, without the addition of\nadulterate sophistications. In an absolute woman, say the Italians,\nare required the parts of a Dutch woman, from the girdle downwards; of\na French woman, from the girdle to the shoulders: over which must be\nplaced an English face. As their beauties, so also their prerogatives\nare greater than any nation; neither so servilely submissive as the\nFrench, nor so jealously guarded as the Italians; but keeping so true a\ndecorum, that as England is termed the Pergatorie of Servants, and the\nHell of Horses, so is it acknowledged the _Paradise_ of _Women_. And it\nis a common by-word amongst the Italians, that _if there were a bridge\nbuilt across the narrow seas, all the women in Europe would run into\nEngland_. For here they have the upper hand in the streets, the upper\nplace at the table, the thirds of their husband's estates, and their\nequal share of all lands; privileges with which other women are not\nacquainted. They were in high esteem in former times amongst foreign\nnations, for the modestie and gravitie of their conversation; but of\nlate so much addicted to the light garb of the French, that they have\nlost much of their ancient honour and reputation amongst knowing and\nmore sober men of foreign countries who before admired them.--_Peter\nHeylin's Cosmographie_, 1652.\n\n\nPRICES FOR SEATS AT CORONATIONS.\n\nOn consulting Stowe, Speed, and other antiquaries, it appears that the\nprice of a good place at the coronation of William the Conqueror was\na _blank_; and probably the same at that of his son William Rufus. At\nthat of Henry I. it was a _crocard_, and at King Stephen's and Henry\nthe Second's a _pillard_. At King Richard's and King John's, it was a\n_fuskin_; and rose at Henry the Third's to a _dodkin_. In the reign of\nEdward I. the coins began to be more intelligible; and we find that for\nseeing his coronation a Q was given, or the half of a _ferling_, or\nfarthing, which was, as now, the fourth part of a _sterling_, or penny.\nAt the coronation of Edward II. it was a farthing; and at that of\nEdward III. a halfpenny, which was very generally given. In the reign\nof Richard II. it was a penny, and continued the same at that of Henry\nIV. But at that of Henry V. it was two pennies, or half of a _grossus_,\nor groat; and the same at that of Henry VI. and of Edward IV.; nor do\nwe find it raised at the coronation of Richard III. or that of Henry\nVII.\n\nAt that of Henry VIII. it was the whole _grossus_, or groat, nor was\nthe price altered at those of Edward VI. and Queen Mary; but at Queen\nElizabeth's it was a _teston_, _tester_, or sixpence. At those of James\nI. and Charles I. a shilling was given; which sum was advanced to half\na crown at the coronations of Charles and James II. At King William's\nand Queen Anne's, it was a crown; and at George the First's the show\nwas seen by many at the same price.\n\nAt the coronation of George II. some gave half a guinea; but at that\nof George III. and Queen Charlotte, anno 1761, curiosity seems to\nhave risen to an amazing height. On this occasion the price given for\nsingle seats were almost incredible; in some houses ten guineas, and\nin ordinary houses five guineas. Great and universal anxiety prevailed\nto see this grand spectacle, from the reflection how improbable\nit was that many who were there could ever have an opportunity of\nwitnessing the like again. As an instance of this extreme anxiety, it\nis confidently related, that a gentleman was prevailed on to take a\nroom for his lady, at the price of one hundred and forty guineas; but\nthe appointment of the solemnity of the coronation falling unluckily at\nthe exact time when she expected to be delivered, she actually further\nprevailed on her husband to let a skilful man-midwife, nurse, &c.,\nattend her, and to hire another room, lest the hurry of the day should\nbring on her labour, when it might be impossible for her to be removed\nwithout endangering her life.\n\n\nANCIENT HOUSE AT BLACKWALL--SAID TO BE THE RESIDENCE OF SIR WALTER\nRALEIGH.\n\nThe house shown in the engraving is interesting from two causes; first,\nthat it was the house in which Sir Walter Raleigh smoked his first\npipe of tobacco in England, and secondly, that it is one of the few\nrelics remaining of those picturesque old houses of the days of Queen\nBess. The house is built of strongly framed timber, which, in recent\nyears, has been plastered over; and the carved heads that ornament the\ngables, and which are good both in design and execution, show that this\nhouse is at least 350 years old.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Ancient House at Blackwall.]\n\nAt the present time a tavern has been built between this house and\nthe river. Formerly, however, there was, no doubt, a trimmed garden\nand terrace towards the Thames, from which the inhabitants may have\nwatched the progress of Queen Elizabeth from the Tower to her palace at\nGreenwich.\n\nIt is singular to notice the fashion of these old houses, arising from\nthe value of space within walled towns; each floor projects over the\nother, so that the upper apartments have more room than the lower.\nWhile, in an artistic point of view, we cannot help regretting the\ndisappearance of the venerable and quaint gables, for sanitary and\nother reasons we must be content with the change.\n\n\nAMBASSADORS--WHY HELD BY THE ARMS AT THE OTTOMAN COURT.\n\nA dervise addressed Bajazet, emperor of the Turks, 1495, for alms, and\nwhile the charitable Sultan searched for his money, the treacherous\nbeggar wounded him with a dagger, and was instantly slain by the\nroyal attendants. This incident is rendered memorable by its having\noccasioned the ungracious restraint under which even the ambassadors of\nChristian powers were subject to in former times when they received an\naudience from the Ottoman Emperor.\n\nThey were held by the arms by two attendants, when they approached the\nthrone, nor were their arms loosed till they had quitted the presence.\n\n\nTRAVELLING IN 1760.\n\nThe nobility and gentry were accustomed to make their long journeys in\nponderous family-carriages, drawn by four horses. These vehicles would\nbe laden at the top with an array of trunks and boxes, while perhaps\nsix or seven persons, with a lapdog, would be stowed within. The danger\nof famine on the road was averted by a travelling larder of baskets of\nvarious condiments; the risk of thirst would be provided against by\nbottles of usquebaugh, black cherry-brandy, cinnamon-water, sack, port,\nor strong beer: while the convoy would be protected by a basket-hilted\nsword, an old blunderbuss, and a bag of bullets and a great horn of\ngunpowder.\n\n\nOLD ST. PAUL'S.\n\nIn the old cathedral was a tower of stone, in height from the ground\n260 feet, on which was a spire of wood, covered with lead, 274 feet\nhigh. In the tower was a celebrated peal of bells; and somewhat above\nthe stone-work was a \"faire dial,\" from which there was order taken in\nthe eighteenth year of Edward III. that the rich chasing and gilding\nshould be always kept in good preservation. On this dial was the figure\nof an angel pointing to the hours of both day and night--a device more\nappropriate than most of the clock-hands in present use. From this\nlofty steeple, which formed such an important feature of old London,\nthe chimes rung merrily on saints' days and holidays; and at times the\nchoristers mounted up aloft and chaunted forth their orisons at dawn\nand sunset--a custom still observed at Durham Cathedral. Before the\nfire of London, the spire of St. Paul's was more than once destroyed or\ndamaged by fire and lightning.\n\nOn Candlemas Eve, 1444, about two o'clock in the afternoon, the\nlightning fired the steeple. The citizens came forth and succeeded in\novercoming the fire; it, however, broke forth again at night, and but\nlittle of the spire was saved. In the year 1561, in the month of June,\nthere fell a prodigious quantity of rain, attended with thunder and\nlightning. St. Paul's steeple was struck within a yard of the top. At\nfirst, a little fire appeared, resembling the light of a torch, and\nin eight minutes the weather-cock fell; and the wind rising high, the\nfire within an hour afterwards destroyed the steeple down to the very\nbattlements, and then, in consequence of the mass of burning timber\nthat fell from the spire, burnt so violently that the iron-work and\nthe bells melted and fell upon the stairs in the church; the east and\nwest roofs catching fire communicated with the north and south, and\ndestroyed them all. Much damage was also done to other parts.\n\nThe spire was again reared, and the damaged bells properly replaced.\nIn addition to the bells in the tower of old St. Paul's there was a\ncommon bell, the property of the city, hung in a suitable building,\nclosely adjoining to the Cathedral, which was rung that the inhabitants\nmight assemble at wardmotes and other important occasions. Another fire\ndamaged the ancient church, and then the great fire of 1666, swept\nsteeples, bells, churches, and all before it.\n\n\nTHE BEDFORD MISSAL.\n\nIn January, 1786, when the Bedford Missal was on sale, with the rest\nof the Duchess of Portland's collection, King George III. sent for\nhis bookseller, and expressed his intention to become the purchaser.\nThe bookseller ventured to submit to his majesty, that the article in\nquestion, as one highly curious, was likely to fetch a high price. \"How\nhigh?\" exclaimed the king. \"Probably two hundred guineas,\" replied the\nbookseller. \"Two hundred guineas for a Missal!\" exclaimed the Queen,\nwho was present, and lifted up her hands with astonishment. \"Well,\nwell,\" said his Majesty, \"I'll have it still; but since the Queen\nthinks two hundred guineas so enormous a price for a Missal, I'll go no\nfurther.\" The biddings for the royal library did actually stop at that\npoint; and Mr. Edwards carried off the prize by adding three pounds\nmore. The same Missal was afterwards sold at Mr. Edwards's sale, in\n1815, and purchased by the Duke of Marlborough, for L637 15s.\n\n\nFORMATION OF THE VOLCANO OF JORULLO.\n\nThe Mexican volcanoes of Orizaba, Popocatepetl, Jorullo, and Colima\nappear to be connected with each other, being placed in the direction\nof a line running transverse to the former, and passing east and west\nfrom sea to sea.\n\nAs was first observed by Humboldt, these mountains are all situated\nbetween north latitude 18 deg. 59' and 19 deg. 12'. In an exact line of\ndirection with the other volcanoes, and over the same transverse\nfissure, Jorullo was suddenly elevated on the 29th of September, 1759.\nThe circumstances attending the production of this volcano are so\nremarkable, that we shall here notice them in some detail.\n\n[Illustration: Volcano of Jorullo, Mexico.]\n\nAn extensive plain, called the Malpays, was covered by rich fields of\ncotton, sugar-cane, and indigo, irrigated by streams, and bounded by\nbasaltic mountains, the nearest active volcano being at the distance\nof eighty miles. This district, situated at an elevation of about 2600\nfeet above the level of the sea, was celebrated for its beauty and\nextreme fertility. In June, 1759, alarming subterranean sounds were\nheard, and these were accompanied, by frequent earthquakes, which were\nsucceeded by others for several weeks, to the great consternation of\nthe neighbouring inhabitants. In September tranquillity appeared to\nbe re-established, when, in the night of the 28th, the subterranean\nnoise was again heard, and part of the plain of Malpays, from three to\nfour miles in diameter, rose up like a mass of viscid fluid, in the\nshape of a bladder or dome, to a height of nearly 1700 feet; flames\nissued forth, fragments of red-hot stones were thrown to prodigious\nheights, and, through a thick cloud of ashes, illumined by volcanic\nfire, the softened surface of the earth was seen to swell up like an\nagitated sea. A huge cone, above 500 feet high, with five smaller\nconical mounds, suddenly appeared, and thousands of lesser cones\n(called by the natives _hornitos_, or ovens,) issued forth from the\nupraised plain. These consisted of clay intermingled with decomposed\nbasalt, each cone being a _fumarolle_, or gaseous vent, from which\nissued thick vapour. The central cone of Jorullo is still burning,\nand on one side has thrown up an immense quantity of scoriaceous and\nbasaltic lavas, containing fragments of primitive rocks. Two streams,\nof the temperature of 186 deg. of Fahrenheit, have since burst through the\nargillaceous vault of the hornitos, and now flow into the neighbouring\nplains. For many years after the first eruption, the plains of Jorullo\nwere uninhabitable from the intense heat that prevailed.\n\n\nCRATER OF VESUVIUS IN 1829.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Crater of Vesuvius.]\n\nThe crater Stromboli, which has been in activity since the most\nancient times, presents at present the same appearances as those which\nwere described by Spallanzani, in 1788. It is constantly filled with\nlava in a state of fusion, which alternately rises and falls in the\ncavity. Having ascended to ten or twelve yards below the summit of the\nwalls, this boiling fluid is covered with large bubbles, which burst\nwith noise, letting enormous quantities of gas escape from them, and\nprojecting on all sides scoriaceous matter. After these explosions, it\nagain subsides, but only to rise again and produce like effects--these\nalternations being repeated regularly at intervals of some minutes.\nIn craters where the lava is less fluid than in that of Stromboli, new\ncones are sometimes formed in the midst of the Crater, which first\nrise in the form of a dome, and then burst out so as to form a small\nactive volcano in the middle of the crater of the great one. This\nphenomenon is often presented within the crater of Vesuvius, and was\nmore particularly witnessed in 1829.\n\n\nLOAF SUGAR.\n\nIn 1553 a sugar-loaf was presented to Mr. Waldron, of Bovey House,\nwhich weighed 7 lbs., at 1s. 1d. per lb. (7s. 7d.)\n\nThe late Lord Rolle married the last of that branch of the Waldron\nfamily. The house remains about ten miles west of Lyme. The sugar-loaf\nwas charged at a high rate, considering the greater value of money\nin Queen Mary's reign. This article began to be highly prized. The\nsugar-cane, which had been grown from the year 1148 in Sicily, had\nbeen imported into Madeira A.D. 1419. About the year 1503 the art\nof refining sugar, before called \"blanch powdre,\" was discovered by\na Venetian; before which the juice, when selected instead of honey\nfor sweetening, was used as it came from the cane. Only twenty-seven\nyears from this date, in 1526, it was imported from St. Lucar in Spain\nby Bristol merchants. Let not the present of the Mayor of Lyme be\nconsidered as a cheap article produced in abundance in the islands of\nthe West Indies. The sugar-cane was not imported thither into Barbadoes\nfrom the Brazils till the year 1641. How surprising the result of\nofficial inquiries in the year 1853 into the consumption of sugar! It\namounted to 7,523,187 cwts., or 30 lbs. each individual of the United\nKingdom.\n\n\nSUSPENSION BRIDGES AT FREYBOURG.\n\nThere are two suspension bridges in Freybourg; one remarkable for its\ngreat length, the other for its extreme beauty. The latter connects\nthe top of two mountains, swinging over a frightful gulf that makes\none dizzy to look down into. There are no buttresses or masonwork in\nsight at a little distance; shafts are sunk in the solid rock of the\nmountains, down which the wires that sustain it are dropped. There\nit stretches, a mere black line, nearly three hundred feet in the\nheavens, from summit to summit. It looks like a spider's web flung\nacross a chasm; its delicate tracery showing clear and distinct against\nthe sky. While you are looking at the fairy creation suspended in\nmid-heaven, almost expecting the next breeze will waft it away, you\nsee a heavy waggon driven on it; you shrink back with horror at the\nrashness that could trust so frail a structure at that dizzy height;\nbut the air-hung cobweb sustains the pressure, and the vehicle passes\nin safety. Indeed, weight steadies it; while the wind, as it sweeps\ndown the gulf, makes it swing under you. The large suspension bridge\nis supported on four cables of iron wire, each one composed of one\nthousand and fifty-six wires. As the Menai bridge of Wales is often\nsaid to be longer than this, I give the dimensions of both as I find\nthem in Mr. Murray:--Freybourg: length, nine hundred and five feet;\nheight, one hundred and seventy-four feet; breadth, twenty eight feet.\nMenai: length, five hundred and eighty feet; height, one hundred and\nthirty feet; breadth, twenty-five feet. A span of nine hundred and five\nfeet, without any intermediate pier, seems impossible at first, and one\nneeds the testimony of his own eyes before he can fully believe it.\n\n\nWONDERFUL CLOCK.\n\nTowards the end of the last century, a clock was constructed by a\nGenevan mechanic named Droz, capable of performing a variety of\nsurprising movements, which were effected by the figures of a <DW64>,\na shepherd, and a dog. When the clock struck, the shepherd played six\ntunes on his flute, and the dog approached and fawned upon him. This\nclock was exhibited to the King of Spain, who was highly delighted with\nthe ingenuity of the artist. The king, at the request of Droz, took an\napple from the shepherd's basket, when the dog started up and barked\nso loud that the king's dog, which was in the same room, began to bark\nalso. We are moreover informed that the <DW64>, on being asked what hour\nit was, answered the question in French, so that he could be understood\nby those present.\n\n\nMANDRIN THE SMUGGLER, 1757.\n\nMandrin was the son of a peasant in Dauphiny who dealt in cattle. His\nfirst employment was buying and selling horses, by which he subsisted\nseveral years. But having on some occasion committed a murder, he was\nobliged to fly from justice, and in his absence was condemned by the\nParliament of Grenoble to be broken on the wheel. Being now a fugitive,\nand destitute of employment, he learned to counterfeit money, and\nby this fraud made considerable gain, till, being discovered, the\nofficers of the Mint at Lyons issued a warrant for apprehending him,\nand he was again obliged to quit the country. While he was wandering\nabout from place to place, and hiding himself in caves and woods,\nhe became acquainted with a gang of smugglers, and associating with\nthem was, after some time, made their captain. As this gang was very\nnumerous, he was less cautious of being seen, and having at length\nlost his sense of fear by habitual danger, he frequently entered towns\nand cities, raised contributions on the king's officers by force, and\nspread the same terror among others that others had brought upon him.\nBut in proportion as he became more formidable he was, in fact, less\nsecure; for the Government found it necessary to detach after him such\na force as he could not resist, and the Farmers-General offered 48,000\nlivres reward for taking him. After many times attacking his party in\na running fight, in which several were cut off, Mandrin, with eight of\nhis men, took shelter in a castle on the frontiers of Savoy. They were\nclosely pursued by several detachments, under the command of Colonel\nde Moliere, who entered the King of Sardinia's territory after him,\nwithout having first obtained leave. Moliere was immediately opposed by\na great number of peasants: whether they were instigated by Mandrin, or\nwhether they were jealous of their privilege, is not known; but all his\nexpostulations being fruitless, and being determined not to relinquish\nhis prey, for whom he hoped to receive so considerable a reward, he\nforced his way against them, killing twelve and wounding many others.\nMandrin waited the issue of this contest in his castle, where he was\nsoon besieged by 150 men, who attacked the place with great vigour.\nMandrin and his partisans defended themselves like men who had nothing\nto fear in a battle equal to being taken alive; and after several of\nthem were killed, and the castle gates burst open, they retreated,\nfighting from chamber to chamber, and from story to story, till,\nreaching the garret, and being able to proceed no further, they were at\nlast overpowered by numbers, having killed twenty of their adversaries,\nand spent all their ammunition. Mandrin, with those that survived of\nhis little party, were carried prisoners to Valence in Dauphiny. * * *\nMandrin was examined every day from the 13th of May to the 25th,\nin order to discover his accomplices. In the mean time several of\nhis associates were put to the torture to discover what they knew of\nhim, and were afterwards broken on the wheel, that death might give a\nsanction to their testimony.\n\nHe himself was subjected to torture, but without eliciting anything\nfurther than he had previously revealed. Throughout he steadfastly\nrefused to betray his comrades, and conducted himself with much dignity\nand heroism. On the day of his execution he received absolution\nfrom Father Gasperini, a Jesuit, who had administered to him the\nconsolations of religion during his confinement.\n\nBefore he was led out of the prison, his shoes and stockings were taken\nfrom him; but, though barefooted, he walked along with great firmness\nand a good grace. When he came to the cathedral to perform the _amende\nhonorable_, he asked forgiveness of the monks and priests for his want\nof respect to their order, and was then conducted to the scaffold. He\nmounted with great composure, and addressed himself in a short and\npathetic exhortation to the spectators, especially the young persons\nof both sexes; he then sat down on the nave of the wheel, and loosened\nthe buttons of his shirt-sleeves himself. Then he entreated pardon of\nthe custom-house officers, whom he had so often and so grossly injured;\nand turning to the penitents who surrounded the scaffold--with his\nconfessor and two other eminent persons of his order--he earnestly\nrecommended himself as the object of their prayer, and immediately\ndelivered himself up to the executioner. He received eight blows on\nhis arms and legs, and one on his stomach, and was intended to have\nbeen left to expire of the wounds; but as the executioner was going\ndown from the scaffold, an order came to strangle him; the bishop\nand all the considerable persons at Valence having interceded for\nthis mitigation of his punishment. Mandrin was twenty-nine years of\nage, about five feet five inches high, well made, had a long visage,\nblue eyes, and sandy chesnut hair; he had something rough in his\ncountenance, and a strong robust port; he was perpetually smoking\ntobacco, with which he drank plentifully of any liquor that was at\nhand, and ate till the last with a good appetite.\n\n\nSUDDEN RECOVERY FROM MADNESS.\n\nThe following extraordinary account is taken from the _Gentleman's\nMagazine_ of 1784:--\"About six years since, a seafaring person was\ntaken into the Asylum for Maniacs at York; during the space of five\nyears and six months he never expressed any desire for sustenance,\nand was fed in the manner of an infant. The servants undressed him at\nnight, and dressed him in the morning; he never spoke, and remained\nwith his body bent all day, and was regarded by all about him as an\nanimal nearly converted into a vegetable. About the middle of May,\n1783, he suddenly astonished the people round him with saying, 'Good\nmorrow to you all.' He then thanked the servants for the care they had\ntaken of him, and appeared perfectly sane. A few days after, he wrote a\nletter to his wife, in which he expressed himself with great propriety.\nOn the 28th of May following he was allowed to leave the hospital, and\nreturn to his family; and has now the command of a ship in the Baltic\ntrade, and is in full enjoyment of perfect health, both in mind and\nbody. This very singular case is attested by Dr. Hunter, F.E.S., of\nYork, in a letter to Dr. Percival, of Manchester, and by the servants\nnow at the Asylum in York.\"\n\n\nSUMMARY OF THE BIBLE.\n\nThe following table is published, as containing accurate particulars of\nthe English version of the Bible:--\n\n  _In the Old Testament._|  _In the New Testament._|    _Total._\n  Books,             39  | Books,             27   | Books,            66\n  Chapters,         929  | Chapters,         260   | Chapters,      1,189\n  Verses,        23,214  | Verses,         7,959   | Verses,       31,173\n  Words,        592,493  | Words,        181,253   | Words,       773,746\n  Letters,    2,728,100  | Letters,      838,380   | Letters,   3,566,480\n\nThe middle chapter and the shortest in the Bible is the hundred and\nseventeenth Psalm; the middle verse is the eighth of the hundred and\neighteenth Psalm. The twenty-first verse of the seventh chapter of\nEzra, in the English version, has all the letters of the alphabet\nin it. The nineteenth chapter of the second book of Kings and the\nthirty-seventh chapter of Isaiah are alike.\n\n\nTHE LEPROSY.--LAZARS.--LAZAR-HOUSES.\n\nThat loathsome disorder, leprosy, was introduced into England in the\nreign of Henry I., and was supposed to have been brought out of Egypt,\nor perhaps the East, by means of the crusaders. To add to the horror,\nit was contagious, which enhanced the charity of a provision for such\nmiserables, who were not only naturally shunned, but even chased by\nroyal edict, from the society of their fellow-creatures.\n\nLepers, or Lazars, were sick persons removed out of monasteries to\ncells or hospitals, always built out of cities and towns. Their\nusual maintainence was, from liberty allowed them to go upon every\nmarket-day, to the market, where with a dish, called a _clap_ dish,\nthey would beg corn.\n\nTheir sickness and loathsome appearance giving great disgust, many\nwithheld their charity, upon which account they were afterwards\nrestrained from begging at large, but permitted to send the proctor\nof the hospital, who came with his box one day in every month to the\nchurches, and other religious houses, at time of service; and there\nreceived the voluntary charity of the congregations. This custom is\nsaid to be the origin of the present practice of collecting briefs.\n\nThe leprosy was much more common formerly, in this part of the globe,\nthan at present. It is said, that there were in Europe fifteen thousand\nhospitals founded for them. Perhaps near half the hospitals that were\nin England were built for lepers.\n\nLepers were so numerous in the twelfth century, that by a decree of\nthe Lateran Council under pope Alexander III., A.D. 1179, they were\nempowered to erect churches for themselves, and to have their own\nministers to officiate in them. This shows at once how infectious and\noffensive their distemper was.\n\nAnd on this account, \"In England where a man was a leper, and was\ndwelling in a town, and would come into the churches, or among his\nneighbours when they were assembled, to talk to them to their annoyance\nor disturbance, a writ lay De Leproso amovendo.\"--What follows is\nremarkable. The writ is for those lepers \"who appear to the sight\nof all men, they are lepers, by their voice and their sores, the\nputrefaction of their flesh, and by the smell of them.\"\n\nAnd so late as the reign of Edward VI. multitudes of lepers seem to\nhave been in England; for in 1 Edw. 6. c. 3. in which directions are\ngiven for carrying the poor to the places where they were born, &c. we\nread the following clause: \"Provided always, that all _leprous_ and\npoor _bed-red_ creatures may, at their liberty, remain and continue in\nsuch houses appointed for lepers, or bed-red people, as they now be in.\"\n\n1184 to 1191.--The leprosy was at this period, and long after, a cruel\nepidemic in our country, possibly brought by the crusaders from the\nHoly Land, and spread here by filth and bad diet. It was supposed to\nbe infectious, and was shunned as the plague; so that, had it not been\nfor these pious institutions, multitudes must have perished under this\nloathsome disorder.\n\nAmong other wild fancies of the age, it was imagined that the persons\nafflicted with leprosy, a disease at that time (1327, Edward II.) very\ncommon, probably from bad diet, had conspired with the Saracens to\npoison all springs and fountains; and men being glad of any pretence\nto get rid of those who were a burthen to them, many of those unhappy\npeople were burnt alive on the chimerical imputation.\n\nEvery one of the lazar-houses had a person, called a _fore-goer_, who\nused to beg daily for them.\n\n\nTHE CONDOR IN PERU.\n\nDr. Pickering, of the United States Antarctic Expedition of 1839,\nbeing in the vicinity of the Andes, attempted the ascent of one of the\nsummits; by noon he had reached a high elevation, and looking up, he\nespied a huge condor soaring down the valley. He stopped to observe the\nmajestic bird as it sailed slowly along. To his surprise it took a turn\naround him, then a second and a third, the last time drawing so near\nthat he began to apprehend that it meditated an attack. He describes\nhimself as being in the worst possible condition for a fight, his\nstrength being exhausted by climbing, and his right hand having been\nlamed for some days from a hurt. The nature of the ground, too, was\nanything but favourable for defence; but there was nothing left but to\nprepare for a fight, and with this intent he took a seat and drew his\nknife. At the instant, as if intimidated by the sight of the weapon,\nthe bird whirled off in another direction. Dr. Pickering confessed,\nhowever humiliating the acknowledgment, that he was at the time very\nwell satisfied with the condor's determination to let him alone.\n\n\nCOST OF SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN'S CHURCHES.\n\nThe following is an account of what the undermentioned churches cost\nbuilding, the designs for which were furnished by Sir Christopher\nWren:--\n\n                                 L    s. d.\n  St. Paul's                 736,752  2  3-1\/4\n  Allhallows the Great         5,641  9  9\n  ---- Bread-street            3,348  7  2\n  ---- Lombard-street          8,058 15  6\n  St. Alban's, Wood-street     3,165  0  8\n  St. Anne and Agnes           2,448  0 10\n  St. Andrew's, Wardrobe       7,060 16 11\n  ---- Holborn                 9,000  0  0\n  St. Antholin's               5,685  5 10-3\/4\n  St. Austin's                 3,145  3 10\n  St. Benet, Grailchurch       3,583  9  5-1\/4\n  ---- Paul's Wharf            3,328 18 10\n  ---- Fink                    4,129 16 10\n  St. Bride's                 11,430  5 11\n  St. Bartholomew's            5,077  1  1\n  Christ Church               11,778  9  6\n  St. Clement, Eastcheap       4,365  3  4-1\/2\n  ---- Danes                   8,786 17  0-1\/2\n  St. Dionis Back Church       5,737 10  8\n  St. Edmund the King          5,207 11  0\n  St. George, Botolph-lane     4,509  4 10\n  St. James, Garlick-hill      5,357 12 10\n  ---- Westminster             8,500  0  0\n  St. Lawrence, Jewry         11,872  1  9\n  St. Michael, Basinghall      2,822 17  1\n  ---- Royal                   7,455  7  9\n  St. Michael, Queenhithe      4,354  3  8\n  ---- Wood-street             2,554  2 11\n  ---- Crooked-lane            4,641  5 11\n  ---- Cornhill                4,686  5 11\n  St. Martin, Ludgate          5,378 18  8\n  St. Matthew, Friday-str      2,301  8  2\n  St. Margaret Pattens         4,986 10  4\n  ---- Lothbury                5,340  8  1\n  St. Mary, Abchurch           4,922  2  4-1\/2\n  ---- Magdalen                4,291 12  9-1\/4\n  ---- Somerset                6,579 18  1-1\/4\n  ---- at Hill                 3,980 12  3\n  ---- Aldermanbury            5,237  3  6\n  ---- le Bow                  8,071 18  1\n  ---- le Steeple              7,388  8  7-3\/4\n  St. Magnus, Lond. bridge     9,579 19 10\n  St. Mildred, Bread-street    3,705 13  6-1\/4\n  ---- Poultry                 4,654  9  7-3\/4\n  St. Nicholas Cole Abbey      5,042  6 11\n  St. Olav, Jewry              5,580  4 10\n  St. Peter's, Cornhill        5,647  8  2\n  St. Swithin, Canon-street    4,687  4  6\n  St. Stephen, Wallbrook       7,652 13  8\n  ---- Coleman-str             4,020 16  6\n  St. Vedast, Foster-lane      1,853 15  6\n\n\nEARLY CLOCKS.\n\nThe first clock which appeared in Europe, was probably that which\nEginhard (the secretary of Charlemagne), describes as sent to his royal\nmaster by Abdalla, King of Persia. \"A horologe of brass, wonderfully\nconstructed, for the course of the twelve hours, answered to the\nhourglass, with as many little brazen balls, which drop down on a sort\nof bells underneath, and sounded each other.\"--The Venetians had clocks\nin 872, and sent a specimen of them that year to Constantinople.\n\n\nSINGULAR SPECIMEN OF ORTHOGRAPHY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nThe following letter was written by the Duchess of Norfolk to Cromwell,\nEarl of Essex. It exhibits a curious instance of the monstrous\nanomalies of our orthography in the infancy of our literature, when a\nspelling book was yet a precious thing:--\n\n\"My ffary gode lord,--her I sand you in tokyn hoff the neweyer, a\nglasse hoff Setyl set in Sellfer gyld, I pra you tak hit in wort. An hy\nwer babel het showlde be bater. I woll hit war wort a m crone.\"\n\nThus _translated_:--\n\n\"My very good lord,--Here I send you, in token of the new year, a glass\nof setyll set in silver gilt; I pray you take it in worth. An I were\nable it should be better. I would it were worth a thousand crown.\"\n\n\nDEATH OF THE EARL OF KILDARE.\n\nIn 1513, died the most powerful baron and active soldier of his age,\nFitzgerald, Earl of Kildare. He had been, during thirty years, at\ndifferent times, chief governor of Ireland, and was too potent to\nbe set aside, otherwise his strong attachment to the house of York\nwould probably have been his ruin. The untameable spirit of the earl\nsometimes involved him in trouble, from which he was extricated by a\nlucky bluntness; as when once, when charged before Henry VIII. with\nsetting fire to the cathedral of Cashel, \"I own it,\" said the earl,\n\"but I never would have done it had I not believed that the archbishop\nwas in it.\" The king laughed, and pardoned the ludicrous culprit. The\nBishop of Meath was his bitterest foe. He accused him to Henry of\ndivers misdeeds, and closed his accusation with \"Thus, my liege, you\nsee that all Ireland cannot rule the earl.\" \"Then,\" said the perverse\nmonarch, \"the earl shall rule all Ireland,\" and instantly made him\nlord-deputy. The English loved the earl because he was brave and\ngenerous, and because his good humour equalled his valour. Once, when\nhe was in a furious paroxysm, a domestic who knew his temper, whispered\nin his ear, \"My lord, yonder fellow has betted me a fine horse, that\nI dare not take a hair from your lordship's beard; I pray, my lord,\nwin me that wager.\" The earl's features relaxed, and he said to the\npetitioner, \"Take the hair, then, but if thou exceedest thy demand, my\nfist shall meet thy head.\"\n\n\nTHE BRITANNIA TUBULAR BRIDGE.\n\nThis is one of the most remarkable structures in the world, the design\nof the celebrated architect, Sir R. Stephenson. This bridge is on the\nline of the Chester and Holyhead Railway, crossing the Menai Straits,\nwithin sight of Telford's Chain Suspension Bridge. It is made of cast\niron of a tubular form, in the tube of which the railway passes. Four\nof these span the Strait, and are supported by piles of masonry; that\non the Anglesea side is 143 feet 6 inches high, and from the front\nto the end of the wing walls is 173 feet. These wing walls terminate\nin pedestals, on which repose colossal lions of Egyptian character.\nThe Anglesea pier is 196 feet high, 55 feet wide, and 32 feet long.\nIn the middle of the Strait is the Britannia Rock, from which the\nbridge derives its name; on this the Britannia pier is raised. It is\nequi-distant from the Anglesea and Carnarvon piers, being 460 feet in\nthe clear from each, and sustains the four ends of the four long tubes,\nwhich span the distance from shore to shore. There are two pairs of\nshort and two of long tubes, the lengths of these pairs being 250 feet\nand 470 respectively. The Egyptian lions are 25 feet 6 inches long, 12\nfeet 6 inches high, 8 feet wide, and weigh 80 tons. Two thousand cubic\nfeet of stone were required for each lion. The total quantity of stone\nin the bridge is 1,400,000 cubic feet. The weight of malleable iron in\nthe tubes is 10,000 tons; of cast iron, 1,400 tons. The whole length of\nthe entire bridge, measuring from the extreme front of the wing walls,\nis 1,833 feet, and its greatest elevation at Britannia pier, 240 feet\nabove low-water-mark. The total cost of the structure is L601,865. This\nwonderful structure was begun April 13, 1846, and completed July 25,\n1850; opened for traffic Oct. 21, 1850.\n\n[Illustration: [++] The Britannia Tubular Bridge.]\n\n\nDAFFEY'S ELIXIR.\n\nIn the _Postboy_, Jan. 1, 1707-8, is the following curious\nadvertisement:--\"Daffey's famous _Elixir Salutis_ by Catherine Daffey,\ndaughter of Mr. Thomas Daffy, late rector of Redmile, in the valley\nof Belvoir, who imparted it to his kinsman, Mr. Anthony Daffy, who\npublished the same to the benefit of the community and his own great\nadvantage. The original receipt is now in my possession, left to me by\nmy father. My own brother, Mr. Daniel Daffy, apothecary in Nottingham,\nmade the Elixir from the said receipt, and sold it there during his\nlife. Those who know it, will believe what I declare; and those who do\nnot, may be convinced that I am no counterfeit, by the colour, taste,\nsmell, and operation of my Elixir. To be had at the Hand and Pen,\nMaiden-Lane, Covent Garden.\"\n\n\nJENNY'S WHIM.\n\n\"This was a tea garden, situated, after passing over a wooden bridge on\nthe left, previous to entering the long avenue, the coach way to where\nRanelagh once stood. This place was much frequented, from its novelty,\nbeing an inducement to allure the curious, by its amusing deceptions,\nparticularly on their first appearance there. Here was a large garden,\nin different parts of which were recesses; and if treading on a spring,\ntaking you by surprise, up started different figures, some ugly enough\nto frighten you--a harlequin, a Mother Shipton, or some terrific\nanimal. In a large piece of water, facing the tea alcoves, large fish\nor mermaids, were showing themselves above the surface. This queer\nspectacle was first kept by a famous mechanist, who had been employed\nat one of the winter theatres, there being then two.\"--Angelo's _Pic\nNic or Table Talk_, p. 106.\n\nHorace Walpole, more than once alludes to this place of entertainment\nin his Letters; and in 1755 a 4to. satirical tract appeared entitled\n_Jenny's Whim; or a Sure Guide to the Nobility, Gentry, and other\nEminent Persons, in this Metropolis_.\n\n\nANECDOTE RELATIVE TO THE MASKED EXECUTIONER OF CHARLES I.\n\nIt is universally known, that, at the execution of King Charles I., a\nman in a vizor performed the office of executioner. This circumstance\nhas given rise to a variety of conjectures and accounts. In the\nGentleman's Magazine for November, 1767, and January, 1768, are\naccounts of one William Walker, who is said to be the executioner.\nIn the same magazine for June, 1784, it is supposed to be a Richard\nBrandon, of whom a long account is copied from an Exeter newspaper.\nBut William Lilly, in his \"History of his Life and Times,\" has the\nfollowing remarkable passage:--\"Many have curiously inquired who it\nwas that cut off his [the king's] head: I have no permission to speak\nof such things: only thus much I say, he that did it is as valiant and\nresolute a man as lives, and one of a competent fortune.\" To clear up\nthis passage, we shall present our readers with Lilly's examination (as\nrelated by himself) before the first parliament of King Charles II. in\nJune, 1660.\n\n\"At my first appearance, many of the young members affronted me highly,\nand demanded several scurrilous questions. Mr. Weston held a paper\nbefore his mouth; bade me answer nobody but Mr. Prinn; I obeyed his\ncommand, and saved myself much trouble thereby, and when Mr. Prinn put\nany difficult or doubtful query unto me, Mr. Weston prompted me with\na fit question. At last, after almost one hour's tugging, I desired\nto be fully heard what I could say as to the person that cut Charles\nI.'s head off. Liberty being given me to speak, I related what follows,\nviz.:--\n\n\"That the next Sunday but one after Charles I. was beheaded, Robert\nSpavin, Secretary to Lieutenant-General Cromwell at that time, invited\nhimself to dine with me, and brought Anthony Pearson, and several\nothers, along with him to dinner. That their principal discourse all\ndinner-time was only who it was that beheaded the king; one said it was\nthe common hangman; another, Hugh Peters; others were also nominated;\nbut none concluded. Robert Spavin, so soon as dinner was done, took\nme by the hand, and carried me to the south window: saith he. 'These\nare all mistaken; they have not named the man that did the fact; it\nwas Lieutenant-Colonel Joice. I was in the room when he fitted himself\nfor the work, stood behind him when he did it; when done, went in with\nhim again. There is no man knows this but my master, viz., Cromwell,\nCommissary Ireton, and myself.'--'Doth Mr. Rushworth know it?' saith\nI.--'No, he doth not know it,' saith Spavin. The same thing Spavin\nsince has often related to me when we were alone.\"\n\n\nWHIPPING PRISONERS.\n\nMr. Ellesdon, Mayor of Lyme, in 1595, paid for--\n\n                                                              _s._ _d._\n  Four yards of canvas to make a coat to whip the rogues in    3    0\n\n  Making the same                                              0    6\n\n  Whipping of three of the ship boys for stealing of Mr.\n      Hassard's salmon fish in the Cobb                        1    0\n\n    (N.B.--Salmon was plentiful in the west at this epoch.)\n\nThe charge of fourpence made for whipping a boy continued for many\nyears the same. The whipping of a woman who was a stranger was little\nmore costly; but the inflicting such a punishment upon a townswoman\nwas remunerated at a higher rate, as may well be supposed, from a\nconsideration of several circumstances. To take a violent, noisy woman\nfrom her chamber, tie madam to the tumbrel and whip her round the town,\nwas an undertaking that demanded assistance and protection to the\nofficial or hireling that wielded the thong. In the Town Accompt Book\nare found such entries as those which are given in illustration:--\n\n                                                              _s._ _d._\n  1625. For whipping William Wynter's boy                      0    4\n              \"      Agnes Abbott twice                        2    4\n  1644. Paid two soldiers to attend the whipping of a woman    2    6\n        Paid to whipping four women                            4    0\n\n\nTHE INIQUITIES OF THE SLAVE TRADE.\n\nWe may form some idea of the temptations which the trade in human\nbeings held out, even to people who held an honourable position in the\nworld, from the fact that the captain of a frigate, within a few years\nbefore the slave trade was abolished, was known to purchase slaves in\nthe West India market, have them entered as able seamen, and compel the\nartificers to teach them a trade; so that when the ship returned each\nwas sold at a high rate as a valuable piece of property. The worst,\nhowever, has to be told. Upon sailing from Portsmouth, some of the\nbest men were sent away upon duty in a ship's boat, in order that they\nmight be returned \"run,\" by which they lost pay and clothes, but made\nroom for the <DW64>s lately kidnapped, who were entered, though they\ndid no work for the ship, as able seamen! We have all heard of a naval\nofficer who had his pocket picked at a Westminster election, and who\nopenly professed his vow, which he rigidly performed, of flogging every\nLondoner that joined his ship for this act. This, it is said, was no\nidle vow!\n\n\nDISCOVERY OF THE BODY OF CANUTE THE GREAT.\n\nIn June 1766, some workmen who were repairing Winchester Cathedral\ndiscovered a monument, wherein was contained the body of King Canute.\nIt was remarkably fresh, had a wreath round the head, and several other\nornaments of gold and silver bands. On his finger was a ring, in which\nwas set a large and remarkably fine stone; and in one of his hands a\nsilver penny. _Archaeologia_, vol. iii. The penny found in the hand is\na singular instance of a continuance of the pagan custom of always\nproviding the dead with money to pay Charon.\n\n\nM.P.'S AND MAYORS PRIVATEERS.\n\nWilliam Morfote, who represented Winchelsea in Parliament in 1428, was\na privateer with a hundred men under him. He found it necessary to\nobtain the king's pardon in 1435, by the advice of Parliament, there\nbeing a legal difficulty about his having broken prison at Dover Castle.\n\nTwo merchants of Sherborne in Dorsetshire were robbed of their cargo,\nworth L80, A.D. 1322, by Robert de Battyle. This transaction did not\nlose him the good opinion of his townsmen, who chose him Mayor of\nWinchelsea a few years later.\n\n\nALGERINE INVASION OF IRELAND.\n\nThe Algerines landed in Ireland in 1627, killed 50 persons, and carried\noff about 400 into slavery. One vessel captured by them was worth\nL260,000. They made purchases of stores and provisions they wanted in\nthe western parts of Ireland by Baltimore, and in 1631 carried off 100\ncaptives from that town. They landed their poor captives at Rochelle,\nand marched them in chains to Marseilles. Twenty-six children are said\nto have been carried off at one time from Cornwall. In 1633, Lord\nWentworth, appointed lord deputy of Ireland, named noted pirate vessels\noff the coast of Ireland and their captures. Persons in their wills\nused to leave sums of money for redeeming well-known captives from\nbondage in Algiers and other places.\n\n\nWILLIAM JOY, THE ENGLISH SAMPSON.\n\n[Illustration: [++] William Joy.]\n\nWilliam Joy was a native of Kent, and born May 2, 1675, at St.\nLawrence, a small village one mile from Ramsgate, in the Isle of\nThanet. When very young, he distinguished himself among his juvenile\ncompanions and playmates, by his amazing superiority in strength,\nover any antagonist that dare to come in competition with his power,\nwhether in play or earnest When about twenty-four years of age, he\nfirst began to exhibit in public his astonishing feats, in a display of\npersonal prowess inferior to none but the Hebrew champion recorded in\nholy writ. Among many other of this man's extraordinary performances\nmay be recorded:--1. A strong horse, urged by the whip to escape his\npowerful rein, is restrained and kept from escape solely by the check\nof his pull, aided by a strong rope, and this without any stay or\nsupport whatever. 2. Seated upon a stool, with his legs horizontally\nelevated, solely by muscular power, he jumps clearly from his seat.\n3. To prove the agility and flexibility of his joints, he places\na glass of wine on the sole of his foot, and, in an erect posture,\nwithout the least bending of his head or body, raises the glass to\nhis mouth, and drinks the contents, turning his foot with both hands,\nto accommodate his draught. 4. Aided by a strong leather girdle, or\nbelt, and supporting himself by pressing his arms on a railing, he\nlifts from the ground a stone of the enormous weight of 2,240 lbs. 5.\nA rope fastened to a wall, which had borne 3,500 lbs. weight, without\ngiving way, is broke asunder by his amazing strength. The celebrity\nof this man attracted the curiosity of King William III., before whom\nhe exhibited at Kensington Palace; likewise before George, Prince of\nDenmark, and his royal consort, the Princess, afterwards Queen Anne,\nand their son William, Duke of Gloucester, called the Hope of England.\nHe also went through a regular course of performances at the Duke's\nTheatre, in Dorset-gardens, Salisbury-square, which was attended by the\nfirst nobility and gentry in the kingdom.\n\n\nPRICE OF SHELL-FISH IN 1675.\n\nA bill for shell-fish enables us to ascertain the prices paid in\nCharles II.'s reign for these delicacies. Mr. Walter Tucker, mayor of\nLyme, Dorset, paid for the judges, for--\n\n   30 lobsters                L1 10 0\n    6 crabs                    0  6 0\n  100 scallops                 0  5 0\n  300 oysters                  0  4 0\n   50 oranges                  0  2 0\n                              -------\n                              L2  7 0\n\n\nDISTRIBUTING HAND-BILLS.\n\nThe month of July 1736 afforded a singular _popular explosion_,\ncontrived in the following strange manner:--A brown paper parcel,\nwhich had been placed unobserved near the side-bar of the Court of\nKing's-bench, Westminster-hall, blew up during the solemn proceedings\nof the Courts of Justice assembled, and scattered a number of printed\nbills, giving notice, that on the last day of Term five Acts of\nParliament would be publicly burnt in the hall, between the hours of\ntwelve and one, at the Royal Exchange, and at St. Margaret's hill,\nwhich were the Gin Act, the Smuggling Act, the Mortmain Act, the\nWestminster Bridge Act, and the Act for borrowing 600,000_l._ on the\nSinking fund.\n\nOne of the bills was immediately carried to the Grand Jury then\nsitting, who found it an infamous libel, and recommended the offering\nof a reward to discover the author.\n\n\nRANZ DES VACHES.\n\nThe \"Ranz des Vaches,\" which is commonly supposed to be a single air,\nstands in Switzerland for a class of melodies, the literal meaning\nof which is cow-rows. The German word is _Kureihen_--rows of cows.\nIt derives its origin from the manner the cows march home along the\nAlpine paths at milking time. The shepherd goes before, keeping every\nstraggler in its place by the tones of his horn, while the whole herd\nwind along in Indian file, obedient to the call. From its association\nit always creates home-sickness in a Swiss mountaineer, when he hears\nit in a foreign land. It is said, these melodies are prohibited in\nthe Swiss regiments attached to the French army, because it produces\nso many desertions. One of the \"Ranz des Vaches\" brings back to his\nimagination his Alpine cottage--the green pasturage--the bleating of\nhis mountain goats--the voices of the milkmaids, and all the sweetness\nand innocence of a pastoral life; till his heart turns with a sad\nyearning to the haunts of his childhood, and the spot of his early\ndreams and early happiness.\n\nThe Swiss retain their old fondness for rifle-shooting, and there is\nannually a grand rifle match at some of the large towns, made up of the\nbest marksmen in all Switzerland. There are also yearly contests in\nwrestling, called _Zwing Feste_, the most distinguished wrestlers at\nwhich are from Unterwalden, Appenzel, and Berne.\n\n\nMONSOONS.\n\nThese are periodical winds which blow over the Indian Ocean, between\nAfrica and Hindustan for nearly six months from the north-east, and\nduring an equal period from the south-west. The region of the monsoons\nlies a little to the north of the northern border of the trade-winds,\nand they blow with the greatest force and with most regularity between\nthe eastern coast of Africa and Hindustan. When the sun is in the\nsouthern hemisphere a north-east wind, and when it is in the northern\nhemisphere, a south-west wind blows over this sea. The north-east\nmonsoon blows from November to March. It extends one or two degrees\nsouth of the equator. It becomes regular near the coasts of Africa\nsooner than in the middle of the sea, and near the equator sooner than\nin the vicinity of the coasts of Arabia. This wind brings rain on the\neastern coasts of Africa. The south-west monsoon does not extend south\nof the equator, but usually begins a short distance north of it. It\nblows from the latter end of April to the middle of October. Along the\ncoast of Africa, it appears at the end of March; but along the coast\nof Malabar, not before the middle of April; it ceases, however, sooner\nin the former than in the latter region. The rainy season on the west\ncoast of Hindustan commences with the first approach of the south-west\nmonsoon. The monsoons prevail also on the seas between Australia and\nChina.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Mpnsoons.]\n\nThe effect of the struggle which precedes the change in the direction\nof the wind in this part of the world is thus described in \"Forbes's\nOriental Memoirs.\" The author was encamped with the English troops:\n\n\"The shades of evening approached as we reached the ground, and just\nas the encampment was completed, the atmosphere grew suddenly dark,\nthe heat became oppressive, and an unusual stillness presaged the\nimmediate setting-in of the monsoon. The whole appearance of external\nnature resembled those solemn preludes to earthquakes and hurricanes\nin the West Indies, from which the East in general is providentially\nfree. We were allowed very little time for conjecture. In a few minutes\nthe heavy clouds burst over us. I had witnessed seventeen monsoons\nin India, but this surpassed them all in its awful appearance and\ndreadful effects. Encamped in a low situation on the borders of a lake\nformed to collect the surrounding water, we found ourselves in a few\nhours in a liquid plain; tent-pins giving way in a loose soil--the\ntents fell down--and left the whole army exposed to the contending\nelements. It requires a lively imagination to conceive the situation of\na hundred thousand human beings of every description, with more than\ntwo hundred thousand elephants, camels, horses, and oxen, suddenly\noverwhelmed by this dreadful storm in a strange country, without any\nknowledge of high or low ground, the whole being covered by an immense\nlake, and surrounded by thick darkness, which rendered it impossible\nfor us to distinguish a single object except such as the vivid\nglare of the lightning occasionally displayed in horrible forms. No\nlanguage can adequately describe the wreck of a large encampment thus\ninstantaneously destroyed, and covered with water, amid the cries of\nold men and helpless women, terrified by the piercing shrieks of their\nexpiring children, unable to afford them relief. During this dreadful\nnight more than two hundred persons and three thousand cattle perished\nmiserably, and the morning dawn exhibited a shocking spectacle!\"\n\n\nUNUSUAL LOCALITY FOR SAYING PRAYERS.\n\nFrancis Atkins was porter at the palace gate, at Salisbury, from the\ntime of Bishop Burnet to the period of his death in 1761, at the age\nof 104 years. It was his office every night to wind up the clock,\nwhich he was capable of performing regularly till within a year of his\ndecease, though on the summit of the palace. In ascending the lofty\nflight of stairs, he usually made a halt at a particular place and said\nhis evening prayers. He lived a regular and temperate life, and took a\ngreat deal of exercise; he walked well, and carried his frame upright\nand well balanced to the last.\n\n\nBILLY IN THE SALT BOX.\n\nPolitical caricatures are generally well worth preserving, they\nfamiliarize us with the features and peculiarities of celebrated men,\nand they tell us what was the popular feeling of the day. We regret\nthat in general they are too large for our pages, but now and then we\nmeet with a small one which we are glad to present to our readers.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Billy in the Salt Box.]\n\nMr. Pitt's budget of 1805 was not allowed to pass without severe\nremarks, and a heavily increased duty on salt excited general\ndissatisfaction. People said that the grand contriver of taxes had\nvisited every corner of the house above stairs, and that he had now\ndescended into the kitchen; and the annexed caricature, by Gilray,\nwhich was published at this period, represents the premier alarming the\npoor cook by popping his head out of the salt-box, with the unexpected\nsalutation--\"How do you do, cookey?\" The person thus apostrophised\ncries out in consternation, \"Curse the fellow, how he has frightened\nme!--I think, on my heart, he is getting in everywhere!--who the deuce\nwould have thought of finding him in the salt-box?\"\n\n\nDANGEROUS FEAT.\n\nAn extraordinary instance of the rash feats which men with cool\nheads and courageous hearts will sometimes perform, was witnessed at\nNottingham on January 22, 1789.--The vane at the top of St. Peter's\nspire, which was placed there in 1735, and measured thirty-three inches\nin length, having become insecure, the parish officers agreed with Mr.\nRobert Wooton, of Kegworth, to take it down and reinstate it.\n\nThis venturous man, henceforth known as \"_the steeple climber_,\"\ncommenced his undertaking by placing a ladder against the steeple, and\nsecuring it to the wall with tenters: he then mounted that with another\non his shoulder, which he fastened above it in like manner; and so on\ntill he reached the top. To prevent himself falling, he was girded\nround with belts, which he connected with the ladders by means of\nhooks. In this manner he replaced the vane and cock, and rebuilt four\nyards of the steeple.\n\nThe celerity with which the man placed the ladders was remarkable. He\nbegan to affix the first at eleven in the morning, and brought the\nvane down in triumph by two in the afternoon. The bells were then set\na-ringing, the congregation of people became very great, and Wooton\nre-ascended the spire, to exhibit his daring. He extended himself on\nits summit, only thirteen inches in diameter, and spread out his arms\nand legs. He afterwards balanced himself on the uppermost stave of\nthe top ladder, and for a quarter of an hour capered about in every\nimaginable posture, the admiring crowd beneath expecting momentarily to\nwitness his descent in a manner much less agreeable than precipitate.\n\nSubsequently, when his undertaking was accomplished, to excite\nadmiration and obtain money, he again balanced himself on the apex\nof the spire, beat a drum, and drank a bottle of ale, in the sight\nof thousands of people, on a market-day; but the reprobation of the\nman's temerity so far preponderated over public approval, as in a\nconsiderable degree to diminish his expected reward.\n\n\nPOST-HASTE ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.\n\nGlasgow is now within one minute of London; in the last century it was\nscarcely within a fortnight of it. It is a positive fact that when the\npost arrived there a hundred years ago, the firing of a gun announced\nits coming in. The members of the clubs who heard it tumbled out of\nbed, and rushed down to the club-room, where a tankard of hot herb ale,\nor a beverage which was a mixture of rum and sugar, was ready for them\nbefore breakfast. How forcibly do these things bring before us the size\nof Glasgow at that time, and the habits of its citizens.\n\n\nEXECUTION OF ADMIRAL BYNG.\n\nThe horrid details of the execution of criminals are wholly unfitted\nfor our pages, but Admiral Byng was not a criminal; his life was\nsacrificed to party spirit and party interests, and an account of his\nmurder--for such it really was--is therefore highly interesting, as it\nenables us to see the dauntless manner in which a brave man can meet\na dreadful fate, which he knew to be wholly undeserved. The execution\ntook place on board the \"St. George,\" man-of-war in Portsmouth harbour,\non the 14th of March, 1757. The Admiral, accompanied by a clergyman who\nattended him during his confinement, and two gentlemen, his relations,\nwalked out of the great cabin to the quarterdeck, where he suffered, on\nthe larboard side, a few minutes before twelve o'clock. He was dressed\nin a light grey coat, white waistcoat, and white stockings, and a large\nwhite wig, and had in each hand a white handkerchief. He threw his hat\non the deck, kneeled on a cushion, tied one handkerchief over his eyes,\nand dropped the other as a signal, on which a volley from six marines\nwas fired, five of whose bullets went through him, and he was in an\ninstant no more. The sixth went over his head. From his coming out\nof his cabin could not be two minutes till he fell motionless on his\nleft side. He died with great resolution and composure, not showing\nthe least sign of timidity. The _Ramillies_, the ship the admiral had\nin the Mediterranean, was riding at her moorings in the harbour, and\nabout half an hour before he suffered, she broke her mooring chain, and\nonly held by her bridle, which is looked on as a wonderful incident by\npeople who do not consider the high wind at that time.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY TREE.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Banyan Tree.]\n\nThe Samoan group of islands in the South Sea lies between the latitudes\nof 13 deg. 30' and 14 deg. 30' S, and the longitudes of 168 deg. and 173 deg. W. In\nsome of these islands there is a most remarkable tree which well\ndeserves a place in our roll of extraordinary productions. It is a\nspecies of banyan (_Ficus religiosa_), and is called by the natives\nOhwa. Our sketch gives a good idea of some of these trees. The pendant\nbranches of many of them take root in the ground to the number of\nthousands, forming stems from an inch to two feet in diameter,\nuniting in the main trunk more than eighty feet above the ground, and\nsupporting a vast system of horizontal branches, spreading like an\numbrella over the tops of the other trees.\n\n\nTHE PLAGUE IN ENGLAND.\n\nThe Register of Ramsay, in Huntingdonshire, mentions 400 people who\ndied there of the plague, in or about February 1665, and that it\nwas introduced into the place by a gentleman, who first caught the\ninfection by wearing a coat, the cloth of which came from London: the\ntailor who made the coat, with all his family, died, as did no less\nthan the number above mentioned.\n\nBut the ravages made by the plague in _London_, about 1665, are well\nknown: it was brought over from Holland, in some Levant goods, about\nthe close of the year 1664: its progress was arrested, in a great\ndegree, by a hard frost which set in in the winter; but as the spring\nof 1665 advanced, its virulence advanced. Infected houses were shut\nup and red crosses painted on the doors, with this inscription, \"Lord\nhave mercy upon us.\" Persons going to market took the meat off the\nhooks themselves, for their _own_ security, and for the _Butcher's_,\ndropped their money into pans of vinegar; for it was supposed that even\ntheir provisions were tainted with the infection. In the months of\nAugust and September the greatest mortality occurred; for the deaths\nof one week have been estimated at 10,000! It may be supposed, that no\ngreat accuracy existed in the Registers, to afford a correct estimate;\nfor, in the parish of Stepney, it is said they lost, within the year,\n116 sextons, grave-diggers and their assistants; and, as the disorder\nadvanced, the churchyards were incapable of holding more bodies, and\nlarge pits were therefore dug in several parts, to which the dead\nwere brought by cartloads, collected by the ringing of a bell and the\nmournful cry of \"Bring out your dead.\" Add to this, that these carts\nworked in the night, and no exact account was kept, as the clerks\nand sextons were averse to a duty exposing them to such dangerous\nconsequences, and often carried off before such accounts as they had\ntaken were delivered in. All the shops were shut up, grass grew in the\nmost public streets, until about December 1665, when the plague abated,\nand the citizens who had left their abodes for the country, crowded\nback again to their residences. The computation is, that this horrible\ndisease carried off 100,000 persons in London: it is singular, that the\nonly parish quite exempt from infection was St. John the Evangelist, in\nWatling Street.\n\n\nLANDSLIP AT COLEBROOK, SHROPSHIRE.\n\nA most remarkable circumstance happened there in the morning of the\n27th of May, 1773, about four o'clock. Near 4,000 yards from the river\nSevern stood a house, where a family dwelt; the man got up about three\no'clock, heard a rumbling noise, and felt the ground shake under him,\non which he called up his family. They perceived the ground begin to\nmove, but knew not which way to run; however, they providentially and\nwonderfully escaped, by taking an immediate flight, for just as they\ngot to an adjacent wood, the ground they had left separated from that\non which they stood. They first observed a small crack in the ground\nabout four or five inches wide, and a field that was sown with oats\nto heave up and roll about like waves of water; the trees moved as\nif blown with wind, but the air was calm and serene; the Severn (in\nwhich at that time was a considerable flood) was agitated very much,\nand the current seemed to run upwards. They perceived a great crack\nrun very quick up the ground from the river. Immediately about thirty\nacres of land, with the hedges and trees standing (except a few that\nwere overturned), moved with great force and swiftness towards the\nSevern, attended with great and uncommon noise, compared to a large\nflock of sheep running swiftly. That part of the land next the river\nwas a small wood, less than two acres, in which grew twenty large oaks;\na few of them were thrown down, and as many more were undermined and\noverturned; some left leaning, the rest upright, as if never disturbed.\nThe wood was pushed with such velocity into the channel of the Severn\n(which at that time was remarkably deep), that it forced the waters up\nin columns a considerable height, like mighty fountains, and drove the\nbed of the river before it on the opposite shore, many feet above the\nsurface of the water, where it lodged, as did one side of the wood;\nthe current being instantly stopped, occasioned a great inundation\nabove, and so sudden a fall below, that many fish were left on dry\nland, and several barges were heeled over, and when the stream came\ndown were sunk, but none were damaged above. The river soon took its\ncourse over a large meadow that was opposite the small wood, and in\nthree days wore a navigable channel through the meadow. A turnpike road\nwas moved more than thirty yards from its former situation, and to all\nappearance rendered for ever impassable. A barn was carried about the\nsame distance, and left as a heap of rubbish in a large chasm; the\nhouse received but little damage. A hedge that was joined to the garden\nwas removed about fifty yards. A great part of the land was in confused\nheaps, full of cracks, from four inches to more than a yard wide.\nSeveral very long and deep chasms were formed in the upper part of the\nland, from about fourteen to upwards of thirty yards wide, in which\nwere many pyramids of earth standing, with the green turf remaining on\nthe tops of some of them. Hollows were raised into mounts, and mounts\nreduced into hollows. Less than a quarter of an hour completed this\ndreadful scene.\n\n\nCURIOUS CUSTOM AT STRASBOURG.\n\nAt Strasbourg they show a large French horn, whose history is as\nfollows:--About 400 years ago, the Jews formed a conspiracy to betray\nthe city, and with this identical horn they intended to give the enemy\nnotice when to attack.\n\nThe plot, however, was discovered; many of the Jews were burnt alive,\nthe rest were plundered of their money and effects, and banished the\ntown; and this horn is sounded twice every night from the battlements\nof the steeple in gratitude for the deliverance.\n\nThe Jews deny the fact of this story, except the murdering and\npillaging their countrymen. They say the whole story is fabricated to\nfurnish a pretext for these robberies and murders, and assert that the\nsteeple of Strasbourg, as has been said of the Monument of London,--\n\n  \"Like a tall bully lifts the head and lies.\"\n\n\nDOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN.\n\nThe following is an extraordinary instance of the recklessness of\nsailors when in the pursuit of what they call pleasure. In the year\n1779, a Mr. Constable, of Woolwich, passing through the churchyard\nthere at midnight, heard people singing jovially. At first he thought\nthey were in the church, but the doors were locked, and it was all\nsilent there:--on looking about he found some drunken sailors who had\ngot into a large family vault, and were regaling with bread, cheese,\ntobacco, and strong beer. They belonged to the Robust, man of war,\nand having resolved to spend a jolly night on shore, had kept it up in\na neighbouring alehouse till the landlord turned them out, and then\nthey came here to finish their evening. They had opened some of the\ncoffins in their dare-devil drunkenness and crammed the mouth of one\nof the bodies with bread, and cheese, and beer. Constable, with much\ndifficulty, prevailed on them to return to the ship. In their way one\nfell down in the mud, and was suffocated, as much from drunkenness as\nthe real danger. The comrades took him on their shoulders, and carried\nhim back to sleep in company with the honest gentlemen with whom he had\npassed the evening.\n\n\nCHAIR BROUGHT OVER TO AMERICA IN THE MAYFLOWER BY THE PILGRIM FATHERS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] John Carver's Chair.]\n\nHow frequently do we obtain, from the ordinary articles of domestic\nlife which they were accustomed to use, a correct idea of the habits\nand tastes of whole communities which have long since passed away.\nA striking instance of this is the chair, of which the above is a\ncorrect sketch. It belonged to John Carver, who was one of the band of\nsingle-hearted men who constituted the Pilgrim Fathers, and who after\nfirst setting out from Holland, eventually sailed from Plymouth in\nEngland, in August, 1620. They landed in Cape Cod Harbour, New England,\non the 9th of November following. Carver, was one of the chief spirits\nof the band, and the chair which we have sketched was one of his best\narticles of furniture, which he took with him in the Mayflower. He\nwas elected the first governor of the community, and died in the year\nfollowing his election. How forcibly does it show the simplicity of\ntaste, and the freedom from pomp and vanity which characterised the\ndevoted and fearless men who left their native shores, and sought\n\"freedom to worship God\" in a land to them unknown, that they should\nhave selected as their first governor, an individual, the best chair in\nwhose house was the homely article which we have here depicted.\n\n\nA HARMLESS ECCENTRIC.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Jenny Darney, a Harmless Eccentric.]\n\nThe annexed cut represents a singular character who was well known\nabout the year 1790 in the southern part of the county of Cumberland.\nHer appearance is thus described by a correspondent of the Gentleman's\nMagazine of that date:--\"Though I have seen her at various times, and\nfrequently conversed with her, for these 20 years, I have never been\nable to learn any particulars respecting her family, friends, or name.\nThe country people know her by the appellation of Jenny Darney, from\nthe manner, I presume, in which she used to mend her clothes. Her\npresent garb is entirely of her own manufacture. She collects the small\nparcels of wool which lie about the fields in sheep farms, spins it on\na rock and spindle of her own making; and as she cannot find any other\nmethod of making the yarn into cloth, she knits it on wooden needles,\nand by that means procures a warm comfortable dress. In the lifetime of\nthe late Charles Lutwidge, Esq., of Holm Rook, she took possession of\nan old cottage, or rather cow-house, on his estate, in which she has\never since been suffered to continue. Her intellects seem at certain\ntimes greatly deranged, but her actions are harmless, and her language\ninoffensive. On that score she is caressed by all the villagers, who\nsupply her with eatables, &c., for money she utterly refuses. She\nseems a person in her lucid intervals, of much shrewdness, and her\nunderstanding is above the common level. This has also been improved\nby a tolerable education. Her appearance has been much the same for\nthese 20 years, so that she must now be nearly 90 years of age; but of\nthis, as well as her family and name, she is always silent. She seems\nto have chosen out the spot where she now lives, to pass the remainder\nof her days unknown to her friends, and in a great measure from a\ndistaste of a wicked world, to 'prepare herself,' as she often in her\nquiet hours says, 'for a better.'\"\n\n\nTHE RULING PASSION.\n\nA remarkable instance of the irresistible strength of the ruling\npassion was to be seen a few years ago in a Londoner, who had kept are\nretail spirit-shop, and retired into the adjoining county when he had\nmade a fortune, to enjoy himself. This man used to amuse himself by\nhaving one puncheon filled with water, and measuring it off by pints\ninto another. There was also another retired cit who used every day to\nangle in his round wash-hand-basin sized fish-pond for gold-fish. One\nfish he knew, because it had once lost its eye in being caught--and he\nused to say \"Confound that fellow, this is the fifth, sixth, &c., time\nthat I have caught him this season.\" It used to provoke him.\n\n\nINTERESTING REPORT WRITTEN BY SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.\n\nIn the history of public buildings and monuments, it is always\ncurious to note the original plans of those who designed them, and to\nmark the different proposals and suggestions which were taken into\nconsideration. On this account our readers will no doubt be gratified\nby perusing the following Report of Sir Christopher Wren, on the\nornament which it would, in his opinion, be most desirable to place on\nsummit of the Monument, on Fish Street-hill. The Report was drawn up\nfor the use of the Committee of City Lands:--\n\n\"In pursuance of an Order of the Comittee for City Landes, I doe\nheerwith offer the several designes which some monthes since I showed\nHis M{tie}. for his approbation; who was then pleased to thinke a\nlarge Ball of metall, gilt, would be most agreeable, in regard it would\ngive an Ornament to the Town at a very great distance; not that His\nM{tie}. disliked a statue; and if any proposall of this sort be more\nacceptable to the City, I shall most readily represent the same to His\nM{tie}.\n\n\"I cannot but comend a large Statue, as carrying much dignitie with it,\nand that w{ch} would be more valewable in the eyes of Forreiners and\nstrangers. It hath been proposed to cast such a one in Brasse, of 12\nfoot high for L1,000. I hope (if it be allowed) wee may find those who\nwill cast a figure for that mony of 15 foot high, w{ch} will suit the\ngreatnesse of the pillar, & is (as I take it) the largest at this day\nextant, and this would undoubtedly be the noblest finishing that can be\nfound answerable to soe goodly a worke in all men's judgements.\n\n\"A Ball of Copper, 9 foot diameter, cast in severall peeces with the\nFlames and gilt, may well be don with the iron worke and fixing for\n350lb., and this will be most acceptable of any thing inferior to a\nstatue, by reason of the good appearance at distance, and because one\nmay goe up into it, & upon occasion use it for fireworkes.\n\n\"A Phoenix was at first thought of, & is the ornament in the wooden\nmodell of the pilar w{ch} I caused to be made before it was begun; but\nupon second thoughtes I rejected it, because it will be costly, not\neasily understood at that highth, and worse understood at a distance,\nand lastly dangerous, by reason of the sayle, the spread winges will\ncarry in the winds.\n\n\"The Belcony must be made of substantial well forged worke, there being\nnoe need at that distance of filed worke, and I suppose (for I cannot\nexactly guesse the weight) it may be well performed and fixed according\nto a good designe for fourscore & ten poundes, including painting, All\nw{ch} is humbly submitted to your consideration.\n\n\"July 28, 1675.\n\n  \"CHR. WREN.\"\n\n\nCHANGE OF SEX.\n\nConnected with the plumage of birds is an extraordinary problem which\nhas baffled all research, and towards the solution of which not the\nslightest approach has been made. Among certain of the gallinaceous\nbirds, and it has been observed in no other family, the females\noccasionally assume the male plumage. Among pheasants in a wild state,\nthe hen thus metamorphosed, assumes with the livery a disposition\nto war with her own race, but in confinement she is spurned and\nbuffeted by the rest. From what took place in a hen pheasant in the\npossession of a lady, a friend of the late Sir Joseph Banks, it would\nseem probable that this change arises from some alteration in the\ntemperament at a late period of the animal's life. This lady had paid\nparticular attention to the breeding of pheasants. One of the hens,\nafter having produced several broods, moulted, and the succeeding\nfeathers were exactly those of a cock. This animal never afterwards\nlaid an egg. The pea-hen, has sometimes been known to take the plumage\nof the cock bird. Lady Tynte had a favourite pea-hen, which at eight\nseveral times produced chicks. Having moulted when about eleven years\nold, the lady and her family were astonished by her displaying the\nfeathers peculiar to the other sex, and appearing like a pied peacock.\nIn this process the tail, which was like that of the cock, first\nappeared. In the following year she moulted again, and produced similar\nfeathers. In third year she did the same, and then had also spurs\nresembling those of the cock. The bird never bred after this change of\nher plumage.\n\n\nTILBURY FORT.\n\nThe chief fame of Tilbury rests on the formation of the camp here, in\nthe reign of Queen Elizabeth, to defend London against the Spanish\ninvasion. Although it is unnecessary to recount the well-known\ncircumstances which led to the formation of the Tilbury camp, it may\nnot be out of place to give the famous speech of Queen Elizabeth on the\noccasion of her visit:--\n\n\"My loving People,--We have been persuaded by some that are careful of\nour safety, to take heed how we trust ourselves to armed multitudes\nfor fear of treachery; but assure you I do not desire to live to\ndistrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always\nso behaved myself that under God I have placed my chiefest strength\nand safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects; and\ntherefore I am come among you at this time, not as for my recreation or\nsport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live\nor die amongst you all--to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and\nfor my people, my honour and my blood even in the dust. I know that I\nhave but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a\nking, and a king of England too; and I think foul scorn that Parma or\nSpain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of\nmy realms to which, rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I will\nmyself take up arms--I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder\nof every one of your victories in the field.\"\n\nThe most full description of Elizabeth's reception at Tilbury is\nprinted in a sort of doggrel poem, headed, \"Elizabetha Triumphans,\nbriefly, truly, and effectually set forth, declared, and handled by\nJames Aske.\"\n\nThe poem mentions, that when about 20,000 well-appointed men had\narrived at Tilbury, orders were sent to the various shires to cause the\ntroops in each to remain until further notice; and so great was the\ndesire to meet the enemy, that one thousand men of Dorsetshire offered\nL500 to be allowed to march to the camp at Tilbury.\n\nThe alarm of the Spanish invasion was, however, not the last to\nthreaten the Londoners, and direct attention to Tilbury.\n\nOn the 8th of June, 1667, Ruyter, the Dutch admiral, sailed out of\nthe Texel with fifty ships, and came to the mouth of the Thames, from\nwhence he detached Vice-Admiral Van Ghent, with seventeen of his\nlightest ships and some fire-ships. Van Ghent in the same month sailed\nup the Medway, made himself master of the fort of Sheerness, and,\nafter burning a magazine of stores to the value of L40,000, blew up\nthe fortifications. This action alarmed the City of London; so that\nto prevent similar mischief, several ships were sunk, and a large\nchain put across the narrowest part of the Medway. But by means of an\neasterly wind and a strong tide, the Dutch ships broke through the\nchain, and sailed between the sunk vessels. They burnt three ships,\nand carried away with them the hull of the \"Royal Charles,\" besides\nburning and damaging several others. After this they advanced as far as\nUpnor Castle, and burnt the \"Royal Oak,\" the \"Loyal London,\" and the\n\"Great James.\" Fearing that the whole Dutch fleet would sail to London\nBridge, the citizens caused thirteen ships to be sunk at Woolwich, and\nfour at Blackwall, and platforms furnished with artillery to defend\nthem were raised in several places. The consternation was very great,\nand the complaints were no less so. It was openly said the king, out\nof avarice, had kept the money so generously given to him to continue\nthe war, and left his ships and subjects exposed to the insults of\nthe enemy. After this exploit, Ruyter sailed to Portsmouth, with a\ndesign to burn the ships in that harbour; but finding them secured,\nhe sailed to the west, and took some ships in Torbay. He then sailed\neastward, beat the English force before Harwich, and chased a squadron\nof nineteen men-of-war, commanded by Sir Edward Spragg, who was obliged\nto retire into the Thames. In a word, he kept the coasts of England in\na continual alarm all July, till he received news of the conclusion of\npeace.\n\n[Illustration: Water-gate of Tilbury Fort.]\n\nThis daring attack was no doubt the cause of Tilbury Fort being made\nto assume its present form. It is now a regular fortification, and\nmay be justly looked upon as the key to the City of London. The plan\nof the building was laid out by Sir Martin Beckman, chief engineer to\nCharles II., who also designed the works at Sheerness. The foundation\nis laid upon piles driven down, two on end of each other, till they\nwere assured they were below the channel of the river, and that the\npiles, which were pointed with iron, entered into the solid chalk rock.\nOn the land side, the works are complete; the bastions are faced with\nbrick. There is a double ditch, or moat, the innermost of which is 180\nfeet broad, with a good counterscarp, and a covered way marked out\nwith ravelins and tenailles. There are some small brick redoubts; the\nchief strength, however, of this part of the fort consists in being\nable to lay the whole level under water, and, by that means, make it\nimpossible for an enemy to carry on approaches that way. On the river\nside is a very strong curtain, with the picturesque water-gate shown\nin our engraving in the middle. Before this curtain is a platform, in\nthe place of a counterscarp, on which are planted cannon of large size.\nThese completely command the river, and would no doubt <DW36> the\nships of an enemy attempting to pass in this direction. A few years ago\nthere were placed on the platform 106 cannon, carrying from 24 to 46\npounds each, besides smaller ones planted between them. The bastions\nand curtains are also planted with guns.\n\nThe circular tower shown in the engraving was in existence in the time\nof Queen Elizabeth, and was called the Block-house.\n\n\nRINGING THE CHANGES.\n\nIt is curious to note the number of changes which may be rung on\ndifferent peals. The changes on seven bells are 5,040; on twelve\n479,001,600, which it would take ninety-one years to ring at the rate\nof two strokes in a second. The changes on fourteen bells could not\nbe rung through at the same rate in less than 16,575 years: and upon\nfour-and-twenty, they would require more than 117,000 billions of years.\n\n\nDISGRACEFUL STATE OF THE LONDON POLICE IN 1724.\n\nThat notorious burglar, Jack Sheppard, finished his disgraceful career\nat Tyburn in the year 1724, and we notice the event, not with the view\nof detailing the disgusting particulars of an execution, but because\nthe outrages which were allowed to take place after the dreadful scene\nwas over, exhibit in a striking light the miserable police regulations\nwhich existed at that period, and the manner in which the mob were\nallowed to have it nearly all their own way. The Sheriff's officers,\naware of the person they had to contend with, thought it prudent to\nsecure his hands on the morning of execution. This innovation produced\nthe most violent resistance on Sheppard's part; and the operation was\nperformed by force. They then proceeded to search him, and had reason\nto applaud their vigilance, for he had contrived to conceal a penknife\nin some part of his dress. The ceremony of his departure from our\nworld passed without disorder; but, the instant the time expired for\nthe suspension of the body, an undertaker, who had followed by his\nfriends' desire with a hearse and attendants, would have conveyed it to\nSt. Sepulchre's churchyard for interment; but the mob, conceiving that\nsurgeons had employed this unfortunate man, proceeded to demolish the\nvehicle, and attack the sable dependants, who escaped with difficulty.\nThey then seized the body, and, in the brutal manner common to those\nwretches, beat it from each to the other till it was covered with\nbruises and dirt, and till they reached Long-acre, where they deposited\nthe miserable remains at a public-house called the Barley-mow. After\nit had rested there a few hours the populace entered into an enquiry\nwhy they had contributed their assistance in bringing Sheppard to\nLong-acre; when they discovered they were duped by a bailiff, who\nwas actually employed by the surgeons; and that they had taken the\ncorpse from a person really intending to bury it. The elucidation of\ntheir error exasperated them almost to phrensy, and a riot immediately\ncommenced, which threatened the most serious consequences, The\ninhabitants applied to the police, and several magistrates attending,\nthey were immediately convinced the civil power was insufficient to\nresist the torrent of malice ready to burst forth in acts of violence.\nThey therefore sent to the Prince of Wales and the Savoy, requesting\ndetachments of the guards; who arriving, the ringleaders were secured,\nthe body was given to a person, a friend of Sheppard, and the mob\ndispersed to attend it to the grave at St. Martin's in the fields,\nwhere it was deposited in an elm coffin, at ten o'clock the same night,\nunder a guard of soldiers, and with the ceremonies of the church.\n\n\nA TRIUMPH OF ENERGY.\n\nAfter the accession of Tippoo Saib to the throne of Mysore in 1782,\nthe English made overtures for a termination of the war which had been\ncommenced by his father; but flushed by the possession of a large\narmy, a well-filled treasury, a passion for war, and an inordinate\nsense of his own importance, Tippoo refused all terms of pacification,\nand left the English no alternative but to battle against him as they\ncould. Lord Macartney, who was at that time the Governor of Madras,\non becoming acquainted with the determination of Tippoo, resolved to\nprosecute hostilities with the greatest vigour, and having placed Col.\nFullerton at the head of his force, he provided him with an army,\ncollected from various parts, of 16,000 good troops, and afforded that\nexcellent officer all available assistance in carrying the war into\nTippoo's territory. Fullerton laid his plans with considerable skill;\nhe encouraged the natives to bring and sell provisions to him on his\nmarch, effectually checked devastation and plundering, scrupulously\nrespected the religious opinions of the Hindus, consolidated and\nimproved the mode of march, and availed himself of the subtle cunning\nand nimble feet of the natives to establish a remarkably complete\ncourier-system, whereby he could receive and communicate intelligence\nwith a rapidity never before attained by any European officer in\nIndia. He had to choose between two systems of strategy--either to\nmarch through the Mysore territory, and frustrate Tippoo in his\nsiege of Mangalore; or boldly to attack Seringapatam, in order to\ncompel Tippoo to leave Mangalore as a means of defending his own\ncapital. The colonel decided on the adoption of the latter course, as\npromising more fruitful results. Being at Daraporam, 200 miles south\nof Seringapatam, Fullerton resolved to divert the route, and take a\ncircuit nearer the western coast, where the capture of the strong\nfort of Palagatcherry would afford him a valuable intermediate depot,\ncommanding one of the chief roads from the Malabar to the Coromandel\ncoasts. On the 18th of October he started. After capturing a few small\nforts, he ascended to high ground, where dense forests, deep ravines,\nand tortuous water courses embarrassed every yard of his progress:\nto fill up the ravines before he could drag his artillery over them,\nto throw trees across them where the depth was too great for filling\nup, to clear gaps through forests with the axe, to contend against\ntremendous rains--were only part of the difficulties he had to meet;\nbut he met them like a skilful commander, reached Palagatcherry on\nthe 5th of November, and captured the fort on the 15th, obtaining\nwith it a welcome supply of money, grain, guns, powder, shot, and\nmilitary stores. When the difficulties which Colonel Fullerton had\nto encounter, and the triumphant manner in which he overcame them,\nare taken into consideration, it will be readily admitted, we think,\nthat his enterprise is well deserving of being recorded as a striking\nexample of what may be accomplished by a union of professional skill\nand invincible energy. Our engraving represents one of the devices\nwhich Colonel Fullerton employed for the purpose of enabling his forces\nto pass over a mountain torrent.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Bridge over Mountain Torrent.]\n\n\nSTORMING OF THE BASTILLE AT PARIS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] The Bastille.]\n\nThe great Revolution in France, at the close of the last century, was\nfull of wonderful events, many of which might be appropriately recorded\nin our pages. One of the most striking among them was the storming and\ncapture of the Bastille, a vast state-prison which was begun to be\nbuilt in 1369 by Charles V., and finished by his successor in 1383.\nThe demolition of this fortress was the first triumph of the armed\npopulace of Paris, and it rendered the progress of the revolution\nirresistible. As the day closed in on the evening of Monday, the 14th\nof July, 1789, a reckless multitude of rioters, after seizing 30,000\nmuskets and several pieces of artillery at the Hotel des Invalides,\nrushed in wild excitement to the Bastille, rendered hateful to the\npeople by the political imprisonment of many hapless men in past times,\nalthough less frequently applied to similar purposes under the milder\nrule of Louis XVI. An armed mob of at least 100,000 men, aided by\ntroops who joined them in whole regiments at a time, had not long to\ncontend against the old fortress. The governor, De Launay, made such a\ndefence as a brave officer might at such a juncture; but his few troops\nwere bewildered and wavering; he received orders from the Hotel de\nVille which he knew not whether to obey or resist, but no instructions\nfrom the court or the ministers; and the military aid to the mob became\nstronger than any force he could bring to bear against them. The chains\nof three drawbridges were broken by hatchets; straw, wood, oil, and\nturpentine were brought and kindled, to burn down the gates; and after\nmany volleys from the mob had been answered by a few from the fortress,\nDe Launay, seeing no hope of succour, resolved to blow up the place\nrather than yield. In this he was prevented by the Swiss guards, who\nformed a part of the small garrison, and who, after a parley with\nthe insurgents, opened the gates, and surrendered. The Bastille was\ntaken. The ruffians, heeding nothing but their own furious passions,\ndisregarded the honourable rules of capitulation; they beheaded De\nLaunay in a clumsy and barbarous manner, and putting his head on a\nspike, carried it through the streets shouting, laughing, and singing;\nthey were prevented only by an accidental interruption from burning\nalive a young lady whom they found in one of the court-yards; they\nhung or maltreated many of the Swiss and invalid soldiers; and they\nfearfully hacked the bodies of three or four officers in the endeavour\nto decapitate them. The prisoners within, only seven in number, were\nliberated, and treated with a drunken revel; while the Chatelet and\nother prisons became scenes of renewed disorders. The sketch which we\ngive above, of the attack on the Bastille, is taken from a medallion by\nAndrieu.\n\n\nDURATION OF LIFE AMONG ARTISTS.\n\nIn Gould's Dictionary of Artists, published in 1839, the names, with\nthe ages, of 1,122 persons are given; which furnish the following\nremarkable facts as to the longevity of this class of men. Died under\n60 years old, 474; 60 years and under 70, 250; 70 years and under 80,\n243; 80 years and under 90, 134; 90 years and under 100, 19; above 100,\n1. The mean age at death of the whole number being 55 years; from which\nit would appear that the pursuit of the fine arts has a tranquilizing\neffect upon the spirits, and a tendency to moral refinement in the\nhabits and manners of its professors extremely favourable to the\nprolongation of life.\n\n\nCHANGE IN THE VALUE OF LAND.\n\nAt Brighton, within the present century, a spot of ground was offered\nto a hair-dresser in fee, upon condition of shaving the possessor for\nlife. The terms were declined, and the land soon became of immense\nvalue.\n\n\nUNACCOUNTABLE ANTIPATHIES.\n\nThe following are a few of the more striking manifestations of that\nunaccountable feeling of antipathy to certain objects, to which so many\npersons are subject, and with instances of which--in a modified form\nperhaps--most people are acquainted with:--\n\nErasmus, though a native of Rotterdam, had such an aversion to fish,\nthat the smell of it threw him into a fever.\n\nAmbrose Pare mentions a gentleman, who never could see an eel without\nfainting.\n\nThere is an account of another gentleman, who would fall into\nconvulsions at the sight of a carp.\n\nA lady, a native of France, always fainted on seeing boiled lobsters.\nOther persons from the same country experienced the same inconvenience\nfrom the smell of roses, though they were particularly partial to the\nodour of jonquils or tuberoses.\n\nJoseph Scaliger and Peter Abono never could drink milk.\n\nCardan was particularly disgusted at the sight of eggs.\n\nUladislaus, king of Poland, could not bear to see apples.\n\nIf an apple was shown to Chesne, secretary to Francis I., he bled at\nthe nose.\n\nA gentleman, in the court of the emperor Ferdinand, would bleed at the\nnose on hearing the mewing of a cat, however great the distance might\nbe from him.\n\nHenry III. of France could never sit in a room with a cat.\n\nThe Duke of Schomberg had the same aversion.\n\nM. de Lancre gives an account of a very sensible man, who was so\nterrified at seeing a hedgehog, that for two years he imagined his\nbowels were gnawed by such an animal.\n\nThe same author was intimate with a very brave officer, who was so\nterrified at the sight of a mouse, that he never dared to look at one\nunless he had his sword in his hand.\n\nM. Vangheim, a great huntsman in Hanover, would faint, or, if he had\nsufficient time, would run away at the sight of a roasted pig.\n\nJohn Rol, a gentleman in Alcantara, would swoon on hearing the word\n_lana_, wool, pronounced, although his cloak was woollen.\n\nThe philosophical Boyle could not conquer a strong aversion to the\nsound of water running through a pipe.\n\nLa Mothe le Vayer could not endure the sound of musical instruments,\nthough he experienced a lively pleasure whenever it thundered.\n\nThe author of the Turkish Spy tells us that he would rather encounter\na lion in the deserts of Arabia, provided he had but a sword in his\nhand, than feel a spider crawling on him in the dark. He observes, that\nthere is no reason to be given for these secret dislikes. He humorously\nattributes them to the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul; and\nas regarded himself, he supposed he had been a fly, before he came into\nhis body, and that having been frequently persecuted with spiders, he\nstill retained the dread of his old enemy.\n\n\nLONDON RESORTS A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.\n\nIn addition to the regular theatres, there were many places of\namusement, such as the Vauxhall and Ranelagh Gardens, the site of the\nlatter being now occupied by the houses that hem in Chelsea College;\nthe Rotunda, famous for its music, its gardens, and its piece of water;\nBell-size House and Gardens on the Hampstead Road, where tea, coffee,\nand other refreshments could be had, together with music, from seven in\nthe morning,--with the advantage of having the road to London patrolled\nduring the season by twelve \"lusty fellows,\" and of being able to ride\nto Hampstead by coach for sixpence a-head; Perrot's inimitable grotto,\nwhich could be seen by calling for a pot of beer; Jenny's Whim, at the\nend of Chelsea Bridge, where \"the royal diversion of duck-hunting\"\ncould be enjoyed, \"together with a decanter of _Dorchester_\" for\nsixpence; Cuper's Gardens, in Lambeth, nearly opposite Somerset House,\nthrough which the Waterloo Road was ruthlessly driven; the Marble\nHall, at Vauxhall, where an excellent breakfast was offered for one\nshilling; Sadler's Wells, celebrated both for its aquatic and its\nwire-dancing attractions; the Floating Coffee-House, on the river\nThames, the Folly House at Blackwall, Marybone Gardens, the White\nConduit House, and a multitude of others, to enumerate which would be\ntedious and unprofitable. On Sunday, we are told, the \"snobocracy,\"\namused themselves by thrusting their heads into the pillory at Georgia,\nby being sworn at Highgate, or rolling down Flamstead Hill in Greenwich\nPark. Some regaled their wives and families with buns at Chelsea and\nPaddington; others indulged in copious draughts of cyder at the Castle\nin the pleasant village of Islington; while the undomestic cit, in\nclaret- coat and white satin vest, sipped his beer and smoked\nhis pipe at Mile End, or at the \"Adam and Eve\" in Pancras, or \"Mother\nRed Cap's\" at Camden.\n\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH'S STATE COACH.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Queen Elizabeth's State Coach.]\n\nThe accompanying engraving is taken from a very old print representing\nthe state procession of Queen Elizabeth on her way to open Parliament\non 2nd April, 1571. This was the first occasion on which a state coach\nhad ever been used by a Sovereign of England, and it was the only\nvehicle in the procession; the Lord Keeper, and the Lords Spiritual and\nTemporal, all attending on horseback. It was drawn by two palfreys,\nwhich were decked with trappings of crimson velvet; and, according\nto an old authority, the name of the driver was William Boonen, a\nDutchman, who thus became the first state coachman.\n\n\nTHE ORIGIN OF EATING GOOSE ON MICHAELMAS DAY.\n\nQueen Elizabeth, on her way to Tilbury Fort on the 29th of September,\n1589, dined at the ancient seat of Sir Neville Umfreville, near that\nplace; and as British Bess had much rather dine off a high-seasoned\nand substantial dish than a simple fricassee or ragout, the knight\nthought proper to provide a brace of fine geese, to suit the palate\nof his royal guest. After the Queen had dined heartily, she asked for\na half-pint bumper of Burgundy, and drank \"Destruction to the Spanish\nArmada.\" She had but that moment returned the glass to the knight who\nhad done the honours of the table, when the news came (as if the Queen\nhad been possessed with the spirit of prophecy) that the Spanish fleet\nhad been destroyed by a storm. She immediately took another bumper,\nin order to digest the goose and good news; and was so much pleased\nwith the event, that she every year after, on that day, had the above\nexcellent dish served up. The Court made it a custom, and the people\nthe same, ever since.\n\n\nPRE-ADAMITE BONE CAVERNS.\n\nAmong the wonders of the world, the bone caves of the pre-Adamite\nperiod deserve a prominent place. It is to this period that the\nextensive remains of Mammiferae found in the strata of the Pampas\nof Buenos Ayres, and in the caverns which are scattered in such\nvast numbers over the continents of Europe and America, and even in\nAustralia, are to be ascribed. We regret that we can find room for a\ndescription of only one of these caverns, but it is a most extensive\none, and among the first which attracted attention. It is situated\nat Baylenreuth, in Franconia, and the engraving which we here give\nrepresents a section of it.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Pre-Adamite Bone Cavern.]\n\nThe entrance of this cave, about seven feet in height, is placed on\nthe face of a perpendicular rock, and leads to a series of chambers\nfrom fifteen to twenty feet in height, and several hundred feet in\nextent, in a deep chasm. The cavern is perfectly dark, and the icicles\nand pillars of stalactite reflected by the torches present a highly\npicturesque effect. The floor is literally paved with bones and fossil\nteeth, and the pillars and corbels of stalactite also contain osseous\nremains. Cuvier showed that three-fourths of the remains in this and\nlike caverns were those of bears, the remainder consisting of bones of\nhyenas, tigers, wolves, foxes, gluttons, weasels, and other Carnivora.\n\n\nHOW DISTANT AGES ARE CONNECTED BY INDIVIDUALS.\n\nMr. Robert Chambers, in a curious and interesting chapter in the\n\"Edinburgh Journal,\" entitled \"Distant Ages connected by Individuals,\"\nstates, in 1847, \"There is living, in the vicinity of Aberdeen, a\ngentleman who can boast personal acquaintance with an individual who\nhad seen and conversed with another who actually had been present at\nthe battle of Flodden Field!\" Marvellous as this may appear, it is not\nthe less true. The gentleman to whom allusion is made was personally\nacquainted with the celebrated Peter Garden, of Auchterless, who died\nin 1775, at the reputed age of 131, although there is reason to believe\nthat he was several years older. Peter, in his young days, was servant\nto Garden, of Troup, whom he accompanied on a journey through the north\nof England, where he saw and conversed with the famous Henry Jenkins,\nwho died 1670, at the age of 169. Jenkins was born in 1501, and was of\ncourse twelve years old at the period of the battle of Flodden Field;\nand, on that memorable occasion, bore arrows to an English nobleman\nwhom he served in the capacity of page. \"When we think of such things,\"\nadds Mr. Chambers, \"the ordinary laws of nature seem to have undergone\nsome partial relaxation; and the dust of ancient times almost becomes\nliving flesh before our eyes.\"\n\n\nTHE EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON.\n\nOn the 1st of November, 1755, a few minutes before 10 a.m. the\ninhabitants of Lisbon were alarmed by several violent vibrations of\nthe ground which then rose and fell several times with such force that\nhundreds of houses came toppling into the streets, crushing thousands\nof people. At the same time the air grew pitchy dark from the clouds of\ndust that rose from the crumbling edifices. Many persons ran down to\nthe river side, in the hope of escaping to the shipping; but the water\nsuddenly rose some yards perpendicularly, and swept away everything\nbefore it. The quay, with nearly 200 human beings standing on it,\nall at once disappeared. Large ships, which were lying high and dry,\nfloated off, and were dashed against each other or carried down the\nriver. In every direction the surface of the water was overspread with\nboats, timber, casks, household furniture and corpses. The scene on\ndry land was yet more horrifying. Churches, government buildings, and\nprivate houses, were all involved in the same ruin. Many thousands\nof trembling fugitives had collected in the great square, when it\nwas discovered that flames were spreading in every quarter. Taking\nadvantage of the universal panic and confusion, a band of miscreants\nhad fired the city. Nothing could be done to stay the progress of\nthe flames, and for eight days they raged unchecked. Whatever the\nearthquake had spared fell a prey to this new calamity. \"It is not to\nbe expressed by human tongue,\" writes an eye-witness, \"how dreadful\nand how awful it was to enter the city after the fire was abated; and\nlooking upwards, one was struck with horror in beholding dead bodies,\nby six or seven in a heap, crushed to death, half buried and half\nburnt; and if one went through the broad places or squares, nothing was\nto be met with but people bewailing their misfortunes, wringing their\nhands, and crying, 'The world is at an end.' If you go out of the city,\nyou behold nothing but barracks, or tents made with canvass or ship's\nsails, where the poor inhabitants lye.\"\n\nAnother eye-witness is still more graphic. \"The terror of the people\nwas beyond description: nobody wept,--it was beyond tears;--they ran\nhither and thither, delirious with horror and astonishment--beating\ntheir faces and breasts--crying '_Misericordia_, the world's at\nan end;' mothers forgot their children, and ran about loaded with\ncrucifixed images. Unfortunately, many ran to the churches for\nprotection; but in vain was the sacrament exposed; in vain did the poor\ncreatures embrace the altars; images, priests, and people, were buried\nin one common ruin. * * * The prospect of the city was deplorable.\nAs you passed along the streets you saw shops of goods with the\nshopkeepers buried with them, some alive crying out from under the\nruins, others half buried, others with broken limbs, in vain begging\nfor help; they were passed by crowds without the least notice or sense\nof humanity. The people lay that night in the fields, which equalled,\nif possible, the horrors of the day; the city all in flames; and if\nyou happened to forget yourself with sleep, you were awakened by the\ntremblings of the earth and the howlings of the people. Yet the moon\nshone, and the stars, with unusual brightness. Long wished-for day at\nlast appeared, and the sun rose with great splendour on the desolated\ncity. In the morning, some of the boldest, whose houses were not burnt,\nventured home for clothes, the want of which they had severely felt in\nthe night, and a blanket was now become of more value than a suit of\nsilk.\"\n\n\nSTRANGE CURE FOR RHEUMATISM.\n\nBridget Behan, of Castle-waller, in the county of Wicklow, Ireland,\nretained the use of all her powers of body and mind to the close of\nher long life, 110 years, in 1807. About six years preceding her death\nshe fell down stairs, and broke one of her thighs. Contrary to all\nexpectation, she not only recovered from the effects of the accident,\nbut actually, from thence, walked stronger on this leg, which,\npreviously to the accident, had been a little failing, than she had\ndone for many years before. Another remarkable circumstance relating\nto this fracture was, that she became perfectly cured of a chronic\nrheumatism of long standing, and from which on particular occasions she\nhad suffered a good deal of affliction. A short while before her death\nshe cut a new tooth.\n\n\nSILVER TEA SERVICE WHICH BELONGED TO WILLIAM PENN.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Silver Tea Service.]\n\nArticles of ordinary use, however small may be their intrinsic value,\nwhich have once been the property of men who have been good and\ngreat--how rare the conjunction!--are always invested with a peculiar\ninterest. They often afford a clue to the tastes of those who once\npossessed them. On this account we have great pleasure in laying\nbefore our readers a representation of the silver tea-service which\nbelonged to the celebrated William Penn, the founder and legislator\nof Pennsylvania, whom Montesquieu denominates the modern Lycurgus.\nHe was the son of Admiral Penn, was born at London in 1644, and was\neducated at Christchurch, Oxford. At college he imbibed the principles\nof Quakerism, and having endeavoured to disseminate them by preaching\nin public, he was thrice thrown into prison. It was during his first\nimprisonment that he wrote \"_No Cross, no Crown_.\" In March, 1680-81,\nhe obtained from Charles II. the grant of that territory which now\nbears the name of Pennsylvania. In 1682 he embarked for his new\ncolony; and in the following year he founded Philadelphia. He returned\nto England in 1684, and died in July, 1718. He was a philosopher, a\nlegislator, an author, the friend of man, and, above all, a pious\nChristian. In addition to the reasons above given, the sketch of\nthe tea-service is an object of curiosity, as showing the state of\nsilversmith's work in England, at the close of the seventeenth century,\nfor articles of domestic use.\n\n\nCURIOUS FIGURES ON A SMALL SHRINE.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Soldiers Watching the Body of Our Lord.]\n\nThe figures here given are copied from a curious little bronze,\nstrongly gilt, which was engraved in the \"Gentleman's Magazine\" for\n1833, accompanied with a description, by A. J. Kempe, Esq., the author\nof the letterpress to \"Stothard's Monumental Effigies,\" whose intimate\nknowledge in these matters enables him to well authenticate dates; and\nhe considers this relic may safely be attributed to the early part of\nthe twelfth century; it was discovered in the Temple Church, and had\noriginally formed a portion of a pyx, or small shrine, in which the\nconsecrated host was kept. Our engraving is more than half the size of\nthe original, which represents the soldiers watching the body of Our\nLord, who was, in mystical form, supposed to be enshrined in the pyx.\nThey wear scull-caps of the Phrygian form, with the nasal like those in\nthe Bayeux Tapestry; and the mailles or rings of the hauberk appear,\nas in the armour there, sewn down, perhaps, on a sort of gambeson, but\nnot interlaced. They bear kite-shaped shields, raised to an obtuse\nangle in the centre, and having large projecting bosses: the third of\nthese figures is represented beside the cut in profile, which will\nenable the reader more clearly to detect its peculiarities. On two of\nthese shields are some approaches to armorial bearings; the first is\nmarked with four narrow bendlets; the second is fretted, the frets\nbeing repeated in front of his helmet, or _chapelle de fer_: all the\nhelmets have the nasal. A long tunic, bordered, and in one instance\nornamented with cross-lines, or chequered, appears beneath the tunic.\nThe sword is very broad, and the spear carried by the first figure,\nobtuse in the head,--a mark of its antiquity. The shoes are admirable\nillustrations of that passage of Geoffry of Malmesbury, where,\nrepresenting the luxury of costume in which the English indulged at the\ntime when Henry I. began his reign, he says: \"Then was there flowing\nhair, and extravagant dress; and then was invented the fashion of shoes\nwith curved points: then the model for young men was to rival women in\ndelicacy of person, to mimic their gait, to walk with loose gesture,\nhalf-naked.\" The curvature of the points of the shoes in the little\nrelic before us, in conformity with the custom censured by Malmesbury,\nis quite remarkable. One turns up, another down; one to the left,\nanother to the right; and scarcely any two in the same direction.\n\n\nTHE QUEEN'S SHARKS.\n\nThe harbour of Trincomalee swarms with gigantic sharks, and strange to\nrelate, they are all under British protection; and if any one is found\nmolesting or injuring them, the fine is L10, or an imprisonment! How\nthis ridiculous custom originated, it is hard to say; but we are told,\nthat in the early days of British conquest in the East, sailors were\napt to desert, and seek refuge in the then inaccessible wilds of the\ninterior; and of later years, when civilisation has unbarred the gates\nof Cingalese commerce to all nations of the world, the soldiers of\nthe regiment stationed at Trincomalee, discontented with their lot in\nlife, were wont to escape from the thraldom of the service, by swimming\noff to American and other foreign vessels, preferring chance, under a\nstrange flag, to a hard certainty under their own. Thus the Queen's\nsharks are duly protected as a sort of water-police for the prevention\nof desertion both from the army and navy.\n\n\nOLD VERSES ON QUEEN ELIZABETH.\n\nThe following quaint and curious verses are taken from a very old\nvolume, entitled _A Crowne Garland of Goulden Roses, Gathered out of\nEngland's Royall Garden, &c., &c. By Richard Johnson_.\n\nA SHORT AND SWEET SONNET MADE BY ONE OF THE MAIDES OF HONOR UPON THE\nDEATHE OF QUEENE ELIZABETH, WHICH SHE SOWED UPON A SAMPLER IN RED SILKE.\n\n_To a new tune, or \"Phillida flouts me.\"_\n\n    Gone is Elizabeth,\n    Whom we have lov'd so deare;\n    She our kind mistres was\n    Full foure and forty yeare.\n\n    England she govern'd well,\n    Not to be blamed;\n    Flanders she govern'd well\n    And Ireland tamed.\n\n    France she befrended,\n    Spaine she hath foiled,\n    <DW7>s rejected,\n    And the Pope spoyled.\n\n    To princes powerfull,\n    To the world vertuous,\n    To her foes mercifull,\n    To her subjects gracious.\n\n    Her soule is in heaven,\n    The world keeps her glory,\n    Subjects her good deeds,\n    And so ends my story.\n\n\nRANELAGH.\n\nRanelagh, of which no traces now remain, was situated on part of\nChelsea Hospital garden, between Church Row and the river, to the east\nof the Hospital. It takes its name from a house erected in 1691, by\nViscount Ranelagh. This house, in which the Viscount had resided from\nthe period of its being built, was sold in 1733 to an eminent builder\nnamed Timbrell for L3,200, who advertised it for sale in the following\nyear, as a freehold with garden, kitchen garden, and offices, and a\nsmaller house and garden with fruit trees, coach-houses, &c., &c. These\nwere the first vicissitudes of Ranelagh, preparatory to its conversion\ninto a place of public amusement.\n\nWalpole, in one of his entertaining letters to Mann, April 22nd, 1742,\nthus speaks of the gardens, which were then unfinished:--\n\n\"I have been breakfasting this morning at Ranelagh Garden; they have\nbuilt an immense ampitheatre, with balconies full of little alehouses;\nit is in rivalry to Vauxhall, and cost above twelve thousand pounds.\nThe building is not finished, but they got great sums by people going\nto see it and breakfasting in the house: there were yesterday no less\nthan three hundred and eighty persons, at eighteen-pence a piece.\"\nAgain, under the date May 26th, 1742, he writes to his friend as\nfollows:--\n\n\"Two nights ago, Ranelagh Gardens were opened at Chelsea; the prince,\nprincess, duke, much nobility, and much mob besides were there. There\nis a vast ampitheatre, finely gilt, painted, and illuminated; into\nwhich everybody that loves eating, drinking, staring, or crowding, is\nadmitted for twelve pence. The building and disposition of the gardens\ncost sixteen thousand pounds. Twice a week there are to be ridottos at\nguinea tickets, for which you are to have a supper and music. I was\nthere last night, but did not find the joy of it. Vauxhall is a little\nbetter, for the garden is pleasanter, and one goes by water.\"\n\n\"The only defect in the elegance and beauty of the ampitheatre at\nRanelagh,\" says the _London Chronicle_ for August, 1763, \"is an\nimproper and inconvenient orchestra, which, breaking into the area\nof that superb room about twenty feet farther than it ought to do,\ndestroys the symmetry of the whole, and diffuses the sound of music\nwith such irregular rapidity, that the harmonious articulations escape\nthe nicest ear when placed in the most commodious attitude; it also\nhurts the eye upon your first entry.\n\n\"To remedy these defects, a plan has been drawn by Messrs. Wale\nand Gwin, for adding a new orchestra, which being furnished with a\nwell-proportioned curvature over it, will contract into narrower bounds\nthe modulations of the voice, and render every note more distinctly\naudible. It will, by its form, operate upon the musical sounds, in the\nsame manner as concave glasses affect the rays of light, by collecting\nthem into a focus. The front of this orchestra being planned so as\nto range parallel to the balustrade, the whole area also will be\ndisencumbered of every obstruction that might incommode the audience\nin their circular walk. There is likewise provision made in this plan\nfor a stage capable of containing 30 or 40 performers, to officiate as\nchorus-singers, or otherwise assist in giving additional solemnity on\nany extraordinary occasion.\"\n\n\"At Ranelagh House, on the 12th of May, 1767,\" says the _Gentleman's\nMagazine_, \"were performed (in the new orchestra) the much admired\ncatches and glees, selected from the curious collection of the Catch\nClub; being the first of the kind publickly exhibited in this or any\nother kingdom. The entertainments consisted of the favourite catches\nand glees, composed by the most eminent masters of the last and present\nage, by a considerable number of the best vocal and instrumental\nperformers. The choral and instrumental parts were added, to give the\nthe catches and glees their proper effect in so large an amphitheatre;\nbeing composed for that purpose by Dr. Arne.\"\n\nThe Rotunda, or amphitheatre, was 185 feet in diameter, with an\norchestra in the centre, and tiers of boxes all round. The chief\namusement was promenading (as it was called) round and round the\ncircular area below, and taking refreshments in the boxes while the\norchestra and vocalists executed different pieces of music. It was a\nkind of 'Vauxhall under cover,' warmed with coal fires. The rotunda\nis said to have been projected by Lacy, the patentee of Drury Lane\nTheatre. \"The _coup d'oeil_,\" Dr. Johnson declared, \"was the finest\nthing he had ever seen.\"\n\nThe last great event in the history of Ranelagh was the installation\nball of the knights of the Bath, in 1802, shortly after which the place\nwas pulled down.\n\n\nTHE FIRST EAST INDIA HOUSE.\n\n[Illustration: [++] The First East India House.]\n\nThe tradition is, that the East India Company, incorporated December\n31st, 1600, first transacted their business in the great room of the\nNag's Head Inn, opposite St. Botolph's Church, Bishopsgate Street.\nThe maps of London, soon after the Great Fire of 1666, place the\nIndia House on a part of its present site in Leadenhall Street. Here\noriginally stood the mansion of Alderman Kerton, built in the reign of\nEdward VI., rebuilt on the accession of Elizabeth, and enlarged by its\nnext purchaser, Sir W. Craven, Lord Mayor in 1610. Here was born the\ngreat Lord Craven, who, in 1701, leased his house and a tenement in\nLime Street to the Company at L100 a year. A scarce Dutch etching, in\nthe British Museum, of which the annexed engraving is a correct copy,\nshows this house to have been half timbered, its lofty gable surmounted\nwith two dolphins and a figure of a mariner, or, as some say, of the\nfirst governor; beneath are mecrhant ships at sea, the royal arms,\nand those of the Company. This grotesque structure was taken down in\n1726, and upon its site was erected the old East India House, portions\nof which yet remain; although the present stone front, 200 feet long,\nand a great part of the house, were built in 1798 and 1799, and\nsubsequently enlarged by Cockerell, R.A., and Wilkins, R.A.\n\n\nADVERTISEMENTS IN THE LAST CENTURY.\n\nThe following strange advertisements have been culled at random from\nmagazines and newspapers _circa_ 1750. They give us a good idea of the\nmanners and tastes of that period:--\n\n\"Whereas a tall young Gentleman above the common size, dress'd in a\nyellow-grounded flowered velvet (supposed to be a Foreigner), with a\nSolitair round his neck and a glass in his hand, was narrowly observed\nand much approved of by a certain young lady at the last Ridotto. This\nis to acquaint the said young Gentleman, if his heart is entirely\ndisengaged, that if he will apply to A. B. at Garaway's Coffee House in\nExchange Alley, he may be directed to have an interview with the said\nyoung lady, which may prove greatly to his advantage. Strict secresy on\nthe Gentleman's side will be depended on.\"\n\n\"A Lady who had on a Pink- Capuchin, edged with Ermine, a black\nPatch near her right eye, sat in a front seat in the next Side Box but\none to the Stage on Wednesday night at Drury Lane Playhouse; if that\nLady is single and willing to treat on terms of honour and generosity\nof a married state, it would be deemed a favour to receive a line\ndirected to C. D., at Clifford's Inn Old Coffee House, how she may be\naddress'd, being a serious affair.\"\n\n\"To be seen this week, in a large commodious room at the George Inn, in\nFenchurch-street, near Aldgate, the Porcupine Man and his Son, which\nhas given such great satisfaction to all that ever saw them: their\nsolid quills being not to be numbered nor credited till seen; but give\nuniversal satisfaction to all that ever saw them; the youth being\nallowed by all to be of a beautiful and fine complexion, and great\nnumbers resort daily to see them.\"\n\n\"A Bullfinch, that pipes 'Britons rouse up your great magnanimity,' at\ncommand, also talks, is to be sold at the Cane Shop facing New Broad\nstreet, Moorfields; likewise to be sold, two Starlings that whistle and\ntalk extremely plain.\n\n  \"Great variety of fine long Walking Canes.\"\n\n\nTHEODORA DE VERDION.\n\nThis singular woman was born in 1744, at Leipsic, in Germany, and\ndied at her lodgings, in Upper Charles-street, Hatton Garden, London,\n1802. She was the only daughter of an architect of the name of Grahn,\nwho erected several edifices in the city of Berlin, particularly the\nChurch of St. Peter's. She wrote an excellent hand, and had learned\nthe mathematics, the French, Italian, and English languages, and\npossessed a complete knowledge of her native tongue. Upon her arrival\nin England she commenced teaching of the German language, under the\nname of Dr. John de Verdion.\n\nIn her exterior, she was extremely grotesque, wearing a bag wig, a\nlarge cocked hat, three or four folio books under one arm, and an\numbrella under the other, her pockets completely filled with small\nvolumes, and a stick in her right hand. She had a good knowledge of\nEnglish books; many persons entertained her for her advice relative\nto purchasing them. She obtained a comfortable subsistence from\nteaching and translating foreign languages, and by selling books\nchiefly in foreign literature. She taught the Duke of Portland the\nGerman language, and was always welcomed to his house, the Prussian\nAmbassador to our Court received from her a knowledge of the English\nlanguage; and several distinguished noblemen she frequently visited\nto instruct them in the French tongue; she also taught Edward Gibbon,\nthe celebrated Roman Historian, the German language, previous to his\nvisiting that country. This extraordinary female has never been known\nto have appeared in any other but the male dress, since her arrival in\nEngland, where she remained upwards of thirty years; and upon occasions\nshe would attend court, decked in very superb attire; and was well\nremembered about the streets of London; and particularly frequent in\nattending book auctions, and would buy to a large amount, sometimes a\ncoachload. Here her singular figure generally made her the jest of the\ncompany. Her general purchase at these sales was odd volumes, which she\nused to carry to other booksellers, and endeavour to sell, or exchange\nfor other books. She was also a considerable collector of medals\nand foreign coins of gold and silver; but none of these were found\nafter her decease. She frequented the Furnival's Inn Coffee-house,\nin Holborn, dining there almost every day; she would have the first\nof every thing in season, and was as strenuous for a large quantity,\nas she was dainty in the quality of what she chose for her table.\nAt times, it is well-known, she could dispense with three pounds of\nsolid meat; and we are very sorry to say, she was much inclined to the\ndreadful sin of drunkenness. Her death was occasioned by falling down\nstairs, and she was, after much affliction, at length compelled to make\nherself known to a German physician, who prescribed for her, when the\ndisorder she had, turned to a dropsy, defied all cure, and finished the\nlife of so remarkable a female.\n\n\nDRIVING STAGS LIKE CATTLE.\n\nBuried at Disley, Cheshire, June 2nd, 1753, Mr. Joseph Watson, in the\n105th year of his age. He was born at Moseley Common, in the parish of\nLeigh, in the county of Lancaster; and married his wife from Etchells,\nnear Manchester, in the said county. They were an happy couple 72\nyears. She died in the 94th year of her age. He was park-keeper to\nthe late Peter Leigh, Esq., of Lime, and his father used to drive and\nshow red deer to most of the nobility and gentry in that part of the\nkingdom, to the general satisfaction of all who ever saw them; for he\ncould have driven and commanded them at his pleasure, as if they had\nbeen common horned-cattle. In the reign of Queen Anne, Squire Leigh was\nat Macclesfield, in Cheshire, in company with a number of gentlemen,\namongst whom was Sir Roger Mason, who was then one of the members for\nthe said county; they being merry and free, Squire Leigh said his\nkeeper should drive 12 brace of stags to the Forest of Windsor, a\npresent to the Queen. Sir Roger opposed it with a wager of 500 guineas,\nsaying that neither his keeper, nor any other person, could drive 12\nbrace of red deer from Lime Park to Windsor Forest on any account. So\nSquire Leigh accepted the wager from Sir Roger, and immediately sent\na messenger to Lime for his keeper, who directly came to his master,\nwho told him he must immediately prepare himself to drive 12 brace\nof stags to Windsor Forest, for a wager of 500 guineas. He gave the\nSquire, his master, this answer, that he would, at his command, drive\nhim 12 brace of stags to Windsor Forest, or to any part of the kingdom\nby his worship's direction, or he would lose his life and fortune. He\nundertook, and accomplished this most astonishing performance, which\nis not to be equalled in the annals of the most ancient history. He\nwas a man of low stature, not bulky, of a fresh complexion, pleasant\ncountenance, and he believed he had drank a gallon of malt liquor a\nday, one day with another, for above sixty years of his time.\n\n\nECCENTRIC WILL.\n\nThe following will, as an exhibition of strange eccentricity, is not\ninappropriate to our pages. Mr. Tuke, of Wath, near Rotherham, who died\nin 1810, bequeathed one penny to every child that attended his funeral\n(there came from 600 to 700); 1s. to every poor woman in Wath; 10s.\n6d. to the ringers to ring one peal of grand bobs, which was to strike\noff while they were putting him into the grave. To seven of the oldest\nnavigators, one guinea for puddling him up in his grave. To his natural\ndaughter, L4 4s. per annum. To his old and faithful servant, Joseph\nPitt, L21 per annum. To an old woman who had for eleven years tucked\nhim up in bed, L1 1s. only. Forty dozen penny loaves to be thrown from\nthe church leads at twelve o'clock on Christmas day for ever. Two\nhandsome brass chandeliers for the church, and L20 for a set of new\nchimes.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY FROST.\n\nAs an instance of great rarity in England of the severity of a frost,\nit is worth notice, that in January, 1808, the rain froze as it fell,\nand in London the umbrellas were so stiffened that they could not be\nclosed. Birds had their feathers frozen so that they could not fly, and\nmany were picked up as they lay helpless on the ground.\n\n\nANCIENT SNUFF-BOXES.\n\nThese ancient snuff-boxes furnish proof of the love of our ancestors\nfor the titillating powder. An admiring writer of the last century,\nreflecting on the curious and precious caskets in which snuff was then\nimprisoned, asks--\n\n    \"What strange and wondrous virtue must there be,\n     And secret charm, O snuff! concealed in thee,\n     That bounteous nature and inventive art,\n     Bedecking thee thus all their powers exert.\"\n\n[Illustration: [++] Ancient Snuff Boxes.]\n\nBut every age, since snuff was in use, appears to have cherished\ngreat regard for the beauty and costliness of its snuff boxes, and\neven at the present time, the snuff box is the recognised vehicle of\nthe highest honour a corporation can bestow. Those here represented\nare not so much boxes as bottles. They are richly and elaborately\nornamented with sporting subjects, and no doubt once belonged to some\nfamous personage. Judging of their very antique form and figures, we\nare inclined to think they must have been in use earlier than it is\ngenerally supposed that snuff was introduced into this country.\n\n\nSEEING THE FIRST AND THE LAST OF TWO GENERATIONS.\n\nFrances Barton, of Horsley, Derbyshire, died 1789, aged 107. She\nfollowed the profession of a midwife during the long period of eighty\nyears. Her husband had been sexton of the parish seventy years; so that\nthis aged pair frequently remarked, that _she_ had twice brought into\nthe world, and _he_ had twice buried, the whole parish. Her faculties,\nher memory in particular, were remarkably good, so that she was enabled\nwell to remember the Revolution in 1688, and being present at a merry\nmaking on that glorious occasion.\n\n\nTHE EARLIEST HACKNEY-COACH.\n\n[Illustration: [++] The Earliest Hackney-Coach.]\n\nThe above is a correct representation of one of the earliest forms in\nwhich coaches for hire were first made. They were called Hackney, not,\nas is erroneously supposed, from their being first used to carry the\ncitizens of London to their villas in the suburb of Hackney, but from\nthe word \"hack,\" which signifies to offer any article for sale or hire.\nHackney coaches were first established in 1634, and the event is thus\nmentioned in one of _Strafford's Letters_, dated April in that year:--\n\n\"One Captain Bailey hath erected some four _Hackney-coaches_, put\nhis men in livery, and appointed them to stand, at the May-pole in\nthe Strand, giving them instructions at what rates to carry men into\nseveral parts of the town, where all day they may be had. Other\nhackney-men seeing this way, they flock to the same place, and perform\ntheir journeys at the same rate. So that sometimes there is twenty of\nthem together, which disperse up and down; that they and others are to\nbe had everywhere, as watermen are to be had by the water-side. * * *\nEverybody is much pleased with it.\"\n\n\nA UNIQUE LIBRARY.\n\nA singular library existed in 1535, at Warsenstein, near Cassel; the\nbooks composing it, or rather the substitutes for them, being made of\nwood, and every one of them is a specimen of some different tree. The\nback is formed of its bark, and the sides are constructed of polished\npieces of the same stock. When put together, the whole forms a box;\nand inside of it are stored the fruit, seed, and leaves, together with\nthe moss which grows on the trunk, and the insects which feed upon the\ntree; every volume corresponds in size, and the collection altogether\nhas an excellent effect.\n\n\nDRESS FORTY YEARS AGO.\n\nCaricature, even by its very exaggeration, often gives us a better idea\nof many things than the most exact sketches could do. This is more\nespecially the case with respect to dress, a proof of which is here\ngiven by the three caricatures which we now lay before our readers.\nThey are copied from plates published at the period to which they\nrefer, and how completely do they convey to us a notion of the fashions\nof the day!\n\n[Illustration: [++] Caricature of Dress.]\n\nWith the peace of 1815 commenced a new era in English history; and\nwithin the few years immediately preceding and following it, English\nsociety went through a remarkably rapid change; a change, as far as\nwe can see, of a decidedly favourable kind. The social condition of\npublic sentiment and public morals, literature, and science, were all\nimproved. As the violent internal agitation of the country during the\nregency increased the number of political caricatures and satirical\nwritings, so the succession of fashions, varying in extravagance,\nwhich characterised the same period, produced a greater number of\ncaricatures on dress and on fashionable manners than had been seen at\nany previous period. During the first twelve or fifteen years of the\npresent century, the general character of the costume appears not to\nhave undergone any great change. The two figures here given represent\nthe mode in 1810.\n\nA few years later the fashionable costume furnished an extraordinary\ncontrast with that just represented. The waist was again shortened, as\nwell as the frock and petticoat, and, instead of concealment, it seemed\nto be the aim of the ladies to exhibit to view as much of the body\nas possible. The <DW2>s of 1819 and 1820 received the name of dandies,\nthe ladies that of dandizettes. The accompanying cut is from a rather\nbroadly caricatured print of a dandizette of the year 1819. It must\nbe considered only as a type of the general character of the foppish\ncostume of the period; for in no time was there ever such a variety of\nforms in the dresses of both sexes as at the period alluded to.\n\nWe give with the same reservation, a figure of a dandy, from a\ncaricature of the same year. The number of caricatures on the dandies\nand dandizettes, and on their fopperies and follies, during the years\n1819, 1820, and 1821, was perfectly astonishing.\n\n[Illustration: Dandizette.]\n\n[Illustration: Dandy.]\n\n\nFASHIONABLE DISFIGUREMENT.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Patching of the Face.]\n\nThe extent to which people may be led to disfigure themselves by a\nblind compliance with the fashion of the day, was never more strikingly\ndisplayed than in the custom of dotting the face with black patches of\ndifferent patterns. It might easily be supposed that the annexed sketch\nis a caricature, but such is not the case; it is a correct likeness of\na lady of the time of Charles the First, with her face in full dress.\nPatching was much admired during the reign of that sovereign, and for\nseveral succeeding years. Some authors think that the fashion came\noriginally from Arabia. No sooner was it brought to England and France,\nthan it became an absolute _fureur_. In the former country, old and\nyoung, the maiden of sixteen and the grey-haired grandmama, covered\ntheir faces with these black spots, shaped like suns, moons, stars,\nhearts, crosses, and lozenges; and some even, as in the instance\nbefore us, carried the mode to the extravagant extent of shaping the\npatches to represent a carriage and horses.\n\n\nA REMARKABLE OLD MAN.\n\nMr. Ingleby, of Battle Abbey, Sussex, died 1798, aged 117. He had\nbeen for upwards of ninety-five years a domestic in the family of\nLady Webster. The following narrative of this remarkable man is by a\ngentleman who visited him in the autumn of 1797:--\n\n\"To my great surprise,\" he says, \"I found Mr. Ingleby in a situation\nvery far removed from the luxuries of life, or the place which might\nbe deemed necessary for his years. He was in an antique outbuilding,\nnear the Castle Gate, where his table was spread under an arched roof;\nnearly the whole of the building being filled with billet-wood, and\nscarcely affording room for the oaken bench on which this wonder of\nlongevity was reclining by the fire. His dress was a full-bottomed\nwig, and a chocolate- suit of clothes with yellow buttons. His\nair and demeanour was pensive and solemn; though there was nothing\nin his look which impressed the mind with the idea of a person more\nthan fourscore years old, except a slight falling of the under jaw,\nwhich bespoke a more advanced age. We were introduced by a matron, who\nserved as a sort of interpreter between us--Mr. Ingleby's deafness\nnot permitting any regular conversation. When the nurse explained\nour errand, he replied, in a very distinct but hollow voice, 'I am\nmuch obliged to the gentlemen for the favour they do me; but I am not\nwell, and unable to converse with them.' He then turned his face to\nthe higher part of the bench on which he reclined, and was silent.\nIn each of his withered hands he held a short, rude, beechen walking\nstick, about three feet high, by the help of which he was accustomed\nnot only to walk about the extensive premises in which he passed the\nmost part of his life, but also to take his little rambles about the\ntown; and once (for, occasionally, the old gentleman was irascible,)\nhe set out on a pedestrian excursion to Hastings, _to inquire for\nanother situation in service_, because his patroness desired him to\nbe more attentive to personal neatness. It is but justice to the lady\nalluded to, to add, that the uncouth abode in which Mr. Ingleby dwelt\nwas the only one in which he could be persuaded to reside, and which\nlong familiarity had rendered dear to him. The choice appeared very\nextraordinary; but such persons, in their conduct, are seldom governed\nby the fixed and settled rules by which human life is ordinarily\nregulated.\"\n\n\nCURIOUS MANUSCRIPT.\n\nA very curious manuscript was presented to the Antiquarian Society\nof Yorkshire in 1828. It contains sundry rules to be observed by\nthe household of Henry the 8th, and enjoins the following singular\nparticulars:--\"None of his Highness's attendants to _steal_ any\nlocks, or keys, tables, forms, cupboards, or other furniture, out\nof noblemen's, or gentlemen's, houses where he goes to visit. No\nherald, minstrel, falconer, or other, to bring to the Court any boy or\n_rascal_; nor to keeps lads or rascals in Court to do their business\nfor them. Master cooks not to employ such scullions as shall go about\n_naked, or lie all night on the ground_ before the kitchen fire. Dinner\nto be at _ten_, and supper at _four_. The Knight Marshal to take\ncare that all such unthrifty and common women as follow the Court be\nbanished. The proper officers are, between six and seven o'clock every\nmorning, to make the fire in and _straw_ his Highness's Privy Chamber.\nOfficers of his Highness's Privy Chamber to keep secret every thing\nsaid or done, leaving hearkening or inquiring where the King is or\ngoes, be it early or late, without grudging, mumbling, or talking of\nthe King's past time, late or early going to bed, or any other matter.\nCoal only allowed to the King's, Queen's, and Lady Mary's Chambers.\nThe Queen's Maids of Honour to have a chet loaf, a manchet, a _gallon\nof ale_, and a chine of beef, for their _breakfasts_. Among the fishes\nfor the table is a porpoise, and if it is too big for a _horse-load_, a\nfurther allowance is made for it to the purveyor.\" The manuscript ends\nwith several proclamations. One is \"to take up and punish strong and\nmighty beggars, rascals, and vagabonds, who hang about the Court.\"\n\n\nWONDERFUL ESCAPE.\n\nIn 1809, a barge was going along the new cut from Paddington with\ncasks of spirits and barrels of gunpowder. It is supposed that one of\nthe crew bored a hole in a powder-barrel by mistake, meaning to steal\nspirits; the gimlet set fire to the powder, and eleven other barrels\nwere driven to the distance of 150 yards; but only the single barrel\nexploded.\n\n\nDAVID HUME ON HIS OWN DEATH.\n\nThe letter which we here lay before our readers was addressed by David\nHume to the Countess de Boufflers, and is supposed to be the last\nthat was ever written by that great historian, as he died only five\ndays afterwards, August 25th. With what calmness did that illustrious\nphilosopher contemplate the rapid approach of his own death!\n\nThe letter was torn at the places where the words are printed in\nitalics:\n\n  \"Edinburgh, 20th of August, 1776.\n\n\"Tho' I am certainly within a few weeks, dear Madam, and perhaps within\na few days, of my own death, I could not forbear being struck with the\ndeath of the Prince of Conti, so great a loss in every particular. My\nreflection carried me immediately to your situation in this melancholy\nincident. What a difference to you in your whole plan of life! Pray,\nwrite me some particulars; but in such terms that you need not care, in\n_event_ of decease, into whose hands your letter may fall.\n\n\"_My_ distemper is a diarrhoea, or disorder in my bowels, which has\n_been_ gradually undermining me these two years; but within these six\nmonths has been visibly hastening me to my end. I see death approach\ngradually without any anxiety or regret. I salute you with great\naffection and regard for the last time.\n\n  \"DAVID HUME.\"\n\n\nSCRIPTURAL ANTIQUITIES.\n\n[Illustration: A. Drum, or Timbrel, of Baked Potter's Clay.--AA. Drum\nin use in the East.--B. Harp.--C. Lutes.--D. Inscribed Stone.--E.\nSandals.]\n\nThe rude musical instruments here represented, have been collected by\nmodern travellers, and are but little changed from the ancient forms.\nThe drum or timbrel marked A, is made of thin baked clay, something in\nthe shape of a bottle, with parchment stretched over the wider part. On\nbeing struck with the finger, this instrument makes a remarkably loud\nsound. These relics are lodged in the London Scriptural Museum, and are\nall ticketed with the texts they serve to illustrate. This arrangement\nis very judicious, and gives a great additional interest to the sacred\nobjects while under inspection.\n\n[Illustration: 1. Distaff.--2. Roman Farthing.--3. Stone Money\nWeights.--4. Hand Mill. 5. Eastern Wine and Water Bottles.]\n\nThe distaff was the instrument which wrought the materials for the\nrobes of the Egyptian Kings, and for the \"little coat\" which Hannah\nmade for Samuel; by it, too, were wrought the cloths, and other fabrics\nused in Solomon's temple. By reference to the above engraving, it will\nbe seen that nothing can be more simple than this ancient instrument,\nwhich is a sort of wooden skewer, round which the flax is wrapped; it\nis then spun on the ground in the same manner as a boy's top, and the\nthread wrought off, and wound upon a reel shown in the foreground of\nthe picture. \"Querns,\" or stone hand-mills of various sizes, similar\nto that represented in our engraving, have been repeatedly found\nin connection with Roman, Saxon, and other ancient remains in this\ncountry. They are still to be met with in constant use over the greater\npart of India, in Africa, and also those districts of the East which\nare more particularly associated with Holy Writ. It may be worth while\nto mention that this description of mill is an improvement upon the\nmethod of simply crushing the corn laid on a flat stone with another\nheld in the hand. The \"Quern\" is a hard stone roughly rounded, and\npartly hollowed, into which another stone, which has a handle, is\nloosely fitted. The corn required to be ground is placed in the hollow\nreceptacle, and the inner stone is moved rapidly round, and, in course\nof time, by immense labour, the wheat &c. is ground into flour. The\nScripture prophecies mention that of two women grinding at the mill,\none shall be left, and the other taken--the two-handled mill will\nexplain the meaning of this passage.\n\n\nCHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF REMARKABLE EVENTS.\n\nThe following curious table is extracted _literatim_ from Arthur\nHopton's _Concordancie of Years_, 1615:--\n\n1077.--A blazing star on Palm Sunday, nere the sun.\n\n1100.--The yard (measure) made by Henry I.\n\n1116.--The moone seemed turned into bloud.\n\n1128.--Men wore haire like women.\n\n1180.--Paris in France, and London in Englande, paued, and\n       thatching in both left, because all Luberick was spoiled\n       thereby with fire.\n\n1189.--Robin Hood and Little John lived. This yeare London\n       obtained to be gouerned by sheriffes and maiors.\n\n1205.--By reason of a frost from January to March wheate was sold\n       for a marke the quarter, which before was at 12 pence. _Anno\n       Regni_ 6. John.\n\n1209.--London bridge builded with stone; and this yeare the\n       citizens of London had a grant to choose them a maior.\n\n1227.--The citizens of London had libertie to hunt a certain\n       distance about the citie, and to passe toll-free through\n       England.\n\n1231.--Thunder lasted fifteen daies; beginning the morrow after\n       St. Martin's day.\n\n1233.--Four sunnes appeared, beside the true sunne, of a red colour.\n\n1235.--The Jews of Norwich stole a boy and circumcised him,\n       minding to have crucified him at Easter.\n\n1247.--The king farmed Queene-hiue for fifty pounds per annum, to\n       the citizens.\n\n1252.--Great tempests upon the sea, and fearful; and this year the\n       king (Henry III.) granted, that wheretofore the citizens of\n       London were to present the maior before the king, wheresoeuer\n       he were, that now barons of the exchequer should serue.\n\n1292.--The Jewes corrupting England with vsury, had first a badge\n       giuen them to weare, that they might be knowne, and after were\n       banished to the number of 150,000 persons.\n\n\n1313.--This yeare the king of France burned all his leporous and\n       pocky people, as well men as women: for that he supposed they\n       had poysoned the waters, which caused his leprosie. About this\n       time, also, the Jews had a purpose to poyson all the\n       Christians, by poysoning all their springs.\n\n1361.--Men and beasts perished in diuers places with thunder and\n       lightning, and fiends were seene speake unto men as they\n       trauelled.\n\n1372.--The first bailiffes, in Shrewsbury.\n\n1386.--The making of gunnes found; and rebels in Kent and Essex, who\n       entred London, beheaded all lawyers, and burnt houses and all\n       bookes of law.\n\n1388.--Picked shooes, tyed to their knees with siluer chaines were\n       vsed. And women with long gownes rode in side-saddles, like\n       the queene, that brought side-saddles first to England; for\n       before they rode astrid.\n\n1401.--Pride exceeding in monstrous apparrell.\n\n1411.--Guildhall in London begun.\n\n1417.--A decree for lantherne and candle-light in London.\n\n1427.--Rain from the 1st of Aprill to Hollontide.\n\n1510.--St. John's College in Cambridge being an ancient hostell, was\n       conuerted to a college by the executors of the Countesse of\n       Richmond and Derby, and mother of Henry VII., in this yeare, as\n       her will was.\n\n1552.--The new service book in English.\n\n1555.--The first use of coaches in England.\n\n1606.--The cawsies about London taken down.\n\n1610.--Britaines Bursse builded. Hix Hall builded. Aldgate builded\n       new. Sutton's Hospitall founded. Moore fields new railed and\n       planted with trees. Westminster palace paued.\n\n\nCOCK-FIGHTING AT SCHOOLS.\n\nMany years ago the scholars at our large schools had regular\ncock-fights, which would appear to have been an affair of the school,\nrecognised by the masters, and the charges for which were defrayed\nby them, to be afterwards paid by the parents, just as some innocent\nexcursions and festivities are managed now a days. The credit of the\nschool was, without doubt, often involved in the proper issue of the\nfight.\n\nSir James Mackintosh, when at school at Fortrose in 1776-7, had this\nentry in his account, in which books were charged 3s. 6d.:--\n\n  To cocks'-fight dues for 2 years, 2s. 6d. each, 5s.\n\nAssociated are three months' fees at the dancing-school, minuet,\ncountry-dances, and hornpipe, &c. Cock-fighting up to the end of\nthe last century was a very general amusement, and an occasion for\ngambling. It entered into the occupations of the old and young.\nTravellers agreed with coachmen that they were to wait a night if\nthere was a cock-fight in any town through which they passed. A battle\nbetween two cocks had five guineas staked upon it. Fifty guineas, about\nthe year 1760, depended upon the main or odd battle. This made the\ndecision of a \"long main,\" at cock-fighting an important matter. The\nchurch bells at times announced the winning of a \"long main.\" Matches\nwere sometimes so arranged as to last the week. When country gentlemen\nhad sat long at table, and the conversation had turned upon the\nrelative merits of their several birds, a cock-fight often resulted, as\nthe birds in question were brought for the purpose into the dining-room.\n\n\nCOMMON TRAVELLING.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Common Travelling Dress.]\n\nWe have here the common travelling dress in use at the commencement\nof the 12th century, _tempus_ Henry I. and Stephen. The original is\nintended for the Saviour meeting the two disciples on the road to\nEmmaus. The Saviour wears an under tunic, and his mantle, fastened by a\nnarrow band across the chest, is held up by the right hand. The figures\nof the disciples are, however, the most curious, the central one\nparticularly so, as he would seem to wear a dress expressly invented\nfor travelling: his large round hat, with its wide brim, seems to be\nthe original of the pilgrim's hat so well known in later times, and\nwhich formed so distinguishing a mark in their costume. His short green\ntunic, well adapted for journeying, is protected by a capacious mantle\nof skin, provided with a \"capa\" or cowl, to draw over the head, and\nwhich was frequently used instead of a hat. He wears white breeches\nornamented with red cross-stripes; they end at the ankle, where they\nare secured by a band or garter, the foot being covered by close shoes.\nHis companion wears the common cap so frequently met with, and he has\nhis face ornamented to profusion by moustaches and beard, each lock\nof which appears to be most carefully separated and arranged in the\nnicest order. He has an under-tunic of white, and an upper one of red,\nand a white mantle bordered with gold; he also wears the same kind of\nbreeches, reaching to the ankle, but he has no shoes, which frequently\nappears to have been the case when persons were on a journey.\n\n\nFASHIONABLE DANCES OF THE LAST CENTURY.\n\nThe style of dancing which was fashionable at the latter part of the\nlast century, may be seen from the following advertisement from a\ndancing-master, which we have copied from a newspaper of the year\n1775:--\n\n\"At Duke's Long Room, in Paternoster Row, Grown Gentlemen or Ladies\nare taught a Minuet, or the Method of Country Dances, with the modern\nMethod of Footing; and that in the genteelest, and most expeditious,\nand private Manner. And for the greater expedition of such gentlemen,\nas chuse to dance in company, there's a complete Set of Gentlemen\nassembled every Monday and Wednesday evening for the said purpose.\nGentlemen or Ladies may be waited on at their own Houses by favouring\nme with a line directed as above. Likewise to be had at my House, as\nabove, a Book of Instructions for the figuring part of Country Dances,\nwith the Figure of the Minuet annex'd thereon, drawn out in Characters,\nand laid down in such a Manner, that at once casting your Eye on it,\nyou see the Figure directly form'd as it is to be done; so that a\nperson, even that had never learnt, might, by the help of this book,\nsoon make himself Master of the figuring Part. Such as reside in the\nCountry, I doubt not, would find it of immediate Service, as they have\nnot always an Opportunity of having Recourse to a Dancing Master. Price\n10s. 6d. N. Dukes, Dancing Master.\"\n\n\nPREACHING FRIARS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Preaching Friar.]\n\nIn the romance of \"St. Graal,\" executed in the fourteenth century, we\nhave this representation of one of these preaching friars in his rude\nportable pulpit. From the contrast afforded by their mendicancy, and\nenthusiasm in teaching, to the pride and riches of the higher clergy,\nand their constant mixing with the people, they became excessively\npopular. The preacher in the cut has a crowded and attentive audience\n(though one lady seems inclined to nap); the costume of the entire\nbody, who are all seated, after a primitive fashion, on the bare\nground, is worthy of note, and may be received as a fair picture of the\ncommonalty of England about the year 1350.\n\n\nTHE ECCENTRIC LADY LEWSON.\n\nMrs. Jane Lewson, widow, of No. 12, Coldbath Square, London, died 1816,\naged 116. Mrs. Lewson, from the very eccentric style of her dress,\nwas almost universally recognised as _Lady_ Lewson. She was born in\nEssex Street, Strand, in the year 1700, during the reign of William\nand Mary; and was married at an early age to a wealthy gentleman then\nliving in the house in which she died. She became a widow at the early\nage of 26, having only one child, a daughter, living at the time. Mrs.\nLewson being left by her husband in affluent circumstances, though\nshe had many suitors, preferred to remain in a state of widowhood.\nWhen her daughter married, being left alone, she became very fond of\nretirement, and rarely went out or permitted the visits of any person.\nFor the last thirty years of her life she had kept no servant, except\none old female, who died in 1806; she was succeeded by the old woman's\ngranddaughter, who was married about 1813; and she was followed in\nthe situation by an old man, who attended the different houses in\nthe square to go on errands, clean shoes, &c. Mrs. Lewson took this\nman into her house, and he acted as her steward, butler, cook, and\nhousemaid; and with the exception of two old lap-dogs and a cat, he was\nher only companion. The house she occupied was elegantly furnished,\nbut after the old style; the beds were kept constantly made, although\nthey had not been slept in for about fifty years. Her apartment was\nonly occasionally swept out, but never washed; the windows were so\nencrusted with dirt that they hardly admitted a ray of light to pass\nthrough them. She had used to tell her acquaintances that if the rooms\nwere wetted, it might be the occasion of her taking cold; and as to\ncleaning the windows, she observed that many accidents happened through\nthat ridiculous practice; the glass might be broke, and the person\nwounded, when the expense of repairing the one, and curing the other,\nwould both fall upon her. A large garden at the rear of the house was\nthe only thing connected with her establishment to which she really\npaid attention. This was always kept in good order; and here, when\nthe weather permitted, she enjoyed the air, or sometimes sat and read\nby way of pastime; or else chatted on times past with any of the few\nremaining acquaintances whose visits she permitted. She seldom visited\nany person except Mr. Jones, a grocer at the corner of the square,\nwith whom she dealt. She was so partial to the fashions prevailing in\nher youthful days, that she never changed the manner of her dress from\nthat worn by ladies in the reign of George the First. She always wore\npowder with a large _toupee_ made of horsehair on her head, nearly\nhalf a foot high, over which her front hair was turned up; a cap over\nit, which knotted under the chin, and three or four curls hanging down\nher neck. She generally wore silk gowns, the train long with a deep\nflounce all round, a very long narrow waist, very tightly laced up to\nher neck, round which was a ruff or frill. The sleeves of her gown, to\nwhich four or five large ruffles were attached, came below the elbow;\na large straw bonnet, quite flat, high-heeled shoes, a full-made black\nsilk cloak trimmed round with lace, and a gold-headed cane, completed\nher every-day costume for the last eighty years of her life, and in\nwhich habiliments she occasionally walked round the square, when she\nwas uniformly spoken of by all spectators as _Lady Lewson_. She never\npractised ablutions of any kind, or hardly in any degree, because, as\nshe alleged, those persons who washed themselves were always taking\ncold, or laying the foundation of some dreadful disorder. Her method\nwas to besmear her face and neck all over with hog's lard, because\nthat was soft and lubricating; and then, because she required a little\ncolour in her cheeks to set off her person to advantage, she had used\nto paint them with rose-pink. Her manner of living was so methodical,\nthat she would not take her tea out of any other than a favourite\ncup. She was equally particular with respect to her knives, forks,\nplates, &c. At breakfast she arranged, in a particular manner, the\nparaphernalia of her table: at dinner she always observed a particular\nrule as to the placing of the two or three empty chairs, by which the\ntable was surrounded, but herself always sat in one favourite chair.\nShe constantly enjoyed an excellent state of health; assisted at all\ntimes in regulating the affairs of her household; and never, until a\nlittle previous to her decease, had an hour's illness. She entertained\nthe greatest aversion to medicine; and, what is remarkable, cut two\nnew teeth at the age of 87, and was never troubled with the toothache.\nTowards the close of her life her sight failed her. She lived in five\nreigns, and was believed to be the most faithful living chronicler of\nthe age. A few days previous to her decease, an old lady who was her\nneighbour died suddenly, which had such an effect upon her that she\nfrequently said her time was also come, and she should soon follow.\nShe enjoyed the use of all her faculties till that period, when she\nbecame weak and took to her bed; but steadily refused all medical aid.\nHer conduct to a few relations was extremely capricious; and she would\nnever see any of them; and it was not until a few hours before her\ndissolution that any relaxation in her temper was manifested. She was\ninterred in Bunhill Fields burying-ground.\n\n\nWHEN FIRE ENGINES WERE FIRST MADE.\n\nThe Phoenix was the first fire-office established, in 1682. There were\nused, in towns, squirts or syringes, for extinguishing fire, which\ndid not exceed two or three feet in length. These yielded to the Fire\nEngine, with leathern pipes, which was patented in 1676. Water-tight,\nseamless hose was made in Bethnal Green in 1720. About this date--\n\n                                                L  s. d.\n  A fire engine and pipe for Lyme cost          6  0  0\n  A square pipe, 23 feet long                   1 18  0\n  12 leather fire-buckets                       2  3  3\n\nA Fire Engine was considered an appropriate present for an aspirant to\na borough. At Lewes, in 1726, T. Pelham, Esq., gave one, and having\nbeen chosen representative in 1731, he presented a second.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY CATARACT.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Cataract in Pulo Penang.]\n\nIn the Island of Pulo Penang, in the Straits of Malacca, there is a\ncataract which is surpassed by very few in the four quarters of the\nearth. It is rarely visited, and, therefore, has been but seldom\ndescribed; but those who have been fortunate enough to witness it all\nagree in the opinion that it forms one of the wonders of the world.\nThe stream which supplies it is of considerable volume, and after\ntraversing a long tract of comparatively level country, is suddenly\nprecipitated almost without a break into a ravine nearly two hundred\nfeet below the summit of the fall. The annexed engraving gives an\nexcellent representation of the scene. The stream descends with a\nmighty roar, and rushes on with a lightning speed. If you take the\ntrouble of bringing a small looking-glass in your pocket, and come\nhere about an hour before noon, you will be able to produce some very\nbeautiful artificial rainbows. But, whatever you do, never attempt to\nclamber to the top of the rocks; for though, doubtless, the scenery\nis very sublime up there, the pathway is slippery and dangerous in\nthe extreme; and the guides can tell how two hapless youths, officers\nbelonging to a regiment stationed here some twenty years ago, clambered\nup that hill, and how they shouted with triumph on reaching yon summit,\nand waved their handkerchiefs bravely; but they can also tell the\ngloomy and disastrous end of all this; how the wild screams echoed far\nand wide, as both slipped and fell headlong into the surging torrent,\nand the sun shone brightly upon the bright red uniforms as they were\nhurried over the precipice, and dashed from rock to rock; and, whilst\nyet the horror-stricken spectators gazed with speechless agony and\nterror, the bodies of the poor young men were borne away and hid by the\nblood-stained waters from human recovery.\n\n\nDANCES OF THE NATIVES IN NEW SOUTH WALES.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Festival Dance.]\n\nThe manners and customs of the uncivilized are always legitimate\nobjects of wonder and curiosity to the civilized. It is on this account\nthat we give the above sketch of one of the festival dances of the\nnatives of Australia.\n\nThese dances are not only the usual close of their combats, but are\nfrequent in time of peace. They appear almost necessary to stir up\ntheir blood; and under the excitement they produce, the whole nature\nof the people seems to be changed. To a spectator the effect of one of\nthese exhibitions almost equals that of a tragic melo-drama.\n\nA suitable place for the performance is selected in the neighbourhood\nof their huts. Here a fire is built by the women and boys, while\nsuch of the men as are to take a share in the exhibition, usually\nabout twenty in number, disappear to arrange their persons. When\nthese preparations are completed, and the fire burns brightly, the\nperformers are seen advancing in the guise of as many skeletons. This\neffect is produced by means of pipe clay, with which they paint broad\nwhite lines on their arms and legs, and on the head, while others of\nless breadth are drawn across the body, to correspond to the ribs. The\nmusic consists in beating time on their shields, and singing, and to it\nthe movements of the dancers conform. It must not be supposed that this\nexhibition is a dance in our sense of the word. It consists of violent\nand odd movements of the arms, legs, and body, contortions and violent\nmuscular actions, amounting almost to frenzy. The performers appear\nmore like a child's pasteboard supple-jack than anything human in their\nmovements.\n\nThis action continues for a time, and then the skeletons, for so they\nappear to be, since they truly resemble them, suddenly seem to vanish\nand reappear. The disappearance is effected by merely turning round,\nfor the figures are painted only in front, and their dusky forms are\nlost by mingling with the dark background. The trees, illuminated by\nthe fire, are brought out with some of the figures in bold relief,\nwhile others were indistinct and ghost-like. All concurs to give an\nair of wildness to the strange scene. As the dance proceeds, the\nexcitement increases, and those who a short time before appear only\nhalf alive, become full of animation, and finally are obliged to stop\nfrom exhaustion.\n\n\nA PUDDING AS AN ADVERTISEMENT.\n\nThe following fact is interesting, inasmuch as it gives us an insight\ninto the popular tastes of the period, and the power of mob-law:--\n\nIn 1718, James Austin, inventor of the Persian ink powder, invited his\ncustomers to a feast. There was a pudding promised, which was to be\nboiled fourteen days, instead of seven hours, and for which he allowed\na chaldron of coals. It weighed 900 pounds. The copper for boiling it\nwas erected at the Red Lion in Southwark Park, where crowds went to\nsee it; and when boiled, it was to be conveyed to the Swan Tavern,\nFish Street Hill, to the tune of \"What lumps of pudding my mother gave\nme.\" The place was changed to the Restoration Gardens in St. George's\nFields, in consequence of the numerous company expected, and the\npudding set out in procession with banners, streamers, drums, &c., but\nthe mob chased it on the way and carried all off.\n\n\nTHE DESOLATION OF EYAM.\n\nThe ancient custom of hanging a garland of white roses, made of writing\npaper, and a pair of white gloves over the pew of the unmarried\nvillagers who die in the flower of their age, prevailed up to the year\n1837 in the village of Eyam, and in most other villages and little\ntowns in the Peak of Derbyshire. In the year 1665, the plague was\nconveyed to this unfortunate village, which for a time had been chiefly\nconfined to London. The infection, it appears, was carried in a box of\nwoollen clothes; the tailor, to whom they were directed was, together\nwith his family, the immediate victims of this fatal importation;\nand a few days sufficed to confirm the fact, that the entire hamlet\nwas deeply infected. A general panic ensued, the worthy and truly\nchristian Rector, the Rev. William Mompesson, at this eventful and\nawful crisis, summoned the parish, and after energetically stating the\ncase, and declaring his decided intention of remaining at his post,\ninduced his hearers to adopt the measures he was about to propose, if\nnot for their own preservation, at least for the more important cause,\nthe preservation of the surrounding country. Eyam, from this moment,\nlike a besieged city, was cut off from the living world, and to the\nzeal and fidelity of this ever-to-be-respected minister was confided\nthe present, as well as eternal welfare of those who were about to\nprove to posterity, that devotion to their country, as well as to\ntheir God, was combined in the truly christian creed taught them by\nthis reverend man. But alas! it was the will of the Almighty that the\nranks of this devoted flock should be rapidly thinned, though Mr. and\nMrs. Mompesson had been hitherto spared; but in August, the latter\nwas carried off by the fatal disease, in the 27th year of her age;\nher monument may still be seen at no great distance from the chancel\ndoor. A number of grave-stones, bearing date 1666, in the churchyard,\nshow that for a time, at least, the dead had been deposited there in\nthe usual manner. Soon after the death of Mrs. Mompesson, the disorder\nbegan to abate, and in about two months might be said to have entirely\nceased. The pious and amiable Rector was graciously preserved.\n\n\nCURIOUS PLAY BILL.\n\nThe following remarkable theatrical announcement is worth preservation,\ninasmuch as it forms a curious effusion of vanity and poverty, in the\nshape of an appeal to the taste and feelings of the inhabitants of a\ntown in Sussex:--\n\n  (_Copy._)\n\nAt the old theatre in East Grinstead, on Saturday, May 5th, 1758, will\nbe represented (by particular desire, and for the benefit of Mrs. P.)\nthe deep and affecting Tragedy of Theodosius, or the Force of Love,\nwith magnificent scenes, dresses, &c.\n\nVaranes, by Mr. P., who will strive, as far as possible, to support the\ncharacter of this fiery Persian Prince, in which he was so much admired\nand applauded at Hastings, Arundel, Petworth, Midworth, Lewes, &c.\n\nTheodosius, by a young gentleman from the university of Oxford, who\nnever appeared on any stage.\n\nAthenais, by Mrs. P. Though her present condition will not permit her\nto wait on gentlemen and ladies out of the town with tickets, she\nhopes, as on former occasions, for their liberality and support.\n\nNothing in Italy can exceed the altar, in the first scene of the play.\nNevertheless, should any of the Nobility or Gentry wish to see it\nornamented with flowers, the bearer will bring away as many as they\nchoose to favour him with.\n\nAs the coronation of Athenais, to be introduced in the fifth act,\ncontains a number of personages, more than sufficient to fill all\nthe dressing rooms, &c., it is hoped no gentlemen and ladies will be\noffended at being refused admission behind the scenes.\n\nN.B. The great yard dog, that made so much noise on Thursday night,\nduring the last act of King Richard the Third, will be sent to a\nneighbour's over the way; and on account of the prodigious demand for\nplaces, part of the stable will be laid into the boxes on one side, and\nthe granary be open for the same purpose on the other.\n\n  _Vivat Rex._\n\n\nTHE EAR OF BIRDS NOT TO BE DECEIVED.\n\nThe sense of hearing in birds is singularly acute, and their instinct\nleads them instantly to detect the slightest variation in the song\nof those of their own kind. The following is a laughable instance of\nthis:--\n\nA bird-catcher, wishing to increase his stock of bullfinches, took\nout his caged bird and his limed twigs, and placed them in such a\nsituation of hedge and bush as he judged favourable to his success. It\nso happened that his own bird was one of education, such as is usually\ntermed a piping bullfinch. In the first instance a few accidentally\nthrown out natural notes, or calls, had attracted three or four of his\nkindred feather, which had now taken their station not far distant\nfrom the cage. There they stood in doubt and curiosity, and presently\nmoving inch by inch, and hop by hop towards him and the fatal twigs,\nthey again became stationary and attentive. It was in this eager and\nsuspended moment that the piping bullfinch set up the old country-dance\nof \"Nancy Dawson.\" Away flew every astounded bullfinch as fast as wings\ncould move, in such alarm and confusion as bullfinches could feel and\nthey only can venture to describe.\n\n\nFLYING COACH.\n\nIf the _Exeter Flying Stage_ arrived from London at Dorchester in two\ndays, and at Exeter at the end of the third day, about 1739, the speed\nmust have been considered surprising. Those who made use of such a\nconveyance were doubtless looked upon as presumptuous, neck-or-nothing\nmortals.\n\nThere was a \"Devizes chaise\" from London at this time which took a\nroute through Reading, Newbury, and Marlborough.\n\nThere is a good house at Morcomb Lake, east of Charmouth, now no longer\nin the road, owing to this having been diverted. This was a road-side\ninn, where the judges slept. The Fly Coach from London to Exeter\n_slept_ there the fifth night from town. The coach proceeded the next\nmorning to Axminster, where _it_ breakfasted, and there a woman barber\n_shaved the coach_.\n\n\nAN AGED SPIRIT DRINKER.\n\nDaniel Bull M'Carthy, of the county of Kerry, Ireland, died 1752, aged\n111. At the age of eighty-four he married a fifth wife, a girl little\nmore than fourteen years of age, by whom he had twenty children--one\nevery subsequent year of his life. It was remarked that he was scarcely\never seen to expectorate; nor did any extent of cold ever seem to\naffect him. For the last seventy years of his life, when in company, he\ndrank plentifully of rum and brandy, which he always took neat; and, if\nin compliance with solicitations he took wine or punch, always drank\nan equal sized glass of rum or brandy, which he designated _a wedge_.\nThe temperature of his body was generally so hot that he could bear but\nlittle clothing, either by day or night upon his person.\n\n\nGIANT TREE.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Giant Tree in Pulo Penang.]\n\nThere are few trees in the world like the giant tree in the island\nof Pulo Penang, of which the annexed engraving is a correct\nrepresentation. It is one of the various kinds of palm, and some idea\nmay be formed of its height from the fact that it is twice as tall,\nand quite as straight, as the mainmast of a line-of-battle ship; there\nare no branches, no twigs anywhere to be seen, save just at the very\nsummit, and here they bend over gracefully, something like what one\nwould imagine a large-sized palm-tree to be if gazed at through Lord\nRosse's telescope. It is a only specimen of its kind to be met with in\nthe whole island.\n\n\nPUNISHING FALSE ACCUSERS.\n\nWisdom may sometimes be learned at a Quarter Sessions, and it would\nbe advantageous if we occasionally took a hint from our ancestors.\nThe magistrates at sessions in Charles the First's reign could and\ndid address themselves to questions arising between parties moving in\nhumble life, very important to them, and who could now-a-day in vain\nseek redress in the same quarter. A modern Bridget might continue\nto charge men with a breach of promise of marriage without legal\nmeasures being available against her. This was not so in 1626. Her\ncase was considered, and her injurious conduct and mode of life were\nduly estimated, with what result we shall learn from the following\nentry in the minute book of a quarter sessions in Devonshire of that\ndate:--\"Forasmuch as it hath appeared unto this Court that Bridget\nHowsley of Langton, spinster, liveth idly and lewdly at home, not\nbetaking herself to any honest course of life, and hath lately falsely\nand scandalously accused one [left blank in the original] of Honiton,\nin Devon, challenging a promise of marriage from him, which tended\nmuch to his disgrace, and that she is a continual brawler and sower\nof strife and debate between her neighbours, inhabitants of Langton\naforesaid, this court doth therefore think fit and order that the said\nBridget Howsley be forthwith committed to the House of Correction,\nthere to be set on work and remain for the space of six whole months,\nand from thenceforth until she shall find very good sureties for her\nappearance at the next Sessions, after the said six months shall be\nexpired, or until she shall procure a master that will take her into\nservice.\"\n\n\nA PHASE OF THE SOUTHCOTTIAN DELUSION.\n\nOne of the most remarkable cases on record of combined knavery,\ncredulity, and superstition, is the belief which so extensively\nprevailed about fifty years ago in the mission and doctrines of Joanna\nSouthcott, and of which, strange to say, some traces remain even to\nthe present day. Is it not astonishing that so recently as the year\n1814, August 3rd, the following paragraph--which we believe gives a\ncorrect statement of the facts--should have appeared in the _Courier_\nnewspaper? \"Joanna Southcott has lately given out that she expects in\na few weeks to become the mother of the true Messiah. She is nearly\nseventy years of age. A cradle of most expensive and magnificent\nmaterials has been bespoken by a lady of fortune for the accouchement,\nand has been for some days exhibited at the warehouse of an eminent\ncabinet maker in Aldersgate-street. Hundreds of genteel persons of both\nsexes have been to see this cradle, in which her followers believe the\ntrue Messiah is to be rocked. The following has been given us as a\ncorrect description: 'A child's crib, three feet six inches, by two\nfeet, of satin wood, with brass trellis, side and foot board; turned\nfeet, carved and gilt, on castors; a swing cot, inside caned, to swing\non centre; at each end gilt mouldings, top and bottom for gold letters;\na canopy cover, with blue silk; carved and gilt under it, a gold ball,\nand dove, and olive branch; green stars at each corner, gilt; blue silk\nfurniture; an embroidered celestial crown, with Hebrew characters, gold\nletters; a lambs'-wool mattress, with white fustian down bed, down\npillow, and two superfine blankets.'\"\n\n\nHOUSEHOLD EXPENSES OF KING EDWARD THE FIRST.\n\nEdward the First kept three Christmasses at Rhuddlan castle, in\nFlintshire; and it is a fact not generally known, that his queen\nEleanor, exclusively of the young prince Edward, born at Caernarvon,\nwas delivered of a princess there in 1283. This shows that his entire\nhousehold must have been transferred into Wales, at the time his\npolicy was directed to complete the annexation of the principality of\nWales to that of England. In an ancient record in the tower of London,\ndated 1281-2, and translated by Samuel Lysons, Esq., is a curious roll\nof Edward's expenses when at Rhuddlan. It consists of four sheets,\ncontaining the particulars, under proper heads, of the sums of money\npaid for the maintenance of his household. The sum of the expenses in\nthis roll is L1,395 10s., which sum, with the expenses of the other\nroll of the queen's household is L2,220 2s. 10-1\/2d. The roll is very\ncurious, but too long to be inserted here. We append the following as a\nspecimen of the various items it contains:--\n\n  Paid on the day of the queen's churching in oblations to\n        mass                                                   L0  3  0\n  The queen's gift to divers minstrels attending her churching 10  0  0\n  The queen's gift to a female spy                              0  1  0\n  A certain female spy, to purchase her a house as a spy        1  0  0\n  For the brethren at the hospital at Rhuddlan                  0  1  1\n  For a certain player as a gift                                0  8  0\n  For the celebration of mass for the soul of William de Bajor  0  1 10\n  For the messenger carrying letters to the king at London,\n        to be sent to the court of Rome, for his expenses       0  1  0\n  Paid sundry bailiffs at the castle                            0  4 10\n  For the carriage of 80 casks of wine from the water to\n        the castle                                              0 22  0\n  For a cart bringing lances and cross bows from Ruthlan\n        to Hope                                                 0  1  4\n  For the carriage of L3,000 from the king's wardrobe to\n        the queen's wardrobe                                    0 10  5\n  For 600 turves, to place about the queen's stew pond in\n        the castle                                              0  1  0\n  Carriage of figs and raisins to Aberconway                    0  0  1\n  Paid wages for 1,060 archers at twopence, with 53 captains\n        at fourpence, with 10 constables of cavalry at 12d.\n        a day                                                  68  8  6\n  Paid the same for 1,040 archers, &c. &c.                     67  4  0\n\n\nGARRICK'S CUP.\n\n[Illustration [++] Garrick's Cup.]\n\nThis celebrated Shakspearean relic was presented to David Garrick,\nby the Mayor and Corporation of Stratford-upon-Avon, in September,\n1769, at the Jubilee which he instituted in honour of his favourite\nBard. It measures about 11 inches in height. The tree from which it\nis carved was planted by Shakspeare's own hand, in the year 1609,\nand after having stood 147 years, was, in an evil hour, and when at\nits full growth and remarkably large, cut down, and cleft to pieces\nfor fire-wood, by order of the Rev. Francis Gastrell, to whom it had\nbecome an object of dislike, from its subjecting him to the frequent\nimportunities of travellers. Fortunately, the greater part of it fell\ninto the possession of Mr. Thomas Sharp, a watchmaker of Stratford,\nwho, \"out of sincere veneration\" for the memory of its immortal\nplanter, and well knowing the value the world set upon it, converted\nthe fragments to uses widely differing from that to which they had been\nso sacrilegiously condemned. Garrick held this cup in his hand at the\nJubilee, while he sung the beautiful and well-known air, which he had\ncomposed for the occasion, beginning\n\n    \"Behold this fair goblet, 'twas carved from the tree,\n     Which, O my sweet Shakspeare, was planted by thee;\n     As a relic I kiss it, and bow at the shrine,\n     What comes from thy hand must be ever divine!\n         All shall yield to the Mulberry tree,\n                   Bend to thee,\n                   Blest Mulberry;\n                   Matchless was he\n                   Who planted thee,\n         And thou like him immortal be!\"\n\n\nQUICK WORK.\n\nMr. John Coxetter, of Greenham Mills, Newbury, had two South down sheep\nshorn at his factory exactly at five o'clock in the morning, from the\nwool of which, after passing its various processes, a complete damson\n coat was made, and worn by Sir John Throckmorton, at a quarter\npast six in the evening, being two and three-quarter hours within the\ntime allotted, for a wager of 1,000 guineas. The sheep were roasted\nwhole, and a sumptuous dinner given by Mr. Coxetter.\n\n\nORIGIN OF THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA.\n\n[Illustration [++] Great Wall of China.]\n\nAs has been invariably the case in the early history of all the leading\nnations of the earth, great confusion and civil discord existed in\nthe empire of China in its first stages. It was divided into petty\nprincedoms, each prince striving to outwit the other, and all anxiously\naiming at the supreme power of the land, till the Emperor Chi-hoang-ti,\nwho came to the throne about three hundred years before the Christian\nera, conquered the whole of the jealous petty princes, and united\ntheir states into one vast empire. But no sooner had he achieved this,\nthan the Tartars began to be troublesome, and, hoping effectually\nto exclude their invasions, this emperor caused to be constructed\nthe often-read-of great wall of China, a stupendous work of masonry,\nextending from the sea to the western province of Shensee and carried\nover a tract of fifteen hundred miles, comprising high mountains, deep\nvalleys, and broad rivers, the wall being supported over the latter\nby gigantic arches. Fortified towers were erected at every hundred\nyards, and its summit admitted of six horsemen riding abreast. This\nsovereign is said to be the founder of the Hau dynasty. The wall proved\nan insignificant barrier to the Huns or Tartars, who harassed the\nprinces of the Hau dynasty, and were a very scourge to the farmers of\nthe frontier provinces. About the year 264, the Hau dynasty gave way\nto the Tsin, which latter was founded by a lineal descendant, through\nmany generations, of the builder of the great wall. In the sketch which\nwe have given, our chief object has been to show the extraordinary\ninflexibility of the Chinese in carrying their wall strictly along\ntheir frontier line, in spite of the stupendous obstacles which,\nintervened in the shape of mountains and valleys.\n\n\nPRIVY PURSE EXPENSES OF CHARLES II.\n\nMalone, the well known editor of Shakespeare, possessed a curious\nvolume--an account of the privy expenses of Charles II, kept by Baptist\nMay. A few extracts from this MS., taken from Malone's transcripts, are\nhere offered:--\n\n                                                 L    s.  d.\n\n  My Lord St. Alban's bill                    1,746   18  11\n  Lady Castlemaine's debts                    1,116    1   0\n  Sir R. Viner, for plate                       850    0   0\n  For grinding cocoa-nuts                         5    8   0\n  Paid Lady C., play money                      300    0   0\n  For a band of music                            50    0   0\n  To the footman that beat Teague                 5    7   6\n  To Mr. Pears, for the charges of a body\n        dissected before the king                 5    1   0\n  Lady C., play money                           300    0   0\n  To the Morrice Dancers at Ely                   1    1   0\n  Lady C., play money                           300    0   0\n  Mr. Knight for bleeding the king               10   10   0\n  For a receipt of chocolate                    227    0   0\n  Mr. Price, for milking the asses               10    0   0\n  To one that showed tumblers' tricks             5    7   6\n  For weighing the king                           1    0   0\n  Paid Hall for dancing on the rope              20    0   0\n  The Queen's allowance                       1,250    0   0\n  Paid Lord Lauderdale for ballads                5    0   0\n  To a bone-setter attending the Duchess\n        of Monmouth                              10    0   0\n  Paid Terry for waiting on the king swimming    10    0   0\n  For 3,685 ribbons for the healing             107   10   4\n  Mrs. Blague, the king's valentine             218    0   0\n  Nell Gwyn                                     100    0   0\n  Lost by the king at play on Twelfth-night     220    0   0\n  Paid what was borrowed for the Countess of\n        Castlemaine                           1,650    0   0\n\n\nCOLOUR OF THE HAT FOR CARDINALS.\n\nInnocent IV. first made the hat the symbol or cognizance of the\ncardinals, enjoining them to wear a _red_ hat at the ceremonies and\nprocessions, _in token of their being ready_ to spill their blood for\nJesus Christ.\n\n\nSEVERITY OF THE LAWS A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.\n\nTwo lads were hanged for stealing a purse containing two shillings\nand a brass counter. Of ten criminals convicted at one sessions,\nfour were hanged and six transported. Very often half a dozen were\nsentenced to death at a single sessions. On the 17th March, 1755,\neight malefactors were hanged together at Tyburn. It was recorded as a\nmatter of surprise, that, \"only six convicts received sentence of death\nat Gloucester Assizes.\" One of these was a woman named Anne Ockley,\nwho was executed on the following day, on the charge of murdering an\nillegitimate child. To the last she denied her guilt, except in not\nhaving called in medical advice for her infant after a bad fall. She\ntook the Sacrament, and begged for more time to prepare herself for the\nchange; this favour being denied, she remained praying for two hours on\nthe drop before she would give the signal.\n\n\nMARKING THE KING'S DISHES WITH THE COOK'S NAMES.\n\nKing George II. was accustomed every other year to visit his German\ndominions, with the greater part of the officers of his household, and\nespecially those belonging to the kitchen. Once on his passage at sea,\nhis first cook was so ill with the sea-sickness, that he could not\nhold up his head to dress his majesty's dinner; this being told to the\nking, he was exceedingly sorry for it, as he was famous for making a\nRhenish soup, which his majesty was very fond of; he therefore ordered\ninquiry to be made among the assistant-cooks, if any of them could make\nthe above soup. One named Weston (father of Tom Weston, the player)\nundertook it, and so pleased the king, that he declared it was full\nas good as that made by the first cook. Soon after the king's return\nto England, the first cook died; when the king was informed of it, he\nsaid, that his steward of the household always appointed his cooks, but\nthat he would now name one for himself, and therefore asking if one\nWeston was still in the kitchen, and being answered that he was, \"That\nman,\" said he, \"shall be my first cook, for he makes most excellent\nRhenish soup.\" This favour begot envy among all the servants, so that,\nwhen any dish was found fault with, they used to say it was Weston's\ndressing: the king took notice of this, and said to the servants, it\nwas very extraordinary that every dish he disliked should happen to be\nWeston's; \"In future,\" said he, \"let every dish be marked with the name\nof the cook that makes it.\" By this means the king detected their arts,\nand from that time Weston's dishes pleased him most.\n\nThis custom was kept up till late in the reign of George III.\n\n\nPARLOUS DAYS.\n\nBloodletting, considered during the last century to be necessary for\nevery one in health or not, at spring and fall, was an operation\nperformed by the country surgeons on the labourers on a Sunday morning,\nat a charge of 6d. each. Bleeding in bed by a barber was, in the reign\nof Charles II., sometimes charged, for a lady, so high as 10s., and\nfor a gentleman, 1s. and 2s. 6d. The operator perhaps barboured the\npatient at an additional charge. Barbouring by the year was charged\n16s. Superstition had marked certain days in each month as dangerous\nfor bloodletting, which were called _parlous_ days. In July, the 1st,\n7th, 13th, 12th, 25th, and 20th were of the above kind.\n\nAs the whole population had recourse to bloodletting twice a year,\nbleeders or barbers were in constant demand.\n\n\nA FUNERAL APPROPRIATELY CONDUCTED.\n\nDuring the year 1700, the minister of a parish in Kent was interred\nat the age of 96 years; the gentleman who preached his funeral sermon\nwas 82; he who read the service 87; the clerk of the parish was the\nsame age; the sexton was 86; in addition to which list of aged persons,\nthere were several present from the adjacent parishes 100 years old\neach, and upwards.\n\n\nANCIENT NUT-CRACKERS.\n\n[Illustration [++] Ancient Nut-Crackers.]\n\nThe two quaint instruments pictured in our engraving, of about the\ntime of Charles I. or II., are made of hard wood rather rudely carved;\nand look as if in their time they had seen good service. The grotesque\nheads, with the mouth, affording the means of cracking the nuts, are\nexamples of the fitness of design for a particular purpose, which\ncharacterize many of the objects in domestic use in the middle ages,\nand up to the reign of Queen Anne, after which ornamental art for\nhousehold uses seems almost to have been disused. Even in the time of\nGeorge III., our chairs, tables, side-boards, &c., were made heavy,\nvery ugly, and without any attempt at appropriate pattern.\n\n\nNELL GWYNNE'S LOOKING-GLASS.\n\n[Illustration [++] Nell Gwynne's Looking-Glass.]\n\nThis glass is in the possession of Sir Page Dicks, of Port Hall. It\nbears the likeness of Nell Gwynne and King Charles, which are modelled\nin wax; and also the supporters, or crest, which Nell assumed, namely,\nthe lion and the leopard. The whole is curiously worked in \nglass beads, and the figures, with the dresses, made to project in very\nhigh relief; indeed, they are merely attached to the groundwork. In the\nupper compartment is Charles in his state dress; and the bottom one,\nthat of Nell Gwynne, in her court dress--the pattern of which is very\ntasteful. On the right is Charles in his hunting dress. The beads have\nretained their colours, which are very appropriate to the subject, and\nmust have been a work of considerable time and patience; but whether\ndone by Nell or not, there is no record.\n\n\nA REMARKABLE HIGHLANDER.\n\nIn August, 1827, John Macdonald expired in his son's house, in the\nLawnmarket, Edinburgh, at the advanced age of one hundred and seven\nyears. He was born in Glen Tinisdale, in the Isle of Skye, and, like\nthe other natives of that quarter, was bred to rural labour. Early\none morning in his youth, when looking after his black cattle, he was\nsurprised by the sight of two ladies, as he thought, winding slowly\nround a hill, and approaching the spot where he stood. When they came\nup, they inquired for a well or stream, where a drink of water could be\nobtained. He conducted them to the \"Virgin Well,\" an excellent spring,\nwhich was held in great reverence on account of its being the scene of\nsome superstitious and legendary tales. When they had quenched their\nthirst, one of the ladies rewarded Macdonald with a shilling, the first\nsilver coin of which he was possessed. At their own request he escorted\nthem to a gentleman's house at some distance, and there, to his great\nsurprise and satisfaction, he learned that the two \"ladies\" were Flora\nMacdonald and Prince Charles Stewart.\n\nThis was the proudest incident in Macdonald's patriarchal life; and,\nwhen surrounded by his Celtic brethren, he used to dilate on all the\nrelative circumstances with a sort of hereditary enthusiasm, and more\nthan the common garrulity of age. He afterwards turned joiner, and\nbore a conspicuous part in the building of the first Protestant church\nwhich was erected in the island of North Uist. He came to Edinburgh\ntwenty-three years before his death, and continued to work at his trade\ntill he was ninety-seven years of age.\n\nMacdonald was a temperate, regular-living man, and never paid a\nsixpence to a surgeon for himself, nor had an hour's sickness in the\nwhole course of his life. He used to dance regularly on New-year's day,\nalong with some Highland friends, to the bagpipe. On New-year's day,\n1825, he danced a reel with the father, the son, the grandson, and\ngreat-grandson, and was in more than his usual spirits. His hearing was\nnothing impaired, and till within three weeks of his demise he could\nhave threaded the finest needle with facility, without glasses.\n\n\nCATS WITH KNOTTED TAILS.\n\nWe extract the following paragraph from the narrative of a voyager in\nthe Indian Ocean, because it contains an account of a rarity in natural\nhistory with which few, we believe, are acquainted.\n\n\"The steward is again pillowed on his beloved salt fish, and our\nonly companion is a Malacca cat, who has also an attachment for the\nsteward's pillow. Puss is a tame little creature, and comes rubbing\nherself mildly against our shoes, looking up in our faces, and mewing\nher thoughts. Doubtless she is surprised that you have been so long\nlooking at her without noticing the peculiarity in her tail, which\nso much distinguishes her from the rest of the feline race in other\nquarters of the globe. Take her up in your lap, and see for yourself.\nDid you ever observe such a singular knot--so regular, too, in its\nformation? Some cruel monster must have tied it in a knot whilst puss\nwas yet a kitten, and she has outlived both the pain and inconvenience.\nBut here comes a kitten, all full of gambols and fun, and we find\nthat her tail is in precisely the same condition. So, then, this is\na remarkable feature amongst the whole race of Malayan cats, but\nfor which, no one we meet with, is able to give us a satisfactory\nexplanation.\"\n\n\nCURIOUS FEATS.\n\nIn 1553, the following extraordinary exhibition was performed\nin the presence of Queen Mary, in her passage through London to\nWestminster.--It is thus described by Holinshed, in his \"Chronicle,\"\nprinted 1577:--\"When shee didd come to Sainte Paule's churchyarde,\nMaister Haywood sat in a pageant under a vine, and made to her an\noration in Latine; and then there was one Peter, a man of Holland,\nwho didd stand upon the weathercocke of St. Paule's steeple, holdyng\na streamer in his handes of five yardes long, and waving thereof. Hee\nsometimes stood on one foot and shock the other, and then hee kneeled\non his knees to the verie grate marvel of al the people. Hee hadd\nmade two scaffolds under him--one above the cross, having torches\nand streamers sett upon it, and another over the ball of the cross,\nlikewise sett with streamers and torches which could not burne, the\nwind was so greate.\" Our chronicler further informs us, that \"Peter\ndidd have xvi pounds xiii shillings and iii pence given to him by the\ncitie of London for his costes and pains, and for all his stuffe.\"\n\n\nIMPUDENCE OR CANDOUR, WHICH IS IT?\n\nThe following advertisement appeared in the _St. James's Chronicle_ of\n1772. \"Wanted immediately, fifteen hundred, or two thousand pounds,\nby a person not worth a groat; who, having neither houses, land,\nannuities, or public funds, can offer no other security than that\nof simple bond, bearing simple interest, and engaging the repayment\nof the sum borrowed in five, six, or seven years, as may be agreed\non by the parties. Whoever this may suit, (for it is hoped it will\nsuit somebody), by directing a line for A. Z. in Rochester, shall be\nimmediately replied to, or waited on, as may appear necessary.\"\n\n\nTHE SOUTH STACK LIGHTHOUSE.\n\n[Illustration [++] South Stack Lighthouse.]\n\nThough not so celebrated as the Eddystone, the South Stack Lighthouse\nis unquestionably one of the marvels of science, and as such may be\nappropriately described in our pages. It is erected on the summit of\nan isolated rock, three or four miles westward from Holyhead, and\nseparated from the main land by a chasm ninety feet in width. This\nsplendid structure was raised in the year 1808. The elevation of the\nsummit of the rock on which it is erected is 140 feet above the level\nof the sea at high-water mark; the height of the tower, from the base\nto the gallery, is sixty feet; and the lantern is twelve feet high\nfrom the gallery; making the total elevation of the light 212 feet\nabove high-water mark. The light is produced by twenty-one brilliant\nlamps, with powerful reflectors, placed on a revolving triangular\nframe, displaying a full-faced light every two minutes, which, in clear\nweather, is distinctly visible at a distance of ten leagues. Latterly\nthere has been an addition of three red lights placed at the rock,\nwhich are more distinctly visible in foggy weather than the lighthouse\nlights. The rough sea caused by the strong tides about the head\nrendered the communication by boat very precarious. In order to obviate\nthe danger, a passage was contrived by means of two ropes thrown across\nthe gulf, along which the individual was drawn in a box or cradle, by\nthe assistance of pulleys affixed at each end. This plan was superseded\nby a bridge of ropes, which was used some years after, though always\nconsidered unsafe, on account of the constant wear of the ropes. In\n1827, a modern suspension chain-bridge was thrown over the sound, the\nspan of which is 110 feet, the chains being firmly bolted in the rock\non each side, and carried over two massive stone pillars erected for\nthe purpose. The chain supports a platform of timber five feet wide,\nand seventy feet above high-water mark. The bridge is attained by\ndescending the Holyhead mountain in a zigzag direction by a flight of\n380 steps.\n\n\nBRASS MEDAL OF OUR SAVIOUR.\n\nIn 1702, the late Rev. H. Rowlands, author of _Mona Antiqua_, while\nsuperintending the removal of some stones, near Aberfraw, Wales, for\nthe purpose of making an antiquarian research, found a beautiful\nbrass medal of our Saviour, in a fine state of preservation, which he\nforwarded to his friend and countryman, the Rev. E. Llwyd, author of\nthe _Archeologiae Britannica_, and at that time keeper of the Ashmolean\nlibrary at Oxford.\n\nThis medal, of which an engraving is subjoined, has on one side the\nfigure of a head exactly answering the description given by Publius\nLentulus of our Saviour, in a letter sent by him to the emperor\nTiberius and the senate of Rome. On the reverse side, it has the\nfollowing legend or inscription, written in Hebrew characters, \"This\nis Jesus Christ, the Mediator or Reconciler;\" or \"Jesus, the Great\nMessias, or Man Mediator.\" And being found among the ruins of the chief\nDruids resident in Anglesea, it is not improbable that the curious\nrelic belonged to some Christian connected with Bran the Blessed, who\nwas one of Caractacus's hostages at Rome from A.D. 52 to 59, at which\ntime the Apostle Paul was preaching the gospel of Christ at Rome. In\ntwo years afterwards, A.D. 61, the Roman General Suetonius extirpated\nall the Druids in the island. The following is a translation of the\nletter alluded to, a very antique copy of which is in the possession of\nthe family of Kellie, afterwards Lord Kellie, now represented by the\nEarl of Mar, a very ancient Scotch family--taken from the original at\nRome:--\n\n\"There hath appeared in these our days, a man of great virtue, named\nJesus Christ, who is yet living among us, and of the Gentiles is\naccepted as a prophet, but his disciples call him 'the Son of God.' He\nraiseth the dead, and cures all manner of diseases; a man of stature\nsomewhat tall and comely, with very reverend countenance, such as the\nbeholders both love and fear; his hair the colour of chesnut, full\nripe, plain to his ears, whence downwards it is more orient, curling,\nand waving about his shoulders. In the midst of his head is a seam or a\npartition of his hair after the manner of the Nazarites; his forehead\nplain and very delicate; his face without a spot or wrinkle, beautified\nwith the most lovely red; his nose and mouth so formed that nothing\ncan be reprehended; his beard thickish, in colour like his hair,\nnot very long but forked; his look, innocent and mature; his eyes,\ngrey, clear, and quick. In reproving, he is terrible; in admonishing,\ncourteous and fair spoken; pleasant in conversation, mixed with\ngravity. It cannot be remarked that any one saw him laugh, but many\nhave seen him weep. In proportion of body, most excellent; his hands\nand arms most delicate to behold. In speaking, very temperate, modest,\nand wise. A man, for his singular beauty, surpassing the children of\nmen!\"\n\n[Illustration [++] Brass Medal of Our Saviour.]\n\nThe representation of this sacred person which is in the Bodleian\nlibrary, somewhat resembles that of the print of this medal, when\ncompared together. It was taken from a likeness engraved in agate, and\nsent as a present from the sultan for the release of his brother, who\nwas taken prisoner. There is a well-executed drawing of this at the\nMostyn library, much worse for age.\n\n\nMONSTROUS HEAD-DRESS.\n\n[Illustration [++] Head-Dress of 1782.]\n\nAt no period in the history of the world was anything more absurd in\nhead-dress worn than that here depicted, which was in vogue with the\nfashionables of 1782. The body of this erection was formed of tow, over\nwhich the hair was turned, and false hair added in great curls, bobs,\nand ties, powdered to profusion; then hung all over with vulgarly-large\nrows of pearls, or glass beads, fit only to decorate a chandelier;\nflowers as obtrusive were stuck about this heap of finery, which was\nsurmounted by broad silken bands and great ostrich-feathers, until the\nhead-dress of a lady added three feet to her stature, and the male\nsex, to use the words of the _Spectator_, \"became suddenly dwarfed\nbeside her.\" To effect this, much time and trouble was wasted, and\ngreat personal annoyance was suffered. Heads, when properly dressed,\n\"kept for three weeks,\" as the barbers quietly phrased it; that they\nwould not really \"keep\" longer may be seen by the many recipes they\ngive for the destruction of insects which bred in the flour and pomatum\nso liberally bestowed upon them. The description of \"opening a lady's\nhead,\" after a three weeks' dressing, given in the magazines of this\nperiod, it would be imagined, would have taught the ladies common\nsense; but fashion could reconcile even the disgust that must have been\nfelt by all.\n\n\nPRICE OF HUMAN HAIR.\n\nLong flaxen hair was bought from the head at 10s. the ounce, and any\nother fine hair at 5s. or 7s. the ounce in 1662.\n\nWithin the present century the heads of hair of whole families in\nDevonshire were let out by the year at so much rent per poll. An Exeter\nperriwig maker went round periodically, cut the locks, and oiled the\nnumskull of each thus left in stubble.\n\n\nINTERESTING AND FANCIFUL RELIQUE.\n\n[Illustration [++] Enamelled Jewel.]\n\nThe enamelled jewel, of which we give an engraving, was presented by\nMary, Queen of Scots, to George Gordon, fourth Earl of Huntley. The\nprecise period at which the gift was made is not now known, though\nthe time was not improbably during the residence of the Queen in\nFrance, when the Order of St. Michael was conferred on the Duke of\nChatelherault, the Earl of Huntley, and several other Scottish nobles,\nabout 1548. The lock of Mary's hair which is attached to the small\nivory skull, is of a light auburn, inclining to a gold-colour; and if\nallowance be made for some fading in the course of years, and for the\nhair of the Queen having generally become darker as she advanced in\nlife, the accuracy of Melvil will be confirmed, when, in speaking of\nher after her return to Scotland, he says, \"her hair was light auburn;\nElizabeth's more red than yellow.\" In this particular little reliance\ncan be placed upon the portraits of Queen Mary; since it is well known,\nthat in the latter part of her life, it was a fashionable practice to\nwear false hair of various hues, though in some of her pictures the\ncolour of the locks is nearly similar to the hue of that represented in\nthe present. The skull, from which it issues is connected by a twisted\nskein of silk with the figure of a Cupid shooting an arrow, standing on\na heart enamelled red, transfixed with a dart. On one side the heart is\na setting for a precious stone, now vacant; and, on the other, in white\nletters, the words \"Willingly Wounded.\" From the point of the heart is\na pendant, containing on one side a small ruby, and having the other\nenamelled blue with an ornament in white. Our engraving represents one\nside of the jewel, of the exact size of the original.\n\n\nFASTIDIOUSNESS IN DRESS AT AN OLD AGE.\n\nJonn Benbow, of Northwood, in the parish of Prees, Salop, died 1806,\naged 107. His occupation was that of a maker of clocks and watches.\nHis steadiness of hand, clearness of intellect, and complete command\nof all his faculties, were such that, till within a very few years of\nhis decease, he was enabled to execute the most intricate and delicate\nmanipulations connected with his business. He lived in three centuries;\nand, at the time of his decease, had a son, a grandson, and several\ngreat-grandchildren, living in the house with him. He was remarkable\nfor industry, sobriety, early rising, and soon retiring to rest,\nand was universally respected for his integrity and ingenuity. His\nfavourite beverage was \"small beer\" brewed of molasses. To the very\nclose of his life he was remarkable for his extreme attention to his\ndress and everything relating to his personal appearance, as will be\nseen by the following anecdote. About three years before his death, his\ntailor brought him home a new coat; on examining which he discovered\nthat the man, either through not being provided with the necessary\nmaterial or inadvertence, had substituted a cloth collar for a velvet\none, which he was accustomed to have added to his garment. Mortified at\nthis circumstance, and learning that the tailor had not velvet of the\nnecessary quality by him, he took up his walking-stick and straitway\nwent off to Whitchurch, a distance of seven miles, to purchase the\nmaterials proper to make a new collar, and, to the astonishment of all\nhis family, returned home in a few hours.\n\n\nSUPERSTITION OF THE JAVANESE.\n\nNowhere has superstition a greater power over the human mind than among\nthe inhabitants of Java.\n\nWhen the proper chord is touched, there is scarcely anything too gross\nfor the belief of these islanders. Mr. Crawfurd relates that some\nyears since, it was almost accidentally discovered, that the skull of\na buffalo was superstitiously conveyed from one part of the island to\nanother. The point insisted upon was, never to let it rest, but to keep\nit in constant progressive motion. It was carried in a basket, and no\nsooner was one person relieved from the load than it was taken up by\nanother; for the understanding was, that some dreadful imprecation was\ndenounced against the man who should let it rest. In this manner, the\nscull was hurried from one province to another, and after a circulation\nof many hundred miles, at length reached the town of Samarang, the\nDutch governor of which seized it and threw it into the sea, and thus\nthe spell was broken. The Javanese expressed no resentment, and nothing\nfurther was heard of this unaccountable transaction. None could tell\nhow or where it originated.\n\nThe same writer relates a still more extraordinary instance of\ninfatuation. During the occupation of Java by the English, in the\nmonth of May 1814, it was unexpectedly discovered, that, in a remote\nbut populous part of the island, a road, leading to the top of the\nmountain of Sumbeng, one of the highest in Java, had been constructed.\nAn enquiry being set on foot, it was discovered that the delusion which\ngave rise to the work had its origin in the province of Banyunas, in\nthe territories of the Susunan, and that the infection had spread\nto the territory of the Sultan, and thence extended to that of the\nEuropeans. On examination a road was found constructed twenty feet\nbroad, and from fifty to sixty miles long, and it was wonderfully\nsmooth and well made. One point which appears to have been considered\nnecessary, was, that this road should not cross rivers, and in\nconsequence it wound in a thousand ways. Another point as peremptorily\ninsisted on was, that its straight course should not be interrupted by\nany private rights; and in consequence trees and houses were overturned\nto make way for it. The population of whole districts, occasionally\nto the amount of five or six thousand labourers, were employed on the\nroad, and, among a people disinclined to active exertion the laborious\nwork was nearly completed in two months--such was the effect of the\ntemporary enthusiasm with which they were inspired. It was found in\nthe sequel that the whole work was set in motion by an old woman, who\ndreamt, or pretended to have dreamt, that a divine personage was about\nto descend from heaven on the mountain in question. Piety suggested\nthe propriety of constructing a road to facilitate his descent; and\nit was rumoured that divine vengeance would pursue the sacrilegious\nperson who refused to join in the meritorious labour. These reports\nquickly wrought on the fears and ignorance of the people, and they\nheartily joined in the enterprise. The old woman distributed slips of\npalm-leaves to the labourers, with magic letters written upon them,\nwhich were charms to secure them against sickness and accidents. When\nthis strange affair was discovered by the native authorities, orders\nwere issued to desist from the work, and the inhabitants returned\nwithout a murmur to their wonted occupations.\n\n\nSIZE OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS.\n\nThe exact size of our own country is a legitimate object of curiosity.\nWe believe the following will be found strictly accurate:--\n\n  The area of England is estimated at               31,929,340 acres.\n      \"       Wales                                  4,320,000   \"\n      \"       Scotland                              16,240,000   \"\n      \"       S. Isles adjacent to the coast         1,055,080   \"\n      \"       W. Isles                                 851,200   \"\n      \"       Orkneys                                  153,606   \"\n      \"       Shetlands                                643,840   \"\n\n\nCASE CONTAINING THE HEART OF LORD EDWARD BRUCE.\n\nLord Edward Bruce was eldest son of Sir Edward, baron of Kinloss,\nso created by James I. in 1603, to whom the king gave the dissolved\nabbey of Kinloss, in Ayrshire, after he had been instrumental in his\nsuccession to the crown of England; whither accompanying the king, he\nwas made master of the Rolls in 1604, died in 1610, and was buried\nin the Rolls chapel. His son, the lord Edward, killed in duel by Sir\nEdward Sackville in 1613, was succeeded by his brother, who was created\nEarl of Elgin in 1633, and an English baron in 1641.\n\nSir Edward Sackville, by whose hand the Lord Edward Bruce fell, was\nyounger brother to Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset, on whose death\nhe succeeded to the title. He was lord president of the council, a\njoint lord keeper, and filled several other distinguished offices under\nCharles I., to whom he adhered, by whose side he fought at the battle\nof Edge-hill, and whose death he took so much to heart, that he never\nafterwards stirred out of his house in Salisbury-court, but died there\non the 17th of July, 1652.\n\n[Illustration [++] Case Containing the Heart of Lord Edward Bruce.]\n\nBetween these noblemen there arose a quarrel, which terminated in their\nduel; and all that is, or probably can be known respecting it, is\ncontained in the following correspondence, preserved in a manuscript in\nQueen's college library, Oxford.\n\n  _A Monsieur, Monsieur Sackvile._\n\n\"I that am in France, hear how much you attribute to yourself in this\ntime, that I have given the world leave to ring your praises; and for\nme, the truest almanack, to tell you how much I suffer. If you call\nto memory, when as I gave you my hand last, I told you I reserved the\nheart for a truer reconcilliation. Now be that noble gentleman, my love\nonce spoke, and come and do him right that could recite the tryals you\nowe your birth and country, were I not confident your honour gives\nyou the same courage to do me right, that it did to do me wrong. Be\nmaster of your own weapons and time; the place wheresoever, I will wait\non you. By doing this, you shall shorten revenge, and clear the idle\nopinion the world hath of both our worths.\n\n  \"ED. BRUCE.\"\n\n\n  _A Monsieur, Monsieur Baron de Kinloss._\n\n\"As it shall be always far from me to seek a quarrel, so will I always\nbe ready to meet with any that is desirous to make tryal of my valour,\nby so fair a course as you require. A witness whereof yourself shall\nbe, who, within a month, shall receive a strict account of time, place\nand weapon, where you shall find me ready disposed to give honourable\nsatisfaction, by him that shall conduct you thither. In the mean time,\nbe as secret of the appointment, as it seems you are desirous of it.\n\n  \"E. SACKVILE.\"\n\n\n  _A Monsieur, Monsieur Baron de Kinloss._\n\n\"I am at Tergose, a town in Zeland, to give what satisfaction your\nsword can render you, accompanied with a worthy gentleman for my\nsecond, in degree a knight. And, for your coming, I will not limit you\na peremptory day, but desire you to make a definite and speedy repair,\nfor your own honour, and fear of prevention; at which time you shall\nfind me there.\n\n_Tergose, 10th of August, 1613._\n\n  \"E. SACKVILE.\"\n\n\n  _A Monsieur, Monsieur Sackvile._\n\n\"I have received your letter by your man, and acknowledge you have\ndealt nobly with me; and now I come, with all possible haste, to meet\nyou.\n\n  \"E. BRUCE.\"\n\nThe combat was fierce, and fatal to Lord Bruce.\n\nIt has always been presumed that the duel was fought under the walls of\nAntwerp; but the combatants disembarked at Bergen-op-Zoom, and fought\nnear that town, and not Antwerp.\n\n[Illustration [++] Silver Case Shaped Like a Heart.]\n\nIn consequence of a tradition, that the heart of Lord Edward Bruce had\nbeen sent from Holland, and interred in the vault or burying-ground\nadjoining the old abbey church of Culross, in Perthshire, Sir Robert\nPreston directed a search in that place in 1808, with the following\nresult:--Two flat stones, without inscription, about four feet in\nlength and two in breadth, were discovered about two feet below the\nlevel of the pavement, and partly under an old projection in the wall\nof the old building. These stones were strongly clasped together\nwith iron; and when separated, a silver case, or box, of foreign\nworkmanship, shaped like a heart, was found in a hollow or excavated\nplace between them. Its lid was engraved with the arms and name \"Lord\nEdward Bruse;\" it had hinges and clasps; and when opened, was found to\ncontain a heart, carefully embalmed, in a brownish  liquid.\nAfter drawings had been taken of it, as represented in the present\nengravings, it was carefully replaced in its former situation. There\nwas a small leaden box between the stones in another excavation; the\ncontents of which, whatever they were originally, appeared reduced to\ndust.\n\nSome time after this discovery, Sir Robert Preston caused a delineation\nof the silver case, according to the exact dimensions, with an\ninscription recording its exhumation and re-deposit, to be engraved on\na brass plate, and placed upon the projection of the wall where the\nheart was found.\n\nIt is a remarkable fact, that the cause of the quarrel between Lord\nBruce and Sir Edward Sackville has remained wholly undetected,\nnotwithstanding successive investigations at different periods. Lord\nClarendon, in his \"History of the Rebellion,\" records the combat as an\noccurrence of magnitude, from its sanguinary character and the eminence\nof the parties engaged in it. He does not say any thing respecting the\noccasion of the feud, although Lord Bruce's challenge seems to intimate\nthat it was a matter of public notoriety.\n\nThe exact day of the duel is not known, but it was certainly in 1613,\nand most probably in August from the date of one of the above letters.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY FEMALE INTREPIDITY.\n\nEarly on the 24th of January, 1822, the turnpike-house, about four\nmiles from Basingstoke, on this side of Overton, was attacked, with\nintent to enter, by two men, who had taken off some tiles at the\nback part of the premises (the roof being very low) to effect their\npurpose. These villains knew, it would appear, that a lone woman, Mrs.\nWhitehouse, received the tolls at this gate, and that her husband\nattended a gate as far distant as Colebrook. Mrs. Whitehouse, however,\nvery fortunately possessed three loaded pistols, one of which she\nfired--then a second, and a third, without effect. These determined\nruffians (notwithstanding being thrice fired at) were, it appears,\nresolved not to depart without accomplishing the projected robbery.\nMrs. Whitehouse's little boy, only 11 years of age, in the mean time\nhad re-loaded a brace of pistols, one of which Mrs. Whitehouse fired,\nand wounded one of the desperadoes full in the face--he fell, and the\nblood flowed profusely; yet, strange to relate, the accomplice had\nhardihood enough to drag away the wounded robber! On observing this,\nMrs. Whitehouse fired the fifth pistol at them, but missed them. The\nfellow who received the contents of the fourth pistol being supposed to\nhave been killed, and some persons residing at a considerable distance\nfrom the spot having heard of the circumstance, assembled, and made\ndiligent search at daybreak to discover the body of the deceased; but,\nalthough the blood could be traced some distance from the house, the\nbody could not be found; nor were those concerned in the attack ever\nfound out. The successful resistance, however, deserves to be recorded.\n\n\nGIGANTIC BONES.\n\nWhenever any bones of unusual magnitude were discovered, it was\ninvariably the custom to ascribe them to some giant. This was always\nso up to recent years, and no wonder it was intensely the case at the\nearly period of 1660. About that period, when the brook or rivulet\nfrom which the town of Corbridge, in the north of England, derives its\nname, had been worn away by some impetuous land-flood, a skeleton,\nsupposed to be that of a man of extraordinary and prodigious size,\nwas discovered. The length of the thigh bone was nearly six feet, and\nthe skull, teeth, and other parts proportionably monstrous, so that\nthe length of the whole body was computed at twenty-one feet. It is\nconjectured, by the more enlightened men of modern times, that these\nstrange bones belonged to some large animal that had been sacrificed\nby the Romans at the altar dedicated to Hercules, which was found\nhere some years ago. Notwithstanding that the superstition of our\nforefathers has lost nearly all its credit and influence, a singularly\nlarge bone found here is now exhibited in the Keswick Museum as the rib\nof the giant Cor.\n\n\nNEW STYLE OF ADVERTISEMENT.\n\nThe following editorial announcement is taken from the Philadelphia\n_Weekly Mercury_, of November 30, 1752, because it forms a complete\nnovelty in its way, and also affords us an insight into the degree of\ncommunication which existed at that period between the large towns\nand the provinces in America. It is, moreover, a curious jumble of\ninformation, strangely mixing up the starting of the stage coach with\nthe news of the day:--\n\nOn _Monday_ next the Northern Post sets out from _New-York_, in order\nto perform his Stage but once a Fortnight, during the Winter Quarter;\nthe Southern Post changes also, which will cause this Paper to come\nout on _Tuesdays_ during that Time. The Colds which have infested the\nNorthern Colonies have also been troublesome here, few Families having\nescaped the same, several have been carry'd off by the Cold, among whom\nwas _David Brintnall_, in the 77th Year of his Age; he was the first\nMan that had a Brick House in the City of _Philadelphia_, and was much\nesteem'd for his just and upright dealing. There goes a Report here,\nthat the Lord _Baltimore_ and his Lady are arrived in _Maryland_,\nbut the Southern Post being not yet come in, the said Report wants\nConfirmation.\n\n\nMAKING A CANDLESTICK OF GUNPOWDER.\n\nA marvellous escape from destruction is related in the MS. Life of\nAlderman Barnes.--\"One of his brother-in-law's (Alderman Hutchinson's)\napprentices, stepping up into the back-lofts to fetch somewhat he\nwanted, in his heedlessness and haste, stops his candle into a\nbarrel of gunpowder whose head was struck off, to serve instead of a\ncandlestick. But the man reflecting what he had done, was struck with\naffrightment, his heart failed him, nor durst he stay any longer,\nbut running down stairs, leaves the candle burning in the gunpowder\ncask, and with horror, trembling, and despair, tells the family what\nindiscretion he had committed; they were all immediately as their\nwits' end, and well they might, for the lofts were three stories\nhigh, very large, and stowed full with whatever is combustible, as\nbrandy, oil, pitch, tar, rosin, flax, alum, hops, and many barrels of\ngunpowder. Had the candle fallen to one side, or had the least spark\nfallen from the snuff into the cask, the whole town had been shaken,\nand the whole of the house immediately blown up and in a blaze; but\none of the labourers, a stout fellow, ran forthwith into the loft, and\njoining both his hands together, drew the candle softly up between\nhis middlemost fingers, so that if any snuff had dropped, it must\nhave fallen into the hollow of the man's hand, and by this means was\nNewcastle saved from being laid in ashes.\" This must have happened\nabout the year 1684.\n\n\nTHE CAMDEN CUP.\n\nThe subjoined engraving represents the Silver-gilt Standing Cup\nand Cover bequeathed by the celebrated historian, William Camden,\nClarenceux King at Arms, to the Worshipful Company of Painter\nStainers'. Camden's will is recorded in the Prerogative Court\nof Canterbury (in the register designated III Swann 3, probate\ngranted November 10, 1623), and it has been printed by Hearne in\nhis _Collection of Curious Discourses_, Ox. 1720. After directing\nthe sum of eight pounds to be given \"to the poore of that place\n(Chislehurst) when it shall please God to call me to his mercie,\"\nCamden continues--\"I bequeath to Sir Foulke Greville, Lord Brooke,\nChancellor of the Exchequer, who preferred me gratis to my Office, a\npeece of plate of ten pounds; Item, to the Company of Painter-Stainers\nof London, to buy them a peece of plate in memoriall of mee, sixteene\npounds;\" the inscription upon which is directed to be--\"_Guil. Camdenus\nClarenceux, filius Sampsonis, Pictoris Londinensis, dono dedit_.\"\n\n[Illustration [++] The Camden Cup.]\n\nThis stately and richly-decorated cup and cover is used on Corporation\nFestivals, in memory of the illustrious donor. In height, it is\naltogether twenty-three inches and a quarter, the cover only being\neight inches and three-quarters; and the cup, independent of the\nstand, five inches and a-half, its greatest diameter being five inches\nand a-half. The inscription encircles the upper rim of the cup; and\ndirectly under it is an engraved escutcheon of Camden's arms; _Or_, a\nfess engrailed, between six cross crosslets fitchee, _Sable_. The cover\npresents an object of much elegance, a richly ornamented open pyramid,\nbased on the heads of birds, the breasts bending gracefully with\ncartouche ornaments: the pinnacle of the pyramid surmounted by a female\nfigure, the right hand resting on a shield, charged with the same arms\nas shown on the side of the cup. The birds' heads have apparently a\nreference to the phoenix heads in the second and third quarters of the\narmorial ensigns, and to the crest of the Company of Paper-Stainers.\n\n\nRICHARDSON, THE SHOWMAN.\n\nThis eccentric individual, who died in 1836, left behind him upwards of\nL20,000. He was born in the workhouse of Marlow, Bucks, but ran away\nfrom that place in order to seek his fortune in London. After various\nvicissitudes, he became the landlord of the Harlequin public-house, in\nDrury-lane, where he saved some money, which he embarked in fitting up\na portable theatre, and was known for forty years as the \"Prince of\nShowmen,\" and used frequently to boast that Edmund Kean and several\nother eminent actors were brought out by him. His property, after\nvarious legacies to the itinerant company which had attended him for\nmany years, descended to two nephews and a niece, and he desired by\nhis will to be buried in Marlow churchyard, in the same grave as his\nfavourite \"spotted boy,\" a lad who, some years before, was exhibited\nby him, and attracted great notice in consequence of the extraordinary\nmanners in which he was marked on various parts of his body. Some years\nsince the scenery, dresses, and decorations of Richardson's theatre\nwere exposed for auction by Mr. George Robins, and L2,000 were bid\nfor them. They were bought in; the \"old man,\" as he was technically\ndenominated, considering them to be worth at least L3,000.\n\n\nPRESERVATION OF DEAD BODIES.\n\nThere is an arched vault, or burying-ground, under the church of\nKilsyth, in Scotland, which was the burying-place of the family\nof Kilsyth, until the estate was forfeited, and the title became\nextinct in the year 1715; since which it has never been used for that\npurpose, except once. The last Earl fled with his family to Flanders,\nand, according to tradition, was smothered to death about the year\n1717, along with his lady and an infant child, and a number of other\nunfortunate Scottish exiles, by the falling in of the roof of a house\nin which they were assembled. What became of the body of the Earl is\nnot known, but the bodies of Lady Kilsyth and her infant were emboweled\nand embalmed, and soon afterwards sent over to Scotland. They were\nlanded, and lay at Leith for some time in a cellar, whence they were\nafterwards carried to Kilsyth, and buried in great pomp in the vault\nabove mentioned. In the spring of 1796, some rude regardless young men,\nhaving paid a visit to this ancient cemetery, tore open the coffin of\nLady Kilsyth and her infant. With astonishment and consternation, they\nsaw the bodies of Lady Kilsyth and her child as perfect as in the hour\nthey were entombed. For some weeks this circumstance was kept secret,\nbut at last it began to be whispered in several companies, and soon\nexcited great and general curiosity.\n\n\"On the 12th of June,\" says the Minister of the parish of Kilsyth,\nin a letter to J. Garnet, M.D., \"when I was from home, great crowds\nassembled, and would not be denied admission. At all hours of the\nnight, as well as the day, they afterwards persisted in gratifying\ntheir curiosity. I saw the body of Lady Kilsyth soon after the coffin\nwas opened; it was quite entire. Every feature and every limb was as\nfull, nay, the very shroud was as clear and fresh, and the colours of\nthe ribbons as bright, as the day they were lodged in the tomb. What\nrendered this scene more striking and truly interesting was, that the\nbody of her son and only child, the natural heir of the title and\nestates of Kilsyth, lay at her knee. His features were as composed as\nif he had been only asleep. His colour was as fresh, and his flesh as\nplump and full, as in the perfect glow of health; the smile of infancy\nand innocence sat on his lips. His shroud was not only entire, but\nperfectly clean, without a particle of dust upon it. He seems to have\nbeen only a few months old. The body of Lady Kilsyth was equally well\npreserved; and at a little distance, from the feeble light of a taper,\nit would not have been easy to distinguish whether she was dead or\nalive. The features, nay the very expression of her countenance, were\nmarked and distinct; and it was only in a certain light that you could\ndistinguish anything like the ghastly and agonizing traits of a violent\ndeath. Not a single fold of her shroud was decomposed nor a single\nmember impaired.\n\n\"Let the candid reader survey this sketch; let him recal to mind the\ntragic tale it unfolds; and say, if he can, that it does not arrest the\nattention and interest the heart. For my own part, it excited in my\nmemory a thousand melancholy reflections; and I could not but regret\nthat such rudeness had been offered to the ashes (remains) of the dead,\nas to expose them thus to the public view.\n\n\"The body seemed to have been preserved in some liquid, nearly of\nthe colour and appearance of brandy. The whole coffin seemed to have\nbeen full of it, and all its contents saturated with it. The body\nhad assumed somewhat the same tinge, but this only served to give it\na fresher look. It had none of the ghastly livid hue of death, but\nrather a copper complexion. It would, I believe, have been difficult\nfor a chemist to ascertain the nature of this liquid; though perfectly\ntransparent; it had lost all its pungent qualities, its taste being\nquite vapid.\n\n\"The head reclined on a pillow, and, as the covering decayed, it was\nfound to contain a collection of strong-scented herbs. Balm, sage,\nand mint were easily distinguished; and it was the opinion of many,\nthat the body was filled with the same. Although the bodies were thus\nentire at first, I confess I expected to see them crumble into dust;\nespecially as they were exposed to the open air, and the pure aromatic\nfluid had evaporated; and it seems surprising that they did not. For\nseveral weeks they underwent no visible change, and had they not been\nsullied with dust and drops of grease from the candles held over them,\nI am confident they might have remained as entire as ever; for even a\nfew months ago (many months after), the bodies were as firm and compact\nas at first, and though pressed with the finger did not yield to the\ntouch, but seemed to retain the elasticity of the living body. Even the\nshroud, through torn by the rude hands of the regardless multitude, is\nstill strong and free from rot.\n\n\"Perhaps the most singular phenomenon is, that the bodies seem not to\nhave undergone the smallest decomposition or disorganization. Several\nmedical gentlemen have made a small incision into the arm of the\ninfant; the substance of the body was quite firm, and every part in\nits original state.\" To the above remarkable instance we may add the\nfollowing:--The tomb of Edward the First, who died on the 7th July,\n1307, was opened on the 2nd of January, 1770, and after the lapse of\n463 years, the body was found not decayed; the flesh on the face was a\nlittle wasted, but not putrid.\n\nThe body of Canute the Dane, who got possession of England in the year\n1017, was found very fresh in the year 1766, by the workmen repairing\nWinchester Cathedral. In the year 1522, the body of William the\nConqueror was found as entire as when first buried, in the Abbey Church\nof St. Stephen, at Caen; and the body of Matilda, his wife, was found\nentire in 1502, in the Abbey Church of the Holy Trinity in the same\ncity.\n\nNo device of art, however, for the preservation of the remains of the\ndead, appears equal to the simple process of plunging them over head\nand ears in peat-moss.\n\nIn a manuscript by one Abraham Grey, who lived about the middle of\nthe 16th century, now in the possession of his representative, Mr.\nGoodbehere Grey, of Old Mills, near Aberdeen, it is stated, that\nin 1569, three Roman soldiers in the dress of their country, fully\nequipped with warlike instruments, were dug out of a moss of great\nextent, called Kazey Moss. When found, after a lapse of probably about\nfifteen hundred years, they \"were quite fresh and plump.\"\n\n\nPERFUMES.\n\nSo perfect were the Egyptians in the manufacture of perfumes, that some\nof their ancient ointment, preserved in an alabaster vase in the Museum\nat Alnwick, still retains a very powerful odour, though it must be\nbetween 2,000 and 3,000 years old.\n\n\nFRENCH ASSIGNATS--THEIR ORIGIN.\n\nExtraordinary devices for raising money are legitimate subjects for\nour pages. Of these devices, the French Assignats are not the least\nremarkable. They originated thus--in the year 1789, at the commencement\nof the great Revolution in France, Talleyrand proposed in the National\nAssembly a confiscation of all church property to the service of the\nstate. The Abbe Maury opposed this project with great vehemence, but\nbeing supported by Mirabeau, it received the sanction of the Assembly\nby an immense majority on the 2nd of November. The salaries fixed\nfor the priesthood were small, and, moreover, were not sufficiently\nguaranteed; whence originated much misery to all classes of priests,\nfrom the archbishops down to the humble cures; and as monastic\ninstitutions were treated in the same way, monks and nuns were suddenly\nplaced in precarious circumstances regarding the means of subsistence.\nHere, however, an unexpected difficulty sprang up; the National\nAssembly were willing to sell church property, but buyers were wanting;\nconscience, prudence, and poverty combined to lessen the number of\nthose willing to purchase; and thus the urgent claims of the treasury\ncould not be satisfied. Applications for loans were not responded to;\ntaxes had been extinguished; voluntary donations had dwindled almost to\nnothing; and 400,000,000 of livres were necessary for the vast claims\nof the year 1790. The municipalities of Paris and other cities sought\nto ameliorate the state of affairs by subscribing for a certain amount\nof church property, endeavouring to find private purchasers for it, and\npaying the receipts into the national exchequer. This, however, being\nbut a very partial cure for the enormity of the evils, the National\nAssembly fell upon the expedient of creating state-paper or bank-notes,\nto have a forced currency throughout the kingdom. Such was the birth\nof the memorable assignats. Four hundred millions of this paper were\nput in circulation; and a decree was passed that church property to\nthat amount should be held answerable for the assignats. Our sketch\nrepresents several of the different forms in which the Assignats were\nissued to the public.\n\n[Illustration [++] French Assignats.]\n\n\nEXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI.\n\nThe judicial murder of Louis XVI. was the climax of the Revolution in\nFrance. The Convention voted his death at three o'clock on the morning\nof the 20th January, 1793, and he was taken to execution in twenty-six\nhours afterwards.\n\n[Illustration [++] Execution of Louis XVI.]\n\nThe guillotine was erected in the middle of the Place Louis XV.,\na large open square, having the Champs Elysees on one side, and\nthe gardens of the Tuileries on the other. The Place bristled with\nartillery, and every street and avenue leading to it was crowded with\ntroops and armed multitudes, who had cannon with them charged with\ngrape-shot; while the carriage was surrounded by picked men, who\nhad orders to despatch the king with their carbines in case of any\nrescue being attempted. At about half-past ten, the king, who had been\nengaged in prayer during the ride, arrived at the spot; he descended\nfrom the coach, and his confessor followed him. Three executioners\napproached to remove his upper garments, but he put them back, and\nperformed that simple office for himself. He resisted somewhat the\nindignity of having his hands tied, and only yielded on the entreaty\nof his confessor; and had also to yield on the subject of cutting off\nhis back hair. He ascended the steps that led to the platform with\na firm bearing, still followed by M. Edgeworth. When on the top, he\nmade a sudden movement towards the edge of the scaffold, and exclaimed\nwith a loud and firm voice: \"Frenchmen, I die innocent; it is from\nthe scaffold, and when about to appear before my God, that I tell\nyou so. I pardon my enemies; I pray that France\"----Here Santerre, on\nhorseback, raised his right hand, and cried: \"Drums! Executioners, do\nyour duty!\" Several drummers immediately began by their noise to drown\nthe sound of the king's voice: and six executioners brought him to the\ncentre of the scaffold. He exclaimed again: \"I die innocent; I ever\ndesired the good of my people;\" but his voice could be heard only by\nthe executioners and the priest. He then knelt down, in order to place\nhis head in the appointed spot; the confessor, bending over him said:\n\"Son of St. Louis, ascend to heaven!\" The spring of the machine was\ntouched, the heavy axe descended in its grooves, and the once royal\nhead was severed from the body. Samson, the chief executioner, took\nup the bleeding head by the hair, and walked three times round the\nscaffold, holding it up at arm's-length to show it to the people. The\ntroops and the spectators shouted: \"Vive la Republique!\" put their hats\nand caps upon their bayonets and pikes, and waved them in the air,\nwith prolonged and re-echoing cries of \"Vive la Republique!\" \"Vive la\nNation!\" \"Vive la Liberte!\" Many of the savage men standing near the\nscaffold dipped their pike-heads into the king's blood, and others\ntheir handkerchiefs--not as a sacred memento, but as a symbol of the\ndownfall of all kings; they even paraded these gore-stained objects\nbefore the windows of the Temple, that perchance the queen and her\nchildren might see them. The headless trunk of Louis was put into a\nlarge wicker-basket, placed in the coach, and carried to the cemetery\nof La Madeleine; where, without coffin or shroud, it was thrown into a\ndeep pit, partly filled up with quicklime. On that same morning, one\nBenoit Leduc, a tailor, who had on some occasions worked for Louis,\npresented a petition to the Convention, praying to be allowed, at his\nown expense, to bury the body of the king by the side of his father,\nLouis XV., and under the monument raised to that prince by the city\nof Sens; but the Convention rejected his petition, and ordered the\nexecutive council to see that Louis was buried like other criminals.\n\n\nA MAN AGED ONE HUNDRED YEARS CLAIMING A BOTTLE OF WINE.\n\nJohn Bull, of London, stock-broker, died 1848, aged 100 years. When\nat the age of about 93, and in the employ of Messrs. Spurling,\nstock-brokers, he left by mistake in the office of the accountant of\nthe Bank of England, a large number of bank notes. On discovering\nhis loss, after diligently searching for the missing parcel, he went\nback to the accountant's office, partly to acquaint Mr. Smee with the\ncircumstance, and partly as a last hope that he might there find the\nmissing treasure. To his great joy he found the parcel safe in the\naccountant's possession, whom he earnestly implored to keep the secret,\nlest his employers should think his faculties were failing. Mr. Smee\nof course gave him the required assurance, and goodnaturedly added,\nthat when Mr. Bull should attain the age of 100 years, he would treat\nhim to the finest bottle of wine in his cellar. Some time before his\nbecoming a centenarian, he was pensioned off by his employer, and Mr.\nSmee had, in all probability, quite forgotten the affair; when, true\nto the engagement, the venerable, but still active old clerk, made his\nappearance at the bank on the important day, and claimed the promised\nbottle of wine. The claim was promptly allowed; and the last birthday\nof the aged official was one of the happiest among his friends of the\nlong list of such events which had been its precursor. After continuing\nvigorous and active, and almost free from indisposition up to this\ntime, he, along with many other aged persons, fell a victim to that\nfatal influenza which prevailed so extensively throughout the country,\nand more especially in London and its suburbs, during the autumn of\n1847 and the winter of 1848.\n\n\nCHARITY REWARDED BY A RICH AND LIBERAL MENDICANT.\n\nWithin the present century, a beggar in Moorfields used daily to\nhave a penny given him by a merchant on his way to the Exchange. The\npenny was withheld, and the appearance of the merchant manifested his\nembarrassment and distress. The beggar at length spoke to him, offered\nhim a loan of L500, and another of the same sum if it were required. It\nre-established his affairs.\n\n\nHACKNEY COACHMAN OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II.\n\nThe print from which the engraving on next page is taken, is one of\na set published by Overton, at the sign of the \"White Horse\" without\nNewgate; and its similarity to the figures given by Francis Barlow in\nhis _AEsop's Fables_, and particularly in a most curious sheet-print\netched by that artist, exhibiting Charles the Second, the Duke of\nYork, &c., viewing the Races on Dorset Ferry, near Windsor, in 1687,\nsufficiently proves this Hackney Coachman to have been of the reign of\nthat monarch.\n\nThe early Hackney Coachman did not sit upon the box as the present\ndrivers do, but upon the horse, like a postillion; his whip is short\nfor that purpose; his boots, which have large open broad tops, must\nhave been much in his way, and exposed to the weight of the rain. His\ncoat was not according to the fashion of the present drivers as to the\nnumerous capes, which certainly are most rational appendages, as the\nshoulders never get wet; the front of the coat has not the advantage of\nthe present folding one, as it is single breasted.\n\nHis hat was pretty broad, and so far he was screened from the weather.\nAnother convincing proof that he rode as a postillion is, that his\nboots are spurred. In that truly curious print representing the very\ninteresting Palace of Nonsuch, engraved by Hoefnagle, in the reign of\nQueen Elizabeth, the coachman who drives the royal carriage in which\nthe Queen is seated, is placed on a low seat behind the horses, and has\na long whip to command those he guides. How soon, after Charles the\nSecond's time, the Hackney Coachmen rode on a box we have not been able\nto learn, but in all the prints of King William's time the coachmen are\nrepresented upon the box, though by no means so high as at present;\nnor was it the fashion at the time of Queen Anne to be so elevated as\nto deprive the persons in the carriage of the pleasure of looking over\ntheir shoulders.\n\nIn 1637, the number of Hackney Coaches in London was confined to 50,\nin 1652 to 200, in 1654 to 300, in 1662 to 400, in 1694 to 700, in\n1710 to 800, in 1771 to 1,000, and in 1802 to 1,100. In imitation of\nour Hackney Coaches, Nicholas Sauvage introduced the Fiacres at Paris,\nin the year 1650. The hammer-cloth is an ornamental covering of the\ncoach-box. Mr. S. Pegge says, \"The coachman formerly used to carry a\nhammer, pincers, a few nails, &c., in a leather pouch hanging to his\nbox, and this cloth was devised for the hiding of them from public\nview.\"\n\n[Illustration [++] Hackney Coachman.]\n\nIt is said that the sum of L1,500, arising from the duty on Hackney\nCoaches, was applied to part of the expense in rebuilding Temple Bar.\n\n\nA LONDON WATER-CARRIER IN OLDEN TIMES.\n\nThe conduits of London and its environs, which were established at\nan early period, supplied the metropolis with water until Sir Hugh\nMiddleton brought the New River from Amwell to London, and then the\nconduits gradually fell into disuse, as the New River water was by\ndegrees laid on in pipes to the principal buildings in the City, and,\nin the course of time, let into private houses.\n\nWhen the conduits afforded a supply, the inhabitants either carried\ntheir vessels, or sent their servants for the water as they wanted it;\nbut we may suppose that at an early period there were a number of men\nwho for a fixed sum carried the water to the adjoining houses.\n\nThe figure of a Water-carrier in the following engraving, is copied\nfrom one of a curious and rare set of cries and callings of London,\npublished by Overton, at the \"White Horse\" without Newgate. The figure\nretains the dress of Henry the Eighth's time; his cap is similar to\nthat usually worn by Sir Thomas More, and also to that given in the\nportrait of Albert Durer, engraved by Francis Stock. It appears by this\nprint, that the tankard was borne upon the shoulder, and, to keep the\ncarrier dry, two towels were fastened over him, one to fall before him,\nthe other to cover his back. His pouch, in which we are to conclude he\ncarried his money, has been thus noticed in a very curious and rare\ntract, entitled, _Green's Ghost, with the merry Conceits of Doctor\nPinch-backe_, published 1626: \"To have some store of crownes in his\npurse, coacht in a faire trunke flop, like a boulting hutch.\"\n\n[Illustration [++] Water-Carrier.]\n\n\nEXPENSES OF A ROYAL PRISONER TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO.\n\nThe following curious document is a return, by the Parliamentary\nCommittee of Revenue, of the expenses of Charles the First and\nhis retinue, during a residence of twenty days, at Holdenby, in\nNorthamptonshire, in the year 1647, commencing February the 13th and\nending March the 4th inclusive. Sir Christopher Hatton had built a\nsplendid mansion at Holdenby in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and\nto it King Charles was conveyed a prisoner by the Parliamentary\nCommissioners, after he had been given up to them by the Scottish\narmy:--\n\n    His Majestie's diet of xxviij dishes at xxxl. per diem          L700\n    The Lords' diet of xx days                                       520\n    For the Clarke of the green cloth, kitchen, and spicery,\n          a messe of vij dishes                                       40\n    Dyetts for the household and chamber officers, and the guard     412\n    Board wages for common houshold servants, pott and scourers,\n          and turnbroaches                                            36\n    Badges of Court and riding wages                                 140\n    For linnen for his Majestie's table, the lords and other diets   273\n    For wheat, wood, and cole                                        240\n    For all sorts of spicery store, wax-lights, torches,\n          and tallow-lights                                          160\n    For pewter, brasse, and other necessaries incident to all\n          officers and carriages                                     447\n\n\nWOMAN'S CLEVERNESS.\n\nIt is a singular fact that on one occasion the lives of thousands,\nprobably, of the Irish Protestants, were saved by a clever device,\nwhich the unaided wit and presence of mind of a woman enabled her to\nplan and execute.\n\nAt the latter end of Queen Mary's reign, a commission was signed for\nthe purpose of punishing the heretics in that kingdom, and Dr. Cole,\nDean of St. Paul's, was honoured with this _humane_ appointment, to\nexecute which, he set off with great alacrity. On his arrival at\nChester, he sent for the mayor to sup with him, and in the course of\nconversation related his business; then going to his cloak-bag, he took\nout the box containing the commission, and having shewn it, with great\njoy exclaimed, 'This will lash the heretics of Ireland.' Mrs. Edmonds,\nthe landlady, overheard this discourse, and having several relations\nin Ireland, who were Protestants as well as herself, resolved to put a\ntrick upon the doctor; and while he went to attend the magistrate to\nthe door, took the commission out of the box, and in its room placed a\npack of cards, with the knave of clubs uppermost. The zealous doctor,\nsuspecting nothing of the matter, put up his box, took shipping,\nand, arriving safe in Dublin, went immediately to the Viceroy. A\ncouncil was called; and, after a speech, the doctor delivered his box,\nwhich being opened by the secretary, the first thing that presented\nitself was the knave of clubs. This sight surprised the Viceroy and\nthe council, but much more the doctor, who assured them that he had\nreceived a commission from the Queen, but what was come of it, he could\nnot tell. 'Well, well,' replied the Viceroy, 'you must go back for\nanother, and we will shuffle the cards in the mean time.' The doctor\naccordingly hastened across the channel; but at Holyhead he received\nthe intelligence of the Queen's death, and the accession of Elizabeth,\nwho settled on Mrs. Edmonds a pension of forty pounds a year, for\nsaving her Protestant subjects in Ireland.\n\n\nDRESS IN THE PROVINCES IN 1777.\n\nIn the days when mail-coaches had not begun to run, and when railroads\nand telegraphs had not entered into the imagination of man, the style\nof dress in the provinces was often very different to what it was in\nLondon, and on this account the following paragraph is deserving of\nrecord. We have taken it from a copy of the _Nottingham Journal_, of\nSeptember 6, 1777, where it is headed \"Ladies undress.\"--\"The ladies'\nfashionable undress, commonly called a _dishabille_, to pay visits in\nthe morning, also for walking in the country, on account of its being\nneat, light, and short, consists of a jacket, the front part of which\nis made like a sultana; the back part is cut out in four pieces; the\nmiddle part is not wider at the bottom than about half an inch; the\nsides in proportion very narrow. The materials most in vogue are, white\nmuslins with a  printed border chintz pattern, printed on\npurpose, in borders about an inch deep. The silks, which are chiefly\nlutestrings, are mostly trimmed with gauze. The gauze is tuckered upon\nthe bottom of the jacket, and edged with different- fringes.\nThe petticoat is drawn up in a festoon, and tied with a true lover's\nknot, two tassels hanging down from each festoon. A short gauze apron,\nstriped or figured, cut in three scollops at the bottom, and trimmed\nround, with a broad trimming closely plaited; the middle of the apron\nhas three scollops reversed. The cuffs are puckered in the shape of a\ndouble pine, one in the front of the arm, the other behind, but the\nfront rather lower. To complete this dress for summer walking, the most\nelegant and delicate ladies carry a long japanned walking-cane, with\nan ivory hook head, and on the middle of the cane is fastened a silk\numbrella, or what the French call 'a parasol,' which defends them from\nthe sun and slight showers of rain. It opens by a spring, and it is\npushed up towards the head of the cane, when expanded for use. Hats,\nwith the feathers spread, chiefly made of chip, covered with fancy\ngauze puckered, variegated artificial flowers, bell tassels, and other\ndecorations, are worn large.\"\n\n\nA GROUP OF RELICS.\n\nThe Dagger of Raoul de Courcy, of which a representation is included\nin the cut over leaf, is an interesting relic, and its authenticity\ncan be relied upon. Raoul de Courcy, according to the old French\nchroniclers was a famous knight, the lord of a noble castle, built\nupon a mountain that overlooks the Valee d'Or, and the descendant of\nthat haughty noble who took for his motto: \"Neither king, nor prince,\nnor duke, nor earl am I, but I am the Lord of Courcy\"--in other words,\ngreater than them all. He fell in love with the wife of his neighbour,\nthe Lord of Fayel, and the beautiful Gabrielle loved him in return.\nOne night he went as usual to meet her in a tower of the Chateau of\nFayel, but found himself face to face with her lord and master. Raoul\nescaped, and Gabrielle was ever after closely guarded. Still they found\nthe opportunity for numerous interviews, at which they interchanged\ntheir vows of love. At length, Raoul, like a true knight, set out to\nfight beneath the banner of the Cross, for the possession of the Holy\nSepulchre. Ere he went, at a stolen meeting, he bade the fair Gabrielle\nadieu, giving to her \"a silken love-knot, with locks of his own hair\nworked in with the threads of silk.\" She gave him a costly ring,\nwhich she had always worn, and which he swore to wear till his last\nbreath. What tears were shed--what kisses were exchanged at this last\nmeeting!--for the Holy Land was very far from France in the Middle Ages.\n\nOn his arrival in Syria, Ralph de Courcy became known as the \"Knight of\nGreat Deeds,\" for it seems he could only conquer his love by acts of\ndaring valour. After braving every danger, he was at length wounded in\nthe side by an arrow, at the siege of Acre. The king of England took\nhim in his arms with respect, and gave him the kiss of hope, but the\narrow was a poisoned one, Raoul felt that he had little time to live.\nHe stretched out his arms towards France, exclaiming, \"France, France!\nGabrielle, Gabrielle!\"\n\nHe resolved to return home, but he was hardly on board the ship that\nwas to waft him there, ere he summoned his squire, and begged of him\nafter he was dead, to carry his heart to France, and to give it the\nLady Fayel, with all the armlets, diamonds, and other jewels which he\npossessed, as pledges of love and remembrance.\n\nThe heart was embalmed, and the squire sought to deliver his precious\nlegacy. He disguised himself in a mean dress, but unluckily met with\nthe Lord of Fayel, and, not knowing him, applied to him for information\nas to how admittance into the chateau could be gained. The Lord of\nFayel at once attacked and disarmed the poor squire, who was wounded in\nthe side with a hunting-hanger. The precious packet was soon torn open,\nand the heart discovered. The Lord of Fayel hastened home, and, giving\nit to his cook, desired that it might be dressed with such a sauce as\nwould make it very palatable.\n\nRaoul's heart was served up at table, and the fair Gabrielle partook of\nit. When she had finished eating, the Lord of Fayel said--\"Lady, was\nthe meat you eat good?\" She replied, that the meat was good. \"That is\nthe reason I had it cooked,\" said the Castellan; \"for know that this\nsame meat, which you found so good, was the heart of Raoul de Courcy.\"\n\n\"Lord of Fayel,\" said Gabrielle, \"the vengeance you have taken\ncorresponds with the meanness of your soul; you have made me eat his\nheart, but it is the last meat I shall ever eat. After such noble food\nI will never partake of any other.\"\n\nShe fainted, and only recovered her consciousness a few minutes before\ndeath. Such is the history of Raoul de Courcy and the Lady Gabrielle,\nas told in the language of the old chroniclers.\n\n[Illustration: 1. Dagger of Raoul de Courcy. 2. Embroidered Glove,\npresented by Mary Queen of Scotland, on the Morning of her Execution,\nto one of her Attendants. 3. Spanish Dagger of the Sixteenth Century.\n4. Ring, with Inscription, \"Behold the End,\" formerly the Property of\nCharles I. 5. Silver Locket, in Memory of the Execution of Charles I.]\n\nThe glove shown in the engraving is said to have been presented by\nthe unfortunate Queen Mary, on the morning of her execution, to a\nlady of the Denny family. The embroidery is of tasteful design, and\nmay be useful as a contrast with many of the patterns for needlework\nat present in fashion. Moreover, the sight of this memorial brings\nto recollection a few particulars in connection with this somewhat\nimportant part of both male and female costume.\n\nThe ancient Persians wore gloves, and the Romans, towards the decline\nof the empire, began to use them. In England they seemed to have been\nintroduced at a very early period. In the Anglo-Saxon literature we\nmeet with _glof_, a covering for the hand, and in the illuminated MSS.\nof that period the hands of bishops and other dignitaries are shown\nencased in gloves which, in many instances, were ornamented with costly\nrings; while on the tombs of kings and queens, &c., the hands are shown\nalmost invariably covered.\n\nIt is related of the patron Saint of Brussels, who lived in the sixth\ncentury, that she was famous for only two miracles: one consisted\nin lighting a candle by means of her prayers, after it had been\nextinguished; the other happened in this way--the fair saint being in a\nchurch barefooted, a person near, with respectful gallantry, took off\nhis gloves and attempted to place them under her feet. This comfort she\ndeclined; and, kicking the gloves away, they became suspended at some\nheight in the church for the space of an hour.\n\nOn opening the tomb of Edward the First, some years ago, in Westminster\nAbbey, the antiquaries assembled on that occasion were surprised to\nfind no traces of gloves. It has been suggested that in this instance\nlinen or silk gloves had been used at the burial of the king, but which\nare supposed to have perished with age.\n\nThe practice of throwing down a glove as a challenge, is mentioned by\nMatthew Paris as far back as 1245; and a glove was worn in the hat or\ncap as a mistress's favour, as the memorial of a friend, and as a mark\nto be challenged by an enemy.\n\nAt a time when the Borders were in a state of incessant strife, Barnard\nGilpin, who has been so justly called \"the Apostle of the North,\"\nwandered unharmed amid the confusion. On one occasion, entering a\nchurch (we believe that of Rothbury, Northumberland,) he observed a\nglove suspended in a conspicuous place, and was informed that it had\nbeen hung up as a challenge by some horse-trooper of the district. Mr.\nGilpin requested the sexton to remove it; who answered, \"Not I sir, I\ndare not do it.\" Then Gilpin called for a long staff, took down the\nglove, and put it in his bosom, and in the course of his sermon, said,\n\"I hear that there is one among you who has even in this sacred place\nhung up a glove in defiance;\" and then producing it in the midst of\nthe congregation, he challenged them to compete with him in acts of\nChristian charity.\n\nGloves, in former times, were common amongst other gifts offered to\nfriends at the new year; and they were received without offence by\nthe ministers of justice. It is related that Sir Thomas More, as Lord\nChancellor, decreed in favour of Mrs. Crooker against the Earl of\nArundel. On the following New-year's day, in token of her gratitude,\nshe presented Sir Thomas with a pair of gloves containing forty angels.\n\"It would be against good manners,\" said the chancellor, \"to forsake\nthe ladies' New-year's gift, and I accept the gloves; the lining you\nmay bestow otherwise.\"\n\nThe custom of the presentation by the sheriff of a pair of white gloves\nto the judge on the occasion of a maiden assize is still in vogue; and,\njudging from the reports in the newspapers, such presents appear to be\nof frequent occurrence.\n\n\"Gloves, as sweet as damask roses,\" were highly prized by Queen\nElizabeth, and, in her day, formed such an important item of a lady's\nexpenses, that a sum was generally allowed for \"glove money.\"\n\nThe old fashioned gloves have now a considerable value amongst the\ncurious. At the sale of the Earl of Arran's goods in 1759, the gloves\ngiven by Henry VIII. to Sir Anthony Denny, sold for 38_l._ 17s.; those\ngiven by James I. to Edward Denny, sold for 22_l._ 4s.; and the mitten\ngiven by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Edward Denny's lady, for 25_l._ 4s.\n\nSome of the English towns which formerly were famous for the\nmanufacture of gloves, still keep up their character. Amongst these\nWoodstock, Yeovil, Leominster, Ludlow, and Worcester may be mentioned.\n\nThe Spanish dagger formerly belonged to a governor of Castile, in the\nsixteenth century, as is shown by the perforated fetter-lock on the\nblade; and although the initials are engraven there also, we have\nnot been able to discover any particulars of the original owner. The\nworkmanship and style of the dagger are of great beauty.\n\nThe little ring with the inscription \"Behold the end,\" was once the\nproperty of Charles I., and was presented by him to Bishop Juxon on the\nmorning of his execution. The silver lockets, on which are the emblems\nof death, were extensively manufactured and sold after the execution of\nCharles I. They generally bore the date of the king's death.\n\n\nTHE HAMSTER RAT.\n\nThere are various kinds of rats, and one of these is the Hamster, of\nthe genus Cricetus of Cuvier. Though rare in Europe to the west of\nthe Rhine, it is widely spread from that river to the Danube on the\nsouth-west, and north-easterly through a vast extent of country into\nSiberia. We notice it in our pages on account of its extraordinary\nhabits. Its life appears to be divided between eating and fighting.\nIt seems to have no other passion than that of rage, which induces it\nto attack every animal that comes in its way, without in the least\nattending to the superior strength of its enemy. Ignorant of the art\nof saving itself by flight, rather than yield, it will allow itself to\nbe beaten to pieces with a stick. If it seizes a man's hand, it must\nbe killed before it will quit its hold. The magnitude of the horse\nterrifies it as little as the address of the dog, which last is fond of\nhunting it. When the hamster perceives a dog at a distance, it begins\nby emptying its cheek-pouches if they happen to be filled with grain;\nit then blows them up so prodigiously, that the size of the head and\nneck greatly exceed that of the rest of the body. It raises itself on\nits hind legs, and thus darts upon the enemy. If it catches hold, it\nnever quits it but with the loss of its life; but the dog generally\nseizes it from behind, and strangles it. This ferocious disposition\nprevents the hamster from being at peace with any animal whatever. It\neven makes war against its own species. When two hamsters meet, they\nnever fail to attack each other, and the stronger always devours the\nweaker. A combat between a male and a female commonly lasts longer\nthan between two males. They begin by pursuing and biting each other,\nthen each of them retires aside, as if to take breath. After a short\ninterval, they renew the combat, and continue to fight till one of them\nfalls. The vanquished uniformly serves for a repast to the conqueror.\n\n\nKNAVERY OF THE PRIESTS IN BURMAH.\n\n[Illustration: Burmese Priest Preaching.]\n\nThe manner in which an uncivilized people will calmly submit to be\nduped by the extortionate rascality of their priests, is strongly\nexhibited in the kingdom of Burmah. The people who are there held in\nthe highest estimation are the priests. Any one who pleases may be\na priest. The priests pretend to be poor, and go out begging every\nmorning with their empty dishes in their hands; but they get them well\nfilled, and then return to their handsome houses, all shining with\ngold, in which they live together in plenty and in pride. They are\nexpected to dress in rags, to show that they are poor; but not liking\nrags, they cut up cloth in little pieces, and sew the pieces together\nto make their yellow robes; and this they call wearing rags. They\npretend to be so modest, that they do not like to show their faces, and\nso hide them with a fan, even when they preach; for they do preach in\ntheir way, that is, they tell foolish stories about Buddha. The name\nthey give him is Guadama, while the Chinese call him Fo. They have\nfive hundred and fifty stories written in their books about him; for\nthey say he was once a bird, a fly, an elephant, and all manner of\ncreatures, and was so good whatever he was, that at last he was born\nthe son of a king. Is it not marvellous that a whole people should, for\ngeneration after generation, not only submit to be thus scandalously\ncheated, but should also hold those who cheat them in the highest\nesteem? A curious fact, indeed, in the history of mankind.\n\n\nMIRACULOUS ESCAPE.\n\nOne of the most singular circumstances occurred a few years ago that\never came within our observation. Mr. Charlton, surgeon, of Wylam, near\nNewcastle-on-Tyne, having at a late hour been called upon in haste\nto give his attendance at Ovingham, borrowed a spirited horse of a\nfriend, that he might proceed with the least possible delay. He had\nnot gone above half a mile when he perceived his horse stumble, and\nhe immediately threw himself from the saddle. It was fortunate he did\nso, for the next instant his horse had fallen down a precipice of near\nseventy feet; and, incredible as it may seem, the animal sustained no\ninjury, but immediately dashed into the Tyne, and swam to the opposite\nside. Search was made after him, and hearing his master's voice, he was\nheard to neigh even across the water in token of recognition, and was\nultimately restored without speck or blemish.\n\n\nA NATIONAL TASTE FOR GAMING.\n\nIt is a remarkable fact that a taste for gaming appears in some cases\nto pervade a whole people, and to become one of the chief national\ncharacteristics. No where is this more manifest than among the\ninhabitants of the Asiatic Islands.\n\nGames of hazard are the favourites of these islanders. Some of them\nthey have learned of the Chinese, the most debauched of gamesters, and\nothers of the Portuguese. The only game of hazard, of native origin,\namong the Javanese consists in guessing the number of a certain kind of\nbeans which the players hold in their hands.\n\nBut of all the species of gaming that to which the Indian islanders\nare most fondly addicted is betting on the issue of the combats of\npugnacious animals, and particularly the cock. The breed in highest\nestimation is the produce of Celebes. The people of Java fight their\ncocks without spurs; but the Malays and natives of Celebes with an\nartificial spur, in the shape of a small scythe, which, notwithstanding\nits barbarous appearance, is in reality less destructive than the\ncontrivance employed among ourselves.\n\nQuail fighting also is extremely common in Java. The most famous breed\nof this bird is found in the island of Lombok; and it is a singular\nfact, that the female is used in these bitter but bloodless combats,\nthe male being comparatively small and timid. Neither do the Javanese\nhesitate to bet considerable sums on a battle between two crickets,\nwhich are excited to the conflict by the titillation of a blade of\ngrass judiciously applied to their noses. They will likewise risk their\nmoney on the strength and hardness of a nut, called _kamiri_; and much\nskill, patience and dexterity, are exercised in the selection and\nthe strife. At other times two paper kites decide the fortune of the\nparties; the object of each in this contest being to cut the string of\nhis adversary. On a favourable day fifty or sixty kites, raised for\nthis purpose, may sometimes be seen hovering over a Javanese city.\n\n\nA FRIEND TO PHYSIC.\n\nMr. Samuel Jessup, who died at Heckington, Lincolnshire, in 1817,\nwas an opulent grazier and of pill-taking memory. He lived in a\nvery eccentric way, as a bachelor, without known relatives, and at\nhis decease was possessed of a good fortune, notwithstanding a most\ninordinate craving for physic, by which he was distinguished for the\nlast thirty years of his life, as appeared on a trial for the amount of\nan apothecary's bill, at the assizes at Lincoln, a short time before\nMr. Jessup's death, wherein he was defendant. The evidence on the trial\naffords the following materials for the epitaph of the deceased, which\nwill not be transcended by the memorabilia of the life of any man. In\ntwenty-one years (from 1791 to 1816) the deceased took 226,934 pills\n(supplied by a most highly respectable apothecary and worthy person\nof the name of Wright, who resided at Bottesford), which is at the\nrate of 10,806 pills a year, or 29 pills each day; but as the patient\nbegun with a more moderate appetite, and increased it as he proceeded,\nin the last five years preceding 1816, he took the pills at the rate\nof 78 a-day, and in the year 1814, he swallowed not less than 51,590.\nNotwithstanding this, and the addition of 40,000 bottles of mixture,\nand juleps and electuaries, extending altogether to fifty-five closely\nwritten columns of an apothecary's bill, the deceased lived to attain\nthe advanced age of sixty-five years.\n\n\nAN INCULPATORY EPITAPH.\n\nThe following epitaph at West Allington, Devon, is deserving a place in\nour record of curiosities, inasmuch as it appears to be a successful\nattempt in making a monumental stone, both a memorial of the deceased,\nand also a means of reproving the parson of the parish:--\n\n            \"Here lyeth the Body of\n          Daniel Jeffery the Son of Michael\n          Jeffery and Joan his Wife he\n          was buried y{e} 22 day of September\n          1746 and in y{e} 18{th} year of his age.\n    This Youth When In his sickness lay\n    did for the minister Send + that he would\n    Come and With him Pray + But he would not ate{nd}\n    But When this young man Buried was\n    The minister did him admit + he should be\n    Caried into Church + that he might money geet\n    By this you See what man will dwo + to geet\n    money if he can + who did refuse to come\n    pray + by the Foresaid young man.\"\n\n\nHUNTING A SHEEP KILLER.\n\nIt has been remarked, that when once a dog acquires wild habits, and\ntakes to killing sheep, he does far more mischief than a wild beast,\nsince to the cunning of the tamed animal he adds the ferocity of the\nuntamed. A remarkable case of this sort is mentioned in the following\nparagraph, which we have copied from the _Newcastle Courant_ of the\nyear 1823. It is also curious to note the account of the chase, and of\nthe joy which the whole country-side seems to have manifested at the\nslaughter of the animal.--September 21--A few days ago a dog of a most\ndestructive nature infested the fells of Caldbeck, Carrock, and High\nPike, about sixteen miles south of Carlisle. Little doubt remains of\nits being the same dog which has been so injurious to the farmers in\nthe northern parts of Northumberland, as no less than sixty sheep or\nupwards have fallen victims to its ferocity. It was thought proper to\nlose no time in attempting to destroy it, and Tuesday last was fixed\nupon. Sir H. Fletcher, Bart., of Clea Hall, offered his pack of hounds,\nand several other dogs with about fifty horsemen set out from Hesket\nNew-market. Several persons with firearms were stationed at different\nparts. The dog was descried upon an eminence of Carrock-fell, and on\nsight of the pursuers set off by way of Hesket New-market, Stocklewath,\nand Barwick-field, then returned by Cowclose, Castle Sowerby, and\nattempted to gain the fells again, when Mr. Sewell, farmer at Wedlock,\nlying in ambush at Mossdale, fired, and succeeded in shooting him. He\nappears to be of the Newfoundland breed, of a common size, wire-haired,\nand extremely lean. During the chase he frequently turned upon the dogs\nwhich were headmost, and so wounded several as obliged them to give up\nthe pursuit. The joy manifested on this occasion was uncommon, insomuch\nthat on the day following about thirty persons sat down to a dinner\nprovided at Mr. Tomlinson's, Hesket New-market. Upon the most moderate\ncomputation, excluding the various windings, the chase could not be\nless than thirty miles, and occupied no less than six hours.\n\n\nLONGEVITY.\n\nHenry Jenkins, of Ellerton-upon-Swale, Yorkshire, died 1670, aged 169.\nHe remembered the battle of Flodden Field, fought between the English\nand the Scotch, September 9, 1513, when he was about twelve years old.\nHe was then sent to Northallerton with a cartload of arrows, but an\nolder boy was employed to convey them to the army. At Ellerton there\nwas also living, at the same time, four or five other old men, reputed\nto be of the age of one hundred years and thereabouts, and they all\ntestified that Jenkins was an elderly man when first they knew him.\nJenkins was once butler to Lord Conyers; he perfectly remembered the\nAbbot of Fountain's Dale before the dissolution of the monasteries.\nIn the last century of his life he was a fisherman, and often swam in\nthe river after he was a hundred years old. In the King's Remembrancer\nOffice in the Exchequer, there is a record of a deposition in a cause,\ntaken April, 1665, at Kettlewell, Yorkshire, where Henry Jenkins, of\nEllerton-upon-Swale, labourer, aged 157 years, was produced, and made\ndeposition as a witness. He was buried at Bolton, Yorkshire. In 1743,\na monument, with a suitable inscription, was erected to perpetuate his\nmemory.\n\n\nTHE PULPIT OF JOHN KNOX AT ST. ANDREW'S.\n\nJohn Knox, the great precursor of the Protestant Reformation, having\nbeen driven from Edinburgh by the threats of his opponents, reluctantly\nwithdrew to St. Andrew's, in the county of Fife, where he continued\nwith undiminished boldness to denounce the enemies of the reformed\nfaith. It was in that place that he had first discoursed against the\ndegeneracy of the Church of Rome, and there he occupied the Pulpit\nrepresented in the accompanying engraving; and the following curious\nand characteristic anecdote connected with his preaching in it, is\nrelated in the Manuscript Diary of James Melville, then a student at\nthe college of St. Andrew's, and subsequently Minister of Anstruther.\n\"Of all the benefits I haid that year (1571) was the coming of that\nmaist notable profet and apostle of our nation, Mr. Jhone Knox, to St.\nAndrew's: who, be the faction of the Queen occupying the castell and\ntown of Edinburgh, was compellit to remove therefra, with a number\nof the best, and chusit to come to St. Andrew's. I heard him teache\nthere the Prophecies of Daniel that simmer, and the winter following;\nI haid my pen and my little buike, and tuk away sic things as I could\ncomprehend. In the opening up of his text he was moderat the space of\nan half houre; but when he onterit to application, he made me so to\n_grew_ (thrill) and tremble, that I could not hold a pen to wryt. He\nwas very weak. I saw him every day of his life go _hulie and fear_\n(hoolie and fairly--slowly and warily) with a furring of marticks,\n(martins) about his neck, a staffe in the ane hand, and gud godlie\nRichard Ballanden, his servand, haldin up the uther _oxier_ (arm-pit),\nfrom the Abbey to the Parish-Kirk; and be the said Richart and another\nservant lifted up to the Pulpit, whar he _behovit_ (was obliged) to\nlean at his first entry: bot er he had done with his sermone he was sa\nactive and vigourous, that he was lyk to _ding the pulpit in blads_\n(beat it into shivers) and flie out of it.\"\n\n[Illustration [++] Pulpit of John Knox at St. Andrew's.]\n\nThe interesting relique commemorated in this curious extract, is\nof that stately style of carving which was introduced towards the\nclose of the sixteenth century in Protestant preaching-places; and\ncontinued, though of a more heavy character, throughout the whole of\nthe succeeding century. A scroll-bracket remaining on the preacher's\nleft hand, and some broken pieces at the top of the back, appear to\nindicate that it was once more extended, and had probably a canopy or\nsounding-board.\n\n\nTHE BIBLE USED BY KING CHARLES THE FIRST ON THE SCAFFOLD.\n\n[Illustration [++] Bible Used by Charles the First on the Scaffold.]\n\nThere is so much external evidence of the genuineness of this very\nbeautiful and interesting relique, that no doubt can exist as to its\nperfect authenticity, though the circumstance of the King having a\nBible with him on the scaffold, and of presenting it to Dr. Juxon, is\nnot mentioned in any contemporaneous account of his death. The only\nnotice of such a volume, as a dying gift, appears to be that recorded\nby Sir Thomas Herbert, in his narrative, which forms a part of the\n_Memoirs of the last Two Years of the Reign of that unparalleled Prince\nof ever-blessed memory, King Charles I._ London, 1702, 8vo, p. 129, in\nthe following passage:--\"The King thereupon gave him his hand to kiss:\nhaving the day before been graciously pleased under his royal hand,\nto give him a certificate that the said Mr. Herbert was not imposed\nupon him, but by his Majesty made choice of to attend him in his\nbed-chamber, and had served him with faithfulness and loyal affection.\nHis Majesty also delivered him his Bible, in the margin whereof he\nhad with his own hand, written many annotations and quotations, and\ncharged him to give it to the Prince so soon as he returned.\" That this\nmight be the book represented in our engraving, is rendered extremely\nprobable, by admitting that the King would be naturally anxious, that\nhis son should possess that very copy of the Scriptures which had been\nprovided for himself when he was Prince of Wales. It will be observed\nthat the cover of the volume is decorated with the badge of the\nPrincipality within the Garter, surmounted by a royal coronet in silver\ngilt, inclosed by an embroidered border; the initials C. P. apparently\nimproperly altered to an R., and the badges of the Rose and Thistle,\nupon a ground of blue velvet: and the book was therefore bound between\nthe death of Prince Henry in 1612, and the accession of King Charles\nto the throne in 1625, when such a coronet would be no longer used by\nhim. If the Bible here represented were that referred to by Herbert,\nthe circumstance of Bishop Juxon becoming the possessor of it might\nbe accounted for, by supposing that it was placed in his hands to be\ntransmitted to Charles II. with the George of the Order of the Garter\nbelonging to the late King, well known to have been given to that\nPrelate upon the scaffold, January 30th, 1648-9.\n\n\nLAMBETH WELLS, THE APOLLO GARDENS, AND FINCH'S GROTTO.\n\nAmong the numerous public places of amusement which arose upon the\nsuccess of Vauxhall Gardens, which were first opened about 1661, was\none in Lambeth Walk, known as Lambeth Wells. This place was first\nopened on account of its mineral waters, which were sold at a penny\nper quart. The music commenced at seven o'clock in the morning, and\nthe price of admission was three pence. A monthly concert under the\ndirection of Mr. Starling Goodwin, organist of St. Saviour's Church\nSouthwark, was afterwards held here, and Erasmus King, who had been\ncoachman to the celebrated Dr. Desaguliers, read lectures and exhibited\nexperiments in natural philosophy, the price of admission being raised\nto sixpence.\n\nThis place was open before 1698, and existed as late as 1752, when \"A\nPenny Wedding after the Scotch fashion, for the benefit of a young\ncouple,\" was advertised to be kept there.\n\nLambeth Wells at length becoming a public nuisance, the premises were\nshut up, and ultimately let as a Methodist Meeting-house. The music\ngallery was used as a pulpit; but the preacher being greatly disturbed\nin his enthusiastic harangues, he was obliged to quit, when the\npremises were converted to various purposes, except the dwelling, which\nis now known by the sign of the Fountain public-house.\n\nOn the site of Messrs. Maudslay's factory, in the Westminster Road,\nformerly stood the Apollo Gardens. This place of amusement was opened\nin 1788, by an ingenious musician named Clagget, who published, in\n1793, a small quarto pamphlet, entitled \"Musical Phenomena: An Organ\nmade without Pipes, Strings, Bells, or Glasses; the only Instrument in\nthe world that will never require to be re-tuned. A Cromatic Trumpet,\ncapable of producing just Intervals, and regular Melodies in all Keys,\nwithout undergoing any change whatever. A French Horn answering the\nabove description of the Trumpet.\"\n\nThe Apollo Gardens had one spacious room elegantly fitted up, and\ndecorated in taste suitably to its intention. The gardens consisted\nof a number of elegant pavilions or alcoves, well adapted for the\naccommodation of different companies; they were ornamented chiefly with\na succession of paintings, relating to romantic histories, particularly\nthe different adventures of Don Quixote. It had a fine orchestra\nerected in the centre of the gardens. The place being ultimately\nconverted into a receptacle for loose and dissolute characters, the\nmagistracy very properly suppressed it about the year 1799.\n\nIn Gravel Lane, Southwark, was Finch's Grotto, a public garden and\nplace of amusement, so named from William Finch, the proprietor. The\nGrotto was opened to the public in 1770 upon the plan of Vauxhall\ngardens. An orchestra and a band of musicians, added to the rural\ncharacter of the place, and drew a numerous body of visitors.\n\nVery little is known about the Grotto, but it is supposed to have been\nclosed early in the present century.\n\n\nTHE DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS, OR, ORNITHORYNCHUS PARADOXUS.\n\n[Illustration [++] Duck-billed Platypus.]\n\nOf the genus _Ornithorynchus_ only one species--the _Paradoxus_--has\nyet been discovered in the whole world, and it is, therefore, one of\nthe great curiosities of animal life. It appears to be a union of a\nquadruped and a bird, and is only to be found in New Holland, where it\ninhabits the reeds by the side of rivers. Our engraving represents it\nvery accurately. It is about twenty inches long, having a flattened\nbody, somewhat like the otter, and is clothed with a dark soft fur.\nThe elongated nose very much resembles the beak of a duck, like which\nthese animals feed upon water insects, shell-fish, and aquatic plants.\nThe feet are five-toed and webbed, and in the fore-feet this membrane\nextends beyond the nails: the male is armed with a spur on each hind\nleg. This curious animal, in which a duck's beak is united to the body\nof a quadruped, rolls itself up like a hedgehog, when it sleeps in its\nburrows on the banks of the streams whence its food is derived.\n\n\nORIGIN OF BOLTON ABBEY.\n\nAbout midway up the Vale of Bolton, amidst the gloomy recesses of\nthe woods, the Wharfe, which is otherwise a wide and shallow river,\nis suddenly contracted by two huge rocks, which approach each other\nso nearly, that the country folk, or rather the villagers, call it\nthe _Strid_, because adventurous people stride or leap from one rock\nto the other. In ancient days, the whole of this valley belonged to\nBaron Romillie, whose eldest son having died, left a younger brother,\nof the name of EGREMONT, sole heir of the domains and inheritance of\nthis family. One day, however, when this young man, familiarly called\nthe \"Boy of Egremont,\" was returning from hunting with the hounds in\nthe _leash_, he, as he had done many times before, was going to leap\nthe _Strid_, when, just as he had attempted it, the hounds held back,\nand precipitated him headlong into the deep and awful chasm, which the\nimpetuous fall of water (thus produced by the sudden contraction of the\nriver) had worn in the base of the two rude rocks, and he was never\nseen afterwards. The Baron, being now left childless, built the Abbey,\nand endowed it with the domains of Bolton.\n\n\nLENGTH OF LIFE WITHOUT BODILY EXERCISE.\n\nThe Rev. William Davies, Rector of Staunton-upon-Wye, and Vicar of\nAll Saints, Hereford, died 1790, aged 105. The life of this gentleman\ndisplays one of the most extraordinary instances of departure from all\nthose rules of temperance and exercise, which so much influence the\nlives of the mass of mankind, that is, probably to be found in the\nwhole records of longevity. During the last thirty-five years of his\nlife, he never used any other exercise than that of just slipping his\nfeet, one before the other, from room to room; and they never after\nthat time were raised, but to go down or up stairs, a task, however, to\nwhich he seldom subjected himself. His breakfast was hearty; consisting\nof hot _rolls well buttered_, with a plentiful supply of tea or coffee.\nHis dinner was substantial, and frequently consisted of a variety of\ndishes. At supper he generally eat hot roast meat, and always drank\nwine, though never to excess. Though nearly blind for a number of\nyears, he was always cheerful in his manners, and entertaining in his\nconversation, and was much beloved by all who knew him. He had neither\ngout, stone, paralysis, rheumatism, nor any of those disagreeable\ninfirmities which mostly attend old age; but died peaceably in the\nfull possession of all his faculties, mental and corporeal, save his\neyesight. Like most long livers he was very short of stature.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY FASHION IN CIGARS.\n\nA taste for tobacco in some form or other seems to extend over the\nwhole inhabitable globe. In this respect it matters not whether nations\nare civilized or uncivilized; and however completely they may differ\nfrom each other in everything else, they all agree in a fondness for\n\"the weed.\" In the mode, however, of indulging in the luxury, there is\nthe greatest diversity, and no where is this more strikingly manifested\nthan in the Philippine Islands.\n\n\"It is not till evening that the inhabitants of the higher class begin\nto stir; till that time they are occupied in eating, sleeping, and\nsmoking tobacco, which is no where more general than on the island of\nLuzon; for children, before they can walk, begin to smoke segars. The\nwomen carry their fondness for it to a greater height than the men;\nfor, not content with the usual small segars, they have others made\nfor them, which are a foot long and proportionably thick. These are\nhere called the women's segars, and it is a most ludicrous sight to see\nelegant ladies taking their evening walk, with these burning brands in\ntheir mouths.\"\n\nHow widely does the fashion in Luzon differ from the fashion at Paris!\n\n\nNOVEL WAY OF PURCHASING A HUSBAND.\n\nThe following paragraph, which we have copied from a magazine of 1790,\nnot only gives us a curious instance of female determination in the\npursuit of a husband, but tells us of the price which human hair was\nworth at the period when ladies wore such monstrous head-dresses of\nfalse curls.\n\n\"An Oxfordshire lass was lately courted by a young man of that country,\nwho was not willing to marry her unless her friends could advance\n50_l._ for her portion; which they being incapable of doing, the lass\ncame to London to try her fortune, where she met with a good chapman\nin the Strand, who made a purchase of her hair (which was delicately\nlong and light), and gave her _sixty pounds_ for it, being 20 ounces\nat 3_l. an ounce_; with which money she joyfully returned into the\ncountry, and bought her a husband.\"\n\n\nGLOVES.--ORIGIN OF \"PIN MONEY.\"\n\nGloves were very common as New Year's gifts. For many hundreds of years\nafter their introduction into England in the 10th century, they were\nworn only by the most opulent classes of society, and hence constituted\na valuable present. They are often named in old records. Exchange of\ngloves was at one period a mode of investiture into possession of\nproperty, as amongst the ancient Jews was that of a shoe or sandal; and\n\"glove-money\" is to this day presented by High Sheriffs to the officers\nof their courts, upon occasion of a maiden assize, or one in which\nno cause is tried. Pins, which at the commencement of the sixteenth\ncentury displaced the wooden skewers previously in use, became a\npresent of similar consequence; and at their first introduction were\nconsidered of so much importance in female dress, that \"pin-money\" grew\ninto the denomination of dower, which, by the caution of parents, or\njustice of a consort, was settled upon a lady at her marriage.\n\n\nHABITS AND HABITATIONS OF THE DYAKS OF BORNEO.\n\nIt is impossible to appreciate properly the courage, determination,\nand skill which have been displayed by the gallant Sir James Brooke,\nunless we make ourselves acquainted with the character and habits of\nthe extraordinary race of men over whom he triumphed. The Dyaks are a\nsavage people who inhabit Borneo. They lived there before the Malays\ncame, and they have been obliged to submit to them. They are savages\nindeed. They are darker than the Malays; yet they are not black; their\nskin is only the colour of copper. Their hair is cut short in front,\nbut streams down their backs; their large mouths show a quantity of\nblack teeth, made black by chewing the betel-nut. They wear but very\nlittle clothing, but they adorn their ears and arms, and legs, with\nnumbers of brass rings. Their looks are wild and fierce, but not\ncunning like the looks of the Malays. They are not Mahomedans; they\nhave hardly any religion at all. They believe there are some gods, but\nthey know hardly anything about them, and they do not want to know.\nThey neither make images to the gods, nor say prayers to them. They\nlive like the beasts, thinking only of this life; yet they are more\nunhappy than beasts, for they imagine there are evil spirits among the\nwoods and hills, watching to do them harm. It is often hard to persuade\nthem to go to the top of a mountain, where they say evil spirits dwell.\nSuch a people would be more ready to listen to a missionary than those\nwho have idols, and temples, and priests, and sacred books.\n\n[Illustration: Dyak With Heads.]\n\n[Illustration: Head of a Dyak.]\n\nTheir wickedness is very great. It is their chief delight to get the\nheads of their enemies. There are a great many different tribes of\nDyaks, and each tribe tries to cut off the heads of other tribes. The\nDyaks who live by the sea are the most cruel; they go out into the\nboats to rob and bring home, not _slaves_, but HEADS!! And how do they\ntreat a head when they get it? They take out the brains, and then they\ndry it in the smoke, with the flesh and hair still on; then they put a\nstring through it, and fasten it to their waists. The evening that they\nhave got some new heads, the warriors dance with delight,--their heads\ndangling by their sides;--and they turn round in the dance, and gaze\nupon their heads,--and shout,--and yell with triumph! At night they\nstill keep the heads near them; and in the day they play with them,\nas children with their dolls, talking to them, putting food in their\nmouths, and the betel-nut between their ghastly lips. After wearing the\nheads many days, they hang them up to the ceilings of their rooms.\n\nNo English lord thinks so much of his pictures, as the Dyaks do of\ntheir heads. They think these heads are the finest ornaments of their\nhouses. The man who has _most_ heads, is considered the _greatest_ man.\nA man who has _no heads_ is despised! If he wishes to be respected, he\nmust get a head as soon as he can. Sometimes a man, in order to get a\nhead, will go out to look for a poor fisherman, who has done him no\nharm, and will come back with his head. When the Dyaks fight against\ntheir enemies, they try to get, not only the heads of men, but also\nthe heads of women and children. How dreadful it must be to see a poor\nbaby's head hanging from the ceiling! There was a Dyak who lost all\nhis property by fire, but he cared not for losing anything, so much as\nfor losing his precious heads; nothing could console him for his loss;\nsome of them he had cut off himself, and others had been cut off by his\nfather, and left to him!\n\n[Illustration: House of Sea Dyaks.]\n\n[Illustration: Skull House.]\n\nPeople who are so bent on killing, as these Dyaks are, must have many\nenemies. The Dyaks are always in fear of being attacked by their\nenemies. They are afraid of living in lonely cottages; they think it a\nbetter plan for a great many to live together, that they may be able\nto defend themselves, if surprised in the night. Four hundred Dyaks\nwill live together in one house. The house is very large. To make it\nmore safe, it is built upon very high posts, and there are ladders to\nget up by. The posts are sometimes forty feet high; so that when you\nare in the house, you find yourself as high as the tall trees. There\nis one very large room, where all the men and women sit, and talk,\nand do their work in the day. The women pound the rice, and weave the\nmats, while the men make weapons of war, and the little children play\nabout. There is always much noise and confusion in this room. There are\na great many doors along one side of the long room; and each of these\ndoors leads into a small room where a family lives! the parents, the\nbabies, and the girls sleep there, while the boys of the family sleep\nin the large room, that has just been described.\n\nThe Hill Dyaks do not live in houses quite so large. Yet several\nfamilies inhabit the same house. In the midst of their villages, there\nis always one house where the boys sleep. In this house all the heads\nof the village are kept. The house is round, and built on posts, and\nthe entrance is underneath, through the floor. As this is the best\nhouse in the village, travellers are always brought to this house to\nsleep. Think how dreadful it must be, when you wake in the night to see\nthirty or forty horrible heads, dangling from the ceiling! The wind,\ntoo, which comes in through little doors in the roof, blows the heads\nabout; so that they knock against each other, and seem almost as if\nthey were still alive. This is the Dead-house. Such are the men whom\nthe Rajah Brooke subdued!\n\n\nSCOTTISH WILD CATTLE.\n\nThe wild white cattle, a few of which are still to be found in\nChatelherault Park, belonging to the Duke of Hamilton, in Lanarkshire,\nare great objects of curiosity, inasmuch as they are identical with the\nprimitive source of all our domestic cattle.\n\nThe following description of their habits is abridged from an article\nby the Rev. W. Patrick, in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture:--\n\n\"I am inclined to believe that the Hamilton breed of cattle is the\noldest in Scotland, or perhaps in Britain. Although Lord Tankerville\nhas said they have 'no wild habits,' I am convinced, from personal\nobservation, that this is one of their peculiar features. In browsing\ntheir extensive pasture, they always keep close together, never\nscattering or straggling over it, a peculiarity which does not belong\nto the Kyloe, or any other breed, from the wildest or most inhospitable\nregions of the Highlands. The white cows are also remarkable for their\nsystematic manner of feeding. At different periods of the year their\ntactics are different, but by those acquainted with their habits they\nare always found about the same part of the forest at the same hour of\nthe day. In the height of summer, they always bivouac for the night\ntowards the northern extremity of the forest; from this point they\nstart in the morning, and browse to the southern extremity, and return\nat sunset to their old rendezvous; and during these perambulations they\nalways feed _en masse_.\n\n\"The bulls are seldom ill-natured, but when they are so they display\na disposition more than ordinarily savage, cunning, pertinacious,\nand revengeful. A poor bird-catcher, when exercising his vocation\namong the 'Old Oaks,' as the park is familiarly called, chanced to be\nattacked by a savage bull. By great exertion he gained a tree before\nhis assailant made up to him. Here he had occasion to observe the\nhabits of the animal. It did not roar or bellow, but merely grunted,\nthe whole body quivered with passion and savage rage, and he frequently\nattacked the tree with his head and hoofs. Finding all to no purpose,\nhe left off the vain attempt, began to browse, and removed to some\ndistance from the tree. The bird-catcher tried to descend, but this\nwatchful Cerberus was again instantly at his post, and it was not till\nafter six hours' imprisonment, and various bouts at 'bo-peep' as above,\nthat the unfortunate man was relieved by some shepherds with their\ndogs. A writer's apprentice, who had been at the village of Quarter on\nbusiness, and who returned by the 'Oaks' as a 'near-hand cut,' was also\nattacked by one of these savage brutes, near the northern extremity of\nthe forest. He was fortunate, however, in getting up a tree, but was\nwatched by the bull, and kept there during the whole of the night, and\ntill near two o'clock the next day.\n\n\"These animals are never taken and killed like other cattle, but are\nalways shot in the field. I once went to see a bull and some cows\ndestroyed in this manner--not by any means for the sake of the sight,\nbut to observe the manner and habits of the animal under peculiar\ncircumstances. When the shooters approached, they, as usual, scampered\noff in a body, then stood still, tossed their heads on high, and\nseemed to snuff the wind; the manoeuvre was often repeated, till they\ngot so hard pressed (and seemingly having a sort of half-idea of the\ntragedy which was to be performed), that they at length ran furiously\nin a mass, always preferring the sides of the fence and sheltered\nsituations, and dexterously taking advantage of any inequality in\nthe ground, or other circumstances, to conceal themselves from the\nassailing foe. In their flight, the bulls, or stronger of the flock,\nalways took the lead! a smoke ascended from them which could be seen at\na great distance; and they were often so close together, like sheep,\nthat a carpet would have covered them. The cows which had young, on the\nfirst 'tug of war,' all retreated to the thickets where their calves\nwere concealed; from prudential motives, they are never, if possible,\nmolested. These and other wild habits I can testify to be inherent\nin the race, and are well known to all who have an opportunity of\nacquainting themselves with them.\"\n\n\nBELLS OF THE ANCIENTS.\n\nBells were known in the earliest ages of which we have any certain\naccount. But the bells of the ancients were very small in comparison\nwith those of modern times, since, according to Polydore Virgil, the\ninvention of such as are hung in the towers, or steeples of Christian\nchurches, did not occur till the latter end of the fourth, or beginning\nof the fifth century; when they were introduced by Paulinus, Bishop of\nNola. The Jews certainly employed bells, since they are spoken of in\nScriptures; and the mention of them by Thucydides, Diodorus Siculus,\nSuidas, Aristophanes, and other ancient writers, proves that they\nwere used in Greece; while Plautus, Ovid, Tibullus, Statius, and a\nvariety of Latin authors, speak of bells as in use among the Romans.\nBut these bells of the ancients were all made for the hand; or were\nof a size to be affixed to other musical instruments, like those\nwhich were occasionally appended to the drum. Whether, when detached\nfrom other instruments, they were used on other occasions, or only in\nparticular ceremonies, or as signals, is not known; nor have we any\nclue by which to guess whether they were tuned in concordance with any\nscale, or whether they were unisons to each other, or not formed to\nany particular pitch, but merely used as sonorous auxiliaries to other\ninstruments, without any regard to their agreement of tone, either with\none another, or with the instruments they accompanied.\n\n\nEARTHQUAKE AT NOTTINGHAM IN 1816.\n\nEarthquakes are providentially occurrences of great rarity in England.\nThe one which took place on the 17th of March, 1816, was one of the\nmost dangerous that has ever been experienced in this kingdom. It\nextended over a vast area of country, and in some localities its\neffects were felt very severely. As a proof of this, we have copied the\nfollowing paragraph from a Nottingham paper of the day:--\n\nNottingham, in common with a great part of the North Midland district,\nexperienced a smart shock of an earthquake. It was felt at half-past\ntwelve p.m., and as Divine service, it being Sunday, was not over\nat the churches, great alarm was expressed by the congregations. At\nSt. Peter's and St. Nicholas's, the consternation was so great, that\nservice had to be suspended for a few seconds, and one lady was borne\nout in a state of insensibility. The pillars supporting St. Mary's\ntower shook very visibly, but, fortunately, the attention of the\ncrowded congregation was so engrossed by the eloquence of the sheriff's\nchaplain, and the presence of the Judge and his retinue, that the alarm\nwas but slight, or the rush and loss of life might have been great.\nIn various parts of the town and neighbourhood, glasses were shaken\noff of shelves, articles of domestic use displaced, window-casements\nthrown open, and other indications manifest of the influence of the\nsubterranean movement.\n\n\nSINGULAR STATE OF PRESERVATION OF A DEAD BODY.\n\nAccording to a statement in Holinshed, in 1495, while digging for a\nfoundation for the church of St. Mary-at-hill, in London, the body of\nAlice Hackney was discovered. It had been buried 175 years, and yet the\nskin was whole, and the joint pliable. It was kept above ground four\ndays without annoyance, and then re-interred.\n\n\nASYLUM FOR DESTITUTE CATS.\n\nOf all the curious charitable institutions in the world, the most\ncurious probably is the Cat Asylum at Aleppo, which is attached to\none of the mosques there, and was founded by a misanthropic old Turk,\nwho being possessed of large granaries, was much annoyed by rats and\nmice, to rid himself of which he employed a legion of cats, who so\neffectually rendered him service, that in return he left them a sum\nin the Turkish funds, with strict injunctions that all destitute\nand sickly cats should be provided for, till such time as they took\nthemselves off again. In 1845, when a famine was ravaging in all\nNorth Syria--when scores of poor people were dropping down in the\nstreets from sheer exhaustion and want, and dying there by dozens per\ndiem before the eyes of their well-to-do fellow creatures, men might\ndaily be encountered carrying away sack loads of cats to be fed up and\nfeasted on the proceeds of the last will and testament of that vagabond\nold Turk, whilst fellow creatures were permitted to perish.\n\n\nTOMB OF SAINT GEORGE.\n\nThe tomb of Saint George, England's patron-saint, is situated in the\nBay of Kesrouan, between the Nahr-et-Kelb and Batroun, surrounded by\nluxuriant gardens and groups of romantic-looking villages and convents.\nThe Arabs venerate St. George, whom they style Mar Djurios, and point\nto a small ruined chapel (as in our engraving), originally dedicated to\nhim to commemorate his victory over the dragon, which, they say, took\nplace near to the spot. The tradition is, that the dragon was about to\ndevour the king of Beyrout's daughter, when St. George slew him, and\nthus saved the lady fair; and the credulous natives point to a kind of\nwell, upwards of sixty feet deep, where they stoutly affirm that the\ndragon used to come out to feed upon his victims.\n\n[Illustration [++] Tomb of Saint George.]\n\nAll this is very curious, inasmuch as it gives an Arabian interest to\nthe career of the patron saint of England, whose portrait, in the act\nof slaying the dragon, constitutes the reverse of most English coin,\nand is regarded as the embodiment of English valour.\n\n\nBEGGARS SELECTED AS MODELS BY PAINTERS.\n\nMichael Angelo Buonarotti often drew from beggars; and report says,\nthat in the early part of his life, when he had not the means of paying\nthem in money, he would make an additional sketch, and, presenting it\nto the party, desire him to take it to some particular person, who\nwould purchase it. Fuseli, in his life of Michael Angelo, says that \"a\nbeggar rose from his hand the patriarch of poverty.\" The same artist,\nin one of his lectures, delivered at the Royal Academy, also observes,\nthat \"Michael Angelo ennobled his beggars into Patriarchs and Prophets,\nin the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.\"\n\nAnnibal Caracci frequently drew subjects in low life. His _Cries of\nBologna_, etched by Giuseppe Maria Mitelli: pub. 1660, in folio, are\nevidently from real characters. It will also be recollected, that some\nof the finest productions of Murillo, Jan Miel, and Drogsloot, are\nbeggars. Callot's twenty-four beggars are evidently from nature; and\namong Rembrandt's etchings are to be found twenty-three plates of this\ndescription.\n\nSir Joshua Reynolds frequently painted from beggars, and from these\npeople have originated some of his finest pictures, particularly\nhis \"Mercury as a Pickpocket,\" and \"Cupid as a Link-boy.\" His Count\nUgolino was painted from a paviour, soon after he had left St. George's\nHospital, from a severe fever. Mr. West painted the portrait of a\nbeggar, on the day when he became a hundred years old; and considered\nhim as a pensioner for several years afterwards. The same person was\nused also as a model, by Copley, Opie, &c. Who can forget the lovely\ncountenance of Gainsborough's \"Shepherd's Boy,\" that has once seen\nEarlom's excellent engraving from it? He was a lad, well known as a\nbeggar to those who walked St. James's-street seventy years ago. The\nmodel for the celebrated picture of the \"Woodman,\" by the same artist,\ndied in the Borough, at the venerable age of 107.\n\nMr. Nollekens, in 1778, when modelling the bust of Dr. Johnson,\nwho then wore a wig, called in a beggar to sit for the hair. The\nsame artist was not equally fortunate in the locks of another great\ncharacter; for on his application to a beggar for the like purpose, the\nfellow declined to sit, with an observation that three half-crowns were\nnot sufficient for the trouble.\n\n\nSUPPLY OF WATER FOR OLD LONDON.\n\nLeaden pipes conveyed spring water to London city from Tyburn in 1236;\nand in 1285 the first great conduit of lead was begun there. In 1442\nHenry VI. granted to John Hatherley, Mayor, license to take up 200\nfother of lead. The pipes from Highbury brought in the water in 1483.\nWe may learn how much was thought of this useful work by the fact that\nthe Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and many worshipful persons used to ride and\nview the conduit heads at Tyburn; and after dinner there, somewhat\ndifferent from recent sportsmen, they hunted a fox.\n\nThe water-works at London Bridge were established in 1512. In 1534,\ntwo-fifteenths were granted by the Common Council for defraying the\nexpense of bringing water from Hackney to Aldgate to a conduit. But\nPeter Morris did not bring his supply of water to the highest parts of\nLondon till the year 1569, and Sir Hugh Middleton's far-famed New River\nwas only rendered available in 1618, that is, a space of sixty-eight\nyears after the introduction of a stream of pure water into the western\nparts of the town of Lyme in Dorset.\n\n\nCOMBINATION OF INSTINCT AND FORCE OF HABIT IN A DOG.\n\nA dog which had been accustomed to go with his master regularly for\nsome time to Penkridge church, still continued to go there by himself\nevery Sunday for a whole year, while the edifice was under repair, and\ndivine service was not held. Whenever he could, he would get into the\nfamily pew and there pass the proper time. His instinct enabled him to\nperceive the occasion, and to measure the regular time, but it could\ncarry him no further. A remarkable exemplification of the difference\nbetween instinct and reason.\n\n\nYORKSHIRE IN THE LAST CENTURY.\n\nAnecdotes which are apparently trifling in themselves, are often of\nimportance, as exhibiting in a striking light the dialect and social\ncondition of the people, and the period they refer to. An instance of\nthis is the following, which has been recorded as the bellman's cry at\nRipon, on the occasion of a great frost and fall of snow, about 1780:--\n\n\"I is to gie notidge, that Joanie Pickersgill yeats yewn to neit, to\nmoarn at moarn, an to moarn at neit, an nea langer, as lang as storm\nhods, 'cause he can git na mare eldin.\"\n\n  _The Translation._\n\nI am to give notice, that John Pickersgill heats his oven to-night,\nto-morrow morning, and to-morrow at night, and no longer as long as the\nstorm lasts, because he can get no more fuel.\n\n\nINSTANCE OF MANY AGED PERSONS DYING ABOUT THE SAME DATE.\n\nThe following is taken from a copy of Nile's \"Weekly Register,\"\npublished at Baltimore, in the month of January, 1823. It is the list\nof deaths which had been notified to the paper within one week, and we\ngive it, as a singular instance of the decease of so many persons above\none hundred years old being announced in the same paragraph.\n\n\"In Franklin co. Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Campbell, aged 104--several\nof her relatives had reached 100.--At Troy, N. Y., Ann Fowler,\n100.--At Tyngsboro', N. Y., Abigail Hadlock, 104.--At Somers, N. Y.,\nMichael Makeel, 103.--At Rutland, Oswego, N. Y., Mrs. Buroy, 110.--At\nBrunswick, Maine, Gen. James W. Ryan, 107--his wife is yet living,\naged 94; they were married together 75 years before his death.--At\nGeorgetown, Col. Yarrow, a Moor, (supposed) 135!--At the city of New\nYork, a woman, a native of St. Domingo, 106. At Sargus, Mass., Mrs.\nEdwards, 101.--In Edgecomb county, N. C., William Spicer, aged about\n112.--In Boston, William Homer, 116.\"\n\n\nCORPSE BEARERS DURING THE PLAGUE.\n\nOf all the calamities with which a great city is infested, there can\nbe none so truly awful as that of a plague, when the street doors of\nthe houses that were visited with the dreadful pest were padlocked up,\nand only accessible to the surgeons and medical men, whose melancholy\nduty frequently exposed them even to death itself; and when the\nfronts of the houses were pasted over with large bills exhibiting red\ncrosses, to denote that in such houses the pestilence was raging, and\nrequesting the solitary passenger, to pray that the Lord might have\nmercy upon those who were confined within. Of these bills there are\nmany extant in the libraries of the curious, some of which have borders\nengraved on wood printed in black, displaying figures of skeletons,\nbones, and coffins They also contain various recipes for the cure of\nthe distemper. The Lady Arundel, and other persons of distinction,\npublished their methods for making what was then called plague-water,\nand which are to be found in many of the rare books on cookery of\nthe time; but happily for London, it has not been visited by this\naffliction since 1665, a circumstance owing probably to the Great Fire\nin the succeeding year, which consumed so many old and deplorable\nbuildings, then standing in narrow streets and places so confined, that\nit was hardly possible to know where any pest would stop.\n\n[Illustration [++] Corpse Bearer.]\n\nEvery one who inspects Agas's Plan of London, engraved in the reign of\nElizabeth, as well as those published subsequently to the rebuilding\nof the City after the fire, must acknowledge the great improvements\nas to the houses, the widening of the streets, and the free admission\nof fresh air. It is to be hoped, and indeed we may conclude from the\nvery great and daily improvements on that most excellent plan of\nwidening streets, that this great city will never again witness such\nvisitations.\n\nWhen the plague was at its height, perhaps nothing could have been more\nsilently or solemnly conducted than the removal of the dead to the\nvarious pits round London, that were opened for their reception; and it\nwas the business of Corpse Bearers, such as the one exhibited in the\npreceding engraving, to give directions to the carmen, who went through\nthe city with bells, which they rang, at the same time crying \"Bring\nout your Dead.\" This melancholy description may be closed, by observing\nthat many parts of London, particularly those leading to the Courts of\nWestminster, were so little trodden down, that the grass grew in the\nmiddle of the streets.\n\n\nA MEMENTO-MORI WATCH.\n\nThe curious relic, of which we herewith give an engraving, was\npresented by Mary, Queen of Scots, to her Maid of Honour, Mary Seaton,\nof the house of Wintoun, one of the four celebrated Maries, who were\nMaids of Honour to her Majesty.\n\n    \"Yestreen the Queen had four Maries,\n      The night she'll hae but three;\n    There was Marie Seaton, and Marie Beaton,\n      And Marie Carmichael and me.\"\n\n[Illustration [++] Memento-Mori Watch.]\n\nThe watch is of silver, in the form of a skull. On the forehead of the\nskull is the figure of Death, with his scythe and sand-glass; he stands\nbetween a palace on the one hand, and a cottage on the other, with\nhis toes applied equally to the door of each, and around this is the\nlegend from Horace \"_Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas\nRegumque turres_.\" On the opposite, or posterior part of the skull, is\na representation of Time, devouring all things. He also has a scythe,\nand near him is the serpent with its tail in its mouth, being an\nemblem of eternity; this is surrounded by another legend from Horace,\n\"_Tempus edax rerum tuque invidiosa vetustas_.\" The upper part of the\nskull is divided into two compartments: on one is represented our first\nparents in the garden of Eden, attended by some of the animals, with\nthe motto, \"_Peccando perditionem miseriam aeternam posteris meruere_.\"\nThe opposite compartment is filled with the subject of the salvation\nof lost man by the crucifixion of our Saviour, who is represented as\nsuffering between the two thieves, whilst the Mary's are in adoration\nbelow; the motto to this is \"_Sic justitiae satisfecit, mortem superavit\nsalutem comparavit_.\" Running below these compartments on both sides,\nthere is an open work of about an inch in width, to permit the sound to\ncome more freely out when the watch strikes. This is formed of emblems\nbelonging to the crucifixion, scourges of various kinds, swords, the\nflagon and cup of the Eucharist, the cross, pincers, lantern used in\nthe garden, spears of different kinds, and one with the sponge on its\npoint, thongs, ladder, the coat without seam, and the dice that were\nthrown for it, the hammer and nails, and the crown of thorns. Under all\nthese is the motto, \"_Scala caeli ad gloriam via_.\"\n\nThe watch is opened by reversing the skull, and placing the upper\npart of it in the hollow of the hand, and then lifting the under jaw\nwhich rises on a hinge. Inside, on the plate, which thus may be called\nthe lid, is a representation of the Holy Family in the stable, with\nthe infant Jesus laid in the manger, and angels ministering to him;\nin the upper part an angel is seen descending with a scroll on which\nis written, \"_Gloria excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae\nvolu----_\" In the distance are the shepherds with their flocks, and one\nof the men is in the act of performing on a cornemuse. The works of\nthe watch occupy the position of the brains in the skull itself, the\ndial plate being on a flat where the roof of the mouth and the parts\nbehind it under the base of the brain, are to be found in the real\nsubject. The dial plate is of silver, and it is fixed within a golden\ncircle richly carved in a scroll pattern. The hours are marked in large\nRoman letters, and within them is the figure of Saturn devouring his\nchildren, with this relative legend round the outer rim of the flat,\n\"_Sicut meis sic et omnibus idem_.\"\n\nLifting up the body of the works on the hinges by which they are\nattached, they are found to be wonderfully entire. There is no date,\nbut the maker's name, with the place of manufacture, \"Moyse, Blois,\"\nare distinctly engraven. Blois was the place where it is believed\nwatches were first made, and this suggests the probability of the\nopinion that the watch was expressly ordered by Queen Mary at Blois,\nwhen she went there with her husband, the Dauphin, previous to his\ndeath. The watch appears to have been originally constructed with\ncatgut, instead of the chain which it now has, which must have been\na more modern addition. It is now in perfect order, and performs\nwonderfully well, though it requires to be wound up within twenty-six\nhours to keep it going with tolerable accuracy. A large silver bell, of\nvery musical sound, fills the entire hollow of the skull, and receives\nthe works within it when the watch is shut; a small hammer set in\nmotion by a separate escapement, strikes the hours on it.\n\nThis very curious relic must have been intended to occupy a stationary\nplace on a _prie-dieu_, or small altar in a private oratory, for its\nweight is much too great to have admitted of its having been carried in\nany way attached to the person.\n\n\nA MONSTER.\n\nIt is almost incredible that such a monster, as the one we are about\nto describe should have been allowed to continue his wicked career for\nsome years, in a civilized country like France, little more than a\nhundred years ago, but the following paragraph is copied from a Paris\njournal of that period--1755, January the 17th--and there is every\nreason to believe that it is strictly correct. \"What was his fate we\ndo not know, but can hardly doubt.--The Marquis de Plumartin, whose\nexecrable crimes are known over all France, has at last been taken\nin his castle, by 300 men of the King's Own regiment of foot, and\ncarried to Poitiers, loaded with irons. The king is going to appoint\na commission to try him. This monster turned away his wife some years\nago, and became the terror of Poitou. Neither woman nor man durst\nappear in the neighbourhood. Having one day lost a cause in one of the\nking's courts, he caused the usher and his man, who came to intimate\nthe sentence to him, to be burnt alive. Some days after, having drawn\nsix of his creditors into his castle, where he had shut himself up with\nseveral of his crew, he ordered some of his people to drag them into\na pond, tied to the tails of horses, and afterwards fastened them to\na stake near a great fire, where three expired, and the other three\ndied a few days after. Thirty of the Marshalsea guards, who were sent\nto apprehend him, having beset his castle, he barricaded the doors\nand fired on them from the garret window, killing the commanding\nofficer and five others. After which he left the kingdom, but absurdly\nimagining that his crimes were forgot, he lately returned.\"\n\n\nPERSEVERANCE REWARDED BY FORTUNE.\n\nWe have copied the following paragraph from the pages of a local\nhistorian, because it gives us a striking instance of what perseverance\nand good fortune will accomplish, in raising a man to comparative\ndistinction from the humblest walks of life.\n\nAugust 26, 1691--Sir John Duck, bart., departed this life, being\nWednesday at night, and was buried upon the Monday after, being the\n31st of August. The wealthiest burgess on the civic annals of Durham.\nOf Sir John's birth, parentage, and education, the two first have\nhitherto remained veiled in impenetrable obscurity; as to the third,\nhe was bred a butcher under John Heslop, in defiance of the trade and\nmystery of butchers, in whose books a record still exists, warning\nJohn Heslop that he forbear to sett John Ducke on worke in the trade\nof a butcher. John Duck however grew rich, married the daughter of his\nbenefactor, and was created a baronet by James II. He built a splendid\nmansion in Silver-street, where a panel still exists recording his\nhappy rise to fortune. The baronet, then humble Duck, cast out by\nthe butchers, stands near a bridge in an attitude of despondency; in\nthe air is seen a raven bearing in his bill a piece of silver, which\naccording to tradition fell at the feet of the lucky John, and was\nnaturally calculated to make a strong impression on his mind. He bought\na calf, which calf became a cow, and which cow being sold enabled John\nto make further purchases in cattle, and from such slender beginnings,\nto realise a splendid fortune. On the right of the picture is a view of\nhis mansion in Silver-street, and he seems to point at another, which\nis presumed to be the hospital he endowed at Lumley. He died without\nissue, and was buried at St. Margaret's, where his wife, Pia----\nPrudens---- Felix, lies buried beside him.\n\n    On Duck the Butchers shut the door;\n    But Heslop's Daughter Johnny wed:\n    In mortgage rich, in offspring poor,\n    Nor son nor daughter crown'd his bed.\n\n\nTRAVELLING IN THE UNITED STATES EXACTLY ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.\n\nThe American advertisement, of which we here give a literal copy,\nis deserving of preservation on account of the quaintness of the\ninn-signs, the peculiarity of the spelling and diction, the \"shifting\"\nof the passengers which it announces, and the general idea it gives us\nof the way in which travelling was performed in America at the time\nwhen it was issued.\n\n  Philadelphia STAGE-WAGGON, and New-York STAGE BOAT\n    performs their Stages twice a Week.\n\nJOHN BUTLER, with his waggon, sets out on Mondays from his House,\nat the Sign of the Death of the Fox, in Strawberry ally, and drives\nthe same day to Trenton Ferry, when Francis Holman meets him, and\nproceeds on Tuesday to Brunswick, and the passengers and goods being\nshifted into the waggon of Isaac Fitzrandolph, he takes them to the\nNew Blazing-Star to Jacob Fitzrandolph's the same day, where Rubin\nFitzrandolph, with a boat well suted, will receive them, and take\nthem to New-York that night. John Butler returning to Philadelphia\non Tuesday with the passengers and goods delivered to him by Francis\nHolman, will again set out for Trenton Ferry on Thursday, and Francis\nHolman, &c. will carry his passengers and goods, with the same\nexpedition as above to New-York.\n\n  _Weekly Mercury._\n\n  March 8, 1759.\n\n\nFETE OF THE FEDERATION. PARIS 1790.\n\n[Illustration [++] Fete of the Federation.]\n\nThe leading events of the great Revolution in France, may be fairly\nclassed with the marvellous, and among our \"Ten Thousand Wonderful\nThings\" there will be found few more wonderful than the civic festival\nof the general federation of the National Guards of France, which took\nplace on the 14th of July, 1790, and of which the above is a correct\nrepresentation, taken from a view by Duplessis Bertaux. The proceedings\nof that memorable day had in them a mixture of religious celebration\napparently singular among a people who had lately so much trampled on\nreligion; but as this celebration was more pagan than Christian in\nits character, the singularity becomes less marked. On the preceding\nevening, a _Hierodrame_ was performed at the cathedral of Notre Dame--a\nkind of sacred drama, made up by M. Desaugiers of scraps from the\nBible mixed with other matter, and set to music; it professed to tell\nthe story of the taking of the Bastille, and to typify the sadness,\ntrouble, confusion, joy, and alarm of the Parisians. Then succeeded a\n_Te Deum_, chanted in presence of some of the principal federal and\nmunicipal bodies. Early in the morning of the 14th, amid dense clouds\nand heavy rain, the National Guards from all the eighty-three\ndepartments of France, together with deputations from the state army\nand navy, began to assemble, and speedily formed an immense line from\nthe Porte St. Antoine to the Porte St. Martin; whence they marched,\nwith bands playing and colours flying, to the Champ de Mars, regaled\nand cheered by the Parisians on the route. On reaching the great square\nof the Tuileries, the procession was headed by the municipality of\nParis and the members of the National Assembly, and followed by a body\nof gray-headed veterans. The procession traversed the Seine by one of\nthe bridges, greeted by salvos of artillery drawn up on the quays, and\nentered the Champ de Mars under a triumphal arch almost hidden by flags\nand patriotic inscriptions. One o'clock had arrived before the various\nbodies forming the procession had taken their destined places in the\nenclosed parallelogram, surrounded by nearly 300,000 spectators on\nthe raised terraces, most of whom were by this time drenched by the\ncontinuous rain. In the centre of the area was a lofty altar, half\npagan, half Catholic in its adornments; and around this altar the\nprovincial National Guards danced and sang in very excited fashion.\nThe royal family appeared at three o'clock. In an immense gallery near\nthe altar, the National Assembly were seated, with the king and the\npresident on two chairs of state exactly equal in height and richness,\nand the queen and the rest of the court seated behind--a significant\ninterpretation of the decree just announced. At the instant of the king\ntaking his seat, the air was rent with cries of _Vive le Roi! Vive la\nNation!_ The banners were unfurled; 1,800 musicians burst forth with\njubilant strains; cannon poured out continuous volleys; Talleyrand,\nas bishop of Autun, assisted by sixty chaplains of the Paris National\nGuards, performed mass at the altar; and the banners were blessed by\nsprinkling with holy-water. Then Lafayette, dismounting from his white\ncharger, received from the hands of the king a written form of oath;\nhe swore to this oath at the altar, and with his raised arm gave a\nsignal for the countless host to do likewise--every one raising his\nright hand, and saying _Je le jure!_ The king took the oath prescribed\nto him; and the queen held up the dauphin in her arms, as if to denote\nthat he also, poor child, had sworn to defend the national liberties.\nAt five o'clock the royal family retired, and the crowd began to\nleave the Champ de Mars. Twenty-five thousand federates or provincial\ndeputies went to a royal chateau about a mile distant, where a dinner\nhad been prepared for them by order of the municipality of Paris,\nwith Lafayette as chairman of the banquet. At night all Paris was\nilluminated; and for three or four days the feastings, reviews, and\ncelebrations were numerous, including a grand dance on the site of the\ndemolished Bastille. On the 18th, Lafayette reviewed the provincial or\nfederate National Guards, and on the 19th they were reviewed by the\nking. Paris was intoxicated for an entire week, each man displaying at\nonce his delight and his vanity.\n\n\nA MAN CARRIES HIS HOUSE ON HIS HEAD.\n\nSimeon Ellerton, of Craike, Durham, died 1799, aged 104. This man,\nin his day, was a noted pedestrian, and before the establishment of\nregular \"Posts,\" was frequently employed in walking commissions, from\nthe northern counties to London and other places, which he executed\nwith singular fidelity and despatch. He lived in a neat stone cottage\nof his own erecting; and what is remarkable, he had literally carried\nhis house on his head; it being his constant practice to bring back\nwith him from every journey which he undertook, some suitable stone, or\nother material for his purpose, and which, not unfrequently, he carried\n40 or 50 miles on his head.\n\n\nIGNORANCE AND FEAR.\n\nIn the year 1712, Whiston predicted that the comet would appear on\nWednesday, 14th October, at five minutes after five in the morning, and\nthat the world would be destroyed by fire on the Friday following.\nHis reputation was high, and the comet appeared. A number of persons\ngot into boats and barges on the Thames, thinking the water the safest\nplace. South Sea and India stock fell. A captain of a Dutch ship threw\nall his powder into the river, that the ship might not be endangered.\nAt noon, after the comet had appeared, it is said that more than one\nhundred clergymen were ferried over to Lambeth, to request that proper\nprayers might be prepared, there being none in the church service.\nPeople believed that the day of judgment was at hand, and acted some\non this belief, more as if some temporary evil was to be expected.\nThere was a prodigious run on the bank, and Sir Gilbert Heathcote, at\nthat time the head director, issued orders to all the fire offices in\nLondon, requiring them to keep a good look out, and have a particular\neye upon the Bank of England.\n\n\nARABIAN HORSES.\n\nIt is a singular circumstance, that it is to the Arabian that England\nis indebted for her improved, and now unrivalled, breed of horses for\nthe turf, the field, and the road.\n\nThe Arabian horses are divided into two great branches; the Kadischi\nwhose descent is unknown, and the Kochlani, of whom a written genealogy\nhas been kept for 2000 years. These last are reserved for riding\nsolely, they are highly esteemed and consequently very dear. They are\nsaid to derive their origin from King Solomon's studs. However this\nmay be they are fit to bear the greatest fatigues, and can pass whole\ndays without food. They are also said to show uncommon courage against\nan enemy. It is even asserted, that when a horse of this race finds\nhimself wounded and unable to bear his rider much longer, he retires\nfrom the fray, and conveys him to a place of security. If the rider\nfalls upon the ground, his horse remains beside him, and neighs till\nassistance is brought. The Kochlani are neither large nor handsome but\namazingly swift. The whole race is divided into several families, each\nof which has its proper name. Some of these have a higher reputation\nthan others on account of their more ancient and uncontaminated\nnobility.\n\nWe may not believe, perhaps, all that is told us of the Arabian. It has\nbeen remarked that there are, on the deserts which his horse traverses,\nno milestones to mark the distance, or watch to calculate the time;\nand the Bedouin is naturally given to exaggeration, and most of all\nwhen relating the prowess of the animal which he loves as dearly as\nhis children; yet it cannot be denied that at the introduction of the\nArabian into the European stables, there was no other horse comparable\nto him.\n\n\nHEAD-QUARTERS OF PRINCE RUPERT AT EVERTON, DURING THE SIEGE OF\nLIVERPOOL, IN 1644.\n\nPrince Rupert, assisted by the Earl of Derby, having taken Bolton\nby storm, and refreshed his army there for some days, advanced on\nLiverpool, where the Parliament had a strong garrison under the command\nof Colonel More, of Bank-hall; and finding on his approach to the\ntown, the high ground near it favourable to his design, compared it\nto a crow's nest, probably imagining it would be taken with as little\ndifficulty; but the resistance he met with, induced him to declare it\nwas more like an eagle's nest, or a den of lions.\n\n[Illustration [++] Head-Quarters of Prince Rupert.]\n\nThe siege began about the 2nd of June, and the view exhibits his\nhead-quarters from that time till the reduction of the place. His main\ncamp was established round the beacon, about a mile from the town,\nand his officers were placed in the adjoining villages, from whence a\ndetachment marched every day, being relieved every twenty-four hours,\nto open trenches and erect batteries. From these advances Prince\nRupert frequently attacked the besieged and their works in the way of\nstorm, but was constantly repulsed with great slaughter of his men. At\nlength, Colonel More, finding the town must of necessity surrender, and\ndesirous of ingratiating himself with the Prince, for the preservation\nof his house and effects at Bank Hall, gave such orders for his\nsoldiers to retire, that the works on the enemy's side were abandoned,\nand the royalists entered the town at three o'clock in the morning of\nJune 26, putting to the sword all they met with, till they arrived\nat the High Cross, which then stood on the site where the Exchange\nnow stands. Here the soldiers of the Castle, drawn up in line, beat a\nparley, and demanded quarter, which, on their submitting as prisoners\nof war, and surrendering the Castle to the Prince, was granted. The\nsoldiers were then sent to the tower, St. Nicholas's Church, and other\nplaces of security; but the Parliament-army, soon after the siege,\nrepossessed themselves of the Castle, and appointed Col. Birch, as\ngovernor.\n\n\nFIRE AT BURWELL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 1727.\n\nSome strollers brought down a puppet-show, which was exhibited in a\nlarge thatched barn. Just as the show was about to begin, an idle\nfellow attempted to thrust himself in without paying, which the people\nof the show preventing, a quarrel ensued. After some altercation,\nthe fellow went away, and the door being made fast, all was quiet;\nbut the same man, to gain admittance privately, got over a heap of\nhay and straw, which stood near to the barn, and accidentally set it\non fire. The spectators of the show, alarmed by the flames, which\nhad communicated to the barn, rushed to the door; but it happened\nunfortunately that it opened inwards, and the crowd pressing violently\nagainst the door, there could be no escape. Thus the whole company,\nconsisting of more than 160 persons, were kept confined till the roof\nfell in, and covered them with fire and smoke: six only escaped with\nlife; the rest, among whom were several young ladies of fortune, were\nreduced to one undistinguishable heap of mangled bodies, totally\ndisfigured. The friends of the dead, not knowing which were the remains\nthey sought, caused a large hole to be dug in the churchyard, and all\nthe bodies were promiscuously interred together, and a tablet erected\nin the church to perpetuate this most melancholy event.\n\n\nAN APPARENT SINGULARITY ACCOUNTED FOR.\n\nIt is generally well known that birds are very active agents in the\nextension of vegetation, and that fruit and flowers are, to a great\nextent, rendered prolific by the insects which visit their blossoms;\nbut few people are aware of the means through which fish are formed\nin lakes and ponds, which are not connected with other waters. Here,\nalso, an insect is the principal agent. The large water-beetle, which\nis in the habit of feeding upon the spawn of fish, occasionally in\nthe evening climbs up the stems of rushes, &c. out of the water,\nsufficiently high to enable it to take wing; in these circumstances it\nhas been caught, and, putting it into water, has been found to give out\nthe spawn with which it had gorged itself previous to taking flight,\nboth in a digested and undigested state; so that, on trial, it has been\nfound that it produced fish of various kinds.\n\n\nEUROPEAN BALANCING EQUAL TO THE INDIAN JUGGLERS.\n\nThe astonishing dexterity of the Indian jugglers is known to all,\nbut many years ago a Spaniard named Cadenas made himself equal, if\nnot superior to them. He may be truly said to be superior to them,\ninasmuch as several of his feats have never been attempted by them. Don\nCadenas extended himself flat on his back on a large table. He then\nelevated his legs until they were at right angles with his body; he\nwas assisted in keeping this position by a sort of pyramidal cushion,\nwhich was placed under him, a little below the lower end of his back.\nHis feet and ankles were covered with boots, on which were many small\ncastanets and little bells. The tranca, which is a round piece of\nwood, about 8 feet long and five inches in diameter, handsomely\npainted, was then laid horizontally on the soles of his feet, his legs\nbeing perpendicular. Having exactly balanced the tranca, he alternately\nstruck his feet against it, the castanets, &c., keeping time with the\nmusic. In proportion to the strength with which he struck the tranca,\nwith one foot or both feet, was the height to which he elevated it,\nalways catching it, in its descent, with great accuracy, on the soles\nof his feet. Sometimes by bending his knees and then striking out with\nhis limbs, he threw the tranca several feet into the air, catching it,\nin its descent, on his feet, with as much neatness and more certainty\nthan the Indian jugglers used to catch the brass balls in their hands.\nHe concluded the performance with the tranca, by exactly balancing it\non the sole of his left foot, and then by repeated strokes of his right\nfoot set it rapidly in motion like a horizontal fly-wheel.\n\n\nMOB-WISDOM.\n\nA singular instance of a mob cheating themselves by their own headlong\nimpetuosity, is to be found in the life of Woodward, the comedian. On\none occasion, when he was in Dublin, and lodged opposite the Parliament\nHouse, a mob who were making the members swear to oppose an unpopular\nbill, called out to his family to throw them a Bible out of the window.\nMr. W. was frightened, for they had no such book in the house, but he\nthrew out a volume of Shakespere, telling the mob they were welcome to\nit. They gave him three cheers, swore the members upon this book, and\nafterwards returned it without discovering its contents.\n\n\nCOMMUNICATION BETWEEN ANIMALS.\n\nThe means by which animals contrive to communicate their ideas to each\nother is a phenomenon which has never been satisfactorily explained.\nThe two following instances of it are very curious. A gentleman who\nwas in the habit of occasionally visiting London from a distant county\nperformed the journey on horseback, accompanied by a favourite little\nterrier dog, which he left at an inn at some distance from London\ntill his return. On one occasion on calling for his dog the landlady\ntold him that it was lost; it had had a quarrel with the great house\ndog, and had been so worried and bit that it was thought he would\nnever recover, but at the end of a few days he crawled out of the\nyard, and no one saw him for almost a week, when he returned with\nanother dog bigger than his enemy, on whom they both fell and nearly\ndestroyed him. This dog had actually travelled to its own home at\nWhitmore in Staffordshire, had coaxed away the great dog in question,\nwhich followed him to St. Alban's to assist in resenting the injury\nof his friend. The following story is related of a little spaniel\nwhich had been found lame by a surgeon at Leeds. He carried the poor\nanimal home, bandaged up his leg, and after two or three days turned\nhim out. The dog returned to the surgeon's house every morning till\nhis leg was perfectly well. At the end of several months, the spaniel\nagain presented himself in company with another dog, which had also\nbeen lamed; and he intimated, as well as piteous and intelligent looks\ncould intimate, that he desired the same assistance to be rendered to\nhis friend as had been bestowed upon himself. The combination of ideas\nin this case, growing out of the recollection of his own injury, and\nreferring that to the cure which had been performed; the compassion he\nhad for his friend to whom he communicated the occurrence, and induced\nto seek relief under his guidance, together with the appeal to the\nhumane surgeon, is as extraordinary a piece of sagacity as can be found\nin all the annals of animals.\n\n\nSTRANGE CUSTOM ABOUT NAMES.\n\nThe following anecdote forcibly illustrates the absurd custom which\nprevailed many years ago in America, of giving children names, made up\nof Scripture sentences. We record the anecdote as being descriptive\nof a curious local custom. About the beginning of the present\ncentury a New England sea captain having some business at a public\noffice, which required him to sign his name, was rather tedious in\nperforming the operation, which did not escape the observation of\nthe officer, who was a little impatient at the delay, and curious\nwithal to see what sort of a name it could be that required so long\na time to spread it upon paper. Perhaps the captain had a long\nstring of titles to grace it, such as honorable, esquire, colonel of\nmilitia, selectman of the town of ----, &c., which he chose to make\nan ostentatious parade of; or perhaps it was his whim to subscribe\nthe place of his nativity and that of his residence, together with\nhis age, height, and complexion. He was mistaken; for the captain\nhad subscribed nothing but simply his name, which, when he had\ndone, the officer, after some trouble in decyphering, found to read\nthus:--Through-Much-Tribulation-We-Enter-Into-the-Kingdom-of-Heaven\nClapp. \"Will you please to tell me, Captain Clapp,\" said he, with as\ndemure a face as his violent inclination to indulge in a hearty laugh\nwould allow him to put on, \"what might your mother have called you\nin your infancy, to save herself the trouble of repeating a sermon\nwhenever she had occasion to name her darling?\" \"Why, sir,\" replied\nCaptain Clapp, with laughable simplicity, \"when I was little they used\nto call me Tribby, for shortness.\"\n\n\nDRESS IN LONDON DURING THE LAST CENTURY.\n\nThe seven illustrations which accompany this article represent\nthe progress of dress in London from 1690 to 1779. They speak for\nthemselves, and tell their own tale far better than any description\nin words could tell it for them. The scale in society to which the\npersons depicted in the engravings belong, is what may be called the\nupper middle class, and we thus obtain a more correct idea of the\ngeneral style of dress, than we should have done had we confined our\nobservations solely to the higher ranks.\n\n[Illustration: Dress 1690-1715.]\n\n[Illustration: Dress 1721.]\n\n[Illustration: Dress, 1735--common Life.]\n\n[Illustration: Dress, 1738.]\n\n[Illustration: Dress, 1752.]\n\n[Illustration: Dress Circa 1773, 1778.]\n\n[Illustration: Dress, 1779.]\n\nIt is, however, very curious to notice the value placed upon dress\nduring the period indicated; and how frequently its loss is recorded.\nThus we find it mentioned that Lady Anderson, whose house was robbed\nat a fire in Red Lion Square in 1700, lost a gown of orange damask,\nlined with, striped silk. The family of George Heneage, Esq., at the\nsame time, and by the same casualty, lost \"_a head_, with very fine\nlooped lace of very great value, a Flanders' laced hood, a pair of\ndouble ruffles and tuckers, two laced aprons, one edged with point\nlace, and a large black scarf embroidered with gold.\" At the same\nperiod the ladies wore Holland petticoats, embroidered in figures with\ndifferent  silks and gold, with broad orrice at the bottom.\nIn 1702 diamond stomachers adorned the ladies; they were composed of\nthat valuable stone set in silver, and sewed in a variety of figures\nupon black silk. The men imported the Champaign wig from France. They\nwere made very full, curled, and eighteen inches in length to the\npoint, with drop locks. In the _Post Boy_, of November 15, 1709, there\nwere advertised as stolen, \"A black silk petticoat, with red and white\ncalico border, cherry- stays, trimmed with blue and silver, a\nred and dove- damask gown, flowered with large trees; a yellow\nsatin apron, trimmed with white Persian, and muslin head-clothes, with\ncrow-foot edging; a black silk furbelowed scarf, and a spotted hood.\"\nBlack and beaver hats for ladies were advertised in 1719, faced with\n silks, and trimmed with gold and silver lace. A man of fashion\nin 1720 wore the full flowing curled wig, which fell in ringlets\nhalf-way down his arms and back, a laced coat, straight, formal, with\nbuttons to the very bottom, and several on the pockets and sleeves; his\nshoes were square at the toes, had diminutive buckles, a monstrous flap\non the instep, and high heels, a belt secured the coat and supported\nthe sword. Perukes were a highly important article of dress in 1734.\nFans were much used, ladies seldom appeared without this useful\nornament in their hands. The hoop underwent many important changes;\nsometimes it projected at the sides only, or, like its ancestor, the\nfardingale, it spread itself all round in imposing majesty. High-heeled\nshoes maintained their place. In 1740 tight sleeves with full ruffles,\nsmall pointed waists, enclosed in whalebone, loose gowns, called\nsacques, and cloaks with hoods, named cardinals, were _la grande\nmonde_. Among the gentlemen's costumes, the most striking was the\n_Ramilies_ tail, which was a plaited tail to the wig, with an immense\nbow at the top and one at the bottom. Claret  clothes were\nconsidered as handsome; and light blue with silver button-holes, and\nsilver garters to the knees, was very fashionable between 1740 and\n1751. The change to wearing the natural hair instead of wigs took place\nabout 1765. From that date the female dress altered by degrees: the cap\nwas enlarged to an enormous size, and the bonnet swelled in proportion.\nHoops were entirely discontinued. Hats and bonnets of straw, chip, and\nbeaver, became well proportioned, and velvet pelisses, shawls and silk\nspencers were contrived to improve rather than injure the form. The\nmale dress also insensibly changed from formality to ease, and thus, by\ndegrees, the fashion became what our illustrations represent it to have\nbeen in 1779.\n\n\nATTAR OF ROSES.\n\nLieutenant Colonel Polier gives a full history of extracting this\nessential oil, in vol i. p. 332, of the _Asiatic Researches_. The roses\ngrow, cultivated near Lucknow, in fields of eleven acres each. The\noil is procured by distillation; the petals of the flowers only are\nused; and in that country no more than a quantity of about two drachms\ncan be procured from an hundred-weight of rose leaves, and even that\nin a favourable season, and by the process being performed with the\nutmost care. The oil is by accident of different colours; of a bright\nyellow, of a reddish hue, and a fine emerald. It is to the mother of\nMebrul Nessa Begum, afterwards called Nourjehan Begum, or, _Light\nof the World_, that the fair sex is indebted for this discovery. On\nthis occasion the emperor of Hindostan rewarded the inventress with a\nstring of valuable pearls. Nourjehan Begum was the favourite wife of\nJehangir, and her game the fiercest of India. In a hunting party she\nkilled four tigers with a matchlock, from her elephant, and her spouse\nwas so delighted at her skill, that he made her a present of a pair of\nemerald bracelets, valued at a lack of rupees, and bestowed in charity\na thousand mohurs.\n\n\nFLEET MARRIAGES ABOUT 1740.\n\nMany of the early Fleet weddings were _really_ performed at the\nchapel of the Fleet; but as the practice extended, it was found more\nconvenient to have other places within the Rules of the Fleet, (added\nto which the Warden was compelled by act of parliament not to suffer\nthem,) and thereupon many of the Fleet parsons and tavern-keepers in\nthe neighbourhood fitted up a room in their respective lodgings or\nhouses as a chapel. The parsons took the fees, allowing a portion to\nthe plyers, &c., and the tavern-keepers, besides sharing in the fees,\nderived a profit from the sale of liquors which the wedding party\ndrank. In some instances the tavern-keepers kept a parson on their\nestablishment at a weekly salary of twenty shillings; while others,\nupon a wedding-party arriving, sent for any clergyman they might please\nto employ, and divided the fee with him. Most of the taverns near the\nFleet kept their own registers, in which (as well as in their own\nbooks,) the parsons entered the weddings.\n\n\nEFFECTS OF THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON.\n\nThe earthquake happened on November the 1st, 1755, and its sphere of\naction embraced many cities and states. St. Ubes was totally destroyed.\nAt Cadiz the sea broke down the outer wall, flooded the town, and\ndrowned some hundreds of persons. The Cathedral of Seville was\nseriously damaged, several houses overthrown, and many persons injured.\nThe shock was felt, indeed, throughout the whole of Spain, except in\nCatalonia, and also in Germany. In many parts of Great Britain the\nwater in lakes and ponds was violently upheaved, and ebbed and flowed\nover the banks. A solemn Fast was consequently commanded to be observed\non the 6th of February next ensuing, in the hope to avert, by prayer\nand penitence, a similar calamity from this country. A ship at sea,\n100 leagues to the westward of Lisbon, had her cabin windows shattered\nto fragments, and many vessels in deep water quivered as if they had\nstruck against a rock. In Morocco the effects of the shock were most\ndisastrous. In Mequinez two-thirds of the houses were destroyed, and\nabove 300 in Fez. A caravan of 200 persons going along the coast\nfrom Sallee to Morocco were overwhelmed by the sea, and a still more\nnumerous caravan was swept away by the sudden rise of the inland\nrivers. In France and Holland earthquakes were repeatedly felt during\nthe entire month of November, and occasionally even in December.\n\n\nSNAKE-CHARMERS.\n\nIn the East Indies, the Pambatees, or snake-charmers, come from the\nmountains called the Ghauts. They make a trade of catching serpents,\ntraining them and exhibiting them for money. These reptiles are\ncommonly the _cobra-di-capello_, the hooded or spectacle serpent, and\nof other similar species. A Pambatee will sometimes carry eight or\nmore of them in a low round basket, in which the serpents lie coiled\nround one another.\n\nAs soon as the lid is removed from the basket, the serpent creeps\nout of it. The master plays on an instrument somewhat resembling the\nbagpipe, and the snakes are taught to mark the cadence by the motion\nof their heads, till at length they fall asleep. In order to rouse\nthem, the Pambatee suspends his music and shakes a ring round his arm\nto which a piece of red cloth is fastened. The irritated serpent darts\nat the ring; but as the master has taken care to extract the pouch\ncontaining the poison, and to file his teeth, he can do no harm.\n\n[Illustration [++] Snake-Charmer.]\n\nThe musical instrument just mentioned is called _magootee_. It is\ncomposed of a hollow calebash, to one end of which is fitted a\nmouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. To the other extremity is\nadapted a tube perforated with several holes, which are successively\nstopped by the fingers, like those of the flute, while the player blows\ninto the mouthpiece. In the middle of the instrument is a small mirror,\non which the serpents fix their eyes while dancing. The above engraving\nwill convey a correct idea of the Pambatee and his instrument.\n\n\nWONDERFUL ESCAPE.\n\nIn 1785, at Winster, in Derbyshire, a show being exhibited at a\npublic-house, some gunpowder being scattered on the floor of an upper\nchamber, took fire, and communicated to the remainder of a barrel,\nby which the whole upper part of the house was blown up; about sixty\npersons were below, and not one hurt.\n\n\nFAC-SIMILE OF THE FIRST STEAM BOAT.\n\n[Illustration [++] First Steam Boat.]\n\nThe triumph of steam navigation is one of the wonders of science; and,\ntraversed in all directions as the navigable waters of the earth now\nare, by vessels propelled by steam, it is not a little curious to look\nat the first rude effort, and to examine the attempt which has been\nfollowed by such extraordinary success.\n\nThe world stands indebted, not for the discovery, but for the\nsuccessful application of steam power to navigation, to Robert Fulton,\nwho was born in Pennsylvania in 1765, being the son of a poor Irish\nlabourer who had emigrated to America. He came to London in 1786,\nand subsequently, in the character of an inventor and projector,\nproceeded to Paris, where, however, he did not meet with much success\nor encouragement. It is evident, from the following letter to a friend,\nthat while residing in the French capital, that his attention was even\nthen turned to the subject of propelling vessels by mechanical power:--\n\n  Paris, the 20th of September, 1802.\n\n  TO MR. FULNER SKIPWITH.\n\nSir,--The expence of a patent in France is 300 livers for three years,\n800 ditto for ten years, and 1500 ditto for fifteen years; there can\nbe no difficulty in obtaining a patent for the mode of propelling a\nboat which you have shewn me; but if the author of the model wishes\nto be assured of the mirits of his invention before he goes to the\nexpence of a patent, I advise him to make the model of a boat, in which\nhe can place a clock spring which will give about eight revolutions;\nhe can then combine the movements so as to try oars, paddles, and the\nleaves which he proposes; if he finds that the leaves drive the boat a\ngreater distance in the same time than either oars or paddles, they\nconsequently are a better application of power. About eight years ago\nthe Earl of Stanhope tried an experiment on similar leaves in Greenland\nDock, London, but without success. I have also tried experiments on\nsimilar leaves, wheels, oars, paddles, and flyars similar to those of\na smoak jack, and found oars to be the best. The velocity with which a\nboat moves, is in proportion as the sum of the surfaces of the oars,\npaddles, leaves, or other machine is to the bow of the boat presented\nto the water, and in proportion to the power with which such machinery\nis put in motion; hence, if the sum of the surfaces of the oars is\nequal to the sum of the surfaces of the leaves, and they pass through\nsimilar curves in the same time, the effect must be the same; but oars\nhave this advantage, they return through air to make a second stroke,\nand hence create very little resistance; whereas the leaves return\nthrough water, and add considerably to the resistance, which resistance\nis increased as the velocity of the boat is augmented: no kind of\nmachinery can create power; all that can be done is to apply the manuel\nor other power to the best advantage. If the author of the model is\nfond of mechanics, he will be much amused, and not lose his time, by\ntrying the experiments in the manner I propose, and this perhaps is the\nmost prudent measure, before a patent is taken.\n\n  I am, Sir, with much respect, yours,\n\n  ROBT. FULTON.\n\nIn the following year, 1803, he appears to have made an experiment in\nFrance of propelling a vessel by mechanism, and though it failed in\nconsequence of the timbers of the boat being too weak, it served to\nconvince him so completely of ultimate success, that he immediately\ngave instructions to Watt and Boulton to prepare a suitable steam\nengine for him, and send it to New York. Having returned to that city\nin 1806, he set about building a boat, and having received the engines\nhe had ordered, he successfully started the first steam-boat in the\nworld on her trial trip to Albany from New York in August, 1807.\nHer name was the \"_Clermont_,\" and the above engraving is a correct\nrepresentation of her. She was in length 133 feet, in depth 7, and in\nbreadth 18.\n\n\nSEVERE ENACTMENT AGAINST BEGGARS.\n\nAt the commencement of the reign of Edward VI., a most severe and\nextraordinary statute was made for the punishment of vagabonds and\nrelief of poor persons. It does not appear who were the contrivers\nof this instrument, the preamble and general spirit of which were\nmore in accordance with the tyrannical and arbitrary measures of the\npreceding reign, than with the mild and merciful character of the\ninfant sovereign, who is well known to have taken a very active part\nin the affairs of government. It repeals all the former statutes on\nthis subject, and enacts, that if any beggar or other person, not being\nlame or impotent, and after loitering or idly wandering for the space\nof three days or more, shall not offer himself to labour, or being\nengaged in any person's service, shall run away or leave his work, it\nshall be lawful for the master to carry him before a justice of peace,\nwho, on proof of the offence, shall cause the party to be marked with\na hot iron with the letter V on the breast, and adjudge him to be his\nmaster's slave for the space of two years, who shall feed him \"on bread\nand water, or at his discretion, on refuse of meat, and cause the said\nslave to work by beating, chaining, or otherwise in such work or labour\n(how vile soever it be) as he shall put him unto.\" If the slave should\nrun away or absent himself for a fortnight without leave, the master\nmay pursue and punish him by chaining or beating, and have his action\nof damage against any one who shall harbour or detain him. On proof\nbefore the justice of the slave's escape, he is to be sentenced to be\nmarked on the forehead or ball of the cheek with a hot iron with the\nletter S, and adjudged to be his master's slave for ever; and for the\nsecond offence of running away, he is to be regarded as a felon and\nsuffer death. The children of beggars to be taken from them, and, with\nother vagrant children, to be apprenticed by the magistrate to whoever\nwill take them; and if such children so apprenticed run away, they are\nto be retaken, and become slaves till the age of twenty in females,\nand twenty-four in males, with punishment by chains, &c., and power\nto the master to let, sell, or bequeath them, as goods and chattels,\nfor the term aforesaid. If any slave should maim or wound the master,\nin resisting correction, or conspire to wound or murder him, or burn\nhis house or other property, he is to suffer death as a felon, unless\nthe master will consent to retain him as a slave for ever; and if any\nparent, nurse, or bearer about of children, so become slaves, shall\nsteal, or entice them away from the master, such person shall be liable\nto become a slave to the said master for ever, and the party so stolen\nor enticed away restored. If any vagrant be brought to a place, where\nhe shall state himself to have been born, and it shall be manifest that\nhe was not so born there, for such lie he shall be marked in the face\nwith an S, and become a slave to the inhabitants or corporation of the\ncity for ever. Any master of a slave may put a ring of iron about his\nneck, arm, or leg, for safe custody, and any person taking or helping\nto take off such ring, without consent of the master, shall forfeit the\nsum of ten pounds.\n\nThis diabolical statute, after remaining for two years, was repealed,\non the ground that, from its extreme severity, it had not been enforced.\n\n\nJUDGES IN THEIR ROBES ATTENDING PUBLIC BALLS.\n\nThat the ideas of good taste and propriety which now prevail are\ngreatly in advance of those which our ancestors entertained, is\nstrikingly manifested by the fact, that the dreadful scenes which\nfollowed the last business of a county assize did not prevent a festive\nbeginning of the same. On the commission day at each county town was\nheld an assize ball. The judges attended in black silk gowns with band\nand two-curl bob-wig. They did not dance, but usually played at whist.\nWhat would be thought now-a-days of judges who went to a public ball\nroom on commission day, and played at whist in their robes?\n\n\nST. WINIFRED'S WELL.\n\nThe most copious spring in Great Britain is St. Winifred's Well, near\nthe town of Holywell, in Flintshire. The well is an oblong square,\nabout twelve feet by seven. The water passes into a small square court\nthrough an arch; it has never been known to freeze, and scarcely ever\nvaries in quantity either in drought or after the greatest rains. The\nwater thrown up is not less than eighty-four hogsheads every minute.\n\n[Illustration: St. Winifred's Well.]\n\nThis sacred well is the object of many pilgrimages, even in the present\nday, and several modern miracles are related of the influence of its\nwaters. Pope Martin V. especially enjoined such pilgrimages, and the\nmonks of Basingwerk were furnished with pardons and indulgences to sell\nto the devotees. James the 2nd visited the well in 1686, and Leopold,\nKing of the Belgians, in 1819. Apart from all superstitious notions,\nits waters doubtless possess many curative properties.\n\nOver the well, Queen Margaret, the mother of Henry VII., erected a\nbeautiful chapel, whose elegantly fretted roof, and graceful columns\nand arches, are generally admired as examples of good architecture. Our\nengraving is a correct representation of the interior.\n\n\nINSTANCE OF ASSIDUITY AND PERSEVERANCE.\n\nThe Rev. Wm. Davy, a Devonshire curate, in the year 1795, begun a\nmost desperate undertaking, viz., that of printing himself twenty-six\nvolumes of sermons, which he actually did, working off page by page,\nfor fourteen copies; and continuing this almost hopeless task for\ntwelve years, in the midst of poverty! Such wonderful perseverance\nalmost amounts to a ruling passion.\n\n\nPHENOMENON AT THE POWERSCOURT FALL.\n\n[Illustration [++] Powerscourt Fall.]\n\nThe Powerscourt Fall, of which the annexed is an engraving, is formed\nby the river Dargle, and is situated in the county of Wicklow. When\nthe river is full, it presents a very grand appearance. The stream\nprecipitates itself over a nearly perpendicular cliff, 300 feet in\nheight, and falls into a natural basin or reservoir, encircled by\nrocky masses of considerable magnitude, whilst the whole scene is\nbacked by mountains. This fall exhibits rather a singular phenomenon,\nin the different degrees of velocity with which the water descends\nin different parts of the cascade. Thus, on one side, the water may\nbe observed to pour down with considerable velocity; while, on the\nother side, the fall, in the upper part, presents the appearance of\na continued stream of frothy foam, gliding slowly down the face of\nthe cliff, though the lower part moves with greater velocity. This\ncircumstance is, however, readily accounted for; being, in fact, mainly\nattributable to the comparatively small body of water which forms the\ncascade. The water, on the one side, that which descends with the\ngreater velocity (and this forms by far the larger portion of the\ncascade) meets with no interruption in its descent, but falls, almost\nfrom the top, to the bottom in an unbroken sheet. On the other side,\nhowever, the cliff in the upper part deviates from the perpendicular,\nand the consequence is, that, owing to the <DW72> or inclination of\nthe rock over which it flows, the progress of the water is checked\nin that particular part, though lower down, where the cliff is again\nperpendicular, it regains its velocity. If the body of water in this\ncascade were greater, this phenomenon would not occur.\n\n\nHOW CHESS ORIGINATED IN INDIA.\n\nBy the unanimous consent of all nations, chess holds the first place\namong social amusements. The history of this game has exercised\nmany able pens. According to Sir William Jones, it is decidedly\nof Hindoo invention. \"If,\" says he, in a learned memoir on this\nsubject inserted in the second volume of the _Asiatic Researches_,\n\"evidence were required to prove this fact, we may be satisfied with\nthe testimony of the Persians, who, though as much inclined as other\nnations to appropriate the ingenious inventions of a foreign people,\nunanimously agree that the game was imported from the west of India\nin the sixth century of our era. It seems to have been immemorially\nknown in Hindoostan by the name of _Cheturanga_, the four _angas_, or\nmembers of an army, which are _elephants_, _horses_, _chariots_, and\n_foot-soldiers_; and in this sense, the word is frequently used by epic\npoets in their description of real armies. By a natural corruption\nof the pure Sanscrit word, it was changed by the old Persians into\n_chetrang_; but the Arabs, who soon after took possession of their\ncountry, had neither the initial nor the final letter of that word in\ntheir alphabet, and consequently altered it farther into _shetranj_,\nwhich presently found its way into the modern Persian, and at length\ninto the dialects of India, where the true derivation of the name is\nknown only to the learned. Thus has a very significant word in the\nsacred language of the Brahmins been transformed by successive changes\ninto _axedrez_, _scacchi_, _echecs_, chess, and by a whimsical\nconcurrence of circumstances given birth to the English word _check_,\nand even a name to the _exchequer_ of Great Britain.\"\n\nOf the origin of this game various accounts are given. Some Hindoo\nlegends relate, that it was invented by the wife of Ravanen, king of\nLanca, or Ceylon, to amuse her husband with an image of war, when\nRama, in the second age of the world, was besieging his capital. The\nhigh degree of civilization which the court of Ravanen had attained\nat so remote a period is worthy of notice. An ancient Hindoo painting\nrepresents his capital regularly fortified with embattled towers. He\nthere defended himself with equal skill and valour, whence he and\nhis subjects were denominated magicians and giants. Ravanen seems to\nhave been the Archimedes of Lanca; and his science must have appeared\nsupernatural to the invader, Rama, and his wild horde of mountaineers,\nwho were termed in derision satyrs or apes, whence the fable of the\ndivine Hanooman.\n\nAccording to another account, the occasion of this invention was as\nfollows:--Behub, a young and dissolute Indian prince, oppressed his\npeople in the most cruel manner. Nassir, a Brahmin, deeply afflicted\nby his excesses, and the lamentations of his subjects, undertook to\nrecal the tyrant to reason. With this view he invented a game, in which\nthe king, impotent by himself, is protected only by his subjects, even\nof the lowest class, and frequently ruined by the loss of a single\nindividual.\n\nThe fame of this extraordinary invention reached the throne, and the\nking summoned the Brahmin to teach him the game, as a new amusement.\nThe virtuous Brahmin availed himself of this opportunity to instil\ninto the mind of the young tyrant the principles of good government,\nand to awaken him to a sense of his duties. Struck by the truths which\nhe inculcated, the prince conceived an esteem for the inventor of the\nnew game, and assured him of his willingness to confer a liberal\nremuneration, if he would mention his own terms. Nassir demanded as\nmany grains of wheat as would arise from allowing one for the first\nsquare, two for the second, four for the third, and so on, doubling\nfor each square of the sixty-four on the chessboard. The king, piqued\nat the apparently trivial value of the demand, desired him somewhat\nangrily to ask a gift more worthy of a monarch to bestow. When,\nhowever, Nassir adhered to his first request, he ordered the required\nquantity of corn to be delivered to him. On calculating its amount, the\nsuperintendents of the public granaries, to their utter astonishment,\nfound the demand to be so enormous, that not Behub's kingdom only, but\neven all Hindoostan would have been inadequate to the discharge of it.\nThe king now admired the Brahmin still more for the ingenuity of his\nrequest than for the invention, appointed him his prime-minister, and\nhis kingdom was thenceforward prosperous and happy.\n\nThe claim of the Hindoos to the invention of chess has been disputed in\nfavour of the Chinese; but as they admit that they were unacquainted\nwith the game till 174 years before Christ, and the Hindoos\nunquestionably played it long before that time, the pretensions of the\nlatter must naturally fall to the ground.\n\n\nDISORDERS CURED BY FRIGHT.\n\nFabritius makes mention of a gentleman, with whom he was familiar,\nwho, being unjustly suspected, was tortured upon the rack, and, when\nreleased, found himself quite cured of the gout, which was, _before_\nthis violent remedy, rather troublesome. Again, we have instances of\ndisorders being cured by fright. We find, in the Journal de Henri IV.,\nthat, \"On Friday, June the 9th, 1606, as Henry IV. of France, and his\nQueen, were crossing the water in the ferry-boat of Neuilly, the Duke\nof Vendome being with them, they were all three in great danger of\nbeing drowned, especially the queen, who was obliged to drink a great\ndeal more than was agreeable to her; and had not one of her footmen,\nand a gentleman called La Chatagnieraie, who caught hold of her hair,\ndesperately thrown themselves into the water to pull her out, she\nwould have inevitably lost her life. This accident cured the king of a\nviolent toothache; and, after having escaped the danger, he diverted\nhimself with it, saying he had never met with so good a remedy for that\ndisorder before, and that they had ate too much salt meat at dinner,\ntherefore they had a mind to make them drink after it.\"\n\n\nTHE WINGLESS BIRD OF NEW ZEALAND.\n\nOne of the chief wonders of the world of Ornithology is the Apteryx,\na bird which is found only in New Zealand, and even there, is rapidly\nbecoming extinct. It is a creature so strange, that no imagination\ncould have fancied a bird without wings or tail, with robust legs,\nand with claws which are suited for digging, and are actually used\nin forming excavations, in which this singular bird lays its eggs,\nand hatches its young. If the Apteryx were to become extinct, and all\nthat remained of it, after the lapse of one or two centuries, for the\nscrutiny of the naturalist were a foot in one Museum, and a head in\nanother, with a few conflicting figures of its external form, the real\nnature and affinities of this most remarkable species would be involved\nin as much obscurity and doubt, and become the subject of as many\nconflicting opinions among the ornithologists of that period, as are\nthose of the Dodo in the present day.\n\nThe Apteryx is not larger than a full-grown fowl, and has only a\nrudimentary wing, so covered with the body feathers as to be quite\nconcealed; the terminating slender claw may, however, be discerned on\nexamination.\n\n[Illustration: The Wingless Bird.]\n\nThe bill is long and slightly curved, having the nostrils at the\nextremity; its feathers, the sides of which are uniform in structure,\ndo not exceed four and a-half inches in length, and are much prized as\nmaterial for mantles or cloaks by the chiefs. It is a nocturnal bird,\nusing its long bill in search of worms, upon which it principally\nfeeds; it kicks with great power, and burrows at the root of the rata,\nat the base of which tree is also found the extraordinary Sphaeria\nRobertsia, a species of vegetating caterpillar. Retaining the form\nof the caterpillar, the fungus pervades the whole body, and shoots\nup a small stem above the surface of the ground, the body of the\ncaterpillar being below the earth in an erect position. The Apteryx\nfrequently leans with its bill upon the earth--one of its chief\ncharacteristics--and thus, when viewed from a distance, appears to be\nstanding on three legs.\n\nBy the natives of New Zealand, these birds are called Kiwis, from the\ncry they utter, and they are frequently caught by a cunning imitator of\ntheir tone, who, when they approach, dazzles and frightens them with\na light previously concealed, and throwing his blanket over them thus\nsecures them.\n\n\nA FLOATING CITY.\n\n[Illustration: Floating City of Bankok.]\n\nOne of the most wonderful cities in the world is Bankok. It is the\ncapital of Siam, and is situated on--or rather in--the great river\nMeinam. Our engraving represents a portion of this unique metropolis,\nand we find the following graphic account of it in a volume of recent\ntravels--\"The capital of Siam! Did you ever witness such a sight in\nyour life? On either side of the wide, majestic stream, moored in\nregular streets and alleys, and extending as far as the eye can reach,\nare upwards of seventy thousand neat little wooden houses, each house\nfloating on a compact raft of bamboos; and the whole intermediate space\nof the river presents to our astonished gaze one dense mass of ships,\njunks, and boats, of every conceivable shape, colour, and size. As we\nglide along amongst these, we occasionally encounter a stray floating\nhouse, broken loose from its moorings, and hurrying down the stream\nwith the tide, amidst the uproar and shouts of the inhabitants and\nall the spectators. We also observe that all the front row of houses\nare neatly painted shops, in which various tempting commodities are\nexposed for sale; behind these again, at equal distances, rise the\nlofty and elegant porcelain towers of the various watts and temples.\nOn our right-hand side, far away as we can see, are three stately\npillars, erected to the memory of three defunct kings, celebrated for\nsome acts of valour and justice; and a little beyond these, looming\nlike a line-of-battle ship amongst a lot of cockle-shells, rises the\nstraggling and not very elegant palace of the king, where his Siamese\nMajesty, with ever so many wives and children, resides. Right ahead,\nwhere the city terminates, and the river, making a curve, flows\nbehind the palace, is a neat-looking-fort, surmounted with a tope of\nmango-trees, over which peep the roofs of one or two houses, and a tall\nflag-staff, from which floats the royal pendant and jack of Siam--a\nflag of red groundwork, with a white elephant worked into the centre.\nThat is the fort and palace of the prince Chou Fau, now king of Siam,\nand one of the most extraordinary and intellectual men in the East.\nOf him, however, we shall see and hear more, after we have bundled\nour traps on shore, and taken a little rest. Now, be careful how you\nstep out of the boat into the balcony of the floating house, for it\nwill recede to the force of your effort to mount, and if not aware of\nthis, you lose your balance and fall into the river. Now we are safely\ntranshipped, for we cannot as yet say landed; but we now form an item,\nthough a very small one, of the vast population of the city of Bangkok.\n\nWe take a brief survey of our present apartments, and find everything,\nthough inconveniently small, cleanly and in other respects comfortable.\nFirst, we have a little balcony which overhangs the river, and is about\ntwenty yards long by one and a half broad. Then we have an excellent\nsitting-room, which serves us for parlour, dining-room, and all; then\nwe have a little side room for books and writing; and behind these,\nextending the length of the other two, a bed-room. Of course we must\nbring or make our own furniture; for, though those houses inhabited\nby the Chinese are pretty well off on this score, the Siamese have\nseldom anything besides their bedding materials, a few pots and pans\nto cook with, a few jars of stores and fishing-net or two. Every house\nhas a canoe attached to it, and no nation detests walking so much as\nthe Siamese; at the same time they are all expert swimmers, and both\nmen and women begin to acquire this very necessary art at a very early\nage. Without it a man runs momentary risk of being drowned, as, when a\ncanoe upsets, none of the passers-by ever think it necessary to lend\nany aid, supposing them fully adequate to the task of saving their\nown lives. Canoes are hourly being upset, owing to the vast concourse\nof vessels and boats plying to and fro; and, owing to this negligence\nor carelessness in rendering assistance, a Mr. Benham, an American\nmissionary, lost his life some twelve years ago, having upset his own\ncanoe when it was just getting dusk, and though surrounded by hundreds\nof boats, not one deemed it necessary to stop and pick the poor man up.\"\n\n\nBEQUESTS FOR LIGHTING THE STREETS.\n\nThere cannot be a greater contrast than between the present and the\nancient mode of lighting the streets of London. What a picture do the\ntwo following bequests present to us of the state of things a hundred\nyears ago!\n\nJohn Wardall, by will, dated 29th August, 1656, gave to the Grocers'\nCompany a tenement called the White Bear, in Walbrook, to the intent\nthat they should yearly, within thirty days after Michaelmas, pay to\nthe churchwardens of St. Botolph, Billingsgate, L4, to provide a good\nand sufficient iron and glass lantern, with a candle, for the direction\nof passengers to go with more security to and from the water-side, all\nnight long, to be fixed at the north-east corner of the parish church\nof St. Botolph, from the feast-day of St. Bartholomew to Lady-Day; out\nof which sum L1 was to be paid to the sexton for taking care of the\nlantern. This annuity is now applied to the support of a lamp in the\nplace prescribed, which is lighted with gas.\n\nJohn Cooke, by will, dated 12th September, 1662, gave to the\nchurchwardens, &c., of St. Michael's, Crooked Lane, L76, to be laid out\nto the most profit and advantage, for various uses, and amongst them,\nfor the maintenance of a lantern and candle, to be eight in the pound\nat least, to be kept and hanged out at the corner of St. Michael's\nLane, next Thames Street, from Michaelmas to Lady-Day, between the\nhours of nine and ten o'clock at night, until the hours of four or five\nin the morning, for affording light to passengers going through Thames\nStreet, or St. Michael's Lane.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY INSTANCE OF CREDULITY.\n\nTo the honour of the lords of the creation, there are _some_ husbands\nwho so grieve at the death of their partners, that they will not part\nwith them when actually dead; and even go so far as to wish, and try\nhard, for their resurrection; witness Sir John Pryse, of Newtown,\nMontgomeryshire, who married three wives, and kept the first two\nwho died, in his room, one on each side of his bed; his third lady,\nhowever, declined the honour of his hand till her defunct rivals\nwere committed to their proper place. Sir John was a gentleman of\nstrange singularities. During the season of miracles worked by Bridget\nBostock, of Cheshire, who healed all diseases by prayer, faith, and an\nembrocation of fasting spittle, multitudes resorted to her from all\nparts, and kept her salivary glands in full employ. Sir John, with a\nhigh spirit of enthusiasm, wrote to this wonderful woman to make him\na visit at Newtown Hall, in order to restore to him his third and\nfavourite wife (above mentioned), now dead. His letter will best tell\nthe foundation on which he built his strange hope, and very uncommon\nrequest:--\n\n  _Purport of Sir J. Pryse's letter to Mrs. Bridget Bostock, 1748._\n\nMadam,--Having received information, by repeated advices, both public\nand private, that you have, of late, performed many wonderful cures,\neven where the best physicians have failed, and that the means used\nappeared to be very inadequate to the effects produced, I cannot but\nlook upon you as an extraordinary and highly-favoured person; and why\nmay not the same most merciful God, who enables you to restore sight to\nthe blind, hearing to the deaf, and strength to the lame, also enable\nyou to raise the dead to life? Now, having lately lost a wife, whom\nI most tenderly loved; my children an excellent step-mother, and our\nacquaintances a very dear and valuable friend, you will lay us all\nunder the highest obligations; and I earnestly entreat you, for God\nAlmighty's sake, that you will put up your petitions to the Throne of\nGrace, on our behalf, that the deceased may be restored to us, and\nthe late dame Eleanor Pryse be raised from the dead. If your personal\nattendance appears to you to be necessary, I will send my coach and\nsix, with proper servants, to wait on you hither, whenever you please\nto appoint. Recompense of any kind, that you could propose, would be\nmade with the utmost gratitude; but I wish the bare mention of it is\nnot offensive to both God and you.\n\n  I am, madam, your obedient, &c.\n  JOHN PRYSE.\n\n  (_Pennant's Wales_, vol. 3, p. 190.)\n\n\nHIGH PRICE OF FISH IN LONDON.\n\nIt is on record that on January 4, 1809, there being only four cod-fish\nin Billingsgate, a fishmonger gave fourteen guineas for them, and\nsalmon soon after was sold at a guinea a pound!\n\n\nTHE GREAT AQUEDUCT OF PONT DU GARD.\n\n[Illustration [++] Acqueduct of Pont du Gard.]\n\nThe remains of Roman aqueducts, of great extent and massiveness,\noccur in various parts of Europe, over which the Roman dominion once\nextended. Among these, the most celebrated are the Pont du Gard,\nnear Nismes, in the Department du Gard, in the south of France; the\naqueduct over the Moselle, near Metz; and the aqueduct of Segovia, in\nOld Castile. The Pont du Gard (of which we here give an engraving)\nwas designed to convey the waters of the fountain of Aure to the town\nof Nismes, the ancient Nemausus. This aqueduct crosses the beautiful\nvalley, and the stream of the river Gardon, uniting two steep hills, by\nwhich the valley is bounded at this place. It consists of two tiers of\nlarge arches, the lower of which are eighty feet in span, and a third\ntier of small arches, which support the trunk of the aqueduct. The\nchannel for the water is above four feet wide, and five deep, and is\nlined with cement three inches thick, and covered with a thin coating\nof red clay. The whole work, with the exception of the above-mentioned\nchannel for the water, is built without mortar or any other cement;\nand its elevation above the bed of the river Gardon, is not less than a\nhundred and fifty feet. The extremities of this splendid structure are\nin a dilapidated condition, but the remainder is in a very good state\nof preservation.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY SITUATION FOR A TREE.\n\n[Illustration [++] Tree in Abbey of Muckross.]\n\nThe Lower and Middle Lakes at Killarney are separated by a peninsula,\nupon which stands the ruin of the Abbey of Muckross, which was founded\nin 1440, and re-edified in 1602. The ruin, which consists of parts\nof the convent and church, is not remarkable either for extent, or\nfor beauty of workmanship, but its preservation, seclusion, beauty\nof situation, and accompanying venerable trees, render it one of the\nmost interesting abbey remains in Ireland. The entire length of the\nchurch is about 100 feet, its breadth 24. The cloister, which consists\nof twenty-two arches, ten of them semicircular, and twelve pointed,\nis the best preserved portion of the abbey. In the centre grows a\nmagnificent yew-tree, as represented in our engraving, which covers\nas a roof the whole area; its circumference is thirteen feet, and its\nheight in proportion. It is more than probable that the tree is coeval\nwith the abbey, and that it was planted by the hands of the monks who\nfirst inhabited the building. It is believed by the common people that\nany person daring to pluck a branch, or in any way attempting to injure\nthis tree, will not be alive on that day twelvemonth.\n\n\nPRAYING BY MACHINERY.\n\nMr. Moorcroft informs us, in his \"Journey to Lake Manasawara, in Undes,\na province in Little Thibet,\" that the inhabitants used the following\nmost extraordinary way of saying their prayers:--It is done by motion,\nwhich may be effected by the powers of steam, wind, or water. A large\nhollow cylinder, like a drum, is erected, within which is inclosed all\nthe written prayers the people choose to offer, and then it is set\ngoing, by being whirled round its own axis; thus saving the trouble\nof repeating them. Mr. Turner, whose travels in Thibet are before the\npublic, corroborates the account of these whirligigs. They are common,\nalso, among the Monguls, the Calmucs, and the Kalkas; so that the\nengineers for these pious wheels must have a tolerably extensive trade,\nas this national mode of worship is naturally liable to wear out.\nBut even this mode is innocence itself, compared with that of a set\nof savages, who _pray people to death_; for Lisiansky, in his Voyage\nround the World, gives us an account of an extra-religious sect, in\nthe Sandwich Islands, who arrogate to themselves the power of praying\npeople to death. Whosoever incurs their displeasure, receives notice\nthat the homicide-litany is about to begin; and such are the effects of\nimagination, that the very notice is frequently sufficient, with these\nweak people, to produce the effect, or to drive them to acts of suicide.\n\n\nTOPING IN THE LAST CENTURY.\n\nAt a Somersetshire hunt dinner, seventy years since, thirteen toasts\nused to be drunk in strong beer; then every one did as he liked. Some\nmembers of the hunt occasionally drank a glass of wine at the wind up,\nwho were not themselves previously wound up. In country towns, after a\ndinner at one o'clock P.M., friends used to meet to discuss the local\nnews over their glasses of strong beer, the merits of which furnished\na daily theme. At Bampton one knot of gentlemen took four times the\nduration of the Trojan war, and even then failed to settle which of the\nparty brewed the best beer.\n\n\nA FINE OLD SOLDIER.\n\nJeremiah Atkins, of the Scar, near Bromyard, Herefordshire, died in\n1796, aged 102. He had been a soldier through all the earlier periods\nof his manhood, and had seen much service; was present at the taking\nof Martinico, and at the Havannah; and, on one occasion, being taken\nprisoner by the Indians of North America, was very near being scalped,\nas he was only rescued at the moment they were about to perform the\noperation. He was likewise at the taking of Crown Point, in America,\nand in the battle of Fontenoy with the Duke of Cumberland, whom he also\naccompanied in his resistance to the advance of the Scotch rebels,\nbeing in several of the skirmishes and battles fought on that occasion.\nHe afterwards went again to America, and took part in the storming of\nQuebec, when Wolfe was killed. The last battle in which he was engaged\nwas that of Tournay, in Flanders. This extraordinary man retained the\nfull use of all his natural faculties, save hearing, to the very close\nof his life.\n\n\nPOPULAR FALLACY OF THE VIRTUES OF A SEVENTH SON.\n\nIt is believed that a seventh son can cure diseases, but that a\nseventh son of a seventh son, and no female child born between, can\ncure the king's evil. Such a favoured individual is really looked\non with veneration. An artist visiting Axminster in 1828, noticing\nthe indulgence granted to one urchin in preference to others, and\nseeing something particular in this child, addressed his mother as\nfollows:--\"This little man appears to be a favourite: I presume he is\nyour little Benjamin.\" \"He's a seventh son, sir,\" said the mother.\nAffecting an air of surprise, I expressed myself at the instant as\nbeing one very anxious to know what a _seventh_ son could do? The\nmother, a very civil woman, told me that \"she did think, to cure all\ndiseases, should be the seventh son of a seventh son; but _many folk\ndo come to touch my son_.\" In April, 1826, a respectable looking woman\nwas engaged in collecting a penny from each of thirty young women,\nunmarried; the money to be laid out in purchasing a silver ring, to\ncure her son of epileptic fits. The money was to be freely given,\nwithout any consideration, or else the charm would have been destroyed.\nThe young women gave their pence, because it would have been a _pity_\nfor the lad to continue afflicted _if_ the charm would cure him.\n\n\nSELF-NOURISHMENT.\n\nThat animals may sometimes be kept alive for a long time solely on\nnourishment supplied from their own bodies, is evident from the fact\nthat after a great fall of earth on one occasion from the cliff at\nDover, which buried a whole family, a hog was found alive five months\nand nine days after it had thus been buried! It weighed about seven\nscore when the accident happened, and had wasted to about thirty\npounds, but was likely to do well.\n\n\nCHINESE METHOD OF FISHING.\n\nThere is nothing more extraordinary in the history of the different\nnations of the world than the ingenuity of the Chinese. They are the\nmost handy people on the face of the earth, and the lower orders are\njust as clever as the higher. A proof of this may be seen at a fishing\nvillage which is contiguous to the town of Victoria, in Hong Kong. It\nremains in much the same state as that in which it existed prior to\nthe British occupation of the island. Old worn-out boats, and torn\nmat-sails, bamboos and dried rushes,--these are the principal materials\nemployed in the construction of their domiciles. The fishing boats are\nmost ingeniously built. Each of these has a long projecting bamboo,\nwhich is rigged out from the stem in the form of a bowsprit, only\nworking on a pivot. From the extremity of this outrigger, a strong\nrope communicates with a balance-board, that exactly poises the bamboo\noutrigger, when the net is immersed in water, and the fisherman has\nonly to walk up and down this plank to raise the net and let it drop\nagain in the water. But opposite to the island, and on many of the\nlittle insular rocks which constitute the \"ten thousand isles,\" of\nwhich the emperor of China, amongst his vast pretensions to titles,\nlays claim to be lord, fishing is conducted on a larger scale, though\nworked upon the same principles. Huge poles are driven into the ground\nwhere the water is comparatively shallow, and leading ropes, which pass\nover a block-wheel inserted in the tops of these poles, communicate at\none end with large circular nets, (constructed somewhat in the shape\nof a funnel, the upper rim being attached to floats, whilst from the\ncentre are pendant weights,) the other end being fastened on shore to a\nbalance plank, which the weight of one man suffices to work.\n\n[Illustration: Chinese Method of Fishing.]\n\n\nMOSQUE OF OMAR.\n\nThe opposite engraving represents the Great Mosque at Jerusalem. It is\nbuilt on the exact site of Solomon's Temple, and takes its name from\nits original founder, the Caliph Omar. It is a Turkish edifice, and is\ndevoted to the worship of Mahomet.\n\nTitus having taken Jerusalem in the second year of Vespasian's reign,\nnot one stone was left upon another of that Temple where Christ\nhad done such glorious things, and the destruction of which he had\npredicted. When the Caliph Omar took Jerusalem, in 636 A.D., it appears\nthat the site of the Temple, with the exception of a very small part,\nhad been abandoned by the Christians. Said-Eben-Batrick, an Arabian\nhistorian, relates that the Caliph applied to the Patriarch Sophronius,\nand enquired of him what would be the most proper place at Jerusalem\nfor building a mosque. Sophronius conducted him to the ruins of\nSolomon's Temple. Omar, delighted with the opportunity of erecting a\nmosque on so celebrated a spot, caused the ground to be cleared, and\nthe earth to be removed from a large rock, where God is said to have\nconversed with Jacob. From that rock the new mosque took its name\nof Gameat-el-Sakhra, and became almost as sacred an object to the\nMussulmans, as the mosques of Mecca and Medina. The Caliph El-Oulid\ncontributed still more to the embellishment of El-Sakhra, and covered\nit with a dome of copper, gilt, taken from a church at Balbeck. In the\nsequel, the crusaders converted the Temple of Mahomet into a sanctuary\nof Christ; but when Saladin re-took Jerusalem, he restored this edifice\nto its original use.\n\n[Illustration: Great Mosque at Jerusalem.]\n\nThe form is an octagon, either side being seventy feet in width; it is\nentered by four spacious doors, the walls are white below, intermingled\nwith blue, adorned with pilasters, but above, it is faced with glazed\ntiles of various colours. The interior is described as paved with grey\nmarble, the plain walls are covered with the same material in white.\nIt contains many noble columns, in two tiers. The dome is painted, and\ngilt in arabesque, whence depend antique vessels of gold and silver;\nimmediately beneath it stands a mass of limestone, reported to have\nfallen from heaven when the spirit of prophecy commenced. On this sat\nthe destroying angel, during the slaughter caused by David's numbering\nthe people. From this Mahomet ascended to heaven. Within the storied\nwalls, moreover, are the scales for weighing the souls of men, the\nshield of Mahomet, and other relics, besides the entrance to the\ninfernal regions; seventy thousand angels ever guard the precious stone.\n\nEntrance to this hallowed edifice has been gained only by two or three\nEuropeans; indeed, the Turks will not allow infidels to approach the\nsacred enclosure around it, which measures about sixteen hundred feet\nin length, by one thousand in width, and is adorned with fountains,\norange, cypress, and other trees.\n\nThe mosque itself is esteemed the finest piece of Saracenic\narchitecture in existence, far surpassing St. Sophia in beauty. Its\nview, combined with the distinguished monuments in the City of the\nSultan, in Egypt, Greece, and Italy, strongly induces a belief in the\naccuracy of an able article in the _Quarterly Review_, in which the\norigin of the five predominant styles of architecture throughout the\nworld, viz., the Byzantine, Chinese, Egyptian, Grecian, and Gothic are\nassigned respectively to the convex and concave curves, to the oblique,\nhorizontal, and perpendicular lines.\n\n\nA COUPLE OF ECCENTRICS.\n\nMr. Day, the eccentric founder of Fairlop fair, had a housekeeper, who\nhad lived with him for thirty years, and was equally eccentric. She had\ntwo very strong attachments; one to her wedding-ring and garments, and\nthe other to tea. When she died, Mr. Day would not permit her ring to\nbe taken off; he said, \"If that was attempted, she would come to life\nagain;\" and directed that she should be buried in her wedding-suit, and\na pound of tea in each hand; and these directions were literally obeyed.\n\n\nTHE UNIVERSALITY OF TAXATION.\n\nThe following extract, from the _Edinburgh Review_, is not\ninappropriate to our pages, inasmuch as it is both a rare specimen\nof effective composition, and also serves to show us what the state\nof taxation was in England even within the last forty years.--Taxes\nupon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the back,\nor is placed upon the feet--taxes upon every thing which it is\npleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste--taxes upon warmth,\nlight, and locomotion--taxes on everything on earth, and the waters\nunder the earth--on every thing that comes from abroad, or is grown at\nhome--taxes on the raw material--taxes on every fresh value that is\nadded to it by the industry of man--taxes on the sauce which pamper's\nman's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health--on the ermine\nwhich decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal--on\nthe poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice--on the brass nails of\nthe coffin, and the ribands of the bride at bed or board, _couchant_\nor _levant_, we must pay;--the schoolboy whips his taxed top--the\nbeardless youth manages his taxed horse, with a taxed bridle, on a\ntaxed road:--and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has\npaid seven per cent., into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent.,\nflings himself back upon his chintz bed, which has paid twenty-two\nper cent.--makes his will on an eight-pound stamp, and expires in the\narms of an apothecary, who has paid a license of an hundred pounds\nfor the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then\nimmediately taxed from two to ten per cent. Besides the probate, large\nfees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are\nhanded down to posterity on taxed markle; and he is then gathered to\nhis fathers--to be taxed no more.\n\n\nSHAM PROPHETS.\n\nWilliam Hackett, a fanatic of the sixteenth century, after a very ill\nlife, turned prophet, and signified the desolation of England. He\nprophesied at York and at Lincoln; where, for his boldness, he was\nwhipped publicly, and condemned to be banished. He had an extraordinary\nfluency of speech, and much assurance in his prayers; for he said,\nthat if all England should pray for rain, and he should pray to the\ncontrary, it should not rain. Hackett had two brother-prophets joined\nwith him, Edward Coppinger, named the prophet of mercy, and Henry\nArthington, the prophet of judgment. Coppinger, the merciful prophet,\ndeclared that Hackett was the sole monarch of Europe; and at length\nthey proclaimed him, July 16, 1592. On the 28th of the same month,\nhowever, the monarch of the whole earth, who had also personated\ndivinity, was hanged and quartered. Coppinger famished himself in\nprison, and Arthington was pardoned. Fitz Simon relates, that in a\nquarrel Hackett had at Oundle, \"He threw down his adversary, and\nbit off his nose; and, instead of returning it to the surgeon, who\npretended to set it on again, while the wound was fresh, ate it.\"\nHackett, on the scaffold, made a blasphemous prayer, which is recorded\nby Fitz Simon and Camden, too horrid to be repeated. He hated Queen\nElizabeth, and tried to deprive her of her crown; he confessed to\nthe judges that he had stabbed the effigies of this princess to the\nheart, with an iron pin; and a little before he was hanged, being an\naccomplished swearer, he cursed her with all manner of imprecations.\n\n\nHOOKING A BOY INSTEAD OF A FISH.\n\nAbout five and thirty years ago, as Mr. George Moor was fishing in the\nriver Tyne at Pipewellgate, Gateshead, he espied something in the water\nwhich seemed like a drowned dog, but the day being clear, and the sun\nshining, he thought he perceived a face, upon which he threw his line\nto it (which had but three hairs at the hook) and hooked a coat, by\nwhich he found it was a boy, but the hook loosing hold, he again cast\nhis line and struck him in the temple and drew him to the shore, and in\nless than quarter of an hour he revived.\n\n\nCHILDREN OF AGED PARENTS.\n\nMargaret Krasiowna, of the village of Koninia, Poland, died 1763, aged\n108. The following extraordinary circumstances are stated, by Eaton,\nas connected with the life of this woman:--\"At the age of ninety-four\nshe married her third husband, Gaspard Raycolt, of the village of\nCiwouszin, then aged one hundred and five. During the fourteen years\nthey lived together she brought him two boys and a girl; and, what\nis very remarkable, these three children, from their very birth, bore\nevident marks of the old age of their parents--their hair being grey,\nand a vacuity appearing in their gums, like that which is occasioned\nby the loss of teeth, though they never had any. They had not strength\nenough, even as they grew up, to chew solid food, but lived on bread\nand vegetables, they were of a proper size for their age, but their\nbacks were bent, their complexions sallow, with all the other external\nsymptoms of decrepitude. Though most of these particulars,\" he adds,\n\"may appear fabulous, they are certified by the parish registers. The\nvillage of Ciwouszin is in the district of Stenzick, in the palatinate\nof Sendonier. Gaspard Raycolt, the father, died soon after, aged 119.\"\n\n\nSEPULCHRAL VASE FROM PERU.\n\n[Illustration [++] Sepulchral Vase of Peru.]\n\nThe vessel of which the annexed is an engraving, was taken from the\ntomb of one of the ancient inhabitants of Peru; the subjects of the\nIncas, or princes who ruled over that country before it was conquered\nby the Spaniards. Vases of this sort were probably placed in the\nsepulchres of the Peruvians to contain the ashes of the dead, or\nofferings to their disembodied spirits;--usages which are familiar\nto us through the frequent allusions to them which we meet with in\nthe works of the poets of ancient Rome, and the discovery of urns and\nlachrymatories in Roman tombs which have been in our own and other\ncemeteries. The specimen which we have engraved is quadruple, but forms\none vessel.\n\n\nFIRST IRON CANNON.\n\nThe first cannon was cast in Sussex in 1535. In after years bonds were\ntaken in L1,000 from the owners of the charcoal furnaces, that none\nshould be sold till a license for the sale or issue of the ordnance had\nbeen procured. Fears were entertained that the enemy would purchase\nthem.\n\n\nPROLIFIC AUTHOR.\n\nNo one need despair, after the following instance, of shining in\nquantity, if not in quality:--\"Hans Sacks was a Nuremberg shoemaker,\nborn there in 1494; he was instructed, by the master-singers of those\ndays, in the praiseworthy art of poetry; he, therefore, continued to\nmake verses and shoes, and plays and pumps, boots and books, until\nthe seventy-seventh year of his age; when he took an inventory of his\npoetical stock in trade, and found, according to his narrative, that\nhis works filled thirty folio volumes, all written with his own hand;\nand consisted of four thousand two hundred mastership songs, two\nhundred and eight comedies, tragedies, and farces (some of which were\nextended to seven acts), one thousand seven hundred fables, tales, and\nmiscellaneous poems, and seventy-three devotional, military, and love\nsongs; making a sum total of six thousand and forty-eight pieces, great\nand small.\" Out of these, we are informed, he culled as many as filled\nthree massy folios, which were published in the year 1558-61; and,\nanother edition being called for, he increased this three volumes folio\nabridgement of his works, in the second, from his other works. None but\nLope de Vega exceeded him in quantity of rhyme-making.\n\n\nTHE ART OF POTTERY IN CHINA.\n\n[Illustration: 1. 2. 3.]\n\nThe Chinese traditions carry back the practice of the potter's art to a\nvery remote epoch. Father Entrecolles, a French missionary, resided in\nChina at the beginning of the last century, and his letters published\nin Paris, in 1741, supply some curious and interesting information\non this subject. Writing in 1712, he says that at that time ancient\nporcelain was very highly prized, and bore large prices. Articles were\nextant which were reputed to have belonged to the Emperors Yao and\nChun, two of the most ancient mentioned in the Chinese annals. Yao\nreigned in 2357 and Chun in 2255 before Christ. Other authorities place\nthe reign of Chun in 2600 before Christ. It appears from the researches\nof M. Stanislaus Julian that, from the time of the Emperor Hoang-ti,\nwho reigned 2698 to 2599 before Christ, there had always existed a\npublic officer bearing the title of the Intendant of Pottery, and that\nit was under the reign of Hoang-ti that the potter's art was invented\nby Kouen-ou. It is also certain that porcelain, or fine pottery, was\ncommon in China in the time of the Emperors Han, 163 B.C.\n\nIn digging the foundations of the palaces, erected by the dynasties of\nHan and Thang, from 163 B.C. to 903 A.D. great quantities of ancient\nvases were found which were of a pure whiteness, but exhibited little\nbeauty of form or fabrication. It was only under the dynasty of Song,\nthat is to say, from 960 to 1278 A.D., that Chinese porcelain began to\nattain a high degree of perfection.\n\nFurther evidence of the antiquity of the potter's art in China, as well\nas of the existence of intercommunication between that country and\nEgypt, is supplied by the discoveries of Rossellina, Wilkinson, and\nothers, who found numerous vases of Chinese fabrication, and bearing\nChinese inscriptions, in the tombs at Thebes. Professor Rossellini\nfound a small vase of Chinese porcelain with a painting of a flower\non one side, and on the other Chinese characters not differing much\nfrom those used at the present day. The tomb was of the time of the\nPharaohs, a little later than the eighteenth dynasty.\n\nThis vase, with its Chinese inscription, is represented in Fig. 1, from\nan exact cast made by Mr. Francis Davis.\n\nAnother of the Chinese vases, found in the Theban tombs, is represented\nin Fig. 2. This is preserved in the Museum of the Louvre. The shape of\nthe vase is that of a flat-sided flask. A side view is given in Fig. 3.\n\nThese flasks are very small. The engravings represent them of their\nproper dimensions. Mr. Wilkinson thinks it probable that they were\nbrought to Egypt from India, the Egyptians having had commercial\nrelations with that country at a very remote epoch, and that they came\nnot as pieces of porcelain, but as vessels containing some articles of\nimportation.\n\n\nSTRONG ATTACHMENT TO SMOKING.\n\nThe following is a curious case of extreme fondness for smoking in a\nvery poor and very old man. In the year 1810, there died in Dartford\nworkhouse, aged 106, one John Gibson. He had been an inmate of the\nhouse for ten years, and till within two months of his death used daily\nto perambulate the town. His faculties were entire to the last. He was\nso much attached to smoking, that he requested his pipe, together with\nhis walking-stick, might be placed in his coffin, which request was\ncomplied with.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY LETTER.\n\nThe following strange and curious epistle, we are assured, was sent to\na surgeon of eminence by a malefactor who had been sentenced to death.\nIt has a degree of character and quaintness about it which is rarely\nfound in the letters of convicts. Whether or not the surgeon complied\nwith his request we do not know.\n\n\"Sir,--Being informed that you are the only surgeon in this county, in\nthe habit of dissecting dead bodies--being very poor, I am desirous of\npassing what remains to me of life, with as much comfort as my unhappy\ncondition admits of. In all probability I shall be executed in the\ncourse of a month; having no friend to intercede for me, nor even to\nafford me a morsel of bread, to keep body and soul together till the\nfatal moment arrives, I beg you will favour me with a visit; I am\ndesirous of disposing of my body, which is healthy and sound, for a\nmoderate sum of money. It shall be delivered to you on demand, being\npersuaded that on the day of general resurrection, I shall as readily\nfind it in your laboratory, as if it were deposited in a tomb. Your\nspeedy answer will much oblige your obedient servant,\n\n  JAMES BROWN.\"\n\n\nA MATTRESS FOR A BANK.\n\nIn the month of April, 1822, Mrs. Motley, broker, Bedford-street,\nNorth Shields, purchased an old mattress for 2s. from a shipowner,\nwho was going to reside with his daughter; in arranging some papers a\nfew days ago, he found a document in the hand-writing of his deceased\nwife, not intended for his perusal, but that of her son by a former\nhusband, in which it was stated that property to a considerable amount\nwas deposited in the said mattress. His daughter in consequence waited\non Mrs. Motley, and offered her a few shillings to return it. Mrs.\nM. naturally supposed that this seeming generosity was not without\na cause, but having sold it to a Mrs. Hill for 3s., for a small\nconsideration she regained possession of the prize, but on entering her\nhouse the original proprietor and a constable were ready to receive\nher, and without ceremony cut open the mattress, when a purse, said to\ncontain 100gs., two gloves filled with current silver coin, several\nvaluable rings, trinkets, silver spoons, &c., were discovered. Mrs.\nHill had considerably reduced the mattress to fit a small bedstead\nwithout finding the hidden treasure.\n\n\nARCHITECTURE FOR EARTHQUAKES.\n\nSumatra is one of the largest islands in the Indian Archipelago, and\nthe houses of the inhabitants are deserving of notice, inasmuch as\nthey furnish a correct and curious specimen of the style of building,\nwhich the frequent occurrence of earthquakes renders the safest in the\ncountries where such visitations are common.\n\nThe frames of the houses are of wood, the under-plates resting on\npillars six or eight feet high, which have a sort of capital, but no\nbase, and are wider at top than at bottom. The people appear to have no\nidea of architecture as a science, though much ingenuity is often shown\nin working up their materials. The general appearance of their houses\nis accurately represented in the annexed plate. For the floorings they\nlay whole bamboos, four or five inches in diameter, close to each\nother, and fasten them at the ends to the timbers. Across these are\nlaid laths of split bamboo, about an inch wide and of the length of the\nroom, which are tied down with filaments of the rattan, and over these\nare usually spread mats of different kinds. This sort of flooring has\nan elasticity alarming to strangers when they first tread on it.\n\nThe sides of the houses are generally closed in with bamboo, opened\nand rendered flat by notching or splitting the circular joints on the\noutside, chipping away the corresponding divisions within, and laying\nit to dry in the sun pressed down with weights. This is sometimes\nnailed to the upright timbers or bamboos, but in the country parts\nit is more commonly interwoven or matted in breadths of six inches,\nand a piece or sheet formed at once of the size required. In some\nplaces they use for the same purpose the inner bark procured from some\nparticular trees. When they prepare to take it, the outer bark is first\ntorn or cut away; the inner is then marked out with a proper tool to\nthe requisite size, usually three cubits by one; it is afterwards\nbeaten for some time with a heavy stick to loosen it from the stem, and\nbeing peeled off, laid in the sun to dry, care being taken to prevent\nits warping. The bark used in building has nearly the texture and\nhardness of wood; but the pliable and delicate bark of which clothing\nis made is procured from a bastard species of the bread-fruit.\n\n[Illustration [++] Sumatran House.]\n\nThe most general mode of covering houses is with the leaf of a kind of\npalm called _nipah_. These, before they are laid on, are formed into\nsheets about five feet long, and as deep as the length of the leaf will\nadmit, which is doubled at one end over a slip or lath of bamboo. They\nare then disposed on the roof so that one sheet shall lap over the\nother, and are tied to the bamboos which serve for rafters.\n\n\nTHE NOSS IN SHETLAND.\n\nOff Bressay is the most remarkable of the rock phenomena of Shetland,\nthe Noss, a small high island, with a flat summit, girt on all sides\nby perpendicular walls of rock. It is only 500 feet in length, and\n170 broad, and rises abruptly from the sea to the height of 160 feet.\nThe communication with the coast of Bressay is maintained by strong\nropes stretched across, along which a cradle or wooden chair is run, in\nwhich the passenger is seated. It is of a size sufficient for conveying\nacross a man and a sheep at a time. The purpose of this strange\ncontrivance is to give the tenant the benefit of putting a few sheep\nupon the Holm, the top of which is level, and affords good pasture.\nThe animals are transported in the cradle, one at a time, a shepherd\nholding them upon his knees in crossing.\n\n[Illustration: Cradle of Noss.]\n\nThe temptation of getting access to the numberless eggs and young\nof the sea-fowl which whiten the surface of the Holm, joined to the\npromised reward of a cow, induced a hardy and adventurous fowler, about\ntwo centuries ago, to scale the cliff of the Holm, and establish a\nconnexion by ropes with the neighbouring main island. Having driven\ntwo stakes into the rock and fastened his ropes, the desperate man was\nentreated to avail himself of the communication thus established in\nreturning across the gulf. But this he refused to do, and in attempting\nto descend the way he had climbed, he fell, and perished by his\nfoolhardiness.\n\n\nSWALLOWED UP BY AN EARTHQUAKE AND THROWN OUT AGAIN.\n\nA tombstone in the island of Jamaica has the following inscription:--\n\n\"Here lieth the body of Lewis Galdy, Esq., who died on the 22nd of\nSeptember, 1737, aged 80. He was born at Montpellier, in France, which\nplace he left for his religion, and settled on this island, where, in\nthe great earthquake, 1672, he was swallowed up, and by the wonderful\nprovidence of God, by a second shock was thrown out into the sea,\nwhere he continued swimming until he was taken up by a boat, and thus\nmiraculously preserved. He afterwards lived in great reputation, and\ndied universally lamented.\"\n\n\nCUSTOMS OF THE BORDER BETWEEN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.\n\nIn the courts held by the lords wardens of the Marches, a jury was\nestablished: the English lord chose six out of Scotland, and the Scotch\nsix out of England. The defendant, upon the trials, was acquitted\nupon his own oath; these oaths are singular: we transcribe them.--1.\nJUROR'S OATH. You shall clean no bills worthy to be fouled: you shall\nfoul no bills worthy to be cleaned; but shall do that which appeareth\nwith truth, for the maintenance of truth, and suppressing of attempts.\nSo help you God.--2. PLAINTIFF'S OATH. You shall leile (little) price\nmake, and truth say, what your goods were worth at the time of their\ntaking, to have been bought and sold in the market, taken all at\none time, and that you know no other recovery but this. So help you\nGod.--3. DEFENDANT'S OATH. You shall swear, by heaven above you, hell\nbeneath you, by your part in Paradise, by all that God made in six days\nand seven nights, and by God himself, you are whart and sackless, of\nart, part, way, witting, ridd, kenning, having, or reciting, of any of\nthe goods and chattles named in this bill. So help you God. These oaths\nand proceedings arose from the frequent incursions of both Scotch and\nEnglish, on both sides the wall, to where they had no right.\n\n\nTURKISH MODE OF REPARATION.\n\nOn April 25th, 1769, at Constantinople, the Turks were removing the\nstandard of Mahomet, making a grand procession through the city; all\nChristians, upon this occasion, were forbid to appear in the streets or\nat their windows. But the wife and daughter of the Imperial minister,\nbeing excited by curiosity, placed themselves at a secret window to\nobserve the procession; which was no sooner discovered by the Turks,\nthan they attacked the ambassador's house, and endeavoured to force an\nentrance. But the servants of the minister opposing them, well-armed,\na dreadful fray ensued, in which no less than one hundred persons lost\ntheir lives, and the ambassador's lady was very severely treated.\nSome of the rioters dragged her down into the court-yard, and made\npreparations to strangle her; when a party of Janissaries, who were\ndespatched to her assistance by an aga in the neighbourhood, happily\ncame and preserved her. Upon complaint being made of this outrage, by\nher husband, to the grand vizier, that minister expressed great sorrow\nfor the insult that had been offered, and assured him he should have\nall the reparation it was possible to procure. A few hours after the\nvizier sent the Imperial minister a rich present of jewels for his\nlady, _and a bag, which was found to contain the heads of the three\nprincipal rioters_.\n\n\nHAIR TURNED GREY BY FRIGHT.\n\nThere is an interesting anecdote of a boy, in one of the rudest parts\nof the County of Clare, in Ireland, who, in order to destroy some\neaglets, lodged in a hole one hundred feet from the summit of a rock,\nwhich rose four hundred feet perpendicular from the sea, caused himself\nto be suspended by a rope, with a scimitar in his hand for his defence,\nshould he meet with an attack from the old ones; which precaution was\nfound necessary; for no sooner had his companions lowered him to the\nnest, than one of the old eagles made at him with great fury, at which\nhe struck, but, unfortunately missing his aim, nearly cut through the\nrope that supported him. Describing his horrible situation to his\ncomrades, they cautiously and safely drew him up; when it was found\nthat his hair, which a quarter of an hour before was a dark auburn, was\nchanged to grey.\n\n\nMEMORABLE SNOW-STORM.\n\nThe following characteristic account is taken _literatim_ from the\nparish register of the village of Youlgrave in Derbyshire:--\"This year\n1614-5 Jan. 16 began the greatest snow which ever fell uppon the earth,\nwithin man's memorye. It cover'd the earth five quarters deep uppon the\nplayne. And for heapes or drifts of snow, they were very deep, so that\npassengers, both horse and foot, passed over yates hedges and walles.\nIt fell at ten severall tymes, and the last was the greatest, to the\ngreate admiration and fear of all the land, for it came from the foure\np{ts} of the world, so that all c'ntryes were full, yea, the south\np'te as well as these mountaynes. It continued by daily encreasing\nuntil the 12{th} day of March, (without the sight of any earth, eyther\nuppon hilles or valleys) uppon w{ch} daye, being the Lordes day, it\nbegan to decrease; and so by little and little consumed and wasted\naway, till the eight and twentyth day of May, for then all the heapes\nor drifts of snow were consumed, except one uppon Kinder-Scout, w{ch}\nlay till Witson week.\"\n\n\nROADS IN 1780.\n\nA squire from the neighbourhood of Glastonbury, journeying to Sarum in\nhis carriage, about 1780, took care that his footman was provided with\na good axe to lop off any branches of trees that might obstruct the\nprogress of the vehicle.\n\n\nWONDERFUL PEDESTRIAN FEAT.\n\nCaptain Cochrane, who set out from St. Petersburg in May, 1820, to walk\nthrough the interior of Russia to the east of Asia, with a view of\nascertaining the fact of a north-east cape, travelled at the rate of\n_forty-three miles a day for one hundred and twenty-three successive\ndays_. He afterwards walked upwards of four hundred miles without\nmeeting a human being. Wherever he went he seems to have accommodated\nhimself to the habits of the people, however rude and disgusting.\nWith the Kalmucks, he ate horse-flesh, elks, and wolves; and with\nthe Tchutski he found as little difficulty in pasturing upon bears,\nrein-deer, and _raw frozen fish_, the latter of which he considered a\ngreat delicacy.\n\n\nBOOK-SHAPED WATCH.\n\n[Illustration [++] Book-Shaped Watch.]\n\nThe unique curiosity, of which the annexed is an accurate\nrepresentation, was one of the choicest rarities of the Bernal\ncollection, and is, therefore, highly appropriate to our pages. It once\nbelonged to, and was made for, Bogislaus XIV., Duke of Pomerania, in\nthe time of Gustavus Adolphus. On the dial-side there is an engraved\ninscription of the Duke and his titles, with the date 1627, and the\nengraving of his armorial bearings; on the back of the case there\nare engraved two male portraits, buildings, &c.; the dial-plate is\nof silver, chased in relief; the insides are chased with birds and\nfoliage. This watch has apparently two separate movements, and a large\nbell; at the back, over the bell, the metal is ornamentally pierced\nin a circle, with a dragon and other devices, and the sides are\npierced and engraved in scrolls. It bears the maker's name, \"Dionistus\nHessichti.\"\n\n\nTHE RULING PASSION.\n\nMr. Henry Stribling, farmer, who died at Goodleigh, near Barnstaple,\nAugust 1st, 1800, in the eightieth year of his age, was one of the\ngreatest fox-hunters in Devonshire, and had collected such a number\nof foxes pads, all of which he had himself cut off when in at the\ndeath, that they entirely covered his stable door and door-posts. At\nhis own particular request, a pad was placed in each of his hands\nin his coffin, and he was attended to the grave by the huntsmen and\nwhippers-in of the packs with which he had hunted.\n\n\nEDICTS AGAINST FIDDLERS.\n\nAn idea may be formed of the strictness with which all popular\namusements were prohibited when the Puritans had the ascendancy, from\nthe fact that in 1656-7 Oliver Cromwell prohibited all persons called\nfiddlers or minstrels from playing, fiddling, or making music in any\ninn, alehouse, or tavern, &c. If they proffered themselves or offered\nto make music, they were to be adjudged to be rogues, vagabonds, and\nsturdy vagabonds, and were to be proceeded against as such.\n\n\nSCENE OF DESOLATION.\n\n[Illustration [++] Pass of Keim-an-eigh.]\n\nThe pass of Keim-an-eigh is one of the numerous wonders of nature.\nIt is situated on the road from Macroom to Bantry, in the county of\nCork, and winds through a deep and narrow rocky defile, about two\nEnglish miles in length. Its name means, in Irish, \"The Path of the\nDeer.\" Perhaps, in no part of the kingdom, is there to be found a\nplace so utterly desolate and gloomy. A mountain has been divided by\nsome convulsion of nature, and the narrow pass is overhung on either\nside, as seen in our engraving, by perpendicular cliffs clothed in wild\nivy and underwood, with, occasionally, a stunted yew-tree or arbutus\ngrowing among them. At every step advance seems impossible--some huge\nrock jutting out into the path, or sweeping round it, seeming to\nconduct only to some barrier still more insurmountable; while from\nall sides rush down the \"wild fountains,\" and forming for themselves\na rugged channel, make their way onward, the first tributary to the\ngentle and fruitful Lee. Nowhere has Nature assumed a more apalling\naspect, or manifested a more stern resolve to dwell in her own\nloneliness and grandeur, undisturbed by any living thing; for even the\nbirds seem to shun a solitude so awful, and the hum of bee or chirp of\ngrasshopper is never heard within its precincts.\n\n\nTHE FIRST ENGLISH NUN.\n\nFace, widow of Edwin, king of Northumberland, is said to have been the\nfirst English nun; and the first nunnery in England appears to have\nbeen at Barking, in Essex, which was founded by Erkenwald, Bishop of\nLondon, wherein he placed a number of Benedictine or black nuns. The\nmost rigid nuns are those of St. Clara, of the order of St. Francis,\nboth of which individuals were born and lived in the same town: the\nnuns are called poor Clares, and both they and the monks wear grey\nclothes. Abbesses had formerly seats in parliament. In one, held in\n694, says Spelman, they sat and deliberated, and several of them\nsubscribed the decrees made in it. They sat, says Ingulphus, in a\nparliament held in 855. In the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. four\nof them were summoned to a national council, viz. those of Shaftesbury,\nBarking, Winchester, and Wilton.\n\n\nPRESENCE OF MIND--ESCAPE FROM A TIGER.\n\nIn 1812, a party of British naval and military officers were dining in\na jungle at some distance from Madras, when a ferocious tiger rushed in\namong them, seized a young midshipman, and flung him across his back.\nIn the first emotion of terror, the other officers had all snatched\nup their arms, and retired some paces from their assailant, who stood\nlashing his sides with his tail, as if doubtful whether he should seize\nmore prey, or retire with that which he had already secured. They knew\nthat it is usual with the tiger, before he seizes his prey, to deprive\nit of life, by a pat on the head, which generally breaks the skull;\nbut this is not his invariable practice. The little midshipman lay\nmotionless on the back of his enemy; but yet the officers, who were\nuncertain whether he had received the mortal pat or not, were afraid\nto fire, lest they should kill him together with the tiger. While in\nthis state of suspense, they perceived the hand of the youth gently\nmove over the side of the animal, and conceiving the motion to result\nfrom the convulsive throbs of death, they were about to fire, when, to\ntheir utter astonishment, the tiger dropped stone dead; and their young\nfriend sprung from the carcass, waving in triumph a bloody dirk drawn\nfrom the heart, for which he had been feeling with the utmost coolness\nand circumspection, when the motion of his hand had been taken for a\ndying spasm.\n\n\nCOST OF ARTICLES IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nThe following article is taken from Martin's _History of Thetford_.\nIt is copied from an original record in that borough, when John le\nForester was mayor, in the tenth year of Edward the Third, A.D. 1336.\nIt is so far curious, as it exhibits an authentic account of the value\nof many articles at that time; being a bill, inserted in the town book,\nof the expenses attending the sending two light-horsemen from Thetford\nto the army, which was to march against the Scots that year.\n\n                                                          L  s.   d.\n  To two men chosen to go into the army against Scotland  1  0    0\n\n  For cloth, and to the tailor for making it into\n        two _gowns_                                       0   6  11\n\n  For two pair of gloves, and a stick or staff            0   0   2\n\n  For two horses                                          1  15   0-1\/2\n\n  For shoeing these horses                                0   0   4\n\n  For two pair of boots for the light-horsemen            0   2   8\n\n  Paid to a lad for going with the mayor to Lenn (Lynn),\n        to take care of the horses (the distance between\n        Thetford and Lynn is 53 miles)                    0   0   3\n\n  To a boy for a letter at Lenn (viz., carrying\n        it thither)                                       0   0   3\n\n  Expenses for the horses of two light-horsemen for four\n  days before they departed                               0   1   0\n\n\nLAW AND ORDER IN THE STREETS OF LONDON IN 1733.\n\nWhat an extraordinary state of things does the following extract from\nthe _Weekly Register_ of December 8th, 1733, disclose! The stages and\nhackney-coaches actually made open war upon private carriages. \"The\ndrivers,\" says the paragraph, \"are commissioned by their masters to\nannoy, sink, and destroy all the single and double horse-chaises they\ncan conveniently meet with, or overtake in their way, without regard\nto the lives or limbs of the persons who travel in them. What havoc\nthese industrious sons of blood and wounds have made within twenty\nmiles of London in the compass of a summer's season, is best known by\nthe articles of accidents in the newspapers: the miserable shrieks of\nwomen and children not being sufficient to deter the villains from\ndoing what they call their duty to their masters; for besides their\ndaily or weekly wages, they have an extraordinary stated allowance for\nevery chaise they can reverse, ditch, or bring by the road, as the term\nor phrase is.\" Verily, we who live in the present day have reason to\nrejoice that in _some_ things there is a decided improvement upon \"the\ngood old times.\"\n\n\nNEVER SLEEPING IN A BED.\n\nChristopher Pivett, of the city of York, died 1796, aged 93. He was\na carver and gilder by trade; but during the early part of his life\nserved in the army, and was in the retinue of the Duke of Cumberland,\nunder whose command he took part in the battle of Fontenoy, as he did\nat the battle of Dettingen under the Earl of Stair; he was likewise\nat the siege of Carlisle, and the great fight of Culloden. His house,\nafter he had settled at York, being accidentally burnt down, he formed\nthe singular resolution of never again sleeping in a bed, lest he\nshould be burned to death whilst asleep, or not have time sufficient,\nshould such a misfortune again befall him, to remove his property; and\nthis resolution he rigidly acted upon during the last forty years of\nhis life. His practice was to repose upon the floor, or on two chairs,\nor sitting in a chair, but always with his clothes on. During the\nwhole of this period he lived entirely alone, cooked his own victuals,\nand seldom admitted any one into his habitation: nor would he ever\ndisclose to any the place of his birth, or to whom he was related. He\nhad many singularities, but possessed, politically as well as socially,\na laudable spirit of independence, which he boldly manifested on\nseveral trying occasions. Among other uncommon articles which composed\nthe furniture of his dwelling, was a human skull, which he left strict\ninjunctions should be interred with him.\n\n\nAMULET BROTCHE.\n\nThe subjoined engraving represents an ancient Gaelic Brotche, which was\nmade in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and once belonged to a Highland\nChief, Maclean of Lochbuy in the Isle of Mull, being formed of silver\nfound on his estate. It is of circular form, scolloped, and surrounded\nby small upright obelisks, each set with a pearl at top; in the centre\nis a round crystalline ball, considered a magical gem; the top may be\ntaken off, showing a hollow, originally for reliques. On the reverse\nside of the brotche are engraved the names of the three kings of\nCologne, with the word _consummation_. It was probably a consecrated\nbrotche, and worn not only for the purpose of fastening the dress, but\nas an amulet.\n\n[Illustration [++] Gaelic Brotche.]\n\n\nTHE GOLYNOS OAK.\n\nThis wonderful tree grew on the estate from which it takes its name,\nabout four miles from Newport, Monmouth. It was purchased by Thomas\nHarrison, Esq., in the year 1810, for 100 guineas, and was felled and\nconverted by him the same year. Five men were twenty days stripping\nand cutting it down; and a pair of sawyers were employed 138 days in\nits conversion. The expense of stripping, felling, and sawing was L82.\nThe trunk of the tree was 9-1\/2 feet in diameter, and no saw could\nbe found long enough to cut it down; two saws were therefore brazed\ntogether. The rings in its butt being reckoned, it was discovered that\nthis tree had been improving upwards of 400 years! and, as many of its\nlateral branches were dead, and some broken off, it is presumed it must\nhave stood a century after it had attained maturity. When standing\nit overspread 452 square yards of ground, and produced 2,426 feet of\ntimber. When all its parts were brought to market they produced nearly\nL600.\n\n[Illustration [++] Golynos Oak.]\n\n\nCARFAX CONDUIT.\n\n[Illustration [++] Carfax Conduit.]\n\nIn the grounds at Nuneham Courtenay, near Oxford, belonging to Mr.\nHarcourt, on one of the <DW72>s that ascend directly from the river\nThames, stands the ancient and far-famed Carfax Conduit, which formerly\nstood as a kind of central point to the four principal streets of\nOxford. Certain alterations requiring its removal, it was, with the\nmost perfect propriety, presented to the Earl Harcourt.\n\nIt was built in 1610, by Otho Nicholson--a liberal and enterprising\ngentleman--in order to supply the city with pure water, brought from\na hill above North Hinksey; and although the conduit is removed, the\npipes still remain, and afford a partial supply that will be superseded\nby the new City Waterworks. It is a square, decorated in accordance\nwith the taste of the time--mermaids holding combs and mirrors, and\ndragons, antelopes, unicorns, being scattered about, while the Empress\nMaude is introduced riding an ox over a ford, in allusion to the\nname of the city. The letters O. N., the initials of the founder,\nare conspicuous; while above the centres of the four arches are the\ncardinal virtues--Justice, Temperance, Fortitude, and Prudence.\n\nCarfax is from a Bishop of that name, who presided over the diocese of\nTours in France, and died in the year 399. He was canonized, and is the\ntutelar saint of Carfax, or St. Martin's church, in the city of Oxford.\n\n\nDESTRUCTION OF LIBRARIES IN THE TIME OF HENRY VIII., AT THE DISSOLUTION\nOF THE MONASTERIES.\n\nIt is a circumstance well known, to every one at all conversant in\nEnglish history, that the suppression of the lesser monasteries by that\nrapacious monarch Henry the Eighth took place in 1536. Bishop Fisher,\nwhen the abolition was first proposed in the convocation, strenuously\nopposed it, and told his brethren that this was fairly shewing the\nking how he might come at the great monasteries. \"And so my lords,\"\ncontinued he, \"if you grant the king these smaller monasteries, you do\nbut make him a handle whereby he may cut down all the cedars within\nyour Lebanon.\" Fisher's fears were borne out by the subsequent act\nof Henry, who, after quelling a civil commotion occasioned by the\nsuppression of the lesser monasteries, immediately abolished the\nremainder, and in the whole suppressed six hundred and forty-five\nmonasteries, of which twenty-eight had abbots who enjoyed seats in\nParliament. Ninety colleges were demolished; two thousand three hundred\nand seventy-four charities and free chapels, and one hundred and ten\nhospitals. The havoc that was made among the libraries cannot be better\ndescribed than in the words of Bayle, Bishop of Ossory, in the preface\nto Leland's \"New Year's Gift to King Henry the Eighth.\"\n\n\"A greate nombre of them whyche purchased those superstychouse mansyons\n(monesteries) reserved of those librarye bookes, some to serve theyr\njokes, some to scoure thyr candlestyckes, and some to rubbe theyr\nbootes. Some they solde to the grossers and sope-sellers, and some\nthey sent over see to the book bynders, not in small nombre, but at\ntymes whole shyppes full to the wonderynge of foren nacyons: yea ye\nuniversytes of thys realme are not alle clere in this detestable fact,\nbut cursed is that bellye whych seketh to be fedde with suche ungodlye\ngaynes, and so depelye shameth hys natural conterye. I knowe a merchant\nmanne whyche shall at thys tyme be namelesse, that boughte ye contentes\nof two noble lybraryes for forty shyllinges pryce: a shame it is to be\nspoken: Thys stuffe hath he occupyed in the stede of grey paper by the\nspace of more than these ten yeares and yet he hath store ynoughe for\nas manye yeares to come. A prodygyouse example is thys to be abhorred\nof all men whych love thyr nacyon as they shoulde do. The monkes kept\nthem undre dust, ye ydle headed prestes regarded them not, theyr latter\nowners have most shamefully abused them, and ye covetouse merchantes\nhave solde them awaye into foren nacyons for moneye.\"\n\n\nCURIOUS MENTAL AFFECTION.\n\nSingular faculties have been developed during somnambulism in the\nmental condition. Thus a case is related of a woman in the Edinburgh\ninfirmary who, during her paroxysm, not only mimicked the manner\nof the attendant physicians, but repeated correctly some of their\nprescriptions in Latin.\n\nDr. Dyce, of Aberdeen, describes the case of a girl, in which this\naffection began with fits of somnolency, which came upon her suddenly\nduring the day, and from which she could at first be roused by shaking\nor by being taken into the open air. During these attacks she was in\nthe habit of talking of things that seemed to pass before her like\na dream, and was not at the time sensible of anything that was said\nto her. On one occasion she repeated the entire of the baptismal\nservice, and concluded with an extempore prayer. In her subsequent\nparoxysms she began to understand what was said to her, and to answer\nwith a considerable degree of consistency, though these replies were\nin a certain measure influenced by her hallucination. She also became\ncapable of following her usual employment during her paroxysm. At one\ntime she would lay out the table for breakfast, and repeatedly dress\nherself and the children, her eyes remaining shut the whole time. The\nremarkable circumstance was now discovered, that, during the paroxysm,\nshe had a distinct recollection of what had taken place in former\nattacks, though she had not the slightest recollection of it during the\nintervals. She was taken to church during the paroxysm, and attended\nthe service with apparent devotion, and at one time was so affected\nby the sermon that she actually shed tears; yet in the interval she\nhad no recollection whatever of the circumstance, but in the following\nparoxysm she gave a most distinct account of it, and actually repeated\nthe passage of the sermon that had so much affected her. This sort of\nsomnambulism, relating distinctly to two periods, has been called,\nperhaps erroneously, a _state of double consciousness_.\n\nThis girl described the paroxysm as coming on with a dimness of sight\nand a noise in the head. During the attack, her eyelids were generally\nhalf shut, and frequently resembled those of a person labouring under\namaurosis, the pupil dilated and insensible. Her looks were dull and\nvacant, and she often mistook the person who was speaking to her. The\nparoxysms usually lasted an hour, but she often could be roused from\nthem. She then yawned and stretched herself like a person awakening\nfrom sleep, and instantly recognised those about her. At one time, Dr.\nDyce affirms, she read distinctly a portion of a book presented to her,\nand she would frequently sing pieces of music more correctly and with\nbetter taste than when awake.\n\n\nDECORATIVE DRINKING VESSEL.\n\n[Illustration [++] German Decorative Vessel.]\n\nThe above represents a German decorative drinking vessel of the early\npart of the seventeenth century. It is a stork bearing in its beak an\ninfant; in accordance with the old German nursery tale that the king\nof the Storks is the bringer and protector of babies. It is of silver,\nchased all over; the eyes are formed of rubies; and one wing takes off\nthat liquid may be placed in the body, and imbibed through the neck,\nby a hole in the crown of the bird. It was probably a quaint fancy for\nsome German noble nursery.\n\n\nEXAMPLES OF ANCIENT VASES.\n\nThe Vases which are grouped in the annexed engraving are highly\ndeserving of a place in our collection of curiosities, inasmuch as they\nare truly unique and beautiful specimens of the degree of perfection\nto which the art of glass-making had been carried at the period when\nRome was mistress of the world. They all belong to that period, and in\nelegance of form and skill of workmanship they equal--we had almost\nsaid, surpass, the most artistic productions of the present day.\n\n[Illustration [++] Ancient Vases.]\n\nFigure 1 is that celebrated vase which for more than two centuries was\nthe principal ornament of the Barberini palace at Rome. It was thence\ngenerally known as the \"Barberini Vase;\" but having been purchased\nby Sir W. Hamilton, and then sold by him to the Duchess of Portland,\nit was at her death munificently presented by her son, the Duke of\nPortland, to the British Museum, where it has ever since remained as\none of its choicest gems, and is now known as the \"Portland Cinerary\nVase.\" It was found about the middle of the sixteenth century, enclosed\nin a marble sarcophagus, within a sepulchral chamber under the Monte\ndel Grane, two miles and a half from Rome, on the road to Frascati. The\ntomb is believed to have been that of the Emperor Alexander Severus,\nand his mother Mammaea. The vase is made of purple glass, ornamented\nwith white opaque figures in bas-relief. The execution of the design\nis most admirable. In the first place, the artist must have had the\naptitude to blow in purple glass a beautiful form of vase, with\nhandles attached: and, even thus far, this is considered in our day a\nmasterpiece of skill at our best glass-houses. Secondly, with the oxide\nof tin forming an opaque white glass, the artist managed to cover the\nwhole of the purple vase with this white opaque glass, to at least\nthe thickness of a quarter of an inch. The artist then, in the manner\nof cutting a cameo on the onyx stone, cut the opaque glass away,\nleaving the white figures and allegory embossed upon the purple. The\nfigures in relief are in two groups: in the former of these, a female\nis represented in a recumbent posture, with a cupid hovering above her\nhead, and a serpent in her lap; a young man on one side supporting her\nstretched out arm, and on the other a bearded personage of more mature\nage, attentively regarding her. The latter group, on the opposite side\nof the vase, consists of a female reclining on a pile of tablets, with\nher right hand placed on her head, and holding in her hand a lighted\ntorch with the flame downwards--a young man being seated on a pile on\none side of her, and a female, holding a rod or staff in the right\nhand, sitting on the other. The subject of the bas-relief has created\nmuch difference of opinion, but it is generally supposed to have\nreference to the birth of Severus. A few years ago this vase was broken\nby a madman, but it has since been repaired in a most artistic manner.\n\nFigure 2 is the \"Alexandrian Vase,\" of the Museo Borbonico, Naples.\n\nFigure 3 is the \"Pompeii Vase,\" also of the Museo Borbonico. It was\ndiscovered in a sepulchre of Pompeii in 1839, and is of the same\ncharacter in the colours and quality of the glass as the Portland Vase,\nbut of a more recent date. It is probably the production of Greek\nartists working in Rome.\n\nFigure 4 is the \"Aldjo Vase,\" which was found in 1833 at Pompeii, in\nthe house of the Fauna. The ground of the vase is of a deep sapphire\nblue, on which, in opaque white glass, the ornaments are cut. It was\nfound broken. Part is in the possession of Mr. Auldjo; the other in the\nBritish Museum. The shape of this vase is elegant, the handle and lip\nof exquisite form, and the taste and execution of the ornamental work\nin the purest style.\n\n\nMINUTENESS OF INSECT LIFE.\n\nAs the telescope enables the eye of man to penetrate into far-distant\nspace, and reveals to him myriads of suns and systems which otherwise\nwould have remained for ever hidden from his natural sight, so\nthe microscope opens up a world of life everywhere around us, but\naltogether unsuspected, astounding us as much by the inappreciable\nminuteness of its discoveries, as the former by the stupendous\nmagnitude and remoteness of the objects. If we go to any ditch or pool\nwhich the summer sun has covered with a mantle of stagnant greenness,\nand lift from it a minute drop of water, such as would adhere to\nthe head of a pin, we shall find it, under a high magnifying power,\nswarming with living beings, moving about with great rapidity, and\napproaching or avoiding each other with evident perception and will.\n\n\"Vain would it be,\" observes Professor Jones, \"to attempt by words\nto give anything like a definite notion of the minuteness of some\nof these multitudinous races. Let me ask the reader to divide an\ninch into 22,000 parts, and appreciate mentally the value of each\ndivision: having done so, and not till then, shall we have a standard\nsufficiently minute to enable us to measure the microscopic beings upon\nthe consideration of which we are now entering. Neither is it easy to\ngive the student of nature, who has not accurately investigated the\nsubject for himself, adequate conceptions relative to the numbers in\nwhich the _Infusoria_ sometimes crowd the waters they frequent; but\nlet him take his microscope, and the means of making a rough estimate,\nat least, are easily at his disposal. He will soon perceive that the\nanimalcule-inhabitants of a drop of putrid water, possessing, as many\nof them do, dimensions not larger than the 2,000th part of a line, swim\nso closely together, that the intervals separating them are not greater\nthan their own bodies. The matter, therefore, becomes a question for\narithmetic to solve, and we will pause to make the calculation.\n\n\"The _Monas termo_, for example--a creature that might be pardonably\nregarded as an embodiment of the mathematical point, almost literally\nwithout either length, or breadth, or thickness--has been calculated to\nmeasure about the 22,000th part of an inch in its transverse diameter;\nand in water taken from the surface of many putrid infusions, they are\ncrowded as closely as we have stated above. We may therefore safely\nsay, that, swimming at ordinary distances apart, 10,000 of them would\nbe contained in a linear space one inch in length, and consequently\na cubic inch of such water will thus contain more living and active\norganized beings than there are human inhabitants upon the whole\nsurface! However astounding such a fact may seem when first enunciated,\nnone is more easily demonstrated with the assistance of a good\nmicroscope.\"\n\nThe term _Infusoria_ has been by some naturalists applied to these\ndiminutive animals, because they are invariably found in the infusions\nof vegetable or animal substances. They can thus be obtained at all\ntimes, by simply steeping a little hay, or chaff, or leaves or stems of\nany plant, in a vessel of water, and placing the infusion in the sun\nfor a week or ten days.\n\n\nLEGENDS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT.\n\nIt was believed in Pier della Valle's time, that the descendants of\nJudas Iscariot still existed at Corfu, though the persons who suffered\nthis imputation stoutly denied the truth of the genealogy.\n\nWhen the ceremony of washing the feet is performed in the Greek Church\nat Smyrna, the bishop represents Christ, and the twelve apostles are\nacted by as many priests. He who personates Judas must be paid for it,\nand such is the feeling of the people, that whoever accepts this odious\npart, commonly retains the name of Judas for life (Hasselquist, p. 43).\n\nJudas serves in Brazil for a Guy Faux to be carried about by the\nboys, and made the subject of an auto-da-fe. The Spanish sailors hang\nhim at the yard arm. It is not long since a Spaniard lost his life\nat Portsmouth, during the performance of this ceremony, by jumping\noverboard after the figure.\n\nThe Armenians, who believe hell and limbo to be the same place, say\nthat Judas, after having betrayed our Lord, resolved to hang himself,\nbecause he knew Christ was to go to limbo, and deliver all the souls\nwhich he found there, and therefore he thought to get there in time.\nBut the Devil was cunninger than he, and knowing his intent, held him\nover limbo till the Lord had passed through, and then let him fall plum\ninto hell. (Thevenot.)\n\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH'S SIDE-SADDLE.\n\nIn a retired part of the county of Essex, at a short distance from the\nroad, in a secluded and lovely spot, stands the picturesque residence\ncalled Horeham Hall. The mansion is in the parish of Thaxted, and is\nabout two miles south-west of the church. It was once in the possession\nof the important family of the De Wauton's; it afterwards belonged to\nSir John Cutts, and eventually it became the property of Sir W. Smijth,\nof Hill Hall, in whose family it has remained up to the present time.\n\nOf the learned Sir Thomas Smijth, the secretary to King Edward VI.\nand Queen Elizabeth, there is still preserved an ancient portrait on\npanel, which is let into a circle over the carved fire-place of one of\nthe parlours. It is remarkable as being one of the very few portraits\npainted by Titian.\n\n[Illustration [++] Queen Elizabeth's Side Saddle.]\n\nAnother interesting relic is represented in the annexed cut. It is\npreserved in the Great Hall, and is the side-saddle of Queen Elizabeth;\nthe pommel is of wrought metal, and has been gilt; the ornament upon\nit is in the then fashionable style of the Renaissance; the seat of\nvelvet is now in a very ruinous condition; but it is carefully kept\nbeneath a glass case, as a memento of the Queen's visits to this place.\nWhen princess, Elizabeth retired to Horeham as a place of refuge during\nthe reign of her sister Mary; the loveliness of the situation and its\ndistance from the metropolis rendered it a seclusion befitting the\nquietude of one anxious to remain unnoticed in troublous times. A room\non the first floor in the square tower is shown as that in which Queen\nElizabeth resided. She found the retirement of Horeham so agreeable,\nthat often after she had succeeded to the throne she took a pleasure in\nre-visiting the place.\n\n\nTHE WINFARTHING OAK, IN NORFOLK.\n\nA writer in the \"Gardener's Magazine\" gives the following account of\nthis remarkable tree:--\"Of its age I regret to be unable to give any\ncorrect data. It is said to have been called the 'Old Oak' at the\ntime of William the Conqueror, but upon what authority I could never\nlearn. Nevertheless, the thing is not impossible, if the speculations\nof certain writers on the age of trees be at all correct. Mr. South,\nin one of his letters to the Bath Society (vol. x.) calculates that an\noak tree forty-seven feet in circumference cannot be less than fifteen\nhundred years old; and Mr. Marsham calculated the Bentley Oak, from its\ngirting thirty-four feet, to be of the same age. Now, an inscription on\na brass plate affixed to the Winfarthing Oak gives us the following\nas its dimensions:--'This oak, in circumference, at the extremities of\nthe roots, is seventy feet; in the middle, forty feet, 1820.' Now, I\nsee no reason, if the size of the rind is to be any criterion of age,\nwhy the Winfarthing should not, at least, equal the Bentley oak; and\nif so, it would be upwards of seven hundred years old at the Conquest;\nan age which might very well justify its then title of the 'Old Oak.'\nIt is now a mere shell, a mighty ruin, bleached to a snowy white; but\nit is magnificent in its decay. The only mark of vitality it exhibits\nis on the south side, where a narrow strip of bark sends forth a few\nbranches, which even now occasionally produce acorns. It is said to\nbe very much altered of late; but I own I did not think so when I saw\nit about a month ago (May 1836); and my acquaintance with the veteran\nis of more than forty years' standing: an important portion of _my_\nlife, but a mere span of its own.\"\n\n\nCURIOUS PIECE OF ANCIENT ARMOUR.\n\n[Illustration [++] Bascinet.]\n\nThe above engraving represents a helmet, of the time of Richard II.,\nwhich was termed by ancient armourers a bascinet. This extremely rare\nspecimen was obtained from Her von Hulshoff, at his castle, near\nMunster, in Westphalia. The visor lifts upward on a hinge, and its\nposition may be further regulated by the screw which slips in the\ngroove above it. The row of holes on the lower edge of the bascinet was\nmade to secure the _camail_, or tippet of chain-mail which covered the\nneck of the wearer.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY ECHO.\n\nBeneath the suspension-bridge across the Menai Strait in Wales, close\nto one of the main piers, is a remarkably fine echo. The sound of a\nblow on the pier with a hammer, is returned in succession from each\nof the cross beams which support the roadway, and from the opposite\npier, at a distance of 576 feet; and in addition to this, the sound is\nmany times repeated between the water and the roadway. The effect is\na series of sounds, which may be thus described:--The first return is\nsharp and strong from the roadway overhead, the rattling which succeeds\ndies rapidly away; but the single repercussion from the opposite pier\nis very strong, and is succeeded by a faint palpitation, repeating the\nsound at the rate of twenty-eight times in five seconds, and which,\ntherefore, corresponds to a distance of 180 feet, or very nearly the\ndouble interval from the roadway to the water. Thus it appears, that\nin the repercussion between the water and the roadway, that from the\nlatter only affects the ear, the line drawn from the auditor to the\nwater being too oblique for the sound to diverge sufficiently in that\ndirection. Another peculiarity deserves especial notice,--viz., that\nthe echo from the opposite pier is best heard when the auditor stands\nprecisely opposite to the middle of the breadth of the pier, and\nstrikes just on that point. As it deviates to one or the other side,\nthe return is proportionably fainter, and is scarcely heard by him when\nhis station is a little beyond the extreme edge of the pier, though\nanother person stationed on the same side of the water, at an equal\ndistance from the central point, so as to have the pier between them,\nhears it well.\n\n\nJUGGLERS OF MODERN EGYPT.\n\nPerformers of sleight-of-hand tricks, who are called _hhowa'h_ (in the\nsingular, _hha'wee_) are numerous in Cairo. They generally perform in\npublic places, collecting a ring of spectators around them; from some\nof whom they receive small voluntary contributions during and after\ntheir performances. They are most frequently seen on the occasions of\npublic festivals; but often also at other times. By indecent jests and\nactions, they attract as much applause as they do by other means. The\nhha'wee performs a great variety of tricks, the most usual of which\nwe will here mention. He generally has two boys to assist him. From a\nlarge leather bag, he takes out four or five snakes, of a largish size.\nOne of these he places on the ground, and makes it erect its head and\npart of its body; another he puts round the head of one of the boys,\nlike a turban, and two more over the boy's neck. He takes these off,\nopens the boy's mouth, apparently passes the bolt of a kind of padlock\nthrough his cheek, and locks it. Then, in appearance, he forces an\niron spike into the boy's throat; the spike being really pushed up\ninto a wooden handle. He also performs another trick of the same kind\nas this. Placing the boy on the ground, he puts the edge of a knife\nupon his nose, and knocks the blade until half its width seems to have\nentered. The tricks which he performs alone are more amusing. He draws\na great quantity of various- silk from his mouth, and winds\nit on his arm; puts cotton in his mouth, and blows out fire; takes\nout of his mouth a great number of round pieces of tin, like dollars;\nand, in appearance, blows an earthen pipe-bowl from his nose. In most\nof his tricks he occasionally blows through a large shell (called the\nhha'wee's zoomma'rah), producing sounds like those of a horn. Most\nof his sleight-of-hand performances are nearly similar to those of\nexhibitors of the same class in our own and other countries. Taking a\nsilver finger-ring from one of the bystanders, he puts it in a little\nbox, blows his shell, and says, \"'Efree't change it!\" He then opens the\nbox, and shows, in it, a different ring: shuts the box again; opens\nit, and shows the first ring: shuts it a third time: opens it, and\nshows a melted lump of silver, which he declares to be the ring melted,\nand offers to the owner. The latter insists upon having his ring in\nits original state. The hha'wee then asks for five or ten fud'dahs to\nrecast it; and having obtained this, opens the box again (after having\nclosed it, and blown his shell), and takes out of it the perfect ring.\nHe next takes a larger covered box; puts one of his boy's skull-caps\nin it, blows his shell, opens the box, and out comes a rabbit: the cap\nseems to be gone. He puts the rabbit in again; covers the box; uncovers\nit, and out run two little chickens. These he puts in again, blows his\nshell, uncovers the box, and shows it full of fatee'rehs (or pancakes),\nand koona'feh (which resembles vermicelli): he tells his boys to eat\nits contents; but they refuse to do it without honey. He then takes a\nsmall jug, turns it upside-down, to show that it is empty; blows his\nshell, and hands round the jug full of honey. The boys, having eaten,\nask for water to wash their hands. The hha'wee takes the same jug, and\nhands it filled with water, in the same manner. He takes the box again,\nand asks for the cap; blows his shell, uncovers the box, and pours out\nfrom it, into the boy's lap (the lower part of his shirt held up), four\nor five small snakes. The boy, in apparent fright, throws them down,\nand demands the cap. The hha'wee puts the snakes back into the box;\nblows his shell, uncovers the box, and takes out the cap. Another of\nhis common tricks is to put a number of slips of white paper into a\ntinned copper vessel (the tisht of a seller of sherbet), and to take\nthem out dyed of various colours. He pours water into the same vessel;\nputs in a piece of linen; then gives to the spectators, to drink, the\ncontents of the vessel, changed to sherbet of sugar. Sometimes he\napparently cuts in two a muslin shawl, or burns it in the middle, and\nthen restores it whole. Often he strips himself of all his clothes,\nexcepting his drawers; tells two persons to bind him, hands and feet,\nand put him in a sack. This done, he asks for a piaster; and some one\ntells him that he shall have it if he will put out his hand and take\nit. He puts out his hand free; draws it back, and is then taken out of\nthe sack, bound as at first. He is put in again, and comes out unbound,\nhanding to the spectators a small tray, upon which are four or five\nlittle plates filled with various eatables; and, if the performance be\nat night, several small lighted candles placed round. The spectators\neat the food.\n\n\nORIGIN OF ATTAR OF ROSES.\n\n\"In the Histoire Generale de l'Empire du Mogol, (_T._ 1, _p_, 327,)\ncompiled by Catrou the Jesuit, from Manouchi's papers, this perfume is\nsaid to have been discovered by accident. Nur-Jahan, the favorite wife\nof the Mogul Jahan-Ghur, among her other luxuries, had a small canal of\nrose water. As she was a walking with the Mogul upon its banks, they\nperceived a thin film upon the water,--it was an essential oil made by\nthe heat of the sun. They were delighted with its exquisite odour, and\nmeans were immediately taken for preparing by art a substance like that\nwhich had been thus fortuitously produced.\"\n\n\nA MAGICIAN'S MIRROR AND BRACELET.\n\nA strange blending of pure science and gross superstition is remarkably\nillustrated in the history of the celebrated Dr. Dee. Born in London\nin 1527, John Dee raised himself at an early age to a great reputation\nfor his learning, in the mathematical sciences especially, in the most\ncelebrated universities in his own country and of the continent. He is\nsaid to have imbibed a taste for the occult sciences while a student at\nLouvain, but there was evidently in his temper much of an enthusiastic\nand visionary turn, which must have given him a taste for such\nmysterious pursuits, without the necessity of an external impulse. One\nof the oldest and most generally credited of magical operations, was\nthat of bringing spirits or visions into a glass or mirror, a practice\nwhich has continued to exist in the East even to the present day, and\nwhich prevailed to a very considerable extent in all parts of Western\nEurope during the sixteenth century. The process was not a direct one,\nfor the magician did not himself see the vision in the mirror, but\nhe had to depend upon an intermediate agent, a sort of familiar, who\nin England was known by the name of a _skyrer_, and whose business\nit was to look into the mirror and describe what he saw. Dr. Dee's\nprincipal skyrer was one Edward Kelly, and during his connexion with\nhim, Dee kept an exact diary of all his visions, a portion of which was\nprinted in a folio volume by Merio Casaubon in 1659. In this journal\nmore than one magical mirror is evidently mentioned, and that which we\nhere engrave is believed to have been of the number. It is now in the\ncollection of Lord Londesborough.\n\n[Illustration [++] Magician's Mirror.]\n\nIt is a polished oval slab of black stone, of what kind we have not\nbeen able to ascertain, but evidently of a description which was not\nthen common in Western Europe, and Dr. Dee, who died in 1608, may have\nconsidered it as extremely precious, and as only to be obtained by\nsome extraordinary means. It was one of the ornaments of the museum\nof Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill; and Walpole has attached to it\na statement of its history in his own hand-writing, from which we\nlearn that it was \"long\" in the possession of the Mordaunts, earls\nof Peterborough, in whose catalogue it was described as \"the black\nstone into which Dr. Dee used to call his spirits.\" It passed from\nthat collection to Lady Elizabeth Germaine, from whom it went to\nJohn Campbell, Duke of Argyll, whose son, Lord Frederick Campbell,\npresented it to Horace Walpole. This interesting relic was bought at\nthe Strawberry Hill sale for the late Mr. Pigott; and at the more\nrecent sale of that gentleman's collection, it passed into the hands\nof Lord Londesborough. Its history and authenticity appear, therefore,\nto be very well made out. The family of the Mordaunts held a prominent\nplace in English history during the whole of the seventeenth century,\nand it is hardly probable that they would have received an object like\nthis without having good reason for believing that its history was\nauthentic. It is believed that Butler alluded to this identical stone\nin his well-known lines:--\n\n    \"Kelly did all his feats upon\n     The devil's looking-glass or stone,\n     When, playing with him at bo-peep,\n     He solv'd all problems ne'er so deep.\"\n                 _Hudibras._ Part II. Canto 3.\n\n[Illustration [++] Magician's Bracelet.]\n\nThe regular fitting out of the magician at this period was a\ncomplicated process. He required his implements of various kinds, and,\nin addition to these, various robes, made especially for the occasion,\nwith girdles and head-pieces, and magical rings and bracelets. A\nvery curious example of the last-mentioned article of the magician's\naccoutrements, is represented in the preceding cut, about one-third\nthe size of the original. It was purchased by Lord Londesborough in\n1851, and had formerly been in the possession of Charles Mainwaring,\nEsq., of Coleby, near Lincoln. It is of silver, the letters of the\ninscription round the bracelet being engraved and filled with niello.\nThis inscription may be distinctly read as follows:--\n\n  + IONA + IHOAT + LONA + HELOI + YSSARAY + || +\n  MEPHENOLPHETON + AGLA + ACHEDION + YANA +\n  BACHIONODONAVALI M[*] ILIOR + || BACHIONODONAVALI M[**] ACH +\n\nSome explanation of this mysterious inscription might, no doubt, be\nobtained by a diligent comparison of some of the numerous works on\nmagic compiled in the age of Dr. Dee, and in the seventeenth century.\nThe bracelet has had four pendants on it, of which three still remain,\nwith the silver setting of the fourth. One of the pendants which remain\nis a brownish pebble, secured by three flat bands of silver; another is\nan oval cage of strong silver wire, containing a nut of some kind and\nsome other vegetable substance; the third has on one side a circular\nconvex pebble set in silver, and on the back three smaller pebbles.\n\n\nLUNAR INFLUENCE IN DEATH.\n\nMany modern physicians have stated the opinions of the ancients as\nregards lunar influence in diseases, but none have pushed their\ninquiries with such indefatigable zeal as the late Dr. Moseley; he\naffirms that almost all people in extreme age die at the new or at full\nmoon, and this he endeavours to prove by the following records:--\n\n  Thomas Parr died at the age of 152, two days after the full moon.\n  Henry Jenkins died at the age of 169, the day of the new moon.\n  Elizabeth Steward, 124, the day of the new moon.\n  William Leland, 140, the day after the new moon.\n  John Effingham, 144, two days after full moon.\n  Elizabeth Hilton, 121, two days after the full moon.\n  John Constant, 113, two days after the new moon.\n\nThe doctor then proceeds to show, by the deaths of various illustrious\npersons, that a similar rule holds good with the generality of mankind:\n\n  Chaucer, 25th October, 1400, the day of the first quarter.\n  Copernicus, 24th May, 1543, day of the last quarter.\n  Luther, 18th February, 1546, three days after the full.\n  Henry VIII., 28th January, 1547, the day of the first quarter.\n  Calvin, 27th May, 1564, two days after the full.\n  Cornaro, 26th April, 1566, day of the first quarter.\n  Queen Elizabeth, 24th March, 1603, day of the last quarter.\n  Shakspeare, 23rd April, 1616, day after the full.\n  Camden, 2nd November, 1623, day before the new moon.\n  Bacon, 9th April, 1626, one day after last quarter.\n  Vandyke, 9th April, 1641, two days after full moon.\n  Cardinal Richelieu, 4th December, 1642, three days before full moon.\n  Doctor Harvey, 30th June, 1657, a few hours before the new moon.\n  Oliver Cromwell, 3rd September, 1658, two days after full moon.\n  Milton, 15th November, 1674, two days before the new moon.\n  Sydenham, 29th December, 1689, two days before the full moon.\n  Locke, 28th November, 1704, two days before the full moon.\n  Queen Anne, 1st August, 1714, two days after the full moon.\n  Louis XIV., 1st September, 1715, a few hours before the full moon.\n  Marlborough, 16th June, 1722, two days before the full moon.\n  Newton, 20th March, 1726, two days before the new moon.\n  George I., 11th June, 1727, three days after new moon.\n  George II., 25th October, 1760, one day after full moon.\n  Sterne, 13th September, 1768, two days after new moon.\n  Whitfield, 18th September, 1770, a few hours before the new moon.\n  Swedenburg, 19th March, 1772, the day of the full moon.\n  Linnaeus, 10th January, 1778, two days before the full moon.\n  The Earl of Chatham, 11th May, 1778, the day of the full moon.\n  Rousseau, 2nd July, 1778, the day after the first quarter.\n  Garrick, 20th January, 1779, three days after the new moon.\n  Dr. Johnson, 14th December, 1784, two days after the new moon.\n  Dr. Franklin, 17th April, 1790, three days after the new moon.\n  Sir Joshua Reynolds, 23rd February, 1792, the day after the new moon.\n  Lord Guildford, 5th August, 1722, three days after the full moon.\n  Dr. Warren, 23rd June, 1797, a day before the new moon.\n  Burke, 9th July, 1797, at the instant of the full moon.\n  Macklin, 11th July, 1797, two days after full moon.\n  Wilkes, 26th December, 1797, the day of the first quarter.\n  Washington, 15th December, 1790, three days after full moon.\n  Sir W. Hamilton, 6th April, 1803, a few hours before the full moon.\n\nThe doctor winds up this extract from the bills of mortality by the\nfollowing appropriate remark: \"Here we see the moon, as she shines on\nall alike, so she makes no distinction of persons in her influence:\n\n  \"----aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,\n  Regumque turres.\"\n\n\nGLUTTONY OF THE MONKS.\n\nKing John, pointing to a fat deer said, \"See how plump he is, and yet\nhe has never heard mass!\" John might have alluded to the gluttony of\nthe monks, which was notorious in his days; for Giraldus Cambrensis\nsays, that from the monks of St. Swithin's, Winchester, Henry II.\nreceived a formal complaint against the abbot for depriving his priests\nof three out of thirteen dishes at every meal. The monks of Canterbury\nexceeded those of St. Swithin; they had seventeen dishes every day, and\neach of these cooked with spices and the most savoury and rich sauces.\n\n\nANCIENT BELL-SHRINE.\n\nThe annexed engraving represents one of the most valuable and curious\necclesiastical relics of the early Christian Period that has ever been\ndiscovered. It consists of a bronze bell-shrine and bell, found about\nthe year 1814, on the demolition of the ruined wall at Torrebhlaurn\nfarm, in the parish of Kilmichael-Glassrie, Argyleshire, and now one of\nthe most valued treasures in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries.\n\n[Illustration [++] Bronze Bell-Shrine and Bell.]\n\nThat it must have been deposited in the wall where it was found,\nfor the purpose of concealment at a period of danger and alarm,\nseems abundantly obvious; but of the occasion of this concealment no\ntradition has been preserved. Within the beautiful case is a rude\niron bell, so greatly corroded that its original form can only be\nimperfectly traced; yet this, and not the shrine, was obviously the\nchief object of veneration, and may, indeed, be assumed, with much\nprobability, to be some centuries older than the ornamental case in\nwhich it is preserved. Whether it shall be thought to have been an\nancient reliquary or a mass-bell, or whatever else may be conjectured\nof its nature and use, it may fairly be presumed to have remained\nin the neglected spot in which it was found since the subversion\nof the Roman Catholic worship in the sixteenth century, when the\nfavoured objects of external adoration and reverence, under the\nformer superstition, came to be regarded with impatient contempt and\nabhorrence.\n\nIt is deserving of attention that the figure of our crucified Saviour\nin invested with a regal crown, and not with a crown of thorns, as\nis usually the case. The brass chain or collar, of rude workmanship,\nabout three feet six inches long, now attached to the case, and the\nextremities of which are connected with a small cross of the same\nmetal, was discovered at the same time, not far from the case.\n\n\nEGYPTIAN GARDEN.\n\nThe diagram which accompanies this article is an Egyptian sketch of\nan Egyptian garden; and it is expressly curious, both as an example\nof the pictorial art of the period, and as giving us an idea of the\npleasure-gardens of Egypt in its most flourishing days.\n\n[Illustration [++] Egyptian Garden.]\n\nThe garden here represented stood beside a canal of the Nile, with\nan avenue of trees between it and the bank, on which side was the\nentrance. It was surrounded by an embattled wall, through which a noble\ngateway gave access to the garden. The central space was occupied by\nthe vineyard, surrounded by its own wall, in which the vines were\ntrained on trellises supported by slender pillars. At the further end\nof the vineyard was a building of three storeys, the windows from which\nopened over the luxurious foliage and purple clusters, regaling the\nsenses both of sight and smell. Four large tanks of water kept the\nvegetation well supplied with nutritive moisture; and, with the smooth\nand verdant turf which borders them, the water-fowl that sported over\nthe surface, and the lotus-flowers that sprang from their clear depths,\nadded a new beauty to the scene. Near the tanks stood summer-houses,\noverlooking beds of various flowers, and sheltered from the sun by\nsurrounding trees. Two enclosed spaces between the tanks, being filled\nwith trees, were probably devoted to some species of particular rarity,\nor remarkable for the excellence of their fruit. Rows of date trees and\nTheban palms, alternating with other trees, bordered the whole garden,\nand environed the vineyard wall.\n\nThe very numerous allusions to gardens in the Sacred Scriptures show\nthat the Hebrews inherited the same taste as the Egyptians. In these\nallusions we find the same characteristics that are so observable in\nthose depicted on the monuments; such as the absolute necessity of\nwater, the custom of having pools in them, the advantage of a situation\nby the side of a river, the practice of enclosing them from intrusion,\nand appropriation of enclosures to particular productions.\n\nWith the early Egyptians the love of flowers seems to have been almost\na passion; they appear to have been in constant request in offerings to\nthe gods, and as ornaments of the person, as decorations of furniture;\nas graceful additions to several entertainments, they occur at every\nturn. Flowers were painted on walls, furniture, dresses, chairs, boxes,\nboats, and, in short, on whatever was wished to be ornamental. Wreaths\nand chaplets were likewise in common use among the Egyptians, and\nartificial flowers were not uncommon.\n\n\nSTATE OF THE MIND DURING SLEEP.\n\nThe following is an instance of phantasms being produced by our\nassociations with bodily sensations, and tends to show how alive our\nfaculties continue during sleep to the highest impressions:--\n\nThe subject of this observation was an officer in the expedition to\nLouisburg in 1758, who had this peculiarity in so remarkable a degree,\nthat his companions in the transport were in the constant habit of\namusing themselves at his expense. They could produce in him any kind\nof dream by whispering in his ear, especially if this was done by a\nfriend with whose voice he had become familiar. One time they conducted\nhim through the whole progress of a trial, which ended in a duel; and\nwhen the parties were supposed to have met, a pistol was put into\nhis hand, which he fired, and was awakened by the report. On another\noccasion they found him asleep on the top of a locker in the cabin,\nwhen they made him believe he had fallen overboard, and exhorted him to\nsave himself by swimming. They then told him that a shark was pursuing\nhim, and entreated him to dive for his life. He instantly did so, and\nwith so much force as to throw himself from the locker upon the cabin\nfloor, by which he was much bruised, and awakened of course. After\nthe landing of the army at Louisburg, his friends found him one day\nasleep in his tent, and evidently annoyed by the cannonading. They\nthen made him believe that he was engaged, when he expressed great\nfear, and showed an evident disposition to run away. Against this they\nremonstrated, but at the same increased his fears by imitating the\ngroans of the wounded and the dying; and when he asked, as he often\ndid, who was hit, they named his particular friends. At last they\ntold him that the man next himself in his company had fallen, when he\ninstantly sprung from his bed, rushed out of the tent, and was only\nroused from his danger and his dream by falling over the tent-ropes. A\nremarkable thing in this case was, that after these experiments he had\nno distinct recollection of his dreams, but only a confused feeling of\noppression or fatigue, and used to tell his friends that he was sure\nthey had been playing some trick upon him. It has been observed that\nwe seldom feel courageous or daring in our dreams, and generally avoid\ndanger when menaced by a foe, or exposed to any probable peril.\n\n\nMUSIC OF THE SEA.\n\nThe mysterious music that is heard in the bay at West Pascagoula,\nis described by those who have listened to it as being singularly\nbeautiful. \"It has, for a long time,\" says Mrs. Child, an American\nauthoress, \"been one of the greatest wonders of the south-west.\nMultitudes have heard it, rising, as it were, from the water, like the\ndrone of a bagpipe, then floating away, away, away, in the distance,\nsoft, plaintive, and fairy-like, as if AEolian harps sounded with richer\nmelody through the liquid element; but none have been able to account\nfor the beautiful phenomenon. There are several legends touching these\nmysterious sounds; but in these days few things are allowed to remain\nmysterious.\" These strange sounds, which thus assume the beauty and\nthe harmony of regular music, are stated to proceed from the cat-fish.\nA correspondent of the _Baltimore Republican_ thus explains the\nphenomenon:--\"During several of my voyages on the Spanish main, in the\nneighbourhood of Paraguay and San Juan de Nicaragua, from the nature of\nthe coast, we were compelled to anchor at a considerable distance from\nthe shore; and every evening, from dark to late night, our ears were\ndelighted with AEolian music, that could be heard beneath the counter of\nour schooner. At first I thought it was the sea-breeze sweeping through\nthe strings of my violin (the bridge of which I had inadvertently left\nstanding); but after examination I found it was not so. I then placed\nmy ear on the rail of the vessel, when I was continually charmed with\nthe most heavenly strains that ever fell upon my ear. They did not\nsound as close to us, but were sweet, mellow, and aerial, like the soft\nbreathings of a thousand lutes, touched by fingers of the deep sea\nnymphs, at an immense distance. Although I have considerable \"music in\nmy soul,\" one night I became tired, and determined to fish. My luck,\nin half-an-hour, was astonishing. I had half filled my bucket with\nthe finest white cat-fish I ever saw; and it being late, and the cook\nasleep, and the moon shining, I filled my bucket with water, and took\nfish and all into my cabin for the night. I had not yet fallen asleep,\nwhen the same sweet notes fell upon my ear; and, getting up, what\nwas my surprise to find my cat-fish discoursing sweet sounds to the\nsides of my bucket! I examined them closely, and discovered that there\nwas attached to each lower lip an excrescence, divided by soft wiry\nfibres. By the pressure of the upper lip thereon, and by the exhalation\nand discharge of breath, a vibration was created, similar to that\nproduced by the breath on the tongue of the Jews' harp.\"\n\n\nTHE ROCK OF CASHEL.\n\nAny work which professed to be a record of what is rare and curious,\nwould surely be incomplete if it did not contain an account of the\ncelebrated Rock of Cashel; for the venerable buildings which crown\nits summit are, from their number, variety, preservation, and site,\ndecidedly the most interesting ruins in the Emerald Isle, and, to\nuse the words of Sir Walter Scott, \"such as Ireland may be proud\nof.\" Cashel, which is distant about one hundred miles from Dublin,\nappears to be a place of high antiquity, and was long the residence\nof the kings of Munster; but as its early history is involved in much\nobscurity, it is uncertain at what period it became a diocesan site. It\nis stated that previous to the year 1101 the buildings on the Rock were\noccupied as a royal residence, and that in that year the hitherto royal\nseat was dedicated solely to ecclesiastical uses.\n\n[Illustration [++] Rock of Cashel.]\n\nThe buildings consist of a round tower, Cormack's chapel, cathedral,\ncastle and monastery; the latter is a few yards detached, and the least\nremarkable of the number; all the former are closely connected. The\nRound Tower, the date and uses of which are in common with those of all\nother similar structures involved in much obscurity, raises its tall\nand yet scarce dilapidated head far above its younger and more decaying\ncompanions. It is fifty-six feet in circumference, and ninety feet\nin height. Cormack's Chapel, which, with the exception of the Round\nTower, is the most ancient structure of the group, was built by Cormack\nM'Carthy, king of Munster, in 1136. It is roofed with stone, and in its\ncapitals, arches, and other features and details, the Norman style is\ndistinctly marked. The numerous ornaments, grotesque heads, and other\ncurious sculptures, which adorn the arches, columns, and pilasters,\nare all in uniformity of style. The building altogether is a perfect\ngem, and the architectural antiquary and the artist will find in it\na most valuable addition to their studies. The cathedral is a noble\nremnant of what is usually termed the pointed Gothic, and contains many\ninteresting relics.\n\nThe rock, which is here presented as it appears from the plain below,\nhas the buildings we have just mentioned on its very summit; it rises\nabruptly from a widely extended fertile country, to a considerable\nheight above the town, and from many parts at a distance it forms a\nvery striking object. On the top of the rock, and around the ruins,\nan area of about three acres has been enclosed, which is open to the\npublic.\n\n\nINSTANCE OF INCREMATION.\n\nLast night (26th September, 1769), say the chronicles of the day, the\nwill of Mrs. Pratt, a widow lady, who lately died at her house in\nGeorge Street, Hanover Square, was punctually fulfilled, by the burning\nof her body to ashes in her grave, in the new burying-ground adjoining\nto Tyburn turnpike.\n\n\nTHE HAWTHORNDEN SWORD.\n\nThe great antiquity of the Scottish claymore is proved by its being\nfigured in the sculptures both of Iona and Oronsay, with considerable\nvariety of details. In some the blade is highly ornamented, and the\nhandle varies in form, but all present the same characteristic, having\nthe guards bent back towards the blade. A curious variety of this\npeculiar form is seen in a fine large two-handed sword preserved at\nHawthornden, the celebrated castle of the Drummonds, where the Scottish\npoet entertained Ben Johnson during his visit to Scotland in 1619. It\nis traditionally affirmed to have been the weapon of Robert Bruce,\nthough little importance can be attached to a reputation which it\nshares with one-half the large two-handed swords still preserved. Our\nengraving is a correct representation of it.\n\n[Illustration [++] Hawthornden Sword.]\n\nThe handle appears to be made from the tusk of the narwhal, and it\nhas four reverse guards, as shown in the cut. The object aimed at by\nthis form of guard, doubtless, was to prevent the antagonist's sword\nglancing off, and inflicting a wound ere he recovered his weapon, and,\nin the last example especially, it seems peculiarly well adapted for\nthe purpose.\n\n\nINSTINCT IN A CAT.\n\nThe following anecdote almost places the cat on a level with the\ndog:--\"A physician of Lyons was requested to inquire into a murder\nthat had been committed on a woman of that city. In consequence of\nthis request he went to the habitation of the deceased, where he\nfound her extended lifeless on the floor, weltering in her blood. A\nlarge white cat was mounted on the cornice of a cupboard, at the far\nend of the apartment, where he seemed to have taken refuge. He sat\nmotionless, with his eyes fixed on the corpse, and his attitude and\nlooks expressing horror and affright. The following morning he was\nfound in the same station and attitude, and when the room was filled\nwith officers of justice, neither the clattering of the soldiers' arms,\nnor the loud conversation of the company, could in the least degree\ndivert his attention. As soon, however, as the suspected persons were\nbrought in, his eyes glared with increased fury, his hair bristled, he\ndarted into the middle of the apartment, where he stopped for a moment\nto gaze at them, and then precipitately retreated under the bed. The\ncountenances of the assassins were disconcerted, and they were now, for\nthe first time, abandoned by their atrocious audacity.\"\n\n\nA TRANCE.\n\nMrs. Godfrey, sister to the Duke of Marlborough, had nearly been\nburied alive; the physicians all declaring that the breath of life was\nirrecoverably gone. Her husband, Colonel Godfrey, had, however, the\npleasure to see her revive, seven days after (that day week, and same\nhour), and what is more, she never knew till the day of her death the\nlength of her trance, or sleep.\n\n\nTHE NUMBER SEVEN.\n\nThe number is composed of the first two perfect numbers, equal and\nunequal, 3 and 4; for the number 2, consisting of repeated unity, which\nis no number, is not perfect, it comprehends the primary numerical\ntriangle or trine, and square or quartile conjunction, considered by\nthe favourers of planetary influence as of the most benign aspect.\nIn six days creation was completed, and the 7th was consecrated to\nrest. On the 7th day of the 7th month, a holy observance was ordained\nto the children of Israel, who feasted 7 days, and remained 7 days\nin tents; the 7th year was directed to be a Sabbath of rest for all\nthings; and at the end of 7 times 7 years commenced the grand jubilee.\nEvery 7th year the land lay fallow; every 7th year there was a general\nrelease from all debts, and all bondmen were set free. From this law\nmay have originated the custom of our binding young men to 7 years'\napprenticeship, and punishing incorrigible offenders by transportation\nfor 7, twice 7, and three times 7, years. Every 7 years the law was\nto be read to the people. Jacob served 7 years for the possession of\nRachael; and also other 7. Noah had 7 days' warning of the flood, and\nwas commanded to take the fowls of the air in by 7, and the clean\nbeasts by 7. The ark touched ground on the 7th month; and in 7 days the\ndove was sent out, and again in 7 days after. The 7 years of plenty,\nand 7 years of famine were foretold in Pharaoh's dream by 7 fat and 7\nlean beasts, and the 7 full and 7 blasted ears of corn. Nebuchadnezzar\nwas 7 years a beast; and the fiery furnace was 7 times hotter to\nreceive Shadrach, &c. A man defiled was, by the Mosaic law, unclean 7\ndays; the young of both animals was to remain with the dam 7 days, and\nat the end of the 7th was to be taken away. By the old law, man was\ncommanded to forgive his offending brother 7 times; but the meekness\nof the revealed law extended his humility to 70 times 7: if Cain shall\nbe avenged 7 times, truly Lamech 70 times 7. In the destruction of\nJericho, 7 priests bore 7 trumpets 7 days; on the 7th they surrounded\nthe wall 7 times; after the 7th, the walls fell. Balaam prepared 7\nyears for a sacrifice; and 7 of Saul's sons were hanged to stay a\nfamine. Laban pursued Jacob 7 days' journey. Job's friends sat 7 days\nand 7 nights, and offered 7 bullocks and 7 rams, as an atonement for\ntheir wickedness. In the 7th year of his reign, King Ahazuerus feasted\n7 days, and on the 7th deputed his 7 chamberlains to find a queen,\nwho was allowed 7 maidens to attend her. Miriam was cleansed of her\nleprosy by being shut up 7 days. Solomon was 7 years in building the\nTemple, at the dedication of which he feasted 7 days; in the Temple\nwere 7 lamps; 7 days were appointed for an atonement upon the altar,\nand the priest's son was ordained to wear his father's garments 7\ndays. The children of Israel eat unleavened bread 7 days. Abraham gave\n7 ewe-lambs to Abimelech, as a memorial for a well. Joseph mourned 7\ndays for Jacob. Naaman was cleansed of his leprosy by bathing 7 times\nin Jordan. The Rabbins say that God employed the power of this number\nto perfect the greatness Of Samuel, his name answering the value of\nthe letters in the Hebrew word, which signifies 7; whence Hannah his\nmother, in her thanksgiving, says, the barren hath brought forth 7. In\nScripture are enumerated 7 resurrections: the widow's son, by Elias;\nthe Shunamite's son, by Elisha; the soldier who touched the bones of\nthe prophet; the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue; the widow's\nson of Nain; Lazarus, and our Lord. The apostles chose 7 deacons.\nEnoch, who was translated, was the 7th from Adam; and Jesus Christ was\nthe 77th in a direct line. Our Lord spoke 7 times on the cross, on\nwhich he was 7 hours; he appeared 7 times; and after 7 times 7 days\nsent the Holy Ghost. In the Lord's prayer are 7 petitions, contained in\n7 times 7 words, omitting those of mere grammatical connexion; within\nthis number are concealed all the mysteries of apocalypse revealed\nto the 7 churches of Asia. There appeared seven golden candlesticks\nand 7 stars in the hand of him that was in the midst; 7 lambs before\nthe 7 spirits of God; the book with 7 seals; the lamb with 7 horns\nand 7 eyes; 7 angels with 7 trumpets; 7 kings; 7 thunders; 7,000 men\nslain. The dragon with 7 heads and 7 crowns; and the beast with 7\nheads; 7 angels bearing 7 plagues, and 7 vials of wrath. The vision of\nDaniel was of 70 weeks and the elders of Israel were 70. There were\nalso 7 heavens, 7 planets (query), 7 stars, 7 wise men, 7 champions\nof Christendom, 7 notes in music, 7 primary colours, 7 deadly sins,\nand 7 sacraments in the Catholic church. The 7th son was considered\nas endowed with pre-eminent wisdom; and the 7th son of a 7th son is\nstill thought to possess the power of healing diseases spontaneously.\nPerfection is likened to gold 7 times purified in the fire; and we\nyet say you frightened me out of my 7 senses. The opposite sides of a\ndice make 7, whence the players at hazard make 7 the main. Hippocrates\nsays the septenary number, by its occult virtues, tends to the\naccomplishment of all things, to be the dispense of life, and fountain\nof all its changes; and, like Shakespeare, he divided the life of man\ninto 7 ages; for as the moon changes her phases every seven days,\nthis number influences all sublunary beings. The teeth spring out on\nthe 7th month, and are shed and renewed in the 7th year, when infancy\nis changed into childhood; at twice 7 years puberty begins; at three\ntimes 7 the faculties are developed, and manhood commences, and we are\nbecome legally competent to all civil acts; at four times 7 man is in\nfull possession of all his strength; at five times 7 he is fit for the\nbusiness of the world; at six times 7 he becomes grave and wise, or\nnever: at 7 times 7 he is in his apogee, and from that time decays;\nat eight times 7 he is in his first climacterick; at nine times 7, or\n63, he is in his last or grand climacterick, or year of danger; and\nten times 7, or three score and ten, has, by the royal prophet, been\npronounced the natural period of human life.\n\n\nSUPERSTITIOUS LEGEND.\n\nWe are told that when St. Helena, of pious memory, had discovered the\ntrue Cross of Christ, she permitted various fragments to be taken from\nit, which were encased, some in gold, and some in gems, and conveyed to\nEurope, leaving the principal or main part of the wood in the charge\nof the Bishop of Jerusalem, who exhibited it annually at Easter, until\nChosroes, king of Persia, plundered Jerusalem in the reign of the\nemperor Phocas, and took away this holy relic.\n\nBefore this fatal event we are taught to believe, by Rigordus, an\nhistorian of the thirteenth century, that the mouths of Christians used\nto be supplied with 30, or in some instances, no doubt according to\ntheir faith, with 32 teeth; but that _after_ the Cross was stolen by\nthe infidels no mortal has ever been allowed more than 23!\n\n\nORAEFA MOUNTAIN IN ICELAND.\n\nThis mountain, which is the loftiest in Iceland, has been rendered\ncelebrated by an eruption which took place about a century ago. Nothing\ncan be more striking than the account given of this calamity by the\naged minister of the parish. He was in the midst of his service on\nthe Sabbath, when the agitation of the earth gave warning that some\nalarming event was to follow. Rushing from the church, he saw a peak of\nthe neighbouring mountain alternately heaved up and sinking; till at\nlast, the stone, of which this portion of the mountain was composed,\nran down in a melted state into the plain, like melted metal from a\ncrucible, filling it to such a height, that no more of the mountain,\nwhich formerly towered to such a height, remains, than about the size\nof a bird; volumes of water being in the meantime thrown forth in a\ndeluge from the crater, and sweeping away whatever they encountered in\ntheir course. The Oraefa then broke forth, hurling large masses of ice\nto a great distance; fire burst out in every direction from its side;\nthe sky was darkened by the smoke and ashes, so that the day could\nhardly be distinguished from the night. This scene of horror continued\nfor more than three days, during which the whole region was converted\ninto utter desolation.\n\n\nTHE SETON SWORD.\n\n[Illustration [++] Seton Sword.]\n\nThe two-handed sword, which was introduced later than the claymore,\nthough still so familiar to us, is perhaps the most interesting, in an\narchaeological point of view, of all the military relics pertaining\nto the Medieval Period. The huge, ponderous, and unwieldy weapon,\nseems the fittest emblem that could be devised, of the rude baron of\nthe thirteenth century, who lived by \"the good old rule\" of physical\nforce, and whose hardy virtues, not unsuited to an illiterate age--are\nstrangely mistaken for a chivalry such as later ages have not seen.\nCalmly reasoning from this characteristic heirloom, we detect in it the\nevidence of just such hardy, skilless, overbearing power, as history\ninforms us was the character of the medieval baron, before the rise of\nthe burgher class readjusted the social balance by the preponderance\nof rival interests. The weapon figured here is a remarkably fine and\nunusually large specimen of the old Scottish two-handed sword, now in\nthe possession of George Seton, Esq., representative of the Setons of\nCariston. It measures forty-nine inches in the blade, five feet nine\ninches in entire length, and weighs seven and a half pounds. But the\nchief interest of this old relic arises from the well-authenticated\nfamily traditions which associate it with the memory of its first\nknightly owner, Sir Christopher Seton of that Ilk, from whom some of\nthe oldest scions of the Scottish peerage have been proud to trace\ntheir descent. He was married to Christian, sister of King Robert\nthe Bruce, whom he bravely defended at the battle of Methven. He was\nshortly after taken prisoner by Edward I., and basely hanged as a\ntraitor.\n\n\nSTYLE OF LIVING IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nThe most perfect notion of the living and domestic arrangements of\nthe old English nobility and gentry will be found in the entries of\nwhat were called the Household Books of the times. One of the most\ncelebrated of these records is the _Northumberland Household Book_,\nbeing the regulations of the establishment of the fifth earl of\nNorthumberland, at his castles of Wrenill and Lekinfield, in Yorkshire,\nbegun in 1512. No baron's family was on a nobler or more splendid\nfooting. It consisted of one hundred and sixty-six persons, masters\nand servants; fifty-seven strangers were reckoned upon every day; on\nthe whole two hundred and twenty-three. During winter they fed mostly\non salt meat and salt fish; and with that view there was a provision of\none hundred and sixty gallons of mustard per year; so that there cannot\nbe any thing more erroneous than the magnificent ideas formed of \"the\nroast beef of _Old_ England.\" On flesh days, (that is, when meat was\nnot forbidden by the Catholic religion), through the year, breakfast\nfor my lord and lady was a loaf of bread, two manchets, a quart of\nbeer, a quart of wine, half a chine of mutton, or a chine of beef\nboiled. On meagre days (or when meat was forbidden), a loaf of bread,\ntwo manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, a dish of butter, a\npiece of salt fish, or a dish of buttered eggs. During Lent, a loaf\nof bread, two manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, two pieces\nof salt fish, six baconed herrings, four white herrings, or a dish of\nsprats. There was as little variety in other meals, except on festival\ndays; and this way of living was, at the time, high luxury. There were\nbut two cooks to dress victuals for two hundred persons; and fowls,\npigeons, plovers, and partridges were prohibited as delicacies, except\nat my lord's table. The table-cloth was washed about once a month; no\nsheets were used; and only forty shillings were allowed for washing\nthroughout the year. The family rose at six in the morning, dined at\nten, and supped at four in the afternoon; and the castle gates were\nshut at nine. Mass was said in the chapel at six o'clock, that all the\nservants might rise early. The earl passed the year at three country\nseats, but he had furniture only for one: he carried every thing along\nwith him, beds, tables, chairs, kitchen utensils; and seventeen carts\nand one waggon conveyed the whole: one cart sufficed for all his\nkitchen utensils, cooks' beds, &c. There were in the establishment\neleven priests, besides seventeen persons, chanters, musicians, &c.,\nbelonging to the chapel. No mention is made of plate, but only of the\nhiring of pewter vessels. Wine was allowed in abundance for the lord's\ntable, but the beer for the hall was poor indeed, only a quarter of\nmalt being allowed for two hogsheads. The servants seem all to have\nbought their own clothes from their wages. Every thing in the household\nwas done by order, with the pomp of proclamation; and laughable as it\nmay now seem, an order was issued for the right making of mustard,\nbeginning \"It seemeth good to us and our council.\"\n\n\nANECDOTE OF A TERRIER.\n\nA terrier, known to Professor Owen, was taught to play at hide and seek\nwith his master, who summoned him, by saying \"Let us have a game;\" upon\nwhich the dog immediately hid his eyes between his paws, in the most\nhonourable manner, and when the gentleman had placed a sixpence, or a\npiece of cake in a most improbable place, he started up and invariably\nfound it. His powers were equalled by what was called a fox-terrier,\nnamed <DW2>, who would hide his eyes, and suffer those at play with\nhim to conceal themselves before he looked up. If his play-fellow\nhid himself behind a window-curtain, <DW2> would, for a certain time,\ncarefully pass that curtain, and look behind all the others, behind\ndoors, etc., and when he thought he had looked long enough, seize the\nconcealing curtain and drag it aside in triumph. The drollest thing,\nhowever, was to see him take his turn of hiding; he would get under a\nchair, and fancy that he was not seen; of course, those at play with\nhim pretended not to see him, and it was most amusing to witness his\nagitation as they passed. When he was ill he had been cured by some\nhomoeopathic globules, and ever after, if anything were the matter with\nhim, he would stand near the medicine box, and hold his mouth open.\n\n\nCUTTING A WIFE OFF WITH A SHILLING.\n\nIn the year 1772, died at Lambeth, J---- G----e, Esq. In his will was\nfound the following remarkable clause:--\"Whereas, it was my misfortune\nto be made very uneasy by Elizabeth G----, my wife, for many years,\nfrom our marriage, by her turbulent behaviour; for she was not content\nwith despising my admonitions, but she contrived every method to make\nme unhappy; she was so perverse in her nature, that she would not\nbe reclaimed, but seemed only to be born to be a plague to me; the\nstrength of Sampson, the knowledge of Homer, the prudence of Augustus,\nthe cunning of Pyrrhus, the patience of Job, the subtlety of Hannibal,\nand the watchfulness of Hermogenes, could not have been sufficient to\nsubdue her; for no skill or force in the world would make her good;\nand, as we have lived several years separate, and apart from each other\neight years, and she having perverted her son to leave and totally\nabandon me; therefore I give her one shilling only.\"\n\n\nWEALTH OF THE JEWS.\n\nAbout the year 1707, the Jews offered Lord Godolphin, Minister of Queen\nAnne, to pay L500,000, (and they would have made it a million,) if the\ngovernment would allow them to purchase the town of Brentford, with\nleave of settling there entirely, with full privileges of trade, &c.\nLord Godolphin did not comply with the request, and a curious reason\nis assigned by Dean Lockier, because it would provoke two of the most\npowerful bodies in the nation, the clergy and the merchants. The Jews\nhad better success with Oliver Cromwell: they offered him L60,000 to\nhave a synagogue in London. He took the money, and they had their\ntemple.\n\n\nGAMBLING EXTRAORDINARY.\n\nThe following instance of frantic or drunken gambling appeared in the\n_Times_ of April 17, 1812:--\n\n\"On Wednesday evening an extraordinary investigation took place at\nBow Street. Croker, the officer, was passing the Hampstead Road; he\nobserved at a short distance before him two men on a wall, and directly\nafter saw the tallest of them, a stout man about six feet high,\nhanging by his neck from a lamp-post, attached to the wall, being that\ninstant tied up and turned off by the short man. This unexpected and\nextraordinary sight astonished the officer; he made up to the spot with\nall speed, and just after he arrived there, the tall man who had been\nhanged, fell to the ground, the handkerchief with which he had been\nsuspended having given way. Croker produced his staff, said he was\nan officer, and demanded to know of the other man the cause of such\nconduct; in the mean time the man who had been hanged recovered, got\nup, and on Croker interfering, gave him a violent blow on the nose,\nwhich nearly knocked him backward. The short man was endeavouring to\nmake off; however, the officer procured assistance, and both were\nbrought to the office, when the account they gave was, that they worked\non canals. They had been together on Wednesday afternoon, tossed up\nfor money, and afterwards for their clothes, the tall man who was\nhanged won the other's jacket, trowsers and shoes; they then tossed\nup which should hang the other, and the short one won the toss. They\ngot upon the wall, the one to submit, and the other to hang him on\nthe lamp-iron. They both agreed in this statement. The tall one who\nhad been hanged said, if he won the toss, he would have hanged the\nother. He said, he then felt the effects on his neck at the time he\nwas hanging, and his eyes was so much swelled that he saw double. The\nmagistrates expressed their horror and disgust, and ordered the man who\nhad been hanged to find bail for the violent and unjustifiable assault\nupon the officer, and the short one for hanging the other. Not having\nbail, they were committed to Bridewell for trial.\"\n\n\nOLD BOOKS.\n\nThe Pentateuch and the history of Job are the most ancient books in\nthe world; and in profane literature the works of Homer and Hesiod.\nThe first book known to have been written in our own vernacular was\n\"The Confessions of Richard, Earl of Cambridge,\" _temp._ 1415; and the\nearliest English ballad is supposed to be the \"Cuckoo Song,\" which\ncommences in the following style:--\n\n    \"Sumer is icumen in\n     Lhude sing cuccu,\n     Groweth sed, and bloweth med,\n     And springth ye wede nu:\n         Singe cuccu.\"\n\n\nFOSSIL REPTILE; THE PTERODACTYLUS.\n\nThe pterodactylus was a flying animal. It had the wings of a bat, and\nthe structure of a reptile; jaws with sharp teeth, and claws with long\nhooked nails. The power which it had of flying was not by means of its\nribs, nor by wings without fingers, as in birds, but by wings supported\nby one very elongated toe, the others being short and furnished with\nclaws. The remains of this animal were brought under examination by M.\nCollini, director of the Museum of the Elector Palatine at Manheim.\nThere was at first some discussion as to the actual character of the\nanimal. M. Blumenbach supposed it to be a bird, and M. de Soemmering\nclassed it among the bats. M. Cuvier, however, maintained that it was\na reptile, and showed that all its bones, from the teeth to the claws,\npossessed the characters which distinguish that class of animals. But\nstill it differed from all other reptiles in possessing the capability\nof flying. It is probable that it could at pleasure fold up its wings\nin the same manner as birds, and might suspend itself on branches\nof trees by its fore toes, though it possessed the power of sitting\nupright on its hind feet. This is the most anomalous of all the fossil\nreptiles.\n\n\nTIGER CAVE AT CUTTACK.\n\nThe geographical distribution of the rock-cut caves of the Buddhists in\nIndia is somewhat singular, more than nine-tenths of those now known\nbeing found within the limits of the Bengal Presidency. The remainder\nconsist of two groups, those of Behar and Cuttack, neither of which\nare important in extent, in Bengal; one only, that of Mahavellipore,\nin Madras; and two or three not very important groups which have been\ntraced in Afghanistan and the Punjaub.\n\nOne of the most remarkable of these caves is that at Cuttack, which is\ncalled the Tiger cave--being in fact a large mass of rock, carved into\na form intended to represent the head of that animal, whose extended\njaws form the verandah leading into a small apartment excavated in the\ninterior of the skull: our engraving is a correct representation of it.\n\n[Illustration [++] Tiger Cave at Cuttack.]\n\nGenerally speaking, these single cells have a porch of two pillars\nto protect the doorway, which leads into a small room, 10 or 12 ft.\nsquare, constituting the whole cave. Buildings on precisely the same\nplan are still very common in India, except that now, instead of being\nthe abode of a hermit, the cell is occupied by an image of some god or\nother, and is surmounted by a low dome, or pyramidal spire, converting\nit into a temple of some pretensions. The lower part, however, of these\nsmall temples is very similar to the rock-cut hermitages of which we\nare speaking.\n\n\nTHE JEWS IN ENGLAND.\n\nWilliam the Conqueror permitted great numbers of Jews to come over from\nRouen, and to settle in England in the last year of his reign. Their\nnumber soon increased, and they spread themselves throughout most of\nthe cities and capital towns in England where they built synagogues.\nThere were fifteen hundred at York about the year 1189. At Bury, in\nSuffolk, is a very complete remain of a Jewish synagogue of stone in\nthe Norman style, large and magnificent. Hence it was that many of the\nlearned English ecclesiastics of those times became acquainted with\ntheir books and their language. In the reign of William Rufus, the Jews\nwere remarkably numerous at Oxford, and had acquired considerable\nproperty; and some of their Rabbis were permitted to open a school\nin the university, where they instructed not only their own people,\nbut many Christian students in Hebrew literature, about the year\n1094. Within 200 years after their admission or establishment by the\nConqueror, they were banished from the kingdom. This circumstance was\nhighly favourable to the circulation of their learning in England. The\nsuddenness of their dismission obliged them for present subsistence,\nand other reasons, to sell their moveable goods of all kinds, among\nwhich were large quantities of all Rabbinical books. The monks\nin various parts availed themselves of the distribution of these\ntreasures. At Huntingdon and Stamford there was a prodigious sale of\ntheir effects, containing immense stores of Hebrew manuscripts, which\nwere immediately purchased by Gregory of Huntingdon, Prior of the abbey\nof Ramsey. Gregory speedily became an adept in the Hebrew, by means\nof these valuable acquisitions, which he bequeathed to his monastery\nabout the year 1250. Other members of the same convent, in consequence\nof these advantages, are said to have been equal proficients in the\nsame language, soon after the death of Prior Gregory, among whom were\nRobert Dodford, Librarian of Ramsey, and Laurence Holbech, who compiled\na Hebrew Lexicon. At Oxford a great number of their books fell into the\nhands of Roger Bacon, or were bought by his brethren the Franciscan\nfriars of that university.\n\n\nGAME PRESERVES AT CHANTILLY.\n\nThe establishment at Chantilly, which formerly belonged to the great\nfamily of Conde, included 21 miles of park, and 48 miles of forest. The\nhorses, when the family were at that place, were above 500. The dogs,\n60 to 80 couple: the servants, above 500. The stables the finest and\nbest in Europe. We shall now present to the sporting and un-sporting\nreader, for both will lift up their eyes, a list of game killed, year\nby year, through a series of thirty-two years--beginning with the year\n1748, ending with the year 1779:--\n\n  _List of the Game._\n      54,878          24,029          37,209          19,932\n      37,160          27,013          42,902          27,164\n      58,712          26,405          31,620          30,429\n      39,892          33,055          25,994          30,859\n      32,470          50,812          18,479          25,813\n      39,893          40,234          18,550          50,666\n      32,470          26,267          26,371          13,304\n      16,186          25,953          19,774          17,566\n\nNow let us give (of birds and beasts) their bill of mortality; that\nis the numbers, in detail, of each specific description, registered\nas below, and detailed to have been killed at Chantilly, in the\nabove-mentioned series of years. Hares, 77,750; rabbits, 587,470;\npartridges, 117,574; red ditto, 12,426; pheasants, 86,193; quails,\n19,696; rattles (the male quail), 449; woodcocks, 2,164; snipes, 2,856;\nducks, 1,353; wood-piquers, 317; lapwings, 720; becfique (small birds\nlike our wheatear), 67; curlews, 32; oyes d'Egypte, 3; oyes sauvage,\n14; bustards, 2; larks, 106; tudells, 2; fox, 1; crapeaux, 8; thrushes,\n1,313; guynard, 4; stags, 1,712; hinds, 1,682; facons, 519; does,\n1,921; young does, 135; roebucks, 4,669; young ditto, 810; wild boars,\n1,942; marcassins (young boars), 818. A magnificent list of animal\nslaughter, carefully and systematically recorded as achievements.\n\n\nBRITISH PEARLS.\n\nThe river Conway, in North Wales, was of considerable importance,\neven before the Roman invasion, for the pearl mussel (the _Mya\nMargaritifera_ of Linnaeus) and Suetonius acknowledged that one of his\ninducements for undertaking the subjugation of Wales was the pearl\nfishery carried forward in that river. According to Pliny, the mussels,\ncalled by the natives _Kregindilin_, were sought for with avidity by\nthe Romans, and the pearls found within them were highly valued; in\nproof of which it is asserted that Julius Caesar dedicated a breastplate\nset with British pearls to Venus Genetrix, and placed it in her temple\nat Rome. A fine specimen from the Conway is said to have been presented\nto Catherine, consort of Charles II., by Sir Richard Wynne, of Gwydir;\nand it is further said that it has since contributed to adorn the regal\ncrown of England. Lady Newborough possessed a good collection of the\nConway pearls, which she purchased of those who were fortunate enough\nto find them, as there is no regular fishery at present. The late Sir\nRobert Vaughan had obtained a sufficient number to appear at Court with\na button and loop to his hat, formed of these beautiful productions,\nabout the year 1780.\n\n\nFUNERAL ORATION OF FRANCIS THE FIRST.\n\nPierre Duchatel, in a funeral oration on the death of Francis I.,\npublished 1547, took upon himself to affirm, that the soul of the king\nhad gone _direct to Paradise_. This passing over of purgatory gave\noffence to the doctors of the Sorbonne, who sent a deputation to warn\nhim of his error. The prelate being absent, one of his friends received\nthem, and, in reply, gaily said--\"Be not uneasy, gentlemen, every one\nknows that the late king, my master, never stopped long in any one\nplace, however agreeable. Supposing, then, that he went to purgatory,\nbe assured that his stay would be very short.\" This pleasantry disarmed\nthe severity of the doctors, and the affair went no farther.\n\n\nGRAVES OF THE STONE PERIOD.\n\nStone Chambers, which once formed places of interment, are frequently\ndiscovered within large barrows of earth raised by the hands of man.\nThey are to be referred to the period of the Danish Invasion, which\nis generally termed among antiquaries the \"Stone Period,\" because the\nuse of metals was then in a great measure unknown; and while a few are\nto be found in Great Britain, there are many more of them in Denmark.\nThese tombs, which are covered with earth, have most probably contained\nthe remains of the powerful and the rich. They are almost all provided\nwith long entrances, which lead from the exterior of the mound of\nearth to the east or south side of the chambers. The entrances, like\nthe chambers, are formed of large stones, smooth on the side which\nis turned inwards, on which very large roof-stones are placed. The\nchambers, and even the entrances, which are from sixteen to twenty\nfeet in length, are filled with trodden earth and pebbles, the object\nof which, doubtless, was to protect the repose of the dead in their\ngraves, and the contents which are found in them consist of unburnt\nhuman skeletons (which were occasionally placed on a pavement of flat\nor round stones), together with implements and weapons, and tools of\nflint or bone, ornaments, pieces of amber, and urns of clay. In some\ncases smaller chambers have been discovered, annexed to one side of the\npassage which leads to the larger chamber, and one of these smaller\nchambers we have engraved as a specimen of the sort of tombs we are now\ndescribing.\n\n[Illustration [++] Stone Chamber in a Barrow.]\n\nThe above sketch represents a chamber which was discovered in a barrow,\nsituated near Paradis, in the parish of the Vale, in the island of\nGuernsey. On digging into the mound, a large flat stone was soon\ndiscovered; this formed the top, or cap-stone, of the tomb, and on\nremoving it, the upper part of two human skulls were exposed to view.\nOne was facing the north, the other the south, but both disposed\nin a line from east to west. The chamber was filled up with earth\nmixed with limpet-shells, and as it was gradually removed, while the\nexamination was proceeding downwards into the interior, the bones\nof the extremities became exposed to view, and were seen to greater\nadvantage. They were less decomposed than those of the upper part;\nand the teeth and jaws, which were well preserved, denoted that they\nwere the skeletons of adults, and not of old men. The reason why the\nskeletons were found in this extraordinary position it is impossible to\ndetermine. Probably the persons who were thus interred were prisoners,\nslaves, or other subordinates, who were slain--perhaps buried alive--on\noccasion of the funeral of some great or renowned personage, who was\nplaced in the larger chamber at the end of the passage; and this view\nof the case is considerably strengthened by the fact that the total\nabsence of arms, weapons, or vases, in the smaller chamber, denotes\nthat the quality of the persons within it was of less dignity or\nestimation.\n\n\nWAR CHARIOT OF ANCIENT EGYPT.\n\nThis chariot, which is mentioned in various parts of Scripture, and\nmore especially in the description of the pursuit of the Israelites\nby Pharaoh, and of his overthrow in the Red Sea, was a very light\nstructure, consisting of a wooden framework strengthened and adorned\nwith metal, and leather binding, answering to the descriptions which\nHomer has given of those engaged in the Trojan war.\n\n[Illustration [++] War Chariot.]\n\nThe sides were partly, and the back wholly open; and it was so low that\na man could easily step into it from behind; for there was no seat, the\nrider always standing in war or hunting, though when wearied he might\noccasionally sit on the sides, or squat, in eastern fashion, on his\nheels. The body of the car was not hung on the axle _in equilibrio_,\nbut considerably forward, so that the weight was thrown more upon the\nhorses. Its lightness, however, would prevent this from being very\nfatiguing to them, and this mode of placing it had the advantage of\nrendering the motion more easy to the driver. To contribute further\nto this end, the bottom or floor consisted of a network of interlaced\nthongs, the elasticity of which in some measure answered the purpose of\nmodern springs.\n\nThe Egyptian chariots were invariably drawn by two horses abreast,\nwhich were richly caparisoned; it is, perhaps, to the extreme elegance\nand magnificence of their trappings, no less than to their own beauty,\nthat allusion is made in the Song of Songs (1-9), where the royal\nbridegroom addresses his spouse thus: \"I have compared thee, O my love,\nto a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots.\" The chariot of Egypt\nordinarily carried two persons, one of whom acted as the warrior,\nthe other as the charioteer. Occasionally we find three persons in\na chariot, as when two princes of the blood, each bearing the royal\nsceptre, or flabellum, accompanying the king in a state procession,\nrequiring a charioteer to manage the reins.\n\n\nPEACOCKS.\n\nIndia, says Mr. Pennant, gave us peacocks, and we are assured by Knox,\nin his \"History of Ceylon,\" that they are still found in the wild\nstate, in vast flocks, in that island and in Java. So beautiful a bird\ncould not be permitted to be a stranger in the more distant parts; for\nso early as the days of Solomon (1 Kings, x. 22) we find among the\narticles imported in his Tarshish navies, apes and peacocks. A monarch\nso conversant in all branches of natural history, would certainly not\nneglect furnishing his officers with instructions for collecting every\ncuriosity in the country to which they made voyages, which gave him\na knowledge that distinguished him from all the princes of his time.\nAElian relates that they were brought into Greece from some barbarous\ncountry, and that they were held in such high estimation that a male\nand female were valued at Athens at 1,000 _drachmae_, or L32 5s. 10d.\nTheir next step might be to Samos, where they were preserved about the\ntemple of Juno, being the birds sacred to that goddess; and Gellius, in\nhis \"_Noctes Atticae_\" commends the excellency of the Samian peacocks.\nIt is, therefore probable that they were brought there originally for\nthe purposes of superstition, and afterwards cultivated for the uses of\nluxury. We are also told, when Alexander was in India, he found vast\nnumbers of wild ones on the banks of the Hyarotis, and was so struck\nwith their beauty as to appoint a severe punishment on any person that\nkilled them.\n\nPeacocks' crests, in ancient times, were among the ornaments of the\nkings of England. Ernald de Aclent (Acland) paid a fine to King John\nin a hundred and forty palfries, with sackbuts, _lorains_, gilt spurs,\nand peacocks' crests, such as would be for his credit.--Some of our\nregiments of cavalry bear on their helmets, at present, the figure of a\npeacock.\n\n\nROMAN THEATRE AT ORANGE.\n\nOne of the most striking Roman provincial theatres is that of Orange,\nin the south of France. Perhaps it owes its existence, or at all events\nits splendour, to the substratum of Grecian colonists that preceded the\nRomans in that country. Its auditorium is 340 ft. in diameter, but much\nruined, in consequence of the princes of Orange having used this part\nas a bastion in some fortification they were constructing.\n\nThe stage is tolerably preserved. It shows well the increased\nextent and complication of arrangements required for the theatrical\nrepresentations of the age in which it was constructed, being a\nconsiderable advance towards the more modern idea of a play, as\ndistinguished from the stately semi-religious spectacle in which the\nGreeks delighted. The noblest part of the building is the great wall at\nthe back, an immense mass of masonry, 340 ft. in extent, and 116 ft. in\nheight, without a single opening above the basement, and no ornament\nexcept a range of blank arches, about midway between the basement and\nthe top, and a few projecting corbels to receive the footings of the\nmasts that supported the velarium. Nowhere does the architecture of\nthe Romans shine so much as when their gigantic buildings are left to\ntell their own tale by the imposing grandeur of their masses. Whenever\nornament is attempted, their bad taste comes out. The size of their\nedifices, and the solidity of their construction, were only surpassed\nby the Egyptians, and not always by them; and when, as here, their mass\nstands unadorned in all its native grandeur, criticism is disarmed,\nand the spectator stands awe-struck at its majesty, and turns away\nconvinced that truly \"there were giants in those days.\" This is not, it\nis true, the most intellectual way of obtaining architectural effect,\nbut it is the easiest and the most certain to secure the desired result.\n\n\nA PISCATORIAL DOG.\n\nMr. Jukes, in his \"Excursions in and about Newfoundland,\" speaks of a\ndog which appeared to be of the pure breed, and which he thought to\nbe more intelligent than the mixed race. This animal caught his own\nfish, for which purpose he sat on a projecting rock, beneath a fish\nstage, on which the fish were laid to dry, watching the water, the\ndepth being from six to eight feet, and the bottom quite white with\nfish-bones. On throwing a piece of cod-fish into the water, three or\nfour heavy, clumsy-looking fish, called in Newfoundland _sculpins_,\nwould swim to catch it. The instant one turned his broadside towards\nhim, he darted down, and seldom came up without the fish in his mouth.\nHe regularly carried them as he caught them to a place a few yards off,\nwhere he deposited them, sometimes making a pile of fifty or sixty in\nthe day. As he never attempted to eat them, he appeared to fish for his\namusement.\n\n\nPHENOMENA OF SOUND.\n\nIn the gardens of Les Rochas, once the well-known residence of Madame\nde Sevigne, is a remarkable echo, which illustrates finely the\nconducting and reverberating powers of a flat surface. The Chateau\ndes Rochas is situated not far from the interesting and ancient town\nof Vitre. A broad gravel walk on a dead flat conducts through the\ngarden to the house. In the centre of this, on a particular spot, the\nlistener is placed at the distance of about ten or twelve yards from\nanother person, who, similarly placed, addresses him in a low and, in\nthe common acceptation of the term, inaudible whisper, when, \"Lo! what\nmyriads rise!\" for immediately, from thousands and tens of thousands\nof invisible tongues, starting from the earth beneath, or as if every\npebble was gifted with powers of speech, the sentence is repeated with\na slight hissing sound, not unlike the whirling of small shot passing\nthrough the air. On removing from this spot, however trifling the\ndistance, the intensity of the repetition is sensibly diminished, and\nwithin a few feet ceases to be heard. Under the idea that the ground\nwas hollow beneath, the soil has been dug up to a considerable depth;\nbut without discovering any clue to the solution of the mystery.\n\n\nANTIQUE WATCH.\n\n[Illustration [++] Antique Silver Watch Shaped Like a Duck.]\n\nThe above engraving represents a fancy silver watch of the time of\nQueen Elizabeth. It is shaped like a duck; the feathers chased. The\nlower part opens, and the dial plate, which is also of silver, is\nencircled with a gilt ornamental design of floriated scrolls and\nangels' heads. The wheels work on small rubies. It has no maker's\nname. It is preserved in the original case of thin brass, covered with\nblack leather, and ornamented with silver studs, as represented in the\nwoodcut below. It forms one of the curiosities in the Museum of Lord\nLondesborough.\n\n[Illustration [++] Watch in Original Case.]\n\n\nHORSES FEEDING ONE ANOTHER.\n\nM. de Bossanelle, captain of cavalry in the regiment of Beauvilliers,\nrelates in his \"Military Observations,\" printed in Paris, 1760, \"That,\nin the year 1757, an old horse of his company, that was very fine and\nfull of mettle, had his teeth all on a sudden so worn down, that he\ncould not chew his hay and corn; and that he was fed for two months,\nand would still have been so had he been kept, by two horses on each\nside of him, that ate in the same manger. These two horses drew hay\nfrom the rack, which they chewed, and afterwards threw before the\nold horse; that they did the same with the oats, which they ground\nvery small, and also put before him. This (adds he) was observed and\nwitnessed by a whole company of cavalry, officers and men.\"\n\n\nCROSS OF MUIREDACH.\n\n[Illustration [++] Cross of Muiredach.]\n\nFrom the rude pillar-stone marked with the symbol of our\nfaith, enclosed within a circle, the emblem of Eternity, the\nfinely-proportioned and elaborately-sculptured crosses of a later\nperiod are derived. In the latter, the circle, instead of being simply\ncut on the face of the stone, is represented by a ring, binding, as it\nwere, the shaft, arms, and upper portion of the cross together. There\nare two beautiful specimens of this style of cross at Monasterboice,\nnear Drogheda, about thirty-five miles from Dublin. The smaller, more\nbeautiful, and more perfect of these we here engrave. The figures and\nornaments with which its various sides are enriched appear to have been\nexecuted with an unusual degree of artistic skill. It is now almost as\nperfect as it was when, nearly nine centuries ago, the artist, we may\nsuppose, pronounced his work finished, and chiefs and abbots, bards,\nshanachies, warriors, and ecclesiastics, and, perhaps, many a rival\nsculptor, crowded round this very spot full of wonder and admiration\nfor what they must have considered a truly glorious, and, perhaps,\nunequalled work. An inscription in Irish upon the lower part of the\nshaft, desires \"A prayer for Muiredach, by whom was made this cross,\"\nand there is reason for assigning it to an abbot of that name who died\nin the year 924. Its total height is exactly fifteen feet, and it is\nsix in breadth at the arms. The shaft, which at the base measures in\nbreadth two feet six inches, and in thickness one foot nine inches,\ndiminishes slightly in its ascent, and is divided upon its various\nsides by twisted bands into compartments, each of which contains either\nsculptured figures, or tracery of very intricate design, or animals,\nprobably symbolical.\n\n\nCHINESE THERAPEUTICS.\n\nIn the treatment of disease, the Chinese, so fond of classification,\ndivide the medicinal substances they employ into heating, cooling,\nrefreshing, and temperate: their _materia medica_ is contained in\nthe work called the _Pen-tsaocang-mou_ in fifty-two large volumes,\nwith an atlas of plates; most of our medicines are known to them and\nprescribed; the mineral waters, with which their country abounds,\nare also much resorted to; and their emperor, Kang-Hi, has given an\naccurate account of several thermal springs. Fire is a great agent, and\nthe _moxa_ recommended in almost every aliment, while acupuncture is in\ngeneral use both in China and Japan; bathing and _champooing_ are also\nfrequently recommended, and bloodletting is seldom resorted to.\n\nChina has also her animal magnetisers, practising the _Cong fou_, a\nmysterious manipulation taught by the bonzes, in which the adepts\nproduce violent convulsions.\n\nThe Chinese divide their prescriptions into seven categories:\n\n1. The great prescription.\n\n2. The little prescription.\n\n3. The slow prescription.\n\n4. The prompt prescription.\n\n5. The odd prescription.\n\n6. The even prescription.\n\n7. The double prescription.\n\nEach of these receipts being applied to particular cases, and the\ningredients that compose them being weighed with the most scrupulous\naccuracy.\n\nMedicine was taught in the imperial colleges of Pekin; but in every\ndistrict, a physician, who had studied six years, is appointed to\ninstruct the candidate for the profession, who was afterwards allowed\nto practise, without any further studies or examination; and it is\nsaid, that, in general, the physician only receives his fee when\nthe patient is cured. This assertion, however, is very doubtful, as\nthe country abounds in quacks, who, under such restrictions as to\nremuneration, would scarcely earn a livelihood. Another singular, but\neconomical practice prevails amongst them--a physician never pays\na second visit to a patient unless he is sent for. Whatever may be\nthe merits of Chinese practitioners both in medicine and surgery, or\ntheir mode of receiving remuneration, it appears that they are as much\nsubject to animadversion as in other countries:--A missionary having\nobserved to a Chinese, that their medical men had constantly recourse\nto fire in the shape of moxa, red-hot iron, and burning needles; he\nreplied, \"Alas! you Europeans are carved with steel, while we are\nmartyrized with hot iron; and I fear that in neither country will the\nfashion subside, since the operators do not feel the anguish they\ninflict, and are equally paid to torment us or to cure us!\"\n\n\nMARY QUEEN OF SCOTS TO SIR FRANCIS KNOLLYS, FROM BOLTON, SEPT. 1ST,\n1568: HER FIRST LETTER IN ENGLISH.\n\n(MS. Cotton. Calig. C. I. fol. 161 b. _Orig._)\n\nMester Knoleis, y heuv har (I have heard) sum neus from Scotland; y\nsend zou the double off them y vreit (wrote) to the quin (queen) my\ngud Sister, and pres (pray) zou to du the lyk, conforme to that y\nspak zesternicht vnto zou, and sut hesti ansur y refer all to zour\ndiscretion, and wil lipne beter in zour gud delin (dealing) for mi,\n(me) nor y kan persuad zou, nemli in this langasg (language) excus\nmy ivil vreitin (writing) for y neuver vsed it afor, and am hestit\n(hasted). Ze schal si my bel (bill) vhuilk (which) is opne, it is sed\nSeterday my unfrinds wil be vth (with) zou, y sey nething bot trests\nweil, and ze send oni to zour wiff ze mey asur schu (she) wald a bin\nweilcom to apur (poor) strenger hua (who) nocht bien (not being)\naquentet vth her, wil nocht bi ouuer bald (bold) to vreit bot for the\naquentans betuix ous (us: _i_. _e_. herself and Sir Francis Knolles). Y\nwil send zou letle tokne (token) to rember (remember) zou off the gud\nhop y heuu (have) in zou guef (gif--if) ze fend (find) a mit (meet)\nmesager y wald wish ze bestouded (bestowed) it reder (rather) apon her\nnon (than) ani vder; thus effter my commendations y prey God heuu zou\nin his kipin.\n\n  \"Zour asured gud frind.\n\n  \"MARIE R.\n\n  \"Excus my ivel vreitin thes furst tym.\"\n\n\nPHILOSOPHY OF THE BRAMINS.\n\nThe order of creation, which is described in the Institutes of Menu\n(c. 1, pp. 75-8), is remarkable. \"First emerges the subtle ether, to\nwhich philosophers ascribe the quality of conveying sound: from ether,\neffecting a transmutation in form, springs the pure and potent air,\na vehicle of all scents; and air is held endued with the quality of\ntouch: then from air, operating a change, rises light, or fire, making\nobjects visible, dispelling gloom, spreading bright rays; and it is\ndeclared to have the quality of figure: but from light, a change being\neffected, comes water, with the quality of taste: and from water is\ndeposited earth, with the quality of smell; such were they created in\nthe beginning.\" This passage bears at least as strong a resemblance to\nthe chemical philosophy of our days, as certain parts of the Hindoo\nfables bear to the mysteries of the Christian religion. But it is more\ndifficult to account for the philosophy, (if, indeed, it be any thing\nmore than mere theory,) than to explain how the distorted traces of\nChristianity found their way into the fables of Hindostan.\n\n\nFOREIGNERS IN LONDON IN 1567.\n\n\"We learn from the Bishop of London's certificate, that, in December,\n1567, there were then in London and its immediate vicinity, or places\nwhich are now included in the word 'London,' 3838 Dutchmen; 720\nFrenchmen; 137 Italians; 14 Venetians; 56 Spaniards; 25 Portuguese; 2\nGrecians; 2 Blackamores; 1 Dane; and but 58 Scots! making a total of\n4851 foreigners.\"\n\n\nCHANGES OF FORTUNE.\n\nIn 1454, Sir Stephen Forster was Lord Mayor of London. He had been long\nin prison and penury, on account of his inordinate profuseness. It\nchanced that a most fantastical widow, who knew not how to get rid of\nher immense wealth, saw him begging at the gate; she admired his fine\nperson, learnt his history, paid his debts, and married him; asking\nof him only this one favour, that he would lavish away her fortune as\nfast as he could. Forster, probably from perverseness, became a sober\nhusband and a prudent manager, and only expended large sums in adding\na chapel and other advantageous appendages to Ludgate, where he had\nsuffered so many hardships.\n\n\nROMAN VASES IN BLACK WARE.\n\nThe principal subjects represented on vases of ancient Roman pottery\nof black ware are hunting scenes--such as dogs chasing stags,\ndeer, hares,--also, dolphins, ivy wreaths, and engrailed lines;\nand engine-turned patterns. In a few instances men with spears are\nrepresented, but in a rude and debased style of art. The principal form\nis the cup of a jar shape, sometimes with deep oval flutings, as on one\nfound at Castor; but dishes, cups, plates, and mortars are not found in\nthis ware.\n\n[Illustration [++] Roman Vase in Black Ware.]\n\nSome of the vases of this ware have ornaments, and sometimes letters\npainted on them in white slip upon their black ground, as represented\nin our engraving. They are generally of a small size, and of the nature\nof bottles or cups, with inscriptions, such as AVE, hail! VIVAS, may\nyou live! IMPLE, fill; BIBE, drink; VINVM, wine; VIVA, life; VIVE BIBE\nMVLTIS; showing that they were used for purposes purely convivial. Such\nare the vases found at Etaples, near Boulogne, the ancient Gessoriacum,\nand at Mesnil.\n\nSome rarer and finer specimens from Bredene, in the department of Lis,\nhave a moulding round the foot. Great quantities are found in England,\nHolland, Belgium, and France. It is found on the right bank of the\nRhine. A variety of this ware has been lately found at a spot called\nCrockhill, in the New Forest, together with the kilns in which it was\nmade, and a heap of potter's sherds, or pieces spoilt in the baking.\nThe paste was made of the blue clay of the neighbourhood, covered with\nan alkaline glaze of a maroon colour, perhaps the result of imperfect\nbaking; for the pieces when submitted again to the action of the fire,\ndecrepitated and split. They were so much vitrified as to resemble\nmodern stone ware, yet as all of them have proofs of having been\nrejected by the potters, it is probable that this was not the proper\ncolour of the ware. Almost all were of the pinched up fluted shape, and\nhad no bas-reliefs, having been ornamented with patterns laid on in\nwhite colour. The kilns are supposed to be of the third century of our\nera, and the ware was in local use, for some of it was found at Bittern.\n\n\nFRENCH BIBLE.\n\nThere was a French Bible, printed at Paris in 1538, by Anthony\nBonnemere, wherein is related \"that the ashes of the golden calf which\nMoses caused to be burnt, and mixed with the water that was drank by\nthe Israelites, stuck to the beards of such as has had fallen down\nbefore it; by which they appeared with gilt beards, as a peculiar mark\nto distinguish those which had worshipped the calf.\" This idle story\nis actually interwoven with the 32nd chapter of Exodus. And Bonnemere\nsays, in his preface, this French Bible was printed in 1495, at the\nrequest of his most Christian Majesty Charles VIII.; and declares\nfurther that the French translator \"has added nothing but the genuine\ntruths, according to the express terms of the Latin Bible; nor omitted\nanything but what was improper to be translated!\" So that we are to\nlook upon this fiction of the gilded beards as matter of fact; and\nanother of the same stamp, inserted in the chapter above mentioned,\nviz., that, \"Upon Aaron's refusing to make gods for the Israelites,\nthey spat upon him with so much fury and violence that they quite\nsuffocated him.\"\n\n\nSARDONYX RING WITH CAMEO HEAD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, IN THE POSSESSION OF\nREV. LORD THYNNE.\n\n[Illustration [++] Sardonyx Ring.]\n\nThis is said to be the identical ring given by Queen Elizabeth to\nEssex, and so fatally retained by Lady Nottingham. It has descended\nfrom Lady Frances Devereux, Essex's daughter, in unbroken succession\nfrom mother and daughter to the present possessor. The ring is gold,\nthe sides engraved, and the inside of blue enamel; the execution of the\nhead of Elizabeth is of a high order, and whether this be _the_ ring or\nnot, it is valuable as a work of art.\n\n\nCURIOUS WAGERS.\n\nThere have been travelling wagers, and none of the least singular of\nsuch was that of Mr. Whalley, an Irish gentleman (and who we believe\nedited Ben Johnson's works), who, for a very considerable wager (twenty\nthousand pounds, it was said,) set out on Monday the 22nd of September,\n1788, to walk to Constantinople and back again in one year. This wager,\nhowever whimsical, is not without a precedent. Some years ago a baronet\nof good fortune (Sir Henry Liddel) laid a considerable wager that he\nwould go to Lapland, bring home two females of that country, and two\nrein-deer, in a given time. He performed the journey, and effected\nhis purpose in every respect. The Lapland women lived with him about\na year, but desiring to go back to their own country, the baronet\nfurnished them with means and money.\n\n\nCONFECTIONERY ART IN 1660.\n\nThe following is extracted from a work on Cookery, by Robert May,\npublished in 1660. It is entitled the \"_Accomplisht Cook, &c., &c._\n\n\"Triumphs and Trophies in Cookery, to be used in Festival Times, as\nTwelfth Day, &c.:--Make the likeness of a ship in pasteboard with flags\nand streamers, the guns belonging to it of kickses, bind them about\nwith pack-thread and cover them with paste proportionable to the\nfashion of a cannon with carriages; lay them in places convenient, as\nyou see them in ships of war, with such holes and trains of powder that\nthey may all take fire. Place your ships firm in a great charger; then\nmake a salt round about it, and stick therein egg-shells full of sweet\nwater; you may by a great pin take out all the meat out of the egg by\nblowing, and then fill it with rose-water. Then in another charger have\nthe proportion of a stag made of coarse paste, with a broad arrow in\nthe side of him, and his body filled up with claret wine. In another\ncharger at the end of the stag have the proportion of a castle with\nbattlements, percullices, gates, and drawbridges, made of pasteboard,\nthe guns of kickses, and covered with coarse paste as the former; place\nit at a distance from the ship to fire at each other. The stag being\nplaced betwixt them, with egg-shells full of sweet water (as before)\nplaced in salt. At each side of the charger wherein is the stag, place\na pie made of coarse paste, in one of which let there be some live\nfrogs, in the other live birds; make these pies of coarse paste, filled\nwith bran, and yellowed over saffron, or yolks of eggs: gild them over\nin spots, as also the stag, the ship and castle; bake them, and place\nthem with gilt bay leaves on the turrets and tunnels of the castle and\npies; being baked make a hole in the bottom of your pies, take out the\nbran, put in your frogs and birds, and close up the holes with the\nsame coarse paste; then cut the lids neatly up to be taken off by the\ntunnels. Being all placed in order upon the table, before you fire the\ntrains of powder, order it so that some of the ladies may be persuaded\nto pluck the arrow out of the stag; then will the claret wine follow,\nas blood running out of a wound. This being done with admiration to\nthe beholders, after some short pause, fire the train of the castle,\nthat the pieces all of one side may go off; then fire the trains of\none side of the ship as in a battle; next turn the chargers, and by\ndegrees fire the trains of each other side, as before. This done, to\nsweeten the stink of the powder, the ladies take the egg-shells full of\nsweet waters, and throw them at each other, all dangers being seemed\nover, and by this time you may suppose they will desire to see what\nis in the pies; when lifting first the lid off one pie, out skip some\nfrogs, which makes the ladies to skip and shriek; next after the other\npie, whence comes out the birds; who by a natural instinct flying at\nthe light, will put out the candles; so that what with the flying\nbirds and skipping frogs, the one above, the other beneath, will cause\nmuch delight and pleasure to the whole company: at length the candles\nare lighted and a banquet brought in, the music sounds, and every one\nwith much delight and content rehearses their actions in the former\npassages. These were formerly the delights of the nobility, before good\nhouse-keeping had left England, and the sword really acted that which\nwas only counterfeited in such honest and laudable exercises as these.\"\n\n\nSUSPENDED ANIMATION.\n\nDavid Beck, the celebrated portrait painter, and pupil of Vandyke,\ntravelling through Germany, was suddenly taken ill, and to all\nappearance died, and was laid out as a corpse. His servants, sitting\nround the bed, grieved heartily for the loss of so good a master; and,\nas grief is thirsty, drank as heartily at the same time. One of them,\nbecoming more fuddled than the rest, then addressed his companions\nthus: \"Our master when alive was fond of his glass, let us now, out of\ngratitude, then give him one now he is dead.\" Assent was given, the\nhead of the dead painter was raised up, and some wine poured down or\nspilt about, the fragrance or spirit of which caused Beck to open his\neyes; upon which the servant, who, being drunk, half forgetting his\nmaster was dead, forced down the remainder of the glass. The painter\ngradually revived, and thus escaped a living interment.\n\n\nFUNERAL OF MARAT.\n\nThe funeral of Marat was celebrated at Paris, July 17th, 1793, with the\ngreatest pomp and solemnity. All the sections joined the procession.\nAn immense crowd of people attended it. Four women bore the bathing\nmachine in which Marat was standing when he was assassinated; his\nshirt, stained with blood, was carried by a fury, in the shape of a\nwoman, at the top of a pike. After this followed a wooden bedstead,\non which the corpse of Marat was carried by citizens. His head was\nuncovered, and the gash he had received could be easily distinguished.\nThe procession was paraded through several streets, and was saluted on\nits march by several discharges of artillery.\n\n\nEXECUTION OF ANNE BOLEYN.\n\nIn Houssaie's \"Memoirs,\" Vol. I. p. 435, a little circumstance is\nrecorded concerning the decapitation of the unfortunate Anne Boleyn,\nwhich illustrates an observation of Hume. Our historian notices that\nher executioner was a Frenchman of Calais, who was supposed to have\nuncommon skill; it is probable that the following incident might\nhave been preserved by tradition in France, from the account of the\nexecutioner himself. Anne Boleyn being on the scaffold, would not\nconsent to have her eyes covered with a bandage, saying that she had\nno fear of death. All that the divine who assisted at her execution\ncould obtain from her was, that she would shut her eyes. But as she\nwas opening them at every moment, the executioner could not bear their\ntender and mild glances. Fearful of missing his aim, he was obliged to\ninvent an expedient to behead the queen. He drew off his shoes, and\napproached her silently; while he was at her left hand, another person\nadvanced at her right, who made a great noise in walking, so that this\ncircumstance drawing the attention of Anne, she turned, her face from\nthe executioner, who was enabled by this artifice to strike the fatal\nblow without being disarmed by that pride of affecting resignation\nwhich shone in the eyes of the lovely Anne Boleyn.\n\n\nMEXICAN TENNIS.\n\nThe Mexicans had one singular law in their play with the ball. In the\nwalls of the court where they played certain stones, like mill-stones\nwere fixed, with a hole in the middle, just large enough to let the\nball pass through; and whoever drove it through, which required great\nskill, and was, of course, rarely effected, won the cloaks of the\nlookers-on. They, therefore, took to their heels to save their cloaks,\nand others pursued to catch them, which was a new source of amusement.\n\n\nCURIOUSLY-SHAPED VESSEL.\n\n[Illustration [++] Vessel in the Shape of a Lion.]\n\nThere is a singular class of Northern relics, of the Christian Period,\nof which analogous types have been found in Scotland, which well\ndeserve our attention. The relics of which we speak consist of a\ncurious variety of vessels, presumed to have been designed for holding\nliquors, but invariably made in the form of some animal or monstrous\nhybrid. The annexed figure represents one of these, in the collection\nof Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp, Esq., and found by him among a hoard of\nlong-forgotten family heirlooms, in a vault of his paternal mansion\nof Hoddam Castle, Dumfriesshire. Of its previous history nothing is\nknown. It is made of bronze. The principal figure is a lion, without a\ntail, measuring fourteen inches in length, and nearly fourteen inches\nin greatest height. On the back is perched a nondescript animal, half\ngreyhound, half fish, apparently intended for a handle to the whole,\nwhile from the breast projects a stag's head with large antlers. This\nhas a perforation in the back of the neck, as if for the insertion of\na stop-cock, and it appears probable was designed for running off the\nliquid contained within the singular vessel to which it is attached. A\nsmall square lid on the top of the lion's head, opening with a hinge,\nsupplies the requisite aperture for whatever liquor it was designed to\nhold. A similar relic, possessed by Sir John Maxwell, Bart., was dug up\na few years since on the Pollock estate; and another, in the collection\nof the late E. W. A. Drummond Hay, Esq., was also in the form of a lion.\n\n\nA SENSIBLE DOG.\n\nProfessor Owen was walking with a friend, the master of the dog,\nby the side of a river, near its mouth, on the coast of Cornwall,\nand picked up a small piece of seaweed. It was covered with minute\nanimals, and Mr. Owen observed to his companion, throwing the weed\ninto the water,--\"If this small piece afforded so many treasures, how\nmicroscopically rich the whole plant would be! I should much like to\nhave one!\" The gentleman walked on; but hearing a splashing in the\nwater, turned round and saw it violently agitated. \"It is Lion!\" both\nexclaimed. \"What can he be about? He was walking quietly enough by our\nside a minute ago.\" At one moment they saw his tail above the water,\nthen his head raised for a breath of air, then the surrounding element\nshook again, and at last he came ashore, panting from his exertions,\nand laid a whole plant of the identical weed at Mr. Owen's feet. After\nthis proof of intelligence, it will not be wondered at, that when Lion\nwas joyfully expecting to accompany his master and his guest on an\nexcursion, and was told to go and take care of and comfort Mrs. Owen,\nwho was ill, that he should immediately return to the drawing-room, and\nlay himself by her side, which he never left during the absence of his\nowner; his countenance alone betraying his disappointment, and that\nonly for a few minutes.\n\n\nTHE CROWN OF CHARLEMAGNE.\n\nAs the emblem of sovereignty which once adorned the brows of one of\nearth's mightiest men, and as a unique specimen of the state at which\nthe goldsmith's art had arrived as early as the ninth century, we here\npresent our readers with an engraving of the crown of Charlemagne.\n\n[Illustration [++] Crown of Charlemagne.]\n\nThis great man was the eldest son of Pepin the Short, and grandson of\nCharles Martel, and was born at the castle of Ingelheim, near Metz,\nin the year 742. His father dying in 768 he succeeded to the crown in\nconjunction with his brother Carloman, whose death in 771 left him sole\nmonarch of the Franks. By his alliances, negociations, and principally\nby his numerous and glorious wars, he so enlarged his dominions, that\nat length they extended from the Ebro to the mouth of the Elbe, from\nthe Atlantic to the mountains of Bohemia and the Saal, and from the\nBritish Channel to the Volturno. In the year 800 he was crowned at\nRome, as Emperor of the West, by Pope Leo III., and died of a pleurisy\nin 814, at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the cathedral of which city he was\nburied with extraordinary magnificence. Equally illustrious in the\ncabinet and in the field, a wise legislator, and a great warrior, the\npatron of men of letters, and the restorer of learning, Charlemagne\nhas united in his favour the suffrages of statesmen and soldiers, and\nof ecclesiastics, lawyers, and men of letters, who have all vied with\none another in bestowing the homage of their praise on the celebrated\nfounder of the Western Empire.\n\nThe crown of this illustrious man, of which our engraving is a correct\nrepresentation, is now preserved at Vienna in the Imperial Treasury.\nIt is composed of eight plates of gold, four large and four small,\nconnected by hinges. The large ones, studded with precious stones, form\nthe front, the back, and the intermediate points of the crown; the\nsmall ones, placed alternately with these, are ornamented with enamels\nrepresenting Solomon, David, King Hezekiah seated on his throne,\nand Christ seated between two flaming seraphim, such as the Greeks\nusually represent them. The costume of the figures resembles that of\nthe Emperors of the Lower Empire, and although the inscriptions which\naccompany the figures are in Latin, the whole bears the impress of\nGreek workmanship. The ground of the figures is formed by the metal\nitself, which has been hollowed out to receive the enamel; but all the\ndetails of the design are traced out with fine fillets of gold. The\nflesh-tints are in rose- enamel; the colours employed in the\ndraperies and accessories are deep and light blue, red, and white. The\ncrown has unquestionably been retouched at various periods, but yet\nthere is nothing to invalidate the tradition which assigns the more\nancient portions to the time of Charlemagne. The enamels must belong to\nthe same early period.\n\n\nSPENT BY THE CORPORATION OF COVENTRY AT THE ENTERTAINMENT OF KING JAMES\nII. IN HIS PROGRESS THROUGH COVENTRY, 1687.\n\n(Mr. Richard Haywood, Treasurer.)\n\n                                                            L    s.  d.\n  Gave a gold cup                                          171  17   6\n  Mr. Septimus Butt, mayor, for sweetmeats                  27  17   0\n  Meat                                                      13  14   0\n  Wine                                                      21  12   6\n  Homage fee                                                41   6   8\n  King's cook                                               10   0   0\n  City cook                                                  9   8   6\n  Steward Fielding, for making a speech to his Majesty       5   7   6\n  For linen spoiled, borrowed of Mrs. Smith, Spon-street     2  12   6\n  The aldermen that went to Worcester to invite him          3  18   9\n  Several companies for waiting on the King                 27   9   4\n  Alderman Webster, for meat                                 3   6   0\n  Alderman Bradney for corn                                  3   5   6\n  His Majesty's clerk of the market                          1   1   6\n  The King's trumpeters                                      2   0   0\n  Richard Howcott, for carrying the city streamer            0   7   0\n  The city bailiff's bill for fish, fowl, and wine          88  18   2\n                                                          -------------\n                                                          L434   2   9\n\n\nTRAVELLING EXPENSES IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nOf travelling expenses in the thirteenth century, a roll is in\nexistence, and is too interesting to be passed over. It contains\na steward's accompts of the daily expenses of a person of rank in\nthe reign of Edward I, on a journey from Oxford to Canterbury,\nand during his sojourn in London, about the year 1289; while the\nrecord throws much light upon the mode of our ancestors' living,\nat a period concerning which we have very few similar memorials.\nOne day's expenses are as follow: \"In bread, sixpence. Two gallons\nof wine, a gift of hospitality from the rector of Berton. Item in\nbread, sixpence. Two gallons of wine, a gift of hospitality from the\nrector of Mistern. Beer, sixpence. Herrings, threepence. Stockfish,\nfourpence. Porpoise and fish, fourpence. Perch and roach, seven-pence.\nLarge eels, seven-pence. Vegetables, threepence farthing. Figs and\nraisins, twopence. Fuel, five-pence. A bed for two nights, twopence.\nHay for seven horses, seven-pence. A bushel of oats, twenty-pence.\nApples, a halfpenny. Sum, six shillings and eight-pence halfpenny.\"\nThe most expensive day in the roll is on a Sunday, \"in expenses of\nmy lord at Westminster, when he held a breakfast there for knights,\nclerks, and squires. Bread, two shillings. Beer, twelve-pence. Wine,\nthree shillings and eight-pence. Half a salmon, for the standard,\nwith the chine, three shillings and eight-pence. A fresh conger eel,\nthree shillings. Three fat pikes, five fat eels, and twenty-seven fat\nroaches, twelve shillings and fourpence. Half a hundred lamprorns,\ntwelve-pence. Oysters, threepence. Vegetables, twopence. The hire of\na boy to prepare the breakfast, one penny. Fare to Westminster, one\npenny. A basket, one penny farthing. On the same day at the inn: bread,\nfive-pence farthing. Beer from the store. Two gallons of beer for the\nboys, twopence. Fish from the store. Candles, a halfpenny. Fuel, a\nhalfpenny. Hay bought, five-pence three farthings. Straw, sixpence.\nTwo bushels of oats, eight-pence. Two pair of shoes for my lord,\ntwelve-pence. Sum, thirty shillings and threepence farthing.\"\n\n\nDUNS IN THE MAHRATTA COUNTRY.\n\nThe Mahratta mode of recovering debts is curious. When the creditor\ncannot get his money, and begins to see the debt as rather desperate,\nhe sits _dhurna_ upon his debtor; that is, he squats down at the door\nof the tent, and becomes, in a certain mysterious degree, the master\nof it. No one goes in or out without his approbation. He neither eats\nhimself, nor suffers his debtor to eat; and this famishing contest is\ncarried on till the debt is paid, or till the creditor begins to _feel_\nthat want of food is a greater punishment than the want of money. This\ncurious mode of enforcing a demand is in universal practice among the\nMahrattas; Scindiah himself, the chieftain, not being exempt from it.\nThe man who sits the _dhurna_, goes to the house, or tent, of him\nwhom he wishes to bring to terms, and remains there till the affair\nis settled; during which time, the one under restraint is confined to\nhis apartment, and not suffered to communicate with any persons but\nthose whom the other may approve of. The laws by which the _dhurna_\nis regulated are as well defined and understood as those of any other\ncustom whatever. When it is meant to be very strict, the claimant\ncarries a number of his followers, who surround the tent, sometimes\neven the bed of his adversary, and deprive him altogether of food;\nin which case, however, etiquette prescribes the same abstinence to\nhimself: the strongest stomach, of course, carries the day. A custom of\nthis kind was once so prevalent in the province and city of Benares,\nthat Brahmins were _trained_ to remain a long time without food. They\nwere then sent to the door of some rich individual, where they made a\nvow to remain without eating, till they should obtain a certain sum of\nmoney. To preserve the life of a Brahmin is so absolutely a duty, that\nthe money was generally paid; but never till a good struggle had taken\nplace, to ascertain whether the man was staunch or not; for money is\nthe life and soul of all Hindoos.\n\n\nVAUXHALL.\n\n[Illustration [++] Vauxhall.]\n\nThe trees seen above the houses at the foot of the Surrey side of\nWestminster Bridge are those of Vauxhall Gardens, the site of which\nwill soon be covered with buildings. These grounds were once the glory\nof English pleasure-gardens, frequented by the highest in the land\nfrom the gay days of Charles II. to those of \"the Regency,\" and were\ncelebrated in musical history for talent of the highest kind here\nintroduced. In the old orchestra, whose towering summit may be seen\nfrom the Thames, the greatest musical celebrities have sung. Handel,\nDr. Arne, and Hook superintended its concerts; and Hogarth decorated\nits walls with paintings. It obtained its name from a very old mansion\nthat once stood near it. This old manor-house of Fawkes Hall, as it\nexisted in the reign of Charles I., is shown in our engraving; at that\ntime it was described as a \"fair dwelling-house, strongly built, of\nthree stories high, and a pier staircase breaking out from it nineteen\nfeet square.\" This staircase occupied one of the towers, in accordance\nwith the ancient plan, and the house was a curious specimen of the old\ntimber houses of the gentry in the sixteenth century.\n\nIt appears to have obtained its name from Foukes de Breut, who married\nthe heiress of the manor, the Countess of Albemarle, sister to Baldwin,\nArchbishop of Canterbury; and it was granted by the name of the manor\nof Foukeshall, by Edward III. to his favourite Hugh le Despenser. In\n1615 the records of the Duchy of Cornwall prove the premises known as\nVauxhall Gardens to have been the leasehold property of Jane Vaux,\nwidow of John Vaux, citizen and vintner of London, and a benefactor\nto the parish of Lambeth. It has always remained, with the manor of\nKennington, as the property of the crown, and belongs to the Prince of\nWales as part of his Duchy of Cornwall. Vauxhall Gardens closed for\never on July 25th, 1859, with an _al fresco fete_.\n\n\nEGYPTIAN TOILET BOXES.\n\n[Illustration [++] Egyptian Toilet Boxes.]\n\nThe ladies of ancient Egypt were very fond of having their apartments\nset off with a profusion of knick-knacks, and among other articles of\nthat sort, they usually had several different kinds of toilet-boxes\non their dressing-tables. The above engraving represents a group of\nthem. They have been found in considerable numbers among the ruins\nof the palaces, and they form interesting objects among the Egyptian\ncuriosities in many of our museums. They were made of wood, or of\nivory, often inlaid, and always elaborately carved. Sometimes they\npartook of the nature of spoons, the containing part being shallow,\nat the end of a long solid handle; the handle was carved into the\nmost fanciful forms--a grotesque human figure, a woman, a fox, or a\nfish--and the spoon part was generally covered with a lid, which turned\non a pivot. In one of those in the engraving, the spoon takes the\nform of a fish, the cover being carved to resemble its scales, while\nanother, also in the form of a fish, has two cavities, the one covered,\nthe other permanently open. Sometimes the body of a goose formed the\nbox, either trussed for the table, or in the posture of life, and other\nforms were devised from the fancy of the artist. Some of these shallow\nboxes are supposed to have been used for holding small quantities of\nointments and cosmetics upon the toilet-table.\n\n\nSPACIOUS KITCHEN.\n\nOne of the most spacious kitchens in England is that of Raby Castle,\nthe magnificent seat of the Duke of Cleveland. It is a square of thirty\nfeet, having three chimneys, one for the grate, a second for stoves,\nand the third, (now stopped up,) for the great cauldron. The roof\nis arched, with a small cupola in the centre: it has likewise five\nwindows, from each of which steps descend, but only in one instance to\nthe floor; and a gallery runs round the whole interior of the building.\nThe ancient oven is said to have allowed a tall person to stand upright\nin it, its diameter being fifteen feet. It has since been converted\ninto a wine cellar, the sides being divided into ten parts, and each\nholding a hogshead of wine in bottles. Vast as is this kitchen, it must\nhave been but suitable to the hospitality of former ages: for, in one\nof the apartments of Raby Castle, seven hundred knights are stated to\nhave been entertained at one time.\n\n\nTHE HAWTHORNDEN CAVES.\n\nIn almost every country on the earth there are natural or artificial\ncaves, which have supplied hiding-places, retreats for anchorites, and\neven permanent native dwellings. Such caves abound in Scotland, and\nespecially along the coast, but in general their interest arises rather\nfrom the associations of popular traditions, than from any intrinsic\npeculiarity of character pertaining to them. Few such retreats are more\nremarkable, either for constructive art, or historic associations,\nthan the well-known caves beneath the old tower of Hawthornden, near\nEdinburgh. They have been hewn, with great labour and ingenuity, in\nthe rocky cliff which overhangs the river Esk. No tradition preserves\nthe history or date of their execution, but concealment was evidently\nthe chief design of the excavators. The original entrance is most\ningeniously made in the shaft of a very deep draw-well, sunk in the\ncourt-yard of the castle, and from its manifest utility as the ordinary\nand indispensable appendage of the fortress, it most effectually\nconceals its adaptation as a means of ingress and communication with\nthe rock chambers beneath. These are of various forms and sizes, and\none in particular is pierced with a series of square recesses, somewhat\nresembling the columbaria of a Roman tomb, but assigned by popular\ntradition as the library of its later owner, Drummond, the Scottish\npoet. Whatever was the purpose for which these were thus laboriously\ncut, the example is not singular. A large cave in Roxburghshire, hewn\nout in the lofty cliff which overhangs the Teviot, has in its sides\nsimilar recesses, and from their supposed resemblance to the interior\nof a pigeon-house, the cavern has received the name of the _Doo-cave_.\nAuthentic notices of the Hawthornden caves occur so early as the reign\nof David II., when a daring band of Scottish adventurers made good\ntheir head-quarters there, while Edward held the newly-fortified castle\nof Edinburgh, and the whole surrounding district. In the glen of the\nlittle river Ale, which falls into the Teviot at Ancrum, extensive\ngroups of caves occur, all indicating, more or less, artificial\nadaptation as human dwellings; and in many other districts similar\nevidences may be seen of temporary or permanent habitation, at some\nremote period, in these rude recesses. Along the coast of Arran there\nare several caves of various dimensions, one of which, at Drumandruin,\nor Drumidoon, is noted in the older traditions of the island as the\nlodging of Fin M'Coul, the Fingal of Ossian, during his residence in\nArran. Though low in the roof, it is sufficiently capacious for a\nhundred men to sit or lie in it. In this, as in other examples, we find\nevidences of artificial operations, proving its connexion with races\nlong posterior to those with whose works we have chiefly to do in this\nsection of archaeological inquiry. In the further end a large detached\ncolumn of rock has a two-handed sword engraved on it, surmounted by\na deer, and on the southern side of the cave a lunar figure is cut,\nsimilar in character to those frequently found on the sculptured\npillars and crosses which abound in Scotland. It is now more frequently\nstyled the king's cave, and described as the retreat of Robert the\nBruce, while he lurked as a fugitive in the Western Isles; but, like\nmany other traditions of the Bruce, this seems to be of very recent\norigin. Other caves in the same island are also of large dimensions,\nand variously associated with popular traditions, as, indeed, is\ngenerally the case where subterranean retreats of any considerable\nextent occur. Some are the supposed dwellings of old mythic chiefs,\nwhose names still live in the traditional songs of the Gael. Others\nare the retreats which the primitive confessors of Scotland excavated\nor enlarged for their oratories or cells. Of the latter class are\nthe caves of St. Molio, on the little island of Lamlash, or the Holy\nIsle, on the east coast of Arran; of St. Columba and St. Cormac, on\nthe Argyleshire coast; of St. Ninian, in Wigtonshire; of St. Serf,\nat Dysart, on the Fifeshire coast; and the celebrated \"ocean cave of\nSt. Rule, in Saint Andrew's Bay.\" This last oratory consists of two\nchambers hewn out of the sandstone cliffs of that exposed coast. The\ninner apartment is a plain cell, entered from the supposed oratory of\nthe Greek saint. The latter is nearly circular, measuring about ten\nfeet in diameter, and has a stone altar hewn in the solid rock on its\neastern side.\n\n\nMONKISH PRAYERS.\n\nThe Monks used to pray heartily, or rather say their prayers no less\nthan seven times in the twenty-four hours. We will give their names:--\n\n  1st.--Nocturnal, at cock-crowing, or two o'clock in the morning.\n  2nd.--Matins, at six o'clock in the morning.\n  3rd.--Tierce, at nine o'clock in the morning.\n  4th.--Sext, at twelve o'clock at noon.\n  5th.--None, at three o'clock in the afternoon.\n  6th.--Vespers, at six o'clock in the afternoon.\n  7th.--Compline, soon after seven.\n\nQuarles has a neat epigram on the subject:--\n\n    For all our prayers th' Almighty does regard\n    The judgment of the _balance_, not the _yard_;\n    He loves not words, but matter; 'tis his pleasure\n    To buy his wares by _weight_, and not by _measure_.\n\n\nTHE TRAP-DOOR SPIDER.\n\n[Illustration: Trap-door Spider.]\n\nThere are few insects of such extraordinary habits as the Trap-door\nSpider, and the following account of it by Professor Jones is so\ninteresting, that we are glad to extract it from his excellent work on\ninsect Architecture:--\n\nIn the Ionian islands, and also in the West Indies [as well as\nin the south of France, and in Corsica], there are found certain\nspiders (_Cteniza_) commonly known as Trap-door Spiders, which make a\ncylindrical nest in the earth, and cover the entrance with a door of\ntheir own construction, framed of alternate layers of silk and earth,\nand fastened to the opening by a hinge of stout silk. These spiders\nalso line their nests throughout with numerous layers of silken web\nto the thickness of stout cartridge paper, and finish it with the\ngreatest care. This beautiful lining is yet further strengthened in\nparticular parts, where the nest is likely to be exposed to danger. But\nthe greatest amount of skill and care is bestowed upon the trap-door\nand its silken hinge. The door is about the eighth of an inch thick,\nrough on the outside, not much unlike an oyster-shell, which it also\nresembles in being thick and strong near the hinge, but thinner towards\nthe circumference. The breadth of this hinge is various, but sometimes\nit is very considerable, as shown in the figure accompanying. It also\npossesses great elastic force, so that, on being opened, it closes\nagain of itself. This is principally accomplished by a fold or doubling\nof the web, at each end of the hinge, which permits the door to be\nopened nearly to a right angle with the aperture, but no further,\nunless violence be used. The underside of the door is perfectly smooth\nand firm, being shaped so as to fit accurately, and yet to offer no\nresistance when pushed open by the insect.\n\n[Illustration: Section of Nest.]\n\n[Illustration: Nest of Trap-door Spider.]\n\n[Illustration: Trap-door Opening by a Lever.]\n\nAs might be expected, there are varieties in the shape and size of\nthese nests. Some specimens found in the island of Zante had the silken\nlayers of the lid extended into a sort of handle, or lever, just above\nthe hinge, on pressing which, in ever so slight a degree, the trap-door\nopened. From this it would appear, that the entrance to such a nest\ncould be effected as easily by the enemies of the spider as by the\nspider itself; this, however, is not the case; for repeated observation\nhas shown that the spider keeps guard at the entrance, and actually\nholds the door with her fore-feet and palpi, while the hind-feet are\nextended down the side of the nest, and the mandibles are thrust into\nthe opposite side near the door. By this means the insects gets such\npower as to resist with considerable force the opening of the door. If\nit be asked how this is known, we are able to refer to the experiments\nof careful observers, who extracted a number of nests from the ground,\nand opening them at the lower end, looked up, and saw the spider so\noccupied. A section view of the nest will show that the curved form of\nthe cover, and the shape of the side walls, must favour this method of\nkeeping the door shut. In some cases, small hollows were formed round\nthe interior edge of the lid, into which the spider thrust its feet\nwhen keeping guard. It is a curious fact, that when several of these\nspiders enclosed in their nests were kept as a matter of curiosity\nin a box of earth, and the doors frequently opened to examine their\nproceedings, one or two of them, as if wearied at these repeated\ninterruptions, effectually closed their doors by weaving a piece of\nsilken tapestry, which was spread over the interior of the opening, and\nrounded like the inside of a thimble. This was so strongly attached to\nthe door and to the side walls, that no opening could be made without\ndestroying the nest.\n\n\nPRICES OF GREEK VASES.\n\nIn the ancient times of Rome the vases of Greek pottery bore a high\nvalue, and sold for enormous sums to connoisseurs, which has also\nbeen the case in modern times. Cleopatra spent daily, on the fragrant\nor flowery ware of Rhossus, a Syrian town, six minae. Of the actual\nprices paid for painted vases, no positive mention occurs in classical\nauthorities, yet it is most probable that vases of the best class, the\nproducts of eminent painters, obtained considerable prices. Among the\nGreeks, works of merit were at all times handsomely remunerated, and it\nis probable that vases of excellence shared the general favour shown to\nthe fine arts. For works of inferior merit only small sums were paid,\nas will be seen by referring to the chapter on inscriptions, which\nwere incised on their feet, and which mentioned their contemporary\nvalue. In modern times little is known about the prices paid for these\nworks of art till quite a recent period, when their fragile remains\nhave realised considerable sums. In this country the collections of\nMr. Townley, Sir W. Hamilton, Lord Elgin, and Mr. Payne Knight, all\ncontained painted vases. A sum of L500 was paid in consideration of\nthe Athenian vases in Lord Elgin's collection, which is by no means\nlarge when the extraordinary nature of these vases is considered, as\nthey are the finest in the world of the old primitive vases of Athens.\nL8,400 were paid for the vases of the Hamilton collection, one of the\nmost remarkable of the time, and consisting of many beautiful specimens\nfrom southern Italy. The great discoveries of the Prince of Canino, in\n1827, and the subsequent sale of numerous vases, gave them, however,\na definite market value, to which the sale of the collection of Baron\nDurand, which consisted almost entirely of vases, affords some clue.\nHis collection sold in 1836 for 313,160 francs, or about L12,524. The\nmost valuable specimen in the collection was the vase representing\nthe death of Croesus, which was purchased for the Louvre at the price\nof 6,600 francs, or L264. The vase with the subject of Arcesilaus\nbrought 1,050 francs. Another magnificent vase, now in the Louvre,\nhaving the subject of the youthful Hercules strangling the serpents,\nwas only secured for France after reaching the price of 6,000 francs,\nor L240: another, with the subject of Hercules, Dejanira, and Hyllus,\nwas purchased for the sum of 3,550 francs, or L142. A _crater_, with\nthe subject of Acamas and Demophoon bringing back AEthra, was obtained\nby M. Magnoncourt for 4,250 francs, or L170. A Bacchic amphora, of the\nmaker Execias, of the archaic style, was bought by the British Museum\nfor 3,600 francs, or L142 in round numbers. Enough has, however, been\nsaid to show the high price attained by the most remarkable of these\nworks of art. The inferior vases of course realised much smaller sums,\nvarying from a few francs to a few pounds; but high prices continued\nto be obtained, and the sale by the Prince of Canino in 1837, of some\nof his finest vases, contributed to enrich the museums of Europe,\nalthough, as many of the vases were bought in, it does not afford a\ngood criterion as to price. An _oenochoe_, with Apollo and the Muses,\nand a _hydria_, with the same subject, were bought for 2,000 francs,\nor L80 each. A _cylix_, with a love scene, and another with Priam\nredeeming Hector's corpse, brought 6,600 francs, or L264. An amphora\nwith the subject of Dionysius, and a cup with that of Hercules, sold\nfor 8,000 francs, or L320 each. Another brought 7,000 francs, or L280.\nA vase with the subject of Theseus seizing Helen, another with the\narming of Paris, and a third with Peleus and Thetis, sold for 6,000\nfrancs, or L240. Nor can the value of the finest specimens of the art\nbe considered to have deteriorated since. The late Mr. Steuart was\noffered 7,500 francs for a large _crater_, found in southern Italy,\nornamented with the subject of Cadmus and the dragon; 3,000 francs, or\nL120, were paid by the British Museum for a fine _crater_ ornamented\nwith the exploits of Achilles: 2,500 francs, or L100, for an amphora of\nApulian style, with the subject of Pelops and OEnomaus at the altar of\nthe Olympian Zeus. For another vase, with the subject of Musaeus, 3,000\nfrancs, or L120 were paid, and 2,500 francs, or L100, for the Athenian\nprize vase, the celebrated Vas Burgonianum, exhumed by Mr. Burgon. At\nMr. Beckford's sale, the late Duke of Hamilton gave L200 for a small\nvase, with the subject of the Indian Bacchus.\n\nThe passion for possessing fine vases has outstripped these prices\nat Naples; 2,400 ducats, or L500, was given for the vase with gilded\nfigures discovered at Cumae. Still more incredible, half a century back,\n8,000 ducats, L1,500, was paid to Vivenzio for the vase in the Museo\nBorbonico representing the last night of Troy; 6,000 ducats, or L1,000,\nfor the one with a Dionysiac feast; and 4,000 ducats, or L800, for\nthe vase with the grand battle of the Amazons, published by Shultz.\nBut such sums will not be hereafter realised, not that taste is less,\nbut that fine vases are more common. No sepulchre has been spared when\ndetected, and no vase neglected when discovered; and vases have been\nexhumed with more activity than the most of precious relics.\n\n\nOLD WALKING STICKS.\n\nIt would seem that at the present time the fashion of carrying\nwalking-sticks has to a considerable extent \"gone out.\" So great\nis the bustle in our city thoroughfares, that the use of a staff,\nexcept by those who are lame, is seldom adopted by business people.\nProfessional men still affect the custom, however; and your City man,\nalthough he may repudiate the use of a walking-stick in town, straps\na good sapling to his portmanteau whenever he has a chance of getting\namongst the woods and green fields. About a century and a-half ago\neverybody carried a cane. Dr. Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, and a host\nof others, considered a good stick as necessary as a coat; and a\ncollection of these staves would, if they could be had at the present\nday, be valuable, not only as relics, but also as an indication of the\ncharacters of the owners, perhaps.\n\nIn former times, a golden-mounted stick or staff was commonly used by\nboth the male and female heads of families. Queen Elizabeth carried one\nof these towards the end of her life. They were then more frequently\nused, however, as a sign of authority than for any other purpose.\n\nThe staff was a weapon long before flint-headed arrows and such-like\ninstruments were invented. Sheriffs, and others high in authority, have\nwands or staffs borne before them on important occasions; the bishops'\npastoral staff is as old as episcopal authority.\n\nIn former times the running footmen, who, in a body of half-a-dozen,\non each side of a carriage ran to alarm robbers and to assist the\nlumbering vehicle out of the ruts, were well armed with stout\nstaves. At the present time they are still carried by the Plush\nfamily, although the use of them is not so clear. In the royal state\nprocessions, the footmen with their staves walk as in former days, and\nwe should be sorry were these little bits of ceremony dispensed with,\ninasmuch as they bring to recollection a former condition of things,\nwhich makes us feel comfortable by comparison.\n\nThe monstrous sticks shown in the engraving are drawn from specimens\nwhich have been preserved by dealers in London, and put as a sort of\nsign at the doors of umbrella and walking-stick dealers. These were,\nhowever, a century ago, common enough, and might have been seen by the\nhundred together, borne by tall footmen behind ladies dressed in the\nold hooped dresses which we are trying now to imitate. At that time\nthere was also a taste for various kinds of monsters, in China, wood,\nand other materials. Monkeys and pug-dogs were made pets of, and the\nsticks of the footmen fashioned into such ugly forms as no modern bogey\never dreamed of.\n\nThese clubs, sticks, maces, or whatever they may be called, were about\nsix feet high, and were in parts painted and gilt. The centre one is\nan elm-sapling, and the natural bumps have been taken advantage of by\nthe artist to model a sort of Moorish head, with ornamental covering;\nlower down, the knobs are fashioned into terrible heads, in which are\nmounted glass eyes of various and impossible colours.\n\n[Illustration [++] Old Walking Sticks.]\n\nNo doubt before long these staffs, which might be necessary for\nthe protection of the ladies from the \"Mohawks\" of the time, will\nhave disappeared, and people will look with curiosity at Hogarth's\nrepresentation of them. Perhaps good specimens of such objects, which\nhave passed out of use, would be worthy of a place in our national\nmuseum. One of the old-fashioned tinder-boxes would be a curiosity\nthere now. Although but a few years have passed since the introduction\nof lucifer matches, it is no easy matter to get one of those\nold-fashioned machines.\n\n\nTHE SANCHI TOPE.\n\nUnder the name of topes are included the most important class of\nBuddhist architecture in India. They consist of detached pillars,\ntowers, and tumuli, all of a sacred or monumental character. The word\nis a corruption of the Sanscrit _sthupa_, meaning a mound, heap, or\ncairn.\n\nBy far the finest as well as the most perfect tope in India is that\nof Sanchi, the principal one of those opened near Bilsah, in Central\nIndia. It is uncertain whether it ever contained relics or not, as it\nhad been dug into in 1819 by Sir Herbert Maddock, since which time it\nhas remained a ruin, and may have been plundered by the natives. At any\nrate it must have been a spot of peculiar sanctity, judging both from\nits own magnificence, and from the number of subordinate topes grouped\naround it. In fact there are a greater number of these monuments on\nthis spot, within a space not exceeding 17 miles, than there are, so\nfar at least as we now know, in the whole of India from the Sutlej to\nCape Comorin.\n\n[Illustration [++] Sanchi Tope.]\n\nThe general appearance of the Sanchi Tope will be understood from the\nannexed view of it. The principal building consists of a dome somewhat\nless than a hemisphere, 106 feet in diameter, and 42 feet in height,\nwith a platform on the top 34 feet across, which originally formed the\nbasis of the _tee_ or capital, which was the invariable finish of these\nmonuments.\n\nThe dome rests on a sloping base, 14 feet in height by 120 in\ndiameter, having an offset on its summit about 6 feet wide. This,\nif we may judge from the representations of topes on the sculptures,\nmust have been surrounded by a balustrade, and was ascended by a\nbroad double ramp on one side. It was probably used for processions\nencircling the monument, which seem to have been among the most common\nBuddhist ceremonials. The centre of this great mound is quite solid,\nbeing composed of bricks laid in mud; but the exterior is faced with\ndressed stones. Over these was laid a coating of cement nearly 4 inches\nin thickness, which was, no doubt, originally adorned either with\npainting or ornaments in relief.\n\nThe fence by which this tope is surrounded is extremely curious. It\nconsists of stone posts 8 ft. 8 in. high, and little more than 2 ft.\napart. These are surmounted by a plain architrave, 2 ft. 4 in. deep,\nslightly rounded at the top. So far this enclosure resembles the outer\ncircle at Stonehenge; but between every two uprights three horizontal\ncross-pieces of stone are inserted of an elliptical form, of the same\ndepth as the top piece, but only 9 in. thick in the thickest part. This\nis the only _built_ example yet discovered of an architectural ornament\nwhich is found _carved_ in every cave, and, indeed, in almost every\nancient Buddhist building known in India. The upright posts or pillars\nof this enclosure bear inscriptions indicating that they were all given\nby different individuals. But neither these nor any other inscriptions\nfound in the whole tope, nor in the smaller topes surrounding it\n(though there are as many as 250 inscriptions in all), contain any\nknown name, or any clue to their age.\n\nStill more curious, however, than even the stone railing are the four\ngateways. One of these is shown in our view. It consists of two square\npillars, covered with sculptures, with bold elephant capitals, rising\nto a height of 18 ft. 4 in.; above this are three lintels, slightly\ncurved upwards in the centre, and ending in Ionic scrolls; they are\nsupported by continuations of the columns, and three uprights inserted\nin the spaces between the lintels. They are covered with elaborate\nsculptures, and surmounted by emblems. The total height is 33 ft. 6 in.\nOne gateway has fallen, and if removed to this country would raise the\ncharacter of Indian sculpture, as nothing comparable to it has yet been\ntransported from that part of the world to Europe.\n\n\nBURIAL PLACES OF DISTINGUISHED MEN.\n\nChaucer was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, _without_\nthe building, but removed to the south aisle in 1555; Spenser lies\nnear him. Beaumont, Drayton, Cowley, Denham, Dryden, Howe, Addison,\nPrior, Congreve, Gray, Johnson, Sheridan, and Campbell, all lie within\nWestminster Abbey. Shakspeare, as every one knows, was buried in the\nchancel of the church at Stratford, where there is a monument to his\nmemory. Chapman and Shirley are buried at St. Giles'-in-the-Fields;\nMarlow, in the churchyard of St. Paul's, Deptford; Fletcher and\nMassinger, in the churchyard of St. Saviour's, Southwark; Dr. Donne, in\nOld St. Paul's; Edward Waller, in Beaconsfield churchyard; Milton, in\nthe churchyard of St. Giles', Cripplegate; Butler, in the churchyard\nof St. Paul's, Covent Garden; Otway, no one knows where; Garth, in the\nchurchyard at Harrow; Pope, in the church at Twickenham; Swift, in St.\nPatrick's, Dublin; Savage, in the churchyard of St. Peter's, Dublin;\nParnell, at Chester, where he died on his way to Dublin; Dr. Young, at\nWelwyn, in Hertfordshire, of which place he was the rector; Thomson,\nin the churchyard at Richmond, in Surrey; Collins, in St. Andrew's\nChurch, at Chichester; Gray, in the churchyard at Stoke-Pogis, where\nhe conceived his \"Elegy;\" Goldsmith, in the churchyard of the Temple\nChurch; Falconer, at sea, with \"all ocean for his grave;\" Churchill,\nin the churchyard of St. Martin's, Dover; Cowper, in the church at\nDereham; Chatterton, in a churchyard belonging to the parish of St.\nAndrew's, Holborn; Burns, in St. Michael's churchyard, Dumfries; Byron,\nin the church of Hucknall, near Newstead; Crabbe, at Trowbridge;\nColeridge, in the church at Highgate; Sir Walter Scott, in Dryburgh\nAbbey; Southey, in Crosthwaite Church, near Keswick.\n\n\nA REGAL HUNTING PARTY.\n\nThe following is an account of the destruction of game in Bohemia, by\na hunting party of which the Emperor Francis made one, in 1755. There\nwere twenty-three persons in the party, three of whom were ladies;\nthe Princess Charlotte of Lorraine was one of them. The chase lasted\neighteen days, and during that time they killed 47,950 head of game,\nand wild deer; of which 19 were stags, 77 roebucks, 10 foxes, 18,243\nhares, 19,545 partridges, 9,499 pheasants, 114 larks, 353 quails, 454\nother birds. The Emperor fired 9,798 shots, and the Princess Charlotte\n9,010; in all, there were 116,209 shots fired.\n\n\nANTIPATHIES.\n\nCertain antipathies appear to depend upon a peculiarity of the senses.\nThe horror inspired by the odour of certain flowers may be referred to\nthis cause. Amatus Lusitanus relates the case of a monk who fainted\nwhen he beheld a rose, and never quitted his cell when that flower\nwas blooming. Scaliger mentions one of his relations who experienced\na similar horror when seeing a lily. In these instances it is not the\nagreeableness or the offensive nature of the aroma that inspires the\nrepugnance; and Montaigne remarked on this subject, that there were men\nwho dreaded an apple more than a musket-ball. Zimmerman tells us of a\nlady who could not endure the feeling of silk and satin, and shuddered\nwhen touching the velvety skin of a peach. Boyle records the case of\na man who felt a natural abhorrence to honey. Without his knowledge,\nsome honey was introduced in a plaster applied to his foot, and the\naccidents that resulted compelled his attendants to withdraw it. A\nyoung man was known to faint whenever he heard the servant sweeping.\nHippocrates mentions one Nicanor who swooned whenever he heard a\nflute: our Shakspeare has alluded to the effects of the bagpipe. Julia\ndaughter of Frederick, king of Naples, could not taste meat without\nserious accidents. Boyle fainted when he heard the splashing of water;\nScaliger turned pale at the sight of water-cresses; Erasmus experienced\nfebrile symptoms when smelling fish; the Duke d'Epernon swooned on\nbeholding a leveret, although a hare did not produce the same effect.\nTycho Brahe fainted at the sight of a fox, Henry the Third of France\nat that of a cat, and Marshal d'Albert at a pig. The horror that whole\nfamilies entertain of cheese is generally known. Many individuals\ncannot digest, or even retain certain substances, such as rice, wine,\nvarious fruits, and vegetables.\n\n\nA YOUNG BUT CRUEL MURDERESS.\n\nOn the 3d of July, 1772, was executed at Lisbon, pursuant to her\nsentence, Louisa de Jesus, for the murder of the thirty-three infants,\nthat were at different times committed to her care by the Directors\nof the Foundling Hospital at Coimbra; for which (as appears by the\nsentence published) she had no other inducement but six hundred reals\nin money, a coverda of baize, and a cradle, that she received with each\nof them. She was but twenty-two years of age when executed. Going to\nexecution, she was pinched with hot irons, and at the gallows her hands\nwere struck off; she was then strangled, and her body burnt.\n\n\nBECTIVE ABBEY.\n\nBective Abbey, the ruins of which form the subject of the annexed\nengraving differs in its general arrangement from every other monastic\nstructure in the kingdom. It was, in fact, a monastic castle, and,\nprevious to the use of artillery, must have been regarded as a place of\ngreat strength. It is for this reason that we select it as one of our\n\"Wonderful Things.\"\n\n[Illustration [++] Bective Abbey.]\n\nThe ruins are in the immediate neighbourhood of Trim, and about thirty\nmiles from Dublin.\n\nThe ruins combine a union of ecclesiastical with military and domestic\narchitecture in a remarkable degree. Their chief feature is a strong\nbattlemented tower, the lower compartment of which is vaulted, placed\nat the south-west corner of the quadrangular space occupied by the\nvarious buildings, and in the centre of which the cloisters remain\nin excellent preservation. The cloister arches are late in the first\npointed style, and are cinque-foiled. The featherings are mostly\nplain, but several are ornamented with flowers or leaves, and upon\none a hawk-like bird is sculptured. A fillet is worked upon each of\nthe clustered shafts, by which the openings are divided, and also\nupon their capitals. The bases, which are circular, rest upon square\nplinths, the angles of which are ornamented with a leaf, as it were,\ngrowing out of the base of the moulding.\n\nOf the church there are scarcely any remains. As the northern wall\nof the cloister is pierced with several windows, which have now the\nappearance of splaying externally, it is extremely probable that it\nalso served as the south wall of the church, no other portion of which\ncan at present be identified. Those buildings which were for the most\npart devoted to domestic purposes are for the most part situated upon\nthe east side of the quadrangle. Their architectural details are of a\ncharacter later than those of the tower and of the other portions, but\nadditions and alterations have evidently been made.\n\n\nNOVEL MODE OF CELEBRATION.\n\nUpon the occasion of the christening of the 21st child of Mr. Wright,\nof Widaker, near Whitehaven, by the same woman, in the year 1767, the\ncompany came from 21 parishes, and the entertainment consisted of 21\npieces of beef, 21 legs of mutton and lamb, 21 gallons of brandy, three\ntimes 21 gallons of strong ale, three times 21 fowls, roasted and\nboiled, 21 pies, &c.\n\n\nANTIQUE HEAD ORNAMENT.\n\n[Illustration [++] Bronze Head Ornament.]\n\nThe annexed engraving represents an exceedingly beautiful bronze\nrelic, apparently of the class of head rings, in the collection of the\nSociety of Antiquaries of Scotland, which was discovered in the year\n1747, about seven feet below the surface, when digging for a well, at\nthe east end of the village of Stitchel, in the county of Roxburgh.\nIt bears a resemblance in some respects to relics of the same class\nin the Christiansborg Palace, yet nothing exactly similar to it has\nyet been found among Scandinavian relics; while some of its ornamental\ndetails closely correspond to those which characterize the British\nhorse furniture and other native relics of this period. One of its most\nremarkable peculiarities is, that it opens and shuts by means of a\nhinge, being clasped when closed by a pin which passes through a double\ncatch at a line intersecting the ornament; and so perfect is it that\nit can still be opened and secured with ease. It is probable that this\nalso should rank among the ornaments of the head, though it differs\nin some important respects from any other object of the same class.\nThe oval which it forms is not only too small to encircle the head,\nbut it will be observed from the engraving that its greatest length is\nfrom side to side, the internal measurements being five and nine-tenth\ninches by five and one-tenth inches.\n\n\nRELICS.\n\nAt the commencement of the seventeenth century there was a crucifix\nbelonging to the Augustine friars at Burgos in Spain, which produced a\nrevenue of nearly seven thousand crowns per annum. It was found upon\nthe sea, not far from the coast, with a scroll of parchment appended\nto it, descriptive of the various virtues it possessed. The image\nwas provided with a false beard and a chesnut periwig, which its holy\nguardians declared were natural, and they also assured all pious\nvisitors that on every Friday it sweated blood and water into a silver\nbasin. In the garden of this convent grew a species of wheat, the grain\nof which was peculiarly large, and which its possessors averred was\nbrought by Adam out of Paradise. Of this wheat they made small cakes\ncalled pancillos, kneaded with the aforesaid blood and water, and\nsold them to the credulous multitude for a quartillo a piece. These\ncakes were an infallible remedy for all disorders, and over those\nwho carried them the devil had no power. They sold also blue ribands\nof the exact length of the crucifix, for about a shilling each, with\nthis inscription in silver letters, \"La madi del santo crucifisco de\nBurgos.\" These ribands were a sovereign cure for the headache.\n\n\nLONG MEG AND HER DAUGHTERS.\n\nAs there is something remarkable or out of the way in this family of\nheavy stone, we present it to the reader. This venerable Druidical\nmonument, which is by the country-people called Long Meg and her\nDaughters, stands near Little Salkeld, in the county of Cumberland.\nIt consists of 67 massy stones, of different sorts and sizes, ranged\nin a circle of nearly 120 paces diameter; some of these stones are\ngranite, some blue and grey limestone, and others flint; many of them\nare ten feet high, and fifteen or sixteen feet in circumference:\nthese are called Long Meg's Daughters. On the southern side of this\ncircle, about seventeen or eighteen paces out of the line, stands the\nstone called Long Meg, which is of that kind of red stone found about\nPenrith. It is so placed, that each of its angles faces one of the\ncardinal points of the compass; it measures upwards of eighteen feet\nin height, and fifteen feet in girth; its figure is nearly that of a\nsquare prism; it weighs about sixteen tons and a half. In the part\nof the circle the most contiguous, four large stones are placed in a\nsquare form, as if they had been intended to support an altar; and\ntowards the east, west, and north, two large stones stand a greater\ndistance from each other than any of the rest, seemingly to form the\nentrances into a circle. It is remarkable that no stone-quarry is to\nbe found hereabouts. The appearance of this circle is much hurt by\na stone wall built across it, that cuts off a considerable segment,\nwhich stands in the road. The same ridiculous story is told of these\nstones, as of those at Stonehenge, _i. e._, that it is impossible to\ncount them, and that many persons who have made the trial, could never\nfind them amount twice to the same number. It is added, that this was\na holy place, and that Long Meg and her Daughters were a company of\nwitches transformed into stones, on the prayers of some saint, for\nventuring to prophane it; but when, and by whom, the story does not\nsay. Thus has tradition obscurely, and clogged with fable, handed down\nthe destination of this spot, accompanied with some of that veneration\nin which it was once undoubtedly held, though not sufficiently to\nprotect its remains from the depredations of avarice; the inclosure\nand cultivation of the ground bidding fair to destroy them. These\nstones are mentioned by Camden, who was either misinformed as to, or\nmis-reckoned their number; unless, which seems improbable, some have\nbeen taken away. \"At Little Salkeld, (says he,) there is a circle of\nstones seventy-seven in number, each ten feet high; and before these,\nat the entrance, is a single one by itself, fifteen feet high. This the\ncommon people call Long Meg, and the rest her Daughters; and within\nthe circle, are two heaps of stones, under which they say there are\ndead bodies buried; and, indeed, it is probable enough that this has\nbeen a monument erected in memory of some victory.\" The history of the\nBritish Druidical Antiquities having been thoroughly investigated,\nsince Camden's time, these circles are now universally agreed to have\nbeen temples and places of judgment, and not sepulchral monuments.\nIndeed his editor has, in some measure, rectified his mistake, by the\nfollowing addition: \"But, as to the heaps in the middle, they are no\npart of the monument, but have been gathered off the ploughed lands\nadjoining; and (as in many other parts of the county) thrown up here in\na waste corner of the field; and as to the occasion of it, both this,\nand the Rolrick stones in Oxfordshire, are supposed by many, to have\nbeen monuments erected at the solemn investiture of some Danish Kings,\nand of the same kind as the Kingstolen in Denmark, and Moresteen in\nSweden; concerning which, several large discourses have been written.\"\n\n\nCURIOUS PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO DRESS AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE\nFIFTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nCloth of gold, satin, and velvet, enriched by the florid decorations\nof the needle, were insufficient to satisfy the pride of nobles; robes\nformed of these costly materials were frequently ornamented with\nembroidery of goldsmiths' work, thickly set with precious stones;\nand the most absurd and fantastic habits were continually adopted,\nin the restless desire to appear in new inventions. John of Ghent is\nrepresented in a habit divided straight down the middle, one side\nwhite, the other half dark blue; and his son, Henry IV., on his\nreturn from exile, rode in procession through London in a jacket of\ncloth-of-gold, \"after the German fashion.\" The dukes and earls who\nattended his coronation wore three bars of ermine on the left arm, a\nquarter of a yard long, \"or thereabouts;\" the barons had but two: and\nover the monarch's head was borne a canopy of blue silk, supported by\nsilver staves, with four gold bells, \"that rang at the corners.\" \"Early\nin the reign of Richard II. began,\" says Stowe, \"the detestable use of\npiked shoes, tied to the knees with chains of silver gilt; also women\nused high attire on their heads with piked horns and long training\ngowns. The commons also were besotted in excesse of apparel; in wide\nsurcoates reaching to their loines; some in a garment reaching to their\nheels, close before and sprowting out at the sides, so that on the\nbacke they make men seeme women, and this they call by a ridiculous\nname--_gowne_. Their hoodes are little, and tied under the chin.\"\n\n\nECCENTRIC FUNERAL.\n\nMr. John Oliver, an eccentric miller of Highdown Hill, in Sussex, died,\naged eighty-three, the 27th of May, 1793. His remains were interred\nnear his mill, in a tomb he had caused to be erected there for that\npurpose, near thirty years ago; the ground having been previously\nconsecrated. His coffin, which he had for many years kept under his\nbed, was painted white; and the body was borne by eight men clothed in\nthe same colour. A girl about twelve years old read the burial service,\nand afterwards, on the tomb, delivered a sermon on the occasion, from\nMicah 7, 8, 9, before at least two thousand auditors, whom curiosity\nhad led to see this extraordinary funeral.\n\n\nEGYPTIAN STANDARDS.\n\nThe engraving which we here lay before our friends, represents a group\nof Egyptian standards, as they were used in the army in the time of\nPharaoh.\n\n[Illustration [++] Egyptian Standards.]\n\nEach regiment and company had its own peculiar banner or standard,\nwhich were therefore very numerous, and various in their devices. A\nbeast, bird, or reptile, a sacred boat, a royal name in a cartouche,\nor a symbolic combination of emblems, were the most common forms. As\nthey appear to have been objects of superstitious veneration that were\nselected for this purpose, they must have contributed greatly to the\nenthusiasm so highly valued in battle; and instances are common in\nall history of desponding courage revived, and prodigies of valour\nperformed, on behalf of those objects which were so identified with\nnational and personal honour.\n\nAllusions to standards, banners, and ensigns are frequent in the Holy\nScriptures. The four divisions in which the tribes of Israel marched\nthrough the wilderness had each its governing standard, and tradition\nhas assigned to these ensigns the respective forms of the symbolic\ncherubim seen in the vision of Ezekiel and John--that of Judah being\na lion, that of Reuben a man, that of Ephraim an ox, and that of Dan\nan eagle. The post of standard-bearer was at all times of the greatest\nimportance, and none but officers of approved valour were ever chosen\nfor such a service; hence Jehovah, describing the ruin and discomfiture\nwhich he was about to bring on the haughty King of Assyria, says, \"And\nthey shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth.\"\n\n\nTHE SHREW ASH.\n\n[Illustration [++] Shrew Ash.]\n\nAt that end of Richmond Park where a gate leads to Mortlake, and near\na cottage in which resides one of the most estimable gentlemen of the\nage--Professor Owen--there still lives and flourishes a tree that has\nbeen famous for many ages: it is the Shrew Ash, and the above is a\ncorrect engraving of it. It stands on rising ground, only a few yards\nbeyond the pond which almost skirts the Professor's lawn. White, in\nhis Natural History of Selborne, describes a shrew-ash as an ash whose\ntwigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will\nimmediately relieve the pains which a beast suffers from the running\nof a shrew-mouse over the part affected; for it is supposed that a\nshrew-mouse is of so baleful and deleterious a nature, that wherever it\ncreeps over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal\nis afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the\nuse of the limb. Against this evil, to which they were continually\nliable, our provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand,\nwhich, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A\nshrew-ash was made potent thus:--Into the body of a tree a deep hole\nwas bored with an auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in\nalive, and plugged in, no doubt with several quaint incantations, long\nsince forgotten. The shrew-ash in Richmond Park is, therefore, amongst\nthe few legacies of the kind bequeathed to their country by the wisdom\nof our ancestors.\n\nOur readers will perceive that across the hollow of the tree near the\ntop there is a little bar of wood. The legend runs that were this\nbar removed every night, it would be replaced in the same spot every\nmorning. The superstition is, that if a child afflicted with what the\npeople in the neighbourhood call \"decline,\" or whooping-cough, or any\ninfantine disease, is passed nine times up the hollow of that tree, and\nover the bar, while the sun is rising, it will recover. If the charm\nfails to produce the desired effect, the old women believe that the sun\nwas too far up, or not up enough. If the child recovers, of course, the\nfame of the tree is whispered about. There is a sort of shrew-mother to\nevery shrew-ash, who acts as guide and teacher to any young mother who\nhas an afflicted child and believes in the charm. The ash in Richmond\nPark is still used, and still firmly believed in.\n\n\nA DRUM MADE OF HUMAN SKIN.\n\nJohn Zisca, general of the insurgents who took up arms in the year 1419\nagainst the Emperor Sigismund, to revenge the deaths of John Huss,\nand Jerome of Prague, who had been cruelly burnt to death for their\nreligious tenets, defeated the Emperor in several pitched battles. He\ngave orders that, after his death, they should _make a drum of his\nskin_; which was most religiously obeyed, and those very remains of\nthe enthusiastic Zisca proved, for many years, fatal to the Emperor,\nwho, with difficulty, in the space of sixteen years, recovered Bohemia,\nthough assisted by the forces of Germany, and the terror of Crusades.\nThe insurgents were 40,000 in number, and well disciplined.\n\n\nEARTHQUAKE IN JAMAICA.\n\nThe Earthquake of Jamaica, in 1692, is one of the most dreadful that\nhistory has to record. It was attended with a hollow rumbling noise\nlike that of thunder, and in less than a minute all the houses on one\nside of the principal street in the town of Port Royal sank into a\nfearful gulf forty fathoms deep, and water came roaring up where the\nhouses had been. On the other side of the street the ground rose up\nand down like the waves of the sea, raising the houses and throwing\nthem into heaps as it subsided. In another part of the town the street\ncracked along all its length, and the houses appeared suddenly twice\nas far apart as they were before. In many places the earth opened\nand closed again, so that several hundred of these openings were to\nbe seen at the same time; and as the wretched inhabitants ran out of\ntheir tottering dwellings, the earth opened under their feet, and in\nsome cases swallowed them up entirely; while in others, the earth\nsuddenly closing, caught them by the middle, and thus crushed them\nto death. In some cases these fearful openings spouted up cataracts\nof water, which were attended by a most noisome stench. It is not\npossible for any place to exhibit a scene of greater desolation than\nthe whole island presented at this period. The thundering bellowing\nof the distant mountains, the dusky gloom of the sky, and the crash\nof the falling buildings gave unspeakable horror to the scene. Such\nof the inhabitants as were saved sought shelter on board the ships in\nthe harbour, and remained there for more than two months, the shocks\ncontinuing with more or less violence every day. When, at length, the\ninhabitants were enabled to return, they found the whole face of the\ncountry changed. Very few of the houses which had not been swallowed\nup were left standing, and what had been cultivated plantations were\nconverted into large pools of water. The greater part of the rivers had\nbeen choked up by the falling in of detached masses of the mountains,\nand spreading over the valleys, they had changed what was once fertile\nsoil into morasses, which could only be drained by cutting new channels\nfor the rivers; while the mountains themselves had changed their shapes\nso completely, that it was conjectured that they had formed the chief\nseat of the earthquake.\n\n\nCURIOUS EXTRACTS FROM THE HOUSEHOLD BOOK OF LADY MARY, DAUGHTER OF THE\nKING, IN VARIOUS YEARS, FROM THE 28TH TO THE 36TH OF HENRY VIII. ROYAL\nMSS. BRIT. MUS.\n\n\"Item, geven to George Mountejoye drawing my Layde's Grace to his\nValentine, xl{s}.\n\n\"Item, geven amongs the yeomen of the King's guard bringing a Leke to\nmy Lady's Grace on Saynt David's Day, xv{s}.\n\n\"Item, geven to Heywood playeng an enterlude with his children before\nmy Lady's Grace, xl{s}.\n\n\"Item, payed for a yerde and a halfe of damaske for Jane the fole,\nvij{s}.\n\n\"Item, for shaving of Jane fooles hedde, iiij{d}.\n\n\"Payed for a frountlet lost in a wager to my Lady Margaret, iiij{li}.\n\n\"Item, payed for a brekefast lost at bolling by my Lady Mary's Grace,\nx{s}.\"\n\n\nGIVING DOLES.\n\nA bishop of Durham, in the reign of Edward III, had every week\neight quarters of wheat made into bread for the poor, besides his\nalms-dishes, fragments from his table, and money given away by him\nin journeys. The bishop of Ely, in 1532, fed daily at his gates two\nhundred poor persons, and the Lord Cromwell fed the same number.\nEdward, earl of Derby, fed upwards of sixty aged poor, besides all\ncomers, thrice a week, and furnished, on Good Friday, two thousand\nseven hundred people with meat, drink, and money. Robert Winchelsey,\narchbishop of Canterbury, gave, besides the daily fragments of his\nhouse, on Fridays and Sundays, to every beggar that came to his door,\na loaf of bread of a farthing value; in time of dearth he thus gave\naway five thousand loaves, and this charity is said to have cost his\nlordship five hundred pounds a year. Over and above this he gave on\nevery festival day one hundred and fifty pence to as many poor persons,\nand he used to send daily meat, drink, and bread unto such as by age\nand sickness were not able to fetch alms from his gate; he also sent\nmoney, meat, apparel, &c., to such as he thought wanted the same, and\nwere ashamed to beg; and, above all, this princely prelate was wont to\ntake compassion upon such as were by misfortune decayed, and had fallen\nfrom wealth to poor estate. Such acts deserve to be written in letters\nof gold.\n\n\nFEMALE ORNAMENT OF THE IRON PERIOD.\n\n[Illustration [++] Beaded Torc.]\n\nOne of the most beautiful neck ornaments of the Teutonic or Iron Period\never found in Scotland is a beaded torc, discovered by a labourer\nwhile cutting turf in Lochar Moss, Dumfriesshire, about two miles to\nthe north of Cumlongan Castle; and exhibited by Mr. Thomas Gray, of\nLiverpool, at the York meeting of the Archaeological Institute. We here\nannex an engraving of it. The beads, which measure rather more than\nan inch in diameter, are boldly ribbed and grooved longitudinally.\nBetween every two ribbed beads there is a small flat one formed like\nthe wheel of a pulley, or the vertebral bone of a fish. The portion\nwhich must have passed round the nape of the neck is flat and smooth\non the inner edge, but chased on the upper side in an elegant incised\npattern corresponding to the ornamentation already described as\ncharacteristic of this period, and bearing some resemblance to that on\nthe beautiful bronze diadem found at Stitchel in Roxburghshire, figured\non a subsequent page. The beads are disconnected, having apparently\nbeen strung upon a metal wire, as was the case in another example\nfound in the neighbourhood of Worcester. A waved ornament, chased\nalong the outer edge of the solid piece, seems to have been designed\nin imitation of a cord; the last tradition, as it were, of the string\nwith which the older necklace of shale or jet was secured. Altogether\nthis example of the class of neck ornaments, to which Mr. Birch has\nassigned the appropriate name of beaded torcs, furnishes an exceedingly\ninteresting illustration of the development of imitative design, in\ncontradistinction to the more simple and archaic funicular torc, which,\nthough continued in use down to a later period, pertains to the epoch\nof primitive art.\n\n\nCURIOUS LANTERN.\n\nIn 1602, it is related that Sir John Harrington, of Bath, sent to James\nVI King of Scotland, at Christmas, for a new year's gift, a dark\nlantern. The top was a crown of pure gold, serving also to cover a\nperfume pan; within it was a shield of silver, embossed, to reflect\nthe light; on one side of which were the sun, moon, and planets, and\non the other side, the story of the birth and passion of Christ, as\nit was engraved by David II King of Scotland, who was a prisoner at\nNottingham. On this present, the following passage was inscribed in\nLatin--\"Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.\"\n\n\nANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN BROOCH.\n\n[Illustration [++] Shell-Shaped Brooch.]\n\nThe characteristic and beautiful ornament, usually designated the\nshell-shaped brooch, and equally familiar to Danish and British\nantiquaries, belongs to the Scoto-Scandinavian Period. In Scotland many\nbeautiful examples have been found, several of which are preserved\nin the Museum of Scottish Antiquaries. From these we select the one\nrepresented in the annexed engraving, as surpassing in beauty of design\nand intricacy of ornament any other example of which we are aware. It\nconsists, as usual, of a convex plate of metal, with an ornamental\nborder, surmounted by another convex plate of greater depth, highly\nornamented with embossed and perforated designs, the effect of which\nappears to have been further heightened by the lower plate being gilded\nso as to show through the open work. In this example the gilding\nstill remains tolerably perfect. On the under side are the projecting\nplates, still retaining a fragment of the corroded iron pin, where it\nhas turned on a hinge, and at the opposite end the bronze catch into\nwhich it clasped. The under side of the brooch appears to have been\nlined with coarse linen, the texture of which is still clearly defined\nof the coating of verd antique with which it is now covered. But its\npeculiar features consist of an elevated central ornament resembling a\ncrown, and four intricately-chased projections terminating in horses'\nheads. It was found in September, 1786, along with another brooch of\nthe same kind, lying beside a skeleton, under a flat stone, very near\nthe surface, above the ruins of a Pictish house or burgh, in Caithness.\nIt measures nearly four and a half inches in length, by three inches\nin breadth, and two and two-fifth inches in height to the top of the\ncrown. Like many others of the same type, it appears to have been\njewelled. In several examples of these brooches which we have compared,\nthe lower convex plates so nearly resemble each other, as to suggest\nthe probability of their having been cast in the same mould, while the\nupper plates entirely differ.\n\n\nSTREET CRIES OF MODERN EGYPT.\n\nThe cries of the street hawkers in Egypt at the present day are very\nsingular, and well deserve a place in our repertory of curiosities.\nThe seller of _tir'mis_ (or lupins) often cries \"Aid! O Imba'bee!\naid!\" This is understood in two senses: as an invocation for aid\nto the sheykh El-Imba'bee, a celebrated Moos'lim saint, buried at\nthe Imba'beh, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Cairo; in the\nneighbourhood of which village the best tir'mis is grown; and also as\nimplying that it is through the aid of the saint above mentioned that\nthe tir'mis of Imba'beh is so excellent. The seller of this vegetable\nalso cries, \"The tir'mis of Imba'beh surpasses the almond!\" Another\ncry of the seller of tir'mis is, \"O how sweet are the little children\nof the river!\" This last cry, which is seldom heard but in the country\ntowns and villages of Egypt, alludes to the manner in which the tir'mis\nis prepared for food. To deprive it of its natural bitterness, it is\nsoaked, for two or three days, in a vessel full of water; then boiled,\nand, after this, sewed up in a basket of palm-leaves (called _furd_),\nand thrown into the Nile, where it is left to soak again, two or three\ndays; after which, it is dried, and eaten cold, with a little salt. The\nseller of sour limes cries, \"God make them light [or easy of sale]!\nO limes!\" The toasted pips of a kind of melon called '_abdalla'wee_,\nand of the water-melon, are often announced by the cry of \"O consoler\nof the embarrassed! O pips!\" though more commonly, by the simple cry\nof \"Roasted pips!\" A curious cry of the seller of a kind of sweetmeat\n(hhala'wee), composed of treacle fried with some other ingredients,\nis, \"For a nail! O sweetmeat!\" He is said to be half a thief: children\nand servants often steal implements of iron, &c., from the house in\nwhich they live, and give them to him in exchange for his sweetmeat.\nThe hawker of oranges cries, \"Honey! O oranges! Honey!\" and similar\ncries are used by the sellers of other fruits and vegetables; so that\nit is sometimes impossible to guess what the person announces for sale;\nas, when we hear the cry of \"Sycamore-figs! O grapes!\" excepting by\nthe rule that what is for sale is the least excellent of the fruits,\n&c., mentioned; as sycamore-figs are not so good as grapes. A very\nsingular cry is used by the seller of roses: \"The rose was a thorn:\nfrom the sweat of the Prophet it opened [its flowers].\" This alludes\nto a miracle related of the Prophet. The fragrant flowers of the\nhhen'na-tree (or Egyptian privet) are carried about for sale, and the\nseller cries, \"Odours of paradise! O flowers of the hhen'na!\" A kind of\ncotton cloth, made by machinery which is put in motion by a bull, is\nannounced by the cry of \"The work of the bull! O maidens!\"\n\n\nTHE BLACK PESTILENCE.\n\nThe black pestilence of the fourteenth century caused the most terrific\nravages in England. It has been supposed to have borne some resemblance\nto the cholera, but that is not the case; it derived its name from\nthe dark, livid colour of the spots and boils that broke out upon\nthe patient's body. Like the cholera, the fatal disease appeared to\nhave followed a regular route in its destructive progress; but it did\nnot, like the cholera, advance westward, although, like that fearful\nvisitation, it appears to have originated in Asia.\n\nThe black pestilence descended along the Caucasus to the shores of the\nMediterranean, and, instead of entering Europe through Russia, first\nappeared over the south, and, after devastating the rest of Europe,\npenetrated into that country. It followed the caravans, which came\nfrom China across Central Asia, until it reached the shores of the\nBlack Sea; thence it was conveyed by ships to Constantinople, the\ncentre of commercial intercourse between Asia, Europe, and Africa. In\n1347 it reached Sicily and some of the maritime cities of Italy and\nMarseilles. During the following year it spread over the northern part\nof Italy, France, Germany, and England. The northern kingdoms of Europe\nwere invaded by it in 1349, and finally Russia in 1351--four years\nafter it had appeared in Constantinople.\n\nThe following estimate of deaths was considered far below the actual\nnumber of victims:--\n\n  Florence lost                  60,000 inhabitants\n  Venice     \"                   10,000      \"\n  Marseilles \"  in one month     56,000      \"\n  Paris      \"        \"          50,000      \"\n  Avignon    \"        \"          60,000      \"\n  Strasburg  \"        \"          16,000      \"\n  Basle      \"        \"          14,000      \"\n  Erfurth    \"        \"          16,000      \"\n  London     \"        \"         100,000      \"\n  Norwich    \"        \"          50,000      \"\n\nHecker states that this pestilence was preceded by great commotion\nin the interior of the globe. About 1333, several earthquakes and\nvolcanic eruptions did considerable injury in upper Asia, while in the\nsame year, Greece, Italy, France, and Germany suffered under similar\ndisasters. The harvests were swept away by inundations, and clouds of\nlocusts destroyed all that floods had spared, while dense masses of\noffensive insects strewed the land.\n\nAs in the recent invasion of cholera, the populace attributed this\nscourge to poison and to the Jews, and these hapless beings were\npersecuted and destroyed wherever they could be found. In Mayence,\nafter vainly attempting to defend themselves, they shut themselves up\nin their quarters, where 1,200 of them burnt to death. The only asylum\nfound by them was Lithuania, where Casimir afforded them protection;\nand it is, perhaps, owing to this circumstance that so many Jewish\nfamilies are still to be found in Poland.\n\n\nTHE DUCHESS OF LAUDERDALE.\n\nFew mansions are more pleasantly situated than Ham House, the dwelling\nof the Tollemaches, Earls of Dysart. It stands on the south bank of\nthe Thames, distant about twelve miles from London, and immediately\nopposite to the pretty village of Twickenham. It was erected early in\nthe seventeenth century; the date 1610 still stands on the door of\nthe principal entrance. Its builder was Sir Thomas Vavasour, and it\nsubsequently came into the possession of Katherine, daughter of the\nEarl of Dysart, who married first Sir Lionel Tollemache, and for her\nsecond husband Earl, afterwards Duke, of Lauderdale.\n\nThe Duchess of Lauderdale was one of the \"busiest\" women of the busy\nage in which she lived. Burnet insinuates that, during the life time\nof her first husband, \"she had been in a correspondence with Lord\nLauderdale that had given occasion for censure.\" She succeeded in\npersuading him that he was indebted for his escape after \"Worcester\nfight\" to \"her intrigues with Cromwell. She was a woman,\" continues\nthe historian, \"of great beauty, but of far greater parts. She had\na wonderful quickness of apprehension, and an amazing vivacity in\nconversation. She had studied, not only divinity and history, but\nmathematics and philosophy. She was violent in everything she set\nabout,--a violent friend, but a much more violent enemy. She had\na restless ambition, lived at a vast expense, and was ravenously\ncovetous, and would have stuck at nothing by which she might compass\nher ends.\" Upon the accession of her husband to political power after\nthe Restoration, \"all applications were made to her. She took upon her\nto determine everything; she sold all places; and was wanting in no\nmethod that could bring her money, which she lavished out in a most\nprofuse vanity.\"\n\nThis Duchess of Lauderdale--famous during the reigns of four\nmonarchs--the First and Second James, and the First and Second Charles,\nand through the Protectorship of Cromwell--refurnished the house at\nHam, where she continued to reside until her death at a very advanced\nage.\n\nAmong other untouched relics of gone-by days, is a small ante-chamber,\nwhere, it is said, she not only condescended to receive the second\nCharles, but, if tradition is to be credited, where she \"cajoled\"\nOliver Cromwell. There still remains the chair in which she used to\nsit, her small walking cane, and a variety of objects she was wont to\nvalue and cherish as memorials of her active life, and the successful\nissue of a hundred political intrigues.\n\n[Illustration [++] Chair of the Duchess of Lauderdale.]\n\n\nMODERN EGYPTIAN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.\n\n[Illustration: Sa'ga't (1), Ta'r (2), and Dar'abook'keh (3).]\n\nThe durwee'shes, who constitute a sort of religious mendicant order in\nEgypt, often make use of, in their processions and in begging, a little\ntubl, or kettle-drum, called _ba'z_; six or seven inches in diameter;\nwhich is held in the left hand, by a little projection in the centre\nof the back, and beaten by the right hand, with a short leather strap,\nor a stick. They also use cymbals, which are called _ka's_, on similar\noccasions. The ba'z is used by the Moosahh'hhir, to attract attention\nto his cry in the nights of Rum'ada'n. Castanets of brass, called\n_sa'ga't_ are used by the public female and male dancers. Each dancer\nhas two pairs of these instruments. They are attached, each by a loop\nof string, to the thumb and second finger, and have a more pleasing\nsound than castanets of wood or ivory. There are two instruments which\nare generally found in the hharee'm of a person of moderate wealth,\nand which the women often use for their diversion. One of these is\na tambourine, called _ta'r_, of which we insert an engraving. It is\neleven inches in diameter. The hoop is overlaid with mother-of-pearl,\ntortoise-shell, and white bone, or ivory, both without and within, and\nhas ten circular plates of brass attached to it, each two pairs having\na wire passing through their centres. The ta'r is held by the left or\nright hand, and beaten with the fingers of that hand and by the other\nhand. The fingers of the hand which holds the instrument, striking only\nnear the hoop, produce higher sounds than the other hand, which strikes\nin the centre. A tambourine of a larger and more simple kind than that\nhere described, without the metal plates, is often used by the lower\norders. The other instrument alluded to in the commencement of this\nparagraph is a kind of drum, called _dar'abook'keh_. The best kind is\nmade of wood, covered with mother-of-pearl and tortoise-shell, &c. One\nof this description is here represented with the ta'r. It is fifteen\ninches in length, covered with a piece of fishes' skin at the larger\nextremity, and open at the smaller. It is placed under the left arm;\ngenerally suspended by a string that passes over the left shoulder; and\nis beaten with both hands.\n\n\nREMARKABLE OAKS.\n\nThe oaks most remarkable for their horizontal expansion, are, according\nto Loudon, the following:--\"The Three-shire Oak, near Worksop, was\nso situated, that it covered part of the three counties of York,\nNottingham, and Derby, and dripped over seven hundred and seventy-seven\nsquare yards. An oak between Newnham Courtney and Clifton shaded a\ncircumference of five hundred and sixty yards of ground, under which\ntwo thousand four hundred and twenty men might have commodiously\ntaken shelter. The immense Spread Oak in Worksop Park, near the white\ngate, gave an extent, between the ends of its opposite branches, of\nan hundred and eighty feet. It dripped over an area of nearly three\nthousand square yards, which is above half an acre, and would have\nafforded shelter to a regiment of nearly a thousand horse. The Oakley\nOak, now growing on an estate of the Duke of Bedford, has a head of an\nhundred and ten feet in diameter. The oak called _Robur Britannicum_,\nin the Park, at Rycote, is said to have been extensive enough to cover\nfive thousand men; and at Ellerslie, in Renfrewshire, the native\nvillage of the hero Wallace, there is still standing 'the old oak\ntree,' among the branches of which, it is said, that he and three\nhundred of his men hid themselves from the English.\"\n\n\nCURIOUS ADVERTISEMENT.\n\nA few years ago the following actually appeared in one of the London\npapers: certainly a most economical speculation for the use of soul and\nbody:--\n\n\"Wanted, for a family who have bad health, a sober, steady person,\nin the capacity of doctor, surgeon, apothecary, and man-midwife. He\nmust occasionally act as butler, and dress hair and wigs. He will\nbe required sometimes to read prayers, and to preach a sermon every\nSunday. A good salary will be given.\"\n\n\nCHANGES OF MOUNT ETNA.\n\nSignor Maria Gemmellario has given, from a meteorological journal kept\nat Catania, a very interesting view of the successive changes of Mount\nEtna, at a period in which it was in the phase of moderate activity;\nand no description could convey so accurate a conception of the\never-changing phenomena.\n\nOn the 9th of February, 1804, there was a sensible earthquake. Etna\nsmoked ninety-seven days, but there was no eruption nor any thunder.\n\nOn the 3rd of July, 1805, there was an earthquake. Etna smoked\nforty-seven days, and emitted flame twenty-eight days. There was an\neruption in June, but no thunder.\n\nThere were earthquakes on the 27th of May and 10th of October, 1806.\nThe mountain smoked forty-seven days, flamed seven, and detonated\ntwenty-eight: little thunder.\n\nOn the 24th of February and 25th of November, 1807, there were\nearthquakes. Etna smoked fifty-nine days: little thunder.\n\nIn August, September, and December, 1808, earthquakes were frequent.\nEtna smoked twelve days, flamed one hundred and two, and often\ndetonated. Thunder storms were frequent.\n\nFrom January to May, and during September and December, 1809, there\nwere thirty-seven earthquakes. The most sensible shock was on the 27th\nof March, when the mountain ejected lava on the western side. This\neruption lasted thirteen days, and part of the Bosco di Castiglione was\ninjured. The mountain smoked one hundred and fifty-two days, flamed\nthree, and detonated eleven. Little thunder.\n\nOn the 16th and 17th of February, 1810, there were four earthquakes.\nOn the 27th of October, Etna was in a state of eruption on the eastern\nside, and the lava flowed into the Valle del Bue. There were about\ntwenty thunder storms.\n\n1811, no earthquakes, but the mountain continued until the 24th of\nApril to eject lava from the east. At this time the Mount St. Simon was\nformed. No thunder.\n\nEarthquake on the 3rd and 13th of March, 1813. The mountain smoked\ntwenty-eight days. On the 30th of June, and on the 5th of August, St.\nSimon smoked. There were twenty-one thunder storms.\n\nOn the 3rd of November, 1814, there was an earthquake, preceded by a\ndischarge of sand from that part of the mountain called Zoccolaro.\nThere were twelve thunder storms.\n\nOn the 6th of September, 1815, there was an earthquake. The mountain\nsmoked forty-two days, and there were eleven thunder storms. On the\n6th, 7th, and 11th of January the lightning was tremendous.\n\n1816, no earthquakes. On the 13th of August a part of the interior side\nof the crater fell in. Ten thunder storms.\n\nThere was an earthquake on the 18th of October, 1817. The mountain\nsmoked twenty-two days. There were eight thunder storms.\n\nDuring 1818 there were twenty-five earthquakes. The most violent was\nin the neighbourhood of Catania, on the 20th of February. The mountain\nsmoked twenty-four days. No thunder.\n\n\nCHARITY INSTEAD OF POMP.\n\nAccording to the \"Annual Register\" for August, 1760, there were\nexpended at the funeral of Farmer Keld, of Whitby, in that year, one\nhundred and ten dozen of penny loaves, eight large hams, eight legs\nof veal, twenty stone of beef (fourteen pounds to the stone), sixteen\nstone of mutton, fifteen stone of Cheshire cheese, and thirty ankers of\nale, besides what was distributed to about one thousand poor people,\nwho had sixpence each in money given them.\n\n\nTHE BEDFORD MISSAL.\n\nOne of the most celebrated books in the annals of bibliography, is the\nrichly illuminated Missal, executed for John, Duke of Bedford, Regent\nof France, under Henry VI.; by him it was presented to that king, in\n1430. This rare volume is eleven inches long, seven and a-half wide,\nand two and a-half thick; contains fifty-nine large miniatures, which\nnearly occupy the whole page, and above a thousand small ones, in\ncircles of about an inch and a-half diameter, displayed in brilliant\nborders of golden foliage, with variegated flowers, etc.; at the bottom\nof every page are two lines in blue and gold letters, which explain the\nsubject of each miniature. This relic, after passing through various\nhands, descended to the Duchess of Portland, whose valuable collection\nwas sold by auction, in 1786. Among its many attractions was the\nBedford Missal. A knowledge of the sale coming to the ears of George\nIII., he sent for his bookseller, and expressed his intention to become\nthe purchaser. The bookseller ventured to submit to his majesty the\nprobable high price it would fetch. \"How high?\" exclaimed the king.\n\"Probably, two hundred guineas,\" replied the bookseller. \"Two hundred\nguineas for a Missal!\" exclaimed the queen, who was present, and\nlifted her hands up with astonishment. \"Well, well,\" said his majesty,\n\"I'll have it still; but since the queen thinks two hundred guineas\nso enormous a price for a Missal, I'll go no further.\" The biddings\nfor the Royal Library did actually stop at that point; a celebrated\ncollector, Mr. Edwards, became the purchaser by adding three pounds\nmore. The same Missal was afterwards sold at Mr. Edwards' sale, in\n1815, and purchased by the Duke of Marlborough, for the enormous sum of\nL637 l5s. sterling.\n\n\nCALICINATED RINGS.\n\n[Illustration [++] Calicinated Ring.]\n\nThere is a particular class of antique gold ornaments, belonging to\nthe Bronze Period, which is deserving of especial attention, from\nthe circumstance that the British Isles is the only locality in\nwhich it has yet been discovered. These ornaments consist of a solid\ncylindrical gold bar, beat into a semicircle or segmental arc, most\nfrequently tapering from the centre, and terminated at both ends with\nhollow cups, resembling the mouth of a trumpet, or the expanded calix\nof a flower. A remarkable example of these curious native relics is\nengraved in the \"Archaeological Journal.\" The cups are formed merely by\nhollows in the slightly dilated ends; but it is further interesting\nfrom being decorated with the style of incised ornaments of most\nfrequent occurrence on the primitive British pottery. It was dug up at\nBrahalish, near Bantry, county Cork, and weighs 3 oz. 5 dwts. 6 grs.\nIn contrast to this, another is engraved in the same journal, found\nnear the entrance lodge at Swinton Park, Yorkshire, scarcely two feet\nbelow the surface. In this beautiful specimen the terminal cups are\nso unusually large, that the solid bar of gold dwindles into a mere\nconnecting-link between them. The annexed figure of a very fine example\nfound by a labourer while cutting peats in the parish of Cromdale,\nInverness-shire, somewhat resembles that of Swinton Park in the size of\nits cups. It is from a drawing by the late Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, and\nrepresents it about one-half the size of the original. Similar relics\nof more ordinary proportions have been brought to light, at different\ntimes, in various Scottish districts.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY CRICKET MATCHES.\n\nEvery day in summer wagers are made at Lord's cricket ground, upon\nmatches there to be played; but there have been more extraordinary\nmatches elsewhere relative to this exercising game; for a cricket match\nwas played on Blackheath, in the year 1766, between eleven Greenwich\npensioners who had lost each an arm, and eleven others who had lost\neach a leg. The former won with ease. And again, on the 9th of August,\n1796, a cricket match was played by eleven Greenwich pensioners with\none leg, against eleven with one arm, for one thousand guineas, at the\nnew cricket ground, Montpelier gardens, Walworth. At nine o'clock\nthe men arrived in three Greenwich stages; about twelve the wickets\nwere pitched, and they commenced. Those with but one leg had the first\ninnings, and got 93 runs; those with but one arm got but 42 runs\nduring their innings. The one-leg commenced their second innings, and\nsix were bowled out after they had got 60 runs; so that they left off\none hundred and eleven more than those with one arm. Next morning the\nmatch was played out; and the men with one leg beat the one-arms by\none hundred and three runs. After the match was finished the eleven\none-legged men ran a sweep-stakes of one hundred yards distance for\ntwenty guineas, and the three first had prizes.\n\n\nMUMMY CASES.\n\n[Illustration [++] Mummy Cases.]\n\nThe annexed engraving represents a set of Egyptian mummy cases, several\nof which were used for the interment of one body, the smaller one being\nenclosed within the larger. On the death of a king in Egypt, \"three\nscore and ten days\" was the period that intervened from his departure\nto the termination of the embalming operations; the earlier and more\nimportant of which, exclusive of the soaking in natron, occupied forty\ndays. The coffin, or wooden case, in which the embalmed body of Joseph\nwas preserved, till at the exodus it was carried from Egypt, was,\ndoubtless, of such a form and appearance as those with which we are\nfamiliar at our museums. An account of some specimens of these, and\nof the internal shells which were considered requisite for persons of\nrank, will be read with interest.\n\nBefore the better kind of mummies were put into their wooden cases,\nthey were placed in a shell in the following manner:--Nine thick layers\nof hempen or linen cloth were well gummed together, so as to make a\nstrong flexible kind of board, something like a piece of papier mache.\nThis was formed into the shape of the swathed mummy, which was inserted\nin it by means of a longitudinal aperture on the under side, reaching\nfrom the feet to the head. The two sides of this long aperture were\nthen drawn together by a coarse kind of stitching, done with a large\nneedle and thin hempen cord. The inside of this hempen case was covered\nwith a thin coating of plaster, and the outside was also covered with\na similar sort of plaster, on which were painted rude figures of\nbeetles, ibides, &c., &c., apparently with ochrous earths tempered\nwith water; they could be easily rubbed off with the finger, except\nwhere they were fixed by an outer coating of gum. On the upper part of\nthis case a human face was represented, and for the purpose of giving\nadditional strength and firmness to that part of the hempen covering, a\nconsiderable quantity of earth and plaster was stuck on the inside, so\nthat it would be more easy to mould the material on the outside, while\nstill flexible, into a resemblance of the human form. The face was\ncovered with a strong varnish, to keep the colour fixed. The outer case\nwas generally made of the Egyptian fig-sycamore wood, and the parts of\nit were fastened together with wooden pegs. This wood was used by the\nEgyptians for a variety of purposes, as we find even common domestic\nutensils made of it. The pegs of the sycamore cases were not always of\nthe sycamore wood, which, when cut thin, would hardly be so suitable as\nsome more closely-grained wood; the pegs, therefore, of the inner cases\nwere of a different wood, generally of cedar. Bodies embalmed in the\nhighest style of fashion, had, in addition to the inner coffin which we\nhave described, an outer wooden box, such as Herodotus mentions, with\na human face, male or female, painted on it. Some of these cases were\nplain, and others highly ornamented with figures of sacred animals, or\nwith paintings representing mythological subjects.\n\nThe wooden case which contained the body was sometimes cut out of\none piece of wood, and the inside was made smooth, and fit for the\nreception of the painted figures, by laying on it a thin coat of fine\nplaster. This plaster was also used as a lining for the wooden cases\nwhich were not made of a single piece. There was often a second wooden\ncase, still more highly ornamented and covered with paintings secured\nby a strong varnish. These paintings were intended to embody the ideas\nof the Egyptians as to the state of death, the judgment or trial which\npreceded the admission into the regions below, and other matters\nconnected with the ritual of the dead and the process of embalming.\n\nThe upper part of each of the wooden cases was made to represent a\nhuman figure, and the sex was clearly denoted by the character of\nthe head-dress, and the presence or absence of the beard. Both the\nhead-dress and the ornaments about the neck, as far as the bosom, were\nexactly of the same character as those which we see on the sculptures\nand paintings. The brief remark of Herodotus, that the friends put the\nswathed mummy \"into a wooden figure made to resemble the human form,\"\nis amply borne out.\n\n\nINSTINCT OF ANIMALS.\n\nGall and various observers of animals have fully ascertained that the\nattention of dogs is awakened by our conversation. He brought one\nof these intelligent creatures with him from Vienna to Paris, which\nperfectly understood French and German, of which he satisfied himself\nby repeating before it whole sentences in both languages. A recent\nanecdote has been related of an old ship-dog, that leaped overboard\nand swam to shore on hearing the captain exclaim, \"Poor old Neptune! I\nfear we shall have to drown him!\" and such was the horror which that\nthreat inspired, that he never afterwards would approach the captain\nor any of the ship's company, to whom he had previously been fondly\nattached. It must, however, be observed that in the brute creation, as\nin ours (sometimes more brutal species), peculiar attributes, that do\nnot belong to the race, distinguish individuals gifted with what in\nman we might call a superior intellect, but which in these animals\nshows a superiority of what we term instinct. Spurzheim relates an\ninstance of a cow belonging to Mr. Dupont de Nemours, which, amongst\nthe whole kindred herd, was the only one that could open the gate\nleading to their pastures; and her anxious comrades, when arriving\nat the wished-for spot, invariably lowed for their conductor. It is\nalso related of a hound, who, unable to obtain a seat near the fire\nwithout the risk of quarrelling with the dozing occupants that crowded\nthe hearth, was wont to run out into the court-yard barking an alarm\nthat brought away his rivals in comfort, when he quietly re-entered\nthe parlour, and selected an eligible stretching-place. This animal\ndisplayed as much ingenuity as the traveller who, according to the\nwell-known story, ordered oysters for his horse for the purpose of\nclearing the fireside.\n\n\nBELL OF ST. MURA.\n\n[Illustration [++] Bell of St. Mura.]\n\nThis curious relic, engraved over leaf, two-thirds the size of the\noriginal, is remarkable as a work of art, as well as a genuine\nrelic of the most venerable antiquity; it was formerly regarded\nwith superstitious reverence in Ireland, and any liquid drunk from\nit was believed to have peculiar properties in alleviating human\nsuffering; hence, the peasant women of the district in which it was\nlong preserved, particularly used it in cases of child-birth, and a\nserious disturbance was excited on a former attempt to sell it by its\nowner. Its legendary history relates that it descended from the sky\nringing loudly; but as it approached the concourse of people who had\nassembled at the miraculous warning, the tongue detached itself and\nreturned towards the skies; hence it was concluded that the bell was\nnever to be profaned by sounding on earth, but was to be kept for\npurposes more holy and beneficent. This is said to have happened on\nthe spot where once stood the famous Abbey of Fahan, near Innishowen\n(County Donegal), founded in the seventh century by St. Mura, or\nMuranus, during the reign of Abodh Slaine. For centuries this abbey\nwas noted as the depository of various valuable objects, which were\nheld in especial veneration by the people. Amongst these were several\ncurious manuscripts written by St. Mura, his crozier, and this bell;\nwhich ultimately came into the possession of a poor peasant residing\nat Innishowen, who parted with it to Mr. Brown, of Beaumaris, at whose\nsale in 1855 it was purchased by Lord Londesborough. The material of\nthe bell is bronze, and its form quadrangular, resembling other ancient\nIrish bells, and leading to the conclusion that it is the genuine\nwork of the seventh century. The extreme feeling of veneration shown\ntowards it in various ages is proved by the ornament with which it is\nencased. By the accidental removal of one portion of the outer casing,\na series of earlier enrichments were discovered beneath, which were\nmost probably placed there in the ninth century. The portion disclosed\n(the lower right hand corner) consists of a tracery of Runic knots\nwrought in brass, and firmly attached to the bell by a thin plate of\ngold;--whether the remainder of these early decorations, now concealed,\nbe similar, cannot be determined without removing the outer plates.\nThese exterior ornaments consist of a series of detached silver plates\nof various sizes diversely embossed in the style known to have\nprevailed in the eleventh century. The centre is adorned with a large\ncrystal, and smaller gems have once been set in other vacant sockets\naround it, only one of amber remaining. The two large spaces in front\nof the arched top were also most probably filled with precious stones,\nas the gold setting still remains entire. The best workmanship has been\ndevoted to these decorations; the hook for suspending the bell is of\nbrass, and has been covered with early bronze ornament which has been\nfilled in with niello, the intervening space being occupied by silver\nplates ornamented like the rest of the later decorations which cover\nits surface. From the absence of any traces of rivets on the back\nor sides of the bell, the decoration it has received may have been\nrestricted to the casing of the handle and the enrichment of the front\nof this venerated relic.\n\n\nCURIOUSLY-SHAPED DRINKING CUP.\n\nDrinking cups of a fantastic shape were very much in vogue in the\nsixteenth century. Sometimes they assumed the shape of birds, sometimes\nof animals. In general it is the head that takes off, and serves as\na lid or cover; but sometimes the orifice is in another part of the\nbody, as, for example, on the back. The specimen now before us is from\nLord Londesborough's collection.\n\n[Illustration [++] Drinking Cup in the Shape of a Stag.]\n\nThe stag is of silver, gilt all over; the collar set with a garnet.\nSilver bands encircle this curious figure, to which are appended\nmany small silver escutcheons engraved with the arms and names of\ndistinguished officers of the Court of Saxe Gotha, the latest being\n\"Her Von Maagenheim, Camer Juncker und Regierung Assessor in Gotha,\nd. 15 Augusti, A{o} 1722.\" It has probably been a prize for shooting,\nsuccessively won by those persons whose arms decorate it.\n\n\nBANQUETS TO QUEEN ELIZABETH.\n\nFew English sovereigns were so well acquainted with their dominions\nas was Queen Elizabeth: she may be said to have visited every corner\nof her empire, and in these royal journeys or \"progresses,\" as they\nare called, her loyal subjects strove to outvie each other in the\nsplendour of their receptions. Nothing could surpass the magnificence\nof the entertainments thus planned for the queen's gratification,\neither as respects the splendour of show, or the costliness of the\nmore substantial banquet. These occasions are too numerous to mention;\nand we can only notice one of the queen's visits to the palace at\nGreenwich, as described by a German, who travelled in England in 1598.\nIt was Sunday, and after attending service in the chapel, the queen\nprepared for dinner. A gentleman entered the room bearing a rod, and\nwith him another bearing a table-cloth, which, after they had both\nkneeled three times, he spread upon the table, and after kneeling\nagain, they both retired: then came two others, one with the rod\nagain, the other with a salt-cellar, a plate, and bread, which, after\nkneeling, they also placed on the table: then came an unmarried and a\nmarried lady, bearing a tasting-knife, and having stooped three times\ngracefully, they rubbed the table with bread and salt. Then came the\nyeomen of the guard, bringing in, at each time, a course of dishes,\nserved in plate, most of it gilt; these dishes were received by a\ngentleman, and placed upon the table, while the lady-taster gave to\neach guard a mouthful to eat of the particular dish he had brought, for\nfear of any poison. During the time that this guard (which consisted\nof the tallest and stoutest men that could be found in all England,\nbeing carefully selected for this service) were bringing dinner, twelve\ntrumpets and two kettle-drums made the hall ring for half an hour\ntogether. After this a number of unmarried ladies appeared, who lifted\nthe meat from the table, and conveyed it to the queen's inner and more\nprivate chamber, where, after she had chosen for herself, the rest was\nsent to the ladies of the court. The queen dined and supped alone, with\nvery few attendants.\n\n\nTHE GREAT FOG OF 1783.\n\nIt prevailed over the adjoining continent, and produced much fear that\nthe end of all things was at hand. It appeared first at Copenhagen on\nthe 29th of May, reached Dijon on the 14th June, and was perceived\nin Italy on the 16th. It was noticed at Spydberg, in Norway, on the\n22nd, and at Stockholm two days later; the following day it reached\nMoscow. On the 23rd it was felt on the St. Gothard, and at Buda. By\nthe close of that month it entered Syria; and on the 18th of July,\nreached the Altai Mountains. Before its appearance at these places the\ncondition of the atmosphere was not similar; for in this country it\nfollowed continued rains; in Denmark it succeeded fine weather of some\ncontinuance; and in other places it was preceded by high winds. The sun\nat noon looked rusty-red, reminding one of the lines of Milton. The\nheat was intense during its continuance, and the atmosphere was highly\nelectric. Lightnings were awfully vivid and destructive. In England\nmany deaths arose from this cause, and a great amount of property was\nlost. In Germany public edifices were thrown down or consumed by it;\nand in Hungary one of the chief northern towns was destroyed by fires,\ncaused by the electric fluid, which struck it in nine different places.\nIn France there were hailstones and violent winds. In Silesia there\nwere great inundations. The dry fogs of 1782-83 were accompanied by\ninfluenza; at St. Petersburgh 40,000 persons were immediately attacked\nby it, after the thermometer had suddenly risen 30 degrees. Calabria\nand Sicily were convulsed by earthquakes; in Iceland a volcano was\nactive, and about the same time one sprung out of the sea off Norway.\nThe co-existence of dry fogs with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions\nhad been previously observed--_e.g._, in the years 526, 1348, 1721; and\nsince then, in 1822 and 1834.\n\nA somewhat similar fog overspread London before the cholera of 1831,\nand the influenza of 1847. Hecker (\"Epidemics of the Middle Ages\")\nhas collected notices of various phenomena of this kind, which\nhave preceded the great continental plagues, and have often been\ncharacterised by offensive odours.\n\n\nMONKEYS DEMANDING THEIR DEAD.\n\nMr. Forbes tells a story of a female monkey (the Semnopithecus\nEntellus) who was shot by a friend of his, and carried to his tent.\nForty or fifty of her tribe advanced with menacing gestures, but stood\nstill when the gentleman presented his gun at them. One, however, who\nappeared to be the chief of the tribe, came forward, chattering and\nthreatening in a furious manner. Nothing short of firing at him seemed\nlikely to drive him away; but at length he approached the tent door\nwith every sign of grief and supplication, as if he were begging for\nthe body. It was given to him, he took it in his arms, carried it away,\nwith actions expressive of affection, to his companions, and with them\ndisappeared. It was not to be wondered at that the sportsman vowed\nnever to shoot another monkey.\n\n\nBARA.\n\nMr. Howel, in his descriptive travels through Sicily, gives a\nparticular account of the magnificent manner in which the festival of\nthe Assumption of the Virgin is kept by the Sicilians under the title\nof Bara, which, although expressive of the machine he describes, is\nalso, it appears, generally applied as a name of the feast itself.\nAn immense machine of about 50 feet high is constructed, designing\nto represent Heaven; and in the midst is placed a young female\npersonating the Virgin, with an image of Jesus on her right hand;\nround the Virgin 12 little children turn vertically, representing so\nmany Seraphim, and below them 12 more children turn horizontally,\nas Cherubim; lower down in the machine a sun turns vertically, with\na child at the extremity of each of the four principal radii of his\ncircle, who ascend and descend with his rotation, yet always in an\nerect posture; and still lower, reaching within about 7 feet of the\nground, are placed 12 boys, who turn horizontally without intermission\naround the principal figure, designing thereby to exhibit the 12\napostles, who were collected from all corners of the earth, to be\npresent at the decease of the Virgin, and witness her miraculous\nassumption. This huge machine is drawn about the principal streets by\nsturdy monks; and it is regarded as a particular favour to any family\nto admit their children in this divine exhibition.\n\n\nCRADLE OF HENRY V.\n\nMost of our readers have probably seen, in the illustrated newspapers\nof the day, sketches of the magnificently artistic cradles which\nhave been made for the children of our good Queen, or for the Prince\nImperial of France. It will be not a little curious to contrast with\nthose elaborately beautiful articles the cradle of a Prince of Wales in\nthe fourteenth century. We here give a sketch of it.\n\n[Illustration [++] Cradle of Henry V.]\n\nIt was made for the use of Henry Prince of Wales, afterwards King\nHenry V, generally called Henry of Monmouth, because he was born in\nthe castle there in the year 1388. He was the son of Henry IV of\nBolingbroke, by his first wife Mary de Bohun. He was educated at\nQueen's College, Oxford, under the superintendence of his half uncle,\nthe great Cardinal Henry Beaufort. On the accession of his father to\nthe throne, he was created Prince of Wales, and, at the early age\nof sixteen, was present at the battle of Shrewsbury, where he was\nbadly wounded in the face. After having greatly distinguished himself\nin the war against Owen Glendour, he spent some years idleness and\ndissipation, but on his coming to the throne, by the death of his\nfather, April 20, 1413, he threw off his former habits and associates,\nchose his ministers from among those of tried integrity and wisdom in\nhis father's cause, and seemed everywhere intent on justice, on victory\nover himself, and on the good of his subjects. After a short but\nglorious reign of ten years, in which the victory of Agincourt was the\nprincipal event, he expired at the Bois de Vincennes, near Paris, on\nthe last day of August, 1422, in the thirty-fourth year of his age. He\nwas engaged at the time in a war with the Dauphin of France. His heart\nwas warm as his head was cool, and his courage equal to his wisdom,\nwhich emboldened him to encounter the greatest dangers, and surmount\nthe greatest difficulties His virtues were not inferior to his\nabilities, being a dutiful son, a fond parent, an affectionate brother,\na steady and generous friend, and an indulgent master. In a word,\nHenry V., though not without his failings, merits the character of an\namiable and accomplished man, and a great and good king. Such was the\nsovereign, for whose infant years the plain, but still not tasteless,\ncradle was made, which we have here engraved, as it is preserved in the\ncastle of Monmouth, his birthplace.\n\n\nTHE FONT AT KILCARN.\n\nThe venerable old church at Kilcarn, near Navan, in the county of\nMeath, contains a font of great rarity, and we have selected it as a\nfitting object for our work, inasmuch as it is a striking instance of\nthe union of the beautiful with the curious.\n\n[Illustration [++] Font at Kilcarn.]\n\nPlaced upon its shaft, as represented in the cut, it measures in height\nabout three feet six inches; the basin is two feet ten inches in\ndiameter, and thirteen inches deep. The heads of the niches, twelve in\nnumber, with which its sides are carved, are enriched with foliage of\na graceful but uniform character, and the miniature buttresses which\nseparate the niches are decorated with crockets, the bases resting upon\nheads, grotesque animals, or human figures, carved as brackets. The\nfigures within the niches are executed with a wonderful degree of care,\nthe drapery being represented with each minute crease or fold well\nexpressed. They are evidently intended to represent Christ, the Virgin\nMary, and the twelve apostles. All the figures are seated. Our Saviour,\ncrowned as a King, and holding in his hand the globe and cross, is in\nthe act of blessing the Virgin, who also is crowned, the \"Queen of\nHeaven.\" The figures of most of the apostles can easily be identified:\nSaint Peter by his key; Saint Andrew by his cross of peculiar shape;\nand so on. They are represented barefooted, and each holds a book in\none hand.\n\n\nTHE BLOOD-SUCKING VAMPIRE.\n\nCaptain Stedman, who travelled in Guiana, from 1772 to 1777, published\nan account of his adventures, and for several years afterwards it\nwas the fashion to doubt the truth of his statements. In fact, it\nwas a general feeling, up to a much later period than the above,\nthat travellers were not to be believed. As our knowledge, however,\nhas increased, and the works of God have been made more manifest,\nthe reputation of many a calumniated traveller has been restored,\nand, among others, that of Captain Stedman. We shall, therefore,\nunhesitatingly quote his account of the bite of the vampire:--\"On\nwaking, about four o'clock this morning, in my hammock, I was\nextremely alarmed at finding myself weltering in congealed blood,\nand without feeling any pain whatever. Having started up and run to\nthe surgeon, with a firebrand in one hand, and all over besmeared\nwith gore, the mystery was found to be, that I had been bitten by the\nvampire or spectre of Guiana, which is also called the flying dog\nof New Spain. This is no other than a bat of monstrous size, that\nsucks the blood from men and cattle, sometimes even till they die;\nknowing, by instinct, that the person they intend to attack is in a\nsound slumber, they generally alight near the feet, where, while the\ncreature continues fanning with his enormous wings, which keeps one\ncool, he bites a piece out of the tip of the great toe, so very small\nindeed, that the head, of a pin could scarcely be received into the\nwound, which is consequently not painful; yet, through this orifice he\ncontrives to suck the blood until he is obliged to disgorge. He then\nbegins again, and thus continues mucking and disgorging till he is\nscarcely able to fly, and the sufferer has often been known to sleep\nfrom time into eternity. Cattle they generally bite in the ear, but\nalways in those places where the blood flows spontaneously. Having\napplied tobacco-ashes as the best remedy, and washed the gore from\nmyself and my hammock, I observed several small heaps of congealed\nblood all around the place where I had lain upon the ground; upon\nexamining which, the surgeon judged that I had lost at least twelve or\nfourteen ounces during the night. Having measured this creature (one of\nthe bats), I found it to be, between the tips of the wings, thirty-two\ninches and a-half; the colour was a dark brown, nearly black, but\nlighter underneath.\"\n\n\nLUXURY IN 1562.\n\nThe luxury of the present times does not equal, in one article at\nleast, that of the sixteenth century. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, the\nQueen's ambassador at Paris, in a letter to Sir Thomas Chaloner, the\nambassador at Madrid, in June, 1562, says,\n\n\"I pray you good my Lord Ambassador sende me two paire of parfumed\ngloves, parfumed with orrange flowers and jacemin, th'one for my\nwives hand, the other for mine owne; and wherin soever I can pleasure\nyou with any thing in this countrey, you shall have it in recompence\nthereof, or els so moche money as they shall coste you; provided\nalwaies that they be of the best choise, wherein your judgment is\ninferior to none.\"\n\n\nSINGULAR PHENOMENON--PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA.\n\nThe sea has sometimes a luminous appearance, a phenomenon that has\nbeen observed by all sailors, who consider it the forerunner of windy\nweather. It is said to occur most frequently in the summer and autumn\nmonths, and varies so much in its character, as to induce a doubt\nwhether it can always be attributed to the same cause. Sometimes the\nluminous appearance is seen over the whole surface of the water, and\nthe vessel seems as though floating upon an ocean of light. At other\ntimes, the phosphorescence is only seen immediately around the ship.\nA portion of water taken from the sea does not necessarily retain its\nluminous appearance, but its brilliance will generally continue as long\nas the water is kept in a state of agitation. Some naturalists imagine\nthe phosphorescence of the sea to arise from the diffusion of an\nimmense number of animalculae through the medium, and others attribute\nit to electricity. Dr. Buchanan has given an account of a very\nremarkable appearance of the sea, observed by him during a voyage from\nJohanna to Bombay. About eight o'clock in the evening of the 31st of\nJuly, 1785, the sea had a milk-white colour, and upon it were floating\na multitude of luminous bodies greatly resembling that combination of\nstars known as the milky way, the brightest of them representing the\nlarger stars of a constellation. The whiteness, he says, was such as\nto prevent those on board from seeing either the break or swell of\nthe sea, although, from the motion of the ship and the noise, they\nknew them to be violent, and the light was sufficiently intense to\nilluminate the ropes and rigging. This singular phenomenon continued\ntill daylight appeared. Several buckets of water were drawn, and in\nthem were found a great number of luminous bodies, from a quarter of an\ninch to an inch and a half in length, and these were seen to move about\nas worms in the water. There might be, he said to Dr. Buchanan, four\nhundred of these animals in a gallon of water. A similar appearance had\nbeen observed before in the same sea by several of the officers, and\nthe gunner had seen it off Java Head, in a voyage to China.\n\n\nMARRIAGE VOW.\n\nThe matrimonial ceremony, like many others, has undergone some\nvariation in the progress of time. Upwards of three centuries ago,\nthe husband, on taking his wife, as now, by the right hand, thus\naddressed her:--\"I. N. _undersygne_ the N. for my wedded wyfe, for\nbetter, for worse, for richer, for porer, yn sickness, and in helthe,\ntyl dethe us departe, (not \"do part,\" as we have erroneously rendered\nit, the ancient meaning of \"departe,\" even in Wickliffe's time, being\n\"separate\") as holy churche hath ordeyned, and thereto I plygth the my\ntrowthe.\" The wife replies in the same form, with an additional clause,\n\"to be buxom to the, tyl dethe us departe.\" So it appears in the first\nedition of the \"Missals for the use of the famous and celebrated Church\nof Hereford, 1502,\" fol. In what is called the \"Salisbury Missal,\" the\nlady pronounced a more general obedience: \"to be bonere and buxom in\nbedde and at the borde.\"\n\n\nLOVE OF GARDENS.\n\nLouis XVIII., on his restoration to France, made, in the park in\nVersailles, the _facsimile_ of the garden at Hartwell; and there\nwas no more amiable trait in the life of that accomplished prince.\nNapoleon used to say that he should know his father's garden in Corsica\nblindfolded, by the smell of the earth! And the hanging-gardens\nof Babylon are said to have been raised by the Median Queen of\nNebuchadnezzar on the flat and naked plains of her adopted country,\nto remind her of the hills and woods of her childhood. We need not\nspeak of the plane-trees of Plato--Shakspeare's mulberry-tree--Pope's\nwillow--Byron's elm? Why describe Cicero at his Tusculum--Evelyn at\nWotton--Pitt at Ham Common--Walpole at Houghton--Grenville at Dropmere?\nWhy dwell on Bacon's \"little tufts of thyme,\" or Fox's geraniums? There\nis a spirit in the garden as well as in the wood, and the \"lilies of\nthe field\" supply food for the imagination as well as materials for\nsermons.\n\n\nANCIENT DANISH SHIELD.\n\n[Illustration [++] Ancient Danish Shield.]\n\nIn Asia, from whence the greater number, probably all, of the European\nnations have migrated, numerous implements and weapons of copper\nhave been discovered in a particular class of graves; nay, in some\nof the old and long-abandoned mines in that country workmen's tools\nhave been discovered, made of copper, and of very remote antiquity.\nWe see, moreover, how at a later period attempts were made to harden\ncopper, and to make it better suited for cutting implements by a slight\nintermixture, and principally of tin. Hence arose that mixed metal\nto which the name of \"bronze\" has been given. Of this metal, then,\nthe Northmen of \"the bronze period\" formed their armour, and among\nnumerous other articles, three shields have been discovered which\nare made wholly of bronze; and we here give a sketch of the smallest\nof them, which is about nineteen inches in diameter, the other two\nbeing twenty-four. These shields are formed of somewhat thin plates\nof bronze, the edge being turned over a thick wire metal to prevent\nthe sword penetrating too deeply. The handle is formed of a cross-bar,\nplaced at the reverse side of the centre boss, which is hollowed out\nfor the purpose of admitting the hand.\n\n\nSACRED GARDENS.\n\nThe origin of sacred gardens among the heathen nations may be traced\nup to the garden of Eden. The gardens of the Hesperides, of Adonis, of\nFlora, were famous among the Greeks and Romans. \"The garden of Flora,\"\nsays Mr. Spence (Polymetis, p. 251), \"I take to have been the Paradise\nin the Roman mythology. The traditions and traces of Paradise among the\nancients must be expected to have grown fainter and fainter in every\ntransfusion from one people to another. The Romans probably derived\ntheir notions of it from the Greeks, among whom this idea seems to have\nbeen shadowed out under the stories of the gardens of Alcinous. In\nAfrica they had the gardens of the Hesperides, and in the East those of\nAdonis, or the _Horti Adonis_, as Pliny calls them. The term _Horti\nAdonides_ was used by the ancients to signify gardens of pleasure,\nwhich answers to the very name of Paradise, or the garden of Eden, as\n_Horti Adonis_ does to the garden of the Lord.\"\n\n\nANCIENT CHAIR OF DAGOBERT.\n\n[Illustration [++] Chair of Dagobert.]\n\nThe chair which we here engrave claims to be regarded as a great\ncuriosity, on two separate grounds: it is the work of an artist who\nwas afterwards canonized, and it was used by Napoleon I. on a most\nimportant occasion. Towards the close of the sixth century the artists\nof France were highly successful in goldsmith's work, and Limoges\nappears to have been the principal centre of this industry. It was at\nthis time that Abbon flourished--a goldsmith and mint-master, with whom\nwas placed the young Eloy, who rose from a simple artizan to be the\nmost remarkable man of his century, and whose virtues were rewarded by\ncanonization. The apprentice soon excelled his master, and his fame\ncaused him to be summoned to the throne of Clotaire II., for whom\nhe made two thrones of gold, enriched with precious stones, from a\nmodel made by the king himself, who had not been able to find workmen\nsufficiently skilful to execute it. The talents and probity of St.\nEloy also gained him the affection of Dagobert I., who entrusted him\nwith many important works, and among them, with the construction of\nthe throne, or chair of state which is the subject of this article. It\nis made of bronze, carved and gilded, and is a beautiful specimen of\nworkmanship. The occupant of the chair would sit upon a cloth of gold\nsuspended from the two side bars. For a long time it was preserved in\nthe sacristy of the royal church of St. Denis, at Paris; but it was\nsubsequently removed to the Great Library, where it now is. It was upon\nthis chair that Napoleon I., in August, 1804, distributed the crosses\nof the Legion of Honour to the soldiers of the army assembled at\nBoulogne for the invasion of England. Napoleon caused the chair to be\nbrought from Paris for the express purpose.\n\n\nST GEORGE'S CAVERN.\n\nNear the town of Moldavia, on the Danube, is shown the cavern where St.\nGeorge slew the Dragon, from which, at certain periods, issue myriads\nof small flies, which tradition reports to proceed from the carcass of\nthe dragon. They respect neither man nor beast, and are so destructive\nthat oxen and horses have been killed by them. They are called the\nGolubacz's fly. It is thought when the Danube rises, as it does in\nthe early part of the summer, the caverns are flooded, and the water\nremaining in them, and becoming putrid, produces this noxious fly. But\nthis supposition appears to be worthless, because, some years ago, the\nnatives closed up the caverns, and still they were annoyed with the\nflies. They nearly resemble mosquitoes. In summer they appear in such\nswarms as to look like a volume of smoke; and they sometimes cover a\nspace of six or seven miles. Covered with these insects, horses not\nunfrequently gallop about until death puts an end to their sufferings.\nShepherds anoint their hands with a decoction of wormwood, and keep\nlarge fires burning to protect themselves from them. Upon any material\nchange in the weather the whole swarm is destroyed thereby.\n\n\nENGLISH LETTER BY VOLTAIRE.\n\nThe subjoined letter is copied literally from the autograph of\nVoltaire, formerly in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Sim, the editor of\nMickle's Poems:--\n\n  \"Sir,\n\n\"j wish you good health, a quick sale of y{r} burgundy, much latin, and\ngreeke to one of y{r} Children, much Law, much of cooke, and littleton,\nto the other. quiet and joy to mistress brinsden, money to all. when\nyou'll drink y{r} burgundy with m{r} furneze pray tell him j'll never\nforget his favours.\n\nBut dear john be so kind as to let me know how does my lady\nBollingbroke. as to my lord j left him so well j dont doubt he is so\nstill. but j am very uneasie about my lady. if she might have as much\nhealth as she has Spirit and witt, sure She would be the strongest body\nin england. pray dear s{r} write me Something of her, of my lord, and\nof you. direct y{r} letter by the penny post at m{r} Cavalier, Belitery\nSquare by the R. exchange. j am sincerely and heartily y{r} most humble\nmost obedient rambling friend\n\n  \"VOLTAIRE.\n\n  \"to\n    \"john Brinsden, esq.\n          \"durham's yard\n      \"by charing cross.\"\n\n\nTHE GOLDEN CHALICE OF IONA.\n\nA chalice, as used in sacred ceremonies, is figured on various early\nScottish ecclesiastical seals, as well as on sepulchral slabs and other\nmedieval sculptures. But an original Scottish chalice, a relic of\nthe venerable abbey of St. Columba, presented, till a very few years\nsince, an older example of the sacred vessels of the altar than is\nindicated in any existing memorial of the medieval Church. The later\nhistory of this venerable relic is replete with interest. It was of\nfine gold, of a very simple form, and ornamented in a style that gave\nevidence of its belonging to a very early period. It was transferred\nfrom the possession of Sir Lauchlan MacLean to the Glengarry family,\nin the time of AEneas, afterwards created by Charles II. Lord Macdonell\nand Arross, under the circumstances narrated in the following letter\nfrom a cousin of the celebrated Marshal Macdonald, Duke of Tarentum,\nand communicated by a clergyman (Rev. AEneas M'Donell Dawson), who\nobtained it from the family of the gentleman to whom it was originally\naddressed:--\n\n\"The following anecdote I heard from the late bishop, John Chisholm,\nand from Mr. John M'Eachan, uncle to the Duke of Tarentum, who died at\nmy house at Irin Moidart, aged upwards of one hundred years:--\n\n\"Maclean of Duart, expecting an invasion of his lands in Mull, by\nhis powerful neighbour the Earl of Argyll, applied to Glengarry for\nassistance. AEneas of Glengarry marched at the head of five hundred men\nto Ardtornish, nearly opposite to Duart Castle, and crossing with a few\nof his officers to arrange the passage of the men across the Sound of\nMull, Maclean, rejoicing at the arrival of such a friend, offered some\nchoice wine in a golden chalice, part of the plunder of Iona. Glengarry\nwas struck with horror, and said, folding his handkerchief about the\nchalice, 'Maclean, I came here to defend you against mortal enemies,\nbut since, by sacrilege and profanation, you have made God your enemy,\nno human means can serve you.' Glengarry returned to his men, and\nMaclean sent the chalice and some other pieces of plate belonging\nto the service of the altar, with a deputation of his friends, to\npersuade him to join him; but he marched home. His example was followed\nby several other chiefs, and poor Maclean was left to compete,\nsingle-handed, with his powerful enemy.\"\n\nSuch was the last historical incident connected with the golden\nchalice of Iona, perhaps, without exception, the most interesting\necclesiastical relic which Scotland possessed. Unfortunately its\nlater history only finds a parallel in that of the celebrated Danish\ngolden horns. It was preserved in the charter-chest of Glengarry,\nuntil it was presented by the late Chief to Bishop Ronald M'Donald, on\nwhose demise it came into the possession of his successor, Dr. Scott,\nBishop of Glasgow. Only a few years since the sacristy of St. Mary's\nRoman Catholic Church in that city, where it was preserved was broken\ninto, and before the police could obtain a clue to the depredators,\nthe golden relic of Iona was no longer a chalice. Thus perished, by\nthe hands of a common felon, a memorial of the spot consecrated by\nthe labours of some of the earliest Christian missionaries to the\nPagan Caledonians, and which had probably survived the vicissitudes\nof upwards of ten centuries. In reply to inquiries made as to the\nexistence of any drawing of the chalice, or even the possibility of a\ntrustworthy sketch being executed from memory, a gentleman in Glasgow\nwrites:--\"I have no means of getting even a sketch from which to make a\ndrawing. Were I a good hand myself, I could easily furnish one, having\noften examined it. It was a chalice that no one could look on without\nbeing convinced of its very great antiquity. The workmanship was rude,\nthe ornamental drawings or engravings even more hard than medieval ones\nin their outlines, and the cup bore marks of the original hammering\nwhich had beaten it into shape.\"\n\n\nNEW MODE OF REVENGE.\n\nMonkeys in India are more or less objects of superstitious reverence,\nand are, consequently, seldom or ever destroyed. In some places they\nare even fed, encouraged, and allowed to live on the roofs of the\nhouses. If a man wish to revenge himself for any injury committed\nupon him, he has only to sprinkle some rice or corn upon the top of\nhis enemy's house, or granary, just before the rains set in, and the\nmonkeys will assemble upon it, eat all they can find outside, and then\npull off the tiles to get at that which falls through the crevices.\nThis, of course, gives access to the torrents which fall in such\ncountries, and house, furniture, and stores are all ruined.\n\n\nCURIOUS SUPERSTITION.\n\nThe ring of which we here give a sketch has been selected by us as\na subject for engraving and comment, because it embodies a curious\nsuperstition which was very prevalent in England in the fifteenth and\nsixteenth centuries.\n\n[Illustration [++] Fifteenth Century Ring.]\n\nThe setting is of silver, and the jewel which it carries is called\na toadstone. This stone was popularly believed to be formed in the\nheads of very old toads, and it was eagerly coveted by sovereigns,\nand by all persons in high office, because it was supposed to have\nthe power of indicating to the person who wore it the proximity of\npoison, by perspiring and changing colour. Fenton, who wrote in 1569,\nsays--\"There is to be found in the heads of old and great toads a\nstone they call borax or stelon;\" and he adds--\"They, being used as\nrings, give forewarning against venom.\" Their composition is not\nactually known; by some they are thought to be a stone--by others,\na shell; but of whatever they may be formed, there is to be seen in\nthem, as may be noticed in the engraving, a figure resembling that of\na toad, but whether produced accidentally or by artificial means is\nnot known, though, according to Albertus Magnus, the stone always bore\nthe figure on its surface, at the time it was taken out of the toad's\nhead. Lupton, in his \"1000 Notable Things,\" says--\"A toadstone, called\ncrepaudina, touching any part envenomed, hurt, or stung with rat,\nspider, wasp, or any other venomous beast, ceases the pain or swelling\nthereof.\" The well known lines in Shakespeare are doubtless in allusion\nto the virtue which Lupton says it possesses:--\n\n    \"Sweet are the uses of adversity;\n     Which like a toad, ugly and venomous,\n     Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.\"\n\nBen Jonson also in the _Fox_, has,--\n\n    \"Were you enamoured on his copper rings,\n     His saffron jewel, with the loadstone in't?\"\n\nAnd Lyly, in his _Euphues_--\n\n    \"The foule toad hath a faire stone in his head.\"\n\nThe ring we have engraved is a work of the fifteenth century; it forms\none of the many rare curiosities of the Londesborough Collection, and\nis considered to be a very perfect specimen.\n\n\nANCIENT ARMLET.\n\nIn May, 1840, some workmen were employed at Everdale, near Preston,\nin carrying earth to replace the soil which had been washed away from\nbehind a wall formerly built to protect the banks of the river Ribble.\nIn digging for this purpose, they discovered, at a distance of about\nforty yards from the banks, a great number of articles, consisting\nof ingots of silver, a few ornaments, some silver armlets, and a\nlarge quantity of coins. An attentive examination of all these, and\nespecially of the coins, leads to the conclusion that this mass of\ntreasure was deposited about the year 910, and the articles must be\nconsidered such as were worn at the time of King Alfred, or perhaps\nsomewhat earlier.\n\n[Illustration [++] Ancient Armlet.]\n\nThe armlets, which were all of silver, vary in breadth from a quarter\nof an inch to an inch and a quarter, and perhaps more. They are\ngenerally ornamented, and almost all the ornaments are produced by\npunching with tools of various forms. The patterns are numerous, but\nthe forms of the punches are very few, the variations being produced by\ncombining the forms of more punches than one, or by placing the same\nor differently-formed punches at a greater or less distance from each\nother, or by varying their direction. In the specimen which we have\nhere engraved the punch has had a small square end, and the ornament is\nformed by a series of blows in transverse or oblique lines. Patterns of\nthe period and localities to which these ornaments belong are scarcely\never found finished by casting or chasing. It would appear, also that\nthe use of solder to unite the various parts of objects was either\nlittle known or little practised; for the ends of these ornaments are\ntied together, and, upon other occasions where union is necessary,\nrivets are employed.\n\n\nCHINESE MIRRORS.\n\nThere is a puzzling property in many of the Chinese mirrors which\ndeserves particular notice, and we may give it, together with the\nsolution furnished by Sir David Brewster:--\"The mirror has a knob in\nthe centre of the back, by which it can be held, and on the rest of\nthe back are stamped in relief certain circles with a kind of Grecian\nborder. Its polished surface has that degree of convexity which gives\nan image of the face half its natural size; and its remarkable property\nis, that, when you reflect the rays of the sun from the polished\nsurface, the image of the ornamental border and circles stamped upon\nthe back, is seen distinctly reflected on the wall,\" or on a sheet of\npaper. The metal of which the mirror is made appears to be what is\ncalled Chinese silver, a composition of tin and copper, like the metal\nfor the specula of reflecting telescopes. The metal is very sonorous.\nThe mirror has a rim (at the back) of about 1-4th or 1-6th of an inch\nbroad, and the inner part, upon which the figures are stamped, is\nconsiderably thinner.\n\n\"Like all other conjurors (says Sir David Brewster), the artist has\ncontrived to make the observer deceive himself. The stamped figures on\nthe back are used for this purpose. The spectrum in the luminous area\n_is not an image of the figures on the back_. The figures are a copy\nof the picture which the artist has _drawn on the face of the mirror_,\nand so concealed by polishing, that it is invisible in ordinary lights,\nand can be brought out only in the sun's rays. Let it be required,\nfor example, to produce the dragon as exhibited by one of the Chinese\nmirrors. When the surface of the mirror is ready for polishing, the\nfigure of the dragon may be delineated upon it in extremely shallow\nlines, or it may be eaten out by an acid much diluted, so as to remove\nthe smallest possible portion of the metal. The surface must then be\nhighly polished, not upon pitch, like glass and specula, because this\nwould polish away the figure, but upon cloth, in the way that lenses\nare sometimes polished. In this way the sunk part of the shallow lines\nwill be as highly polished as the rest, and the figure will only be\nvisible in very strong lights, by reflecting the sun's rays from the\nmetallic surface.\"\n\n\nTHE CADENHAM OAK.\n\nAmongst the many remarkable trees in the New Forest in Hampshire, is\none called the Cadenham Oak, which buds every year in the depth of\nwinter. Gilpin says, \"Having often heard of this oak, I took a ride to\nsee it on the 29th of December, 1781. It was pointed out to me among\nseveral other oaks, surrounded by a little forest stream, winding round\na knoll on which they stood. It is a tall straight plant, of no great\nage, and apparently vigorous, except that its top has been injured,\nfrom which several branches issue in the form of pollard shoots. It\nwas entirely bare of leaves, as far as I could discern, when I saw it,\nand undistinguishable from the other oaks in its neighbourhood, except\nthat its bark seemed rather smoother, occasioned, I apprehended, only\nby frequent climbing. Having had the account of its early budding\nconfirmed on the spot, I engaged one Michael Lawrence, who kept the\nWhite Hart, a small alehouse in the neighbourhood, to send me some of\nthe leaves to Vicar's Hill, as soon as they should appear. The man,\nwho had not the least doubt about the matter, kept his word, and sent\nme several twigs on the morning of the 5th of January, 1782, a few\nhours after they had been gathered. The leaves were fairly expanded,\nand about an inch in length. From some of the buds two leaves had\nunsheathed themselves, but in general only one. One of its progeny,\nwhich grew in the gardens at Bulstrode, had its flower buds perfectly\nformed so early as the 21st of December, 1781.\n\n\"This early spring, however, of the Cadenham oak, is of very short\nduration. The buds, after unfolding themselves, make no further\nprogress, but immediately shrink from the season and die. The tree\ncontinues torpid, like other deciduous trees, during the remainder of\nthe winter, and vegetates again in the spring, at the usual season.\nI have seen it in full leaf in the middle of the summer, when it\nappeared, both in its form and foliage, exactly like other oaks.\"\n\nDean Wren, speaking of this tree, says, \"King James could not be\ninduced to believe the [Greek: to toi] (_reason_) of this, till\nBishop Andrewes, in whose diocese the tree grew, caused one of his\nown chaplaines, a man of known integritye, to give a true information\nof itt, which he did; for upon the eve of the Nativitye he gathered\nabout a hundred slips, with the leaves newly opened, which he stuck in\nclaye in the bottom of long white boxes, and soe sent them post to the\ncourte, where they deservedly raised not only admiration, but stopt the\nmouth of infidelitye and contradiction for ever. Of this I was both\nan eye-witness, and did distribute many of them to the great persons\nof both sexes in court and others, ecclesiastical persons. But in\nthese last troublesome times a divelish fellow (of Herostratus humour)\nhaving hewen itt round at the roote, made his last stroke on his own\nlegg, whereof he died, together with the old wondrous tree; which now\nsproutes up againe, and may renew his oakye age againe, iff some such\nenvious chance doe not hinder or prevent itt; from which the example of\nthe former villaine may perchance deterr the attempt. This I thought\nto testifie to all future times, and therefore subscribe with the same\nhand through which those little oakye slips past.\"\n\n\nSCHOOL EXPENSES IN THE OLDEN TIME.\n\nOf the expenses incurred for schoolboys at Eton early in the reign of\nElizabeth, we find some curious particulars in a manuscript of the\ntime: the boys were sons of Sir William Cavendish, of Chatsworth, and\nthe entries are worth notice, as showing the manners of those days.\nAmong the items, a breast of roast mutton is charged ten-pence; a\nsmall chicken, fourpence; a week's board, five shillings each; besides\nthe wood burned in their chamber; to an old woman for sweeping and\ncleaning the chamber, twopence; mending a shoe, one penny; three\ncandles, nine-pence; a book, Esop's Fables, fourpence; two pair of\nshoes, sixteen-pence; two bunches of wax lights, one penny; the sum\ntotal of the payments, including board paid to the bursars of Eton\nCollege, living expenses for the two boys and their man, clothes,\nbooks, washing, &c., amounts to twelve pounds twelve shillings and\nseven-pence. The expense of a scholar at the university in 1514 was but\nfive pounds annually, affording as much accommodation as would cost\nsixty pounds, though the accommodation would be far short of that now\ncustomary at Eton.\n\n\nAN EVENTFUL LIFE.\n\nIt is much to be feared that on the field of battle and naval actions\nmany individuals, apparently dead, are buried or thrown overboard. The\nhistory of Francois de Civille, a French captain, who was missing at\nthe siege of Rouen, is rather curious. At the storming of the town he\nwas supposed to have been killed, and was thrown, with other bodies, in\nthe ditch, where he remained from eleven in the morning to half-past\nsix in the evening; when his servant, observing some latent heat,\ncarried the body into the house. For five days and five nights his\nmaster did not exhibit the slightest sign of life, although the body\ngradually recovered its warmth. At the expiration of this time, the\ntown was carried by assault, and the servants of an officer belonging\nto the besiegers, having found the supposed corpse of Civille, threw it\nout of the window, with no other covering than his shirt. Fortunately\nfor the captain, he had fallen upon a dunghill, where he remained\nsenseless for three days longer, when his body was taken up by his\nrelatives for sepulture, and ultimately brought to life. What was still\nmore strange, Civille, like Macduff, had \"been from his mother's womb\nuntimely ripp'd,\" having been brought into the world by a Caesarean\noperation, which his mother did not survive; and after his last\nwonderful escape he used to sign his name with the addition of \"three\ntimes born, three times buried, and three times risen from the dead by\nthe grace of God.\"\n\n\nFIRST BRIDGE OVER THE THAMES.\n\n[Illustration [++] First Bridge over the Thames.]\n\nThe humble village bridge which we here engrave is well deserving\nof a place in our pages as being the first of that grand series of\nbridges whose last member is London-bridge. What a contrast between\nthe first bridge over the Thames and the last! Thames Head, where\nthe river rises, is in the county of Gloucester, but so near to its\nsouthern border, that the stream, after meandering a mile or two,\nenters Wiltshire, near the village of Kemble. On leaving this village,\nand proceeding on the main road towards the rustic hamlet of Ewen,\nthe traveller passes over the bridge which forms the subject of our\nwoodcut. It has no parapet, and is level with the road, the water\nrunning through three narrow arches. Such is the first bridge over the\nmighty Thames.\n\n\nTHE VENETIANS.\n\nThe Venetians were the first people in Italy who had printed books.\nThey originated a Gazette in the year 1600, and the example was\nfollowed at Oxford in 1667, and at Vienna in 1700. They also undertook\nthe discovery of America, and the passage to India by the Cape of Good\nHope.\n\n\nMEDMENHAM ABBEY.\n\nOn descending the river Thames, from Henley, after passing Culham Court\nand Hambledon Lock, the adjacent country become exceedingly beautiful,\nvaried by alternate mills, islands, meadows, and hills, with every\nnow and then ornamental forest trees hanging over the stream, and\ngiving pleasant shade to the current on its downward flow. The wood\nof Medmenham soon comes in sight; the ruined Abbey is seen among the\ntrees, and close beside it is a pretty ferry, with the pleasant wayside\ninn of Mrs. Bitmead--a domicile well known to artists, her frequent\nguests, one of whom, who has since become famous, painted a sign-board\nwhich hangs over the door, and is of so good a quality that it might\ngrace the exhibition of the Royal Academy. The Abbey has been pictured\na hundred times, and is a capital subject seen from any point of view;\nthe river runs close beside it; there is a hill adjacent--Dane's Hill;\ndark woods and green meadows are at hand; gay boats and traffic barges\nare continually passing; the ferry is always picturesque, and the\nartist is constantly supplied on the spot with themes for pictures;\nespecially he has before him the venerable ruin--\"venerable,\" at least,\nas far as the eye is concerned. Time has touched it leniently; some of\nits best \"bits\" are as they were a century ago, except that the lichens\nhave given to them that rich clothing of grey and gold which the\npainter ever loves, and added to it, here and there, a green drapery of\nivy.\n\n[Illustration [++] Manor of Medmenham.]\n\nThe manor of Medmenham was, in the reign of King Stephen, given by\nits lord, Walter de Bolebec, to the Abbey of Cistercian Monks he had\nfounded at Woburn in Bedfordshire; and in 1204 the monks placed some\nof their society here, on this pleasant bank of the Thames. Here arose\na small monastery, being rather--as the writers of the order express\nthemselves--\"a daughter than a cell to Woburn.\" In 1536 it was annexed\nto Bisham. At the Dissolution, according to returns made by the\ncommissioners, \"the clear value of this religious house was 20_l._ 6s.;\nit had two monks designing to go to houses of religion; servants, none;\nwoods, none; debts, none; its bells worth 2_l._ 1s. 8d.; the value of\nits moveable goods 1_l._ 3s. 8d.; and the house wholly in ruin.\" It\nmust have undergone considerable repair early in the sixteenth century,\nand probably very little of the original structure now exists, although\nrelics of antiquity may be traced in many of its remains. That portion\nwhich fronts the Thames is kept in proper repair, and a large room is\nused for the convenience of pleasure parties. The property belongs to\nthe Scots of Danesfield, a mansion that crowns a neighbouring hill.\nMedmenham derives notoriety from events of more recent date than the\noccupation of its monks, without goods and without debt. Here, about\nthe middle of the last century, was established, a society of men of\nwit and fashion, who assumed the title of the Monks of St. Francis,\nand wore the habit of the Franciscan order. Although it is said\nthat the statements contained in a now forgotten but once popular\nnovel--\"Chrysal; or the Adventures of a Guinea,\"--were exaggerated,\nthe character which the assumed monks bore in the open world was\nsufficiently notorious to justify the worst suspicions of their acts\nin this comparative solitude. Their principal members were Sir Francis\nDashwood (afterwards Lord Le Despencer), the Earl of Sandwich, John\nWilks, Bubb Doddington, Churchill, and Paul Whitehead, the poet. The\nmotto--\"Fay ce que voudras,\" indicative of the principle on which the\nsociety was founded--still remains over the doorway of the Abbey House.\nTradition yet preserves some anecdotes illustrative of the habits of\nthe \"order,\" and there can be little doubt that this now lonely and\nquiet spot was the scene of orgies that were infamous.\n\n\nPERSECUTION.\n\nGrotius, an historian celebrated for moderation and caution, has\ncomputed that in the several persecutions promoted by Charles V., no\nless than a hundred thousand persons perished by the hands of the\nexecutioner. In the Netherlands alone, from the time that his edict\nagainst the reformers was promulgated, he states that there had been\nfifty thousand persons hanged, beheaded, buried alive, or burned, on\naccount of their religion. Indeed, during the reign of Philip the\nSecond, the Duke of Alva boasted that in the space of nine years he\nhad destroyed, in the Low Countries, 36,000 persons by the hands of\nthe executioner alone. At the massacre of Paris, on the feast of St.\nBartholomew, King Charles the Ninth of France assisted in person, and\nboasted that he had sacrificed in one night 10,000 of his subjects;\nfor that massacre the Pope had \"Te Deum\" sung in the chapel of the\nVatican and issued a bull for a jubilee to be celebrated throughout\nFrance on the 7th December, 1512, in commemoration of what he termed\nthe _happy success of the king against his heretic subjects_, and\nconcluded by writing with his own hand a letter to Charles the Ninth,\nexhorting him to pursue this salutary and blessed enterprise. In the\nshort reign of Queen Mary, there were in this realm burned at the stake\none archbishop, four bishops, twenty-one ministers, and nearly three\nhundred persons of all classes, of whom fifty-five were women, and four\nwere children, one of whom sprang from its mother's womb while she was\nconsuming, and was flung into the flames by the spectators. In 1640\nthe same spirit of papal bigotry occasioned in Ireland the butchery of\n40,000 Protestants, under circumstances of aggravated atrocity which a\nChristian will shudder to peruse. Lewis XIV., the most Christian king\nand eldest son of the church, starved a million Huguenots at home, and\nsent another million grazing in foreign countries.\n\n\nINNKEEPER'S BILL IN 1762.\n\nThe following innkeeper's bill was sent in to the Duke de Nivernois,\nwho supped and breakfasted at an inn in Canterbury, in 1762; and\nconsidering the value of money at that time, must be deemed extremely\nmoderate:--\n\n                                         L  s. d.\n\n  Tea, coffee, and chocolate             1  4  0\n  Supper for self and servant           15 10  0\n  Bread and beer                         3  0  0\n  Fruit                                  2 15  0\n  Wine and punch                        10  8  8\n  Wax candles and charcoal               3  0  0\n  Broken glass and china                 2 10  0\n  Lodging                                1  7  0\n  Tea, coffee, and chocolate             2  0  0\n  Chaise and horse, for next stage       2 16  0\n\nThere were only twelve persons in the whole company.\n\n\nSPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION.\n\nJoseph Battaglia, a surgeon of Ponte Bosio, relates the following case:\nDon. G. Maria Bertholi, a priest of Mount Valerius, went to the fair of\nFiletto, and afterwards visited a relation in Fenilo, where he intended\nto pass the night. Before retiring to rest, he was left reading his\nbreviary; when, shortly afterwards, the family were alarmed by his\nloud cries and a strange noise in his chamber. On opening the door, he\nwas lying prostrate on the floor, and surrounded by flickering flames.\nBattaglia was immediately sent for, and on his arrival the unfortunate\nman was found in a most deplorable state. The integuments of the arms\nand the back were either consumed or detached in hanging flaps. The\nsufferer was sufficiently sensible to give an account of himself.\nHe said that he felt, all of a sudden, as if his arm had received a\nviolent blow from a club, and at the same time he saw scintillations\nof fire rising from his shirt-sleeves, which were consumed without\nhaving burned the wrists; a handkerchief, which he had tied round his\nshoulders, between the shirt and the skin, was intact. His drawers were\nalso sound; but, strange to say, his silk skull-cap was burnt while his\nhair bore no marks of combustion. The unfortunate man only survived\nthe event four days. The circumstances which attended this case would\nseem to warrant the conclusion that the electric fluid was the chief\nagent in the combustion.\n\n\nSHOOTING FISH.\n\n[Illustration: Horned Chaetodon.]\n\nOur shores have produced a few specimens of a richly- fish\ncalled Ray's Sea Bream (_Brama Rayi_), interesting because it\nrepresents a family, almost confined to the tropical seas, of very\nsingular forms and habits. The family is named _Chaetodontidae_, from\nthe principal genus in it. They are very high perpendicularly, but\nthin and flattened sidewise; the mouth in some projects into a sort\nof snout, the fins are frequently much elevated, and send off long\nfilaments. They are generally adorned with highly-contrasted colours,\nwhich run in perpendicular bands. They are often called scaly-finned\nfishes, because the dorsal and anal are clothed, at least in part, with\nscales, so as not to be distinguished from the body. The tubular snout\nof some, as of a little species which we here represent, is applied to\nan extraordinary use, that of shooting flies! The fish approaches under\na fly which it has discovered, resting on a leaf or twig, a few feet\nabove the water, taking care not to alarm it by too sudden a motion;\nthen, projecting the tip of its beak from the surface, it shoots a\nsingle drop at the insect with so clever an aim, as very rarely to\nmiss it, when it falls into the water and is devoured. Being common\nin the Indian seas, it is often kept by the Chinese in vases, as we\nkeep golden-fish, for the amusement of witnessing this feat. A fly is\nfastened at some distance, at which the fish shoots, but, disappointed\nof course, and wondering that its prey does not fall, it goes on to\nrepeat the discharge for many times in succession, without seeming to\ntake in a fresh stock of ammunition, and scarcely ever missing the\nmark, though at a distance of three or four feet.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY EARTHQUAKES.\n\nAround the Papandayang, one of the loftiest mountains in Java, no less\nthan forty villages were reposing in peace. But in August 1772, a\nremarkable luminous cloud enveloping its top aroused them from their\nsecurity. But it was too late; for at once the mountain began to sink\ninto the earth, and soon it had disappeared, with the forty villages\nand most of the inhabitants, over a space fifteen miles long and six\nbroad. Still more extraordinary, the most remarkable on record was an\neruption in Sumbawa, one of the Molucca islands, in 1815. It began on\nthe fifth day of April, and did not cease till July. The explosions\nwere heard in one direction nine hundred and seventy miles, and in\nanother seven hundred and twenty miles. So heavy was the fall of ashes\nat the distance of forty miles that houses were crushed and destroyed.\nThe floating cinders in the ocean, hundreds of miles distant, were\ntwo feet thick, and vessels were forced through with difficulty. The\ndarkness in Java, three hundred miles distant, was deeper than the\nblackest night; and, finally, out of the twelve thousand inhabitants of\nthe island, only twenty-six survived the catastrophe.\n\n\nBEAUTIFUL ARCH.\n\nOne of the rarities of architecture is the beautiful arch in the choir\nof Cannistown Church, not far from Bective, near Trim, in Ireland. Down\nto the very latest period of Gothic architecture, the original plan of\na simple nave, or nave and chancel, was followed, and the chief or only\ndifference observable in churches of very late date, from those of the\nsixth and seventh centuries, consists in the form of the arch-heads,\nthe position of the doorway, the style of the masonry, which is usually\nmuch better in the more ancient examples, and the use of bell-turrets,\nthe cloigeteach, or detached round tower, having answered this purpose\nduring the earlier ages. A beautiful and highly characteristic example\nof an early pointed church is that at Cannistown. As usual, it consists\nof a nave and chancel, and there are the remains of a bell-turret upon\nthe west gable, the usual position. The choir arch is represented in\nthe annexed cut.\n\n[Illustration [++] Arch in the Choir of Cannistown Church.]\n\nThere are numerous examples of churches of this style scattered\nover Ireland, but they are usually plain, and the choir arch is\ngenerally the plainest feature in the building. As example, we can\nrefer our readers to the churches of Kilbarrack, Dalkey, Kinsale, and\nRathmichael, all in the immediate neighbourhood of Dublin.\n\n\nTHOMAS CONECTE.\n\nThere was a Carmelite friar, Thomas Conecte, who, previous to his\nbeing burnt as a heretic at Rome, in 1434, excited the admiration of\nall Flanders by his vehement sermons against the luxury of the women.\nHis satire was chiefly levelled against their head-dresses, which rose\nto so enormous a height, that the most exalted head-dresses of a late\nday were but dwarfs to them. Juvenal des Ursins, who lived at that\nperiod, declares that, notwithstanding the troubles of the times, the\nmaidens and married ladies rose to prodigious excess in their attire,\nand wore hair of a surprising height and breadth, having on each side\ntwo ears of so unaccountable a size, that it was impossible for them\nto pass through a door. Their dresses were the hennins of Flanders,\nwhich the worthy Carmelite was so inveterate against. He made them\ndress themselves in a more modest manner. But, alas no sooner had Friar\nThomas left the country than the head-dresses shot up to a greater\nheight than ever. They had only bowed their heads like bullrushes\nduring the storm. Poor Thomas attacked the infallible church itself,\nand they, in default of better arguments, burnt him.\n\n\nCURIOUS COINCIDENCES.\n\nOn the 21st of April, 1770, Lewis XVI. was married.\n\n21st of June, 1770, fifteen hundred people were trampled to death at\nthe _fete_.\n\n21st of January, 1782, _fete_ for the birth of the Dauphin.\n\n21st of June, 1791, the flight to Varennes.\n\n21st of September, 1792, the abolition of royalty.\n\n21st of January, 1793, the unfortunate monarch's decapitation.\n\n\nAMPHITHEATRES.\n\nThe deficiency of theatres erected by the Romans is far more than\ncompensated by the number and splendour of their amphitheatres, which,\nwith their baths, may be considered as the true types of Roman art. It\nseems almost certain that they derived this class of public buildings\nfrom the Etruscans. At Sutri there is a very noble one cut out of\nthe tufa rock, which was no doubt used by that people for festal\nrepresentations long before Rome attempted anything of the kind. It is\nuncertain whether gladiatorial fights or combats of wild beasts formed\nany part of the amusements of the arena in those days, though boxing,\nwrestling, and contests of that description certainly did; but whether\nthe Etruscans actually proceeded to the shedding of blood and slaughter\nis more than doubtful.\n\nEven in the remotest parts of Britain, in Germany, and Gaul, wherever\nwe find a Roman settlement, we find the traces of their amphitheatres.\nTheir soldiery, it seems, could not exist without the enjoyment of\nseeing men engage in doubtful and mortal combats--either killing one\nanother, or torn to pieces by wild beasts. It is not to be wondered at\nthat a people who delighted so much in the bloody scenes of the arena\nshould feel but very little pleasure in the mimic sorrows and tame\nhumour of the stage. It fitted them, it is true, to be a nation of\nconquerors, and gave them the empire of the world, but it brought with\nit feelings singularly inimical to all the softer arts, and was perhaps\nthe great cause of their debasement.\n\nAs might be expected, the largest and most splendid of these buildings\nis that which adorns the capital; and of all the ruins which Rome\ncontains, none have excited such universal admiration as the Flavian\namphitheatre. Poets, painters, rhapsodists, have exhausted all the\nresources of their arts in the attempt to convey to others the\noverpowering impression this building produces on their own minds.\nWith the single exception, perhaps, of the Hall at Karnac, no ruin has\nmet with such universal admiration as this. Its association with the\nancient mistress of the world, its destruction, and the half-prophetic\ndestiny ascribed to it, all contribute to this. Still it must be\nconfessed that\n\n    \"The gladiator's bloody circus stands\n     A noble wreck in ruinous perfection,\"\n\nand worthy of all or nearly all the admiration of which it has been the\nobject. Its interior is almost wholly devoid of ornament, or anything\nthat can be called architecture--a vast inverted pyramid. The exterior\ndoes not possess one detail which is not open to criticism, and indeed\nto positive blame. Notwithstanding all this, its mass, its form, and\nits associations, all combine to produce an effect against which the\ncritic struggles in vain.\n\nThe length of the building, measured along its greatest diameter, is\n620 ft., its breadth 513, or nearly in the ratio of 6 to 5, which may\nbe taken as the general proportion of these buildings, the variations\nfrom it being slight, and apparently either mistakes in setting out\nthe work in ancient times, or in measuring it in modern days, rather\nthan an intentional deviation. The height of the 3 lower stories is\n120 ft.; the total height as it now stands, 157 ft. The arena itself\nmeasures 287 ft. in length by 180 in breadth, and it is calculated that\nthe building would contain 80,000 spectators; 50,000 or 60,000 would be\nmuch nearer the truth, at least according to the data by which space is\ncalculated in our theatres and public places.\n\n\nHUNDRED FAMILIES' LOCK.\n\nA common Chinese talisman is the \"hundred families' lock,\" to procure\nwhich a father goes round among his friends, and, having obtained from\na hundred different parties a few of the copper coins of the country,\nhe himself adds the balance, to purchase an ornament or appendage\nfashioned like a lock, which he hangs on his child's neck, for the\npurpose of locking him figuratively to life, and making the hundred\npersons concerned in his attaining old age.\n\n\nTHE DUKE DE REICHSTADT.\n\nAt the Imperial Palace of Schoenbrun, about five English miles from\nVienna, is shown the window fractured by the bullet of the enthusiastic\nstudent who shot at Napoleon while he was reviewing the Imperial Guard,\nand also the apartment he occupied when he made this his head-quarters,\ninstead of entering the city. An additional interest is imparted to the\nplace, by the circumstance of the Duke de Reichstadt having, when taken\nill, chosen the identical chamber and spot in which his father Napoleon\nhad slept, to close his mortal career: and by a singular coincidence,\nthe remains of the young prince were subjected to a post-mortem\nexamination upon the same table at which the Emperor had held his\ncouncils. In imitation of the military hardihood of his sire, the young\nduke was in the habit of exposing himself to all weathers, and keeping\nguard during successive nights, a practice which often called forth\nfrom his surgeon, Dr. Malfati, the expressive words, '_Rappelez vous,\nmon Prince, que vouz avez un Coeur de Fer dans un Corp de Verre_.'\n\n\nMARY QUEEN OF SCOTS' CANDLESTICK.\n\nAlmost every article, however trifling its intrinsic value, and however\nhomely its appearance, which once belonged to a celebrated individual,\nis always regarded as an object of interest, and we have, therefore,\nno hesitation in presenting our readers with the annexed engraving\nof one of a pair of candlesticks which were once the property of the\nunfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots.\n\n[Illustration [++] Mary Queen of Scots' Candlestick.]\n\nThey are made of brass, each of them of eleven and a-half inches in\nheight. They are of French manufacture; the sunk parts are filled\nup with an inlay of blue, green, and white enamel, very similar to\nthat done at Limoge. These extremely elegant and curious articles are\nthe property of Lord Holland, and are preserved at Holland House,\nKensington.\n\nHolland House is associated \"with the costly magnificence of Rich,\nwith the loves of Ormond, the councils of Cromwell, and the death\nof Addison.\" It has been for nearly two centuries and a-half the\nfavourite resort of wits and beauties, of painters and poets, of\nscholars, philosophers, and statesmen. In the lifetime of the late Lord\nHolland, it was the meeting-place of \"the Whig Party;\" and his liberal\nhospitality made it \"the resort, not only of the most interesting\npersons composing English society--literary, philosophical, and\npolitical, but also to all belonging to those classes who ever visited\nthis country from abroad.\"\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY INSTANCES OF INHUMANITY.\n\nIn 1534, in the wars of Edward III. with France, Fordun relates that a\nFrenchman purchased from the Scots several English prisoners, and that\nhe beheaded them to avenge the death of his father. This sentimental\ncruelty can perhaps be paralleled by that of Coccinas, who, at the\nmassacre of Paris, bought many Huguenots, that he might torture them\nto death for his private satisfaction. Philip Galeas Visconti, Duke of\nMilan, was a man of a nature so timid, that thunder threw him into\nagonies; yet was he so inhuman, that he could _enjoy the shrieks of\na female stretched upon a rack_. Wenceslaus, the German Emperor, say\nMezeray, Voltaire, and others, _roasted his cook alive_, for dressing\nhis dinner amiss; and never had so intimate a friend in Prague as the\ncommon executioner; and even _him_ he put to death at last, for not\ntaking him at his word, when he once had bid him cut his head off, and\nactually knelt down to receive the stroke.\n\n\nANCIENT ROMAN LAMPS.\n\nThe earliest lamps fabricated by the potters of ancient Rome have an\nopen circular body, with a curved projecting rim to prevent the oil\nfrom spilling, and occur both in terra-cotta, and also in the black\nglazed ware found in the sepulchres of Nola. Many have a projecting\nhollow pipe in the centre, in order to fix them to a stick on the top\nof a candelabrum. These lamps have no handles. They may have been\nplaced in the sacella or lararia, and were turned on the potter's wheel.\n\nThe shoe-shaped is the most usual, with a round body, a projecting\nspout or nozzle having a hole for the wick, and a small annular handle,\nwhich is more or less raised.\n\n[Illustration [++] Ancient Roman Lamp.]\n\nA singular variety of lamp, well adapted for a table, was fitted\ninto a kind of small altar, the sides of which were ornamented with\nreliefs. Several however, from their unusual shape, maybe considered\nas fancy ware, the upper part, or the whole lamp, being moulded into\nthe resemblance of some object. Such are lamps in the British Museum in\nthe shape of a female head surmounted by a flower, or of the head of a\n<DW64> or Nubian with open jaws, through which the wick was inserted.\n\nMost of these lamps appear to have been made between the age of\nAugustus and that of Constantine. The style, of course best at the\nearlier period of the empire, degenerates under the later emperors,\nsuch as Philip and Maximus, and becomes at last Byzantine and bad.\n\nMost lamps had only one wick, but the light they afforded must have\nbeen feeble, and consequently some have two wicks, the nozzle for\nwhich project beyond the body of the lamp. In the same manner were\nfabricated lamps of three, five, and seven wicks. If more were required\nthe nozzles did not project far beyond the body of the lamp, which\nwas then moulded in a shape adapted for the purpose, and especially\nthe favourite one of a galley. Sometimes a conglomeration of small\nlamps was manufactured in a row, or in a serrated shape, which enabled\nthe purchaser to obtain what light he required; still the amount of\nillumination must have been feeble. As many as twenty wicks have been\nfound in some lamps.\n\nThe greater number average from three to four inches long, and one\ninch high; the walls are about one-eighth of an inch thick, and the\ncircular handles not more than one inch in diameter. Some of the larger\nlamps, however, are about nine inches or a foot long, with handles\neight or nine inches high.\n\n\nAN ECCENTRIC ENGLISHMAN.\n\nMr. Henry Hastings, a most singular character, and genuine sportsman\nlived in the time of James and Charles I. Mr. Hastings was second son\nto the Earl of Huntingdon; and inherited a good estate in Dorsetshire\nfrom his mother. He was one of the keepers of New Forest, Hampshire;\nand resided in the lodge there during a part of every summer season.\nBut his principal residence was at Woodlands, in Dorsetshire, where\nhe had a capital mansion. One of his nearest neighbours, was the\nLord Chancellor Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury. Two men could not\nbe more opposite in their disposition and pursuits. They had little\ncommunication therefore; and their occasional meetings were rendered\nmore disagreeable to both from their opposite sentiments in politics.\nLord Shaftesbury, who was the younger man, was the survivor; and the\nfollowing account of Mr. Hastings is said to have been the production\nof his pen. \"Mr. Hastings was low of stature, but very strong, and\nvery active; of a ruddy complexion, with flaxen hair. His clothes were\nalways of green cloth. His house was of the old fashion; in the midst\nof a large park, well stocked with deer, rabbits, and fish-ponds. He\nhad a long narrow bowling-green in it; and used to play with round\nsand-bowls. Here, too, he had a banqueting-room built, like a stand\nin a large tree. He kept all sorts of hounds, that ran buck, fox,\nhare, otter, and badger; and had hawks of all kinds, both long and\nshort-winged. His great hall was commonly strewed with marrow-bones;\nand full of hawk-perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. The upper\nend of it was hung with fox-skins of this and the last year's killing.\nHere and there a pole-cat was intermixed; and hunter's poles in great\nabundance. The parlour was a large room, completely furnished in the\nsame style. On a broad hearth, paved with bricks, lay some of the\nchoicest terriers, hounds, and spaniels. One or two of the great chairs\nhad litters of cats in them, which were not to be disturbed. Of these,\nthree or four always attended him at dinner; and a little white wand\nlay by his trencher, to defend it, if they were too troublesome. In\nthe windows, which were very large, lay his arrows, cross-bows, and\nother accoutrements. The corners of the room were filled with his best\nhunting and hawking poles. His oyster-table stood at the lower end of\nthe room, which was in constant use twice a day, all the year round;\nfor he never failed to eat oysters both at dinner and supper; with\nwhich the neighbouring town of Poole supplied him. At the upper end of\nthe room stood a small table with a double desk; one side of which held\na church Bible; the other, the Book of Martyrs. On different tables of\nthe room lay hawks' hoods; bells, old hats with their crowns thrust in,\nfull of pheasants' eggs, tables, dice, cards, and a store of tobacco\npipes. At one end of this room was a door, which opened into a closet,\nwhere stood bottles of strong beer and wine, which never came out\nbut in single glasses, which was the rule of the house; for he never\nexceeded himself, nor permitted others to exceed. Answering to this\ncloset was a door into an old chapel, which had been long disused for\ndevotion; but, in the pulpit, as the safest place, was always to be\nfound a cold chine of beef, a venison pasty, a gammon of bacon, or a\ngreat apple-pie with thick crust, well baked. His table cost him not\nmuch, though it was good to eat at. His sports supplied all but beef\nand mutton, except on Fridays, when he had the best of fish. He never\nwanted a London pudding; and he always sang it in with, \"_My part lies\ntherein-a._\" He drank a glass or two of wine at meals; put syrup of\ngilly-flowers into his sack; and had always a tun-glass of small-beer\nstanding by him, which he often stirred about with rosemary. He lived\nto be an hundred; and never lost his eyesight, nor used spectacles. He\ngot on horseback without help; and rode to the death of the stag, till\nhe was past fourscore.\"\n\n\nPERFUMED BANQUETS OF THE ANCIENTS.\n\nA very remarkable peculiarity in the banquets of the ancients was,\ntheir not confining the resources of the table to the gratification of\none sense alone. Having exhausted their invention in the confection\nof stimulants for the palate, they broke new ground, and called in\nanother sense to their aid; and by the delicate application of odours\nand richly-distilled perfumes, these refined voluptuaries aroused the\nfainting appetite, and added a more exquisite and ethereal enjoyment\nto the grosser pleasures of the board. The gratification of the sense\nof smelling (a sense held by us in very undeserved neglect, probably\non account of its delicacy) was a subject of no little importance\nto the Romans. However this may be, it is certain that the Romans\nconsidered flowers as forming a very essential article in their festal\npreparations; and it is the opinion of Bassius, that at their desserts\nthe number of flowers far exceeded that of fruits. When Nero supped\nin his Golden House, a mingled shower of flowers and odorous essences\nfell upon him; and one of Heliogabalus' recreations was to smother\nhis courtiers with flowers, of whom it may be said, they \"died of a\nrose in aromatic pain.\" Nor was it entirely as an object of luxury\nthat the ancients made use of flowers; they were considered to possess\nsanative and medicinal qualities. According to Pliny, Athenaeus, and\nPlutarch, certain herbs and flowers were of sovereign power to prevent\nthe approaches of ebriety, or, as Bassius less clearly expresses it,\nclarify the functions of the brain.\n\n\nCHINESE BRIDGES.\n\nOf Chinese bridges, some have been very much exaggerated in the\naccounts by Du Halde and the missionaries, as it appears from the\nlater reports concerning the bridge at Foo-chow-foo, visited during\nthe unsuccessful commercial voyage of the ship \"Amherst,\" in 1832, and\nsince the war become familiar to our countrymen. This same bridge,\nwhich proved a very poor structure after all, had been extolled by\nthe Jesuits as something quite extraordinary. A bridge of ninety-one\narches, being in fact a very long causeway, was passed by Lord\nMacartney between Soo-chow and Hang-chow, and near the Lake called\nTae-hoo. The highest arch, however, was supposed to be between twenty\nand thirty feet in height, and the whole length of the causeway half\na mile. It was thrown across an arm of the lake, on the eastern side\nof the canal. The late Sir George Staunton observed a bridge between\nPeking and Tartary, built across a river which was subject to being\nswelled by mountain floods. This was erected upon caissons of wattles\nfilled with stones. It appeared to have been built with expedition,\nand at small cost, where the most solid bridge would be endangered by\ninundations. The caissons were fixed by large perpendicular spars, and\nover the whole were laid planks, hurdles, and gravel. It was only in\nKeang-nan that solid bridges were observed to be thrown over the canal,\nbeing constructed of coarse grey marble, or of a reddish granite. Some\nof the arches were semicircular, others the transverse section of an\nellipse, and others again approached the shape of a horseshoe, or\nGreek [Greek: capital Omega], the space being widest at top. In the\nornamental bridges that adorn gardens and pleasure-grounds, the arch is\noften of height sufficient to admit a boat under sail, and the bridge\nis ascended by steps.\n\n[Illustration [++] Chinese Bridge.]\n\nAll the stones of a Chinese arch are commonly wedge-shaped, their\nsides forming radii which converge towards the centre of the curve.\nIt is observable that, according to the opinion of Captain Parish,\nwho surveyed and made plans of the Great Wall, no masonry could be\nsuperior to it. The arched and vaulted work was considered by him as\nexceedingly well turned. The Chinese, therefore, must have understood\nthe construction and properties of the arch long before the Greeks and\nRomans, whose original and most ancient edifices consisted of columns,\nconnected by straight architraves, of bulk sufficient to support the\nincumbent pressure of solid masonry.\n\n\nSOCIABLE WEAVER-BIRD.\n\nThere are some birds whose social instinct impels them to live in\ncompany, and to unite their powers in the construction of a common\nedifice: in this respect resembling the Beaver among quadrupeds, and\nthe Bee among insects. Among these we may mention the Ani (_Crotophaga\nani_) of the West Indies; the Pensile Grosbeak (_Loxia pensilis_)\nof West Africa; and the Bottle-nested Sparrow of India: but more\nremarkable than any of these is the Sociable Grosbeak (_Loxia\nsocialis_) of South Africa, whose habits are described by Le Vaillant.\n\n\"Figure to yourself,\" says this enterprising traveller, \"a huge,\nirregular, sloping roof, with all the eaves completely covered with\nnests, crowded close together, and you will have a tolerably correct\nidea of these singular edifices.\" The birds commence this structure by\nforming the immense canopy of a mass of grass, so compact and firmly\nbasketed together as to be impenetrable to the rain. This sometimes\nsurrounds a large tree, giving it, but for the upper branches, somewhat\nthe form of a mushroom. Beneath the eaves of this canopy the nests\nare formed; the upper surface is not used for this purpose, but as it\nis sloping, with a projecting rim, it serves to let the rain-water\nrun off, and preserves each little dwelling from the wet. Le Vaillant\nprocured one of these great shelters, and cut it in pieces with a\nhatchet: the chief portion consisted of Boshman's grass, so compact\nas to be impenetrable by rain. Each nest is three or four inches in\ndiameter, which is sufficient for the bird; but, as they are all close\ntogether around the eaves, they appear to the eye to form but one\nbuilding, and, in fact, are distinguishable from each other only by a\nlittle external aperture, which serves as an entrance to the nest. This\nlarge nest contained 320 inhabited cells.\n\n[Illustration: Nest of Sociable Weaver Bird.]\n\n\nWOLVES IN ENGLAND.\n\nKing Edward the First commissioned Peter Corbet to destroy the wolves\nin the counties of Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, Salop, and\nStafford; and ordered John Gifford to hunt them in all the forests of\nEngland.\n\nThe forest of Chiltern was infested by wolves and wild bulls in the\ntime of Edward the Confessor. William the Conqueror granted the\nlordship of Riddesdale, in Northumberland, to Robert de Umfraville,\non condition of defending that part of the country against enemies and\nwolves. King John gave a premium of ten shillings for catching two\nwolves.\n\nIn the reign of King Henry the Third Vitalis de Engaine held the manors\nof Laxton and Pitchley, in the county of Northampton, by the service\nof hunting the wolf, whenever the king should command him. In the\nreign of Edward the First, it was found by inquisition that John de\nEngaine held the manor of Great Gidding, in the county of Huntingdon,\nby the service of hunting the hare, fox, wild cat, and wolf, within the\ncounties of Huntingdon, Northampton, Buckingham, Oxford, and Rutland.\nIn the reign of Edward the Third, Thomas de Engaine held certain manors\nby the service of finding, at his own proper cost, certain dogs for the\ndestruction of wolves, foxes, martins, and wild cats in the counties of\nNorthampton, Rutland, Oxford, Essex, and Buckingham.\n\n\nTEMPLES OF BRAMBANAM.\n\nIn the island of Java, and not far from the ruins of Boro Buddor,\nare situated the Buddhist temples of Brambanam; certainly one of the\nmost extraordinary groups of buildings of its class, and very unlike\nanything we now find in India; though there can scarcely be a doubt but\nthat the whole is derived from an Indian original now lost.\n\nThe great temple is a square building above 45 ft. square, and 75 ft.\nhigh, terminating upwards in an octagonal straight-lined pyramid. On\neach face of this is a smaller temple of similar design joined to the\ngreat one by corridors; the whole five thus constituting a cruciform\nbuilding. It is raised upon a richly ornamented square base. One of\nthe smaller temples serves as an entrance-porch. The building itself\nis very curiously and richly ornamented with sculpture; but the most\nremarkable feature of the whole group is the multitude of smaller\ntemples which surround the central one, 239 in number. Immediately\nbeyond the square terrace which supports the central temple stand 28\nof these, forming a square of 8 on each side, counting the angular\nones both ways. Beyond these, at a distance of 35 ft., is the second\nsquare, 44 in number; between this and the next row is a wide space of\nabove 80 ft., in which only 6 temples are situated, two in the centre\nof the north and south faces, and one on each of the others. The two\nouter rows of temples are situated close to one another, back to back,\nand are 160 in number, each face of the square they form being about\n525 ft. All these 239 temples are similar to one another, about 12 ft.\nsquare at the base, and 22 ft. high, all richly carved and ornamented,\nand in every one is a small square cell, in which was originally placed\na cross-legged figure, probably of one of the Jaina saints, though\nthe drawings which have been hitherto published do not enable us to\ndetermine whom they represent--the persons who made them not being\naware of the distinction between Buddhist and Jaina images.\n\nThe date given to these monuments by the natives is about the 9th or\n10th century, at which time the Jains were making great progress at\nGuzerat and the western parts of India; and if the traditions are to\nbe relied upon, which bring the Hindu colonists of Java from that\nquarter, it is almost certain that they would have brought that\nreligion with them. If the age, however, that is assigned to them be\ncorrect, they are specimens of an earlier date and form than anything\nwe now find in India, and less removed from the old Buddhist type than\nanything that now remains there.\n\n\nGRAHAM ISLAND.\n\nThe most recent instance of subaqueous eruption, with which we are\nacquainted is that which produced Hotham or Graham Island, in the year\n1831. This island was thrown up in the Mediterranean, between the\nsouth-west coast of Sicily and the African coast, in latitude 37 deg. 8'\n30\" north, and longitude 12 deg. 42' 15\" east. The eruption seems to have\nbeen first observed by John Corrao, the captain of a Sicilian vessel,\nwho passing near to the spot on the 10th of July, observed an immense\ncolumn of water ejected from the sea to the height of sixty feet, and\nabout eight hundred yards in circumference.\n\nOn the 16th of July, Corrao again passed the same spot, and he found\nthat a small island had been formed, twelve feet high, with a crater in\nthe centre, from which immense columns of vapour and masses of volcanic\nmatter were ejected.\n\nThe island was afterwards visited by several scientific gentlemen,\nand is said to have been two hundred feet high, and three miles in\ncircumference, on the 4th of August. But from this time the island\ndecreased in size; for being composed of loose scoriae and pumice, it\nwas rapidly acted upon by the water; and on the 3rd of September, when\ncarefully measured by Captain Wodehouse, was only three-fifths of a\nmile in circumference, and one hundred and seven feet high. At the end\nof October the island had entirely disappeared, except one small point\ncomposed of sand and scoriae. Captain Swinburne examined the spot in the\nbeginning of the year 1832, and found an extensive shoal to occupy the\nplace where the island had once been. In 1833 there was a dangerous\nreef, of an oval form, three-fifths of a mile in circumference.\n\n\nA ROYAL SPORTSMAN.\n\nWhen the King of Naples (the greatest sportsman in Europe) was in\nGermany, about the year 1792, it was said in the German papers, that\nin the different times he had been shooting in Austria, Bohemia, and\nMoravia, he had killed 5 bears, 1,820 wild boars, 1,968 stags, 13\nwolves, 354 foxes, 15,350 pheasants, 1,121 rabbits, 16,354 hares, 1,625\nshe-goats, 1,625 roebucks, and 12,435 partridges.\n\n\nLIFE IN DEATH.\n\nThe wife of the consul of Cologne, Retchmuth, apparently died of the\nplague, in 1571; a ring of great value, with which she was buried,\ntempted the cupidity of the grave-digger, and was the cause of many\nfuture years of happiness. At night the purloiner marched to his\nplunder, and she revived. She lived to be the mother of three children,\nand, when deceased in reality, was re-buried in the same church,\nwhere a monument was erected, reciting the particulars above stated\nin German verse. A woman of Poictiers, being buried with four rings,\ntempted the resurrection-man, who _awoke_ the woman in the attempt, as\nhe was rather rude in his mode of possessing them. She called out; he,\nbeing frightened, fled. The lady walked home, recovered, and had many\nchildren afterwards.\n\n\nROCK-CUT MONUMENTS OF ASIA MINOR.\n\nThe engraving below represents an example of rock-cut monuments which\nare found at Doganlu, in Asia Minor. They are placed on the rocky side\nof a narrow valley, and unconnected apparently with any great city or\ncentre of population. Generally they are called tombs, but there are\nno chambers nor anything about them to indicate a funereal purpose,\nand the inscriptions which accompany them are not on the monuments\nthemselves, nor do they refer to such a purpose. Altogether, they are\ncertainly among the most mysterious remains of antiquity, and, beyond\na certain similarity to the rock-cut tombs around Persepolis, it is\nnot easy to point out any monuments that afford even a remote analogy\nto guide us in our conjectures. They are of a style of art clearly\nindicating a wooden origin, and consist of a square frontispiece,\neither carved into certain geometric shapes, or prepared apparently\nfor painting; at each side is a flat pilaster, and above a pediment\nterminating in two scrolls. Some, apparently the more modern, have\npillars of a rude Doric order, and all indeed are much more curious\nthan beautiful. When more of the same class are discovered, they may\nhelp us to some historic data: all that we can now say of them is,\nthat, judging from their inscriptions and the traditions in Herodotus,\nthey seem to belong to some Indo-Germanic race from Thessaly, or\nthereabouts, who had crossed the Hellespont and settled in their\nneighbourhood; and their date is possibly as far back as 1000, and most\nprobably before 700 B.C.\n\n[Illustration [++] Rock-Cut Monument.]\n\n\nARCH OF TRAJAN AT BENEVENTUM.\n\nTriumphal arches were among the most peculiar forms of art which the\nRomans borrowed from those around them, and used with that strange\nmixture of splendour and bad taste which characterises all their works.\n\n[Illustration [++] Arch of Trajan at Beneventum.]\n\nThese were in the first instance no doubt borrowed from the Etruscans,\nas was also the ceremony of the triumph with which they were ultimately\nassociated. At first they seem rather to have been used as festal\nentrances to the great public roads, whose construction was considered\nas one of the most important benefits a ruler could confer on his\ncountry. There was one erected at Rimini in honour of an important\nrestoration of the Flaminian Way by Augustus; another at Susa in\nPiedmont, to commemorate a similar act of the same Emperor. Trajan\nbuilt one on the pier at Ancona, when he restored that harbour, and\nanother at Beneventum, when he repaired the Via Appia, represented in\nthe woodcut here given. It is one of the best preserved as well as\nmost graceful of its class in Italy. The arch of the Sergii at Pola\nin Istria seems also to have been erected for a like purpose. That of\nHadrian at Athens, and another built by him at Antinoe in Egypt, were\nmonuments merely commemorative of the benefits which he had conferred\non those cities by the architectural works he had erected within their\nwalls. By far the most important application of these gateways, in Rome\nat least, was to commemorate a triumph which may have passed along the\nroad over which the arch was erected beforehand, for the triumphal\nprocession to pass through, of which it would remain a memorial.\n\n\nJUDGES' SALARIES.\n\nIn the reign of Henry III. the King's Justices enjoyed a salary of ten\nmarks per annum, which, in the twenty-third year of that King, was\naugmented to twenty pounds, and soon after to more. Under Henry IV. the\nChief Justices of the King's Bench and Common Pleas had forty pounds,\nand one of the judges of Common Pleas had fifty-five marks. In 1466,\nthe salary of Thomas Littleton, judge of the King's Bench, amounted to\nL136 13s. 4d. modern money; besides about L17 7s. for his fur-gown,\nrobes, &c.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY OAK.\n\nGilpin, in his \"Forest Scenery,\" says, \"Close by the gate of the\nwater-walk at Magdalen College, in Oxford, grew an oak, which perhaps\nstood there a sapling when Alfred the Great founded the university.\nThis period only includes a space of nine hundred years, which is no\ngreat age for an oak. It is a difficult matter indeed to ascertain the\nage of a tree. The age of a castle or abbey is the object of history;\neven a common house is recorded by the families that built it. All\nthese objects arrive at maturity in their youth, if I may so speak.\nBut the tree, gradually completing its growth, is not worth recording\nin the early part of its existence. It is then only a common tree;\nand afterwards, when it becomes remarkable for its age, all memory of\nits youth is lost. This tree, however, can almost produce historical\nevidence for the age assigned to it. About five hundred years after the\ntime of Alfred, William of Wainfleet, Dr. Stukely tells us, expressly\nordered his college to be founded near the Great Oak; and an oak could\nnot, I think, be less than five hundred years of age to merit that\ntitle, together with the honour of fixing the site of a college. When\nthe magnificence of Cardinal Wolsey erected that handsome tower which\nis so ornamental to the whole building, this tree might probably be\nin the meridian of its glory, or rather, perhaps, it had attained a\ngreen old age. But it must have been manifestly in its decline at that\nmemorable era when the tyranny of James gave the fellows of Magdalen so\nnoble an opportunity of withstanding bigotry and superstition. It was\nafterwards much injured in Charles the Second's time, when the present\nwalks were laid out. Its roots were disturbed, and from that period it\ndeclined fast, and became reduced by degrees to little more than a mere\ntrunk. The oldest members of the university can scarcely recollect it\nin better plight. But the faithful records of history have handed down\nits ancient dimensions. Through a space of sixteen yards on every side\nfrom its trunk, it once flung its boughs, and under its magnificent\npavilion could have sheltered with ease three thousand men, though in\nits decayed state it could for many years do little more than shelter\nsome luckless individual whom the driving shower had overtaken in his\nevening walk. In the summer of 1788, this magnificent ruin fell to the\nground, alarming the college with its rushing sound. It then appeared\nhow precariously it had stood for many years. Its grand tap-root was\ndecayed, and it had hold of the earth only by two or three roots, of\nwhich none was more than a couple of inches in diameter. From a part of\nits ruins a chair has been made for the President of the College, which\nwill long continue its memory.\"\n\n\nECCENTRIC ADVERTISEMENT.\n\nThe following strange advertisement is copied from the Harleian MSS.:\n\"_In Nova fert Animus_. These are to give notice, (for the benefit of\nthe public,) that there is newly arrived from his travels, a gentleman,\nwho, after above forty years' study, hath, by a wonderful blessing on\nhis endeavours, discovered, as well the nature as the infallible cure\nof several strange diseases, which (though as yet not known to the\nworld) he will plainly demonstrate to any ingenious artist, to be the\ngreatest causes of the most common distempers incident to the body of\nman. The names of which take as follow:\n\n  The strong fives\n  The marthambles\n  The moon-pall\n  The hockogrocle.\n\n\"Now, though the names, natures, symptoms, and several cures of these\ndiseases, are altogether unknown to our greatest physicians, and the\nparticular knowledge of them would (if concealed) be a vast advantage\nto the aforesaid person; yet, he well knowing that his country's\ngood is to be preferred to his private interest, doth hereby promise\nall sorts of people, a faithful cure of all or any of the diseases\naforesaid, at as reasonable rates as our modern doctors have for that\nof any common distemper.\n\n\"He is spoken with at the ordinary hours of business, at the Three\nCompasses, in Maiden-lane.\"\n\n\nMODERN EGYPTIAN FEMALE ORNAMENTS.\n\n[Illustration [++] Ckoo'r.]\n\nAmong the many ornaments which the women of Egypt in modern times\nare so fond of wearing, none is more curious or more generally worn\nthan the _Ckoo'r_. It is a round convex ornament, commonly about five\ninches in diameter, of which there are two kinds. The first that we\nshall describe, and which is the only kind worn by ladies, or by the\nwives of tradesmen of moderate property, is the _ckoor's alma's_, or\ndiamond ckoor's. This is composed of diamonds set generally in gold;\nand is open work, representing roses, leaves, &c. The diamonds are\ncommonly of a very poor and shallow kind; and the gold of this and all\nother diamond ornaments worn in Egypt is much alloyed with copper. The\nvalue of a moderately handsome diamond ckoor's is about a hundred and\ntwenty-five, or a hundred and fifty pounds sterling. It is very seldom\nmade of silver; and I think that those of gold, when attached to the\ndeep red turboo'sh, have a richer effect, though not in accordance\nwith our general taste. The wives even of petty tradesmen sometimes\nwear the diamond ckoor's: they are extremely fond of diamonds, and\ngenerally endeavour to get some, however bad. The ckoor's, being of\nconsiderable weight, is at first painful to wear; and women who are in\nthe habit of wearing it complain of headache when they take it off:\nhence they retain it day and night; but some have an inferior one\nfor the bed. Some ladies have one for ordinary wearing, another for\nparticular occasions, a little larger and handsomer; and a third merely\nto wear in bed. The other kind of ckoor's, _ckoor's dah'ab_ (or, of\ngold), is a convex plate of very thin embossed gold, and almost always\na false emerald (a piece of green glass), not cut with facets, set in\nthe centre. Neither the emerald nor the ruby are here cut with facets:\nif so cut, they would generally be considered false. The simple gold\nckoor's is lined with a thick coat of wax, which is covered with a\npiece of paper. It is worn by many women who cannot afford to purchase\ndiamonds; and even by some servants.\n\n\nANTIQUE ROMAN MEDICINE STAMP.\n\n[Illustration [++] Roman Medicine Stamp.]\n\nBy far the most remarkable of the recently discovered remains of\nthe Roman occupants of Scotland is a medicine stamp, acquired by\nthe Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, along with a very valuable\ncollection of antiquities, bequeathed to them by E. W. A. Drummond\nHay, Esq., formerly one of the secretaries of the society. From his\nnotes it appears that it was found in the immediate vicinity of Trenent\nChurch, East Lothian, in a quantity of _debris_, broken tiles, and\nbrick-dust, which may not improbably have once formed the residence\nand laboratory of Lucius Vallatinus, the Roman oculist, whose name\nthis curious relic supplies. It consists of a small cube of pale\ngreen stone, two and three-fifth inches in length, and engraved on\ntwo sides as in the annexed woodcut; the letters being reversed for\nthe purpose of stamping the unguents or other medicaments retailed by\nits original possessor. The inscriptions admit of being extended thus\non the one side: L. VALLATINI EVODES AD CICATRICES ET ASPRITUDINES,\nwhich may be rendered--The evodes of Lucius Vallatinus for cicatrices\nand granulations. The reverse, though in part somewhat more obscure,\nreads: L. VALLATINI A PAL{O} CR{O}CODES AD DIATHESES--The crocodes, or\npreparation of saffron, of L. Vallatinus, of the Palatine School,\n(?) for affections of the eyes. Both the Euodes and the Crocodes are\nprescriptions given by Galen, and occur on other medicine stamps.\nSeveral examples have been found in England, and many in France and\nGermany, supplying the names of their owners and the terms of their\npreparations. Many of the latter indicate their chief use for diseases\nof the eye, and hence they have most commonly received the name of\nRoman oculists' stamps. No example, however, except the one figured\nhere, has ever occurred in Scotland; and amid legionary inscriptions,\nmilitary votive altars, and sepulchral tablets, it is peculiarly\ninteresting to stumble on this intelligent memento, restoring to us the\nname of the old Roman physician who ministered to the colonists of the\nLothians the skill, and perchance also the charlatanry, of the healing\nart.\n\n\nCANDLES IN THE CHURCH.\n\nIn the formulae of Marculphus, edited by Jerome Bignon, he tells us,\nwith respect to lights, that the use of them was of great antiquity\nin the church; that the primitive Christians made use of them in the\nassemblies which they held before day out of necessity; and that\nafterwards they were retained even in daylight, as tokens of joy, and\nin honour of the Deity. Lactantius says, speaking of the absurdities\nof the wax lights in Romish churches, \"They light up candles to God,\nas if he lived in the dark; and do they not deserve to pass for madmen\nwho offer lamps and candles to the author and giver of light?\" It is\nreally astounding to our ideas that wax candles as long as serjeants'\npikes should be held as necessary in the worship of God. That it is so\nheld, and that by a large class of Christians, every one must allow,\nfor they may have occular demonstration of the singular fact. The show\nis however extremely imposing. Thirty-five thousand seven hundred and\nfifty pounds of wax lights were burned every year, for nine hundred\nmasses said in the castle of Wittemburgh! Philip Melancthon speaks of a\nJesuit who said that \"he would not extinguish one taper, though it were\nto convert all the Huguenots\" (Protestants).\n\n\nA RICH AND CRUEL CRIMINAL.\n\nJohn Ward, Esq. of Hackney, Member of Parliament, being prosecuted by\nthe Duchess of Buckingham, and convicted of forgery, was first expelled\nfrom the House, and then stood on the pillory on the 17th of March,\n1727. He was suspected of joining in a conveyance with Sir John Blount,\nto secrete L50,000 of that director's estate, forfeited to the South\nSea Company by Act of Parliament. The Company recovered the L50,000\nagainst Ward; but he set up prior conveyances of his real estate to his\nbrother and son, and concealed all his personal, which was computed\nto be L150,000. These conveyances being also set aside by a bill in\nchancery, Ward was imprisoned, and hazarded the forfeiture of his life,\nby not giving in his effects till the last day, which was that of his\nexamination. During his confinement, his amusement was to give poison\nto dogs and cats, and see them expire by slower or quicker torments. To\nsum up the _worth_ of this man, at the several eras of his life; at his\nstanding in the pillory, he was worth above L200,000; at his commitment\nto prison, he was worth L150,000.\n\n\nFOOD OF THE ANCIENTS.\n\nThe diversity of substances which we find in the catalogue of articles\nof food is as great as the variety with which the art or the science\nof cookery prepares them. The notions of the ancients on this most\nimportant subject are worthy of remark. Their taste regarding meat\nwas various. Beef they considered the most substantial food: hence\nit constituted the chief nourishment of their athletae. Camels' and\ndromedaries' flesh was much esteemed, their heels most especially.\nDonkey-flesh was in high repute: Maecenas, according to Pliny, delighted\nin it; and the wild ass, brought from Africa, was compared to venison.\nIn more modern times we find Chancellor Dupret having asses fattened\nfor his table. The hog and the wild boar appear to have been held in\ngreat estimation; and a hog was called \"animal propter convivia natum;\"\nbut the classical portion of the sow was somewhat singular--\"vulva\nnil dulcius ampla.\" Their mode of killing swine was as refined in\nbarbarity as in epicurism. Plutarch tells us that the gravid sow was\nactually trampled to death, to form a delicious mass fit for the gods.\nAt other times, pigs were slaughtered with red-hot spits, that the\nblood might not be lost. Stuffing a pig with assafoetida and various\nsmall animals, was a luxury called \"porcus Trojanus;\" alluding, no\ndoubt, to the warriors who were concealed in the Trojan horse. Young\nbears, dogs, and foxes, (the latter more esteemed when fed upon\ngrapes,) were also much admired by the Romans; who were also so fond of\nvarious birds, that some consular families assumed the names of those\nthey most esteemed. Catius tells us how to drown fowls in Falernian\nwine, to render them more luscious and tender. Pheasants were brought\nover from Colchis, and deemed at one time such a rarity, that one of\nthe Ptolemies bitterly lamented his never having tasted any. Peacocks\nwere carefully reared in the island of Samos, and sold at such a high\nprice, that Varro informs us they fetched yearly upwards of L2,000 of\nour money.\n\n\nTHE EARLIEST ENGLISH BIBLE.\n\nThe first translation of any part of the Holy Scriptures into English\nthat was committed to the press was the New Testament, translated from\nthe Greek, by William Tyndale, with the assistance of John Foye and\nWilliam Roye, and printed first in 1526, in octavo.\n\nTyndale published afterwards, in 1530, a translation of the Five Books\nof Moses, and of Jonah, in 1531, in octavo. An English translation of\nthe Psalter, done from the Latin of Martin Bucer, was also published\nat Strasburgh in 1530, by Francis Foye, in octavo. And the same book,\ntogether with Jeremiah and the Song of Moses, were likewise published\nin 1534, in duodecimo, by George Joye, sometime Fellow of Peter-House\nin Cambridge.\n\nThe first time the whole Bible appeared in English was in the year\n1535, in folio. The translator and publisher was Miles Coverdale,\nafterwards Bishop of Exeter, who revised Tyndale's version, compared\nit with the original, and supplied what had been left untranslated\nby Tyndale. It was printed at Zurich, and dedicated to King Henry\nthe Eighth. This was the Bible, which by Cromwell's injunction of\nSeptember, 1536, was ordered to be laid in churches.\n\n\nGREAT ERUPTION OF MOUNT ETNA.\n\nOne of the most remarkable eruptions of this mountain was that which\noccurred in the year 1669, which was so violent that fifteen towns\nand villages were destroyed, and the stream was so deep that the lava\nflowed over the walls of Catania, sixty feet in height, and destroyed\na part of the city. But the most singular circumstance connected with\nthis eruption was the formation of a number of extensive fissures,\nwhich appeared as though filled with intumescent rock. At the very\ncommencement of the volcanic excitement, one was formed in the plain\nof St. Lio, twelve miles in length and six feet broad, which ejected\na vivid flame, and shortly after five others were opened. The town of\nNicolosi, situated twenty miles from the summit of Etna, was destroyed\nby earthquake; and near the place where it stood two gulfs were formed,\nfrom which so large a quantity of sand and scoriae was thrown, that\na cone, called Mount Rossi, four hundred and fifty feet high, was\nproduced in about three months.\n\n\nAMULETS WORN BY MODERN EGYPTIAN FEMALES.\n\n[Illustration [++] Amulet.]\n\nOne of the most remarkable traits in modern Egyptian superstition is\nthe belief in written charms. The composition of most of these amulets\nis founded upon magic, and occasionally employs the pen of almost\nevery village schoolmaster in Egypt. A person of this description,\nhowever, seldom pursues the study of magic further than to acquire\nthe formulae of a few charms, commonly consisting, for the greater\npart, of certain passages of the Koran, and names of God, together\nwith those of spirits, genii, prophets, or eminent saints, intermixed\nwith combinations of numerals, and with diagrams, all of which are\nsupposed to have great secret virtues. The amulet thus composed, or\n_hhega'b_, as it is called, is covered with waxed cloth, to preserve\nit from accidental pollution, and enclosed in a case of thin embossed\ngold or silver, which is attached to a silk string, or a chain, hung\non the right side, above the girdle, the string or chain being passed\nover the left shoulder. Sometimes these cases bear Arabic inscriptions,\nsuch as \"Ma'sha-lla'h\" (\"God's will\") and \"Ya'cha'dee el-hhaga't\" (\"O\ndecreer of the things that are needful!\") We here insert an engraving\nof three hhega'bs of gold, attached to a string, to be worn together.\nThe central one is a thin, flat case, containing a folded paper: it is\nabout a third of an inch thick; the others are cylindrical cases, with\nhemispherical ends, and contain scrolls: each has a row of burck along\nthe bottom. Hhega'bs such as these, or of a triangular form, are worn\nby many children, as well as women; and those of the latter form are\nattached to a child's head-dress.\n\n\nPERSONAL ORNAMENTS OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS.\n\nThe passion of the Egyptians for decorative jewellery was indeed\nexcessive. Men as well as women delighted thus to adorn themselves;\nand the desire was not confined to the higher ranks, for though the\nsubordinate classes could not afford the sparkling gems and precious\nmetals which glowed upon the persons of their superiors, their vanity\nwas gratified by humbler imitations, of bronze, glass, and porcelain.\n\n\"Costly and elegant ornaments,\" observes Professor Rosselini, \"abounded\nin proportion as clothing in general was simple and scarce among the\nEgyptians. Girdles, necklaces, armlets, ear-rings, and amulets of\nvarious kinds suspended from the neck, are found represented in the\npainting, and in fact still exist on the mummies. Figures of noble\nyouths are found entirely devoid of clothing, but richly ornamented\nwith necklaces and other jewels.\"\n\nAn immense number of these \"jewels of silver and jewels of gold\"\nhave been found in the tombs, and on the persons of mummies, and are\ndeposited in profusion in every museum. The accompanying engravings\nwill give an idea of the style and form of some of them.\n\n[Illustration [++] Personal Ornaments.]\n\nThe ear-rings generally worn by the ladies were large, round, single\nhoops (as _a_) from 1-1\/2 inches to 2-1\/3 inches in diameter; and\nfrequently of a still greater size; or made of six rings soldered\ntogether (as _b_); sometimes an asp, whose body was of gold, set with\nprecious stones, was worn by persons of rank as a fashionable caprice.\nFigures _c_, _d_, of gold bear the heads of fanciful animals; _e_,\nalso of gold, is remarkable for its singularity of form, and for the\ndelicacy of its workmanship; and _f_ for its carrying two pearls and\nbeing double in its construction.\n\n[Illustration [++] Ear-Rings.]\n\nBracelets, armlets, and anklets were worn by men as well as by women;\nthey were usually of gold, frequently set with precious stones, or\ninlaid with enamel. The one marked _a_ in the annexed cut is now in the\nLeyden Museum: it is of gold, 3 inches in diameter, and 1-1\/2 inches in\nheight, and is interesting, because it belonged to the Pharaoh whom we\nconclude to have been the patron and friend of Joseph, Thothmes III.,\nwhose name it bears. The armlet _b_ is of gold, and represents a snake;\nthe other, _c_, is of bronze. Rings were worn in profusion, gold being\nthe material chiefly selected. Some resemble watch seals of the present\nday--sometimes the stone having four flat sides, all engraved, turned\non a pivot, like some seals seen at present. One of this character,\nwhich Sir J. G. Wilkinson estimates to contain 20_l._ worth of gold,\nis represented at _d_ in the above engraving. It consists of a massive\nring of gold, bearing an oblong plinth of the same metal, an inch in\nlength, and more than half an inch in its greatest width. On one side\nis engraved the hieroglyphic name of Storus, the successor of Amunoph\nIII.; the three others contain respectively a scorpion, a crocodile,\nand a lion.\n\n\nGREAT PEAR TREE.\n\nThe most remarkable pear tree in England stands on the glebe of the\nparish of Holme Lacy, in Herefordshire. When the branches of this\ntree, in its original state, became long and heavy, their extremities\ndrooped till they reached the ground. They then took root; each branch\nbecame a new tree, and in its turn produced others in the same way.\nEventually it extended itself until it covered more than an acre of\nground, and would probably have reached much further if it had been\nsuffered to do so. It is stated in the church register, that \"the great\nnatural curiosity, the great pear tree upon the glebe, adjoining to the\nvicarage-house, produced this year (1776) fourteen hogsheads of perry,\neach hogshead containing one hundred gallons.\" Though now much reduced\nin size, it is still healthy and vigorous, and generally produces from\ntwo to five hogsheads. The liquor is not of a good quality, being very\nstrong and heating. An idea of the superior size of this tree, when in\nits prime, over others of the same kind, may be formed from the fact,\nthat in the same county, an acre of ground is usually planted with\nthirty trees, which, in a good soil, produce annually, when full grown,\ntwenty gallons of perry each. So large a quantity as a hogshead from\none tree is very unusual. The sorts principally used for perry are such\nas have an austere juice.\n\n\nLAW OF THE MOZCAS.\n\nA very remarkable law prevailed among the Mozcas, one of the tribes\nof the Nuevo Reyno de Granada. There, as among more advanced nations,\nthe king could do no wrong; but the subordinate chiefs could. These\nchiefs were men, the people reasoned, like themselves; they could not\nbe punished by their vassals, for there would be a natural unfitness\nin that; the king, it seems, was not expected to interfere, except\nin cases of state offences; the power of punishment, therefore, was\nvested in their wives; and a power it was, says Piedrahita, which they\nexercised famously whenever it fell to them to be judges of their poor\nhusbands. The conqueror Quesada calling one morning upon the chief of a\nplace called Suesca, found him under the hands of his nine wives, who\nwere tying him, and having done so, proceeded, in spite of Quesada's\nintercession, to flog him one after the other. His offence was, that\nsome Spaniards the night before had lodged in his house, and he had\npartaken too freely of their Spanish wine. Drunkenness was one of the\nsins which fell under the cognizance of his wives: they carried him\nto bed that he might sleep himself sober, and then awoke him in the\nmorning to receive the rigour of the law.\n\n\nLARGEST METAL STATUE IN THE WORLD.\n\nArona is an island on the Lago Maggiore, and has a strong castle. Upon\nan eminence is a statue of bronze to St. Charles Borromeo, from whom\nthe hill is called, Monte di S. Carlo. The statue was erected by the\nPope in 1624, in memory of the Saint, who was Archbishop of Milan.\nThe pedestal of the statue is thirty-six feet high. It is the largest\nmetal statue in existence; and the height of the statue itself is\nseventy-two feet, making a total of 108 feet. Fifteen persons may get\ninto the saint's head, which will also accommodate four persons and a\ntable on which they can dine. The cost is said to have been one million\none hundred Milanaise livres.\n\n\nTHE OAK OF MAMRE.\n\nIn one remarkable instance the Jews, the Christians, and the pagan\nArabs united in religious feelings. This was in their reverence for\nthe Oak of Mamre, where the angels appeared to Abraham: for Abraham's\nsake the Jews held the place holy; the Arabs for the angels'; the\nChristians, because, in their ignorance of their Scriptures, they\naffirmed that the Son of God had accompanied those angels to destroy\nSodom and Gomorrah. An annual fair was held there, and every man\nsacrificed after the manner of his country; nor was the meeting ever\ndisgraced by any act of intemperance or indecency. Nothing had been\ndone to injure the venerable antiquity of the place. There was nothing\nbut the well which Abraham had dug, and the buildings which he had\ninhabited, beside the oak. These remains were destroyed by order of\nConstantine, in abhorrence of the _impious_ toleration exhibited\nthere! A church was built upon the spot, and Mamre, so interesting to\nthe poet, the philosopher, and the pious man, became a mere den of\nsuperstition.\n\n\nSTRANGE ADVERTISEMENT.\n\nThe following appeared in the _Evening Post_, May 23rd, 1730:--\n\n\"I, Elizabeth, duchess dowager of Hamilton, acknowledge I have for\nseveral months been ill in my health, but never speechless, as certain\npenny authors have printed; and so, to confute these said authors\nand their intelligence, it is thought by my most intimate friends,\n_it is the very last thing that will happen to me_. I am so good an\nEnglishwoman, that I would not have my countrymen imposed upon by\npurchasing false authors; therefore, have ordered this to be printed\nthat they may know what papers to buy and believe, that are not to be\nbribed by those who may have private ends for false reports. The copy\nof this is left in the hands of Mr. Berington, to be shown to any body\nwho has a curiosity to see it signed with my own hand.\n\n  \"E. HAMILTON.\"\n\n\nINTERMITTENT SPRINGS.\n\nOne of the most remarkable of these is at Bolder-Born in Westphalia.\nAfter flowing for twenty-four hours, it entirely ceases for the\nspace of six hours. It then returns with a loud noise, in a stream\nsufficiently powerful to turn three mills very near its source. Another\nspring of the same nature occurs at Bihar in Hungary, which issues many\ntimes a day, from the foot of a mountain, in such a quantity as in a\nfew minutes to fill the channel of a considerable stream.\n\nThe Lay Well near Torbay, ebbs and flows sixteen times in an hour: and\nin Giggleswick Well in Yorkshire, the water sometimes rises and falls\nin ten or fifteen minutes.\n\nSt. Anthony's Well, on Arthur's Seat, near Edinburgh, has a similar\nmovement, but on a smaller scale.\n\nIn Savoy, near the lake of Bourget, is another spring of this kind, but\nit differs from those which have been already mentioned in being very\nuncertain in its intervals.\n\n\nCURIOUS JEWEL WHICH BELONGED TO JAMES I.\n\nIn former times it was a common practice with princes and nobles to\nhave elaborate articles of jewellery constructed in such forms as had\na religious and emblematical signification. An inventory of the Dukes\nof Burgundy, made in 1396, speaks of a _fleur-de-lys_ which opened,\nand contained inside a picture of the Crucifixion. In 1416, the Duke\nof Berri had \"a fair apple,\" which opened, and contained within on one\nside the figure of Christ, and on the other that of the Virgin. Among\nthe jewels of the Dukes of Burgundy in 1392 there were two pears of\ngold, enamelled, each containing an image of Our Lady. We find similar\nentries in the other different inventories of the Dukes of Burgundy:\nAn apple of silver, enamelled, containing in the inside a picture of\nSt. Catherine, in 1400; a pine-apple of gold, which contained figures\nof the birth of Christ, and of the three kings, in 1467; and, in the\nsame year, two apples of gold, one containing, on the opposite halves,\nOur Lady and St. Paul, the other, St. Peter and St. Paul--the latter\nsuspended by three small chains. These kinds of devices continued in\nfashion till a much later period, and a very curious example, from the\ncollection of Lord Londesborough, which appears to have belonged to\nKing James I., is here engraved.\n\n[Illustration [++] Small Skull.]\n\n[Illustration [++] Apple.]\n\nThe whole is of silver, and the leaves appear to have been painted\ngreen. On opening it we find in the inside the small skull here\nrepresented above the apple. The top of the skull opens like a lid,\nand inside are two small paintings, representing the Creation and the\nResurrection, with the inscription, \"_Post Mortem, vita eternitas_.\"\nThe external inscription is not gallant. To give the apple externally\na more natural appearance, there are marks of two bites on the side\nopposite that here represented, showing a large and small set of teeth.\n\n\nSTRANGE CURIOSITIES.\n\nIn the Anatomy Hall of Leyden is a drinking cup of the skull of a Moor,\nkilled in the beleaguring of Haerlem. Also a cup made of a double brain\npan. We observe also that No. 51 is the skin of a woman, and No. 52 the\nskin of a woman, prepared like leather; No. 53 the skin of a Malacca\nwoman, above 150 years old, presented by Richard Snolk, who probably\nhad her flayed.\n\n\nTHE CROSS OF CONG.\n\nThe cross, of which the following is a correct representation,\npossesses eminent claims to a place among our curiosities, since it\nconstitutes the gem of the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy.\n\n[Illustration [++] Cross of Kong.]\n\nThis cross was made at Roscommon, by native Irishmen, about the year\n1123, in the reign of Turlogh O'Connor, father of Roderick, the last\nmonarch of Ireland, and contains what was supposed to be a piece of the\ntrue cross, as inscriptions in Irish, and Latin in the Irish character,\nupon two of its sides record. The engraving affords a correct idea of\nthe original, as the extremely minute and elaborate ornaments with\nwhich it is completely covered, and a portion of which is worked in\npure gold, could not possibly be expressed on so reduced a scale. The\nornaments generally consist of tracery and grotesque animals fancifully\ncombined, and similar in character to the decorations found upon\ncrosses of stone of about the same period. A large crystal, through\nwhich a portion of the wood which the cross was formed to enshrine is\nvisible, is set in the centre.\n\n\nFOOT-RACING IN 1699.\n\nA remarkable foot-race was run about the year 1699, which is thus\ndescribed in the manuscript journal of a lady who was one of the\nspectators:--\"I drove through the forest of Windsor to see a race run\nby two footmen, an English and a Scotch, the former a taller bigger man\nthan the other. The ground measured and cut even in a round was about\nfour miles; they were to run it round so often as to make up twenty-two\nmiles, which was the distance between Charing Cross and Windsor Cross,\nthat is, five times quite round, and so far as to make up the odd\nmiles and measure. They ran a round in twenty-five minutes. I saw them\nrun the first three rounds and half another in an hour and seventeen\nminutes, and they finished it in two hours and a half. The Englishman\ngained the start the second round, and kept it at the same distance the\nfive rounds, and then the Scotchman came up to him and got before him\nto the post. The Englishman fell down within a few yards of the post.\nMany hundred pounds were won and lost about it. They ran both very\nneatly, but my judgment gave it to the Scotchman, because he seemed to\nsave himself to the last push.\"\n\n\nTHE CHERRY TREE.\n\nThe Cherry Tree was introduced into Great Britain before A.D. 53. The\nearliest mention of the fruit being exposed to sale by hawkers in\nLondon is in Henry the Fifth's reign, 1415. New sorts were introduced\nfrom Flanders, by Richard Haines, Henry the Eighth's fruiterer, and\nbeing planted in Kent were called \"Flanders,\" or \"Kentish Cherries,\" of\nwhich Gerard (1597) says, \"They have a better juice, but watery, cold,\nand moist.\" Philips says, \"There is an account of a cherry-orchard of\nthirty-two acres in Kent, which, in the year 1540, produced fruit that\nsold in those early days, for 1,000_l._; which seems an enormous sum,\nas at that period good land is stated to have let at one shilling per\nacre.\" Evelyn tells us, that in his time (1662) an acre planted with\ncherries, one hundred miles from London, had been let at 10_l._ During\nthe Commonwealth (1649), the manor and mansion of Henrietta Maria,\nQueen of Charles I., at Wimbledon, in Surrey, were surveyed previously\nto being sold, and it appears that there were upwards of two hundred\ncherry trees in the gardens. Since that time the cherry tree has found\nuniversal admission into shrubberies, gardens, and orchards.\n\n\nINSTRUCTIONS TO A CHAPLAIN.\n\nThe following, and we believe they are unique, are Sir John Wynne of\nGwedir's instructions to his chaplain, the Rev. John Pryce. \"First, you\nshall have the chamber I showed you in my gate, private to yourself,\nwith lock and key, and all necessaries. In the morning, I expect you\nshould rise, and say prayers in my hall, to my household below, before\nthey go to work, and when they come in at night, that you call before\nyou all the workmen, specially the youth, and take account of them\nof their belief, and of what Sir Meredith taught them. I beg you to\ncontinue for the most part in the lower house: you are to have onlye\nwhat is done there, that you may inform me of any disorder there. There\nis a bayliff of husbandry and a porter, who will be commanded by you.\nThe morning after you be up, and have said prayers, as afore, I would\nyou to bestow in study on any commendable exercise of your body. Before\ndinner you are to come up and attend grace or prayers, if there be any\npublicke; and to sit up if there be not greater strangers above the\nchyldren, who you are to teach in your own chamber. When the table\nfrom half downwards is taken up, then you are to rise and to walk in\nthe alleys near at hand until grace time, and to come in then for that\npurpose. After dinner, if I be busy, you may go to bowles, shuffel\nbord, or any other honest, decent recreation, until I go abroad. If\nyou see me void of business, and go to ride abroad, you shall command\na gelding to be made ready by the grooms of the stable, and to go with\nme. If I go to bowles or shuffel bord, I shall lyke of your company,\nif the place be not made up with strangers. I would have you to go\nevery Sunday in the year to some church hereabouts, to preache, giving\nwarnynge to the parish, to bring the yowths at after noon to the church\nto be catechysed; in which poynt is my greatest care that you should\nbe paynfull and dylygent. Avoyd the alehouse, to sytte and keepe\ndrunkard's company ther, being the greatest discredit your function can\nhave.\"\n\n\nTWO MISERS.\n\nIn the year 1778 died, at a village near Reading, John Jackson,\naged ninety-three, and James Jackson, aged eighty-seven. These two\nbrothers were old bachelors, and afforded a striking instance of the\ninsufficiency of wealth to create happiness. Though these old men had\nbeen blest with great riches ever since they were twenty years of age,\nthey absolutely denied themselves the common necessaries of life;\nand lived in the village for fifty years past as poor men, and often\naccepted of charity from rich persons who resided near them. They never\nsuffered any woman or man to come into their apartment (which was only\none shabby room), and were both taken ill, and languishing a short\ntime, they expired on the same day, within one hour of each other. It\nis computed, by the writings left behind them, that they died worth\nL150,000.\n\n\nANECDOTE OF THE HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK.\n\nThe following anecdote relating to the august House of Brunswick\nis taken from the \"Annual Register\" of 1765:--\"The late Duchess of\nBlakenburgh, great grandmother to the hereditary prince, who died\nsome years since in a very advanced age, had the singular happiness\nto reckon amongst her posterity, sixty-two princes and princesses;\n(fifty-three of whom she saw at one time alive;) and amongst them three\nemperors, two empresses, two kings, and two queens; a circumstance\nthat, probably, no sovereign house but that of Brunswick ever produced\nanything like it.\"\n\n\nAMUSEMENTS OF SOME LEARNED AUTHORS.\n\nTycho Brahe polished glass for spectacles, and made mathematical\ninstruments. D'Andilly delighted, like our Evelyn, in forest-trees;\nBalzac, with the manufacturing of crayons; Pieresc, with his medals and\nantiques; the Abbe de Marolles, with engravings; Rohault's greatest\nrecreation was in seeing different mechanics at their labour; Arnauld\nread the most trashy novels for relaxation; as did our Warburton, the\nlate Lords Loughborough and Camden; Montaigne fondled his cat; Cardinal\nRichelieu, in jumping and leaping. Grumm informs us that the Chevalier\nde Boufflers would crow like a cock, and bray like an ass; in both of\nwhich he excelled, not metaphorically but literally.\n\n\nEARLY GERMAN DRINKING CUP.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Early German Drinking Cup.]\n\nThe above, taken from the Londesborough collection, is a good example\nof the German drinking cups of fanciful shape, which were so much in\nfashion in that country in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The\nspecimen before us is of silver, and dated 1619. The mill and scroll\nornament on the cup are gilt. It was held in the hand to be filled, and\ncould not be set down until emptied; the drinker, blowing through the\ntube into the mill, set the sails in motion, and reversed the cup on\nthe table.\n\n\nTHE KING'S STONE.\n\n[Illustration: [++] The King's Stone.]\n\nKingston-on-Thames is among the oldest of English towns; and is said\nto have been \"the metropolis of the Anglo-Saxon kings:\" certainly it\nwas a famous place when the Romans found and conquered the Britons in\nthis locality: there are indeed arguments for believing that the \"ford\"\nwhich Caesar crossed was here, and not at Walton; and indications of\nbarrows, fosses, and ramparts of Roman origin, are to be found in many\nplaces in the neighbourhood. It is more than probable that a bridge was\nconstructed by the Romans here, and that a fortress was erected for its\nprotection. The Saxons followed in due course, and here they had many\ncontests with their enemies the Danes; but A.D. 838, Egbert convened at\nKingston an assembly of ecclesiastics and nobles in council, and here,\nundoubtedly, many of the Saxon kings were crowned: \"The townish men,\"\nsays Leland, \"have certen knowledge that a few kinges were crounid\nafore the Conqueste.\" Its first charter was from King John, and many\nsucceeding sovereigns accorded to it various grants and immunities.\nDuring the war between Charles I. and the Parliament, Kingston was the\nscene of several \"fights,\" being always on the side of the king. The\ntown is now populous and flourishing, although without manufactures of\nany kind. Since the establishment of a railway, villa residences have\nlargely increased in the neighbourhood; and the two suburbs, Surbiton\nand Norbiton, are pretty and densely-crowded villages of good houses.\nThe church has suffered much from mutilation and restoration; it is a\nspacious structure, and was erected about the middle of the fourteenth\ncentury, on the site of an earlier edifice. Amongst the monuments is a\nfine brass, to a civilian and his wife, of the year 1437. Of existing\nantiquities there are but few: county historians, however, point out\nthe sites of the ancient Saxon palace, \"the castle,\" the Jews' quarter,\nand the Roman town, Tamesa; and the game of \"foot-ball,\" it is said, is\nstill practised by the inhabitants on Shrove Tuesday, in commemoration\nof the feats of their ancestors, by whom the head of a king-assassin\nwas \"kicked\" about the town. But perhaps the most interesting object\nnow to be found in Kingston is \"THE KING'S STONE.\" It had long\nremained neglected, though not unknown, among disregarded heaps of\n_debris_ in \"the new court-yard,\" when it occurred to some zealous and\nintelligent antiquaries that so venerable a relic of remote ages was\nentitled to some show of respect. It was consequently removed from its\ndegraded position, planted in the centre of the town, and enclosed by\na \"suitable\" iron railing. It is now, therefore, duly and properly\nhonoured, as may be seen by the preceding engraving.\n\n\nTRANCE AT WILL.\n\nColonel Townsend possessed the remarkable faculty of throwing himself\ninto a trance at pleasure. The heart ceased apparently to throb at\nhis bidding, respiration seemed at an end, his whole frame assumed\nthe icy chill and rigidity of death; while his face became colourless\nand shrunk, and his eye fixed, glazed, and ghastly. His mind itself\nceased to manifest itself, for during the trance it was as utterly\ndevoid of consciousness as his body of animation. In this state he\nwould remain for hours, when these singular phenomena wore away, and\nhe returned to his usual condition. Medical annals furnish no parallel\nto this extraordinary case. Considered whether in a physiological or\nmetaphysical point of view, it is equally astonishing and inexplicable.\n\n\nDESTRUCTIVE FORCE OF RATS.\n\nThe amount of destructive force possessed by rats cannot be better\nexemplified than in the report given to the French Government, relating\nto the removal of the horse slaughter-houses, situated at Montfaucon,\nto a greater distance from Paris; one great objection being the\ndisastrous consequences which might accrue to the inhabitants of the\nneighbourhood, if these voracious creatures were suddenly deprived of\ntheir usual sustenance. It is well known that the mischief which they\noccasion is not confined to what they eat; but they undermine houses,\nburrow through dams, destroy drains, and commit incalculable havoc in\nevery place and in everything.\n\nThe report states, that the carcases of horses killed one day, and\namounting to thirty-five, would be found the next morning with the\nbones picked clean. A person of the name of Dusaussois, belonging\nto the establishment, made this experiment. A part of his yard was\nenclosed by solid walls, at the foot of which, several holes were made\nfor the entrance and exit of the rats. Into this enclosure he put the\nbodies of three horses, and in the middle of the night he stopped up\nall the holes as quietly as he could; he then summoned several of his\nworkmen, and each, armed with a torch and a stick, entered the yard,\nand carefully closed the door. They then commenced a general massacre;\nin doing which, it was not necessary to take aim, for wherever the blow\nfell it was sure to knock over a rat, none being allowed to escape by\nclimbing over the walls. This experiment was repeated at intervals of\na few days, and at the end of a month, 16,050 rats had been destroyed.\nIn one night they killed 2,650; and yet this cannot give an entirely\nadequate idea of their number, for the yard in question did not cover\nmore than a twentieth part of the space allotted to killing horses. The\nrats in this place have made burrows for themselves, like catacombs;\nand so great is their number, that they have not found room close by\nthe slaughter-houses. They have gone farther; and the paths to and from\ntheir dwellings may be traced across the neighbouring fields.\n\n\nORDEAL OF THE CROSS.\n\nWhen a person accused of any crime had declared his innocence upon\noath, and appealed to the cross for its judgment in his favour, he\nwas brought into the church before the altar. The priest previously\nprepared two sticks exactly like one another, upon one of which was\ncarved a figure of the cross. They were both wrapped up, with great\ncare and many ceremonies, in a quantity of fine wool, and laid upon the\naltar, or on the relics of the saints. A solemn prayer was then offered\nup to God, that he would be pleased to discover, by the judgment of\nhis holy cross, whether the accused person were innocent or guilty.\nA priest then approached the altar, and took up one of the sticks,\nand the assistants unswathed it reverently. If it was marked with the\ncross, the accused person was innocent; if unmarked, he was guilty.\nIt would be unjust to assert, that the judgments just delivered were\nin all cases erroneous; and it would be absurd to believe that they\nwere left altogether to chance. Many true judgments were doubtless\ngiven, and, in all probability, most conscientiously; for we cannot but\nbelieve that the priests endeavoured beforehand to convince themselves\nby strict inquiry and a strict examination of the circumstances,\nwhether the appellant were innocent or guilty, and that they took up\nthe crossed or uncrossed stick accordingly. Although, to all other\nobservers, the sticks, as enfolded in the wool, might appear exactly\nsimilar, those who enwrapped them could, without any difficulty,\ndistinguish the one from the other.\n\n\nKING JOHN AND POPE INNOCENT.\n\nWhen Cardinal Langton was made Archbishop of Canterbury, by the\nintrigues of the Pope, whose creature he was, in despite of King John,\nto appease the latter, his Holiness presented him with four gold rings,\nset with precious stones, and enhanced the value of the gift (mark\nthat, jewellers!) by informing him of the many mysteries implied in it.\nHe begged of him (John) to consider seriously the _form_ of the rings,\ntheir _number_, their _matter_, and their _colour_. Their _form_, he\nsaid, being round, shadowed out eternity, which had neither beginning\nnor end, and he ought thence to learn the duty of aspiring from\nearthly objects to heavenly, from things temporal to things eternal.\nThe _numbers_ four, being a square, denoted steadiness of mind, not\nto be subverted either by prosperity or adversity, fixed for ever in\nthe basis of the four cardinal virtues. _Gold_, which is the matter,\nbeing the most precious of metals, signified wisdom, which is the\nmost precious of all accomplishments, and justly preferred by Solomon\nto riches, power, and all exterior attainments. The blue _colour_ of\nthe sapphire represented faith; the verdure of the emerald hope; the\nrichness of the ruby charity; and the splendour of the topaz good works.\n\n\nDRUID'S SEAT.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Druid's Judgment Seat.]\n\nThe singular pile of stones which we have sketched here is popularly\ncalled the \"Druid's Judgment Seat,\" and stands near the village of\nKilliney, not far from Drogheda, near the Martello Tower. It was\nformerly enclosed within a circle of great stones and a ditch. The\nformer has been destroyed, and the latter so altered that little\nof its ancient character remains. The \"Seat\" is composed of large,\nrough, granite blocks, and if really of the period to which tradition\nrefers it, an unusual degree of care must have been exercised for its\npreservation. The following are its measurements: Breadth, at the\nbase, eleven feet and a half; depth of the seat, one foot nine inches;\nextreme height, seven feet.\n\n\nBOOTS AN OBJECT OF HONOUR.\n\nAmong the Chinese no relics are more valuable than the _boots_ which\nhave been worn by an upright magistrate. In Davis's interesting\ndescription of the empire of China, we are informed, that whenever\na judge of unusual integrity resigns his situation, the people all\ncongregate to do him honour. If he leaves the city where he has\npresided, the crowd accompany him from his residence to the gates,\nwhere his boots are drawn off with great ceremony, to be preserved\nin the hall of justice. Their place is immediately supplied by a new\npair, which, in their turn, are drawn off to make room for others\nbefore he has worn them five minutes, it being considered sufficient to\nconsecrate them that he should have merely drawn them on.\n\n\nSAINT LAWRENCE.\n\nIn the south aisle of the church at Tuxford, beneath a flowery arch is\na very rude relief of St. Lawrence placed on the gridiron. By him is a\nfellow with a pair of bellows, blowing the fire, and the executioner\ngoing to turn him. The zealous Fox, in his \"Martyrology,\" has this very\nthought, and makes the martyr say, in the midst of his sufferings,\n\"This side is now roasted; turn me, O tyrant dear.\"\n\n\nPARIS GARDEN AT BLACKFRIARS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Paris Garden.]\n\nThe Blackfriar's Road now passes over the site of Paris Garden where,\nin the sixteenth century, bear and bull-baiting rejoiced the citizens,\nthe gala days being usually Sundays. Our cut is copied from the rare\nwoodcut map in the time of Henry VIII., in the library at Guildhall,\nand exhibits in the foreground the kennels for the dogs, and the tanks\nin which they were washed. A graphic description of the place has\nbeen left by Paul Hentzner, a German, who visited it in 1598. He says\nit was \"built in the form of a theatre, for the baiting of bulls and\nbears: they are fastened behind, and then worried by great English\nbull-dogs; but not without great risk to the dogs, from the horns of\nthe one and the teeth of the other; and it sometimes happens they are\nkilled upon the spot: fresh ones are immediately supplied in the place\nof those that are wounded or tired. To this entertainment there often\nfollows that of whipping a blinded bear, which is performed by five or\nsix men, standing circularly with whips, which they exercise upon him\nwithout any mercy, as he cannot escape from them because of his chain.\nHe defends himself with all his force and skill, throwing down all who\ncome within his reach, and are not active enough to get out of it,\nand tearing the whips out of their hands, and breaking them. At these\nspectacles, and everywhere else, the English are constantly smoking\ntobacco. Fruits, such as apples, pears, and nuts, according to the\nseason, are carried about to be sold, as well as ale and wine.\"\n\n\nCANVASS OF AN INSURANCE AGENT.\n\nThe Manchester agent of an Insurance Company, gives the following\ncurious results of a personal canvass at 1,349 houses, in seventy\nstreets in the district of Hulme and Charlton, chiefly rentals from\nL12 to L24 per annum. The inquiry showed that there were 29 insured; 8\npersons too old; 11 who never heard of life assurances, and who were\nanxious to have it explained to them; 471 who had heard of it, but did\nnot understand it; 419 who were disinclined to assure; 19 favourable,\nif their surplus incomes were not otherwise invested; 89 persons who\nhad it under consideration, with a view to assure, as soon as their\narrangements were completed, and who appointed times for the agent to\ncall again; 21 refused the circulars, or to allow an explanation; 175\ndoors not answered; 102 houses empty; 3 had sufficient property not to\nrequire it; 1 favourable, but afraid of litigation; 1 preferred the\nsaving's bank; 1 used abusive language; 2 would trust their families to\nprovide for themselves; and 1 had been rejected by an office, although\nhe never was unwell, and was consequently afraid to try again, although\nvery anxious.\n\n\nTERRA-COTTA WRITINGS.\n\nThe Assyrians, unlike any other nation of antiquity, employed pottery\nfor the same objects, and to the same extent as papyrus was used in\nEgypt. Thus bulletins recording the king's victories, and even the\nannals of his reign, were published on terra-cotta cylinders, shaped\nlike a rolling-pin, and usually hollow, and on hollow hexagonal\nprisms. These are of a remarkably fine material, sometimes unpolished\nor unglazed, and at others covered with a vitreous siliceous glaze,\nor white coating. On the cylinders the inscriptions are engraved\nlengthwise; on the prisms they are in compartments on each face.\nEach wedge is about one-eighth of an inch long, and the complicity\nwith which the characters (a cuneiform writing-hand) are arranged is\nwonderful, and renders them extremely difficult for a tyro to read.\nThose hitherto published or known, contain the annals of the reign of\nSennacherib, and the precis of the reign of another king.\n\nThere are the Shergat cylinder, containing the History of Tiglath\nPileser; a cylinder of Sargon; Sennacherib's cylinders; Esarhaddon's\ncylinder.\n\nSales of land and other title-deeds were also incised on pieces of this\npolished terra-cotta, and, in order to prevent any enlargement of the\ndocument, a cylinder was run round the edges, leaving its impression\nin relief; or if the names of witnesses were affixed, each impressed\nhis oval seal on the wet terra-cotta, which was then carefully baked\nin the kiln. The celebrated cylinders of carnelian, chalcedony, and\nother substances, were in fact the official or private seals by which\nthe integrity of these documents was attested. These title-deeds are\nportable documents of four or five inches square, convex on each side,\nand occasionally also at the edges. Their colour varies, being a bright\npolished brown, a pale yellow, and a very dark tint, almost black. The\npaste of which they are made is remarkably fine and compact. The manner\nin which the characters were impressed on the terra-cotta barrels and\ncylinders is not known; those on the bricks used for building were\napparently stamped from a mould, but those on the deeds and books\nwere separately incised, perhaps with a prismatic stick, or rod, or,\nas others have conjectured, with the edge of a square rod of metal.\nIn some instances, where this substance was used for taking accounts,\nit seems just possible that the moist clay, rolled up like paste, may\nhave been unrolled and incised with rods. The characters are often so\nbeautifully and delicately made, that it must have required a finely\nconstructed tool to produce them.\n\nSome small fragments of a fine reddish-grey terra-cotta which have been\nfound among the ruins, appear to contain calculations or inventories,\nwhilst others are perhaps syllabaries or vocabularies, to guide the\nAssyrian readers of these difficult inscriptions. A large chamber, or\nlibrary, of these archives, comprising histories, deeds, almanacks, and\nspelling-books, was found in the palace of Sennacherib at Kouyunjik.\nIt is supposed that altogether about 20,000 of these clay tablets\nor ancient books of the Assyrians, containing the literature of\nthe country, have been discovered. Some of the finer specimens are\ncovered with a pale straw-covered engobe, over which has been thrown a\nglaze. Some horoscopes have been already found on stone, and careful\nexamination has now detected the records of some astronomer royal of\nBabylon or Nineveh inscribed on a brick. Thus, while the paper and\nparchment learning of the Byzantine and Alexandrian schools has almost\ndisappeared after a few centuries, the granite pages of Egypt, and the\nclay leaves of Assyria, have escaped the ravages of time and the fury\nof barbarism.\n\nIn Egypt some receipts and letters have been discovered written on\nfragments of tile, and on the fine porcelain of the Chinese are\noften found extracts of biographical works, snatches of poetry, and\neven whole poems; but the idea of issuing journals, title-deeds,\ninventories, histories, prayers, and poems, not from the press, but\nfrom the kiln, is startling in the nineteenth century.\n\n\nWONDERFUL FORMATION OF THE EYE IN INSECTS.\n\nThe perfection which is bestowed on the organs of sense in insects,\nespecially when we consider their minuteness, is calculated to fill us\nwith adoring admiration of the skill of \"the Great Workmaster.\" Take an\nexample from the _eyes_, which are of several kinds, evidently designed\nfor distinct modes of vision, of which we, who have but one sort of\neyes, can form no adequate notion. The bee and many other insects have\non the crown of the head a number, usually three, of simple glassy\neyes, set like \"bull's-eyes\" in a ship's deck; and besides these a\ngreat compound eye on each side, consisting of a multitude of lenses\naggregated together upon the same optic nerve. The microscope reveals\nto us that the compound eye of an ant contains fifty lenses; that of\na fly, four thousand; that of a dragon-fly, twelve thousand; that of\na butterfly, seventeen thousand; and that of a species of _Mordella_\n(a kind of beetle), the amazing number of twenty-five thousand. Every\none of these regular, polished, and many-sided lenses; is the external\nsurface of a distinct eye, furnished with its own iris and pupil, and\na perfect nervous apparatus. It will thus be seen that each hexagonal\nfacet forms a transparent horny lens, immediately behind which is a\nlayer of pigment diminishing to a point in the centre, where it forms\na pupil; that behind this a long six-sided prism, answering to the\ncrystalline and vitreous humours in the human eye, extends, diminishing\nto its lower extremity, where it rests upon the retina, or network\nexpansion of the optic nerve. Some of the minuter details of this\nexquisite organisation are still matters of conflicting opinion; but\nthese we omit, as our purpose is rather to convey to our readers a\ngeneral idea of the structure of this complex organ of vision. \"This\nalso cometh forth from the Lord of Hosts, which is wonderful in counsel\nand excellent in working.\"\n\n\nFIRST COIN WITH BRITANNIA ON IT.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Roman Coins.]\n\nIn process of clearing away the foundations of Old London Bridge many\nantiquities were discovered; it had been the great highway over the\nThames from the Roman era, and numerous relics were obtained, varying\nin date from that period to our own. We here engrave such specimens\nof Roman coins that were found as belong to the Britannic series. The\nlarge central coin is one struck by Hadrian, and remarkable for the\nfigure of Britannia, the first time impersonated as an armed female\nseated on a rock. It is the prototype of the more modern Britannia,\nreintroduced by Charles II., and which still appears on our copper\nmoney. The smaller coins are such as were struck, during the reign of\nConstantine the Great, in the City of London, and are marked with the\nletters P. LON., for \"Pecunia Londinensis,\" money of London.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY FORMATION OF THE TWIN-WORM.\n\nAn extraordinary creature was discovered by Dr. Nordman, infesting the\ngills of one of our commonest river fishes--_Cyprinus Brama_--and to\nwhich he gave the appropriate appellation of the Twin-worm (_Diplozoon\nparadoxum_). It is not more than one-fourth of an inch in length, but\nconsists of two bodies, precisely resembling each other, united by\na central band, exactly in the manner of the Siamese youths, whose\nexhibition excited so much attention in England and America a few\nyears ago. We might have supposed that, like the human monstrosity\nin question, the Twin-worm was formed by the accidental union of two\nindividuals, if abundant observation had not proved that this is the\ncommon mode of life belonging to the species.\n\nEach portion of the animal is complete in all its organs and economy;\npossessing its own sets of suckers, its own mouth, its own digestive\ncanal, with its tree-like ramifications, its own perfect generative\nsystem, and its own elaborate series of vascular canals,--every organ\nor set of organs in the one-half finding its exact counterpart in the\nother.\n\nIt scarcely detracts from the marvellous character assumed by this\n\"Twin-worm,\" that, according to recent observations, the two halves\nhave already enjoyed a phase of existence as distinct individuals. The\norganic union, or \"fusion\" of two such individuals, is necessary to\nthe development of the generative system, which, up to that event, is\nwanting in each constituent half.\n\n\nMILL AT LISSOY.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Mill at Lissoy.]\n\nThe above picturesque sketch represents the \"busy mill\" at Lissoy,\nbetter known as \"Sweet Auburn--loveliest village of the plain\"--the\nscene of Goldsmith's beautiful poem of the \"Deserted Village.\" Lissoy,\nabout six miles from Athlone, stands on the summit of a hill at the\nbase of which is the mill that forms the subject of our sketch. The\nwheel is still turned by the water of a small rivulet, converted,\nnow and then, by rains, into a sufficient stream. The mill is a mere\ncountry cottage, used for grinding the corn of the neighbouring\npeasantry, and retains many tokens of age. Parts of the machinery are,\nno doubt, above a century old, and are probably the very same that left\ntheir impress on the poet's memory.\n\n\nA CASTLE BUILT FOR A GROAT.\n\nThe castle of Monkstown, near Cork, is reported by popular tradition to\nhave been built in 1636, at the cost of only a groat. To explain the\nenigma, the following story is told:--Anastatia Goold, who had become\nthe wife of John Archdeken, determined, while her husband was abroad,\nserving in the army of Philip of Spain, to give him evidence of her\nthrift on his return, by surprising him with a noble residence which he\nmight call his own. Her plan was to supply the workmen with provisions\nand other articles they required, for which she charged the ordinary\nprice; but, as she had made her purchases wholesale, upon balancing her\naccounts, it appeared that the retail profit had paid all the expenses\nof the structure except fourpence! The Archdekens were an Anglo-Irish\nfamily, who \"degenerating\" became \"Hibernices quam Hiberniores\"--more\nIrish than the Irish themselves--and assumed the name of Mac Odo, or\nCody. They \"forfeited,\" in 1688, having followed the fortunes of James\nII.\n\n\nBATTLE OF WATER-SNAKES.\n\nThe following story is narrated by Mr. St. John, in his \"Letters of\nan American Farmer.\" After describing the size and strength of some\nhemp-plants, around which a wild vine had formed natural arbours,\nhe thus proceeds:--\"As I was one day sitting, solitary and pensive,\nin this primitive arbour, my attention was engaged by a strange\nsort of rustling noise at some paces distance. I looked all around\nwithout distinguishing anything, until I climbed up one of my great\nhemp-stalks; when, to my astonishment, I beheld two snakes of a\nconsiderable length, the one pursuing the other with great celerity\nthrough a hemp-stubble field. The aggressor was of the black kind, six\nfeet long; the fugitive was a water snake, nearly of equal dimensions.\nThey soon met, and in the fury of their first encounter, appeared in an\ninstant firmly twisted together; and whilst their united tails beat the\nground, they mutually tried, with open jaws, to lacerate each other.\nWhat a fell aspect did they present! Their heads were compressed to a\nvery small size; their eyes flashed fire; but, after this conflict had\nlasted about five minutes, the second found means to disengage itself\nfrom the first, and hurried towards the ditch. Its antagonist instantly\nassumed a new posture, and, half-creeping, half-erect, with a majestic\nmien, overtook and attacked the other again, which placed itself in\na similar attitude, and prepared to resist. The scene was uncommon\nand beautiful; for, thus opposed, they fought with their jaws, biting\neach other with the utmost rage; but, notwithstanding this appearance\nof mutual courage and fury, the water snake still seemed desirous of\nretreating towards the ditch, its natural element. This was no sooner\nperceived by the keen-eyed black one, than, twisting its tail twice\nround a stalk of hemp, and seizing its adversary by the throat, not by\nmeans of its jaws, but by twisting its own neck twice round that of the\nwater snake, he pulled it back from the ditch. To prevent a defeat,\nthe latter took hold likewise of a stalk on the bank, and, by the\nacquisition of that point of resistance, became a match for his fierce\nantagonist. Strange was this to behold; two great snakes strongly\nadhering to the ground, mutually fastened together by means of the\nwrithings which lashed them to each other, and stretched at their full\nlength; they pulled, but pulled in vain; and in the moments of greatest\nexertion, that part of their bodies which was entwined seemed extremely\nsmall, while the rest appeared inflated, and now and then convulsed\nwith strong undulations rapidly following each other. Their eyes\nappeared on fire, and ready to start out of their heads. At one time\nthe conflict seemed decided; the water snake bent itself into great\nfolds, and by that operation rendered the other more than commonly\noutstretched; the next minute the new struggles of the black one gained\nan unexpected superiority; it acquired two great folds likewise, which\nnecessarily extended the body of its adversary in proportion as it\nhad contracted its own. These efforts were alternate; victory seemed\ndoubtful, inclining sometimes to one side, sometimes to the other,\nuntil at last the stalk to which the black snake was fastened suddenly\ngave way, and, in consequence of this accident, they both plunged into\nthe ditch. The water did not extinguish their vindictive rage, for by\ntheir agitations I could still trace, though I could not distinguish,\ntheir attacks. They soon reappeared on the surface, twisted together,\nas in their first onset; but the black snake seemed to retain its\nwonted superiority, for its head was exactly fixed above that of the\nother, which it incessantly pressed down under the water, until its\nopponent was stifled, and sank. The victor no sooner perceived its\nenemy incapable of further resistance, than, abandoning it to the\ncurrent, it returned to the shore and disappeared.\"\n\n\nFATES OF THE FAMILIES OF ENGLISH POETS.\n\nIt is impossible to contemplate the early death of Byron's only child\nwithout reflecting sadly on the fates of other females of our greatest\npoets. Shakspeare and Milton, each died without a son, but both left\ndaughters, and both names are now extinct. Shakspeare's was soon so.\nAddison had an only child--a daughter, a girl of some five or six\nyears at her father's death. She died, unmarried, at the age of eighty\nor more. Farquhar left two girls, dependant on the friendship of his\nfriend Wilkes, the actor, who stood nobly by them while he lived. They\nhad a small pension from the Government, and having long outlived\ntheir father, and seen his reputation unalterably established, both\ndied unmarried. The son and daughter of Coleridge both died childless.\nThe two sons of Sir Walter Scott died without children--one of two\ndaughters died unmarried, and the Scotts of Abbotsford and Waverley\nare now represented by the children of a daughter. How little could\nScott foresee the sudden failure of male issue? The poet of the \"Fairie\nQueen\" lost a child when very young by fire, when the rebels burned his\nhouse in Ireland. Some of the poets had sons and no daughters. Thus we\nread of Chaucer's son,--of Dryden's sons,--of the sons of Burns,--of\nAllan Ramsey's son,--of Dr. Young's son,--of Campbell's son,--of\nMoore's son,--and of Shelley's son. Ben Johnson survived all his\nchildren. Some, and those amongst the greatest, died unmarried--Butler,\nCowley, Congreve, Otway, Prior, Pope, Gay, Thompson, Cowper, Akenside,\nShenstone, Collins, Gray, Goldsmith, and Rogers, who lately died. Some\nwere unfortunate in their sons in a sadder way than death could make\nthem. Lady Lovelace has left three children--two sons and a daughter.\nHer mother is still alive to see, perhaps, with a softened spirit, the\nshade of the father beside the early grave of his only child. Ada's\nlooks, in her later years--years of suffering, borne with gentle and\nwomanly fortitude--have been happily caught by Mr. Henry Phillips,\nwhose father's pencil has preserved to us the best likeness of Ada's\nfather.\n\n\nJEFFERY HUDSON, THE DWARF OF THE COURT OF CHARLES I.\n\nThe celebrated dwarf of whom we here give a sketch, was born at Oakham\nin Rutlandshire in 1619, and about the age of seven or eight, being\nthen but eighteen inches high, was retained in the service of the\nDuke of Buckingham, who resided at Burleigh-on-the-Hill. Soon after\nthe marriage of Charles I., the king and queen being entertained at\nBurleigh, little Jeffery was served up at table in a cold pie, and\npresented by the duchess to the queen, who kept him as her dwarf.\nFrom seven years of age till thirty he shot up to three feet nine\ninches, and there fixed. Jeffery became a considerable part of the\nentertainment of the court. Sir William Davenant wrote a poem on a\nbattle between Jeffery and a turkey cock, and in 1638 was published\na very small book, called a \"New Year's Gift,\" presented at court by\nthe Lady Parvula to the Lord Minimus (commonly called Little Jeffery)\nher Majesty's servant, &c. &c., written by Microphilas, with a little\nprint of Jeffery prefixed. Before this period Jeffery was employed on\na negotiation of great importance; he was sent to France to fetch a\nmidwife for the queen; and on his return with this gentlewoman and her\nmajesty's dancing-master, and many rich presents to the queen from her\nmother, Mary de Medicis, he was taken by the Dunkirkers. This was in\n1630. Besides the presents he was bringing for the queen, he lost to\nthe value of L2,500 that he had received in France on his own account\nfrom the queen-mother and ladies of that court.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Jeffery Hudson.]\n\nJeffery thus made of consequence, grew to think himself really so.\nHe had borne with little temper the teasing of the courtiers and\ndomestics, and had many squabbles with the king's gigantic porter.\nAt last, being provoked by Mr. Crofts, a young gentleman of family,\na challenge ensued; and Mr. Crofts coming to the rendezvous armed\nonly with a squirt, the little creature was so enraged that a real\nduel ensued; and the appointment being on horseback, with pistols,\nto put them more on a level, Jeffery, with the first fire, shot his\nantagonist dead on the spot. This happened in France, whither he had\nattended his royal mistress in the troubles.\n\nHe was again taken prisoner by a Turkish rover, and sold into Barbary.\nHe probably did not long remain in slavery; for at the beginning of\nthe civil war, he was made a captain in the royal army, and in 1644\nattended the queen to France, where he remained till the restoration.\n\nAt last, upon suspicion of his being privy to the Popish Plot, he was\ntaken up in 1682 and confined in the Gate-house, Westminster, where he\nended his life in the sixty-third year of his age.\n\n\nCHURCH AT NEWTON, IRELAND.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Doorway of the Church at Newton, Ireland.]\n\nThe ancient doorway, of which, on account of its singular beauty, we\ngive a sketch, belongs to the church which was built by the first of\nthe Montgomeries at Newtown in Ireland. Though the church is a fine\nand beautiful example of architecture, no attempt whatever has been\nmade to preserve it from sinking into ruin. The Montgomeries, ancient\nlords of this district, were the descendants of that Montgomery who\naccidentally killed Henry II., of France, at a tournament. Some years\nafter the sad event, which was confessedly a mischance, he was taken\nby Catherine of Medicis, put to the torture and beheaded; with the\nadditional penalty of having his children degraded to villeinnage; on\nhis way to execution, he pronounced this noble and memorable sentence,\nin reference to the punishment inflicted on his children, \"If they\nhave not the virtue to raise themselves again, I consent to their\ndegradation.\"\n\n\nINTERESTING CALCULATION.\n\nSome years ago, an eminent zoologist gave the following table as\nhis estimate of the probable number of existing species of animals,\ndeduced from facts and principles then known. Later discoveries tend to\nincrease rather than to diminish the estimate.\n\n  Quadrupeds          1,200\n  Birds               6,800\n  Reptiles            1,500\n  Fishes              8,000\n  Insects           550,000\n  Worms               2,500\n  Radiata             1,000\n  Polypes, &c.        1,530\n  Testacea            4,500\n  Naked Testacea        600\n\nmaking an aggregate of 577,600 species.\n\n\nVITALITY OF SUPERSTITION.\n\nIn the \"Annual Register\" for 1760, an instance of the belief in\nwitchcraft is related, which shows how superstition lingers. A dispute\narose in the little village of Glen, in Leicestershire, between two\nold women, each of whom vehemently accused the other of witchcraft.\nThe quarrel at last ran so high that a challenge ensued, and they both\nagreed to be tried by the ordeal of swimming. They accordingly stripped\nto their shifts--procured some men, who tied their thumbs and great\ntoes together, cross-wise, and then, with a cart-rope about their\nmiddle, suffered themselves to be thrown into a pool of water. One of\nthem sank immediately, but the other continued struggling a short time\nupon the surface of the water, which the mob deeming an infallible sign\nof her guilt, pulled her out, and insisted that she should immediately\nimpeach all her accomplices in the craft. She accordingly told them\nthat, in the neighbouring village of Burton, there were several old\nwomen \"as much witches as she was.\" Happily for her, this negative\ninformation was deemed sufficient, and a student in astrology, or\n\"white-witch,\" coming up at the time, the mob, by his direction,\nproceeded forthwith to Burton in search of all the delinquents. After\na little consultation on their arrival, they went to the old woman's\nhouse on whom they had fixed the strongest suspicion. The poor old\ncreature on their approach locked the outer door, and from the window\nof an upstairs room asked what they wanted. They informed her that\nshe was charged with being guilty of witchcraft, and that they were\ncome to duck her; remonstrating with her at the same time upon the\nnecessity of submission to the ordeal, that, if she were innocent, all\nthe world might know it. Upon her persisting in a positive refusal to\ncome down, they broke open the door and carried her out by force, to a\ndeep gravel-pit full of water. They tied her thumbs and toes together\nand threw her into the water, where they kept her for several minutes,\ndrawing her out and in two or three times by the rope round her middle.\nNot being able to satisfy themselves whether she were a witch or no,\nthey at last let her go or more properly speaking, they left her on\nthe bank to walk home by herself, if she ever recovered. Next day they\ntried the same experiment upon another woman, and afterwards upon a\nthird; but fortunately, neither of the victims lost her life from this\nbrutality. Many of the ringleaders in the outrage were apprehended\nduring the week, and tried before the justices at quarter-sessions. Two\nof them were sentenced to stand in the pillory and to be imprisoned for\na month; and as many as twenty more were fined in small sums for the\nassault, and bound over to keep the peace for a twelvemonth.\n\n\nSMALL FEET OF THE CHINESE LADIES.\n\nThe compression of ladies' feet to less than half their natural size is\nnot to be regarded as a mark, or as a consequence, of the inferiority\nof the sex; it is merely a mark of gentility. Various accounts are\ngiven of the origin of this custom. One is, that an emperor was jealous\nof his wife, and to prevent her from gadding abroad, put her feet in\niron stocks. Another is, that a certain empress, Tan-ke (B.C. 1100),\nwas born with club-feet, and that she caused the emperor to issue an\nedict, adopting her foot as the model of beauty, and requiring the\ncompressing of female infants' feet so as to conform to the imperial\nstandard. While a third account is, that the Emperor Le-yuh (A.D. 961)\nwas amusing himself one day in his palace, when the thought occurred\nto him that he might improve the appearance of the feet of a favourite\nconcubine. He caused her feet to be so bent as to raise the instep\ninto an arch, to resemble the new moon. The figure was much admired\nby the courtiers, who soon began to introduce it into their families.\nIt is said that another emperor, two hundred years later, placed a\nstamp of the lotus-flower (water-lily) on the sole of the small shoe\nof his favorite concubine, so that at every step she took she left on\nthe ground the print of the flower; hence girls with small feet are\ncomplimented at the present day as \"the golden lilies.\" The operation\nof bandaging and compressing the feet is very painful; children cry\nvery much under it. Mortification of the feet has been known to result\nfrom the cruel practice. Custom, however, imposes it as a necessary\nattraction in a woman. An old gentleman at Canton, being asked the\nreason why he had bandaged his daughter's feet, replied, that if she\nhad large feet she could not make a good marriage.\n\n\nWONDERFUL CONSTRUCTION OF THE SEA-URCHIN.\n\nProfessor Forbes informs us that in a moderate-sized Urchin there are\nsixty-two rows of pores in each of the ten avenues, and as there are\nthree pairs of pores in each row, the total number of pores is 3,720;\nbut as each sucker occupies a pair of pores, the number of suckers is\n1,860. He says, also, that there are above three hundred plates of one\nkind, and nearly as many of another, all dovetailing together with the\ngreatest nicety and regularity, bearing on their surfaces above 4,000\nspines, each spine perfect in itself, and of a complicated structure,\nand having a free movement in its socket. \"Truly,\" he adds, \"the\nskill of the Great Architect of Nature is not less displayed in the\nconstruction of a Sea-urchin than in the building up of a world!\"\n\n\nIVORY SCEPTRE OF LOUIS XII.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Ivory Sceptre.]\n\nThe above engraving represents an ivory sceptre, or Main de Justice,\nwhich was made at the early part of the sixteenth century for Louis\nXII., King of France. The three parts 1, 2, 3, screw together and form\nthe sceptre. Fig. 4 is the hand on the top of the sceptre, given on\na larger scale, showing the ring set with a small pearl, worn on the\nthird finger. Fig. 5 is the inscription on the sceptre; it is engraved\nin relievo upon three of the convex decorations, and commences on the\nlowest one.\n\n\nTOMB OF CAECILIA METELLA.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Tomb of Caecilia Metella.]\n\nOf the tombs of Consular Rome nothing remains except perhaps the\nsarcophagus of Scipio; and it is only on the eve of the Empire that we\nmeet with the well-known one of Caecilia Metella, the wife of Crassus,\nwhich is not only the best specimen of a Roman tomb now remaining to\nus, but the oldest building of the imperial city of which we have\nan authentic date. It consists of a bold square basement about 100\nft. square, which was originally ornamented in some manner not now\nintelligible. From this rose a circular tower about 94 ft. in diameter,\nof very bold masonry, surmounted by a brace of ox-skulls with wreaths\njoining them, and a well-profiled cornice: 2 or 3 courses of masonry\nabove this seem to have belonged to the original work; and above this,\nalmost certainly, in the original design rose a conical roof, which has\nperished. The tower having been used as a fortress in the middle ages,\nbattlements have been added to supply the place of the roof, and it\nhas been otherwise disfigured, so as to detract much from its beauty\nas now seen. Still we have no tomb of the same importance so perfect,\nnor one which enables us to connect the Roman tombs so nearly with the\nEtruscan. The only addition in this instance is that of the square\nbasement or podium, though even this was not unknown at a much earlier\nperiod, as for instance in the tomb of Aruns. The exaggerated height\nof the circular base is also remarkable. Here it rises to be a tower\ninstead of a mere circular base of stones for the earthen cone of the\noriginal sepulchre. The stone roof which probably surmounted the tower\nwas a mere reproduction of the original earthen cone.\n\n\nPOGONIAS.\n\nThese vocal fish differ from the umbrinas in having their jaws tagged\nlaterally with many, in place of carrying but one barbel at the\nsymphysis. Schoeff reports of them that they will assemble round the\nkeel of a vessel at anchor, and serenade the crew; and Mr. John White,\nlieutenant in the navy of the United States, in his voyage to the\nseas of China, relates to the same purpose, that being at the mouth\nof the river of Cambodia, the ship's company were \"astonished by some\nextraordinary sounds which were heard around the bottom of the vessel.\nThey resembled,\" he says, \"a mixture of the bass of the organ, the\nsound of bells, the guttural cries of a large frog, and the tones which\nimagination might attribute to an enormous harp; one might have said\nthe vessel trembled with it. The noises increased, and finally formed\na universal chorus over the entire length of the vessel and the two\nsides. In proportion as we went up the river the sounds diminished, and\nfinally ceased altogether.\" As the interpreter told Captain White, the\nship had been followed by a \"troop of fish of an oval and flattened\nform,\" they were most probably pogonias. Humboldt met with a similar\nadventure in the South Sea, but without suspecting its cause. \"On\nFebruary 20th, 1803, at seven P.M., the whole crew was astounded by a\nvery extraordinary noise, resembling drums beaten in the air; we at\nfirst attributed it to the breakers; speedily it was heard all over\nthe vessel, especially towards the poop, and was like the noise which\nescapes from fluid in a state of ebullition; we began to fear there\nmight be some leak in the bottom. It was heard synchronously in all\nparts of the vessel, but finally, about nine P.M., ceased altogether.\"\nHow these fish manage to _purr_ in the deep, and by means of what organ\nthey communicate the sound to the external air, is wholly unknown. Some\nsuppose it to proceed from the swim-bladder; but if that be the drum,\nwhat is the drumstick that beats upon it? And cushioned as it is in an\nobese envelope and without issue, the swim-bladder cannot be a bagpipe\nor wind instrument.\n\n\nCURIOUS ADVERTISEMENT.\n\nThe following appeared in the public papers of January 24th,\n1737:--\"Whereas Frances, wife of the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount\nVane, has, for some months past, absented herself from her husband,\nand the rest of her friends:--I do hereby promise to any person or\npersons who shall discover where the said lady Vane is concealed, to\nme, or to Francis Hawes, esq. her father, so that either of us may\ncome to the speech of her, the sum of L100, as a reward, to be paid by\nme on demand at my lodgings in Piccadilly. I do also promise the name\nof the person, who shall make such discovery, shall be concealed, if\ndesired. Any person concealing or lodging her after this advertisement,\nwill be prosecuted with the utmost rigour; or, if her ladyship will\nreturn to me, she may depend upon being kindly received. She is about\ntwenty-two years of age, tall, well-shaped, has light-brown hair, is\nfair-complexioned, and has her upper teeth placed in an irregular\nmanner. She had on, when she absented, a red damask French sacque, and\nwas attended by a French woman, who speaks very bad English.\n\n  \"VANE.\"\n\n\nTHE EYE OF THE CHAMELEON.\n\nA most extraordinary aspect is communicated to chameleons by the\nstructure and movements of their eyes. In the first place, the head is\nenormous, and, being three-sided, with projecting points and angles,\nmakes a sufficiently uncouth visage; but the eyes which illuminate\nthis notable head-piece must, indeed, to borrow for the nonce the\nphraseology of Barnum, \"be seen to be appreciated.\" There is on\neach side an immense eye-ball, full and prominent, but covered with\nthe common shagreened skin of the head, except at the very entre,\nwhere there is a minute aperture, corresponding to the pupil. These\ngreat punctured eye-balls roll about hither and thither, but with\nno symmetry. You cannot tell whether the creature is looking at you\nor not; he seems to be taking what may be called a general view of\nthings--looking at nothing in particular, or rather, to save time,\nlooking at several things at once. Perhaps both eyes are gazing\nupwards at your face; a leaf quivers behind his head, and in a moment\n_one eye_ turns round towards the object, while the other retains its\nupward gaze: presently a fly appears; one eye rapidly and interestedly\nfollows all its movements, while the other leisurely glances hither and\nthither, or remains steady. Accustomed as we are to see in almost all\nanimals the two eyes move in unison, this want of sympathy produces an\neffect most singular and ludicrous.\n\n\nDIVING FOR A WIFE.\n\nIn many of the Greek islands, the diving for Sponge forms a\nconsiderable part of the occupation of the inhabitants, as it has\ndone from the most remote antiquity. Hasselquist says:--\"Himia is a\nlittle, and almost unknown island directly opposite Rhodes. It is worth\nnotice, on account of the singular method the Greeks, inhabitants of\nthe island, have to get their living. In the bottom of the sea the\ncommon Sponge is found in abundance, and more than in any other place\nin the Mediterranean. The inhabitants make it a trade to fish up this\nSponge, by which they get a living far from contemptible, as their\ngoods are always wanted by the Turks, who use an incredible number of\nSponges at their bathings and washings. A girl in this island is not\npermitted by her relations to marry before she has brought up a certain\nquantity of Sponges, and before she can give proof of her agility by\ntaking them from a certain depth.\" In other islands the same custom\nprevails, but with reversed application, as in Nicarus, where the\nfather of a marriageable daughter bestows her on the best diver among\nher suitors,--\"He that can stay longest in the water, and gather the\nmost Sponges, marries the maid.\"\n\n\nKNIGHT'S COSTUME OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nThe engraving represents a knight's costume of the year 1272,\ntaken from the library of MSS. at Paris. It is that of a Count\nHohenschwangen, of the family of Welf, and depicts the wearer in a\nlong sleeveless, dark blue surcoat, with his armorial device; a white\nswan on a red field with a light red border. Under his coat he wears\na _cap-a-pie_ suit of mail. The helmet is original, very like the\nGreek, with the furred mantle as we see it in the seal of Richard King\nof England, of the date of 1498. This helmet does not appear to be a\ntilting helmet, which usually rests upon the shoulders; but this kind\nof helmet would be fastened, like the vizor with the mailed hood, by\nan iron throat-brace, and a leather thong. Upon the covered helmet he\nwears the swan as a crest. The sword-hilt is of gold, the sheath black,\nthe girdle white, the furred mantle is red, lined with white.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Knight's Costume of 1272.]\n\nChivalry began in Europe about A.D. 912. From the twelfth to the\nfifteenth century it had considerable influence in refining the manners\nof most of the nations of Europe. The knight swore to accomplish the\nduties of his profession as the champion of God and the ladies. He\ndevoted himself to speak the truth, to maintain the right, to protect\nthe distressed, to practise courtesy, to fulfil obligations, and\nto vindicate in every perilous adventure his honour and character.\nChivalry, which owed its origin to the feudal system, expired with it.\nThe origin of the title of knight, as a military honour, is said to be\nderived from the siege of Troy, but this solely depends on a passage or\ntwo in Homer, and the point is disputed by several learned commentators.\n\n\nCURIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE.\n\nButton, in his Life, tells us of one of his ancestors, a trooper, who,\nseeing a young girl at the river-side, lading water into her pail,\ncast a large stone with design to splash her; but not being versed\nin directing a stone so well as a bullet, he missed the water, and\nbroke her head; he ran off. Twelve years afterwards, he settled at\nDerby, courted a young woman, and married her. In the course of their\nconversations he proved to be the very man who had cast the stone, and\nshe the girl with the broken head.\n\n\nFUNEREAL JAR.\n\nThe term \"funereal\" has been erroneously applied to all pottery\nfound in tombs, even where the utensils have no relation to funereal\npurposes, but were probably in common use. There have been found,\nhowever, in Corsica vessels of earthenware, which may strictly be\ncalled \"funereal.\"\n\nThough the precise period of the fabrication of the funereal vessels\nfound in Corsica is not ascertained, they must be considered of very\nancient date. These vessels, when found entire, at first appear\ncompletely closed up, and no trace of joining can be discovered. But\nit has been ascertained that they are composed of two equal parts, the\nend of one fitting exactly into the other, and so well closed that\nthe body, or at least the bones which they contain, appear to have\nbeen placed within them before they were baked upon the kiln. Diodorus\nSiculus, in speaking of the usages of the Balearic Isles, states that\nthese people were in the habit of beating, with clubs, the bodies of\nthe dead which, when thus rendered flexible, were deposited in vessels\nof earthenware. This practice of the Corsicans coincides singularly\nwith that of the Coroados Indians, who inhabit a village on the Paraiba\nriver, near Campos, in the Brazils. They use large earthen vessels,\ncalled _camucis_, as funereal urns. The bodies of their chiefs, reduced\nto mummies, are placed in them in a bent posture, decked with their\nornaments and arms, and are then deposited at the foot of the large\ntrees of the forest.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Funereal Jar.]\n\nThe cut which we here give speaks for itself. It represents the\nfunereal jar containing the chief as described; the animal at his feet\nappears to be a panther or tiger cat.\n\n\nWRITING MATERIALS.\n\nThe materials used for writing on have varied in different ages and\nnations. Among the Egyptians slices of limestone, leather, linen, and\npapyrus, especially the last, were universally employed. The Greeks\nused bronze and stone for public monuments, wax for memorandums and\npapyrus for the ordinary transactions of life. The kings of Pergamus\nadopted parchment, and the other nations of the ancient world chiefly\ndepended on a supply of the paper of Egypt. But the Assyrians and\nBabylonians employed for their public archives, their astronomical\ncomputations, their religious dedications, their historical annals,\nand even for title-deeds and bills of exchange, tablets, cylinders,\nand hexagonal prisms of terra-cotta. Two of these cylinders, still\nextant, contain the history of the campaign of Sennacherib against\nthe kingdom of Judah; and two others, exhumed from the Birs Nimroud,\ngive a detailed account of the dedication of the great temple by\nNebuchadnezzar to the seven planets. To this indestructible material,\nand to the happy idea of employing it in this manner, the present age\nis indebted for a detailed history of the Assyrian monarchy; whilst\nthe decades of Livy, the plays of Menander and the lays of Anacreon,\nconfided to a more perishable material, have either wholly or partly\ndisappeared amidst the wreck of empires.\n\n\nCURIOUS DISPUTE AND APPROPRIATE DECISION.\n\nFuller, in his 'Holy State,' p. 170, gives a very _apposite_ story; a\npoor man in Paris, being very hungry, went into a cook shop, and staid\nthere so long, (for the master was dishing-up meat,) that his appetite\nbeing lessened by the steam, he proposed to go without his meal; the\ncook insisted upon payment all the same. At length, the altercation was\nagreed to be referred to the first person that passed the door; that\nperson happened to be a notorious idiot. Having heard the complaint, he\ndecreed that the poor man's money should be placed between two empty\ndishes, and that the cook should be recompensed with the jingling of\nhis cash, as the other was with the fumes of the meat; and this little\nanecdote is literally matter of fact.\n\n\nTHE TEA-POT.\n\nNo specimen of the ceramic art possesses greater variety of form than\nthe tea-pot. On none has the ingenuity of the potter been more fully\nexercised, and it is worthy of remark, that the first successful\nproduction of Boettcher in hard porcelain was a tea-pot. The so-called\nElizabethan tea-pots must be of a later date, for tea was not known in\nEngland until the time of Charles II; but it is interesting to trace\nthe gradual increase in the size of the tea-pot, from the diminutive\nproductions of the Elers, in the time of Queen Anne and George I., when\ntea was sold in apothecaries' shops, to the capacious vessel which\nsupplied Dr. Johnson with \"the cup that cheers but not inebriates.\"\n\nMr. Croker, in his edition of Boswell's Life, mentions a tea-pot that\nbelonged to Dr. Johnson which held two quarts; but this sinks into\ninsignificance compared with the superior magnitude of that in the\npossession of Mrs. Marryat, of Wimbledon, who purchased it at the sale\nof Mrs. Piozzi's effects at Streatham. This tea-pot, which was the one\ngenerally used by Dr. Johnson, holds more than three quarts. It is\nof old Oriental porcelain, painted and gilded, and from its capacity\nwas well suited to the taste of one \"whose tea-kettle had no time to\ncool, who with tea solaced the midnight hour, and with tea welcomed\nthe morn.\" George IV. had a large assemblage of tea-pots, piled in\npyramids, in the Pavilion at Brighton. Mrs. Elizabeth Carter was also\na collector of tea-pots, each of which possessed some traditionary\ninterest, independently of its intrinsic merit; but the most diligent\ncollector of tea-pots was the late Mrs. Hawes. She bequeathed no less\nthan three hundred specimens to her daughter, Mrs. Donkin, who has\narranged them in a room appropriated for the purpose. Among them are\nseveral formerly belonging to Queen Charlotte. Many are of the old\nJapan; one with two divisions, and two spouts for holding both black\nand green tea; and another of a curious device, with a small aperture\nat the bottom to admit the water, there being no opening at the top,\natmospheric pressure preventing the water from running out. This\nsingular Chinese toy has been copied in the Rockingham ware.\n\n\nPROTRACTED SLEEP.\n\nOne of the most extraordinary instances of excessive sleep is that\nof the lady at Nismes, published in 1777, in the \"Memoirs of the\nRoyal Academy of Sciences at Berlin.\" Her attacks of sleep took place\nperiodically, at sunrise and about noon. The first continued till\nwithin a short time of the accession of the second, and the second\ncontinued till between seven and eight in the evening--when she awoke,\nand continued so till the next sunrise. The most extraordinary fact\nconnected with this case is, that the first attack commenced always\nat daybreak, whatever might be the season of the year, and the other\nalways immediately after twelve o'clock. During the brief interval of\nwakefulness which ensued shortly before noon, she took a little broth,\nwhich she had only time to do when the second attack returned upon\nher, and kept her asleep till the evening. Her sleep was remarkably\nprofound, and had all the character of complete insensibility, with\nthe exception of a feeble respiration, and a weak but regular movement\nof the pulse. The most singular fact connected with her remains to be\nmentioned. When the disorder had lasted six months, and then ceased,\nthe patient had an interval of perfect health for the same length of\ntime. When it lasted one year, the subsequent interval was of equal\nduration. The affection at last wore gradually away; and she lived,\nentirely free of it, for many years after. She died in the eighty-first\nyear of her age, of dropsy, a complaint which had no connexion with her\npreceding disorder.\n\n\nANCIENT SUIT OF MAIL.\n\nThe two figures depicted on next page represent Henry of Metz receiving\nthe oriflamme from the hands of St. Denis, derived from a painted\nwindow in the church of Notre Dame de Chartres. The oriflamme was a\nred banner attached to a staff, and cut in the manner shown in our\nengraving. Henry of Metz was Marshal of France, and is here represented\nin a complete suit of mail, his hood being thrown back upon his\nshoulders. This suit is perfect, even to the extremities; and it is to\nbe remarked that the defence for the hands is divided in the manner of\na common glove. Over the mail is worn a loose surcoat, on which is\nemblazoned the cross, traversed by a red baton--the type of his high\noffice.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Ancient Suit of Mail.]\n\n\nTHE POISON CUP.\n\n[Illustration: [++] The Poison Cup.]\n\nIn the time of James I. poison was too frequently resorted to,\nespecially on the Continent, as a means of getting rid of individuals\nwho had rendered themselves obnoxious to certain parties who were\nprosecuting their own private ends; and so extensively did this\ninfamous practice prevail that there was a class of persons who\nwere known to have studied the art of secret poisoning, and whose\nservices could be engaged for a high reward. In order to counteract the\noperations of the poisoners, various devices were employed, and among\nthem was the art which the pretended magicians of those days professed\nto have discovered, of making a kind of glass which would fly in pieces\nif poison was poured into any vessel that was formed of it. The cut at\nthe head of our article represents a tankard of this sort, in which\nthe glass is mounted in silver gilt arabesque and silver filagree. It\nwas believed that the large crystal which is seen standing out at the\ncentre of the lid would become discoloured at the approach of poison.\nThe tankard is a work of the sixteenth century, and was presented to\nClare Hall, Cambridge--where it is still preserved--by Dr. William\nButler, an eminent physician in the time of James I.\n\n\nPORCELAIN FINGER-RINGS.\n\nThe porcelain finger-rings of ancient Egypt are extremely beautiful;\nthe band of the ring being seldom above one-eighth of an inch in\nthickness. Some have a plate on which, in bas-relief, is the god _Set_,\nor _Baal_, full face, or playing on the tambourine, as the inventor of\nMusic; others have their plates in the shape of the right symbolical\neye, the emblem of the Sun; of a fish, of the perch species; or of\na scarabaeus, which is said to have been worn by the military order.\nSome few represent flowers. Those which have elliptical plates with\nhieroglyphical inscriptions, bear the names of Amen-Ra, and of other\ngods and monarchs, as Amenophis III., Amenophis IV., and Amenanchut,\nof the Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasties. One of these rings has\na little bugle on each side, as if it had been strung on the beaded\nwork of a mummy, instead of being placed on the finger. Blue is the\nprevalent colour, but a few white and yellow rings, and some even\nornamented with red and purple colours are found. It is not credible\nthat these rings, of a substance finer and more fragile than glass,\nwere worn during life. Neither is it likely that they were worn by the\npoorer classes, for the use of the king's name on sepulchral objects\nseems to have been restricted to functionaries of state. Some larger\nrings of porcelain of about an inch diameter, seven-eighths of an inch\nbroad, and one-sixteenth of an inch thick, made in open work, represent\nthe constantly repeated lotus flowers, and the god Ra, or the Sun,\nseated, and floating through the heaven in his boat. Common as these\nobjects were in Egypt, where they were employed as substitutes for\nthe hard and precious stones, to the Greeks, Etruscans, and Italian\nGreeks they were articles of luxury, just as the porcelain of China\nwas to Europeans some centuries ago. The Etruscans set these bugles,\nbeads, and amulets in settings of their exquisite gold filigree work,\nintermixed with gold beads and precious stones. Strung as pendants they\nhung round the necks of the fair ones of Etruria. In one of the tombs\nalready alluded to at the Polledrara, near Vulci, in Italy, was found\na heap of annular and curious Egyptian bugles, which had apparently\nformed a covering to some bronze objects, but the strings having given\nway, the beads had dropped to pieces. These, as well as the former,\nhad been obtained from some of the Egyptian markets, like that at\nNaucratis: or from the Phoenician merchants, in the same manner as the\nflasks. One of the most remarkable of these personal ornaments is a\nbracelet, composed of small fish strung together and secured by a clasp.\n\n\nPIGEON CATCHING NEAR NAPLES.\n\nBetween La Cava and Naples, about half a mile from the town, are\ncertain Bluebeard-looking towers, several centuries old, erected for\nthe purpose of snaring wood-pigeons; with which view the gentlemen of\nthe neighbourhood, who are generally expert and practised slingers,\nassemble and man the towers in May. A long line of nets, some quarter\nof a mile in circuit, held up in a slanting position by men concealed\nin stone sentry-boxes placed here and there along the _enceinte_, is\nspread in front. As the pigeons are seen advancing (the time of their\napproach is generally looked for at early dawn, when they are making\nfor the woods), the nearest slingers commence projecting a succession\nof white stones in the direction of the nets. These the birds no sooner\nbehold, then attracted, or alarmed (for the motive does not certainly\nappear), they swoop down upon them, and when sufficiently near to fall\nwithin reach of the nets, the persons holding let go, rush from their\nambush, and secure the covey. Thousands of wood-pigeons are thus, we\nhave been told by a proprietor, annually taken, and transmitted for\npresents to distant friends; as we used to send out game, before the\nsale of it was legalised. Thus birds, as well as fish, and fish as well\nas man, often get entangled and caught in their headlong pursuit of a\npleasure that still eludes them.\n\n\nFRAME REQUISITE TO SUPPORT THE DRESS.\n\nJames I., and his subjects who wished to clothe themselves loyally,\nwore stupendous breeches. Of course the \"honourable gentleman\" of\nthe House of Commons were necessarily followers of the fashion. But\nit led to inconveniences in the course of their senatorial duties.\nIt was an old mode revived; and at an earlier day, when these nether\ngarments were ample enough to have covered the lower man of Boanerges,\nthe comfort of the popular representative was thus cared for:--\"Over\nthe seats in the parliament-house, there were certain holes, some two\ninches square, in the walls, in which were placed posts to uphold a\nscaffold round about the house within, for them to sit upon who used\nthe wearing of great breeches stuffed with hair like wool-sacks, which\nfashion being left the eighth year of Elizabeth, the scaffolds were\ntaken down, and never since put up.\" So says Strutt; but doubtless the\ncomforts of the members were not less cared for when the old fashion\nagain prevailed.\n\n\nPRICES OF SEVRES PORCELAIN.\n\nAs one of the curiosities of luxury and taste it is worth while to note\nthe high prices for which some portions of the very choice collection\nof Sevres porcelain at Stowe were sold:--A small coffee cup, which\nweighed scarcely three ounces, realised 46 guineas; and another,\nsimilar, but somewhat inferior, sold for 35 guineas. A chocolate cup\nand saucer, Bleu de Roi, with beautiful miniatures of two ladies of\nthe Court of Louis XV., and four paintings of Cupids, though slightly\ninjured during the view, realised 45 guineas. The prices obtained for\nmost of the cups and saucers were from 10 to 12 guineas. A beautiful\nspecimen of a Bleu de Roi cup, saucer and cover, jewelled in festoons,\ncameos, and imitation of pearls, sold for L35 10s.; and another,\nsomewhat inferior, for 21 guineas. A salver, mounted in a table with\normolu ornaments, sold for 81 guineas; the companion piece for L100.\n\n\nHENRY THE EIGHTH'S CHAIR.\n\nIn the earlier half of the sixteenth century a large proportion of\nthe furniture used in this country, as well as of the earthenware and\nother household implements during the greater part of that century, was\nimported from Flanders and the Netherlands. Hence, in the absence of\nengravings at home, we are led to look at the works of the Flemish and\nGerman artists for illustrations of domestic manners at this period.\nThe seats of that day were termed joint (or joined) stools and chairs.\nA rather fine example of a chair of this work, which was, as was often\nthe case, three-cornered, is preserved in the Ashmolean museum, at\nOxford, where it is reported to have been the chair of Henry VIII. We\nhere annex a sketch of it.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Henry the Eighth's Chair.]\n\n\nMULLET AND TURBOT WITH THE ROMANS.\n\nThe Romans were enthusiastic for the mullet. It was for them _the_\nfish, _par excellence_. It was sometimes served up six pounds in\nweight, and such a fish was worth L60 sterling. It was cooked on the\ntable, for the benefit and pleasure of the guests. In a glass vessel\nfilled with brine made from water, the blood of the mackerel, and salt,\nthe live mullet, stripped of all its scales, was enclosed; and as its\nfine pink colour passed through its dying gradations, until paleness\nand death ensued, the _convives_ looked on admiringly, and lauded the\nspectacle.\n\nThe turbot was next in estimation, but as, occasionally, offending\nslaves were flung into the turbot preserves for the fish to feed upon,\nsome gastronomists have affected to be horror-stricken at the idea\nof eating a _turbot a la Romaine_; quite forgetting that so many of\nour sea-fish, in their domain, feed largely on the human bodies which\naccident, or what men call by that name, casts into the deep.\n\n\n\"TOO LATE,\" QUOTH BOICE.\n\nThe history of the ancient castle of Maynooth is one of much interest;\nabounding in incidents akin to romance. In the reign of Henry the\nEighth, during the rebellion of \"Silken Thomas,\" one of the bravest\nand most heroic of the Geraldines, it was taken by treachery. In the\nabsence of its lord, the governorship was entrusted to \"Christopher\nParese,\" his foster-brother. This \"white-livered traitor resolved to\npurchase his own security with his lord's ruin;\" and therefore sent\na letter to the lord-deputy, signifying that he would betray the\ncastle, on conditions; \"and here the devil betrayed the betrayer,\nfor in making terms for his purse's profit, he forgot to include his\nperson's safety.\" The lord-deputy readily accepted his offer, and,\naccordingly, the garrison having gained some success in a sally, and\nbeing encouraged by the governor in a deep joyous carouse, the ward\nof the tower was neglected--the traitorous signal given, and the\nEnglish scaled the walls. They obtained possession of the strong-hold,\nand put the garrison to the sword--\"all except two singing men, who,\nprostrating themselves before the deputy, warbled a sweet sonnet called\n_dulcis amica_, and their melody saved their lives.\" Parese, expecting\nsome great reward, with impudent familiarity presented himself before\nthe deputy, who addressed him as follows:--\"Master Parese, thou\nhast certainly saved our lord the king much charge, and many of his\nsubjects' lives, but that I may better know to advise his highness\nhow to reward thee, I would ascertain what the Lord Thomas Fitzgerald\nhath done for thee?\" Parese, highly elevated at this discourse,\nrecounted, even to the most minute circumstance, all the favours that\nthe Geraldine, even from his youth up, had conferred on him, to which\nthe deputy replied, \"And how, Parese, couldst thou find it in thy heart\nto betray the castle of so kind a lord? Here, Mr. Treasurer, pay down\nthe money that he has covenanted for; and here, also, executioner,\nwithout delay, as soon as the money is counted out, cut off his head!\"\n\"Oh,\" quoth Parese, \"had I known this, your lordship should not have\nhad the castle so easily.\" Whereupon Mr. Boice, a secret friend of\nthe Fitzgerald, a bystander, cried out \"Auntraugh,\" _i. e._ \"too\nlate,\" which occasioned a proverbial saying, long afterwards used in\nIreland--\"Too late, quoth Boice.\" The castle is said by Archdall to\nhave been erected by John, the sixth Earl of Kildare, early in the\nfifteenth century; but in that case it must have been preceded by some\nother defensive structure; for it is certain that the Kildare branch of\nthe Geraldines resided at Maynooth at a much earlier period. The first\nEarl of Kildare, John Fitz Thomas, was created by patent, dated 14th\nMay, 1316.\n\n\nSUPPRESSED BIBLES.\n\n1538.--An English Bible, in folio, printed at Paris, unfinished.\n\n1542.--Dutch Bible by Jacob Van Leisvelt. The sixth and best edition\ngiven by Leisvelt, and famous as being the cause of this printer being\nbeheaded.\n\n1566.--French Bible by Rene Benoist, Paris, 1566, folio, 3 vols.\ncompleted.\n\n1622.--Swedish Bible, printed at Lubeck, in 4to., very defective.\n\n1666.--A German Bible, printed at Helmstedt, in part only, 4to.\n\n1671.--A French Bible, by Marolles, in folio, containing only the books\nof Genesis, Exodus, and the first twenty-three chapters of Leviticus.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY REPRODUCTIVE POWER OF THE HYDRA.\n\nOne of the fresh-water Polypes, from its power of perpetual\nreproduction, has received the name of _Hydra_, by which it is known\namong naturalists: as if it realised the ancient monster of fabulous\nstory, whose heads sprouted anew as fast as they were cut off by\nHercules.\n\nMost curious monstrosities were produced by the experiments of\nphilosophers on these animals, especially by partial separations. If a\npolype be slit from the summit to the middle, one will be formed having\ntwo heads, each of which will capture and swallow food. If these again\nbe slit half-a-dozen times, as many heads will be formed surmounting\nthe same body. If now all these be cut off, as many new ones will\nspring up in their place, while each of the severed heads becomes a\nnew polype, capable of being, in its turn, varied and multiplied _ad\ninfinitum_;--so that in every respect our little reality exceeds its\nfabulous namesake.\n\nThe polypes may be grafted together. If cut-off pieces be placed in\ncontact, and pushed together with a gentle force, they will unite and\nform a single one. The head of one may be thus planted on the trunk of\nanother.\n\nAnother method of uniting them, perhaps still more wonderful, is by\nintroducing one within the other; the operator forced the body of the\none into the mouth of the other, pushing it down so that the heads\nwere brought together. After forcibly keeping it for some time in this\nstate, the two individuals at length united, and a polype was formed,\ndistinguishable only by having twice the usual number of tentacles.\n\nThere is one species which can actually be turned inside out like a\nglove, and yet perform all the functions of life as before, though\nthat which was the coat of the stomach is now the skin of the body and\n_vice versa_. If it should chance that a polype so turned had young\nin the act of budding, these are, of course, now within the stomach.\nIf they have arrived at a certain degree of maturity, they extend\nthemselves towards the mouth of the parent, that they may thus escape\nwhen separated. But those which are less advanced turn themselves\nspontaneously inside out, and thus place themselves again on the\nexterior of the parent.\n\nA multitude of other variations, combinations, and monstrosities, have\nbeen, as it were, created by the ingenuity of philosophers; but these\nare sufficient to give a notion of the extraordinary nature of these\nanimals; and to account for the wonder with which they were regarded.\n\n\nEGYPT.\n\nEgypt was the land visited by Abraham in search of food, when there\nwas a famine in his own country;--the land to which Joseph was carried\nas a slave, and which he governed as prime minister. From Egypt, Moses\nled the Israelites through the waters of the Red Sea. Here Jeremiah\nwrote his Lamentations. Here Solon, Pythagoras, Plato, and many other\nGreek philosophers, came to study. Here Alexander the Great came as\nconqueror; and here the Infant Saviour was brought by his parents to\navoid the persecution of Herod. Egyptian hieroglyphics, in which the\ncharacters are taken from visible objects, are the earliest form of\nwriting; and the Hebrew and Greek alphabets were both borrowed from\nthem. Egypt taught the world the use of paper--made from its rush,\nthe papyrus. In Egypt was made the first public library, and first\ncollege of learned men, namely, the Alexandrian Museum. There Euclid\nwrote his Elements of Geometry, and Theocritus his Poems, and Lucian\nhis Dialogues. The beauty of Cleopatra, the last Egyptian Queen, held\nJulius Caesar, and then Marc Antony, captive. In Egypt were built the\nfirst monasteries; the Christian fathers, Origen and Athanasius, lived\nthere. The Arien and Athanasian controversy began there.\n\nThe buildings which now remain are the oldest buildings in the world,\nand the largest in the world. On the banks of its great river may be\nseen the oldest arch, and the oldest column. Up this noble river sailed\nHerodotus, the most entertaining of travellers, and Strabo, the most\njudicious. Indeed, as the country is little more than the narrow strip\nthat is watered by the Nile's overflow, from the river may be seen\nalmost all its great cities and temples.\n\n\nABYSSINIAN LADIES.\n\nThe women of Abyssinia are dressed quite as decently as any women in\nthe world, without having a particle of the trouble of the ladies of\nmore civilised nations. There is a distinguishing costume for young\ngirls, and for those who, from being married or otherwise, are no\nlonger considered as such. The dress of the former is indeed rather\nslight, though far more picturesque than that of the latter. In one\npart of the country (about Shire) the girls merely wear a piece of\ncotton stuff wrapped round the waist and hanging down almost to the\nknee, and another (or the end of the former, if it be long enough)\nthrown over the left shoulder, so as to leave the right arm and breast\nexposed. In other parts of Tigre, a black goat-skin, ornamented with\ncowries, is often substituted for this latter. An ordinary woman\nwears a large loose shirt down to the feet, with sleeves made tight\ntowards the wrist. This, with a \"quarry\" similar to those of the\nmen, but worn rather differently, and a parasol when out of doors,\nis a complete suit. A fine lady, however, as in our engraving, has a\nsplendid \"mergeff quarry,\" and her shirt is made probably of calico\nfrom Manchester, instead of the country fabric, and richly embroidered\nin silk of divers colours and various patterns round the neck, down the\nfront, and on the cuffs. She will also, of course, own a mule; and then\nmay choose to wear (alas, that it should be so, even in Abyssinia!) the\ninexpressibles. These are made of calico, and rather loose, but getting\ngradually tighter at the ankle, where they are embroidered like the\nshirt.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Abyssinian Ladies.]\n\nThe fair sex all over the world are fond of ornaments. In Abyssinia\nthey wear a profusion of silver, in the shape of chains, bracelets,\n&c., or, to be more explicit, a well-dressed lady will hang three or\nfour sets of amulets about her neck, as well as her blue cord, and a\nlarge flat silver case (purporting to contain a talisman, but more\noften some scented cotton) ornamented with a lot of silver bells\nhanging to the bottom edge of it, and the whole suspended by four\nchains of the same metal. Three pairs of massive silver and gilt\nbracelets are on her wrists, and a similar number of \"bangles\" on her\nankles; while over her insteps and to her heels are a quantity of\nlittle silver ornaments, strung like beads on a silk cord. Her fingers\n(even the upper joints) are covered with plain rings, often alternately\nof silver and silver-gilt, and a silver hair-pin, something similar\nto those now worn by English ladies, completes her decoration. Women\nof the poorer class, and ladies on ordinary occasions, wear ivory\nor wooden pins neatly carved in various patterns, and stained red\nwith henna-leaves. The Abyssinian ladies, like those of most Eastern\nnations, stain their hands and feet with henna, and darken their\neyelids with antimony.\n\n[Illustration: 1, 2. Hair-pins made of hard wood, and stained with\nhenna. 3. Ditto, of silver and fil-et-grain work. (About one-half usual\nsize.)]\n\n\nTREATMENT OF LEPERS IN ENGLAND.\n\nAccording to the tenor of various old civil codes and local enactments,\nwhen a person became affected with leprosy, he was looked upon as\nlegally and politically dead, and lost the privileges belonging to\nhis right of citizenship. By the laws of England, lepers were classed\nwith idiots, madmen, outlaws, &c., as incapable of being heirs. But it\nwas not by the eye of the law alone that the affected was looked upon\nas defunct, for the church also took the same view, and performed the\nsolemn ceremonials of the burial of the dead over him, on the day on\nwhich he was separated from his fellow creatures, and confined to a\nlazar house. The various forms and ceremonies which were gone through\non this occasion are described by French authors; but it is highly\nprobable that the same observances were common in our own country.\n\nA priest, robed with surplice and stole, went with the cross to the\nhouse of the doomed leper. The minister of the church began the\nnecessary ceremonies, by exhorting him to suffer, with a patient and\npenitent spirit, the incurable plague with which God had stricken him.\nHe then sprinkled the unfortunate leper with holy water, and afterwards\nconducted him to the church, the usual burial services being sung\nduring their march thither. In the church, the ordinary habiliments of\nthe leper were removed; he was clothed in a funeral pall, and, while\nplaced before the altar, between _trestles_, the libera was sung,\nand the mass for the dead celebrated over him. After this service he\nwas again sprinkled with holy water, and led from the church to the\nhouse or hospital destined for his future abode. A pair of clappers, a\nbarrel, a stick, cowl, and dress, &c., were given him. Before leaving\nthe leper, the priest solemnly interdicted him from appearing in\npublic without his leper's garb,--from entering inns, churches, mills,\nand bakehouses,--from touching children, or giving them ought he had\ntouched,--from washing his hands, or any thing pertaining to him, in\nthe common fountains and streams,--from touching, in the markets, the\ngoods he wished to buy, with any thing except his stick,--from eating\nand drinking with any others than lepers,--and he specially forbade\nhim from walking in narrow paths, or from answering those who spoke to\nhim in roads and streets, unless in a whisper, that they might not be\nannoyed with his pestilent breath, and with the infectious odour that\nexhaled from his body,--and last of all, before taking his departure,\nand leaving the leper for ever to the seclusion of the lazar house,\nthe official of the church terminated the ceremony of his separation\nfrom his living fellow-creatures, by throwing upon the body of the poor\noutcast a shovelful of earth, in imitation of the closure of the grave.\n\nAccording to the then customary usage, Leper Hospitals were always\nprovided with a cemetery for the reception of the bodies of those who\nhad died of the malady.\n\n\nLUMINOUS APPEARANCE OF THE RED SEA.\n\nAll who have frequented the Red Sea, have observed the luminous\nappearance or phosphorescence of its waters. \"It was beautiful,\" says\na picturesque writer, who sailed from Mocha to Cosseir, \"to look down\ninto this brightly transparent sea, and mark the coral, here in large\nmasses of honeycomb-rock, there in light branches of a pale red hue,\nand the beds of green seaweed, and the golden sand, and the shells, and\nthe fish sporting round the vessel, and making colours of a beauty to\nthe eye which is not their own. Twice or thrice we ran on after dark\nfor an hour or two; and though we were all familiar with the sparkling\nof the sea round the boat at night, never have I seen it in other\nwaters so superlatively splendid. A rope dipped in it and drawn forth\ncame up as a string of gems; but with a life, and light, and motion,\nthe diamond does not know.\" Those sea-lights have been explained by\na diversity of causes; but the singular brilliancy of the Red Sea\nseems owing to fish spawn and animalculae, a conjecture which receives\nsome corroboration from the circumstance that travellers who mention\nit visited the gulf during the spawning period--that is, between the\nlatter end of December and the end of February. The coral-banks are\nless numerous in the southern parts. It deserves notice, that Dr. Shaw\nand Mr. Bruce have stated--what could only be true, so far as their own\nexperience went--that they observed no species of weed or flag; and the\nlatter proposes to translate Yam Zuph \"the Sea of Coral\"--a name as\nappropriate as that of Edom.\n\n\nRECENT PRICES OF SLAVES.\n\nPrices of course vary at Constantinople according to the vigilance\nof Russian cruisers, and the incorruptibility of Russian agents at\nTrebizond, Samsoon, and Sinope. The following is the average price in\nCircassia:--\n\n  A man of 30 years of age,          L10\n     \"       20       \"        10 to L30\n     \"       15       \"        30  \"  70\n     \"       10       \"        20  \"  50\n     \"        5       \"        10  \"  30\n  A woman of 50 years of age, L10 to L30\n     \"       40       \"        30  \"  40\n     \"       30       \"        40  \"  70\n     \"    20 to 25    \"        50  \" 100\n     \"    14 \"  18    \"        50  \" 150\n     \"     8 \"  12    \"        30  \"  80\n     \"           5    \"        20  \"  40\n\n\nTATTOOED ABYSSINIAN LADY.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Tattooed Abyssinian Lady.]\n\nThe annexed cut is a sketch of an Abyssinian lady, tattooed in the\nheight of the fashion. The following extract from that interesting\nwork \"Parkyns's Abyssinia\" gives a good account of the custom as it\nprevails in the larger cities there, and of the manner in which the\noperation is performed. \"The men seldom tattoo more than one ornament\non the upper part of the arm, near the shoulder, while the women cover\nnearly the whole of their bodies with stars, lines, and crosses, often\nrather tastefully arranged. I may well say nearly the whole of their\npersons, for they mark the neck, shoulders, breasts, and arms, down to\nthe fingers, which are enriched with lines to imitate rings, nearly\nto the nails. The feet, ankles, and calves of the legs, are similarly\nadorned, and even the gums are by some pricked entirely blue, while\nothers have them striped alternately blue and the natural pink. To see\nsome of their designs, one would give them credit for some skill in\nthe handling of their pencil; but, in fact, their system of drawing\nthe pattern is purely mechanical. I had one arm adorned; a rather\nblind old woman was the artist; her implements consisted of a little\npot of some sort of blacking, made, she told me, of charred herbs; a\nlarge home-made iron pin, about one-fourth of an inch at the end of\nwhich was ground fine; a bit or two of hollow cane, and a piece of\nstraw; the two last-named items were her substitutes for pencils.\nHer circles were made by dipping the end of a piece of a cane of the\nrequired size into the blacking, and making its impression on the skin;\nwhile an end of the straw, bent to the proper length, and likewise\nblackened, marked all the lines, squares, diamonds, &c., which were to\nbe of equal length. Her design being thus completed, she worked away\non it with her pin, which she dug in as far as the thin part would\nenter, keeping the supply of blacking sufficient, and going over the\nsame ground repeatedly to ensure regularity and unity in the lines.\nWith some persons, the first effect of this tattooing is to produce\na considerable amount of fever, from the irritation caused by the\npunctures; especially so with the ladies, from the extent of surface\nthus rendered sore. To allay this irritation, they are generally\nobliged to remain for a few days in a case of vegetable matter, which\nis plastered all over them in the form of a sort of green poultice.\nA scab forms over the tattooing, which should not be picked off, but\nallowed to fall off of itself. When this disappears, the operation\nis complete, and the marks are indelible; nay more, the Abyssinians\ndeclare that they may be traced on the person's bones even after death\nhas bared them of their fleshy covering.\"\n\n\nBULGARIAN FISHERMEN.\n\nThe following interesting account of the Bulgarian fishermen on the\nshores of the Black Sea is taken from the translation of a narrative of\na boat excursion made in 1846 by M. Xavier Hommaire, along part of the\nnorthern coast of the Black Sea:--\n\n[Illustration: [++] Bulgarian Fishermen.]\n\n\"The fishermen are, almost without exception, Bulgarians--a population\nat once maritime and agricultural, very closely resembling, in race\nand costume, the Bretons of France--and they enjoy a monopoly of all\nthe fisheries in the Bosphorus and the adjacent parts of the Black\nSea. Their elegant barks appeared on stated days and hours, shooting\nalong with extraordinary rapidity through the waters of the Gulf of\nBuyuk Dereh, which appears to be their head-quarters, and sustaining\nthe test of comparison even with the famous caiques of Constantinople.\nThe most important object of their fishery is a delicious kind of\nsmall thunny, called palamede. They are Bulgarians, also, who own\nthe singular fisheries which form such admirable subjects for the\nartist's sketch-book. They are found throughout the Bosphorus, from\nBechiktusch and Scutari to the lighthouses of Europe and Asia. They\nmight be called dog-kennels, but rickety and worm-eaten with antiquity,\nand are suspended by means of cords, pegs, and tatters to the top\nof an indescribable framework of props. There on high, petrified in\nmotionless and uninterrupted silence, in company with some old pots of\nmignionette (where will not the love of flowers find a home!), a man,\nwith the appearance of a wild beast or savage, leans over the sea, at\nthe bottom of which he watches the passage of its smallest inhabitants,\nand the capricious variations of the current. At a certain distance\nis arranged, in the form of a square, a system of nets, which, at\nthe least signal from the watcher, fall on the entire shoal of fish.\nA contrivance yet more primitive than these airy cells, if not so\npicturesque, was that of simple posts, which we encountered some time\nbefore in the channel of the Bosphorus, rising about fifteen feet above\nthe surface of the water. Half-way up is perched, crouching (one cannot\nsee how), something having the human form, and which is found to be a\nBulgarian. For a long time I watched them without being able to make\nthem out, either pole or its tenant; and often have I seen them in the\nmorning, and observed them again in the evening, not having undergone\nthe least change of posture.\n\n\"On returning to our encampment, the commandant of the fort, to whom\nwe paid a visit, gave us a very different report of the fishermen of\nthe morning, whom he described as an assemblage of all the vagabonds of\nthe neighbourhood. Convinced even that the fact of their having fallen\nin with us must have inspired them with the project of coming to prowl\nby night round our camp, he wished us to accept some of the men in his\ngarrison as a guard.\"\n\n\nHORSES OF THE ARABS.\n\nArabs make intimate friends of their horses, and so docile are these\ncreatures that they are ridden without a bit, and never struck or\nspurred. They share their owner's diet, and are as well cared for as a\nchild. They divide their horses, however, into two kinds: The one they\ncall kadischi, that is, horses of an unknown birth; the other, they\ncall kochlani, that is, horses whose genealogy is known for thousands\nof years. They are direct descendants, so they say, of the stud of\nSolomon. The pedigree of an Arabian horse is hung round his neck soon\nafter his birth, which is always properly witnessed and attested.\n\nThe following is the pedigree of a horse purchased by a French officer\nin Arabia:--\"In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate, and of\nSaed Mahomed, agent of the high God, and of the companions of Mahommed,\nand of Jerusalem. Praised be the Lord, the Omnipotent Creator. This\nis a high-bred horse, and its colt's tooth is here in a bag about\nhis neck, with his pedigree, and of undoubted authority, such as no\ninfidel can refuse to believe. He is the son of Rabbamy, out of the dam\nLabadah, and equal in power to his sire of the tribe of Zazhalah; he is\nfinely moulded, and made for running like an ostrich. In the honours\nof relationship, he reckons Zuluah, sire of Mahat, sire of Kallac, and\nthe unique Alket sire of Manasseh, sire of Alsheh, father of the race\ndown to the famous horse, the sire of Lahalala; and to him be ever\nabundance of green meat, and corn, and water of life, as a reward from\nthe tribe of Zazhalah; and may a thousand branches shade his carcass\nfrom the hyaena of the tomb, from the howling wolf of the desert;\nand let the tribe of Zazhalah present him with a festival within an\nenclosure of walls; and let thousands assemble at the rising of the\nsun in troops hastily, where the tribe holds up under a canopy of\ncelestial signs within the walls, the saddle with the name and family\nof the possessor. Then let them strike the bands with a loud noise\nincessantly, and pray to God for immunity for the tribe of Zoab, the\ninspired tribe.\"\n\n\nDILEMMA.\n\nProtagoras, an Athenian rhetorician, had agreed to instruct Evalthus\nin rhetoric, on condition that the latter should pay him a certain sum\nof money if he gained his first cause. Evalthus when instructed in all\nthe precepts of the art, refused to pay Protagoras, who consequently\nbrought him before the Areopagus, and said to the Judges--\"Any verdict\nthat you may give is in my favour: if it is on my side, it carries\nthe condemnation of Evalthus; if against me, he must pay me, because\nhe gains his first cause.\" \"I confess,\" replied Evalthus, \"that the\nverdict will be pronounced either for or against me; in either case I\nshall be equally acquitted: if the Judges pronounce in my favour, you\nare condemned; if they pronounce for you, according to our agreement,\nI owe you nothing, for I lose my first cause.\" The Judges being unable\nto reconcile the pleaders, ordered them to reappear before the Court a\nhundred years afterwards.\n\n\nORIENTAL EXTRAVAGANCE.\n\nMr. Forbes has given a curious picture of the kind of magnificence\naffected by Asuf ul Dowlah, who succeeded his father on the throne\nof Oude. This nabob was fond of lavishing his treasures on gardens,\npalaces, horses, elephants, European guns, lustres, and mirrors. He\nexpended annually about L200,000 in English manufactures. He had more\nthan one hundred gardens, twenty palaces, one thousand two hundred\nelephants, three thousand fine saddle horses, one thousand five hundred\ndouble-barrel guns, seventeen hundred superb lustres, thirty thousand\nshades of various forms and colours; seven hundred large mirrors,\ngirandoles and clocks. Some of the latter were very curious, richly set\nwith jewels, having figures in continual movement, and playing tunes\nevery hour; two of these clocks only, cost him thirty thousand pounds.\nWithout taste or judgment, he was extremely solicitous to possess all\nthat was elegant and rare; he had instruments and machines of every\nart and science, but he knew none; and his museum was so ridiculously\narranged that a wooden cuckoo-clock was placed close to a superb\ntimepiece which cost the price of a diadem; and a valuable landscape of\nClaude Lorraine suspended near a board painted with ducks and drakes.\nHe sometimes gave a dinner to ten or twelve persons, sitting at their\nease in a carriage drawn by elephants. His jewels amounted to about\neight millions sterling. Amidst this precious treasure, he might be\nseen for several hours every day handling them as a child does his toys.\n\n\nANCIENT SCOTTISH CHIEFTAIN.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Scottish Costume.]\n\nAnnexed is a Scottish costume of the eighth or ninth century, after\na drawing on parchment, extracted from an old book, which, according\nto the characters on the back, appears to have been written in\nGaelic or Erse. According to the assertion of the possessor, this\nCaledonian document was brought to Germany in the year 1596, during the\ndevastating Reformation in Scotland, when all cloisters and religious\nendowments were destroyed, and a perfect victory obtained over the\nepiscopacy, so that many persons took refuge with their treasures,\non the Continent, where the Scottish monks possessed many religious\nhouses; some being at Nuremberg. Our figure represents a Highland\nchief, whose dress is picturesque and extremely beautiful. The Scottish\ntunic or blouse, checkered or striped in light and dark green, with\nviolet intermixed, and bordered with violet stripes, is covered with a\nsteel breastplate, accompanied by a back-piece, judging from the iron\nbrassarts--positively a bequest of the Romans, by whom the Scots were\nonce subjugated; this, indeed, is also attested by the offensive weapon\nthe javelin; the sword, however, must be excepted, for it is national\nand like that of the present time. The strong shield may also have\ndescended from the Romans, as well as the helmet, which is decorated\nwith an eagle's wing; these, together with the hunting-horn, give to\nthe figure a very imposing appearance. The national plaid is wanting,\nthis was borne by attendants or squires. We are involuntarily reminded\nof the heroes of Fingal and Ossian, and we might almost think that\nthis figure belonged to the time of the Scottish king, Kenneth the\nSecond, grandson of King Achaias, and the sister of the Pictish king,\nHang.\n\n\nGREEK VASES.\n\nVases of various shapes have been found in the sepulchres of Greece,\nsuch as the _oenochoe_, or jug; the _askos_, or wine-skin; the _phiale\nomphalotos_, or saucer having a boss in the centre; _rhyta_, or jugs,\nimitated from the _keras_, or horn, as well as some moulded in the\nshape of the human bust. Vases of this class, however, occur more\nfrequently in Italy than in Greece. Some are of remarkable shape. One\nin the Durand collection has its interior receded, and in the centre\na medallion of the Gorgon's head; at the edge is the head of a dog or\nfox, and to it is attached a long handle terminating in the head of an\nanimal. Similar handles are often found. Another vase from Sicily, also\nin the same collection, with a conical cover, is ornamented externally\nwith moulded subjects of wreaths, heads of Medusa, &c., painted and\ngilded.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Greek Vase.]\n\nMany of the vases intended for ornamental purposes are covered with a\nwhite coating, and painted with colours of the same kind as those used\non the figures before described, but with few and simple ornaments,\nplain bands, maeanders, chequered bands and wreaths. A vase found at\nMelos affords a curious example. We here annex a sketch of it. It\nconsists of a number of small vases united together and arranged in a\ndouble circle round a central stand. This kind of vase is supposed to\nbe the _kernos_, used in the mystic ceremonies to hold small quantities\nof viands. By some persons, however, it is thought to have been\nintended for eggs or flowers. It is covered with a white coating of\nclay, and the zigzag stripes are of a maroon colour. Such vases might\nhave been used for flower-pots, and have formed small temporary gardens\nlike those of Adonis, or have been employed as lamps.\n\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH'S DRESSES.\n\nThe list of the Queen's wardrobe, in 1600, shows us that she had then\nonly 99 robes, 126 kirtles, 269 gowns (round, loose, and French), 136\nforeparts, 125 petticoats, and 27 fans, not to mention 96 cloaks, 83\nsave guards, 85 doublets, and 18 lap mantles.\n\nHer gowns were of the richest materials--purple, gold tissue, crimson\nsatin, cloth of gold, cloth of silver, white velvet, munsy cloth,\ntawney satin, horse-flesh  satin, Isabella  satin dove\n velvet, lady blush satin, drake  satin, and [...]\n satin.\n\nThe cloaks are of perfumed leather, black taffety; the petticoats of\nblue satin; the jupes of orange  satin; the doublets of straw\n satin; the mantles of white blush, striped with red swan's\ndown.\n\nThe most characteristic dresses are the following:--\n\nA frock of cloth of silver, checquered with red silk, like bird's eyes,\nwith demi sleeves, a cut of crimson velvet twisted on with silver,\nlined with crimson velvet.\n\nA mantle of white lawn, cut and turned in, embroidered all over with\nworks of silver, like pomegranates, roses, honeysuckles, and acorns.\n\nOne French kirtle of white satin, cut all over, embroidered with loops,\nflowers, and clouds of Venice gold, silver, and silk.\n\nOne round kirtle of white satin, embroidered all over with the work\nlike flames, peascods, and pillars, with a border likewise embroidered\nwith roses.\n\nThe stomacher (fore part) of white satin, embroidered very fair with\nborders of the sun, moon, and other signs and planets of Venice gold,\nsilver, and silk of sundry colours, with a border of beasts beneath,\nlikewise embroidered.\n\nOther gowns we find adorned with bees, spiders, flies, worms, trunks of\ntrees, <DW29>s, oak leaves, and mulberries; so that \"Bess\" must have\nlooked like an illustrated edition of _AEsop's Fables_.\n\nIn one case she shines in rainbows, clouds, flames of fire, and suns;\nin another, with fountains and trees, snakes, and grasshoppers; the\nbuttons themselves, in one instance, assume the shape of butterflies,\nin another of birds of Paradise.\n\nThe fans were of white and  feathers, with gold handles set\nwith precious stones, or of crystal and heliotrope; one of them\ncontained a looking-glass, another Leicester's badge of the bear and\nragged staff. Her swords had gilt handles and blood-stone studs; her\nponiards were gold and ivory, ornamented with tassels of blue silk; her\nslippers of cloth of silver, and of orange- velvet, embroidered\nwith seed pearls; her parasol was of crimson velvet damask, striped\nwith Venetian gold and silver lace, the handle mother-of-pearl.\n\nHer jewels were both numerous and curious: the head ornaments\nresembling a white lion with a fly on his side, a golden fern-branch\nwith a lizard, ladybird, and a snail upon it, an Irish dart of gold set\nwith diamonds, a golden rose with a fly and spider upon it, a golden\nfrog set with jewels, a golden daisy, and emerald buttons, gown studs\nof rubies and pearls, and a chain of golden scallop shells, with chains\nof agate and jet. A sumptuous magnificence was the characteristic of\nthe costume of this reign. When Elizabeth visited the Earl of Hertford,\nat Elvetham, that nobleman met her with 3,000 followers, with black and\nyellow feathers in their hats, and most of them wearing gold chains.\nWhen she visited Suffolk, 200 bachelors in white velvet, with as many\nburghers in black velvet coats and gold chains, and 1800 serving-men\nreceived on horseback. For the French ambassador's amusement, in 1559,\n1400 men-at-arms, clad in velvet, with chains of gold, mustered in\narms in Greenwich Park; and on another occasion there was a tournament\non Midsummer (Sunday) Night at the palace of Westminster, between ten\nknights in white, led by the Earl of Essex, and ten knights in blue,\nled by the Earl of Rutland.\n\n\nCARE OF THE BEARD.\n\nThe Mahometans are very superstitious touching the beard. They bury\nthe hairs which come off in combing it, and break them first, because\nthey believe that angels have charge of every hair, and that they gain\nthem their dismissal by breaking it. Selim I. was the first Sultan who\nshaved his beard, contrary to the law of the Koran. \"I do it,\" said\nhe apologetically to the scandalized and orthodox mufti, \"to prevent\nmy vizier leading me by it.\" He cared less for it than some of our\nancestors, two centuries ago, did for their own. They used to wear\npasteboard covers over them in the night, lest they should turn upon\nthem and rumple them in their sleep!\n\nThe famous Raskolniki schismatics had a similar superstition to the\nMahometan one mentioned above. They considered the divine image in man\nto reside in the beard.\n\n\nDOLE IN CONSEQUENCE OF A DREAM.\n\nAt Newark-upon-Trent, a curious custom, founded upon the preservation\nof Alderman Clay and his family by a dream has prevailed since the days\nof Cromwell. On 11th March every year, penny-loaves are given away to\nevery one who chooses to appear at the Town Hall and apply for them,\nin commemoration of the Alderman's deliverance, during the siege of\nNewark by the Parliamentary forces. This gentleman, by will, dated 11th\nDecember, 1694, gave to the Mayor and Aldermen, one hundred pounds, the\ninterest of which was to be given to the Vicar yearly, on condition\nof his preaching an annual sermon. Another hundred pounds were also\nappropriated for the behoof of the poor, in the way above-mentioned.\nThe origin of this bequest is singular. During the bombardment of\nNewark by Oliver Cromwell's forces, the Alderman dreamed three nights\nsuccessively that his house had taken fire, which produced such a vivid\nimpression upon his mind, that he and his family left it, and in a few\ndays the circumstances of his vision actually took place, by the house\nbeing burned down by the besiegers.\n\n\nGLOVE MONEY.\n\nGloves were popular new-year's gifts, or sometimes \"glove-money\" in\nplace of them; occasionally, these gloves carried gold pieces in them.\nWhen Sir Thomas More was Chancellor, he decided a case in favour\nof Mrs. Croaker against Lord Arundel; the former, on the following\nnew-year's day, gratefully presented the judge with a pair of gloves\nwith forty angels in them. \"It would be against good manners,\" said\nthe Chancellor, \"to forsake a gentlewoman's new-year's gift, and I\naccept the gloves. The _lining_ you will elsewhere bestow.\"\n\n\nGLAIVES.\n\nThe glaive was derived from the Celtic custom of placing a sword with\na hollow handle at the end of a pole, called by the natives of Wales\n\"llavnawr\"--_the blade weapon_, and takes its name from the Cleddyv,\nor Gleddyv, of the Welsh. In an abstract of the grants of the 1st\nof Richard III., among the Harleian MSS., No. 443, is a warrant to\nNicholas Spicer, authorising him to impress smiths for making 2,000\nWelsh glaives; and 20s. 6d. are charged for 30 glaives, with their\nstaves, made at Abergavenny and Llanllolved. In the romaunt of Guy,\nEarl of Warwick, by Walter of Exeter, written in the time of Edward\nII., also in the Harleian Library of the British Museum, they are\ncalled gleves; thus--\n\n    \"Grant coupes de gleves trenchant\n     Les escurs ne lur vailut gans.\"\n\n    \"Such powerful strokes from cutting gleves,\n     That the shields were not worth a glove.\"\n\n[Illustration: [++] Glaive.]\n\nThey were also in frequent use on the Continent, and the \"Chronicle of\nFlanders\" mentions an instance of the cavalry having armed themselves\nwith glaives, which they ornamented with pennoncels. The specimen which\nwe have here engraved is one which was made for the Doge of Venice,\nduring the time that the Emperor Charles V. had the command there, in\ncompliment to whom the centre ornament is the Austrian eagle. Upon this\nthe arms of the succeeding Doge, Francisco Veneri, who held the office\nfrom 1554 to 1556, have been deeply incised, no doubt to commemorate\nthe expulsion of the Germans. The pole, at the top of which the weapon\nwas fixed, is omitted in our engraving.\n\n\nCRUELTY OF FRANCIS CARRARA.\n\nFrancis Carrara, the last Lord of Padua, was famous for his cruelties.\nThey shew (at Venice) a little box for a toilette, in which are six\nlittle guns, which are so ordered with springs, and adjusted in such a\nmanner, that upon the opening of the trunk, the guns fired and killed\nthe lady to whom Carrara sent it for a present. They show also with\nthis, some little pocket cross-bows and arrows of steel, with which he\ntook pleasure to kill those he met, so secretly, that they could hardly\neither perceive the blow, or him that gave it.\n\n\nIRISH PIPES.\n\nThe accompanying figures represent the Irish bagpipes in their\nprimitive and improved forms. We have here the earliest pipes,\noriginally the same as the Scotch, as appears from a drawing made in\nthe sixteenth century, and given in Mr. Bunting's work; but they now\ndiffer, in having the mouthpiece supplied by the bellows A, which,\nbeing filled by the motion of the piper's arm, to which it is fastened,\nfills the bag B; whence, by the pressure of the other arm, the wind is\nis conveyed into the chanter C, which is played on with the fingers,\nmuch like a common pipe. By means of a tube, the wind is conveyed into\ndrones _a_, _a_, _a_, which, tuned at octaves to each other, produce\na kind of cronan, or bass, to the chanter. The second cut represents\nthe improved, or union pipes, the drones of which, tuned at thirds and\nfifths by the regulator, have keys attached to them, which not only\nproduce the most delightful accords, but enable the player to perform\nparts of tunes, and sometimes whole tunes, without using the chanter\nat all. Both drones and chanter can be rendered quiescent by means of\nstops.\n\n[Illustration: Common Bagpipes.]\n\n[Illustration: Union Pipes.]\n\nThe pipers were at one period the \"great originals\" of Ireland. The\nrace is gradually departing, or at least \"sobering\" down into the ranks\nof ordinary mortals; but there was a time when the pipers stood out\nvery prominently upon any canvas that pictured Irish life. Anecdotes\nof their eccentricities might be recorded that would fill volumes. For\nmany years past their power has been on the wane; temperance committed\nsad havoc on their prospects; and at length the introduction of \"brass\nbands\" effectually destroyed the small balance that remained to them of\nhope.\n\n\nNOVEL WAY OF CURING VICIOUS HORSES.\n\nBurckhardt tells us of a strange mode of curing a vicious horse. He has\nseen, he says, vicious horses in Egypt cured of the habit of biting by\npresenting to them, while in the act of doing so, a leg of mutton just\ntaken from the fire. The pain which the horse feels in biting through\nthe hot meat causes it to abandon the practice.\n\n\nGROUND ICE.\n\nEvery one who has watched the freezing of a lake or pond, or any other\ncollection of still water, must be well aware that the ice begins to\nform on the surface in thin plates or layers, which on the continuance\nof the frost gradually become thicker and more solid, until the water\nis affected in a downward direction, and becomes, perhaps, a solid\nmass of ice. This is universally the case in stagnant water, but\nit has been repeatedly proved that in rapid and rugged streams the\nprocess of freezing is often very different. In direct opposition,\nas it would seem, to the laws of the propagation of heat, the ice in\nrunning water frequently begins to form at the bottom of the stream\ninstead of the top; and this fact, while it is received with doubt by\nsome, even among the scientific, is frequently attested by those whose\nbusiness leads them to observe the phenomenon connected with rivers.\nMillers, fishermen, and watermen find that the masses of ice with which\nmany rivers are crowded in the winter season rise from the bottom or\nbed of the stream. They say that they have seen them come up to the\nsurface, and have also borne them up with their hooks. The under part\nof these masses of ice they have found covered with mud or encrusted\nwith gravel, thus bearing plain marks of the ground on which the ice\nhad rested. The testimony of people of this class in our country agrees\nwith that of a similar class in Germany, where there is a peculiar term\nmade use of to designate floating ice, i. e. _grundeis_ (ground-ice).\n\nA striking example of the formation of ground-ice is mentioned by the\nCommander Steenk, of Pillau. On the 9th of February, 1806, during a\nstrong south-east wind, and a temperature a little exceeding 34 deg. Fahr.,\na long iron chain, to which the buoys of the fair-way are fastened,\nand which had been lost sight of at Schappeiswrack in a depth of from\nfifteen to eighteen feet, suddenly made its appearance at the surface\nof the water and swam there; it was, however, completely encrusted with\nice to the thickness of several feet. Stones, also, of from three to\nsix pounds' weight, rose to the surface; they were surrounded with a\nthick coat of ice. A cable, also, three and a half inches thick, and\nabout thirty fathoms long, which had been lost the preceding summer in\na depth of thirty feet, again made its appearance by swimming to the\nsurface; but it was enveloped in ice to the thickness of two feet. On\nthe same day it was necessary to _warp_ the ship into harbour in face\nof an east wind; the anchor used for that purpose, after it had rested\nan hour at the bottom, became so encrusted with ice, that it required\nnot more than half the usual power to heave it up.\n\nM. Hugi, president of the Society of Natural History at Soleure,\nobserved, in February, 1827, a multitude of large icy tables on the\nriver Aar. These were continually rising from the bottom, over a\nsurface of four hundred and fifty square feet, and the phenomenon\nlasted for a couple of hours. Two years afterwards he witnessed a\nsimilar occurrence. On the 12th of February, 1829, at sunrise, and\nafter a sudden fall in the temperature, the river began to exhibit\nnumerous pieces of floating ice, although there was no sign of freezing\non the surface, either along the banks, or in shady places where the\nwater was calm. Therefore it could not be said that the floating masses\nwere detached from the banks. Nor could they have proceeded from any\nlarge sheet of ice farther up the river, because, higher up, the river\nexhibited hardly any ice. Besides, flakes of ice commenced soon to rise\nup above the bridge; towards mid-day, islands of ice were seen forming\nin the centre of the river; and by the next day these were twenty-three\nin number, the largest being upwards of two hundred feet in diameter.\nThey were surrounded with open water, resisting a current which flowed\nat the rate of nearly two hundred feet in a minute, and extending over\na space of one-eighth of a league. M. Hugi visited them in a small\nboat. He landed, examined them in every direction, and discovered that\nthere was a layer of compact ice on their surface a few inches in\nthickness, resting on a mass having the shape of an inverted cone, of a\nvertical height of twelve or thirteen feet, and fixed to the bed of the\nriver. These cones consisted of half-melted ice, gelatinous, and much\nlike the spawn of a frog. It was softer at the bottom than at the top,\nand was easily pierced in all directions with poles. Exposed to the\nopen air, the substance of the cones became quickly granulated, like\nthe ice that is formed at the bottom of rivers.\n\nIn the same year the pebbles in a creek of shallow water, near a\nvery rapid current of the Rhine, were observed to be covered with a\nsort of transparent mass, an inch or two in thickness, and which, on\nexamination, was found to consist of icy spicula, crossing each other\nin every direction. Large masses of spongy ice were also seen in\nthe bed of the stream, at a depth of between six or seven feet. The\nwatermen's poles entered these with ease, and often bore them to the\nsurface. This kind of ice forms most quickly in rivers whose bed is\nimpeded with stones and other foreign bodies.\n\n\nHINDOO COMPUTATION.\n\nThe Hindoos call the whole of their four ages a _divine age_; a\nthousand divine ages form a _calpa_, or one of Brahma's days, who,\nduring that period, successively invested fourteen _menus_, or holy\nspirits, with the sovereignty of the earth. The _menu_ transmits his\nempire to his posterity for seventy-one divine ages, and this period\nis called _manawantara_, and as fourteen _manawantara_ make but nine\nhundred and ninety-four divine ages, there remain six, which are the\ntwilight of Brahma's day. Thirty of these days form his month; twelve\nof these months one of his years; and one hundred of these years the\nduration of his existence. The Hindoos assert that fifty of these years\nhave already elapsed, so that we are in the first day of the first\nmonth of the fifty-first year of Brama's age, and in the twenty-eighth\ndivine age of the seventh _manawantara_. The first three human ages of\nthis age, and five thousand years of the fourth are past. The Hindoos\ntherefore calculate that it is 131,400,007,205,000 years since the\nbirth of Brahma, or the beginning of the world.\n\n\nCHINESE TOMB.\n\nLike all people of Tartar origin, one of the most remarkable\ncharacteristics of the Chinese is their reverence for the dead, or, as\nit is usually called, their ancestral worship. In consequence of this,\ntheir tombs are not only objects of care, but have frequently more\nornament bestowed upon them than graces the dwellings of the living.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Chinese Tomb.]\n\nTheir tombs are of different kinds; but the most common arrangement is\nthat of a horseshoe-shaped platform, cut out of the side of a hill,\nas represented in our engraving. It consequently has a high back,\nin which is the entrance to the tomb, and <DW72>s off to nothing at\nthe entrance to the horseshoe, where the wall generally terminates\nwith two lions or dragons, or some fantastic ornament common to\nChinese architecture. When the tomb is situated, as is generally the\ncase, on a hillside, this arrangement is not only appropriate, but\nelegant. When the same thing is imitated on a plain, it is singular,\nmisplaced, and unintelligible. Many of the tombs are built of granite,\nfinely polished, and carved with a profusion of labour that makes us\nregret that the people who can do such things should have so great a\npredilection for ephemeral wooden structures, when capable of employing\nthe most durable materials with such facility.\n\n\nABYSSINIAN ARMS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Abyssinian Arms.]\n\nThe above engraving represents a group of Abyssinian arms. The sword,\nspear, and shield are essentially the weapons of the Abyssinians,\nfirearms being only of comparatively recent introduction, and not\ngenerally used. The shields are round, and nearly a yard in diameter;\nthey are very neatly made of buffalo's hide, and of the form most\ncalculated to throw off a lance-point; namely, falling back gradually\nfrom the boss or centre (which protrudes) to the edges. At the centre,\nin the inside, is fixed a solid leather handle, by which the shield is\nheld in the hand when fighting, or through which the arm is passed\nto the elbow, for convenience of carrying on a journey. The edge is\nperforated with a number of holes, through which leather loops are\npassed, and by these it is hung up in the houses. The face of the\nshield is often ornamented in various ways, according to the wealth\nor fancy of the owner. Some have simply a narrow strip of lion's skin\non each side of the boss, but crossing each other above and below\nit, the lower ends being allowed to hang at some length; others have\na large broad strip of the mane down the centre of the shield, and\nhanging several inches below it. This is, of course, usually made of\ntwo or three pieces stitched together, as it would be difficult to get\na single piece of sufficient length and beauty of fur. Others to this\nadd a lion's paw or tail, fastened on the left side of the mane, and\noften highly adorned with silver. The beautiful long black and white\nfur of a sort of monkey, called \"goreza,\" occasionally supplies the\nplace of that of the nobler yet scarcely so beautiful animal. A shield\nalmost completely covered with plates and bosses of silver, is usually\nthe mark of the chief of some district. Those similarly plated in\nbrass were likewise formerly used only by chiefs, though now they are\ncarried by every soldier who can afford to buy them. The plated shield\nis called \"tebbora.\" Those in brass are not much approved of, as they\nusually cover a bad skin; for a man possessed of a good handsome shield\nwould never think of thus hiding its intrinsic beauties.\n\nIn former times a beautiful crooked knife was used in Tigre, the sheath\nand handle of which were profusely enriched with silver and gilt.\nThese, however, are never worn now, the long \"shotel\" in Tigre, and the\nEuropean-shaped sword among the Amhara and most of the soldiers, have\nentirely superseded them.\n\nThe \"shotel\" is an awkward-looking weapon. Some, if straight, would be\nnearly four feet long: they are two-edged, and curved to a semicircle,\nlike a reaper's sickle. They are principally used to strike the point\ndownwards over the guard of an adversary, and for this the long curved\nshape is admirably adapted. It is, however, a very clumsy weapon to\nmanage. The sheath is of red morocco leather, its point being often\nornamented with a hollow silver ball, called \"lomita,\" as large as\na small apple. Many of the swords used are made in Europe, and are\nsuch as would be carried by the light cavalry, though lighter than\nours. Being, however, cheap, showy articles, they are apt to break,\nand therefore the Abyssinians are getting tired of them, preferring\nthose made of soft iron in their own country. These they make also\nwith the faible considerably broader than the forte, to give force to\nthe blow. Of course, they bend on the least stress; but, in defence\nof this failing, their owners say that, if a sword breaks, who is\nto mend it?--while, if it bends, you have only to sit on it, and it\ngets straight again. The handles of both this and the \"shotel\" are\nmade of the horn of the rhinoceros. They are cut out of the horn at\ngreat loss of material, and hence they fetch a good price. It should\nbe remembered that the heart of the horn is black, outside of which\nthere is a coating, not quite an inch thick, of a semi-transparent\nwhite colour. To make a sword-handle, a piece of horn of the requisite\nlength is first sawn off. This is then re-sawn longitudinally into\nthree pieces, of which the inner one only is eligible for handles. This\npiece is about an inch and a half thick, four or five inches broad at\nthe broader extremity, and three at the narrower. As it lies sawn flat\nbefore us we can distinctly see the black stripe in the centre, with\nthe white on each side. Next, a nearly semicircular piece is cut out\nat each side, leaving only four points of the white as four corners,\nand the grasp black. The handle is then finished, bored for the shank\nof the blade, and polished. The shank is usually clinched over a\nhalf-dollar beaten convex; a _fil-et-grain_ boss, called \"timbora,\" is,\nhowever, sometimes substituted. A sword-hilt thus made is obviously a\nvery clumsy one to handle, as the points are parallel to the edge, and\nthose farthest from the blade are longest.\n\n\nGEORGIANS AS TOPERS.\n\nIt is as unsurpassable topers, as well as for their military qualities,\nwhich have always been acknowledged, that the Georgians have acquired\nnotoriety. At their frequent drinking parties it is said they will pass\nseveral days and nights, almost without intermission, in quaffing the\nproductions of the vineyards of Kakheti, a district in the mountains\neast of Tiflis. This wine is by no means of bad quality; it is of a\ndeep red colour, so deep that one fancies it has been tinged with some\ndye to produce so intense a hue. They are said to consume incredible\nquantities of wine on these occasions, and in a fashion that would\nput to shame the drinking triumphs of Ireland, recorded by Sir Jonah\nBarrington, in days of old, when intoxication was the standard of\nspirit. The drinking vessel is a cow's horn, of considerable length,\nand the point of honour is to drain it at a draught. The brethren and\nconvivial rivals of the Georgians in the neighbouring provinces of\nImeretia and Mingrelia, instead of a horn, use a delicately-hollowed\nglobe of walnut tree, with a long narrow tube at the orifice. It holds\nfully a pint, and like its companion, the horn, the contents are\nconsumed at a single gulp. How these globes are hollowed is as great\na marvel as the construction of the ingenious Chinese puzzle of ball\nwithin ball.\n\n\nSTAG-HUNT IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nThe following vivid picture of a stag-hunt is taken from the page of\nan old author, and refers to the days of the unfortunate Mary Queen\nof Scots:--\"In the year 1567, the Earl of Athol, a prince of the\nblood royal, had, with much trouble and vast expense, a hunting-match\nfor the entertainment of our most illustrious and gracious queen.\nOur people called this a royal hunting. I was then a young man, and\npresent on that occasion. Two thousand Highlanders, or wild Scotch,\nas you call them, were employed to drive to the hunting-ground all\nthe deer from the woods and hills of Athol, Badenoch, Marr, Murray,\nand the counties about. As these Highlanders use a light dress, and\nare very swift of foot, they went up and down so nimbly, that in less\nthan two months' time, they brought together two thousand red deer,\nbesides roes and fallow deer. The queen, the great men, and a number\nof others, were in a glen when these deer were brought before them.\nBelieve me, the whole body moved forward in something like battle\norder. The sight delighted the queen very much; but she soon had cause\nfor fear. Upon the earl--(who had been accustomed from his early days\nto such sights)--addressing her thus:--'Do you observe that stag who\nis foremost of the herd? There is danger from that stag; for if either\nfear or rage should force him from the ridge of that hill, let every\none look to himself, for none of us will be out of the way of harm;\nfor the rest will follow this one, and having thrown us under foot,\nthey will open a passage to this hill behind us.' What happened a\nmoment after confirmed this opinion; for the queen ordered one of the\nbest dogs to be let loose on one of the deer: this the dog pursues;\nthe leading stag was frighted; he flies by the same way he had come\nthere; the rest rush after him, and break out where the thickest body\nof Highlanders are; they had nothing for it but to throw themselves\nflat on the heath, and allow the deer to pass over them. It was told\nthe queen that several of the Highlanders had been wounded, and that\ntwo or three had been killed outright; and the whole body had got off,\nhad not the Highlanders, by their skill in hunting, fallen upon a\nstratagem to cut off the rear from the main body. It was of those that\nhad been separated that the queen's dogs and those of the nobility made\nslaughter. There were killed that day three hundred and sixty deer,\nbesides some roes.\"\n\n\nTIME WASTED IN TAKING SNUFF.\n\nA vast quantity of valuable time is wasted by the votaries of tobacco,\nespecially by the smokers; and that the devotees of snuff are not\ngreatly behind in this respect, will be shown by the following singular\ncalculation of Lord Stanhope:--\n\n\"Every professed, inveterate, and incurable snuff-taker,\" says his\nlordship, \"at a moderate computation, takes one pinch in ten minutes.\nEvery pinch, with the agreeable ceremony of blowing and wiping the nose\nand other incidental circumstances, consumes one minute and a half.\nOne minute and a half out of every ten, allowing sixteen hours to a\nsnuff-taking day, amounts to two hours and twenty-four minutes out of\nevery natural day, or one day out of ten. One day out of every ten,\namounts to thirty-six days and a half in a year. Hence, if we suppose\nthe practice to be persisted in forty years, two entire years of the\nsnuff-taker's life will be dedicated to tickling his nose, and two more\nto blowing it. The expense of snuff, snuff-boxes, and handkerchiefs,\nwill be the subject of a second essay, in which it will appear that\nthis luxury encroaches as much on the income of the snuff-taker as it\ndoes on his time; and that by proper application of the time and money\nthus lost to the public, a fund might be constituted for the discharge\nof the national debt.\"\n\n\nVALUE OF A LONG PSALM.\n\nFormerly a psalm was allowed to be sung at the gallows by the culprit,\nin case of a reprieve. It is reported of one of the chaplains to\nthe famous Montrose, that being condemned in Scotland to die, for\nattending his master in some of his glorious exploits, and being\nupon the ladder, ordered to set out a psalm, he expecting a reprieve,\nnamed the 119th Psalm (with which the officer attending the execution\ncomplied, the Scotch Presbyterians being great psalm-singers): and it\nwas well for him he did so, for they had sung it half through before\nthe reprieve came: any other psalm would have hanged him.\n\n\nANCIENT INCENSE CHARIOT.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Ancient Incense Chariot.]\n\nThe implement which we have engraved was found in a tomb at Cervetri\nin Etruria, and unquestionably belongs to a very remote date of the\narchaic period. It was used in the ritual services of the ancients,\nand seems to have been destined for burning incense. The perfume was,\nno doubt, placed in the concave part, and the fact of the whole being\nmounted upon four wheels proves that it was intended to be moved about,\nwhich, in religious services, may have been a great convenience. The\nborders are adorned by a row of flower-shaped ornaments, the graceful\nforms of which will be appreciated in the side-view we have given of\nit. It must be confessed, indeed, that this monument, which is marked\nby the stamp of an antiquity so exceedingly remote, displays within the\nlimits of its archaic character much elegance, conveying the idea of a\nhighly refined taste, suitable to a person of dignified position, as\nthe priest or king may be supposed to have been, to whom the article\nbelonged.\n\n\nTOO MUCH PARENTAL AUTHORITY.\n\nAll the world over, the current of natural affection flows strongly\ndownwards to posterity. Love for children, in most nations, seems to\nbe stronger than the love for parents. But in China, the current of\nnatural affection is thrown back towards parents with undue strength.\nThe love of posterity is in danger of being checked and weakened by\ntheir excessive veneration for parents. The father has absolute power,\neven the power of life and death, over his children. A few years ago,\na Chinese father said to his wife, \"What shall we do with our young\nson? He is undutiful and rebellious, and will bring disgrace on our\nfamily name; let us put him to death.\" Accordingly, having tied a cord\nround the boy's neck, the father pulled one end of it, and the mother\nthe other, and thus they strangled their son. The magistrates took no\nnotice of the occurrence. A wealthy Chinese gentleman at Ningpo shut\nup one of his orphan grandchildren and starved her to death. He could\nnot be troubled rearing her up. Another man at the same place, having\ncommanded two of his sons one day to follow him, entered a boat, and\nrowed out to the middle of the stream. He then deliberately tied a\nstone to the neck of one of his sons, and threw him into the river. The\nother lad was compelled to assist his father in the cruel proceeding.\nThese facts are well known to the missionaries at that place. They\nheard the cries of the poor girl, and rescued her sister from a similar\nfate, and they saw the youth drowned by his father. But the authorities\nnever thought of interfering.\n\n\nPOPULAR PASTIMES.\n\nThe popular pastimes of the time of James the First are enumerated in\nthe following lines, in a little work entitled \"The Letting of Humour's\nBlood in the Head-vaine; with a New Morisco daunced by seven Satyres\nupon the bottome of Diogenes' tubbe:\" 8vo, Lond. 1611.\n\n  \"Man, I dare challenge thee to THROW THE SLEDGE,\n  To jump or LEAPE over ditch or hedge,\n  To WRASTLE, play at STOOLEBALL, or to RUNNE:\n  To PITCH THE BARRE, or to SHOOTE OFF A GUNNE:\n  To play at LOGGETS, NINE HOLES, or TEN PINNES:\n  To try it out at FOOT-BALL by the shinnes:\n  At TICKTACKE, IRISH NODDIE, MAW, and RUFFE,\n  At HOT-COCKLES, LEAP-FROG, or BLINDMAN-BUFFE;\n  To drinke halfe-pots, or deale at the whole can:\n  To play at BASE, or PEN-AND-YNKHORNE SIR JUAN;\n  To daunce the MORRIS, play at BARLEY-BREAKE,\n  At all exploytes a man can thinke or speake;\n  At SHOVE-GROATE, VENTER-POYNT, or CROSSE & PILE,\n  At BESHROW HIM THAT'S LAST AT YONDER STYLE;\n  At LEAPING O'ER A MIDSOMMER-BON-FIER,\n  Or at the DRAWING DUN OUT OF THE MYER:\n  At any of those, or all these presently,\n  Wagge but your finger, I am for you, I!\"\n\n\nVACILLATING NEWSPAPERS.\n\nThe newspapers of Paris, submitted to the censorship of the press, in\n1815, announced in the following terms, Bonaparte's departure from the\nIsle of Elba, his march across France, and his entry into the French\nCapital:--9th March--The Cannibal has escaped from his den. 10th--The\nCorsican ogre has just landed at Cape Juan. 11th--The Tiger has arrived\nat Gap. 12th--The Monster has passed the night at Grenoble. 13th--The\nTyrant has crossed Lyons. 14th--The Usurper is directing his course\ntowards Dijon, but the brave and loyal Burgundians have risen in a\nbody, and they surround him on all sides. 18th--Bonaparte is sixty\nleagues from the Capital; he has had skill enough to escape from the\nhands of his pursuers. 19th--Bonaparte advances rapidly, but he\nwill never enter Paris. 20th--To-morrow, Napoleon will be under our\nramparts. 21st--The Emperor is at Fontainebleau. 22nd--His Imperial and\nRoyal Majesty last evening made his entrance into his Palace of the\nTuileries, amidst the joyous acclamations of an adoring and faithful\npeople.\n\n\nPRESSING TO DEATH, AND PRAYING AND FASTING.\n\nIn a number of Oliver Cromwell's Newspaper, \"The Perfect Account of\nthe Daily Intelligence,\" dated April 16th, 1651, we find this horrid\ninstance of torture:--\n\n\"Mond. April 14th.--This session, at the Old Bailey, were four men\npressed to death that were all in one robbery, and, out of obstinacy\nand contempt of the court, stood mute and refused to plead; from whence\nwe may perceive the exceeding great hardness some men are grown unto,\nwho do not only swerve from instructions, exhortations, and goodnesse,\nbut become so lewd and insolent that they render themselves the proper\nsubjects for whom severe laws were first invented and enacted.\"\n\nThe very next paragraph in the paper is to the following effect:--\n\n\"Those of the congregate churches, and many other godly people in\nLondon and parts adjacent, have appointed Friday, the 25th instant, as\na day of solemn fasting and prayer, for a blessing upon the armies at\nland, the fleet at sea, and negociations abroad.\"\n\n\nTHE FIRST WATCHES IN ENGLAND.\n\nIn 1584 watches began to come from Germany, and the watchmaker soon\nbecame a trader of importance. The watches were often of immense size,\nand hung in a rich case from the neck, and by <DW2>s wound up with great\ngravity and ceremony in Paul's or at the ordinary dinner. Catgut\nmainsprings must have been slightly affected by changes of weather, and\nsometimes a little out of time in wet Novembers; but, Sessa, let the\nworld live! An early specimen of the watch that we have seen engraved\nwas, however, not larger than a walnut, richly chased, and enclosed\nin a pear-shaped case. It had no minute hand, but was of beautiful\nworkmanship. Country people, like Touchstone, sometimes carried pocket\ndials, in the shape of brass rings, with a slide and aperture, to be\nregulated to the season.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCE.\n\nJesse, in his interesting \"Gleanings in Natural History,\" gives\nthe following remarkable instance of an extraneous substance being\nfound imbedded in the solid timber of an ash:--\"A person on whose\naccuracy and veracity I can place every reliance, informed me that\nhearing from some of his brother workmen, that in sawing up the butt\nof a large ash-tree, they had found a bird's nest in the middle of\nit; he immediately went to the spot, and found an ash cut in two\nlongitudinally on the saw-pit, and the bird's nest nearly in the centre\nof the tree. The nest was about two-thirds of a hollow globe, and\ncomposed of moss, hair, and feathers, all seemingly in a fresh state.\nThere were three eggs in it, nearly white and somewhat speckled. On\nexamining the tree most minutely with several other workmen, no mark\nor protuberance was found to indicate the least injury. The bark was\nperfectly smooth and the tree quite sound.\" In endeavouring to account\nfor this curious fact, we can only suppose that some accidental hole\nwas made in the tree before it arrived at any great size, in which a\nbird had built its nest, and forsaken it after she had laid three eggs.\nAs the tree grew larger, the bark would grow over the hole, and in\nprocess of time the nest would become embedded in the tree.\n\n\nPORT <DW53> CAVE.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Port <DW53> Cave.]\n\nThe above is a sketch of a cave which well deserves a place among our\ncollection of Wonders. It is called Port <DW53> Cave, and is in the\nline of rocks near the Giants' Causeway. It may be visited either by\nsea or by land. Boats may row into it to the distance of a hundred\nyards or more, but the swell is sometimes dangerous; and although\nthe land entrance to the cave is slippery, and a fair proportion of\nclimbing is necessary to achieve the object, still the magnificence of\nthe excavation, its length, and the formation of the interior, would\nrepay greater exertion; the stones of which the roof and sides are\ncomposed, and which are of a rounded form, and embedded, as it were,\nin a basaltic paste, are formed of concentric spheres resembling the\ncoats of an onion; the innermost recess has been compared to the side\naisle of a Gothic cathedral; the walls are most painfully slimy to the\ntouch; the discharge of a loaded gun reverberates amid the rolling of\nthe billows, so as to thunder a most awful effect; and the notes of a\nbugle, we are told, produced delicious echoes.\n\n\nANECDOTE IN PORCELAIN.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Count Bruehl's Tailor and His Wife.]\n\nThe finest specimens of Dresden porcelain were undoubtedly made\npreviously to the Seven Years' War, when no expense was spared, and\nwhen any price might be obtained. Count Bruehl, the profligate minister\nof Augustus III., whose splendid palace and terrace is the great\nornament of Dresden, was importuned by his tailor to be allowed to\nsee the manufactory, admission to which was strictly prohibited. At\nlength he consented, and the tailor upon his entrance was presented\nwith the two last new pieces made, which were--one a grotesque figure,\na portrait of himself mounted upon a he-goat, with the shears, and all\nhis other implements of trade; and the other, his wife upon a she-goat,\nwith a baby in swaddling clothes. The poor tailor was so annoyed with\nthese caricatures, that he turned back without desiring to see more.\nThese pieces, known as Count Bruehl's Tailor and his Wife, are now much\nsought after, from their historical interest. They were made in 1760,\nby Kaendler.\n\n\nANGLO-SAXON FEASTS.\n\nIt is a mark of Anglo-Saxon delicacy, that table-cloths were features\nat Anglo-Saxon feasts; but, as the long ends were used in place of\nnapkins, the delicacy would be of a somewhat dirty hue, if the cloth\nwere made to serve at a second feast. There was a rude sort of display\nupon the board; but the order of service was of a quality that would\nstrike the \"Jeameses\" of the age of Victoria with inexpressible\ndisgust. The meat was never \"dished,\" and \"covers\" were as yet unknown.\nThe attendants brought the viands into the dining-hall on the spits,\nknelt to each guest, presented the spit to his consideration; and,\nthe guest having helped himself, the attendant went through the same\nceremony with the next guest. Hard drinking followed upon these same\nceremonies; and even the monasteries were not exempt from the sins\nof gluttony and drunkenness. Notwithstanding these bad habits, the\nAnglo-Saxons were a cleanly people; the warm bath was in general use.\nWater, for hands and feet, was brought to every stranger on entering a\nhouse wherein he was about to tarry and feed; and, it is said that one\nof the severest penances of the church was the temporary denial of the\nbath, and of cutting the hair and nails.\n\n\nHOUSEHOLD RULES IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nFrom Sir J. Harrington's (the translator of Ariosto) rules for\nservants, we obtain a very clear conception of the internal government\nof a country gentleman's house in 1566.\n\nA servant who is absent from prayers to be fined. For uttering an oath,\n1d.; and the same sum for leaving a door open.\n\nA fine of 2d., from Lady Day to Michaelmas, for all who are in bed\nafter six, or out after ten.\n\nThe same fine, from Michaelmas to Lady Day, for all who are in bed\nafter seven, or out after nine.\n\nA fine of 1d. for any bed unmade, fire unlit, or candle-box uncleaned\nafter eight.\n\nA fine of 4d. for any man detected teaching the children obscene words.\n\nA fine of 1d. for any man waiting without a trencher, or who is absent\nat a meal.\n\nFor any one breaking any of the butler's glass, 12d.\n\nA fine of 2d. for any one who has not laid the table for dinner by\nhalf-past ten, or the supper by six.\n\nA fine of 4d. for any one absent a day without leave.\n\nFor any man striking another, a fine of 1d.\n\nFor any follower visiting the cook, 1d.\n\nA fine of 1d. for any man appearing in a foul shirt, broken hose,\nuntied shoes, or torn doublet.\n\nA fine of 1d, for any stranger's room left for four hours after he be\ndressed.\n\nA fine of 1d. if the hall be not cleansed by eight in winter and seven\nin summer.\n\nThe porter to be fined 1d. if the court-gate be not shut during meals.\n\nA fine of 3d. if the stairs be not cleaned every Friday after dinner.\n\nAll these fines were deducted by the steward at the quarterly payment\nof the men's wages. If these laws were observed, the domestic\ndiscipline must have been almost military in it.\n\n\nTHE QUEEN OF SHEBA.\n\nBelkis, according to the Arabs, was the famous Queen of Sheba or Saba,\nwho visited, and afterwards married, Solomon, in the twenty-first\nyear of her reign. Tabari has introduced her story with such gorgeous\nembellishments as to resemble a fairy tale rather than episode in\nserious narrative. She is said to have been subdued by the Jewish\nmonarch, who discovered her retreat among the mountains, between Hejaz\nand Yemen by means of a lapwing, which he had despatched in search\nof water during his progress through Arabia. This princess is called\nNicolaa by some writers. The Abyssinians claim the same distinction for\none of their queens; and have preserved the names of a dynasty alleged\nto have been descended from her union with Solomon.\n\n\nSUPERSTITION IN FRANCE.\n\nIn France, superstition at this day is even more prevalent than it\nis in England. Garinet, in his history of Magic and Sorcery in that\ncountry, cites upwards of twenty instances which occurred between the\nyears 1805 and 1818. In the latter year no less than three tribunals\nwere occupied with trials originating in this humiliating belief: we\nshall cite only one of them. Julian Desbourdes, aged fifty-three, a\nmason, and inhabitant of the village of Thilouze, near Bourdeaux,\nwas taken suddenly ill, in the month of January 1818. As he did not\nknow how to account for his malady, he suspected at last that he was\nbewitched. He communicated this suspicion to his son-in-law Bridier,\nand they both went to consult a sort of idiot, named Boudouin, who\npassed for a conjuror or _white-witch_. This man told them that\nDesbourdes was certainly bewitched, and offered to accompany them to\nthe house of an old man named Renard, who, he said, was undoubtedly\nthe criminal. On the night of the 23rd of January all three proceeded\nstealthily to the dwelling of Renard, and accused him of afflicting\npersons with diseases by the aid of the devil. Desbourdes fell on his\nknees and earnestly entreated to be restored to his former health,\npromising that he would take no measures against him for the evil he\nhad done. The old man denied in the strongest terms that he was a\nwizard; and when Desbourdes still pressed him to remove the spell from\nhim, he said he knew nothing about the spell, and refused to remove\nit. The idiot Boudouin, the _white-witch_, now interfered, and told\nhis companions that no relief for the malady could ever be procured\nuntil the old man confessed his guilt. To force him to confession they\nlighted some sticks of sulphur which they had brought with them for the\npurpose, and placed them under the old man's nose. In a few moments he\nfell down suffocated and apparently lifeless. They were all greatly\nalarmed; and thinking that they had killed the man, they carried him\nout and threw him into a neighbouring pond, hoping to make it appear\nthat he had fallen in accidentally. The pond, however, was not very\ndeep, and the coolness of the water reviving the old man, he opened his\neyes and sat up. Desbourdes and Bridier, who were still waiting on the\nbank, were now more alarmed than before, lest he should recover and\ninform against them. They therefore waded into the pond, seized their\nvictim by the hair of the head, beat him severely, and then held him\nunder water till he was drowned.\n\nThey were all three apprehended on the charge of murder a few days\nafterwards. Desbourdes and Bridier were found guilty of aggravated\nmanslaughter only, and sentenced to be burnt on the back, and to work\nin the galleys for life. The _white-witch_ Boudouin was acquitted on\nthe ground of insanity.\n\n\nHELMET OF SIR JOHN CROSBY.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Helmet of Sir John Crosby.]\n\nWe here present our readers with a sketch of the helmet of Sir John\nCrosby, as it originally appeared when suspended over his tomb in St.\nHelen's Church, Bishopsgate. He was an eminent merchant of London; but\nis represented upon his tomb in a full suit of armour. He died in 1475.\nThe extreme height of the crown of the helmet resembles that on the\ntomb of the Earl of Warwick, in the Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick; and\nwas intended to support the crest of the wearer, the holes for affixing\nit being still visible.\n\n\nEARTHQUAKE PANIC.\n\nA panic terror of the end of the world seized the good people of Leeds\nand its neighbourhood in the year 1806. It arose from the following\ncircumstances. A hen, in a village close by, laid eggs, on which were\ninscribed the words, \"_Christ is coming_.\" Great numbers visited the\nspot, and examined these wondrous eggs, convinced that the day of\njudgment was near at hand. Like sailors in a storm, expecting every\ninstant to go to the bottom, the believers suddenly became religious,\nprayed violently, and flattered themselves that they repented them of\ntheir evil courses. But a plain tale soon put them down, and quenched\ntheir religion entirely. Some gentlemen, hearing of the matter, went\none fine morning and caught the poor hen in the act of laying one of\nher miraculous eggs. They soon ascertained beyond doubt that the egg\nhad been inscribed with some corrosive ink, and cruelly forced up\nagain, into the bird's body. At this explanation, those who had prayed,\nnow laughed, and the world wagged as merrily as of yore.\n\n\nOLD ENGLISH SACK-POT.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Sack-Pot.]\n\nSack was such a national beverage of the jolly old England of the\nseventeenth century, that we are sure our readers will thank us for\ngiving them an idea of the vessel in which it was commonly used. The\nbottle here engraved, and inscribed \"Sack,\" was found in Old Tabley\nHall, Cheshire, and is a veritable specimen of the sort of vessel from\nwhich the topers of the \"good old times\" poured into their cups the\ndrink with which they so loved to warm their heart-strings. It is of a\ndull-white, with blue letters, and it is in the possession of the Hon.\nRobert Curzon, jun., author of the interesting work on the Monasteries\nof the Levant. Two old English bottles of similar character, one\nlettered Sack, the other Claret, dated 1646, were sold at Strawberry\nHill.\n\n\nAGE OF TREES.\n\nMr. Twining was engaged, in the year 1827, in measuring and inspecting\na large lot of hemlock timber cut from the north-eastern <DW72> of East\nRock, New Haven (America), and destined for the foundation of a wharf.\nWhile thus employed he took particular notice of the successive layers,\neach of which constitutes a year's growth of the tree, and which in\nthat kind of wood are very distinct. These layers were of various\nbreadths, and plainly showed that in some seasons the trees made a\nmuch greater advance than in others, some of the layers being five or\nsix times broader than others. Every tree had thus preserved a _record\nof the seasons_ for the period of its growth, whether thirty years or\ntwo hundred--and what was worthy of notice, _every tree told the same\nstory_. Thus, by beginning at the outer layer of two trees, the one\nyoung the other old, and counting back twenty years, if the young tree\nindicated, by a full layer, a _growing season_ for that kind of timber,\nthe other tree indicated the same.\n\n\"I had then before me,\" (says this intelligent observer) \"two or three\nhundred _meteorological tables_, all of them as unerring as nature; and\nby selecting one tree from the oldest, and sawing out a thin section\nfrom its trunk, I might have preserved one of the number to be referred\nto afterwards. It might have been smoothed on the one side by the\nplane, so as to exhibit its record to the eye with all the neatness and\ndistinctness of a drawing. On the opposite side might have been minuted\nin indelible writing the locality of the tree, the kind of timber, the\nyear and month when cut, the soil where it grew, the side and point\nwhich faced the north, and every other circumstance which can possibly\nbe supposed ever to have the most remote relation to the value of the\ntable in hand. The lover of science will not be backward to incur such\ntrouble, for he knows how often, in the progress of human knowledge,\nan observation or an experiment has lost its value by the disregard of\nsome circumstance connected with it, which at the time was not thought\nworthy of notice. Lastly, there might be attached to the same section\na written meteorological table compiled from the observations of some\nscientific person, if such observations had been made in the vicinity.\nThis being done, why, in the eye of science, might not this _natural_,\n_unerring_, _graphical_ record of seasons past deserve as careful\npreservation as a curious mineral, or a new form of crystals?\"\n\n\nTHE CAMEL AS A SCAPE-GOAT.\n\nA very singular account of the use to which a camel is sometimes put,\nis given by the traveller Bruce. He tells us that he saw one employed\nto appease a quarrel between two parties, something in the same way as\nthe scape-goat was used in the religious services of the Jewish people.\nThe camel being brought out was accused by both parties of all the\ninjuries, real or supposed, which belonged to each. All the mischief\nthat had been done, they accused this camel of doing. They upbraided\nit with being the cause of all the trouble that had separated friends,\ncalled it by every opprobious epithet, and finally killed it, and\ndeclared themselves reconciled over its body.\n\n\nSUSPENDED VOLITION.\n\nA young lady, an attendant of the Princess ----, after having been\nconfined to her bed for a great length of time with a violent nervous\ndisorder, was at last, to all appearance, deprived of life. Her lips\nwere quite pale, her face resembled the countenance of a dead person,\nand the body grew cold.\n\nShe was removed from the room in which she lay, was put in a coffin,\nand the day of her funeral fixed on. The day arrived, and, according to\nthe custom of the country, funeral songs and hymns were sung before the\ndoor. Just as the people were about to nail on the lid of the coffin, a\nkind of perspiration was observed to appear on the surface of her body.\nIt grew greater every moment, and at last a kind of convulsive motion\nwas observed in the hands and feet of the corpse. A few minutes after,\nduring which time fresh signs of returning life appeared, she at once\nopened her eyes and uttered a most pitiable shriek. Physicians were\nquickly procured, and in the course of a few days she was considerably\nrestored.\n\nThe description which she gave of her situation is extremely\nremarkable, and forms a curious and authentic addition to psychology.\n\nShe said it seemed to her, as if in a dream, that she was really dead;\nyet she was perfectly conscious of all that happened around her in\nthis dreadful state. She distinctly heard her friends speaking, and\nlamenting her death, at the side of her coffin. She felt them pull on\nthe dead-clothes, and lay her in them. This feeling produced a mental\nanxiety which is indescribable. She tried to cry, but her soul was\nwithout power, and could not act on her body. She had the contradictory\nfeeling as if she were in her body, and yet not in it, at one and the\nsame time. It was equally impossible for her to stretch out her arm or\nto open her eyes, or to cry, although she continually endeavoured to do\nso. The internal anguish of her mind was, however, at its utmost height\nwhen the lid of the coffin was about to be nailed on. The thought that\nshe was to be buried alive was the one that gave activity to her soul,\nand caused it to operate on her corporeal frame.\n\n\nFASHIONS FOR THE DEAD.\n\nThe following advertisement appeared in a Glasgow paper about the\nmiddle of the last century. \"James Hodge, who lives in the first close\nabove the Cross, on the west side of the street, Glasgow, continues to\nsell burying Crapes ready made; and his wife's niece, who lives with\nhim, dresses dead Corpses at as cheap a rate as was formerly done by\nher aunt, having been educated by her, and perfected at Edinburgh, from\nwhence she is lately arrived, and has all the newest and best fashions.\"\n\n\nCOMMON USE OF PLATE IN THE TIME OF HENRY VIII.\n\nA writer in the early part of the sixteenth century tells us that in\nhis time, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, the luxury of the table\nhad descended even to citizens, and that there were few whose tables\nwere not daily provided with spoons, cups, and a salt-cellar of silver.\nThose of a higher sphere affected a greater profusion of plate; but the\nquantity accumulated by Cardinal Wolsey, though the precious metals\nare now so copious, still continues to excite our surprise. At Hampton\nCourt, where he feasted the French ambassadors and their splendid\nretinue in 1528, two cupboards, extending across the banquet chambers,\nwere piled to the top with plate and illuminated; yet, without\nencroaching on these ostentatious repositories, a profuse service\nremained for the table. Two hundred and eighty beds were provided for\nthe guests; every chamber had a bason and ewer of silver, beside other\nutensils.\n\n\nDIOGENES IN A PITHOS, NOT TUB.\n\nA pithos is a description of earthen vessel or jar, distinguished from\nthe amphora by its large mouth, and comparatively flattened base. Its\nshape was more that of a gourd, or pot; its size large enough to have\nrendered it applicable to the purposes of a cistern, or water butt.\nSuch, indeed, appear in some instances to have been its dimensions,\nthat it has long been a matter of dispute amongst the learned whether,\nif Diogenes dwelt in a tub at all (a point by no means settled), his\nhumble habitation were of wood or earthenware. Brougniart adopts the\nlatter opinion, and has illustrated it by a partial copy from a print\nin Winckelmann. In the original, the philosopher is shown holding his\nwell-known chat with Alexander the Great, at the gate of the Metroum,\nor Temple of the Mother of the Gods at Athens; but his tub has there\nthe addition of a dog lying on the outside, above his master's head,\nevidently on the watch to defend him, if necessary, against any\nattack from the royal warrior. Winckelmann's engraving, which we here\npresent, is taken from a bas-relief discovered in the Villa Albani;\nin which the cynic's tub is clearly of earthenware, having a large\nfracture on one side, which has been repaired with some other material\ndovetailed across the crack. This, Winckelmann concludes to have been\nlead (commesso col piombo), simply, however, upon the authority of the\nfollowing lines in Juvenal:--\n\n                        \"Si Fregeris, altera fiet\n    Cras domus, aut eadem plumbo commissa manebit.\"\n\n      _Sat._ xiv 310.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Diogenes in a Pithos.]\n\nBe all this, however, as it may, the controversy is not without its\nvalue in connexion with the ceramic productions of the period. If\nthe \"dolia\" and \"[Greek: pithakne].\" of the ancients had not been of\nsufficient capacity, however kennel-like, to have served as a dwelling,\nor shelter, for the philosopher, the tale would hardly have existed.\nNor does it seem probable that Juvenal, in allusion to the story,\nwould have used the term _testa_ (testa cum vidit in illa magnum\nhabitatorem), or have dwelt upon their fragility, or have said that\nthey would not burn (dolia nudi non ardent Cynici), if vessels of the\nsort had not been commonly of earthenware. These vessels, both ancient\nand modern, have a thickness and strength which enables them to be\nrolled on a ladder to and from the top of the kiln, where they are\nbaked, without injury.\n\n\nCHINESE SCHOOL.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Native Chinese School.]\n\nThe annexed engraving is a curiosity both in itself and in what it\nrepresents. It is taken from a sketch by a native Chinese artist, and\ndepicts the internal arrangements of a native Chinese school. The\nextraordinary nature of the Chinese language renders it impossible\nfor a schoolmaster to instruct more than a very few scholars at\na time, since the meaning of the words actually depends on their\ncorrect intonation. Every vocable in the language is capable of being\npronounced in six different tones of voice, and of conveying six\nmeanings, totally different from each other, according to the tone\ngiven to it. Pronounced in one tone, it conveys one meaning, and is\nrepresented by one written character; pronounced in another tone, it\nconveys an entirely distinct meaning, and is represented in writing\nby another character altogether different. The correct and distinct\nenunciation of these tones is the chief difficulty in learning to\nspeak the language. These tones are stereotyped and fixed, and must\nbe learned, as part of the word, at the same time that its form and\nsignification are mastered. Moreover, they are all arranged upon\nsystem, like the notes in a gamut, and when thoroughly mastered, the\ntheory of the tones is really beautiful. If a wrong tone, then, is\ngiven to a word in reading or in conversation, it grates upon a Chinese\near like a false note in playing the fiddle. Further, if the voice be\nnot correctly modulated, and the words correctly intoned, not only is\na jarring note pronounced, but actually a wrong word is uttered, and a\ndifferent meaning conveyed from what was intended. A missionary to the\nChinese, therefore, should be possessed of a musical ear. Without this,\nthe acquisition of the spoken language will be attended by very arduous\nlabour; and, perhaps, after years of toil, he will find that he still\nfrequently fails in correctly conveying his meaning.\n\n\nLONDON LOCALITIES IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nAt Ludgate was a gaol, where the prisoners clamoured for alms at the\nbarred grate; and it was here that Sir Thomas Wyatt had been repulsed.\nThe city wall that joined this gate to its other fellow gates ran\nfrom the Tower through the Minories to Aldgate, Houndsditch, and\nBishopsgate, through Cripplegate to Aldersgate, and so past Christ's\nHospital by Newgate and Ludgate to the Thames.\n\nPimlico was a country place where citizens used to repair to eat\n\"pudding pies\" on a Sunday, as they did to Islington or Hogsden to take\ntobacco and drink new milk; as Islington was famous for its dairy,\nwhere Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have lived in an old house still\nstanding, so Holloway was famous for its cheese cakes; and it is these\npeculiarities that, after all, confer immortality upon a place. Chelsea\nwas the mere village of Chelsea, known from Sir Thomas More's house,\nwhere Henry VIII. had walked with his arm round that great statesman's\ndoomed neck; as Holborn was then a country road leading to the pleasant\nvillage of St. Giles, and trending on to the way that led to Oxford and\nto fatal Tyburn, so called from its burn or brook, then well known to\npatient city anglers. The triple tree or gallows stood at the corner\nof the present Edgware Road. The same Oxford Street led also, if you\nturned up one side of the Hampstead Road, to the Tottenham Court,\nwhich stood there alone far in the country, and Primrose Hill was an\nuntrodden hillock, surrounded by wide paths and ditches between this\ncourt and Hampstead.\n\nA cheerful little stream, known by the pleasant name of the Fleet, rose\nnear Hampstead Hill, and joined by the Old Bourne and recruited by\nsparkling Clerken Well, emptied itself in the Thames. Though even then\nmerely a sewer, it was open, and had four bridges of its own, while the\nThames had but one; and these were known as Holborn Bridge, Fleet-lane\nBridge, Fleet Bridge, and Bridewell Bridge.\n\nSpitalfields was a grassy open space, with artillery grounds and a\npulpit and cross, where fairs were held and sermons preached. There\nwere also Tothill Fields, and Finsbury Fields, and Moor Fields, just\noutside the city walls, laid out in walks, and planted, as far as\nHoxton. Round these squares there were windmills and everything equally\nrural. As for Piccadilly, it was everywhere known as a road to Reading,\nand by many herbalists, as harbouring the small wild foxglove in its\ndry ditches.\n\nOutside Temple Bar, before the wooden gatehouse was built, lay the\nStrand, the road leading from the city to the houses of Court. This\nriver bank was the chosen residence of the nobility, whose gardens\nstretched to the edge of the then undefiled river. The sky then was\npure and bright, for our ancestors burnt wood fires, and the water was\ngay with thousands of boats. Each house had its terrace, its water\nstairs, and garden. The street houses were so scattered that the river\ncould be seen between them, and there were three water courses there\ntraversed by bridges, besides two churches and a maypole. Here stood\nYork House, where Bacon was born, and Durham Place, where Raleigh\nlived, with his study in a turret overlooking the river; there also\nwere Arundel House and Essex House, where great men pined and plotted.\n\nAt Whitehall stood Wolsey's Palace, enlarged by Henry VIII., and\nElizabeth's favourite residence when not at Nonsuch in Surrey, Windsor,\nGreenwich, or Richmond. The tilt-yard stood where the Horse Guards\nnow stands. St. James's Palace, also built by Henry VIII., where the\nQueen's melancholy-bigot sister had died, was seldom inhabited by the\nCourt; but the park was even then existing. As for the old palace of\nRichard III. (Baynard's Castle), that had been let to the Earl of\nPembroke, and the same king's dwelling of Crosby Hall had fallen into\nthe hands of an alderman.\n\n\nWARWICK THE KING-MAKER.\n\nOn the right-hand side of Newgate-street are various streets and\ncourts leading into Paternoster-row. Of these, Warwick and Ivy lanes,\nPanyer-alley, and Lovel's-court, merit the attention of the lover of\nliterary and historical antiquities. Warwick-lane, now the abode of\nbutchers and tallow-chandlers, took its name from the inn or house of\nthe celebrated Warwick, the king-maker.\n\nStow mentions his coming to London in the famous convention of 1458,\nwith 600 men, all in red jackets, embroidered, with ragged staves,\nbefore and behind, and was lodged in Warwick-lane; \"in whose house\nthere was often six oxen eaten at a breakfast, and every taverne was\nfull of his meate, for hee that had any acquaintance in that house,\nmight have there so much of sodden and roaste meate, as he could pricke\nand carry upon a long dagger.\"\n\nThe memory of the earl was long preserved by a small stone statue,\nplaced in the side front of a tobacconist's, at the corner of this\nlane; and there is a public-house which has the earl's head for its\nsign.\n\n\nTHANKSGIVING DAY IN 1697.\n\nThe following is an extract from the \"Post Boy\" of the above date:--\n\n\"Thursday, December 2, 1697. Thursday being appointed for the day of\nThanksgiving, the same was ushered in with ringing of bells; the king\nwent to the Chapel Royal, where, &c., and at night we had bonfires and\nilluminations. The fine fireworks in St. James's Square were lighted\nafter this manner:--About twelve o'clock, the Foot Guards lined the\navenues; the rockets and all things being fixed on the rails the day\nbefore: a little after six, the king, attended by his guards, came to\nthe Earl of Romney's house, from whence soon after a signal was given,\nby firing a rocket, for the fireworks to go off, which were immediately\nlighted; the performance was extraordinary fine, and much applauded;\nthe same continued somewhat better than half an hour, and there were\ndivers sorts of fireworks; some had the king's name, others the arms\nof England; in a word, they were very curious. There was a man and a\nwoman unfortunately killed, and divers others hurt by the falling down\nof sticks. About half an hour after, His Majesty went to St. James's\nthere being a fine ball.\"\n\n\nTHE GREY MAN'S PATH.\n\n[Illustration: [++] The Grey Man's Path.]\n\nThe annexed sketch depicts a scene in the coast rocks at Fairhead,\nnear Ballycastle in Ireland. Fhir Leith, or \"The Grey Man's Path,\" (a\nfissure in the precipice,) viewed either from land or sea, is never to\nbe forgotten: it seems as though some supernatural power, determined to\nhew for itself a pathway through the wonderful formations that tower\nalong the coast--so that it might visit or summon the spirits of the\ndeep, without treading a road made by mortal hands--had willed the\nfearful chasm that divides the rocky promontory in two. The singular\npassage, in its narrow part, is barred across by the fragment of a\npillar, hurled, as it were, over the fissure, and supported on both\nsides at a considerable elevation. If you descend, you perceive the\npassage widens, and becomes more important; its dark sides assume\ngreater height, and a more wild and sombre magnificence; and at last\nthey extend upwards, above 220 feet, through which the tourist arrives\nat the massive _debris_ which crowd the base of the mighty promontory,\nwhere the northern ocean rolls his threatening billows. From the\ncragsmen and boatmen of this wild coast you hear no tales of Faery, no\nhints of the gentle legends and superstitions collected in the south,\nor in the inland districts of the north; not that they are a whit less\nsuperstitious, but their superstition is, as the superstition of the\nsea kings, of a bold and peculiar character; their ghosts come from out\nthe deep, before or after the rising of the moon, and climb, or rather\nstalk up the rocks, and, seated upon those mysterious pillars, converse\ntogether; so that, in the fisherman's huts, they say, \"it thunders.\"\nEven mermaids are deemed too trifling in their habits and manners\nfor this stupendous scenery, where spirits of the gigantic world\ncongregate, and where the \"Grey Man\" of the North Sea stalks forth,\nsilently and alone, up his appropriate path, to witness some mighty\nconvulsion of nature.\n\n\nANCIENT JET NECKLACE.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Ancient Jet Necklace.]\n\nVarious interesting ornaments, belonging to the Archaic, or Bronze\nperiod in Scotland, are preserved in the Museum of Scottish\nAntiquaries, and one set in particular, found enclosed in an urn within\na rude stone cist, on the demolition of a tumulus near the Old House of\nAssynt, Rossshire, in 1824, we here engrave. They include a necklace\nof irregular oval jet beads, which appear to have been strung together\nlike a common modern string of beads, and are sufficiently rude to\ncorrespond with the works of a very primitive era. The other ornaments\nwhich are represented here about one-fourth the size of the original,\nare curiously studded with gold spots, arranged in patterns similar\nto those with which the rude pottery of the British tumuli are most\nfrequently decorated, and the whole are perforated with holes passing\nobliquely from the back through the edge, evidently designed for\nattaching them to each other by means of threads.\n\n\nJUGGLERS IN JAPAN.\n\nThe perfection of jugglery in Japan entitles it to be ranked amongst\nthe fine arts. An eye-witness thus describes the performance of a\nJapanese juggler. \"Here are some of his feats:--No. 1. He took an\nordinary boy's top, spun it in the air, caught it on his hand, and then\nplaced it (still spinning) upon the edge of a sword, near the hilt.\nThen he dropped the sword point a little, and the top moved slowly\ntowards it. Arrived at the very end, the hilt was lowered in turn, and\nthe top brought back. As usual, the sword was dangerously sharp. No. 2\nwas also performed with the top. He spun it in the air, and then threw\nthe end of the string back towards it with such accuracy that it was\ncaught up and wound itself all ready for a second cast. By the time it\nhad done this it had reached his hand, and was ready for another spin.\nNo. 3 was still performed with the top. There was an upright pole, upon\nthe top of which was perched a little house, with a very large front\ndoor. The top was spun, made to climb the pole, knock open the said\nfront door, and disappear. As well as I remember, the hand end of the\nstring was fastened near the door, so that this was almost a repetition\nof the self-winding feat. But feat No. 4 was something even more\nastonishing than all this. He took two paper butterflies, armed himself\nwith the usual paper fan, threw them into the air, and, fanning gently,\nkept them flying about him as if they had been alive. 'He can make\nthem alight wherever you wish! Try him!' remarked the Kami (Prince),\nthrough the interpreter. Mr. H---- requested that one might alight\nupon each ear of the juggler. No sooner expressed than complied with.\nGentle undulations of the fan waved them slowly to the required points,\nand there left them comfortably seated. Now, whether this command over\npieces of paper was obtained simply by currents of air, or by the power\nof a concealed magnet, Mr. H---- could not tell or ascertain. One\nthing, however, was certain, the power was there.\"\n\n     MAY-FAIR PLAY BILL IN THE TIME OF WILLIAM III.\n                      WILLIAM REX.\n                        MAY-FAIR.\n                        MILLER'S,\n             OR THE LOYAL ASSOCIATION BOOTH,\n                   AT THE UPPER END OF\n                   BROOK-FIELD MARKET,\n                 NEAR HYDE PARK CORNER.\n     DURING THE TIME OF MAY-FAIR, WILL BE PRESENTED\n               AN EXCELLENT DROLL, CALLED\n            KING WILLIAM'S HAPPY DELIVERANCE\n         AND GLORIOUS TRIUMPH OVER HIS ENEMIES,\n               OR THE CONSULTATION OF THE\n  POPE, DEVIL, FRENCH KING, AND THE GRAND TURK,\n       WITH THE WHOLE FORM OF THE SIEGE OF NAMUR,\n        AND THE HUMOURS OF A RENEGADE FRENCH MAN\n                    AND BRANDY JEAN,\n     WITH THE CONCEITS OF SCARAMOUCH AND HARLEQUIN,\n   TOGETHER WITH THE BEST SINGING AND DANCING THAT WAS\n       EVER SEEN IN A FAIR, ALSO A DIALOGUE SONG.\n                     VIVAT REX.\n\n\nBELLS.\n\nBells were formerly a prolific source of superstition. There is a\nvalley in Nottinghamshire, where a village is said to have been\nswallowed up by an earthquake, and it was the custom on Christmas Day\nmorning for the people to assemble in this valley and listen to the\nfancied ringing of the church bells underground. At Abbot's Morton\nthere is a tradition that the silver bells belonging to the abbot are\nburied in the site of his old residence there. At Ledbury, a legend\nrelates that St. Katharine had a revelation that she was to travel\nabout, and not rest at any place, till she heard the bells ringing of\ntheir own accord. This was done by the Ledbury bells on her approaching\nthat town. When the church at Inkberrow was rebuilt on a new site in\nancient days, it was believed that the fairies took umbrage at the\nchange, as they were supposed to be averse to bells; they accordingly\nendeavoured to obstruct the building, but, as they did not succeed, the\nfollowing lamentation was occasionally heard by the startled rustics:\n\n    \"Neither sleep, neither lie,\n     For Inkbro's ting-tangs hang so nigh.\"\n\nMany years ago the twelve parish churches in Jersey each possessed a\nbeautiful and valuable peal of bells; but during a long civil war, the\nstates determined on selling these bells to defray the heavy expenses\nof their army. The bells were accordingly collected, and sent to\nFrance for that purpose; but, on the passage, the ship foundered, and\neverything was lost, to show the wrath of Heaven at the sacrilege.\nSince then, before a storm, these bells ring up from the deep; and,\nto this day, the fishermen of St. Ouen's Bay always go to the edge of\nthe water before embarking, to listen if they can hear \"the bells upon\nthe wind;\" and, if those warning notes are heard, nothing will induce\nthem to leave the shore; if all is quiet they fearlessly set sail. As a\ngentleman, who has versified the legend, says:\n\n    \"'Tis an omen of death to the mariner,\n       Who wearily fights with the sea;\n     For the foaming surge is his winding sheet,\n       And his funeral knell are we:\n     His funeral knell our passing bells beat,\n       And his winding sheet the sea.\"\n\n\nBRIBING THE DEMONS.\n\nThe rich inhabitants of the Celestial Empire, it is almost needless\nto say, make an exorbitant display at funerals. They invite as many\nrelations and friends as they can, in order to muster an imposing\nprocession, and the mourning dresses worn by the whole party are at\nthe cost of the family of the deceased, who are also bound to provide\nthem for several days together with splendid repasts. A great number\nof musicians are hired for the occasion, and also of _weepers_, for\nthough most people in China are pretty well skilled in the art of\nshedding tears, there exist mourners by profession, who have carried it\nto still greater perfection, and are absolutely inimitable at sobs and\ngroans. They follow the coffin in long white robes, hempen girdles, and\ndishevelled hair; and their lamentations are accompanied by the beating\nof gongs, by the sharp and discordant sounds of rude instruments of\nmusic, and the discharge of fireworks. The sudden explosion and the\nsmell of the powder are supposed to be efficacious in frightening away\nthe demons, and hindering them from seizing on the soul of the defunct,\nwhich never fails to follow the coffin; and as these malevolent spirits\nhave also the reputation of being extremely covetous and fond of money,\npeople endeavour to get on their weak side. They let fall, for this\npurpose, all along the road, sapecks and bank-notes, that the wind\ncarries away in all directions; and as the demons in China are by no\nmeans so cunning as the men, they are taken in by this device, and\nfall into the trap with charming simplicity, though, the supposed\nbank-notes are in fact only bits of white paper. Whilst they are\nengaged in pursuing these deceitful appearances of riches, the soul of\nthe defunct proceeds quietly and comfortably after its coffin without\nany danger of its being stopped by the way.\n\n\nHOLY-WATER SPRINKLER.\n\nTo sprinkle the holy water was, in ancient times, the cant phrase for\nfetching blood, which will account for the appellation of a certain\nclass of weapons, as there is no resemblance whatever between them and\nthe aspergillum used by Roman Catholics. The specimen we have here\nsketched is a demi holy-water-sprinkler--to speak in the language of\nthe time--\"with gonnes at the ende.\" This awkward weapon, prior, in\npoint of date, to the invention of the matchlock, and, therefore, not\nlater than the time of Edward IV., was made to hang at the saddle-bow\ninstead of a mace. The iron cap at the end is furnished with a\nspear-like blade, and opens on an hinge, or is held in its place by\na hook. It contains four short barrels, each of which is fired by a\nmatch, and its touch-hole is protected by a sliding piece of wood.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Holy Water Sprinkler.]\n\nIn using this weapon the intention was first to fire at the enemy with\nthe \"gonnes at the ende,\" and then to club him on coming to close\nquarters. To effect all this, however, in a satisfactory manner, much\ntime must have been lost, and many accidents, no doubt, were liable to\nhappen to the person who used such a weapon as this, which was almost\nas dangerous to the man who possessed it, as to the enemy against whom\nhe directed it. The lid at the top must first have been opened, and\nnot only so, but must have been kept open all the time the weapon was\nused as a gun, and then, previously to closing with the foe, it must\nhave been necessary to secure it, lest, in brandishing the instrument\nas a club, the open lid should strike against the head of the man who\nwielded it. No wonder that this dangerous compound of club and gun soon\nwent out of fashion, and survived its invention only a very few years.\n\n\nFIRST TEA-DRINKERS PUZZLED.\n\nThe first brewers of tea were often sorely perplexed with the\npreparation of the new mystery. \"Mrs. Hutchinson's great grandmother\nwas one of a party who sat down to the first pound of tea that ever\ncame into Penrith. It was sent as a present, and without directions how\nto use it. They boiled the whole at once in a bottle, and sat down to\neat the leaves with butter and salt, and they wondered how any person\ncould like such a diet.\"\n\n\nCOLUMN AT CUSSI.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Column at Cussi.]\n\nThe great object of the erection of pillars of victory was to serve\nas vehicles for sculpture; though, as we now see them, or as they are\ncaricatured at Paris and elsewhere, they are little more than instances\nof immense labour bestowed to very little purpose. In the original\nuse of these pillars, they were placed in small courts surrounded by\nopen porticos, whence the spectator could at two, or perhaps at three\ndifferent levels examine the sculpture at his leisure at a convenient\ndistance, while the absurdity of a pillar supporting nothing was not\napparent, from its not being seen from the outside. A good specimen of\nthis class is that at Cussi, near Beaune, in France. It is represented\nin the annexed cut. It probably belongs to the time of Aurelian, and\nno doubt was first erected within a court; but it is not known either\nby whom it was erected, or what victory it was designed to celebrate.\nStill that it is a pillar of victory is certain, and its resemblance\nto pillars raised with the same object in India is quite striking.\nThe arrangement of the base, serving as a pedestal for eight statues,\nis not only elegant, but appropriate. The ornament which covers the\nshaft takes off from the idea of its being a mere pillar, and, at the\nsame time, is so subdued as not to break the outline or interfere with\nconstructive propriety. The capital of the Corinthian order is found\nin the neighbourhood, used as the mouth of a well. In its original\nposition it no doubt had a hole through it, which being enlarged\nsuggested its application to its present comparatively ignoble purpose,\nthe hole being no doubt intended either to receive or support the\nstatue or emblem that originally crowned the monument, but of that no\ntrace now remains.\n\n\nSTYLE OF LIVING AMONG THE NOBILITY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nThe ordinary meals were now increased to four a day--breakfast at\nseven in the morning, dinner at ten, supper at four in the afternoon,\nand \"liveries,\" which were taken in bed, between eight and nine at\nnight. These latter, as well as the breakfast, were of no light or\nunsubstantial character, consisting of good beef and mutton (or salt\nfish in Lent), with beer and wine in the morning; and of a loaf or\ntwo, with a few quarts of mulled wine and beer, at nights. At dinner\nthe huge oaken table, extending the whole length of the great hall,\nwas profusely covered with joints of fresh and salt meat, followed by\ncourses of fowl, fish, and curious made-dishes. The Lord took his seat\non the dais or raised floor at the head; his friends and retainers were\nranged above or below the salt, according to their rank. As forks were\nnot yet in use, the fingers were actively employed, whilst wine and\nbeer in wooden or pewter goblets were handed round by the attendants.\nOver head the favourite hawks stood upon their perches, and below the\nhounds reposed upon the pavement.\n\nThe dinner generally lasted for three hours, and all pauses were filled\nup by the minstrels, jesters, or jugglers, or by the recitation of\nsome romance of chivalry. At the end of each course they sometimes\nintroduced a dish called _subtlety_, composed of curious figure in\njellies or confectionery, with a riddling label attached for the\nexercise of social wit. The monasteries were especially noted for\ntheir good dinners, and the secular clergy, not to be outdone in their\nhospitality invented _glutton-masses_ in honour of the Virgin. These\nwere held five times a year in the open churches, whither the people\nbrought food and liquor, and vied with each other in this religious\ngormandizing. The general diet of the common people continued, however,\nto be coarse and poor, and severe famines not unfrequently occurred.\n\n\nORIGIN OF THE TITLE \"SFORZA.\"\n\nJames Sforza, the father of Francis the first duke, was the founder of\nthe house of Sforza, which gave six dukes to Milan, and was allied with\nalmost every sovereign in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth\ncenturies. He was born in 1369, at Catignuola, near Faenza; his\nfather, according to tradition, was a day labourer, and to others, a\nshoemaker, but probably wrought as both. Perceiving some soldiers pass,\nhe was struck with the desire of bearing arms. \"I will go,\" said he to\nhimself, \"and dart my hatchet against that tree, and if it stick fast\nin the wood I will immediately become a soldier.\" The hatchet stuck\nfast, and because, says the Abbot of Choisi, he threw the axe with all\nhis force, he assumed the supposed fortunate name of Sforza, as his\nreal name was Giacomuzzo, or James Attendulo.\n\n\nMAY-POLE IN THE STRAND.\n\nDuring the austere reign of the Puritans, when theatres were closed,\nand every sort of popular amusement was considered sinful, the\nMay-poles fell into disrepute, and were pulled down in various parts\nof London. Among the rest, the famous May-pole in the Strand came to\nthe ground. With the restoration of the monarchy, the people saw the\nrestoration of their ancient sports; and on the very first May-day\nafter the return of Charles II., the May-pole in the Strand was set\nup again, amid great popular rejoicing. The following account of the\nceremony is taken from a rare tract of the times, entitled \"The Citie's\nLoyaltie displayed. London, 4to., 1641,\" and quoted in the first volume\nof Hone's \"Every-Day Book,\" page 557:--\n\n\"Let me declare to you the manner in general,\" says the loyal author,\n\"of that stately cedar erected in the Strand, 134 feet high, commonly\ncalled the May-pole, upon the cost of the parishioners there adjacent,\nand the gracious consent of His Sacred Majesty, with the illustrious\nPrince the Duke of York. This tree was a most choice and remarkable\npiece, 'twas made below bridge, and brought in two parts up to Scotland\nYard, near the King's Palace, and from thence it was conveyed, April\n14th, to the Strand, to be erected. It was brought with a streamer\nflourishing before it, drums beating all the way, and other sort of\nmusic. It was supposed to be so long that landsmen, as carpenters,\ncould not possibly raise it. Prince James, the Duke of York, Lord High\nAdmiral of England, therefore commanded twelve seamen to come and\nofficiate the business; whereupon they came, and brought their cables,\npulleys, and other tackling, with six great anchors. After these were\nbrought three crowns, borne by three men bareheaded, and a streamer\ndisplaying all the way before them, drums beating, and other music\nplaying, numerous multitudes of people thronging the streets, with\ngreat shouts and acclamations all day long.\n\n\"The May-pole then being joined together, and hooped about with bands\nof iron, the crown and vane, with the King's arms, richly gilded, was\nplaced on the head of it: a large top, like a balcony, was about the\nmiddle of it. This being done, the trumpets did sound, and in four\nhours' space it was advanced upright; after which being established\nfast in the ground, again great shouts and acclamations did the\npeople give, that rang throughout all the Strand. After that came a\nmorris-dance, finely decked with purple scarfs, in their half shirts,\nwith a tabor and pipe, the ancient music, and danced round about the\nMay-pole, and after that danced the rounds of their liberty. Upon\nthe top of this famous standard is likewise set up a royal purple\nstreamer, about the middle of it are placed four crowns more, with the\nKing's arms likewise. There is also a garland set upon it, of various\ncolours, of delicate rich favours, under which are to be placed three\ngreat lanthorns, to remain for three honours, that is, one for Prince\nJames, Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England; the other for the\nVice-Admiral; the third for the Rear-Admiral. These are to give light\non dark nights, and to continue so as long as the pole stands, which\nwill be a perpetual honour for seamen. It is placed as near hand as\nthey could guess in the very same pit where the former stood, but far\nmore glorious, higher, and bigger, than ever any one that stood before\nit; and the seamen themselves do confess that it could not be built\nhigher, and there is not such an one in Europe besides, which doth\nhighly please His Majesty and the illustrious Prince, Duke of York.\nLittle children did much rejoice, and ancient people did clap their\nhands, saying that golden days began to appear. I question not but it\nwill ring like melodious music throughout every county in England when\nthey read this story exactly penned. Let this story satisfy for the\nglories of London, that other loyal subjects may read what we here do\nsee.\"\n\n\nCOSTUME OF A GERMAN NOBLE.\n\nThe annexed cut represents the dress of a young noble of the year 1443,\nfrom the extremely interesting genealogical history of the baronial\nfamily of Haller von Halleostein. The figure is that of Franz Haller\nvon Halleostein, who died unmarried in the above year. He wore an open\njerkin of a greenish colour, and very finely plaited chemisette. The\njerkin has a white silk trimming with a black border throughout, and\nis held together by fine white silk ribbons, beneath which appears the\nwhite shirt. The sword-couple and sheath, are black, hilt and mountings\nare of the colour of steel. The stockings are vermilion, and on the\nright leg is a white and yellow stripe. The shoes are black, turned\nwith white. The hair is long, and over it is worn a neat cap with\nlappets and a golden agraffe and love-knot, to support the hair.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Dress of a Young Noble in 1443.]\n\nAt the period of this costume very great attention was bestowed by\nthe German nobility to their dress. The sums they expended on it\nwere enormous, and in many instances families were reduced to ruin\nby the extravagant decorations of their person. Jewellery, furs,\nsilks, and laces, all of which were far more expensive and difficult\nto be obtained than they are now, were used in reckless profusion,\nand one nobleman vied with another in the magnificence, novelty, and\nexpensiveness of their attire. The illustrated books of that period\nabound in sketches of the most beautiful costumes, and are a fund of\ninterest to those who are curious in such matters.\n\n\nABSURDITIES OF THE TOILET.\n\nThe ladies of Japan are said to gild their teeth, and those of the\nIndies to paint them red, while in Guzerat the test of beauty is to\nrender them sable. In Greenland, the women used to colour their faces\nwith blue and yellow. The Chinese must torture their feet into the\nsmallest possible dimensions--a proof positive of their contracted\nunderstandings. The ancient Peruvians, and some other Indian tribes,\nused to flatten their heads: and among other nations, the mothers, in a\nsimilar way, maltreat the noses of their offspring.\n\n\nAN EGYPTIAN DINNER.\n\nThe complicated, and, at first sight, somewhat incomprehensible sketch\nwhich we here lay before our readers, was taken from an interior wall\nof a palace in Egypt. It is, of course, by Egyptian artists, and the\nsubject of it is no other than an Egyptian dinner-table set out and\nadorned for a banquet.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Egyptian Dinner-Table.]\n\nAt a dinner in ancient Egypt, small and low circular tables were used,\nstanding on a single pillar, with a dilated base; sometimes one of\nthese was apportioned to every guest, the viands being brought round\nby the servants successively, from a larger pillar-table which had\nbeen brought in readily set out by two men. The accompanying engraving\nshows a table thus laid out, requiring, however, a little allowance for\nthe lack of perspective. Round and oblong cakes of bread flattened and\npricked in patterns, a goose, a leg of a kid or antelope, baskets of\nfigs and other fruit, are crowned by a huge bunch of the lotus-lily.\nUnder the table are bottles of wine placed on stands in a series, and\ncrowned with a lotus-garland, upon which is thrown a long withe of what\nseems from the tendrils a vine, loaded with clusters of grapes, as well\nas thickly set with foliage.\n\n\nELEPHANT-GOD OF BURMAH.\n\nA white elephant is a great rarity, and whenever one is caught, the\nBurmese treat it as a god and pay worship to it. Captain Yule thus\ndescribes the white elephant of 1855, and his palace at Amarapoora, the\ncapital of Burmah:--\n\n\"In the area which stretches before the Hall of Audience are several\ndetached buildings. A little to the north is the \"Palace,\" or state\napartment, of the Lord White Elephant, with his highness's humbler\nevery-day residence in rear. To the south are sheds for the vulgar\nherd of the same species, and brick godowns in which the state\ncarriages and golden litters (the latter massive and gorgeous in great\nvariety of design) are stowed away. Temporary buildings, used as\nbarracks and gunsheds, run along the wall. The present white elephant\nhas occupied his post for at least fifty years. I have no doubt he\nis the same as Padre San-germano mentions as having been caught in\n1806, to the great joy of the King, who had just lost the preceding\nincumbent, a female, which died after a year's captivity. He is a very\nlarge elephant, close upon ten feet high, with as noble a head and pair\nof tusks as I have ever seen. But he is long-bodied and lanky, and not\notherwise well made as an elephant. He is sickly and out of condition,\nand is, in fact, distempered during five months of the year, from April\nto August. His eye, the iris of which is yellow with a reddish outer\nannulus, and a small clear black pupil, has an uneasy glare, and his\nkeepers evidently mistrust his temper. We were always warned against\ngoing near his head. The annulus round the iris of the eye is pointed\nout as resembling a circle of the nine gems. His colour is almost\nuniform all over; nearly the ground-tint of the mottled or freckled\npart of the trunk and ears of common elephants, perhaps a little\ndarker. He also has pale freckles in the same parts. On the whole, he\nis well entitled to his appellation of white. His royal paraphernalia,\nwhich are set out when visitors are expected, are sufficiently\nsplendid. Among them was a driving-hook about three feet long, the stem\nof which was a mass of small pearls, girt at frequent intervals with\nbands of rubies, and the hook and handle of crystal tipped with gold.\nHis headstall was of fine red cloth, plentifully studded with fine\nrubies, and near the extremity having some valuable diamonds. To fit\nover the two bumps of the forehead were circles of the nine gems, which\nare supposed to be charms against evil influences. When caparisoned he\nalso wore on the forehead, like other Burmese dignitaries, including\nthe King himself, a golden plate inscribed with his titles, and a\ngold crescent set with circles of large gems between the eyes. Large\nsilver tassels hung in front of his ears, and he was harnessed with\nbands of gold and crimson set with large bosses of pure gold. He is a\nregular \"estate of the realm,\" having a woon or minister of his own,\nfour gold umbrellas, the white umbrellas which are peculiar to royalty,\nwith a suite of attendants said to be thirty in number. The Burmese\nwho attended us removed their shoes before entering his 'Palace.' The\nelephant has an appanage or territory assigned to him 'to eat,' like\nany other dignitary of the empire. I do not know where his estate is at\npresent, but in Burney's time it was the rich cotton district of Taroup\nMyo.\"\n\n\nSUPERSTITION IN 1856.\n\nIn April, 1856, a poor woman, residing in a village about three miles\nfrom Pershore, acting upon the advice of her neighbours, brought her\nchild, who was suffering from whooping cough, to that town, for the\npurpose of finding out a married couple answering to the names of\nJoseph and Mary, and soliciting their interference on behalf of her\nafflicted child, as she had been informed that if two married persons\nhaving those names could but be induced to lay their hands on her\nchild's head, the whooping cough would be immediately cured. After\nscouring the town for a considerable time in search of \"Joseph and\nhis fair lady,\" they were at length discovered in the persons of a\nrespectable tradesman and his wife residing in Bridge Street, to whom\nthe poor silly woman made known her foolish request, which at first\nexcited a smile from the good woman of the house, but was quickly\nfollowed, not by \"the laying on of hands,\" but by good advice, such as\nmothers only know how to give in these matters. The poor mother then\nthankfully departed a wiser woman.\n\n\nPRAYING BY WHEEL AND AXLE.\n\nThe Japanese, like the inhabitants of Thibet, are not content with\ndevout prayers, pilgrimages, prostrations, offerings to the gods\nin order to secure blessings here and hereafter; they also pray by\nmachine, by _wheel and axle_. There is a square post, nearly eight feet\nin length, and near the centre, at a convenient height to be reached\nby the hand, is fixed vertically a wheel, which moves readily on an\naxle passed through the post. Two small rings are strung upon each of\nthree spokes of the wheel. Every person who twists this instrument in\npassing is supposed to obtain credit in heaven for one or more prayers\ninscribed on the post, the number being graduated according to the\nvigour of the performer's devotion, and the number of revolutions\neffected. The jingle of the small iron rings is believed to secure\nthe attention of the deity to the invocation of the devout, and the\ngreater the noise, the more certain of its being listened to. Some of\nthe inscriptions on this post are worth remembering:--\"The great round\nmirror of knowledge says, 'wise men and fools are embarked in the same\nboat;' whether prospered or afflicted, both are rowing over the deep\nlake; the gay sails lightly hang to catch the autumnal breeze; then\naway they straight enter the lustrous clouds, and become partakers of\nheaven's knowledge.\"\n\n\"He whose prescience detects knowledge says:--'As the floating grass is\nblown by the gentle breeze, or the glancing ripples of autumn disappear\nwhen the sun goes down, or as the ship returns home to her old shore,\nso is life: it is a smoke, a morning tide.'\"\n\n\"Others are more to the point--as to the machine--'Buddha himself\nearnestly desires to hear the name of this person (who is buried), and\nwishes he may go to life.'\"\n\n\nNOVEL WAY OF DESIGNATING A HOUSE.\n\nIn the \"New View of London,\" published in 1708, it is mentioned as a\nremarkable circumstance attaching to the history of Prescott Street,\nnear the Strand, that instead of signs, the houses were distinguished\nby numbers, as the stair-cases in the Inns of Court, and Chancery. The\nfollowing advertisement, taken from newspapers a century and a half\nold, is interesting at this distance of time, as it shows the shifts\nto which advertisers were reduced, to point out their houses to their\ncustomers:--\n\n\"Doctor James Tilborgh, a German doctor, states that he liveth at\npresent over against the New Exchange, in Bedford Street, at the sign\nof the 'Peacock,' where you shall see at night two candles burning\nwithin one of the chambers before the balcony; and a lanthorn with a\ncandle in it upon the balcony: where he may be spoke with all alone,\nfrom 8 in the morning till 10 at night.\"\n\n\nDYAK WAR-BOAT IN BORNEO.\n\nThe Malay war-boat, or _prahu_, is built of timber at the lower part;\nthe upper is of bamboo, rattan, and kedgang (the dried leaf of the Nepa\npalm). Outside the bends, about a foot from the water line, runs a\nstrong gallery, in which the rowers sit cross-legged. At the after-part\nof the boat is a cabin for the chief who commands, and the whole of\nthe vessel is surmounted by a strong flat roof, upon which they fight,\ntheir principal weapons being the kris and spear, both of which, to be\nused with effect, require elbow-room.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Dyak War-Boat.]\n\nThe Dyak war-boat, as represented in the annexed sketch, is a\nlong-built canoe, more substantially constructed than the prahu of the\nMalays, and sufficiently capacious to hold from seventy to eighty men.\nThis also has a roof to fight from. They are generally painted, and the\nstern ornamented with feathers.\n\nBoth descriptions of war-boats are remarkably swift, notwithstanding\nsuch apparent top-weight.\n\n\nWAR-DANCE OF THE DYAKS OF BORNEO.\n\nAlmost every savage nation has its peculiar war-dance, and the\ndifferent steps, movements, and cries, in each depict different stages\nin the supposed fight. An account of the various kinds of dances\nwould form an interesting work, and as a contribution to it we here\ncall attention to the following description of a war-dance which was\npractised for the entertainment of the officers of the Semarang, on\nthe occasion of their visiting a Dyak Chief. It is taken from Captain\nMarryat's \"Borneo:\"--\n\n[Illustration: [++] Dyak War-Dance.]\n\n\"A space was cleared in the centre, and two of the oldest warriors\nstepped into it. They were dressed in turbans, long loose jackets,\nsashes round their waists descending to their feet, and small bells\nwere attached to their ankles. They commenced by first shaking hands\nwith the rajah, and then with all the Europeans present, thereby giving\nus to understand, as was explained to us, that the dance was to be\nconsidered only as a spectacle, and not to be taken in its literal\nsense, as preparatory to an attack upon us, a view of the case in which\nwe fully coincided with them.\n\n\"This ceremony being over, they rushed into the centre, and gave a\nmost unearthly scream; then poising themselves on one foot, they\ndescribed a circle with the other, at the same time extending their\narms like the wings of a bird, and then meeting their hands, clapping\nthem and keeping time with the music. After a little while the music\nbecame louder, and suddenly our ears were pierced with the whole of\nthe natives present joining in the hideous war-cry. Then the motions\nand screams of the dancers became more violent, and every thing was\nworked up to a state of excitement, by which even we were influenced.\nSuddenly, a very unpleasant odour pervaded the room, already too\nwarm, from the numbers it contained. Involuntarily we held our noses,\nwondering what might be the cause, when we perceived that one of the\nwarriors had stepped into the centre, and suspended round the shoulders\nof each dancer a human head in a wide-meshed basket of rattan. These\nheads had been taken in the late Sakarron business, and were therefore\nbut a fortnight old. They were encased in a wide network of rattan, and\nwere ornamented with beads. Their stench was intolerable, although,\nas we discovered upon after examination, when they were suspended\nagainst the wall, they had been partially baked and were quite black.\nThe teeth and hair were quite perfect, the features somewhat shrunk,\nand they were altogether very fair specimens of pickled heads; but our\nworthy friends required a lesson from the New Zealanders in the art of\npreserving. The appearance of the heads was the signal for the music\nto play louder, for the war-cry of the natives to be more energetic,\nand for the screams of the dancers to be more piercing. Their motions\nnow became more rapid, and the excitement in proportion. Their eyes\nglistened with unwonted brightness. The perspiration dropped down\ntheir faces, and thus did yelling, dancing, gongs, and tom-toms become\nmore rapid and more violent every minute, till the dancing warriors\nwere ready to drop. A farewell yell, with emphasis, was given by\nthe surrounding warriors; immediately the music ceased, the dancers\ndisappeared, and the tumultuous excitement and noise was succeeded by\na dead silence. Such was the excitement communicated, that when it was\nall over we ourselves for some time remained panting to recover our\nbreath. Again we lighted our cheroots, and smoked for a while the pipe\nof peace.\"\n\n\nWONDERFUL FISH.\n\nThe Greek Church of Baloukli contains an extraordinary instance of the\ncredulity of superstition. Some wonderful fish are there preserved,\nwhich are thus described by Mr. Curzon in his admirable book on the\n\"Monasteries of the Levant:\"--\n\n\"The unfortunate Emperor Constantine Paleologus rode out of the city\nalone to reconnoitre the outposts of the Turkish army, which was\nencamped in the immediate vicinity. In passing through a wood he found\nan old man seated by the side of a spring, cooking some fish on a\ngridiron for his dinner; the emperor dismounted from his white horse,\nand entered into conversation with the other; the old man looked up at\nthe stranger in silence, when the emperor inquired whether he had heard\nanything of the movement of the Turkish forces: 'Yes,' said he, 'they\nhave this moment entered the city of Constantinople.' 'I would believe\nwhat you say,' replied the emperor, 'if the fish which you are broiling\nwould jump off the gridiron into the spring.' This, to his amazement,\nthe fish immediately did, and, on his turning round, the figure of the\nold man had disappeared. The emperor mounted his horse and rode towards\nthe gate of Silivria, where he was encountered by a band of the enemy,\nand slain, after a brave resistance, by the hand of an Arab or a <DW64>.\n\n\"The broiled fishes still swim about in the water of the spring, the\nsides of which have been lined with white marble, in which are certain\nrecesses in which they can retire when they do not wish to receive\ncompany. The only way of turning the attention of these holy fish to\nthe respectful presence of their adorers is accomplished by throwing\nsomething glittering into the water, such as a handful of gold or\nsilver coin: gold is the best; copper produces no effect; he that sees\none fish is lucky, he that sees two or three goes home a happy man;\nbut the custom of throwing coins into the spring has become, from its\nconstant practice, very troublesome to the good monks, who kindly\ndepute one of their community to rake out the money six or seven times\na day with a scraper at the end of a long pole. The emperor of Russia\nhas sent presents to the shrine of Baloukli, so called from the Turkish\nword Balouk, a fish. Some wicked heretics have said that these fishes\nare common perch: either they or the monks must be mistaken; but of\nwhatever kind they are, they are looked upon with reverence by the\nGreeks, and have been continually held in the highest honour from the\ntime of the siege of Constantinople to the present day.\"\n\n\nCURIOUS MARRIAGE CUSTOM.\n\nAt Petze, in the department of Finisterre, in France, the following\nsingular marriage custom still prevails:--\"On an appointed day, the\n_paysannes_, or female pretenders to the holy state of matrimony,\nassemble on the bridge of the village, and, seating themselves upon the\nparapet, there patiently await the arrival of the intended bridegrooms.\nAll the neighbouring cantons contribute their belles to ornament this\nrenowned bridge. There may be seen the peasant of _Saint Poliare_, her\nruddy countenance surrounded by her large muslin sleeves, which rise\nup and form a kind of framework to her full face; by her may be seated\nthe heavy _Touloisienne_, in her cloth _caline_, or gown; the peasant\nof _la Leonarde_, in a Swiss boddice, bordered with different \nworsted braid, and a scarlet petticoat, may next appear, presenting\na gaudy contrast to her neighbour from _Saint Thegonnec_, in her\nnun-like costume. On one side extends _la coulie de Penhoat_, bordered\nwith willows, honeysuckles, and the wild hop; on the other, the sea,\nconfined here like a lake, between numerous jets of land covered with\nheath and sweet broom; and below the bridge, the thatched town, poor\nand joyous as the beggar of _Carnouailles_. The bay is here so calm,\nthat the whole of this gay scene is reflected in its still waters; and\na few scenes of rural festivity present a more animated or diverting\npicture.\n\n\"The arrival of the young men, with their parents, is the signal for\nsilence among the candidates for a husband. The gentlemen advance, and\ngravely parade up and down the bridge, looking first on this side,\nand then on that, until the face of some one of the lasses strike\ntheir fancy. The fortunate lady receives intimation of her success\nby the advance of the cavalier, who, presenting his hand, assists\nher in descending from her seat, making at the same time a tender\nspeech; compliments are exchanged, the young man offers fruit to his\nintended bride, who remains motionless before him, playing with her\napron strings. In the mean while the parents of the parties approach\neach other, talk over the matter of their children's marriage, and if\nboth parties are agreeable they shake hands, and this act of friendly\ngratulation is considered a ratification of the treaty between them,\nand the marriage is shortly afterwards celebrated.\"\n\n\nFOREIGN COSTUME IN 1492.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Count Eberhard the Elder.]\n\nThe nobleman portrayed here is Count Eberhard the elder, first Duke\nof Wurtemberg, in a festival habit at Stuttgardt, in the year 1492,\non the occasion of his receiving the order of the Golden Fleece, the\nfirst which Austria instituted for herself (King Maximilian inherited\nit from Burgundy) and which he received together with King Henry VIII.\nof England. His costume is taken from an old illumination which, in\nthe year 1847, was copied for King William of Wurtemberg, and which is\nnow preserved in his private library at Stuttgardt. This exemplifies\nthe quilled doublet, made of a kind of damasked black velvet, which\nappears to have been worn over the defensive armour improved by King\nMaximilian. Upon the black surcoat appear the orders of the Golden\nFleece and the Holy Sepulchre. According to contemporary statues and\nmonuments, Georg von Ekingen and Heinrich von Waellwerth, officers of\nthe court of Eberhard, wore this kind of doublet. The former, according\nto a portrait, of a red colour; the latter authority is in the\nWaellwerth Chapel, in the cloister of Lorch near Schw. Gmuend.\n\n\nPETER THE GREAT AT ZAANDAM.\n\nWe learn from authentic records that Peter the Great, Czar of Russia,\nentered himself, in the year 1697, on the list of ship's carpenters at\nthe Admiralty Office of Amsterdam, in Holland. This is true; but before\nPeter so enrolled himself, he had made an attempt to fix his abode, for\nthe purpose of study, at Saardam, or Zaandam, a little town situated\non the river Zaan, about half an hour's voyage, by steam, from the\npopulous and wealthy city of Amsterdam.\n\nZaandam, though then, as now, one of the most primitive, original\nlittle towns in Europe, had for some time held important commercial\nintercourse with Russia; and Peter had long seen the advantage to be\nderived from studying at its head-quarters the art which he felt sure\nwould elevate his country in an extraordinary way. He therefore opened\na private correspondence with some trusty friends in Holland, and set\nforth, with his hand of intelligent companions, early in the summer of\n1697; in the autumn of the same year he disembarked at Zaandam, and,\nalone and unattended, sought an humble lodging from a man of the name\nof Gerrit Kist, who had formerly been a blacksmith in Russia, and who,\nas may well be imagined, was astonished at the \"imperial apparition;\"\nindeed he could not believe that Peter really wished to hire so humble\nan abode. But the Czar persevered, and obtained permission to occupy\nthe back part of Kist's premises, consisting of a room and a little\nshed adjoining, Kist being bound to secresy as to the rank of his\nlodger: Peter's rent amounted to seven florins (about eleven shillings)\na week.\n\n[Illustration: [++] The Maisonnette of Peter the Great.]\n\nThe _maisonnette_, or hut, of Peter the Great now stands alone, and has\nbeen encased in a strong wooden frame in order to preserve it. It is in\nmuch the same state as when occupied by the Czar. The chief apartment\nis entered by the door you see open, the projecting roof covers the\nroom probably occupied by Peter's servant, and on the left of the\nlarger room is the recess or cupboard in which Peter slept. Formerly\nthe rear of this abode was crowded with inferior buildings; it is now\nan airy space, with trees waving over the wooden tenement, and a garden\nfull of sweet-scented flowers embalms the atmosphere around it. A civil\nold Dutchwoman is the guardian of the property, which is kept up with\nsome taste, and exquisite attention to cleanliness.\n\nThe _maisonnette_ has but one door. In Zaandam the old Dutch custom of\nclosing one entrance to the house, except on state occasions, is still\nkept up; the purpose of the other, the _porte mortuaire_, or _mortuary\nportal_, is sufficiently explained by its name.\n\nAfter Peter's departure, his dwelling passed from hand to hand, and\nwould have fallen into oblivion had not Paul the First of Russia\naccompanied Joseph the Second of Austria and the King of Sweden to\nZaandam, on purpose to visit the Czar's old abode. After this it became\na sort of fashion to make pilgrimages to the once imperial residence;\nand it acquired a still greater celebrity when the Emperor Alexander\nvisited it in 1814, and made a great stir in the waters of the Zaan\nwith a fleet of three hundred yachts and innumerable barges, gaily\ndecked with flying pennons. In 1818, William the First of Holland\npurchased the property, and gave it to his daughter-in-law, the\nPrincess of Orange and a royal Russian by birth: it is to her care the\nbuilding owes its present state of preservation. Her royal highness\nappointed a Waterloo invalid as first guardian of the place.\n\nBonaparte brought Josephine here in 1812. Poor Josephine had no idea of\nold associations; she jumped from the sublime to the ridiculous at once\non entering the \"mean habitation,\" and startled the then proprietor by\na burst of untimely laughter.\n\nMany royal and illustrious names may be read on the walls of the\nprincipal chamber, and in the book in which the traveller is\nrequested to write his name. Verses and pictures challenge, somewhat\nimpertinently, the attention of the wayfarer; but as we sat down in\nthe triangular arm-chairs, and turned from the dark recess in which\nPeter slept, to the ingle-nook of the deep chimney, and from the ingle\nto the dark recess again, we could realize nothing but Peter in his\nworking dress of the labours of the day. There he was in the heat of an\nautumnal evening still at work, with books and slates, and instruments\nconnected with navigation, before him on the rude deal table, and he\nplodding on, as diligently as a common mechanic, in pursuit of that\nknowledge by which nations are made great.\n\n\nSUPPLY OF WATER FOR LONDON IN OLDEN TIMES.\n\nIn 1682 the private houses of the metropolis were only supplied with\nfresh water twice a-week. Mr. Cunningham, in his \"Handbook of London,\"\ninforms us that the old sources of supply were the Wells, or Fleet\nRiver, Wallbrook and Langbourne Waters, Clement's, Clerk's, and Holy\nWell, Tyburn, and the River Lea. Tyburn first supplied the city in the\nyear 1285, the Thames not being pressed into the service of the city\nconduits till 1568, when it supplied the conduit at Dowgate. There were\npeople who stole water from the pipes then, as there are who steal gas\nnow. \"This yere\" (1479), writes an old chronicler of London, quoted\nby Mr. Cunningham, \"a wax charndler in Flete-stre had bi craft perced\na pipe of the condite withynne the ground, and so conveied the water\ninto his celar; wherefore he was judged to ride through the citee with\na condite upon his hedde.\" The first engine which conveyed water into\nprivate houses, by leaden pipes, was erected at London-bridge in 1582.\nThe pipes were laid over the steeple of St. Magnus; and the engineer\nwas Maurice, a Dutchman. Bulmer, an Englishman, erected a second engine\nat Broken Wharf. Previous to 1656, the Strand and Covent Garden, though\nso near to the river, were only supplied by water-tankards, which were\ncarried by those who sold the water, or by the apprentice, if there\nwere one in the house, whose duty it was to fill the house-tankard at\nthe conduit, or in the river. In the middle of the seventeenth century,\nFord erected water-works on the Thames, in front of Somerset House; but\nthe Queen of Charles II.--like the Princess Borghese, who pulled down\na church next to her palace, because the incense turned her sick, and\norgan made her head ache--ordered the works to be demolished, because\nthey obstructed a clear view on the river. The inhabitants of the\ndistrict depended upon their tankards and water-carriers, until the\nreign of William III., when the York-buildings Waterworks were erected.\nThe frequently-occurring name of Conduit-street, or Conduit-court,\nindicates the whereabout of many of the old sources whence our\nforefathers drew their scanty supplies.\n\n\nDRINKING BOUTS IN PERSIA.\n\nIn their drinking parties the Persians are reported, among even the\nhighest classes, to exceed all bounds of discretion. Half a dozen\nboon companions meet at night. The floor is covered with a variety\nof stimulating dishes to provoke drinking, for which no provocation\nwhatever is required; among these are pickles of every possible\nvariety, and salted prawns or cray-fish from the Persian Gulf--a\nfood which ought to be an abomination to a true Sheeah. Singers and\ndancing-boys enliven the scene. A Persian despises a wine-glass; a\ntumbler is his measure. He has an aversion to \"heeltaps,\" and he\ndrains his glass to the dregs, with his left hand under his chin to\ncatch the drops of wine, lest he should be detected next morning\nin respectable society by the marks on his dress. They begin with\npleasant conversation, scandal, and gossip; then they become personal,\nquarrelsome, abusive, and indecent, after the unimaginable Persian\nfashion. As the orgies advance, as the mirth waxes fast and furious,\nall restraint is thrown aside. They strip themselves stark naked,\ndance, and play all sorts of antics and childish tricks. One dips his\nhead and face into a bowl of curds, and dances a solo to the admiring\ntopers; while another places a large deeg, or cooking-pot, on his head,\nand display his graces and attitudes on the light fantastic toe, or\nrather heel.\n\n\nGERMAN COSTUMES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nThe costume-sketch which we give on next page, is taken from an\noriginal drawing, having the following superscription:--\n\n  \"Varium et mutabile semper foemina\n  Faec suo quem amat scripsit.\n    Georgius Wolfgang Von Kaltenthal. 1579.\"\n\n[Illustration: [++] German Costumes of the Sixteenth Century.]\n\nThe group represents the above-named young knight, with his youthful\nwife, taking a ride. She wears a blue silken dress, with a boddice of\ngold brocade, trimmed with fur, and a rose- silk scarf; the\nhead-dress is quite plain, the hair being fastened with a golden dagger\nset in jewels. The knight's dress consists of a light green doublet,\nwith dark green stripes; slashed hose, edged with white; yellowish\nleather surcoat without sleeves, riding boots of untanned leather,\nand grey felt hat with red and white plume, dagger, and sword. The\naccoutrements of the horse are simply black, with some metal ornaments.\nThe young lady is the beautiful Leonora Caimingen, who was at that time\na great favourite of the Court at Wurtemberg. In travelling thus (which\nwas at that time the only mode), females of the higher rank only were\naccustomed to make use of masks, or veils, for the preservation of\ntheir complexions, that custom being generally unusual. The ancestral\ncastle of the knights of Kaltenthal was situated between Stuttgardt and\nBoeblingen, on the summit of a rock overhanging the valley of Hesslach.\nIt exists no longer.\n\n\nANCIENT TRIPOD.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Ancient Tripod.]\n\nTripods are, next to vases, the most ancient furniture in the world;\nthe imagination of the ancients invested them with fanciful forms,\nand we meet with designs which, although very simple, show already\nthe power exercised by the re-productive faculties of the mind upon\nthe objects surrounding these ancient nations. Representations of\nthe kind were, however, exceedingly rare till the last forty years,\nand it must be considered an especial piece of good fortune that the\nexcavations made in several parts of Etruria, have afforded more than\none example of this description. The specimen engraved was found in\nthe Gailassi Regulini tomb of Cervetri, in Etruria, and in it we see a\nlarge vessel placed on the tripod, from the edge of which five lions'\nheads start forth with hideous expression. These monsters lend to\nthe whole that fanciful aspect distinguishing objects of the archaic\nperiod. When we imagine to ourselves this kettle boiling, and these\ncruel animals wreathed and enveloped in smoke, we can understand how\nthe fancy of superstitious worshippers, who were wont to make use of\nthese implements in their religious ceremonies, may have found in\nthem an allusion to the spirits of the victims whose remains were\nexposed to the destructive fire glowing underneath. To us, at least,\nthis representation may illustrate the terrific but grand passage of\nHomer, where the bodies of the slaughtered sun bulls become once more\ninstinct with life, demanding vengeance with fearful cries: Odyssey,\nBook xii, verse 395.\n\n    \"The skins began to creep, and the flesh around the spits bellowed,\n     The roasted as well as the raw. And thus grew the voice of\n       the oxen.\"\n\nThe careful construction of the three-legged mechanism which lends\na firm support to this fire-stand, has been restored according to\nthe indication of some fragments found on the spot. It presents a\ngraceful aspect, and forms, in some respects, a remarkable contrast\nto the heavy character of the vessel occupying so lofty a position,\nas the proportions of the legs are exceedingly slender, and the feet\nthemselves, instead of being broad and shapeless, are all composed of a\ngreat many fine articulations.\n\n\nFONDNESS OF THE ROMANS FOR PEARLS.\n\nOf all the articles of luxury and ostentation known to the Romans,\npearls seem to have been the most esteemed. They were worn on all parts\nof the dress, and such was the diversity of their size, purity, and\nvalue, that they were found to suit all classes, from those of moderate\nto those of the most colossal fortune. The famous pearl ear-rings of\nCleopatra are said to have been worth about L160,000, and Julius Caesar\nis said to have presented Servilia, the mother of Brutus, with a pearl\nfor which he had paid above L48,000; and though no reasonable doubt\ncan be ascertained in regard to the extreme exaggeration of these\nand similar statements, the fact that the largest and finest pearls\nbrought immense prices is beyond all question. It has been said that\nthe wish to become master of the pearls with which it was supposed to\nabound, was one of the motives which induced Julius Caesar to invade\nBritain. But, though a good many were met with in various parts of the\ncountry, they were of little or no value, being small and ill-.\nAfter pearls and diamonds, the emerald held the highest place in the\nestimation of the Romans.\n\n\nTHE BLACK STONE AT MECCA.\n\nNear the entrance of the Kaaba at Mecca, at the north-eastern corner,\nis the famous Black Stone, called by the Moslems _Hajra el Assouad_,\nor Heavenly Stone. It forms a part of the sharp angle of the building,\nand is inserted four or five feet above the ground. The shape is an\nirregular oval, about seven inches in diameter. Its colour is now a\ndeep reddish brown, approaching to black; and it is surrounded by a\nborder of nearly the same colour, resembling a cement of pitch and\ngravel, and from two to three inches in breadth. Both the border\nand the stone itself are encircled by a silver band, swelling to a\nconsiderable breadth below, where it is studded with nails of the same\nmetal. The surface is undulated, and seems composed of about a dozen\nsmaller stones, of different sizes and shapes, but perfectly smooth,\nand well joined with a small quantity of cement. It looks as if the\nwhole had been dashed into many pieces by a severe concussion, and then\nre-united--an appearance that may perhaps be explained by the various\ndisasters to which it has been exposed. During the fire that occurred\nin the time of Yezzid I. (A.D. 682), the violent heat split it into\nthree pieces; and when the fragments were replaced, it was necessary\nto surround them with a rim of silver, which is said to have been\nrenewed by Haroun el Raschid. It was in two pieces when the Karmathians\ncarried it away, having been broken by a blow from a soldier during the\nplunder of Mecca. Hakem, a mad sultan of Egypt, in the 11th century,\nendeavoured, while on the pilgrimage, to destroy it with an iron club\nwhich he had concealed under his clothes; but was prevented and slain\nby the populace. Since that accident it remained unmolested until 1674,\nwhen it was found one morning besmeared with dirt, so that every one\nwho kissed it returned with a sullied face. Though suspicion fell on\ncertain Persians, the authors of this sacrilegious joke were never\ndiscovered. As for the quality of the stone, it does not seem to be\naccurately determined. Burckhardt says it appeared to him like a\nlava, containing several small extraneous particles of a whitish and\nyellowish substance. Ali Bey calls it a fragment of volcanic basalt,\nsprinkled with small-pointed  crystals, and varied with\nred feldspar upon a dark black ground like coal, except one of its\nprotuberances, which is a little reddish. The millions of kisses and\ntouches impressed by the faithful have worn the surface uneven, and to\na considerable depth. This miraculous block all orthodox Mussulmans\nbelieve to have been originally a transparent hyacinth, brought from\nheaven to Abraham by the angel Gabriel; but its substance, as well\nas its colour, have long been changed by coming in contact with the\nimpurities of the human race.\n\n\nPARAGRAPH FROM THE \"POSTMAN\" IN 1697.\n\n\"Yesterday being the day of thanksgiving appointed by the\nStates-General for the peace, His Excellency, the Dutch ambassador,\nmade a very noble bonfire before his house in St. James's Square,\nconsisting of about 140 pitch barrels placed perpendicularly on seven\nscaffolds, during which the trumpets sounded, and two hogsheads of wine\nwere kept continually running amongst the common people.\"\n\n\nLORD MAYOR'S FEAST IN 1663.\n\nPepys gives a curious account of a Lord Mayor's dinner in 1663. It was\nserved in the Guildhall, at one o'clock in the day. A bill of fare\nwas placed with every salt-cellar, and at the end of each table was a\nlist of the persons proper there to be seated. Here is a mixture of\nabundance and barbarism. \"Many were the tables, but none in the hall,\nbut the Mayor's and the Lords' of the Privy Council, _that had napkins\nor knives_, which was very strange. I sat at the merchant-stranger's\ntable, where ten good dishes to a mess, with plenty of wine of all\nsorts; but it was very unpleasing that we had no napkins, nor change\nof trenchers, and drank out of earthen pitchers and wooden dishes. The\ndinner, it seems, is made by the Mayor and two Sheriffs for the time\nbeing, and the whole is reckoned to come to L700 or L800 at most.\"\nPepys took his spoon and fork with him, as was the custom of those days\nwith guests invited to great entertainments. \"Forks\" came in with Tom\nCoryat, in the reign of James I.; but they were not \"familiar\" till\nafter the Restoration. The \"laying of napkins,\" as it was called, was\na profession of itself. Pepys mentions, the _day before_ one of his\ndinner-parties, that he went home, and \"there found one laying of my\nnapkins against to-morrow, in figures of all sorts, which is mighty\npretty, and, it seems, is his trade, and he gets much money by it.\"\n\n\nTHE CUPID OF THE HINDOOS.\n\nAmong the Hindoo deities _Camdeo_, or Manmadin differs but little from\nthe Cupid of the ancients. He is also called _Ununga_, or, without\nbody; and is the son of Vishnu and Lacshmi. Besides his bow and\narrows, he carries a banner, on which is delineated a fish: his bow\nis a sugar-cane; the cord is formed of bees; the arrows are of all\nsorts of flowers; one only is headed, but the point is covered with\na honeycomb--an allegory equally just and ingenious, and which so\ncorrectly expresses the pleasures and the pangs produced at one and the\nsame time by the wounds of love. Manmadin is represented, as in the\nannexed plate, riding on a parrot.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Manmadin Riding on a Parrot.]\n\nOne day, when Vishnu, to deceive Sheeva, had assumed the figure of a\nbeautiful young female, Manmadin discharged an arrow, which pierced\nthe heart of the formidable deity, and inflamed it with love of the\nnymph. The latter fled, and at the moment when Sheeva had overtaken\nher, Vishnu resumed his proper form. Sheeva, enraged at the trick\nplayed upon him, with one flash of his eyes burned and consumed the\nimprudent Manmadin, who hence received the name of _Ununga_. He was\nrestored to life by a shower of nectar, which the gods in pity poured\nupon him: but he remained without body and is the only Indian deity who\nis accounted incorporeal. Camdeo is particularly worshipped by females\ndesirous of obtaining faithful lovers and good husbands.\n\n\nOLD DIAL AND FOUNTAIN IN LEADENHALL-STREET.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Old Dial and Fountain.]\n\nThe above sketch is taken from an old work on astronomy and geography\nby Joseph Moxon, and printed by him, and sold \"at his Shop on\n_Cornhill_, at the signe of _Atlas_, 1659.\" We cannot do better than\ngive Moxon's own words with reference to the dial:--\"To make a dyal\nupon a solid ball or globe, that shall show the hour of the day without\na gnomon. The equinoctial of this globe, or (which is all one) the\nmiddle line must be divided into 24 equal parts, and marked with 1,\n2, 3, 4, &c., and then beginning again with 1, 2, 3, &c. to 12. Then\nif you elevate one of the poles so many degrees above an horizontal\nline as the pole of the world is elevated above the horizon in your\nhabitation, and place one of the twelves directly to behold the north,\nand the other to behold the south, when the sun shines on it, the globe\nwill be divided into two halfs, the one enlightened with the sunshine,\nand the other shadowed; and where the enlightened half is parted from\nthe shadowed half, there you will find in the equinoctial the hour of\nthe day, and that on two places on the ball, because the equinoctial\nis cut in two opposite points by the light of the sun. A dyal of this\nsort was made by Mr. John Leak and set up on a composite columne at\nLeadenhall Corner, in London, in the majoralty of Sir John Dethick,\nknight. The figure whereof I have inserted because it is a pretty peece\nof ingenuity, and may, perhaps, stand some lover of the art in stead\neither for imitation or help of invention.\"\n\n\nMAGNIFICENCE OF MADYN, THE CAPITAL OF PERSIA, WHEN INVADED BY THE\nSARACENS, A.D. 626.\n\nThe invaders could not express their mingled sensations of surprise\nand delight, while surveying in this splendid capital the miracles\nof architecture and art, the gilded palaces, the strong and stately\nporticoes, the abundance of victuals in the most exquisite variety and\nprofusion, which feasted their senses, and courted their observation\non every side. Every street added to their astonishment, every chamber\nrevealed a new treasure; and the greedy spoilers were enriched beyond\nthe measure of their hopes or their knowledge. To a people emerging\nfrom barbarism, the various wonders which rose before them in all\ndirections, like the effect of magic, must have been a striking\nspectacle. We may therefore believe them when they affirm, what is\nnot improbable, that the different articles of merchandise--the\nrich and beautiful pieces of manufacture which fell a prey on this\noccasion--were in such incalculable abundance, that the thirtieth part\nof their estimate was more than the imagination could embrace. The gold\nand silver, the various wardrobes and precious furniture, surpassed,\nsays Abul-feda, the calculation of fancy or numbers; and the historian\nElmacin ventured to compute these untold and almost infinite stores at\nthe value of 3,000,000,000 pieces of gold.\n\nOne article in this prodigious booty, before which all others seemed\nto recede in comparison, was the superb and celebrated carpet of\nsilk and gold cloth, sixty cubits in length, and as many in breadth,\nwhich decorated one of the apartments of the palace. It was wrought\ninto a paradise or garden, with jewels of the most curious and costly\nspecies; the ruby, the emerald, the sapphire, the beryl, topaz, and\npearl, being arranged with such consummate skill, as to represent, in\nbeautiful mosaic, trees, fruits, and flowers, rivulets and fountains;\nroses and shrubs of every description seemed to combine their fragrance\nand their foliage to charm the sense of the beholders. This piece of\nexquisite luxury and illusion, to which the Persians gave the name\nof _Baharistan_ or the mansion of perpetual spring, was an invention\nemployed by their monarchs as an artificial substitute for that\nloveliest of seasons. During the gloom of winter they were accustomed\nto regale the nobles of their court on this magnificent embroidery,\nwhere art had supplied the absence of nature, and wherein the guests\nmight trace a brilliant imitation of her faded beauties in the\nvariegated colours of the jewelled and pictured floor. In the hope that\nthe eyes of the Caliph might he delighted with this superb display of\nwealth and workmanship, Saad persuaded the soldiers to relinquish their\nclaims. It was therefore added to the fifth of the spoil, which was\nconveyed to Medina on the backs of camels. But Omar, with that rigid\nimpartiality from which he never deviated, ordered the gaudy trophy to\nbe cut up into small pieces, and distributed among the chief members\nof the Mohammedan commonwealth. Such was the intrinsic value of the\nmaterials, that the share of Ali alone, not larger than the palm of\na man's hand, was afterwards sold for 20,000 drachms (L458 6s. 8d.),\nor, according to others, for as many dinars (L9,250). Out of this vast\nstore the Caliph granted pensions to every member of his court in\nregular gradation, from the individuals of the Prophet's family to the\nlowest of his companions, varying from L275 to L4 11s. per annum.\n\nThe military part of the booty was divided into 60,000 shares, and\nevery horseman had 12,000 dinars (L5,550); hence, if the army consisted\nof 60,000 cavalry, their united shares would amount to the incredible\nsum of L333,000,000 sterling.\n\n\nCOURTSHIP OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.\n\nThe following extract from the life of the wife of the Conqueror,\nis exceedingly curious, as characteristic of the manners of a\nsemi-civilized age and nation:--\"After some years' delay, William\nappears to have become desperate; and, if we may trust to the evidence\nof the 'Chronicle of Ingerbe,' in the year 1047 way-laid Matilda in\nthe streets of Bruges, as she was returning from mass, seized her,\nrolled her in the dirt, spoiled her rich array, and, not content with\nthese outrages, struck her repeatedly, and rode off at full speed.\nThis Teutonic method of courtship, according to our author, brought\nthe affair to a crisis; for Matilda, either convinced of the strength\nof William's passion, by the violence of his behaviour, or afraid of\nencountering a second beating, consented to become his wife. How he\never presumed to enter her presence again, after such a series of\nenormities, the chronicler sayeth not, and we are at a loss to imagine.\"\n\n\nBRAMA, THE HINDOO DEITY.\n\n_Brama_, _Birmah_, or _Brouma_, is one of the three persons of the\nIndian Trinity, or rather the Supreme Being under the attribute of\n_Creator_. Brama, the progenitor of all rational beings, sprung from a\ngolden egg, sparkling like a thousand suns, which was hatched by the\nmotion imparted to the waters by the Supreme Being. Brama separated\nthe heavens from the earth, and placed amid the subtle ether the eight\npoints of the universe and the receptacle of the waters. He had five\nheads before Vairevert, one of Sheeva's sons, cut off one of them.\nHe is delineated floating on a leaf of the lotus, a plant revered in\nIndia. The Bramins relate, that the fifteen worlds which compose the\nuniverse were each produced by a part of Brama's body. At the moment\nof our birth he imprints in our heads, in characters which cannot be\neffaced, all that we shall do, and all that is to happen to us in life.\nIt is not in our power, nor in that of Brama himself, to prevent what\nis written from being fulfilled.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Brama.]\n\nBrama, according to the vulgar mythology, takes but little notice of\nhuman affairs. Identified with the sun, he is adored by the Bramins\nin the _gayatri_, the most sacred passage of the _vedas_ (or sacred\nbooks), which is itself ranked among the gods, and to which offerings\nare made. One of the most important attributes of Brama is that of\nfather of legislators; for it was his ten sons who diffused laws and\nthe sciences over the world. He is considered as the original author of\nthe _vedas_, which are said to have issued from his four mouths; though\nit was not till a later period, that is, about fourteen hundred years\nbefore Christ, that they were collected and arranged by Vyasa, the\nphilosopher and poet. The laws which bear the name of Menu, the son of\nBrama, and the works of the other _richeys_, or holy persons, were also\nre-copied, or perhaps collected from tradition, long after the period\nwhen they are said to have been published by the sons of Brama.\n\nBrama, the father of the legislators of India, has a considerable\nresemblance to the Jupiter of the Greek poets, the father of Minos,\nwhose celebrated laws were published in the very same century that\nVyasa collected the _vedas_. Jupiter was worshipped as the sun, by\nthe name of _Anxur_ or _Axur_, and Brama is identified with that\nluminary. The most common form in which Brama is represented, is that\nof a man with four heads and four hands; and it is remarkable that the\nLacedaemonians gave four heads to their Jupiter. Lastly, the title of\nFather of Gods and Men is equally applicable to Brama and to Jupiter.\n\nBrama is delineated, as in the engraving, holding in one hand a ring,\nthe emblem of immortality; in another, fire, to represent force; and\nwith the other two writing on _olles_, or palm-leaves, the emblem of\nlegislative power.\n\n\nJAMES II. AND THE CHURCH OF DONORE.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Church of Donore.]\n\nThe annexed engraving represents a celebrated locality. It is the ruin\nof the little church on the hill at Donore, in the county of Meath,\nthe spot where James II. was stationed when he beheld the overthrow\nof his army and the ruin of his cause at the battle of the Boyne,\nTuesday, July 1st, 1690. The Boyne is a very beautiful and picturesque\nriver; it winds through the fertile valleys of Meath, and from its\nrichly-wooded banks the hills rise gradually; there are no lofty\nmountains in the immediate neighbourhood. The depth, in nearly all\nparts, is considerable, and the current, consequently, not rapid; its\nwidth, near the field of battle, varies little, and is seldom less\nthan fifty or sixty yards. James had the choice of ground, and it was\njudiciously selected. On the south side of the river, in the county of\nMeath, his army was posted with considerable skill: on the right was\nDrogheda; in front were the fords of the Boyne, deep and dangerous,\nand difficult to pass at all times; the banks were rugged, lined by a\nmorass, defended by some breastworks, with \"huts and hedges convenient\nfor infantry;\" and behind them was an acclivity stretching along the\nwhole of \"the field.\" James fixed his own tent upon the summit of a\nhill close to the little church of Donore, now a ruin; it commanded\nan extensive view of the adjacent country, and the opposite or south\nside of the river--the whole range, indeed, from Drogheda to Oldbridge\nvillage--and looked directly down upon the valley, in which the battle\nwas to be fought, and the fords of the Boyne, where there could be no\ndoubt the troops of William would attempt a passage. From this spot,\nJames beheld his prospering rival mingling in the thick of the _melee_,\ngiving and taking blows; watched every turn of fortune, as it veered\ntowards or against him; saw his enemies pushing their way in triumph,\nand his brave allies falling before the swords of foreigners--a safe\nand inglorious spectator of a battle upon the issue of which his throne\ndepended. The preceeding night he had spent at Carntown Castle, from\nwhence he had marched, not as the leader, but as the overseer, of the\nIrish army; having previously given unequivocal indications of his\nprospects, his hopes, and his designs, by despatching a commissioner to\nWaterford, \"to prepare a ship for conveying him to France, in case of\nany misfortune.\"\n\n\nHANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON.\n\nWhen Babylon the Great was in the zenith of her glory, adjoining the\ngrand palace, and within the general enclosure, the Hanging Gardens\nwere constructed by the king to gratify his wife Amytis, who being a\nnative of Media (she was the daughter of Astyages, the king of Media),\ndesired to have some imitation of her native hills and forests.\n\n    \"Within the walls was raised a lofty mound,\n    Where flowers and aromatic shrubs adorn'd\n    The pensile garden. For Nebassar's queen,\n    Fatigued with Babylonia's level plains,\n    Sigh'd for her Median home, where nature's hand\n    Had scooped the vale, and clothed the mountain's side\n    With many a verdant wood: nor long she pined\n    Till that uxorious monarch called on Art\n    To rival Nature's sweet variety.\n    Forthwith two hundred thousand slaves uprear'd\n    This hill--egregious work; rich fruits o'erhang\n    The sloping vales, and odorous shrubs entwine\n    Their undulating branches.\"\n\nThese gardens, as far as we learn from ancient accounts, contained\na square of above 400 feet on each side, and were carried up in the\nmanner of several large terraces, one above the other, till the height\nequalled that of the walls of the city. The ascent from terrace to\nterrace was by stairs ten feet wide. The whole pile was sustained\nby vast arches, raised on other arches one above another, and was\ndefended and condensed by a wall, surrounding it on every side, of\ntwenty-two feet in thickness. On the top of the arches were first laid\nlarge flat stones, sixteen feet long and four broad; over these was a\nlayer of weeds mixed and cemented with a large quantity of bitumen, on\nwhich were two rows of bricks closely cemented together with the same\nmaterial. The whole was covered with thick sheets of lead, on which lay\nthe mould of the garden. And all this floorage was so contrived as to\nkeep the moisture of the mould from running away through the arches.\nThe earth laid thereon was so deep that large trees might take root\nin it: and with such the terraces were covered, as well as with the\n[...] plants and flowers proper to adorn an eastern pleasure-garden.\nThe trees planted there are represented to have been of various kinds.\nHere grew the larch, that, curving, flings its arms like a falling\nwave; and by it was seen the grey livery of the aspen; the mournful\nsolemnity of the cypress and stately grandeur of the cedar intermingled\nwith the elegant mimosa; besides the light and airy foliage of the\nsilk-tasselled acacia, with its vast clusters of beauteous lilac\nflowers streaming in the wind and glittering in the sun; the umbrageous\nfoliage of the chesnut, and ever-varying verdure of the poplar; the\nbirch, with its feathered branches light as a lady's plumes--all\ncombined with the freshness of the running stream, over which the\nwillow waved its tresses.--\n\n    \"And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,\n     The sweetest flower for scent that blows;\n     And all rare blossoms from every clime\n     Grew in that garden in perfect prime.\"\n\nAll these varied delights of nature were ranged in rows on the\nside of the ascent as well as on the top, so that at a distance it\nappeared to be an immense pyramid covered with wood. The situation of\nthis extraordinary effort of human skill, aided by human wealth and\nperseverance, adjoining the river Euphrates, we must suppose that in\nthe upper terrace was an hydraulic engine, or kind of pump, by which\nthe water was forced up out of the river, and from thence the whole\ngardens were watered, and a supply of the pure element furnished to the\nfountains and reservoirs for cooling the air. In the spaces between\nthe several arches, on which the whole structure rested, were large\nand magnificent apartments, very lightsome, and commanding the most\nbeautiful prospects that even the glowing conceptions of an eastern\nimagination could dream to exist.\n\n\nTHE GREAT BELL OF BURMAH.\n\nAt a temple in the environs of Amarapoora, the capital of Burmah, there\nis an enormous bell, which is thus described by Captain Yule:--\"North\nof the temple, on a low circular terrace, stands the biggest bell in\nBurmah--the biggest in the world, probably, Russia apart. It is slung\non a triple beam of great size, cased and hooped with metal; this beam\nresting on two piers of brickwork, enclosing massive frames of teak.\nThe bell does not swing free. The supports were so much shaken by the\nearthquake, that it was found necessary to put props under the bell,\nconsisting of blocks of wood carved into grotesque figures. Of course\nno tone can now be got out of it. But at any time it must have required\na battering-ram to elicit its music. Small ingots of silver (and some\nsay pieces of gold) may still be traced, unmelted, in the mass, and\nfrom the inside one sees the curious way in which the makers tried to\nstrengthen the parts which suspend it by dropping into the upper part\nof the mould iron chains, round which the metal was run. The Burmese\nreport the bell to contain 555,555 viss of metal (about 900 tons). Its\nprincipal dimensions are as follow:--External diameter at the lip,\n16 feet 3 inches; external diameter 4 feet 8 inches above the lip,\n10 feet; interior height, 11 feet 6 inches; exterior ditto, 12 feet;\ninterior diameter at top, 8 feet 6 inches. The thickness of metal\nvaries from six inches to twelve, and the actual weight of the bell\nis, by a rough calculation, about eighty tons, or one-eleventh of the\npopular estimate. According to Mr. Howard Malcolm, whose authority was\nprobably Colonel Burney, the weight is stated in the Royal Chronicle\nat 55,500 viss, or about ninety tons. This statement is probably,\ntherefore, genuine, and the popular fable merely a multiplication of it\nby ten.\"\n\nThis monster Burmese bell is, therefore, fourteen times as heavy as\nthe great bell of St. Paul's, but only one-third of that given by the\nEmpress Anne to the Cathedral of Moscow.\n\n\nBANDOLIERS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Bandoliers.]\n\nWe here engrave a set of bandoliers, a species of weapon much in vogue\nabout the close of the sixteenth century. The specimen before us\nconsists of nine tin cases covered with leather, with caps to them,\neach containing a charge of powder, and suspended by rings from a cord\nmade to pass through other rings. The caps are retained in their places\nby being contrived so as to slip up and down their own cords. Two\nflaps of leather, on each side, are intended to protect the bandoliers\nfrom rain, and attached to one of these may be perceived a circular\nbullet-purse, made to draw with little strings. This specimen was\nbuckled round the waist by means of a strap; others were worn round the\nbody and over the shoulder. The noise they made, agitated by the wind,\nbut more especially the danger of all taking fire from the match-cord,\noccasioned their disuse, as Sir James Turner tells us, about the year\n1640.\n\n\nTOMB OF DARIUS.\n\nAmong the most remarkable tombs of the ancients, may be noticed the\nsepulchre carved out of the living rock, by order of Darius, the\nwarrior and conqueror king of Persia, for the reception of his own\nremains; and which is existing to this day at Persepolis, after a\nduration of twenty-three centuries.\n\nThe portico is supported by four columns twenty feet in height, and\nin the centre is the form of a doorway, seemingly the entrance to the\ninterior, but it is solid; the entablature is of chaste design. Above\nthe portico there is what may be termed an ark, supported by two rows\nof figures, about the size of life, bearing it on their uplifted hands,\nand at each angle a griffin--an ornament which is very frequent at\nPersepolis. On this stage stands the king, with a bent bow in his hand,\nworshipping the sun, whose image is seen above the altar that stands\nbefore him, while above his head hovers his ferouher, or disembodied\nspirit. This is the good genius that in Persian and Ninevite sculpture\naccompanies the king when performing any important act. On each side\nthe ark are nine niches, each containing a statue in bas-relief. No\nother portion of the tomb was intended to be seen, excepting the\nsculptured front; and we must, therefore, conclude that the entrance\nwas kept secret, and that the avenues were by subterranean passages, so\nconstructed that none but the privileged could find their way. We are\ntold by Theophrastus, that Darius was buried in a coffer of Egyptian\nalabaster; and also that the early Persians buried their dead entire,\npreserving their bodies with honey or wax.\n\n\nTHE GATE ON OLD LONDON BRIDGE.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Gate on Old London Bridge.]\n\nIn the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a strongly embattled gate protected\nthe entrance from Southwark to Old London Bridge, and it was usually\ngarnished with traitors' heads in \"rich abundance,\" as may be seen\nin the accompanying cut, which is copied from Visscher's view, in\n1579. The bridge was at that period covered with houses, a narrow\nroad passing through arcades beneath them, and they abutted on props\nover the river on either side. The bridge was proudly spoken of by\nour ancestors. Thus, in the translation of Ortelius, published by J.\nShaw, in 1603, he says of the Thames:--\"It is beautified with statelye\npallaces, built on the side thereof; moreover, a sumptuous bridge\nsustayned on nineteen arches, with excellent and beauteous housen built\nthereon.\" Camden, in his great work, the \"Britannica,\" says, \"It may\nworthily carry away the prize from all the bridges in Europe,\" being\n\"furnished on both sides with passing faire houses, joining one to\nanother in the manner of a street.\"\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY PONDS AND FISH.\n\nThe ponds in the department of Ain in France are 1667 in number. The\nindustry and ingenuity of man have converted the marshes into fertile\nplains and productive ponds, by constructing <DW18>s from one hill to\nthe other, for the plateaux are covered with small hills. When the\nproprietor of one of these ponds wishes to cultivate it, he draws off\nthe water into the <DW18> attached to it. Wheat, barley, and oats are\nthen sown, and the seed thus fertilised by the slime produces a crop\ndouble that produced by the land in the vicinity. After the harvest\nis collected, the water is permitted to return to its former bed, and\ncarp, tench, and roach are then thrown into it. Some of these ponds\nwill support 100,000 of carp, and 100 pounds of little tench and roach.\nIn the course of two years these carp, which weighed only one ounce\nand a-half, will have attained the size of two pounds and a half. The\nfishing begins in April, and is continued until November. The increase\nof the fish is as one to five.\n\n\nTHE CEREMONIAL OF MAKING THE KING'S BED.\n\nThe following account of the old ceremony of making the King's bed in\nthe time of Henry the Eighth, was sent to the Society of Antiquaries,\nin 1776, by Mr. J. C. Brooke, of the Heralds' College, F.S.A. &c. In a\nletter to the president, he says,--\n\n\"It is extracted from an original manuscript, elegantly written,\nbeautifully illuminated, and richly bound, which was some time in the\nlibrary of Henry, Duke of Norfolk, earl marshal of England, to whom it\ncame by descent from Thomas, the great Duke of Norfolk, beheaded in\nthe reign of Queen Elizabeth; who married Mary, daughter and coheir\nof Henry Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, lord chamberlain to King Henry\nthe Eighth. It contains the whole duty of the lord chamberlain, and\nof the officers in his department; is the original copy kept for the\ninformation of that earl; and had been compiled by order of, and\napproved by, the King himself in council.\"\n\n\"_The oolde ordre of Makynge the Kynges Bedd not to used nor done, but\nas Hys Grace woll comaund and apoynte from tyme to tyme herafter._\n\n\"_Furste_, a groome or a page to take a torche, and to goo to the\nwarderobe of the kynges bedd, and bryng theym of the warderobe with\nthe kynges stuff unto the chambr for makyng of the same bedde. Where\nas aught to be a gentylman-usher, iiii yomen of the chambr for to make\nthe same bedde. The groome to stande at the bedds feete with his torch.\nThey of the warderobe openyng the kinges stuff of hys bedde upon a\nfayre sheete, bytwen the sayde groome and the bedds fote, iii yeomen,\nor two at the leste, in every syde of the bedde; the gentylman-usher\nand parte commaundyng theym what they shall doo. A yoman with a dagger\nto searche the strawe of the kynges bedde that there be none untreuth\ntherein. And this yoman to caste up the bedde of downe upon that,\nand oon of theym to tomble over yt for the serche thereof. Then they\nto bete and tufle the sayde bedde, and to laye oon then the bolster\nwithout touchyng of the bedd where as it aught to lye. Then they of\nthe warderobe to delyver theym a fustyan takyng the saye therof. All\ntheys yomen to laye theyr hands theroon at oones, that they touch not\nthe bedd, tyll yt be layed as it sholde be by the comaundement of the\nussher. And so the furste sheet in lyke wyse, and then to trusse in\nboth sheete and fustyan rownde about the bedde of downe. The warderoper\nto delyver the second sheete unto two yomen, they to crosse it over\ntheyr arme, and to stryke the bedde as the ussher shall more playnly\nshewe unto theym. Then every yoman layeing hande upon the sheete, to\nlaye the same sheete upon the bedde. And so the other fustyan upon or\nii with such covervnge as shall content the kynge. Thus doon, the ii\nyomen next to the bedde to laye down agene the overmore fustyan, the\nyomen of the warderobe delyverynge theym a pane sheete, the sayde yoman\ntherewythall to cover the sayde bedde. And so then to laye down the\novermost sheete from the beddes heed. And then the sayd ii yomen to lay\nall the overmost clothes of a quarter of the bedde. Then the warderoper\nto delyver unto them such pyllowes as shall please the kynge. The sayd\nyoman to laye theym upon the bolster and the heed sheete with whych the\nsayde yoman shall cover the sayde pyllowes. And so to trusse the endes\nof the sayde sheete under every ende of the bolster. And then the sayd\nwarderoper to delyver unto them ii lyttle small pyllowes, werwythall\nthe squyres for the bodye or gentylman-ussher shall give the saye to\nthe warderoper, and to the yoman whych have layde on hande upon the\nsayd bedde. And then the sayd ii yomen to lay upon the sayde bedde\ntoward the bolster as yt was bifore. They makyng a crosse and kissynge\nyt where there handes were. Then ii yomen next to the feete to make the\nfeers as the ussher shall teche theym. And so then every of them sticke\nup the aungel about the bedde, and to lette down the corteyns of the\nsayd bedde, or sparver.\n\n\"Item, a squyer for the bodye or gentylman-ussher aught to sett the\nkynges sword at hys beddes heed.\n\n\"Item, a squyer for the bodye aught to charge a secret groome or page,\nto have the kepynge of the sayde bedde with a lyght unto the time the\nkynge be disposed to goo to yt.\n\n\"Item, a groome or page aught to take a torche, whyle the bedde ys yn\nmakyng, to feche a loof of brede, a pott wyth ale, a pott wyth wine,\nfor them that maketh the bedde, and every man.\n\n\"Item, the gentylman-ussher aught to forbede that no manner of man\ndo sett eny dysshe upon the kynge's bedde, for fere of hurtying of\nthe kynge's ryche counterpoynt that lyeth therupon. And that the sayd\nussher take goode heede, that noo man wipe or rubbe their handes uppon\nnone arras of the kynges, wherby they myght bee hurted, in the chambr\nwhere the kynge ys specially, and in all other.\"\n\n\nORIGIN OF SANDWICHES.\n\nTo the memory of \"Lord Sandwich\" belongs the name of that edible.\nBeing, during his administration (as was very usual with him), at a\ngambling-house, he had, in the fascination of play, for more than five\nand twenty hours forgotten fatigue and hunger, when suddenly, feeling\ndisposed to break his fast, though still riveted to the table, he\ncalled to bid some one bring anything that was to be had to eat, which\nhappened to prove a slice of beef, and two pieces of bread. Placing\nthem together for the sake of expedition, he devoured them with the\ngreatest relish. The most ecstatic encomiums published his discovery,\nand giving it his name, bequeathed it as a memento to his country, as\none of the most important acts of his administration.\n\n\nTHE TREATY-STONE AT LIMERICK.\n\nThe city of Limerick is very famous in history. Before it, in 1651,\nIreton \"sate down;\" there he continued to \"sit\" for six months; and\nunderneath its walls the fierce republican died of plague. Greater\ncelebrity, and higher honour, were, however, obtained by Limerick in\n1690. Early in August, William summoned it to surrender; the French\ngeneral, Boileau, who commanded the garrison--\"rather for the King\nof France than the King of England\"--returned for answer, that \"he\nwas surprised at the summons, and thought the best way to gain the\ngood opinion of the Prince of Orange was to defend the place for his\nmaster King James.\" The siege was at once commenced. The flower of the\nIrish army were within its walls, or in its immediate neighbourhood;\nthe counties of Clare and Galway were open to them, from which to\ndraw supplies; and a French fleet rode triumphantly in the Shannon.\nThe garrison, however, were little disposed to act in concert: the\njealousy of the commanders of the French and Irish had spread to their\ntroops; and they cherished feelings of contempt or hatred towards each\nother, that argued ill for their success in opposing the steady and\ndisciplined forces of William.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Treaty-Stone at Limerick.]\n\nYet the Irish succeeded; the siege was raised on the 30th of August.\nBut, in the autumn of 1691, it endured a second, which occupied about\nsix months; when the garrison, wearied of a struggle from which they\ncould derive nothing but glory, on the 23rd of September, a cessation\nof hostilities took place; an amicable intercourse was opened between\nthe two armies; and articles of capitulation were, after a few brief\ndelays, agreed upon. The \"violated treaty\" was signed on the 3rd of\nOctober, 1691; it consisted of two parts, civil and military. It is\nsaid to have been signed by the several contracting parties on a large\nstone, near to Thomond Bridge, on the county of Clare side of the\nriver. The stone remains in the position it occupied at the period, and\nis an object of curiosity to strangers, as well as of interest to the\ncitizens of Limerick. We, therefore, thought it desirable to procure a\ndrawing of the relic, which retains its name of \"the Treaty Stone.\"\n\n\nTHE TEMPLARS' BANNER CALLED BEAUSEANT.\n\nWhen Constantine the Great was on the eve of a battle with Maxentius,\nwe are told that a luminous standard appeared to him in the sky with a\ncross upon it, and this inscription:--\"_In hoc signo vinces_--By this\nsign you shall conquer;\" and that this sign so encouraged Constantine\nand his soldiers that they gained the next day a great victory.\n\nWhen Waldemar II. of Denmark was engaged in a great battle with the\nLivonians in the year 1219, it is said that a sacred banner fell from\nheaven into the midst of his army, and so revived the courage of his\ntroops, that they gained a complete victory over the Livonians; and\nin memory of the event, Waldemar instituted an order of knighthood,\ncalled \"St. Danebrog,\" or the strength of the Danes, and which is\nstill the principal order of knighthood in Denmark. Now, taking these\nlegends for as much as they are worth, and no more; what do they prove?\nNot that this miraculous standard and cross came to the assistance\nof Constantine; not that this miraculous banner came to the aid of\nWaldemar; but they prove that such was the paramount importance\nattached to the sacred banner among the forces, that wherever it was\npresent, it was a great means of inspiriting the men with increased\nconfidence and courage, and so contributed to the victory.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Beauseant.]\n\nThe great importance attached to the banner in the middle ages is not\nto be wondered at, when we consider that it was a kind of connecting\nlink between the military and the clergy; it was a religious symbol\napplied to a military purpose, and this was the feeling which animated\nthe Crusaders and the Templars in their great struggle against the\nenemies of Christianity. The contest then was between the crescent and\nthe cross--between Christ and Mahomet. The Knights Templars had a very\nremarkable banner, being simply divided into black and white, the white\nportion symbolising peace to their friends, the black portion evil to\ntheir enemies, and their dreaded war cry, \"BEAUSEANT.\"\n\n\nSWORD-FISH _v._ WHALES.\n\nSo boundless is the sword-fish's rage and fury against whales in\nparticular, that many observers imagine his sallies against rocks and\ntimber to originate in an error of judgment, that all these lunges are\nintended to punish leviathan, and are only misdirected in consequence\nof the imperfect vision which prevents this scomber, like many of\nhis family, from accurately distinguishing forms. Whenever a supposed\nwhale is descried, our savage _sabreur_ rushes forward to intercept\nhis progress, and suddenly flashing before his victim, either alone\nor in conjunction with some other unfriendly fish, instantly proceeds\nto the attack. Relations of such sea-fights, attested by credible\neye-witnesses, are not uncommon; we content ourselves with the citation\nof one of unimpeachable accuracy. Captain Crow, cited by Mr. Yarrell,\nrelates that in a voyage to Memel, on a calm night, just off the\nHebrides, all hands were called up to witness a strange combat between\nsome thrashers (carcharias vulpes) and a sword-fish leagued together\nagainst a whale; as soon as the back of the ill-starred monster was\nseen rising a little above the water, the thrashers sprang several\nyards into the air, and struck him with their descending tails, the\nreiterated percussions of which sounded, we are told, like a distant\nvolley of musketry. The sword-fish meanwhile attacked the whale from\nbelow, getting close under his belly, and with such energy and effect\nthat there could be little doubt of the issue of a fray, which the\nnecessity of prosecuting their voyage prevented the crew from watching\nto its close. The sword-fish is not less remarkable for strength than\npugnacity, the depot of its great physical powers being, as in most\nscombers, in the tail.\n\n\nWEALTH OF SPAIN UNDER THE MOORS.\n\nThe Moors, whose conquest and expulsion were attended with such\natrocities, and such triumphs to the Catholic church, were by far the\nmost industrious and skilful part of the Spanish population, and their\nloss was a blow to the greatness and prosperity of that kingdom from\nwhich it has never recovered. The literary activity and commercial\nenterprise of the Arabs, which the wise policy of their Caliphs\nencouraged, contributed both to enrich and adorn their adopted country.\nCordova, the seat of the Ommiades, was scarcely inferior, in point of\nwealth and magnitude, to its proud rival on the banks of the Tigris.\nA space of twenty-four miles in length, and six in breadth, along the\nbanks of the Guadalquiver, was occupied with palaces, streets, gardens,\nand public edifices; and for ten miles the citizens could travel by\nthe light of lamps along an uninterrupted extent of buildings. In the\nreign of Almansor it could boast of 270,000 houses, 80,455 shops,\n911 baths, 3,877 mosques, from the minarets of which a population of\n800,000 were daily summoned to prayers. The seraglio of the Caliph, his\nwives, concubines, and black eunuchs, amounted to 6,300 persons; and he\nwas attended to the field by a guard of 12,000 horsemen, whose belts\nand scimitars were studded with gold. Granada was equally celebrated\nfor its luxury and its learning. The royal demesnes extended to the\ndistance of twenty miles, the revenues of which were set apart to\nmaintain the fortifications of the city. Of the duty on grain, the\nking's exchequer received about L15,000 yearly, an immense sum at that\ntime, when wheat sold at the rate of sixpence a bushel. The consumption\nof 250,000 inhabitants kept 130 water-mills constantly at work in the\nsuburbs. The population of this small kingdom under the Moors is\nsaid to have amounted to 3,000,000, which is now diminished perhaps\nto one-fifth of that number. Its temples and palaces have shared the\nsame decay. The Alhambra stands solitary, dismantled, and neglected.\nThe interior remains of the palace are in tolerable preservation, and\npresent a melancholy picture of the romantic magnificence of its former\nkings. Seville, which had continued nearly 200 years the seat of a\npetty kingdom, enjoyed considerable reputation as a place of wealth\nand commerce. The population in 1247 was computed at 300,000 persons,\nwhich, in the sixteenth century, had decreased one-third. It was one\nof the principal marts for olives in the Moorish dominions; and so\nextensive was the trade in this article alone that the _axarafe_, or\nplantations round the suburbs, employed farm-houses and olive-presses\nto the amount of 100,000, being more than is now to be found in the\nwhole province of Andalusia.\n\n\nTHE FIRST OPERA.\n\nThe first composer who tried his hand at setting an opera to music was\nFrancisco Bamirino, an Italian artist; and the piece to which he lent\nthe charm of a melodious accompaniment, was the \"Conversion of St.\nPaul,\" which was brought out at Rome in 1460.\n\n\nRUINS OF EUROPA.\n\nLady Sheil, in her \"Life in Persia,\" thus describes some wonderful\nruins which she saw about thirty miles from Tehran:--\n\n\"From near Verameen a most remarkable antiquity still survives the\nlapse of twenty centuries, that is, if what we hear be true. It\nconsists of an immense rampart, twenty or thirty feet in height, and\nof proportional thickness, including a space of about half a mile in\nlength and nearly the same in breadth. It is in the form of a square;\nthe rampart is continuous, and at short intervals is strengthened by\nbastions of prodigious size. The whole is constructed of unbaked bricks\nof large dimensions, and is in a state of extraordinary preservation.\nThe traces of a ditch of great size, though nearly filled up, are\nevident in front of the rampart. No buildings are found inside, where\nnothing is visible excepting a few mounds,--not a single habitation or\nhuman being. The solitude of this striking vestige of antiquity adds\nto its solemnity. It stood alone; Elboorz, distant only a few miles,\ngazing down on its hoary walls, with Demawend, in its garments of\nsnow, to complete the scene. From no place have I had a finer view of\nthis grand mountain, which seemed to lie exactly to the north. I am\ninformed that these magnificent ruins represent Europa, a city built\nby Seleucus, which, if true, would make it upwards of two thousand\nyears old. On seeing the perfect state of the ruins, and the materials\nof which they are composed, one feels no hesitation in crediting so\nvenerable an antiquity. Seleucus chose the spot well. The district of\nVerameen is renowned for its fertility, though not at this period for\nthe salubrity of its climate. The surrounding country is covered with\nearthen mounds, denoting former edifices, which, if explored, might\nreveal objects worthy of the erudition and intellect of even Sir Henry\nRawlinson.\"\n\n\nCELEBRATED GUN.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Gun of Charles IX. of France.]\n\nThe gun, of which the annexed is a sketch, is one of the many\ncuriosities of the Londesborough Museum. It once formed part of the\ncollection of Prince Potemkin, and was originally the property of\nCharles IX. of France; it is traditionally reported to have been the\ngun he used in firing on his Huguenot subjects, from one of the windows\nof the Louvre, during the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The barrel is\nrichly chased in high relief, with a stag-hunt amid foliage. The stock\nis inlaid with ivory, sculptured into a series of hunting scenes,\nknights on horseback.\n\nThe dreadful massacre of Saint Bartholomew commenced at Paris on the\nnight of the festival of that saint, August 24th, 1572. Above 500\npersons of rank, and 10,000 of inferior condition, perished in Paris\nalone, besides those slaughtered in the provinces. The king, who had\nbeen persuaded that the destruction of the Huguenots to the last man\nwas necessary to the safety of his throne, beheld the slaughter from a\nwindow, and being carried away by the example of those whose murderous\ndoings he witnessed, ordered some long arquebusses to be brought,\nand on their being loaded, and handed to him one after another, he\nfor some time continued to fire on the unfortunate fugitives as they\npassed, crying at the same time with a loud voice, \"Kill, kill.\" He\nafterwards went and inspected the bodies of the slain, and expressed\nhis satisfaction at the effective manner in which his orders had been\nexecuted.\n\n\nTOMB OF RAFFAELLE.\n\nThe great painter Raffaelle died at Rome, April 7th 1520, at the early\nage of thirty-seven. He was buried in the Pantheon, in a chapel which\nwas afterwards called Raffaelle's Chapel. For more than a century and\na half his tomb had only a plain epitaph, but Carlo Maratti desired to\nplace a more striking memorial of Raffaelle's resting-place than the\nsimple inscription, and accordingly, in the year 1764, a marble bust\nof the painter, executed by Paolo Nardini, was placed in one of the\noval niches on each side of the chapel. The epitaph to Maria Bibiena\n(Raffaelle's betrothed) was removed to make way for Maratti's new\ninscription; and it was currently believed that the skull of Raffaelle\nwas removed; at least such was the history given of a skull shown\nas the painter's, religiously preserved by the Academy of St. Luke,\nand descanted on by phrenologists as indicative of all the qualities\nwhich \"the divine painter\" possessed. But scepticism played its part;\ndoubts of the truth of this story led to doubts of Vasari's statement\nrespecting the exact locality of Raffaelle's tomb. Matters were brought\nto a final issue by the discovery of a document proving this skull to\nbe that of Don Desiderio de Adjutorio, founder of the society called\nthe Virtuosi, in 1542. Thereupon, this society demanded the head of its\nfounder from the Academy of St. Luke; but they would neither abandon\nthat, nor the illusion that they possessed the veritable skull of the\ngreat artist. Arguments ran high, and it was at length determined to\nsettle the question by an examination of the spot, which took place on\nthe 13th of September 1833, in the presence of the Academies of St.\nLuke and of Archaeology, the Commission of the Fine Arts (including\nOverback and others), the members of the Virtuosi, the governor of Rome\n(Monsignor Grimaldi), and the Cardinal Zurla, the representative of the\npope.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Tomb of Raffaelle.]\n\nThe result will be best given in the words of an eye-witness, Signor\nNibby (one of the Commission of Antiquities and Fine Arts), who thus\ndescribed the whole to M. Quatremere de Quincy, the biographer of\nRaffaelle:--\"The operations were conducted on such a principle of exact\nmethod as to be chargeable with over nicety. After various ineffectual\nattempts in other directions, we at length began to dig under the altar\nof the Virgin itself, and taking as a guide the indications furnished\nby Vasari, we at length came to some masonry of the length of a man's\nbody. The labourers raised the stone with the utmost care, and having\ndug within for about a foot and a half, came to a void space. You can\nhardly conceive the enthusiasm of us all, when, by a final effort, the\nworkmen exhibited to our view the remains of a coffin, with an entire\nskeleton in it, lying thus as originally placed, and thinly covered\nwith damp dust. We saw at once quite clearly that the tomb had never\nbeen opened, and it thus became manifest that the skull possessed by\nthe Academy of St. Luke was not that of Raffaelle. Our first care was,\nby gentle degrees, to remove from the body the dust which covered it,\nand which we religiously collected, with the purpose of placing it in\na new sarcophagus. Amongst it we found, in tolerable preservation,\npieces of the coffin, which was made of deal, fragments of a painting\nwhich had ornamented the lid, several bits of Tiber clay, formations\nfrom the water of the river, which had penetrated into the coffin by\ninfiltration, an iron stelletta, a sort of spur, with which Raffaelle\nhad been decorated by Leo X, several _fibulae_, and a number of metal\n_anelli_, portions of his dress.\" These small rings had fastened the\nshroud; several were retained by the sculptor Fibris, who also took\ncasts of the head and hand, and Camuccini took views of the tomb and\nits precious contents; from one of these our cut is copied.\n\nOn the following day the body was further examined by professional\nmen: the skeleton was found to measure five feet seven inches, the\nnarrowness of the coffin indicated a slender and delicate frame. This\naccords with the contemporary accounts, which say he was of a refined\nand delicate constitution; his frame was all spirit; his physical\nstrength so limited that it was a wonder he existed so long as he did.\nThe investigation completed, the body was exhibited to the public from\nthe 20th to the 24th, and then was again placed in a new coffin of\nlead, and that in a marble sarcophagus presented by the pope, and taken\nfrom the antiquities in the Museum of the Vatican. A solemn mass was\nthen announced for the evening of the 18th of October. The Pantheon was\nthen illuminated, as for a funeral; the sarcophagus, with its contents,\nwas placed in exactly the same spot whence the remains had been taken.\nThe presidents of the various academies were present, with the Cavalier\nFabris at their head. Each bore a brick, which he inserted in the\nbrickwork with which the sepulchre was walled in. And so the painter\nawaits \"the resurrection of the just,\" and the fellowship of saints\nand angels, of which his inspired pencil has given us the highest\nrealisation on earth.\n\n\nANTIMONY.\n\nThe origin of the use of _anti-moine_, or antimony, is a remarkable\ncircumstance. Basil Valentin, superior of a college of religionists,\nhaving observed that this mineral fattened the pigs, imagined that it\nwould produce the same effect on the holy brotherhood. But the case was\nseriously different; the unfortunate fathers, who greedily made use of\nit, died in a short time, and this is the origin of its name, according\nto the pure French word. In spite of this unfortunate beginning,\nParacelsus resolved to bring this mineral into practice; and by mixing\nit with other preparations make it useful. The Faculty at Paris were\non this occasion divided into two parties, the one maintaining that\nantimony was a poison; the other affirmed that it was an excellent\nremedy. The dispute became more general, and the Parliament and\nthe College of the Sorbonne interfered in the matter; but sometime\nafterwards people began to judge rightly concerning this excellent\nmineral; and its wonderful and salutary effects have occasioned the\nFaculty to place it among their best medicines.\n\n\nPERSONAL APPEARANCE OF MAHOMET.\n\nFor the personal appearance and private life of Mahomet, we must rely\non the Arabian writers, who dwell with fond and proud satisfaction on\nthe graces and intellectual gifts with which nature had endowed him. He\nwas of a middle stature, of a clear, fair skin, and ruddy complexion.\nHis head and features, though large, were well proportioned; he had\na prominent forehead, large dark-brown eyes, an aquiline nose, and\na thick bushy beard. His mouth, though rather wide, was handsomely\nformed, and adorned with teeth white as pearls, the upper row not\nclosely set, but in regular order--which appeared when he smiled, and\ngave an agreeable expression to his countenance. He had a quick ear,\nand a fine sonorous voice. His dark eyebrows approached each other\nwithout meeting. His hair fell partly in ringlets about his temples,\nand partly hung down between his shoulders. To prevent whiteness, the\nsupposed effect of Satanic influence, he stained it, as the Arabs\noften do still, of a shining reddish colour. His frame was muscular\nand compact--robust rather than corpulent. When he walked, he carried\na staff, in imitation of the other prophets, and had a singular\naffectation of being thought to resemble Abraham. The assertion of\nthe Greeks and Christians, that he was subject to epilepsy, must be\nascribed to ignorance or malice.\n\n\nSTIRRUPS.\n\nFrom every information we have been able to collect, we believe that\nthe appendage of stirrups were not added to saddles before the sixth\ncentury. It is said, that previous to the introduction of stirrups,\nthe young and agile used to mount their horses by vaulting upon them,\nwhich many did in an expert and graceful manner; of course, practice\nwas essential to this perfection. That this should be afforded, wooden\nhorses were placed in the Campus Martius, where this exercise was\nperformed of mounting or dismounting on either side; first, without,\nand next with arms. Cavalry had also occasionally a strap of leather,\nor a metallic projection affixed to their spears, in or upon which the\nfoot being placed, the ascent became more practicable. Respecting the\nperiod of this invention, Montfaucon has presumed that the invention\nmust have been subsequent to the use of saddles; however, opposed to\nthis opinion, an ingenious argument has been offered, that it is\npossible they might have been anterior to that invention; because, it\nis said, they might have been appended to a girth round the body of the\nhorse. Both Hippocrates and Galen speak of a disease to which the feet\nand ancles were subject, from long riding, occasioned by suspension\nof the feet without a resting-place. Suetonius, the Roman, informs us\nthat Germanicus, the father of Caligula, was wont to ride after dinner,\nto strengthen his ancles, by the action of riding affording the blood\nfreer circulation in the part.\n\n\nTHE GREAT SHOEMADOO PAGODA.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Great Shoemadoo Pagoda.]\n\nThe Buddhist temple of which we here give an engraving is the great\nShoemadoo Pagoda at Pegu. Among other things it is interesting as\nbeing one of the earliest attempts at that class of decoration, which\nconsists in having at the base of the building a double range of small\npagodas, a mode of ornamentation that subsequently became typical in\nHindu architecture; their temples and spires being covered, and indeed\ncomposed of innumerable models of themselves, clustered together so as\nto make up a whole.\n\nThe building stands on two terraces, the lower one about 10 ft. high,\nand 1391 ft. square: the upper one, 20 ft. in height, is 684 ft.\nsquare; from the centre of it rises the pagoda, the diameter of whose\nbase is 395 ft. The small pagodas are 27 ft. high, and 108 or 110 in\nnumber; while the great pagoda itself rises to the height of 331 ft.\nabove its terrace, or 361 ft. above the country, thus reaching a height\nnearly equal to St. Paul's Cathedral; while the side of the upper\nterrace is only 83 ft. less than that of the great Pyramid.\n\nTradition ascribes its commencement to two merchants, who raised it to\nthe height of 12 cubits at an age slightly subsequent to that of Buddha\nhimself. Successive kings of Pegu added to this from time to time, till\nat last it assumed its present form, most probably about three or four\ncenturies ago.\n\n\nPEST HOUSE DURING THE PLAGUE IN TOTHILL FIELDS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Pest House in Tothill Fields.]\n\nTothill Fields, a locality between Pimlico and the Thames, was\nanciently the manor of Tothill, belonging to John Maunsel, chancellor,\nwho in 1256, entertained here Henry III. and his court at a vast feast\nin tents and pavilions. Here were decided wagers of battle and appeals\nby combat. Necromancy, sorcery and witchcraft were punished here; and\n\"royal solemnities and goodly jousts were held here.\" In Culpeper's\ntime the fields were famous for parsley. In 1642 a battery and\nbreastwork were erected here. Here also were built the \"Five Houses,\"\nor \"Seven Chimneys,\" as pest-houses for victims of the plague. One of\nthese pest-houses is given in the above engraving, taken from an old\nprint. In the plague time of 1665, the dead were buried \"in the open\nTuttle Fields.\" In Queen Anne's reign here was William Well's head\ngarden on the site of Vincent-square. The Train Bands were drawn out\nhere in 1651. In the last century the fields were a noted duel-ground,\nand here, in 1711, Sir Cholmeley Deering, M.P., was killed by the first\nshot of Mr. Richard Thornhill, who was tried for murder and acquitted,\nbut found guilty of manslaughter and burnt in the hand.\n\n\nTHE THUGS.\n\nThe following account of these horribly extraordinary men is taken from\nDr. Hooker's Himalayan Journals; writing at Mirzapore, he says:--\"Here\nI had the pleasure of meeting Lieutenant Ward, one of the suppressors\nof Thuggee (_Thuggee_, in Hindostan, signifies a deceiver; fraud,\nnot open force, being employed). This gentlemen kindly showed me the\napprovers, or king's evidence of his establishment, belonging to those\nthree classes of human scourges, the Thug, Dakoit, and Poisoner. Of\nthese the first was the Thug, a mild-looking man, who had been born and\nbred to the profession: he had committed many murders, saw no harm in\nthem, and felt neither shame nor remorse. His organs of observation and\ndestructiveness were large, and the cerebellum small. He explained to\nme how the gang waylay the unwary traveller, enter into conversation\nwith him, and have him suddenly seized, when the superior throws his\nown girdle round the victim's neck and strangles him, pressing the\nknuckles against the spine. Taking off his own girdle, he passed it\nround my arm, and showed me the turn as coolly as a sailor once taught\nme the hangman's knot. The Thug is of any caste, and from any part of\nIndia. The profession have particular stations, which they generally\nselect for murder, throwing the body of their victim into a well.\n\n\"Their origin is uncertain, but supposed to be very ancient, soon\nafter the Mahommedan conquest. They now claim a divine original, and\nare supposed to have supernatural powers, and to be the emissaries\nof the divinity, like the wolf, the tiger, and the bear. It is only\nlately that they have swarmed so prodigiously--seven original gangs\nhaving migrated from Delhi to the Gangetic provinces about 200 years\nago, from whence all the rest have sprung. Many belong to the most\namiable, intelligent, and respectable classes of the lower and even\nmiddle ranks: they love their profession, regard murder as sport, and\nare never haunted with dreams, nor troubled with pangs of conscience\nduring hours of solitude, or in the last moments of life. The victim\nis an acceptable sacrifice to the goddess Davee, who by some classes\nis supposed to eat the lifeless body, and thus save her votaries the\nnecessity of concealing it.\n\n\"They are extremely superstitious, always consulting omens, such as\nthe direction in which a hare or a jackal crosses the road; and even\nfar more trivial circumstances will determine the fate of a dozen of\npeople, and perhaps of an immense treasure. All worship the pickaxe,\nwhich is symbolical of their profession, and an oath sworn on it binds\ncloser than on the Koran. The consecration of this weapon is a most\nelaborate ceremony, and takes place only under certain trees. The\nThugs rise through various grades: the lowest are scouts; the second,\nsextors; the third, are holders of the victim's hands; the highest,\nstranglers.\n\n\"Though all agree in never practising cruelty, or robbing previous\nto murder--never allowing any but infants to escape (and these are\ntrained to Thuggee), and never leaving a trace of such goods as may be\nidentified--there are several variations in their mode of conducting\noperations: some tribes spare certain castes, others none; murder of\nwoman is against all rules; but the practice crept into certain gangs,\nand this it is which led to their discountenance by the goddess Davee,\nand the consequent downfall of the system. Davee, they say, allowed the\nBritish to punish them, because a certain gang had murdered the mothers\nto obtain their daughters to be sold to prostitution.\n\n\"Major Sleeman has constructed a map demonstrating the number of\n'bails,' or regular stations for committing murder, in the kingdom of\nOude alone, which is 170 miles long by 100 broad, and in which are 274,\nwhich are regarded by the Thug with as much satisfaction and interest\nas a game preserve is in England; nor are these 'bails' less numerous\nthan in other parts of India. Of twenty assassins who were examined,\none frankly confessed to having been engaged in 931 murders, and the\nleast guilty of the number in 24. Sometimes 150 persons collected into\none gang, and their profits have often been immense, the murder of six\npersons on one occasion yielding 82,000 rupees, upwards of L8,000.\"\n\n\nENGLISH EARTHENWARE AND SHAKSPEARE'S JUG.\n\nMuch uncertainty exists regarding the period when the manufacture\nof fine earthenware was first introduced into England. Among the\ndocuments in the Foedera, occur various lists of articles, ordered to\nbe purchased in England for several foreign potentates, and permitted\nto be exported for their use without paying the Custom duties. One of\nthese lists, dated in 1428, enumerates many objects as then shipped\nfor the use of the King of Portugal and the Countess of Holland, among\nwhich are \"six silver cups, each of the weight of six marks (or four\npounds), a large quantity of woollen stuffs, and 2000 plates, dishes,\nsaucers, and other vessels of _electrum_.\"\n\nAs these articles were, no doubt, the produce of the country, it\nwould appear that utensils for domestic use were then made of metal,\nand not of pottery; and it was not till some time afterwards that\nthe latter was introduced by the Dutch, whose manufactory at Delft\nprobably existed as early as the fifteenth century, and who sent large\nquantities of their ware to England. The skill and excellence of the\nEnglish artizans consisted in the manufacture of silver and other\nmetals. Of this, instances are recorded in the correspondence of La\nMothe Fenelon, the French ambassador at the Court of Queen Elizabeth;\nand in the travels of Hentzner, who visited England in 1598. Both\ndescribe in glowing colours the silver plate which adorned the buffets,\nas well as the magnificent furniture and decorations of the palaces of\nthat sumptuous queen.\n\nStill Elizabeth, who so highly prided herself upon the state and\nsplendour of her establishment, and who was in constant intercourse\nwith the Court of France and the Low Countries, was not likely to\nhave remained altogether satisfied without possessing, among the\nmanufactures of her own kingdom, something similar to the fine Fayence\nthen in use in every foreign court. Though it is probable that Delft\nware procured from Holland was first used, it may reasonably be\npresumed that the ware called by her name was afterwards manufactured,\nunder her immediate patronage, for the use of the court and the\nnobility; and although there is no record of the fact, it is supposed\nthat Stratford-le-Bow was the site of the manufactory.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Shakspeare's Jug.]\n\nShakspeare's Jug, of which we here give an engraving, which has been\ncarefully preserved by the descendants of the immortal bard since the\nyear 1616, is, perhaps, the most remarkable example of the Elizabethan\npottery now existing. The shape partakes very much of the form of the\nold German or Dutch ewer, without, however, the usual top or cover;\nthe one now attached to the jug being a modern addition of silver,\nwith a medallion bust of the poet in the centre, beautifully executed\nand inscribed \"WM. SHAKSPEARE, AT THE AGE OF FORTY.\" It is about ten\ninches high, and sixteen inches round at the largest part, and is\ndivided lengthwise into eight compartments, having each a mythological\nsubject in high relief. All of these, although executed in the quaint\nstyle of the period, possess considerable merit. Some of them, indeed,\nmanifest much masterly grouping of both human figures and animals; and\nsuch is the admirable state of preservation of this very interesting\nold English relic, that as correct a judgment may be formed of its\nworkmanship, as in the days of its first possessor; at all events, as\nregards the degree of perfection to which English Pottery had attained\nin the Elizabethan age; an inspection of this jug will justify the\npresumption, that her Court was not less tastefully provided in that\nrespect than those of the Continent, notwithstanding the obscurity\nin which the precise locality and extent of the manufactory is\nunfortunately involved.\n\n\nPRICE OF MACKAREL.\n\nThe price of mackarel, in May, 1807, in the Billingsgate market, was\nas follows:--Forty guineas for every hundred of the first cargo, which\nmade the fish come to seven shillings apiece! The next supplies were\nalso exorbitant, though much less so than the first, fetching thirteen\npounds per hundred, or two shillings apiece. The very next year the\nformer deficiencies were more than made up, for it appears that during\nthe season 1808, mackarel were hawked about the streets of Dover, at\nsixty for a shilling, or five for a penny; whilst they so blockaded\nthe Brighton coast that on one night it became impossible to land the\nmultitudes taken, and at last both fish and nets went to the bottom\ntogether.\n\n\nPOPE'S CHAIR.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Alexander Pope's Chair.]\n\nIn one of the rooms at that stately and picturesque baronial hall,\nAudley End, the seat of Lord Braybrooke, there is preserved the\ninteresting relic which forms the subject of the annexed engraving.\nIts history is thus told on a brass plate inserted in the back--\"This\nchair, once the property of Alexander Pope, was given as a keep-sake\nto the nurse who attended him in his illness; from her descendants\nit was obtained by the Rev. Thomas Ashley, curate of the parish of\nBinfield, and kindly presented by him to Lord Braybrooke, in 1844,\nnearly a century after the poet's decease.\" It is apparently of Flemish\nworkmanship, and of rather singular design; in the centre medallion is\na figure of Venus holding a dart in her right hand, and a burning heart\nin her left. The narrow back and wide-circling arms give a peculiarly\nquaint appearance to this curious relic of one of our greatest poets.\n\n\nFIRST WIND-MILLS.\n\nMabillon mentions a diploma of the year 1105, in which a convent in\nFrance is allowed to erect water and windmills, _molendina ad ventum_.\n\nBartolomeo Verde proposed to the Venetians in 1332, to build a\nwind-mill. When his plan had been examined, he had a piece of ground\nassigned him, which he was to retain if his undertaking succeeded\nwithin a specified time. In 1373, the city of Spires caused a wind-mill\nto be erected, and sent to the Netherlands for a person acquainted\nwith the method of grinding by it. A wind-mill was also constructed at\nFrankfort, in 1442; but it does not appear to have been ascertained\nwhether there were any there before.\n\nAbout the twelfth century, in the pontificate of Gregory, when both\nwind and water-mills became more general, a dispute arose whether mills\nwere titheable or not. The dispute existed for some time between the\npersons possessed of mills and the clergy; when neither would yield. At\nlength, upon the matter being referred to the pope and sacred college,\nthe question was (as might have been expected when interested persons\nwere made the arbitrators) determined in favour of the claims of the\nchurch.\n\n\nTHE \"HAPPY DISPATCH\" IN JAPAN.\n\nThe _Hari-kari_, or \"Happy Dispatch,\" consists in ripping open their\nown bowels with two cuts in the form of a cross--after the artistic\ndissector's fashion. Officials resort to it under the fear of the\npunishment which they may expect; for it is a leading principle that\nit is more honourable to die by one's own hand than by another's.\nPrinces and the high classes receive permission to rip themselves up\nas a special favour, when under sentence of death: their entire family\nmust die with the guilty. Sometimes, by favour, the nearest relative\nof the condemned is permitted to perform the function of executioner\nin his own house. Such a death is considered less dishonourable than\nby the public executioners, aided by the servants of those who keep\ndisreputable houses.\n\nBut the Japanese, for the most part, always ask permission to rip\nthemselves; and they set about it with astonishing ease, and not\nwithout evident ostentation. The criminal who obtains this favour\nassembles all his family and his friends, puts on his richest apparel,\nmakes an eloquent speech on his situation, and then, with a most\ncontented look, he bares his belly, and in the form of a cross rips\nopen the viscera. The most odious crimes are effaced by such a death.\nThe criminal thenceforward ranks as a brave in the memory of men. His\nfamily contracts no stain, and his property is not confiscated.\n\nIt is curious that the Romans and the Japanese should hit upon\ncrucifixion as a mode of punishment. These coincidences often startle\nus in reviewing the manners and customs of men. Vainly we strive to\nconjecture how such a mode of punishment could have suggested itself\nto the mind of man. The _in terrorem_ object scarcely accounts for it.\nConstantine abolished it amongst the Romans, in honour of Him who was\npleased to make that mode of dying honourable in the estimation of men.\n\nThe Hari-kari, or happy dispatch, is still more incomprehensible.\nWe shudder at the bare idea of it. To commit suicide by hanging, by\ndrowning, by poison, by firearms, by a train in rapid motion--all these\nmodes are reasonable in their madness; but to rip open our bowels!--and\nwith _two_ cuts! We are totally at a loss to imagine how such a mode\nof self-murder could have been adopted; we cannot but wonder at the\nstrength of nerve which enables it to be accomplished: but we feel no\ndoubt of the everlasting force of national custom--especially amongst\nthe Orientals--in the continuance of this practice. Montesquieu said,\n\"If the punishments of the Orientals horrify humanity, the reason is,\nthat the despot who ordains them feels that he is above all laws. It\nis not so in Republics, wherein the laws are always mild, because he\nwho makes them is himself a subject.\" This fine sentiment, thoroughly\nFrench, is evidently contradicted by the institutions of Japan, where\nthe Emperor himself, the despot, is a subject: besides, Montesquieu\nwould have altered his antithesis had he lived to see the horrors of\nthe Reign of Terror in the glorious French Republic.\n\n\nPURITAN ZEAL.\n\nThe following is a copy of the order issued by Government for the\ndestruction of Glasgow Cathedral:--\"To our traist friendis,--Traist\nfriendis, after most hearty commendacion, we pray you fail not to pass\nincontinent to the kirk, (of Glasgow, or elsewhere, as it might be) and\ntak down the hail images thereof, and bring furth to the kirk-zyard,\nand burn them openly. And sicklyke cast down the altaris, and purge the\nkirk of all kynd of monuments of idolatrye. And this ze fail not to do,\nas ze will do us singular emplesure; and so commitis you to protection\nof God.\n\n  (Signed)\n\n  AR. ARGYLE.\n\n  JAMES STEWART.\n\n  RUTHVEN.\n\n_From Edinburgh the XII. of Aug. 1560._\n\n\"Fail not, but ze tak guid heyd that neither the dasks, windows,\nnor duris, be ony ways hurt or broken, uthe glassin wark, or iron\nwark.\"\n\n\nFREDERICK THE GREAT AT TABLE.\n\nThe table of the great Frederic of Prussia was regulated by himself.\nThere were always from nine to a dozen dishes, and these were brought\nin one at a time. The King carved the solitary dish, and helped the\ncompany. One singular circumstance connected with this table was,\nthat each dish was cooked by a different cook, who had a kitchen to\nhimself! There was much consequent expense, with little magnificence.\nFrederic ate and drank, too, like a boon companion. His last work,\nbefore retiring to bed, was to receive from the chief cook the bill\nof fare for the next day; the price of each dish, and of its separate\ningredients, was marked in the margin. The monarch looked it cautiously\nthrough, generally made out an improved edition, cursed all cooks\nas common thieves, and then flung down the money for the next day's\nexpenses.\n\n\nARTIFICIAL SWEETS.\n\nProfessor Playfair, in an able lecture delivered in the Great\nExhibition, and since published, has raised a curtain, which\ndisplays a rather repulsive scene. He says, the perfume of flowers\nfrequently consists of oils and ethers, which the chemist can compound\nartificially in his laboratory. Singularly enough these are generally\nderived from substances of an intensely disgusting odour. A peculiarly\nfetid oil, termed the \"fusel\" oil, is formed in making brandy. This\nfusel oil distilled with sulphuric acid and acetate of potass, gives\nthe oil of pears (?). The oil of apples is made from the same fusel,\nby distillation with the same acid and chromate of potass. The oil\nof pineapples is obtained from the product of the action of putrid\ncheese on sugar! or by making a soap with butter. The artificial\noil of bitter almonds is now largely employed in perfuming soap\nconfectionary; extracted by nitric acid and the fetid oil of gas tar.\nMany a fair forehead is damped with _eau de mille fleurs_ without the\nknowledge that its essential ingredient is derived from the drainage of\ncow-houses!\n\n\nTEUTONIC HUT-SHAPED VASES.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Teutonic Hut-Shaped Vases.]\n\nSome remarkable sepulchral urns, of which we give a sketch, resembling\nthose of the early inhabitants of Alba Longa, in Italy, have been\nfound in Germany, and are distinctly Teutonic. They occur in the\nsepulchres of the period when bronze weapons were used, and before the\npredominance of Roman art. One found at Mount Chemnitz, in Thuringen,\nhad a cylindrical body and conical top, imitating a roof. In this was\na square orifice, representing the door or window, by which the ashes\nof the dead were introduced, and the whole then secured by a small\ndoor fastened with a metal pin. A second vase was found at Roenne; a\nthird in the island of Bornholm. A similar urn exhumed at Parchim had a\nshorter body, taller roof, and door at the side. Still more remarkable\nwas another found at Aschersleben, which has its cover modelled in\nshape of a tall conical thatched roof, and the door with its ring still\nremaining. Another, with a taller body and flatter roof, with a door\nat the side, was found at Klus, near Halberstadt. The larger vases\nwere used to hold the ashes of the dead, and are sometimes protected\nby a cover, or stone, or placed in another vase of coarser fabric. The\nothers are the household vessels, which were offered to the dead filled\nwith different viands. Some of the smaller vases appear to have been\ntoys.\n\nExtraordinary popular superstitions have prevailed amongst the German\npeasantry as to the origin and nature of these vases, which in some\ndistricts are considered to be the work of the elves,--in others, to\ngrow spontaneously from the ground like mushrooms--or to be endued\nwith remarkable properties for the preservation of milk and other\narticles of food. Weights to sink nets, balls, discs, and little rods\nof terra-cotta, are also found in the graves.\n\n\nLYNCH'S CASTLE, GALWAY.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Lynch's Castle.]\n\nThe house in the town of Galway, still known as \"Lynch's Castle,\"\nalthough the most perfect example now remaining, was at one period by\nno means a solitary instance of the decorated habitations of the Galway\nmerchants. The name of Lynch, as either provost, portreve, sovereign,\nor mayor of Galway, occurs no fewer than ninety-four times between the\nyears 1274 and 1654; after that year it does not appear once. The house\nhere pictured was the residence of the family for many generations.\nIt had, however, several branches, whose habitations are frequently\npointed out by their armorial bearings, or their crest, a lynx, over\nthe gateway. One of its members is famous in history as the Irish\nJunius Brutus. The mere fact is sufficiently wonderful without the aid\nof invention; but it has, as may be supposed, supplied materials to a\nhost of romancers. The story is briefly this:--\n\nJames Lynch Fitzstephen was mayor or warden of Galway in 1493; he\ntraded largely with Spain, and sent his son on a voyage thither to\npurchase and bring back a cargo of wine. Young Lynch, however, spent\nthe money entrusted to him, and obtained credit from the Spaniard,\nwhose nephew accompanied the youth back to Ireland to be paid the debt\nand establish further intercourse. The ship proceeded on her homeward\nvoyage, and as she drew near the Irish shore, young Lynch conceived the\nidea of concealing his crime by committing another. Having seduced,\nor frightened, the crew into becoming participators, the youth was\nseized and thrown overboard. The father and friends of Lynch received\nthe voyager with joy; and the murderer in a short time became himself\na prosperous merchant. Security had lulled every sense of danger,\nand he proposed for a very beautiful girl, the daughter of a wealthy\nneighbour, in marriage. The proposal was accepted; but previous to the\nappointed day, one of the seamen became suddenly ill, and in a fit of\nremorse summoned old Lynch to the dying-bed, and communicated to him a\nfull relation of the villany of his only and beloved son. Young Lynch\nwas tried, found guilty, and sentenced to execution--the father being\nhis judge. The wretched prisoner, however, had many friends among the\npeople, and his relatives resolved with them that he should not die a\nshameful death. They determined upon his rescue. We copy the last act\nof the tragedy from \"Hardiman's History of Galway.\" \"Day had scarcely\nbroken when the signal of preparation was heard among the guards\nwithout. The father rose, and assisted the executioner to remove the\nfetters which bound his unfortunate son. Then unlocking the door, he\nplaced him between the priest and himself, leaning upon an arm of each.\nIn this manner they ascended a flight of steps lined with soldiers,\nand were passing on to gain the street, when a new trial assailed\nthe magistrate for which he appears not to have been unprepared. His\nwretched wife, whose name was Blake, failing in her personal exertions\nto save the life of her son, had gone in distraction to the heads of\nher own family, and prevailed on them, for the honour of their house,\nto rescue him from ignominy. They flew to arms, and a prodigious\nconcourse soon assembled to support them, whose outcries for mercy to\nthe culprit would have shaken any nerves less firm than those of the\nmayor of Galway. He exhorted them to yield submission to the laws of\ntheir country; but finding all his efforts fruitless to accomplish the\nends of justice at the accustomed place, and by the usual hands, he, by\na desperate victory over parental feeling, resolved himself to perform\nthe sacrifice which he had vowed to pay on its altar. Still retaining\na hold of his unfortunate son, he mounted with him by a winding stair\nwithin the building, that led to an arched window overlooking the\nstreet, which he saw filled with the populace. Here he secured the end\nof the rope--which had been previously fixed round the neck of his\nson--to an iron staple, which projected from the wall, and after taking\nfrom him a last embrace, he launched him into eternity. The intrepid\nmagistrate expected instant death from the fury of the populace; but\nthe people seemed so much overawed or confounded by the magnanimous\nact, that they retired slowly and peaceably to their several dwellings.\nThe innocent cause of this sad tragedy is said to have died soon after\nof grief, and the unhappy father of Walter Lynch to have secluded\nhimself during the remainder of his life from all society except that\nof his mourning family. His house still exists in Lombard Street,\nGalway, which is yet known by the name of 'Dead Man's Lane;' and over\nthe front doorway are to be seen a skull and cross-bones executed in\nblack marble, with the motto, 'Remember Deathe--vaniti of vaniti, and\nall is but vaniti.'\"\n\nThe house in which the tragedy is said to have occurred was taken down\nonly so recently as 1849; but the tablet which contains the \"skull\nand cross-bones\" bears the date 1624--upwards of a century after the\nalleged date of the occurrence.\n\n\nWASHINGTON.\n\nIt is something singular, that Washington drew his _last_ breath, in\nthe _last_ hour, of the _last_ day, of the _last_ week, of the _last_\nmonth, of the _last_ year, of the _last_ century. He died on Saturday\nnight, twelve o'clock, December 31st, 1799.\n\n\nANCIENT BANNERS AND STANDARDS.\n\nBanners have been in use from the earliest ages. Xenophon gives us the\nPersian standard as a golden eagle, mounted on a pole or spear. We\nfind banners very early in use among the nations of Europe. In this\ncountry the introduction of banners was clearly of a religious origin.\nVenerable Bede says, that when St. Augustin and his companions came to\npreach Christianity in Britain in the latter part of the sixth century,\nand having converted Ethelbert, the Bretwalda of the Anglo-Saxons (his\nQueen Bertha had already embraced the Christian faith) the monk and\nhis followers entered Canterbury in procession, chanting, \"We beseech\nthee O Lord, of thy mercy, let thy wrath and anger be turned away from\nthis city, and from thy Holy Place, for we have sinned. Hallelujah.\"\nAnd they carried in their hands little banners on which were depicted\ncrosses. The missionaries were allowed to settle in the Isle of Thanet,\nand Canterbury became the first Christian church.\n\nThe raven has been regarded from very early ages as an emblem of God's\nprovidence, no doubt from the record in Holy Writ of its being employed\nto feed Elijah the Prophet, in his seclusion by the brook Cherith;\nand it was the well-known ensign of the Danes, at the time of their\ndominion in this country. In the year 742, a great battle was fought\nat Burford, in Oxfordshire, and the Golden Dragon, the standard of\nWessex, was victorious over Ethelbald, the King of Mercia. The banners\nof several of the Saxon kings were held in great veneration, especially\nthose of Edmund the Martyr, and of Edward the Confessor. The latter\nking displayed as an ensign a cross flory between five martlets gold,\non a blue field, and which may still be seen on a very ancient shield\nin the south aisle of Westminster Abbey. When William the Norman set\nout to invade England he had his own ensign, the two lions of Normandy,\ndepicted on the sails of his ships; but on the vessel in which he\nhimself sailed, besides some choice relics, he had a banner at the\nmast-head with a cross upon it, consecrated by the Pope, to give\nsanctity to the expedition. Indeed it has been the practice in every\nage for the Pope to give consecrated banners wherever he wished success\nto any enterprise, numerous instances of which might be cited in very\nrecent times. And in our own army down to the present day, whenever any\nregiment receives new banners (or colours, as the modern term is), the\nregiment is drawn out in parade, the colours are then blessed by the\nprayers of several clergymen of the Church of England, and afterwards\npresented to the regiment by the fair hand of a lady of rank.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Banner.]\n\nCaesar has recorded a fine example of patriotism, to the credit of one\nof his own officers, when he attempted to land his Roman forces on our\nshores, and meeting with a warmer reception than they anticipated from\nthe Britons, considerable hesitation arose among his troops; but the\nstandard-bearer of the Tenth Legion, with the Roman eagle in his hand,\ninvoking the gods, plunged into the waves, and called on his comrades\nto follow him, and do their duty to their general and to the republic;\nand so the whole army made good their landing.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Caesar's Banner.]\n\nWe have in the Nineveh sculptures some highly interesting specimens\nof the ancient Assyrian standards, consisting principally of two\nvarieties, which are here given. The principal archer appears to be\ndrawing his bow, while the standard-bearer elevates the standard in\nfront of the chariot.\n\n\nANCIENT MANNERS OF THE ITALIANS.\n\nAbout the year 1238, the food of the Italians was very moderate, or,\nrather scanty. The common people had meat only three days a week.\nTheir dinner consisted of pot-herbs, boiled with meat; their supper,\nthe cold meat left from dinner. The husband and wife eat out of the\nsame dish; and they had but one or two cups in the house. They had\nno candles made of wax or tallow; but, a torch, held by one of the\nchildren, or a servant, gave them light at supper. The men, whose chief\npride was in their arms and horses, wore caps made with iron scales,\nand cloaks of leather, without any other covering. The women wore\njackets of stuff, with gowns of linen, and their head-dresses were very\nsimple. Those who possessed a very small sum of money, were thought\nrich; and the homely dress of the women required only small marriage\nportions. The nobles were proud of living in towers; and thence the\ncities were filled with those fortified dwellings.\n\n\nAMUSEMENTS OF THE LOWER ORDERS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nThe most popular amusements of the lower orders were wrestling,\nbowling, quoit and ninepin playing, and games at ball. In wrestling the\nCornwall and Devonshire men excelled, and a ram, or sometimes a cock,\nwas the prize of the victor. Bowling alleys were commonly attached\nto the houses of the wealthy, and to places of public resort. Among\nthe games at ball we find tennis, trap-ball, bat and ball, and the\nballoon-ball, in which a large ball filled with air was struck from one\nside to the other by two players with their hands and wrists guarded by\nbandages. Archery was now on the decline, owing to the introduction of\nfirearms; nor could all the legislative enactments of the day revive\nits constant use. The quarter-staff was also a favourite weapon of\nsportive fence, which was a staff about five or six feet long, grasped\nin the middle with one hand, while the other slid up and down as it was\nrequired to strike or to ward a blow.\n\nThe citizens of London enjoyed themselves in winter by skating on\nthe Thames, (the old shankbones of sheep having now been superseded\nby regular skates, probably introduced from the Netherlands,) and\nin summer with sailing and rowing. Dice and cards, prisoner's base,\nblind man's buff, battledoor and shuttlecock, bull-baiting, and\ncock-fighting, a rude species of mumming, the dancing of fools at\nChristmas, and other games, completed the gratifications of the\npopulace.\n\n\nNOVEL MODE OF TAKING VENGEANCE.\n\nThe Chinese have a book entitled _Si-yuen_, that is to say, \"The\nWashing of the Pit,\" a work on medical jurisprudence, very celebrated\nall over the empire, and which should be in the hands of all Chinese\nmagistrates. It is impossible to read the Si-yuen without being\nconvinced that the number of attempts against life in this country\nis very considerable, and especially that suicide is very common.\nThe extreme readiness with which the Chinese are induced to kill\nthemselves, is almost inconceivable; some mere trifle, a word almost,\nis sufficient to cause them to hang themselves, or throw themselves\nto the bottom of a well; the two favourite modes of suicide. In other\ncountries, if a man wishes to wreak his vengeance on an enemy, he tries\nto kill him; in China, on the contrary, he kills himself. This anomaly\ndepends upon various causes, of which these are the principal:--In\nthe first place, Chinese law throws the responsibility of a suicide\non those who may be supposed to be the cause or occasion of it. It\nfollows, therefore, that if you wish to be revenged on an enemy, you\nhave only to kill yourself to be sure of getting him into horrible\ntrouble; for he falls immediately into the hands of _justice_, and will\ncertainly be tortured and ruined, if not deprived of life. The family\nof the suicide also usually obtains, in these cases, considerable\ndamages; so that it is by no means a rare case for an unfortunate man\nto commit suicide in the house of a rich one, from a morbid idea of\nfamily affection. In killing his enemy, on the contrary, the murderer\nexposes his own relatives and friends to injury, disgraces them,\nreduces them to poverty, and deprives himself of funeral honours,\na great point for a Chinese, and concerning which he is extremely\nanxious. It is to be remarked also, that public opinion, so far from\ndisapproving of suicide, honours and glorifies it. The conduct of a man\nwho destroys his own life, to avenge himself on an enemy whom he has no\nother way of reaching, is regarded as heroic and magnanimous.\n\n\nPERSECUTION IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN MARY.\n\nThe total number of persons who perished in the flames for their\nreligion during this reign has been variously reckoned at 277 and 288,\namongst whom were 5 bishops, 21 divines, 8 gentlemen, 84 artificers,\n100 husbandmen, servants, and labourers, 26 wives, 20 widows, 9\nunmarried women, 2 boys, and 2 infants, of which last one was whipped\nto death by the savage Bonner, and the other, springing out of its\nmother's womb, at the stake, was mercilessly thrown back into the\nfire. The number of those that died in prison was also very great. Yet\nEngland may be considered as comparatively free from persecution during\nthis period, for all over the continent the victims of bigotry were\nreckoned, not by hundreds, but by thousands, and in the Netherlands\nalone 50,000 persons are said to have lost their lives in the religious\nwars of the Spaniards.\n\n\nWAYSIDE MONUMENTS.\n\nThe sketch on next page represents a curious custom which still\nprevails in the neighbourhood of Cong, near Oughterard in Ireland.\nIt is well described in the following account of their tour by Mr.\nand Mrs. S. C. Hall:--\"On the way to Joyce's Country we saw heaps of\npiled-up stones on either side of the road; these heaps continuing\nfor above a mile, after their commencement a short distance from the\nwestern entrance to the town. The artist may convey a better notion\nof their peculiar character than any written description can do. We\nleft our car to examine them minutely; and learned they were monuments\nto the memory of \"deceased\" persons, \"erected\" by their surviving\nfriends. Upon death occurring, the primitive tumulus is built,--if\nthat may be called building which consists in placing a few large\nstones upon a spot previously unoccupied. Each relative of the dead\nadds to the heap; and in time it becomes a \"mountain\" of tolerable\nsize. Each family knows its own particular monument; and a member of,\nor a descendant from it, prays and leaves his offering only at that\nespecial one. The custom has endured for many generations: some of the\nheaps bore tokens of great age; and one was pointed out to us of which\nthere were records, in the transferred memories of the people, for at\nleast 500 years. The bodies are in no instance buried here--it is not\nconsecrated earth; the monuments are merely memorials, and no doubt\noriginated at a period when a Roman Catholic was, according to the\nprovisions of a law equally foolish and cruel, interred, without form\nor ceremony, in church ground--the ground that had been the property\nof their ancestors. None of these stone cairns have any masonwork, and\nthey are generally of the rudest forms, or rather without any form,\nthe stones having been carelessly cast one upon another. Upon one of\nthem only could we discover any inscription--this one is introduced\ninto the print; it is built with far more than the usual care; it\ncontained an inscription; \"Pray for y{e} soule of John Joyce, & Mary\nJoyce, his wife, died 1712;\" some of them, however, seem to have been\nconstructed with greater care than others, and many of them were topped\nwith a small wooden cross. We estimated that there were at least 500\nof these primitive monuments--of all shapes and sizes--along the road.\nIn each of them we observed a small hollow, which the peasants call\na \"window;\" most of these were full of pebbles, and upon inquiry we\nlearned that when one of the race to whom the deceased belonged kneels\nby the side of this record to his memory and offers up a prayer for\nthe repose of his soul, it is customary to fling a little stone into\nthis \"cupboard;\" the belief being that gradually as it fills, so,\ngradually, the soul is relieved from punishment in purgatory; when\ncompletely full the soul has entered paradise. We have prolonged our\ndescription of this singular and interesting scene, because it seems to\nhave been altogether overlooked by travellers, and because we believe\nthat nothing like it is to be met with in any other part of Ireland;\nalthough similar objects are to be found in several other places about\nConnemara, none of them, however, are so extensive as this which\nadjoins Cong.\"\n\n[Illustration: [++] Primitive Monuments.]\n\n\nHINDOO ADORATION OF THE SALAGRAM.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Hindoo Adoration of the Salagram.]\n\nAmong the many forms which Vishnu is believed by his Hindoo worshippers\nto have assumed is that of the Salagram--an ammonite-stone, found in\nthe river Gandaka and other streams flowing from the Himalayas. The\nreason for the worship of this is stated in one of the sacred books.\n\"Vishnu created the nine planets to preside over the fates of men.\nSani (Saturn) proposed commencing his reign by taking Brahma under his\ninfluence for twelve years. The matter was referred to Vishnu, who\nbeing equally averse to be placed under the inauspicious influence of\nthis planet, requested him to call the next day. The next day Saturn\ncould nowhere discover Vishnu, but perceived that he had united himself\nto the mountain Gandaka; he entered the mountain in the form of a\nworm called Vajrakita (the thunderbolt worm). He continued to afflict\nthe mountain-formed Vishnu for twelve years, when Vishnu assumed his\nproper shape, and commanded that the stones of this mountain should be\nworshipped, and become proper representatives of himself; adding that\neach should have twenty marks in it, similar to those on his body, and\nthat its name should be Salagram.\"\n\nThe Salagram is usually placed under a tulasi-tree, which is planted\non the top of a pillar in the vicinity of a temple of Vishnu, or near\na house. Tulasi, a female, desired to become Vishnu's wife, but was\nmetamorphosed by Lakshmi into a tree, a small shrub, called therefore\n_Tulasi_, or holy basil (Ocymum Sanctum). Vishnu, however, promised\nto assume the form of a Salagram, and always continue with her. The\nVaishnaya priests, therefore, keep one leaf of the shrub under and\nanother over the Salagram, and thus pay their adorations to the stone\nand the tree. In the evening a lamp is placed near it. In the month\nof May it is watered from a pot suspended over it, as appears in the\nengraving, which represents a person engaged in the worship at this\nsingular shrine.\n\n\nTOMB OF THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN AT INSPRUCK.\n\nThis majestic tomb is placed in the centre of the middle aisle of the\nchurch, upon a platform approached by steps of red marble. The sides\nof the tomb are divided into twenty-four compartments, of the finest\nCarrara marble, on which are represented, in bas-relief, the most\ninteresting events of the emperor's warlike and prosperous career. The\nworkmanship of the tablets is exquisite; and, taken in connexion with\nthe lofty deeds they record, they form the most princely decorations\never seen. Each of the tablets contributing to this splendid\nlithobiography is in size 2 feet 4 inches by 1 foot 8 inches; and every\nobject contained therein is in the most perfect proportion, while the\nexquisite finish of the heads and draperies requires a magnifying glass\nto do it justice. The tomb is surmounted by a colossal figure in bronze\nof the emperor, kneeling in the act of prayer; and around it are four\nallegorical figures, of smaller size, also in bronze.\n\nBut, marvellous as is the elaborate beauty of this work, it is far from\nbeing the most remarkable feature of this imperial mausoleum. Ranged in\ntwo long lines, as if to guard it, stand twenty-eight colossal statues\nin bronze, of whom twenty are kings and princes, alliances of the house\nof Hapsburg, and eight their stately dames. Anything more impressive\nthan the appearance of these tall dark guardians of the tomb, some clad\nin regal robes, some cased in armour, and all seeming animated by the\nmighty power of the artist, it would be difficult to imagine.\n\nIn the death-like stillness of the church, the visitor who, for the\nfirst time, contemplates this tomb and its gloomy guard, is struck by\na feeling of awe, approaching to terror. The statues, with life-like\nindividuality of attitude and expression--each solemn, mournful,\ndignified, and graceful; and all seeming to dilate before the eye into\nenormous dimensions, and, as if framed to scare intruders, endowed by\na power more than mortal, to keep watch and ward round the mighty dead.\nThey appear like an eternal procession of mourners, who, while earth\nendures, will cease not to gaze on, mourn over, and protect the relics\nof him who was the glory of their noble, long since fallen race.\n\n\nTHE FAYENCE OF HENRY II. OF FRANCE.\n\nThe earliest known fabric of this earthenware is that mysterious and\nunique manufacture of the \"Renaissance,\" the fine Fayence of Henry\nII. The manufacture of this ware, which was at once carried to a high\ndegree of perfection, seems to have been suddenly and unaccountably\nlost, without leaving any record of where or by whom it was produced.\nBy many it is supposed to be of Florentine manufacture, and to have\nbeen sent by some of the relations of Catherine de Medicis as a present\nto Henry II.; but it differs too essentially from Italian Majolica,\nboth in the paste of which it is composed, and in the style in which\nit is decorated, to warrant such a conjecture. Italy does not possess\nin her museums a single specimen of this ware, and of the thirty-seven\npieces extant, twenty-seven have been traced as coming from Touraine\nand La Vendee. Many antiquaries, therefore, infer that the manufacture\nwas at Thouars, in Touraine, although the Fayence may have been the\nwork of an Italian artist.\n\nBut if the place of its manufacture is unknown, the pieces extant\nclearly attest the period of its fabrication. The Salamander, and\nother insignia of Francis I., are met with on the earlier specimens of\nthis pottery; but upon the majority of pieces, upon those more pure\nin design and more beautiful in execution than the preceding, we find\nthe arms of Henry II., with his device, the three crescents, or his\ninitial H, interlaced with the two D's of the Duchesse de Valentinois.\nIndeed, so constantly do her emblems appear upon the pieces, that the\nware, though usually designated as \"Faience de Henri II.,\" is sometimes\nstyled \"Faience de Diane de Poitiers.\" Even her widow's colours, black\nand white, are the two which are employed in some of the finest pieces.\nThey were the fashionable colours of the court, Henry wore no others\nduring his life, and was attired in them in the fatal tournament in\nwhich he fell. Her _impresa_, the crescent of Diana, is conspicuous on\nhis palaces, and he even caused it to be engraved upon his coins. From\nthese circumstances we must, therefore, conclude that the manufacture\nof this ware began at the end of the reign of Francis I., was continued\nunder that of Henry II., and, as we find upon it the emblems of these\ntwo princes only, we may naturally infer that it is of French origin.\n\nThe paste of which this Fayence is composed is equally distinct from\nMajolica and Palissy ware. The two latter are both soft, whereas this,\non the contrary, is hard. It is a true pipeclay, very fine, and very\nwhite, so as not to require, like the Italian Fayence, to be concealed\nby a thick enamel, and the ornaments with which it is enriched are\nsimply covered with a thin, transparent, yellowish varnish.\n\nThe style of decoration in this ware is unique. Patterns or arabesques,\nare engraved on the paste, and the indentures filled with \npastes, so as to present an uniform, smooth surface, of the finest\ninlaying, or resembling, rather, a model of Cellini's silver work,\nchiselled and worked in niello. Hence it is sometimes styled \"Faience\na niellure.\" These patterns are sometimes disposed in zones of yellow\nochre, with borders of dark brown, sometimes of a pink, green, violet,\nblack, or blue; but the dark yellow ochre is the predominant colour.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Fayence Candlestick.]\n\nThe collection of the late M. Preaux was the richest in the world in\nthe most beautiful examples of Fayence; it was disposed of by auction\nabout twelve years ago, in consequence of the death of the proprietor,\nand the choicest specimen in it was the candlestick, of which we give\na figure, and which was purchased by Sir Anthony de Rothschild for\nabout L220, duty included. The surface is exquisitely enriched with\narabesque patterns, either in black upon a white ground, or in white\nupon a black. The form is monumental, and in the finest style; three\nfigures of genii support escutcheons, bearing the arms of France,\nand the double D. These genii stand upon masks, which are united by\ngarlands enamelled in green. The top of the candlestick terminates\nin the form of a vase, and bears inscribed the fleurs-de-lys and the\nmonogram of our Saviour. This piece, for delicacy of detail and beauty\nof execution, is unequalled by any specimen known of this exquisite\nFayence. Sir Anthony de Rothschild also purchased at M. Preaux's sale a\nsmall cup, decorated in the same style, with the descents interlaced,\nfor which he gave 1300 francs. He, therefore, now is fortunate in\nhaving the finest collection known of this ware, as, in addition to\nthe specimens already mentioned, he possesses two exquisite ewers of\nthe Henry II. Fayence. One he purchased at the sale of the Comte de\nMonville for 2300 francs; the other, with a curious handle of elaborate\nworkmanship, he bought for nineteen guineas at Strawberry Hill, where\nhe also purchased a tripod salt-cellar, supported with scroll ornaments\nfor L21.\n\n\nREFRESHMENTS FOR THE PULPIT.\n\nIn the books of Darlington parish church, the following items appear,\nshowing that, in the olden time, provision was made for comforting the\ninner man: \"Six quarts of sack to the minister who preached when he had\nno minister to assist, 9s. For a quart of sack bestowed on Jillett,\nwhen he preached, 2s. 6d. For a pint of brandy when Mr. George Bill\npreached here, 1s. 4d. For a stranger who preached, a dozen of ale.\nWhen the Dean of Durham preached here, spent in a treat in the house,\n3s. 6d.\" This would hardly be considered orthodox at the present day.\n\n\nBEDESMEN IN THE TIME OF HENRY VII.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Bedesmen.]\n\nMost of the monasteries in former times had hospitals of poor men and\nwomen attached to them; generally either within the precincts or near\nadjoining. Thus, at St. Edmund's Bury, there was St. John's Hospital,\nor God's House, without the South Gate, and St. Nicholas' Hospital\nwithout the East Gate, and St. Peter's Hospital without the Risby Gate,\nand St. Saviour's Hospital without the North Gate,--all founded by\nabbots of St. Edmund's. At Reading there was the Hospital of St. Mary\nMagdalene for twelve leprous persons and chaplains, and the Hospital\nof St. Lawrence for twenty-six poor people, and for the entertainment\nof strangers and pilgrims, both founded by abbots of Reading. One at\nthe gate of Fountains' Abbey for poor persons and travellers; one\nat Glastonbury, under the care of the almoner, for poor and infirm\npersons. Thirteen was a favourite number for the inmates of a hospital.\nFrom the initial letter of a deed in the British Museum (Harl. 1498),\nby which King Henry VII. founded a fraternity of thirteen poor men in\nWestminster Abbey, who were to be under the governance of the monks,\nwe take the accompanying illustration, which represents the abbot and\nmonks before the king, with a group of the king's bedesmen, each of\nwhom has the royal badge, a rose surmounted by a crown, on the shoulder\nof his habit.\n\n\nCHINESE GAMBLERS PLAYING FOR FINGERS.\n\nThe following strange account is taken from Hue's \"Chinese Empire:--\n\n\"The Chinese are industrious and economical, but their cupidity, their\nimmoderate love of lucre, and their decided taste for stockjobbing\nand speculation, easily tempts them to gambling, when they are not\nengaged in traffic. They seek eagerly for strong excitements, and when\nonce they have got into the habit of gambling they seldom or never\nrecover from it. They cast aside every obligation of station, duty,\nand family, to live only for cards and dice; and this fatal passion\ngains such an empire over them, that they proceed even to the most\nrevolting extremities. When they have lost all their money they will\nplay for their houses, their land, and their wives even, whose destiny\noften depends on a cast of the dice. Nay, the Chinese gambler does not\nstop here, for he will stake the very clothes he has on for one game\nmore, and this horrible custom gives rise to scenes that would not be\ncredible, did we not know that the passions always tend to make men\ncruel and inhuman.\n\n\"In the northern provinces, especially in the environs of the Great\nWall, you may sometimes meet, during the most intense cold of winter,\nmen running about in a state of complete nudity, having been driven\npitilessly from the gaming-houses when they had lost their all. They\nrush about in all directions like madmen to try and save themselves\nfrom being frozen, or crouch down against the chimneys, which in those\ncountries are carried along the walls of the houses, on a level with\nthe ground. They turn first one side towards the warmth, then the\nother, while their gambling companions, far from trying to help them,\nlook on with ferocious and malignant hilarity. The horrible spectacle\nseldom lasts long, for the cold soon seizes the unfortunate creatures,\nand they fall down and die. The gamblers then return to their table,\nand begin to play again with the most perfect composure. Such facts\nas these will appear fabulous to many persons, but having resided\nseveral years in the north of China, we can testify to their perfect\nauthenticity.\n\n\"These excesses seem surprising enough, but the truth is, that Chinese\ngamblers have invented still more extraordinary methods of satisfying\ntheir passion, which is really carried to absolute madness. Those who\nhave nothing more to lose will collect round a table and actually\nplay for _their fingers_, which they will cut off reciprocally with\nfrightful stoicism. We had thought to pass over these revolting\nparticulars, for we do not like to put the confidence of our readers\nto too great a trial. We have a strong objection to relating things\nthat, although we know them to be strictly true, have an improbable\nappearance. But these facts concerning Chinese gamblers were known, and\ncommented upon, by the Arab travellers in the ninth century. Here is a\npassage on the subject from the 'Chain of Chronicles,' from which we\nhave already quoted more than once:--\n\n\"'Amongst men of a volatile and boastful character, those who belong\nto the lower classes, and who have no money, will sometimes play for\nthe fingers of their hands. During the game, they keep by them a vase\ncontaining nut, or sesame oil, for olive oil is not known in this\ncountry. A fire is kept burning under it, and between the two players\nis placed a small but very sharp hatchet. The one who wins then takes\nthe hand of the loser, places it on a stone and cuts off one of his\nfingers with the hatchet; the piece falls, and the vanquished party\nimmediately dips his hand into the hot oil, which cauterises the wound.\nThis operation does not prevent the players from beginning again. Some\nwill take a match, dip it in oil, place it on their arms, and set fire\nto it; the match burns, and you can smell the odour of the consuming\nflesh, but the man goes on with his game, and exhibits no sign of\npain.'\"\n\n\nENTRY OF THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR INTO LONDON, IN 1698.\n\nThe following is an extract from the \"Flying Post,\" of May 17, 1698:--\n\n\"Yesterday, (Monday, May 16,) in the afternoon, Count Tallard, the\nFrench Ambassador, made his public entry. The Earl Marshal's men came\nfirst, then followed the Earl of Macclesfield's footmen, after them\ntwenty of the Ambassador's footmen, in red liveries with gold lace;\nthen came two of the Ambassador's gentlemen and six pages on horseback;\nnext came two heralds before His Majesty's coach, in which His\nExcellency the Ambassador, the Earl of Macclesfield, and some others\nof quality: after them came three of His Royal Highness the Prince of\nDenmark's coaches, and next, three of the Ambassador's coaches, the\nfirst of them very rich, and drawn by eight horses; then followed His\nGrace the Duke of Norfolk's coach, with about forty-seven more, drawn\nby six horses each. There was a splendid entertainment prepared for His\nExcellency at Ossulston House, in St. James's Square.\"\n\n\nEXPENSES AT CORONATIONS.\n\nThe quantity of provisions consumed at the feasts given by some of our\nearly Kings, was extraordinarily great. For that of King Edward I.\nFebruary 10th, 1274, the different Sheriffs were ordered to furnish\nbutcher meat at Windsor, in the following proportions:--\n\n                                      Oxen.  Swine.  Sheep.  Fowls.\n  Sheriff of Gloucester,                60    101      60    3,000\n      \"      Bucks and Bedford          40     66      40    2,100\n      \"      Oxford                     40     67      40    2,100\n      \"      Kent                       40     67      40    2,100\n      \"      Surrey and Sussex          40     67      40    2,100\n      \"      Warwick and Leicester      60     98      40    3,000\n      \"      Somerset and Dorset       100    176     110    5,000\n      \"      Essex                      60    101      60    3,160\n                                      ----   ----    ----   ------\n  Total, twelve counties               440    743     430   22,560\n\nIn the year 1307, King Edward II. issued an order to the seneschal\nof Gascony, and constable of Bordeaux, to provide a thousand pipes\nof good wine, and send them to London, to be used at the approaching\ncoronation. The purchase and freight were to be paid by a company\nof Florentine merchants, who farmed the revenues of Gascony. The\ncoronation oath was first taken by Ethelred II., A.D. 979; that now\nused in 1377. It was amended in 1689. The first coronation sermon was\npreached in 1041. The following statement of the prices given for\nseats, to obtain a view of passing objects during the coronations of\nformer times, may, perhaps, prove interesting:--\n\nThe price of a good place at the coronation of William the Conqueror,\nwas a _blank_; at that of his son, William Rufus, the same. At Henry\nI's., it was a _crocard_; at Stephen's and Henry II.'s, it was a\n_pollard_. At Richard's, and King John's, it was a _fuskin_. It rose\nat the 3d. Henry's, to a _dodkin_. In the reign of Edward, the coin\nbegins to be more intelligible; and we find that, for a seat, to view\nhis coronation, a _Q_ was given, or the half of a ferling, or farthing,\nthe fourth part of a sterling, or penny. At the 2d. Edward's, it was a\nfarthing; and at his son's, Edward III. a halfpenny. At Richard II.'s\nit was a penny, and continued the same to that of Henry IV. inclusive.\nAt the 5th Henry's, it was _two pennies_; and similar prices were\npaid at the coronations of Henry VI., Edward IV., Edward V., Richard\nIII., and Henry VII. At that of Henry VIII. it was a _grossus_, or\ngroat; and the same was paid at that of Edward VI. and Queen Mary's.\nAt Queen Elizabeth's, it rose to _a testoon_, or _tester_. At those of\nJames I. and Charles I. _a shilling_ was given; which was advanced to\n_half-a-crown_, at those of Charles II. and James II. At King William's\nand Queen Anne's it was _a crown_, and the same at that of George I.\nAt George II.'s _half-a-guinea_, and, afterwards, at George III.'s _a\nguinea_ was the common charge. But, at that of George IV, as high as\n_forty guineas_ were given for a single seat.\n\n\nCURIOUS ANTIQUE SWORD.\n\nThe engraving which accompanies this article is a sketch of the upper\npart of an antique Danish sword, which was found, together with several\nother weapons, by the labourers who were engaged in the construction of\nthe railway from Dublin to Cashel.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Antique Danish Sword.]\n\nThe discovery of the weapons was made at a locality called Island\nBridge, and many of them were fortunately secured for the Museum of the\nRoyal Irish Academy, where they may now be seen. The swords are long\nand straight, formed for cutting as well as thrusting, and terminate in\npoints formed by rounding off the edge towards the back of the blade.\nThe hilts are very remarkable in form, and in one or two instances,\nlike the example we have engraved, are highly ornamented. The mountings\nare generally of a kind of brass, but several richly plated with silver\nwere found, and it is said that one of them had a hilt of solid gold.\nThe spears are long and slender, and similar in form to the lance-heads\nused in some of the cavalry corps.\n\nAll these weapons, with one exception, are composed of a soft kind of\niron. Many of the swords were found doubled up, a circumstance for\nwhich it is difficult to assign a reason, as they had evidently been\npurposely bent. The sword we have represented in our engraving, is\nremarkable for the unusual degree of ornament which appears upon its\nhilt, and also for its material, steel.\n\n\nDINNER IN CHINA.\n\nIt is certain that a real Chinese dinner would be a very odd thing in\nthe eyes of a stranger, especially if he were one of those who think,\nas some people do, that there is only one way of living. To begin\ndinner with the dessert, and end it with the soup; to drink the wine\nsmoking hot, out of little china cups, and have your food brought to\nyou ready cut up into small pieces, and to be presented with a couple\nof sticks, instead of a knife and fork, to eat it with; to have,\ninstead of napkins, a provision of little bits of silk paper by the\nside of your plate, which, as you use, the attendants carry off; to\nleave your place between the courses, to smoke or amuse yourself;\nand to raise your chop-sticks to your forehead, and then place them\nhorizontally upon your cup, to signify that you have finished your\ndinner;--all these things would doubtless seem very odd, and create the\ncuriosity of Europeans. The Chinese, on the other hand, can never get\nover their surprise at our way of dining. They ask how we can like to\ndrink cold fluids, and what can have put it into our heads to make use\nof a trident to carry food to our mouths, at the risk of pricking our\nlips or poking our eyes out. They think it very droll to see nuts put\non the table in their shell, and ask why our servants cannot take the\ntrouble to peel the fruit, and take the bones out of the meat. They are\nthemselves certainly not very difficult in the nature of their food,\nand like such things as fried silkworms and preserved larvae, but they\ncannot understand the predilection of our epicures for _high_ game, nor\nfor cheese that appears to belong to the class of animated beings.\n\n\nCISTERN OF MAJOLICA WARE.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Cistern of Majolica Ware.]\n\nWe have engraved the annexed, as it affords at once both a beautiful\nspecimen of the potter's art, and also an example of the taste and\nluxury of the present day in articles of expensive ornament. It is a\ncistern made of Majolica, or the enamelled pottery of Italy, the most\nbeautiful specimens of which were made in the sixteenth century. The\none before us came to England from the collection of the Borghese\nPalace; and at the great sale at Stowe, the seat of the Duke of\nBuckingham, was disposed of by auction for sixty-four guineas, and this\nalthough it was much broken.\n\n\nTHEATRES IN THE TIME OF SHAKSPEARE.\n\nIn Blackfriars was a theatre, the memory of which with the one or the\nother shore of the river at Bankside, enjoys the honour of having been\nused for the first representations of many of Shakspeare's plays, and\nwhere the bard himself performed in them. The whole district becomes\nclassic, from the remembrance. The following interesting description\nof the theatres in London at that time, and which applies to the\nBlackfriars' theatre as we well as the rest, is taken from a short\nmemoir of Shakspeare, by the Rev. Alexader Dyce, prefixed to the Aldine\nedition of Shakspeare's poems: \"Nearly all these buildings, it is\nprobable, were constructed of wood. Those which, for some undiscovered\nreason, were termed private theatres, were entirely roofed in from\nthe weather, while the public theatres were open to the sky, except\nover the stage and galleries. On the outside of each was exhibited\na sign indicative of its name; and on the roof, during the time of\nperformance, was hoisted a flag. The interior arrangements resemble\nthose of the present day. There were tiers of galleries or _scaffolds_;\nbeneath these the boxes or _rooms_, intended for persons of the higher\nclass, and which at the private theatres were secured with locks,\nthe keys being given to the individuals who engaged them; and there\nwas the centre area, (separated, it seems, from the stage by pales),\nat the private theatres, termed the _pit_, and furnished with seats;\nbut at the public theatres, called the _yard_, and affording no such\naccommodation. Cressets, or large open lanterns, served to illuminate\nthe body of the house; and two ample branches, of a form similar to\nthose now hung in churches, gave light to the stage. The band of\nmusicians, which was far from numerous, sat, it is supposed, in an\nupper balcony, over what is now called the stage box: the instruments\nchiefly used were trumpets, cornets, hautboys, lutes, recorders, viols,\nand organs. The amusements of the audience previous to the commencement\nof the play, were reading, playing at cards, smoking tobacco, drinking\nale, and eating nuts and apples. Even during the performance it was\ncustomary for wits, critics, and young gallants, who were desirous of\nattracting attention, to station themselves on the stage, either lying\non the rushes or seated on hired stools, while their pages furnished\nthem with pipes and tobacco. At the third sounding, or flourish of\ntrumpets, the exhibition began. The curtain, which concealed the\nstage from the audience, was then drawn, opening in the middle, and\nrunning upon iron rods. Other curtains, called _traverses_, were used\nas a substitute for scenes. At the back of the stage was a balcony,\nthe platform of which was raised about eight or nine feet from the\nground; it served as a window, gallery, or upper chamber. From it\na portion of the dialogue was sometimes spoken, and in front of it\ncurtains were suspended to conceal, if necessary, those who occupied\nit, from the audience. The internal roof of the stage, either painted\nblue or adorned with drapery of that colour, was termed the _heavens_.\nThe stage was generally strewed with rushes, but on extraordinary\noccasions was matted. There is reason to believe that, when tragedies\nwere performed, it was hung with black. Moveable painted scenery there\nwas assuredly none. A board, containing the name of the place of\naction in large letters, was displayed in some conspicuous situation.\nOccasionally, when some change of scene was necessary, the audience\nwas required to suppose that the performers, who had not quitted the\nboards, had retired to a different spot. A bed thrust forth showed that\nthe stage was a bed-chamber; and a table, with pen and ink, indicated\nthat it was a counting-house. Rude contrivances were employed to\nimitate towers, walls of towns, hell-mouths, tombs, trees, dragons, &c.\nTrap-doors had been early in use; but to make a celestial personage\nascend to the roof of the stage was more than the machinists of the\ntheatre could always accomplish. The price of admission appears to have\nvaried according to the rank and estimation of the theatres. A shilling\nwas charged for a place in the best boxes; the entrance-money to the\npit and galleries was the same--sixpence, twopence, and a penny. The\nperformance commenced at three in the afternoon.\"\n\n\nOLD CUSTOM RELATING TO CRIMINALS.\n\nThe custom of offering doomed criminals a last earthly draught of\nrefreshment is undoubtedly one of considerable antiquity. The right\nof offering wine to criminals, on their passage to the scaffold, was\noften a privilege granted to religious communities. In Paris, the\nprivilege was held by the convent of Filles-Dieu, the nuns of which\nkept wine prepared for those who were condemned to suffer on the gibbet\nof Montfaucon. The gloomy procession halted before the gate of the\nmonastery, the criminal descended from the cart, and the nuns, headed\nby the Lady Abbess, received him on the steps with as much, perhaps\nmore, heartfelt ceremony than if he had been a king. The poor wretch\nwas led to a crucifix near the church door, the feet whereof he humbly\nkissed. He then received, from the hands of the Superior, three pieces\nof bread (to remind him of the Trinity), and _one_ glass of wine\n(emblem of Unity). The procession then resumed its dread way to the\nscaffold.\n\n\nALE TOO STRONG.\n\nA memorial signed by nineteen inhabitants of Bayton, in Worcestershire,\nwas sent to the Sessions in the year 1612, setting forth \"that John\nKempster and John Byrd do not sell their ale according to the law,\nbut doe sell a pynte for a penny, and doe make ytt soe extraordynarye\nstrong that itt draweth dyvers ydle p'sons into the said alehouses,\nby reason whereof sondrye assaults, affrayes, blodshedds, and other\nmisdeameanors, are there daylie comytted by idle and dronken companie\nwhich doe thither resort and there contineue in their dronckenes three\ndays and three nights together, and also divers men's sonnes and\nservants do often resort and contineue drinking in the said houses day\nand night, whereupon divers disorders and abuses are offered to the\ninhabitants of Bayton aforesaid, as in pulling down styles, in carrying\naway of yertes, in throwing men's waynes, plowes, and such like things,\ninto pooles, wells, and other bye places, and in putting their yokes\nfor their oxen into lakes and myery places, &c.\" A nice picture of\nyoung England in the seventeenth century.\n\n\nA CHAPTER-HOUSE IN THE TIME OF HENRY VII.\n\nIn abbey-churches of the olden time the Chapter-house was always on the\neast side of the court. In establishments of secular canons it seems\nto have been always multisided, with a central pillar to support its\ngroining, and a lofty, conical, lead-covered roof. In these instances\nit is placed in the open space eastward of the cloister, and is usually\napproached by a passage from the east side of the cloister court. In\nthe houses of all the other orders the chapter-house is rectangular,\neven where the church is a cathedral. Usually, then, the chapter-house\nis a rectangular building on the east side of the cloister, and\nfrequently its longest apsis is east and west--at Durham it has an\neastern apsis. It was a large and handsome room, with a good deal of\narchitectural ornament; often the western end of it is divided off as a\nvestibule or ante-room; and generally it is so large as to be divided\ninto two or three aisles by rows of pillars. Internally, rows of stalls\nor benches were arranged round the walls for the convent; there was a\nhigher seat at the east end for the abbot or prior, and a desk in the\nmiddle from which certain things were read. Every day after the service\ncalled Tierce, the convent walked in procession from the choir to the\nchapter-house, and took their proper places. When the abbot had taken\nhis place, the monks descended one step and bowed; he returned their\nsalutation, and all took their seats. A sentence of the rule of the\norder was read by one of the novices from the desk, and the abbot, or\nin his absence, the prior, delivered an explanatory or hortatory sermon\nupon it; then, from another portion of the book was read the names\nof brethren, and benefactors, and persons who had been received into\nfraternity, whose decease had happened on that day of the year; and the\nconvent prayed a _requiescat in pace_ for their souls, and the souls\nof all the faithful departed this life. Then members of the convent\nwho had been guilty of slight breaches of discipline confessed them,\nkneeling upon a low stool in the middle, and on a bow from the abbot,\nintimating his remission of the breach, they resumed their seats. If\nany had a complaint to make against any brother, it was here made and\nadjudged. Convent business was also transacted. The woodcut gives an\nexample of the kind. Henry VII. had made grants to Westminster Abbey,\non condition that the convent performed certain religious services on\nhis behalf; and in order that the services should not fall into disuse,\nhe directed that yearly, at a certain period, the chief justice, or\nthe king's attorney, or the recorder of London, should attend in\nchapter, and the abstract of the grant and agreement between the king\nand the convent should be read. The grant which was thus to be read\nstill exists in the British Museum; it is written in a volume superbly\nbound, with the royal seals attached in silver cases; it is from the\nilluminated letter at the head of one of the deeds that our woodcut is\ntaken. It rudely represents the chapter-house, with the chief-justice\nand a group of lawyers on one side, the abbot and convent on the other,\nand a monk reading the grant from the desk in the midst.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Chapter-House in the time of Henry VII.]\n\n\nANNE BOLEYN's GLOVES.\n\nAnne Boleyn was marvellously dainty about her gloves. She had a nail\nwhich turned up at the side, and it was the delight of Queen Catharine\nto make her play at cards, without her gloves, in order that the\ndeformity might disgust King Hal. The good Queen Bess was extravagant,\nfastidious, and capricious in the extreme, about her gloves. She used\nto display them to advantage in playing the virginal, and gloves at\nthat time were expensive articles.\n\n\nDELLA ROBBIA WARE.\n\nLuca della Robbia, born in 1388, was an eminent sculptor in marble and\nbronze, and worked both at Florence and at Rimini. Having abandoned his\noriginal employment for that of modelling in terra cotta, he succeeded,\nafter many experiments, in making a white enamel, with which he coated\nhis works, and thus rendered them durable. Vasari writes of him, \"che\nfaceva l'opere di terra quasi eterne.\" His chief productions are\nMadonnas, Scripture subjects, figures, and architectural ornaments:\nthey are by far the finest works ever executed in pottery. He adorned\nthe Italian churches with tiles, as well as with altar-pieces, in terra\ncotta enamelled; and he is the founder of a school which produced works\nnot much inferior to his own. The \"Petit Chateau de Madrid,\" in the\nBois de Boulogne, near Paris, received the appellation of \"Chateau de\nFayence,\" from having been ornamented with enamelled tiles, the work\nof an Italian artist, named Girolamo della Robbia, a grand nephew of\nLuca, whom Francis I. brought from Italy. This chateau is now wholly\ndestroyed. The tiles seem to have been introduced into portions of the\narchitectural composition, rather as accessory ornaments than as a\n\"lining\" or revetement of the walls. Analogous ornaments, the work of\nLuca de Maiano, 1521, were to be seen in the old gate, Whitehall, and\nat Hampton Court.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Della Robbia Ware.]\n\nLuca della Robbia sometimes, though rarely, used a  instead\nof white enamel in his compositions. The above cut represents the\naltar-piece of San Miniato, near Florence, by him. The ground is blue,\nthe figures white, the fruits, &c., gold colour, and the garlands green.\n\n\nVOLCANIC ERUPTION IN JAPAN.\n\nThe peninsula of Wountsendake, and the greater part of Kewsew,\nbristle with volcanic mountains, some extinct, others still acting as\nsafety-valves to the incomprehensible excitements of mother Earth; but\nof all the manifestations of her internal throes and torment, and their\nconsequent desolation inflicted on the habitations of her children,\nthat of 1792 was the most terrible for ages before.\n\n\"On the eighteenth day of the first month of that year,\" says the\n_Annals of Japan_, \"the summit of the mountain was seen to crumble\nsuddenly, and a thick smoke rose in the air. On the sixth of the\nfollowing month there was an eruption in a spur on the eastern <DW72>\nof the mountain. On the second of the third month an earthquake shook\nthe whole island. At Simabara, the nearest town to the mountain, all\nthe houses were thrown down, amidst a general terror and consternation,\nthe shocks following each other with frightful rapidity. Wountsendake\nincessantly sent forth a hail-storm of stones, showers of ashes, and\nstreams of lava, which devastated the country for many leagues round.\nAt length, on the first day of the fourth month, there was a new\ncommotion, which increased in intensity from moment to moment.\n\n\"Simabara was now a vast heap of ruins. Enormous blocks of rock,\ntumbling from the top of the mountain, crushed and ground to atoms all\nbeneath them. Thunder rolled overhead, and dreadful sounds rumbled\nbeneath the feet at one and the same time. All of a sudden, after an\ninterval of calm, when men thought the scourge had passed over, the\nnorthern spur of Wountsendake, the Moikenyamma, burst forth with a\ntremendous detonation. A vast portion of that mountain was blown into\nthe air. Colossal masses fell into the sea. A stream of boiling water\nrushed forth foaming from the cracks of this new volcano, and sped to\nthe ocean, which at the same time advanced and flooded the land.\"\n\nThen was seen a sight never seen before, intensifying the terror of\nthe innumerable witnesses of that terrible day, which might well seem\na Day of Judgment come. From the conflict of the boiling waters of\nthe volcano with the cold waters of the tempestuous ocean, suddenly\nmingled, there arose waterspouts which ravaged the land in their\ndevouring gyrations.\n\nThe disasters caused by this accumulation of catastrophes, earthquakes,\nvolcanic eruptions, waterspouts, inundations, united together, exceed\nbelief. Not a single house of Simabara and its environs was spared:\nonly the citadel remained, whose Cyclopean walls were formed of\ngigantic blocks of stone. The convulsions of nature on that day so\nchanged the coast-line, that the most experienced mariners could not\nrecognise its once familiar shape and bendings.\n\nFifty-three thousand persons perished on that fatal day.\n\n\nORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF MULGRAVE.\n\nThe first diving bell was nothing but a very large kettle, suspended\nby ropes, with the mouth downwards, and planks to sit on fixed in\nthe middle of its concavity. The Greeks at Toledo, in 1588, made an\nexperiment before the Emperor Charles V. with it, when they descended\nwith a lighted candle to a considerable depth. In 1683 William Phipps,\nthe son of a blacksmith, formed a project for unloading a rich Spanish\nship, sunk at Hispaniola; Charles II. gave him a ship, with every\nnecessary for the undertaking; but being unsuccessful, Phipps returned\nin great poverty. He then endeavoured to procure another vessel,\nbut failing, he got a subscription, to which the Duke of Albemarle\ncontributed. In 1687, Phipps set sail in a ship of 200 tons, having\npreviously engaged to divide the profits according to the twenty\nshares of which the subscription consisted. At first all his labours\nproved fruitless, but at length, when he seemed almost to despair, he\nwas fortunate enough to bring up so much treasure that he returned to\nEngland with L200,000 sterling. Of this sum he got about L20,000, and\nthe Duke of Albemarle L90,000. Phipps was knighted by the king, and\nlaid the foundation of the present house of Mulgrave.\n\n\nSHRINE OF ST. SEBALD AT NUREMBURG.\n\nThe city of Nuremberg--the birthplace of Albert Durer--is enriched with\nmany works of high art. The most remarkable is the bronze shrine of St.\nSebald, the work of Peter Vischer and his five sons, which still stands\nin all its beauty in the elegant church dedicated to the saint. The\nsketch on next page is a correct representation of it.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Shrine of St. Sebald.]\n\nThe shrine encloses, amid the most florid Gothic architecture, the\noaken chest encased with silver plates, containing the body of the\nvenerated saint: this rests on an altar decorated with basso-relievos,\ndepicting his miracles. The architectural portion of this exquisite\nshrine partakes of the characteristics of the _Rennaissance_ forms\nengrafted on the mediaeval, by the influence of Italian art. Indeed,\nthe latter school is visible as the leading agent throughout the\nentire composition. The figures of the Twelve Apostles and others\nplaced around it, scarcely seem to belong to German art; they are\nquite worthy of the best _Transalpine_ master. The grandeur, breadth,\nand repose of these wonderful statues, cannot be excelled. Vischer\nseems to have completely freed his mind from the conventionalities of\nhis native schools: we have here none of the constrained, \"crumpled\ndraperies,\" the home studies for face and form so strikingly present in\nnearly all the works of art of this era, but noble figures of the men\nelevated above the earthly standard by companionship with the Saviour,\nexhibiting their high destiny by a noble bearing, worthy of the solemn\nand glorious duties they were devoted to fulfil. We gaze on these\nfigures as we do on the works of Giotto and Fra Angelico, until we feel\nhuman nature may lose nearly all of its debasements before the \"mortal\ncoil\" is \"shuffled off,\" and that mental goodness may shine through and\nglorify its earthly tabernacle, and give an assurance in time present\nof the superiorities of an hereafter. Dead, indeed, must be the soul\nthat can gaze on such works unmoved, appealing, as they do, to our\nnoblest aspirations, and vindicating humanity from its fallen position,\nby asserting its innate, latent glories. Here we feel the truth of the\nscriptural phrase--\"In his own image made he them.\"\n\nThe memory of Peter Vischer is deservedly honoured by his townsmen.\nThe street in which his house is situated, like that in which Durer's\nstands, has lost its original name, and is now only known as Peter\nVischer's Strasse; but these two artists are the only ones thus\ndistinguished. Vischer was born in 1460, and died in 1529. He was\nemployed by the warden of St. Sebald's, and magistrate of Nuremberg,\nSebald Schreyer, to construct this work in honour of his patron saint;\nhe began it in 1506, and finished it in 1519. Thirteen years of labour\nwere thus devoted to its completion, for which he received seven\nhundred and seventy florins. \"According to this tradition, Vischer\nwas miserably paid for this great work of labour and art; and he\nhas himself recorded, in an inscription upon the monument, that 'he\ncompleted it for the praise of God Almighty alone, and the honour of\nSt. Sebald, Prince of Heaven, by the aid of pious persons, paid by\ntheir voluntary contributions.'\" The elaboration of the entire work is\nmarvellous; it abounds with fanciful figures, seventy-two in number,\ndisposed among the ornaments, or acting as supporters to the general\ncomposition. Syrens hold candelabra at the angles; and the centre has\nan air of singular lightness and grace. It is supported at the base\nby huge snails. At the western end there is a small bronze statue of\nVischer; he holds his chisel in his hand, and in his workman's dress,\nwith capacious leather apron, stands unaffectedly forth as a true,\nhonest labourer, appealing only to such sympathies as are justly due to\none who laboured so lovingly and so well.\n\n\nA GREAT RESULT FROM TRIVIAL CIRCUMSTANCES.\n\nThat magnificent institution of active benevolence, Guy's Hospital,\nis one among a numerous list of instances where trifling events have\nproduced most disproportionate consequences.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Thomas Guy.]\n\nThomas Guy, of whom the above is a sketch, taken from an old print, was\nthe son of Thomas Guy an Anabaptist, lighterman and coal-dealer, in\nHorsleydown, Southwark. He was put apprentice in 1660 to a bookseller\nin the porch of Mercer's Chapel, and set up trade with a stock of about\ntwo hundred pounds, in the house that forms the angle between Cornhill\nand Lombard-street. The English Bibles being at that time very badly\nprinted, Mr. Guy engaged with others in a scheme for printing them in\nHolland and importing them; but this being put a stop to, he contracted\nwith the University of Oxford for their privilege of printing them,\nand carried on a great Bible trade for many years to considerable\nadvantage. He thus began to accumulate money, and his gains rested in\nhis hands, for being a single man, and very penurious, his expenses\nwere very trifling. His custom was to dine on his shop counter, with\nno other table-cloth than an old newspaper; he was also as little nice\nin regard to his dress. The bulk of his fortune, however, was acquired\nby the less reputable purchase of seamen's tickets during Queen Anne's\nwars, and by the South Sea stock in the memorable year 1720.\n\nIn proof of what we said at the outset, it is a fact that the public\nare indebted to a most trifling incident for the greatest part of\nhis immense fortunes being applied to charitable uses. Guy had a\nmaid-servant whom he agreed to marry; and preparatory to his nuptials\nhe had ordered the pavement before his door to be mended as far as a\nparticular stone which he marked. The maid, while her master was out,\ninnocently looking on the paviours at work, saw a broken place they had\nnot repaired, and mentioned it to them; but they told her that Mr. Guy\nhad desired them not to go so far. \"Well,\" says she, \"do you mend it;\ntell him I bade you, and I know he will not be angry.\" It happened,\nhowever, that the poor girl presumed too much on her influence over\nher wary lover, with whom the charge of a few shillings extraordinary\nturned the scale against her, for Guy, enraged to find his orders\nexceeded, renounced the matrimonial scheme, and built hospitals in\nhis old age. In 1707 he built and furnished three wards on the north\nside of the outer court of St. Thomas's Hospital, and gave one hundred\npounds to it annually for eleven years preceding the erection of his\nown hospital.\n\nSometime before his death he erected the stately gate with the large\nhouses on each side, at the expense of about three thousand pounds.\nHe was seventy-six years of age when he formed the design of building\nthe hospital near St. Thomas's, which bears his name. The charge of\nerecting this vast pile amounted to L18,793, besides L219,499 which he\nleft to endow it, and he just lived to see it roofed in.\n\nHe erected and endowed an almshouse and library at Tamworth, the place\nof his mother's nativity, and which he represented in Parliament. It\ncontains fourteen poor men and women, and the fund provides also for\nthe apprenticing of poor children. He also bequeathed four hundred\npounds a-year to Christ's Hospital.\n\nMr. Guy died December 17th, 1724 in the eighty-first year of his age,\nand his will bears date September 4th, in the same year.\n\n\nPHAROS AT ALEXANDRIA.\n\nTo render the harbour safe of approach at all times, Ptolemy Soter,\nwho, on the death of Alexander, obtained the government of Egypt,\ndetermined on erecting a lighthouse on the eastern extremity of the\nisle of Pharos, the celebrity of which has given the same name to all\nother lighthouses.\n\nThis \"pharos\" was in height 450 feet, and could be seen at a distance\nof 100 miles. It was built of several stories, decreasing in dimension\ntowards the top, where fires were lighted in a species of lantern. The\nground-floor and the two next above it were hexagonal; the fourth was a\nsquare with a round tower at each angle; the fifth floor was circular,\ncontinued to the top, to which a winding staircase conducted. In the\nupper galleries some mirrors were arranged in such a manner as to show\nthe ships and objects at sea for some considerable distance. On the top\na fire was constantly kept, to direct sailors into the bay, which was\ndangerous and difficult of access.\n\nThe whole of this masterpiece of art was exquisitely wrought in stone,\nand adorned with columns, balustrades, and ornaments, worked in the\nfinest marble. To protect the structure from the ocean storms, it was\nsurrounded entirely by a sea wall. Ancient writers say the building of\nthis tower cost 800 talents, which is equivalent to L165,000, if Attic\ntalents; but if Alexandrian, double that sum.\n\nThe building was not completed during the reign of the first Ptolemy,\nbut was finished in the reign of his son Ptolemy Philadelphus, who put\nthis inscription upon it:--\n\n     \"King Ptolemy, to the Gods the Saviours, for the benefit of\n     sailors.\"\n\nSostratus the architect, wishing to claim all the glory of the\nbuilding, engraved his own name on the solid marble, and afterwards\ncoated it with cement. Thus, when time had decayed the mortar Ptolemy's\nname disappeared, and the following inscription became visible:--\n\n     \"Sostratus the Cnidian, to the Gods the Saviours, for the benefit\n     of sailors.\"\n\nOf this remarkable tower not a vestige remains, and history gives us\nno further information than we have here: of its gradual decay or of\nits violent destruction we have no record; but that such a structure\nas described stood there, there can be not a shadow of doubt, from the\nfact that all buildings for like purposes among the Greeks and Romans\nderive their designation from this.\n\n\nSEPULCHRAL VASES OF ANCIENT EGYPT.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Sepulchral Vase.]\n\nIn ancient Egypt terra-cotta pottery was extensively made use of for\nvases or jars to hold the entrails of the dead. In order to preserve\nthe body effectually, it was necessary to remove the softer portions,\nsuch as the thoracic and abdominal viscera, and these were embalmed\nseparately. In some instances they were returned into the stomach,\nwith wax models of four deities, commonly called the four genii of\nthe Ament or Hades. It was, however, usual in the embalmment of the\nwealthier classes to soak them carefully in the requisite preparations,\ntie them up in neat cylindrical packets, and deposit them in vases\nhaving the shape of the four genii. The bodies of these deities, which\nwere usually represented as mummied, formed the bodies of the vases,\nand were cylindrical below and rounded above. The mouths of the jars\nwere sometimes countersunk to receive the lower part of the covers\nwhich fitted into them like a plug. The jar of the first genius, whose\nname was _Am-set_, \"the devourer of filth,\" held the stomach and large\nintestines, and was formed at the top like a human head. This genius\ntypified, or presided over the southern quarter of the compass. He\nwas the son of Osiris or of Phtha Socharis Osiris, the pygmean god\nof Memphis. The second vase of the series was in the shape of the\ngenius Hapi, the \"concealed.\" Its cover was shaped like the head of a\ncynocephalus, and it held the smaller viscera. This genius presided\nover the north, and was also the son of Osiris. The third vase was that\nof the genius Trautmutf, \"the adorer of his mother.\" We here annex an\nengraving of it. It had a cover in shape of the head of a jackal, and\nheld the lungs and heart. This genius presided over the East, and was\nbrother of the preceding. The last was that of the genius Kebhsnuf,\nthe refresher of his brethren. It had a cover shaped like the head\nof a sparrow-hawk, and held the liver and gall-bladder. This genius\npresided over the west, and was also brother of the preceding. Three\nvases of a set, in the British Museum, have all human-shaped heads, and\nare provided with handles at the sides of the bodies. Specimens of a\nvery unusual kind are also to be found in the same collection, having\nthe whole body formed without a cover, in the shape of a dome above,\nand surmounted by a rudely modelled figure of a jackal, couchant upon\na gateway, formed of a detached piece. The entrails were introduced by\nthe rectangular orifice in the upper part. In some other instances the\ncovers appear to have been secured by cords passing through them to\nthe body of the vase. When secured, the vases were placed in a wooden\nbox, which was laid on a sledge and carried to the sepulchre, where\nthey were often taken out and placed, two on each side of the coffin.\nIt was only the poorer classes that used pottery for these purposes.\nThe viscera of high officers of state were embalmed in jars of fine\nwhite limestone, and the still more valuable oriental alabasters or\narragonite, obtained from the quarries of Tel El Amarna, or the ancient\nAlabastron.\n\n\nTHE SACRO CATINO.\n\nThe celebrated \"Sacro Catino,\" part of the spoil taken by the Genoese\nat the storming of Cesarea, which was believed to be cut from a single\nemerald, and had, according to tradition, been presented by the Queen\nof Sheba to Solomon, was for ages the pride and glory of Genoa, and an\nobject of the greatest devotional reverence at the yearly exhibitions,\nwhich were attended with great pomp and ceremony. Such was the opinion\nof its intrinsic value, that on many occasions the republic borrowed\nhalf a million of ducats upon the security of this precious relic.\nWhen the French armies, during the first Revolution, plundered Italy\nof its treasures, it was sent with other spoils to Paris. Upon\nexamination, it was, instead of emerald, proved to be composed of\nglass, similar to that found in the Egyptian tombs, of which country it\nwas, no doubt, the manufacture. At the Restoration the Sacro Catino was\nreturned in a broken state, and now lies shorn of all its honours, a\nmere broken glass vessel, in the sacristy of the Church of San Lorenzo.\n\n\nDINNER PARTY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Dinner Party in the Seventeenth Century.]\n\nThe cut which we here present to our readers is taken from the English\nedition of the Janua Linguarum of Comenius, and represents the forms of\ndining in England under the Protectorate. It will be best described by\nthe text which accompanies it in the book, and in which each particular\nobject is mentioned. \"When a feast is made ready,\" we are told, \"the\ntable is covered with a carpet and a table-cloth by the waiters, who,\nbesides, lay the trenchers, spoons, knives, with little forks, table\nnapkins, bread, with a salt-cellar Messes are brought in platters, a\npie in a plate. The guests being brought in by the host, wash their\nhands out of a laver or ewer, over a hand-basin, or bowl, and wipe\nthem with a hand towel: they then sit at the table on chairs. The\ncarver breaketh up the good cheer, and divideth it. Sauces are set\namongst roste-meat in sawsers. The butler filleth strong wine out of a\ncruse, or wine-pot, or flagon, into cups or glasses, which stand on a\ncupboard, and he reacheth them to the master of the feast, who drinketh\nto his guests.\" It will be observed here that one salt-cellar is here\nplaced in the middle of the table. This was the usual custom; and, as\none long table had been substituted for the several tables formerly\nstanding in the hall, the salt-cellar was considered to divide the\ntable into distinct parts, guests of more distinction being placed\nabove the salt, while the places below the salt were assigned to\ninferiors and dependents. This usage is often alluded to in the old\ndramatists. Thus, in Ben Jonson, it is said of a man who treats his\ninferiors with scorn, \"he never drinks _below the salt_, _i. e._ he\nnever exchanges civilities with those who sit at the lower end of the\ntable.\" And in a contemporary writer, it is described as a mark of\npresumption in an inferior member of the household \"to sit above the\nsalt.\"\n\n\nSAND-COLUMNS IN AFRICA.\n\nOf this remarkable phenomenon, we extract the following interesting\naccount from the Rev. N. Davis's \"Evenings in my Tent\";--\n\n\"The heat, during the last day or two, has been intense. The\nthermometer in my tent, during day and night, has been almost\nstationary at 100 degrees. My men have done, and still do, everything\nin their power to keep the tent cool, by erecting a high palm-branch\nfence around it, and by a constant immersion of the ground, but all\nthis to very little effect. The wind, during this day, has been as\nhot as the flames issuing from a furnace; and the clouds of sand it\nraised, and carried along in its furious march, have been immense.\nIn the distance could be seen numbers of sand columns; but these did\nnot retain their form any considerable length of time. A contrary\nblast brought them in collision with each other; and these, blending\ntheir contents, raised a complete and dense barrier between us and the\ncountry beyond. I am no lover of danger; but, I must confess, I had\nan inward desire to see this phenomenon--one of the horrors of the\ndesert--in greater perfection. I believe Bruce witnessed one of the\nmost stupendous exhibitions of sand columns or sand spouts, caused by\ncircular or whirl-winds, on record. In his journey through the desert\nof Senaar, his attention was attracted to a number of prodigious\npillars of sand, at different distances, moving at times with great\ncelerity, at others, stalking on with majestic slowness: at intervals,\nhe thought they were coming in a very few minutes to overwhelm him and\nhis companions. Again they would retreat, so as to be almost out of\nsight, their tops reaching to the very clouds. There the tops often\nseparated, from the bodies; and these, once disjoined, dispersed in\nthe air, and appeared no more. Sometimes they were broken near the\nmiddle, as if struck with a large cannon-shot. About noon, they began\nto advance with considerable swiftness upon them, the wind being very\nstrong at north. Eleven of these awful visitors ranged alongside of\nthem, at about the distance of three miles. The greatest diameter of\nthe largest appeared to him, at that distance, as if it would measure\nten feet. They retired from them, with a wind at south-east, leaving an\nimpression upon the mind of our intrepid traveller to which he could\ngive no name, though he candidly admits that one ingredient in it was\nfear, with a considerable deal of wonder and astonishment. He declares\nit was in vain to think of flying; the swiftest horse, or fastest\nsailing ship, could be of no use to carry them out of this danger,--and\nthe full persuasion of this riveted him to the spot where he stood.\nNext day they were gratified by a similar display of moving pillars,\nin form and disposition like those already described, only they seemed\nto be more in number, and less in size. They came several times in\na direction close upon them; that is, according to Mr. Bruce's\ncomputation, within two miles. They became, immediately after sunrise,\nlike a thick wood, and almost darkened the sun, his rays, shining\nthrough them for near an hour, gave them an appearance of pillars of\nfire. At another time they were terrified by an army of these sand\npillars, whose march was constantly south, a number of which seemed\nonce to be coming directly upon them, and, though they were little\nnearer than two miles, a considerable quantity of sand fell around\nthem. On the 21st of November, about eight in the morning, he had a\nview of the desert to the westward as before, and saw the sands had\nalready begun to rise in immense twisted pillars, which darkened the\nheavens, and moved over the desert with more magnificence than ever.\nThe sun shining through the pillars, which were thicker, and contained\nmore sand apparently than any of the preceding ones, seemed to give\nthose nearest them an appearance as if spotted with stars of gold. A\nlittle before twelve, the wind at north ceased, and a considerable\nquantity of fine sand rained upon them for an hour afterwards.\"\n\n\nANTIQUITY OF INTOXICATING DRINKS.\n\nIt is a common belief that wine was the only inebriating liquor known\nto antiquity, but this is a mistake. Tacitus mentions the use of ale\nor beer as common among the Germans of his time. By the Egyptians,\nlikewise, whose country was ill adapted to the cultivation of the\ngrape, it was employed as a substitute for wine. Ale was common in\nthe middle ages, and Mr. Park states that very good beer is made, by\nthe usual process of brewing and malting, in the interior of Africa.\nThe favourite drink of our Saxon ancestors was ale or mead. Those\nworshippers of Odin were so notoriously addicted to drunkenness,\nthat it was regarded as honourable rather than otherwise; and the\nman who could withstand the greatest quantity was looked upon with\nadmiration and respect: whence the drunken songs of the Scandinavian\nscalds: whence the glories of Valhalla, the fancied happiness of\nwhose inhabitants consisted of quaffing draughts from the skulls of\ntheir enemies slain in battle. Even ardent spirit, which is generally\nsupposed to be a modern discovery, probably existed from a very early\nperiod. It is said to have been first made by the Arabians in the\nmiddle ages, and in all likelihood may lay claim to a still remoter\norigin. The spirituous liquor called arrack has been manufactured in\nthe island of Java, as well as in the continent of Hindostan, from\ntime immemorial. Brandy was made in Sicily at the commencement of the\nfourteenth century. As to wine, it was so common in ancient times as\nto have a tutelar god appropriated to it; Bacchus and his companion\nSilenus are as household words in the mouths of all, and constituted\nmost important features of the heathen mythology. We have all heard\nof the Falernian and Campanian wines, and of the wines of Cyprus and\nShiraz. Indeed, there is reason to believe that the ancients were in\nno respect inferior to the moderns in the excellence of the vinous\nliquors, whatever they may have been in the variety. Wine was so common\nin the eastern nations that Mahomet, foreseeing the baleful effects\nof its propagation, forbade it to his followers, who, to compensate\nthemselves, had recourse to opium. The Gothic or dark ages seem to have\nbeen those in which it was the least common; in proof of this it may\nbe mentioned that, so late as 1298, it was vended as a cordial by the\nEnglish apothecaries. At the present day it is little drunk, except by\nthe upper classes, in those countries which do not naturally furnish\nthe grape. In those that do, it is so cheap as to come within the reach\nof even the lowest.\n\n\nRUINS OF CLONMACNOIS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Ruins of Clonmacnois.]\n\nA few miles south of Athlone are the famous ruins of Clonmacnois, the\nschool where, according to Dr. O'Connor, \"the nobility of Connaught had\ntheir children educated, and which was therefore called Cluan-mac-nois,\n'the secluded recess of the sons of nobles.'\" It was also, in ancient\ntimes, a renowned cemetery of the Irish kings; and for many centuries\nit has continued a favourite burial-place, the popular belief enduring\nto this day, that all persons interred here pass immediately from\nearth to heaven. The abbey is said to have been founded by St. Kieran\nabout the middle of the sixth century, and soon became \"amazingly\nenriched,\" so that, writes Mr. Archdall, \"its landed property was so\ngreat, and the number of cells and monasteries subjected to it so\nnumerous, that almost half of Ireland was said to be within the bounds\nof Clonmacnois.\" The ruins retain marks of exceeding splendour. In the\nimmediate vicinity there are two \"Round Towers.\" The above engraving\nrepresents one of the many richly-carved stone crosses that are\nscattered in all directions among the ruins.\n\n\nTHE BRICKS OF BABYLON.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Brick of Babylon.]\n\nBesides sun-dried bricks, remains of kiln-baked or burnt bricks are\nfound in all the principal ruins of ancient Babylonia, and were used\nfor the purpose of revetting or casing the walls. Like the sun-dried\nbricks they are made of clay mixed with grass and straw, which have,\nof course, disappeared in the baking, leaving, however, traces of the\nstalks or stems in the clay. Generally they are slack-burnt, of a pale\nred colour, with a slight glaze or polish. The finest sort, according\nto Mr. Rich, are white, approaching more or less to a yellowish cast,\nlike our Stourbridge, or fire-brick; the coarsest are red, like our\nordinary brick. Some have a blackish cast, and are very hard. The\nfinest are those which come from the ruins of the Akerkuf. The general\nmeasurement of the kiln-dried bricks, at the Birs Nimrud, is 1 ft. 1\nin. square, and 3 in. thick. Some are submultiples, or half of these\ndimensions. A few are of different shapes for particular purposes, such\nas rounding corners. Those at the Akerkuf measured a trifle less, or\n12-1\/2 in. square, and 2-3\/4 in. thick, and are placed at the base of\nthe monument. The bricks of Al Hymer, on the eastern bank, measure 14\nin. long, 12-3\/4 in. broad, 2-1\/2 in. thick, and are of fine fabric.\nThere are bricks of two dimensions at this ruin of the Birs Nimrud;\nthose on the northern brow, a little way down it, measure 12 in.\nsquare, and 3-1\/4 in. thick; they are of a pale red colour, and used\nfor revetting the monument. Lower down to the east of this, they are\n4-3\/4 in. broad, and 12-3\/4 in. long. Similar bricks were found at the\nMujellibe, and in one place was an entire wall of them 60 feet thick.\nThe whole plain here is covered with masses of brick work, and on one\nof the mounds the bricks are so red, that it looks one bright gleaming\nmass. The bricks from the Mujellibe or Kasr are described as very hard,\nand of a pale yellow colour; and this edifice presents a remarkable\nappearance of freshness. We have seen only one fragment of a brick from\nNiffer; it is of a white, or rather yellowish white colour, and sandy,\ngritty texture. This spot, it will be remembered, is supposed to be the\nsite of old Babylon. All these bricks are made by the same process as\nthose of Assyria, namely, stamped out of a wooden or terra-cotta mould,\nand are also impressed with several lines of cuneiform character. This\nimpression is always sunk below the superficies, rectangular, and\noften placed obliquely on the brick, with that disregard to mechanical\nsymmetry which is so usual on works of ancient art. The stamp is\ngenerally about 6 inches long, by 4 inches wide, and the number of\nlines varies from three to seven: an arrangement quite different from\nthat observed on the bricks of Assyria, and rather resembling that\nadopted by the brick-makers of Egypt. The engraving on previous page\nis of a brick stamped with the name of Nebuchadnezzar, which is now in\nthe possession of the Royal Society of Literature. The inscriptions\nsometimes commence with the figure of a lion, a bull, or what may be\nintended for an altar. These read, according to Sir H. Rawlinson,--\n\n     [of] Nebuchadnezzar,\n     the king of Babylon,\n     founder of Beth Digla, or Saggalu,\n     and of Beth Tzida\n     son of Nebopalasar [I am].\n\n\nA TURKISH BAZAAR.\n\nA Turkish bazaar is one of the most wonderful sights in the world, and\nwell deserves a place in our record of curiosities. We cannot do better\nthan quote the description which Mr. Albert Smith gives of one of these\nextraordinary places in his \"Month at Constantinople:\"--\n\n\"Smyrna had, in some measure, prepared me for the general appearance\nof an oriental bazaar; but the vast extent of these markets at\nConstantinople created a still more vivid impression. To say that the\ncovered rows of shops must altogether be miles in length--that vista\nafter vista opens upon the gaze of the astonished stranger, lined with\nthe costliest productions of the world, each collected in its proper\ndistrict--that one may walk for an hour, without going over the same\nground twice, amidst diamonds, gold, and ivory; Cashmere shawls, and\nChinese silks; glittering arms, costly perfumes, embroidered slippers,\nand mirrors; rare brocades, ermines, Morocco leathers, Persian\nnick-nacks; amber mouthpieces, and jewelled pipes--that looking along\nthe shortest avenue, every known tint and colour meets the eye at once,\nin the wares and costumes, and that the noise, the motion, the novelty\nof this strange spectacle is at first perfectly bewildering--all\nthis, possibly, gives the reader the notion of some kind of splendid\nmart, fitted to supply the wants of the glittering personages who\nfigure in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments; yet it can convey but\na poor idea of the real interest which such a place calls forth,\nor the most extraordinary assemblage of treasures displayed there,\namidst so much apparent shabbiness. No spot in the world--neither the\nParisian Boulevards, nor our own Regent-street--can boast of such\nan accumulation of valuable wares from afar, as the great bazaar at\nConstantinople. Hundreds and thousands of miles of rocky road and sandy\ndesert have been traversed by the moaning camels who have carried\nthose silks and precious stones from Persia, with the caravan. From\nthe wild regions of the mysterious central Africa, that ivory, so\ncunningly worked, in the next row, has been brought--the coal-black\npeople only know how--until the Nile floated it down to Lower Egypt.\nThen those soft Cashmere shawls have made a long and treacherous\njourney to Trebizond, whence the fleet barks of the cold and stormy\nEuxine at last brought them up the fairy Bosphorus to the very water's\nedge of the city. From the remote active America; from sturdy England;\nfrom Cadiz, Marseilles, and all along the glowing shores of the\nMediterranean, safely carried over the dark and leaping sea, by brave\niron monsters that have fought the winds with their scalding breath,\nthese wares have come, to tempt the purchasers, in the pleasant, calm,\nsubdued light of the bazaars of Stamboul.\"\n\n\nVARNISH-TREE OF THE JAPANESE.\n\nThe _urusi_ or varnish-tree, of which they make so extensive a use, is\na noble tree when grown to its full size. On incision it yields a rich,\nmilky, glutinous juice, out of which the Japanese make the celebrated\nvarnish, known by the name of _Japan_. With this varnish they cover\nand coat all their household furniture, all their dishes and plates,\nand all their drinking-vessels, whether made of wood or of paper. The\nuse of plate, or porcelain, or glass appears to be very limited, and\nis probably interdicted by some rule of nationality or religion: from\nthe emperor down to the meanest peasant, all make use of the light\nvarnished or japanned cups and dishes, the inner substance of which is\nwood or paper, or what we term papier-mache.\n\nAnother tree, called _forasi_, renders a varnish of an inferior quality.\n\n\nTORTURE-CHAMBER AT NUREMBERG.\n\nNuremberg, being a \"free city,\" was governed by its own appointed\nmagistrates, having independent courts of law. The executive council\nof state consisted of eight members, chosen from the thirty patrician\nfamilies, who, by the privilege granted to them from the thirteenth\ncentury, ruled the city entirely. In process of time these privileges\nassumed the form of a civic tyranny, which was felt to be intolerable\nby the people, and occasionally opposed by them. The fierce religious\nwars of the sixteenth century assisted in destroying the monopoly of\npower still more; yet now that it is gone for ever, it has left fearful\ntraces of its irresponsible strength. All who sigh for \"the good old\ntimes,\" should not moralise over the fallen greatness of the city,\nand its almost deserted but noble town-hall; but descend below the\nbuilding into the dark vaults and corridors which form its basement;\nthe terrible substructure upon which the glorious municipal palace of\na free imperial self-ruled city was based in the middle ages, into\nwhose secrets none dared pry, and where friends, hope, life itself,\nwere lost to those who dared revolt against the rulers. There is no\nromance-writer who has imagined more horrors than we have evidences\nwere perpetrated under the name of justice in these frightful vaults,\nunknown to the busy citizens around them, within a few feet of the\nstreets down which a gay wedding procession might pass, while a true\npatriot was torn in every limb, and racked to death by the refined\ncruelty of his fellow-men. The heart sickens in these vaults, and an\ninstinctive desire to quit them takes possession of the mind, while\nremaining merely as a curious spectator within them. The narrow steps\nleading to them are reached through a decorated doorway, and the\npassage below receives light through a series of gratings. You shortly\nreach the labyrinthine ways, totally excluded from external light and\nair, and enter, one after another, confined dungeons, little more than\nsix feet square, cased with oak to deaden sounds, and to increase\nthe difficulty of attempted escape. To make these narrow places even\nmore horrible, strong wooden stocks are in some, and day and night\nprisoners were secured in total darkness, in an atmosphere which seems\neven now too oppressive to bear. In close proximity to these dungeons\nis a strong stone room, about twelve feet wide each way, into which\nyou descend by three steps. It is the torture-chamber, which we here\nengrave.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Torture-Chamber at Nuremberg.]\n\nThe massive bars before you are all that remain of the perpendicular\nrack, upon which unfortunates were hung with weights attached to their\nankles. Two such of stone, weighing each fifty pounds, were kept\nhere some years back, as well as many other implements of torture\nsince removed or sold for old iron. The raised stone bench around the\nroom was for the use of the executioner and attendants. The vaulted\nroof condensed the voice of the tortured man, and an aperture on one\nside gave it freedom to ascend into a room above, where the judicial\nlisteners waited for the faltering words which succeeded the agonising\nscreams of their victim.\n\n\nSEPULCHRAL VASES OF GREEK POTTERY.\n\nThe number of these vases deposited in the great public museums of\nEurope is very large, and from calculations derived from catalogues,\nor from observations made on the spot, may be stated in round numbers\nas follows:--The Museo Borbonico, at Naples, contains about 2,100;\nthe Gregorian Museum in the Vatican, about 1,000; Florence has about\n700; and at Turin there are 500. On the side of the Alps, the Imperial\nMuseum of Vienna possesses about 300; Berlin has 1,690; Munich about\n1,700; Dresden, 200; Carlsruhe, 200; the Louvre, at Paris, about\n1,500; while 500 more may be found in the Bibliotheque Imperiale.\nThe British Museum has about 2,600 vases of all kinds. Besides the\npublic collections, several choice and valuable specimens of ancient\nart belong to individuals. The most important of these private\ncollections are those of the Duc de Luynes, the Duc de Blacas, the\nCount de Pourtales-Gorgier, the Jatta collection, that belonging to\nM. St. Angela at Naples, and a fine and choice one belonging to the\nMarquis Campana at Rome. In England, the collections of Mr. Hope, of\nMr. Jekyll, of the Marquis of Northampton, and of Mr. Hertz, contain\nseveral interesting examples. In addition to these, several thousand\nmore vases are in the hands of the principal dealers, as S. Barone, of\nNaples; and the heirs of S. Basseggio, Capranesi and Messrs. Sotheby,\nin London. The total number of vases in public and private collections\nprobably amounts to 15,000 of all kinds.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Sepulchral Vases.]\n\nAll these were discovered in the sepulchres of the ancients, but the\ncircumstances under which they were found differ according to locality.\nIn Greece, the graves are generally small, being designed for single\ncorpses, which accounts for the comparatively small size of the vases\ndiscovered in that country. At Athens, the earlier graves are sunk\ndeepest in the soil, and those at Corinth, especially such as contain\nthe early Corinthian vases, are found by boring to a depth of several\nfeet beneath the surface. The early tombs of Civita Vecchia and Caere,\nor Cervetri, in Italy, are tunnelled in the earth; and those at Vulci\nand in the Etruscan territory, from which the finest and largest vases\nhave been extracted, are chambers hewn in the rocks. In Southern\nItaly, especially in Campania, they are large chambers, about 5-1\/4\npalms under the surface.\n\nThe engraving on previous page will convey an idea of the manner in\nwhich the vases are arranged round the bodies of the dead in the tombs\nof Veii, Nola, and Cumae.\n\nThe tomb there represented is constructed of large blocks of stone,\narranged in squared masses, called the Etruscan style of wall, in\ncontradistinction to the Cyclopean. The walls are painted with\nsubjects, the body is laid upon the stone floor, and the larger vases,\nsuch as the _oxybapha_ and _craters_ are placed round it. The jugs are\nhung upon nails round the walls.\n\n\nGAMES WITH CARDS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nCards were used by every one. The game of Gleek was played by three\npersons. The dealer dealt twelve cards and left eight on the table for\nstock, seven were bought, and the ace turned up for the dealer; if it\nwas Tiddy (four of trumps) such player gave four to the dealer. The ace\nwas called Tib, the knave Tim, the fifth Towser, and the sixth Tumbler.\nThe players then begin bidding for the stock in hopes of bettering\ntheir game, the buyer taking in seven cards and putting out seven. If\nTib was turned up, it counted fifteen to the dealer. The players then\npicked for Ruff, the one having most of a suit winning it--unless any\none had four aces, which always carried it. The first then said, \"I'll\nvie the Ruff;\" the next, \"I'll see it:\" the third, \"I'll see it, and\nrevie it;\" the first again, \"I'll see your revie;\" and the middle,\n\"I'll not meddle with it.\" They then showed their cards, and he that\nhad most of a suit won six of him that held out longest, and forty of\nhim who said he could see it, and then refused to meddle with it.\n\nOmbre, Basset, Whist, Costly Colours, and Five Cards, were, we believe,\nof later introduction. Of our period, are Ruff, Bone, Ace, Pult. The\ngreat game in the West of England was Post and Pair, as All Fours was\nin Kent, and Five Cards in Ireland. In Post and Pair, the ace of trumps\nwas the best card; at Post the best cards were one and two, but a\npair of court cards one. The daring of the game consisted in the vye,\nor the adventuring upon the goodness of your hand to intimidate your\nantagonist.\n\n\nRESCUED RELICS.\n\nThe following is a list--translated from the original in the chartulary\nof the University of Glasgow; of the relics which were carried\naway from Glasgow Cathedral, by the Archbishop, before the work of\ndemolition began, in 1560:--\n\nThe image of Christ in gold, and those of the twelve apostles in\nsilver, with the whole vestments belonging to the church.\n\nA silver cross, gilt in the upper part, and adorned with precious\nstones in the lower part, with a small portion of the cross of our\nSaviour!\n\nAnother silver cross, adorned with precious stones, with several other\nportions of the cross of Christ!\n\nA silver casket, gilt, containing the hair of the blessed Virgin!\n\nA square silver coffer, containing several of the scourges of St.\nKentigern, and St. Thomas of Canterbury, and a portion of the hair\ngarment worn by the former saint!!\n\nAnother silver casket, gilt, containing part of the skin of\nBartholomew, the apostle!!\n\nA silver casket containing a bone of St. Ninian!\n\nA silver casket, containing part of the girdle of the Virgin Mary!!\n\nA crystal case, containing a bone of some saint and of St. Magdalene!!\n\nA small vial of crystal, containing the milk of the blessed Virgin, and\npart of the manger of Christ!!!\n\nA small phial of a saffron colour, containing the fluid which formerly\nflowed from the tomb of St. Mungo!\n\nA phial, containing several of the bones of St. Eugene, and of St.\nBlaze!\n\nA phial, containing a part of the tomb of St. Catherine the virgin!\n\nA small hide, with a portion of the cloak of St. Martin!\n\nA precious hide, with portions of the bodies of St. Kentigern and St.\nThomas of Canterbury!!\n\nSome other hides, with bones of saints and other relics!\n\nA wooden chest, containing many small relics!\n\nTwo linen bags, with the bones of St. Kentigern, St. Thanew, and other\ndeceased saints!!\n\n\nPAPER.\n\nWith respect to the paper now in use, Dr. Blair says, the first\npaper-mill (in England, we suppose) was erected at Dartford, in the\nyear 1588, by a German of the name of Speillman; from which period we\nmay, perhaps, date its manufacture in this country.\n\nIt appears, however, that it was known in the East much earlier; it\nbeing observed that most of the ancient manuscripts in Arabic and other\nOriental languages, were written upon cotton paper, and it is thought\nthe Saracens first introduced it into Spain.\n\nAnderson, in his \"History of Commerce,\" says that, till the year 1690,\nthere was scarcely any paper made in England but the coarse brown\nsort. Paper was previously imported from France, Genoa, and Holland.\nHowever, the improvement of this article in England, in consequence of\nthe French war, produced a saving to the country of L100,000 annually,\nwhich had been paid to France for paper alone.\n\n\nLOTTERIES.\n\nIf the antiquity of a practice could justify its existence, lotteries\nmight claim peculiar reverence. The Romans, we are told, used to\nenliven their Saturnalia with them, by distributing tickets, all of\nwhich gained some prize. Augustus instituted lotteries, that consisted,\nhowever, of things of little value. Nero also established lotteries,\nfor the people, in which 1,000 tickets were daily distributed, and\nseveral of those who were favoured by fortune got rich by them. The\nfirst lottery of which we find any record in our annals, was in the\nyear 1659, which, according to Stow, consisted of 40,000 lots, at 10s.\neach. The prizes were plated; and the profits were to be applied to\nthe purpose of repairing the havens of the kingdom. This lottery was\ndrawn at the west door of St. Paul's cathedral; and began on the 11th\nJuly, 1569, and continued incessantly, day and night, till the 6th May\nfollowing. The tickets were three years in being disposed of. In the\nyear 1612, King James granted a lottery to promote the plantation of\nEnglish colonies in Virginia, which was also drawn at St. Paul's.\n\n\nTEMPLE AT SIMONBONG.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Lepcha Temple at Simonbong.]\n\nThe above is a correct representation of the great Lepcha temple at\nSimonbong, in Sikkim, a district of India near Thibet. We take the\nfollowing account of it from the Journal of Dr. Hooker, who visited it\nin 1848:--\"Simonbong is one of the smallest and poorest goompas, or\ntemples, in Sikkim, being built of wood only. It consists of one large\nroom, raised on a stone foundation, with small sliding shutter windows,\nand roofed with shingles of wood; opposite the door a wooden altar was\nplaced, rudely chequered with black, white, and red; to the right and\nleft were shelves, with a few Tibetan books, wrapped in silk; a model\nof Symbonath temple in Nepal, a praying-cylinder, and some implements\nfor common purposes, bags of juniper, English wine-bottles and glasses,\nwith tufts of _Abies Webbina_, rhododendron flowers, and peacock's\nfeathers, besides various trifles, clay ornaments and offerings, and\nlittle Hindoo idols. On the altar were ranged seven little brass cups,\nfull of water; a large conch-shell, carved with the sacred lotus; a\nbrass jug from Lhassa, of beautiful design, and a human thigh-bone,\nhollow, and perforated through both condyles.\n\n\"Facing the altar was a bench and a chair, and on one side a huge\ntambourine, with two curved iron drumsticks. The bench was covered with\nbells, handsomely carved with idols, and censers with juniper-ashes;\nand on it lay the _dorge_, or double-headed thunderbolt. Of all these\narticles, the human thigh-bone is by much the most curious; it is very\noften that of a Lama, and is valuable in proportion to its length.\nAs, however, the Sikkim Lamas are burned, these relics are generally\nprocured from Tibet, where the corpses are cut in pieces and thrown to\nthe kites, or thrown into the water.\"\n\n\nIMPLEMENTS USED IN BUDDHIST TEMPLES.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Implements Used in Buddhist Temples.]\n\nThe above sketch places before us the implements generally used in the\nBuddhist temples of India:--a praying cylinder in stand, another to be\ncarried in the hand, cymbals, bell, brass cup, three trumpets (one of\nthem made of a human thigh-bone), conch, and dorje, or double-headed\nthunderbolt, which the Lama, or high-priest, holds in his hand during\nservice. The praying cylinder is made to revolve by means of an axle\nand string, and a projecting piece of iron strikes a little bell at\neach revolution. Within such cylinders are deposited written prayers,\nand whoever pulls the string properly is considered to have said his\nprayers as often as the bell rings. The worshippers, on entering the\ntemple, walk up to the altar, and, before or after having deposited\ntheir gifts, they lift both hands to the forehead, fall on their\nknees, and touch the ground three times with head and hands. They then\nadvance to the head Lama, _kotow_ similarly to him, and he blesses\nthem, laying both hands on their heads, and repeating a short formula.\nSometimes the dorje is used in blessing, as the cross is in Europe,\nand when a number of people request a benediction, the Lama pronounces\nit from the door of the temple with outstretched arms, the people all\nbeing prostrate, with their foreheads touching the ground.\n\n\nPROCLAMATION FOR THE PERSON OF GEORGE II.\n\nOn the young Pretender landing in Scotland, Government issued a\nproclamation, offering a reward of L30,000 for his head, alive or dead.\nIn opposition to this, the following curious paper was issued by the\nPrince and his council, which, Mr. Beloe says, \"is so rare, that I\nnever heard of any other than that which accident lately deposited in\nthe British Museum.\"\n\n  \"Charles, Prince of Wales, &c.\n\n  Regent of the Kingdoms of Scotland, France, and Ireland, and the\n  Dominions thereunto belonging,\n\nWhereas, we have seen a certain scandalous and malicious paper,\npublished in the style and form of a proclamation, bearing date the 1st\ninstant, wherein, under pretence of bringing us to justice, like our\nRoyal Ancestor, King Charles I. of blessed memory, there is a reward of\nL30,000 sterling promised to those who shall deliver us into the hands\nof our enemies, we could not but be moved with a just indignation at\nso insolent an attempt; and though, from our nature and principles,\nwe abhor and detest a practice so unusual among Christian Princes, we\ncannot but, out of just regard to the dignity of our person, promise a\nlike reward of L30,000 sterling to him, or those, who shall seize and\nsecure till our further orders, the person of the Elector of Hanover,\nwhether landed, or attempting to land, in any part of his Majesty's\ndominions. Should any fatal accident happen from hence, let the blame\nbe entirely at the door of those who first set the infamous example.\n\n  \"CHARLES, P. R.\n\n  \"Given at our Camp, at Kinlockeill, August 22, 1745.\n\n  \"By his Highness's Command.\n\n  \"JOHN MURRAY.\"\n\n\nDOGS IN JAPAN.\n\nDogs or common curs they have, and in superfluous numbers. These\ndogs are as much the pest of the towns of Japan as they are of\nConstantinople and the other foul cities and towns of the Ottoman\nEmpire. This vast increase of the canine species, and the encouragement\nand immunity accorded to it, arose (according to the popular account)\nout of a curious superstition and an extravagant imperial decree. An\nEmperor who reigned at the close of the eighteenth century chanced to\nbe born under the Sign of the Dog, the Dog being one of the twelve\ncelestial signs of the Japanese Zodiac. For this reason the Emperor had\nas great an esteem for dogs as the Roman Emperor Augustus is reported\nto have entertained for rams. When he ascended the throne, he willed\nand ordained that dogs should be held as sacred animals; and, from\nthat time, more puppies saw the light, and were permitted to live in\nJapan than in any other country on the face of the earth, Turkey,\nperhaps, excepted. These dogs have no masters, but lie and prowl\nabout the streets, to the exceeding great annoyance of passengers,\nespecially if they happen to be foreign travellers, or Christians in\nChristian dresses. If they come round you in packs, barking, snarling,\nand showing their teeth; nay, even if they fall upon you and bite you,\nyou must on no account take the law into your own hands, and beat them\noff or shoot them. To kill one of them is a capital crime, whatever\nmischief the brute may have done you. In every town there are Guardians\nof the Dogs, and to these officers notice must be given in case of any\ncanine misdemeanour, these guardians alone being empowered to punish\nthe dogs. Every street must keep a certain number of these animals,\nor at least provide them with victuals; huts, or dog-hospitals,\nstand in all parts of the town, and to these the animals, in case of\nsickness, must be carefully conveyed by the inhabitants. The dogs that\ndie must be brought up to the tops of mountains and hills, the usual\nburying-places of men and women, and there be very decently interred.\nOld Kaempfer says:--\"The natives tell a pleasant tale on this head. A\nJapanese, as he was carrying the carcase of a dead dog to the top of\na steep mountain, grew impatient, grumbled, and cursed the Emperor's\nbirthday and whimsical command. His companion bid him hold his tongue\nand be quiet, and, instead of swearing, return thanks to the gods that\nthe Emperor was not born under the Sign of the Horse, for, in that\ncase, the load would be heavier.\"\n\n\nLAGMI, AND THE USE MADE OF IT.\n\nMohammed, we are told, prohibited the use of wine, owing to a drunken\nquarrel among the chiefs of his army, which produced great disorder\nand confusion in his affairs, and almost caused the prophet's death in\none of his daring military engagements. He, therefore, addressed his\nfollowers in these words: \"The devil desires to sow dissensions among\nyou, through wine and games of chance, to divert you from remembering\nGod, and praying to him. Abandon wine and games of chance. Be obedient\nto God and the prophet, his apostle, and take heed unto yourselves.\"\nBut the prophet, who could so minutely delineate the furniture of\nheaven, and the instruments of torture of hell--who could describe the\nmysterious occurrences before the creation was formed into its present\nshape, and predict stupendous events to happen in thousands of years\nto come--could not forsee that man would stupify himself by any other\nbeverages besides \"wine.\" The believers in the Koran at Tozar, a city\nnear the Great Desert, in Africa, certainly abstain from wine, and thus\nobey the prophet's precept, but then they indulge freely in _lagmi_,\nor the juice of the palm-tree, which, when fermented, is as pernicious\nin its effect, when taken in excess, as the wine possibly can be. This\njuice is easily obtained, and more easily still prepared. An incision\nis made in the tree, just beneath the branches, and a jar so fastened\nthat it receives every drop of liquid flowing out. During a night they\nprocure from a tree \"in a producing condition\" (in which it is not\nalways) from a quart to three pints of _lagmi_. When drunk immediately\nit tastes like _genuine_ rich milk, and is perfectly harmless; but\nwhen allowed to stand one night, or, at most, twenty-four hours, it\npartakes (with the exception of the colour, which is whitish,) of the\nquality and flavour of champagne, and that of a far superior sort than\nis usually offered in the British markets. This date-tree wine, (for so\nit may be called,) procured at so little trouble and expense, is to be\nfound in every house, and has its victims reeling through the streets\nof Tozar, just as the stupifying porter has in the streets of English\ncities. But the curious part in connexion with this is, that \"the\nfaithful\" persist in their justification that they do not transgress\ntheir prophet's precept! \"_Lagmi_ is not wine,\" they say, \"and the\nprophet's prohibition refers to wine.\"\n\n\nANGLO-SAXON UMBRELLA.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Anglo-Saxon Umbrella.]\n\nIn Anglo-Saxon times the traveller always wore a covering for his\nhead, which, though in various shapes, in no instance resembled our\nhat, though it was characterised by the general term _haet_. He seems\nto have been further protected against the inclemency of the weather\nby a cloak or (_mentel_). One would be led to suppose that this outer\ngarment was more varied in form and material than any other part\nof the dress from the great number of names which we find applied\nto it, such as--_basing_, _haecce_, _haecla_, or _hacela_, _poell_,\n_pylca_, _scyccels_, _waefels_, &c. The writings which remain throw no\nlight upon the provisions made by travellers against rain; for the\ndictionary makers who give _scur-scead_ (shower-shade) as signifying\nan umbrella are certainly mistaken. Yet that umbrellas were known to\nthe Anglo-Saxons is proved beyond a doubt by a figure in the Harleian\nMSS. which we have engraved above. A servant or attendant is holding an\numbrella over the head of a man who appears to be covered at the same\ntime with the cloak or mantle.\n\n\nTHE HEJIRA.\n\nThe Hejira, Hegira, or Hejra. The flight of Mohammed from Mecca to\nMedina is the epoch of the Mohammedan nations. Omar, the second Caliph,\ninstituted the Hegira in imitation of the Christians, who counted their\nyears from their persecution by Diocletian, (A.D. 284,) and who called\nit the era of the martyrs. Thus the Mohammedans wished to commence\ntheir calculation of time from the period of the most memorable\npersecution they had suffered. The learned Mohammedan astronomers have\nbeen divided in opinion on the exact year of the Christians which\ncorresponds with the Hegira. But the generality of writers place\nthis epoch on Friday, the 16th of July, A.D. 622. The ancient Arabs\ncounted time by solar months; these months always returned in the same\nseason, and their names correspond with the employments which the\nseasons rendered necessary. Since the epoch of the Hegira was fixed the\nMohammedans count time by lunar months, the Arabian year consisting of\n354 days, eight hours, and forty-eight minutes. The intercalary days\nare adjusted by a cycle of thirty lunar years, of which nineteen are\nof 354 days, and eleven of 355 days. The years of excess are in the\nfollowing order:--2, 5, 7, 10, 13, 15, 18, 21, 24, 26, 29.\n\n\nCHINESE PAILOOS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Chinese Pailoos.]\n\nThe Pailoos, or, as they are commonly but erroneously called, triumphal\narches, form an object of Chinese architecture which, from its constant\nrecurrence in views of Chinese scenery, is almost as familiar to us\nas the pagoda. They are, in fact, monuments to deceased persons of\ndistinction, generally of widows who have not married a second time,\nor of virgins who have died unmarried. The smaller and less important\nones consist merely of two upright posts of wood or granite, supporting\na flat board with an inscription, like, both in purpose and design, to\nthe wooden rails which are used as substitutes for tombstones in some\ndistricts in England. The more important Pailoos have three openings,\nsupported by several boards, with more or less ornament and carving.\nSometimes they are wholly of wood; in others no material is used but\nstone, generally granite; and these two materials are combined in\nvarious proportions in other examples. Sometimes they are raised on\nplatforms as in the annexed example, from a peculiarly graceful one\nnear Canton.\n\nAt other times they are placed on the ground, and even across roads,\nso as to form arches, if they may be called, though certainly not\ntriumphal ones.\n\n\nREMARKABLE GROTTO, AND STORY CONNECTED WITH IT.\n\nNear Lunel, in France, on the eastern bank of the river Herault, is\nthe grotto, known in this part of the country as _la Baume de las\nDonmaisellas_, or _des Fees_. This grotto consists of many large, deep\napartments, some of which are indeed inaccessible; the second (and\nthey are all one below the other), presents to the eye of the beholder\nfour beautiful pillars, about thirty feet high, terminating at the top\nlike palm trees; they are detached from the roof, which is only to be\naccounted for by supposing that the _bottom_, or _floor_, has, in some\nconcussion of nature, sunk from its original level: the third chamber,\nstill descending, and like the former only to be reached by ropes and\nladders, presents, at the farther end, one vast curtain of crystal, to\nwhich the lights, carried on such occasions, give the appearance of all\nmanner of precious stones. Some of the stalactites of this apartment\nare solid and white as alabaster, some clear and transparent as glass;\nthey are of every fantastic form and description, as well as displaying\nperfect representations of cascades, trees, festoons, lances, pillars,\nfruits, flowers, and even the regular arrangement of architecture in\na cathedral. The fourth chamber is a long gallery covered with fine\nsand: beyond this three great pillars present themselves, and behind,\nthere is a lake of thick muddy water. All these grottoes have been\nlong known to the peasantry, but another was lately penetrated, in\nwhich every former variety of stalactite was seen, but, in addition\nto these was found an altar, white, like fine china, having regular\nsteps to it, of the same material: it is composed apparently of layers\nof the opaque stalactite, of a dazzling white and exquisite polish:\nfour twisted columns, of a yellow colour and transparent, whose height\nis lost in the vast roof; an obelisk, perfectly round, of a reddish\ncolour, of a great height, and a colossal figure of a woman, holding\ntwo children in her arms, and placed upon a pedestal, completed the\nastonishment of the daring explorers of this subterraneous cavern. But\nalas! this astonishment was changed into feelings of a more melancholy\ndescription, when they recalled the circumstance, still current in\nthe neighbourhood, that, during the religious wars, a family (whether\nProtestant or Catholic is not ascertained), consisting of a father and\nmother and one or two children, sought refuge in these subterraneous\ngrottoes from the persecution of their enemies, and there preserved a\nmiserable existence, far from the cruelty of\n\n    Man, whom Nature formed of milder clay,\n    With every kind emotion in his heart,\n    And taught alone to weep.\n\nFor some years they supported themselves with berries, and now and\nthen they were seen endeavouring to secure a stray kid or goat for\nfood. The solitude and silence of their almost inaccessible dwelling,\nimbued them and their fate with an awful character; and from being\nobjects of _pity_, they became at length objects of _terror_, to the\nneighbouring peasantry, who told strange stories of the unfortunate\nbeings thus consigned to cold and hunger, and compelled to seek a\nwretched home within the bowels of the earth. Their spare forms, their\npale countenances, their tattered garments waving in the breeze, all\nthrew a mystic feeling over their appearance, and they were transformed\ninto fairies and spectres. The shepherds fled when they appeared, and\nthe children, as they clung affrighted to their parents, with strained\neyes and parted lips, followed the rapid movements of the mountaineers,\nas they in their turn, alarmed at the sight of their fellow-creatures,\nfled from height to height, until they gained their rocky asylum. Such\nan accumulation of suffering and misery was not, however, calculated\nto prolong existence: terror and fear destroyed the mind, as hunger\nand cold destroyed the body, and after the lapse of a few years, one\nby one, these _spectres_ disappeared: but still they figure in all the\nlocal stories and traditions peculiar to the neighbourhood, under the\nform of witches, fairies, and sorcerers. The question is, whether the\naltar and the figure are not the work of these unfortunate beings, who\nmight find in this employment a transitory solace for their misery.\n\n\nCRUELTY OF HINDOO RITES.\n\nWe extract the following account from \"The Land of the Veda,\" as\nit affords an extraordinary instance of the lengths to which the\nfanaticism of a gross superstition will induce men to proceed:--\n\n\"To satisfy ourselves of the sanguinary character of some of the Hindoo\ndeities, and of the influence they exert over the deluded victims of\nsuperstition, we must witness some of the cruel practices which the\npopular goddess, Kali, imposes on her worshippers. The most remarkable\nfestival is the one called _Charak Puja_.\n\n\"This festival derives its name from _chakra_, a wheel or discus; in\nallusion to the circle performed in the act of rotating, when suspended\nfrom the instrument of this horrible superstition. Being desirous of\nwitnessing the ceremony in all its parts, I went to the spot where one\nof these ceremonies was about to take place. An upright pole, twenty\nor thirty feet in height, was planted in the ground, across the top of\nwhich, moving on a pivot, a long pole was placed. From one end of this\ntransverse beam a long rope was suspended and left to hang loosely,\nwhilst a shorter rope was attached to the other end, bearing a couple\nof strong iron hooks. A good-looking man, perhaps thirty years of age,\ncame from the midst of the crowd, and doing obeisance beneath the\ninstrument of torture, presented himself as a candidate for the honour\nhe aspired to. The attendant, before whom he stood erect, struck a\nsmart blow on the small of the back, and fixed one of the hooks in the\nflesh, and then did the same on the other side. The man then laid hold\nof the rope just above the hooks and held it, whilst certain persons\nin the crowd, seizing the loose rope, pulled him up, by depressing the\nother end of the beam. As he rose he relinquished his hold of the rope\nby which he was suspended, and resigned himself to the rotary motion,\nby which he was whirled round and round in mid air, suspended by the\nflesh of his own body. Whilst he was thus enduring the torture incident\nto this horrid service, at once gratifying the cruel goddess Kali and\nthe crowd of admiring spectators, he drew from his girdle fruits and\nflowers, which he scattered among the attendants. These were picked\nup by the crowd, with the greatest eagerness, as precious relics that\nmight avail as charms in cases of personal or domestic extremity. This\nwretched dupe of a foul superstition remained in the air at least a\nquarter of an hour, and, of course, in his own estimation and in that\nof the spectators, gained by this brief infliction a large amount of\nmerit, and consequent title to certain rewards to be reaped in a future\nstate of being. No sooner had he descended, than another was ready for\nthe ceremony. These cruel practices are carried on in various parts of\nthe native town, from day to day, as long as the festival lasts. It\nnot unfrequently happens that the ligaments of the back give way, when\nthe man, tossed to an immense distance, is dashed to pieces. In such\ncases, the inference is, that the victim of such accident, by virtue\nof demerit in a former state of existence, was not merely unworthy of\nthe privileges attached to this privileged ceremonial, but destined to\nexpiate his evil deeds by this dreadful accident.\"\n\n\nCURIOUS MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.\n\nThe musical instrument which we engrave below, is used in the Burman\nempire, and is thus described by Captain Yule, in his \"Mission to Ava,\"\nwriting from the town of Magwe, in Burmah. The Captain says;--\n\n[Illustration: [++] Drum-Harmonicon.]\n\n\"This evening the members of the mission made their first acquaintance\nwith the Burmese drama; an entertainment which from this time would\noccupy a very large place in the daily history of our proceedings if\nall were registered.\n\n\"The Governor had provided both a puppet play and a regular dramatic\nperformance for our benefit, and on this first occasion of the kind the\nEnvoy thought it right that we should visit both.\n\n\"Each performance was attended by a full Burmese orchestra. The\nprincipal instruments belonging to this are very remarkable, and, as\nfar as I know, peculiar to Burmah.\n\n\"The chief instrument in size and power is that called in\nBurmese _pattshaing_, and which I can only name in English as a\ndrum-harmonicon. It consists of a circular tub-like frame about thirty\ninches high and four feet six inches in diameter. This frame is formed\nof separate wooden staves fancifully carved, and fitting by tenon into\na hoop which keeps them in place. Round the interior of the frame\nare suspended vertically some eighteen or twenty drums, or tom-toms,\ngraduated in tone, and in size from about two and a-half inches\ndiameter up to ten. In tuning the instrument the tone of each drum is\nmodified as required by the application of a little moist clay with a\nsweep of the thumb, in the centre of the parchment. The whole system\nthen forms a sort of harmonicon, on which the performer, squatted in\nthe middle, plays with the natural plectra of his fingers and palms,\nand with great dexterity and musical effect.\"\n\n\nBURMESE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Burmese Musical Instruments.]\n\nThe two Burmese musical instruments which we here engrave are thus\ndescribed by Captain Yule in his \"Mission to Ava:\"--\n\n\"The bamboo harmonicon or staccato is a curious example of the\nproduction of melody by simple and unexpected means. Its use, though\nunknown in India, extends throughout the Eastern Archipelago; and\nsomething similar is possessed, I believe, by the <DW64> slaves in\nBrazil. Eighteen to twenty-four flat slips of bamboo, about an inch and\na half broad, and of graduated length, are strung upon a double string\nand suspended in a catenary over the mouth of a trough-like sounding\nbox. The roundish outside of the bamboo is uppermost, and whilst the\nextremities of the slips are left to their original thickness, the\nmiddle part of each is thinned and hollowed out below. The tuning is\naccomplished partly by the regulation of this thinning of the middle\npart. The scale so formed is played with one or two drumsticks, and\nthe instrument is one of very mellow and pleasing tone. Though the\nmaterials are of no value, a good old harmonicon is prized by the\nowner, like a good old Cremona, and he can rarely be induced to part\nwith it.\n\n\"There was one example at the capital, of a similar instrument formed\nof slips of iron or steel. It was said to have been made by the august\nhands of King Tharawadee himself, who, like Louis Seize, was abler as\na smith than as a king. The effect was not unpleasing, and strongly\nresembled that of a large Geneva musical box, but it was far inferior\nin sweetness to the bamboo instrument.\n\n\"Another instrument used in these concerts is a long cylindrical guitar\nof three strings, shaped like an alligator and so named. It is placed\non the ground before the performer.\"\n\n\nDRESS REGULATED BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT.\n\nThe foreign knights and visitors who came to Windsor in Edward\nthe First's reign, and brought with them a continual succession\nof varying fashions, turned the heads of the young with delight,\nand of the old with disgust. Douglas, the monk of Glastonbury, is\nespecially denunciative and satirical on this point. He says that in\nthe horrible variety of costume,--\"now long, now large, now wide, now\nstraight,\"--the style of dress was \"destitute and devert from all\nhonesty of old arraye or good usage.\" It is all, he says, \"so nagged\nand knibbed on every side, and all so shattered and also buttoned, that\nI with truth shall say, they seem more like to tormentors or devils in\ntheir clothing, and also in their shoying and other array, than they\nseemed to be like men.\" And the old monk had good foundation for his\ncomplaint; and the Commons themselves having, what the Commons now have\nnot, a dread of becoming as extravagant as their betters in the article\nof dress, actually sought the aid of Parliament. That august assembly\nmet the complaint by restricting the use of furs and furls to the royal\nfamily and nobles worth one thousand _per annum_. Knights and ladies\nworth four hundred marks yearly, were permitted to deck themselves in\ncloths of gold and silver, and to wear certain jewellery. Poor knights,\nsquires, and damsels were prohibited from appearing in the costume of\nthose of higher degree. As for the Commons themselves, they could put\non nothing better than unadorned woollen cloth; and if an apprentice or\na milliner had been bold enough to wear a ring on the finger, it was in\nperil of a decree that it should be taken off,--not the finger, but the\nring,--with confiscation of the forbidden finery.\n\nThe consequence was that the Commons, being under prohibition to put\non finery, became smitten with a strong desire to assume it; and much\ndid they rejoice when they were ruled over by so consummate a <DW2> as\nRichard of Bordeaux. All classes were content to do what many classes\njoyfully do in our own days,--dress beyond their means; and we find in\nold Harding's \"Cronicle\" that not only were\n\n    \"Yemen and gromes in cloth of silk arrayed,\n     Sattin and damask, in doublettes and in gownnes.\"\n\nbut that all this, as well as habits of \"cloth of greene and\nscarleteen,--cut work and brodwar, was all,\" as the Chronicler\nexpresses it, \"for unpayed;\" that is, was _not paid for_. So that\nvery many among us do not so much despise the wisdom afforded us by\nthe example of our ancestors as didactic poets and commonplace honest\nwriters falsely allege them to do. And those ancestors of Richard\nthe Second's time were especially given to glorify themselves in\nparti- garments of white and red, such being the colours of the\nKing's livery (as blue and white were those of John of Gaunt); and they\nwho wore these garments, sometimes of half-a-dozen colours in each, why\nthey looked, says an old writer, \"as though the fire of St. Anthony, or\nsome such mischance,\" had cankered and eaten into half their bodies.\nThe long-toed shoes, held up to the knee by a chain and hook, were\ncalled _crackowes_, the fashion thereof coming from Cracrow in Poland.\nThe not less significant name of \"devil's receptacles\" were given to\nthe wide sleeves of this reign, for the reason, as the Monk of Evesham\ntells us, that whatever was stolen was thrust into them.\n\n\nA CAT-CLOCK.\n\nThe following curious incident is to be found in Huo's \"Chinese\nEmpire:--\n\n\"One day when we went to pay a visit to some families of Chinese\nChristian peasants, we met, near a farm, a young lad, who was taking\na buffalo to graze along our path. We asked him carelessly, as we\npassed, whether it was yet noon. The child raised his head to look at\nthe sun, but it was hidden behind thick clouds, and he could read no\nanswer there. \"The sky is so cloudy,\" said he; \"but wait a moment;\" and\nwith these words he ran towards the farm, and came back a few minutes\nafterwards with a cat in his arms. \"Look here,\" said he, \"it is not\nnoon yet;\" and he showed us the cat's eyes, by pushing up the lids with\nhis hands. We looked at the child with surprise, but he was evidently\nin earnest; and the cat, though astonished, and not much pleased at the\nexperiment made on her eyes, behaved with most exemplary complaisance.\n\"Very well,\" said we; \"thank you;\" and he then let go the cat, who made\nher escape pretty quickly, and we continued our route.\n\nTo say the truth, we had not at all understood the proceeding; but we\ndid not wish to question the little pagan, lest he should find out that\nwe were Europeans by our ignorance. As soon as ever we reached the\nfarm, however, we made haste to ask our Christians whether they could\ntell the clock by looking into the cat's eyes. They seemed surprised\nat the question; but as there was no danger in confessing to them our\nignorance of the properties of the cat's eyes, we related what had\njust taken place. That was all that was necessary; our complaisant\nneophytes immediately gave chase to all the cats in the neighbourhood.\nThey brought us three or four, and explained in what manner they might\nbe made use of for watches. They pointed out that the pupil of their\neyes went on constantly growing narrower until twelve o'clock, when\nthey became like a fine line, as thin as a hair, drawn perpendicularly\nacross the eye, and that after twelve the dilation recommenced.\n\nWhen we had attentively examined the eyes of all the cats at our\ndisposal, we concluded that it was past noon, as all the eyes perfectly\nagreed upon the point.\n\nWe have had some hesitation in speaking of this Chinese discovery, as\nit may, doubtless, tend to injure the interest of the clock-making\ntrade, and interfere with the sale of watches; but all considerations\nmust give way to the spirit of progress. All important discoveries\ntend in the first instance to injure private interests, and we hope,\nnevertheless, that watches will continue to be made, because, among\nthe number of persons who may wish to know the hour, there will, most\nlikely, be some who will not give themselves the trouble to run after\nthe cat, or who may fear some danger to their own eyes from too close\nan examination of hers.\"\n\n\nEARLY ENGLISH HELMET.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Twelfth Century English Helmet.]\n\nThe above is a correct representation of a helmet of the latter part\nof the twelfth century, resembling those seen on the great seals of\nRichard I. The _aventaille_, or moveable grating for covering the face,\nhas been lost, but the hinges, staples, and other means of fastening it\nstill remain. Its form may be seen on the great seals of Henry III. and\nEdward I.\n\n\nILLUSTRIOUS FARMERS.\n\nAdam was a farmer while yet in Paradise, and after his fall was\ncommanded to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Job, the honest,\nupright, and patient, was a farmer, and his firm endurance has passed\ninto a proverb. Socrates was a farmer, and yet wedded to the glory of\nhis immortal philosophy. Cincinnatus was a farmer, and the noblest\nRoman of them all. Burns was a farmer, and the Muse found him at his\nplough, and filled his soul with poetry. Washington was a farmer, and\nretired from the highest earthly station to enjoy the quiet of rural\nlife, and present to the world a spectacle of human greatness. To these\nnames may be added a host of others, who sought peace and repose in the\ncultivation of their earth. The enthusiastic Lafayette, the steadfast\nPickering, the scholastic Jefferson, the fiery Randolph, all found an\nEl Dorado of consolation from life's cares and troubles, in the green\nand verdant lawns that surrounded their homestead.\n\n\nANCIENT COUTEAU-DE-CHASSE.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Couteau-de-Chasse.]\n\nAs the chase was regarded as the honourable and most instructive\noccupation of an age in which warlike prowess was deemed the principal\nobject of emulation and applause, every respectable mansion had, in\nformer times, its hall decorated with hunting implements. One of these\nwe here present to our readers. It is a couteau-de-chasse of the time\nof William III. The left-hand figure represents it in its sheath, which\nis highly ornamented; the other figures represent the blade drawn, and\nthe three knives, fork, and bodkin, which the sheath also contains. The\nform is precisely like those engraved in the \"Triumph of Maximilian,\"\nwhich shows that no variation had taken place since the commencement of\nthe sixteenth century. Erasmus, in his \"Praise of Folly,\" thus alludes\nto this weapon, Kennet translating it \"a slashing hanger.\" Speaking of\nthose engaged in the chase, he says, \"When they have run down their\ngame, what strange pleasure they take in cutting it up! Cows and sheep\nmay be slaughtered by common butchers, but what is killed in hunting\nmust be broke up by none under a gentleman, who shall throw down his\nhat, fall devoutly on his knees, and drawing a slashing hanger (for\na common knife is not good enough), after several ceremonies, shall\ndissect all the parts as artistically as the best skilled anatomist;\nwhile all that stand round shall look very intently and seem to be\nmightly surprised with the novelty, though they have seen the same an\nhundred times before; and he that can but dip his finger and taste of\nthe blood shall think his own bettered by it.\"\n\n\nDIVISION OF TIME IN PERSIA.\n\nTime is of no value in Persia, from which reason it must be that\nso complicated a system has been maintained as that of counting by\nsolar time, lunar time, and the Toork cycle. The first is observed by\nastronomers, and was in general use in Persia until it was superseded\nby Mahommed's lunar year. It consists of twelve months of thirty days\neach, with the required number of intercalary days. The second, which\nis now in general use, consisting of three hundred and fifty-four days,\nis therefore perpetually changing: an event commemorated in one year\nwill come round ten days earlier the succeeding year. The third is a\ncurious method of counting introduced by the Toorks into Persia, but\nwhich we are told has been forgotten in Turkey. They divide time into\ncycles of twelve years, each year having a separate name, but they\nhave no designation for the cycles. Thus, if they wanted to describe\nan event which happened sixty-five years ago, they could only mention\nthe name of the fifth year. These years are solar, and are thus\ndesignated:--\n\n  Sichkan eel      Year of the Mouse.\n  Ood eel             \"        Bull.\n  Bars eel            \"        Leopard.\n  Tavishkan eel       \"        Hare.\n  Looee eel           \"        Crocodile.\n  Eelan eel           \"        Snake.\n  Yoont eel           \"        Horse.\n  Kooree eel          \"        Ram.\n  Beechee eel         \"        Monkey.\n  Tekhakoo eel        \"        Cock.\n  Eet eel             \"        Dog.\n  Tenkooz eel         \"        Hog.\n\nIt seems strange their number should be twelve, as if there were a\nzodiac of years, instead of months.\n\nThis method of marking time is preserved only in government documents,\nsuch as firmans, grants, &c. No one seems able to account for its\norigin, excepting that, according to tradition, the Toorks of old\nbrought it from Tartary.\n\n\nDIFFERENT SORTS OF HORSES IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nThe different sorts of horses in use among the nobility and others,\nmay be collected from the following entry in the Northumberland\nhousehold-book, first printed in the year 1768. It is entitled\nthe regulations and establishment of Algernon Percy the Earl of\nNorthumberland, 1512.\n\n\"This is the ordre of the chequir roule of the nombre of all the horsys\nof my lordis and my ladys, that are apoynted to be in the charge of the\nhous verely, as to say gentill hors, palfreys, hobys, naggis, clothsek\nhors.\n\n\"First, gentill hors, to stand in my lordis stable, six. Item, palfreys\nof my ladys, to wit, oone for my lady, and two for her gentill-women,\nand oone for her chamberer. Four hobys and naggis for my lordis oone\nsaddill, viz. oone for my lorde to ride, oone to led for my lorde,\nand oone to stay at home for my lorde. Item, chariot hors to stand in\nmy lordis stable yerely: Seven great trottynge hors to draw in the\nchariott, and a nagg for the chariott-man to ryde, eight. Again, hors\nfor my lorde Percy, his lordis sonne. A great doble trottynge hors to\ntravel on in winter. Item, double trottynge hors, called a curtal, for\nhis lordship to ryde on out of townes. Another trottynge gambaldyn\nhors, for his lordship to ryde upon when he comes into townes. An\namblynge hors, for his lordship to journey on daily. A proper amblyng\nlittle nag, for his lordship when he gaeth on hunting or hawkin. A gret\namblyng gelding to carry his male.\"\n\nThe _gentill_ horse was one of superior breed, so called in contrast to\nsuch as were of ordinary extraction.\n\n_Palfreys_, were an elegant and easy sort of horses, used upon common\noccasions by knights, and others, who reserved their great and managed\nhorses for battle and the tournament.\n\n_Hobys_, were strong, active horses, of rather a small size. They are\nsaid to be originally natives of Ireland.\n\n_Nags_ were of the same description.\n\n_Clothseck_, was a cloak-bag horse; as a _male horse_ was one that\ncarried the portmanteau. Horses to draw the _chariots_, were waggon\nhorses; from the French word _charrette_, whence, the English word\n_cart_.\n\n_A great double trottynge_ horse, was a tall, broad horse, whose best\npace was the trot, being too unwieldly to be able to gallop.\n\n_A curtail_, was a horse whose tail was cut, or shortened.\n\n_A gambaldynge_ horse, was one of shew and parade; a managed horse.\n\n_An amblynge_ horse, received this appellation, from the ease and\nsmoothness of its pace. In former times almost all saddle horses were\nbroke to perform it.\n\n\nTHE NAORA.\n\nThe Oasis of Tagius or Wodian, in the Desert of Sahara, in Africa,\ncomprehends these villages--D'kash, Krees, Wozorkan, Owlad, Majed,\nSedadah, Zowiat Elarab, and Sidy Bohlan.\n\nThese villages are situated at short distances from each other,\nnumbering together a population of between 25,000 and 30,000, whose\nchief employment consists in cultivating the palm, or date tree. At\nKreez they have an excellent spring, but which does not suffice to\nwater all their plantations, and hence they are forced to have recourse\nto the _naora_, so common on the coast. The naora is the name given\nto the rude, though ingenious contrivance, by means of which, through\nthe agency of either a camel, a mule, or a horse, water is raised\nfrom a deep well in earthen jars, which, as soon as they have emptied\ntheir contents into a wooden trough, descend for fresh supplies. The\nwater from the trough is then conducted by the planters into channels\nand trenches, as occasion requires. These are again easily diverted,\nand as soon as it is considered that the trees in one particular\ndirection have had a sufficient supply, fresh trenches are opened in\nanother direction, and in this manner the whole plantation receives the\nrequisite moisture and nourishment. We here engrave the naora.\n\nThe pain and labour which the inhabitants of such an oasis take with\ntheir vast date plantations are immense, but their toil is amply repaid\nby the \"lord of the vegetable world.\" Independent of its picturesque\nappearance, grateful shade, luscious fruit, and agreeable beverage, it\nsupplies them with fuel, and wood for the construction of their houses.\nFrom its leaves they manufacture baskets, ropes, mats, bags, couches,\nbrushes, brooms, fans, &c. From the branches they make fences, stools,\nand cages. The kernels, after being soaked in water for two or three\ndays, are eagerly eaten by camels.\n\nEvery palm-tree shoots forth a number of suckers, which are removed at\nthe proper season and transplanted. With care, these will produce fruit\nin about ten years, whereas those raised from kernels will only yield\ndates when they reach to the age of twenty. The tree reaches its vigour\nat thirty, and continues so till a hundred years old, when it begins\nto decline, and decays about the end of its second century. During its\nvigorous years, a good tree will produce between twenty and thirty\nclusters, each weighing about thirty pounds.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Naora.]\n\nMr. Morier relates an anecdote, which greatly illustrates how highly\nthe date-tree is appreciated by those who are from their infancy taught\nto value it. An Arab woman who had been in England, and who returned in\nthe suite of the English ambassador to Persia, on her reaching home,\ntold her countrywomen of the riches and beauty of the country she had\nvisited, and described the roads, the carriages, the scenery, the\nsplendour of the cities, and the fertility of the well-cultivated soil.\nHer audience were full of admiration, and had almost retired in envy,\nwhen she happened to mention that there was but one thing wanting to\nmake the whole almost a Paradise. \"And what is that?\" said they. \"Why,\nit has not a single date-tree. All the time that I was there, I never\nceased to look for one, but I looked in vain.\" The charm was instantly\nbroken; the Arabs turned away in pity for men, who, whatever might be\ntheir comforts, or their magnificence, were doomed to live in a country\nwhere there are no date-trees.\n\n\nPRIMITIVE PAIR OF BELLOWS.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Bellows.]\n\nAtmospheric denudation and weathering have produced remarkable effects\non the lower part of the Nonkreem valley, in the Khasia mountains,\nin India, which is blocked up by a pine-crested hill, 200 feet high,\nentirely formed of round blocks of granite, heaped up so as to resemble\nan old moraine; but, like the Nunklow boulders, these are not arranged\nas if by glacial action. The granite is very soft, decomposing into a\ncourse reddish sand, that colours the Boga-panee. To procure the iron\nsand, which is disseminated through it, the natives conduct water over\nthe beds, and as the lighter particles are washed away, the remainder\nis removed to troughs, where the separation of the ore is completed.\nThe smelting is very rudely carried on in charcoal fires, blown by\nenormous double-action bellows, worked by two persons, who stand on the\nmachine, raising the flaps with their hands, and expanding them with\ntheir feet, as shown in our cut. There is neither furnace nor flux used\nin the reduction. The fire is kindled on one side of an upright stone\n(like the head-stone of a grave), with a small arched hole close to the\nground: near this hole the bellows are suspended: and a bamboo tube\nfrom each of its compartments meets in a larger one, by which the draft\nis directed under the hole in the stone to the fire. The ore is run\ninto lumps as large as two fists, with a rugged surface: these lumps\nare afterwards cleft nearly in two to show their purity.\n\n\nPRESERVATION OF DEAD BODIES.\n\nAbout a mile distant from Palermo in Sicily, is a celebrated Monastery\nof Capuchins, in which there is a vault made use of as a receptacle for\nthe dead. It consists of four wide passages, each forty feet in length,\ninto which the light is admitted by windows, placed at the ends. Along\nthe sides of these subterraneous galleries are niches, in which the\nbodies are placed upright, and clothed in a coarse dress, with their\nheads, arms, and feet bare. They are prepared for this situation by\nbroiling them six or seven months upon a gridiron, over a slow fire,\ntill all the fat and moisture are consumed. The skin which looks\nlike pale- leather, remains entire, and the character of the\ncountenance is, in some degree preserved.\n\n\nTHE CAGOTS.\n\nIn the Department of the Hautes Pyrenees in France is sometimes to be\nmet with a creature about four feet high, with an enormous head, stiff,\nlong hair, a pale countenance, a dead-looking eye, legs that have the\nappearance of being in the last stage of a dropsy, and an enormous\n_goitre_ on the neck, which sometimes hangs down below the stomach.\nThis unhappy being begs for charity by extending his hand, smiling\nvaguely, and by uttering inarticulate sounds or suppressed cries,\nwhich his desolate and degraded situation alone interprets. These\n_Cagots_, for so they are here called, live isolated from the rest of\nthe world; twenty years ago, if any one of these unfortunate beings\nleft his hut, and ventured into the towns or villages, the children\nwould exclaim--_Cagot! Cagot!_ and this cry would bring the smith from\nhis forge, the shopkeeper from his counter, the private individual\nfrom his fireside; and, if the poor being did not hasten his flight,\nand slow was his progress, he not unfrequently lost his life by the\nstones that were flung after him. There was, however, one day in the\nweek--Sunday, the Lord's day--and one asylum--the church, the Lord's\nhouse--that was free to them; yet man there made a distinction between\nhim and his fellow man. A narrow door, through which no one passed\nbut the _Cagots_, a chapel, which no one entered but these unhappy\n_Cagots_, was reserved for their sole use, where they offered up their\nimperfect prayers, without seeing or being seen by any one. Even in\nthese days, they are still considered an outcast race; and an alliance\nof a peasant girl of the plains with a _Cagot_, would excite as much\ncommotion among the inhabitants of the valleys of the Pyrenees, as\nthe famed one between Idamore and Neala, in M. Delavigne's celebrated\ntragedy of the Paria. Yet it is strange that these deformities do not\nshow themselves until a child has passed the age of six or seven: he\nis before this period like other healthy children; his complexion is\nfresh, his eye lively, and his limbs in proportion; but at twelve, his\nhead has increased prodigiously, his complexion has become sallow,\nhis teeth have lost their whiteness, his eye its fire. Three years\nlater his skin is shrivelled, his teeth open with difficulty, and he\npronounces all the consonants with a whistling indistinctness, that\nrenders his language unintelligible to strangers. His mind partakes of\nthe deformity and weakness of his body, for he is, at fifteen, little\nbetter than an idiot. Such are the _Cagots_ of the _Pyrenees_.\n\n\nDISCONTINUANCE OF TORTURE.\n\nTorture had been applied, down to the close of Elizabeth, to the\ninvestigation of all kinds of crime; but after that time it was chiefly\nconfined to state offences. Its favourite instrument was the dreadful\nrack, or break, traditionally said to have been introduced under\nHenry VI. by John, Duke of Exeter, constable of the Tower, whence it\nwas called the Duke of Exeter's daughter. A _milder_ punishment was\ninflicted by Skevington's gyves, which compressed the victim closely\ntogether, whilst the rack distended his whole frame in the most painful\nmanner. In 1588 the manacles were introduced, and soon became the\nmost usual mode of torture, but their precise character is not well\nunderstood. A variety of instruments of torture are still shown in\nthe Tower, taken, it is said, out of the Spanish Armada, but at all\nevents admirably suited to the gloomy dungeon wherein they appear, and\nin which half-starvation, and the horrid cells called Little Ease and\nRat's Dungeon (the latter placed below high water mark, and totally\ndark, so that the rats crowded in as the tide rose,) added to the\nsufferings of the poor victim when released for a brief space from\nthe fell grasp of the prison-ministers. Torture was not abolished\nin Scotland till 1708; in France till 1789; in Russia till 1801; in\nBavaria and Wurtemberg till 1806; in Hanover till 1822; nor in the\nGrand Duchy of Baden till 1831.\n\n\nTHE MODERN NAMES OF REGIMENTS.\n\nThe modern names of regiments were first given to them in the reign\nof Charles II., the Coldstreams or Foot Guards being formed in 1660,\nwhen two regiments were added to one raised about ten years before by\nGeneral Monk at Coldstream on the borders of Scotland; to these were\nadded the 1st Royal Scots, brought over from France at the Restoration.\nThe Life Guards were raised in 1661, with the Oxford Blues (so called\nfrom the first commander, Aubrey, Earl of Oxford); and also the 2nd\nor Queen's Foot. The 3rd or Old Buffs were raised in 1665, and the\n21st Foot or Scotch Fusileers (from their carrying the fusil, which\nwas lighter than the musket), in 1678. In that year the Grenadiers (so\nnamed from their original weapon, the hand grenade) were first brought\ninto our service, and in 1680 the 4th or King's Own were raised. James\nII. added to the cavalry the 1st or King's Regiment of Dragoon's\nGuards, and the 2nd or Queen's ditto in 1685; and to the infantry, in\nthe same year, the 5th and 7th, or Royal Fusileers; and in 1688 the\n23rd or Welsh Fusileers.\n\n\nWATCH PRESENTED BY LOUIS THE THIRTEENTH OF FRANCE TO CHARLES THE FIRST\nOF ENGLAND.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Watch Made for Charles I.]\n\nThe annexed engraving represents the watch which was made for Louis\nXIII. to present to King Charles I. It is of silver, richly gilt, the\nornaments covered with transparent enamel in white, red, green, blue,\nand yellow. The numbers are on a band of deep blue; the wheel-like\nornament in the centre on a ruby ground. The back is chased in high\nrelief with a figure of St. George conquering the Dragon; the horse is\ncovered with white enamel; the flesh tints on St. George are also of\nenamel; his tunic is red, and his scarf blue. On the side of the watch\nis the motto of the Order of the Garter; the _fleurs-de-lys_ above and\nbelow it on a ruby ground. The interior of the case is enriched by a\ndelicately executed arabesque filled with black enamel upon a dotted\nground. The entire works take out of the case, being secured thereto by\nsprings, and are all more or less decorated with engraving, the whole\ninterior being chased and gilt. The maker's name is S. Vallin.\n\n\nA WEDDING A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.\n\nOn the 7th June, 1750, was married at Rothbury, Mr. William Donkin, a\nconsiderable farmer, of Tosson, in the county of Northumberland, to\nMiss Eleanor Shotten, an agreeable young gentlewoman, of the same\nplace. The entertainments on this occasion were very grand, there\nbeing provided no less than one hundred and twenty quarters of lamb,\nforty quarters of veal, twenty quarters of mutton, a large quantity\nof beef, twelve hams, with a suitable number of chickens, which was\nconcluded with eight half ankers of brandy made into punch, twelve\ndozen of cider, and a great many gallons of wine. The company consisted\nof five hundred ladies and gentlemen, who were diverted with the music\nof twenty-five fiddlers and pipers; and the evening was spent with the\nutmost unanimity.\n\n\nGRACE KNIVES.\n\nThere is a curious class of knives, of the sixteenth century, the\nblade, of which have on one side the musical notes to the benediction\nof the table, or grace before meat, and on the other the grace after\nmeat. We here engrave a specimen.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Grace Knife.]\n\nThe set of these knives usually consisted of four. They were kept in\nan upright case of stamped leather, and were placed before the singer\naccording to the adaptation of each part to the voice indicated upon\nthem.\n\n\nGARDEN AT KENILWORTH WHEN IN ITS PRIME.\n\nGossiping Laneham is very eloquent about the Kenilworth Garden, at\nwhich he took a timid and surreptitious peep. It was an acre or more in\nextent, and lay to the north of the stately castle: a pleasant terrace,\nten feet high, and twelve feet broad, even under foot and fresh with\ntrim grass, ran beside it along the castle wall. It was set with a\ngoodly show of obelisks and spheres, and white bears of stone, raised\nupon goodly bases. At each end was a fine arbour, redolent with sweet\ntrees and flowers. The garden-plot near had fair alleys of turf, and\nothers paved with smooth sand, pleasant to walk on as the sea-shore\nwhen the wave has just retired. The enclosure was divided into four\neven quarters: in the midst of each, upon a base of two feet square,\nrose a porphyry square pilaster, with a pyramidical pinnacle fifteen\nfeet high, pierced and hollowed, and crowned with an orb. All around\nwas covered with redolent herbs and flowers, varied in form, colour,\nand quantity, and mixed with fruit trees.\n\nIn the midst, opposite the terrace, stood a square aviary, joined to\nthe north wall, in height twenty feet, thirteen long, and fourteen\nbroad; it had four great windows, two in front and two at each end,\nand each five feet wide. These windows were arched, and separated by\nflat pilasters, which supported a cornice. The roof was of wire net,\nof meshes an inch wide; and the cornice was gilded and painted with\nrepresentations of precious stones. This great aviary had also eaves\nin the wall, for shelter from sun and heat, and for the purpose of\nbuilding. Fair holly trees stood at each end, on which the birds might\nperch and pounce. They had a keeper to attend to their seeds and water,\nand to clean out their enclosure. The birds were English, French, and\nSpanish. Some were from America; and Laneham is \"deceived\" if some were\nnot from the Canary Islands.\n\nIn the centre of this miniature Paradise stood a fountain with an\noctagonal basin rising four feet high; in the midst stood the figures\nof two Athletes, back to back, their hands upholding a fair marble\nbowl, from whence sundry pipes distilled continual streams into the\nreservoir. Carp, tench, bream, perch, and eel disported in the fresh\nfalling water; and on the top of all the ragged staff was displayed;\non one side Neptune guided his sea-horses with his trident, on another\nstood Thetis with her dolphins. Here Triton and his fishes, there\nProteus and his herds, Doris and her daughter, and half the Nereids,\ndisported in sea and sand, surrounded by whales, sturgeons, tunnies,\nand conch shells, all engraven with exquisite device and skill. By the\nsudden turn of a tap, the spectator could be drenched at the pleasure\nof any wit.\n\n\nEGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES.\n\nIt appears from a paper recently read in the Academy of Archaeology, at\nRome, that Father Secchi has found a new interpretation of the Egyptian\nhieroglyphics, which enables him to declare, that most of them are not\nmere tombstone inscriptions, as is generally assumed, but poems. He\nhas given several of his readings, which display great ingenuity, and\nprofesses to be able to decipher the inscriptions on the Obelisk of\nLuxor, at Paris.\n\n\nTHE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.\n\nThe cathedral at Bayeux is a gothic building, dedicated to the Virgin.\nThe portal and three belfries, which belong to it, are objects of\ncuriosity. It is in this cathedral that the celebrated tapestry,\ndenominated _of Bayeux_, is kept. Its length is one hundred and\nthirty-two feet; its breadth, seven and a half. \"I had,\" says Dr.\nDucarel, \"the satisfaction of seeing that famous piece of furniture,\nwhich, with great exactness, though in _barbarous needlework_,\nrepresents the history of Harold, King of England; and of William,\nDuke of Normandy; from the embassy of the former to Duke William, at\nthe command of Edward the Confessor, to his overthrow and death, at\nthe battle fought near Hastings. The ground of this piece of work is a\nwhite linen cloth, or canvas. The figures of men, horses, &c. are in\ntheir proper colours, worked in the manner of the samplers, in worsted,\nand of a style not unlike what we see upon the China and Japan ware;\nthose of the men, particularly, being without the least symmetry or\nproportion. There is a small border, which runs at the top and the\nbottom of the tapestry; with several figures of men, beasts, flowers,\nand even fables, which have nothing to do with the history, but are\nmere ornaments. At the end of every particular scene there is a tree,\nby way of distinction; and over several of the principal figures there\nare inscriptions, but many of them obliterated. It is annually hung\nup on St. John's day, and goes round the nave of the church, where\nit continues eight days; and at all other times it is carefully kept\nlocked up in a strong wainscot press, in a chapel on the south side of\nthe cathedral, dedicated to Thomas a Becket. By tradition it is called,\n_Duke William's toilet_, and is said to be the work of Matilda, his\nqueen, and the ladies of her court, after he had obtained the crown of\nEngland.\" Mr. Strutt, in his \"Complete View of the Dresses and Habits\nof the People of England,\" affirms, that it is the work of half a\ncentury later than the time of the Conqueror.\n\n\nROMAN STAMP.\n\nThis curiosity is preserved in the British Museum. It is the very\nearliest specimen we possess of printing, by means of ink or any\nsimilar substance. It is made of metal, a sort of Roman brass; the\nground of which is covered with a green kind of verdigris rust, with\nwhich antique medals are usually covered. The letters rise flush up to\nthe elevation of the exterior rim which surrounds it. Its dimensions\nare, about two inches long, by one inch broad. At the back of it is a\nsmall ring for the finger, to promote the convenience of holding it. As\nno person of the name which is inscribed upon it is mentioned in Roman\nHistory, he is therefore supposed to have been a functionary of some\nRoman officer, or private steward, and who, perhaps, used this stamp to\nsave himself the trouble of writing his name. A stamp somewhat similar,\nin the Greek character, is in the possession of the Antiquarian\nSociety, of Newcastle-on-Tyne.\n\n\nTYRIAN PURPLE.\n\nThe shell-fish portrayed on next page is that from which the Tyrian\npurple dye is obtained. The ancients were very devoid of chemical\nknowledge; their list of adjective dye-stuffs was therefore restricted,\nand all the most celebrated dyes of antiquity belonged to the\nsubstantive division, of which Tyrian purple was undoubtedly the chief.\nThe purple dye of Tyre, which admits with great propriety of being\nincluded amongst the dyes of Greece and Rome, was discovered about\nfifteen centuries before the Christian era, and the art of using it\ndid not become lost until the eleventh century after Christ. It was\nobtained from two genera of one species of shell-fish, the smaller of\nwhich was denominated _buccinum_, the larger _purpura_, and to both the\ncommon name murex was applied. The dye-stuff was procured by puncturing\na vessel in the throat of the larger genus, and by pounding the smaller\nentire. Having been thus extracted, salt was added, also a certain\namount of water. The whole was then kept hot about eight or ten days in\na vessel of lead or tin, the impurities as they rose being assiduously\nskimmed off. The dye-stuff was now ready to receive the texture to\nbe dyed (wool, universally), and the operation of dyeing was simple\nenough; nothing further being required than the immersion of the whole\nfor a sufficient time, when, at the expiration of a certain period, the\nwhole of the colouring matter was found to have been removed, and to\nhave combined with the textile fabric.\n\nThe tints capable of being imparted by this material were\nvarious--representing numerous shades between purple and crimson.\nAmongst these a very dark violet shade was much esteemed, but the\nright imperial tint, we are informed, was that resembling coagulated\nblood. The discovery of Tyrian purple dye is referred to the fifteenth\ncentury before Christ. That it was known to the Egyptians, in the\ntime of Moses, is sufficiently obvious from the testimony of more\nthan one scriptural passage. Ultimately, in later ages, a restrictive\npolicy of the eastern emperors caused the art to be practised by only\na few individuals, and at last, about the commencement of the twelfth\ncentury, when Byzantium was already suffering from attacks without,\nand dissensions within, the secret of imparting the purple dye of Tyre\nbecame lost.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Shell-Fish From Which Tyrian Purple Is Extracted.]\n\nThe re-discovery of Tyrian purple as it occurred in England was made\nby Mr. Cole of Bristol. About the latter end of the year 1683, this\ngentleman heard from two ladies residing at Minehead, that a person\nliving somewhere on the coast of Ireland, supported himself by marking\nwith a delicate crimson colour the fine linen of ladies and gentlemen\nsent him for that purpose, which colour was the product of some liquid\nsubstance taken out of a shell-fish. This recital at once brought\nto the recollection of Mr. Cole the tradition of Tyrian purple. He,\nwithout delay, went in quest of the shell-fish, and after trying\nvarious kinds without success, his efforts were at length successful.\nHe found considerable quantities of the buccinum on the sea-coast\nof Somersetshire, and the opposite coast of South Wales. The fish\nbeing found, the next difficulty was to extract the dye, which in its\nnatural state is not purple, but white, the purple tint being the\nresult of exposure to the air. At length our acute investigator found\nthe dye stuff in a white vein lying transversely in a little furrow or\ncleft next to the head of the fish.\n\n\nTHE INCARNATIONS OF VISHNU.\n\nThere is a part of the mythology of India which seems to be blended\nwith the history of that country. It relates to the different _avatars_\nof Vishnu, or his incarnations and appearances on earth.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Incarnation of Vishnu.]\n\nThe first of these _avatars_ has reference to that general deluge of\nwhich all nations have preserved some traditions. Vishnu, we are told,\nmetamorphosed himself into a fish.\n\nThe second incarnation is that of _Kourma_, or the tortoise. The gods\nand the giants, wishing to obtain immortality by eating _amourdon_,\ndelicious butter, formed in one of the seven seas of the universe,\nwhich the Indians call sea of milk, transported, by Vishnu's advice,\nthe mountain of Mandreguivi into that sea: they twisted round it the\nserpent Adissechen, and alternately pulling, some by his hundred heads,\nothers by the tail, they made the mountain turn round in such a manner,\nas to agitate the sea and to convert it into butter; but they pulled\nwith such rapidity, that Adissechen, overcome with weakness, could no\nlonger endure it. His body shuddered; his hundred trembling mouths made\nthe universe resound with hisses; a torrent of flames burst from his\neyes; his hundred black pendent tongues palpitated, and vomited forth a\ndeadly poison, which immediately spread all around. The gods and giants\nbetook themselves to flight. Vishnu, bolder than the rest, took the\npoison, and with it rubbed his body, which became quite blue. It is in\nmemory of this event, that this colour is given to his image in almost\nall the temples.\n\nThe gods and the giants, encouraged by Vishnu's example, fell to\nwork again. After they had laboured a thousand years, the mountain\nwas on the point of sinking in the sea, when Vishnu, in the form of\na tortoise, quickly placed himself beneath, and supported it. At\nlength they saw the cow Camadenu, the horse with seven heads, and the\nelephant with three trunks, coming out of the sea of milk; also the\ntree _calpaga vrutcham_; Lacshmi, goddess of riches, wife of Vishu;\nSaraswadi, goddess of the sciences and of harmony, married to Brama;\nMondevi, goddess of discord and misery, whom nobody would have, and who\nis represented riding on an ass, and holding in her hand a banner, on\nwhich a raven is delineated; and, lastly, Danouvandri, the physician,\ncarrying a vessel full of _amourdon_, which the gods instantly\nseized, and greedily devoured, without leaving a morsel. The giants,\ndisappointed in their expectations, dispersed over the earth, prevented\nmankind from paying worship to the gods, and strove to obtain adoration\nfor themselves. Their insolence occasioned the subsequent incarnations\nof Vishnu, who endeavoured to destroy this race, so inimical to the\ngods. He is adored in this second metamorphosis, by the name of\n_Kourma Avatara_. The followers of Vishnu believe that this god,\nthough omnipresent, resides more particularly in the _vaicondom_, his\nparadise, amidst the sea of milk, reclined, in contemplative slumber,\non the serpent Adissechen, which serves him for a throne: in this state\nhe is called _Siranguan_. In all the temples of Vishnu is to be seen\nthe figure of this god; but as the serpent on which he lies cannot be\nrepresented with his hundred heads, he is delineated with only five.\n\nThere are altogether ten incarnations of Vishnu; nine of these have\nalready been fulfilled, and one is yet to be manifested, it is\nexpected about ninety thousand years hence. The account of many of the\ntransformations is exceedingly extraordinary, but we have room for no\nmore than the one we have given.\n\n\nORIGIN OF LONG-TOED SHOES.\n\nLong-toed shoes were invented by Fulk, Count of Anjou, to hide an\nexcrescence on one of his feet. These toes were so long as to be\nfastened to the knees with gold chains, and carved at the extreme point\nwith the representation of a church window, a bird, or some fantastic\ndevice.\n\n\nTHE HOUSE OF HEN'S FEATHERS.\n\nThere exists at Pekin a phalanstery which surpasses in eccentricity\nall that the fertile imagination of Fourier could have conceived. It\nis called Ki-mao-fan--that is, \"House of the Hen's Feathers.\" By dint\nof carrying out the laws of progress, the Chinese have found means\nto furnish to the poorest of the community a warm feather-bed, for\nthe small consideration of one-fifth of a farthing per night. This\nmarvellous establishment is simply composed of one great hall, and the\nfloor of this great hall is covered over its whole extent by one vast\nthick layer of feathers. Mendicants and vagabonds who have no other\ndomicile come to pass the night in this immense dormitory. Men, women,\nand children, old and young, all without exception, are admitted.\nCommunism prevails in the full force and rigour of the expression.\nEvery one settles himself and makes his nest as well as he can for\nthe night in this ocean of feathers; when day dawns he must quit the\npremises, and an officer of the company stands at the door to receive\nthe rent of one sapeck each for the night's lodging. In deference no\ndoubt to the principle of equality, half-places are not allowed, and a\nchild must pay the same as a grown person.\n\nOn the first establishment of this eminently philanthropic and moral\ninstitution, the managers of it used to furnish each of the guests\nwith a covering, but it was found necessary to modify this regulation,\nfor the communist company got into the habit of carrying off their\ncoverlets to sell them, or to supply an additional garment during the\nrigorous cold of winter. The shareholders saw that this would never do,\nand they should be ruined, yet to give no covering at all would have\nbeen too cruel, and scarcely decent. It was necessary therefore to find\nsome method of reconciling the interests of the establishment with the\ncomfort of the guests, and the way in which the problem was solved was\nthis. An immense felt coverlet, of such gigantic dimensions as to cover\nthe whole dormitory, was made, and in the day time suspended from the\nceiling like a great canopy. When everybody had gone to bed, that is to\nsay, had lain down upon the feathers, the counterpane was let down by\npulleys; the precaution having been previously taken to make a number\nof holes in it for the sleepers to put their heads through, in order\nto escape the danger of suffocation. As soon as it is daylight, the\nphalansterian coverlet is hoisted up again, after a signal has been\nmade on the tam-tam to awaken those who are asleep, and invite them to\ndraw their heads back into the feathers, in order not to be caught by\nthe neck and hoisted into the air with the coverlet. This immense swarm\nof beggars is then seen crawling about in the sea of dirty feathers,\nand inserting themselves again into their miserable rags, preparatory\nto gathering into groups, and dispersing about the various quarters of\nthe town to seek by lawful or unlawful means their scanty subsistence.\n\n\nTHE USEFUL AND THE BEAUTIFUL.\n\nThe tomb of Moses is unknown; but the traveller slakes his thirst at\nthe well of Jacob. The gorgeous palace of the wisest and wealthiest\nof monarchs, with cedar, and the gold, and ivory, and even the great\nTemple of Jerusalem, hallowed by the visible glory of the Deity\nhimself, are gone; but Solomon's reservoirs are as perfect as ever. Of\nthe ancient architecture of the Holy City, not one stone is left upon\nanother, but the Pool of Bethsaida commands the pilgrim's reverence, at\nthe present day. The columns of Persepolis are mouldering into dust;\nbut its cistern and aqueducts remain to challenge our admiration. The\ngolden house of Nero is a mass of ruins, but the Aqua Claudia still\npours into Rome its limpid stream. The Temple of the Sun, at Tadmore,\nin the wilderness, has fallen, but its fountain sparkles in its rays,\nas when thousands of worshippers thronged its lofty colonnades. It\nmay be that London will share the fate of Babylon, and nothing be\nleft, to mark it, save mounds of crumbling brickwork. The Thames will\ncontinue to flow as it does now. And if any work of art should rise\nover the deep ocean, time, we may well believe, that it will be\nneither a palace nor a temple, but some vast aqueduct or reservoir;\nand if any name should flash through the mist or antiquity, it would\nprobably be that of the man, who in his day, sought the happiness of\nhis fellow men, rather than glory, and linked his memory to some great\nwork of national utility or benevolence. This is the true glory which\noutlives all others, and shines with undying lustre from generation\nto generation, imparting to works some of its own immortality, and in\nsome degree rescuing them from the ruin which overtakes the ordinary\nmonument of historical tradition or mere magnificence.\n\n\nCROMWELL'S BRIDGE AT GLENGARIFF.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Cromwell's Bridge at Glengariff.]\n\nThe village of Glengariff, near Bantry Bay, consists of but a few\nhouses. The only \"antiquity\" in the immediate neighbourhood is the\nold bridge, now a picturesque ruin, which, in ancient times, was on\nthe high road to Berehaven; it is called \"Cromwell's Bridge.\" It is\naccurately represented in the above engraving. History being silent as\nto the origin of the name, we must have recourse to tradition. When\nOliver was passing through the glen, to \"visit\" the O'Sullivans, he had\nso much trouble in getting across the narrow but rushing river, that he\ntold the inhabitants, if they did not build him a bridge by the time he\nreturned, he would hang up a man for every hour's delay he met with.\n\"So the bridge was ready agin he come back,\" quoth our informant; \"for\nthey knew the ould villian to be a man of his word.\"\n\n\nTHE TURBAN IN ARABIA.\n\nA fashionable Arab will wear fifteen caps one above another, some of\nwhich are linen, but the greater part of thick cloth or cotton. That\nwhich covers the whole is richly embroidered with gold, and inwrought\nwith texts or passages from the Koran. Over all there is wrapped a sash\nor large piece of muslin, with the ends hanging down, and ornamented\nwith silk or gold fringes. This useless encumbrance is considered a\nmark of respect towards superiors. It is also used, as the beard was\nformerly in Europe, to indicate literary merit; and those who affect\nto be thought men of learning, discover their pretensions by the size\nof their turbans. No part of Oriental costume is so variable as this\ncovering for the head. Niebuhr has given illustrations of forty-eight\ndifferent ways of wearing it.\n\n\nSTONEWARE.\n\nStoneware was made at a very early period in China, and is much used as\na basis on which a paste of porcelain is laid, to save the expenditure\nof the latter material, as well as to give strength and solidity to the\npiece. Most of the larger pieces of Oriental production are found to be\nthus formed. The red Japan ware is a very fine unglazed stoneware, and\nhas raised ornaments, which are sometimes gilt. A curious coffee-pot\nof this ware, imitating a bundle of bamboo canes, and not unlike the\nChinese musical instrument called a mouth-organ, from the collection of\nthe late Mr. Beckford, is here represented.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Stoneware Coffee-Pot.]\n\nStoneware is supposed to have been made at a very early period in\nEngland by Dutch and German workmen; and from this circumstance it\nis almost impossible to distinguish the earlier fabrics of these\nrespective countries. The discovery, in 1690, of an economical process\nof glazing this ware by means of common salt, which made it impermeable\nto liquids, soon brought it into general use, and displaced all the\nmanufactures of the Delft and soft paste fabrics. A mottled-brown\nstoneware, known to collectors, is stated to be the manufacture of the\nage of Edward VI., in consequence of some of the specimens having a\nsilver mounting of the make and fashion of the period of Elizabeth's\nreign. There is also a large flagon in the Museum of Economic Geology,\nornamented with the royal arms of Elizabeth in relief, with the date\n1594. These specimens cannot, however, be deemed conclusive of so early\na manufacture in England. The first-mentioned specimens, though the\nmounting is English, may have been of German manufacture, as pieces\nof similar description of ware are to be seen in various collections\nof German pottery abroad. The latter specimen may either have been\nmade at Cologne for the use of the Queen's household, or if of English\nmanufacture, it must, in the opinion of a very eminent manufacturer,\nhave been made at a much later period than the date upon it. In a\nletter received, he states \"that it is a common practice even now among\npotters to use moulds of all dates and styles, which have been got up\noriginally for very different kinds of ornamental work, and that he\nis strongly inclined to think that the mould from which the devices\non this vessel have been pressed, was modelled many years before the\nvessel was made, and that the vessel itself is comparatively modern.\"\nStoneware, ornamented with devices in white clay, was made in the\nseventeenth century at Fulham, also at Lambeth, and subsequently at\nStaffordshire; but there is no satisfactory evidence of any earlier\nmanufactory in England.\n\nTowards the end of the seventeenth century, some specimens of red Japan\nware were imported into Europe. Both Dutch and English manufacturers\nattempted to imitate them, but failed for want of the proper clay.\nAbout this period, two brothers of the name of Elers, from Nuremberg,\ndiscovered at Bradwell, only two miles distant from Burslem, a bed\nof fine compact red clay, which they worked in a small manufactory,\nestablished in a retired situation upon the bed itself. They took\nevery precaution to prevent any one seeing their process or learning\ntheir secret. They went so far as to employ none but the most ignorant\nand almost idiot workmen they could find. Astbury, the elder, had\nthe talent to counterfeit the idiot, and, moreover, the courage to\npersevere in this character for some years during which he continued\nin their employ. From memory he made notes of the processes, and\ndrawings of the machinery used. In consequence of the secret being\nthus discovered, numerous establishments arose in competition with\nthat of the Elers, and, owing to the general prejudice against them\nas foreigners, they were finally compelled, in 1720, to quit their\nestablishment. They retired to the neighbourhood of London, and, it is\nsupposed, contributed by their skill and industry to the establishment\nof the Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory.\n\n\nGREAT BELL OF ROUEN.\n\nThe grand entrance to the cathedral of Rouen is flanked by two towers,\nthe one was erected by St. Romain; the expense for constructing the\nother, which bears the whimsical name of _Tour-de-beurre_, was raised\nby the product arising from permissions granted to the more wealthy\nand epicurean part of the inhabitants of the city, to eat butter in\nLent. It was in this tower that the celebrated bell, the largest in\nthe world, was erected; it weighed 40,000 lbs.; it was converted into\ncannon in the year 1793. The founder of this bell died of joy on seeing\nits completion. It went by his name, that of George D'Amboise, and\nround it was the following distich in gothic characters:--\n\n    \"Je suis nomme George d'Amboise,\n     Qui bien trente-six-mille poise,\n     Et celui qui bien me pesera,\n     Quarante mille trouvera.\"\n\n\nVARIATIONS IN THE COINAGE.\n\nHenry VIII. greatly debased both his gold and silver coins, which he\nalloyed with copper to a great extent. The proportions of the pound,\nindeed, in 1546, amounted to 8 oz. of alloy to 4 oz. of silver, which\nconstituted, a positively base coin, the old allowance having been\nbut 18 pennyweights of alloy to 11 oz. and 2 pennyweights of silver.\nHis depreciations were equally daring, for out of the pound of silver\nhe now coined 576 pennies or 48s. The gold coins of this monarch were\nsovereigns, half-sovereigns or rials, half and quarter rials, angels,\nhalf and quarter angels, George nobles, and forty-penny pieces. In\nthis reign the immemorial privileges of the sees of Canterbury, York,\nand Durham, for coining small money, was abandoned, the last Bishop\nthat used it being Wolsey's successor, Edward Lee.\n\nEdward VI. carried both depreciation and debasement still farther; but\ntowards the close of his reign he was obliged to restore the currency\nto something like the ancient standard. He was the first that issued\ncrowns, half-crowns, and sixpences. Little alterations were made by\nMary, beyond striking coins with her husband's head as well as her own;\nbut under Elizabeth the coinage was, at length, completely recovered\nfrom its debasement, the old proportion of 18 pennyweights of alloy\nbeing restored, which has continued to the present day. The number of\nshillings struck out of a pound of silver was not lessened, however,\nfor it continued to be sixty, as in the preceding reign, till 1601,\nwhen it was increased to sixty-two, at which rate it went on to 1816,\nwhen it was raised to sixty-six, at which it now remains. Her gold\ncoins are much the same as before, but are distinguished by having\nthe edges milled for the first time. Shortly before her death she had\nintended to coin farthings and other small pieces of copper, a metal\nwhich had not yet been made use of in this country.\n\n\nCHAFFINCH CONTEST.\n\nAt the town of Armentieres, in France, there is a _fete du pays_,\ncalled _hermesse_, or _ducasse d'Armentieres_, in which the chaffinch\nand its fellows are the chief actors and objects of attraction. Numbers\nof these birds are trained with the greatest care, and no small share\nof cruelty, for they are frequently blinded by their owners, that\ntheir song may not be interrupted by any external object. The point\nupon which the amusement, the honour, and the emolument rests, is, the\nnumber of times which a bird will repeat his song in a given time. A\nday being fixed, the amateurs repair to the appointed place, each with\nhis bird in a cage. The prize is then displayed, and the birds are\nplaced in a row. A bird-fancier notes how many times each bird sings,\nand another verifies his notes. In the year 1812, a chaffinch repeated\nhis song seven hundred times in one hour. Emulated by the songs of each\nother, they strain their little \"plumed throats,\" as if conscious that\nhonour was to result from their exertions.\n\n\nEXPENSIVENESS OF DRESS IN THE TIME OF JAMES I.\n\nDress, indeed, must have swallowed up almost every thing at a time when\nJames and his courtiers set the fashion of appearing in a new garb\nalmost every day. When the Duke of Buckingham was sent to France to\nbring over Henrietta Maria, he provided, amongst others, one suit of\nwhite uncut velvet, and a cloak set all over with diamonds, valued at\nL80,000; besides a feather made of great diamonds, and sword, girdle,\nhat-band, and spurs, thick set with the same. Another suit of purple\nsatin, embroidered all over with pearls, was valued at L20,000. At the\nmarriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the Palatine, Lady Wotton wore\na gown profusely ornamented with embroidery that cost L50 a yard; and\nLord Montague spent L1,500 on the dresses of his two daughters for that\noccasion. By this account it would seem that the ladies were, at all\nevents, not more expensive in their attire than gentlemen.\n\n\nINGENUITY OF THE TUNISIANS.\n\nA stranger visiting a city like Tunis, cannot but be struck with the\nvarious peculiarities, which present themselves to his view, wherever\nhe turns. In their government, mercantile pursuits, professions and\ntrades, the Tunisians are centuries behind. But, with all their\ndisadvantages, the traveller, in traversing their crowded _sooks_\n(market places) and serpentine streets, finds numerous illustrations of\nthe proverb, \"Necessity is the mother of invention.\" In every workshop\nsome tool, or implement, presents itself, which is as curious in its\nformation as it is strange to see the peculiar use for which it is\nintended, and the manner in which it is employed. We may illustrate\nthis by a sketch of a turner.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Ingenuity of a Turner.]\n\nThe extraordinary ingenuity here exhibited by the remarkable use which\nthe artisan makes of his feet and toes, as well as of his hands, cannot\nfail to attract attention; and the display of his lathe and tools is\nequally curious.\n\n\nSHANAR MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.\n\nTwo acts seem essential to the demon worship of the Shanars of\nTin-nevelly (a portion of the aborigines of India)--dancing and bloody\nsacrifices. They have no priest. The person who conducts the ceremony,\nwhich is undertaken from choice, is called the rotator of the demon.\nThe head man of the village, or any other person, male or female, may\nofficiate. The dress is grotesque, consisting of a sort of coat of\nvarious colours, a cap, and other vestments, arranged so as to strike\nthe spectators with their comic appearance. In this service several\nmusical instruments are used, but the most notable among them is one\ncalled a _bow_. It consists of a bow strung and ornamented with bells.\nThis is placed on a brazen vessel of a globular form. The bow is struck\nwith a plectrum, and the bass is produced by the application of an\ninstrument to the brazen pot, another person keeping time by playing a\npair of cymbals, as seen in the annexed cut.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Shanar Musical Instrument.]\n\nThe jarring, discordant, uproarious and cacophonous character of this\nmusical accompaniment exceeds description, and when the parties are\nvieing with each other for pre-eminence, it is indeed the most horrid\ndin that can be produced. At first the movements of the dancer may\nbe slow, but as the music waxes louder and takes effect, he becomes\ngradually more excited, urging himself to phrenzy by striking himself\nviolently, and applying his mouth to the neck of the decapitated\nsacrificial victim, he drinks its blood, and possibly a potation\nof ardent spirits. The afflatus thus acquired, its effects become\nvisible in the frantic glare and the convulsive gesticulations of\nthe possessed. This is greeted by the spectators with the loudest\nacclamations. The dancer is now deified or demonized, and he is\nconsulted by the eager and delighted worshippers who do him homage.\nEach one puts his questions as his fancy or his needs may dictate.\nThe possessed or demonized dancer, being more like a maniac than\naught else, and subject to various contortions of body, utters his\noracles with much indistinctness, rendering it necessary that some\none initiated into these mysteries should interpret his wild and\nincoherent utterances. His ambiguous sayings and curious innuendos are\nso indefinite as to need interpretation.\n\n\nSINGULAR LOCAL CUSTOMS.\n\nIn the department of the Hautes Alpes of France, in the commune\nof _Guillaume-Perouse_, at the village of _Andrieux_, where the\ninhabitants are deprived during one hundred days of the bright beams\nof the sun, there is a fete, called _Le retour du soleil_, on the\n10th of February. At the dawn of day, four shepherds announce, to the\nsound of fifes and trumpets, the commencement of this joyous day.\nEvery cottager having prepared an omelette, the eldest inhabitant of\nthe village, to whom the title of _Venerable_ is given, leads the way\nto the square; here they form a chain and dance the _ferandola_ round\nhim: after the dance is concluded, he leads the way to a stone bridge\nat the entrance of the village, the shepherds playing upon their rural\ninstruments the while. Every one having deposited his omelette on the\nstone coping, they repair to a neighbouring meadow, where the dancing\nre-commences and continues until the first rays of the sun gleam\nathwart the velvet turf: the dance then instantly ceases, each one\nhastens for his pancake, and holding it up, presents it as an offering\nto the god of day; the _Venerable_ holds his up with both his hands.\nAs soon as the sun shines upon the village the procession returns to\nthe square, where the party separates, and every one repairs to his\nown home, to eat his pancake with his family. This ceremony cannot\nfail to recal the heathen mythology to the reader, who must see in it\nthe offerings made to Apollo; or, perhaps, it may be the remains of\nsome Druidical superstition, as the Druids paid particular devotion to\nthe sun; at any rate, it is a curious vestige of some religion long\nsince gone by. In some of the communes of this department the dead\nare wrapped in a winding-sheet, but are not inclosed in a coffin. In\nthe valleys of _Queyras_ and of _Grave_, the dead are suspended in a\nbarn during five months in the winter, until the earth be softened by\nthe sun's rays, when the corpse is consigned to its native element.\nAll funereal ceremonies are closed by eating and drinking. In some\ncommunes the people carry a flagon of wine to the churchyard; and on\nthe return of the guests to the home of the deceased, it becomes a\nscene of bacchanalian revels, in which the groans and sighs of the\nmourners mingle with the songs and jests of the inebriated guests.\nAt _Argentiere_, after the burial, the tables are set out round the\nchurchyard; that of the curate and the mourning family over the grave\nitself. The dinner concluded, the nearest relation takes a glass; his\nexample is followed by the rest, repeating with him, _A la sante du\npauvre mort_.\n\n\nSEVERITY OF RUSSIAN PUNISHMENTS.\n\nThe Russians are remarkable for the severity and variety of their\npunishments, which are both inflicted and endured with a wonderful\ninsensibility. Peter the Great used to suspend the robbers upon the\nWolga, and other parts of his dominions by iron hooks fixed to their\nribs, on gibbets, where they writhed themselves to death, hundreds,\nnay thousands, at a time. The single and double knoute were lately\ninflicted upon ladies, as well as men of quality. Both of them are\nexcruciating, but in the double knoute, the hands are bound behind\nthe prisoner's back; and the cord being fixed to a pulley, lifts him\nfrom the ground, with the dislocation of both his shoulders, and then\nhis back is in a manner sacrificed by the executioner, with a hard\nthong, cut from a wild ass's akin. This punishment has been so often\nfatal, that a surgeon generally attends the patient to pronounce the\nmoment that it should cease. Another barbarous punishment practised in\nRussia is, first boring the tongue of the criminal through with an hot\niron, and then cutting it out: and even the late Empress Elizabeth,\nthough she prohibited capital punishments, was forced to give way to\nthe necessity of those tortures. From these particulars, many have\nconcluded that the feelings of the Russians are different from those of\nmankind in general.\n\n\nFIRST RHINOCEROS IN EUROPE.\n\nThe first rhinoceros ever seen in Europe was that of which Pliny speaks\nas having been presented by Pompey to the Roman people. According to\nDion Cassius, Augustus caused another to be killed in the Roman circus,\nwhen celebrating his triumph over Cleopatra. Strabo states that he saw\none at Alexandria, and he has left a description of it. All these were\nof the one-horned species. At a later period the two-horned species\nwere introduced, as appears from medals bearing their effigies struck\nin the reign of Domitian. During the time known as the dark ages,\ninvestigations in natural history and every other department of science\nand learning were utterly neglected, and the rhinoceros was as mythical\nto Europe as the phoenix or the salamander. On the revival of letters,\nhowever, and the extension of maritime discovery, a lively interest was\nmanifested in the productions of foreign countries. In 1513 the king\nof Portugal presented the Roman Pontiff with a rhinoceros captured in\nIndia; but, unfortunately, the ship was wrecked on its way to Italy:\nthe pope lost his present, and the rhinoceros his life. All that was\npreserved was a rough sketch, engraved by Albert Durer; and down to a\nvery recent date, nearly all our representations were taken from this\nrough draft.\n\nIn 1685 a rhinoceros was captured and brought to England. In 1739 and\n1741 two others were exhibited in various parts of Europe. In 1800 a\nyoung one was brought from India, intended for a menagerie at Vienna,\nbut died at London on the way, and was dissected by Mr. Thomas, who\npublished the results of his investigations, and thus gave the public a\nbetter idea of the animal than they ever had before.\n\n\nTURKISH CARRIAGE.\n\nThe curiously-shaped vehicle which we have engraved on the next page,\nis a Turkish _araba_, a carriage chiefly used by ladies. An account of\none of them is pleasantly introduced by Mr. Albert Smith in his \"Month\nat Constantinople\" when describing the visit of the Sultan to one of\nthe mosques:--\n\n\"Every Friday the Sultan goes to mosque publicly. It is not known until\nthe very morning which establishment he means to patronise; but your\ndragoman has secret channels of information, and he always informs you\nin time to 'assist' at the ceremony.\n\n\"The first time I went, Abdul Medjid had selected for his devotions the\nmosque of Beglerbeg, a village on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus,\nthe temple of which stands in the same relation and bearing to St.\nSophia--to use a very familiar simile--as Rotherhithe Church does to\nSt. Paul's. It was a perfect English morning--foggy and cold (Oct. 7)\nwith muddy streets and spitting rain. I crossed into Asia--one learns\nto speak of Asia, at Constantinople, as he would do of the borough--in\na two-oared caique, and on landing went up to the mosque, which is\nclose to the shore.\n\nA crowd of people, consisting principally of females, had collected\nbefore the mosque, and a square space was kept by the soldiers. Some\nlittle courtesy was shown to visitors, as the Franks were permitted to\ncross this enclosure to a corner close to the door, by which the Sultan\nwas to enter.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Turkish Carriage.]\n\nHe was not very punctual to his time, but there was enough to amuse\nthe visitors; more especially in the arrival of the women, who came up\nas near as they could to the building, in all sorts of odd vehicles.\nSeveral were like those I had seen on the bridge at Pera, but one\nwas very fine indeed. It was more like a waggon than a carriage, and\npainted bright blue, with red wheels and awning. In it were five ladies\nof the Sultan's harem, very gaily dressed, and laughing loudly as the\nvehicle shook them about over the rugged road. It was drawn by two\nbuffaloes, and they had a singular arrangement of worsted tufts over\ntheir heads, of various bright colours. This was the first waggon of\nthe kind I had seen, but I afterwards found them very common. Other\nwomen were on foot, and a number of these had collected upon a hillock\nunder a tree, where they talked and quarrelled incessantly. One very\npale and handsome girl arrived alone, in a car, preceded by two or\nthree attendants: and, whilst trying to pass a narrow thoroughfare\namongst the other vehicles, the wheel of her own got smashed to pieces.\nShe was then close to the Frank visitors, and, as she appeared likely\nto be overturned, two or three gentlemen from Misseri's hotel, ran\nforward to offer their assistance. In a minute they were put back by\nthe attendants, who could not think of allowing their mistress to be\ntouched, even from chance, by a Christian. The carriage was propped\nup, as well as it could be; and its inmate, who had remained perfectly\ntranquil during the accident, fixed her large eyes on the enclosure,\nand never moved them again, to the right or left.\"\n\n\nCURIOUS INDIAN COMB.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Indian Comb.]\n\nAt the foot of the Himalayas, and not far from the European station\nof Darjeeling, there is a tract of country which is still inhabited\nby a tribe of very ancient origin, called the Mechs; they are rapidly\ndegenerating, and indeed may be said to be even now almost worn out as\na distinct tribe. They are but rarely visited by Europeans; but Dr.\nHooker inspected their district in 1850, and gives the following brief\ndescription of its appearance:--\n\n\"We arrived on the third day at the Mechi river, to the west of which\nthe Nepal Morung begins, whose belt of Sal forest loomed on the\nhorizon, so raised by refraction as to be visible as a dark line, from\nthe distance of many miles. It is, however, very poor, all the large\ntrees having been removed. We rode for several miles into it, and\nfound the soil dry and hard, but supporting a prodigious undergrowth\nof gigantic harsh grasses that reached to our heads, though we were\nmounted on elephants. Tigers, wild elephants, and the rhinoceros are\nsaid to be found here; but we saw none.\n\n\"The old and new Mechi rivers are several miles apart, but flow in the\nsame depression, a low swamp many miles broad, which is grazed at this\nseason, and cultivated during the rains. The grass is very rich, partly\nowing to the moisture of the climate, and partly to the retiring\nwaters of the rivers; both circumstances being the effects of proximity\nto the Himalayas. Hence cattle (buffaloes and the common humped cow\nof India) are driven from the banks of the Ganges 300 miles to these\nfeeding grounds, for the use of which a trifling tax is levied on each\nanimal. The cattle are very carelessly herded, and many are carried off\nby tigers.\"\n\nWe give a sketch on previous page of a pocket-comb which Dr. Hooker\nobtained from one of the natives: it is, at all events, much more\ntasteful in its form and ornamentation than the usual run of English\npocket-combs.\n\n\nSINGULAR HINDOO VOW.\n\nThe following extraordinary vow is performed by some of the Hindoo\nat their festival of _Charak Puja_:--Stretching himself on the earth\non his back, the devotee takes a handful of moist earth, and placing\nthis on his under lip, he plants in it some mustard-seed, and exposes\nhimself to the dews of the night and the heat of the day till the seed\ngerminates. In this posture the man must lie in a fixed motionless\ncondition, without food or drink, till the vegetable process liberates\nhim, which will generally be about the fourth day.\n\n\nTHE ARRANGEMENT OF ABBEY BUILDINGS.\n\nAt the dissolution of the Abbeys in England, under King Henry VIII.,\n190 were dissolved, of from L200 to L35,000 a year; amounting to an\naggregate sum of L2,853,000 per annum. The principal buildings of\nan Abbey, were, first, the church, differing little from one of the\ncathedrals of the present day. Attached to one side of the nave,\ncommonly the southern, was, secondly, the great cloister, which had\ntwo entrances to the church, at the eastern and western ends of the\naisles of the nave, for the greater solemnity of processions. Over the\nwestern side of the cloister, was, thirdly, the dormitory of the monks;\na long room, divided into separate cells, each containing a bed, with\na mat, blanket, and rug, together with a desk and stool, and occupied\nby a monk. This apartment had a door, which opened immediately into\nthe church, on account of midnight offices. Attached to the side of\nthe cloister, opposite to the church, was fourthly, the refectory,\nwhere the monks dined; near to which, was the locutorium, or parlour,\nan apartment answering to the common room of a college, where in the\nintervals of prayer and study, the monks sat and conversed. Beyond,\nwas the kitchen and its offices; and, adjoining to it, the buttery,\n&c. On the eastern side of the cloisters was, in the centre, the\nchapter-house, where the business of the Abbey was transacted; and near\nit, the library, and scriptorium, where the monks employed themselves\nin copying books. On this side, also, was the treasury, where the\ncostly plate and church ornaments were kept. The abbot and principal\nofficers of the convent, had all separate houses, to the eastward of\nthe cloister; in which part of the building, were usually the hostelry\nand question hall--rooms for the entertainment of strangers; and, also,\nthe apartment of novices. Westward of the cloister was an outward\ncourt, round which was the monks' infirmary, and the almery. An\nembattled gatehouse led to this court, which was the principal entrance\nof the Abbey. The whole was surrounded with a high wall, including\nin its precincts, gardens, stables, granary, &c. Some of the great\nAbbeys--as Glastonbury, and Furness--covered sixty acres of ground. The\nsituation chosen for the site of an Abbey was as different from that of\nthe castle as the purpose to which it was applied. The one meant for\ndefence stands boldly on the hill; the other, intended for meditation,\nis hid in the sequestered valley. The abbots were originally laymen and\nsubject to the bishop.\n\n\nTAME FISH.\n\nIn sailing down the river Irawadi, in the neighbourhood of Amarapoora,\nthe capital of the empire of Burmah, Captain Yule met with some tame\nfish, which he thus describes:--\n\n\"Having gone over the little island, I returned to my boat, where a\nsight awaited me, that I confess astonished me more than anything I\nhave ever seen before.\n\n\"On nearing the island as we descended the river, the headman in the\nboat had commenced crying out _tet-tet! tet-tet!_ as hard as he could,\nand on my asking him what he was doing, he said he was calling the\nfish. My knowledge of Burmese did not allow me to ask him further\nparticulars, and my interpreter was in the other boat, unwell. But, on\nmy coming down to the boat again, I found it surrounded on both sides\nwith large fish, some three or four feet long; a kind of blunt-nosed,\nbroad-mouthed dog-fish. Of these there were, I suppose, some fifty.\nIn one group, which I studied more than the others, there were ten.\nThese were at one side of the boat, half their bodies, or nearly half,\nprotruded vertically from the water, their mouths all gaping wide. The\nmen had some of the rice prepared for their own dinners, and with this\nthey were feeding them, taking little pellets of rice, and throwing\nthese down the throats of the fish. Each fish, as he got something to\neat, sunk, and having swallowed his portion, came back to the boatside\nfor more. The men continued occasionally their cry of _tet-tet-tet!_\nand, putting their hands over the gunnel of the boat, stroked the fish\non the back, precisely as they would stroke a dog. This I kept up for\nnearly half an hour, moving the boat slightly about, and invariably the\nfish came at call, and were fed as before. The only effect which the\nstroking down or patting on the back of the fish seemed to have, was to\ncause them to gape still wider for their food. During March, I am told,\nthere is a great festival here, and it is a very common trick for the\npeople to get some of the fish into the boat, and even to gild their\nbacks by attaching some gold leaf, as they do in the ordinary way to\npagodas, &c. On one of these fish remains of the gilding were visible.\nI never was so amused or astonished. I wished to have one of the fish\nto take away as a specimen, but the people seemed to think it would be\na kind of sacrilege, so I said nothing more on the point. The Phoongyis\nare in the habit of feeding them daily, I was informed. Their place of\nabode is the deep pool formed at the back of the island, by the two\ncurrents meeting round its sides. And it is, it appears, quite a sight,\nwhich the people from great distances come to see, as well as to visit\nthe Pagoda, which is said to be very ancient and much venerated.\"\n\n\nANCIENT WEAPON.\n\nThe formidable weapon which we here engrave, is a concealed ranseur\nof the time of Henry VIII., from Genoa. It forms one long instrument,\nbut our limits have compelled us to divide into three parts. 1, is\nthe butt: 2, the middle; and 3, the point. The upper part is an iron\ncylinder, with a cap on the top. This is opened by touching the bolt\nseen a little below it in front, and then, by giving the weapon a jerk\nforwards, the blades fly out, and produce the form of the partisan.\nUpon those, on each side, is written, \"Al Segno Del Cor\"--\"To the mark\nof the heart.\" When in the state seen in the engraving, the blades are\nheld so firmly that they cannot be thrust back; and the only mode of\nreturning them into the cylinder is by striking the butt end against\nthe ground, when they instantly fall in.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Concealed Ranseur.]\n\nThis weapon, we apprehend, must have been more formidable in appearance\nthan useful in action. Once let a man get a fair thrust with it at his\nenemy, and, it is true, the effect of that one stroke would be fatal,\nbut in battle it would most probably prove fatal also to the man who\nwielded the weapon, for before he could have time to draw it back, a\ncomrade of the wounded man would have plenty of opportunity to rush in\nand cut the striker of the blow down. On seeing this and other clumsy\nweapons which were so much in vogue in former times, we cannot be\nsurprised that none of them have continued in use to the present day.\nWeapons such as the one we here engrave, have long been thrown aside,\nand short weapons are now only used for all hand to hand encounters.\n\n\nTHE BABES OF BETHLEHEM.\n\nIt is an ancient custom at Norton, near Evesham, Worcestershire, on the\n28th of December (Innocents' Day) to ring a muffled peal, in token\nof sorrow for the slaughter of the hapless \"babes of Bethlehem,\" and,\nimmediately afterwards, an unmuffled peal, in manifestation of joy for\nthe deliverance and escape of the infant Saviour.\n\n\nGAUNTLET OF HENRY PRINCE OF WALES.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Gauntlet of Henry Prince of Wales.]\n\nThe highly interesting relic of which we here give a sketch is of a\nrusset colour, engraved and gilt, the ornamental parts being sunk\nlower than the surface. The initials of the owner, surmounted by a\ncoronet, occur in two places, as do also the rose and thistle. Henry\nwas born on the 19th of February, 1594 and was nine years of age when\nhis father ascended the throne of England. When seven, he commenced\nthe acquirement of martial exercises--as the use of the bow, pike,\nfirearms, and the art of riding; and at ten applied to Colonel Edmondes\nto send him a suit of armour from Holland. On the discovery of the\nGunpowder Plot, Lord Spencer made him a present of a sword and target;\nand, in 1607, Louis, the Dauphin, son of Henry IV. of France, sent him\na suit of armour, well gilt and enamelled, together with pistols and\na sword of the same kind, and the armour for a horse. His martial and\nromantic disposition displayed itself on the occasion of his being\ncreated Prince of Wales in 1610, when he caused a challenge to be given\nto all the knights in Great Britain, under the name of Maeliades, Lord\nof the Isles; and on the day appointed, the Prince, assisted only by\nthe Duke of Lenox, the Earls of Arundel and Southampton, Lord Hay, Sir\nThomas Somerset, and Sir Richard Preston, who instructed his Highness\nin arms, maintained the combat against fifty-six earls, barons,\nknights, and esquires. Henry himself gave and received thirty-two\npushes of the pike, and about three hundred and sixty strokes of\nthe sword, not being yet sixteen years of age. From the size of the\ngauntlet, the initials H. P., and a prince's coronet, if not made on\nthis occasion, it could not have been much anterior; and, from most\nof his armour being sent from abroad, the impression would be that it\nis of foreign manufacture. Yet there is in the State Paper Office an\noriginal warrant ordering the payment of L200, the balance of L340,\nfor a rich suit of armour made for Henry Prince of Wales, dated July\n11, 1614, he having died on the 6th of November, 1612. This document\nis directed by King James I. to the Commissioners for the exercise of\nthe office of High Treasurer of England, and states that, \"Whereas\nthere was made, in the office of our armory of Greenwich, by William\nPickeringe, our master workman there, one rich armour with all peeces\ncompleate, fayrely gilt and graven, by the commaundement of our late\ndeere sonne Prince Henry, which armour was worth (as we are informed)\nthe somme of three hundred and forty poundes, whereof the said William\nPickeringe hath receaved of our said late deere sonne the somme of one\nhundred and forty poundes only, soe as there remayneth due unto him the\nsomme of two hundred poundes\"--therefore they are ordered to discharge\nthe same forthwith.\n\n\nTHE SIMOOM.\n\nArabia is frequently visited by the terrible simoom, called by the\nnatives _shamiel_, or the wind of Syria, under whose pestilential\ninfluence all nature seems to languish and expire. This current\nprevails chiefly on the frontiers, and more rarely in the interior.\nIt is in the arid plains about Bussora, Bagdad, Aleppo, and in the\nenvirons of Mecca, that it is most dreaded, and only during the intense\nheats of summer. The Arabs, being accustomed to an atmosphere of great\npurity, are said to perceive its approach by its sulphureous odour,\nand by an unusual redness in the quarter whence it comes. The sky, at\nother times serene and cloudless, appears lurid and heavy; the sun\nloses his splendour, and appears of a violet colour. The air, saturated\nwith particles of the finest sand, becomes thick, fiery, and unfit for\nrespiration. The coldest substances change their natural qualities;\nmarble, iron, and water, are hot, and deceive the hand that touches\nthem. Every kind of moisture is absorbed; the skin is parched and\nshrivelled; paper cracks as if it were in the mouth of an oven. When\ninhaled by men or animals, the simoom produces a painful feeling as of\nsuffocation. The lungs are too rarefied for breathing, and the body is\nconsumed by an internal heat, which often terminates in convulsions\nand death. The carcases of the dead exhibit symptoms of immediate\nputrefaction, similar to what is observed to take place on bodies\ndeprived of life by thunder, or the effect of electricity.\n\nWhen this pestilence visits towns or villages, the inhabitants shut\nthemselves up, the streets are deserted, and the silence of night\neverywhere reigns. Travellers in the desert sometimes find a crevice\nin the rocks; but if remote from shelter, they must abide the dreadful\nconsequences. The only means of escaping from these destructive blasts,\nis to lie flat on the ground until they pass over, as they always move\nat a certain height in the atmosphere. Instinct teaches even animals to\nbow down their heads, and bury their nostrils in the sand. The danger\nis most imminent when they blow in squalls, which raise up clouds of\nsand in such quantities, that it becomes impossible to see to the\ndistance of a few yards. In these cases the traveller generally lies\ndown on the lee side of his camel; but as the desert is soon blown\nup to the level of its body, both are obliged frequently to rise and\nreplace themselves in a new position, in order to avoid being entirely\ncovered. In many instances, however, from weariness, faintness, or\nsleepiness, occasioned by the great heat, and often from a feeling\nof despair, both men and animals remain on the ground, and in twenty\nminutes they are buried under a load of sand. Caravans are sometimes\nswallowed up; and whole armies have perished miserably in these\ninhospitable deserts.\n\n\nBOILING TO DEATH.\n\nOne Rouse, who had attempted to poison Fisher, Bishop of Rochester,\nwho was afterwards murdered in his 77th year, (by Henry VIII.)--was\nactually boiled to death in Smithfield, for his offence. The law which\nthus punished him, was afterwards repealed.\n\n\nSIKKIM PRIESTS.\n\nThe Sikkim country is situated on the frontiers of Thibet and Nepal\nand on a portion of the Himalayas. Dr. Hooker, who visited it a few\nyears ago, gives the following account in his Journal of some of its\nscenery:--\"January 1st, 1849.--The morning of the new year was bright\nand beautiful, though much snow had fallen on the mountains; and we\nleft Sunnook for Pemiongchi, situated on the summit of a lofty spur on\nthe opposite side of the Ratong.\n\n\"The ascent to Pemiongchi was very steep, through woods of oaks,\nchesnuts, and magnolias, but no tree-fern, palms, pothos, or planntain,\nwhich abound at this elevation on the moister outer ranges of Sikkim.\nThe temple is large, eighty feet long, and in excellent order, built\nupon the lofty terminal point of the great east and west spur, that\ndivides the Kulhait from the Ratong and Rungbee rivers; and the great\nChangachelling temple and monastery stands on another eminence of the\nsame ridge, two miles further west.\n\n\"The view of the snowy range from this temple is one of the finest in\nSikkim; the eye surveying at once glance the vegetation of the tropics\nand the poles. Deep in the valleys the river beds are but 3,000 feet\nabove the sea, and are choked with fig-trees, plantains, and palms;\nto these succeed laurels and magnolias; and still higher up, oaks,\nchesnuts, birches, &c.; there is, however, no marked line between the\nlimits of these two last forests, which form the prevailing arboreous\nvegetation between 4,000 and 10,000 feet, and give a lurid hue to the\nmountains. Fir forests succeed for 2,000 feet higher, when they give\nplace to a skirting of rhododendron and barberry. Among these appear\nblack naked rocks, between which are gulleys, down which the snow now\ndescended to 12,000 feet. The mountain flanks are much more steep and\nrocky than those at similar heights on the outer ranges, and cataracts\nare very numerous, and of considerable height, though small in volume.\n\n\"Pemiongchi temple, the most ancient in Sikkim, is said to be 400 years\nold; it stands on a paved platform, and is of the same form and general\ncharacter as that of Tassisuding. Inside, it is most beautifully\ndecorated, especially the beams, columns, capitals, and architraves,\nbut the designs are coarser than those of Tassisuding. The square end\nof every beam in the roof is ornamented either with a lotus flower, or\nwith a Tibetan character, in endless diversity of colour and form, and\nthe walls are completely covered with allegorical paintings of Lamas\nand saints with glories round their heads, mitred, and holding the\ndorje and jewel.\n\n\"The principal image is a large and hideous figure of Sakya-thoba in a\nrecess under a blue silk canopy, contrasting with a calm figure of the\nlate Rajah, wearing a cap and coronet.\n\n\"Pemiongchi was once the capital of Sikkim, and called the Sikkim\nDurbar: the Rajah's residence was on a curious flat to the south of\nthe temple, and a few hundred feet below it, where are the remains of\n(for this country) extensive walls and buildings. During the Nepal\nwar, the Rajah was driven east across the Teesta, whilst the Ghorkas\nplundered Tassisuding, Pemiongchi, Changachelling, and all the other\ntemples and convents to the west of that river. It was then that the\nfamous history of Sikkim, compiled by the Lamas of Pemiongchi, and kept\nat this temple, was destroyed, with the exception of a few sheets,\nwith one of which Dr. Campbell and myself were each presented. We were\ntold that the monks of Changachelling and those of this establishment\nhad copied what remained, and were busy compiling the rest from oral\ninformation, &c.: whatever value the original may have possessed,\nhowever, is irretrievably lost. A magnificent copy of the Buddhist\nScriptures was destroyed at the same time; it consisted of 400 volumes,\neach containing several hundred sheets of Daphne paper.\"\n\n[Illustration: [++] Sikkim Priests.]\n\nOf the figures given in our article, the one on the extreme left is a\nLama, or Sikkim priest, having in his hand a _dorge_, or double-headed\nthunderbolt; next to him, a monk; next to the monk, a priest, with a\npraying cylinder; and at the extreme right, another monk.\n\n\nA HEAD-BREAKER.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Head-Breaker.]\n\nWith many savage nations it is a custom when prisoners have been\ncaptured in war, to keep them in confinement for some time, till the\npreparations for a grand festival have been completed, and then to put\nthem to death in the presence of the great men and chief priests of the\ncountry. They were slaughtered, sometimes as offerings to the gods,\nsometimes as sacrifices to the spirits of those slain in the war in\nwhich they were captured, and at other times as incentives to the young\nwarriors who were to be the future defenders of the nation. In all\nthese cases, appropriate and peculiar ceremonies were prescribed, and\nthe victims were generally despatched by a particular official, whose\nespecial duty it was to perform the bloody deed. A particular weapon\nwas also used, and one of these is sketched at the head of our article.\nIt was used by one of the tribes which inhabit the shores of Nootka\nSound. It is intended to represent the sacred bird of their nation, and\nis made of wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, with a blade of basalt.\nThe lower end is hollow for the insertion of a handle.\n\n\nANCIENT STONE COLLARS.\n\nPerhaps the most singular relics of that Pagan period in Scotland\nwhen the use of metals was in a great measure unknown, are two stone\ncollars, found near the celebrated parallel roads of Glenroy, and now\npreserved at the mansion of Tonley, Aberdeenshire. We here give an\nengraving of them.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Stone Collars.]\n\nThey are each of the full size of a collar adapted to a small Highland\nhorse; the one formed of trap or whin-stone, and the other of a\nfine-grained red granite. They are not, however, to be regarded as\nthe primitive substitutes for the more convenient materials of later\nintroduction; on the contrary, a close imitation of the details of a\nhorse collar of common materials is attempted, including the folds, the\nleather, nails, buckles, and holes for tying particular parts together.\nThey are finished with much care and a high degree of polish, and\nare described as obviously the workmanship of a skilful artist. Mr.\nSkene, who first drew attention to these remarkable relics, suggests\nthe peculiar natural features of Glenroy having led to the selection\nof this amphitheatre for the scene of ancient public games, and that\nthese stone collars might commemorate the victor in the chariot race,\nas the tripods, still existing, record the victor in the Choragic games\nof Athens. But no circumstances attending their discovery are known\nwhich could aid conjecture either as to the period or purpose of their\nconstruction.\n\n\nTHE OFFSPRING OF DRUNKENNESS.\n\nFrom an interesting lecture on drunkenness, and on popular investments,\nrecently delivered by the Rev. J. B. Owen, M.A., of Bilston, we\nselect this impressive enumeration of the crimes mainly springing\nfrom drunkenness. Drink was the desolating demon of Great Britain.\nThey had spent in intoxicating drinks during the present century as\nmuch as would pay the national debt twice over! There were 180,000\ngin drinkers in London alone, and in that city three millions a year\nare spent in gin! In thirteen years 249,006 males and 183,921 females\nwere taken into custody for being drunk and disorderly. In Manchester\nno less than a million a-year were spent in profligacy and crime. In\nEdinburgh there were 1,000 whisky shops--160 in one street--and yet\nthe city contained only 200 bread shops. Of 27,000 cases of pauperism,\n20,000 of them were traceable to drunkenness. In Glasgow the poor rates\nwere L100,000 a-year. \"Ten thousand,\" says Alison, \"get drunk every\nSaturday night--are drunk all day Sunday and Monday, and not able to\nreturn to work till Tuesday or Wednesday.\" Glasgow spends L1,200,000\nannually in drink, and 20,000 females are taken into custody for being\ndrunk. And what were some of the normal results of such appalling\nstatistics? insanity, pauperism, prostitution, and crime. As to the\ninsanity affiliated on drink, the Bishop of London stated, that of\n1,271 maniacs, whose previous histories were investigated, 649, or\nmore than half of them, wrecked their reason in drinking. As to its\npauperism, it is estimated that not less than two-thirds of our paupers\nwere the direct or indirect victims of the same fatal vice. As to\nits prostitution, its debauching influence was remotely traceable in\nthe 150,000 harlots of London, and in their awful swarms in all our\nlarge towns and cities. Its relation to crime was equally conclusive.\nIn Parkhurst prison, it was calculated, that 400 out of 500 juvenile\nprisoners, were immured there, as the incidental results of parental\ndebauchery. The Chaplain of the Northampton County Gaol, lately\ninformed the lecturer, that, \"of 302 prisoners in this gaol, during the\nlast six months, 176 attributed their ruin to drunkenness; 64 spent\nfrom 2s. 6d. to 10s. a week in drink; 15 spent from 10s. to 17s.; and\n10 spent all their savings. Is it not remarkable,\" he added, \"that\nout of 433 prisoners in this gaol, I have not had one that has had\none sixpence in a saving's bank, nor above six that ever had sixpence\nin one? On the contrary, I have many members of friendly societies,\nof course of unsound ones, which with two or three exceptions, all\nmet at public houses; and there they learned to drink, and became\nfamiliarised with crime.\" Judge Erskine declared at the Salisbury\nAssizes in 1844, that 96 cases out of every 100 were through strong\ndrink. Judge Coleridge added, at Oxford, that he never knew a case\nbrought before him, which was not directly or indirectly connected with\nintoxicating liquors; and Judge Patteson capped the climax, at Norwich,\nby stating to the grand jury, \"If it were not for this drinking, you\nand I should have nothing to do!\" Of the 7,018 charges entered at Bow\nStreet Police Office, in the year 1850, half of them were for being\ndrunk and incapable; and if they added to these the offences indirectly\ninstigated by intoxication, the proportion rose at least to 75 per cent.\n\n\nAN OLD PIKE.\n\nIn the year 1497 a giant \"Jack-killer\" was captured in the vicinity\nof Mannheim, with the following announcement in Greek appended to\nhis muzzle:--\"I am the first fish that was put into this pond by the\nhands of the Emperor Frederic the Second, on this 3rd day of October,\n1262.\" The age of the informant, therefore, if his lips spoke truth\n(and the unprecedented dimensions of the body left little doubt on that\npoint), was more than two hundred and thirty-five years. Already he\nhad been the survivor of many important changes in the political and\nsocial world around, and would have swam out perhaps as many more had\nthe captors been as solicitous to preserve his life as they were to\ntake his portrait. This, on the demise of the original, was hung up in\nthe castle of Lautern, and the enormous carcase (which, when entire,\nweighed three hundred and fifty pounds, and measured nineteen feet)\nwas sent to the museum at Mannheim, where, deprived of its flesh, and\ncaparisoned _de novo_, it hung, and haply yet hangs, a light desiccated\nskeleton, which a child might move.\n\n\nBURMESE BOAT.\n\nThe curious boat which is here depicted in full sail is one of those\nwhich is used by the Burmese on the river Irawadi. They are called\n_hnau_, and Captain Yule gives the following description of them in his\n\"Mission to Ava:\"--\n\n\"The model is nearly the same for all sizes, from the merest dinghy\nupwards. The keel-piece is a single tree hollowed out, and stretched\nby the aid of fire when green, a complete canoe, in fact. From this,\nribs and planking are carried up. The bow is low with beautiful hollow\nlines, strongly resembling those of our finest modern steamers. The\nstern rises high above the water, and below the run is drawn out fine\nto an edge. A high bench or platform for the steersman, elaborately\ncarved, is an indispensable appendage. The rudder is a large paddle\nlashed to the larboard quarter, and having a short tiller passing\nathwart the steerman's bench.\n\n\"The most peculiar part of the arrangement of these vessels is in the\nspars and rigging. The mast consists of two spars; it is, in fact,\na pair of shears, bolted and lashed to two posts rising out of the\nkeel-piece, so that it can be let down, or unshipped altogether, with\nlittle difficulty. Above the mainyard the two pieces run into one,\nforming the topmast. Wooden rounds run as ratlines from one spar of the\nmast to the other, forming a ladder for going aloft.\n\n\"The yard is a bamboo, or a line of sliced bamboos, of enormous length,\nand, being perfectly flexible, is suspended from the mast-head by\nnumerous guys or halyards, so as to curve upwards in an inverted bow.\nA rope runs along this, from which the huge mainsail is suspended,\nrunning on rings like a curtain outwards both ways from the mast. There\nis a small topsail of similar arrangement.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Burmese Boat.]\n\n\"The sail-cloth used is the common light cotton stuff for clothing.\nOf any heavier material it would be impossible to carry the enormous\nspread of sail which distinguishes these boats. At Menh'la one vessel\nwas lying so close to the shore that I was enabled to pace the length\nof the half-yard. I found it to be 65 feet, or for the length of the\nwhole spar, neglecting the curve, 130 feet. The area of the mainsail in\nthis case could not have been very much less than 4,000 square feet, or\none-eleventh of an acre.\n\n\"These boats can scarcely sail, of course, except before the wind. But\nin ascending the Irawadi, as on the Ganges during the rainy season,\nthe wind is almost always favourable. A fleet of them speeding before\nthe wind with the sunlight on their bellying sails has a splendid\nthough fantastic appearance. With their vast spreading wings and\nalmost invisible hulls, they look like a flight of colossal butterflies\nskimming the water.\"\n\n\nDANCING DERVISHES.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Dancing Dervishes.]\n\nThe Dancing Dervishes at Constantinople are a remarkable instance of\nthe lengths to which superstition and credulity will proceed. The\nsaltatory ceremony which they perform at their religious services\nis thus admirably described by Mr. Albert Smith in his \"Month at\nConstantinople:\"--\n\n\"I have said it was Friday; and so, on my return, I had an opportunity\nof seeing the Dancing Dervishes at Pera. They exhibit--for it is rather\na sight than a solemnity--on this day, as well as on Tuesday, in every\nweek. Their convent is facing the scrap of burying-ground on the road\nfrom Galata to Pera, and any one may witness their antics. Having put\noff our shoes, we entered an octagonal building, with galleries running\nround it, and standing places under them, surrounding the railed\nenclosure in which the Dervishes were to dance, or rather spin. One\ndivision of this part of the building was put aside for Christians, the\nothers were filled with common people and children. When I arrived, one\nold Dervish, in a green dress, was sitting at one point of the room,\nand twenty-four in white, were opposite to him. A flute and drum played\nsome very dreary music in the gallery. At a given signal they all fell\nflat on their faces, with a noise and precision that would have done\nhonour to a party of pantomimists; and then they all rose and walked\nslowly round, with their arms folded across their breasts, following\nthe old green Dervish, who marched at their head, and bowing twice\nvery gravely to the place where he had been sitting, and to the spot\nopposite to it. They performed this round two or three times. Then the\nold man sat down, and the others, pulling off their cloaks, appeared\nin a species of long petticoat, and one after the other began to spin.\nThey commenced revolving precisely as though they were waltzing by\nthemselves; first keeping their hands crossed on their breast, and then\nextending them, the palm of the right hand and the back of the left\nbeing upwards. At last they all got into play, and as they went round\nand round, they put me in mind of the grand party we have seen on the\ntop of an organ, where a _cavalier seul_ revolves by himself, and bows\nas he faces the spectators.\n\n\"They went on for a long time without stopping--a quarter of an hour,\nperhaps, or twenty minutes. There was something inexpressibly sly and\noffensive in the appearance of these men, and the desire one felt to\nhit them hard in the face became uncomfortably dominant. At the end of\ntheir revolutions they made another obeisance to the old man, and all\nthis time the players in the orchestra howled forth a kind of hymn.\nThis ceremony was repeated three or four times, and then they all sat\ndown again and put their cloaks on, whilst another Dervish, who had\nwalked round and round amongst the dancers, whilst they were spinning,\nsang a solo. During this time their faces were all close to the ground.\nThis done, they rose and marched before the old green Dervish once\nmore, kissing his hand as they passed, and the service concluded,\noccupying altogether about three-quarters of an hour.\"\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY MALADY.\n\nDigne, the principal town in the department of the Basses Alpes\nin France might be passed by the traveller without exciting one\nobservation, its walks and its warm mineral waters being the only\nobjects worthy of notice. Its inhabitants do not now exceed 3,500;\nbut, in the year 1629, 10,000 industrious citizens followed their\nnumerous avocations within its precincts. At that period, however, an\nextraordinary plague broke out, in the month of June, which lasted till\nOctober, committing the most awful ravages, so that in that short space\nof time the wretched inhabitants were reduced to the number of 1,500,\namong whom six only had escaped this very singular malady, the effects\nof which are thus described by a French writer:--\"This malady strangely\naffected the invalids; some fancied they could fly; others, climb\nfrom one object to another like squirrels; some sunk into a profound\nlethargy, even for so long a time as six days; and one young woman who\nhad been hastily interred in a vineyard, rose three days afterwards,\nfor the grave-diggers were content just to cover the bodies. During\nthese four months the town was covered with a thick fog: the heat was\nsuffocating, accompanied by frequent and dreadful storms; and in order\nto complete the horrors of such a situation, the parliament forbade any\nof the inhabitants to quit the city, or the small territory belonging\nto it. Guards placed upon the _Bleonne_ fired upon those who attempted\nto escape. The magistrates abandoned their functions; the clocks no\nlonger sounded the hours; the neighbouring springs dried up, so that\nthe mills could not work; and famine began to add its fearful horrors\nto the miseries which already desolated the city, now become a living\nsepulchre, for the dead bodies lay in the streets unburied, and the\nfew remaining persons who still paraded the streets appeared more\nlike the spectres of those departed than living beings. Many persons\nnot only prepared but put on the habiliments of death, and quietly\nawaited the approach of the _king of terrors_. A new edict condemned\nthe pestilential city to the flames; but this inhuman decree was\ncountermanded, after the destruction of one country house, with all\nits inhabitants. The disease having somewhat abated in the surrounding\nvillages, humanity at length dictated the necessity of making some\nefforts to save the remaining few, who had escaped the contagion,\nfrom the no less frightful evil of famine. The scene that presented\nitself was appalling; several little children, whose parents were\ndead, were found sucking goats; in short, the desolation was so great\nthat, although two centuries have passed away since this fatal scourge\ndevastated the country, _Digne_ has never recovered its effects.\"\n\n\nQUACKERY IN THE OLDEN TIME.\n\nIn the reign of Henry VIII. many of the medical practitioners were\nmere horse-farriers. A distinguished patient, the great Lord Burghley,\nsecretary of state to Queen Elizabeth, was addressed by one Audelay, on\na certain occasion, in this wise, \"Be of goode comfort, and plucke up\na lustie, merrie hearte, and then shall you overcome all diseases: and\nbecause it pleased my good Lord Admiral lately to praise my physicke,\nI have written to you such medicines as I wrote unto him, which I have\nin my boke of my wyffe's hand, _proved upon herselfe and mee both_:\nand if I can get anything that may do you any goode, you may be well\nassured it shall be a joye unto me to get it for you.\" \"A good medicine\nfor weakness or consumption:--Take a pig of nine days olde, and slaye\nhim, and quarter him, and put him in a skillat, with a handfull of\nspearment, and a handfull of red fennell, a handfull of liverwort,\nhalf a handfull of red neap, a handfull of clarge, and nine dates,\ncleaned, picked, pared, and a handful of great raisins, and picke out\nthe stones, and a quarter of an ounce of mace, and two stickes of\ngoode cinnamon, bruised in a mortar, and distill it with a soft fire,\nand put it in a glass, and set it in the sun nine days, and drinke\nnine spoonfulls of it at once when you list!\" \"A compost:--item--take\na porpin, otherwise called an English hedgehog, and quarter him in\npieces, and put the said beast in a still, with these ingredients:\nitem--a quart of redde wyne, a pinte of rose-water, a quarter of a\npound of sugar--cinnamon and two great raisins.\" \"If thore be any\nmanner of disease that you be aggrieved withal, I pray you send me\nsome knowledge thereof, and I doubt not but to send you an approved\nremedie. Written in haste at Greenwiche, y{e} 9 of May, 1553, by your\ntrewe heartie friend, JOHN of AUDELAY.\"\n\n\nA POISON WEAPON.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Poison Weapon.]\n\nThe instrument sketched forms one of the curiosities in the splendid\nmuseum of the late Sir S. R. Meyrick, and is a singular instance of\nthat refinement of cruelty which is too prominent a characteristic of\nthe sixteenth century. It is a weapon for throwing poisoned needles\namong a crowd. Where the lid at the top is seen lifted up, is the\nchamber in which the needles are kept stuck into a cork at the bottom.\nOn the opposite side a needle is seen put through a hole in a strong\nspring, held in its place by a catch above, which, when pressed by the\nthumb disengages it and ejects the needle with considerable force. As\nthe fore-finger goes through the centre ring, and the thumb is at the\ntop, the weapon is almost entirely concealed by the hand. The spring\ncan be adjusted by a screw at the side. This cruel instrument was\nused by men on horseback, or from a window, and as the needles were\npoisoned, many painful injuries must have been inflicted without the\nsufferers being able to discover by whom their wounds were caused.\n\n\nANCIENT SWORD-BREAKER.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Sword-Breaker.]\n\nThe immense two-handed swords of former times were most fearful\nweapons, and far more easily used than the appearance of them would\nlead us to suppose. They were admirably poised, and the position in\nwhich they were held may be learned from various writers of their\ntimes. One hand was placed close to the cross-bar, while the other\nheld the pommel. De Grassi, in 1594, tells us that those who use them\ncontrive to \"amase with the furie of the sword, and deliver great\nedge blows down-right and reversed, fetching a full circle or compass\ntherein with exceeding great swiftness, staying themselves upon one\nfoote, sometimes on the other, utterlie neglecting to thrust, and\npersuading themselves that the thrust serveth to amaze one man onlie,\nbut those edge blows are of force to incounter many. The hand towards\nthe enemie must take hold fast of the handle neere the crosse and\nunderneath, the other hand above and near the pomell.\"\n\nSilver, in his \"Paradox\" gives the following as the proportions of a\ntwo-handed sword in his day: \"The perfect length of your two-handed\nsword is the blade to the length and hilt of your single sword.\"\n\nThe instrument which we have sketched on previous page, was used in\nthe time of Henry VIII., for the purpose, not only of defence against\none of those \"great edge-blows down-right\" but of catching the blade\nbetween the teeth, and then breaking it by a sharp turn of the wrist.\n\n\nORIGIN OF THE BALLOT.\n\nThe origin of electing members by balls may be traced to the Grecians.\nWhen a member was to be elected, every one threw a little pellet of\nbran, or crumb of bread into a basket, carried by a servant on his head\nround the table, and whoever dissented flattened their pellet at one\nside.\n\n\nANCIENT DAGGER.\n\nThe weapon which forms the subject of the woodcut is a dagger of the\ntime of Philip and Mary, ornamented with engraving. After being thrust\ninto a person, by pulling a little catch, it is made to open within\nhim, and the prolongation of the blade allows means for a second blow.\nThe two small hooks at the inner side of the two blades would admit of\nthe dagger being thrust deeper in, but would prevent its being drawn\nout.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Ancient Dagger.]\n\nAt the period these daggers were most in vogue, personal combats were\nvery sanguinary and determined, seldom terminating without the death of\none, and in some cases of both, of the parties engaged. They first used\nthe long sword, and when that weapon was broken, they closed with one\nanother, and used their daggers by stabbing at the most mortal part of\ntheir foe they could manage to reach.\n\n\nTHE TEMPLE OF POU-TOU.\n\nPou-tou is an island of the great archipelago of Chusan, on the coasts\nof the province of Tche-kiang. More than 100 monasteries, more or less\nimportant, and two of which were founded by Emperors, are scattered\nover the sides of the mountains and valleys of this picturesque and\nenchanting island, which nature and art have combined to adorn with\ntheir utmost magnificence. All over it you find delightful gardens,\nfull of beautiful flowers,--grottoes cut in the living rock, amidst\ngroves of bamboo and other trees, with aromatic banks. The habitations\nof the Bonzes are sheltered from the scorching rays of the sun by\numbrageous foliage, and scattered about in the prettiest situations\nimaginable. Thousands of winding paths cross the valleys in various\ndirections, and the brooks and rivulets, by means of pretty bridges of\nstone or painted wood, and for the communications between the scattered\ndwellings. In the centre of the island rise two vast and brilliant\nedifices--Buddhist temples--the yellow bricks of which announce that\ntheir construction is due to imperial munificence. The religious\narchitecture of the Chinese does not at all resemble ours. They have no\nidea of the majestic, solemn, and perhaps somewhat melancholy style,\nthat harmonizes so well with the feelings which ought to be inspired\nby a place devoted to meditation and prayer. When they wish to build a\npagoda, they look out for the most gay and smiling site they can find\non the declivity of a mountain or in a valley; they plant it with great\ntrees of the evergreen species; they trace about it a number of paths,\non the sides of which they place flowering shrubs, creeping plants, and\nbushes. It is through these cool and fragrant avenues you reach the\nbuilding, which is surrounded by galleries, and has less the air of a\ntemple than of a rural abode charmingly situated in the midst of a park\nor garden.\n\nThe principal temple of Pou-tou is reached by a long avenue of grand\nsecular trees, whose thick foliage is filled with troops of crows\nwith white heads; and their cawings and flapping of wings keep up a\ncontinual clamour. At the end of the avenue is a magnificent lake,\nsurrounded with shrubs that lean over its waters like weeping willows.\nTurtle and gold-fish gleam through them; and mandarin-ducks, in their\ngaily- plumage, play over their surface, amidst the splendid\nwater-lilies whose rich corollas rise majestically upon tender green\nstalks spotted with black. Several bridges of red and green wood are\nthrown over this lake, and lead to flights of steps, by which you\nascend to the first of the temple buildings--a kind of porch, supported\nupon eight enormous granite columns. On the right and left are\nstationed, like sentinels, four statues of colossal size, and two side\ngates lead to the vestibule of the principal nave, where is enthroned a\nBuddhist Trinity, representing the Past, the Present, and the Future.\nThese three statues are entirely gilt, and, although in a crouching\nposture, of gigantic dimensions--at least twelve feet high. Buddha is\nin the midst, his hands interlaced, and gravely placed on his majestic\nabdomen. He represents the Past, and the unalterable and eternal quiet\nto which it has attained; the two others, which have the arm and the\nright hand raised, in sign of their activity, the Present and Future.\nBefore each idol is an altar covered with little vases for offerings,\nand cassolets of chiselled bronze, where perfumes are constantly\nburning.\n\nA crowd of secondary divinities are ranged round the hall, the\nornaments of which are composed of enormous lanterns of painted paper\nor horn--square, round, oval--indeed, of all forms and colours; and the\nwalls are hung with broad strips of satin, with sentences and maxims.\n\nThe third hall is consecrated to _Kouang-yu_, whom the greater number\nof accounts of China persist in regarding as a goddess of porcelain,\nand sometimes also of fecundity. According to the Buddhist mythology,\nKouang-yu is a person of the Indian Trimourti, or Triune God,\nrepresenting the creative power.\n\nFinally, the fourth hall is a pantheon, or pandemonium, containing\na complete assortment of hideous idols, with ogres' and reptiles'\nfaces. Here you see, huddled together pell-mell, the gods of heaven and\nearth; fabulous monsters, patrons of war, of the silk manufacture, of\nagriculture, and of medicine; the images of the saints of antiquity,\nphilosophers, statesmen, warriors, literary men--in a word, the most\nheterogeneous and grotesque assembly conceivable.\n\n\nORACLES OF APOLLO IN FRANCE.\n\nTowards the frontiers of Auvergne and Velay, upon the high rock of\nPolignac, there was formerly a temple of Apollo, famous for its\noracles. The time of its foundation ascends to the first years of the\nChristian era, since, in the year 47, the Emperor Claudius came hither\nin great pomp, to acknowledge the power of the god; and he left proofs\nof his piety and munificence. The debris and mysterious issues that\nare found even now upon the rock, in the heart of its environs, reveal\nthe secret means employed by the priests to make their divinities\nspeak, and to impose upon the people. At the bottom of the rock was\nan aedicula: it was on this spot that the pilgrims took up their\nfirst station, and deposited their offerings and made their vows. A\nsubterranean passage communicated from this aedicula to the bottom of\na great excavation, pierced, in the form of a tunnel, from the base\nto the summit of the rock. It was by this enormous opening that the\nvows, the prayers and questions, pronounced in the very lowest voice\nby the pilgrims, reached instantly the top of the rock, and were there\nheard and collected by the college of priests; the answers were then\nprepared, while the believers, by a sinuous and long path, slowly\narrived at the end of their pilgrimage. The answers being ready, the\npriests commissioned to transmit them repaired to profound and deep\napartments, contiguous to a well, the orifice of which terminated in\nthe temple. This well, crowned by an altar, being enclosed by a little\nhemispherical roof, supported in its external parts the colossal figure\nof Apollo; the mouth of this statue being half open, in the middle of\na large and majestic beard, appeared always ready to pronounce the\nsupreme decrees. It was also through this opening, by the means of a\nlong speaking-trumpet, that the priests at the bottom of this den of\nmystery and superstition made known those famous oracles so imposing\nand so powerful in their effects upon the human soul as to impede for\ncenturies the substitution of the more pure and holy precepts of the\ngospel.\n\n\nBEST POSITION FOR SMOKING OPIUM.\n\nOpium is not smoked in the same manner as tobacco. The pipe is a tube\nof nearly the length and thickness of an ordinary flute. Towards one\nend of it is fitted a bowl of baked clay or some other material, more\nor less precious, which is pierced with a hole communicating with the\ninterior of the tube. The opium, which before smoking is in the form\nof a blackish viscous paste, is prepared in the following manner:--A\nportion, of the size of a pea, is put on a needle, and heated over a\nlamp until it swells and acquires the requisite consistence. It is\nthen placed over the hole in the bowl of the pipe, in the form of a\nlittle cone that has been previously pierced with a needle so as to\ncommunicate with the interior of the tube. The opium is then brought\nto the flame of the lamp, and after three or four inspirations the\nlittle cone is entirely burnt, and all the smoke passes into the\nmouth of the smoker, who then rejects it again through his nostrils.\nAfterwards the same operation is repeated, so that this mode of smoking\nis extremely tedious. The Chinese prepare and smoke their opium lying\ndown, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, saying that this\nis the most favourable position; and the smokers of distinction do not\ngive themselves all the trouble of the operation, but have their pipes\nprepared for them.\n\n\nEXECUTIONER'S SWORD.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Executioner's Sword.]\n\nThe weapon engraved below forms one of the curiosities in the superb\ncollection of ancient armour belonging to the late Sir Samuel R.\nMeyrick, at Goodrich Court, Herefordshire. It is the sword of an\nexecutioner, having on it the date 1674. The blade is thin, and\nexceeding sharp at both edges; and engraved on it is a man impaled,\nabove which are the words, in German, of which the following is a\ntranslation:--\n\n    \"Let every one that has eyes\n     Look here, and see that\n     To erect power on wickedness\n     Cannot last long:\"\n\na man holding a crucifix, his eyes bandaged, and on his knees; the\nexecutioner, with his right hand on the hilt, and his left on the\npommel, is about to strike off his head; above is written--\n\n    \"He who ambitiously exalts himself,\n     And thinks only of evil,\n     Has his neck already encompassed\n     By punishment.\"\n\nOn the other side, a man broken on the wheel; over which is--\n\n    \"I live, I know not how long;\n     I die, but I know not when:\"\n\nand a man suspended by the ribs from a gibbet, with the inscription--\n\n    \"I move, without knowing whither;\n     I wonder I am so tranquil.\"\n\n\nORIGIN OF EXCHEQUER BILLS.\n\nIn the year 1696 and 1697, the silver currency of the kingdom being by\nclipping, washing, grinding, filing, &c., reduced to about half its\nnominal value, Acts of Parliament were passed for its being called in\nand recoined, and whilst the recoinage was going on, Exchequer bills\nwere first issued to supply the demands of trade.\n\n\nANCIENT ETRURIAN BUST.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Ancient Etrurian Bust.]\n\nIf we look backwards to the most remote times of Greek industry, we\nfind that long before fire-casting became customary, almost every kind\nof work was carried out by the simple means of the hammer and tongs,\nwielded by skilful hands. Even products of art were created in this\nmanner; and as statues, vases, and the like could not be put together\nby the process of soldering, nails were used for the purpose, as we\nlearn not only from ancient writers, but even from monuments which have\nlately been discovered in Etruria, and the most important specimens\nof which are now possessed by the British Museum. In one of the tombs\nbelonging to the vast necropolis of Vulci were discovered, about twenty\nyears ago, a great many bronzes of this very ancient workmanship; one\nof them represents a bust placed on a basement covered with thin copper\nplates, and adorned by a row of figures, which are likewise chased;\nlong curls fall down over the neck and shoulders, and these parts\nespecially are formed in the most simple manner: one would be tempted\nto call it child-like, did not the whole composition show a certain\ncharacter which enables the experienced eye of the art-philosopher\nto distinguish in these rude attempts at plastic metal work the very\ngerm of those wonderfully-styled productions of a later period. The\nengraving here annexed, giving a side view of this remarkable, and as\nyet unique monument, is intended to show the arrangement of the hair,\nwhich, in spite of its simple treatment, presents as a whole some\ntrace of grace, and principles of fine proportions. We perceive that\nthe curls are formed by rolling and twining together small strips of\nbronze plate, connected with the head itself by the mechanical means\nwe have alluded to. There is no trace of soldering; and we may be sure\nthat we possess in this figure a good specimen of those hammer-wrought\nsculptures of old which were spoken of by the Greeks themselves as\nbelonging to a fabulous period.\n\n\nTHE HAIRY WOMAN OF BURMAH.\n\nThe following account of this remarkable freak of nature is taken from\nCaptain Yule's \"Mission to Ava.\" Writing from the city of Amarapoora,\nthe capital of Burmah, the Captain says:--\n\n\"To-day we had a singular visitor at the residency. This was Maphoon,\nthe daughter of Shwe-maong, the \"<DW25> hirsutus\" described and depicted\nin Crawfurd's narrative, where a portrait of her, as a young child,\nalso appears. Not expecting such a visitor, one started and exclaimed\ninvoluntarily as there entered what at first-sight seemed an absolute\nrealization of the dog-headed Anubis.\n\n\"The whole of the Maphoon's face was more or less covered with hair.\nOn a part of the cheek, and between the nose and mouth, this was\nconfined to a short down, but over all the rest of the face was a thick\nsilky hair of a brown colour, paling about the nose and chin, four or\nfive inches long. At the alea of the nose, under the eye, and on the\ncheek-bone, this was very fully developed, but it was in and on the\near that it was most extraordinary. Except the extreme upper tip, no\npart of the ear was visible: all the rest was filled and veiled by a\nlarge mass of silky hair, growing apparently out of every part of the\nexternal organ, and hanging in a dependent lock to a length of eight\nor ten inches. The hair over her forehead was brushed so as to blend\nwith the hair of the head, the latter being dressed (as usual with\nher countrywomen) _a la Chinoise_. It was not so thick as to conceal\naltogether the forehead.\n\n\"The nose, densely covered with hair so as no animal's is that I know\nof, and with long fine locks curving out and pendent like the wisps of\na fine Skye terrier's coat, had a most strange appearance. The beard\nwas pale in colour, and about four inches in length, seemingly very\nsoft and silky.\n\n\"Poor Maphoon's manners were good and modest, her voice soft and\nfeminine, and her expression mild and not unpleasing, after the first\ninstinctive repulsion was overcome. Her appearance rather suggested the\nidea of a pleasant-looking woman masquerading than that of anything\nbrutal. This discrimination, however, was very difficult to preserve\nin sketching her likeness, a task which devolved on me to-day in Mr.\nGrant's absence. On an after-visit, however, Mr. Grant made a portrait\nof her, which was generally acknowledged to be most successful. Her\nneck, bosom, and arms appeared to be covered with fine pale down,\nscarcely visible in some lights. She made a move, as if to take off\nher upper clothing, but reluctantly, and we prevented it. Her husband\nand two boys accompanied her. The elder boy, about four or five years\nold, had nothing abnormal about him. The youngest, who was fourteen\nmonths old and still at the breast, was evidently taking after his\nmother. There was little hair on the head, but the child's ear was\nfull of long silky floss, and it could boast a moustache and beard of\npale silky down that would have cheered the heart of many a cornet. In\nfact, the appearance of the child agrees almost exactly with what Mr.\nCrawford says of Maphoon herself as an infant. This child is thus the\nthird in descent exhibiting this strange peculiarity; and in this third\ngeneration, as in the two preceding, this peculiarity has appeared only\nin one individual. Maphoon has the same dental peculiarity also that\nher father had--the absence of the canine teeth and grinders, the back\npart of the gums presenting merely a hard ridge. Still she chews pawn\nlike her neighbours.\n\nMr. Camaretta tells some story of an Italian wishing to marry her and\ntake her to Europe, which was not allowed. Should the great Barnum hear\nof her, he would not be so easily thwarted.\n\nAccording to the Woundouk, the King offered a reward to any man who\nwould marry her, but it was long before any one was found bold enough\nor avaricious enough to venture. Her father, Shwe-maong, was murdered\nby robbers many years ago.\"\n\n\nA TRAVELLER'S PASSPORT.\n\nThe following document, included among the rolls, is dated 1680, from\nWhitehall:--\n\n\"Dame Mary Yate, having asked his majesty's permission to pass beyond\nthe seas, for the recovery of her health, his majesty was most\ngraciously pleased to grant her request, under the usual clauses\nand provisoes, according to which ye said Dame Mary Yate having\ngiven security not to enter into any plott or conspiracy against his\nmajesty or his realms, or behave herself in any such manner as may\nbe prejudicial to his majesty's government, or the religion here by\nlaw established, and that she will not repaire to the city of Roome,\nor return unto this kingdome without first acquainting one of his\nmajesty's principal secretaries of state, and obtaining leave for the\nsame, in pursuance of his majesty's commands in council hereby will and\nrequire you to permit and suffer the said Dame Mary Yate to imbarque\nwith her trunkes of apparel and other necessaries not prohibited at\nany port of this kingdom, and from thence to pass beyond the seas,\nprovided that shee departe this kingdom within 14 days after the date\nhereof.\"--April 14.\n\nIf the above refers to the celebrated Lady Mary Yate (a daughter of the\nhouse of Pakington) who is commemorated on a monument in Chaddesley\nChurch, Worcestershire, as having died in 1696, at the age of 86, she\nmust have been 70 years old when these precautions were taken by the\nGovernment against the poor old lady attempting to invade the country,\nor to comfort the Pope with her presence and support. Dame Mary Yate\nwas no doubt a Roman Catholic, and the permission above referred to was\ngranted under the seventh section of the statute 3rd James I, chap. 5,\nwhich was virtually repealed by the statute 33rd George III, chap. 30,\nwhich exempted Roman Catholics from all the penalties and restrictions\nmentioned and enjoined in the older acts, if in one of the Courts at\nWestminster or at the Quarter Sessions they made a declaration which to\nthem was unobjectionable.\n\n\nCURIOUS PROVINCIAL DANCE IN FRANCE.\n\nThe inhabitants of Roussillon are passionately fond of dancing; they\nhave some dances peculiar to themselves. The men generally commence\nthe country dance by a _contre-pas_, the air of which is said to be of\nGreek origin; the women then mingle in the dance, when they jointly\nperform several figures, passing one among the other, and occasionally\nturning each other round. At a particular change in the air, the male\ndancer must dexterously raise his partner and place her on his hand in\na sitting posture. Accidents sometimes happen upon these occasions,\nand the lady falls to the ground amidst the jokes and laughter of her\ncompanions. One of these dances, called _lo salt_, is performed by four\nmen and four women. At the given signal, the cavaliers simultaneously\nraise the four ladies, forming a pyramid, the caps of the ladies\nmaking the apex. The music which accompanies these dances consists of\na _lo flaviol_, a sort of flageolet, a drum, two hautboys, prima and\ntenor, and the _cornemuse_, called in the country _lo gratla_: this\ninstrument, by its description, must somewhat resemble the bagpipes.\nThe dance called _Segadilles_ is performed with the greatest rapidity:\nat the end of every couplet, for the airs are short and numerous, the\nfemale dancers are raised, and seated on the hands of their partners.\n\n\nANCIENT INSTRUMENT OF PUNISHMENT.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Whip of Steel.]\n\nThe instrument which we here engrave is a whip of steel that was made\nand used as an engine of punishment and torture about the middle of\nthe sixteenth century. It is composed of several truncated cones,\ngrooved with sharp edges, and held in opposite directions, so as to\ngive sufficient oscillation without rising so far as to strike the hand\nof the executioner. It seems to have been held by a strap; but its\nbarbarity is evident.\n\n\nPUNISHING BY WHOLESALE.\n\nHenry VIII. is recorded, in the course of his reign, to have hanged no\nfewer than 72,000 robbers, thieves, and vagabonds. In the latter days\nof Elizabeth scarcely a year passed without 300 or 400 criminals going\nto the gallows. In 1596, in the county of Somerset alone, 40 persons\nwere executed, 35 burnt in the hand, and 37 severely whipped.\n\n\nMONKS AND FRIARS.\n\nThere was a distinction between the Monks and Friars, which caused the\nlatter to become the object of hatred and envy. Both the monastic, or\nregular, and parochial clergy, encouraged the attacks made upon them.\nThe Monks were, by most of their rules, absolutely forbidden to go out\nof their monasteries, and, therefore, could receive only such donations\nas were left to them. On the contrary, the Friars, who were professed\nmendicants, on receiving notice of the sickness of any rich person,\nconstantly detached some of their members, to persuade the sick man\nto bequeath alms to their convent; thus often, not only anticipating\nthe Monks, but, likewise the parochial clergy. Besides, as most of\nthem were professed preachers, their sermons were frequently compared\nwith those of the clergy, and in general, not to the advantage of the\nlatter. In these sermons, the poverty and distress of their order,\nwere topics that, of course, were neither omitted, nor slightly passed\nover. Considering the power of the Church, before the Reformation, it\nis not to be supposed that any of the Poets, as Chaucer, &c., would\nhave ventured to tell those rediculous stories of the Friars, with\nwhich their works abound, had they not been privately protected by the\nsuperior clergy.\n\n\nCURIOUS TURKISH CONTRIVANCE.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Curious Turkish Contrivance.]\n\nWonderful are the appliances by which ingenuity contrives to supply the\nevasions of idleness. We give one of them, as described by Mr. Albert\nSmith, in his \"Month at Constantinople.\"\n\n\"Passing some cemeteries and public fountains, we came to the outskirts\nof the city, which consist chiefly of gardens producing olives,\noranges, raisins and figs, irrigated by creaking water-wheels worked\nby donkeys. To one of these the droll contrivances which attracted our\nnotice was affixed. The donkey who went round and round was blinded,\nand in front of him was a pole, one end of which was fixed to the axle\nand the other slightly drawn towards his head-gear and there tied: so\nthat, from the spring he always thought somebody was pulling him on.\nThe guide told us that idle fellows would contrive some rude mechanism\nso that a stick should fall upon the animal's hind quarters at every\nround, and so keep him at work whilst they went to sleep under the\ntrees.\"\n\n\nFIGURES OF DOGS ON ANCIENT TOMBS.\n\nIn attempting to assign a reason for the frequent occurrence of dogs\nat the feet of tombs, we shall most probably be right if we simply\nattribute the circumstance to the affection borne by the deceased for\nsome animal of that faithful class. That these sculptured animals were\nsometimes intended for likenesses of particular dogs is evident. Sir\nBryan Stapleton, on his brass at Ingham, Norfolk, rests one foot on\na lion, the other on a dog; the name of the latter is recorded on a\nlabel, _Jakke_. Round the collar of a dog at the feet of an old stone\nfigure of a knight, in Tolleshunt Knight's Church, Essex, letters were\nformerly traced which were supposed to form the word _Howgo_.\n\nIn a dictionary of old French terms, we find that the word _Gocet_\nmeans a small wooden dog, which it was customary to place at the foot\nof the bed. Now it has been thought that something of this kind was\nintended in the representation of dogs on tombs, and that this support\nof the feet merely indicates the old custom of having that sort of\nwooden resting-place for the feet when in a recumbent position. But\nour first supposition appears the more natural, and is supported by\nthe fact that a large proportion of these sculptured dogs, instead of\nbeing placed beneath the feet, are seated on the robe or train, looking\nupwards with the confidence of favourite animals. Judith, daughter of\nthe Emperor Conrad, is represented on her tomb (1191) with a little dog\nin her right hand.\n\nOn the tomb of Sir Ralph de Rochford, in Walpole Church, Norfolk, his\nlady is by his side, dressed in a reticulated head-dress and veil,\na standing cape to her robe, long sleeves buttoned to her wrists, a\nquatrefoil fastens her girdle, and a double necklace of beads hangs\nfrom her neck. At her feet is a dog looking up, and another couchant.\nIn the chancel at Shernborne, Norfolk, the figure of Sir Thomas\nShernborne's lady (1458) has at the right foot a small dog sitting,\nwith a collar of bells.\n\nOn a large antique marble in the chancel at Great Harrowden,\nNorthamptonshire, are the portraits of a man in armour, and his wife in\na winding sheet. The man stands on a greyhound, and the woman has at\nher feet two little dogs looking upwards, with bells on their collars.\nThis monument is that of William Harwedon and Margery, daughter of Sir\nGiles St. John of Plumpton. She died in the twentieth year of Henry VI.\n\n\nTHE FATE OF THE LAST MAY-POLE IN THE STRAND.\n\nThe May-pole, which had been set up in 1641, having long been in a\nstate of decay, was pulled down in 1713, and a new one, with two\ngilt balls and a vane on the top of it, was erected in its stead.\nThis did not continue long in existence; for, being in 1718 judged\nan obstruction, to the view of the church then building, orders were\ngiven by the parochial authorities for its removal. Sir Isaac Newton\nbegged it of the parish, and it was conveyed to Wanstead Park, where it\nlong supported the largest telescope in Europe, belonging to Sir Isaac\nNewton's friend, Mr. Pound, the rector of Wanstead. It was 125 feet\nlong; and presented to Mr. Pound by Mr. Huson, a French member of the\nRoyal Society.\n\n\nMEANS OF ATTRACTING CUSTOM.\n\nBefore houses were numbered, it was a common practice with tradesmen\nnot much known, when they advertised, to mention the colour of their\nnext neighbour's door, balcony, or lamp, of which custom the following\ncopy of a handbill will present a curious instance:--\n\n\"Next to the GOLDEN DOOR, opposite Great Suffolk Street, near Pall\nMall, at the Barber's Pole, liveth a certain person, Robert Barker, who\nhaving found out an excellent method for sweating or fluxing of wiggs;\nhis prices are 2s. 6d. for each _bob_, and 3s. for every _tye wigg_ and\n_pigtail_, _ready money_.\"\n\n\nMUSIC OF THE HINDOOS.\n\nAmong the fine arts of India, music holds a distinguished place; and\nalthough its cultivation has declined, and but few are now found\nwho have attained to eminence either in the science or art of this\nunequalled source of recreation, refinement, and pleasure, yet no\npeople are more susceptible of its charms than the Hindoos. Reading is\nwith them invariably, as with the Arabians and other Eastern nations, a\nspecies of _recitativo_, a sort of speaking music, delivered in dulcet\nthough not measured tones. The recitation of lessons in a school or\nacademy always takes this form. The man at the oar, women beating lime,\nthe labourer engaged in irrigation, alike accompany their toil with\nsong.\n\nThe word _sangita_, symphony, as applied to music by the Hindoos,\nconveys the idea of the union of _voices_, _instruments_, and _action_.\nMusical treatises accordingly treat of _gana_, _vadya_, _uritya_, or\n_song_, _percussion_, and _dancing_; the first comprising the measures\nof poetry; the second, instrumental sounds; and the third, theatrical\nrepresentation. The ancient dramas of the Hindoo exhibited the union of\nthese in their unequalled poetry, modulated with the accompaniments of\nvoice, and instruments, and the attractions of appropriate scenery.\n\nThe music of the Hindoos includes eighty-four modes, each supposed\nto have a peculiar expression, capable of moving some particular\nsentiment or affection. The modes take their denomination from the\nseasons, or from the hours of day or night. Musical composition is\nsupposed capable of adaptation to the different periods of the day,\nand therefore its provisions are regulated by the hours. The ideas of\nthe Hindoos on music, as promoting the pleasures of imagination, may\nbe inferred from the names applied by ancient authors to their musical\ntreatises. One is called _Ragarnava_, the Sea of the Passions; another,\n_Ragaderpana_, the Mirror of Modes; and a third, _Sobhavinoda_, the\nDelight of Assemblies; a fourth, _Sangitaderpana_, the Mirror of Song;\nand another, _Ragavibodha_, the Doctrine of Musical Modes. Some of\nthese works explain the law of musical sounds, their divisions and\nsuccession, variations of scales by temperament, and the enunciation\nof modes; besides a minute description of the different _vinas_ (lute),\nand the rules for playing them. This is a fretted instrument of the\nguitar kind, usually having seven wires or strings, and a large gourd\nat each end of the finger-board. Its extent is two octaves, and its\ninvention is attributed to Nareda, the son of Brahma. There are many\nvarieties, named according to the number of their strings. Of one of\nthem we give an engraving below.\n\nMusic, like everything else connected with India, is invested with\ndivine attributes. From the sacred Veda was derived the Upaveda, or\nsubsidiary Veda of the Gandharbas, the heavenly choristers. The art\nwas communicated to mortals by Sarasvati, the consort of Brahma. She,\nas before stated, is the patroness of the fine arts, the goddess of\nspeech. Their son, an ancient lawgiver and astronomer, invented the\nVina. The first inspired man, Bherat, invented the Drama.\n\n[Illustration: [++] Hindoo Guitar.]\n\n  PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND DECCLES.\n\n\n\n\nROUTLEDGE'S\n\n=BOOKS FOR THE PEOPLE\n\n70 VOLUMES.=\n\n_Crown 8vo, Cloth, 2\/- each. Crown 8vo, Paper Covers, 1\/6 each._\n\n\n  =Macaulay's Essays and Lays of Ancient Rome.= Complete Edition.\n        924 pages.\n  =The Spectator.= Complete Edition, reproducing the original\n        text. Edited by Prof. H. 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DEMOSTHENES ON THE CROWN. 2s. 6d.\n\n     47. PASCAL'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 3\/6\n\n     48. BERKELEY'S HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 2\/6\n\n     49. MALORY'S MORT D'ARTHURE. 5s.\n\n     50. EMERSON'S ESSAYS. 3s. 6d.\n\n=London: George Routledge & Sons, Limited.=\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n  TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:\n\n  Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.\n\n  Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant\n  preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.\n\n  Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.\n\n  Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved between paragraphs and\n  some illustrations have been moved closer to the text that\n  references them. The Index to Engravings paginations were not\n  corrected.\n\n  Superscripts are enclosed in brackets.\n\n  [++] indicates a caption added by the transcriber.\n\n\n  VARIANTS UNCHANGED:\n\n  -- Pages xiii and 201: Colebrook and Colebroke.\n\n  -- Page 51: Tchang-tchin and Tchang-tching.\n\n  -- Pages 108, 390 and others: Southwark and Southwarke.\n\n  -- Pages 498 and 571: Mahomed, Mahommed and Mahomet.\n\n  -- Pages 298, 306 and others: Hindostan and Hindoostan.\n\n  -- Pages 322 and 452: Rossellina, Rosselini and Rossellini.\n\n  -- Pages 370 and 371: ivil and ivel.\n\n  -- Pages 432, 537 and others: Brama and Brahma.\n\n  -- Pages 416 and 422: Bolinbroke and Bollinbroke.\n\n  -- Pages 634 and 635: Clothseck and clothsek; Gambaldyn and gambaldynge.\n\n  -- Page 635: Krees and Kreez.\n\n  -- Multiple pages: Shakespere\/Shakspeare\/Shakspere.\n\n\n  OTHER NOTES:\n\n  -- Pages v and xi: Removed entry \"Architecture for Earthquakes\"\n     as no such engraving or description could be found.\n\n  -- Page 85: beneficiare changed to beneficiaire.\n\n  -- Page 128: Hatherly changed to Hatherley.\n\n  -- Page 246: Sackvile changed to Sackville.\n\n  -- Page 250: Clarencieux changed to Clarenceux.\n\n  -- Page 330: Shaftsbury to Shaftesbury.\n\n  -- Page 339: Hasselquiet changed to Hasselquist.\n\n  -- Page 346: + IONA + IHOAT + IONA + HELOI + YSSARAY + 11 +\n       MEPHENOLPHETON + AGLA + ACHEDION + YANA +\n       BACHIONODONAVALI M ILIOR + 11 BACHIONODONAVLI M ACH +\n\n       changed to\n\n       + IONA + IHOAT + LONA + HELOI + YSSARAY + || +\n       MEPHENOLPHETON + AGLA + ACHEDION + YANA +\n       BACHIONODONAVALI [M*] ILIOR + || BACHIONODONAVALI [M**] ACH +\n\n       [M*] denotes counter-clockwise rotated M and [M**] clockwise\n       rotated M. Also rendered in other texts as the letter Z or the\n       number 3. Sources: Thomas R. Forbes, \"Verbal Charms in British\n       Folk Medicine.\" Proceedings of the American Philosophical\n       Society, Vo. 115, August 20, 1971, p. 308. And Frederick W.\n       Fairholt, Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Remains in the\n       Possession of Lord Londesborough. Drawn, Engraved and Described\n       by Frederick W. Fairholt. London: Chapman and Hall, 1857, p. 83.\n\n  -- Page 451: Strasburgh changed to Strasburg.\n\n  -- Page 502: \"drake  satin, and [illegible word] \n       satin.\" Changed to \"drake  satin, and [...] \n       satin.\"\n\n  -- Page 546: \"into his elar;\" changed to \"into his celar.\n\n  -- Pages 549-550: \"the slaughtered sun hulls become....\" \"hulls\"\n       changed to \"bulls.\"\n\n  -- Page 550: \"according the the indication\" changed to \"according\n       to the indication.\"\n\n  -- Page 558: \"as with the [illegible word]\" changed to \"as with\n       the [...].\"\n\n  -- Page 630: \"It said to have been made....\" changed to \"It was said\n       to have been made....\"\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ten Thousand Wonderful Things, by\nEdmund Fillingham King\n\n*** ","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":" \n#  \n\n#  \nThis personalized essay collection is based upon the memories of its contributors. All the events in this story are as accurate and truthful as possible. Many names and places have been changed to protect the privacy of others. Mistakes, if any, are caused solely by the passage of time.\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2015 by Amy Phillips Penn\n\nPhotograph credits appear near photographs\n\nAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.\n\nSkyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com.\n\nSkyhorse\u00ae and Skyhorse Publishing\u00ae are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.\u00ae, a Delaware corporation.\n\nVisit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com.\n\n10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.\n\nCover design by Erin Seaward-Hiatt\n\nCover photo by Jessica Burstein\n\nPrint ISBN: 978-1-63220-272-7\n\nEbook ISBN: 978-1-63450-007-4\n\nPrinted in China\nContents\n\nPreface\n\nBY LIZ SMITH\n\nIntroduction\n\nSo . . . Who Was Elaine Kaufman?\n\nBY AMY PHILLIPS PENN\n\nThere's No Elaine's Without Elaine\n\nBY AMY PHILLIPS PENN\n\nTake Four: Customer, Publicist, Columnist, And \"Let's Do Lunch, Elaine\"\n\nBY AMY PHILLIPS PENN\n\n\"Marry Me, Marry Me\" At Elaine's\n\nBY DAVID BLACK\n\nElaine's Empties the Stanley Cup\n\nBY PER BJURMAN\n\n\"Give Him Table Six, He Says He Has Money.\"\n\nBY STEVE MCPARTLIN\n\nWhen Elaine Socked Me\n\nBY CHINA GIRARD\n\nHow Elaine Became My Photo Agent\n\nBY JESSICA BURSTEIN\n\nTravels With Elaine\n\nBY JESSICA BURSTEIN\n\nMy Last Night At Elaine's\n\nJODI GARDNER\n\n\"I'm a Fucking Icon.\"\n\nBY ELAINE MADSEN\n\nElaine Was My Dating Coach\n\nBY KEN PLISKA\n\nMy Home Away From Home\n\nBY DANA MOYLES\n\nThe Good Penny\n\nBY CURT BLOCK\n\n\"Elaine's Was Really Three Different Places.\"\n\nBY ASH BENNINGTON\n\nWoody Allen On Elaine's\n\nA Q&A BY AMY PHILLIPS PENN\n\nTop Ten Reasons Your New Hangout Will Never Replace Elaine's\n\nBY CHARLES KIPPS\n\nShooting Elaine's (But Not Elaine)\n\nBY RON GALELLA\n\nWhen Spinelli Met Plimpton\n\nAS TOLD TO AMY PHILLIPS PENN\n\n\"Not Only Did You Share A Meal Or A Drink, But You Shared Yourself.\"\n\nBY MARK ROSSINI\n\nElaine's, A Tribute\n\nPHOTOGRAPHS BY LARRY FINK\n\nDabney Coleman Does The Godfather Gig At Elaine's. Just Guess Who's Listening.\n\nBY DABNEY COLEMAN\n\nElaine Kaufman: Friend and Investor\n\nBY ESTHER MARGOLIS\n\n\"I Was Married To My Restaurant; Elaine Was Married To Elaine's.\"\n\nBY STEVE (PALLY) MCFADDEN\n\nElaine Was An Interesting, Tough Lady. (I saw her punch out a guy.)\n\nBY KEN MORAN\n\nThe Era Is Over\n\nBY AL SAPIENZA\n\nStill \"Anchored\" At Elaine's\n\nBY BOB DRURY\n\n\"Who's Da Poet?\"\n\nBY TAKI THEODORACOPULOS\n\nElaine As Mama Earth\n\nBY FRED MORTON\n\nThere's \"Nothing Like Gedempte Flaische.\"\n\nBY STEVE WALTER\n\nPeople Soup\n\nBY TONY HENDRA\n\nWho's on First? (In Elaine's Bathroom)\n\nBY RICHARD JOHNSON\n\n\"I Would Not Be the Person I Am Today if I Had Not Gone Into Elaine's.\"\n\nBY LIBBY SCHOETTLE\n\nAfterword\nPreface\n\nLIKE ALL FAMOUS folks who do something really unusual and special in this old world, it's important to understand Elaine Kaufman in a historical context. In the movie Casablanca, they say, \"Everyone goes to Rick's.\"\n\nIn recent New York, everyone tried to go to Elaine's! Everyone tried to be accepted, tried to get the okay of the owner.\n\nRick says, famously, \"Of all the gin joints in the entire world, you had to walk into mine!\"\n\nElaine said to me when I was writing about her in a book titled Dishing: \"Liz, don't say I ever threw anyone out; it makes me sound so tough.\"\n\nHaving once been ejected from Elaine's for coming in with a DuPont heiress, which annoyed Don (Donald Ward, Elaine's then-factotum), I was highly amused at this. Don told me that unescorted women weren't welcome; it must have been before Gloria Steinem.\n\n\"Unescorted women aren't welcome?\" I asked. \"I thought they were the best kind.\"\n\nElaine found this vastly amusing.\n\nShe herself was the original unescorted woman. She never needed an escort, though she certainly liked men more than she liked women.\n\nAnd men loved Elaine. One of my handsome brothers came to New York just for the purpose of bedding Elaine. So we were more or less \"related.\"\n\nIn her time, Elaine's did turn out to be a bit like Rick's. Deals were made . . . controversies spawned.\n\nDramatic things happened here; here were the beginnings of beautiful friendships and terrible hatreds.\n\nI first met Elaine in the 1950s at Portofino in Greenwich Village. She was then in love with the charming owner, Alfredo Viazzi.\n\nElaine was a damned good waitress, but she soon bested her Italian lover and became bigger and better known herself, against all odds. Eventually, Elaine's was full of Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize winners with a lot of writers eating on the cuff.\n\nShe couldn't resist talented people, adored writers, and was the inheritor of traditions from places like that haunt of the old Herald Tribune newspaper, Bleeks Artists & Writers Restaurant, where James Thurber would play the Match Game against Lucius Beebe, who was wearing white tie and tails.\n\nIn time, Elaine's inherited remarkable literary stars, much like those from the heyday of the old Algonquin Roundtable and from the confines of 21, a place grown glitzy & expensive, as it changed from being a speakeasy after Prohibition. The elite fled to Elaine's, even though the address was inconvenient.\n\nElaine's was a legend on its own terms, ranking her as a host of the grandeur of John Perona of El Morocco, Sherman Billingsley of the Stork Club, and Toots Shor, who once said of Hamlet, \"I bet I'm the only bum here who don't know how this turns out.\"\n\nElaine revered the likes of Tim Costello and creative hamburger guys like Danny Levezzo of PJ Clarke's. You couldn't buy a hamburger at Elaine's. She sneered at people who asked for one.\n\nElaine made up for any lacks. She had stars like Elaine Stritch and Jackie Gleason, who vied for the privilege of serving drinks behind the bar.\n\nShe was big-hearted, a closet intellectual in her way, a pushover, but also a hard taskmaster for phonies, fakes, and wannabes\u2014the \"civilians,\" she called the greater public.\n\nShe put her stamp on New York caf\u00e9 life in an utterly focused career. Though she learned from caf\u00e9 & saloon forebearers, there has never been anyone even vaguely like her. Texas Guinan, are you kidding? If Elaine was your friend, you hardly needed a lot of other ones. And in spite of a cynical veneer of sophistication, she was a pussycat, softhearted to a large extent.\n\nYes, she played favorites and sometimes she could be unreasonable.\n\nOne had to mind one's manners in Elaine's. You couldn't be demanding, you couldn't bother and pester the famous, you couldn't ask for autographs.\n\nIn 2003, Elaine Kaufman was made a \"Living Landmark\" by the distinguished New York Landmarks Conservancy.\n\nShe was childishly impressed by this honor and she supported this charity, which tries to save New York, ever after, attending every event until her death.\n\nWe of the Conservancy were also stunned to discover that Elaine Kaufman's becoming a Living Landmark had sold more tickets and more tables than anyone else except for George Steinbrenner.\n\nWhile other honorees often accept becoming Living Landmarks\u2014some of them making fun of it all, some bringing others more famous to laud them, and a few singing, dancing, reciting poems or offering films of themselves, and other self-aggrandizements\u2014I shall never get over Elaine's acceptance speech.\n\nI introduced her to giant fanfare, for there was only one Elaine Kaufman and one Elaine's, and her fans were there. She stepped up to the microphone, looked around, and then said simply: \"Thank you. I accept this for the late George Plimpton.\"\n\nIt was heaven. It was priceless. It was classy.\n\nIt said everything there was to say about art and artists, about culture, taste, good writers, vulgarity, tradition, New York City, indeed, about class, sass, and pizzazz.\n\n\u2014Liz Smith\nIntroduction\n\nA WRITER'S JOURNEY is an epic one that brakes for \"banal.\" While it's soothing to believe that you have control over your own odyssey, these wise words linger and crescendo: \"If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.\"\n\nI am honored and intrigued that Elaine Kaufman and I are reunited in this book.\n\nElaine's path rose from cosmetician to waitress and ultimately to a restaurateur of colossal fame. Playwright Jack Richardson suggested that Elaine invite writers to her uptown, out of the safe-and-surveyed New York restaurant\/tavern turf. He recommended that she use round tables to encourage intimacy and conversation.\n\nElaine would come to mentor, mother, encourage, and feed her writers.\n\nAs I interviewed many of her regulars, the common denominator wrote itself. Many, many regulars and even occasional visitors miss Elaine and Elaine's. They often feel lost, as if their home was uprooted and can never be rebuilt along with its mystique.\n\nMy re-entwinement with Elaine's life began on an unassuming day.\n\nOne morning I decided to start a Facebook group. I had never ever even considered spearheading an entourage on social media, but there it was: a simple seed spurned my own frustration on what was becoming of the America I knew and deeply cherished.\n\nReminiscing about all the innovative and magical components that make America \"America,\" I founded a group and named it \"Write on America.\" I invited my ever-sprouting group of Facebook and three-dimensional friends to join me.\n\nMy first post was a YouTube of Arlo Guthrie singing \"City of New Orleans.\"\n\nThe first seed sunk in, ready to sprout on, be smoked, or blown away. The immediate response came from two \"real\" friends who remembered the writer of the song, Steve Goodman, strumming his version at J.P.'s, a bar they worked at in the 1970s\u2014not too far a cry from the birth of creativity at Elaine's.\n\nSasha Tcherevkoff, a Facebook friend who was working for a site named NewYorkNatives.com contacted me. He liked the name of my group and thought that the names might enhance each other or perhaps merge in some way. We made a phone date.\n\nSasha asked if I was a native New Yorker. I replied that \"I was born in Doctor's Hospital.\"\n\nSo began my column, dubbed by NewYorkNatives.com as \"Vintage Gossip.\"\n\nMy first column was about Mayor Koch, who had just passed. I had been to Gracie Mansion, met the Mayor, and relished the chance to reminisce in wobbly Yiddish and New York English.\n\nMy column grew into a weekly ritual.\n\nI wrote about Elaine's. I told tales of my times there: first as a guest, then a publicist, and ultimately as a columnist and Elaine's occasional lunch companion.\n\nWhen I received an email from Nicole Frail, an editor at Skyhorse Publishing, my mind was already on my next column, the wild wave that the Surf Club rode. Nicole inquired if I'd be interested in writing a book about Elaine's.\n\nA writer's life is packed and unpacked, the contents scattered almost everywhere but where we discard or carefully fold them. Here I was in California, with a polo pony and three rescue dogs, and I was writing a column for a New York site, and now a book on Elaine's was on the best table that Elaine could offer.\n\nCuriouser and curiouser.\n\nWhy was Nicole interested in a book on Elaine's? She replied that it evolved from a discussion that she'd had with her editorial director about New York restaurants in another time. He told her about Elaine's and when he paused, she said, \"I wonder if that's a book.\" A bit of research led her my way. My answer was affirmative: I missed Elaine, and Elaine Kaufman was an intriguing, seemingly complicated, and infinitely controversial woman.\n\nSo began the process of researching my subject.\n\nI read every article I could find, A.E. Hotchner's book, Everyone Comes to Elaine's, and bartender-turned-journalist Brian McDonald's Last Call at Elaine's. Raymond Lindie, who also bartended there, wrote a play titled Elaine's Paradisio and a memorable story, \"The Beefeater Martini.\"\n\nI read on: columns and excerpts from Gay Talese, Liz Smith, and New York Times editor Peter Khoury, who I consider a new friend in the making. David Black, a screenwriter and the subject of Jessica Burstein's \"The Kiss,\" has also approached that status: potential new friends with treasured memories.\n\nOne door opens another\u2014if it doesn't hit you in your bifocals first.\n\nAdd on Susan Morse, who contacted Woody Allen for me. To my childlike delight, he actually replied to my questions. Jessica Burstein, Elaine's official photographer, with whom I had worked back in our Studio 54 days, was essential to introducing me to the members of Table 4, which honors Elaine; along with detectives, actors, writers, and assorted other regulars. She has contributed her own funny, loving, vintage Elaine Kaufman diary excerpt, along with several of her excellent photographs.\n\nSo many fascinating people entered the doors of this book that I can only beam a seismically never-ending thank-you to everyone I interviewed for this technicolor, touching memory of Elaine's.\n\nI have always missed Elaine's, but now I miss it even more. I wish that I had known Elaine better. The words loyal friend are continually chorused in her eulogies.\n\nWhen you read this book, imagine that we are meeting at Elaine's, in a neighborhood that once was shaky, but shook the trembling and roared into unexpected careers for many into nights that spanned from intellectually intriguing conversations to watching Elaine tossing garbage cans at the paparazzi.\n\nHer inimitable language boisterously beckons asterisks, while her quotes are beyond quotable: who else would dub someone \"half a whore\"?\n\nCome inside, and share the lore, the inspiration, the tears, and the legend that was Elaine's.\n\nWelcome in.\n\nPhoto credit: Susan Hathaway.\nSo . . . Who Was Elaine Kaufman?\n\nAmy Phillips Penn\n\nOR AS ELAINE might say: Who the fuck was Elaine?\n\n\"Yes, I am a fucking icon,\" proclaimed Elaine Kaufman, the erstwhile, controversial proprietress of New York's celebrity hub, Elaine's.\n\n\"Everyone tells me that. What is that? What did you do that is so earth-shattering? Just survive, and you know about that. I guess you get points for surviving,\" she says in the documentary I Know a Woman Like That.\n\nA fucking New York icon she was, remains, and you can put your roulette chip on \"the icon goes legendary.\"\n\n\"If you ask me who is Elaine Kaufman, I'd say she's the big mama of them all . . . I'm somebody who is still in the womb, a mother and a motherfucker . . . While I'm waiting to find out how it all turns out, I'll be having a good time,\" said Elaine.\n\nElaine Kaufman, Bronx-born, overweight, feisty, and not exactly adored by everyone, soared into the ownership of one of New York's most legendary celebrity restaurants in spite of a prickly stem that should have come with its own app.\n\nElaine's opened uptown in what was then an \"iffy\" (think dangerous) section of Manhattan, Yorkville, near the corner of Eighty-eighth Street and Second Avenue.\n\nWith a New York attitude that could be \"abrasive,\" she kowtowed to no one, no matter how indulgent, celebrated, or powerful they were. Where photographers were concerned, they had to keep their distance and earn her respect\u2014a tough prize to win.\n\n\"You're too close to my front door,\" she screamed at celebrity paparazzi Ron Galella as she hurled a slew of garbage can lids at him. Just one click and an East Side garbage can lid became famous, in a Warhol-esque way.\n\nThe woman warrior hurled the garbage top at Galella and hit a parked limousine by mistake. She was not amused. In time, she and Galella put their garbage can lids aside and moved on, though.\n\n\"She liked the press I got her,\" Ron concludes.\n\nElaine's preference for men was well documented.\n\n\"She called men when she wanted fun; she called women when she wanted something,\" notes Peter Khoury, a New York Times editor.\n\nHad this one-time nearly anorexic nighttime cosmologist planned to be the hostess and powerhouse behind one of New York's most seductive celebrity hangouts? Not likely.\n\nDo the math: the restaurant business is one of the best known entrepreneurial gambles, swimming with and against unforeseen tsunamis and fickle clients. Elaine remained relatively calm, cultivated, and rewarded loyalty.\n\nStruggling as a waitress in a restaurant in Greenwich Village, followed by a breakup with its owner, Elaine dug into her very own eponymous digs.\n\nWhen she built it, they did arrive and imbibe, often running up years of unpaid tabs, and occasionally dishing the dishes: the food at Elaine's was sneered at by those who chose to sneer. But they all came: writers, celebrities, artists, politicians, socialites, athletes, detectives, wannabes, and those she befriended, offered business backing to, hosted weddings for, punched, socked, verbally abused or 86'd.\n\nShe has been called everything from a bitch to a hypocrite to a loyal friend.\n\nSo . . . how did lightning strike? One tab at a time.\n\nElaine's opened its doors in Yorkville in 1963. The early sixties were an electrically fascinating time in New York and the world. We lost a president, gained The Beatles, marched against wars, contemplated the life of a hippy, dressed in minis, maxis, and even midis, or emulated Jackie Kennedy.\n\nWriters, singers, and painters had much to explore. Warhol's inundation of repeated images from Marilyn Monroe to the Kennedy assassination entered our collective conscious.\n\nWomen were starting to compete with men in the workplace, but were not quite comfortable going solo into a restaurant without a man and making an entrance with a girlfriend was still a bit of an ouch.\n\nElaine partnered up with Donald Ward to start Elaine's. In a metaphorical coin toss, the name was either going to land on Donald or Elaine. Elaine's it was. The story goes that Donald made his exit after he tried to keep Truman Capote out of Elaine's simply because Capote was gay. Elaine would have none of that, so Elaine's became Elaine's.\n\nAs Elaine's grew in popularity, it and its owner were immortalized in song and film. Billy Joel referred to Elaine's in his song \"Big Shot\" (1978): \"they were all impressed with your Halston dress and the people that you knew at Elaine's.\" Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields mentioned Elaine's in \"Love is Like a Bottle of Gin\" from the record 69 Love Songs: \"You can find it on the Bowery \/ Or you can find it at Elaine's \/ It makes your words more flowery \/ It makes the sun shine, makes it rain.\" Woody Allen, who was an Elaine's ultra-regular, featured Elaine's in scenes from his films Manhattan (1979) and Celebrity (1998). Even the film Morning Glory (2010) showed Elaine Kaufman at the bar in Elaine's. The restaurant was also a constant in Stone Barrington novels by Stuart Woods; the first chapter always cites Elaine's as the location of the opening scene.\n\nElaine's continues to be a subject of conversation many years after its owner's passing. On May 10, 2014, The Moth Radio Hour featured anecdotes about Elaine's. George Plimpton recalled introducing Jerry Spinelli to writers, editors, and director Woody Allen at Elaine's, while Jos\u00e9 Torres recounted a story he'd shared at Elaine's about his first time facing a white man in the boxing ring.\n\nAlex Gregg and Elaine.\n\nPhoto provided by Alex Gregg.\nThere's No Elaine's Without Elaine*\n\nAmy Phillips Penn\n\nTHE FIRST TIME I met Elaine she scared the shit out of me, and I don't scare easily. I'm a New Yorker, after all.\n\nThe culture at Elaine's jumpstarted the Studio 54 mentality: Can you get a good table (or in Studio's case, get in at all)? And if you do, can you please get a gander at who's making these decisions?\n\nMichael M. Thomas, who has written many a New York column, found Elaine refreshing. \"I got a kick out of her. She was who she was. She learned the art of sucking up to people by insulting them. Elaine was the Toots Shor of the writing world.\"\n\nToots was known as \"the master of the needle jibe.\" Take it from there.\n\nElaine Kaufman was born in New York and was raised in Queens and the Bronx. One of her first jobs was as a night cosmetician. See? Scary.\n\nMs. Kaufman entered the New York restaurant biz in 1959\u2014no easy odyssey, even back then\u2014when she started running Portofino along with her then boyfriend, Alfredo Viazzi. The artsy crowd gathered and re-gathered: publishers, theatre lovers, writers.\n\nFour years later, Kaufman launched the eponymous Elaine's on East Eighty-eighth Street, where she mothered her chosen tribe: writers. The literati's tabs were known to lengthen and linger. No problem\u2014if Elaine liked you, that is.\n\nElaine and Norman \"don't-fuck-with-me\" Mailer dug into a doozy of a drag out that ended with Mailer writing Elaine a letter in which he vowed never to return to her restaurant. Elaine scribbled the word BORING on his pages and mailed them right back to him. A few nights later, Mailer showed up again.\n\nLoyalty doesn't always pay off, but in Elaine's case it did. Vonnegut, Mailer, Plimpton, and Talese were all Elaine's regulars. Woody Allen could usually be seen holding court at his round table. If you sauntered to the loo, you were elbow to elbow with Woody's linguine. How private can you get?\n\nAnd how did you get to the ladies\/men's room? Just ask Elaine. \"Take a right at Michael Caine,\" she might say.\n\nCelebrities celebrated her. Billy Joel immortalized her in the song \"Big Shot,\" and Woody Allen paid homage by shooting a scene of Manhattan at Elaine's.\n\nBooking a table at Elaine's was no easy feat. Getting a good table at Elaine's required Herculean-strong connections. And if you weren't going to be in the front room, preferably near a table where Elaine hopped to and from, why even bother? Sitting in \"Siberia,\" does not a New York image make.\n\nElaine's was center stage for people watching: celebrities, writers, politicians, athletes, and the who's who of the week, whose attendance would surely be noted by Page Six.\n\nOne torrential night, I went into Elaine's as part of my public relations gig to coordinate a story for a New York news station. I asked Elaine what her priorities were.\n\n\"Do what your boss told you to do,\" she said, and then she ran to Woody's table as if it were on fire to escort him and his guests out so their privacy would remain intact. Her priorities were clear.\n\nHow did she treat the press? This from former New York Post photographer Adam Scull.\n\n\"Elaine was loud, pushy, boisterous, tough-as-nails, took shit from NO ONE, including us photographers. She almost always kept us out on the street cooling our heels whilst the likes of Woody Allen, Robert De Niro, and every other famous actor and author kept coming back for dinner night after night. Elaine's was the place to go mostly because the authors and actors were protected vociferously by Elaine. 'Screw the photographers' I used to hear her say, time and time again, only occasionally allowing just a select few of us in from time to time. Elaine Kaufman was the doyenne of protective restaurateurs. She caved to no one.\"\n\nWhy did Elaine scare me? Who wants to mess with that?\n\nIn time, Elaine and I warmed up to each other, one New York edgy step at a time. I had my own column by then.\n\n\"Thanks for the plug,\" she would say as I walked in.\n\nElaine slipped into my \"like\" list surprisingly, but surely.\n\nWhen she was going through a slow time, I had a date with a producer. His secretary called me and told me that I could pick \"any restaurant in town.\"\n\n\"Elaine's,\" I replied, although the numbers 21 were adding up in my head.\n\n\"You could go anywhere in New York and you picked Elaine's?\" she said.\n\nWhen we walked in that night, Elaine didn't say anything, but I knew that she recorded the gesture. We became friends.\n\nAfter Elaine's death in 2010, Diane Becker, the heir to Elaine's, made a decision. Elaine's was closing.\n\n\"There's no Elaine's without Elaine,\" she conceded.\n\nWhat choice do we have but to agree?\n\n* This is the article I wrote for New York Natives that caught my publisher's attention. Reprinted here with permission from New York Natives.\nTake Four : Customer, Publicist, Columnist, and \"Let's do lunch, Elaine\"\n\nAmy Phillips Penn\n\nI ALWAYS LOVED going to Elaine's.\n\nI don't remember the exact date that I went there, but it was sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Glory Days.\n\nI didn't meet Elaine until years later, which was fine with me. She sat with her favorites, changed tables when the mood struck, and had no idea that I was alive. She didn't radiate \"warm and fuzzy,\" and I was happy to keep a respectful distance.\n\nWhen I first went to Elaine's, it was as someone's \"date.\" Whether it was at Elaine's, 21, aka. the numbers, or Le Club, most of the women took an invisible note as to where they were seated. It was a reflection on their date's allure, not theirs.\n\nThere were unspoken rules at Elaine's, such as \"please do not feed or interrupt the celebrities,\" but I was oblivious.\n\nI broke that rule before I knew it was a rule.\n\nOn my way out of Elaine's, dressed in a maxi raincoat and floppy brown suede hat, and feeling very Annie Hall, I went over to Woody Allen's table and announced that I had a screenplay that I wanted him to see.\n\nI was in my twenties and believed that New York held no barriers especially when it came to writers and artists and lovers of New York like the brilliant Woody Allen.\n\nArtists of all kinds seemed so approachable, then. The art world was booming into pop, op, and anything goes, punched with price tags as bold as a Jackson Pollock.\n\nAt museum openings, casual Saturday New York gallery going, art auctions at Sotheby's and parties in the East Hampton, artists and writers mingled with the rest of us, flaunting no attitudes of superiority for the most part. They had all dreamed the dream once.\n\nWoody was extremely gracious.\n\nHe told me where to send the script.\n\n\"Are you sure that I can't send it to you?\"\n\nI was twenty, and felt that you could ask for the moon, and that it just might RSVP favorably. Everyone needs a break, and writers and artists know better than to miss their moment. Embarrassment is a small dividend for having your words published, or echoed on screen.\n\nThe screenplay had evolved in my parent's New York kitchen. My mother had painted the walls an electric yellowish orange, which by proxy vote, we had all declared frightening. She and I had visited a famous psychic, who had described the love of my life, who I had (and have) yet to meet.\n\nWe decided to write a satirical screenplay about it. The heroine is looking for her prince-to-be, and who could be funnier in that role than Woody Allen? Since he doesn't even know that I exist, the mother and daughter decide to stage a fake kidnapping and leave them on an island for a few days. Naturally they fall in love. The best laid plans . . . But they manage to get kidnapped for real. No one pays the ransom, because they think it's part of the plan. The two lovers are shot. The credits read: \"Better Life Next Life\" or \"The Girl Who Cried Love,\" on the chalk outlines of their bodies.\n\nJust another New York slice of black humor.\n\nSometime in the late seventies, I was working for a small publicity firm named Gifford-Wallace. It was run by a husband-and-wife team, Michael (the wife) and her husband, Ed Gifford. They were a small, but powerful team. Their clients had included: Hair, Godspell, Studio 54 (from day one), Metromedia TV, and other prime accounts.\n\nMy assignment was to go into Elaine's with a Metromedia camera crew and organize a segment on Elaine's. The Giffords had called ahead to Elaine to let her know that we were coming.\n\nIt was a torrential night. I arrived drenched, but on time. The camera crew was there.\n\nIn my best New York girl school manners, I politely asked Elaine where we should set up. She roared at me, a lioness predator in high hormonal gear.\n\n\"Do what your boss told you to do.\"\n\nNo, \"please, thank you, or would you like anything to drink?\"\n\nWhat stratosphere was I in and who did you have to cozy up to get out?\n\nShimmying, in a loose Mumu style dress, this more than ample woman, all but gathered up Woody Allen and a few other customers. Like a mother cat, she was saving her kittens from getting wet by throwing them into the downpour escorted by a chauffeur and waiting limo.\n\nAfter we finished our assignment, we left without saying goodbye to Elaine. The crew from Metromedia gave me a ride home in their truck. Someone passed around a joint, and soon I was home, the gruff, dismissive woman I had tried to make friends with was soon forgotten.\n\nSometime in the late seventies and early eighties, I freelanced as an assistant to the world renowned society\/fashion columnist Eugenia Sheppard. I covered parties, movie screenings, younger Manhattan, and pretty much anything I chose that did not conflict with Eugenia's priorities.\n\nWhen Eugenia died, I was honored to carry on her column with my own byline. I had become a syndicated New York society columnist. I gleaned instant respect, nonstop invitations to everywhere and anything, and a parcel of power, New York style.\n\nI don't know if Elaine and I were ever officially introduced, but I do remember her next words to me after I had written about Elaine's in my column.\n\n\"Thanks for the plug,\" she said when I came in for dinner.\n\nThe roar was reserved for elsewhere.\n\nI have arrived.\n\nElaine feels free to plop someone down at our table. I'm sitting at a table at Elaine's with my friend Patrick Shields.\n\nPatrick was the six-foot-seven director of Le Club, a private dinner club, which hosted Caroline and John Jr. Kennedy's birthday party on the same night.\n\nJackie O wrote Patrick a handwritten thank-you note. I wouldn't be surprised if he was buried with it.\n\nCan you stand it?\n\nOne night, when I was sitting with my friend Harvey Kirk, a publicist for the Giffords and Studio 54, Elaine came over to the table.\n\nJohn Lennon wants to know if he can get into Studio 54.\n\n\"I'll take care of it,\" said Harvey, and went back to his pasta.\n\nDavid Black and Barbara Weisberg's wedding. Alec Baldwin is the best man.\n\nPhoto provided by David Black.\n\"Marry Me, Marry Me\" At Elaine's\n\nDavid Black\n\nDavid Black's awards runneth over, as a journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and producer. Black received the Edgar Allan Poe Writer's Guild Award nomination three times: for best fact crime book Murder at the Met and \"Happily Ever After\" and \"Carrier\" (episodes for Law & Order). Then there's the National Endowment of the Arts Grant in fiction, Playboy's Best Article of the Year Award, and yes, a Pulitzer Prize nomination for The Plague Years, and there's so much more. Black has taught writing at Mt. Holyoke College and Harvard. All this, and when he talks about Elaine, he tears up. Black is the vice president of the Executive Committee for the Table 4 Writers Foundation, \"continuing the tradition of Elaine Kaufman.\" We welcome him in.\n\nTHE FIRST TIME I went into Elaine's, it must have been 1968 or something like that. I was writing for one of the underground newspapers and I got an invitation to go to Norman Mailer's birthday party at Elaine's. It was wonderful.\n\nI was a kid from Massachusetts and it was my dream of what every night in New York must have been like\u2014because everyone in New York must have been there.\n\nIn 1982 or 1983, I was commuting two days a week from Mount Holyoke, where I was the writer in residence. After my class, I would go directly to Elaine's. I usually sat at the family table with Jack Richardson and we became very close friends. I loved Jack; I actually twelve-stepped him. He was a drinker and a coker, so was I.\n\nThat's when I really started going a lot. I met some amazing people and had some crazy times at Elaine's.\n\nThere was Bob Datilla, who did all his literary agenting out of Elaine's like it was his office. And I saw Dick Wolf quite a bit. One night, John Henry brought a fire eater into Elaine's and when somebody took out his cigar, she pulled fire from her mouth. Another night, Michael Disend came in with a woman he was dating who was part of a live sex act. She told us all these stories. She had bravado. She said that once on stage she had taken a bowling pin up her ass. Now, Elaine's is usually very noisy, but the room suddenly went silent when she said that.\n\nWhen I got divorced, I told Pepe, the maitre d', \"If I come in here with a date and I look like I'm not having a good time, get me out of here fast.\"\n\nHe said, \"What if you look like you're having a good time?\"\n\nI replied, \"Well, get me out of here faster.\"\n\nWhen I met my current wife, Barbara Weisberg, I knew the minute that I saw her\u2014it was like going home\u2014it was love at first sight.\n\nI was going to ask her immediately to marry me. I said, \"You're the one. I'm not looking anymore because it's you or no one.\" I couldn't say it on the first date because I'd cut myself shaving, and if I leaned over, I would bleed all over her. So I waited for the second date and asked her to marry me. She looked deep into my eyes and said. \"Are you out of your f'ing mind?\"\n\nBut she agreed to keep going out with me. It would take me two years to woo her.\n\nFor the fourth date, I took her to Elaine's and we kissed. Jessica Burstein was taking pictures that night. Two weeks later, that picture appeared in a New York Magazine article about Elaine's.\n\nAnd over the next years and up until Elaine's closed, Jessica made it a point to photograph our kissing. She's always threatened to put on an exhibit that would show our relationship progressing through seven years by how we're kissing in all these pictures.\n\nWhen it came time for us to finally get married, we talked to Elaine about our plans. We wanted to have the party and wedding at Elaine's. Elaine turned to Barbara and asked her if this was the first time she'd been married, and Barbara said yes.\n\nElaine whacked me on the side of the head and said, \"What's the matter? Do it right.\"\n\nSo she planned the entire wedding for us, from flowers to a chuppa. And it was a great wedding. We had a rabbi who looked like a leprechaun officiate. Alec Baldwin was my best man and we had a ball.\n\nI love Elaine's and one of the reasons why I\u2014and everyone else\u2014loved her is that when I walked in for the first time, I was an unpublished novelist. A no one with no platform. She talked to me for a few minutes and immediately adopted me.\n\nElaine didn't much care who you were, where you came from, what your merit badges were. If you were family, you were family. Over the years when I was broke, she'd feed me for nothing. She'd write on my check, \"Tip the waiter.\" As I continued to work, she'd introduce me to people like Marty Bregman and say, \"You gotta hire this guy.\"\n\nWhen I became successful, she'd do the same thing with me. She'd say to me, \"You gotta hire this guy.\" As I was making more money, I would pay twice as much for my meals at Elaine's to make sure the next guy who was broke was covered.\n\nElaine paid medical bills, she sent clothes to my home for my kids, and she did that for many, many people\u2014and that was why she was greatly loved.\n\nThe best tribute to Elaine is to keep her memory alive, the memory alive of a woman who was extraordinarily special. It matters to many, many of us.\nElaine Empties the Stanley Cup\n\nPer Bjurman\n\nPer Bjurman became Sweden's leading music writer and was voted The Most Influential Critic by the leading national music industry publication three years in a row. In 2005, he was offered the position as US Correspondent for Aftonbladet, which he gladly accepted and moved to New York. The following years, he covered everything from elections\u2014not least the historical US presidential election in 2008\u2014to natural disasters, big trials, and space shuttle launches. He is still in New York, working for Aftonbladet, but now mostly covers hockey in the NHL, a league in which more than sixty Swedes play.\n\nI CAME TO New York in January 2005 as the correspondent for the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet and immediately decided Elaine's was going to be my home away from home.\n\nI had been there before, when I was just a guest in the city. I loved the atmosphere, the crowd, the exhilaration, and the feeling that anybody could walk through the door at any moment. For almost a year, I dined by myself at the two-person table under a wonderful photograph of JFK and LBJ at Griffith Stadium in Washington, taken by the photographer and Elaine's regular, Neil Leifer.\n\nEventually, I asked Tony, the great Elaine's waiter, if he would be willing to introduce me to Elaine. \"Sure,\" he said, and walked me over to the Michael Caine's table where Elaine was parked for the moment. Before I even had the chance to tell her who I was, she just growled, \"Yeah, yeah . . . you're that Swedish journalist. Sit down.\"\n\nPer Bjurman and Elaine.\n\nPhoto provided by Per Bjurman.\n\nPhoto provided by Per Bjurman.\n\nNobody came into Elaine's joint that often without Elaine knowing exactly who the hell they were.\n\nFrom then on, I was part of the family\u2014I always had a seat in \"The Line,\" and, for the next five years, I enjoyed more unforgettable nights under the warm glow of her Art Deco light sconces than most Swedes experience in a lifetime. But it was more than just fun, excitement, and the thrill of having a perfect dry martini placed on the table before I sat down. Elaine became my surrogate mother in New York. She took me in, introduced me to people she knew I would love, and made sure that New York became my new home. It meant everything to me as a shy foreigner, far away from friends and family. There is no way I can repay that kind of life-changing favor, but I did my best in a weekly column I had, and still have, in Aftonbladet.\n\nI wrote extensively about the nights on Eighty-eighth Street and Second Avenue. Not so much about the celebrities\u2014though, now and again, I couldn't resist bragging about sitting at tables next to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Altman, Joan Rivers, Larry Hagman, and Richard Dreyfuss\u2014but rather about Elaine herself, her magnificent staff, and the wonderful characters that really were her closest family and also became members of my own New York family: Ash Bennington, Pete Khoury, Helene Gresser, Father Pete, Jessica Burstein, Josh Gaspero, and the incomparable Joey, the unknown Lenny Bruce of the Bronx. After a while, Swedish tourists who read those columns started coming in\u2014and paying for dinner. Elaine really liked that.\n\nThroughout the years, I also brought in a lot of Swedish hockey players. I cover the NHL for my newspaper and have gotten to know my countrymen in the league. Henrik Lundqvist, the New York Rangers superstar goalie, came for dinner a couple of times. We, meaning me and the bartenders Craig and Duffy, both devoted Ranger's fans themselves, made sure Lundqvist got to see the picture of Elaine drinking from the Stanley Cup. The photo was taken late at night when the 1994 championship team, lead by Mark Messier, came into Elaine's to celebrate, and it hung behind the bar for twenty-five years. Lundqvist looked at the picture quietly for a long time. You'd be excused for thinking that was the moment Henrik Lundqvist decided that he some day was going to win that cup, and drink from it exactly as Elaine had.\n\nAnother night, the Detroit Red Wings were in town. A bunch of injured Swedish players, with friends and family, joined me at Ms. Kaufman's saloon. It was one of those magical nights when everyone was hopping tables for hours, while the check somehow followed you around. The night ended at the bar across the street at 4:30 in the morning\u2014with me dancing with one of the Red Wing stars' crutches. That kind of thing could only happen during a night at Elaine's.\n\nWhen my mother visited me from Sweden, we of course went to Elaine's. My mother doesn't speak much English, but she and Elaine found a way to communicate anyway. At the end of the night, Elaine put one of her big hands on my mother's wrist, smiled and said: \"Don't worry, I'll take care of the kid for you.\"\n\nShe sure did. I'm still around and I still love New York, not least thanks to the friends Elaine introduced me to. But it's not the same anymore. Life itself is less exciting without my surrogate mother on the Upper East Side.\n\nI miss her terribly.\n\"Give Him Table Six, He Says He Has Money.\"\n\nSteve McPartlin\n\nA former bartender, Steve McPartlin made the fantasy move into reality, as he segued into TV and radio broadcasting. McPartlin was one of the original correspondents for Current Affair, a host for Inside Edition, and a radio sportscaster for ABC Sports.\n\nIN THE EARLY 1970s, there was a joint on Second Ave up the street from Elaine's named Cavanaugh's. It was run by a great saloon guy named Lou Cavanaugh and his lovely wife Maureen.\n\nI would frequent their establishment often even though I lived and worked tending bar on the north end of the island in Inwood.\n\nOne day I get a call from Lou, who told me he hurt his ankle and he needed someone to tend bar. All of his regular bartenders were otherwise indisposed\u2014a fact I would attribute to the fact that there was going to be a severe snowstorm that night. Chomping at the bit to work \"downtown,\" I accepted.\n\nIt was a slow, slow night and, at about 1:30, Lou said we should leave, so we started to close up with not a soul in sight.\n\nAll of a sudden, the door flies open and this two-hundred-and-fifty-pound woman starts screaming and swearing, \"Those motherfuckers! What a bunch of fucking thieves!\" I looked at Lou, who had a reputation for being a tough guy, and said, \"This is all yours, brother.\" Lou calmed her down and sat her at the bar. It turned out a cab driver wanted twenty bucks for a five-dollar fare to take her home and she was having none of that.\n\nLou said, \"Steve, this is Elaine Kaufman. She owns the joint down the street. Give her a drink.\" Now, of course I knew who Elaine was because I can read and she was always in the papers in those days. I was studying acting and dating a singer, so I was well aware of the glitterati and literati who frequented her restaurant.\n\nWe three had a few drinks and Lou said we were going to drive her home. When we got to her place, I walked her through the snow up to the door and said, \"Elaine. I am dating this girl who sings at Joe's Pier 52 and it's her birthday next week. Can I bring her to your restaurant for dinner?\"\n\nElaine looked at me like I was a freak. \"Do you have money?\"\n\nI said yes.\n\nShe replied, \"Well, it's open to the fucking public, ya know.\"\n\nThe birthday came and we went to Elaine's. My girlfriend was a bit on the skeptical side that on this, her birthday night, I was taking her to a place where we would be treated like interlopers and placed somewhere near the bathroom and kitchen.\n\nWe were greeted by Aldo, a huge guy who had the personality of a Cossack. When I told him I wanted a table for two, he was ready to lead us to Siberia when I spotted Elaine at the end of the bar doing the checks. I said hi and reintroduced myself. She turned to Aldo and said, \"Give him table six, he says he has money.\"\n\nAfter an hour or so, Elaine sat with us and told us stories and made fun of me treating the place like it was a temple.\n\nWe became fast friends and, for the next forty years, I never sat in the back. She always gave me a table up front and she always took care of me.\n\nNot long after that, I gave up the bar for a career in radio and TV sports\/news and, whenever I would walk in by myself, she would beckon me to join a group she thought either would be good for me to know or people I could entertain. If you were a journo of any kind, the people she would introduce you to were invaluable, from the famed writers and actors to cops and robbers and assorted members of the clergy.\n\nAnything you ever needed to know about what was going on in New York, you could find out at Elaine's.\n\nThe only name dropping I will do: Once I walked in and she grabbed me at the door and said, \"Sit with me, I want you to meet Polly Bergen. She likes young guys.\"\n\nI was fifty at the time so it was a great compliment and I complied.\n\nMy last conversation with her was toward the end. It was just the two of us at a table on a Sunday night in the summer. She was lamenting about how business had fallen off. I, trying to put things into perspective, said something to the effect of \"Geez, baby, after all these years, does that really matter that much? You own half the block.\"\n\nMy dear friend Elaine looked at me and said in her own very special way, \"Hey, asshole, count your own fucking money.\"\n\nAnother lesson learned from my dear friend.\nWhen Elaine Socked Me\n\nChina Girard\n\nChina Girard is a former Ford model who, along with three other Blue-Blood friends formed The What Four, aka \"the first all-girl rock band of the sixties.\" Columbia Records signed them; they recorded, toured, and were included in an album that boasted two Grammy nominations. Ooh-la-la meets yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, China went to Elaine's.\n\nIN 1966, I was sitting with songwriter Jerry Leiber and Paris Review editor George Plimpton, having a conversation about the music business, mostly because I had just started an all-girl rock band called the What Four.\n\nSuddenly a drunk and loud Norman Mailer intruded, demanding Jerry engage in an arm wrestling contest with him. Jerry politely said no thank you and tried to continue eating his spaghetti.\n\nWell, Norman was deaf to the word no, so he plunked himself down in the chair next to me and leaned toward Jerry, grabbing his wrist. Now, I was in the unfortunate position of being in the middle. I scooted back just as Jerry yanked his arm away from Norman's gasp. Then Norman pushed Jerry's hand in his spaghetti, making Jerry furious. George was now on his feet, pleading with Norman to back off, at which point Norman pushed Jerry into the wall. Then hell broke loose. Jerry took a swing at Norman, who kept yelling for Jose Torres to help him. Jose, being a champion boxer and whose hands were licensed as lethal weapons, could not assist and pretty much backed away, causing Norman to get even angrier.\n\nCarmen Capalbo, China Girard, and Peter Dinkle.\n\nPhoto provided by China Girard.\n\nMeanwhile, I was only feet away at this point when Elaine marched up and socked me in the jaw, thinking that I had started it all. She said, \"Men are always fighting over you.\" Even if that exaggeration was so, it was no reason to punch me. I probably should have punched her back.\n\nBy then, the whole bar was in chaos. Norman was escorted out the door by Jose. I took my seat at the table, as did Jerry and George, who said, \"Well, that was an interesting episode.\"\n\nOne thing that we could all count on was George's wonderful humor.\nHow Elaine Became My Photo Agent\n\nJessica Burstein\n\nElaine Kaufman has mingled magic and success into the lives of many. If Elaine was your friend, or simply believed in you, she would introduce you to the world, support you financially, and allow writers to run up unpaid tabs for years. Often, a writer would arrive at Elaine's years, or even decades, later to repay Elaine thousands of dollars in bar and pasta booty. Often, they returned to their lair with Pulitzer Prizes and bestsellers.\n\nJessica Burstein was a New York photographer who was driving along a challenging\u2014possibly catastrophic\u2014road when Elaine made an emphatic entrance in her life that would change Jessica's destiny.\n\nI KNEW ELAINE Kaufman for a long time before she really got to know me. Although I'd spent time at her restaurant since the mid-seventies, and she knew me well enough to, for example, often try to \"pimp me out\" to guys whom she thought would like me for my looks, Elaine didn't take me seriously until she saw my photographic work at a gallery exhibition in 1990. It was a defining moment in what would become a rather complicated personal relationship\u2014mother-daughter, friend (and very often foe), and ultimately, the person who became my photo agent.\n\nSomehow Elaine made her way down to Soho, in New York City, for the opening of my exhibition and immediately decided that a triptych of three portraits I'd taken of Truman Capote would look perfect on the wall of \"the line\" in the front room of her restaurant. She also decided that she'd like to get her paws on another Capote print\u2014this one of him sitting with a stuffed Cobra, which looked as if it were coming out of his groin. In fact, it was Truman's favorite photograph of himself\u2014or at least, that's what he'd told me. Of course, in lieu of money, Elaine offered my gallery dealer the great opportunity to have my work prominently displayed in her restaurant. After she stared him down (and with a little help from me), she got the prints as a gift. Within a day, they were on her walls. Just as quickly, she suddenly viewed me as a woman worthy of her serious attention.\n\nIn 1992, during a particularly dry work spell, I was having second thoughts about continuing as a photographer. While in the restaurant, I told Elaine that I was thinking of going to law school.\n\n\"Are you nuts?\" she yelled at me. \"Quit? Kid, you're better than Avedon! You got no place to shoot,\" she continued, \"then come here to do it.\"\n\nThat moment opened to the door for the next twenty years\u2014twenty years of my life I spent as a photographer. Shooting at the restaurant began long before digital photography existed, and so, between the cost of film, processing, paper and printing, shooting at Elaine's was to be the most expensive job I ever had. But it was not without its rewards. In the beginning, no matter what I photographed there, Elaine would have the prints framed and placed on the walls. There was actually a \"Jessica Wall,'' with only my work on it. But it wasn't easy. There were, often, problems dictated by Elaine's moods when she'd decide that I couldn't shoot something that really interested me. That drove me nuts, and we'd get into some heavy fights.\n\nJessica Burstein with Chris Noth.\n\nThroughout it all, however, Elaine talked me up to anyone and everyone who could possibly give me assignments. Within a year of shooting at the restaurant, she'd introduced me and my work to, among others, television producer Dick Wolf, which resulted in twenty years of work on the Law & Order franchise, a published book about the show's crime scenes, and a resulting solo museum exhibition of this work at the famed George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York. She was also instrumental in getting George Steinbrenner to see my work, which resulted (with the help of the Yankee's President, Randy Levine) in my being commissioned as the fine art photographer for the building of the new Yankee Stadium.\n\nElaine took every opportunity to try to coach me about how to run business\u2014a subject that has always eluded me. Her efforts failed, because business literally makes me sick. To the end of her life, Elaine tried in every way to get me to understand the importance of business in the arts. She concurred with my father, who'd often told me: \"It's not art if it stays in the drawer. The work has to be seen.\"\n\nAfter noting, once again, that I was hopeless about business, one of the last things Elaine said to me was \"I won't be here, forever. You've got to get an agent.\"\n\nI'm still, admittedly, terrible about business, but one thing that I have made a point of \"getting out of the drawer\" is my collection of photographs from Elaine's, only made possible because of Elaine Kaufman's unending belief in my talent. I will forever be grateful.\nTravels With Elaine\n\nJessica Burstein\n\nELAINE LIKED TO travel with me because, frankly, she liked fun and she knew that I'd deliver. Of the various trips we took together, the highlight was our 2005 trip to France.\n\nI preface this story by noting that Elaine was always torn about leaving her restaurant and in particular, as she got older, her trips away became shorter. Generally, she'd last a few days, while endlessly calling the restaurant, and then decide that she needed to go back to Manhattan.\n\nI was planning to go alone, in earlier September, to Vichy, France, when Elaine asked me if I'd accompany her, prior to that time, to the Deauville Film Festival.\n\nOur prep for the trip included:\n\nA. Asking me to push back my planned vacation to Vichy, France, to go with her to the Deauville Film Festival.\n\nB. Speaking with her pulmonary doctor about her ability to travel with breathing problems.\n\nC. Each of us buying a seat in coach (no wild airline expenditure for Elaine and no allowing me my mileage upgrade to Business Class.).\n\nD. My calling the hotel in Deauville at least five times to ensure that her room (not mine), as had been promised, was comp-ed.\n\nE. Calling Hertz to reserve a Citro\u00ebn, preferably automatic, with enough room for the two of us and . . .\n\nF. For the largest Tumi suitcase, which Elaine had spent days packing.\n\nDay 1:\n\nThree p.m. arrival at JFK, making certain that there's a wheelchair for Elaine. The TSA insists on patting her down. At the time, men were still allowed to do the pat-downs on women. I am outraged. She giggles and says, \"Go get me a sandwich.\" In coach, I'm crushed in the window seat, praying that Elaine has to get up fairly often so that I can move. Every time she does get up for bathroom breaks, I run around the aisles like a lunatic and get back to my seat before she gets back to hers. The flight attendant can't get Elaine's tray table down properly. Elaine tells the flight attendant, \"Just rest it on my tits.\" I stay awake for the full eight-and-a-half hours, while between bathroom breaks and food, Elaine sleeps.\n\nDay 2:\n\nSeven a.m. arrival at Roissy. Check that there's a wheelchair for Elaine. Leave the plane, assuming she'll soon be along. Wait twenty minutes at Customs. No Elaine. Worried, I question every official in sight. Nobody knows anything or seems to care. An hour passes. Frantic, I threaten to sue the airline for losing a passenger. I make up every possible horrible thing that could happen to these people if they don't find Elaine. Another half hour and suddenly . . . Elaine appears, in a wheelchair, a big grin on her face. She tells me that the airline left her in her seat. I ask why she said nothing. Her reply: \"You know that I'm shy.\"\n\nArrive at Hertz to find that since we are more than two hours late, the Citro\u00ebn is gone. But, they have one car, a \"tr\u00e8s belle\" stick shift Mini-Cooper (pronounced 'mini-coop-ear' in France) available. I am livid. Elaine insists that we look at it, which we do, since obviously we have no other choice. It's Royal Blue and a convertible and it's love at first sight for Elaine. By some miracle, we fit in\u2014luggage and all. Exhausted, on Paris's p\u00e9reph\u00e9rique, I get lost for two hours, driving in circles before I figure out the correct \"Porte\" to Deauville. Elaine is giggling the entire time. I'm going to kill her. Just as I think it's smooth riding all the way to the hotel (for my planned nap), Elaine wants to stop to eat.\n\nAt 4 p.m., in a tiny French village, there is no where to eat. I find one small bakery barely open, beg, flash some Euros, and by another miracle, get Elaine a ham sandwich. By the time we get to the hotel, the idea of a nap is a memory, since we are expected at the Film Festival's opening dinner gala and Elaine needs me to unpack for her and help her to get dressed. Our dinner table is filled with men. Elaine's not just in Deauville, she's in heaven.\n\nDays 3\u20136\n\nAwakened by Elaine's raspy voice on the phone: \"You missed breakfast. Havin' lunch?\" Seems Elaine is not at all interested in the films at the festival. Her interests included food; reading; the pool; lots of rides in the beloved mini-coop-ear; a visit to the Normandy WWII museum; my translating for her French to English, and vice-versa; endlessly having me call her restaurant to make sure that there are no problems; fiddling with my hair; bragging (to her credit) about a photo of mine prominently displayed in the Festival's catalogue; cocktail parties; dinner parties; and . . . bumping into Roman Polanski. Polanski appears at the hotel's cocktail lounge where Elaine and I are sitting. Having recently won his libel suit against Vanity Fair for reporting remarks ostensibly made at Elaine's restaurant, he jubilantly tells Elaine, \"I won.\"\n\n\"Big deal,\" she replies, \"You got no real money.\"\n\nPolanski's reply of \"That's not the point,\" falls on Elaine's deaf ears. I watch, fascinated by how much he wants her approval.\n\nDay 7\n\nFree at last! I'm off, alone, to Vichy. Wait, wait . . . Elaine tells me that she wants to go with me. I can't believe my ears. This woman, who can't normally bear to leave her restaurant, is now extending her trip away from it. She's being insistent and so, I relent. I pack up Elaine's things and my own, and by late afternoon, we stuff ourselves in the mini-coop-ear.\n\nPhoto credit: Jessica Burstein.\n\nMy plan to drive directly to Vichy, a trip of less than four hours, is suddenly sidetracked when Elaine announces that she wants to fly out of Paris. This means that we have to stay overnight at Orly, because there are no night flights to Clermont-Ferrand. From there, it's an hour's drive to Vichy. Again, I relent. I make reservations for a flight and for the Orly Hilton. The car route to Vichy is virtually a straight line, but going to Orly means a trip back through the dreaded p\u00e9riph\u00e9rique and, sure enough, I get mixed up and find myself coming out of a tunnel onto the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es.\n\nElaine has been reading and loudly chewing gum throughout the entire ride and only when I mention that we're somehow on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es does she bother to look up. She laughs . . . and laughs. And I'm ready to, once again, kill her. Instead, I continue on the route to Orly. It's at this point, when I reach the airport, when the real trouble rears its head. The route to the Orly Hilton is designed for travelers coming from the airport itself. But, if you're coming from outside the airport, it's tricky. I'd arrived at the airport around 7 p.m. By the time I found the entrance to the Hilton, it was 10 p.m. Had we driven from Deauville, straight to Vichy, we would have been there long ago. Instead, Elaine and I were driving around for hours and in some really creepy places, and she thought it was funny. I had to keep the inside light on while she read, but she met every desperate sigh from me with a chuckle. Finally, at the Hilton, we each had vodka to toast what she thought a great adventure.\n\nDay 8\n\nQuelle Journ\u00e9e! Early in the morning, after making certain that our airplane tickets were in order and that a wheelchair was in place for Elaine to get on the plane, I returned the mini-coop-ear. I ran back to the airport gate to find Elaine, expecting to see her in the wheelchair. Instead, she was sitting on a regular chair. The flight was boarding and she had no rational explanation as to why she wasn't in the wheelchair. It turns out that she was \"too shy\" to insist on the wheelchair. In consequence, we missed the flight, at which point Elaine wanted to hire a car and driver to take us to Vichy. In my head, I added up what this was costing in terms of money and time. And I knew that I was putting up with this craziness for Elaine. I agreed to the car and driver at a fee that was exorbitant\u2014half of which I paid. To make matters worse, throughout the ride, Elaine would repeat, in a mantra-like tone, \"Now, this is the way to travel!\" After what she'd put me through, I was a hair's breadth away from strangling her. Finally, arriving at the hotel in Vichy, we went to the hotel's spa to set up appointments for \"Les Soins\"\u2014massages, exercise classes, general well-being and \"taking the waters.\" We had an early dinner at which she confessed that she was always worried about money. She said that she didn't really know how to make it, but that she was very clear about saving it. And indeed, she has been very good at that, refusing to exchange her dollars for Euros (\"a bother\"). When it's necessary to use cash for payment, yours truly remained the banker.\n\nDay 9\n\nTwo friends of mine came to the hotel for a pre-planned surprise welcome for Elaine. We called her to the lobby, where they told her that they were inviting her for dinner at the \"Elaine's of Vichy\"\u2014Brasserie du Casino. Apart from the fact that they knew about Elaine's, she was immediately taken by one of my friends\u2014Bruno Pinard Legry. It was to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship (reference the Vichy bottle, Bogart, and Claude Rains in Casablanca). We spent the day at the spa, but for me, the day was spent primarily waiting around to see that Elaine was okay. There were a couple of hitches during Elaine's massages, but none for publication. It was a great night at the Brasserie, where the owner introduced Elaine to the applause of all the patrons.\n\nDay 10\n\nHave to keep my eye on Elaine. In one of the spa's pools, Elaine got into an argument with a Saudi prince over what she called his \"harem\"\u2014a group of women who were there with him. Got a call in my room, asking me to get over to the spa, ASAP. Arrive to hear Elaine name-calling the prince, who wasn't doing a bad job getting back at her. Both parties use the word fat. Hopeless. With help, I get Elaine out of the pool. Later, she tells me that she's proud that she stood up for women\u2014the irony of that remark escaping someone who is, in fact, known for being mean to them. I say nothing. But, in the meantime, I speak to the prince, having already met his beefy, gangster-ish bodyguards. I tell him she was sorry to have offended him. At the concierge's desk, a gift from the prince\u2014a Burberry scarf is left for me. I give it to Elaine, who immediately throws it in the garbage. Things improve that night as Bruno takes Elaine on a solo \"date\" at the Brasserie, the \"Elaine's of Vichy.\"\n\nDay 11\n\nI'm tired. I love Elaine, but it's a lot of work taking care of her. I haven't had a real vacation in three years and I need Elaine to leave. Don't know how to ask her. We take a cab ride through the city because she's unable to walk it and I want her to see as much as possible. Turns out that I don't have to ask her when she's leaving. She tells me that she has to get back to the restaurant, that this is the longest trip she has ever taken and plans to leave tomorrow. I spend the afternoon interviewing drivers because I want her to leave happy. This means finding a young, handsome, and charming male driver to take her on the three-hour drive to the airport, with food stops adding time along the way. I find him. Tonight, we go for a farewell dinner at the Brasserie, the only restaurant where Elaine wants to be.\n\nDay 12\n\nTen a.m. Elaine meets her driver. She's ready to dump me in half a second and get going with Mr. Young, Handsome, and Charming. Bruno and friends come to say goodbye. I'm oddly feeling a little separation anxiety, as are my friends. Elaine is a major presence and something will be lost with her departure. We stand on the street, feeling small, waving like little children to a parent saying goodbye. Tonight, we will go to the Brasserie to toast her with all the patrons, who've become \"family\" at the \"Elaine's of Vichy.\"\n\nAddendum\u2014Two weeks later:\n\nI arrive at Elaine's and people virtually bow down to me. Elaine calls me over and says, \"Thank you. I've told everyone that this was the best trip I've had in my life.\" She's the kindest that she has ever been to me. I'm not hungry and she's not making me eat! Unheard of! It feels way too uncomfortably weird, but I needn't have worried, because . . .\n\nThe following night:\n\nElaine is back to being the not so \"shy\" Elaine of her restaurant. There, I'm immediately greeted with the growl: \"You betta be havin' dinna!\"\n\nCandace Bushnell, Gay Talese (behind), John Scribner, Jr. (at her foot), and Richard Behar (with cigar) celebrate the Oscars.\n\nPhoto credit: Jessica Burstein.\nMy Last Night At Elaine's\n\nJodi Garner\n\nJodi Garner is the author of \"The 45-Year Old Intern\" published in The 52 Weeks by Karen Amster-Young and Pam Godwin (Skyhorse Publishing 2014). Jodi is also the producer of The Smart Kids Guide to Grownups, Off-Broadway, in production; associate producer, Disaster! A 70s Disaster Movie Musical, Broadway, in production; associate producer, The Jazz Singer, Off-Broadway, in production; producer Danny Boy, 2005 New York Fringe Festival Audience Favorite; and associate producer, Stephen Schwartz's Captain Louie, Off-Broadway. Jodi is also a board member of The W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund for Humanistic Photography. Jodi lives in New York City with her fourteen-year-old twins and was at Elaine's on the last night before it closed in May 2011.\n\nB, R, AND our friend A, who had also joined us many a night at Elaine's from 2004 through the end, and all of whom always stayed way later than me, were on hand for the last night at Elaine's. B made all the arrangements for us to get in that night and she, R, and A got there early. I had to get the babysitter settled so I arrived later. By the time I got there, a crowd had gathered, the likes of which I hadn't before seen in front of Elaine's. TV crews and cameras were on hand to document this momentous occasion. While there was a festive air in Elaine's that night, a tribute to when Elaine's was Elaine's, there was also a sadness. Elaine's was a refuge; a community. For the regulars, holdovers from the go-go years, and the more recent additions like myself when almost anyone could get a table along the wall, there was almost a nervous merriment. What would happen to us all when Elaine's was gone? Where would we all go to be connected, to be a part of the community?\n\nI wasn't particularly sad that last night. Elaine and Elaine's had come into my life for a season and a reason. Elaine's was there when I needed it and Elaine Kaufman was Elaine's.\n\nWithout Elaine, there just couldn't be anymore Elaine's.\n\"I'm a Fucking Icon.\"\n\nElaine Madsen\n\n\"You have to interview me. I'm a fucking icon,\" Elaine announced to Emmy Award\u2013winning director Elaine Madsen while Madsen was working out the details for her film I Know a Woman Like That (in which Elaine Kaufman's interview appears). The film has been recognized by the Rhode Island International Film Festival with their \"Helping Hand International Humanitarian Award,\" given annually to a film that inspires social change, community outreach, and a better understanding of the world in which we live. When the film screened at the Chicago International Film Festival, Roger Ebert cited it as \"transformative and extraordinary.\"\n\nELAINE HAD NO varnish. That's what I remember most about her. Within minutes of her sitting next to us, the greeting turned into a conversation about something\u2014something you cared to talk about. I am not famous, I brought nothing to the table but myself; her famousness never sat down with her.\n\nShe found out I was a writer and asked to see my book which I didn't have with me.\n\nWhen I came again, she asked after it right away. She really wanted to see it!\n\nElaine Madsen interviews Elaine Kaufman.\n\nPhoto credit: T. J. Rosza.\n\nWhen my daughter, Virginia, told Elaine I was doing a documentary, which Virginia was producing, Elaine immediately said: \"You have to interview me, I'm a fucking icon!\"\n\nAnd she grandly repeated that memorable quote for the interview. She knew we had no big sponsors, no big budget and for sure she knew she was doing far more good for our story than any good we could conceivably bring to her.\n\nIn our interview, she spoke to me about her childhood and her voracious reading habit\u2014a childhood characteristic we shared. When the interview concluded we shared a glass of wine and she suggested it would be good for our film if I captured a night at Elaine's. I wouldn't have asked. But, shortly thereafter, I got a call and an invitation to let us film her forty-fifth birthday party; for certain a highlight of the film.\n\nWe were very happily surprised that our cameraman was the only one filming the event.\n\nShortly thereafter, my daughters and I came to Elaine's to celebrate my birthday. She surprised me with the most elaborate birthday cake I'd ever seen and a beautiful rose. As Diane set the cake in front of me, she whispered in my ear, \"She doesn't do this, you know.\"\n\nDid all of us have moments with Elaine that she \"doesn't do\"? That was one of ours.\n\nCelebrating Elaine Madsen's birthday at Elaine's with her daughters. L to R: Virginia Madsen, Elaine Madsen, Cheri Borowiec.\n\nPhoto credit T. J. Rosza.\nElaine Was My Dating Coach\n\nKen Pliska\n\nKen Pliska moved to New York City from Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1987. A graduate of Pennsylvania State University with a degree in architectural engineering, his early career was in the architecture and engineering field. In 2000, he started working in real estate development and consulting as an owner's representative. Currently, he is partners in the firm Second River Station, LLC. His wife of eighteen years, Kimberly McGovern Pliska, passed away in 2008.\n\nKen made many friends at Elaine's, from celebrities to the average local. He hung at the bar but also sat at tables. Because he was a middle-of-the-road kind of guy, he was able to start the \"All the People that You Knew at Elaine's\" Facebook page and was invited to be on the board of the Table 4 Writers Foundation.\n\nElaine's was a saloon he called home. It was a place that helped him heal during the most difficult period of his life. Elaine once informed him that he was \"a slab of meat on a hook.\" And so began her work as his dating coach.\n\nMY FIRST STOP in Elaine's was in 1987. I had just moved to NYC and was checking out restaurants and bars on Second Avenue. I knew nothing about Elaine or the place, but it looked fun and I popped in. I had a few drinks but it wasn't near my apartment, so I didn't make it back for a few years.\n\nMy wife and I moved to the Yorkville neighborhood in 1992. Elaine's became our local spot for a special dinner. Since we were not regulars, we typically got seated in the rear of the restaurant. As the years passed, we went from one to two visits a year to about eight to ten. This was still not regular status, but Elaine knew our faces, as this went on for more than ten years.\n\nIn the fall of 2008, my wife had an accident and passed away. My dear friend, Joni Loeffler, was a regular who had been going to Elaine's for decades. Joni insisted that I spend more time in Elaine's. She said, \"It will help you heal.\"\n\nI found myself in Elaine's about four to five nights a week. Shortly after this change to my schedule, Elaine took notice and asked Gianni, the head waiter, \"What's the big guy's story?\" Gianni filled her in and she asked me to join her and tell my story. From that moment, Elaine and I were friends.\n\nI did heal in Elaine's. I met many new friends and Elaine was always on the lookout for the proper business and social connections. She was a master of the art of networking. After about a year, she also became my dating coach.\n\nIt was December 2009. I was sitting at the bar on a quiet evening. After Elaine came in and got settled, she joined me at the bar. In the middle of our conversation, she stopped and asked, \"Are you ready yet?\" I had no idea what she was talking about.\n\nI said, \"Ready for what?\"\n\nElaine replied, \"Are you ready to start dating again?\"\n\nI said \"Sure, I guess so.\"\n\nHer response was, \"Good, because you're a slab of meat on a hook.\" I guess this was an Elaine-styled compliment.\n\nWhile I was a late part of the Elaine's family, the last few years of the restaurant meant the world to me. I will forever miss the comfort of her saloon.\nMy Home Away From Home\n\nDana Moyles\n\nDana N. Moyles has been in the commercial real estate industry since 1993. She has worked in both NYC and Chicago. She has represented owners, landlords, and tenants. She has worked as an Asset Manager and Leasing Agent. She currently runs her own company and is focusing on Tenant Representation in NYC and Chicago. Clients include Chicago Cut Steakhouse, The Local Chicago, Bobby Van's, Cibo, NIF Services of New York and Satori Investment Partners. Ms. Moyles graduated from Lehigh University in 1994 and is highly active in the alumni community. She is a licensed real estate broker in New York and Illinois.\n\nHOW DO I explain the impact and the history Elaine's has had in my life? I am not famous or literary; I am just a woman who works hard in her life for her career, family, and friends. So this is a tribute from someone who was lucky to find Elaine's and have it become part of her world.\n\nFrom the first moment I stepped in the door in my evening gown at twenty-four, to my last drink there a couple of years ago, it had been my home away from home, my safe place to go. I grew up at Elaine's.\n\nAnd I was blessed to become someone who can be called a regular even after I moved to Chicago.\n\nThere are so many memories. Duffy, the bartender, wanting my keys! Birthdays celebrated for me and my father. Elections won and lost (thanks to Alex, the other bartender, for being my ally). Sporting events survived! Being the lone Mets fan in the Subway World Series\u2014it was Elaine who protected me from being harassed.\n\nBoys dated and dumped (thanks Duffy to for saving me from the Hand!). And one tragically lost on September 11. Through that loss and the immediate aftermath, I vividly recalling sitting outside crying and Duffy rescuing me. And always taking care to make sure I was okay.\n\nThrough my father's illnesses and my mother's death, Elaine's was the safe place to go. There were people to support me and always a hug from a wonderful woman who granted me her kindness. I am so lucky.\n\nAnd, of course, all the friendships started over the years. The bar people and table people. How that's all become part of my history. People who have become part of the fabric of my life especially Rosemary, Tommy, Duffy, Alex, Ray, Malcolm, Frank, and Johnny (sorry the lottery numbers never panned out, Johnny). And the other friends who were in from out of town and became friends like Rich Cooper.\n\nI loved knowing Elaine was so happy for me when I moved and that she embraced me when I came home every time. She encouraged me, told me I looked beautiful and happy. And she always knew that if I was in NYC, I was coming to see her. We made deals about my future. I am grateful that she knew and liked John. She met the man I love who even my mother never got to meet.\n\nAnd then there were the best New Year's Eves ever. With Rosemary, Chris, Kathleen, Fraser, Traci, Darci, Kurt, and John, to name a few. What can ever compare? Certainly not New Year's Eve in Chicago.\n\nThese are just some of my memories. I cry as I write this, knowing I wasn't there for the final night. But I post and send this in honor of the woman and the legacy of Elaine Kaufman. Bricks and mortar may change hands but the impact of you personally on my life can never be altered.\nThe Good Penny\n\nCurt Block\n\nCurt Block couldn't resist contacting me with this role-reversal story. His date, after trying to make nice to Elaine with dismissive responses, finally told Elaine to \"fuck off.\" Tables were turned, and none were in Siberia.\n\nCurt Block worked for twenty-four years in the NBC Press and Publicity Department in New York with responsibility for entertainment, news, and sports. Block also spent five years as a sportswriter at United Press International and worked on many other impressive media accounts.\n\nHe's not quite sure if he visited Elaine's after this night.\n\nMOST OF MY earliest visits to Elaine's were with Jessica Burstein, a close friend for many years. I had been introduced to Elaine several times but never had the feeling that I'd had made any lasting impression on her\u2014or, in truth, any impression.\n\nOne night, in the late 1990s, I visited the restaurant, sans Jessica, with a stunning young woman named Penny. She was aware of the restaurant, but had never been there. To my surprise, our meal was better than any other than I'd had at Elaine's. Truly unexpected. Preparing to leave, I asked my date if she would like an after-dinner drink at the bar. It was relatively early so there was plenty of room there.\n\nI suddenly noticed Elaine seated alone at a table directly opposite the bar and whispered to Penny that I thought I should say hello to the proprietor. I approached the table to ask if I could join her. She gave me a quick once over and said: \"Suit yourself\"\u2014clearly not a warm greeting, but still, not a rejection, which I'd often seen with so many others who'd approached her.\n\nHaving twice tried to compliment Elaine, Penny had received no reaction or eye contact and she looked at me as if to say \"Get me out of here.\" Within a minute, however, she'd had enough, turned to Elaine, and in a voice loud enough for anyone in the restaurant to clearly hear, said: \"Fuck this!\" and bolted from the table.\n\nHaving more invested in Penny than Elaine, I quickly paid the bar bill and looked for Penny, who was by this time already outside, on Second Avenue, flagging a cab.\n\nThis story has stayed with me, because knowing how intimidated most people were of her over the years, I've wondered how many customers' actual last words to Elaine were to \"fuck off.\"\n\nAsh Bennington and Elaine.\n\nPhoto credit Alex Rass.\n\"Elaine's Was Really Three Different Places.\"\n\nAsh Bennington\n\nElaine's was not only \"three different places,\" but it could easily be described as three different times. Ash Bennington was there for the final chapters.\n\nAsh Bennington is a former CNBC reporter with fifteen years of financial services experience. His work has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, TheStreet.com, BusinessInsider, ZeroHedge, and numerous other publications. He is currently senior editor at Roubini's Edge, a subsidiary of the economics consultancy Roubini Global Economics.\n\nPEOPLE OFTEN TALK about Elaine's during the glory days\u2014in the sixties, seventies, and eighties\u2014but Elaine's was magnificent until the moment Elaine died. I started going to the restaurant regularly around 2006, about five years before it closed. Elaine, and Elaine's, changed my life in ways I still don't understand. When I started going to Elaine's, I was working in banking, but wanted very much to be a writer. Somehow, Elaine's made that possible. I got my first two writing jobs standing at the bar, though I still don't really know how it happened.\n\nElaine's was an insomniac's paradise. Elaine knew that writers lead solitary lives, and that they crave comradeship at night. (There's a lot of overlap between the categories of \"writer\" and \"insomniac.\") I was at the restaurant perhaps four or five nights a week, usually after midnight. There were other kinds of people at Elaine's besides writers and reporters\u2014show business people, Wall Street types, FBI agents\u2014but they all loved the nighttime.\n\nLate at night, the lighting at Elaine's was an oasis. Warm light is no small matter for refugees from sleep. I once mentioned this unusual quality to one of the regulars, and was told that Elaine had bought the fixtures from a funeral home.\n\nThe first night I attempted to go to Elaine's by myself, also late at night, I didn't make it through the front door. There was a writer standing in front of the restaurant\u2014a writer I had studied years earlier in college\u2014with a blonde woman on one arm and a brunette on the other\u2014smoking a cigarette. I was so nervous that instead of going into Elaine's I had dinner at the Midnight Express Diner next door.\n\nYes, there were movie stars too. Elaine's was closed four days a year: Christmas, New Year's Day, Fourth of July, and Oscar night, when she threw the Entertainment Weekly party. One night, someone snapped a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger on their iPhone. When Schwarzenegger came over to kiss Elaine goodnight, I showed the photo to him. Schwarzenegger said in his dense Teutonic accent, \"You should put it up on the Twitter.\"\n\nThe celebrities at Elaine's were like fine art hanging on a wall: They were always around\u2014and every once in awhile you remembered their presence with awe\u2014but then you returned to the conversation at hand. Elaine's was about conversation\u2014with other regulars, with the staff, and, of course, with Elaine herself\u2014all blown together through her door by the night wind.\n\nAnother night, I saw Peter O'Toole come in for dinner with the legendary publicist Bobby Zarem. Walking across the terra cotta tiles, in the electric glow of the funeral lights, O'Toole cut no less an impressive figure than he had walking across the Al-Nefud desert in Bedouin robes.\n\n\"Table hopping,\" floating from one group to another, was the norm at Elaine's. Groups dissolved and merged over the course of nights that often did not end until nearly dawn. For my thirty-fifth birthday party at Elaine's, I invited some friends I used to work with at a bank. One of the guys from the IT department tapped me on the shoulder and said, \"Is that Jack Nicholson at your birthday party?\"\n\nI looked up and saw Nicholson, talking with someone I'd met at Elaine's a few months earlier. Of course, Jack Nicholson wasn't at my birthday party\u2014but, owing to the odd nature of Elaine's, he wasn't quite not at my birthday party, either.\n\n\"To tell you the truth, I'm not sure,\" I said.\n\nThat was the way Elaine's was.\n\nIf there was a secret to Elaine's, other than the magnetism of its proprietress, it was that Elaine's was really three different places.\n\nWhile the restaurant got most of the attention, the bar was a great New York saloon. The bar fed the restaurant new blood, and kept it from acquiring the claustrophobic feel of a private club. The fact that anyone could walk in off the street for a drink at the bar always kept the game interesting.\n\nThe side room of the restaurant, called Siberia by the regulars and staff, ran on reservations. It was the kind of room where a group of businessmen from, say, Chicago could come for a veal chop, a martini, and a healthy dose of New York night life while they were in town.\n\nBut when most people talk about Elaine's they are referring to The Line\u2014where the table hopping happened. The Line was the row of round tables along the wall where the regulars, and Elaine herself, held court. In the course of a good night, a regular might sit at six or eight different tables, joining and rejoining groups for hours on end. It was a phenomenon I have not seen before or since. (Side note: Whenever one of the customers from Siberia asked, \"What's the best table?\" Elaine replied, invariably, \"The one I'm sitting at.\")\n\nThe Line is where the writers sat. One night, I joined a party of four at a table with Elaine. After a few drinks, I leaned close to Elaine and said \"We are the only two people at this table who don't have Pulitzer Prizes.\" Elaine just shook her head; to her, they were simply two old friends.\n\nThe night Kurt Vonnegut died, I saw Peter Khoury, an editor at the New York Times, as I was walking to my table. Peter said to me, \"Kurt Vonnegut has just left us.\" Before his meaning became clear, I turned toward the window to look for the great novelist\u2014whom I mistakenly assumed had just left the restaurant. As the night drew on, a number of other writers arrived. They, too, it seemed, felt sorrow at the loss of a legend\u2014and were somehow drawn to gather among their compatriots at Elaine's.\n\nOf all the conversations I had with writers at Elaine's, the one that stands out most in my memory lasted barely fifteen words. I'd been introduced to Gay Talese that night, and the person introducing us had told Talese that I was working on a novel. Talese shook my hand and said \"Finish it.\" I nodded and said \"Yes.\" Gay pumped my arm slowly, stared into my eyes, and said, \"No. Finish it. Do you understand? Finish It.\" I believe I replied, \"Yes, Mr. Talese.\" His analysis was spot on\u2014but, since his advice went unheeded, I'm still a little anxious about meeting him again.\n\nBut what I miss most is having dinner alone with Elaine. The honor of eating dinner with Elaine alone meant that the house rules of conversation would be suspended. There was no need to fill the air with words. It was like sitting inside the eye of a hurricane, as everything around you spun. Eventually, you'd be swept up into the whirlwind of the night.\n\nWoody Allen and Elaine.\n\nPhoto credit Ron Galella.\nWoody Allen On Elaine's\n\nNo story about Elaine's would be complete without Woody Allen. Many, many thanks to Susan Morse, an outstanding film editor, who collaborated with Woody Allen for many years, for the connection.\n\nDo you think that Elaine's personified New York?\n\nAt the time, Elaine's did not necessarily personify New York to me, but in retrospect it seems like a good question.\n\nWhat was your most memorable time at Elaine's?\n\nMy most memorable time is almost eating there every night for ten years.\n\nAny great romantic moments at Elaine's?\n\nNothing particularly romantic occurred and no single funny incident although I had a million laughs there in dinner conversations with friends.\n\nIf Elaine was cast in a movie, who do you think should play her?\n\nKathy Bates is one person who could play Elaine.\n\nWhat drew you to Elaine's?\n\nElaine's was like a club. One great thing about Elaine's was that while there was a lot of action going on all around one had complete privacy at one's table because everyone there was so famous that there was no celebrity ogling, no autographs asked for and it was quite a private dinner. I simply ate, enjoyed looking around, and rarely socialized but was always friendly if anyone said hello. I never ever wore a hat at Elaine's. Also I shot several scenes at Elaine's and not just Manhattan. It was in Manhattan Murder History as well and Celebrity and maybe even more that I am forgetting.\nTop Ten Reasons Your New Hangout Will Never Replace Elaine's\n\nCharles Kipps\n\nCharles Kipps has won Emmy, Peabody, and Edgar Awards and is the author of several books. Kipps' TV scripts include Law & Order and Colombo. He has written and produced music for Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, and the Temptations. Impressed?\n\nCharles Kipps wrote a Top Ten List of \"Things I Have Heard Elaine Say\" for A.E. Hotchner's book, Everyone Comes to Elaine's.\n\nHere's his custom-made Top Ten List for us.\n\n10. They close down if there's a blizzard.\n\n9. For some reason, the tables in the bar are considered undesirable.\n\n8. If you haven't been there for a few days they don't make you feel guilty.\n\n7. You can mention other restaurants and not be thrown out.\n\n6. The owner doesn't sit with you and eat off your plate.\n\n5. If you stop in after attending an event that included dinner, they don't make you order food.\n\n4. It's okay to send back an entr\u00e9e if there's something wrong with it.\n\n3. The patrons all seem disturbingly normal.\n\n2. You can go home whenever you want.\n\n1. There will never be another Elaine.\n\nWarner Leroy and Elaine once discussed diets at an event.\n\nPhoto provided by Bridget Leroy.\nShooting Elaine's (But Not Elaine)\n\nRon Galella\n\nRon Galella is the paparazzo who pursued and then pursued some more. Galella doesn't \"do\" no, especially from Jackie O. Elaine threw garbage cans at him; Marlon Brando allegedly punched him in the jaw. Galella has been in and out of courtrooms, defending his right to click on. He is the subject of Smash his Camera and the author of Jackie: My Obsession.\n\nDURING MY \"GOLDEN years\" of shooting\u2014in the 1960s and 1970s\u2014when there were freedom and opportunity, I covered Elaine's Restaurant. Elaine's was a late-night hangout for celebrities, especially writers, and was, of course, Woody Allen's favorite. I usually made it my last stop of the night on my way home to Westchester. One of my many great takes was on September 14, 1978, when I photographed Woody Allen and Caroline Kennedy. Not together, of course, but each out with friends. That night Woody did something unusual: he decided to walk home going west on Eighty-eighth Street. I was behind him, with his back facing me, and I yelled to him, \"On the count of three, turn around.\" I counted, and to my surprise, he actually turned around! That photo was used for an artist's rendering, which was published on the cover of the April 30, 1979, issue of Time magazine. I was paid the cover fee, $750!\n\nWoody and Mia Farrow had a hot new romance at the time, so my wife Betty and I waited to catch them leaving Elaine's one night. Unfortunately, they ran out separately to Woody's Rolls Royce, but Betty and I surprised them shortly thereafter at a traffic light on Central Park West. They tried to dodge the cameras by hiding in the backseat, but we were able to catch them by each shooting through the back windows. Betty actually wound up getting the better shot, and those were the first photos of them together!\nWhen Spinelli Met Plimpton\n\nAn Elaine's Legend As told to Amy Phillips Penn\n\nGEORGE PLIMPTON, THE legendary editor who competed in sporting events, acting, and comedy in Las Vegas, all for the power of a hands-on, pen's-on story, was a regular at Elaine's.\n\nOne tale that has been told and retold and, like a good game of \"operator,\" invites literary salt and paprika, was the night when Jerry Spinelli, an aspiring writer-to-be, found his way to Elaine's via George Plimpton. Jerry's wife, Eileen, had all but decimated their savings to buy an auction promise of \"A Night with George Plimpton.\"\n\nAnd so it was off to Elaine's.\n\n\"Table after table was filled with literary bigwigs: Kurt Vonnegut, Jill Krementz, Irwin Shaw, Peter Stone, Dan Jenkins,\" Plimpton recalled in Hotchner's Everyone Comes to Elaine's. At Elaine's, though, it was understood by all that you never, ever interrupt Woody Allen. However, Plimpton dared to brave it in the name of the up-and-coming Spinelli.\n\n\"Woody,\" he said, \"forgive me. This is Jerry Spinelli, the writer from Philadelphia.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Allen said evenly. \"I know.\"\n\nWhile Spinelli embraces the memory of his one and only night at Elaine's, he says that the Woody Allen introduction never happened . . .\n\nTo date, Jerry Spinelli has published close to thirty books, both for children and adults. He recounts the story of his night at Elaine's often at lectures, and in less formal settings.\n\n\"George Plimpton contacted me before he published a magazine article on our night at Elaine's. He suggested that he might embellish a bit. The Woody Allen story is the only embellishment I remember, as it simply did not happen.\"\n\nWhat did happen was a cab ride to remember after dinner at Elaine's.\n\n\"It was not long after our night at Elaine's with George Plimpton that I had my first novel accepted for publication by Little, Brown. I can't say there was a direct link between the two events, but this is for sure: a recounting of that night has entertained audiences I've spoken to for more than three decades.\n\n\"We left Elaine's that night in a taxi. The cab first dropped Plimpton off at his place. We said our goodbyes and headed for the train station to return home. As we were stopped at a traffic light, the driver turned to us and said, \"I couldn't help overhearing your conversation. Are you writers?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" they replied.\n\n\"Well\u2014\" he said, and he reached down to the front seat and when his hand reappeared it was holding a stack of paper that looked familiar: a manuscript. \"I happen to have a book of my own here,\" he said. \"I wonder if you would mind having a look at it.\"\n\n\"We had to tell him we were not qualified to do so\u2014not yet, anyway\u2014but his heartfelt request brought the evening around to a perfect circle. The reason Eileen had bid our life savings in the first place for a Night on the Town with George Plimpton was to give my manuscript an audience with a famous writer, trusting that publication would surely follow.\"\n\"Not Only Did You Share A Meal Or A Drink, But You Shared Yourself.\"\n\nMark Rossini\n\nMark T. Rossini became an FBI Special Agent in July 1991, and after new agent training at Quantico, Virginia, he reported to the New York field office. Mr. Rossini worked on complex white-collar crime cases for the first six years of his career, concentrating mostly in the areas of public corruption, financial fraud, and corporate malfeasance. Years later, Mr. Rossini extensively traveled on sensitive counterterrorism operations, working with foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies.\n\nMr. Rossini has lectured at the FBI Academy, the CIA University, and many government and private institutions regarding the PATRIOT ACT, FISA, and the operational duties and responsibilities of the FBI, CIA, and the NCT.\n\nI FIRST STARTED going to Elaine's around 1995. I became an FBI agent in 1991 and worked mostly in Manhattan and The Bronx. I had always heard of Elaine's, having grown up in New York, and having an apartment just a few blocks away from its fabled location, but I was too busy with something or another and never had an opportunity to go in. I started to go there regularly with my boss John P. O'Neill after he transferred in from FBIHQ. I have to say it was an amazing place. The mixture of personalities and professions was incomparable. From the Police Commissioner to the titans of Hollywood and finance, Elaine's was the place where everyone gathered and \"shared.\" Not only did you share a meal or a drink, but you shared yourself. You were able to cross those visible and invisible lines that separate classes and professions, in an atmosphere that essentially was a private club managed by an indomitable presence and personality. Elaine was the power and force at the center, and you better heed to her instructions and advice on anything and everything. From her menu suggestions to telling someone (and I mean anyone no matter who they were) to sit with you and talk if she thought it would do either one of you good. We all dutifully listened like children. Many of us referred to her as Mamma. I would call another habitu\u00e9, Steve Levy, on the phone and say, \"See you at Mamma's tonight.\" We never said \"Elaine's.\"\n\nI think that's what hurt most about her passing. It was like losing your mother. Elaine's was like your home, and you were always welcome. Sunday's were referred to as \"family night.\" After I would see my parents up in Westchester County, I would stop there and have some quiet time with the rest of the \"family.\" I remember one Sunday night that changed my life. My mom had a stroke on September 11, 2000 (one year before the event that changed our lives). After her stroke, she deteriorated to the point where she was in a wheelchair and becoming atrophied.\n\nIn the fall of 2004, I was having a family night meal with Elaine and Dr. Richie Saitta, another loyal and faithful habitu\u00e9, and Elaine asked me how my mom was doing. I put my head down and said that she was in a very bad state and that we were looking for homes to put her in. Dr. Richie asked after condition and I told him the story. Without hesitation, he said, \"She has to see Michael.\" Michael being Dr. Michael Kaplitt, MD, another loyal patron and the number 2 of neurology at New York Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center.\n\nDr. Richie called Michael right there, and the road to my mom's miracle recovery started. Turns out my mom was misdiagnosed with Parkinson's. What she had actually was hydrocephalus or \"water on the brain\" as a result of the emergency craniotomy that was done on the night of the stroke, which all other doctors failed to see except Michael. After he operated on her, she walked out of the hospital and continued to walk and walk and walk . . . up to nine miles a day until she died recently of cancer.\n\nMy other boss in the FBI was John Miller, who is now the Deputy Police Commissioner for Intelligence at the NYPD. John was fond of saying that there \"wasn't anything that couldn't be solved or fixed at Elaine's.\" And he was right.\nElaine's, A Tribute\n\nPhotographs by Larry Fink\n\nDabney Coleman Does The Godfather Gig At Elaine's. Just Guess Who's Listening.\n\nDabney Coleman\n\nDabney Coleman is an actor who can make you laugh even on a long-distance phone call. He came to Elaine's via his role in Tootsie; most of the crew ate, partied, and revived themselves at Elaine's, along with the film's director Sydney Pollack. Pollack donated a piano to Elaine's: Dabney Coleman did duets with and without the piano. Among Dabney's sixty-plus roles, he is remembered for his villainous take of the sexist\/tyrant boss in 9 to 5. Gotta love him.\n\nTHE FIRST TIME that I went to Elaine's was when I was in Tootsie. I'd never heard of the place. Somehow a whole group of us decided on it; Dustin (Hoffman), Jessica (Lange), I don't know whether Geena Davis was there or not. That was the first time I heard of it. Elaine was very cordial. It was a very celebrity-oriented place, a hot place forty years ago and it remained hotter.\n\nWoody Allen was there virtually every night, it was a fun place. I mean politicians, cops, bad guys, mafia guys, athletes, writers, press people, hot lawyers, and other restaurateurs.\n\nThe way that Elaine set it up was quite unique. She was a very large woman, a very powerful woman. If your table wasn't ready, she'd grab somebody and say, \"Norman Mailer, this is Dabney Coleman, you guys talk to each other and your table will be ready in a minute.\"\n\nSometimes you might talk for a minute or two, and sometimes you might stay right there, where she put you, and consider yourself to be very lucky to be talking to Norman Mailer, or the Mayor of New York, Ed Koch.\n\nYou never knew what the luck of the draw would be and that was the magic of it. And she would add to it from time to time by coming over and joining you. She was a fun person, knew what great combinations were, and was a great catalyst. Paul Hornung was there, the golden boy of football, so you might sit with him, which I did for an hour or half, or right next to Ralph Connor, homerun champion in the 1940s or 1950s, or guys like Joe Pepitone, Cal Rifkin, or some gangster.\n\nElaine had said of one such person, \"Well, he's going to jail tomorrow for fifteen years, this is his goodbye party.\"\n\nThese firemen were there, maybe eight of them at a long table, and I saluted them when I knew who they were. They were from Firehouse 10, which is a pretty notorious firehouse; they lost almost everybody on 9\/11.\n\nSydney Pollack was a great aficionado; of course Woody Allen. I went in with Louise Lasser a couple of times, and Gianni Uzielli who had his own restaurant, Uzi's. He's gone unfortunately, but we became very good friends.\n\nYou just would see this very rich combination of people at Elaine's. One night, I'm looking over at this large table, obviously all Mafia with one bodyguard and one guy with his arm folded, keeping track of who's coming in the door. I started doing my Godfather impersonation. They can't hear me, but they can see me and it was very clear who I was doing.\n\nThe bodyguard watches me for a few minutes, deadpan in the beginning, and slowly this look crept across his face and he can barely contain himself. He whispers in this guy's ear, and the guy turns around and looks at me and he hits the guy next to him and it goes all the way down the table and they're leaning over motionless and soundless.\n\nSo, now I raise my voice a little bit and know I've got them. Some of them had this noncommittal grin and some of them did not. They were all riveted. But not necessarily smiling at the end, I gave this backhanded wave, and said \"Buona Sera\" and they all applauded. Stuff like that would just happen at Elaine's.\n\nDo you know the song \"Why, oh why, oh why, oh, did I ever leave Ohio?\" I'm one of the few people who can do the harmony to it. It's a very pretty, sweet little song.\n\nOne night at Elaine's, I catch Edie Adams, who was in the show it came from. I stopped Edie and said: \"Excuse me, what if I told you that I knew the harmony to 'Why oh why oh?' How'd you like to sing it with me?\"\n\nSo we tuned it up and we started singing this song. The whole place went dead-ass silent.\n\nWe get a standing ovation.\n\nAnd lo and behold if it wasn't in Page Six in the New York Post the next day.\n\nPhoto provided by Susan Hathaway.\nElaine Kaufman: Friend and Investor\n\nEsther Margolis\n\nElaine was Esther's first investor, and unsolicited, at that. So began Esther Margolis's phenomenal company: Newmarket Publishing and Communications, and Newmarket Press. An ingenious publicist of the literary world and their books at Bantam, Margolis worked with Maya Angelou, Gore Vidal, Gail Sheehy, and other illustrious writers. Her dazzling creative know-how was key to the global success of the Guinness Book of World Records.\n\nI GO BACK with Elaine to the late sixties, a long time\u20141966 or 1967, when it was really becoming known as a hangout for authors and journalists. I was at Bantam books, as head of publicity and marketing there.\n\nOne of the men I worked with suggested that we go to Elaine's. It was uptown at Germantown, and I didn't know anyone there.\n\nI started going more frequently in the late 1960s and early 1970s, because I knew a lot of journalists and I had been friends with a few men at the New York Times and one of the few women, Lacey Fosburgh, who worked at the Times.\n\nShe happened to be quite a gorgeous girl. She was related to the Whitney family, which was only important in that it gave her access to people. (After she left the New York Times, she covered the Patty Hearst Symbionese Liberation Army and was one of the few journalists privileged to interview the reclusive J. D. Salinger.)\n\nLacey was quite terrific and amazing. That's who I knew, and Sidney Zion, David Halberstam, Gay Talese, Warren Hinckle, and that whole crowd.\n\nThat was fantastic for me, because I was doing publicity at a paperback publishing house. I'd only been in New York for six or seven years and it was exciting for me, because there was a lot going on the sixties, and Elaine's became my dining room.\n\nElaine's would go on till four in the morning. There were backgammon games and gambling. I was single, I was free, and I would go down there till late and still make a meeting at Bantam at 7:30 in the morning.\n\nDuring the making of the film Tootsie, which Sydney Pollack was making in New York, I was doing the book of The Making of Tootsie. My first two film-related books were Tootsie and Gandhi. That was in my first year.\n\nThey gave me full access to the Tootsie set. Pollack would do the dailies at night and come into Elaine's after; he was at Elaine's practically every night. He wound up giving Elaine a piano as a gift after Tootsie.\n\nElaine's was wonderful, wonderful experience for me.\n\nThere was a time when I wasn't going there as often as I had been. I was reluctant to go there as a woman on my own, as much because I was on my own as because I was a woman and it was the seventies.\n\nIf I had a business lunch with a male, I would get to whichever restaurant early and have them run the credit card to make sure that the check was taken care of. It was clear that men at that time were embarrassed if women were picking up the check. Elaine's didn't take credit cards at that time, though, which made this trick difficult.\n\nI would often see Elaine at publishing parties. When Elaine saw me at these various functions, she made a point of asking why I wasn't coming in.\n\n\"Well, you know, I'm not seeing so and so anymore.\"\n\nShe said, \"No, you come; I'm setting up a house account for you.\"\n\nFrom that point on, I was more comfortable going there and taking men for business dinners.\n\nPeople were surprised that I was so comfortable. I invited Nora Ephron for dinner there one night and she was somewhat taken aback.\n\nShe said, \"The two of us?\" and I said sure. I'm sure it was the first time Nora was there with another woman.\n\nIt got easier as I got older, and people were more accustomed to seeing women in the professional world. I went there a lot as Bantam was growing as a company. It wasn't a place that you had to put on airs and obviously it was interesting. Elaine was very good at maintaining your privacy, often suggesting that you might want to meet someone, as she also maintained contacts. She would whisper in my ear, \"So and so is over there and has a new book. Would you like to meet him?\"\n\nOne time when Woody Allen was sitting with Mia Farrow, I was sitting opposite them. Elaine came over and said, \"Do you know who is over there?\" Looking at a table of two women, one I knew, a journalist, but the other one I didn't recognize.\n\nShe said, \"That's Simone de Beauvoir.\"\n\nI said, \"Oh, really?\"\n\nWoody Allen actually got up and walked over to her table to meet her, which he apparently never ever did. And they conversed for several minutes. The woman with Simone waved me over and I went and talked to them for ten or fifteen minutes. It was an exciting moment.\n\nElaine had high regard for me, which was wonderful, and she became a really good friend. Socially, when I would date anyone seriously, I would take them to Elaine's and she would make a point of coming over. She had a way of assessing people and, within three minutes, she would whisper in my ear something either good or bad. The first time that I took my late husband Stan to Elaine's, she came and sat with us about five minutes, leaned over, and said: \"Keep this one.\"\n\nWe were married for over thirty years.\n\nWe had a regular table at Elaine's.\n\nThere was a time that Elaine tried to build up a lunch trade in the 1980s that didn't work.\n\nStan worked nearby and he would come in and have lunch with her. He was a psychologist who had a specialty in self-hypnosis.\n\nThere were certain courtesies that you would maintain at Elaine's. I would call to say I was coming and make sure it was okay. I recognized most of the waiters' voices.\n\nElaine followed my career. I was at Bantam until 1980. When the Agnelli group had basically bought Bantam, I took a few of the Italian group there and they loved it and made it their regular spot before they sold the company.\n\nWhen I decided that I would be leaving Bantam, Elaine was very encouraging that I start something on my own. I wanted to have an equity-based company in publishing and consulting.\n\nOne night, Elaine put something in my hand. It was a check for a considerable amount. She said, \"Whatever you do with it, kid, I know you're going to do it right. Here: Figure it out.\"\n\nI hadn't even gone out to raise any money yet, so she was my first investor.\n\nHer early reputation was that she didn't like women, or that she only gave her attention to the men who came through the door, but that wasn't true. She had a lot of women friends: Rona Jaffe came in and Carol Higgins Clark was a regular.\n\nElaine was really good at respecting your privacy, if that was what was really called for. I came in one time for a business dinner, and the maitre'd, I think it was Elio, said that he was so glad that I was here and asked who I was meeting. He never asked that kind of question, so I asked why and he said, \"Because I have to see who to place at that table back there. . . . I have to be careful who I put back there, that's why I'm asking you.\"\n\nI said, \"Well, who's there?\"\n\nHe whispered, \"Elizabeth Taylor.\"\n\nI said, \"You can put me back there; I'll be good, I promise.\"\n\nI made sure that my chair was facing hers; I wasn't going to give up that moment. She was lovely. She was there with two bodyguards. It was between her marriages to Burton, she was single at the time, and she was gorgeous. They had to stop me from following her into the ladies room. I'm exaggerating, but it was tempting, I have to say.\n\nElaine's was that kind of place where they were concerned that people were not bothered.\n\nElaine was knocked a lot for the food there, but you just had to know what to order. You didn't go there for the food, anyway.\n\"I Was Married To My Restaurant; Elaine Was Married To Elaine's.\"\n\nSteve (Pally) McFadden\n\nSteve McFadden partnered up in 1979 to launch New York's famous McFadden's restaurant on Forty-second Street and Second Avenue. His customers included Daily News reporters, U.N. dignitaries, and those who simply loved to party. Then it was on to Elaine's.\n\nELAINE WAS A very good pal of mine. I went in there when I was a young kid just out of school and it first opened, then I didn't go again for a while. I have a place called McFadden's on Forty-second and Second that opened in 1979.\n\nIn those days, we had all the press people and people like that McAlary, Drury and Andrew Cuomo. We would all hang out at McFadden's and then we would all go up to Elaine's and close the joint. It wasn't every night, but it was on a fairly consistent basis, and that's how I became a pal of hers and that was how she became a real good pal of mine.\n\nShe did a lot of good things for a lot of good people. She was gruff in her demeanor, but strong when it came to taking care of her people.\n\nWhen she opened up, she may have been one of the first women to own a restaurant or saloon. She found a very strange location, when she opened up in 1963. In those days, it was all men, usually three or four buddies who went to school together. She was a pioneer in that respect, ahead of her time; she was like the ultimate feminist. She was as tough as any bar owner in New York City, getting exactly what she wanted in terms of the d\u00e9cor and the clientele.\n\nShe was totally hands on.\n\nShe did it very well for a very long time, she had boatloads of friends, but they loved her tough demeanor. If she had been a sweet little lady, they wouldn't have enjoyed the place. And it was like when she said something rude to you; it was almost like a badge of honor. Yes! Elaine yelled at me. Get out of that seat and move over.\n\nOne time Geraldo (Rivera) was in there. This guy\u2014I think his name was Michael\u2014he was a reporter for Newsday, I believe, was in there. Out of the blue, this creep, this bozo, Geraldo started picking on him. This guy's a little guy and Geraldo was an ex-boxer in his day. Elaine interceded. A lot of f-bombs were thrown and out the door went Geraldo.\n\nThe next day she says to me, \"Pally, do you believe this thing?\"\n\nIt was a big wreath of yellow roses, and looked liked a mobster's funeral piece, from Geraldo, saying he was sorry, that sort of thing. I don't think he ever came in again. It didn't matter.\n\nIt would have been easy to take his side of the thing because he was a celebrity. Elaine could have stuck up for the celebrity, but she stuck up for who was in the right, she wasn't worried about who was better known: that was sort of like the integrity part of her. That's why Geraldo apologized with the flowers and I guess he felt like a jerk.\n\nElaine wasn't really petty about things, she'd say what was on her mind. It was part of a day's work. People can be an idiot one day and the next day they apologize and you forget about it. I've been in the saloon biz for more than forty years. If someone acts up one, you forget about it. That's the way life is, people have a few drinks, and even without drinks, this one isn't talking to that one.\n\nElaine had her favorites; they were people who interested her. If someone spent a lot of money, she wasn't upset about it by any means, but she was more interested in their conversation and what they brought to the table than what family they came from.\n\nThe Elaine's saga is a really noble one, believe me. She really ran things. She loved to laugh, she loved to have fun, and she loved to come into her place every night. If she had a cold, it would drive her crazy to stay in. She'd be calling the place five or six times a night\u2014who's coming? Who's leaving? Sometimes, she even came in at eleven if she was sick. She would be there every night. It was her place. She took a few days off to go to the Deauville Film Festival; and she closed only two days a year on Thanksgiving and Christmas. She never stayed home, though. She would go to P.J. Clarke's.\n\nShe could be a girlie girl when she wanted to be. She was very complex.\n\nI had a cancer operation. I was in Sloan and I get this thing of flowers and it's from Elaine's. People asked if I knew her. So I go, yes, she's a pal of mine. I went home after three or four days, and I got a delivery of flowers and with it was a container of chicken soup\u2014and it was hot, that was the thing. She'd call and say, \"Did you have the fucking soup? You feeling better now?\"\n\nWhen she got older, she really loved when young people would come in and when people would bring their sons and daughters. She wanted to stay young all her life. She thought young, and as life went on, she lost a lot of close friends. Elaine was a person who looked at tomorrow; that's the secret of aging.\n\nThen it was her time. An awful lot of laughter went out of the placed just like that.\n\nYou could say about Elaine, like the line from The Last Hurrah, \"How do you thank a woman for a million laughs?\"\n\nShe provided that. People miss her to this day. There'll never be another place like that in New York. We're lucky we caught it.\nElaine Was An Interesting, Tough Lady. (I Saw Her Punch Out A Guy.)\n\nKen Moran\n\nKen Moran started out on the lobster shift at the New York Post, where he talked a woman out of committing suicide on the phone. Moran became a sportswriter for the New York Post, and celebrated his first front page, which had little to do with fun and games, at Elaine's.\n\nTHERE WERE DIFFERENT groups at Elaine's, but we were the second generation. The first generation was 1960s and early 1970s, Gay Talese and all those people.\n\nBut then Elaine's had a down period. We\u2014myself, John Miller, Michael McAlary, and a whole bunch of newspaper media people\u2014started her up again in the mid 1980s. We kind of revived the bar energy and what was going on there.\n\nIt was just a great playground.\n\nElaine was an interesting, tough lady. (I saw her punch out a guy.)\n\nI got close to the bartenders, especially Tommy Carney, and I got to meet a lot of great people including Joey Heatherton, who jumped on me the first time we met. I looked at her and said, \"I don't know who you think I am, but I'm not him.\"\n\nShe had thought I was Derek Sanderson, who played a lot of great hockey for the Rangers. Apparently, I looked like him. And as it turned out, later on that evening she was sitting by herself, and I sat down by her and I ended up dating her for about a year.\n\nThere was a famous night when I was in there with Paul Hornung and Keith Hernandez. The three of us were the only ones in the place aside from Tommy and some models, and Paul was so drunk that he fell right off the barstool three times. This is a guy who won the Super Bowl three times. We had to pick him up and put him back in the stool. I was amazed at how many times he did this. Most of us would have been dead.\n\nAt Elaine's, I was always amazed at who I would run into in the men's room. For the most part we were all very friendly, like Arnold Schwarzenegger and what's his name\u2014Rambo (Stallone). All of a sudden you'd be in the middle of a conversation with people in the middle of doing your business. It became quite natural after a while.\n\nEverybody had a book party at Elaine's. The most poignant one for me was Mike McAlary, a columnist for the Daily News. He had a number of his book parties there. He was about as good a friend as I had. His last book party was right after he was diagnosed with cancer, and everyone showed up in the newspaper business because they realized how sick he was. I was in tears. He wrote some great stuff in a book that he gave me. I had to keep walking away, so he wouldn't see me in tears.\n\nAfter fifteen years of that place, I'm lucky I'm still here. I love the fact that Elaine would sit down and talk to you and always try to help you with your career and push you for better things.\n\nI was a sportswriter, but there was a time I was upstate and there was a murder in the Catskills, and I was up there, playing golf. So, I get a call from the desk and I covered the story. It was the first time I ever had the front page. On my way home, I stopped in at Elaine's, and she had all these people there and I got a standing ovation.\n\nI became one of her boys, and she threw birthday parties for me a couple of times. I would always have one of the prime tables up front and people would look at me like, Who the hell are you?\n\nErica Jong, Stuart Woods, and Elaine.\n\nPhoto credit: Harry Benson.\nThe Era Is Over\n\nAl Sapienza\n\nAl Sapienza is well-known for his roles in The Sopranos and House of Cards. Betwixt and between, he sang Beatles duets at Elaine's. He is the over-the-moon father of a little girl who is affectionately known as Lambchop.\n\nI WAS ON tour with Beatlemania in 1977 till around 1980. I would go to Elaine's now and then. When I got The Sopranos, I started going to Elaine's once a week.\n\nI'm a real wanderer and traveler. I work between New York, L.A., and Toronto and I always go to dinner by myself. You could go into Elaine's by yourself. She kept several tables for herself and her friends, regulars and celebrities. I'd sit at one of those tables and have these incredible conversations with people who had interesting jobs and an incredible influence on our culture.\n\nI'd have a political conversation with a guy from 60 Minutes, and three days later I'd be sitting with a Broadway actress, and then I'd be talking to Ray Kelly (the former police commissioner) about law enforcement.\n\nOnce I brought a friend, a CEO of an airline, to Elaine's. I ordered a steak and saved that part near the tip for the end. Then Elaine leaned over my plate, cut it off, and ate it with her fingers before I could.\n\nThat same night, my friend says to her, \"What you are doing for the holidays?\"\n\nAnd she said, \"What the hell you think I'm doing? I'm going to be here. I'm working.\"\n\nI met a bunch of women there. Elaine was a major matchmaker for me. But when I was ready to get married and have a child, I looked elsewhere. I didn't need to meet the mother of my child at a restaurant bar.\n\nI actually went on the Internet to find a wife. I wanted to meet someone outside my entertainment world, someone much more grounded than myself. I met the perfect person; she's a psychiatrist at Mount Sinai\u2014Dr. Michelle Widlitz. Elaine liked her the second she met her; she looked at me like \"you're a smart guy.\"\n\nAnytime that I'd go to Elaine's with Michelle, Elaine would sit at our table for at least a half hour and we'd have these great conversations about everything: politics, Bloomberg, and whatever else was going on.\n\nElaine would always offer us a round of drinks when we were ready to leave and didn't want to eat or drink anymore; never in the beginning when we were going to drink them.\n\nWhen we decided to get married, I had my bachelor's party and my rehearsal dinner at Elaine's. My wedding was at the Essex House. I invited Elaine to come out of respect, but I didn't think she'd show. I really wanted her to come, though. And she did.\n\nFor the centennial, I sang at Elaine's with Uncle Junior, my partner in The Sopranos. We sang a bunch of Beatles songs on New Year's Eve in 1999. It was the greatest place on Earth as far as I'm concerned.\n\nWhen that place closed, that stopped. I was friends with Fred Gallo, who designed practically every Broadway set, and other Elaine's regulars. I'm too busy to call those guys and they're too busy to call me. There's no place anymore where everyone goes. The era is over.\n\nEvery time I walked in, either Josh (Gasparo), Dr. Joe, or Tony Danza would be there to sit with. There's no restaurant in New York like that. It's just over. The era is over.\n\nPhoto credit: Walter Bernard.\nStill \"Anchored\" At Elaine's\n\nBob Drury\n\nIn the mega macho days of reporting, Bob Drury personified the game. Drury began as a copy boy, then a sportswriter, then crime reporter and eventually as an editor of a well-groomed men's magazine. He is the author\/co-author editor of nine books.\n\nELAINE'S WAS AN anchor. It always was; it was the place I would go.\n\nElaine's served so many purposes. When I was a police reporter for New York Newsday in the mid 1980s, if I needed to get something out of a detective, I would take them to Elaine's. This was in the middle of the crack wars.\n\nI would call Elaine's and I said \"the usual.\" I'd come in and she'd make a big deal out of whomever I was with and offer us a front table. I'd say, \"Elaine, do you mind? Can you hold that table for us? I'd like to go in the back and talk to Detective Shapiro here.\"\n\nOf course, his eyes were all sparkling because she had made such a big deal over us. This had been all planned. We'd go in the back and talk for a few hours and then she'd put us in the front. I swear, it worked like a charm with every homicide detective I ever interviewed. This was pre-planned.\n\nShe liked me.\n\nWe went back to the early eighties. I had a literary agent, Jay Acton. He had an old Yankee ballplayer, Ryne Duren, and Ryne was an obstreperous type. People knew him as \"the man with the coke bottle glasses.\" He was blind and half drunk when he played and everyone knew it. His warm-up pitches were a hundred miles an hour. He never knew where they were going.\n\nHe'd gotten sober and he'd gotten God. So Jay said, \"Listen.\" (And I was a kid, I think I was a sports columnist for the New York Post.) \"Could you go live with this guy for a month in Minnesota and polish his book? I've got most of it.\"\n\nI did. Anyway, the book comes out eight months later. Jay calls me and says he has a check for twenty-two grand, something that made my eyes bulge at the time. Jay said, \"Why don't you come up? We're having a book party at Elaine's tomorrow, before she opens.\"\n\nElaine's! At this point, I'd never been to Elaine's.\n\nSo I go there, and there's Jay standing at the door and he pulls out the check. I knew no one there. Tommy was at the bar. I asked for a Bud. I took out some money and he said, \"It's a book party, pal. Don't you know anything?\" I left a two-dollar tip on the bar.\n\nThis went on for a few hours. I didn't know anyone there, so I just kept drinking.\n\nI noticed that there was this kind of daunting woman sitting at the bar and she was kind of watching me. I said, \"Hi, I'm Drury, I'm one of Jays clients.\"\n\nShe said, \"I know who you are. I saw the size of the check you got. I've been watching you give two-dollar tips to the bartender every time he gives you free drinks. You're fucking welcome in here.\"\n\nI said, \"Who are you?\"\n\nShe said, \"I'm fucking Elaine.\"\n\nIt was the beginning of a beautiful relation.\n\nWhen she hit that time in the late 1980s when celebs weren't really coming in any more, things were emptying out, and I think the newspaper guys, especially those who covered cops, really kind of buoyed her.\n\nWhen she got hot again in the 1990s with the celebs, she never forgot me, Esposito, McAlary, and Moran. She always had a special place for us, because we maybe bridged a hollow period for her.\n\nEveryone used to compare Elaine to Toots Shor with that whole irascible thing. Was that an act? I don't think so. I think she was pretty irascible, but she was also loyal. She was like a mean old junkyard dog, but once you got her on your side, she was loyal. I can't think of another place that had such a strong female owner. She knew her stuff about journalism; she treated the early SNL guys as her own. I'd heard that men had fucked her over in her life, but once you had given her loyalty, she gave it right back. She was really mean to women, she was jealous of women, especially pretty women.\n\nLike it or leave it, she liked me; I used to be a big handsome strappy guy. I don't have a clubhouse in the city any more, and that was our clubhouse.\n\nI entered it one toe at a time.\n\nShe was always good to me.\n\"Who's Da Poet?\"\n\nTaki Theodoracopulos\n\nThe last conversation I had with Taki was about having \"fuck-you money.\" We were at a party in some New York townhouse. Perhaps it was his.\n\nTaki's column High Life has been in The Spectator since1977. In 1984, Taki took time out from all the glam and did penance in Pentonville Prison for possession of cocaine. In 2002, he founded The American Conservative Magazine with Pat Buchanan and Scott McConnell. Yes, he's controversial, from racial slurs to his own \"fuck-you money,\" but never, ever boring.\n\nTHERE WAS ALWAYS a place for me because she made a special compensation for drunk writers or journalists. She always had a good table for me.\n\nI always had editorial meetings on Sunday nights at Elaine's. I had a section called Taki's Top Drawer in the New York Press. So we used to meet, five, six seven of us to make the plans for the week's issue right there at Elaine's.\n\nShe used to join us and put in her two cents\u2014more than two cents, the whole dollar, mostly. She used to tell us who the good guys were, who the bad guys were . . . It was fun to have editorial meetings there. She used to advertise and never pay us. She ever took something off the enormous bill. It was a unique to have the meetings there because people were actually inspired.\n\nI started going there in the 1960s and early 1970s along with Norman Mailer and Nigel Dempster. When Clay Felker brought myself, Anthony Haden-Guest, and Nigel Dempster over from England, the place to meet up was Elaine's. There was always a good table, especially for me, because unlike the rest of the British hacks, I paid my own way.\n\nI think that the only time that she got angry at me was the time that I came up from the Village. There were these two guys outside just begging for money, and I brought them in for a drink (I was drunk). And she just lost her temper.\n\n\"Never do that again.\"\n\nOne funny incident that I remember: there was a very Romeo and Juliet note that I send to girls so I quickly wrote that thing on Spectator paper, the magazine that I worked for, and sent it to a nearby table of girls and guys. I was sitting with Elaine, by the way, because she used to come and plunk herself down. And after about ten minutes, this wonderful actor who I had never seen before, Joe Pesci, he came up and said, in a very loud voice, \"Who's da poet?\"\n\nSo we all looked around and said, \"What you are talking about?\" and tried to dismiss him. Then he whips the note I'd written to the girls.\n\n\"Who said this?\" he asked.\n\nI said, \"I did.\"\n\nHe said, \"Listen, kid. I wouldn't do this if I were you. Those guys are all gangsters.\"\n\nI remember Elaine saying, \"Nice going, kid.\"\n\nShe was always very funny because nothing would ever shock her.\n\nElaine with director Roman Polanski.\n\nPhoto credit: Jessica Burstein.\nElaine As Mama Earth\n\nFred Morton\n\nFrederic Morton has contributed columns to the New York Times, Esquire, and Playboy. He is the author of several books including The Rothschilds: Portrait of a Dynasty. Not too shabby for the son of a blacksmith. The Austrian-born Jewish\u2013American writer immigrated to America in 1940 and started his career as a baker before studying literature. Watch him go Freudian.\n\nWHAT I LIKE about Elaine's is that it was a home away from home; it had the same appeal that it had to most of its habitu\u00e9s, and that was all Elaine's personality. She was not a restaurateur, she was a den mother.\n\nIf she'd had children, the restaurant would not have been nearly as attractive. If you went there three, four, or five times, and you weren't utterly personally repellent, you became one of her children, which meant that she started yelling at you instead of being polite.\n\nIf you were doing something that displeased her or she thought was bad for you, she was yelling at you. The people of course were all in show business or media places where you feel on one hand you were part of the glamour group, on the other, these people were all loners, including, me. You want Mama, no matter how old you are or how successful you are, and she was Mama, and part of the Mama is the yelling, at least if you were brought up in a Jewish family as I was.\n\nA gathering for Dr. Joe Platania's birthday at Elaine's.\n\nPhoto provided by Susan Hathaway.\n\nIt's very strange. I think her size contributed to it, that enormous body that suggested Mother Earth, that she was capable of having an infinite number of children. The ducklings kept circling around the mother duck. If you didn't come back that week or at least the week after, that was a betrayal and that betrayal, once she voiced it, it upset me, but somehow after the initial upset, there's a warmth after. \"She missed me, I mean my God, she missed me.\"\n\nShe conveyed to you that you were not the restaurants' customer, but that you were a beloved child. That was more important than the food, which was not as bad as it was reported to be. I'm lucky because I have such an obtuse palette that it didn't make too much difference. The restaurant looked sort of sloppy and messy, and you felt that you didn't have to dress up. It was like home. At home you could throw away your tie and come as you are, which is basically naked and sloppy\u2014not naked in the literal sense.\n\nThe downside of all this was the ego confrontations among those who were the well-knowns and those who wanted to be known. All that was complicated by the overall warmth once you were part of her brood\u2014and that included people who were not well-known. She was just as human and vain as all of us. She liked the idea that she had all these names in her heyday, which lasted a long time, but basically it was the idea of having a family evening.\n\nShe once told me it was expensive for her. It's not nearly as expensive as Le Cirque or other expensive restaurants, the average time which people spend at a meal there is two hours. At Elaine's, the experience lasts four hours or more because people start table hopping. And even if they order more drinks, it doesn't make up for the loss of turnover. \"But it means financially a loss for me, and the worse thing is that I like it that way. Because it means they love being here,\" she said.\n\n\"In a blood sense, I don't have a family, but what are you going to do if you're in a family? I have it here. There are really terrific people to talk to every night. I prefer my Elaine's family because a family is always loaded with problems, which is really boring. There has never been a night there when I've been bored. Not with the people who come to Elaine's.\" (Everyone Comes to Elaine's, Hotchner.)\nThere's \"Nothing Like Gedempte Flaische.\"\n\nSteve Walter\n\nSteve Walter is an owner of the Cutting Room, a live music venue, restaurant, and bar since 1999. He graduated from Berklee College of Music, played in bands, and taught guitar in New Jersey. Versatile in style, he was a woman's coat manufacturer for more than a decade. And the beat rocks on.\n\nAFTER THE FIRST time I went into Elaine's, I became addicted. You met so many nice people there and Elaine would never let you be alone. It was like the old school.\n\nI've met so many incredible people there. If she could help you in any way, she'd call and say \"Tell Stevie to come down.\"\n\nIf she thought she could introduce you to someone romantically, she would. If you ate with Elaine, she'd stick her fork into what you were eating. But you had to eat, she didn't want a saloon. She'd rather you ate fifty dollars' worth of food than drink one hundred dollars' of liquor. She'd say \"nothing like gedempte flaische,\" which is Yiddish for potted meat.\n\nShe was sharp as could be and always knew what was going on in every inch in that place. She was there, always making sure that you were having a good time and never alone. If there was no one for you to eat with, she'd eat with you. She had great stories.\n\nShe was a class act all the way, if she liked you. You know, she didn't like women too much, but she did have a few women friends. She loved dirty jokes; she did that with Father Pete: she cursed like sailor and she had that smoker's voice. She was a big woman.\n\nShe was full of advice, too. I remember once I was telling her that I was comping some celebrity and she said, \"I beg you. You can't comp them. You gotta teach them.\" I've learned so much from her.\n\nOne Sunday night, it was a dead night and a group of about four people came in dressed in black tie. The woman was with CNN, I think, and her husband was a big-time lawyer.\n\n\"We just got back. We did our mother's eightieth birthday at 21.\"\n\nWell, that's all she needed to hear\u2014that they ate somewhere else. She said, \"Sit down and eat.\" They were scared at this point and they did what they were told.\n\nShe ordered a filet mignon and a couple of bottles of Veuve Clicquot. She said, \"Here, have some.\" She put the food on our plates and poured Veuve Clicquot in our glasses, as well. These people had just met us, but she knew they were rich.\n\n\"Come on, get another bottle,\" she told them. We had close to six bottles and they had quite a tab.\n\nWhen I saw her the next night, she said, \"That was fun; I almost got them to get six bottles. You gotta get it from those who have it.\"\n\nI get her point.\n\nI was there for the election, the Super Bowl, and for 9\/11.\n\nOn 9\/11, you went there for the sense of community. The TV was on, people were at tables, you felt a safety, like your home. It was just a warm feeling. I heard that Louie Garcia was in there, doing some shots. He was the chief fire marshal. She said, \"Louie have something to eat,\" and she took care of him.\n\nJoan Rivers played the Cutting Room for four years and she once said, \"Elaine gives you a free drink whenever you're ready to leave.\" This turned out to be true. Joan stopped going to Elaine's for a while because a close friend of hers who went there frequently had died. When I told the reason to Elaine, she responded, \"Tell her to grow up.\"\n\nThis was part of her business philosophy.\n\nOne of my favorite lines of hers was, \"Someone's gotta pay the real estate. You gotta get asses in the seats.\"\nPeople Soup\n\nTony Hendra\n\nTony Hendra has been described by The Independent of London as \"one of the most brilliant comic talents of the post-war period\" and by the New York Times as \"legendary.\" He began his career in Cambridge University Footlights as the comedy partner of Graham Chapman, later of Monty Python, appeared multiple times on the Ed Sullivan Show, was one of the original editors of National Lampoon, and produced and directed the Lampoon's off-Broadway hit Lemmings, which gave John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest their first starring roles.\n\nIn addition to being a bestselling nonfiction author, he is founder and CEO of the online satirical hub TheFinalEdition.com and co-producer of The Final Edition Radio Hour, and as of 2015, he assumed a new role as CCO (Chief Creative Officer) of the newly resurgent National Lampoon brand.\n\nI don't remember exactly when I first went to Elaine's\u2014hey, it was the sixties\u2014but I know it was a consequence of patronizing a splendid Irish bar called Himself on East Eighty-eighth Street. At Himself, I made my first close New York friend, Malachy McCourt, who held court there with a spectrum of Irish geniuses from Paul O'Dwyer to Richard Harris. Himself was a grand bar\u2014until midnight when you had to eat something to sop up all the booze. True to Irish form, all the place had to offer was an early, unsuccessful version of fusion cuisine: American Grade-A hamburger, cooked by an Irishman to the consistency of an eight-ball, served on an English muffin.\n\nTony Hendra and Elaine.\n\nPhoto credit: Lucy Hendra.\n\nLuckily 'round the corner on Second Avenue was a bar called Elaine's that actually banned hamburgers. It had the same dark, delicious fug as Himself, but also toothsome food, decent wine, tables you could linger at all night\u2014and writers. Back then, I was a modestly successful comedian (my partner and I headlined for a couple years at Julius Monk's Plaza 9), but writing was in my blood. At Elaine's you could hang around the likes of Lewis Lapham, Gay Talese, Bruce Jay Friedman, Jack Richardson, Warren Hinckle, George Plimpton, Sidney Zion, Herb Sargent . . . Writers and\/or editors who talked books, and publishing, writers and articles, magazines and newspapers\u2014anything from low gossip to high-flown debate\u2014till sun-up. Eventually you would even get invited to sit at their tables.\n\nI've lost count of the special moments that happened for one reason or another with one set of people or another in the forty or so years I frequented the dark bar with the yellow awning. But a couple stand out . . .\n\nI was returning from a printing plant in Toledo, Ohio at nine o'clock one chilly October night in 1978, carrying a stack of copies fresh off the press, of Not The New York Times. The Times was then going through a major strike and a bunch of us\u2014a very Elaine's bunch: George Plimpton, Chris Cerf, Rusty Unger (wife of Tom Guinzberg), and myself\u2014had decided to publish a parody of it, written by eminent or notorious New York literati, to slake the jones of the city's Times readers, deprived for months of their daily fix.\n\nPushing through the battered doors of Elaine's, I saw several large tables in the front of the restaurant packed with my fellow editors and contributors. This was the big moment: had their wildly funny collective vision actually come to fruition? Apparently, yes. As copies were passed round, the front tables exploded with laughter. Soon the whole place was rocking. Elaine sat in the midst of the happy mayhem, the candles on the tables glinting off her glasses, nodding and smiling. It was one of the greatest nights of my life.\n\nFlash-forward almost thirty years to my eldest son's sixteenth birthday. My wife and I had brought him to Elaine's for dinner. Nick was a tall strong kid, a basketball player whose ambition was to go to a Division I school on a full ride. (He achieved this goal.) That night, though, he was sullen because none of the sports or movie stars we said might be at the bar were not in attendance. Elaine joined us. She picked up the vibe at the table and started chatting with Nick. Sports, being a teen, his school, parents . . . Soon they were chuckling away together. I realized I'd never seen Elaine talk to anyone younger than 25 or 30 unless they were a celebrity and she had to. But she and Nick were clicking big time. Eventually the moment came for him to go to the real party downtown with his teammates and homies. He got up, told Elaine quite warmly (for him) that it was great to meet her, and turned to leave. Wait, she said, and produced a roll of c-notes the size of an office Rolodex from her skirts. She peeled one off and tucked it in his shirt pocket. \"Don't listen to them,\" she said, indicating us. \"Have a good time tonight.\"\n\nI made life-long friendships at Elaine's\u2014Lapham and Plimpton were just two\u2014though it has to be said that there was such a thing as The Elaine's Friend. Someone you only ever met at Elaine's, who greeted you cordially and shared your table\u2014someone who debated with you fiercely, made you laugh like an idiot, and whose favorite bibendum you knew by heart, but with whom you almost never socialized elsewhere. Over the forty years I went to Elaine's, there were scores upon scores of these friends, kindred spirits of unique charm or staggering talent or both, whom I thought of with affection and respect . . . but only partied or commiserated with, in an unprepossessing, book-lined Second Avenue joint with uncomfortable chairs and wobbly tables.\n\nPeople have accused Elaine's\u2014perhaps because of The Elaine's Friend Syndrome\u2014of superficiality. But I believe there was simply a curious magic to the place that drew me back year after year for decades; I knew there would always be a few of those kindred spirits, heads turning, arms waving me over to join them as I walked through the door. And that was Elaine's doing.\n\nThe night I left Himself and walked into Elaine's, I had no idea why I'd been admitted to the far-flung company of people who always got a table and a quick sit-down from the Big Lady herself. But for some reason, I did. Thousands of others did, too\u2014people who were like me: not especially brilliant or beautiful or famous or fabulous. And they probably don't know why they had been admitted either.\n\nI miss Elaine's and Elaine to this day, terribly. But what I miss most of all is her miraculous, mysterious, and never-to-be replicated recipe for people soup.\nWho's on First? (In Elaine's Bathroom)\n\nRichard Johnson\n\nRichard Johnson, a handsome New Yorker, is less than six degrees of pages or separation from the New York Post's infamous Page Six. Actually, Johnson is Page Six and has been for quite some time. He has seen or heard it all and then some\u2014and then inked it in for the rest of us to wake up to: the zing-a ling a-ling wohza-powza of many a New York\/Hollywood \"scandal.\" Who can resist ripping through a paper with headlines like \"Headless Body Found in Topless Bar\"? And we're just getting warmed up.\n\nWE ASKED RICHARD Johnson for a few of his favorite Elaine's memories. Here goes:\n\nThe best story ever was the one I wrote on Page Six about the night that Gianni Uzielli's girlfriend was caught in flagrante with Mets star Keith Hernandez.\n\nThe two had disappeared after many drinks, and Uzielli finally left the table to look for them. He found her performing fellatio on Hernandez. Then came an operatic scene as the cuckolded Uzielli screamed at the woman, who sobbed.\n\nAs a reporter, the big issue for me the next day was determining whether it had happened in the ladies room, as I had been told, or in the men's room, as Hernandez maintained. This issue being, who followed whom? Who instigated this act of betrayal?\n\nI'll also never forget the night George Plimpton and I debated the JFK assassination and the Warren Commission report. Plimpton believed in the single gunman and the magic bullet. I was and remain convinced Lee Harvey Oswald was set up by co-conspirators.\n\nThen there was the night Bo Dietl and I got into a discussion of Donald Manes's suicide in 1986. Dietl said, \"What a coward. What kind of man leaves his family like that?\"\n\nI remarked that he didn't take the easy way out with pills or carbon monoxide.\n\nHe stabbed himself in the heart with a kitchen knife. That isn't easy.\n\nGood times.\n\"I Would Not Be the Person I Am Today if I Had Not Gone Into Elaine's.\"\n\nLibby Schoettle\n\nElizabeth Schoettle (who often goes by Libby) is a New York City\u2013based mixed\/media collage artist who uses Polaroids as well as found photographs. Libby collects images of women, and girls, specifically in search of ones who bear resemblance to her body (and her mood) as a way to identify with how she is feeling. Libby had her first solo mixed-media art show at Meredith Ward Fine Art NY in 2007 and is currently working on her first memoir-based novel \"revealing\" her life as an artist. As well, she is the subject of a feature documentary film, directed by filmmaker Jyll Johnstone, about her life as this artist. Libby lives and works in New York City.\n\nWHEN I FIRST moved to New York, I lived above a restaurant, where I met Gianni Uzielli (former owner of Uzi's restaurant). We responded to each other in a very past-life kind of way; we were instant friends. I was about twenty-two, it was around 1996. He was probably in is fifties.\n\nGianni took me to Elaine's.\n\nIt was a very powerful experience, going there was an immediate connection for me in terms of the energy and ambiance; I thought, \"This is New York.\"\n\nThere are so many places in New York and Elaine's did not exist anywhere else. Sitting in a front table at Elaine's was not something very common; I just took it for granted. People would look at you, like, who is this person sitting at a door table? I liked the show-star atmosphere and there were all sorts of types in there; you felt like you wanted to be them or know them.\n\nIt was a tough ambiance to recreate. Now people are depressed. There's no club like Elaine's to go into. It was a very mature, comfortable atmosphere and you felt like you belonged there.\n\nI didn't understand Elaine when I first met her, but she had a serious personality and I liked it. I had never met a woman like that. I would see the way she was with her restaurant, the way she managed it, the way she looked around, and which people she let in and which ones she didn't. She was like a man. She didn't back down and she really owned it. I really respected it and really enjoyed her presence. There was something really strong about her.\n\nEveryone liked her or they didn't like her. There was no in-between. I went to Elaine's over a period of fourteen years. At first, she made comments, like, \"What's she doing here?\" It never bothered me because she was so blatant, so honest.\n\nI got to know her as best as I could. We got to a point where she said. \"Let's go shopping. I'll pick you up and we'll go fabric shopping.\" I loved her style for what she was. She was big and she pulled off her clothing so well, and she wanted to take me to her dressmaker. It never happened. I felt kind of important. I mean, we're talking about shopping.\n\nI loved the ladies' room, the posters. You could feel the energy of the dead people who moved on. There was something poetic and romantic about that.\n\nI went to the party Elaine's after Gianni's funeral. I found it very sad. (N.B. Elaine and Gianni had a falling out when he was opening a new restaurant. She felt that he was deliberately taking customers away from her, and their friendship ruptured.)\n\nI felt the emotion between them and they were really close. I felt that when he left, she was never the same. I really felt like she missed him. He was an incredible spark in her life. He was so funny and there was no one like him. There was no one like either of them; their banter was wonderful. They were both very stubborn people. They both thought they were always right. Theirs was a serious falling out. I really felt like she missed him, but couldn't let him back in.\n\nEverywhere I went with Gianni, everyone knew him. I thought it was absolutely miraculous . . . I would not be the person I am today if I had not gone into Elaine's with him. It made me aware of what my taste is. I was so fresh to New York. It was magical to me. It was a perfect match when I walked in there.\nAfterword\n\n\"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.\"\n\n\u2014J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye\n\nTO MANY OF her friends and onlookers, Elaine Kaufman was the author, without the title, that they wanted to know.\n\nHer language wasn't always the King's English: she was often \"short, but not so sweet;\" funny, irascible, New York sarcastic, observant, abusive and better informed than most newscasters and journalists.\n\nShe sat down to enjoy life with her favorite authors, politicians, artists, journalists: those she considered family.\n\nAt times she shared their food, without asking, and billed them for it. No one seemed to mind. It often seemed like the thing to do to criticize Elaine's food. Perhaps that was because that there little else to criticize if you were nestled or ruffled in her ample nest, and longed to stay there.\n\nElaine's was different. Elaine felt comfortable, moving from table to table, and making room at tables for those who were on their own. Some of us have had that opportunity, others never will.\n\nSo many of her friends miss her deeply and know that Elaine and Elaine's shall never be replaced. She leaves behind writers, photographers, and other aspiring souls whose lives she has scrupulously sculpted. Their knowledge, anecdotes, skills, and introductions are welcomed by the next generation.\n\nSo long, Elaine.\n\nYour legend lives on in books, both dog-eared and yet to be written.\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\nLetters by Leonard Bernstein \u00a9 Amberson Holdings LLC. Used by permission of The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc.\n\nAll other letters are the copyright of their respective owners. All rights, including the right of further reproduction or transmission, are reserved.\n\nIntroductory and editorial material copyright \u00a9 2013 Nigel Simeone\n\nAll rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publishers.\n\nFor information about this and other Yale University Press publications, please contact:\n\nU.S. Office: sales.press@yale.edu www.yalebooks.com\n\nEurope Office: sales@yaleup.co.uk www.yalebooks.co.uk\n\nSet in Arno Pro by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd\n\nPrinted in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Data\n\nBernstein, Leonard, 1918\u20131990.  \n[Correspondence. Selections]  \nThe Leonard Bernstein letters \/ edited by Nigel Simeone.  \npages cm  \nIncludes bibliographical references and index.  \nISBN 978\u20130\u2013300\u201317909\u20135 (hardback)  \n1. Bernstein, Leonard, 1918\u20131990\u2014Correspondence. 2. Musicians\u2014United States\u2014Correspondence. 3. Composers\u2014United States\u2014Correspondence. 4. Conductors (Music)\u2014United States\u2014Correspondence. I. Simeone, Nigel, 1956\u2013 editor. II. Title.  \nML410.B566A4 2013  \n780.92\u2014dc23  \n[B]\n\n2013033122\n\nA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.\n\n10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\nFor  \nMark Horowitz,  \nLauren Doughty,  \nand  \nJasmine Simeone\nContents\n\n_List of Illustrations_\n\n_Introduction and Acknowledgments_\n\n**1** Early Years, 1932\u201341 (Letters 1\u201389)\n\n**2** First Successes: From Tanglewood to _On the Town_ , 1941\u20134 (Letters 90\u2013185)\n\n**3** Conquering Europe and Israel, 1945\u20139 (Letters 186\u2013294)\n\n**4** Marriage, Passport Problems, and Italy, 1950\u201355 (Letters 295\u2013358)\n\n**5** _West Side Story_ , 1955\u20137 (Letters 359\u2013409)\n\n**6** The New York Philharmonic Years, 1958\u201369 (Letters 410\u2013544)\n\n**7** Triumphs, Controversies, Catastrophe, 1970\u201378 (Letters 545\u2013591)\n\n**8** Final Years, 1979\u201390 (Letters 592\u2013650)\n\n_Appendix One: Arthur Laurents (with Leonard Bernstein): Outline for Romeo_ sent to _Jerome Robbins_\n\n_Appendix Two: Bernstein's Letters and Postcards to Mildred Spiegel_\n\n_Bibliography_\n\n_Index of Compositions by Leonard Bernstein_\n\n_General Index_\nIllustrations\n\nEndpapers. Letter from Bernstein to his mother, Israel, November 1948, illustrated by Yossi Stern.\n\n 1. Leonard Bernstein at the piano, 1936.\n\n 2. Leonard Bernstein conducting Stravinsky's _Soldier's Tale_ at Tanglewood, 1940. Photo: _Berkshire Eagle_.\n\n 3. The Revuers, 1940s.\n\n 4. Leonard Bernstein, 24 May 1944. Photo: Carl van Vechten.\n\n 5. Leonard Bernstein in Hollywood, 1944, with his portable typewriter.\n\n 6. Leonard Bernstein and Lukas Foss, 1944.\n\n 7. Leonard Bernstein with Jerome Robbins, Betty Comden and Adolph Green working on _On the Town_ , 1944.\n\n 8. Leonard Bernstein with Aaron Copland at Bernardsville, NJ, August 1945.\n\n 9. Leonard Bernstein studying the vocal score of Stravinsky's _Oedipus Rex_. Photo: William P. Gottlieb.\n\n10. Two photographs of Leonard Bernstein in his West 10th Street apartment, c. 1946. Photo: William P. Gottlieb.\n\n11. A series of photographs of Bernstein conducting in Carnegie Hall, c. 1946. Photo: William P. Gottlieb.\n\n12. Bette Davis, c. 1940s.\n\n13. David Diamond, c. 1945.\n\n14. James M. Cain.\n\n15. Serge Koussevitzky with Leonard Bernstein and Lukas Foss, 1949. Photo: Whitestone Photo, Heinz-H. Wasserstein.\n\n16. Leonard Bernstein with David Oppenheim.\n\n17. Leonard Bernstein at a kibbutz in Israel, festival of Shavuot, 22 May 1950. Photo: Behr, Tel-Aviv.\n\n18. Martha Gellhorn with Ernest Hemingway at the Stork Club, New York, 1941.\n\n19. Leonard Bernstein with Stephen Sondheim and Jerome Robbins working on _West Side Story_. Photo: Alfred Eisenstaedt, published in _Life_ , 7 January 1957.\n\n20. Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins being presented with the Key to Washington D.C. by Commissioner Robert E. McLaughlin, 31 August 1957. Photo: Nate Fine.\n\n21. Leonard and Burton Bernstein skiing, 1958.\n\n22. Felicia Bernstein as Joan in Honegger's _Joan of Arc at the Stake_ , 1958. Photo: Carl van Vechten.\n\n23. Lukas Foss.\n\n24. Sid Ramin, on the back cover of his LP _Love is a Swinging Word_. RCA Victor, released in 1959.\n\n25. Leonard and Felicia Bernstein with Boris Pasternak, Moscow, 1959.\n\n26. Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland with the score of _El Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_ , c. 1960.\n\n27. Leonard Bernstein at the MacDowell Colony, working on _Kaddish_ , 1962. Photo: Bernice Perry.\n\n28. Leonard Bernstein: canon written for Humphrey Burton and Erik Smith, 25 March 1977. Humphrey Burton, private collection.\n\n29. Jacqueline Kennedy with Leonard and Felicia Bernstein and their children Alexander and Jamie at the Theatre De Lys, New York, 28 June 1965. Photo: Bettmann\/Corbis.\n\n1 Leonard Bernstein at the piano in 1936.\n\n2 Leonard Bernstein conducting Stravinsky's _Soldier's Tale_ at Tanglewood in 1940 in a version with Bernstein's own words (see Letter 57). Serge Koussevitzky and his wife Natalie are looking down from the balcony. The inscription reads \"For Helen [Coates]: Le commencement de 'L'Histoire d'un \u00e9l\u00e8ve' \u2013 with much love. Lenny, Aug. 1940\".\n\n3 The Revuers (left to right): Adolph Green, John Frank, Betty Comden, Alvin Hammer, Judy Holliday, 1940s.\n\n4 Leonard Bernstein, 24 May 1944.\n\n5 Leonard Bernstein in Hollywood with his portable typewriter in 1944.\n\n6 Leonard Bernstein and Lukas Foss in 1944.\n\n7 Leonard Bernstein with Jerome Robbins, Betty Comden and Adolph Green working on _On the Town_ in 1944.\n\n8 Leonard Bernstein with Aaron Copland at Bernardsville, NJ, in August 1945.\n\n9 Leonard Bernstein studying the vocal score of Stravinsky's _Oedipus Rex_ , a work he conducted with the New York City Symphony in November 1946.\n\n10 Two photographs of Leonard Bernstein in his West 10th Street apartment, c. 1946. The signed photograph on the grand piano is inscribed \"To my very dear Lenushka with all my faith, hope and love, Serge Koussevitzky\".\n\n11 A series of photographs of Bernstein conducting in Carnegie Hall, c. 1946.\n\n12 Bette Davis in the 1940s.\n\n13 David Diamond c. 1945.\n\n14 James M. Cain, with whom Bernstein corresponded about a proposed setting of Cain's novel _Serenade_ in 1947.\n\n15 Serge Koussevitzkywith Leonard Bernstein and Lukas Foss, celebrating Koussevitzky's 74th birthday in 1949.\n\n16 Leonard Bernstein with David Oppenheim.\n\n17 Leonard Bernstein at a kibbutz in Israel1 festival of Shavuot1 22 May 1950.\n\n18 Martha Gellhorn with Ernest Hemingway at the Stork Club, New York, in 1941.\n\n19 Leonard Bernstein with Stephen Sondheim and Jerome Robbins working on _West Side Story_.\n\n20 Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins being presented with the Key to Washington D.C. by Commissioner Robert E. McLaughlin, 31 August 1957.\n\n21 Leonard and Burton Bernstein skiing in 1958.\n\n22 Felicia Bernstein as Joan in Honegger's _Joan of Arc at the Stake_ , 1958.\n\n23 Lukas Foss\n\n24 Sid Ramin, on the back cover of his LP _Love is a Swinging Word_ (RCA Victor, released in 1959). To the right of Ramin's photo is an endorsement by Bernstein: \"I have known Sid Ramin since we were both thirteen. I was impressed with his great musicality then, and have continued to be more and more impressed ever since. His work with me (and Irv Kostal) on _West Side Story_ was invaluable \u2013 sensitive, strong, and facile. Long may he wave!\"\n\n25 Leonard and Felicia Bernstein with Boris Pasternak, Moscow, 1959.\n\n26 Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland with the score of _El Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_ , c. 1960.\n\n27 Leonard Bernstein at the MacDowell Colony in 1962, working on _Kaddish_.\n\n28 Leonard Bernstein: canon written for Humphrey Burton and Erik Smith, 25 March 1977. The text reads: \"Humphrey Burton is forty-six, so is Erik Smith. Erik Smith is forty-six, so is Humphrey Burton.\" Burton recalls the occasion on which it was written: \"We dined with LB at the Garrick Club, which is where he produced his composition and we all lustily joined in an impromptu performance, so far as I am aware never repeated\".\n\n29 Jacqueline Kennedy with Leonard and Felicia Bernstein and their children Alexander and Jamie at the Theatre De Lys, New York, on 28 June 1965. The occasion was the opening night of _Leonard Bernstein's Theatre Songs_ , a revue featuring songs from shows for which Bernstein composed the music.\nIntroduction and Acknowledgments\n\nThe Beginning of the Project\n\nIn early 2010, just after finishing a book about _West Side Story_ , I was in the Performing Arts Reading Room at the Library of Congress, talking to Mark Horowitz about possible future projects. Mark's position as a Senior Music Specialist in the Music Division includes responsibility for the Leonard Bernstein Collection \u2013 so he knows this enormous archive better than anyone. In the course of one of our frequent chats, Mark made an apparently straightforward suggestion: \"Why don't you do a book of the correspondence?\" Those words lodged in my mind and the idea quickly began to take root.\n\nOne reason _not_ to do the letters was their sheer bulk: many tens of thousands of them, grouped in different series: Personal Correspondence, Writings (which include few but wonderful letters), Fan Mail, and Business Papers \u2013 taking up hundreds of linear feet. But the temptation of working with Bernstein's correspondence was far too exciting a challenge to let these statistics \u2013 however daunting \u2013 get in the way. Betty Comden wrote to Bernstein back in 1950 about how he saved \"every scrap of correspondence [...] from Koussevitzky's pages on life, music, and your career \u2013 to Auntie Clara's hot denunciations of meat\" (Letter 301). How right she was. I already knew some of the letters from earlier research, and a trawl through the general correspondence was enough to demonstrate what an engrossing project this could be.\n\nBut how best to approach the task? The Bernstein Collection, used in conjunction with others in the Library of Congress, offered an enticing option: to present correspondence both to and from Bernstein. This was also made possible thanks to the efforts of Charlie Harmon at the Leonard Bernstein Office: after Bernstein's death in 1990, Harmon contacted significant people in Bernstein's life requesting photocopies of the letters they had received from him, and these copies were integrated into the folders in the Bernstein Collection. The Library of Congress already had Aaron Copland's and Serge Koussevitzky's papers, and it acquired David Diamond's in the course of my research. I drew up a preliminary selection of letters in early 2010 and set to work on the process of transcription and annotation. By the end of that year, the selection needed major revision \u2013 for the best of reasons. At the end of 2010, the Bernstein estate decided that a substantial group of letters sealed after his death should be made available, and added to the Bernstein Collection in the Library of Congress. Many of these \"new\" letters turned out to be enthralling: personal, funny, and revealing. As work progressed, still more letters came to light (thanks to the generosity of the recipients, or their heirs), and I was in a position to make a final selection \u2013 acutely aware, of course, that more Bernstein letters will emerge in the future.\n\nThe selection of correspondence in _The Leonard Bernstein Letters_ is necessarily a personal choice: there were some very difficult decisions to be made in terms of what to leave out, and there is scope \u2013 and more than enough correspondence \u2013 for several further volumes. To give just a couple of examples: I have omitted most of the correspondence with his sister Shirley (including a large number of letters, mostly undated, written while she was a student at Mount Holyoke College) and from his brother Burton. A book of Bernstein family letters could make for fascinating reading. Many of them, however, concern family matters, and I had already decided that my principal focus for this book should be on correspondence that told us something about Bernstein himself, and particularly his life as a musician. It is for a similar reason that I have omitted most of the letters from Martha Gellhorn \u2013 many of them have little to say about music \u2013 though I have included a splendid letter about _West Side Story_ and a most revealing one about her marriage to Ernest Hemingway.1\n\nIlluminating a Musical Life\n\nAnyone interested in Bernstein has the great advantage of Humphrey Burton's superbly researched and beautifully written biography. Twenty years after its first publication, it remains definitive as well as enthralling, and subsequent writers on Bernstein owe Humphrey Burton a great debt of gratitude. The present book would have been unthinkable without his work, but it sets out to do something different. While Burton quotes from a good deal of correspondence, his main purpose is to tell a life story. In _The Leonard Bernstein Letters_ I have aimed to allow the letters mostly to speak for themselves, rather than to be woven into a linear biographical narrative. In addition, a number of letters have emerged or become available since Burton's book was published in 1994.\n\nOne of the delights of the Bernstein Collection is its astonishing breadth: there's extensive correspondence not only with those working in music, but also with writers, politicians, film stars, artists, journalists \u2013 and long-standing friends who offered Bernstein support at times when he needed it. I have tried to reflect something of the range of these friendships. Even so, it is as a gigantic _musical_ personality that Bernstein is remembered, and this has been my primary criterion for choosing the letters to include in what is the first published volume devoted to Bernstein's correspondence. In terms of other composers, Bernstein was in very close contact with Aaron Copland from the end of the 1930s onwards, and he also had an extensive correspondence with David Diamond stretching over five decades \u2013 a group of letters sometimes marked by tetchiness on Bernstein's part, and by a tendency to over-sensitivity on Diamond's. Such is the volume of the correspondence that I have had to omit letters from other close musical friends such as Paul Bowles and Irving Fine. These deserve to see the light of day in a future publication. In addition to correspondence with composers and performers, I have also aimed to include letters that chart the genesis of Bernstein's compositions. Two of his first big successes were collaborations with Jerome Robbins: a ballet ( _Fancy Free_ ) and a musical ( _On the Town_ ). In the case of _Fancy Free_ , much of it was conceived and composed while Robbins and Bernstein were working away from home. As a result, there was detailed discussion by letter. It's frustrating that Robbins' letters to Bernstein about this ballet seem not to have survived. (Bernstein was constantly moving house at the time \u2013 and it was just before the arrival on the scene of his assistant, Helen Coates, who ensured that everything thereafter was carefully saved.) However, Bernstein's letters to Robbins constitute a fascinating chronicle of the work's composition. _On the Town_ is a very different case: a collaboration where those concerned were working in the same place at the same time. As a result, there is no substantial correspondence about it with any of the collaborators (Bernstein, Robbins, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green) \u2013 indeed, in 1945, just after the show had opened on Broadway Comden mentioned in a letter to Bernstein that it was the first time she had written him since 1941.\n\n_West Side Story_ presents a more complex case \u2013 partly because it took so long to get started. A fascinating letter from Arthur Laurents, undated, but probably written in April 1949, raises some detailed points responding to what had evidently been a difficult phone conversation with Bernstein. A follow-up letter from Laurents (Letter 283) reveals that Bernstein considered pulling out of the project altogether. In 1955, the collaboration was revived, with greater determination on all sides to see it through. Again, there are some revealing letters, especially one from Robbins in which he responds in detail to Laurents and Bernstein about a draft scenario. Stephen Sondheim joined the creative team just after this, but there is no correspondence with him about the show until the opening night on Broadway (26 September 1957; Letter 402); then, a few weeks later, a marvelous description of the sessions for the original cast recording and the trials and tribulations of the show early in its run. Sondheim and Bernstein were not only in the same town but often in the same room while they were working on _West Side Story_ , so the lack of correspondence during its creation shouldn't come as a surprise. That it was a happy creative partnership from the start, we learn from letters sent to other people: Bernstein wrote to his brother Burton in October 1955 that \" _Romeo_ proceeds apace, with a new young lyricist named Steve Sondheim, who is going to work out wonderfully\" (Letter 363). The final stages of _West Side Story_ are described by Bernstein in an engrossing series of letters to his wife Felicia, full of interesting details as well as his excitement, frustration, exhaustion, and optimism.\n\nBernstein's descriptions of his concerts reveal some recurring tensions. He often wrote (without irony) of his \"triumphs\" on the podium, but his phenomenal public success in the United States, in Europe, and in Israel was often tempered by an underlying frustration: after describing yet another acclaimed performance, Bernstein would sometimes declare that he was going to do less and less conducting, in order to devote time to what really mattered to him \u2013 composition.\n\nIt was conducting that gave him the opportunity to travel extensively, and Bernstein wrote some memorable letters home describing the places he visited. From being a young man who told his Harvard friends that he wasn't sure whether European travel was for him, he became not only a globe-trotting maestro but also an unusually observant traveler, writing about the sights and sounds of Prague, London, and Paris in the years after the Second World War, of months spent in Italy in 1955, of South America, Japan, and \u2013 most touching of all, perhaps \u2013 the accounts of his long visit to Israel during the 1948 war.\n\n\"Every one I love, I love passionately\"2\n\nMusic was Bernstein's greatest and most constant passion. But his love life was an essential part of his make-up, and his letters allow us to form a fuller picture of an emotional life that was full of twists and turns \u2013 neatly summarized by the conducter Marin Alsop in 2010: \"Clearly, he was comfortable with being sexual in many different ways and yet he wanted a traditional life, with a wife and children to whom he was devoted. He was a complex, complex man, and complex people have complex personal lives.\"3 Intriguing as the letters are from those (usually men) with whom Bernstein had relationships during the 1940s, I have chosen instead to focus on Bernstein's own attitude to his sexuality, and its implications for his career. In correspondence with Copland and David Oppenheim in particular, and in some letters to his sister Shirley and to Diamond, he explores his sexual identity, often revealing a state of confusion and inner conflict. On the one hand, his background inculcated traditional values and relationships \u2013 ultimately marriage; on the other, his preferences in the 1940s were usually for men. Once his college studies were over, he began a process of self-exploration with the psychoanalyst he called the \"Frau\" \u2013 Marketa Morris. As we can see from their letters, he shared the same analyst with Oppenheim (with whom Bernstein had a close, surely intimate relationship in the early 1940s; their friendship was lifelong).\n\nIt's no surprise that Bernstein remained silent on the subject of his sexuality in letters to Koussevitzky \u2013 until, that is, he proudly announced his first engagement to Felicia in December 1946, suggesting a picture of his sexuality that was at best incomplete. Bernstein himself was anxious that his sex life might have a damaging impact on his employment prospects, fearing he could have difficulty finding a job as a conductor if it became known that he was gay.\n\nIt's worth pausing for a moment to consider the cultural and social context that gave Bernstein such concern about how others might view his sexuality. Many American psychoanalysts in the 1930s and 1940s considered homosexuality to be a mental illness that could respond to \"treatment\". The research by Alfred Kinsey and others published in 1948 as _Sexual Behavior in the Human Male_ (the first \"Kinsey Report\") attempted to codify degrees of homosexual, heterosexual, and asexual behavior in men with the \"Kinsey Scale\", aiming to demonstrate that men did not fit into neat and exclusive categories.4\n\nThere was a predictably violent reaction to Kinsey's findings: among others, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, was quick to denounce the findings in the pages of _Reader's Digest_ : \"Man's sense of decency declares what is normal and what is not. Whenever the American people, young or old, come to believe that there is no such thing as right or wrong, normal or abnormal, those who would destroy civilization will applaud a major victory over our way of life.\"5 In other words, homosexuality, like communism, was \"Un-American\". Two years later, in December 1950, the austerely named Senate Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments issued a report on the \"Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government,\" coming to the hair-raising conclusion that \"homosexuals and other sex perverts are not proper persons to be employed in Government for two reasons; first, they are generally unsuitable, and second, they constitute security risks.\"6\n\nBernstein was not, of course, seeking employment in the government, but he craved acceptance. There's little solid evidence to suggest that conductors were not appointed to particular positions because of their homosexuality in the 1940s and 1950s, though Dimitri Mitropoulos apparently believed he had been victimized. But several of the most highly regarded figures in the arts were homosexuals, not least Aaron Copland, who had, by the mid-1940s, become the most popular and distinctive voice in American classical music. Bernstein, however, aspired to be the music director of a major American orchestra and felt\u2013 rightly or wrongly \u2013 that he needed to demonstrate he was a conventional, traditional family man. Despite Bernstein's frequent protestations that he craved the more private life of a composer (where his sexuality would not have been an issue), he could never let go of conducting as an essential part of his career.\n\nWhat he didn't need to worry about as much was the possible impact his sexuality might have on his marriage \u2013 at least not as far as his chosen partner, Felicia Montealegre, was concerned. She knew what she was committing herself to: just after they married, she wrote: \"you are a homosexual and may never change [...] I am willing to accept you as you are, without being a martyr or sacrificing myself on the L.B. altar (Letter 320).\"\n\nAfter a shaky start (mainly due to Bernstein's initial tendency to regard marriage as a kind of experiment), the relationship of Leonard and Felicia blossomed \u2013 particularly after Jamie, the first of their children, was born in 1952. An exceptionally bright child, it's clear from Bernstein's letters home how much he adored her. The same love shines through in Bernstein's comments on all his children (Jamie, Alexander, and Nina); and his absolute devotion to Felicia is apparent in many letters from the early 1950s until the mid-1970s. It was a relationship that had its rocky moments, but only with the crisis of 1976 and their \"trial separation\" did it threaten to fall apart. At the end of his life, Bernstein joked to Jonathan Cott that \"you need love, and that's why I have ten thousand intimate friends which is unfair to them because I can't give any one of them everything\".7 But for a quarter of a century, Felicia was the exception: she was unquestionably the greatest love of his life.\n\nEditorial Method\n\nOriginal spellings have been preserved (except where stated otherwise), as have ampersands and punctuation in the main texts of letters, though opening salutations have been standardized to be followed by a comma. Names have sometimes been added in square brackets for the sake of clarification. Titles of works that would normally be italicized in a printed text ( _West Side Story, Fancy Free, The Age of Anxiety_ ) have been italicized. In the original letters they appear in a variety of styles \u2013 in double quotation marks, in single quotation marks, underlined, in capital letters, in plain text. For the sake of consistency, I decided to standardize their presentation. Words underlined in letters have been italicized. Dates of letters are presented in a standardized day-month-year format, the form usually preferred by Bernstein himself. Where a date (or part of a date) is uncertain, or speculative, or deduced from the content of a letter, it is given in square brackets. Addresses have been standardized, and for the sake of avoiding ambiguity, those sent from outside the United States include the country. Those sent from within the United States include the standard two-letter state codes (NY, MA, CA, and so on). In rare cases where a word is unreadable, this has been noted in square brackets. Most letters are presented complete, but where cuts have been made, or where only an extract has been included, these are shown by an ellipsis in square brackets, thus: [...]. In many cases the letters speak for themselves, but occasionally clarification or further explanation is necessary, and those letters can have quite extensive notes. I have also included short notes about all the correspondents (at the end of the first letter to or from the person concerned). In the case of a particularly long or complex document such as Bernstein's 1953 affidavit, I thought it useful to include an explanatory note exploring the context in greater detail.\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nMy largest debt of gratitude is to Mark Horowitz of the Library of Congress. I am immensely grateful to him for planting the idea for the project in the first place, and for all his subsequent help and advice, his constant support and encouragement, and his friendship. During many visits to the Performing Arts Reading Room of the Library, every single member of the staff I've encountered has been helpful and as done a great deal to make my research easier.\n\nMarie Carter, Vice-President of Licensing and Publishing at the Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc., has been encouraging from the start, and extremely helpful throughout. I am deeply grateful for her patience in answering my numerous queries and the wisdom of her replies, and for allowing me access to newly released correspondence at the earliest possible opportunity.\n\nMervyn Cooke offered a number of invaluable suggestions after reading an early draft of the text. His wisdom and experience have done much to improve the book.\n\nSophie Redfern shared the fruits of her own research on Bernstein's early ballets with overwhelming generosity, and also read the text from start to finish with a most careful and discriminating eye. I am enormously grateful to her.\n\nFor various acts of kindness \u2013 large and small \u2013 there are many people I need to thank, including Mark Audus, Peter and Mary Bacon, Stephen Banfield, Adam Binks, Humphrey Burton, Marius Carney, William Crawford, Lauren Doughty, Barry Irving, Libby Jones, Barbara Kelly, John McClure, Dominic McHugh, Richard Marshall, Gary O'Shea, Tom Owen, Robert Pascall, Caroline Rae, Catherine C. Rivers, Reggie and Josephine Simeone, M\u00e1ire Taylor, John Tyrrell, and, most importantly, my extraordinary wife Jasmine.\n\nThe editor and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce copyright material in this book. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions, and would be grateful for any corrections, which will be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book. For kind permission to quote letters, I thank the following individuals and institutions: The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc., Ellen Adler, Marin Alsop, the Richard Avedon Foundation, the Britten-Pears Foundation, Humphrey Burton, Victor Cahn, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., Christopher Davis (Marc Blitzstein), Sam Elliott (David Diamond) Martin Fischer-Dieskau Cornelia Foss (Lukas Foss), Very Rev. Nicholas Frayling (Walter Hussey), David Grossberg (Alan Jay Lerner), the Barbara Hogensen Agency (Thornton Wilder), Janis Ian, Pat Jaffe (David Oppenheim), Jay Julien (Farley Granger), Caroline Kennedy, Marko Kleiber, Alexandra Laederich (Centre international Nadia et Lili Boulanger), Maureen Lipman, Sandy Matthews (Martha Gellhorn), Michael Merrill (Bette Davis), Laurie Miller, Phyllis Newman (Adolph Green), Tom Oppenheim, Christopher Pennington (Robbins Rights Trust), Shirley Gabis Perle, Eddie Pietzak (Elia Kazan), Menahem Pressler, Andr\u00e9 Previn, Harold Prince (Saul Chaplin), Sid Ramin, Mary Rodgers, Isabella de Sabata, Gunther Schuller, Anthony and Andrea Schuman, Lady Valerie Solti, Stephen Sondheim, Stockhausen Stiftung f\u00fcr Musik, John Stravinsky, Margaret Styne, the Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; and Stanford University Library.\n\nAt Yale University Press, my proposal for this book was taken up with the sort of enthusiasm that would warm any writer's heart. When I first presented the project to Robert Baldock and Malcolm Gerratt, their eagerness did much to spur me on, and Malcolm has calmly nurtured the book throughout. Tami Halliday's eagle-eyed reading during the book's final stages was of the greatest assistance. Candida Brazil has overseen the editing of my unwieldy manuscript with kindness and skill. Steve Kent devised the attractive layout and design of the book. Thanks are also due to Lauren Doughty for compiling the index. The text has been improved beyond recognition by the copy-editing of Richard Mason and the proof-reading of Vanessa Mitchell. All its faults, however, are mine.\n\nNigel Simeone\n\nRushden, Northamptonshire\n\nJune 2013\n\n1 Other letters from Gellhorn to Bernstein are to be found in Moorehead 2006, pp. 265, 277\u20139, 280\u20132, 290, 292\u20133, 317\u201318, 323\u20134, 351\u20132, 413\u201314, 438, and 482\u20133. The letter about Hemingway is not included in Moorehead 2006.\n\n2 Leonard Bernstein to Mark Adams Taylor, quoted in Burton 1994, p. 507.\n\n3 Dougary 2010.\n\n4 Kinsey, Alfred C., Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin (1948): _Sexual Behavior in the Human Male_. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders.\n\n5 J. Edgar Hoover, contribution to \"Must We Change our Sex Standards?\", _Reader's Digest_ , June 1948, p. 6.\n\n6 This report is reprinted in Foster, Thomas A., ed. (2013): _Documenting Intimate Matters: Primary Sources for a History of Sexuality in America_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 144\u20137. According to an editorial note (p. 144): \"More homosexuals than communists were fired from federal jobs in this period [the 1950s].\"\n\n7 Cott 2013, p. 77.\n1\n\nEarly Years\n\n1932\u201341\n\nLeonard Bernstein was born on 25 August 1918, the first child of Jennie and Samuel Bernstein, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 25 miles north of Boston. He attended the William Lloyd Garrison Elementary School in Roxbury, 35 miles from Lawrence, then, from 1929 to 1935, the prestigious Boston Latin School \u2013 founded in 1635. The oldest public school in the United States, its distinguished alumni included five Founding Fathers of the United States (among them Benjamin Franklin), the author Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the Puritan preacher Cotton Mather. The most famous musician to attend Boston Latin School before Bernstein was Arthur Fiedler (1894\u20131979), conductor of the Boston Pops for half a century. It was here that Bernstein's interest in languages and literature began to flourish, but what already obsessed him as a teenager was music. His first piano lessons (in 1928) were from Frieda Karp, the daughter of a neighbor, who charged $1 an hour for a lesson. Bernstein remembered her as \"unbelievably beautiful and exotic looking,\"1 and his musical progress under her tutelage was swift. By 1930, he was taking lessons from Susan Williams at the New England Conservatory of Music, and in 1932 he auditioned with a former pupil of Theodor Leschetizky, Heinrich Gebhard, a distinguished soloist and the most sought-after piano teacher in Boston at the time. Gebhard believed that there was still fundamental technical work to be done, so he suggested Bernstein first take lessons with his assistant, Helen Coates. Bernstein's first communication with Miss Coates \u2013 who became his devoted secretary in 1944 until her death in 1989 \u2013 is also the earliest letter in this book. She taught him until 1935, when she sent him on to Gebhard, but by then they had become firm and devoted friends. Other friends and contemporaries with whom Bernstein corresponded regularly during his years at Boston Latin School, and later Harvard, included Sid Ramin, Beatrice Gordon, and Mildred Spiegel. Bernstein's letters to Sid Ramin are overflowing with shared enthusiasm for new musical discoveries \u2013 and talk of girlfriends \u2013 while to Beatrice Gordon he is passionate, self-revealing, and poetic. With very few exceptions, Bernstein's correspondence with Mildred Spiegel (later Mildred Zucker) has not been made public, but as this book goes to press the Library of Congress anticipates adding these letters to its collection shortly. They document an important and lasting friendship. Descriptions of this correspondence can be found in Appendix Two.\n\nBernstein mentions difficulties with his father in a number of his letters from the 1930s. A one-page essay written by Bernstein on 11 February 1935 entitled \"Father's Books\" begins: \"My father is a very complicated human being. A man of irregular temperament and unusual convictions, he is a rare combination of the shrewd businessman and ardent religionist.\" He was also an implacable opponent of Bernstein's pursuit of a career in music, and relations between father and son were often strained. His mother, by contrast, provided a warm, supportive household in which her son's ambitions flourished.\n\nIt was while studying music at Harvard University (1935\u20139) that Bernstein made some of his most important friendships: three of them in 1937. In January that year, he met the conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos, an encounter that left a deep impression on him. Then, as a music counselor at Camp Onota near Pittsfield, Massachusetts in the summer, Bernstein instantly formed a close bond with Adolph Green, who was to give him some of his first paid work (as pianist for The Revuers, nightclub performers of songs and comedy material, including Betty Comden, Green, and Judy Holliday) and who collaborated with him on two Broadway shows ( _On The Town_ and _Wonderful Town_ ). Finally, on 14 November, during a chance encounter at a dance recital in New York, Bernstein met Aaron Copland \u2013 father figure, confidant, and the closest Bernstein came to having a composition teacher.\n\nThough it was as a pianist that Bernstein first attracted the attention of the local press, he confided to some of his closest friends that his real interest was conducting. In 1936 he wrote to Beatrice Gordon about auditioning to be assistant conductor of Harvard's Pierian Sodality (founded in 1808, and now known as the Harvard\u2013Radcliffe Orchestra); at Camp Onota in 1937 he was photographed for the local paper conducting a group of children. In 1939, during his Senior Year at Harvard, Bernstein appeared for the first time as a composer\u2013-conductor (directing his incidental music for a production of Aristophanes' _The Birds_ ), and he directed Marc Blitzstein's musical _The Cradle Will Rock_ from the piano.\n\nAfter graduating from Harvard, Bernstein was uncertain about his future. He spent the summer of 1939 looking for a job in New York (sharing an apartment with Adolph Green), and explored the possibility of studying conducting at the Juilliard School (but he had missed the deadline). His only realistic option was to audition for the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia \u2013 specifically for the conducting class taught by Fritz Reiner \u2013 and he was admitted. From 1939 to 1941, he studied with teachers who were all at the top of their respective fields: conducting with Reiner, the piano with Isabelle Venegerova, orchestration with Randall Thompson, counterpoint with Richard St\u00f6hr, and score-reading with Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle.\n\nFinding Philadelphia a grim and dirty place, Bernstein would escape to New York for weekends at the slightest opportunity. His years at Curtis were marked by some important firsts, including his earliest professional recordings. These demonstrated his versatility, playing improvised incidental music and song accompaniments for _The Girl with the Two Left Feet_ by The Revuers, and recording a Prelude and Fugue by David Diamond (less than five minutes of music about which Bernstein received long, anguished letters from the composer while preparing for the recording). In the summer of 1940 \u2013 midway through his studies at Curtis \u2013 Bernstein attended the inaugural summer course of the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, to study conducting with the legendary Serge Koussevitzky. Mentor and pupil quickly became friends, and that summer Bernstein conducted the Second Symphony by Randall Thompson. Before the end of his studies in Philadelphia, Bernstein's first musical publication had also appeared in print: his solo piano transcription of Copland's _El Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_. He received his conducting diploma from Curtis in May 1941 \u2013 not a moment too soon, as he had been desperate to get away from the stifling atmosphere of Philadelphia.\n\nAt the first opportunity, Bernstein headed to Boston, where his years of study came full circle: he returned to Harvard to conduct the new incidental music that he had composed for a production of _The Peace_ by Aristophanes. With war raging in Europe, it was a poignant choice. Back in January 1941, one of Bernstein's closest friends at Harvard \u2013 his room-mate, Al Eisner \u2013 had died in his early twenties. Eisner's letters from Hollywood are among the funniest and the most brilliant of all Bernstein's correspondents during his time at Curtis, while there was also a lively correspondence with Kenneth Ehrman, another Harvard friend, with whom Bernstein shared hopes, fears, and doubts about what his future in music might be.\n\n1. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates2\n\n8 Pleasanton Street, Roxbury, MA\n\n15 October 1932\n\nDear Miss Coates,\n\nI recently had an interview with Mr. Gebhard at his home. He was very encouraging in his remarks, and referred me to you as a teacher, with an occasional lesson from himself.\n\nHaving talked the matter over at home, I have decided to study with you, taking one lesson every two weeks. Would you please let me know by mail or phone when it would be convenient for you to give me my first lesson?3\n\nHoping to have the pleasure of studying with you soon,\n\nSincerely yours,\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\n2. Leonard Bernstein to Sid Ramin4\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n26 June 19335\n\nDear Sid,\n\nI couldn't possibly write to you on newspaper (which was all the stationery we had in the house). I didn't until, a couple of days ago, I bought a box of stationery. So here I am and I have so darned much to tell you I don't know where to begin. Let's see...\n\nFirst, I don't know if 40 is the right number Walnut Ave, but I'll take a chance. But I've got much more important news. _Turn over and see!_\n\nI bought _Bolero_!!!\n\nWell, well! You see, I didn't know it was arranged for 1 piano, but I happened to see it in Homeyer's window. Of course dad gave me the necessary $0.80 as he is so enthused about the piece. So for the past week it's been nothing but _Bolero_. My mother says I'm boleroing her head off. But am I in heaven! It's all written in French, and it's all repeats. In the original orchestral score, they repeat four times, but I repeat only once \u2013 which is enough because it gets boresome on the same instrument all the time, and repeating once takes 10 minutes anyway. And I can't get over it. Of course it doesn't come up to the way the orchestra plays it, but it's marvelous anyway. And the ending! Speaking of cacophony!! Boom! Crash! Discord! Sock! Brrrr-rr!! (down the scale).\n\nWell now that I've got that off my chest I feel better. Oh you have got to hear it soon. But my piano is so lousy that one note doesn't play \u2013 but it serves the purpose.\n\nI'll write you again soon and tell you a convenient time to come to Sharon, etcetera, and so forth, Amen.\n\nBut first write me \u2013 immediately \u2013 please don't forget. I'm dying to see and hear from you. Answer soon \u2013 meanwhile\n\nLenny\n\nIs waiting.\n\nP.S. I'm starting to teach my mother jazz! Heh! Heh!\n\nP.P.S. I arrived home at 3.00 this A.M. Some time.\n\nP.P.P.S. Write soon. Sincerely, L.B.\n\n3. Leonard Bernstein to Sid Ramin\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n14 July 1933\n\nDear Sid,\n\nI'm going to fool you twice. First \u2013 I'm not following your pattern on the envelope \u2013 you know, the \"US\" stuff. Know why? You couldn't guess in a million years. The post office complained about your exalted style \u2013 and \"hope it shall be discontinued in the future.\" Imagine! So... But don't let it worry you.\n\nThe second way I'm fooling you is that I _did_ hear Fray and Braggiotti6 Tues. night. Were they swell! I was praying you were listening too. Will we have plenty to try over when you come. I hope it's lousy.\n\nListen, you probably know that the Chicago Civic Opera is putting on _Aida_ \u2013 open-air \u2013 at Braves Field the 20th of this month. It looks like my father might take me. Wanna come? I'll be in town Mon. to get tickets. So expect a call from me Monday morning and tell me whether or not you're coming so I'll buy you a ticket. It'll be swell \u2013 a real big production \u2013 so try and come \u2013 I'm dying to see you anyway. So be ready Monday to say \"Yes\".\n\nGosh, I'm not in a letter-writing mood today, as you can probably see \u2013 this letter is a flop. But I'm tired from over-sleep. About 12 hours a night. I'll have to stay up all night tonight to make it up.\n\nListen, you come to see _Aida_ with me, and we'll discuss all about your coming out here \u2013 in a week or two, I think.\n\nWell a kid just called for me to go swimming \u2013 so I'll close here.\n\nSay \u2013 write longer letters; that last one was no answer for my 7-page letter.\n\nWrite soon.\n\nExpect call Mon.\n\nRegards to all.\n\nSincerely,\n\nLenny\n\nP.S. Try to come next Thurs.\n\nP.P.S. Fray & Braggiotti also played _Espa\u00f1a_.\n\n4. Leonard Bernstein to Sid Ramin\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n18 July 1933\n\nDear Sid,\n\nYou didn't receive a call from me Mon. morning as we are not going to see _Aida_ \u2013 that is, my father isn't, so that's where the \"we\" comes in. That's my whole card. Much as I hate to waste the rest of the card's worth, I have nothing more to write \u2013 so I must.\n\nSo long,\n\nLenny\n\nLetter following.\n\n5. Leonard Bernstein to Sid Ramin\n\n[Sharon, MA]\n\n25 July, 11:05 a.m. [1933]\n\nDear Sid,\n\nI have a letter of letters in store for you (if I can get this pen to write).\n\nThere \u2013 that's better. I have so much news to write that it would take a telephone book to write it all. So I thought that it's as good an excuse as any to invite you, and you can come any time you want between now and Christmas. Only drop me a card letting me know when so that I can expect you. But make it darn soon. Tomorrow isn't soon enough.\n\nWell, little Lenny has turned chauffeur! In the past week I have driven (in the old Chrysler) some 90 miles. Yesterday I did 60 [miles] an hour to and from Newton on the new road. What a life! My mother calls me \"a good driver but a little reckless.\" But who could resist 60 on that road? We went to Newton to pick out colors for the new home. You should see that place! It's bigger, I think, than the 2-family house I lived in last year. A regular Colonial. It is beautiful.\n\nYou know, I'm making $1.00 every day I go in town and work for my father. And do I work! Last week I worked 3 days \u2013 $3.00. It's not so bad. So between that and working on these grounds I'm kept pretty busy.\n\nListen! Guess who's coming out here to visit someone across the street. Phil Saltman, who plays over the radio! You know him. I met his sister at a dance last Sat. night and she told me all about him. Am I excited! By the way, did you hear _Bolero_ played by the Goldman Band last Sun. night? \"Swunderful\".\n\nNow this letter is also going to be very private correspondence. So guard it in your \"iron frame\". First, you're not the only one who's met a nice girl. There are a couple of girls who keep pestering us, but we don't pay any attention to them. But last night a crowd of us went for a moonlight swim (it was wonderful! \u2013 till it began to thunder and lightning) \u2013 and I met her \u2013 and \u2013 well, we're kinda interested in each other. I['ll] let you know of further developments.\n\nSecondly, I'm on a \"no cigarette\" campaign. I'm trying my darndest not to smoke. But you know the old psychology, \"If you want to break one habit you must substitute something else for it.\" So I'm trying the old pipe. And it seems to be working OK. You know, a pipe is a much healthier smoke than a cigarette \u2013 so I hope it works. Did you see Eddie Schnaub? How does he look. Does he speak like a New Yorkite?\n\nListen, don't answer this letter. Just drop a card, as follows:\n\nLenny:\n\nWill be out on __________________. Sid.\n\nThat's all \u2013 and come as soon as possible. If you have no way to come, write me first the same and I pick you up in Roxbury coming home from town. Forget not.\n\nSo that's that. Make sure you come. That's the main point to this letter.\n\nExpecting you soon,\n\nLenny\n\nP.S. What to bring? About a week's supply of stockings, handkerchiefs, a couple of shirts, a sweater, bathing suit, tooth-brush, comb, a couple of pair of pants \u2013 one old and one new \u2013 _and_ expect to be talked to death and driven by me up a lamp post.\n\nHeh Heh!\n\nL.B.\n\nSee you sooner than soon.\n\n6. Sid Ramin to Leonard Bernstein\n\nPostmark Revere, MA\n\n28 August 1933\n\nDear Len,\n\nI just heard the _Creole Rhapsody_ written by Duke Ellington. It was also played by him and his orchestra. It's written on the same scale as _my_ Rhapsody in Blue and you ought to hear the big discords. Wow! It's written in two parts and it has a very pretty melody running throughout. Listen to it. Yes, it's nice. I've _only_ heard it about six times.\n\nSyd\n\nP.S. Say, answer my letter!\n\n7. Leonard Bernstein to Sid Ramin\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n2 September 1933\n\nDear Sid,\n\nI plead for every pardon in not writing to you before \u2013 _but_ I can fall back on the old, substantial excuse \u2013 no stationery \u2013 and I couldn't get any until I went into town yesterday and bought some of Kresge's famous 10\u00a2 'Evon' stationery. (Can't you recognize it?)\n\nBy the way, I heard the Fred Waring version of _Bolero_ \u2013 and it was sort of heavenly. But too much was cut out.\n\nAnd to think you used a whole postcard just to inform me of the existence of the _Creole Rhapsody_! Thanks. I haven't heard it yet.\n\nListen, I'm thinking seriously about meeting you in town. Is this OK?\n\nTime: Wednesday, Sept 6 between 9 and 10 at\n\nPlace: my father's office, 48 Wash[ington] St, Boston.\n\nIf I'm not there, wait! If you're not, I will. Bring some dough \u2013 we'll see a show, have lunch, etc. etc. Please try to make it. I'm counting on it. If you can't, well, just do anyway. It'll be one of the last times I'll see you before I move to Newton. I was in town yesterday and we moved. Is it beautiful in Newton! Our house couldn't be gorgeouser than it is. And guess what!! I'm getting an organ for Newton!!!! Don't ask, now you'll have to come out and visit us.\n\nI haven't written half the things I had in mind, so I'll tell you Wed. morning. Please try to come. I'll be expecting you.\n\nSincerely,\n\nLenny.\n\nCome Wed.\n\nP.S. Eddie R[yack]7 just went home. I think he had a nice time.\n\nPlease come Wed.\n\n8. Leonard Bernstein to Sid Ramin\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n7 September 1933\n\nDear Sid,\n\nIt's just as well you didn't come Wed., because at the last minute my father told me I couldn't go. So that's that. I prayed that my letter wouldn't reach you in time.\n\nWrite me by return mail how long you'll be in Revere, and also your new address. We'll be in Sharon until the middle of Oct.\n\nLenny\n\nP.S. We were in Winthrop the other day but I didn't have time to look you up. (Write soon.) L.\n\n9. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n13 July 1935\n\nDear Miss Coates,\n\nI was awaiting the opportunity of receiving my Board returns before writing you, and that event has just transpired \u2013 with explosive definiteness. Following is the glad news:\n\nEnglish: the highest mark in the school, 90%. That makes me one of the very fractionary percentage of candidates who were allowed to receive 90% or over. (I believe the percent is .1%.)\n\nFrench: 90%\n\nPhysics: one of the highest marks in the school, 70%\n\nHistory, my nemesis: 60%. Which is excellent considering my heavy doubts and serious lack of knowledge in the field.\n\nAll of which makes me an 82% man; and with the fine recommendations I have received, I should be accepted into Harvard. I shan't know until about the end of this month.\n\nBefore I forget myself and write an \"I\" letter, I want to wish you a very pleasant summer. I surmise that you are now basking in the sun-pure, orange-sweet air of California.\n\nMy summer has so far been so full I haven't had time to waste. I'm in perfect health, have gained weight, and grown bodily and mentally. But there is more than that. I intend to offer the public another Bernstein operatic production such as _Carmen_ last year. We intend to use _Rigoletto_ or possibly _Faust_.\n\nI know how interested you are in my friends and associations, and so I feel I must tell you what a wonderful friend I have just made. Last week a girl I know here in Sharon introduced me to another boy she knows. His name is Laurie Bearson,8 and he is the epitome of intelligence and artistic sympathy. We became very close friends in the past week. It is as though we were soul-mates; there is a perfect understanding between us. He is intensely interested in dramatic work, and has been doing Sunday night broadcasts for some time. He is four years older than I, but that seems such an insignificant factor when we talk together. Of course there is always an interference; and in this case it is that he is going to New York to work. He left this morning and it feels as though a mountain has collapsed. But we shall correspond regularly.\n\nMy Sunday evening broadcasts are finished, and with apparent success as far as \"Avol\"9 is concerned. I am to play next week for Mischa Tulin's10 program. I have begun to do some earnest practicing, and with the help of our mutual friend Mildred [Spiegel], hope to keep it up.\n\nI should love to hear from you in the near future. Write me and tell me how you are enjoying your vacation.\n\nVery sincerely,\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\nBy the way, one of the themes I wrote on the English board was based on genius. Being allowed to draw from unliterary material, I used my musical knowledge, and that probably secured for me my 90 \u2013\n\nL.B.\n\n10. Leonard Bernstein to Beatrice Gordon11\n\n9 September 1935\n\nEnvelope addressed: \"For one in whom I cannot distinguish the Pitti-Sing from the Beatrice.\"\n\nTo Beatrice, on the occasion of the 17th anniversary of her birth.\n\nI.\n\nI sometimes think of you as a Beethoven who frowns;\n\nAnd wastes his passion, eloquently labored\n\nOn clowns.\n\nII.\n\nI sometimes think that you are Palestrina, who measures;\n\nAnd sets an irrevocable, Bach-like standard\n\nFor pleasures.\n\nIII.\n\nI one time thought that you were a Godiva \u2013 shameless;\n\nWho flaunts her unconventionalities,\n\nBlameless.\n\nIV.\n\nAnd ofttimes you are Miniver,12 who mourns each passing day,\n\nBecause it carries him from Renaissance\n\nFurther away.\n\nV.\n\nI sometimes think of you as Amy Lowell;13 \u2013 \"Old Lace\" \u2013\n\nToo delicate to touch, and yet to[o] stern\n\nTo face.\n\nThere are, you see, two youths to every life;\n\nThe first, the ten and seven years just past,\n\nIn which the phantasies of you engage in strife;\n\nThe next, which till your dying day will last,\n\nWill harbor all these phantasies again,\n\nBut bring them into concord, free from pain,\n\nTo make the complex _you_ , sans blush, sans feign...\n\nBest of luck!\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\nSept 9, 1935\n\n11. Leonard Bernstein to Beatrice Gordon\n\nEliot G-41, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA\n\n1 October [1936]\n\nDear Verne,14\n\nNever before in the history of mankind have such great and impossible steps been taken by an individual to improve his native resources and induce foreign ones. I have resolved myself to a year of work & study \u2013 imagine, a complete cutting down of \u2013 I shouldn't say complete \u2013 I haven't the courage to resolve completely \u2013 but cutting out, shall one say, of most social life, of a great deal of outside playing, of innumerable other time-wasters. Diametrically opposed as that realization is to my character, I have little doubt of the results, but there is no harm in hoping. And I am going to practice! For instance, three hours of it tomorrow in the very romantic tower room. Under the expert guidance of my roommate who does everything by systems & budgets, I shall perhaps prosper.\n\nI don't know when I can see Dixon (properly spelled [Harry Ellis?] Dickson) but I think I can next Friday morning.\n\nAmong other things [...] there is a quasi-contest here sponsored by the conductor of the Harvard Orchestra (Pierian Sodality to you) for an apt candidate for associate conductor with opportunity to conduct rehearsals & \"study conducting with Malcolm Holmes\" (Pfui*). Tryouts next week.\n\nCourses? Two in Music \u2013 Harmony & historical survey \u2013 a complete Shakespeare (perfectly thrilling) and a course in types of Philosophy given by Hosking. Later on, advanced Italian (which means Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, Castiglione etc.) Wonderful?\n\nWrite soon, & let me know of your studies.\n\nAffectionately,\n\nLen\n\n*Consult Oxford Dictionary\n\n12. Leonard Bernstein to Beatrice Gordon\n\nEliot G-41, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA\n\n30 January 1937\n\nYour note, dear Verne, was most charming and thoughtful. In fact it was really a lamb's ear.15\n\nI'm so sorry that I couldn't come over sooner or let you know why, whether, or when; but, you see, your note appeared on a scene of great confusion, it being (and still is) exam period, and in the midst of that still greater emotional upheaval of which you have no doubt heard.16 I must tell you all the details some time. It's the most fascinating, occult, hair-raising fairy story you could conceive of. You know, something one reads or dreams about \u2013 not experiences.\n\nMy very dear Beatrice, I'm so anxious to see you & will do my very best to be down as soon as I can after the examinations.\n\nWhat are you doing to fill your time? I'm very anxious to hear about your 50-cent pupil. Give him (or her, or it) my very best personal regards and recite to her the following after each lesson:\n\nSome folks think they get a lot\n\nBy paying huge recompense;\n\nBut I know one who gets the best\n\nBy paying fifty cents.\n\nAlso, if you have time:\n\nIt's a funny thing about strip-girls,\n\nThey give you so much, no more;\n\nThey never go below a certain point\n\nExcept Tuesday which have twenty-four.\n\n(A metrical masterpiece).\n\nTake care, & my love to your mother and all concerned.\n\nFrom\n\nLeonard\n\nwith affectionate January.\n\n13. Leonard Bernstein to Beatrice Gordon\n\nEliot G-41, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA\n\n28 February 1937\n\nIt's a curious thing, Beatrice \u2013 I'm being quite frank \u2013 or maybe I'm a curious being, I know not which. But I can pass months at a time, blindly busy with the immediacies which engage me, always unconscious of time and space, barred in by momentary emotions and reactions. Then I may chance upon something quite without this fettered up little circle, and be quite startled. That happened to me today, when I saw you. It occurred quite suddenly to me that I hadn't seen you for a very long time, and that I really was interested in seeing you. And it's doubly curious when I think that I _have_ been communicating with you, hearing your name mentioned, even occasionally struck by a thought of you; and always taking the thing so amazingly without cerebral deflection. And for no reason \u2013 tho your picture has been here on my desk, and tho your hair had collapsed \u2013 I remember that here you were, and I hadn't seen you.\n\nAll this must sound fairly obviously like the product of dementia, and Lord knows I don't know why I'm writing it. I merely felt a moment ago that I should like to talk to you. I have nothing to say \u2013 I'm too tired \u2013 yet this. I am suddenly aware of you.\n\nThat's all: there's nothing to say.\n\nGood night, Beatrice.\n\n14. Leonard Bernstein to Sid Ramin\n\nEliot G-41, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA\n\n12 March 1937\n\nDear Syd,\n\nI'm glad to see that you've decided to study with me. I think you'll get a lot out of it. You see, even if I don't have the professional training that the \"Miss Jewels\" have, I can give you a comprehensive outlook on harmony \u2013 which is the most important of the three \u2013 with an eye ever cast in the direction of jazz. What I can give you will always be directly applicable to jazz, and there will be nothing superfluous, and, I hope, nothing neglected.\n\nIt seems to me that Fridays at about 3:30 would be ideal; if you can't make it so early perhaps 4:00 would do, but not later. In fact, the earlier the better; if 3:00 it's even better. See if you can't make it next Friday at 3:00. If you can't, drop me a card and we'll make other arrangements. If I don't hear from you, I'll take it that you're coming.\n\nBest of everything,\n\nLen\n\nIncidentally, voici les particuliers of how to get here:\n\nGo to Summer Street Station and walk thru to a Cambridge train. Get off the latter at the last stop \u2013 Harvard Square, which is like this:\n\nWalk down Dunster Street _as far as you can_ ; it will take you right in the back door of Eliot House, leading you to a courtyard into which all the entries face. Go to G (gee) entry, walk up to Room 41 (all doors are marked) and knock vigorously. Voil\u00e0!\n\nThen I'll either see you next Friday or hear from you sooner.\n\nGood luck,\n\nLen\n\n15. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nCamp Onota, Pittsfield, MA\n\n4 August 1937\n\nDear Miss Coates,\n\nI hope that you are now fully recovered from your operation. I was so sorry to hear of it, but I'm sure that you are glad to be over & above it by now.\n\nI'm having a splendid time here at camp,17 though I get very little time for myself. But I guess that a good vacation is as important as work; and I am trying to rearrange my schedule to allow for practice.\n\nI hope that you're enjoying a very pleasant summer. I should love to hear from you.\n\nAs always,\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\n16. Leonard Bernstein to Beatrice Gordon\n\nEliot G-41, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA\n\n8 September 1937\n\nBeatrice \u2013 Dear Beatrice!\n\nHad I known that you were not invited to the party I should have taken definite measures. I understood that you had been asked \u2013 I cannot imagine any possible reason for such an oversight. I've argued and argued with my sister, and she cannot possibly find any reason for forgetting you. She just did, as any child of her age is apt to do, and as she did forget some other people. So please forgive her. But I cannot understand why you didn't come up after I had asked you.\n\nAt any rate, let's pass over it \u2013 there's not much to be done now.\n\nI expected to see you in Sharon, but today you suddenly disappeared. Sunday I was busy with my horde of guests from N.Y \u2013 Monday & Tuesday were horrible holidays, & when I finally sought you Tuesday evening, lo! you had awayed to the movies. I did want very much to see you \u2013 there would have been much to say.\n\nI'm really very happy over your new (or is it already old?) job, & I wish you all success in it.\n\nAs for me, I shall spend until the opening of Harvard College gently fed sleep by a rosebeam.\n\nI do hope to see you soon.\n\nMy best to all at home.\n\nTake care of yourself.\n\nLamb's Ear\n\n17. Leonard Bernstein to Beatrice Gordon\n\nEliot G-41, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA\n\n[9 September 1937]\n\nRosebeam:\n\nStill the years go on,\n\nAnd still you're two weeks behind me \u2013\n\nPerhaps as years go on\n\nYou will really catch up and find me;\n\nBut until you do\n\nMay Fortune be our brother;\n\nAnd may we in joy march thru the years\n\nTwo weeks apart from each other.\n\nAnd one more little wish:\n\n(For me as well as you) \u2013\n\nMay nothing but those two little weeks\n\nEver come between us two.\n\nLamb's Ear\n\nN.B.1: I make up, you notice, for your omitting to send me the customary poem by addressing the gist of the above trivial, tho very sincere, masterpiece to the both of us.\n\nN.B.2: Lose not another minute before reading Gabriele D'Annunzio's _The Flame of Life_. Quick! It's incredible.\n\n_Happiest of Birthdays!_\n\n18. Leonard Bernstein to Mildred Spiegel18\n\n[October 1937]\n\nAnnouncement for a concert at the Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, in which Bernstein played the Ravel Piano Concerto with the State Symphony Orchestra, amended by Bernstein:\n\n19. Dimitri Mitropoulos19 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMinneapolis, MN\n\n5 February 1938\n\nMy dear, dear boy,\n\nBelieve me, your letter touched me very deeply. I never forget you. I was only really very busy, all this past year and now just the same. But now I feel you more near and that gives me more courage to write you.\n\nThen, dear friend, is that so, is that true, that you believe so much in me? Have I really failed to you, have I really left you a void after our last meeting? This thought makes me crazy, and so happy that I dare not believe it. Nobody else has ever written me such a thing! In any way even, that you thought to write it makes me happy.\n\nDear boy, if you only could know how alone I am, all my life is a complete devotion to my art. Beyond this I am living like an ascetic.\n\nThere are many people probably who love me and are my friend, but it fails me, this unique one to whom I can believe with all my heart and soul. I am so full of the necessity to give my love, I am so full of love, that I am always spending it to every human being. Your letter was really a great gift for me and I thank you, thank you so much for this your unexpected gift.\n\nNow let me tell you what I am thinking about your last interest on modern American dance music. I can't say I know it well, but in any way I advise you to be careful and don't forget that even the American dance music is always a dance form and that this kind of music form is not the most interesting and useful form to exercise oneself on it. I feel sorry if the most part of your composing is devoted to such a poor form of music. Of course I agree that we may release from time to time doing easy and light things, to amuse ourselves, but not too much. We must train ourselves to [do] difficult things, to surpass ourselves, not to leave even a moment of your life without to be anxious to do it. In any way, to avoid to sleep too much on a very soft bed! I hope you will understand me. I had the impression that you are a very deep feeling boy and I hope that this your last sympathy with dance music is momentary. Perhaps you needed to relax, but excuse me in your age you don't need to relax before [you] have done your duty towards your art. If it is only for a pleasure, good, but not too much. We must keep ourselves as pure as possible.\n\nNow tell me dear boy, do you wish to spend some holidays (about a week for instance if you can be free) and come to me here. I am inviting you in any way and I shall take care of _all your expenses_. Will you?\n\nI shall be very happy if there was a possibility to see you again.\n\nWith all my sincerest sympathy.\n\nYours,\n\nD. Mitropoulos20\n\n20. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland21\n\nEliot E-51, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA\n\n[received 22 March 1938]\n\nGod damn it, Aaron,\n\nWhy practice Chopin Mazurkas? Why practice even the Copland _Variations_? The week has made me so sick, Aaron, that I can't breathe any more. The whole superfluousness of art shows up at a time like this, and the whole futility of spending your life in it. I take it seriously \u2013 seriously enough to want to be with it constantly till the day I die. But why? With millions of people going mad \u2013 madder every day because of a most mad man strutting across borders \u2013 with every element that we thought had refined human living and made what we called civilization being actively forgotten, deliberately thrown back like railroad tracks when you look hard enough at them \u2013 what chance is there? Art is more than ever now proved entertainment \u2013 people, we thought, were ready, after two thousand years of refining Christianity, to look for entertainment as such; to look for things that come out of the category of vital necessity! And so we were willing to spend our lives creating that entertainment. Aaron, it's not feasible; it's a damned dirty disappointment.\n\nThen came the climax of the week. Cara Verson \u2013 whoever she is; to me she looks like an enlarged porcupine \u2013 had advertised for weeks that she was going to give in the Jordan Hall here, a whole program of modern music. I was all excited; it was unprecedented, and very courageous of her in this dead city, etc., etc. And I put so much hope in that damned concert. It came: and I find it difficult to talk about it. It was a tremendous program \u2013 Malipiero, Kod\u00e1ly, Hindemith \u2013 and \u2013 joy of joys! \u2013 the Copland _Variations_.22 That, I guess, was the premiere in Boston. Well, to get to the point, I don't know whether you knew it was going to be played here, but if you did, how did you allow it?\n\nIn short, she gave really no performance at all. I can stand a bad performance, but not _no_ performance. She began the thing wrong, played about two measures, skipped some variations, got lost again, skipped about 5 pages, played a few measures out of tempo \u2013 entirely without any discernment, without any idea of rhythm \u2013 and kept this up (playing little measures from choice variations) until she reached the coda. Then she played about half of it and called it a day. I was purple \u2013 I wish I could let you know how incredibly bad it was. It was the work of an imbecile. I left then and broke dishes in the Georgian cafeteria.\n\nDo you see what that farce meant, Aaron? The few people that were there thought she was wonderful \u2013 such a _touch!_ (!!!) They tried to look intellectually intelligent about the music when the whole performance was one of bafflement! The one little chance that this little town gets to hear some modern piano stuff \u2013 (nobody dares to do it at a recital) \u2013 we find instead the complete distortion of the whole art, a perversion of these people's attitude when we need every resource to show them the right thing, correctly done. And where did this foul woman get press notices for her folder? Aaron, find that woman and have her put away. She's fatal.\n\nExcuse this outburst, Aaron, but the whole concatenation of rotten, destructive things has made me very angry and disappointed. At Harvard the situation is aggravated by these horrible musical dolls who infest the place. I find it almost impossible to stand. Thank God for you. Our last hope is in the work you are doing.\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\n21. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY\n\n23 March 1938\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nWhat a letter! What an \"outburst\"! Hwat a boy! It completely spoiled my breakfast. But it couldn't spoil the weather, so thank Marx for that. The sun has been shining in a way to defy all wars and dictators, and there's nothing to be done about it.\n\nThat \"female\" you tell of [Cara Verson]. I've never seen her, but I had reports of her at a time when she played the _Variations_ here, which I studiously avoided attending. I see that did no good, since she continues to \"play\" them. But what can a poor composer do? I know of know way of stopping her once the piece is published, do you? Think what people do to the three B's etc. and nothing can be done about _that_. As for your general \"disappointment\" in Art, Man and Life I can only advise perspective, perspective, and yet more perspective. This is only 1938. Man has a long time to go. Art is quite young. Life has its own dialectic. Aren't you always curious to see what tomorrow will bring?\n\nOf course, I understand exactly how you feel. At 21, in Paris, with Dada thumbing its nose at art, I had a spell of extreme disgust with all things human. What's the use \u2013 it can't last, and it didn't last. The next day comes, there are jobs to do, problems to solve, and one gets gradually inured to things. At my advanced age (37) I can't even take a letter like yours completely seriously. But I'm glad you wrote it, if only to let off steam. Write some more!\n\nNow it's definite that I'm not due to be up in Boston. I've been bought off with the promise of a performance at the coming Berkshire Festival. (Don't mention this around, will you.) I'm vaguely thinking of a trip to England in May. Sir Adrian Boult is to conduct my _Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_ at the I.S.C.M. Festival in June, and previously on the BBC on April 20th; also here when he conducts the NBC orchestra in May. I hope you're coming to New York soon. I always enjoy seeing you.\n\nAlways,\n\nAaron\n\n22. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nBox 15, Princeton, NJ\n\nSat. [April 1938]\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nI've come out to Princeton for a few weeks to try to finish that book23 by June. It's lovely here \u2013 reminds me of my spring in Cambridge (unfortunately Cambridge is 5 hrs from N.Y. and this only 1 hr.).\n\nI got your Minn[eapolis] card. Wish I could hear more about your trip.\n\nI had a letter from the WPA24 orchestra in Boston the other day saying they had programmed my _Dance Symphony_ for Apr 26 at Sanders Theatre. If you have time to go will you write me your impressions of the performance? And send me any reviews that appear? (Don't forget \u2013 it's an early work!)\n\nHow are you in general? Is Bennington decided upon? I haven't seen Norman Lloyd25 since I talked with Davis, but I'll mention you to him when I do.\n\nAny chance of your being at the Berkshire Fest. this year? I'm vaguely tempted to go. By the way, Adrian Boult is supposedly broadcasting my Mexican piece on May 14th over NBC at 10 p.m.\n\nRemember me to Davis,\n\nYours,\n\nAaron\n\n23. Dimitri Mitropoulos to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMinneapolis Symphony Orchestra, Minneapolis, MN\n\n4 May 1938\n\nMy dear, dear boy,\n\nYes, you are right to be worried about me. I couldn't answer your first letter; you were asking me too much. If you remember, you wished to know more about me; but I think it is better that you look at me as you wish to \u2013 put at me your own imagination, your ideal. Who knows? \u2013 otherwise you would be disappointed. And, dear boy, I need your appreciation, your respect, your love! It is of great importance in my life. I should be happy to see you again before I leave. I am beginning the rehearsals in New York the 24th. The concert is the 28th of May, and I leave the 8th of June. May I ask a small picture of you to be my companion on my Europe trip?\n\nWith affection,\n\nD. Mitropoulos\n\n24. Dimitri Mitropoulos to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Biltmore, at Grand Central Terminal, New York, NY\n\n7 June 1938\n\nDearest friend,\n\nThank you! I was so unhappy this last time! But now everything is again all right. I was so stupid to think that you didn't care so much about me. Wasn't I stupid?\n\nYour picture is so good, I like it, God bless you!\n\nYou see, my dear boy, sometimes I am so sad, and I need so few, just a little to be happy, and this little sometimes nobody gives me, it seems to avoid me.\n\nCan you imagine for a moment, I thought I lost your love, and then, I was asked me, perhaps I am not right to ask anything, to expect anything, from anybody, that my destiny is to be alone with myself and my art.\n\nBut you my dear friend, tell me, it is not so, I am something for you, yes... don't forget me.\n\nGoodbye dear,\n\nDimitri\n\n25. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nEliot E-51, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA\n\n[received 20 October 1938]\n\nDear Aaron,\n\nIt's going to be hard to keep this from being a fan letter. The concert was gorgeous \u2013 even the Dvo\u0159\u00e1k.26 I still don't sleep much from the pounding of:\n\nin my head.27 In any event, it's a secure feeling to know we have a master in America. I mean that too (don't pooh-pooh). I sat aghast at the solid sureness of that construction of yours. Timed to perfection. Not an extra beat. Just long enough for its material. Orchestral handling plus. Invention superb. And yet, with all that technique, it was a perfect rollercoaster ride. And it's not the exhaustible kind of cleverness (like Fran\u00e7aix, or his ilk).\n\nI want seriously to have the chance to study with you soon. My heart's in it. Never have I come across anyone capable of such immediate absorption of musical material, possessing at the same time a fine critical sense _with_ the ability to put that criticism into words successfully. This is not rot. The little demonstration you gave with those early things of mine proved it to me conclusively.\n\nSaw the Group Theatre bunch today and they all asked for and about you. [Clifford] Odets,28 true to form, thinks the _Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_ \"light\", also Mozart except the G minor Symphony. That angers me terrifically. I wish these people could see that a composer is just as _serious_ when he writes a work, even if the piece is not defeatist (that Worker word again) and Weltschmerzy and misanthropic and long. Light piece, indeed. I tremble when I think of producing something like the _Sal\u00f3n_.\n\nCasting is a wretched business.29 It's slow but sure. And so tiring. (What word from the Marc [Blitzstein]?) But I think we'll have a fine show.\n\nLet me hear soon. As Dame Fortune said to you backstage last Saturday night, \"On to bigger & nobler things.\"\n\nAlways,\n\nLenny\n\nP.S. I hope you're really haunted by:\n\nMaybe not _convincing_ , but maybe _haunting_.\n\n26. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nInternational Society for Contemporary Music, United States Section, New York, NY\n\n[October or November 1938]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nOf course you're crazy! I'm sorry if you felt a \"strained feeling\" that Saturday. The moral being \u2013 you mustn't be so sensitive. I remember Victor [Kraft] was acting strangely and I was embarrassed at not being able to invite you to the ballet30 \u2013 but that's nothing to have \"omens\" about. Anyhow \u2013 remember this \u2013 I feel much too friendly and sympathetic to you for anything I can possibly imagine making our relations \"strained\".\n\nAs a peace offering, I'm sending you a copy of the _Second Hurricane_31 which is just out.\n\nAffectionately,\n\nAaron\n\n27. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nEliot E-51, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA\n\n[received 19 November 1938]\n\nDear Aaron,\n\nIn the midst of ten million other things I'm writing a thesis for honors. I think it's interesting \u2013 certainly it is potentially interesting. The subject is Nationalism in American music \u2013 presumably a nonentity but on the whole a vital problem. We've talked about it once or twice. You said, \"don't worry \u2013 just write it \u2013 it will come out American.\"\n\nThe thesis tries to show how the stuff that the old boys turned out (Chadwick, Converse, Shepherd, Gilbert, MacD[owell], Cadman etc.) failed utterly to develop an American style or school or music at all, because their material (Negro, American Indian, etc.) was not common \u2013 the old problem of America the melting pot. Having ruthlessly revealed the invalidity of an Indian tune surrounded by Teutonic development, etc., I will try to show that there is something American in the newer music, which relies not on folk material, but on a native spirit (like your music, and maybe Harris' & Sessions' \u2013 I don't know), or which relies on a new American form, like Blitzstein's. Whether this is tenable or not, it is my thesis and I'm sticking to it.\n\nNow how to go about it? It means going through recent American things, finding those that sound, for some reason, American, and translate that American sound into musical terms. I feel convinced that there is such a thing, or else why is it that the _Variations_ sound fresh and vital and not stale and European and dry?\n\nThis is where you can help, if you would. What music of what other composers in America would support my point, and where can I get hold of it? Would the music of Harris? or Ives? or Schuman? or Piston? or [Nicolai] Berezowsky? You see, I know and hear so little American stuff. This is my great opportunity to get to know it well, and find out something about it. I feel more and more that there's something to all this, and that it can be told in terms. I'll be infinitely thankful for any suggestions.\n\nAgain, thousands thanks for the _Second Hurricane_ \u2013 it's just swell.\n\nAlways,\n\nLenny\n\n28. Leonard Bernstein to Kenneth Ehrman32\n\nEliot E-51, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA\n\n6 December 1938\n\nIt's wonderful, Ken, the way you lack enthusiasm when it's more or less expected of you. Hello. A dull thud \u2013 that's the way your letter read. 500th crossing, and all that \u2013 trip is really as can be expected.\n\nBut it was very good to hear from you, all wrapped up in your mauve-lined Parisian envelope. [...]\n\nEverything is almost O.K. You ask after the _Advocate_33 competition \u2013 I won. I am now proud possessor of all manner of records. As for the _Birds_ \u2013 I won that too, and am busy as a bee on the composition and orchestration thereof. As for courses, I am fuguing and advance orchestrating and thesising, and another half next half (what am I saying). [Tillman] Merritt hates me, but Mother loves me. [Walter] Piston doubts me, but Copland encourages me. I hate the Harvard Music Department. You can quote that. You can even print it if you want. I hate it because it is stupid & highschoolish and \"disciplinary\" and prim and foolish and academic and stolid and fussy. I want to go home.34 [...]\n\nToujours \u2013\n\nBernstein\n\n29. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY\n\n7 December 1938\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI know I'm late in answering but I've been swamped with things to do and your letter asked so many questions!\n\nAren't you coming down to N.Y. during Christmas holydays? And since it would be so much better to do this _viva voce_ than by letter, could it wait till then for my grandfatherly advice?\n\nYou sound as if you were very much on the right track anyhow both as to ideas and composers' names. Don't make the mistake of thinking that _just_ because a Gilbert used Negro material, there was therefore nothing American about it. There's always the chance it might have an \"American\" quality despite its material. Also, don't try to prove _too_ much. Composing in this country is still pretty young no matter how you look at it.\n\nGood luck and let's hear if you're coming down.\n\nConsider yourself missed.\n\nA.\n\n30. Leonard Bernstein to Kenneth Ehrman\n\nEliot E-51, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA\n\n17 January 1939\n\nDear Kenuel,\n\nI had a mad inspiration to write you several days ago when the enclosed suddenly popped up in one of my pockets. But put it off again and again I did, and so it was after all your letter which evoked this little opus. Mad Shirley tells me that our Stark (\"Watch that boy\") played the lead in the school production of _Tovarich_ some time ago, and walked off with the public-speaking prize. Are we proud!\n\nLife has been going on, as it has a way of doing. Just a series of minor catastrophes of varying kinds. Most noteworthy: I left a valuable manuscript of Copland's plus another printed piece of his plus a valuable manuscript book of mine plus a valuable fountain pen plus _all my thesis notes_ over which I had theoretically slaved (!) in New York on the train coming back from that City of Sin. The infallible New Haven Railroad is unable to find these things, which means that I must start my thesis all over again at double speed, and type this letter, faut d'un stylo, and be generally upset at having lost Aaron's manuscript for him. He of course took it as only he could take it \u2013 with a philosophical phrase. Good old Aaron: if it had been anyone else but he I should long ago have gone into voluntary exile.\n\nAaron, by the way, could never understand my lack of desire for going abroad. In his day, says he, there was never a composer who would not insist on Paris first. I have always been inclined to pooh-pooh the idea, on the grounds that a composer can go through his \"Paris\" period here in America as well as abroad. But lately little ideas have been creeping around in the brain. The thought of Paree attracts me mightily these days. And your letter has set me off on another gush. It would be wonderful, I am convinced. Of course, a great deal depends on funds. But there's always the possibility of a fellowship (please Goddy Woddy); and then my father almost bowled me over last night with the statement that he would be responsible for me for one more year after college to the extent of the equivalent of what it takes to keep me in college one year. I may go abroad with it if I choose (sounds impossible to me), or to a music school. I still don't know whether to take him seriously or not. But that added to a fellowship would be simply de trop, as Mary Boland says.\n\nYou see, Ken, the sudden surge toward la vie transatlantique is due, I suppose, to an equally sudden horror of what is to come here next year. I planned for a while on a few months in Mexico. It would be swell, but, in the final analysis, pretty unconstructive. I also toyed with the idea of California (I'm still a C\u2014\u2014\u2014iac35) for a year or so. But I know all the while that I am not yet prepared to settle down somewhere and write music. I still have so much to study. In America there is but one person I am interested in working with after college, and that's Aaron. Now (how mathematical this discussion is) working with Aaron involves being in New York. Maybe it's just that I've recently returned therefrom and had a bellyful, but more and more I do not want to go there \u2013 at least not yet. The people of the \"artistic world\" that I encountered on this last trip revolt me in every way. I have been made sick by the depravity of the Greenwich Villagers, the totally degenerate homosexuals, the equally degenerate heterosexuals, the foolish and destructive attitudes, and the frantic attempts to preserve the atmosphere of postwar bohemianism. Oh, there are some who are all right, of course. They are far and few enough, God knows. And the thing I am really afraid of is that I could so easily fall prey to that sort of thing. You may remember my chief weakness \u2013 my love for people. I need them all the time \u2013 every moment. It's something that perhaps you cannot understand: but I cannot spend one day alone without becoming utterly depressed. Any people will do. It's a terrible fault. And in New York, the people who would fill that place with me would inevitably be those wretched people who haunt the Village Vanguard by night, and each other's studios by day, and act positively in only one way \u2013 as a destructive and retarding force in their societies. This, by the way, is not bitter or dramatic in any way. But it is this great horror of taking my place with these people, and becoming an \"artist\" that half kills me. There are two rebuttals, of course. One, you should say that I ought to be strong enough to resist all this; but sometimes I am much afraid that it wouldn't take too much effort on my part before I would be like them. I always absorb my surroundings \u2013 but to a degree! Second rebuttal: Paris holds the same kind of crowd and the same lack of healthy art. Well that's for you to tell me. I don't know. Let me know the lowdown soon. I am thinking very seriously now of going abroad.\n\nStrange how I miss you. Perhaps I'm not so \"universal\" or promiscuous as I thought. You were very important to me last year. So steadying for me; and you helped me over many a rough place without perhaps knowing it. No, the afterthought is not after all, \"He meant well. Good old Ken.\"\n\n_The Birds_ comes along slowly and unsteadily. The whole score is finished but the Finale. The chorus doesn't show up for rehearsals. The orchestra is still being slowly assembled. But it's fun.\n\nThe [ _Harvard_ ] _Advocate_ has a new Board, all Socialites. So the new Music Editor is a Socialite. No more records for little Lenny.\n\nI have already reset the ribbon on this machine twice, which means that this is a very long and probably silly letter, and I ought to stop.\n\nMy best to Aunt Mattie, whom etc., and to all the Messings, Truebloods, Bluebloods, Peggrams, etc. that you come across.\n\nHappy skiing.\n\nAlways,\n\nLen\n\n[...]\n\n31. Dimitri Mitropoulos to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMinneapolis Symphony Orchestra, Minneapolis, MN\n\n18 February 1939\n\nMy dearest friend,\n\nAt last a letter from you. I was completely despaired and beginning to think that you completely forgot me. For a while I thought it was because I sent you by mistake a letter without signing it, and that you were offended; but fortunately your letter came to prevent my disappointment.\n\nI am very happy to hear that you are working hard, but I am sorry to see that you neglect your piano, which could be a great help to your career.36 I see you too come to the position now to have problems: musical, artistic, social and spiritual \u2013 and the worst of all, sexual. Unfortunately I am too far away to help \u2013 to give you good advice. But I hope you are a clever boy and that you realize the great responsibility toward yourself, its importance. As far as the conditions of my personal life are concerned, actually, I must tell you that neither my life nor my Weltanschauung has undergone any change; but it has improved, I think, in wisdom and in self-concentration.\n\nMay I tell you an agreeable thing. I am invited to conduct the Boston orchestra in the middle of next January for two weeks. I look forward to have some moments again in your inspiring and friendly company.\n\nWith my best wishes,\n\nD. Mitropoulos\n\n32. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY\n\n[April 1939]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI've been meaning to write and tell you what a swell host you make and how pleasant in retrospect my little \"week-end\" was, and now it has to be accompanied by this regretful letter from La Holm37 which of course spoils my effect. But don't fret \u2013 something _must_ turn up sooner or later.\n\nWhen I got back here I learned that _Quiet City_ has been cancelled. The Group [Theatre] wasn't satisfied so my career in the theatre has been a flop \u2013 obviously. Nothing left to do but write a Piano Sonata.38 Or perhaps something special called \"The Beach at Revere\" or \"The Birches at Sharon\".\n\nWell anyway \u2013 I hope something will drive you to N.Y. soon. D[imitri] M[itropoulos]'s Greek concert, or the World's Fair, or my ballet or sumpin!\n\nBest to you,\n\nA\n\n33. Leonard Bernstein to Kenneth Ehrman\n\nEliot E-51, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA\n\nApril [1939]\n\nGreat & Good Kenneth,\n\nTo think!\n\na) No fellowship\n\nb) No job at Mills College this summer. They're reducing their staff, and cutting out the production end entirely, reserving only [for] educational.\n\nc) I'm dead on my feet. I just handed in the thesis, having stayed up all night, and I'm just beginning to recover. I have [no] control over myself, so excuse typing, et al.\n\nd) No prospects for the summer or next year. Maybe a job with a dancer next year. Maybe a job on _Modern Music_. Maybe Mexico this summer. Maybe Sharon (God forbid!) Maybe anything. The prospect is lousy. Any suggestions?\n\ne) Everybody's lousy. People are always getting divorces from nice people like An or being impotent with nice girls or flunking exams or vomiting over the European situation. And for God's sake keep out of Greece and concentration camps. Of all times to be where you are!39\n\nf) I never recovered the lost thesis notes. (This is irrelevant.) (But so's Margaret.40 I told [David] Prall41 about that particular fetish and he beamed all over.)\n\ng) _The Birds_ finally comes off next week.42 It should be good.\n\nGod, Ken, it's a dull and wretched state I'm in. No practicing, no composing, no plans, no money, no ideas. Static. Tired all over. I'll be all right tomorrow. I've met a wonderful girl. I'm about to have a sex life again. That's encouraging.\n\nHave a swell trip, and be careful. [...]\n\nI long for California, and the peaches and ladyfingers and artichokes. I long for so many things. Why can't I stop this silly wailing. Really, I'm just tired.\n\nAgain, be careful, stay alive, write. With devotion, affection, greetings, warmth, cordiality, sincerity, verytrulyness, blessings,\n\nLenny\n\n34. Adolph Green43 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Astor, Times Square, New York, NY\n\n[27 May 1939]\n\nDollink Lennie,\n\nFirst of all \u2013 good luck with _The Cradle_ tonight.44 I hope Blitzstein is there. He told me about it, & I was going to come up, but I can't get Saturday off. You see, I'm working every night except Monday & Tuesday. We started on April 6th or so doing Saturday Shows, just about the time I was planning to come up for your Aristophanes.45\n\nLennish, I'm doing famously. So help me. Its all \u2013 quotes \u2013 like a dream \u2013 unquotes. Exciting as hell. But I'm not in the dough yet. We've been signed by the Wm. Morris Agency but they haven't found us any good spots yet. And there's Radio & Television yet & everything and all in the offing. Nothing materialized. But, Gott zei dank, I'm making a little salary. I've lost about 25 pounds, so I'm no longer rolly-polly-Adolph, just a flabby Adolph.\n\nIt all began about 2\u00bd months ago, when we did a guest booking for an Actors' Party at Caf\u00e9 Society. Herman Shumlin & Arthur Kober & others were there & they went nuts about us. So since then everything happened. Publicity \u2013 all kinds \u2013 _New Yorker, N.Y. Times, Post, Journal-American_ , [ _The New_ ] _Masses_ , [...] [ _Daily_ ] _Worker_ , all over. Everyone in theatre has been to see us. And composers \u2013 ay, ay \u2013 Blitzstein, Copland, Paul Bowles, Jerry Moross, etc., etc. They're swell people, too. By the way, I gypped a Satie composition from Bowles' house for you.\n\nSo enough of this self-indulgent bloating.\n\nI would like, is it possible, to hitch-hike up to Boston on Monday & stay for a day or so. Hmmm? Is it possible? With me, I would have a young boy, Julian Claman,46 a nice charming lad, who is our lighting man at the Vanguard.47 Would that be possible? If so, send a telegram to A. Green, 835 Riverside Drive. If not, also send a telegram. You can send it collect _if you want to_. Heh, Heh, Heh.\n\nListen, are you coming to the City this summer? Will you have a place to live? If not, I've found a terrific 2-room also with kitchen apt. \u2013 with 3 beds \u2013 to be sub-letted for the summer. It's got swell furnishings, it's got a phonograph-radio, it's got a good Grand Piano, it's large, comfortable, on 55th St near 6th Ave, and Julian and I want to take it. With 3 of us at about $50 a month, it would amount to $3.50 a week each. We'll talk about it.\n\nSo let me know about Monday.\n\nGive my love to S[hirley] B[ernstein].\n\nGive my love to Blitzstein if he's there.\n\nAdolph\n\nP.S. Lenny, my love, I love you.\n\nCopland told me your Aristophanes music was a remarkably fine work.\n\nChrist, what an incoherent letter. Forgive, forgive.\n\nP.S. I've seen Weil48 once in the last 6 months. Is my heart bleeding? Not precisely.\n\n35. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n26 June 1939\n\nAaron,\n\nPatiently I have waited. The rains have come and gone. The sun, the moon, have seen another cycle. Millennia have elapsed. I have graduated with honors. I have been to all kinds of class days, commencements, baccalaureate services. I have grown old. And no word about cabins. Have you investigated? Are there cabins? Are they good cabins? Are they in America? Have you forgotten me? Is there something wrong? Do you hesitate? These, and other thoughts, as Kipling would say, are my constant companions.\n\nI am madly trying to recover my lost ergs. According to laws of nature they must be conserved somewhere, but I'm having a time finding where. I frequently stand up only to fall down. I sleep very easily (a bad sign for one who has always slept not too well). I have subtle little pains in my back. I have become positively hypochondriac. I live in waiting to hear from you. Please \u2013 before I rot in the provinces, let me know the outcome. At the above address.\n\nLetter from Blitzstein says that he likes Yaddo [artists' community] again and is about to convince himself that he ought to get to work.\n\nI have ideas for a piano and fiddle sonata, but I can't work on them here. I have begun to practice again. It is a strange feeling. Fingers slowly begin to move again.\n\nFor God's sake, Harvard, I got an A in that Government exam!\n\nTired, and so to bed, silently, alone.\n\nI wait with renewed vigor...\n\nLenny\n\nThere is talk among some people I know of a cabin for me or us or two cabins for us in Scituate, Mass. (on the South Shore) \u2013 very nice. Promise of seclusion. Would you be interested? Cheap...\n\nSay, I thought you were leaving the Empire on May 30?\n\n36. Leonard Bernstein to Kenneth Ehrman\n\n61 East 9th Street, New York, NY\n\n13 July 1939\n\nCher Kenuel,\n\nI know it's been overlong, and I've been lax, and I deserve one thing and another, but so much has happened \u2013 all relatively unimportant \u2013 that I've saved it all up to this minute.\n\nA. I've graduated with a bang. An incredible A in the Government course, and a cum laude. A great class day skit which I performed to a roaring crowd through a mike, and got in some parting cracks [...] at the old school and its officials.\n\nB. The inevitable letdown. Bringing us to\n\nC. What now? So I came to New York, where I've subletted an apartment with two friends of mine in the nightclub entertainment business. Here I am trying to establish that most horrible of words _contacts_ (insurance man's term). I have made a few, but can as yet report no results. All kinds of troubles with the union. You have to belong, and they won't take you because they have more unemployed than they can take care of, so they are charging an outrageous price for admission.\n\nD. I'll stay yet awhile, and see what happens. If nothing, well. But oh for something! Any old kind of job that would pay a living wage. You see, I still don't really know quite what I want to do. Conduct, compose, piano, produce, arrange, etc. I'm all of these and none of them. The Big Boys here (and thank God they're rooting for me) have it all decided that I am to become America's Great Conductor. They need an Apostle for their music. Or else they want to keep a rival composer out of the field. At any rate, they've been fine to me, and there is even talk of a scholarship at Juilliard in the fall. But nothing happens here until it happens, so only waiting. They also wait who serve the meat.\n\nE. How are you? Al [Eisner] and Austin, as you have probably heard, are in Hollywood. Al has this incredible job at $50 per with MGM, and Austin is living with him or on him.\n\nF. Complaints about the piano playing here may mean our eviction. That would be at least interesting.\n\nGod bless you, son, and my best to all the lads. Flights of angels wherever you may be, Greece or Naziland or Turkey. Write write away and right rite away. I hope maybe some day to see you, you vagrant wretch.\n\nAlaways,\n\nLenny\n\n37. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n61 East 9th Street, New York, NY\n\n30 July 1939\n\nAstral Aaron,\n\nI. Many blessings for the Stadium tickets. I'll see that they're used.\n\nII. Last night I almost wrote you a very desperate letter. I was desperate. Having to do with those in the songwriting industry is no fun. And no success. I now know what it is to be rebuffed by the Beeg Ceety. But today I'm more cheerful. Probably because I've forgotten about songwriting. The crowning disappointment, though, was when I went up to the Juilliard School to see about conducting fellowship, and found I was a month too late for application. Can something be done? Or do I turn in desperation to the possibility of Curtis?\n\nIII. I saw Rolf Kaltenborn today, and he says I should see Davidson Taylor about employment.49 You can do me a _great_ favor by writing Taylor a letter about me right away so that I can see him soon, loaded down with press clippings & scores (?). Please write him \u2013 it means much to me \u2013 and can you let me know as soon as you've written him so that I can plan an attack? Thanks, thanks.\n\nIV. I saw _The City_ and it's a knockout. The opening is too long. But the NYC sequence is swell. And the music all one could ask for.50\n\nV. [...] You've been wonderful and terribly helpful, and I'm more bewildered than ever. I think in the last analysis, it's all up to me. [...]\n\nEver,\n\nLenny\n\nPlease \u2013 about Taylor. I'm so in need of a job \u2013 especially psychologically. Write me soon.\n\nL\n\n38. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n[New York, NY]\n\n9 August 1939\n\nDear Aaron,\n\nMany thanks for all endeavors. You've been superb. I spoke with Davidson Taylor and he held out little hope, but I felt hopeful for the first time. He was the first interview I've had in NYC where I wasn't greeted by a patronizing attitude. He says he'll try and see what can be done, but oh! _Experience!_ Where does one buy or rent radio experience. You have to start somewhere.\n\n[Roy] Harris was very nice. He is writing Hutcheson51 at Chautauqua about me, and may be able to get me in. He also speaks very seriously about my changing my name. Something Anglosaxon like Roy Harris, no doubt. He thinks I might thereby ride in on the crest of the wave of reaction against the foreign artist craze, which reaction he thinks is due for the next twenty years. Mind, he is not referring to the Jewish question (!).\n\nI saw Reiner at the Stadium last night (bless you for the tickets), and he was matteroffact. Then I mentioned the aspiration towards conducting, he threw up his hands and yelled BAD! But write to Curtis, says he, and he'll give me an examination at the end of September. Purely routine. He asked me to tell you, by the way, that it is very urgent that he have the score of the _Outdoor Overture_ immediately. Address: Westport, Conn.\n\nAll else is the same. O tempora.\n\nWrite soon. The address is still 61 E 9[th Street], and will be probably for another week. Then \u2013 shux.\n\nBest,\n\nLenny\n\n39. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n29 August 1939\n\nAaron,\n\nTwo momentous things.\n\na) I've just finished the _Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_ reduction \u2013 it's fine.\n\nb) I've just finished my Hebrew song for mezzo-sop. and ork. I think it's my best score so far (not much choice). It was tremendous fun.\n\nUnder separate cover, as they say, I'm sending the _Lamentation_ for your dictum. Please look at it sort of carefully \u2013 it actually means much to me. Of course, no one will ever sing it \u2013 it's too hard, and who wants to learn all those funny words? Eventually the song will become one of a group, or a movement of a symphony for voice and orch., or the opening of a cantata or opera, unless you give a very bad verdict.\n\nI'm not sending the _Saloon_ , as you couldn't read my hasty script, anyway.\n\nYour card was forwarded to me days after you sent it. I'm awfully sorry to have left NYC. Can't we see each other soon?\n\nBest,\n\nLenny\n\nMy best to [Benjamin] Britten.52 Did he get his Concerto (?) back?53\n\nNo jobs. No future.54\n\n40. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nWoodstock, NY\n\n30 August [1939]\n\nDear L,\n\nI sent off the paper to Curtis [the] day after it got here \u2013 with a heated recommendation at the bottom.\n\nWhen there was no answer to my card I assumed you had left NY. I actually did broadcast again at the Stadium.\n\nNice that you've been able to finish pieces in these troublous times. (I haven't been able to do much more than read newspapers). If you sent the _Lamentation_ by express, it's waiting for me over in W. Hurley. I'll try to write you about it, tho I hate writing \"critiques\" \u2013 much prefer telling you viva voce! (Things one says with a glance look so awful on paper!)\n\nTry to make an ink copy of the _Saloon_ as I'm keen to see what you've done.\n\nAre you going back to NY during Sept? If so, maybe you could stop off here on your way down. It's only 60 miles from Albany \u2013 down the river. (It's even nearer Poughkeepsie \u2013 if there's any way of going there directly from Boston.) Anyway keep it in mind and keep me posted with where you are.\n\nB. Britten left Woodstock a week ago. He never mentioned anything about his Concerto coming back. He was all flustrated about the war news when he left.\n\nI've been reading about the phenomenal success of the Vanguard children.55 Nice!\n\nMet a friend of yours at the Stadium last time \u2013 a pupil of Prall's about to leave for Mexico \u2013 an athletics scholar \u2013 name Szatmary (?) or something like that.56 Also exchanged words with young Kaltenborn about you.\n\nGlad you took me out to Sharon that day. Now I can visualize where you are.\n\nAmiti\u00e9s.\n\nAaron\n\n41. Helen Coates to Leonard Bernstein\n\nBarbizon Plaza Hotel, New York, NY\n\n14 October 1939\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI was very disappointed not to see you while you were home, tho' I appreciate the effort you made. Mother was happy to see you, as always. I phoned your mother Wednesday evening to see what had happened to you, and had a nice talk with her. She seemed quite reassured to hear that I thoroughly approve of your specializing in conducting.\n\nI'm thrilled to know that you got the scholarship at Curtis and hope it will fulfill all your desires for _serious study_ this year. I do hope you'll get some lessons with [Rudolf] Serkin, too.\n\nKnowing my passion for details, you'll be prepared for an avalanche of questions about your work, living, etc.\n\nFirst of all, how are you working out your expenses? Just what does the _scholarship_ give you, and did you decide to accept D.M.'s (as I shall call your Minn. friend)57 offer to finance you this year? I shall, of course, keep this confidential. So where are you living and are you able to practice regularly at Curtis? And what kind of people do you find studying at Curtis? Tell me about the new friends you make.\n\nI came down from Boston last night, and had a little time before I began to teach, so thought I'd answer your welcome card. I'm hoping you'll be coming to New York on one of my weekends here, so we can have a real visit and I can find out how everything is going with you. I'll be here again on _November 4th_ and also on _Nov. 25th_. Let me know in _plenty of time_ if you are to be in N.Y. on either of those dates.\n\nI know you'll make the most of your time this year, and I do hope you'll live a regular sort of life for the most part and get _plenty of sleep_. You have a wonderful opportunity ahead of you, if you work hard and fulfill the hopes D.M. (and I) have for you.\n\nDo write me soon \u2013 a real letter \u2013 and answer all my questions. I'm always interested in anything that vitally concerns you.\n\nMother would want to send you her love with this.\n\nMy love and best of wishes for a truly wonderful year \u2013 and may the little scores be a real inspiration and a reminder of\n\nYour affectionate friend,\n\nHelen\n\nSorry I mixed up these pages!\n\n42. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\n408 South 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA\n\n17 October 1939\n\nDear Helen,\n\nThanks for the lovely Barbizon Plaza letter \u2013 even without it I know you're with me every inch of the way.\n\nThings couldn't be better. The Institute is surpassing. The staff is perhaps the _only_ bureaucratic setup that I have ever seen so helpful and considerate. Randall Thompson (director) is all a director should be, and the staff of teachers (I should say faculty!) is the best.\n\nAs to conducting, it looks like a long uphill climb, but I proceed nothing daunted, despite all the venomous attacks I hear on all sides against Mr. Reiner, with whom I am studying. As a matter of fact, in the one class we've had (only 3 students) he was gentle as a lamb. Maybe only lamb's clothing. There are several supplementary courses (students can take the whole curriculum if they wish \u2013 it's all open & free) \u2013 such as transposition and score-reading, orchestration, etc. The first two are with Madame Miquelle (daughter of Longy) and the third with Thompson. There is also a course in formal analysis with Dr. St\u00f6hr, an incredible old German with walrus mustache & Van Dyke & all. A wonderful man, though given to a high-school-teacher manner.\n\nAh! The piano! I passed my audition for Serkin, but am not studying with him. First, he's not yet in the country; second, I seem to be _over age_ (!). They've tentatively allotted him a chap of 16 & a girl of 13, so that he can _mould_ them. At the same time, I had impressed the worthy jury (and am consequently majoring _both_ in piano & conducting). So they asked Mme. Vengerova,58 who, I am told, is the greatest piano teacher in America, better than Serkin a million times, etc., etc. I don't know if she would take me. They decided they couldn't give me to a supplementary teacher. She accepted (hesitantly at first at being second fiddle to Serkin, & having me \"palmed off\" on her), but since her contract hours were full, they increased her contract & I am now studying with the greatest teacher Curtis offers. As a result of which, the school moved a Steinway grand into my room this morning \u2013 just an old Curtis custom \u2013 since Madame _insists_ I have just that to practice on. It's a dream of a piano. As I say, things couldn't be better.\n\nI work & work & work (practice about 3 to 5 hrs a day), & do nothing else except sleep plenty. No social life \u2013 no friend to speak of.\n\nI have accepted D[imitri] M[itropoulos]'s offer. Not in desperation \u2013 in joy. My mind has changed drastically \u2013 I want nothing more than to have obligations to him.\n\nYou wanted details \u2013 you got them. It's rather nice & easy to write details that are pleasant.\n\nBest of all: I _may_ be in NYC on Nov 4 \u2013 I'll write later.\n\nMeanwhile write again & much affection from this city of dust & grit & horror.\n\nAlways,\n\nLenny\n\n43. Alfred Eisner59 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Culver City, CA\n\n[?October 1939]\n\nLennie,\n\nIn haste and I've mislaid your address so it will take longer, so for the love of God answer pronto and even faster if possible. They've dug up a babe named Helen Gilbert who is beautiful enough to make St. Anthony tear his beard in frustrated rage and who also happens to be a magnificent cellist, yes indeed, and I'm doing one for her and I need a little information, to wit: some technical language that might be expected to pass between a teacher of cello and his pupil: you know, bowing, arpeggio, crap like that. Also, technical language that might be expected to pass between a teacher of voice and a pupil: breathing, or what have you. Casting the babe opposite a young baritone they're grooming to replace Nelson Eddy. This will definitely not be shit: the girl's a refugee from Vienna (in the picture) and her old man, a violinist, gets his hands burned with acid even as did the great Feuermann, and the setting is to be the Paris Conservatory (after the escape from Austria) and for chrissake get the dope to me as fast as fast, because if this job turns out as well and gets as much attention as my last you'll have refuge indeed in times of stress and that in style.\n\nAnd why the hell don't you write to a guy: Too busy. Yeah, sure.\n\nAl\n\n44. Alfred Eisner to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Culver City, CA\n\n31 October 1939\n\nLenny mine,\n\nNot a word did I know, no, not a soup\u00e7on, of thy good fortune until but three days gone when I walked into Aaron [Copland] outside my office door (like the Raven). He lost no time in acquainting me with the vagaries of my sainted room-mate. Liebchen, you cannot imagine what being put au courant of your goings and comings did to this brassed over heart, this spirit worn thin in the wasteland. The doubtful privilege of three thousand miles gives me the right to vicarious thrills, and second hand glowings. I was, and am, so goddamned glad for you. Aaron tells me you went to town on a competitive exam, which makes it even better. Baby, look down dat lonesome road: do you see the shining city, the purple hill? If I am over sentimental and Tom Wolfish, forgive me; it's because I miss you so hellishly much. Yes, that vaunted individualist, that brave soul: Eisner, pines. It would be a boon indeed in his young life to pass a quip once again with you. Ah, Steinbern, would I could climb again on those collines de autre fois, crunch through les neiges d'antan, eheu, eheu, miserere mihi (does miserere take the dative?) But 'twont be so very long: I return to God's country as soon after the 19 December as is humanly possible, to remain for a month and then once again must I take the flinted trail back and earn those golden objects which, it is my fond hope, will give me a measure of independence next year.\n\nIntelligence note: Pratiner celebrates his nuptials shortly. A bitch name of June Herbert. Excuse: If he marries her maybe he can take her for granted and get some work done. R.I.P.\n\nInterruption Goddammit. Some damn fool wants me to collaborate on a picture that will offset _Mr. Smith Goes To Washington_. In the kishkas I'll give him.\n\nMy personal little river flows along. I finished the script about the cellist to much critical acclaim, which is probably all the attention the damn thing will ever get. A wonderful job, but too much this, not enough that, etc. I don't care. If the acclaim will get me $300 per _week_ that is sufficient, thank you. And I think I'll get it. Jesus, what a laugh. Well, I'm worth 300 as much as some of these mockies are woith 1500. Note silly manifestation of conscience.\n\nPolitical note: purged myself from the Party. Recent events, coupled with tortured casuistry of _Daily Worker_ did for me.\n\nNot much else in the way of news. I languish most of the time. This job is absolutely the snappiest snap ever invented by the mind of man. One of the boys has produced a chess set and now no one even talks about working. Before that it was all day crap games. I see a lot of pictures in private projection booths and shit like that. I seldom go on the stages anymore. I don't feel particularly well. Climate seems to be enervating. I sleep a lot, read some, work a little. Don't get around much anymore. The testament of a man in exile. [...]\n\nWhat of Ken [Ehrman]? Did he join the French Foreign Legion or something?\n\nAgain and toujours, write.\n\nDe profundis\n\nAl\n\n45. Betty Comden60 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n29 West 65th Street, New York, NY\n\n1 February 1940\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nJust a line to let you know, you darling, that we all miss you \u2013 but that we are glad your work for the moment is not being interrupted by the intrusion of anybody's two left feet.61 To get to the sordid facts \u2013 the machine is still in a state of collapse \u2013 necessitating the checkup up of every inch of wiring in the place. This little investigation will take at least another week or so \u2013 and we have chalked it up to a stroke of \"Revuers luck\". The phrase is much talked of nowadays.\n\nI'll keep writing and who knows, some time this year we may get the old opera recorded yet. We've added some new music and attendant stuff, but nothing too frightening. Oh \u2013 _Pursuit of Happiness_ on Feb. 18.62\n\nAre you coming in at all? \u2013 business or no? Again, I miss you. The house is an empty shell, reverberating with your memory.\n\nBetty\n\n46. Betty Comden to Leonard Bernstein\n\n29 West 65th Street, New York, NY\n\n9 February 1940\n\nLennie dear,\n\nAll is not lost \u2013 well, not quite all. We have set a date for the recording \u2013 February 24 and 25 \u2013 but is that convenient for you? It is more likely that this time The Revuers and not the machine will break down \u2013 but I, personally, am sticking to my cod-liver oil \u2013 and hoping that all will go well. Also \u2013 do you think you might be able to come on Friday \u2013 the 23rd? \u2013 It's been so long, and also there may be some new music, and vigorous rehearsal would be a great idea.\n\nListen \u2013 if you can bear it \u2013 on the 18th to _The Pursuit_ ( _of Happiness_ ) \u2013 and write to me as soon as you get this \u2013 or wire \u2013 about your coming to New York. Will the 24, 25 & 26 fit into the Bernstein schedule?\n\nWish you very much love from Betty \u2013 and the other bright young people.\n\n47. Leonard Bernstein to Kenneth Ehrman\n\n408 South 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA\n\n[20 February 1940]\n\nO never-to-be-forgotten one!\n\nThe only news I've had from you is the one solitary fact that a letter you sent to me this summer was returned to you, address unknown. I live from moment to moment in expectancy of your return, capture by the Germans, or some such rot. Why don't you let a fellow who remembers a brown bag that sags to the ground, & will never forget Mr. Bowie? (If there are _New Yorkers_ in Paris, cf. Thurber cartoon of recent date captioned \"Every day is Arbor Day to Mr. \u2013\")\n\nThings are progressing at a great rate here. I can almost play the piano again, was the only student to get an A in conducting from Reiner, have had pieces broadcast, am receiving ghastly label of Pennsylvania composer. You would like our director, Randall Thompson, one of U. of Calif.\n\nSo is Margaret.63\n\nKenneth, believe me, I perish to see you. I get these fits from time to time \u2013 it was studying Brahms' Third for Reiner tonight that did it. Please, I beg, write endless letters, or better still, come home. I don't know whether to envy you, or be perplexed, or simply be angry: once in a while la moutarde me monte au nez. From what I can gather, you're doing nothing in France. And all these Hearst papers in America.\n\nNext year looks wonderful for me. Great things are brewing, & I can't say anything now. But, as you've already guessed, it's mostly the fault of Dimitri. A most blessworthy man.\n\nAre you married? Do you still like music? Have you read Spengler? (I am now). Is tertiary syphilis curable? (Jot that down, Miss Wilson). Is Gordon still Messing? Is Bob still Wernick?64 Tell all to yr still truest \u2013\n\nLove that transcendeth death,\n\nLenny\n\n48. Betty Comden to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[New York, NY]\n\n1 March 1940\n\nLennie dear,\n\nThere's little left to say by this time. If your patience has not worn too thin (I'm suffering too, you know \u2013 it's not us if I'm enjoying all this, you know) \u2013 whether next weekend is divinely free for you \u2013 and whether you could possibly come in on Friday \u2013 even if it is late. There has been such a lapse of time since we last battled through that score \u2013 and some new to learn (!!!). The more time we have for it the better. Yes \u2013 I know April is far off and we needn't rush into this blindly, but Lennie \u2013 the age of miracles is not yet dead \u2013 we may yet make those there new records _March 9th and 10th_.\n\nI listened last Sunday \u2013 and your music was by far the most distinguished on the program, no matter what you may say. Hearing your name gave me a warm glow.\n\nWrite me Len \u2013 and if you're free, come anyway. It has been _much_ too long, too long.\n\nLove,\n\nB\n\n49. Betty Comden to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[New York, NY]\n\n6 March 1940\n\nLennie!!!!\n\nYou didn't like _Grapes of Wrath_!!!! But no matter \u2013 it alters not the \"us\" that stands triumphant and invulnerable above all petty differences. I don't care if you didn't like _Winter Carnival_. Come to dinner Friday anyway, and I shall try to break bread with you without a hard word about the Joads. Come at six-ish? We have an appointment with that unmentionable recording outfit at _eleven_ \u2013 Saturday morning. That leaves us Friday evening to run over what is now a rusty better-forgotten memory to us all. In fact, it probably leaves us the whole weekend if I know Musicraft. But no, this time they said \"positively\".65\n\nAll the news is exciting about you, Lenny. Mme Miquelle said you were only _talented_?\n\nTill Friday,\n\nBetty\n\n50. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond66\n\n408 South 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA\n\n18 April 1940\n\nDear David,\n\nForgive me if I emote. Today has been horrible, and I have been missing you strangely. April is the cruelest month. I received a wire from Dimitri that knocked my world completely to hell. I have had queer forebodings about the next year affair in Minneapolis all along \u2013 and you, sympathetic to the supernormal, can certainly understand them. Today saw their manifestation. I quote from Western Union:\n\n\"Don't leave your class for next season \u2013 some real difficulties here because of my engagement in N.Y. and one month of orchestra tour and some guest conductors \u2013 it is not wise to stop studying for a doubtful season for you here \u2013 am very awfully sorry. Dimitri.\"\n\nNow take a breath & put yourself here with me at 408 [South 22nd Street]. I have been staggering & pale green all day, fighting with my lifeblood that wants to stop coursing.\n\nWhat happens to one's Weltanschauung when the curtains fall together again? When one has been living & working according to a quasi-divine plan, setting aside certainties and doubts into one category that depends from the arm of a world-force \u2013 succumbing to \u00e9lan vital \u2013 letting oneself be driven by a reversed future? And suddenly all the bases, the category itself \u2013 the whole reason for doing all this is wiped out \u2013 an instant \u2013 equivalent to a career. Time recedes. The instant equals the career. All of Time is upon me now; I can hardly bear it.\n\nDon't think I am carrying on, please. The prospect of next year, prefaced by a summer in the Koussevitzky class, was for me the one, single motive of my activity now; every move, every note studied, project rejected, person loved, hope ignored, was a direct preparation for next year. From the scores I chose to study to the sexual life which I have abandoned \u2013 all.\n\nIt is as hard to write this as it must have been for Dimitri to send the wire.\n\nThis is all meaningless to you: but I have to think to someone else in order to arrive at any conclusions. I'm much clearer now \u2013 I think I know what I shall write Dimitri.\n\nAfter all, I could still go as pianist, unless he is really regretting a hasty decision. And again the possibility of _2_ seasons hence is not removed. One must have faith & be able to make these efforts at adjustment. One day to another is one adjustment to another. So please say nothing of this to anyone. I had to think aloud to you: somehow the rapport I feel with you is uncanny.\n\nI received yr. letter & music today just before the telegram. You will understand that I have not had a moment of open mind to look at your music. I'll do it now.\n\nWrite to me, & flights of angels attend yr Kouss [Koussevitzky] reading. I love you.\n\nLenny\n\n51. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\n408 South 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA\n\n23 April 1940\n\nDear David,\n\nMatters are worse, & more complex. It all came out, in a letter from D[imitri] M[itropoulos] this morning that it's the union that put the monkey wrench in the works. All sorts of complicated things involving firing and hiring & local talent as opposed to imported same etc. etc. The maestro will be in NYC around the 15th so I'm going to delay returning to Boston til after that. Ergo, no need to hang around Boston. I'll try to get in touch with you in the Beeg City.\n\nPlease don't think those thoughts re Dimitri. He's no false promiser. He has an integrity that is sans pareil. He's simply up against a strong machine. I too have heard the story of the Woltmann $1000 affair (minus the ten-dollar bill aspect), & I'm inclined to believe it.67 He does things like that, & has faith in Woltmann. The man is incredible that way.\n\nIt's difficult for me even to think about our relationship (yours & mine, I mean), harder to discuss it. I too must be very careful for many reasons, all of which I will burden you with when I see you in New York.\n\nGod bless Rochester.\n\nAnd you.\n\nLenny\n\nI hope you will send me programs & reviews. Even if they don't make sense. It will fortify your presence here. Alles gutes to alle Guten, especially Roy.\n\n52. Alfred Eisner to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Culver City, CA\n\n10 June [1940]\n\nBernsteinell,\n\nReturned in triumph from San Francisco to be promptly assigned to a western for Beery68 which is directly responsible for the half dozen heads I've bitten off in the past week. All very sad and making me want all kinds of out, preferably Mexico. Great exodus to Mex. from here and the Eisner feet itch _\u00e0 faire peur_. If I could get a few bobs ahead I could do a little thinking with guts about such things \u2013 but good broke.\n\nMad about Frisco: a city of character, albeit some hilly. I walked up the California St hill and so have reason to be bitter. Squandered sixty bucks in four days and not a solitary sou regretted. Ate expansively if expensively \u2013 and sometimes not so expensively. Stumbled on a place on Front St. where you eat for two bits, and second helpings yet; as yet no ptomaine. Really, if such phrases as \"feeling, character, spirit\" have any meaning when applied to cities, Frisco is all of that. I called Ken (your letter didn't reach me until return) and Ehrman _m\u00e8re_ took a deep breath and _drove_ \u2013 quelle talker. Ken, it appears, is supposed to have taken ship at Marseilles last week, but in his last letter home (some months before) he had hinted darkly at joining the ambulance service and hanging around for the duration. So Mrs. Ehrman didn't know and wouldn't I come out? All in all great time containing proper ingredients of culture, gastronomy, debauchery and lechery \u2013 and how is your sex life.\n\nNo, not married. Lived for a couple of weeks with a would-be actress in a house (small) in the hills with all of God's California spread like a burned over rug outside the bedroom window. Temperaments clashed and I'm back in an apartment which looks, fittingly enough, like a monastery. Actress, so help me God, had a glass eye and came from Brooklyn. And the most luscious body ever I rubbed against. Something, mon vieux, to see that eye come out. No, I didn't fuck her in the eye socket, although I imagine the procedure would have had a tang.\n\nOtherwise, but little. I may hit _story_ again soon. They're making up their flighty little minds now. Been writing quite some. Started my first novel. The \"To Own The World\" epic I worked on will be released soon under the title _We Who Are Young_.69 Has been sneaked and reactions very whoopsifying. (Glossary: Whoops \u2013 to puke, to vomit under strong emotional stress due to violent nausea, colloq.) Remember when your head is being held, only about 20% of the clotted pool about your feet is my fault.\n\nWould like very much to get out and away, but the studio has a viselike grip about my economic balls. The prospect is not encouraging: you look about you and realize that literary New York has descended _en masse_ on Hollywood demanding bread and butter. Even that old die-hard, Maltz,70 is in town looking for a job and, incidentally, not getting it. They're letting them out in droves and starvation marches with banners along Hollywood Blvd. Heard of a writer last week who was reduced to living in a house with a view on only one side and no swimming pool. Poor lamb. I get around quite a bit now and think nothing of going to parties where you put ashes in the drinks of Dorothy Parker or Sinclair Lewis etc. etc. Everybody is out here. Sometimes you actually tell yourself you're having an exciting time of it. I intend to get out in the fall. I'll have some dollars five hundred, and we'll see.\n\nDistressing about your next year crumbling about your hapless head. But methinks next year is going to crumble about everybody's hapless head and plans and dreams and whims and hopes and lives will be all one lovely goulash thanks to the Stukas. Some guy I know out here leaves next week for France and the volunteer ambulance service. Wanted me to go along. I laughed for the first time in weeks.\n\nAnd so at the coming of the great noon tide my phone rings and a producer wants to talk to me about a scene for Beery that even Beery can't play, and I am suddenly sick with the thought of talking about it. Weep for me lost among the lost and write.\n\nAl\n\n53. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\n86 Park Avenue, Newton, MA\n\n[14 June 1940]\n\nDear David,\n\nTerribly sorry about that bit of automatic watercolor \u2013 it was God trying to express himself. As I remember it, the chief substance thereof was simply the cheerful fact that I had sat waiting by the phone from day to day, so to speak, and to this moment have had no word from D[imitri] M[itropoulos]. A strange silence, which is difficult for me to understand. It cannot be that the thing is over. I wrote him several days ago asking _why_ and as yet have no answer. I'm sure that when I feel there's something wrong or misunderstood that I'm not simply making excuses to myself. These things simply cannot present themselves, naked and unexplained; the human quality would then become utterly cheap, like the stationery I'm writing you on.\n\nAs things go, however, I shall be in New York next week, probably from Wednesday to Saturday, for a television job with The Revuers. There's a sizeable reward, and I can well use it this summer. The Berkshire people have agreed to pay half my living expenses as well as the scholarship, and this job, I think, will just make up the rest. Ergo, if you're anywhere around the city next week, perhaps you might call me. I'll be staying at 29 W 65; the name is Comden; the phone is Trafalgar 7\u20139719, I think.\n\nRen\u00e9e Miquelle tells me of your piece, which she liked, & of doing the Village with you. Was it fun? She is terribly upset about France, more than all of us, because her home town & mother are involved. A ghastly business.\n\nIt was Heaven when Aaron came to Boston.\n\nI want an reste, I've been working intermittently on my Violin Sonata, which I like, & which you probably won't, I'm afraid. These labors, Catiline, what with learning new scores & practising _Tombeau de Couperin_ & assorted small subjects, & trying to see all the people I should when I have no real desire to, and trying to awake from a general depression, have all kept me fairly tied up. La vie marche. La mort approche. La naissance reste.\n\nI really regret not having seen you \u2013 I wanted to \u2013 and perhaps you'll have some reason to be in the City next week. I hope so. Write me there if you can't come.\n\nBest always.\n\nLenny\n\n54. Betty Comden to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[New York, NY]\n\nWednesday, 26 June [1940]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nEnclosed please find an impressive looking letter \u2013 and my love. I'm glad New Hampshire was on hand to welcome you and it sounds nice up there. You may or may not know that we all crashed Leonard Lyons' column in an item about Aaron [Copland] being the distinguished page-turner at the telecast.71 Adolph has spoken to Aaron and he is amused and amazed \u2013 and not the least bit angry.\n\nThere is a slight lull. Judy [Holliday] is away. The rest of us are doing some work and hoping that by the end of the week we'll be able to take a day or two off too. A dull letter, I know \u2013 but I'll write soon again \u2013 and I hope I'll have something to _enclose_ as well.\n\nLove,\n\nB\n\nDo you want those lovely slacks? \u2013 and jacket?\n\n55. Leonard Bernstein to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle72\n\nHanover, NH\n\n1 July 1940\n\nCh\u00e8re Mme,\n\nLunch is calling, and I have but a moment to write \u2013 the television venture being over, I am safely ensconced in this charming but dull college town with the Silvermans73 (or should it be Silvermen?) and working, actually. I see nobody, but lead a quiet, useful and pleasant existence. I've already learned Beethoven's 4th and _Scheherazade_. Starting Copland's _Music for the Theatre_ today. Practicing. Composing. The fiddle Sonata almost pr\u00eat. Leaving for the Cranwell School, Lenox (my next address: please write) on the 5th, probably. Aaron told me that I might have to conduct Randall Thompson's Symph. (No. 2, naturellement) the first week, since that's when Randy will be there. Kouss, in searching around for the person to do it, suddenly said to Copland (so goes the tale) \" _your_ Bernstein!\" I don't know.\n\nNothing to do but pray. And perk up about the abroad situation. It's getting exciting now; Russia, it seems, is going to have a lot to say about what Germany does, soon, and forcibly. Again, we can only pray. [...]\n\nLenny\n\n56. Betty Comden to Leonard Bernstein\n\n17 July 1940\n\nLenny dear,\n\nKouss may have been impressed by your conducting \u2013 but his feelings cannot compare with mine. I'm thrilled at the thoughts of your concerts and I absolutely will make it my business to get up to see you somehow this summer. But actually conducting! And after all that silly fretting over whether or not you'd memorize _Scheherazade_ in time. [...] It's wonderful about the conducting and the summer sounds magnificent for you. [...]\n\n57. Leonard Bernstein to Kenneth Ehrman\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n[August 1940]\n\nKen,\n\nI was very desolated that your visit was so short \u2013 it hit me afterwards that I hadn't really seen you outside of some small talk & some big talk forced in somewhere to give your return significance. I wanted so to reestablish us again \u2013 & then you left. I find you, thank God (?) very much the same Ken, the most pleasant article to be with I've ever encountered, cool, and unimpressed by most superficial things, more impressed than he will admit by the basicker things. I was touched by your reaction to the hundreds of busy little Tanglewood bees: if it caused the slightest stirring up in yr creative being, I feel a Messiah, indirectly. Hast du ein eingiges Wort geschrieben? Is Palo Alto? Does your family intrigue you any more? You should keep away from it. It's a kind of monstrosity anyway, as you will admit \u2013 but you can't live in a sideshow.\n\nCome east, where I can see you often.\n\nTanglewood was a complete success. Where did you leave? \u2013 yes, at the Bach, which was done standing up & [Putnam] Aldrich playing the harpsichord. The performance was an ode to Viola Wasterlain. _Scheherazade_ was wonderfully exciting, despite some bad slips from the solos, & there followed the Haydn _Symphonie concertante_ , the Brahms _Haydn Variations_ , Copland's _Outdoor Overture_ (at the Allies Benefit!), & a performance I wish you could have seen & heard of Stravinsky's _Histoire du Soldat_ with my own words (local color) served up as a surprise for Koussie on his terrace at a tea he gave for the school. A hit. Kouss is greatly impressed wants me to study with him in Boston this winter, if he can get an orchestra for me to work with. I'll know in a few weeks. Write, & spare no gory details. I'm with you til the plane wheels flaming to the Japanese (Chinese, I suppose it shd be) soil \u2013\n\nLen\n\n58. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n[August or early September 1940]\n\nAaron, foremost of men,\n\nWhere are you? And if so, why no word? You said you'd write, according to Green. Not seeing you is something of a shock, you understand. The summer was a revelation in that regard. Neither of us (I hope) tired of the other (I had feared you might) and I came, in fact, to depend in many ways on you. I've never felt about anyone before as I do about you. Completely at ease, & always comforted with you. This is not a love letter, but I'm quite mad about you.\n\nMight Yaddo on Sept. 7 & 8 be interesting?74 Are you planning to go? I was thinking of upping to Lenox next week or so to see the Kouss. Perhaps I could combine both. Write fast & let me hear. Best to Victor.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\nP.S. I've finished the Fiddle Sonata, &, by God, there's something about the ending that's wonderful \u2013 almost mature. I want you to see the whole thing now \u2013 I like it better.\n\n59. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky75\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n[before 5 September 1940]\n\nDear Dr. Koussevitzky,\n\nWords are a remote enough medium of expression for any musician, but it is especially difficult for me to find words for this letter. Let it be brief.\n\nThis summer to me was beauty \u2013 beauty in work, and strength of purpose, and cooperation. I am full of humility and gratitude for having shared so richly in it. These last six weeks have been the happiest and most productive of my life. I have been able, for the first time, to concentrate completely on my main purpose, with a glorious freedom from personal problems.\n\nIt was a renaissance for me \u2013 a rehabilitation of the twisted and undefined Weltanschauung with which I came to you.\n\nFor your creative energy, your instinct for truth, your incredible incorporation of teacher and artist, I give humble thanks. Seeing in you my own concepts matured is a challenge to me which I hope to fulfill in your great spirit.\n\nI am now at home, resting with my family. I hope to be in Lenox within the next few weeks, and I should very much like to see you and talk with you. Can you let me know when this would be best for you?\n\nPlease give my very warm greetings to Madame Koussevitzky, and to Miss Naumoff.\n\nIn devotion, and in gratitude,\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\n60. Serge Koussevitzky to Leonard Bernstein\n\nLenox, MA\n\n5 September 1940\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nThank you for your letter.\n\nNothing could have made me happier than to know that your work this summer has really given you beauty and strength and a better understanding of the gifts with which nature has endowed you.\n\nI shall be glad to see you sometime during the middle of this month, let us say Tuesday, the 17th, or Wednesday, the 18th, \u2013 and I shall look forward to your coming to Lenox.\n\nMy best wishes are with you always.\n\nSerge Koussevitzky\n\n61. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\n86 Park Avenue, Newton, MA\n\n30 September 1940\n\nDear Dr. Koussevitzky,\n\nAs I sit and wait for the outcome of your plan, in a kind of Proustian twilight state between knowing and not knowing, between sleeping and waking \u2013 in the midst of all this I have had an inspiring idea. It would have to have \u2013 and I pray it will have \u2013 your support.\n\nI have met one or two of the people who have been conducting small orchestras in Greater Boston, and I have been singularly unimpressed \u2013 or rather, singularly _im_ pressed with their lack of equipment. It occurred to me that if they can get orchestras of young people, perhaps I could. And with your support, almost certainly.\n\nIf you are unable to establish connections with the representatives of Backward Boston, don't you think it would be wise for me to attempt the organization of a young orchestra? I am sure there are many instrumentalists in Boston who would be glad of orchestral experience; if you liked the idea, we might even establish it as a kind of training orchestra for the Boston Symphony. If these young people knew you were behind it, I am sure they would rally to the cause.\n\nThe problem for me is to make contact with these people. Again, if you could speak to the men of your orchestra, they might be willing to send their pupils to this orchestra. I realize the responsibility I would be shouldering, but I do it only under the influence of your spirit which still hovers around me. I could then work with an orchestra (which would derive great benefit from their association with you) and still be here to work with you this season. Please don't think me presumptuous; I am just making a great effort to be practical.\n\nPlease try to get some rest before the season. I am sorry to intrude on your privacy even with this letter; but I am made bold by my recent reading of Nietzsche, who teaches me that I must be somewhat bolder if I, like his Zarathustra, shall ever face \"the great Noon-Tide.\"\n\nIn eternal devotion,\n\nLeonard\n\nWarmest greetings to Madame Koussevitzky and Miss Naumoff.\n\n62. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\n2122 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA\n\n11 October 1940\n\nDear David,\n\nI am (O wrest the power from the powerful) in Philly. Nay, living here. There has been a commotion in the diplomatic heavens76 and I, O fearful pawn, was set with a sharp click in Rittenhouse Square. I'll tell you all anon.\n\nWhich means that I shan't be in Boston when you are. God bless the Sat. night concert, & have a good burlesque show.\n\nI'd be incredibly happy to do the NMQR recordings. I _am_ \"serious\" about it, and very flattered that you should still want me to do it. So write, & set some dates, voice the stipulations, & I'll pop out as from a pigeon-hole. Mais l'important, que tu m'\u00e9crives, et cela bient\u00f4t.\n\nLenny\n\n63. Leonard Bernstein to Kenneth Ehrman\n\n2122 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA\n\n15 October 1940\n\nCher Kenneth,\n\nIncredible that you put up with what you put up with what you put up (with?). Everything that constitutes a means of improvement for you is at your disposal, except, apparently, the initial desire. That's available, to, at a reasonable fee. You're not lazy. Why don't you investigate?\n\nI couldn't imagine what you were doing at Lafayette, Ind., but I wrote you there, & no response. Of course, I wrote you again at Palo Alto (first sending it to Box 817, Palo Alto, 'steada Menlo Park). By the way, did you know there was Menlo Park, New Jersey?\n\nBut having forgotten what I said to you in that Odyssean letter, I may be guilty of repeating myself. En tous cas, comme tu aper\u00e7ois, sans doute, ci-haut (that sounds wrong) I am in Philly. I don't know; I never asked to be here. Something makes it inevitable. I may have told you that Kouss had great plans for me which involved my staying in Boston but they were given the K.O. by the Hon. Curtis Institute, which objected strenuously at (read: to) student-swiping, & vowed to discontinue all relationship with Kouss & his school if I didn't return. Matter of ethics, don't you know, setting a precedent, don't you know, etc. Reiner was furious. He had seen me referred to in printed items as Kouss' pupil \u2013 no mention of _him_ (antecedents again; means Reiner). So me voici, & lucky to be, O misery me, ta da ta da. But I've got a magnificent room with a double bed & massive mahogany furniture, & the school is doing almost all the supporting. Therefore, easier. Therefore, out goes Mexico, & Kouss, & you, & Cambridge, & California. Nothing left for you to do but come here. Please try; there are some things you might profit by that you haven't yet seen. By \"here\" I mean East, not Philly: I'm in this city only because Koussie realized that he'd be losing an A-1 customer in Mrs. Bok if he didn't kowtow. So I became a fearful pawn ([Edna St Vincent] Millay) in the hands of wily diplomats. Write me very soon.\n\nI to my naked spinet in your corner.\n\nLenny the pawn, & Penny the prawn,\n\nand Henny the lawn, & Jenny the spawn, & Renny the griswoldforlawn.\n\n64. Alfred Eisner to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Culver City, CA\n\n[?October 1940]\n\nLennie, old mole,\n\nI have just finished reading Hemingway's new novel from the galley proofs and am still a little breathless.77 A master stroke managing to get hold of those proofs, involving larceny of some proportion. But she's a novel, old gum drop, a book of infinite insight and agony and the soul of a man hovering halo fashion over the brow of his body while he kills with cold savagery. Writing that positively _gooses_ you! Hemingway saw Spain cameo-clear; and his book is just two years \u2013 two? Four! \u2013 too late and its anger will cause not a ripple in the hysteria of warmaking. 'Twill be just a good novel by Hemingway about something out of ancient history. The people who will realize what it is he is saying will already know, and there it will end.\n\nWhere have you been, old sausagefoot? Aeons have whirled their course since that card from Tanglewood. Not a word. I suppose by this late date you have a devoted slave in the Kouss. I thought as much. Indirect word of you from Austin, who described you as \"forging ahead\" and deciding with some acumen, I think, that he (A.) and Kenneth needed a kick in the pants. Back at Curtis? What? All the days crammed to the brim that I must know about. Successes. Quiff. Friends. Plans. Already written, in the writing, to be written. Prospects. Aaron. On and on, and I want to hear about it all. So to it, Rosinante, to the road again; get thee pants and write me a letter that will consume at least a morning of MGM's time in the reading. Trust me to kill the afternoon.\n\nI won't even mention the draft. It's just too goddamn funny to even talk about. One thing: what are you going to do? Me, I can't wait until the army makes a man of me. Can't decide between the air force and fighting my war toying with some secretary's breasts. Simply _can't_ decide. We live in parlous times, halvah, old boy, very. Dies irae, dies illa, solvet saeclum in favilla. But yes.\n\nHattie arrives in some two weeks to take over not only my care and feeding but also the not inconsiderable job of delivering me from the financial toils. I make enough money for three men, and am a pauper, yea, I sit among the ashes and for garments sackcloth. I'm tooting madly about looking at houses. To date, nothing I like. _Must_ find something within the week.\n\nOf my tenuous existence, trivia. The Eisner soul grows small and curls inward like the anemone to confess that he has ghosted two (I must be very tired or something) jobs for a quickie studio, for the gain of silver.78 One, a mouse called _Thirty Boys and a Girl_ (subtitle: The Gangfuck) has just been finished. Shooting time: six days. Budget: 10 grand. So you can imagine. No, you can't imagine. But the banks honor their checks, if you worry them into giving it to you. Working here at Metro with a couple of German Jew writers whose English is even worse than their script which is negligible. We communicate in mangled French, English and German. Nice people though: one an outspoken anarchist. All for the assassination of L.B. Mayer (after the expiration of his contract, of course). The other is a gourmet who drags me about to restaurants of stature and flies into tantrums if the b\u00e9arnaise sauce is not up to his idea of sauce b\u00e9arnaise. One night he insisted on going to the kitchen and bawling out the chef. I was sure he was going to get a meat cleaver in his head. Nip and tuck there for a minute.\n\nTaking a course in the novel given by the League of American Writers school here, more as discipline to make me sit down more often to an already started novel, than in the hope of learning anything. Some very wacky people in that class: I expect murder before the month is out. And River79 ( _The Torguts_ ) to have nervous prostration. Also a new story of mine will appear in _The Clipper_ , a literary monthly put out by the League pretending to some excellence. Be in excellent company anyway: Dreiser, Meyer Levin, Belfrage, others. I think every writer in America is either here or on his way. You meet them all.\n\nIntended coming home this month, but Mother Metro like the python has me in her coils. In the spring. Letter from Ann and Nathan today: they desire word of you. And remember, it's _Keats_. So heavyhearted, I go home to my cell and it's another day. Write, sluggard, hear the voice crying in the wilderness and write.\n\nCon brio,\n\nAl\n\n65. David Diamond to Leonard Bernstein\n\nYaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY\n\n29 October 1940\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nHenry Cowell80 forwarded your little \"critique\" to me, asking me to get some definite plan worked out for the recording. Naturally, I don't feel the way you do about the 3rd fugue and neither do I approve of a series of preludes. If I had wanted that, I would have written them without the fugues. And Lenny, perhaps your kind of musicianly temperament will be the kind that succeeds best because it turns hot and cold easiest, but in the long run you will find your own way of treating music (the way John Kirkpatrick does by the way, but instead of saying \"dull\", he says, \"quasi-baroque\") to be the merest surface glazing. It seems incredible to me, that in this short time, you can already pronounce so dark a verdict on the several fugues, when I'm sure, knowing your high-pressure endocrine system, that you could hardly have spent much concentrated effort on them since Cowell got the music back to you. I can only say that I believe in the 3rd Prelude and Fugue whole, that if the fugue to you seems dull, it is like X telling me much of the _Art of Fugue_ and the _Great Fugue_ is dry and paper-music. The art of counterpoint is a true art. It has to be realized before one can say things pro or con. And to realize the 16th century masters, much of late Bach and Beethoven, the Stravinsky of _Persephone_ and the _Symphonie de Psaumes_ , the fugue from Bart\u00f3k's _Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta_ , we must first know the notes so well, the line so accurately and the nuances so perfectly and rightly proportioned, we should be able to reconstruct the works ourselves. You will say, but I am no sixteenth century master, Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, or Bart\u00f3k \u2013 but my aims and purposes are the same, my deep compassion for the past the same and my belief in the future the same. Lots of Reger may be dull, but not this baby. I've learned when to stop the machine in time of crisis! When you employ the word _dull_ to the 3rd fugue, you are simply failing to unmask the secret character behind the piece.\n\nAs Cowell seems very pressed, I promised I would write at once ill or not. I've been in bed over a week with a serious streptococcus infection. This is really my first day up. But back to the recording: no, I don't OK the prelude idea \u2013 sounds too easy \u00e0 la Bernstein. The original plan is the one I hold to. If you feel the matter much too taxing to go through because the fugue is dull, just write and tell Cowell so. I'm getting more and more used to this kind of thing. There are fewer and fewer kindred spirits left each year. By the time this war is over, there will be none. If you take yourself by both your shoulders, for a change, work the notes carefully, you'll find the fugue will grow quite rapidly inside of you. Let me know what you decide. And if you go ahead, I'll send you $2 with which to make a test recording for me as I will not be able to come to NY. Make it in Philadelphia at a reliable recording place and send it to me, and I'll write right back about tempo etc. All good things ever, and let Cowell know at once what you've decided.\n\nDavid\n\n66. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\n2122 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA\n\n[after 29 October 1940]\n\nDear David,\n\nI was shocked by your letter. I'm afraid you misunderstood. I intended no criticism of the music _per se_ , but simply referred to the probable reaction of a record audience. I suggested that the 3rd fugue, unpianistic and unrelieved as it is, might be an unfortunate choice with which to introduce yourself via recording. If you want it, then certainly I will be glad to do it.81\n\nBut why the maleure? I understand that you've been ill, and down, and probably out, and kind of out of the world, but, Lord, David, \u2013 \"too easy \u00e0 la Bernstein\" \u2013 \"take yourself by your shoulders for a change\", etc. etc. And I thought you knew me better than to intimate that I would make superficial dicta about music. Believe me, I know what the fugue is worth. I can list for you all the fine points \u2013 your achievements in it. But there are \"stains\"; your second stretto, for instance, is anticlimactic because it is a four-measure stretto, whereas the preceding one was a _one_ -measure stretto. This is especially true of a subject in unrelieved half-notes. Again, you speak of nuances to be mastered thoroughly \u2013 but you haven't _one_ in the piece except the opening _ff_! From my point of view there must be a dynamic growth \u2013 involving especially a drop to _piano_ in the 17th measure, to rise to the final climactic stretto, & possibly the same thing again (modified) before the second stretto. Write me what you think of this. And is [ = 63 strictly to be maintained throughout?\n\nI shall make a test record as soon as possible & send it to you. Let me know about the above very soon. And please keep well, & somewhat happier.\n\nBest,\n\nLenny\n\n67. David Diamond to Leonard Bernstein\n\nYaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY\n\n5 November 1940\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nI am happy that you have decided upon the fugue too. As I look over the letter you sent to Mr. Cowell, it is true that you were thinking of recording purposes, but all the same _that_ word is there thus: \"The third prelude is good but the fugue is _dull_...\" etc. \u2013 and to me that still pertains to the music, recording or not. I won't argue the point further, for we seem to be beyond that now. Furthermore, I think you should have realized by now that I'm pretty stupid on consideration to be given the purely commercial aspects of music. Where public relations are concerned I simply don't function nor want to. And whether one makes the right start in recording works by choosing the best to represent the composer on discs doesn't interest me either since no one cares how a composer is introduced or in what order. It's the music that counts in the long run. Where Aaron for example should have made his bow on discs with say, _Music for the Theater_ or _Hear Ye, Hear Ye_ , he made it with the _Piano Variations_ and _Vitebsk_ and that would seem wrong but nevertheless that is how he began and it makes no difference to anyone. People still hate the _Variations_ and eat up the _Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_ , alors? So don't worry your pretty head about the introduction part of it; \"c'est la musique qui compte\" as [Nadia] Boulanger always said to me when I would pose such questions as you have brought up. Truly, dear Lennie, I don't care a double fuck for anything dehors de la musique. You know that, why worry about it, no one else does, time takes care of all the necessary sifting out.\n\nNow about the music: I don't agree about the drop to a _piano_ at the 17th measure, lawsy no! After the full strong half note pulse with accents and the general _ff_ , it would only appear as an affectation! I should have right in the first measure put _sempre_ after the _ff_. It should be _ff_ throughout and always a quarter to 63 with the natural push forward towards 70 circa which happens by itself. It must be very sustained, very bold, the notes will provide the necessary _espressivo_ I believe. The chord quality at measure 17 is sufficient to stir emotionally anyone capable of being touched by the chord without changing the dynamics. You mistake my meaning of the word, nuance; it does not mean dynamics \u2013 I'd rather it meant conception and feeling for the natural flow and modulation of the whole musical line, _chiaro_? I'm not worried in the least, I know you'll do a beauty of a job. And if you can keep a secret, a venture is afoot which will mean much for both of us if it works out with Victor. I enclose $2 for the test recording and as soon as I've heard it, I shall let you know my feelings.\n\nWhy let us start a series of polemics? You say I should know you by now, I can hardly agree with that. You never allowed me to, ever. I tried in so many ways to know you better, looked forward to seeing you in NY, but you didn't come last spring, came to Tanglewood to see you but got a cold shoulder [...] At Yaddo [...] I was simply hurt by the strain you forced to exist in not being open enough about your true feelings. It would have been far better to have said, \"David, understand that there can be no physical relationship between us, therefore I'd rather not stay with you tonight.\" [...] It's all right though now. Nothing matters much right now.\n\nAlways,\n\nDavid\n\n68. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY\n\n6 November [1940]\n\nDear LLLLLLL,\n\nYour latest burned the end of my fingers. The next one will probably burn up en route. All I can say is that you've made rapid progress. All that's missing is for you to fall in love with a hermaphroditic goat... or sumpin'.\n\nI vaguely remember the Mr. Nelson you mentioned. It was two years ago on the way to France. It was his great moment \u2013 just at the age when the world seems too too wonderful, and he [was] sought after by all the most desirable creatures, a different bed every night, etc., etc. That type is the worst after the first fresh glow of youth is gone. All his stories are rot, of course.\n\nThe enclosure by D[avid] D[iamond] is also sumpin! The less said the better. There is a frighteningly dumb and humorless streak in the boy.\n\nI'm up to my neck in fussing over the new loft. V[ictor Kraft]'s dark room is sumptuous, but all my things are strewn to the four corners of the joint. It's awful \u2013 I'll never move again.\n\nDon't forget to listen in on Sat. at 9:35.82\n\nLove,\n\nA\n\n69. Harold Shapero83 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n\"XI\u2013?\u20131940\" [November 1940]\n\nDear heart,\n\nYou're full of shit. You're full of shit because you're exuberant, and exuberance is not especially welcome at this moment. The world and I don't need exuberance, what we need is revolution. Especially the world. Especially me. Especially me. And the world too.\n\nFirst, I have to say, and not with any obligation, but with sincere co-jubilation, that I'm glad for you and all the successes you mentioned. I'm glad for every every weentzy one of 'em. You're doing the right things in a big way. (Funny, that's what you always told me.) And you're making money too. _'Sis dir gut!_\n\nWalter84 thinks Diamond stinks, and what's good enough for Walter is good enough for me. It's always been a mystery to me (on the basis of the stuff I've seen, and I've seen enough to get an indication) how the hell Diamond's gotten as far as he's gotten. Honest to God, Lenny dear, David Diamond is a bust as far as I'm concerned. For his own sake I hope he's better than I think he is.\n\nTell me about how Charlie Demuth was a tragic figger.85 I don't really know his biography. Nobody seems to.\n\nWhat was your draft number? 800086 I hope I hope I hope.\n\nI saw a Georges Rouault show at Boston's hoi polloi Institute of Modern Art. The guy's a great, awfully great, painter, even though he believes in God, and is fanatic about it. To be corny, the sheer magic of the man's textures (great gobs of paint) and the magic of the man's facility for expressionism, Jeez, terrific.\n\nThe curious tone at the beginning of this letter wasn't for nothing. I will now list mes calamit\u00e9s:\n\n1) Do you remember the slow movement of the quartet? Well Walter, and finally I, agreed that it stunk. So, with Walter egging me on I kept going. It still stunk. It has now been thrown away.\n\n2) I had to copy my Overture (why, I don't know) and as I copied I got an awful feeling. You, Bernstein, don't realize how silly and false that piece is.87\n\n3) I started a fast quartet movement that was gonna be great stuff. I took a look at it two weeks ago: the sterilest, lousiest, beatest, etc.\n\n4) Since I passed in my thesis title one (1) day late the Committee on Honors of Harvard Univ. has refused to let me write a thesis. So: I can't get honors. So: I can't get a fellowship.88 So: I have not written a note (except harmony & strict cpt. exercises) for a month and I'm not going to for at least a year. Probably more. So: I'm enrolling in the Museum School after graduation and I'm gonna learn how to paint & draw. At least if I can't use my head I can use my hands.\n\n5) I'm in love with a New Yorker who's in love with someone else. And I fell in love with her because she said things like \"Jeez, this guy's (me) got the terrificest vocabulary, all the way from A to Beat.\"\n\n6) I could go on forever, I got millions of 'em.\n\nGoodbye, be good, have a Scotch on me.\n\nSonny\n\n70. Alfred Eisner to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Culver City, CA\n\n[?1940]\n\nDear Lennie, mon vieux, mon vieux,\n\nAt long last opportunity offers itself to look up from this verdammter desk and inform the friends de ma jeunesse that I am definitely not dead. Have been working day and night and night and day on a yarn scheduled for Bob Montgomery having to do with the Jack the Ripper slashings and a guy who achieves a change of personality as a result of suspicion accidentally falling his way: a very choice assignment and the first story I have anything to do with that excited me at all. Picture to be produced by one [Seymour] Nebenzal, a refugee cinemateer who did _M_ and _Mayerling_ among others. A very intelligent gimmick and we have an orgy making ourselves understood in mangled English, French and German. Believe it or not, progress manifests. Neby is of the old German school of thought that reasons something like this: if I can work 20 hours a day, why, please tell me why you can't work 15? So you work 15 or better. I whacked out an 85 page treatment in exactly four days and nights, severing myself from all matters earthly and living the life of a hermit, yea, a veritable anchorite. Maybe this one will pay off. Please God.\n\nItem: have a new car, a most spectacular 1933 Plymouth convertible coupe that is doing its very able best to bleed me to death. To date: new brake re-line, clutch plates, oil filter, new floormat, motor tuneup \u2013 and I've had the car only about a month. Really, it's in grand shape and a swell buy and I drive it all over hell and gone desertward, seaward, and mountainward. Eisner discovering California. However, I borrowed dough from the studio to pay for the car and they nick me every week for a payment, bills, expenses, so for a change I'm eternally broke. But I live, and not too badly. At long last beginning to make friends, good people, and I don't go as batty from loneliness as I did. Getting quite a lot of work done of all descriptions. Have a new girl: a rabbi's daughter, praise Gawd. Hi-ho-methusalem, etc. Fucks like a jackrabbit, and cooks wonderful goulash, a duality of accomplishment not nearly as unimportant as it sounds.\n\nOf else, but little. Time and tide and flux. Much rain: the Pacific in perpendicular lines, hills washing down, flood. California. Write of yourself and that without delay.\n\nEwig,\n\nAl\n\n71. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY\n\nFriday [?1940]\n\nDear Pupil,\n\nWhat terrifying letters you write: fit for the flames is what they are. Just imagine how much you would have to pay to retrieve such a letter forty years from now when you are conductor of the Philharmonic. Well it all comes from the recklessness of youth, that's what it is. Of course I don't mean that you mustn't write such letters (to me, that is), but I mustn't forget to burn them.\n\nYou were right about the chuckle \u2013 but it was a very sympathetic one. Actually, when I opened your letter I was worried that something had gone wrong. If it's any consolation, things like that incident can sometimes turn out very wrong indeed. (That's Lecture No. VI.) However, I reluctantly admit that they sometimes turn out very well. You takes yer chances \u2013 but I'm not sure you're in the proper mood. Anyway, I should have liked to have taken the first train down there to investigate the \"situation\", but I controlled myself. [...]\n\nI'm a little busy with the new loft \u2013 fixing it up, etc. When are you going to find a pretext for another visit. The last one made a deep impression.\n\nRegards to the blue hat. But be careful!\n\nA\n\n72. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY\n\nFri [Autumn 1940]\n\nDear L,\n\nGlad you're settled OK. I'll remember the invitation!\n\nNothing new here \u2013 except Virgil was made critic of the _Tribune_ which is positively flabbergastious.89\n\nSaw Paul Bowles. He says he is going to Phillie for 2 weeks when _12th Night_ goes there, which should be in another few weeks. So look him up. Added 2 more ink pages to the Sonata.\n\n[Robert] Weatherly90 came over to try out _Quiet City_. He played it OK but it still should be changed.\n\nI'm lecturing in Boston on Dec 12. Will you be there then or is that too soon for Xmas Holydays?\n\nI dream about you frequently.\n\nA\n\n73. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n2122 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA\n\n[?December 1940]\n\nDear Aaron,\n\nChi[cago] is vergangen! Wieder zu Hause, & a little bit glad to get back to even a semi-normal life. All-night vigils both ways on Chicago trains are not my speed. But the week was fine. Thompson A-1, expenses almost nil, much opera, rehearsals & performances, ballet. [...] I missed _Billy_ [ _the Kid_ ] by a week. The Kurt Weill was really exciting. _Rosenkavalier_ is puffed up, but has extraordinarily beautiful passages. Reiner is a genius. Music is a hard profession. All this have I gleaned, O richer I, from a week in Chicago! [...]\n\nTo work aussit\u00f4t que possible on the _Saloon_. I reel at the thought of royalties. (Isn't that split, by the way, another typical gesture?) I accept $25 of course, beggars can't etcetera, but should they know about the royalties? If not I'll shut up. Am I being a pig in taking them (assuming there will be any?).\n\nI'm afraid I'll still be in Philly on the 12th, but my love to Koussy\n\n& to you,\n\nLenny\n\n[...]\n\n74. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n2122 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA\n\n10 December 1940\n\nDear Aaron,\n\nShipped off the _Saloon_ to you today to dispose of at your convenience to Heinsheimer (sorry, but I'd lost the Boo[sey] & Haw[kes] address). Hope it's good enough. Look especially at the rather turgid & theatrical _ossia_ at the end of the slow middle section, & if it gives pain simply cross it out. I did it only because there had to be some theatrical interest at that point (which is, I'm afraid, a bit dull even in the orch.) Don't take it too hard.\n\nI'm desolated that I can't be in Boston with you, but I'll ring up en passant through NYC.\n\nAt a cute performance of _Boh\u00e8me_ tonight I ran upon my painter friend Zeil (recall?) who, it seems, has been sick with a housemaid's knee variety of arthritis. Gruesome. I am to see him this week. I quail; I suspect syphilis.\n\nHow do you do these days? It seems aeons since I heard from you. Literally. Write soon, very.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\nVolevi dire, bella come un tramonto...91 very nice libretto.\n\n75. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY\n\nMon. [16 December 1940]\n\nDear Lennypenny,\n\nI suppose we'll be crossing letters. But anyway \u2013\n\nThe piece came and I've been sweating my whatchacallits off ever since trying to put it in shape. Your idea of a manuscript \"ready for the printer\" is to weep. I'm preparing one of my best lectures for you on said subject. But when are you coming through?? We need a couple of hours to talk over several points. What I'm doing now is mostly crossing the T's and dotting the I's. But I don't want to hand it over the Heins[heimer] until I've seen you.\n\nWas up Boston way and saw that screwball Shapero. Also met John Lessard92 there, who turns out to be as nice as his Piano Sonata.\n\nPlan to stay over a day or two so that I can get a good look at you.\n\nIt just occurs to me \u2013 _of course_ you'll be coming for Dimitri's debut on Thursday.93 Or do I err? [...] If I guess right, let's have supper zusammen, just to start things properly.\n\nA\n\n76. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n[Philadelphia, PA]\n\n[December 1940]\n\nAaron Excelsus,\n\nNo, our letters didn't cross, because I couldn't decide whether to cut the President's (Mrs. Bok's) Christmas Party on Friday night, plus a class or two, to be in New York Thurs. night. Lord knows I would have loved to. I had planned so hard on it. But I've been persuaded, & duties is duties, and I must stay. I'll be in NYC Saturday afternoon, probably around 2 or 3 o'clock. I'll call immediately (if not OK let me know like mad) \u2013 we can operate on _Saloon_ on Saturday & I can hear Dimitri on Sunday, & be home Monday. Damn the Christmas Party anyway.\n\nYou sadden me infinitely about the _Saloon_. I thought I had it done. Heinsheimer has been clamoring. I tremble at the thought of your lecture. See you Sat.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n77. Kiki Speyer94 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nWednesday [?December 1940 or January 1941]\n\nMon pauvre petit chou,\n\nI was so sorry to receive such a sad letter from you \u2013 and I wish I could come to Philly for a few days to cheer you up. However this is impossible as I have very recently come back from New York. I went with the B.S.O. and had a simply wonderful time. I saw your sweet friend Dimitri (what a marvelous person). Also Aaron, Chasins, Hindemith, Szigeti etc. I was wined and dined to my heart's content and came back to Boston no longer quite so depressed. Friend Stresemann95 I also saw quite often!!\n\nWhat a shame you are unable to go off on a \"toot\". You need it, Leonard dear, and I mean it seriously when I say that you drive yourself too hard. At least if you keep yourself as busy as you did in Tanglewood and here when you were on \"vacation\". Do be careful \u2013 you've had one bad cold and now la grippe est everywhere, so button up your stunning new overcoat!\n\nThere is little news \u2013 concerts, rehearsal, lessons and practising keep me fairly well occupied. A few dates sprinkled in add zest \u2013 yet like you I am sad, and, my pet, it is the war. I think of it so often although to what avail??\n\nKouss is on vacation for three weeks in the Berkshires. He had a cold (yours no doubt!!) and felt rotten in New York. His Shostakovitch had a marvelous ovation in Carnegie.96 Even I was so thrilled when I heard it \u2013 the chills ran up and down my spine! And Haydn...\n\nWords of sympathy come to my pen with difficulty but be advised that I fully realize your loss.97 I often think of you and hope that we will see you soon. Mother sends her love and a big kiss. Dad and Andr\u00e9 also send their best.\n\nLove,\n\nKiki\n\n78. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nHotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY\n\n8:45 p.m. [January 1941]\n\nAaron,\n\nI don't know quite what I'm saying \u2013 but just a word to tell you I didn't elope or get killed last night \u2013 just drunk. In fact, I slept in the Empire from 7:00 to 10:00. Didn't you get a message to call me?\n\nI missed the funeral & spent all day chez les Eisner.98 I am at the moment a half-crazed mystic. Forgive last night's disappearance act.\n\nExpecting you in Philly. Write exactly when.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n79. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY\n\nTuesday [January 1941]\n\nDear L,\n\nAll terribly dramatic wasn't it? I felt so sorry that your vacashe turned out so hectic. I'll be curious to hear the full story of the last night and day (I got a message to call 511 \u2013 Mr. Green \u2013 never dreaming you were there \u2013 and I just waited too late before taking the pain to call.\n\nI'll be down on Monday. I'll take the one o'clock train. Will you be home after 2:30? If so we can have an hour together before I start my duties: Around 3:30 at the Free Library, at 5 for interviews, and at 7 for dinner at the Art Alliance. (Ain't it awful.) I won't be staying over \u2013 so may I use your room as a place to change in?\n\nHeinsheimer says the proofs of _El Sal\u00f3n_ are being sent me \u2013 so I may bring them with me if there are any changes needed.\n\nI feel even closer to you after all that's happened.\n\nLove,\n\nA\n\n80. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\n[10 January 1941]\n\nDear Helen,\n\nForgive me for not writing sooner \u2013 I have been in a messy state of mind. Last Saturday I lost one of my closest friends \u2013 Alfred Eisner. I'm sure you remember him as my roommate for two years. A malignant tumor on the brain \u2013 and it was all over. Just as he was about to reach the top \u2013 with the world before him, wonderful jobs in his hands, and 24 years old. I've been completely numb ever since: something seems to die in you, & refuses to accept a fact as cruel and unjust as that. Coming so soon after the death of David Prall, it makes me very leery of world values \u2013 so much so that at the present I find it difficult to consider anything important.\n\nPlease write soon \u2013 I know you will understand the brevity of this letter.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n81. Helen Coates to Leonard Bernstein\n\n66 The Fenway, Boston, MA\n\n13 January 1941\n\nLenny dear,\n\nI found your letter here less than an hour ago but I'm so shocked over the death of your close friend, Alfred Eisner, that I must write you at once. My heart goes out to you in the tragic loss of your very good friend, and I grieve to think that such a brilliant young person should be taken from this world. Tho I never met him, I, of course, do remember him as your roommate, and often heard you speak of him. And then when we had dinner together in New York in late November, you went on that evening to the hospital to see him. I never thought to inquire of him afterward as at the time you thought he had some sort of a throat infection, nothing serious.\n\nDeath is appalling enough at any time (except in the cases of very old people or those who are seriously incapacitated) but at your age the death of anyone so close to you strikes a particularly hard blow. I feel the keenest sympathy for you, for I had so many experiences, beginning when I was just a little older than you, that just knocked all support from under me and very nearly disillusioned me completely. All sense of values goes, and as you say, you \"find it difficult to consider anything important.\" There's nothing very encouraging I can say to you at such a time. Each one has to battle his own way thru the fog and find something to hold on to. I can tell you this however: that, as one gets older, the blows from any tragic experience seem to strike a little less deeply. I suppose one's senses are not quite so keen, and one's emotional nature not so easily unbalanced.\n\nIt is cruel that you have lost two such wonderful friends in so short a time. Last week in N.Y. I saw a friend from the west whom I hadn't seen for 10 years \u2013 and discovered to my amazement that he and his twin brother (whom I did not see that day) were old and very good friends of David Prall. Robert and Frederick Schlick (from Portland, Oregon) graduated from the Univ. of California and studied there with David Prall. They were very good friends \u2013 often went together to Carmel to stay with other friends. Later when the twins were in Paris and David Prall was at Oxford, he went over to stay with them in Paris. I'd like so much to have you and the Schlick twins know each other. (Their mother and my mother are very old friends, and were friends before I was born.) Frederick is a playwright. He's had one play produced on Broadway a number of years ago,99 and he's been writing for Paramount. Robert is a poet and has a very unique plan about his life's work.100\n\nIf you and I can hit upon another weekend in N.Y. this winter (they are there just for 4 months) I'll arrange to have you meet them (they're just 35).\n\nPhila. must have seemed particularly gloomy after such a tragic personal experience. Somehow, I hate to have you come so close to tragedy. I'd like to protect you from such heartbreaks and disillusionment. But, unfortunately, no matter how fond we are of another, we cannot do that for anyone. The only solace I've ever found when the world looked so black I didn't see how I'd ever go on, was _work_ and _more work_ , and \u2013 _the passing of time_ which somehow eases the keen edge of suffering.\n\nWrite me soon.\n\nMuch love,\n\nHelen\n\n82. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n2122 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA\n\n[January 1941]\n\nAaron, best of all,\n\nPlease don't think of me as a fool \u2013 I was just knocked out by the death of my friend: I didn't quite know what I was doing. I tried to get you on your return from Allentown, but apparently you didn't revisit the loft or the hotel.\n\nI'm back, and suffering. I can't tell you how numb I feel. As if part of me had died, refusing to accept the fact. The phenomenon of music on the brain, which has always been with me (you know that) has stopped. I have no tune to sing. My head feels like dry, brown, cracking wood. I took a piano lesson tonight, & having nothing to play, did the _Variations_ ,101 badly, & Vengerova didn't like them. Thursday night will be good. Strange \u2013 they seem like a different piece now. I see them more in formal outline.\n\nHow was the Whittemore & Lowe affair?102\n\nI'm sending a pseudo-bill to Boosey.\n\nLet me know when you arrive in Philly.\n\nHeard Serkin in dull Reger tonight.\n\nSaw my 16-yr-old girl103 \u2013 I don't know.\n\nMuch love, & apology,\n\nLenny\n\nP.S. Just got yr. letter \u2013 of course I'll be on hand after 2.30 Monday. Just taxi up to the door. And you can change or anything else you want to do here (I can't decide whether to come to NYC Sunday next).\n\n83. Oliver Smith104 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n7 Middagh Street, Brooklyn, NY\n\n6 February 1941\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nThe Stravinsky last Saturday was very swell; I want you to know how much I appreciated it, as well as the tremendous concert a week earlier. I would have written sooner, but I have been in the process of moving. I am now living in Brooklyn Heights, which is the nicest part of the city. It seems completely dominated by the bridge, the river with the endless chain of boats, and nice old streets, very quiet and full of nostalgia. I don't know why I sound so dopey. Perhaps it's because I'm freezing in this new house which is marvellous. Auden, Geo. Davis, Gypsy Rose Lee, Benj. Brittle105 live here. Miss Lee has since vacated. I think perhaps Paul and Jane [Bowles] will move in. I have two rooms, no furniture, and lots of nice drawings on the walls, a Picasso, several B\u00e9rards, a Chirico, and a Smith. Downstairs are empty rooms with rat holes, an enormous piano \u2013 I think you would sound very well on it \u2013 and books. The atmosphere is completely surrealist. I enjoyed meeting you very much, and I hope I will see you again some time.\n\nSincerely,\n\nOliver Smith\n\n84. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n2122 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA\n\n6 February 1941\n\nDear A,\n\nThere's a good chance of my doing _Quiet City_ at a _private_ concert here on Feb. 20. I want very much to do it. (Orch. from Curtis.) How much wd. we have to pay, if any? Could I get the parts & score before Feb. 18? Trumpet part sooner? Please make it go thru \u2013\n\nLenny\n\nWrite writeaway\n\n85. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street,\n\nNew York, NY\n\nFriday\n\n[February 1941]\n\nDear L,\n\nHeinsheimer says you can have _Quiet City_. Write to him direct. I forgot to ask him whether there would be any charge. The proofs of the score are to be ready Monday. I have a sort of a trumpet part I could let you have. OK?\n\nJust finished _Billy_!! Mills was a big help.\n\n_El Saloon_ is being held up on account of they say they want a picture on the cover.\n\n_Outdoor Overture_ is being done today in Manchester by the London Philharmonic \u2013 Germans permitting.\n\nI _still_ think on you lada dia.\n\nSee you Thursday.\n\nA\n\n\"Unless love is love is love love?\" Paul Frederic Bowles.\n\n86. Leonard Bernstein to Kenneth Ehrman\n\n2122 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA\n\n13 February 1941\n\nKen,\n\nWhat's happened to you? You have a most unnerving way of dropping out of people's lives. If you live, reply!\n\nThere's much to write, but I'm taking no chances with disappearers. Reply, reply, softly, and with brittle brads.106\n\nI've just earned a small but cozy nest-egg & am thinking _O so seriously_ of an exotic trip in May \u2013 Mexico or Cuba, or maybe Palo Alto. Why don't you come with me? Please. Almost anywhere you say. Costa Rica. Guatemala. Reply, reply, gravely and with Jesuit joy.\n\nI can't make myself say any more until I hear from you, embodied and calm.\n\nA more than ludicrous transition, but I take it you've been informed of the wretched and tragic death of Al Eisner. Not another word about it. You understand.\n\nPlease write immediately if you can. And keep that trip seriously in mind.\n\nAlways the best,\n\nLenny\n\n87. Benjamin Britten107 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n7 Middagh Street, Brooklyn, NY\n\n28 April 1941\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nPlease forgive the lateness of this \u2013 but I have been working all days & nights for the last three weeks on the score of the operetta108 & I haven't had a moment for letters.\n\nI was very, very pleased that you liked the _Sinf_ [ _onia_ ] _da Req_ [ _uiem_ ].109 Judging by your remarks you certainly \"got\" what I wrote, & it was extremely nice of you to take the trouble to write & say so. I am sure that it's the \"best so far\" \u2013 and as it's the last, that is as it should be. I might argue with you about one or two of your remarks about my earlier masterpieces \u2013 but may be there is something in what you say. The only thing is, may be those particular vices are less vicious than some others I can think of \u2013 such as inhibitions, sterility, self-conscious ideas of originality \u2013 but we won't go into that now!\n\nHow are you? I saw you were conducting on the radio on Saturday \u2013 how did it go? When do you come to New York? I shall be around until June 1st or thereabouts. Give me a call when you get here. How are your chamber concerts going? As you probably know, the Bowlesesses departed for Mexico.\n\nThe operetta is chaotic. [Max] Goberman is not doing it \u2013 Hugh Ross has taken it over \u2013 & although he has the right mentality for training choruses (entre nous) he is not so hot on orchestras. However \u2013 we shall see.\n\nThank you again for your note. You ask how the others liked the symphony \u2013 all the ones I respect were pleased \u2013 including Aaron, Ch\u00e1vez, Colin [McPhee], Lincoln [Kirstein] et. all \u2013\n\nBest of luck,\n\nYours ever,\n\nBenjy B\n\n88. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Gabis110\n\n86 Park Avenue, Newton, MA\n\n[May 1941]\n\nHello, you Galatea!\n\nTime out (2 minutes) from orchestrating music for a Harvard production of _The Peace_ of Aristophanes (a new headache I've contracted). My hand is numb from writing score; & to make matters worse, I bruised my metacarpal (!) playing baseball this afternoon. All of which makes good for concerto-playing the 25th! To say nothing of Scriabine-playing the 17th. And conducting the _Peace_ music the 23rd & 24th. Life, dear one, is hectic plus \u2013 I really need your steadying hand on mine now. It's amazing to look back & see that it really was a steadying hand. Phenomenal effect for an adolescent Galatea to have! But then, you're you.\n\nOf course Bill [Saputelli]111 has told you of our Atlantic City escapade (mostly gabbing with Curtisites). And now you're doing algebra, & going to Ivy Balls [...] & putting your hair up and down according to your escort, & eating chez Saputelli, \u2013 I've completely left your mind. See? I told you so.\n\nBut make an effort anyway, & write me all \u2013 a bright moment of letter-opening in all this muddle of a bustle. And darling, take care of yourself.\n\nAll my love, to split with Rae.112\n\nLenny.\n\nIsn't it daring to do _The Peace_ at a time like this? I love it \u2013 the music is good too.113\n\n89. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Gabis\n\n86 Park Avenue, Newton, MA\n\n[after 25 May 1941]\n\nSweets,\n\nIt's all over & I breathe again. Quel week! The Greek show brought the house down both nights & my score was universally beloved. But at the price of awaking on Concerto day with a fine feverish cold. Hence the concerti were under par, but very exciting. Good reviews, too. Vital, vastly impressive, etc. But could have been perfect but for that damned fever.\n\nNow I'm home nursing this lovely cold, sort of good-for-nothing & let down. No trip for me, I think \u2013 I'll spend the dough on records, raquets & phonographs. God, it's good to be home.\n\nWhen do you graduate? Or do you?\n\nMiquelle came for the concert \u2013 in fact she's dropping round this afternoon, as one might expect.\n\nAll kinds of congrats to Mel & Dot. May they grow fine grapes together.\n\nNothing now 'til Tanglewood; & I plan to go up next week to [...] see Kouss. Will you be up this summer?\n\nI think I'll write an orchestral piece.\n\nHave you read Henry James? Read _The Turn of the Screw_ , one of 2 stories in a book called _The Two Magics._\n\nWrite soon.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n1 Burton 1994, p. 11.\n\n2 Helen Coates (1899\u20131989) was Bernstein's piano teacher from the end of 1932 until 1935, and they became close friends. She kept a maternal eye on her prot\u00e9g\u00e9 during his student years, and gave up piano teaching to become his secretary in 1944. She remained so until 1989. Her unspoken role in this book is of the greatest importance. It was Miss Coates who assembled and maintained Bernstein's scrapbooks, filed all his correspondence, labeled his photographs, organized his papers, and, as a consequence, did much to arrange the comprehensive documentation of his life that later formed the basis of the Leonard Bernstein Collection in the Library of Congress.\n\n3 At the top of this letter Helen Coates has written the date of their first lesson: \"Sat. at 1:00 Oct. 22\".\n\n4 Sid Ramin (b. 22 January 1919), American composer, songwriter, arranger, and orchestrator. His credits as a Broadway orchestrator (in collaboration with Irwin Kostal, Robert Ginzler, or Hershy Kay) include _West Side Story_ (1957), _Gypsy_ (1959), _A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum_ (1962) and _1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_ (1976). He won an Academy Award for the new orchestrations he made with Kostal for the film of _West Side Story_ (1961) and wrote the original score for _Stiletto_ (1969). As a songwriter, Ramin is best known for \"Music to Watch Girls By,\" originally written for a Diet Pepsi commercial, and subsequently widely recorded.\n\n5 This is the first of several letters sent by Bernstein to Ramin during the summer of 1933. Bernstein turned 15 on 25 August 1933 and Ramin was five months younger. Both had attended the William Lloyd Garrison Elementary School; when Bernstein went to the Boston Latin School (1929\u201335), Ramin went to Roxbury Memorial High School, but the two remained close. Ramin characterized their lifelong friendship as \"a relationship of teacher and student that never changed throughout the years. Lenny was a born teacher; I was a born listener. [...] That relationship really was one that lasted until Lenny passed away. Always, it was teacher and student\" (quoted in Oja and Shelemay 2009, p. 13).\n\n6 Jacques Fray and Mario Braggiotti were a celebrated piano duo. They began their career at Le B\u0153uf sur le Toit, the Parisian cabaret, and became friends with George Gershwin when he visited Paris in 1928. They first came to New York in 1929 and quickly achieved immense popularity through regular appearances on the radio, and extensive tours of the United States.\n\n7 Eddie Ryack was a school friend, and co-inventor with Bernstein of Rybernian, the imaginary language they devised.\n\n8 Lawrence Bearson, who later worked as a writer for the Federal Theatre Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), c. 1937\u20139.\n\n9 AVOL were sponsors of a series of Sunday radio broadcasts on WBZ, Boston in 1935. These gave the young Bernstein some early experience of playing on the radio.\n\n10 Mischa Tulin (d. 1957) was a Russian pianist and Theremin virtuoso who emigrated to America at the time of the 1917 Russian Revolution. His teachers included Glazunov and Busoni.\n\n11 Beatrice Gordon (1918\u201383) lived in Roxbury, MA. She was described by Bernstein as \"the love of my life\" at the time (Burton 1994, p. 22). She performed in his teenage productions of _Carmen_ (1934) \u2013 a spoof version, performed in drag (she appeared as Don Jos\u00e9 opposite Bernstein's Carmen), and as Pitti-Sing in _The Mikado_ (1935), a more ambitious staging put on by \"The Sharon Players.\" Burton summarized their relationship as follows: \"His attachment to Beatrice Gordon, who sang Don Jos\u00e9 in matador pants at Sharon, went well beyond music. They were both romantics, enamoured of poetry and words. He called her \"Tiger on Brocade\" (an early example of his obsession with anagrams) and \"Rosebeam\"' (Burton 1994, p. 29).\n\n12 Probably a reference to \"Miniver Cheevy\" (who \"loved the Medici\"), by the American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869\u20131935).\n\n13 Amy Lowell (1874\u20131925), American poet who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize posthumously in 1926.\n\n14 Verne was Beatrice Gordon's middle name.\n\n15 In some of his letters to Beatrice Gordon, Bernstein signs himself \"Lamb's Ear\".\n\n16 A reference to Bernstein's first encounter with Dimitri Mitropoulos in January 1937, which was evidently a torrid occasion.\n\n17 On 31 July 1937, a few days before writing this letter, Bernstein had been musical director for a Camp Onota production of Gilbert and Sullivan's _The Pirates of Penzance_ , with Adolph Green as the Pirate King. The first known photograph of Bernstein as a conductor \u2013 conducting the Camp Onota Rhythm Band \u2013 also dates from the summer of 1937.\n\n18 Mildred Spiegel (b. 1916), American pianist. One of Bernstein's closest friends in the 1930s and early 1940s, she became his regular partner on two pianos and they were both pupils of Heinrich Gebhard. Bernstein wrote his Piano Trio for Spiegel's Madison Trio (active from 1935 to about 1940). Its members were Mildred Spiegel (piano), Dorothy Rosenberg (violin), and Sarah Kruskall (cello). According to the violist Raphael Hillyer (1914\u20132010), Spiegel also played the Piano Trio with him (violin) and Jesse Ehrlich (cello) at Harvard in about 1939 (see Derrick Wang: Raphael Hillyer Interview, <http:\/\/isites.harvard.edu\/icb\/icb.do?keyword=bernstein>). In 1951, Spiegel married Zevi Harry Zucker (1921\u20132012).\n\n19 Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896\u20131960), Greek conductor. Bernstein first encountered him in January 1937 and the two immediately became very close. At some time in the late 1930s they almost certainly became involved in a relationship.\n\n20 Some of Mitropoulos' spelling has been silently corrected.\n\n21 Aaron Copland (1900\u201390), American composer whose music, and whose friendship, wisdom, and advice, made the deepest impression on Bernstein. Always regarded by Bernstein as his most important musical mentor, Copland's admiration for Bernstein was more nuanced: he had the highest regard for him as a conductor but sometimes expressed reservations about his compositions. From the start of Bernstein's career, Copland gave him the fullest support. On 17 March 1940, he wrote the following recommendation to Mrs Grant for Bernstein to be admitted to Koussevitzky's conducting class at Tanglewood: \"In my opinion, Mr. Bernstein is an extraordinarily gifted young musician. I have seldom met his equal for sheer musicianship. His musical memory is remarkable, and so is his ability to sight-read both scores and piano music. He is besides a first-rate pianist. He possesses the type of temperament which I believe is particularly sympathetic to Dr. Koussevitzky. His practical experience as a conductor is very slight, but he has had a year's training at the Curtis Institute under Fritz Reiner. Randall Thompson told me that Mr. Reiner considered Bernstein one of the best students he had ever had. Needless to say, I think it important that Bernstein gain an individual seance with Dr. Koussevitzky when the proper moment arrives. I'd appreciate it if that could be arranged.\"\n\n22 A work Bernstein knew very well. He had played to Copland when they first met, on 14 November 1937 \u2013 Copland's birthday.\n\n23 Presumably Copland's _What to Listen for in Music_ which was published in 1939.\n\n24 The Works Progress Administration.\n\n25 Copland's mention of Bennington is presumably a reference to Bennington College in Vermont. Norman Lloyd (b. 1914), American actor, a member of the Mercury Theatre founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman.\n\n26 Koussevitzky conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra on 14 and 15 October in a programme that included Copland's _El Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_ , Mozart's Divertimento K287, and Dvo\u0159\u00e1k's \"New World\" Symphony.\n\n27 Copland's _El Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_.\n\n28 Clifford Odets (1906\u201363), American playwright and screenwriter. He was a founding member of the Group Theatre.\n\n29 For Bernstein's Harvard production of Blitzstein's _The Cradle Will Rock_.\n\n30 Probably _Billy the Kid_ , first performed on 16 October 1938.\n\n31 The piano\u2013vocal score of _The Second Hurricane_ was first published by C. C. Birchard of Boston in 1938.\n\n32 Kenneth Ehrman was a friend of Bernstein's in Eliot House at Harvard. He graduated in 1938 and Bernstein corresponded with him regularly during his own senior year at Harvard and his time at the Curtis Institute. Ehrman recalled one of his earliest encounters with Bernstein in a letter to Humphrey Burton dated 23 October 1991 (copy in the Library of Congress): \"He had been playing the piano in the Eliot House Common Room after dinner, and it was a beautiful warm spring night and we walked around Cambridge for several hours. He was talking non stop about his plans \u2013 the composing, playing, writing, teaching (he never mentioned conducting in those days, at least to me). About the [...] musical world, and how he would be such a big part of it. Suddenly he stopped, looked at me and said, 'Who do I think I am, everybody?'\"\n\n33 _The Harvard Advocate_ is Harvard's undergraduate journal of poetry, fiction, art, and criticism.\n\n34 This is part of a longer letter, but its main interest is Bernstein's scathing attack on the Harvard Music Department.\n\n35 Presumably \"Californiac\".\n\n36 Mitropoulos specialized in directing concertos from the keyboard, notably Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3.\n\n37 Hanya Holm (1893\u20131992), German-born American choreographer and dance educator.\n\n38 Copland did so. His Piano Sonata was composed between 1939 and 1941. The earliest sketches date from about June 1939, shortly after he sent this letter.\n\n39 Ehrman was living in Paris at the time, on his way to Italy and Greece.\n\n40 Margaret Prall, David Prall's wife.\n\n41 David Prall (1886\u20131940), professor of aesthetics at Harvard whose teaching had a profound influence on Bernstein.\n\n42 _The Birds_ was first performed on 21 April 1939.\n\n43 Adolph Green (1914\u20132002), American lyricist, playwright, and scriptwriter whose writing partnership with Betty Comden produced several successful Broadway shows including _On the Town_ and _Wonderful Town_ , both with Bernstein. In Hollywood, Comden and Green's greatest successes were at MGM, notably _Singin' in the Rain_. Green first met Bernstein at Camp Onota in the summer of 1937, where Bernstein put on a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's _Pirates of Penzance_ and Green sang the part of the Pirate King. They instantly became firm friends through a shared passion for music, and within a couple of years Bernstein was playing the piano for Comden and Green's comedy troupe, The Revuers.\n\n44 Bernstein's production of _The Cradle Will Rock_ opened on 27 May 1939. The _Harvard Crimson_ (23 May 1939) announced the event as follows: \"The Student Union will present Marc Blitzstein's opera _The Cradle Will Rock_ at Sanders Theatre, Saturday evening at eight-thirty o'clock. The production is under the direction of Leonard Bernstein '39, and Arthur Szathmary, 2G. This Student Union presentation will be the first Boston production of Blitzstein's proletarian music drama. Featured in the cast are Donald Davidson, '39, William Whitcraft, '39, Rupert Pole, '40, and Myron Simons, '40, all of Eliot House. The piano, which furnishes all the music, will be played by Bernstein.\"\n\n45 The production of _The Birds_ with Bernstein's incidental music.\n\n46 Julian Claman (1918\u201369) sometimes appeared with The Revuers and became a writer and playwright. His 1955 play, _A Quiet Place_ , starred Tyrone Power, but closed out of town, before reaching Broadway. The title and title song (sung by Power in the show) were taken from _Trouble in Tahiti_. In 1953, Claman married the actress Marian Seldes; they divorced in 1961.\n\n47 Claman has written in the margin: \"Tentative love, Julian\".\n\n48 Probably Robert Weil, mentioned in Letter 538.\n\n49 Davidson Taylor worked as musical supervisor for the CBS radio network at the time. It was one of several positions he held in the company. In 1938, Taylor had been the executive producer of Orson Welles' _The War of the Worlds_. He later became a vice president at CBS.\n\n50 Made for the 1939 New York World's Fair, _The City_ is a documentary film notable for its close integration of spoken narration (written by Lewis Mumford), cinematography (by Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke), and Copland's score. This score led directly to Copland's invitation to work in Hollywood the following year on _Our Town_.\n\n51 Ernest Hutcheson (1871\u20131951) was an Australian pianist and composer. He was President of the Juilliard School, and Director of the Chautauqua School of Music at the Chautauqua Institution, in western New York State. In 1925, Hutcheson had arranged for Gershwin to be given secluded accommodation at the Chatauqua Institution so that he could complete the Concerto in F.\n\n52 Britten came to America in April 1939, staying until April 1942 when he returned to England. He first met Copland at the 1938 ISCM Festival in London (where Copland's _El Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_ and Britten's _Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge_ were performed in the same concert); \"Britten thought _El Sal\u00f3n_ 'really beautiful and exhilarating' and the 'brightest piece in the festival,' while Copland admired 'the technical adroitness and wizardry' of the _Variations_ \" (Pollack 1999, p. 72). Copland spent a weekend with Britten after the festival, and a warm friendship developed during Britten's time in the United States. On 17 June 1950, Pears and Britten gave the world premiere of the first set of Copland's _Old American Songs_ at the Aldeburgh Festival, and subsequently made the first recording for HMV. For Britten's links with Bernstein see note to Letter 87.\n\n53 Britten and Pears spent six weeks of the summer at Woodstock, NY, as neighbors of Copland's; they left Woodstock a few days before Bernstein wrote this letter. The \"Concerto\" was Britten's Violin Concerto, which he worked on throughout the summer and completed at the end of September.\n\n54 Bernstein spent the summer of 1939 in New York, looking for a job, without success. But it was a productive stay: there was a grand piano in the apartment and he spent a good deal of time playing and composing, as well as enjoying evenings with Green and the other members of The Revuers, including Judy Holliday and Betty Comden. Most importantly, Bernstein was starting to think seriously for the first time about a conducting career, and getting down in earnest to composition. The Lamentation he sent to Copland did indeed become \"a movement of a symphony.\" In the programme note for the 1944 premiere of the _Jeremiah_ Symphony, Bernstein wrote: \"In the summer of 1939 I made a sketch for a Lamentation for soprano and orchestra. This sketch lay forgotten for two years, until in the spring of 1942 I began a first movement of a symphony. I then realized that this new movement, and the scherzo that I had planned to follow it, made logical concomitants with the Lamentation. Thus the symphony came into being.\" Almost forty years later, at a concert for Bernstein's 60th birthday on 25 August 1978, Copland conducted the Lamentation from _Jeremiah_.\n\n55 Presumably a reference to The Revuers whose regular venue was the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village.\n\n56 Arthur Szathmary, who co-directed _The Cradle Will Rock_ with Bernstein at Harvard.\n\n57 Dimitri Mitropoulos.\n\n58 Isabelle Vengerova (1877\u20131956), pianist and teacher who studied with Theodor Leschetitzky. One of the founding teachers of the Curtis Institute, her pupils included Samuel Barber, Lukas Foss, Gary Graffman, Abbey Simon, Gilbert Kalish, and Jacob Lateiner, as well as Bernstein.\n\n59 Alfred (Al) Eisner was Bernstein's room-mate in Eliot House at Harvard. After graduation, he went to Hollywood, where he worked as a scriptwriter at MGM. He died from a brain tumor on 4 January 1941, in his early twenties. The third of Bernstein's _Seven Anniversaries_ is entitled \"In Memoriam: Alfred Eisner (Jan. 4, 1941)\".\n\n60 Betty Comden (1917\u20132006), American lyricist, writer, and performer, the writing partner of Adolph Green for numerous successful Broadway shows and Hollywood films. Bernstein came to know Comden in 1939 through Green, when both of them were members of The Revuers. Bernstein made one of his first recordings with The Revuers in March 1940 ( _The Girl with the Two Left Feet_ ), and they subsequently collaborated on two Broadway triumphs: _On The Town_ and _Wonderful Town_. Betty Comden was to remain a lifelong friend. Like Green, she was passionate about serious music, and was as interested in Bernstein's conducting and his concert compositions as she was in his work for Broadway.\n\n61 A reference to _The Girl with the Two Left Feet_ by The Revuers, with improvised music by Bernstein. A proposed recording is the subject of Comden's letter.\n\n62 _The Pursuit of Happiness_ was a CBS radio show broadcast for one season (1939\u201340; 30 episodes in all). Directed by Norman Corwin and Brewster Morgan, and hosted by Burgess Meredith, it was aired immediately after the Sunday afternoon broadcast from the New York Philharmonic. The Revuers appeared in two episodes, on 12 November 1939 and 18 February 1940.\n\n63 Probably Margaret Prall.\n\n64 Gordon Messing and Robert Wernick were friends from Harvard.\n\n65 The Revuers and Bernstein did record _The Girl with the Two Left Feet_ for Musicraft in March 1940. This was Bernstein's first commercial recording. He plays an improvised score between accomp-anying the songs performed by The Revuers. This delightful recording was released on CD by Pearl in the set _Leonard Bernstein \u2013 Wunderkind_ (GEMS 0005).\n\n66 David Diamond (1915\u20132005), American composer. He quickly became one of Bernstein's closest friends, though their friendship was often stormy and disputatious. Their correspondence over almost half a century is extremely lively, and sometimes volatile. Bernstein provided financial assistance for Diamond from time to time, while Diamond was an enthusiastic supporter of Bernstein's own compositions. Diamond studied with Bernard Rogers at the Eastman School, with Roger Sessions, and with Nadia Boulanger. Bernstein performed several of Diamond's major works and recorded the Fourth Symphony for Columbia in 1958. Diamond recalled his first encounter with Bernstein in an interview with Paul Remington for _Cosmik Debris_ (No. 21, February 1997):\n\nI had heard about him from Aaron Copland and Marc Blitzstein. They told me about this extraordinary pianist that was at Harvard studying with Walter Piston, Edward Burlingame Hill and Randall Thompson. And, one weekend I was going up the stairs to thank Koussevitzky for such a wonderful performance after a Boston Symphony concert. They performed Ravel's Left Hand Piano Concerto. Of course, he knew I had known Ravel, so he was so pleased that I came back and that I was so moved by the performance of the work. And there at the top of the stairs was this very good-looking young man. I remember he was looking down at me. He said, \"I know you!\" I said, \"Who are you?\" He said, \"I'm Leonard Bernstein.\" I evidently reacted to that, and he said, \"and you're David Diamond!\" He said, \"You must come out to the Curtis sometime and spend a weekend with me there.\" He had enrolled in the Curtis Institute and had a full scholarship there. So, I got him to record some of my Preludes and Fugues. It was the first professional recording he had made.... I would go out to visit him almost every other weekend. I helped him with his counterpoint, I remember.... He was still a conducting student of Fritz Reiner's while at the Curtis Institute. He was composing at that time and had written theater music while he was at Harvard. But, he was working on a clarinet sonata, or maybe it was a violin and piano sonata that became a clarinet sonata. I didn't know him at all as a composer. But, he was a phenomenal pianist. From an orchestral score, he read through my 1st Symphony that way. He just knocked me out as a musician. He was just phenomenal. And so, as the years went on, he saw that I was being performed a great deal. Then he made that amazing debut with the New York Philharmonic, substituting very quickly for Bruno Walter. Then, suddenly, he was on the map as a conductor. Then he was given the City Center Orchestra, which was an orchestra that was put together for him. He wasn't paid a salary, but that orchestra that he built up had marvelous programs. The second year he had that orchestra he did my 2nd Symphony, after he had heard Koussevitzky do it. Then, almost every other year he would perform a work of mine. And then he began to compose a lot. But, I guess I was the only one of the friends that felt he was a gifted composer. Copland didn't think he really had it as a composer. He thought he was very good for Broadway, but he didn't care for his composing. He didn't like _Jeremiah_ whatsoever. Now, I thought _Jeremiah_ was extraordinary.\n\n67 In 1940, Mitropoulos conducted _The Coliseum at Night_ by Frederick Woltmann.\n\n68 The actor Wallace Beery (1885\u20131949).\n\n69 _We Who Are Young_ was released on 19 July 1940. Produced by Seymour Nebenzal, the cast included Lana Turner in one of her first major Hollywood roles.\n\n70 Albert Maltz (1908\u201385), author and screenwriter, one of the \"Hollywood Ten\" blacklisted in 1947 for refusing to answer questions from the House Un-American Activities Committee.\n\n71 This telecast was a \"special\" from NBC's experimental studio, featuring The Revuers. Bernstein was the pianist and Copland turned the pages (see Burton 1994, p. 72). In Lyons' article, Bernstein is described only as \"the accompanist\": \"Saturday Night, when The Revuers appeared on NBC's full-hour television program, the unbilled stranger who turned the pages for the accompanist was Aaron Copland, the noted American composer\" ( _New York Post_ , 25 June 1940).\n\n72 Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle (1897\u20131979), French-born pianist, theorist, and teacher. She moved to the United States when her father, Georges Longy, became principal oboist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Her first teaching post was at the Longy School of Music, which her father founded in 1915. Subsequently, she taught at the Curtis Institute (where she was Bernstein's score-reading teacher), then at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, the University of Miami, and the Juilliard School in New York. Her other pupils included the pianist Jacob Lateiner, cellist Leonard Rose, and several members of the New York Philharmonic including flutist Julius Baker and oboist Harold Gomberg.\n\n73 Raphael Silverman, later known as Raphael Hillyer (1914\u20132010), was a graduate student at Harvard where he often performed with Bernstein. He led the orchestra in the 1939 production of _The Birds_ with Bernstein's incidental music. After a spell in the Boston Symphony Orchestra as a violinist, Hillyer switched to the viola in 1946 and became a founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet, with which he played for 23 years. He was the dedicatee of Bernstein's Violin Sonata, referred to in this letter.\n\n74 A weekend of the Yaddo Music Festival comprising four concerts of contemporary American music given at the Yaddo artists' community in Saratoga Springs, NY. The programme for the weekend was printed in _The New York Times_ on 7 September 1940 and listed works by (among others) Paul Bowles, Henry Cowell, Paul Creston, David Diamond, Roy Harris, Mary Howe, Charles Ives, Gail Kubik, Otto Luening, Paul Pisk, and Quincy Porter.\n\n75 Serge Koussevitzky (1874\u20131951), Russian-born conductor who served as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949. Along with Copland, Koussevitzky was one of Bernstein's most important mentors, initially through conducting classes at Tanglewood, then as an enthusiastic promoter of Bernstein's career as a conductor, pianist, and a composer of \"serious\" music: he strongly disapproved of Bernstein's activities as a Broadway composer, and this may well be one of the reasons why, after _On the Town_ , Bernstein wrote no Broadway shows until after Koussevitzky's death.\n\n76 Presumably, the \"commotion\" was Fritz Reiner's furious reaction to Koussevitzky's suggestion that Bernstein should study with him in Boston rather than with Reiner.\n\n77 Hemingway's _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ was published in October 1940. It is likely that Eisner's letter was written shortly before then. The draft mentioned later in Eisner's letter was the Selective Training and Service Act, which came into force on 16 September 1940, the first peacetime conscription in American history.\n\n78 Much of this sentence has been deleted and retyped.\n\n79 Walter Leslie River (1902\u201381), American novelist and screenwriter.\n\n80 Henry Cowell (1897\u20131965), American composer and founder of the periodical _New Music_ for which Diamond's piece was being recorded.\n\n81 Bernstein's first solo recording, made for New Music Recordings in January 1941, was of David Diamond's Prelude and Fugue No. 3. The tetchy correspondence about it was symptomatic of many of the letters Bernstein and Diamond exchanged over the next half century.\n\n82 The first performance of the Suite from _Billy the Kid_ was broadcast on Saturday, 9 November 1940, by the NBC Symphony Orchestra under William Steinberg.\n\n83 Harold Shapero (1920\u20132013), American composer. A near contemporary of Bernstein's at Harvard (Shapero graduated in 1941), he subsequently taught at Brandeis University for 37 years. Bernstein recorded Shapero's _Symphony for Classical Orchestra_ in 1953.\n\n84 Walter Piston (1894\u20131976), American composer and teacher who taught both Shapero and Bernstein at Harvard.\n\n85 Charles Demuth (1883\u20131935), American artist whose friends included the poet William Carlos Williams, the artist Marsden Hartley, and the photographer Alfred Stieglitz. He bequeathed many of his paintings to Georgia O'Keeffe. A childhood illness left Demuth with a pronounced limp for the rest of his life, and his health was always precarious. According to Robert Hughes: \"Demuth was not a flaming queen, in fact he was rather a discreet gay, but if he could not place his deepest sexual predilections in the open, he could still make art from them\" (Robert Hughes, _American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America_ , New York: Knopf, 1997, p. 380).\n\n86 Probably a reference to the draft papers drawn up in Washington, D.C. in 1940, which had the numbers 1 to 7,836 printed on them.\n\n87 Shapero is being hard on himself here. The _Nine-Minute Overture_ won the American Prix de Rome in 1941. His success was reported in the _Harvard Crimson_ on 9 June 1941: \"Harold S. Shapero '41 of Newton has won the annual Prix de Rome in Music, it was announced yesterday by Howard Barlow, conductor of the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. The work, _A Nine-Minute Overture_ , was played during Barlow's regular Sunday afternoon radio program. Instead of the customary privilege of studying at the American Academy in Rome, Shapero will receive $1,000 outright. Recently awarded the Knight Prize for composition by the Music Department, Shapero is the first Harvard undergraduate to win the Prix de Rome. The winning piece is his first attempt at writing for orchestra.\"\n\n88 The award of the Prix de Rome and Harvard's George Arthur Knight Prize (for composition) enabled Shapero to study with Nadia Boulanger after graduation.\n\n89 Virgil Thomson (1896\u20131989) began writing for the _New York Herald Tribune_ in 1940.\n\n90 Robert Weatherly (1921\u20132005) was a student at Juilliard when Copland sent this letter. He later became principal trumpet of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.\n\n91 A quotation from _La Boh\u00e8me_.\n\n92 John Lessard (1920\u20132003), American composer.\n\n93 Mitropoulos made his debut with the New York Philharmonic on Thursday, 19 December 1940.\n\n94 Kiki [Jacqueline] Speyer was the daughter of Louis Speyer, who had played under Pierre Monteux in the premiere of Stravinsky's _Sacre du printemps_ and was the cor anglais player of the Boston Symphony from 1919 until 1965.\n\n95 Possibly Wolfgang Stresemann, then a young conductor.\n\n96 Koussevitzky conducted Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony with the Boston Symphony in Carnegie Hall in November 1940 and again in January 1941. The November concert also included a Haydn symphony.\n\n97 Possibly a reference to the death of Alfred Eisner.\n\n98 Alfred Eisner died on 4 January 1941.\n\n99 Frederick Schlick's _Bloodstream_ ran on Broadway in 1932 for less than a month.\n\n100 Robert Schlick was a gay poet who married the London-born artist and illustrator Pamela Bianco in 1930.\n\n101 Copland's _Piano Variations_.\n\n102 The two-piano duo Arthur Whittemore and Jack Lowe gave a recital at Town Hall, New York. It was reviewed by Howard Taubman ( _The New York Times_ ), who mentions that the concert included an unspecified work by Copland.\n\n103 Probably a reference to Shirley Gabis, who was born in 1924.\n\n104 Oliver Smith (1918\u201394) was a designer and producer whose brilliant sets were an important part almost all Bernstein's theatrical works, including _Fancy Free, On The Town, Facsimile, Candide, West Side Story_ , and _Mass_. This letter appears to be their earliest contact. The house at 7 Middagh Street, where Smith was living at the time, was an old brownstone that was home to a remarkable group of creative artists in 1941. It was owned by George Davis, and among the residents were W. H. Auden, Britten (\"Brittle\"), Peter Pears, Louis MacNeice, Carson McCullers and \u2013 shortly after Smith wrote \u2013 Paul and Jane Bowles. Britten and Pears stayed for just a few months, finding the atmosphere too Bohemian.\n\n105 A humorous reference to Benjamin Britten.\n\n106 Small wire nails or prickly spikes. Bernstein is referring to a phrase in William Francis Hooker's _The Prairie Schooner_ (1918): \"For hours a kindly bullwhacker helped me pluck the sharp and brittle brads from my back.\"\n\n107 Benjamin Britten (1913\u201376), English composer, already established as one of the most brilliant figures in British music by the time he went to the USA in April 1939. It was in America that Britten wrote his first work for the stage, the operetta _Paul Bunyan_. Bernstein conducted several of his works: the American premiere of _Peter Grimes_ at Tanglewood in 1946; the _Spring Symphony_ (in 1963) and the _Sinfonia da Requiem_ (in 1968) with the New York Philharmonic; and in April 1976, the US premiere of Britten's _Suite on English Folk Tunes: A Time there Was_ with the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein included the _Four Sea Interludes_ in his final concert, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, on 19 August 1990.\n\n108 _Paul Bunyan_ , first performed at Columbia University on 5 May 1941.\n\n109 The world premiere of the _Sinfonia da Requiem_ took place in Carnegie Hall on 29 March 1941, with John Barbirolli conducting the New York Philharmonic.\n\n110 Shirley Gabis (b. 1924), American pianist. She became Bernstein's closest friend at the Curtis Institute and the two remained friends until his death. She later became Shirley Rhoads, then Shirley Perle when she married the composer and Berg scholar George Perle. The first of Bernstein's _Thirteen Anniversaries_ , dated July 1981, is entitled \"For Shirley Gabis Rhoads Perle (b. April 7, 1924).\"\n\n111 William Saputelli (1916\u20132001) was a friend of Bernstein's at the Curtis Institute. A cellist, he joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1952 and remained with it until 1988.\n\n112 Rae was Shirley Gabis' mother.\n\n113 \"Playgoer\" in the _Harvard Crimson_ (23 May 1941) reported: \"The play is by Aristophanes and three thousand years old, but the production to be offered at Sanders tonight and tomorrow by the Student Union Theatre is as timely as the latest headline, and as diverting as the brightest Broadway revue. Even in dress rehearsal disarray (which is when we caught it) _Peace_ gave every indication of being the most stimulating theatrical event around Cambridge this season. Of course, the plot \u2013 the attempt of a group of Athenians to bring Peace back to their city \u2013 is a natural for Student Union parallel-parable making, but even the most ardent Bundle for Britain will hardly object to swallowing this socially-significant pill, sugar-coated as it is with distinctively modern music by Leonard Bernstein, clever lyrics by William Abrahams, a colorful abstract set by Howard Turner and John Holabird, and a cast that is not merely capable but alive. And all of these elements have been brought together skillfully and with a refreshing lack of pretension by director Robert Nichols. There are, to be sure, flaws; but what this Student Union Theatre group may lack in slickness, it more than makes up for in spontaneity. These people are obviously having a good time, and their enthusiasm communicates itself to the audience. They are immeasurably helped by the Aristophanic tradition which is one of rowdy fun, rather than self-conscious artiness, and within the limits of the tradition this company is almost wholly successful. The production lasts little over an hour, the admission is sensibly low, and anyone should have fun. For those who don't, there is always the advice of the concluding couplet in the conga finale: 'If you don't like venery, Get thee to a nennery.'\" The music for the Conga was reused by Bernstein in _Wonderful Town_. Another section, the \"Sacrificial March,\" became the chase music in _On the Town_ (see Massey 2009, pp. 80 and 81).\n2\n\nFirst Successes:  \nFrom Tanglewood to _On the Town_\n\n1941\u20134\n\nAfter receiving his diploma in conducting from the Curtis Institute in May 1941, Bernstein went to Harvard to conduct his incidental music for _The Peace_ before spending the summer at Tanglewood, where his conducting was widely admired, especially a performance of William Schuman's _American Festival Overture_. Bernstein then fled to Key West at the southern tip of Florida, to escape a complicated romantic entanglement (with Kiki Speyer) and to compose. It was a productive stay: he started the Clarinet Sonata and an unfinished ballet called _Conch Town_ that was to provide a rich harvest of musical ideas for subsequent works, including _Fancy Free_ and _West Side Story_. After Key West, Bernstein returned to Boston in need of a job. He set up a studio to teach piano and musical analysis in December 1941, but attracted depressingly few pupils. The year 1942 saw some early successes: the first performance of the Clarinet Sonata in April (by David Glazer and Bernstein) and, the following month, Bernstein conducted Copland's _Second Hurricane_ (subtitled a \"play-opera for high schools\") in Boston, repeating it a month later. Throughout this time he received constant encouragement from Copland, from Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle, and from Betty Comden. To earn a living, Bernstein took a job at a music publisher (part of Warner Bros.), working as an assistant and occasional arranger, often under the name Lenny Amber.\n\nIn the summer of 1942, Bernstein met David Oppenheim at Tanglewood. He was a young clarinetist studying at the Eastman School of Music, and the two quickly became very close. The correspondence between them in 1943 is often absorbing, with letters that are by turns passionate, funny, full of career worries (and, in Oppenheim's case, his military service) and musical questions, above all because of Oppenheim's performances of the Clarinet Sonata. Though David Glazer had given the premiere, it was Oppenheim who introduced the work in New York and who made the first recording (both with Bernstein at the piano), and he appears as its dedicatee on the first edition. Oppenheim and Bernstein also shared a fascination with psychoanalysis and the interpretation of dreams \u2013 they went to the same therapist (Marketa Morris, \"The Frau\") and had similar obsessions. While the correspondence with Copland is warm, funny, and loving, with some entertaining anecdotes from Copland in Hollywood and musical news of the East Coast from Bernstein, it is with Oppenheim that Bernstein shared some of his innermost thoughts.\n\nThe year 1943 was a crucial one for every aspect of Bernstein's career: in February he played Copland's Piano Sonata in New York, and in March he made his New York conducting debut (Paul Bowles' _The Wind Remains_ ). Bernstein played his own music too: a performance of the Clarinet Sonata with Oppenheim led quickly to its recording and publication. Adolph Green's long letter to Bernstein in September 1943 paints a funny and richly detailed portrait of Hollywood viewed through the eyes of a native New Yorker who seemingly finds himself in a weird and alien country.\n\nThe end of 1943 brought the most spectacular successes: in September he became Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic \u2013 his first conducting appointment. Such a junior position usually involves quite menial tasks, but in Bernstein's case good fortune struck two months into the job. On 14 November 1943, Bruno Walter was due to conduct the Sunday Philharmonic concert at Carnegie Hall, but his sudden indisposition meant that Bernstein had to take over. The result (broadcast nationally on the radio) was a triumph \u2013 and a major news story: the front page of the next day's _New York Times_ was dominated by news of the war in Europe and the Pacific, but it also reported Bernstein's debut under the headline: \"Young Aide Leads Philharmonic. Steps In When Bruno Walter Is Ill\". Two months later, on 28 January 1944, Bernstein conducted the world premiere of his _Jeremiah_ Symphony No. 1 in Pittsburgh \u2013 at the invitation of his old conducting teacher Fritz Reiner.\n\nAt the same time Bernstein was hard at work on the ballet _Fancy Free_. Because Jerome Robbins and Bernstein were both away from New York for weeks on end while the ballet was being written, this is one of the very few Bernstein collaborations where musical matters are discussed in considerable detail by letter: those from Robbins to Bernstein have not survived, but the letters from Bernstein to Robbins are a fascinating chronicle of work in progress. On 18 April 1944, _Fancy Free_ triumphed at the Metropolitan Opera House. Bernstein's first collaboration with Robbins was instantly acclaimed \u2013 the headline of John Martin's review in the _New York Times_ (19 April) read: \"Ballet by Robbins Called Smash Hit\". Of the score, Martin wrote: \"The music by Leonard Bernstein utilizes jazz in about the same proportion that Robbins' choreography does. It is not in the least self-conscious about it, but takes it as it comes. It is a fine score, humorous, inventive and musically interesting. Indeed the whole ballet, performance included, is just exactly ten degrees north of terrific.\" Robbins and Bernstein turned at once to their next collaboration \u2013 a Broadway show, with Bernstein's old friends Comden and Green brought in to write the book and lyrics. With the support of the vastly experienced George Abbott as director, the result was another huge success: _On the Town_ opened at Broadway's Adelphi Theatre on 28 December 1944 to rave reviews. But Bernstein's brilliant achievement with his first musical brought conflicts too: Koussevitzky was already uneasy about Bernstein's balancing act between conducting and composing, and he lost no time telling his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 that writing for Broadway was a waste of his talents. The criticism hit home: Bernstein did not write another musical until after Koussevitzky's death in 1951.\n\n90. Leonard Bernstein to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle\n\nCranwell School, Lenox, MA\n\n15 July 1941\n\nCh\u00e8re Ren\u00e9e,\n\nTanglewood again \u2013 and as wonderful as ever. It never fails to impress me \u2013 as much each morning as the first time I set foot here. The _esprit de corps_ just got going (I conducted my first rehearsal this morning \u2013 the Billy Schuman [ _American Festival_ ] Overture!) I was supposed to open the series last Friday night with Billy's piece, but I had to go back to Boston to receive my award _and conduct The Esplanade!_ Had you heard? I did the _Meistersinger_ prelude \u2013 22,000 people! Tr\u00e8s exciting. I would have let you know, but it was all in such an unsettled state & I wasn't sure until very shortly before the concert. So Billy is this weekend (Friday night), & he's coming up for the performance \u2013 Kouss liked the rehearsal today, but insisted that I looked like un Moulin qui va avec le vent.\n\nFirst tragedy of the season \u2013 Gundersen1 (1st fiddle, BSO) died last night. Heart failure. Great sorrow.\n\nIf you haven't heard of this tragedy, hold your seat. This is really heartbreaking, I shall simply state it and not say another word. M. [Gaston] Dufresne2 has an assistant here \u2013 Miss Kathryn Wolf. Don't ask me another thing about it, I'm completely nonplussed.\n\nAny hope? Any news from La Bok?3 How's Claude4 & regards from Shanelian. Rest, & really summerize.\n\nBien \u00e0 toi,\n\nLenny\n\n91. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Gabis\n\nCranwell School, Lenox, MA\n\n[after 15 August 1941]\n\nDear Gabe, babe,\n\nI'm limp. I've just written Alvin.5 Quel effort! I just took off a morning, & canceled everything at Tanglewood, & stayed home, & wrote letters. Otherwise impossible. Life here is hectic \u2013 but hectic. Tremendous successes in conducting the past two weeks: I did William Schuman's _American Festival Overture_ , & it knocked everyone for a bingo.6 Really brought it down. And last week,7 I did Lambert's _Rio Grande_ , with chorus, &c. Tr\u00e8s brilliant, & terrific hit. This week I'm stuck with the Brahms B\u266d Concerto,8 but it's only an interregnum of rest. Ain't you never coming up?\n\nJust heard from the Quashens,9 & they'll be here Thursday. With Anna Sokolov.\n\nWhatsamatter with you? Are you a step child?\n\nGod, I pity you in Philly! I'd perish, personally. You, of course, are of hardier stock!\n\nI got my questionnaire.\n\nLove to Rae \u2013 & let's hear.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n92. Samuel Barber10 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Hermit, Pocono Lake Preserve, PA\n\n24 August 1941\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nI suppose the Berkshire performance was one of the most exciting evenings of my life: nevertheless in retrospect I felt as if I had returned from a political convention in which there were nine thousand people too many. It narrows down to individuals, and in the end I cannot remember many of them. But I should like to continue the brief acquaintance you and I began there.\n\nI hope the army will not get you \u2013 there are too few conductors who can beat legato (even in Lambert); anyone can hurl _sfs_ at brass instruments. I shall be here and in New York the next few weeks, and could put you up either place. Life in the woods here is rather solitary but pleasant and it is only 3 hours by train from New York. Is there any chance of seeing you in either place?\n\nLet me know. One meets few people who promise something in their own right or as friends. We might become the latter.\n\nBest greetings and luck.\n\nYours, not misanthropically,\n\nreally tr\u00e8s bien dispos\u00e9.\n\nSam Barber\n\n93. Samuel Barber to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Hermit, Pocono Lake Preserve, PA\n\nMonday [25 August or 1 September 1941]\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nCurious, our letters crossed. I wrote you c\/o Berkshire Music Centre. Why don't you stop in here? Are you driving? I can put you up anyway for three or four days, but cannot say definitely for longer, as my plans are uncertain after the middle of next week. But I may very possibly stay on here. The only hotels are very dull and expensive (Buck-Hill, Sky-Top) but life here in the woods is quiet and pleasant. I've no servant, at present, but we eat in a nearby dining camp. The woods are beautiful, it is about 2,000 ft high (certainly higher than Bethlehem, a vile place) and I, who am also allergic to rag-weed (not cats) rarely remember sneezing here at all, except from the cold \u2013 the nights are very cool. If you come, bring some books and music \u2013 there is nothing much to do except swim or tennis, if you like. But I think you might like it, and I should enjoy having you.\n\nYou can get me by phone by calling Pocono Lake Preserve and they page me (1\/2 hour wait for you) or telegraph. One drives here by Port Jarvis, Stroudsberg, Pocono Pines. Train is more complicated. I am afraid you would have to come from New York (3 hrs) on the Delaware & Lackawanna to Pocono Summit, where I could meet you. Bring your most decrepit clothes, it is just backwoods.\n\n[Gian Carlo] Menotti and a poet are here at present, working feverishly on the translation of his new opera, but they are departing at the end of this week, probably Sunday, after which I'm alone. There is always room, anyway. Do come.\n\nBest greetings,\n\nSam Barber\n\nP.S. Sorry not to be able to recommend a place to stay here, but there is really nothing very attractive that I know. S.\n\n94. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n[August or September 1941]\n\nDear Dr. Koussevitzky,\n\nAgain it is my privilege to be able to thank you for another summer of glorious and inspiring study. I feel humble and grateful in the face of the added responsibility that comes with each new advance in my work.\n\nI am rather in doubt as to how to continue that advance now. As you know, I have already received a questionnaire from the army; and, as far as I know, I am perfectly eligible, except for a siege of asthma and hay fever that I am now undergoing. It is therefore difficult to formulate any winter plans; for I cannot be given a responsible position while there is the probability of my being suddenly taken away from it by the army. Secondly, my formal schooling, I believe, is reasonably complete, embracing nineteen years and three diplomas! And, in general, once in the army I should have to forget completely about my work, and begin all over again, God willing, in some uncertain future year.\n\nIn the light of world events, however, I want _least_ of all to shirk my responsibility to my country; and I therefore wonder if I might be of service to the U.S.O.,11 where I could simultaneously serve national defense, and remain in my field of endeavor. Do you agree with this attitude? I am registered, of course, in Philadelphia (Local Board no. 9, in the Land Title Building). Please let me know how you feel about this question, as I want to do the right thing morally and practically; and I feel that I can rely completely on your guidance.\n\nIn devotion and gratitude,\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\n95. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Gabis\n\nTamiami Champion (East Coast) New York\u2013Palm Beach\u2013Miami [on board train]\n\n\"August something or other\" [1941]\n\nDear Chipmunk,\n\nI passed Philly last night, but the train didn't stop long enough for me to phone. Besides, you were probably in Hanover, unless I miss my guess.\n\nThe secret is that I'm on my way to Key West for at least a week of escape.\n\n(Do they have NYA12 orchs in Key West?) Key West for a rest, the rest can be guessed, the pest to be blest, the best for a guest, a rest in Key West. And maybe a stealthy boat trip over to Havana on the side. All alone. No one to phone. Sounds like fone, no?\n\nI hope the Tanglewood evils have blown over, and all is in clover. 'Twas all so freaky with Kiki. And all so bleaky. And cheeky.\n\nI'll write you again, with a better pen. The train sways madly, so I write so badly. My love to Rae, & all the rest; I'm on my way to old Key West. (For a much-needed rest.) Have you ever seen a letter that naturally rhymed better?\n\nFour hours of sleep in a small coach seat, you arise in a heap unable to eat.\n\nMuch love to Rae\n\nAnd to Shirley Ga\u2013\n\n(Bis-mark-Antony-and Cleopatra-with asps on her breast \u2013 Oh Mother Nature \u2013 I'm coming!)\n\nLenny\n\n96. Betty Comden to Leonard Bernstein\n\nSummit Lodge, Fort Thomas, KY\n\n9 September 1941\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nWe have a slight business proposition: we have to have our music rearranged. That is, we have arrangements of our numbers, but there are many changes that have been made since, and the music is all marked up and hard to follow. Also the stuff is for 17 pieces, and we want it arranged for 9. Also the music belongs to NBC. In a word \u2013 will you please get in touch with us at Judy's (write to her \u2013 Judith Tuvim,13 226 West 58th St) and tell us whether or not you would undertake the job. There are about eight numbers that need such treatment. Could you figure out a price and quote it to us? And also tell us when you can come into New York to talk about it \u2013 and about how long it would take. We will be back in N.Y. on Sept 19, so if you can write us here before the 18, do that. Otherwise wait till the 22nd and write to Judy in the city.\n\nBy the way \u2013 we're in Kentucky! \u2013 right across the river from Cincinnati! \u2013 and we're doing well! \u2013 and hope you are the same!\n\nWith much love,\n\nThe Revuers\n\nP.S. This is terribly important to us, Lennie, because the bad orchestrations make our work much harder \u2013 so please write and inform us as soon as you can. Again, thanks.\n\n97. Leonard Bernstein to Kenneth Ehrman\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n17 September 1941\n\nDear Ken,\n\nGod it's been years. Are you still around? One said you were in the army; one said in Hearst; one said in sin. I have much eagerness to see you. Really. Write me now.\n\nI've just returned from Key West, brown & asthmatic \u2013 a new factor in my life, all bound up with September & hay fever. Ghastly \u2013 no sleep.\n\nDefinite career-point reached \u2013 thru with school for good; but plans from now on very vague. I'm off to see Koussie this weekend to discuss same. Perhaps some NYA14 orch., if possible. I need an orch. so badly \u2013 know of any?\n\nI've always had a great yearning to live in San Francisco, as you know. Do you think me mad to have the idea of going, Horatio-Alger-like15 to S.F & climb there? Is it untapped & fertile? How old is Monteux (hm!)? Diable que je suis! But I consider it well & seriously. How's the NYA there?\n\nOf course, all this is thought of with no consideration of\/for the Draft, by which I have already been _questioned_. And you? Please write to Sharon & let me know all \u2013\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n98. Betty Comden to Leonard Bernstein\n\n15 October 1941\n\nDear, dear Lenny,\n\nThe news about the army is terrific! I am so very happy for you. Now you can go ahead and make the plans you want to make, instead of having that hopeless feeling. I send my love and my very best wishes to you.\n\nI am also sending, under very separate cover, the music. Hoping you will still have time.16 Write and tell me if you have. We would never have waited so long had our plans been more definite. But things have been sort of vague and ghastly.\n\nI have tried to explain some of this battered road map as best I can. My suggestion is that you look through it all first \u2013 just the piano parts and the attendant remarks on yellow paper \u2013 and see if it makes sense. If _anything_ at all seems puzzling, please, please ask \u2013 by phone or any way \u2013 because it would be foolish to go ahead with any mistakes. Will you be in town at all? That of course would be perfect \u2013 an hour or so with you once you have looked over the stuff would clear up any questions I am sure.\n\nCould you drop me a line as soon as you get the stuff? Just so I'll know where it is.\n\nMuch love \u2013\n\nMany thanks \u2013\n\nBetty.\n\n_The Banshees_ is the most complicated.\n\n99. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n[Autumn 1941]\n\nAaron Copland!\n\nYou didn't get my letter from Key West? Clearly addressed to the American Consul in Lima, & you should have coincided, according to the itinerary with same. A long and passionate epistle it was, too, and full of Key West Weltschmerz. Now there's so much to tell that you should know already.\n\n1. I went to K[ey] W[est] to get away from people, & Kiki [Speyer] who came back to Sharon with us, & I went back to Lenox with her, & to see Kouss, who was yachting, so I fled south. Hot & lovely & wonderful down there. Beautiful & tragic, & how I longed for you! I never thought it possible to miss anyone so.\n\n2. All the while suffering wretchedly from asthmatic hay fever, & returned home with same to face \u2013\n\n3. The draft situation. Kouss had written an imploring letter to Mrs. Bok in Philly about it, but that was all rendered unnecessary by my complete rejection in Boston by the Medical Advisory Board! God, I have a lucky star! Not so much the asthma, either (tho that was the legal excuse) as the fact that the particular doctor who examined me insisted on preserving the cultural foundations of the USA, not killing all the musicians. And so I am in class IV! Go, attend to your career, said the great M.D., and that will be yr greatest service. Osanna in excelsis!\n\n4. Since then in Boston, or rather Sharon, except for a spell in NYC where who should I meet in a shady 8th Street bar but [blanked out]17 with whom now very friendly & sentimental! God, the curves of life! And all in secret, too!\n\n5. Have been directly under Kouss' wing for the past month. He keeps me on a string re: some surprise which never seems to come thru. But I'm very happy because he wants me to play with him (concertos, yours possibly), and \u2013\n\n6. There's a great possibility of a guest appearance with the New York NYA Orch now that Mahler's out. Looks very good indeed, due to a good thick letter from Kouss and\n\n7. I'm probably going to play the Ch\u00e1vez concerto with him (Ch\u00e1vez) when he is guest in Boston in February! Isn't that terrific? It just happened & everything is settled but the contract from the management.\n\n8. Tomorrow night Mozart & Ravel concertos in New Bedford, of all places, with Fiedler and the Boston NYA. A slow beginning, this.\n\n9. Then to NYC to confer with Stanley Stevens about the NYA possibility. Pray for me in Rio [...].\n\n10. So much to tell you \u2013 God! This week most theatrical, since the Evans company is in town with _Macbeth_ & I met them all thru Alex Courtnay who was the charming boy in the Tanglewood box office last summer, & now he's in _Macbeth_ , & in my heart, & Evans is coming to my Fiedler rehearsal tomorrow, & it's all so mixed up because\n\n11. I confessed all, like a ghoul, to Kiki, explaining the whole summer fiasco, & now it's all normal again, & she wants to marry me anyway, and accept the double life, or try for my recovery. And Alex blows in on all this! It's such a confused week! But all my weeks are, as you well know. Why can't you be here, & tell me what I should know in such cases? Aaron, I miss you so that I could scream. Write long and hard & soon. There's much more to tell, but I forget, & I must be up early in the morning. I'm waiting for your answer already, so please \u2013\n\nLove, love,\n\nLenny\n\nOn second thoughts, there's more.\n\n12. Delighted at yr great success in the south. Can't wait to hear the 3rd mov't of the Sonata. Have a nice, robust sex life in Rio.\n\n13. A great to do about Kouss doing Billy Schuman's 3rd Symph. K[ouss] was sehr disappointed, & wanted to call it off, & called me in for advice, & I made him do it all, with great cuts which Billy sanctioned wholeheartedly, & it was a great success & now Kouss adores the work. Ach, Gott, my life is full of Kouss & Kiki and Kiki & Kouss & Kiki & Kiki and Kouss & Alex & Olga and Ted and memories of you.\n\nHow do you like my manuscript pen? Look [illustrates with the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony]\n\n100. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Francis Marion Hotel, Charleston, SC\n\n13 December [1941]\n\nLenny, Lenny Lenny!\n\nJust as I was about to arrive back home by air we were grounded in Charleston! I'll be home ingloriously by train tomorrow. South America is all over now \u2013 but I think it was worth it. I saw more than 60 composers and looked at their stuff \u2013 I made about 25 public appearances as lecturer, performer, or on the air. I played the Piano Sonata in B[uenos] A[ires], Rio, and Havana. But most fun was conducting in Santiago de Chile. Musically speaking, i.e. the rest can wait!...\n\nOf course I got your letter in Rio and it certainly sounded 100% like you. Hecticness personified. But now I feel all out of touch again and wish you would write me to the Empire and bring me up to date.\n\nIs there any chance of your coming down the week that Mitrop[oulos] does the _Statements_?18 (I'm assuming that Mitrop. is still planning to do them.)\n\nI haven't any news much \u2013 spent 3 weeks in Rio which is all it's cracked up to be \u2013 was very palsy-walsy with Villa-Lobos and [Francisco] Mignone \u2013 had very good Portuguese lessons (took your advice) \u2013 stopped off for a day in Bel\u00e9m where there is an incredible fort19 and zoo, stopped off in Trinidad and saw Rudi who is stationed there \u2013 spent 10 days in Havana which is wonderful as always (renewed acquaintance with the younger set) \u2013 and now I'm in Charleston, South Carolina.\n\nIt's all been quite wonderful \u2013 but I'm glad to be back \u2013 and keen keen keen to see you.\n\nLove,\n\nAaron\n\n101. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n295 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA\n\n[late 1941 or early 1942]\n\nAaron, Liebchen,\n\nWon't you come to Boston for _Quiet City_ , which sends its quiet message to all loving Boston hearts this Fri & Sat? Also the Harris 3rd [Symphony]. Oh I know you've heard it before, but what a good excuse it provides! Are you too busy? No.\n\nI never thought it possible to miss one person so thoroughly as I have you. And if you come \u2013 please come \u2013 won't you bring a copy of the Buenos Aires Sonata? My studio hungers for your blessing.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n102. Kiki Speyer to Leonard Bernstein\n\n37 Addington Road, Brookline, MA\n\n[late 1941 or early 1942]\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nMy message of wishing good fortune and happiness is long overdue for your new venture. I didn't feel the need to tell you in so many words \u2013 hoping you might feel them even when they were left unsaid. I realize, however, that perhaps now is a good time to tell you that I feel with all my heart that your success is near \u2013 and your studio20 is the first step toward it. It won't fail if you have a little patience, for faith in your tremendous gifts exists in many hearts.\n\nThis letter may seem strange to you \u2013 but I sensed sadness and a little feeling of defeat in seeing you the other day. You have much to give \u2013 but don't be too generous, even to the \"first pupil\" \u2013 same for the rest that are to come.\n\nYour past successes have perhaps been easier \u2013 this one will be really worthwhile for the comfort you will receive and the certain peace for which I think you are searching.\n\nI've never told you that I've always felt you were a grand person with such a beautiful mind! You'll be a great musician and the best conductor ever \u2013 just you watch and see \u2013 you need help from yourself only.\n\nYours,\n\nKiki\n\nP.S. That has killed the bad taste... so chalk it up as your first fan letter.\n\n103. Judy Holliday21 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[?early 1942]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI'm sorry not to have written you in such a long time but many upsetting things have been happening. This morning, after a long siege of distemper, the dog died. It seems weak to be sad and weepy over a dog's death \u2013 as many people have assured me \u2013 when so many worse things are happening in the world, but after all it's just a question of relative importance, or something. What am I saying. I do feel completely lousy. Well, other things too are coming to a close I'm afraid. Nothing has been said yet between Eddie and me, but she becomes more unhappy every day, and as much as I try to bring things back to where they were, I only succeed in resenting her more for suffering because of me.\n\nExcuse me Lenny. When things are all right I can write amusing letters. Just now I can't even achieve a coherent sentence. The strain of the past few weeks has told on me in the form of a hugely swollen cheek \u2013 from wisdom tooth. [...]\n\nAbout Adolph [Green] I've had to tell him a few things about you which may not be strictly the truth. You ought to know about it.\n\nAs of course you know, he's crazy about you and he felt rotten that this business with Lizzie [Reitell]22 should have implicated you in any way. You probably didn't, as I didn't, know the extent to which she went in describing her feelings for you. She threw it in his face that she was very much in love with you and had spent every moment with you in Boston. Naturally the whole thing has been preying on his mind. He was very shocked when I told him I had told you something about the way Lizzie felt and he wanted to keep you out of it. But he worried nevertheless about how you felt about Lizzie. I suppose it was a mixture of being hurt himself and not wanting you to be hurt by Lizzie, and not wanting your friendship to be hurt. However, I told him that you not only were not in the least bit in love with Lizzie but that the idea of any contact with her horrified you. Maybe I shouldn't have stretched the truth quite so much but it gratified and consoled him to hear it so much that I wasn't sorry I had put it so strongly. I just felt that you ought to know what I've been up to. I think it would probably be just as well if you never brought up the subject, which you wouldn't want to anyhow. The thing seems well ironed out now and Adolph has succeeded in making a sort of monster out of Lizzie for his own calm, and since it's helping him to get over the hurt, it seems just as well.\n\nIf you can make anything out of this letter, write me and tell me. I would love to see you. We're leaving the Park Central next Tuesday and Adolph said something about going up and joining you. If he does, don't tell him I messed about in this, please, because I suppose I shouldn't have.\n\nWrite me soon though I don't deserve it, and have a successful time.\n\nMuch love,\n\nJudy\n\n104. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Gabis\n\n295 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA\n\n[?early 1942]\n\nDear Gabeling,\n\nThanks, thanks, thanks. And I really didn't mean to cause a furore about the ankle, which, by the way, is prospering beautifully. It's now mauve.\n\nI want to send you a thankyou present. Don't shriek \u2013 I don't usually, but now I do. Something in the Brillo price range. What do you want? Halvah? Defense stamps?\n\nOf course there's really no use in trying to apologize away the situation that arose in Phil[adelphia], like going to the opera with A[dolph] and a slight Liz session. You understand & know. I worry greatly about the Adolph-Liz marriage.23 From what she says, it won't work much longer. God \u2013 what a blow to Adolph that will be! I spent the whole night trying to change her mind. Did Adolph mention anything to you?\n\nWrite soon, work hard, & give my best to all who hate me.\n\nLove, & to Rae,\n\nLenny\n\n105. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n[early 1942]\n\nAaron darling,\n\nI had the feeling (silly but que faire?) of having perpetuated a misdemeanor. Lousy have I felt about it since, tho I know you understand. Or do you? The last days, nay moments, of Hyatt, ere the fateful return of the Vanishing Virginian. You must know. The V[anishing] V[irginian] returned, 4:00 a.m. Sat. morning, & called & I shall see him tonight, & it won't be easy to take all that barrage of Boston brashness after the dulcet quietness of Dick [Hyatt]. And so the answer is still to be found \u2013 I'm still searching. Which is as it should be, 23 years & everything, & a late start, considered.\n\nDick H. is convinced that nothing matters to me but Copland. I gave him a chronological recital of you last night. He was thrilled, & his extravagant remark is almost completely true. When everything is said & done & over, I guess the core of the whole thing will still be Aaron, & there's nothing to be done about it.\n\nI want an _Hurricane_ , much talk & activity is afoot for a second performance, probably in Sanders Theatre, & possibly for Russian Relief. At this moment I am waiting for the phone on same. Collier is really excited this time about the publicity & anything can happen. Pray. Any news from [Alfred] Wallenstein?\n\nI want you to have this _Monitor_ review, as an example of the worst possible tripe by a fuckfool who obviously didn't attend the performance. Note especially the Gertie Stein paragraph.\n\nTake care of Jean & advise him right. He's had more than his share of trouble already.\n\nWhen do you leave for the Hills?\n\nAaron, Aaron, Aaron. My God.\n\nL\n\n106. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n[before 21 April 1942]\n\nAaronchen, Liebchen,\n\nHow I was furious and raging at this little frustration! I did not spend Wednesday night _beim_ studio, & found your wire only upon returning the next morning. What to do? My head spins crazily. Cleveland! He's been out of Cleveland for ages now.24 And at that moment came the second wire. The shame, and disappointment of it all!\n\nIt would have been wonderful to see you. God, yes. On our first beautiful spring day. And we would have walked in all Boston's parks and spoken long, quietly & with the heart. Such gab. Can't you come anyway? We must have a session on that Copland youth opera, you know. The master's interpretation. Hell, I miss you so.\n\nVoici le printemps, et moi sans amour.\n\nLife has only just stopped being hectic. Since I've seen you last I have sped through a series of great triumphs involving a heavy social life, and all ending in complete nothingness. I've turned down jobs, gotten into a row with Paul Lukas, who was all ready to wire Hollywood to give me a job (big talker), miffed a good chance with Irving Caesar, etc. I should have come to NYC this year, dammit. Even Kouss has shown his usual cooling process \u2013 not a word all month about playing with the BSO. I suppose I haven't approached his model for me sufficiently. I haven't changed my name, or learned to schmoos, or become a dignified continental. The hell with it.\n\nEt voici le printemps, et moi sans amour. But wait.\n\nLovely letter from David, who seems to be supported by one Aaron Sapiro, & has won Stravinsky's heart. Very mysteriously interested in my summer plans, but can't divulge why.\n\nWe must also meet to plan _our_ course \u2013 or is it still on?\n\nWhat a year. It's hard to keep calling it transitional & let it go at that. Nothing happening but the Institute Concerts, & the happy prospect of the _2nd Hurricane_. I've been dying to give a Sonata recital, including yours, & Schumann, & Scriabin, & Scarlatti, & I can't find anyone to rent me the hall. God dammit. But I'm learning the Sonata (3rd mov't is a bone in the throat), & I'm working very hard on my Key West piece, which ought to turn into a ballet.25\n\nSorry you saw [David] Glazer. You weren't supposed to know that the Clarinet Sonata was being done!26 Direct defiance of your orders. But, hell, I've got to hear it. You will condone, won't you?\n\nDo write, or come to Boston. Love to everyone & kiss Jean27 for me. (The worst part of all that wire business was that I _was_ free on Thursday from noon on!)\n\nMuch love, & Goddammit,\n\nLenny\n\n107. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n[Boston, MA]\n\n[early 1942]\n\nDear Mr. Copland, dear Aaron,\n\nA more sober word today. Shirley is sending you the reviews \u2013 all good, and one even _interesting_. I hope she remembers to get the _Monitor_ this afternoon.\n\nI'm rather serious suddenly about making that piano reduction of _Billy_ [ _the Kid_ ]. It would be a \"suite from the suite\", maybe using a connecting motive & only a few numbers. The orch. suite is terrific in performance, but I think all that return of slow music at the end is a bit letting-down after the excitement of the middle. It occurred to me that the suite would be a real killer if it ended with the macabre dance, in C major:\n\nAre you shocked? Of course it's too late now, but the piano suite could well do that. (My writing suddenly looks just like yours.)\n\nAaron \u2013 this is important. I was at the Peabody Playhouse this morning trying to sell the _2nd Hurricane_. They'll let me know, they say, after discussing it with the big shots. _You must_ send a letter of recommendation for me (they're wary about whom they entrust their kids to), saying that I'm the ideal one to do it, that I've had all this experience, am Koussy's prize, etc. etc. Can handle children, etc. I didn't think I'd have to sell myself, but so it seems. Write _as soon as possible_ to:\n\nMiss Hyek, Peabody Playhouse, 357 Charles Street, Boston.\n\nMake it good. It means much for both of us, I hope. I'm so sleepy. And rather useless. But there's a certain _\u00e9lan vital_ left, pretty latent now. I love Jean [Middleton],\n\nAnd you.\n\nLenny\n\n108. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY\n\n26 May 1942\n\nLensky,\n\nI loved having your letter, even though, as you guessed, the first paragraph about \"misdemeanors\" was completely unnecessary. Silly is a better word for it. You could talk till doomsday but I could never hope to make competition with the D[ick] H[yatt]s of this world, in my own mind, I mean. You've convinced me that I have my little niche ( _big_ niche, really), and on my own \"acceptance\" theory, that's what I accept. As Edwin [Denby] so prettily puts it in this number of _M_ [ _odern_ ] _M_ [ _usic_ ]: \"It is the thrill of needing, not the delight of having.\" But in accordance with the theory, I'm right ready to always be on either side of Edwin's comma. If this is too much literature, it's your own doings, so there!\n\nI'm still talking about you and the _Hurricane_. Kouss was here \u2013 and we spent all Sunday afternoon together raving about one Leonard. You ought to be very proud \u2013 quietly proud \u2013 to have two such supports. Just as I am quietly certain that if you hang on it is bound to end someplace good. In the meantime I called Wallenstein and of course he was all set with rehearsals, assistants, etc., \u2013 which is not so good.\n\nI'm off to Stockbridge on Monday. I'm hunting frantically for a cook-houseworker. I've had a few nibbles \u2013 but haven't taken anyone on. All the young uns are seemingly in the Navy. This will have to be solved by Monday, come what may.\n\nJust to give you my plans: I'll be down to NY of the 11th for the broadcast of the _S_ [ _econd_ ] _H_ [ _urricane_ ] and down again on the 17th for conducting the _Outdoor Overture_ with the Goldman Band. When you know your own plans better we can fix up a time for a quiet interlude for us both in the Boikshires.\n\nKouss was fighting mad about the Festival, but anyhow I think we'll have a school. He says it's all to be decided tomorrow (Wed.)\n\nSince I got back I've had an offer of a ballet commission from the Monte Carlo company, but we are still dickering about a subject. If it should work out, I'll have to do it fast in June. All this is just as you prophesized, but keep it under your hat.\n\nI can't seem to connect with Jean. I'm always out or he's always out. Donald [Fuller] says he wants J. to live with him in NY this summer. He (DF) played me 1st movement of his Symphony. Terribly complicated it is.\n\nDid you see the _Times_ and our joint letter?28 What say.\n\nGood bye and be good. If I said what I felt the paper would melt. (Poetry).\n\nA\n\n109. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nSharon, MA\n\n[8 June 1942]\n\nAaron darling,\n\nThe second _Second Hurricane_ is over,29 and I am a limp rag drying out in the Sharon sun. And a lovely sun it is. The performance was, as I guess you know, carried out with piano only, and it was apparently even more successful than the first. No reviews, naturally, unfortunately. We covered all expenses, doing it all on our own. We did our own publicity, management, printing, etc, & came out better than the Institute of Modern Art has, with all its fancy pretensions. And so this is a brief but lovely period of smug nose-thumbing at the decaying aristocracy. WCOP here gave a whole day to plugging the thing, & I had an interview during which I gave quite a lecture on your history. And Boston is all agog and all aware. What a team! _You write 'em, kid, & I'll do 'em._\n\nAnd now a month intervenes before the Koussevitzky Memorial Foundation, Inc. (sic!) takes over. I suppose you know that setup \u2013 it's staggering. There are five big shots: [Howard] Hanson (why?), Olin Downes (God!) [Gregor] Piatigorsky (I guess he has money connections), [Richard] Burgin & Kouss selbst. And private money. Quite a boy, ce Serge-ci.\n\nDuring this month I would like to make a visit with you. When? And seriously, do you suppose I could live in your house this summer? I'd adore it. Think it through, from the points of view of the _exec. & admin. depts_. Have you an extra room? Did you get a cook? Is it gorgeous & quiet up there? I miss you terribly.\n\nDid you see me publicly announced as a two-fold assistant in the _Times_? I'm rather glad of that announcement. It gives me dignity.\n\nRen\u00e9e [Longy Miquelle] told me of her Dallas idea & your rather discouraging reply. I think however that this might really be something. Jacques Singer, the draftee, was very young too. There _is_ a precedent. And what an opportunity! Perhaps Kouss should write a letter. God, I want an orch. Can you help?\n\nMuch love \u2013 & write to 295 Hunt[ington Avenue] now. [...]\n\nLenny\n\nTry this one on your piano:\n\nSi ces seize cent soixante six sensus-ci sont sur son sein sans susser son sang, s\u00fbrement ces seize cent soixante six sensus-ci seront sans succ\u00e8s, c'est s\u00fbr.\n\nIt looks like no local broadcast. Maybe later.\n\nWhat of Downes' retort in yesterday's _Times_? Sort of leaves the whole thing back where it started.30\n\n110. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n40 Charlton Street, New York, NY\n\n[?June 1942]\n\nDear Aaron Copland, Earth-Scorcher, Location-Adorner,\n\nCharming, charming to get your letter. I know I've been remiss, as they say in elegant diction, but so have you, and I've been moving, for a change. Look! This is my fourth address this year, and a few more are coming up soon. I can hardly keep track of myself. I find myself getting off the subway at 23rd instead of Houston, which is now my locale (and not a bad one, either, if you like that sort of thing). It's always very difficult when you move so much: you have to spend all your time making sure that someone who wants to get in touch with you has found the correct forwarding address, which they haven't, of course, since the Chelsea is so remiss, as they say, about giving out forwarding addresses. For instance, Henry Simon, who wants me to do the piano parts of the operas for his new book on operas (and for $2500 yet!) had to get in touch with me via Sharon! Today I was back there complaining away in a loud bitter voice and found to my astonishment a dozen or so letters that had never been forwarded. And yours among them, just so as not to bore you. And a letter from Edwin Franko Goldman saying that there would be a rehearsal of the Band _yesterday_ \u2013 I tell you, it's infuriating. Oh yes, I forgot: I'm conducting the _Outdoor Overture_ with the Goldman Band June 19 in Prospect Park and June 20th in Central Park. It's good fun seeing the old notes again; though I'm completely nonplussed by all the fancy instruments, their incomprehensible arrangement on the page, and especially on the stage. And I must memorize the damn thing, since your lovely big manuscript score won't fit on the bandstand. All in all quite a job. Goldman, in fact, had asked me to be his assistant this summer, and then pulled a long face, saying that the budget would not allow an assistant. Sounds like a typical Bernstein, doesn't it?\n\nTo make sure that you'll keep reading this, I'll start a new paragraph. It must be a strain.\n\nWho(m) do you think called me up the other day from his house in Westport?31 And he wants to do my Symphony in Pittsburgh next fall, and he loves it, and he wants me to conduct a program anyway, and maybe to do the Symph myself! Lovely lovely news. But he is most anxious for a fourth movement, insists it's all too sad and defeatist. Same criticism my father had; which raises Pop in my estimation no end. I really haven't the time or energy for a fourth movement. I seem to have had my little say as far as that piece is concerned, and I want to get on with something else. And parts have to be made. Real young composer tsurus.32 Apropos of which, I saw Marion Bauer33 t'other day, and she insists on a young composers' committee meeting for next season, of which I shall be one. Feels sort of like a composer. But my real function, I find, is to be the middle-man between all the pairs of antagonists and antipathetic little cliques here. They're all my friends, and hence none of them is really my friend. I go around justifying Berger to Schuman, and Schuman to Bowles, and Thomson to Schuman and Bowles to Diamond, and I'm always having dinner with all of them but none of them ever has dinner with any other one of them. Good Lord, I'm lucid and articulate tonight! Must be the invigorating air (of the _Outdoor Overture_ , I mean, not, certainly, of Charlton Street).\n\nIt just looks as though I'll never see you. Though, b'God, if that Simon job comes through (and there's a competition factor, with old Szirmay)34 I'll take the dough and fly to Mexico to see you. Nothing can stop me, once there is dough. Really, Aaron, I don't understand how and why I get along at all with you away so long. And here's what I mean:\n\nThe Frau-sessions have borne some fruit.35 Little green fruit, of course, but fruit. The main thing being that I can't kid myself any more. Kid myself, that is, into thinking that I have a closeness with someone when it is all really wishful thinking, or induced, or imagined, or escape from being alone with myself, etc. And so, one by one, all the old relationships tend to fall away; and I find that I'm not at all interested in seeing anybody \u2013 really \u2013 whereas I used to run and see anybody at the drop of a hat. This all makes the trouble harder, of course; since I still hate being alone, and yet don't want anyone in particular. And that's where you come in; cause you're the only one that persists and persists, come hell or high water. And I love you and miss you as much as I did the first month I knew you, and always will. Believe that, Earth-Scorcher, it's so real. And then this wish for closeness always manifests itself in a sexual desire, the more promiscuous the better \u2013 giving rise to experiences like being taken (by Pfb [Bowles], of course) to a Bain Turc (or is it Turque?) and seeking out the 8th Street bars again. But I'm not attracted any more to any one I find there, and it's just as horrible as if I hadn't gone at all. One of those unpleasant stages forward.\n\nI'm living, of all places, in a high school! I have a whole school to myself; but I really live in the apartment atop the Little Red Schoolhouse High School in the Village. It's quite nice, but I shall have to move again in July when the real tenant returns (a lovely lady who is unfortunately in love with me) and then my troubles start over again. The Staten Island venture seems to grow more dismal all the time. It's so complicated without a city apartment, and I'll have to have one of those. I won't trouble you with that problem: it involves too much Bowles.\n\nDavid Diamond is going to study the piano with me! And don't let him kid you into that \"outdone me\" stuff; the soldier (what a boy!) would rather have come with me, but DD had done all the _work_ , and the soldier was afraid of a scene. As it turned out, he came to my room the next night, full of love and amusement.\n\nOne final experience \u2013 and then we close, with love to Victor.36 Last night I resolved to stay home for a change and cook my own dinner and study. Which I did; but just as I had begun to work, there was a blackout. I went up on the roof to see it all (I have a marvelous roof) and found a young soldier there, in the blackout, who, it turns out, lives with the housekeeper downstairs. Sure enough, he knew me, had attended my concerts, worshipped me; and there was fun. _Until_ the lights went on; and he turned out to be so fat that I could hardly stand it; and now I'm in a Bernsteinian pickle, with an adoring fatman and no wish to see him and life in a high school is hard. Moral: if you need sex, don't go searching everywhere \u2013 look in your own back yard. Which does _not_ necessarily apply to you! All kinds of love, and write soon.\n\nL\n\n111. Leonard Bernstein to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle\n\nc\/o Welsh, Box 411, Lenox, MA\n\n11 July 1942\n\nDear R,\n\nI heard tell that Baudex had called you. Qu'est-ce qui est arriv\u00e9? By this time, something must have happened. If not, you had better come out and replace K[athryn] W[olf] by brute force.\n\nTanglewood is all different this year. Not half the spirit or the excitement of previous seasons. And I, as Aaron put it, have been \"kicked out upstairs\". Because I have been elevated to \"assistant\" I never get a chance with the orchestra, since all the time is taken up with the conductors' preparation for their concert. I am doing jackal's work \u2013 but that's great experience for one who is too easily a lion.\n\nWalter [Hendl]37 is apparently in a bad state. His mother seems a real problem, and he doesn't appear to be able to concentrate on his work. He is terribly worried about his concert on Saturday.\n\nSo \u2013 he is in a bad state, you are in a bad state, I am in a bad state. Let's get together and form a secessionary State Confederacy!\n\nAnd I've been rather stupidly ill all week with a bad stomach. \u00c7a va mieux maintenant, mais il me faut s'endormir. I can't be well except when I'm _too_ busy. Remember a certain _Hurricane_?\n\nWrite & tell me all.\n\nLove\n\nL\n\nThanks for the \"Philadelphia Story\" \u2013 I gave it to all those interested.\n\n112. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim38\n\n158 West 58th Street, New York, NY\n\npostmark 22 September 1942\n\nAre you dead?39\n\n113. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\n295 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA\n\n[September\u2013October 1942]40\n\nDavid,\n\nThank you, thank you, thank you. For so many things. For housing me. For leading me straight into the arms of a great and quiet and radiant joy. For making one sacrifice after another. For the burst of temper, which showed that you still had enough feeling & respect for me to worry about my weaknesses. For being such a remarkable host. For showing me at last what a terrific talent you have. That I now know, & understand.\n\nAnd for every one of those things, there is a corresponding apology. None of which I need itemize. You're really very tolerant, and you know very well what you know.\n\nShirley is very, very fond of you, despite her first confusion. And that's an indication of something phenomenal.\n\nPaul du Pont41 has his clothes, & I hope to see _Porgy_ this week. [...]\n\nBless you \u2013 & please write.\n\nLenny\n\n114. Leonard Bernstein to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle\n\n158 West 58th Street, New York, NY\n\npostmark 22 October 1942\n\nDear R,\n\nI think something may be breaking (if the union doesn't make complications). Next Wednesday night, Oct 28 at 10:30, CBS, I'm conducting a show called _The Man Behind the Gun_.42 It will be swell fun, & 50 dollars, & if I'm good it's a steady job! Pray for me and listen (music by Diamond).\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n115. Leonard Bernstein to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle\n\nAdvanced Music Corporation, RCA Building, Rockefeller Center, New York, NY\n\npostmark 8 December 1942\n\nMy dear Madame Miquelle (!)\n\nJust wanted you to see my gorgeous new official stationery. Here I sit, at a desk, important as a bookworm, at $25 a week, doing little or nothing, waiting until the great bosses decide what my function here should be. This is the great musical industry of Warner Brothers Pictures, and is called the Music Publishers' Holding Company (impressive, n'est-ce pas?) and includes four publishers, Harms, Remick, Witmark, and Advanced, where I am. It's all tr\u00e8s d\u00e9lass\u00e9 et doux, and I must be here from 10 to 5:30, just being around en causant, fumant, causant, etc. And I have my pupils come here for their coaching. In fact, Bobby is coming here in an hour to play my pieces for me. He's broadcasting them today. It's great fun.\n\nAnd then the Riobamba Club opens Thursday,43 and I've written the title song, \"The Riobamba\" which will be plugged and plugged, and may even be a success, if you keep your fingers crossed.44 That keeps me plenty busy with rehearsals. This song is all that is left of the once hopeful Key West Piece [ _Conch Town_ ], but I think it makes a better popular song. And speaking of such matters, I finished orchestrating the first movement of _Jeremiah_ , and it's being copied, and I have no time to devote to the second movement, but I swear it will be done, if only as a gift to you.45\n\nAnd tomorrow night I do Aaron's two-piano piece46 with him in Town Hall. And that has me tied up in knots. I wish you could be there to hear it. Don't you think I'm really very lucky, for a young Boston yokel only three months in New York?\n\nI'm flabbergasted at the fire in Boston,47 and I'm told that Bob Lubell's sister was a victim. It's too shocking to believe. Anyone else we know?\n\nTake care of yourself. And don't write Edys [Merrill] [a] card, and leave me in the cold! I know I deserve such treatment, but be merciful, and come to NYC soon.\n\nMuch love,\n\nLenny\n\n116. Samuel Barber to Leonard Bernstein\n\n166 East 96th Street, New York, NY\n\n[?1942]\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nAwfully busy with unimportant things, Curtis opening etc., firing Filipinos, looking for a little house in the country to run off to. I can imagine what you are going through with the draft question: ever since I've heard that any use of musical gifts in the army or U.S.O. is discouraged, I'm all for getting out of it \u2013 at least for the present. With some imagination you ought to be able to develop an impassioned asthmatic wheeze which would send them rolling. Let me know what happens. Was Koussevitzky of any real help?\n\nWhen are you coming down to New York? I've told no-one that I am back, and it is very pleasant. It was raining very hard on my terrace; I spent the morning in bed \u2013 there was a Baudelaire on the shelf and I sank into a lazy stupor and felt as sinful as if I were 16 again. The Filipino came in with new headlines about the Russian war. I felt worthless but happy. The next time I shall have a box of chocolates! Interesting life, eh? Now the sun is out again, damn it.\n\nBest to you,\n\nSam B.\n\n117. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\n15 West 52nd Street, New York, NY\n\npostmark 16 December 1942\n\nDear D,\n\nVery comforting to know that you exist. Of course come down to the city before Draftuary the first.48 Let me know when. Above is my new address, apartment extraordinaire: the rest is PL-5-2966. Thanks for the letter.\n\nBest always,\n\nLenny\n\n118. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\n15 West 52nd Street, New York, NY\n\npostmark 15 January 1943\n\nDave,\n\nIt appears that WNYC wants the Clarinet Sonata on their Festival of American Music sometime between 12 and 22 [February]. Could you possibly do it, via a Lincoln's Birthday week or some such device? Probably not, but I'd love it if you could, needless to say. Otherwise I shall have to get a NY guy, maybe Eric Simon with whom I'm rehearsing these days. Even he would be second choice, obviously. You're the top 5\/8 man in these parts [and you] know it.\n\nIn the latter regrettable case, you'd have to send the score so that it can be used, or copied, and more scores made. Depending, in turn, on when you plan to do it in Rochester, if you still do. Do you? You see, I tend to lose track of your vibrations when you don't write.\n\nAnd if you \"can't write\" as you put it, at least write saying you can't write.\n\nLet me know Jack's49 address, the story of the Sonata, and what leprechauns (or have they become gremlins by now?) are goading you through these tough days.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\nI tripped across Whitman again yesterday.\n\nI hope you trip too.\n\nRead the Calamus poems again \u2013 they may have a new angle these realistic days.50\n\n119. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\n15 West 52nd Street, New York, NY\n\n[before 19 January 1943]\n\nDear D,\n\nIn the first place, that Complexion Soap with Lanolin, Macy's 15 cakes for something or other, is _not_ the same as our soap, which is clearly labeled \"Lightfoot's\", and far superior.\n\nIn the second place, I have two more pupils and have become violently busy.\n\nThe score (a beautiful job of quasi-legible gray ink) was two days late. I was all for jumping off Harvard Bridge when I heard the New England bitchvoice of Elizabeth Allen saying \"It's an inflexible ryule! I'm afraid I cahwn't accept it. Good-bah.\" At which moment [...] Alex Thiede, a prominent Boston semi-conductor (really semi-Boston too, being a good guy) who called influential folk, explained how wars made trains late and unpredictable (lucky if they're going in the right direction), & the thing is now before the board of trustees, who must decide if they can abrogate the rule relating to deadlines, and suffer the score to enter the contest. (There being such a plethora of American talent on the boards, of course, that they can afford, the bastards, to be snooty about what scores they accept, the idiots, when the issue is a day's lateness, the lice.)\n\nIt is to be prayed for, and keened over. I charge you to organize a wake in Rochester, with Wing-of-Angel Avshalomoff as chief crier and you as bartender.\n\nThis empty prattle is induced by the extraordinary emptiness and prattledom of this office, where I still have nothing to do, and grow weary just pretending to be absorbed. For the last hour it has been the London _Times_ Crossword Puzzle \u2013 something you'd go mad about. I must admit I'm writing a song, stolen heartlessly from the Double Concerto of Brahms. Mighty purty. Has to have words about love, and I'm stymied. Me, primus amoris filius! It's my last vestige of self-consciousness in the matter, being afraid I'll reveal too much. I'm sorry to hound you, but I love you very much. You will, of course, destroy this letter. Unless you some day give up the clarinet in favor of blackmail.\n\nThe office grows gradually madder, each songwriter fighting for the phonograph to demonstrate his latest horror. There's a new one about to be plugged \u2013 a real nightmare \u2013 called \"Each Time I Puff On My Cigarette\". Watch for it, if only in order to avoid it.\n\nIf you think your mad dreams about mixed up sexes are confusing, listen to this little job of mine that I cooked up in Boston last weekend. I was due at a small legendary village on Long Island to give a lecture. I arrived at a completely deserted little station \u2013 _end of the line_ \u2013 called Arnold Park. (Related, among more obvious things, to Ozone Park, on my way to Rockaway, where I lectured this autumn.)51 No one was there to meet me, but I waited a few minutes and was suddenly confronted by the most gorgeous girl imaginable, and she loved me and I loved her. At which point some dope called up to inquire about a rehearsal. I enclose 2 & 9 for a complete interpretation by Zolar Oppenheim. It is understood that this coupon puts me under no obligation whatsoever.\n\nBless you for all the yeoman work you did last weekend. I could never have done it without you [...] especially the last five pages of the Scherzo,52 which came out very strangely primitive. Also interestin'. And my best to Jack who was truly noble.\n\nAnd to you \u2013 \u00e7a va sans dire.\n\nLenny\n\n120. David Oppenheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n19 January 1943\n\nDear Len,\n\nOf course I'll come down to N.Y.C.! Did you think I'd let an outsider play it? I can be down any time between the 14th and the 22nd. On the 13th is our \"big dance\" and of course I have to go, duty calls. I like dancing but not \"big dances\". Maybe this time will be different. You see I'm working on dozens of theories about myself, all more or less inspired by the writing of our friend Karen Horney.53 And I've really had some results. Tell you about the whole business in N.Y.C.\n\nI've been working hard since I saw you last. I'm at school at 7:30 a.m. and leave at 5:30. And I average 3 hrs a night of reading etc. Sunday is a field day for work. And I feel fine for it. The important thing to me is that I want to do it. None of the horrible neurotic impatience of yesteryear. If my progress in self-analysis keeps up I will be a new man and better, one day.\n\nI didn't get your letter or your card until yesterday. The fuel ration board thought we could heat the joint [for] a month with the amt. of oil we ordinarily use for a week. So now I have a room in a small \"hotel\" (8 people live here). It is atop Rochester's best restaurant and it is warm, private and _alone_. I can really be by myself now more than ever. It is not a neurotic compulsion either. I just have enuf to do and enuf to think about so that I don't need anyone. Pardon the digression.\n\nMy address is: 33 Chestnut, c\/o Belvedere Hotel.\n\nI really had no idea (?why) you would write me. If you keep writing I'm sure I will. I am going to have a lot to tell you I think. So \u2013\n\nWhen I do come to N.Y.C. I want a couple of appointments with the Frau if possible \u2013 for the purpose of seeing if I am on the right track.\n\nSeeing mother was terrible. A tight-stomached unrelaxed experience full of hate or something very strong and uncomfortable. Good that it was short. That phase of my life is still unilluminated \u2013 a few ideas but not much evidence. Wish I understood it. I'm sure it is significant. [...]\n\nA plague on Lizzy Allen, and bless Alex T[hiede]. They had damn well better accept the score or I will personally pluck Liz's pubic hairs out one by one with ice tongs.\n\nWe are all \"dovening\"54 for you here at Rabbi Hanson's55 Schule.\n\nI have had no repercussions, at least not negative ones, about anything that happened in N.Y Lenny. None, do you hear me \u2013 none. I never felt better, see.\n\nToday I rendered at the console \u2013 piano exam \u2013 McHose56 \u2013 Head of department decided to wean me on Haydn symphonies. So my first score reading at the pianoforte begins. Hope I am up to it. I dazzled him with a Haydn sonata \u2013 worked up a fever pitch in 7 days. Also I am to learn accompaniments to clarinet repertoire (pronounced repertwa with a little soft palate thrown in). An excellent idea. Horn players learn horn accompaniments etc. So when we teach we can drown out our little aspiring bastards \u2013 if there is a piano in our attic.\n\nYou can contact Jack c\/o Eastman School of Music. I can't recall his home address now.\n\nI am in a strange relation to Mad now \u2013 very complex and to be told about in detail with you in N.Y.C. and incidentally, I refuse to copy a note or draw a single line in N.Y. Understand!!! I have a copying pen and some ink and I practice on every orchestration paper I turn in. I am doing lots better. You would be proud, Leannish.\n\nHow is Edys?57 My best to her. In the short time I knew her I became very attached to her.\n\nIt was awfully good hearing from you, son.\n\nDave\n\n[Musical quotation enclosed on a slip of manuscript paper]:\n\nWhat is this? \u2013 been on my mind for weeks.\n\n121. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\n15 West 52nd Street, New York, NY\n\n[before 14 February 1943]\n\n\"Dear Len \u2013 Terrible and wonderful things have happened to me since I saw you in NY.\"\n\nMe too. And almost the identical symptoms, for the identical length of time. Fantastic. More about it in a separate letter.\n\nThanks, anyway, for the case history. I was getting worried. The Frau has heard it all.\n\nThe 6\/8 theme (the \"lousy theme\") is, i'faith, from a Mendelssohn Trio, I think. Check on it. D minor probably.58\n\nAnd _will_ you be in NY for the 14th? Just say it, so I'll know.\n\nAnd did you take the 6 Pieces back to the Northwoods? [...] They are nowhere to be found. Are you copying them? Is the Cl. Sonata being copied? Sorry to trouble you with these worldly problems now, but they're _reality_ aren't they?\n\nThe Frau says she now has a superficial report from the Rohrschach (first time I ever wrote it) test, but that the main, detailed job lies ahead. She says that it's full of revealing and fascinating ideas and facts. She is drawing up a paper for you \u2013 prefers not to write you \u2013 so you must come down and hear about it.\n\nI can never tell you on paper what I went through yesterday. It was the most formidable day of my life. I'll wait till you come. Bless you in your emotional trials. Best to Mad.\n\nAnd love to you,\n\nL\n\n122. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\n15 West 52nd Street, New York, NY\n\n[early 1943]\n\nDave,\n\nThis is one of those letters that the OPA59 or WXQR60 would list as \"non-essential\". But I'm all full of strange mixed feelings, and you've been elected to receive them, willy-nilly. Brace up, boy, they're wild! All having to do with petty ridiculousnesses (!) like having had to sit with a fuming but empty lyric writer named Eddie DeLange, while he burst his stolid head trying to get a lyric to the tune I stole from the [Brahms] Double Concerto. He finally came through with a little horror called \"Exactly As You Left Me\" (That's How I'll Beee When You Retoin), which nauseated me so that I tore homeward to find a little peace & do a little work, only to find that the apartment had been invaded by a small army of plumbers, wreckers, carpenters, et al, who have orders to remodel the apartment, break down walls, rip out waterpipes, put in walls, put in doors, etc., for a whole week, without any warning. Christ. The noise. The dirt. The lack of walls. And of water. It's a panic. All of which leaves with only one resort \u2013 to write a non-essential letter to Uncle Dave, and get some Peace by Proxy.\n\n_Are you serene?_\n\nDo you feel jittery when walls fall around you?\n\nDo you get peevish when you see the bathtub on its side?\n\n_Take_ Oppenheim's _Little Love Tablets_.\n\nDelicious to chew slowly!\n\nNibble your Neuroses away!\n\nBut tonight is better. I played a wow concert at the Stage Door Canteen,61 and they screamed for more, and I gave autographs, and was f\u00eated by three Australian airmen who represent a fresh, new beauty in the world. I wish you could have talked with them, heard their eternal-young speech, seen them getting drunk on milk. All with a tranquil and unconscious bravery that surpasses heroism \u2013 they leave for the raiding-grounds tomorrow.\n\nBe good to yourself: work hard, stay healthy, and God, man, keep away from that Army \u2013 wonderful Dave.\n\nL\n\n123. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nSamuel Goldwyn Studios, Los Angeles, CA\n\n[February 1943]\n\nL\u2013P\u2013,62\n\nNow I'm in _your_ class. I have a desk, a phone, stationery, \u2013 even a Steinway baby grand. The metamorphosis is awful sudden. Actually I'm back on the old lot near the big gas tank where I wrote _Our Town_. Everyone seems very pleased to have me around \u2013 even including the Big Boss, Goldwyn himself. I may even be writing some songs with Ira Gershwin as lyricist. (All subject to change, of course.)63\n\nAnyway, I'm here. Holy Wood is surprisingly the same as when I was here almost 3 years ago \u2013 outwardly, I mean. There are even the same extraordinary young men with wavy hair and impeccable complexions who used to be on Hollywood Blvd \u2013 still around. I wonder how they escaped the Army. And there's plenty of the Army too. Well, it's a fantastic city.\n\nI'm not settled yet \u2013 just in a hotel. So maybe it's a little early to invite you for a weekend or a year. I must say it's relaxing to get away from N.Y. \u2013 even tho my conscience pains me no end when I think of all my skipped responsibilities.\n\nI hope you're writing me voluminously. But don't forget who your real pal is \u2014\u2014> ME\n\n124. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nSamuel Goldwyn Studios, Hollywood, CA\n\n13 February 1943\n\nDear Lensky,\n\nThe blow has fallen, they are not letting me go back to NY for the concert. I'm naturally disappointed as hell, but I got myself into this jam so I might as well take it like a man (if possible). I don't know what Kenneth Klein, Heinsheimer and Saidenberg will decide to do \u2013 maybe call off the whole show, but if not I've suggested you play the Sonata instead of me. You'll probably be hearing from them, and if you can't wait, call Heinsheimer. In the meantime I feel like something between a heel and a fraud. However, it's interesting to know what a bad conscience feels like for a change. I suppose way in the back of my little head I had been trusting to my usual good luck to get me out of this mess. Nice to think that Dave [Oppenheim] is arriving in time for the concert. Nice also to think about you \"walking streets\" because Hollywood Blvd is a continual temptation which is bloody hard to resist. I'm still not settled in a place of my own, nor have I looked up anyone except Jerry Moross.\n\nWell, there's nothing for me to do but sit and wait for the dawn of the 18th.64\n\nAs always, you slave,\n\nMe\n\n125. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\n15 West 52nd Street, New York, NY\n\n[February 1943]\n\nDear D,\n\nJust received word from WNYC65 that the date is definitely set for Sunday afternoon, Feb. 21, from 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. I get the full half-hour, to boot, so that I can do, or have done, the 6 Piano Pieces.66 It ought to be good fun, and I'd like to have the whole thing on records for all time.\n\nWhy don't you come down for the whole week from Sunday the 14th to Sunday the 21st? That would seem to work well \u2013 assuming, of course, that you have some sort of vacation then. The Copland Forum will take place in Town Hall on Wednesday of that week, and you surely want to hear that. Aaron is supposed to play his Sonata; but he has just left for Hollywood to do the Lillian Hellman picture,67 and it's possible he won't be able to be back for the forum, in which case I would play the Sonata, which would also be fun. _Music for the Theatre_ is to be done as well, Saidenberg conducting, me on piano.\n\nA Rochester composer named Burnall Phillips just called, and is coming over this afternoon to spiel me his works. Do you know him? He seems like a nice guy.\n\nWhere are your letters? Must I give two to your one?\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n126. Leonard Bernstein to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle\n\n15 West 52nd Street, New York, NY\n\n20 February 1943\n\nCh\u00e8re Madame,\n\nAs you may have read in the New York papers, I have suddenly made a totally unexpected Town Hall d\u00e9but. Aaron was to have played his Sonata at the Music Forum at Town Hall last Wed., but couldn't escape the clutches of Sam Goldwyn in Hollywood. I was asked at the last minute, and practiced madly for a day, bought a suit of tails, played the Sonata, very successfully, answered questions with \"adroit wit\" ( _N.Y. Post_ ), and got lovely reviews. \"Superbly interpreted\" ( _Herald-Trib_.), \"great facility and remarkably complete understanding\" ( _Sun_ ). And _P.M._68 was great: \"L.B. played the Sonata with all the devotion and skill the composer himself was unable to bring to it.\" And Virgil Thomson, on the stage, publicly acclaimed me. What a d\u00e9but! Especially since I had to play it all over again at the end of the program. I wish you could have been there. It was really exciting. And the second time was much better than the first, which was full of errors. But then, no time to practice, no right notes. Vengerova insists that I send La Bok a program and clippings!\n\nWonderful that you have a job \u2013 but terrible that it's so dull. Tell me more. And try to get to NYC (impossible) Sunday, the 21st, at 6:30. Clarinet Sonata & 6 pieces for piano. And write me.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n127. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nSamuel Goldwyn Studios, Los Angeles, CA\n\nSunday [21 February 1943]\n\nDear Lensky,\n\nAs far as I can judge Wed.'s concert seems to have been a real triumph for you. You apparently were the Rob't Shaw of the occasion! Why even Minna Lederman was won over. What surprised me more than the \"superb\" performance of the Sonata was the report of how good you were in the forum. The new Movie Suite seems to have been put completely in the shade. What's it really like?\n\nI think Heinsheimer was appalled at the criticisms. They certainly were stinkeroos. But then what can one expect from Noel Strauss or J[erome] Bohm. (Of course Virgil's sending Bohm to both the _Danz\u00f3n_ concert and Wed.'s event, knowing in advance he was giving me the ax \u2013 while sending P[aul] B[owles] to cover his own concert \u2013 is purest bitchery. Well, anyhow, now you see what it's like \u2013 being a composer, I mean.)\n\nOf course, what really interests me is what went on at 15 W 52 _after_ the Wittenbergs! I want a play by play description. You're a pretty smart fellow. (Where was D[avid] O[ppenheim] all this time? As soon as I dropped the phone I regretted not having asked.)\n\nHollywood is dull dull dull. I've written a guerrilla song that everyone says is good (32 meas[ures]! Oh no \u2013 it's 36!!) \u2013 even Mr. Sam Goldwyn. Wish you could have seen us playing the Internationale to him in his office \u2013 (He said: It's a \"steering\" tune.)\n\nYou deserve some kind of medal \u2013 but I'd rather wait till I can pin it on myself. Anyway, I'm proud of you.\n\nLove,\n\nMe\n\nP.S. Just heard the Strav. Symphony on the air.69\n\n128. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\nNew York, NY\n\npostmark 25 February 1943\n\nDave,\n\nExcuse this ridiculous card70 long enough to be warned that at risk of life, limb & name, I have succeeded in getting the Cl. Sonata on the League program Mar. 14. Don't fail now.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n129. David Oppenheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Rochester, NY]\n\n2 March 1943\n\nDear Len,\n\nWhen I got back from N.Y. I played the Sonata records71 for Rogers72 and showed him the piano pieces (which I took quite by accident). He was impressed but screamed Copland all thru your last movement \u2013 5\/8 etc.\n\nRogers: \"Did he study with Copland?\"\n\nMe: \"No, but they are very close friends.\"\n\nR: \"Is he that way \u2013 you know \u2013 Copland isn't normal. Is _he_ normal?\"\n\nMe: \"Perfectly.\"\n\nWe talked for about an hour. I gathered that he thinks Copland distant and impossible to get to know if you aren't his type. He cited his own case of 15 yrs acquaintanceship without any familiarity at all. He also thinks C.'s music intellectual and unlyrical and believes Aaron hasn't fulfilled the promise he showed 10 yrs ago. R[ogers] admires Aaron's fight for music in Amer. and has general positiveness and seemed apologetic but firm in his criticism. Insists no bitterness exists. Thinks the L[eague] of C[omposers] a narrowing element. Thinks Harris is awkward & not at all graceful. Thinks Boulanger not what she is cracked up to be. He studied wit h her for three months \u2013 with Bloch for three years.\n\nHe is a good guy tho \u2013 I like him. The comp. students around here idolize him & his music. I haven't heard enough to say.\n\nDream No. 89625436 \u2013 I dreamt of cigarettes in sugar bowls filled with sugar. [...] I heard or read a story about a guy who fucked his secretary: \"He put a cigarette in her monkey (vagina) to make it smoke.\"\n\nInterpretation \u2013 maybe my cigarette phobia finds here its genesis. I jumped 3 feet off the chair when I had it. It seemed right. I haven't had time to see if it had any effect on me yet. [...]\n\nYour letter was your most optimistic utterance to date and a good thing. Sounds wonderful. With the progress I have been making I think I will be able to be just as optimistic before long. Many things must happen first tho. Incidentally, K[aren] H[orney]'s _Neurotic Personality of Our Time_ is a fine book for you \u2013 better than the other two I believe. Read it!\n\n1. The clarinet is better than ever.\n\n2. I am working harder & better than ever.\n\n3. I feel better than ever.\n\n4. I miss you.\n\nLove,\n\nDave\n\nDon't get the impression Rogers doesn't like C[opland] because I don't think that is true.\n\nHello to E[dys] M[errill].\n\n130. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\nNew York, NY\n\npostmark 5 March 1943\n\nMy Dear Mr. Oppenheim,\n\nListening to the recording of the Clarinet Sonata, I am more and more impressed and moved by your performance. Especially the \"high, controlled\" part of the last movement. It is, in all seriousness, some of the finest, flutiest playing I've ever heard. Bless you. Those records are giving you quite a reputation in the Big City.\n\nAs to Lukas Foss, I have already asked him about sending you his Konzert, but he has only one copy and has to hold on to it. Perhaps you can see it while you're here. Are you coming, I ask again, at the risk of being an utter bore.\n\nI had a lovely surprise the other day, which you will please keep a dead secret. I was called into the Arthur Judson office by Bruno Zirato (manager of the Philharmonic), who told me that Rodzinski73 is very interested in me, and wants me to hang around all Philharmonic rehearsals etc., next year, and finally conduct a concert. I had no idea he even remembered me, but apparently he does, very clearly. Some Brahms performance or other at Tanglewood.\n\nI had a terrific night last night. I had my \"attack\" again at _Shadow of a Doubt_74 and thought I was going insane. All of which provoked some stunning analysis, and had me sitting up late, putting on cards all the elements of the story of my life. I think I'm pulling it all together now, and will soon have a working basis for active self-analysis. It's a good, active sign.\n\nBut why these attacks of panic and insanity-implications? Is it the state of nerves under analysis? I have been this way since you left. It is as though a layer of skin had been removed, figuratively, so that each little emotion, resentment, etc., inflicts a real registering of panic, instead of the customary vague heart-throb. It's a kind of crystallization of all psychic processes. I'm unprotected, and have been laid bare, baby. I think perhaps it signifies progress, somehow or other. It is Joe Id's way of informing me what's really going on. And the root of the whole thing is definitely lack of aggressiveness, out of fear, fear of being active, hostile, retaliative. It's all fairly clear now.\n\nI believe in your cigarette analysis. It sounds quite right. Keep up the mental life, keep sending those lovely senseless picture postals, and I miss you too.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n131. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n15 West 52nd Street, New York, NY\n\n[late February or early March 1943]\n\nDearest Aaron,\n\nNow that it's all died down, and everyone has written you all the details, including Edwin Denby & [Kenneth] Klein & [Minna] Lederman (she came back & spoke to me \u2013 endlessly!) \u2013 I would like to add only that it was a real experience to feel that I really _had_ redeemed the Sonata; that I played it marvelously, full of errors through lack of preparation (and nervousness), that it was thrilling to see & hear Virgil [Thomson] so impressed with it, to have Jim Fassett call up & tell me how he had always disliked it, and now loved it \u2013 to have such a lovely accidental d\u00e9but, such good reviews \u2013 and especially to hear Virgil say that I seemed to be composing it as I played it. That's always my feeling with your notes, my love. It's in the books. There's much more to say, but I must wait til Dave Oppenheim leaves (he's sitting here reading _Serenade_75 right now. Am I a masochist!) He came down to do the Clar. Sonata \u2013 which was lovely. I also did the Six Pieces, & the piece I wrote at your house in Stockbridge (now called _Dedication to Aaron Copland_ )76 and a new one-minute clar & piano affair called _Extension of a Theme by Adolph Green_.77 I have it all on five records, for you to hear \u2013 ah, but when?\n\nAnd I've seen Victor [Kraft], & talked with him for the first time, & I've been confusing him & Dave [Oppenheim] in my deep down mind. What's it mean?\n\nAnd I was swamped by Ted Colombo in a bar, & _that_ was _interestin._\n\nAnd life is most peculiar. What are you doing?\n\nLove, love, love,\n\nYour slave,\n\nL\n\n132. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nSamuel Goldwyn Studios, Los Angeles, CA\n\nSunday [March 1943]\n\nDear Disciple,\n\nWhat a letter! I had a wonderful time with it \u2013 better than any novel. But now I want to read the next chapter. Thing that surprises me most \u2013 you always look and act so conscious that I can't imagine the inner psyche doing its own imaginings. It made me wonder if I too had an inner psyche doing funny things without my knowing it. But I guess it's just envy \u2013 sounds like so much more fun. The identification of D[avid] & V[ictor] seems so natural \u2013 the part that seems curious is that you should want to be me. (I'm so glad you're not!) I always want you to be you, so that I can go on feeling about you the way I do. _Please_ write the next sequel soon.\n\nI've got a little grey home in the west now. It's tiny but cute. A sun porch, a big piano, a eucalyptus tree, some new books \u2013 everything except a companion. It's better than living in a hotel room as I had been \u2013 but still I'm not like that Louisiana tree \u2013 and standing alone in the Hollywood desert gets oppressive at times. Any suggestions?\n\nBumped into guess who in the blvd \u2013 Jesse Ehrlich78 and wife. We are all going to hear the W. Coast premiere of the Sonata tomorrow night. (Any report as to how J. Sykes performed it?) J & J are settled here during the period when Warner's are filming the army show. They seem to have living with them a delicate young negro boy from Katherine Dunham's dance group. Nice looking kid. (Did I say anything?)\n\nI heard Roy [Harris]'s 5th Symph broadcast yesterday. Decided my chapter on him79 was triply just. What a pity \u2013 with all that good material he can't pull it all together and make it go places. Still, the personality is so strong that it may make up for the lack of intellectual grasp of the material. I'd be surer of this if he didn't repeat himself so much in general mood and formulas. His music shows no signs whatever of reactions to outward events. Well, you know all this.\n\n(By the way, as your \"only\" musical influence, I'd like to know what the influence consists of \u2013 in one or twenty sentences.)\n\nI've been here four weeks now and accomplished practically nothing. Most of the time goes in gab fests. Shooting starts tomorrow and lasts 2 months. I'm doing a 2 minute Russian peasant dance with Lichine as choreographer. It's practically impossible at this stage to figure out what the whole thing will add up to, musically speaking. [...]\n\nIf only you had experience in pictures we could bring you out to conduct. I've tried them \u2013 they won't take a guy who has never before done a picture. So there. Now will you come to Hollywood?\n\nLove you too,\n\nMe\n\n133. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n15 West 52nd Street, New York, NY\n\n[14 March 1943]\n\nDear A,\n\nI haven't heard from you yet, and by all precedents you don't deserve a letter. But I have some confessing to do; and after all, I can't betray you without letting you know!\n\nFirst, I betrayed you by playing the Clarinet Sonata today at the League Concert (Library)80 instead of the Six Pieces, as you had wished. I felt the need to present my first League composition as a piece with a slightly larger form than just six germs for large pieces, and the Sonata does approach, at least, a big form. Besides, it was more fun than playing alone, and \u2013 biggest point \u2013 it provided a lovely excuse for having D[avid] O[ppenheim] come down. So you will forgive me, won't you? Amusing part, of course, is the great secret twixt Marion Bauer & me, since neither she nor any \"committee\" ever saw the Sonata first; but she trusted me, &, as it turned out, liked it, & didn't think the 1st movement was Hindy81 at all!\n\nThe reviews aren't out yet. Paul [Bowles] covered it for the _Tribune_ ; & Virgil's article today on the French approach to music is something of a masterpiece.\n\nI've betrayed you further by deciding to urge Victor to go to Hollywood. It's so hard for him to get his mind on a goal & set about reaching it. And here he piles up hate on resentment for analysis. In L.A. he might lose that, & under your aegis, even try it. He'd be so much happier there than torturing himself here (and getting drunk, & forgetting the simplest obligations & duties). And especially _you_ would be so much happier. So why not? We've played squash together somewhat, & I know him better, & thus decided on betrayal. As for my feelings, I can be awful controlled sometimes. I'm a good disciple, no, my love?\n\nSaw _Lady in the Dark_ tonight,82 & loved it, especially seeing it with D[avid] O[ppenheim] who is consulting the Frau madly these days. It is, as you say, slick \u2013 over-slick \u2013 but I'm no critic, being an analysand (!).\n\nThanks so much for the Lincoln piece:83 it looks marvelous, & I wish the Kostelanetz ban was off it. I love you. And, oh, I resented Lukas [Foss] telling me that he'd got one too. Crazy frankness, but that's the sort of irrational habit analysis gets me into. Out with the resentments, Bernstein!\n\nI finished a fifth _Kid_ song, completing the cycle,84 & it's beautiful, if a little on the Copland side. I have to make a change to the \"Indian\" one, & it will be done: everyone loves them.\n\nHave I told you how things have been popping? Like Herman Starr placed _our_ Brahms song in a Warner Bros picture? (Don't worry, you'll get the 10%!) And how there's a possibility for me to be ass't conductor of the Goldman Band this summer? And that I've had a _nibble_ in Hollywood, but I don't like it so good, so I'm waiting still. And how I've been offered a teaching job for next season at the Little Red Schoolhouse? And that Rodzinski wrote me, asking me what my plans were for next year; and I hear from the Judson office that he wants me to conduct a Philharmonic concert? Have I told you? Cause I'd hate to repeat myself.\n\nWrite me of the progress & the Hollywood life, & Jesse & June [Ehrlich] (give them my love) and I hear you have a Hauserish85 cook, and I hope V[ictor] comes out soon to cheer you up, & I only wish it could be me.\n\nAll my love,\n\nL\n\nP.S. Just got the _Tribune_ \u2013 have a review! Hindy not mentioned!86 I love you.\n\n134. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nSamuel Goldwyn Studios, Los Angeles, CA\n\n25 March 1943\n\nQueridissimo L\u2013P,\n\nI think of you every day, particularly when I don't write to you. It seems a long time since I last did \u2013 tho for no special reason. Life goes on placidly enough out here. With my little songs and choruses written there's nothing much to do but leisurely visit the shooting on the back lot \u2013 see the daily rushes the next day \u2013 and generally keep Mr. Goldwyn happy.\n\nBest news of the week was a wire from Kouss telling me he had managed to get Kostie87 to unban the Lincoln piece. He's doing 7 performances \u2013 isn't that wonderful? I'll be listening to the broadcast from Boston on the 10th. Maybe you'll write me the impression in a concert hall, and what Kouss does to it. (Why, oh why, am I in Hollywood??)\n\n_So_ \u2013 you played the Clar[inet] Sonata! It's still full of Hindemith, because I say so. (And don't forget who sat next to D[avid] O[ppenheim] at the Lenox Town Hall and practically arranged the original performance.) I want to hear about your writing a song that has no Copland, no Hindemith, no Strauss, no Bloch, no Milhaud and no Bart\u00f3k. Then I'll talk to you.\n\nThe mysterious check enclosed is for \u00bd the royalties I collected for the 1 piano _Sal\u00f3n_. They sold 250 copies (a suspiciously round number) and I get 8\u00be\u00a2 on each copy. So you get 4 \u215c\u00a2 on each copy. Of course, the point is to prick your conscience so that I collect 10% on the Brahms song, which should amount to 20,000,000,000,000,000.00. In the meantime spend the 10.94 in good health!\n\nTickled to hear about the Rodzinski letter you got. He also wrote me \u2013 but I'm not saying nothin' \u2013 mostly because you repeat everything you hear (you also leave letters lying about.) Also tickled that you \"resented\" my sending Lukas a score. That's fine \u2013 shows you really care about me. Also tickled with your Goldman possibility. Hollywood nibble, and Red school house \"job\". However, don't forget you're a conductor waiting for an orchestra.\n\nDid I tell you about the hero of our picture? Just 17 and doing his first film \u2013 Farley Granger by name. Sensitive as a flower. It would be very easy for somebody to do a _Death in Venice_ on him.\n\nStravinsky invited me to dinner! Cordial as could be. Made me big compliments about _Rodeo_ , of all things. [George] Antheil88 was there and we played the _Symphony in C_ in the Stokowski version, with Strav. singing all the tempi as they should have been. He's coming to N.Y. so you'll probably meet him.\n\nYou're a good disciple \u2013 but an angelic love \u2013\n\nMe\n\n135. Leonard Bernstein to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle\n\nAdvanced Music Corporation, RCA Building, Rockefeller Center, New York, NY\n\npostmark 29 March 1943\n\nDear Ren\u00e9e,\n\nDesol\u00e9 that I didn't get a chance to see you after all. I had to catch such an early train the next morning that it seemed really silly to go all the way out to Rosl[indale] that night, especially after I'd been invited to start at the Copley-Plaza with Bill Schuman (just around the corner from your fabrique \u2013 you should have dropped in for a rye). Anyway, I'm desol\u00e9.\n\nThese days are all full of the Museum of Modern Art & the Bowles opera (which goes on tomorrow night, & is really a mess) and the Marquis[e] de la Casafuerte, & much talking in French & pidgin Spanish. I'm also conducting Revueltas' _Homage a Garcia Lorca_ \u2013 my first conducting in NYC89 \u2013 & my orchestra is wretched \u2013 really dumb trombone & oboe & harp \u2013 and no amount of shrieking helps \u2013 and there's no time for rehearsal, & they hammer up scenery during the rehearsal \u2013 and it's a mess. It will probably end up either a _fiasco_ or a _succ\u00e8s fou_ \u2013 & the Marquise Yvonne is probably going \"in jail\", as she says, because she put an ad in the _Times_ , and it's forbidden by the Museum Charter. Shades of a former opera and a former Museum. Rather the same caliber of people \u2013 rather more neurotic \u2013 the same bungling and disorganization. Virgil is largely the bungler (destroy this letter!) and the director is wacky. Anyway, it's an orchestra.\n\nRumors float around like crazy. That Rodzinsky plans for me to do 2 weeks with the Philharmonic next year! That I may get the Goldman Band this summer (assistant, of course). Etcetera. Nothing _real_ to report. Finished the \"Kid Songs\" & they're universally loved. I want you to hear them. They may be published; & I've had an offer to publish the Clarinet Sonata.\n\nWell, now you tell me. And soon.\n\nMuch love.\n\nL\n\n136. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\nAdvanced Music Corporation, RCA Building, Rockefeller Center, New York, NY\n\npostmark 29 March 1943\n\nDave,\n\nWhwhwhwhwheeeeere have you been? Pas un mot. Have you had a post-NYC reaction? That would seem rather silly. Let's have a sign of life.\n\nDays and nights are full of the Bowles opera: rehearsals \u2013 and rehearsals \u2013 and a really wretched orch \u2013 stupid & unmusical people \u2013 some of them Philharmonic, too, and _not_ fired by Rodzinski \u2013 and we do need you! I'm exhausted.\n\nI've had an offer to publish the Clarinet Sonata. Something called the Hargail Press or something. They publish recorder music & heard your performance, & want to print it. Do I have your consent?\n\nWhat happens in Rochester? When is the army?\n\nLove, as usual,\n\nLenny\n\nSome hours later, I still have the feeling for writing to you. Things that were left unsaid:\n\nLike: Indolence in correspondence will not be tolerated. I, no. 1 indolent in correspondence, expect prompt remission.\n\nItem: Had a glorious long talk with Shirley last night \u2013 I'm sure it bore lovely fruit \u2013 she is growing up like crazy. And sends you her warmest, no doubt.\n\nLike: What is Jack's address, so we can send him a reward of some sort?\n\nOr: How was Detroit and mother? Did you have enough money? Was the meeting bleak or short enough to be gay. How are your post-New York, post-neurotic neuroses?\n\nItem: What has happened to your resolution to study? And investigate scores? What goes with Mad. (to whom my best).\n\n(Seizing on anything for paper)\n\nThe other unsaid things are almost unsayable things. Be good, unconfused, hardworking, and write me everything you feel.\n\nAgain,\n\nL\n\n137. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\n[after 30 March 1943]\n\nDear Dave,\n\nGiven any situation at all that I happen to fall into, it inevitably becomes involved. I told you of this here Hargail Music Co. that wants very much to publish the Sonata (the owner heard us do it at the Library). He makes me an excellent offer, and moreover wants to issue a commercial recording simultaneously! (Of course, with you & me as soloists.) All that is quite wonderful, provides a lovely pretext for another visit to NYC, and would once and for all finish this Clarinet Sonata business.\n\nThe thing gets involved, tho. I had to report this as a matter of course and courtesy, to Warner Bros., and now they're all excited about it (stupid competitive instincts). They say they can do so much more with it \u2013 that a small outfit like Hargail could never sell what they could, etc. And at that moment, Frank [Campbell-] Watson, who works as editor in the \"standard\" dep't, as they call their _classical_ dep't, came in, said he had just been up to Eastman, and had heard great things about the Sonata from Fennell!90 Now I'm up a tree; and have to show them the score, & play the records. I personally trust the Hargail man more, and am especially attracted by the idea of an authentic recording, with you on the clarinet. At any rate, send me the score _immediately_ , really immediately, insured, etc, since this must all be done fast. (You do have it, don't you?)\n\nIt is also important to know exactly when you may be called by the army, so that we can make this recording, if we do, before you go (that dreaded moment).\n\nLet me know all this very soon.\n\nThe Bowles, etc. concert was a knockout, with a real whopperoo of a rave review from Virgil (picture and all) and other lovely ones. I'm exhausted now, and trying to recover.\n\nA pupil is zooming up the stairs \u2013 so addio \u2013 and be very good & send the manuscript presto.\n\nI love you, as usual \u2013\n\nL\n\n138. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n[after 30 March 1943]\n\nAaron, my love,\n\nThe Third Serenade91 reached actuality and by some miracle or other, was a success. Paul's music is, I think, universally loved, tho what it has to do with that fantastic slop of words I shall never know. Paul's OK. He should be in Hollywood \u2013 can't you get him there? \u2013 doing scores for things like the _Human Comedy_. Stothart, indeed!92\n\nPoisonally, I came off very well. The _Times_ was lovely, & the enclosed whopperoo from Voigil is about the best yet.93 I feel good \u2013 and tired. Those last few days of trying to get an opera & concertst\u00fcck together in no time at all were terrific. I was exhausted _before_ the concert, and ready for the Bellevue _after_ it, but after that Askew party \u2013 ay! All night affair, and I very drunk, and Constance94 lovingly making me play all night, which I did \u2013 she's fun \u2013 and Diamond being an uninvited unwelcome guest, & really _getting_ it from Constance, and being dramatic, and V[ictor] very drunk, and everyone missing you, and I found a new boyfriend [...] (married, Goddam) [...] the one who sang Paul's opera. Looks a bit serious, but not to worry. My French has picked up enormously, what with the Marquise [de Casa Fuerte], & Mme Alphand, and my new friendy-wendy, Prince George Chavchavadze.95 All very confusing, & I still love D[avid] O[ppenheim]. What to do? I know, marry my new girlfriend \u2013 she's lovely \u2013 my dentist's daughter.96\n\nA thing called Hargail Music Co., run by a Harold Newman, which publishes recorder music (!) wants to publish my Clarinet Sonata! _And_ make a record of it \u2013 commercially. Sounds good. And Schirmer's may bite at the Kid Songs97 [ _I Hate Music!_ ]. Life is full and empty by turns \u2013 the latter mostly cause you're away.\n\nBless you for the pretty _Saloon_ check. It's lovely.\n\nI'm going to the _Lincoln Portrait_ this weekend. Kouss says it's your masterpiece. He's swimming in ecstasy. My love to Farley Granger. Can you fix us up? Write soon. I love you.\n\nL\n\n139. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nThe Park Savoy, 158 West 58th Street, New York, NY98\n\n[after 3 April 1943]\n\nDear A,\n\nJust a few words a propos of the _Lincoln Portrait_ performance. (Look at the stationery I discovered \u2013 remember?)\n\nI suppose everyone has written you all about it. How Will Geer99 completely disregarded your foreword in the score, and drawled away in a pseudo-Lincolnesque performance that was truly embarrassing. (He made up to look a little like Abe, and sat on this chair like the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. I'm told the whole thing was Koussie's idea, which is certainly plausible.)\n\nKouss didn't do as well by it as I had expected. The opening was too agitated because he divided his beats \u2013 there was no feeling of tranquility and space. He missed a few cues (or passed them up), like \"disen _thrall_ ourselves\"; and usually simply waited for the end of a speech, & then played music. But the sum total was good \u2013 the impression was very exciting, & the audience was charmed. Why must you be in Hollywood? Although after the parade of bowing composers (Billy & Barber) it was very distinguished of you not to be present \u2013 sort of specialness, you know.100\n\nIt's a fine piece, my love, despite all the repetition, and Vernon Duke's verdict that it's \"just 20th Century Fox\". He's insufferable anyway.\n\nMad party at Arthur Berger's last night \u2013 Jean [Middleton] & Victor [Kraft] & Paul [Bowles] & Virgil [Thomson] & David [Diamond], etc., etc., etc., oh, & Colin [McPhee] & Paul Morrison. David was drunk & cutting up, & being dramatic again. I left with Paul Morrison, & it was like old times (remember the Boston incident?) Jean was pretty dramatic too, & left early. What a good world to stay away from! And I'm confused as ever, what with my new friend, and my new girl-friend, whom I am afraid to involve unfairly, and Edys'101 & my decision to part company, which raises all sorts of problems, like which one of us is to move; and if she does whom should I get to share the rent here \u2013 since I ought to but can't afford to live alone. It popped into my mind that Victor might be a sensible idea for it, if he wants to stay here (in N.Y.), but, as he says, can't stand the loft alone. What do you think? Is it crazy as hell? Of course I realize it would be the talk of the town. But that's such fun \u2013 makes such good memoirs, as you would say.\n\nJust finished Gide's memoirs, by the way ( _If I Die_ ) \u2013 & had an excellent time thinking of you. I miss you like my right arm.\n\nWrite me more than you do \u2013\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n140. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Los Angeles, CA]\n\n11 April 1943\n\nDear Honeychile,\n\nThere are two letters of yours here that are still \"unanswered\". I'm beginning to lose contact with your every thought. I have a sense of your having had a great triumph out of the Bowles opus,102 followed by a kind of let-down which is natural enough, complicated by several new personal adventures, new boy and girl friends, who are nothing but names to me. Hadn't you better expand a bit? So's I know where I am.\n\nV[ictor] wrote a full description of the Askew party that is a classic of its kind. Bill Schuman wrote a description of the Bowles opus that tore it to shreds. Anyway I get the impression I know just what it was like. After your own description of Koussie's _Lincoln_ [ _Portrait_ ] I heard it on the air yesterday at Ira Gershwin's house, surrounded by Harold Arlen, Harry Warren, Yip Harburg, Earl Robinson, Arthur Kober and other noted worthies. (Get the company I'm in!) Of course I didn't approve of Geer's way of doing it, but more than that, why did Kouss take the middle part so fast?? It made it seem superficial. It lacked charm and bite done that way. What we need is _Amurkian_ conductors. In the meantime, however, I'll take Kouss.\n\nI don't know what to write you about because nothing much has happened out here. I've been to a couple of musicians' parties for Sanrom\u00e1103 and P[aul] Whiteman. I've stopped going to the studio in the mornings because there's nothing to do. The picture is growing each day, but I have no over-all idea of what it's like yet. Next week I do a short dance sequence with Lichine. But nothing of background music as yet. I dawdle a lot, and fuss with themes of my own, and the unfinished 1st mov't of the violin piece, and argue with Mr. Goldwyn. And that's about it.\n\nSpent an evening with G. Antheil104 who played me his 2nd, 3rd and 4th Symphonies. They're hard to describe. He's in a Mahler\u2013Shostakovich period, and everything comes out of there in great unwashed gobs of sound that billow you about until it's all over and you're not sure what you heard. Some of it is very effective, and it all has a typical Antheil drive, but somehow when it's all over, one doesn't give a damn. That's the sort of thing that's hard to tell a composer.\n\nI read a lot, mostly to make up for the lack of any warm relationships here. I get a great sense of luxury out of buying all the books I want. I spend whole nights in book stores making up my mind. Victor is sending me a two volume affair105 that had to be ordered via Dr. Safford. Do you remember my telling you about it? I originally spied it in a store in Rio, and now I've tracked it down. I'll save it for you.\n\nThis is the end of my tenth week. I have ten more to go, and then a big question mark. It would be a much more exciting life if you were here.\n\nLove and all,\n\nA\n\nP.S. Monday. Just had word that V[ictor] is driving out. [Margaret] Bourke-White is coming to take stills.\n\n141. David Oppenheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n17 April 1943\n\nDear Len,\n\n\"Publishing-pains\" indeed. Seems to me like the worst publishing pains a piece could have is no publishing at all. And you wound up with not one, but two publishers, get the biggest plus the tempting part of the smaller publisher's offer \u2013 recording \u2013 and you can say P[ublishing] P[ains]. Nonsense, Bernstein, nonsense. At any rate I'll be down in NYC next Friday nite. May I stay with you or will there be complications. Also I will be there until May 2nd. OK? Better be!\n\nSunday a.m. is awfully soon for the recording in as much as I am just recovering from a two day sojourn at the Hospital where I was treated for flu & an infection on my face. If you can with ease and safety stall it off for a few days so much the better except that I never get any work done in N.Y. anyhow.\n\nFive years with W[arner] B[ros.] is a long time m'boy. Are you sure you want that. Would that tie you up. Could you travel, conduct etc. I suppose the decision has already been made & I am just making things harder. Sorry, but somehow I hate to see you do it.\n\nI see you have learned to spell Rorschach.106 I'm glad about the new seriousness. Soon I'll see you & we can talk about it. I'm very anxious to see you.\n\nGene Shamalter, the guy who wanted to see me in N.Y. but couldn't & who wrote me at your place was here this week. As I suspected, he is as I suspected. Remember. But complete, never felt otherwise. He is alternately resigned and unhappy about it, wants to renounce sex altogether. A most sensitive chap too.\n\n1. I've slept with Mad.\n\n2. Army day is in May I think.\n\n3. I'm 21 now.\n\nLove,\n\nDave\n\n142. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n15 West 52nd Street, New York, NY\n\n[April 1943]\n\nAaron darling,\n\nSince I never hear from you any more, I suppose I'll have to write, & wring a letter from you. May I burden you with my many little present conflicts?\n\nFirst, though, I think it's great that V[ictor] is finally going west. He needs it, you need it, I need it; and the best, of course, is that he made a decision at all. Treat him right now \u2013 get him going as a man. He's really such a foetus! (Look who's talking!)\n\nViz: the little Hargail Music Co. (mostly recorder music) wanted to publish the Clarinet Sonata. Out of professional courtesy I showed it first to Warner's, & they knocked me over by loving it, & insisting on publishing it. I was downhearted, since Hargail wanted to make a commercial recording of it. Now Hargail is offering me all sorts of fantastic royalty rates if I'll give it to them, & says that they will make the recording anyway! A labor of love, if I ever heard one. But Warner's points out that they, as a large firm (Witmark will be the publisher) can do so much more for it than can a little thing like Hargail. What you do think? Matters are now suspended by a hair.\n\nViz (2): Warner's presented me with a five year contract! I'm taking it to a lawyer today to find out what it says. It looks like my life that I'm signing away. But it adds to my little old salary a substantial weekly advance on future mythical royalties, which increases each year. What do you think?\n\nViz (3): I've got to move, and there's the biggest problem. I want the sort of apartment I can't afford alone. And I have a wonderful guy to live with \u2013 which is quite a story. He's [...]107 the big, beautiful, brilliant 20-yr-old [...] & I want to help him (but how can a poet earn a living?) I really want desperately to help him \u2013 although I have doubts about whether he can stick it out. [...] The Frau won't hear of it. I have to be alone, & suffer, & break through the pain of loneliness, even if it means living the summer in a hot place, which is unbearable in New York. God, I'm perplexed! What do you think?\n\nViz (4): \u2013 a possibility of giving a recital in Town Hall next month for the Little Red Schoolhouse,108 which is mad but exciting, and I don't know if I should do it. I do get diffused. And Jacoby really wants me bad in his new night club (the Blue Angel), & wants to build me, etc., comme impresario. And I had another nice letter from Rodzinski. Am I diffused?\n\nSo I should talk about Victor, yet!\n\nPlease write, my love \u2013 I miss you like mad.\n\nEwig, ewig, ohne End!\n\nL\n\n143. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nSamuel Goldwyn Studios, Los Angeles, CA\n\n29 April 1943\n\nDarlingest L.P.\n\nI know you're probably feeling awfully neglected, or maybe you're all absorbed in your new friend and have forgotten all about me.\n\nAnyway, from my angle \u2013 not hearing from me doesn't mean a thing. I got tied up writing a Russian number for Lichine's choreography. It was the last of the pre-recorded stuff \u2013 and now I don't have much to do but wait around until they finish shooting the picture, which looks as if it would be around June 15th. Of course, I get ideas and whole sections while waiting. I wonder what it will all add up to. [...]\n\nV[ictor] arrived in Posh109 (now renamed Poshalopy) yesterday, so a new chapter in my Hollywood life begins. He seemed pleased with my house, my office, my secretary, etc. And I'm very pleased to have him here.\n\nHe brought reports of your signing the Warner's contract. Is it true? I wish I could have read it. I was out on the Warner lot the other night watching Adolph Deutsch scoring a picture with an orchestra of 80. When I think how you could fit in over there I get noivous.\n\nIs the Clarinet Sonata being published?\n\nAnd are you alone \u2013 like the Frau wants?\n\nI never heard the sequel to your last letter which was full of problems.\n\nBy the way, that book I once wrote you [about] arrived \u2013 and it contains the most wonderful Glossary of specialized slang you have ever seen or ever can hope to see. I can't wait to show it to you. The rest of the book is H. Ellis' case histories brought up to date \u2013 and I recognize a little bit of you in each of the 300 cases!110\n\nHow are you? That is, hello. And what's the summer look like? All signs point to me being out here until August 1st. After that I hope Mexico or New Mexico. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could somehow connect up sometime somewhere.\n\nTell Pfb [Bowles], if you see him, that his _M_ [ _odern_ ] _M_ [ _usic_ ] phrase about \"harp vomit\" has become famous among Hollywood orchestrators. I met a number of them at a party the other night \u2013 they're my principal public out here. Seems that Max Steiner's wife is a harpist \u2013 which they say explains the featuring.\n\nMargaret Bourke-White is on the lot, photographing us. We just carried out the \"scorched earth\" policy on the back lot set \u2013 and boy did we make a mess of that. Beautiful set. Farley Granger gets more simpatico every day. I've promised him the _Saloon_ records. Do you think that will do it??\n\nStill I love _you_.\n\nA\n\n144. Leonard Bernstein to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle\n\nHotel Chelsea, New York, NY\n\n14 May 1943,\n\nCh\u00e8re Ren\u00e9e,\n\nCe sont des jours tellement fran\u00e7ais, ces jours-ci. Je viens de lire Gide en fran\u00e7ais. Je vais jouer tous les dimanches-soirs chez \"Le Bleu Angel\", un nouveau club en quelque sorte Parisien (comme l'ancien _B\u0153uf sur le Toit_ , ou le _Ruban Bleu_ ); le clique des Concerts _S\u00e9r\u00e9nades_ (ton amie la Marquise, etc.); mon monde semble aujourd'hui tout \u00e0 fait fran\u00e7ais. Et alors, que faire? Rien que d'\u00e9crire un mot \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re Fran\u00e7aise de toutes Fran\u00e7aises. Tu me crois enivr\u00e9? C'est point l'ivresse \u2013 c'est l'amiti\u00e9.\n\nLa cause imm\u00e9diate de cette lettre, c'est Mme Claude Alphand, chanteuse extraordinaire au _Blue Angel_.111 Chaque fois qu'elle chante \"Les Moules marini\u00e8res\" ou \"La Belle Journ\u00e9e\" ou \"Tu m'as voulu, tu m'as eu\",112 je me souviens violentement de \"Mon Mari est bien malade\".113\n\nQu'est-ce que tu fait ces jours? Pas encore l'assembly-line, j'esp\u00e8re! En tous cas, je serai \u00e0 Boston la semaine prochaine, et j'insiste de te revoir. Notre ancien ami, L'Institut de l'Art Moderne (zut) m'a invit\u00e9 \u00e0 jouer la-haut le jeudi soir. Eh bien, quelques dollars, et un voyage pay\u00e9 \u00e0 Boston! Mais quelle existence! Le mardi, j'ai un lecture-recital tr\u00e8s important \u00e0 Town Hall; le mercredi, j'ai un lecture \u00e0 L'Art Alliance \u00e0 Philly!!!! Et le jeudi \u00e0 Boston! Je reserve toutes les nouvelles pour ton oreille, pas ton oeil....\n\nLenny.\n\nEt voil\u00e0 celui qui a gagn\u00e9 le Prix Paderewski! Gardner Read! _Effrayant_.114\n\n145. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\nHotel Chelsea, New York, NY\n\n29 May 1943\n\nDear Doctor,\n\nEvery once in a while I am appalled at the idea that I never see you \u2013 and I feel that I must write you, or talk to you, if for no other reason than my constant warmth of affection for you. No matter how much time elapses without seeing you, you are always with me, guiding my work, providing the standards by which I measure my progress in our art. And today I feel simply that I must communicate with you, out of love and friendship \u2013 that is all.\n\nReading your letter to the [ _New York_ ] _Times_115 made me think of the wonderful Tanglewood days when we discussed your wonderful plan together. I became inspired all over again; and I was very happy to find that the general reaction to your idea is so favorable and understanding. But who can resist an idea at once so bold and so simple?\n\nOf course I am desolated that there is no Tanglewood this year for the first time in many a year. The summer holds no attraction for me. I am searching for a little farmhouse on Staten Island, where I can be alone and work during the summer months. What are you planning to do? I have heard reports that you may go West! That would be a grand idea, if the traveling were not too difficult. There is nothing on earth quite like the Far West of our country.\n\nAs for me, I am still in an undecided state. I hear rumors, all the time, about my coming connection with the Philharmonic \u2013 sometimes they reach crazily exaggerated proportions \u2013 but I have still had no definite word from Rodzinski. But I am used to this kind of delay \u2013 it is rather typical of my life. The one moment I still anticipate eagerly next year is my conducting my symphony with the Boston orchestra. That will be a _real_ moment!\n\nMeanwhile, I go on doing my horrible chores for Warner Brothers in order to live. It is dull beyond belief, and takes much too much time; but I feel that somehow better things must be coming for me.\n\nI have given up my apartment, and live temporarily at the Chelsea Hotel, until I find my summer house. Please let me hear from you and Olga, for it may be a long time until I see you again.\n\nWarmest greetings to Olga, and to you, the same love and sincerity,\n\nLeonard\n\n146. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\n\"about 30 miles outside Hollywood\"\n\n3 June 1943\n\nL P (you dawg),\n\nDon't worry, I haven't lost my job. It's just that we are on location \u2013 about 30 miles outside Hollywood, in heavenly rolling hills, dotted with cattle. Pure William Bonney116 country. I come out each day with about 250 people. They are about to film 2 of my songs, only the sun won't stay out as it's supposed to in Cal[ifornia] \u2013 so 250 people sit around at old Goldwyn's expense \u2013 and I get a chance to write the letter I've been thinking for weeks on end.\n\nWe're on the 4th month of the picture's shooting and still no end in sight. My contract, which was to have ended on June 19th, will have to be continued indefinitely or there'll be no score. As things stand now, I can't imagine being free of the place until Aug 1\u201315. Because so far there _is_ no score, except for a few songs and a dance number. Isn't it amazing? Most composers get 2\u20133 weeks to write their music. And look at me, sitting pretty in my 18th week!\n\nThe really good thing would be if I could tell you I'd been working on the side all that time. But I ain't! Hollywood affects me as it does everybody else \u2013 not creative country... (except when you're paid).\n\nOf course, you're a villain and a wretch for letting weeks and weeks go by with nary a word. And your letter \u2013 tho I ate it up \u2013 was scrappy. I put it all down to the evil genii of the Chelsea Hotel. Watch out for those guys. You can listen, but don't touch.\n\nD[avid] D[iamond] sent a triumphant paragraph of how he had outdone you one Sat. night. It gave me visions of a promiscuity \"sans bornes\", and I tremble for you. I expect to return and find nothing but a pulpy dismembered jellyfish. Awful!\n\nI went up to Oakland (Cal!) last weekend and delivered me of a lecture at Mills College and spent some charming hours with the Milhauds and saw much of Sandy Jones. I even played the Piano Sonata. I can't tell you what a nice person Darius is. He played me the opening page of _Bolivar_ , and presented me with a manuscript of his Lily Pons songs. I wish something could be done about getting his bigger works put on more regularly. Another job for young conductors!\n\nRead a biography of Hart Crane by Horton. Very touching book. Did you ever read it? Also I've been reading Latin-American poetry, my first Lorca plays, more Henry Miller, the Fausset Whitman biography, and good old Hindy's117 _Unterweisung_ in translation.\n\nV[ictor] was busy with M. Bourke-White when she was here and is now \"recovering\". Looks quite \"Hollywood\".\n\nTell Pf [Bowles] I have his letter and will answer soon.\n\nAntonio writes wild letters from Mexico. Why can't we all meet at Ch\u00e1vez's Festival of Modern Music Oct 22\u201329? Simple idea, what?\n\nLead the good life.\n\nAlways your viejo,\n\nA\n\n147. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nSamuel Goldwyn Studios, Los Angeles, CA\n\n3 July 1943\n\nLenny-Pen,\n\nYou write the most wonderful letters \u2013 just the kind I love to get: the \"I miss you I adore you\" kind, the while sailors and marines flit through the background in a general atmosphere of moral decay.\n\nWell, the fact is I miss you too, and there aren't any sailors in the background either. In fact, there isn't anybody \u2013 because V[ictor] has gone to Mexico, and I've been alone for a week. So the scene is set for a wonderful reunion \u2013 the only hitch being that you'd have to come here. How about it? How about just hopping [on] a plane and coming here for two weeks or two months or whatever. I know it's a wild idea \u2013 but it's fun to contemplate. I have a tiny house with a concert grand that fills it up completely. There's a little porch where one sunbathes, and a big eucalyptus tree that covers all. With a whirlwind like you around the neighbors will suffer, but that's their lookout. I even have a small kitchen where you could demonstrate the culinary art. And it's never hot \u2013 just pleasantly warm. Oh yes, and it wouldn't cost you anything once you got here (just a minor detail!) and of course you'd write reams of music, \u2013 and good music, it being my house. What do you say.\n\nThe idea is probably full of complications for you. Your draft board, your job, your frau, your things, your etc., etc. I dread thinking about the fit of confused brainstorms this letter will bring on. But I just can't resist the temptation of suggesting the whole thing and living in hopes for a couple of days. Maybe you'd better wire me collect as soon as you know anything. The two week plan couldn't be so complicated, could it? Anyhow, even if nothing comes of it, I've had the pleasure of asking you, and it makes me feel less of a wretch in abandoning you all these many months.\n\nTruth is I'll probably be stuck here until Sept. 1st. That's why V decided to go. There wasn't much for him to do here, and it looked as if he would just be hanging around, and not even get his trip to Mexico in. So I encouraged him to make the break though it was as hard as getting caramel out of your teeth.\n\nThe picture is now in the cutting stage. In another week or two they'll be dropping it in my lap and screaming for the music in a hurry. In the meantime I finished the first movement of the Violin Sonata, and started a ballet for Martha Graham.118 And when Hollywood is over I am still hoping to fly to Mexico for a short stay before coming home.\n\nI had Virgil out to dinner the other night and he gave me a few details of the winter music temporada. He also launched into a full scale attack on all psychoanalysts that took me by surprise. He says all that deep down stuff is better left unstirred. He sees no harm in talking about yourself for a few months, but insists that the new science never cured anybody. It also seemed to annoy him that it cost so much in most cases. What sayest thou?\n\nYou wanna hear what's fun? Stokie wrote and asked to see the _Short Symphony_! Just ten years after abandoning the performance the first time. David says he won't play it anyhow, but I was amused to think he hadn't forgotten it.119 Did you happen to hear that [Alexander] Smallens version of _Rodeo_ at the Stadium? I suspect it was murder.\n\nI know you want me to be amazed at your successes as composer but nothing that happens to you can ever surprise me. Isn't that too bad. Least of all your triumphs as composer. But I am pleased that Reiner wants you to conduct in Pittsburgh. Koussie will be jealous that he didn't get you first. Maybe you can start a career as our first native guest conductor.\n\nWhatever \"news\" I had I must have written to D[avid] D[iamond] who must have told it all to you, so I won't make the mistake of repeating myself. How I would like to sit in on one of those \"piano\" lessons. They must be the most original lesson periods given anywhere.\n\nWell, anyway, if you are coming here, no need to go on. Let me know sumpin' _soon_.\n\nLove,\n\nMe\n\nP.S. My home address is 8663 Holloway Plaza Drive. Tel. Crestview 1-0432. Just in case I miss you at the airport!\n\n148. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\n40 Charlton Street, New York, NY\n\npostmark 12 July 1943\n\nDear Dave,\n\nHere I am with two letters from you, and not the faintest idea of what's going on inside that newly militarized brain of yours. Is it all censorable? Or haven't you collected your _real feelings_ (big chord)? It's good to know that you've been classified as a musician, which seems to augur well for your future life-span. Does your uniform fit you? Have you got a weird little snapshot? How much vibrato do you apply to the sax?\n\nI suddenly find myself with a lovely call for an Army physical tomorrow night. God knows what will happen. I sometimes have a strong wish to go and get it over with and be calm and unresponsible. Then I see how easy that way out of a mess is, and the old realities, like career, and so on, crop up, and I want to stay as far away from it as I can.\n\nMy plans now call for two more Goldman Band concerts this month, finishing up Warner Bros. chores, a visit to Kouss in Lenox, to make plans for a performance of my symphony in the fall, then to Boston to conduct a pair of cute concerts with the 25 or so first-desks of the Boston Symphony (very good chance, and all modern pieces) and then to light out to Hollywood for a month of rest with Aaron, then perhaps to Mexico for a very short visit, then back here to become assistant to Rodzinsky. This is, of course, all the ideal way, and probably none of it will pan out, as it depends first of all on what the Army physical turns out to decide, then on whether I get a job collaborating on a book with Henry Simon, which I have been promised, and which would net me several thousand bucks over the summer, and finally on whether Rodzinsky ever makes up his mind. I found out, by the way, who the other two conductors are that Rodzinsky has asked to be his assistants \u2013 Max Goberman and Danny Saidenberg. What a trio we would make! But no real competition, you'll admit. Or won't you?\n\nReiner has set the date for my conducting of my symphony in Pittsburgh \u2013 probably some time in January. It's to be a three-ring circus for Bernstein \u2013 I'm to solo in the Beethoven Triple Concerto, then to conduct my (our) _Jeremiah_ (which seems more beautiful every time I correct another page of score) and then to finish up the program conducting some big work. Isn't that fun? And it really doesn't sound like Reiner to allow all that, does it? Wish you were around to take the clarinet solos. When Kouss heard that Reiner loved the piece so much he got all pepped up again, and asked me to come and play it for him again (his reaction last time was tired, you may recall, and there were so many people in the room, etc.). Truth is, it takes him a while to grasp a piece, as he himself will admit: so this time when I play it for him in Lenox it ought to be a real hit. He wants me to do that same sort of three-ring circus in Boston.\n\nApropos of which, I've run into conductor trouble about the first performances. Reiner demanded that his January date be the first (first performance), and I had to consent. Then when I had breakfast with Kouss at the St Regis the other day (!) he was a bit hurt and put out, as you can imagine, and ruefully suggested that he had a November date in mind for me. What an act. But he's still awfully sweet. It occurs to me now and then that with my idiotic way of handling these situations I may well wind up without either performance. It would be typical Bernstein. At the moment everything is passably under control. And Warner's is starting to make me the parts etc. (you know, they took the symphony) so maybe we'll have a piece yet. The Clarinet Sonata should be out any week now. As for the records, who knows the mysterious ways of Petrillo.120\n\nI feel good that I solved the double acrostic puzzle in the _Times_ this morning.\n\nAnd I wrote a new song called \"The Nicest Time of Year\".121\n\nMrs. Landeck has come back, bringing another married woman with her, and I am stranded here in sin with both of them, since I can't find another apartment, and anyway it seems silly to take one at this mixed up point. It creates quite an interesting triangle.\n\nI had the final Frau session, and left with conflicting feelings of regret and relief. She'll be back in September, and believe me, I really welcome the breathing spell. But there's no denying that she's done wonders, or at least somebody has. I can almost look at the problem now as a problem instead of as a Fascist enemy ready to strike. I have some amazingly tranquil moments. I almost married Rhoda [Saletan] last night; but stopped when I saw Judy [Holliday], and decided to marry _her_. What do you hear from Mad?\n\nAnd what in Heaven's name happened during those ten days in the psychopathic ward? It must be a luscious tale. Sit down when you're bored some evening (are you ever bored?) and put it all down on a piece of stationery. There's no postage necessary, after all.\n\nYes, Avshalomoff came to see me at my last Goldman Band concert, and we had a fine time. We saw each other again at David Diamond's. He's a good boy, and very sincere, and I wonder if he writes good music too. That would be almost too much.\n\nLove, and write me the ganze Geschichte.\n\nL\n\nWhat means all that nonsense in your address? It's the most fantastic one to date.122\n\n149. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n40 Charlton Street, NNNYYYCCC [New York, NY]\n\n[July 1943]\n\nDear and Wonderful Aaron,\n\nWhen I got your insidious invitation to go west I dismissed it immediately as a real wacky idea. As time goes by I find it becoming more and more a real possibility. The only thing is that I couldn't possibly come now, especially since I want very much to conduct that little concert in Boston. I did write you about it, didn't I? It's a pair of concerts in a little series whipped up by the first desks and associates of the BSO, to relieve the monotony. I've been asked to conduct and if possible play the piano at the same time. I plan to do the _Cr\u00e9ation du Monde_ , thank God, the _Dumbarton Oaks_ (in _two_ rehearsals, forgive me) and a suite from PFB's [Paul Bowles'] opera. It seems to me that I could stick around here for the rest of July, finish up my chores at Warner's, do another Goldman Band pair ( _Outdoor Overture_ again, and Billy's [Schuman's] _Newsreel_ ), spend a few days with Kouss in Lenox, play him the Symph again, go to Boston, do the concert, and streak out like a wild one for Hollywood. Does that sound reasonable or not? Very simple. And then Mexico in September where we could meet Pfb who is dying to go there in September, and then home to become, God willing, an assistant conductor of the Philharmonic. Sort of a nice way to become 25 years old. Is it still possible with you, or has V. suddenly come home to roost? Of course I completely disregard the situation of his absence that makes my visit possible; I don't usually go in for being 2nd fiddle, but with you it looks good. (Or on you.) I'm all for it.\n\nOf course a lot of this depends on whether that job that Henry Simon has offered me comes through or not. Remember? The book on opera he's writing, and I'm to do the musical part of it, for 2 or 3 thousand bucks. Which would make the trip feasible. I ought to know in a few days.\n\nAnd the other catch is that I've received another call for an Army physical on Monday night. If my asthma is anything then like it is at this moment, they'll toss me out on my ear. I've really got it bad today, suddenly. Maybe unconscious preparation for the exam, as any analysand would say.\n\nHad the final Frau session today, which is rather thought-provoking about what has been accomplished. Answer: much. The rest is up to me now, as you might imagine. And God knows what evil deterrent influences may befall me in sinful California. But come what may, I'm ready to try.\n\nFound out who the other two conductors are who have been asked for assistantships by Rodzinsky. Guess. Max Goberman and Danny Saidenberg. What a trio we'd make \u2013 Saidenberg, Bernstein and Goberman, the three prides of Goebbels. No competition though, really, you must admit.\n\nHad breakfast with Kouss yesterday at the St. Regis. Lovely time, he's a lovely man, it's a lovely hotel. He asked me up to Lenox for a few days, admitting that he hadn't really heard the Symphony very well when I played it to him in Boston, since there were so many people in the room, and he was tired. I think Reiner's enthusiasm kind of pepped him up. You were right about the jealousy though (you're always right). He was a little hurt that Fritz had copped the first performance. Added rather ruefully, \"Well I have planned a date for you in November (when I told him that Reiner's date was in January) but I suppose now we'll have to make it for the second half of the season.\" What an act. We'll see. I have a feeling I'm getting into a deep well full of hot water with this first performance racket. I really don't quite know how to handle the boys. But just think how well I'll understand someday when some young composer from Podunkville won't know how to handle me!\n\nWent to a long cocktail party last night with Pfb [Paul Bowles], home of Paul Peters and Herr von Auw!!! Occasion: triumphant return to these parts of one [John] LaTouche. Great to-do. It went on all night, mostly me and Touche and Paul, and wound up at Peter Monro Jacks' (horrid) and we finally left Touche there in his four o'clock cups. He's a terror if there ever was one. I sort of like him in a weird way, especially when he's sentimental in that mountebank manner. It's a wonderful aggressiveness.\n\nJust thought: what will happen to poor David's piano lessons if I leave?\n\nMy asthma is really kicking up. I'm going to bed, [words blanked out] and creep guiltily back to some semblance of normalcy.\n\nMorton Gould completely ruined _Billy the Kid_ at the Stadium last week, to say nothing of _Newsreel_ , which isn't so hot to begin with, to say nothing of Roy's _Ode to Truth_ , which \u2013 well, I can't even describe it, except as an eternal measure of turdlike notes that will never be counted out. It's a piece with his three tricks in it, and it does make a very unpleasant sound. What else? Seems like I've given out with a lot of news. I'll have nothing to say when I arrive. Write me right away, and tell me you approve of my little plans.\n\nI love you, as if I had to point _that_ out!\n\nL\n\nThe _Salon_ cover is awful pretty.\n\n150. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nSamuel Goldwyn Studios, Los Angeles, CA\n\n16 July 1943\n\nDear Second Fiddle Black Magic,\n\nToo bad, too bad \u2013 this was the perfect moment for you to come to Hollywood. I dread to think what life will be like in August. I may not have a house by then \u2013 it's only a sub-let and my lady threatens to come back \"sometime in August\". Houses are scarcer than Filipinos out here, and _they've_ practically disappeared. I will be doubled up with notes \u2013 right in the midst of it in August \u2013 with hardly a moment to eat, no less take care of a bombshell like thou. (There's an hour's worth of music to be written \u2013 I just finished calculating it. Where will all those notes come from, I wonder?)\n\nOn the other hand, I saw the announcements of the Boston concerts \u2013 it all looks quite impressive and naturally you're right to be staying and conducting. So of course come in August if you still think it's insidiously attractive \u2013 but consider yourself warned that you may have to sleep on park benches, and converse with a guy that has noten indigestion. Whatever you decide to do, you'd better make reservations now, because trains and planes are full-up. As you point out, the Army may step in and end this little pipe dream.\n\nI was surprised you had a \"final session\" with the Frau. In my innocence I thought those things went on for years. You mean you're done? Finished? How extraordinario.\n\nAnd exactly, may I ask, what is an assistantship to Rodzinsky? Is anything guaranteed? Or even promised? I'd like to know what's really up the old boy's sleeve. His monkey business with American composers in Cleveland makes me suspicious of the purity of his motives. But don't forget to neglect to mention my reaction to him.\n\nHeinsheimer says that Reiner has programmed the _Sal\u00f3n_ with the Philharmonic for Aug. 8th. Did you have a hand in that?\n\nSpent an awful pleasant evening with Jesse and June [Ehrlich] in their little house perched precariously on top of a Hollywood mountain. They're so gentle and \"different\" \u2013 sort of poetic people. They had a soldier guest for me, who kept spewing venom at Irving Berlin all evening. Oh yes, and I met Leonard Posner out here. Remember him? He played that there violin piece of yours on WNYC. And also I met a guy who says he knows you \u2013 pretty cute looking too. A Mr. Pole. He was in the Army, but they let him out after 4 months \u2013 lung trouble. Anyway, that's what he says. Oh yeah, and I had dinner with Gail Kubik123 in a uniform. Quite a lot of boyish charm despite the bald head. And the Van Eycks \u2013 Ruth and Goetz (renamed Peter for the movies) have parties all the time. Harold Clurman came out and made me less lonely. (You lush thing you.) And thus and so.\n\nLove\n\n151. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\n17 Lake Avenue, Sharon, MA\n\n[August 1943]\n\nDear Dr. Koussevitzky,\n\nAn amazing thing has happened! Thursday night I was deferred for all time from the army. As you know, my recent siege of asthmatic hay fever had caused me to be sent for reexamination to the Medical Advisory Board, where I fell into the hands of one Dr. Wesselhoeft, who is in charge. He is a firm believer in the British policy of leaving as intact as possible the cultural foundations of our country, even \u2013 or rather, especially \u2013 in time of war. He was therefore _happy_ to disqualify me on medical grounds; and put me in Class IV, where, he assured me, \"nothing can interfere with your career.\"\n\nI am therefore free to pursue my work through its next channel, whatever that may be; and I am happy to say that because of the spirit of the Medical Board, I feel no guilt whatsoever at my deferment.\n\nDevotedly as always,\n\nLeonard\n\n152. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\nHotel Chelsea, New York, NY\n\n[September 1943]\n\nDear Serge Alexandrovich,\n\nHow I would love to be with you now to share my great joy with you! I am still so excited I can hardly write this letter. Everything seems to be going so well.\n\nI finally had my talk with [Arthur] Judson and [Bruno] Zirato this morning. They were very nice indeed, and extremely authoritative. I realized immediately that they had the situation in hand, and that I was simply being told their terms, not asked my own. All of which was perfectly all right with me, since I feel so strongly about doing this job, and doing it as well as possible, that I would probably, in my enthusiasm, accept if there were no salary at all.\n\nThe first thing is that there is apparently to be no contract at all. As Zirato pointed out, he doesn't believe in them, and never had one with, for instance, [Mishel] Piastro. I am to receive $125 a week. I realize that this is not tremendous, and that there are only 28 weeks in the season. But I am very contented with it, especially insofar as my publishers have raised my weekly royalty advance to $50 a week, which will continue all year. I simply felt that until I have proved myself to the Philharmonic and to the public, I have no real right to make any demands. On the other hand, the absence of a contract has its advantages, because I can be free for the summer, or for any occasion that may arise. It makes finances a little bit unsure, of course, but believe me, I am very happy in spite of that. I hope you can understand the situation in which I found myself; in fact I am _sure_ that you will understand it. I simply could not ask $12,000 or any other sum for a job which thousands of conductors in this country would gladly pay to have. Once I have shown that I am of real value to the Society, then there is time enough for me to make demands. I am perfectly willing to seem na\u00efve now; as long as I know myself that I am seeming na\u00efve. The main thing is to do my job; if I can do that well enough, and if I can bear all the huge responsibilities that come with it, the rest will come by itself, I am sure. Believe me, I tried very hard to feel like Koussevitzky while I was in the Judson office, but I was only Leonard Bernstein, and I had to act as I did. Don't you think it is for the best?\n\nAnd in the middle of all this, I only have to look at your picture in my room, and I am perfectly contented, knowing that there is one supreme friend that I have, who will understand whatever I do, mistakes included. I hope to see you very soon; meanwhile take good care of your health, and know that my love is with you always.\n\nLeonard\n\n153. Fritz Reiner124 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nRambleside, Westport, CT\n\n4 September 1943\n\nMy dear Leonard,\n\nNeedless to say that I am very happy about the news!125 It is a great chance and I do not doubt for one moment that you are going to make the best of it. You have the talent and the tenacity to put it over. I hope that the years spent at the Curtis with me will bear fruit.\n\nAs to your appearance in Pittsburgh on Jan. 28 & 30th, you will feel relieved to know that you are not expected to play the Triple or any other concerto. You will only conduct your Symphony and another work at the end of the program about which I would like to have your suggestions. Also \u2013 please let me know the name of the lady who is to sing the Symphony in Boston with you. Maybe we could use her also in Pittsburgh.\n\nI shall be at the Hampshire House from Tuesday the 7th until Thursday the 9th in case that you want to get in touch with me.\n\nHeartiest congratulations once more, in which Mrs. Reiner joins me.\n\nSincerely yours,\n\nFritz Reiner\n\n154. Adolph Green to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Hollywood, CA]\n\n[September 1943]\n\nDollink Leonard,\n\nI'm writing, I'm writing, I can't believe it. My pen is tracing figures on paper, making bold, masculine markings indicative of a strong character and a willful mind plus creative ability, yet with a strange strain of tenderness withal and a slight indication of liver trouble.\n\nForgive me for not writing sooner. As always was the case with the Revuers, we have been through parlous times. I'll give you a brief resum\u00e9.\n\nThe day we arrived, our agent, Kurt Frings, told us that _Duffy's Tavern_126 was off. The varied producers had quarreled \u2013 but, said Kurt, this was a good thing because now we were free to receive really good offers. We opened at the New Trocadero & were sensational, so sensational that the owner let us go after 4 weeks because he figured that now that he was doing a landslide business, it would continue so without us. At this point we realized that no movie company wanted us. Too smart, they said. First M.G.M. turned us down. Then everybody else turned us down all the way down the line, including dinky little Universal, who screen-tested us and said we stank. We were in despair. Then \u2013 our agent Kurt Frings (who, by the way, is a sensational agent, plus a Viennese gentleman) got us an audition at 20th Century Fox, right on the lot. It seems that 20th was the one company that hadn't caught us at the Trocadero. Oh God, we said, an audition, how horrible. We went to the audition. First, in walked high and mighty Lew Schreiber, Darryl Zanuck's chief assistant. We trembled. Then all the producers and directors \u2013 Lubitsch,127 Schambitsch,128 Perlberg,129 LeBaron130 etc., etc. And finally the great Darryl himself in simple slacks & polo shirt. We started doing our numbers. For four numbers no one smiled. We noticed that a number of them wanted to laugh, but had to stifle it, because Zanuck didn't look happy or pleased. Then suddenly it happened. D.Z. grinned. HE GRINNED!! Then he chuckled. CHUCKLED!! From that second on we were in. Everybody there roared & rolled & clutched their sides with helpless laughter. We did number after number & they screamed. That very day we were signed for a super-duper all-dancing all-technicolor, all-Alice Faye131 picture with a minimum guarantee of 6 weeks at a very fine figure indeed. The picture doesn't start till the middle of October, & we don't quite know what we're doing till then. Maybe a two or three week engagement at the Mark Hopkins132 in San Francisco.\n\nThe picture by the way is called _Greenwich Village_ , and we're going to do _Bazooka_ in it, plus a new spot which should be something stupid about the Vie de Boh\u00e8me of Greenwich Village. We'll have to build it around a song by Nacio Herb Brown \u2013 in march tempo \u2013 sample lyrics as follows (lyrics _not_ by us):\n\nIt's all for art's sake\n\nIt really is\n\nWhatever we do we really do\n\nFor art's sake.\n\nThere's that lady there\n\nA very mysterious gypsy\n\nBut honest folks,\n\nShe's really from Poughkeepsie.\n\nPlus another undetermined spot, plus parts in the picture itself. All in all, the set-up looks very good for us.\n\nHollywood is the weirdest country in the world. I'm only afraid you would love it here. One day Aaron [Copland] & I were envisioning the way you might take to it \u2013 a mad swirl of parties and gatherings, with you the life of the [party]. Then you awakening in the morning with a hangover \u2013 or fluff on your lungs, a fly on your tongue, etc., etc. \u2013 and filled with remorse. \"My God, I'm not getting any work done \u2013 Oh God, what the hell am I doing \u2013 it's fantastic, I'm not accomplishing anything. Oh, my God!\"\n\nOf course, I should not talk. Almost everyone I've ever known is out here and everyone is rich as Croesus, and life for me has been that self-same swirl \u2013 not terribly mad but the liquor and the thick steaks flow. It's a terribly unreal life out here, if you're with prosperous people who've decided you're a comer & sort of take you up. At first your conscience bothers you that these swimming pools & groaning boards exist while the whole world is starving and dying, & generally tightening its belt. After a while, you relax & enjoy it. After that, you suddenly become horribly bored with it. It's really meaningless & stupid & everyone out here is bored & screaming for some kind of diversion. You see the movie people out here never exchange anything resembling ideas. Most of them are stupid to begin with & impossibly spoiled by all their money, & the more intelligent minority are just _afraid_ to exchange any intelligent remarks. Nothing is secret out here, and even the most casual statement might drift back to the wrong person, & shit, you just mustn't offend anybody. The first thing you know, you'll be out on your ear. A good friend of mine is a movie director, Frank Tuttle. He is prosperous now & back in the dough, through having discovered & put across LADD: an Alan. But he was black-listed for almost 4 years because of having openly expressed sympathy for the Loyalist cause back in 1937.\n\nI'll write more about H\u2013wood later. Oy, I've seen so many movie faces and know them all, all the sad little extras & bit players. As a matter of fact, I've scared the hell out of a lot of people with my well-stocked memory.\n\nIncidentally, Tuttle took us out to visit Charlie Chaplin last Sunday. Quelle disappointment! Charlie is now a fattish, ageing man, and he insists on being the life of the party. He was bounding around all afternoon, clowning, grimacing, putting on native Balinese and Hindu phonograph records & dancing madly to them. This sounds charming, I know, & had you been there we might have had some fun with it \u2013 but somehow Chaplin was a little more frightening than amusing, mainly I think because there was more of an air of desperation than joie de vi[vr]e in his cutting up. The guy just didn't look cute and I kept thinking, \"Who does this mincing fat-necked little fellow think he is, imitating Charlie Chaplin?\"\n\nI've seen Uncle Aaron a few times since I've been here. He's been working furiously finishing up his film133 \u2013 and the scoring was completed last night. Aaron let me come to the studio to watch. They had only five small scenes to complete, but the music sounded fine. There's an especially cute little theme for Walter Brennan who seems to be portraying a crusty, lovable old peasant.134 It's sort of a cross between a Slavonic dance & Schumann's \"Jolly Farmer\". Anyway, that's the mood.\n\nThe orchestra that recorded the score was largely made up of the Warner Bros. musicians' crew and I never saw musicians as excited & enthusiastic over anything as they were over Aaron's score. It was just miraculous to them after all the Steiner\u2013Korngold crap they've been playing. Imagine a composer who not only does not have the hero & heroine do their big kiss to the accompaniment of surging strings, & bl-w-l-anging harps in great Straussian release, but cuts out the music entirely at that point.\n\nDo you see Billy Schuman? Give him & Frankie my love & tell him that I have seen much of his old friend & co-partner, Frankie Loesser, plus his wife. Loesser, it seems, is an old admirer of ours, a hysterical admirer, in fact, and he & his wife have been most generous to us \u2013 many dinners, parties, etc. He is a typical Hollywood case \u2013 horribly prosperous and a back-slapping one of the boys. He is a very nice guy, though, and really talented at writing lyrics. His new movie _Thank Your Lucky Stars_ has some very nice stuff in it, which he wrote with Arthur Schwartz, and any song he touches these days is a sure hit. But a typical example of Hollywood in what he said about Billy Schuman. If you repeat this to Billy I will loathe you to my dying day. I was having a nice conversation with him the first time I met him. Here is a man, I said to myself, who hasn't gone Hollywood. Then I mentioned Billy \u2013 \"Yeah, he's a swell guy\", says Loesser, \"but you know Adolph, where the hell is he today? That long-haired stuff doesn't get you anywhere. O.K. he's teaching & turning out that symphony stuff & he's got a wonderful wife & a home in Westchester \u2013 but what the hell, he's going to end up on the shit end of the stick. He ain't on that gravy train, Adolph. There's no dough on the Icky express\" etc., etc. \u2013\n\nFor great Horowitz' sake don't tell this to Billy. It just might get back to Frankie L. And besides Loesser really loves him. He was just giving out with the Hollywood jive that only strong men don't succumb to the lure of.\n\nLoesser told me a cute story of him & Billy when young. Loesser is quite a small guy about 5 foot 4. One day he & Billy were walking down a street. Suddenly, out of the clear blue sky Billy turned to Frank & said, \"What the hell, I'm bigger than you\", and proceeded to wallop the shit out of him.\n\nEnough of all this crap!\n\nAll the Revuers are fine, Betty [Comden] is ecstatically happy. Lizzie [Reitell]135 is here on a 16 day leave. Little Alvin [Hammer] is soon sending for his wife & child. Judy [Holliday] is this moment on her way to New York for 2 weeks. Why don't you call her at mama's around Monday. SU-7-6229. She'll be able to tell you in detail of what's been going on.\n\nWrite me everything that's been happening to you, at once, do you hear, at once!!!!!!!!!\n\nI'll write you more later.\n\nI think I've been pretty happy here so far, and I look staggeringly better than I have my whole life.\n\nI have a grizzly feeling that we've really got a future in this place, Lord help me, even if we do just do one picture, we won't be back in town before January.\n\nSo please write!\n\nLove\n\nShrdlu\n\nP.S. I hate people who go to Hollywood.\n\nP.P.S. Heard about your appointment with the Philharmonic. Nice goin' kid. Congrats & all that. But strictly between us, where's all that long-haired stuff going to get you? You don't want to end up on the shit end of the stick. You'd better get on that gravy train, son. But nice goin' kid.\n\nWrite, write write.\n\nI love you\n\nI miss you.\n\nRegards to everybody.\n\nWhat happened to your draft board?\n\nPaul Bowles?\n\nDavid Diamond?\n\nYour love life?\n\nYour Boston concerts?\n\nWarner Bros?\n\nRhoda Saletan?\n\nYour symphony? Reiner? Koussevitzky?\n\nSee, it's wonderful about the Philharmonic. It's thrilling!! It's marvelous!! I can't wait for the Copland festival!!\n\nHave you seen Jesse Ehrlich136 & weib? His wife is _not_ the big fat colored woman you dreamt of. [...]\n\nWe have a wonderful apartment here. It's more of a house than an apartment. 6 rooms, 2 baths, 3 radios, piano, bamboo liquor bar, roof terrace. We got it by a sheer miracle, because you know the housing conditions here are impossible. Viola Essen & her mother found it for us etc. etc. There's an extra bed waiting for you. Come out!!\n\nLove,\n\nAdolph\n\n155. Randall Thompson137 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nDivision of Music, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA\n\n16 September 1943\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nAfter many years of hard work \u2013 under grueling taskmasters; in the face of tyrannies, rivalries, pedantries, rebuffs \u2013 there came to the young musician a first-class opportunity worthy of his powers. Notwithstanding a mercurial temperament which was wont to raise him into the Empyrean at moments and drag him, at others, into a deep and brooding melancholy, historians are generally agreed that this sharp upswing in his musical career brought him, inwardly, a steady and deep feeling of satisfaction, security and happiness. And they are equally agreed that this feeling was fully matched by what his many (and varied) friends felt on hearing of his new appointment. Not the most eminent nor yet the least devoted among them is known to have been\n\nHis ever sincerely,\n\nRandall Thompson\n\n156. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nPhilharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Steinway Building, New York, NY\n\nFriday [?September 1943]\n\nMy Dear Mr. Copland,\n\nI'm saving all my talk for your very own personal ears; but I just wanted to show you this super-authentic stationery with its _free_ stamped envelope. Ah, the life of an assistant conductor.\n\nIt all seems to be working out beautifully. Rodzinsky, of all things, turns out to be a fine gentleman.\n\nI'm off to dinner with Kouss (we've already spoken very seriously of reviving your _Ode_!)\n\nThen the weekend with Bill Schuman & Frankie who is _pregnant as hell_!\n\nBut all this is mere substitute for the real thing \u2013 the week of Oct 4 is all yours (except that it's the first week of the Philharmonic season). I can't wait. Speed the day.\n\nI love you.\n\nL\n\nLost my temper with D[avid] D[iamond] t'other night, & left him in a rage in a bar. That's just _one_ delicious bit of gossip, a sample of the horrors in store for you. Hurry, hurry, hurry.\n\n157. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\nPhilharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Steinway Building, New York, NY\n\n5 October 1943\n\nDear David,\n\nI just ran across, in moving, your ink copy of a little known piece of mine called \"Two\" which set all kind of memories, delicious and otherwise, in motion. I have a tremendous desire to see you again. Is there any possibility? Where are you? (I'm taking a chance on your last address, as of last summer.) Why did your fertile crop of letters from the army suddenly stop? You never answered mine, you know; or did you never receive it?\n\nSo much has happened since our last contact that it is impossible even to begin to deliver information. Life has been marvelous, hectic, and unreally beautiful since my fantastic appointment, of which you must have read somewhere. It was a real shock to me, since I had had no inkling of it, beyond a rumor that I might become one of _three_ assistants. _And_ I had never met Rodzinski (who turns out to be a swell and honest guy). The position is unprecedented for one such as me, and a really historic step in terms of other young conductors. But I must see you to tell you, as the Frau says, \"what is really going on.\"\n\nI have a fine large apartment _in_ Carnegie Hall (address: Carnegie Hall, Apt 803, NYC) from which I can literally walk on to the stage. It's quite beautiful, and I'm having a very quaint experience furnishing it, and it has an extra bed for you, and my _own_ bathroom & kitchenette. If you are within 100 miles of New York at any time, please let me know, & come to town. In fact, let me know where you are in any case.\n\nThe day before my appointment was revealed to me, I was rejected might and main by the army for asthma.\n\nAaron returns next week. Write, & spend your furloughs here.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n158. Leonard Bernstein to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle\n\nPhilharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Steinway Building, New York, NY\n\n9 October 1943\n\nDear [musical notation: D-A-E, i.e. Re-La-Mi],\n\nWell, the opening is over, with a bang-up reception at the St. Regis & your nice letters to both of us, and I a great hit with Mrs. Lytel [Lytle] Hull, & Myrna Loy was there, & Frank Sinatra (who Oscar Levant says is the image of _me_ ) and Bruno Walter & Fabien Sevitzky & Marshall Field & and & and & and. You would have loved it. The concert was less exciting than the reception but maybe it will all pick up soon.\n\nThe other news is that Steinway has just moved a piano into my room. The same color as yours, same shape & size, & they're standing together now side by side like two beautiful horses in the meadow. But one is more in tune than the other (guess which?). Now \u2013 what is the action to be taken on _Baby_ Steinway? Or will I have _Babies_ Steinway? Do let me know.138\n\nWhat the hell is Edgewood Road [Longy's address in Baltimore, Maryland]? Liberty 6510 sounds like Boston. Is it fun? Any nice people \u2013 are you branded a Jew-lover yet? Any good students? When do you come to NYC?\n\nThese and many other things, write, and make no bones about it.\n\nLove\n\nLenny\n\nMy job is marvelous \u2013 29 hours a day.\n\n159. Leonard Bernstein to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle\n\nPhilharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Steinway Building, New York, NY\n\n15 October 1943\n\nDear R,\n\nA lovely series of illegible postals have been arriving daily. You say nothing about your work, your students, your milieu. Is it bearable?\n\nAs to the furniture, sure I could use it: especially did you say, a chest of drawers or a bureau? Or is that French for desk? The bench sounds swell: the desk is not essential, but could be useful, I suppose. Could it be used as a chest of drawers? That's what's really on my mind \u2013 my shirts are all in suitcases. Would it be easy to ship? In storage? In NYC?\n\nThe \"dame merveilleuse\" is writing you today and sending the first payment.\n\nGlad you saw Randall. He's lovely.\n\nI haven't actually conducted yet. Monday the 18th is the first time, & I will do readings of Diamond's 2nd Symph., Haieff's Symph.,139 & Charles Mills' Symph.140 And probably all the Chaikovsky rehearsals too.\n\nYes, we often rehearse on Saturdays. The orchestra is already greatly improved, & Rodzinski is a fine guy, & a very conscientious (if not always over-profound) conductor. Secrecy, please.\n\nLet me know how it goes. I'm very happy. Very. Aaron is back, & all is right again. The _North Star_ (his movie) is fine enough, & I've been fighting with Oscar Levant again. I may get a commission to do a ballet for the Ballet Theatre!141\n\nAs I say, let me know...\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n160. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\nPhilharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Steinway Building, New York, NY, Carnegie Hall 803\n\npostmark 22 October 1943\n\nDear Dave,\n\nDelighted to hear you sounding much the same (it's even fun to hear you're still neurotic). But it's not so nice to hear that you're so unsettled. Why can't the army discover you and use you properly? It seems a shame that you should languish this way in what you call the plague state.\n\nI'm in a big hurry \u2013 as always these days \u2013 since the JOB is all-consuming. It's quite glorious & exciting, & I wish you were here to be in on it a little bit.\n\nMy best to Mad, & love to you \u2013\n\nL\n\nKeep out of those suicidal depths.\n\nThe recording depends on Petrillo's release.142\n\nThe Sonata is off the press today. Slight delay because of editor's sickness. Will send you a copy.\n\nI guess Detroit is off on both our sides.\n\nAlso, Frauistically speaking, I have never been better.\n\nWhy don't you communicate with her directly?\n\nAddress: Marketa Morris, 562 W. 113th St NYC.143\n\n161. Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle to Leonard Bernstein\n\n3901 Edgewood Road, Baltimore, MD\n\nLundi soir [?October 1943]\n\nDarling Spookietchka!\n\nIt's such fun getting a really happy-sounding letter, for yours actually exudes happiness and in turn I am truly heureuse for you.\n\nBut after these many years you certainly should have learned to read my so called illegible handwriting... after all it's not baritone clefs.\n\nI wrote you a postal this morning; I guess I knew you were conducting then. Your letter which I just found this minute confirms that \"je ne sais quoi\" which I felt earlier in the day.\n\nWhat have you been fighting with Oscar \u2013 \"again\" you say \u2013 didn't know you did before. By the way, if Sinatra looks anything like the picture I saw of him in _Time_ magazine, Oscar L. is completely \"dingo\" to say the two of you look alike.\n\nNow on a \"terestrial digression\" (or is it terrestrial? poor French me don't know) \u2013 those odd pieces of furniture are in storage in Philly. They very likely could be picked up by some moving truck, as a fill-in load and brought to you. A bureau is French for _desk_. It's a flat top desk, mahogany finish, with three drawers on the right hand side and another shallower one across the knee-hole [...] The bench you sat on when you had those cotelettes de veau \u00e0 la cr\u00e8me, and sat on it many another time afterwards. Sorry the bureau does not happen to be une commode, ni un chiffonier. When I go to Philly, I shall check up on all these things and let you know what there is. If you still want it, well and good.\n\nSo you have \"abandoned\" our baby Steinway... a fine unpaternal person you've become.\n\nIf I say nothing about my work, students and milieu it's because there is nothing to relate about it. Work? Same as before, interesting to some extent, the students fair (ni lard, ni cochon, honest, conscientious, not at all exciting). Milieu? non existent as yet; although it looks as though it might become so, fairly soon.\n\nHave not been branded a Jewess or a Jew-lover yet, although am sharing the apartment of the mother of a former Curtis pupil and they are Jews. Edgewood Road is a bit like the Newtons, but a more recent development; suburbanish. It's a bit far from town, and certainly adds up to an expensive transportation item, let alone the expense of energy (from 50 to 60 minutes to, and same from...) Am biding my time, and looking around for something closer to things.\n\nSaw Lester Englander last Friday (he has a job here as cantor, you know, and he comes down every week). He told me that Leo Luskin is back in Philly... wonder if he is as literal as ever.\n\nI must stop this so to have it in the mail for the one and only collection around these parts.\n\nMy love to Aaron when you see him.\n\nTo you... beaucoup d'affection.\n\nR.\n\n162. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\nCarnegie Hall 803, New York, NY\n\npostmark 4 November 1943\n\nDear Dave,\n\nItem: You should receive any day one (1) copy of the Bernstein\u2013Oppenheim Clarinet Sonata, prepaid, and with my love.\n\nItem: You owe the Frau exactly $26.00, plus $10.00 for the Rohrschach job.\n\nItem: You're very slow on answering letters.\n\nThings are fine, O.K, progressing rapidly.\n\nLet me hear from you.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n163. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\nCarnegie Hall 803, New York, NY\n\npostmark 9 November 1943\n\nDave,\n\nThinking of you daily, I sometimes get the thought that you are desperately needed by symphonic organizations. Isn't there some sort of honorable discharge that would fit your case? Isn't a \"line\" (and a livelihood) one of your big needs?\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\nDid you get the Licorice St\u00fccke?144\n\n164. Leonard Bernstein to Jerome Robbins145\n\nPhilharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Steinway Building, New York, NY\n\nTuesday [late 1943]\n\nDear Jerry,\n\nI've been a stinker not to have written sooner, but I guess you know what has been going on with this baby. I have hardly breathed in the last two weeks. Nothing but reporters & photographers, & calls & mail & rehearsals, & I'm conducting this week (listen on Sunday!), & my scores pile up mercilessly. My Symphony parts lie uncorrected, & my \u2013 _our_ \u2013 ballet lives only in the head \u2013 only one scene on paper. But _it is_ on paper (not legible, but I'll make it so as soon as I can).146 That should cheer you. Fear not: somehow I'll get it done, though it's a fancy challenge.\n\nThe scene that's almost done is from the Entrance of Girl I through to the Entrance of Girl II, & the Pas de Deux. Everyone seems to be quite mad about it \u2013 I hope you will be. Of course it's all only 3 or 4 minutes \u2013 but that leaves only 16 more!! God, what a race with destiny!\n\nI now to my naked bed to regain all those vanished ergs. All success to you & I really will do my best.\n\nLove\n\nL\n\nBy the way, I have written a musical double-take when the sailor sees Girl #2 \u2013 has that ever been done before? And the rhythm of your pas de deux is something startling \u2013 hard at first, but oh so danceable with the pelvis!\n\n165. Leonard Bernstein to Jerome Robbins\n\nSunday [December 1943]147\n\nDear Jerry,\n\nThis to announce that I've really finished numbers III & IV. I'm not quite sure about the exact timing, but I have a bit of a suggestion. What do you think of the idea of having a _part_ of a regular commercial song sung (by the bartender, or the jukebox, or something) during the pause from the exit of the 2 sailors with Girl #1 to the entrance of Girl #2? You see, the _pas de deux_ between you & Girl #2 is based on a popular song style, but rather a complicated variation of same; and I think it might also have a bit more (a lot more) meaning if the song \u2013 a part of it \u2013 had already been heard in a purely nonchalant, commercial way. It might also prove to be a success song \u2013 which would help the ballet's career, & yours, & mine. And it would also provide an increased suspense \u2013 during a welcome lull. And add time\u2013weight to the whole work.\n\nI realize that there are all sorts of handicaps, like paying a singer (what about bartender?) \u2013 or getting sound equipment for a jukebox. What do you think? The song itself is very blue, intimate, sexy and naive, but unusual formally.\n\nI'm really doing my best to have it ready in time. It's a battle, but everything's a battle that ever turns out to be good.\n\nRan across Agnes de Mille last night, & she's really rooting for you & the ballet. Contract is signed, I've received initial payment. (I've been rooked out of all bounds, but I don't care.)\n\nGood success to your tour and let me hear soon. Be good.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n166. Leonard Bernstein to Jerome Robbins\n\nPhilharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Steinway Building, New York, NY\n\n[December 1943]\n\nDear Jerry,\n\nYour description of the state of the Ballet Theatre sounds gruesome. Don't take it too seriously, and get some sleep. (I should talk.)\n\nI've sent the prints of III & IV off to you. I finally got them in ink: but I still am not satisfied with the end of III. It will have to be changed eventually, but it won't make it too hard for you, will it?\n\nI'm working on the second (relaxed) section. I think finally I've got the idea. It's rather suspended in feeling, with little interruptions of staccato rhythms punctuating slow woodwind phrases. Also, the little dotted tune in No. III (\"Much faster\") will be introduced in this section, as a kind of hot pants feeling. So, you will have, in general, a slow, slightly tense, slightly serious section, but lyrical, perfumed by these little rhythmic urgings in the balls.\n\nI know you can do fine with it. Does it fit with your plans. (It's all thematically related to the opening dance.) Incidentally, I'm stretching the opening dance a little by adding a little section of about 15 seconds. It makes the form more telling.\n\nI've also decided to give the piano quite a solo role. It grows more & more important all the time (it never remains alone for more than a few measures); and seems to be the auditory key to the ballet \u2013 since a piano gives the feeling of percussion, brazenness, hardness, brightness, honky-tonkness, clarity, and intimacy. Don't you agree? How does a solo piano sound at the Met?\n\nI heed heartily your pleas for simplicity. The score actually is very simple \u2013 only the rhythms have to be concentrated upon like fury. There's no simplifying the rhythms \u2013 they're there, & they're the essence & basis of the whole score \u2013 but the notes will be very easy. I think it can be done. We can only pray. Nay, I know it can be done.\n\nWe'll be good. If we worry enough, it's got to be a smash. Wish you were back in N.Y. It would all go much faster.\n\nAbout that radio. It's a problem. You see, the song on which IV is based cannot under any circumstances come just before the pas de deux on the radio. The song itself and its completion in IV must be separated (preferably by the transition before it). Can we have the song sung at the end of III (the radio having been turned on during III, as indicated in the print), and proceed directly to the transition? I mistakenly indicated the Radio _after_ the transition, which is just where I _don't_ want it. It seems simple enough. Is it OK?\n\nNo completed Variations yet. Soon, soon. Grace of God, Moses, & The Societ\u00e0 Filharmonica. I'm to meet Toscanini on New Year's Day, & I'm being very Italian these days. Bless you, & write.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n167. Shirley Gabis to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[?January 1944]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nWill you be a sweet boy and send me Adolph's address in Cal.? have a sudden yen to write to him. I heard the Clarinet Sonata on records and feel moved to give you the following criticism \u2013 unasked for though it may be \u2013 as an honest human being and a conscientious composer it would seem that you should not be satisfied with your music until it has a little bit of the real Lenny in it \u2013 and not just a rehash of Hindemith and Copland.148\n\nOf course I haven't the vaguest idea of what has happened to the real Lenny and even if he exists any more.\n\nBut if you would only be your own severest critic and not let anything you write go out for public consumption until you are sure way down deep that what you have written is truly worthy of you and that is music that is really music and not trash.\n\nMy god Lenny why don't you listen to a few Beethoven quartettes \u2013 and perhaps you will find in them the true meaning of artistic integrity.\n\nI hope I don't seem too harsh \u2013 but it makes me sore as hell that there is perhaps something deep down inside you that is honest, sincere, and good that the you outside ignores. And Lenny, believe me when I tell you that although you are headed for a brilliant career, it will never be a great one. Your driving ambition to be the most versatile creature on earth will kill any possibility of you becoming a truly great artist in any one of the talents you possess.\n\nThink hard, Lenny, bore way down deep into yourself and find there the courage to be honest. Is your mission in life to be the greatest of all dilettantes??\n\nIf you have a real contribution to make Lenny, you must find out now what it is. Concentrate and work and make it a great thing \u2013 and don't write clarinet sonatas that make any serious musician think you an utter fool \u2013 it's not fair to yourself because you're not really an utter fool.\n\nAnd I say again, listen to lots of late Beethoven, play the sonatas often. Understanding Beethoven can teach you more about the things you must learn than anyone can possibly tell you.\n\nOf course there is no reason why anything I think should impress you greatly, and when I tell you that at present I have little respect for you as a person and an artist, you can think \"she's a little fool\" and with perfect right \u2013 but Lenny, despite all I still have a vague sentimental attachment for you, and remember good things about you that seem completely lost now \u2013 and I do wish the very best for you, and sincerely hope that somehow, some way, those good things in you might aid you in becoming something truly worthwhile.\n\nAnd please send Adolph's address for which I thank you in advance.\n\nShirley\n\nP.S. Good luck for Pittsburgh.\n\n168. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\nHotel Schenley, Pittsburgh, PA\n\n[28 January 1944]\n\nDear Serge Alexandrovitch,\n\nHere I am, finally, in Pittsburgh. I am excited beyond words at hearing my symphony. I must say that to me it sounds just as I thought it would. The orchestra is rough, but in a way like the Tanglewood orchestra \u2013 full of spirit, young, and cooperative to a great degree. I am having a marvelous experience here. Even the scherzo is _almost_ perfectly played \u2013 but for a real performance we must wait for the Boston performance. I have had to make surprisingly few changes. And the _Firebird_ is a real, fiery, Tanglewood performance.\n\nHave you been reading about the mess in New York since I left? They phoned me here Monday to return for the Tuesday rehearsal, but it was impossible. Then Byrnes [Harold Byrns] rehearsed _Rosenkavalier_ , and made a mess of it; so it came off the program \u2013 and Hans [William] Steinberg will conduct. I derive great satisfaction from it all \u2013 it feels wonderful to have the Philharmonic really dependent on me.\n\nJennie Tourel is here, and sends love and kisses. She sings the symphony like an angel. It's really heartbreaking.\n\nReiner is being very kind and helpful. He sends you his warmest greetings; and he suggests that the greatest triumph over Mr. Rodzinski would be to bring the symphony to New York with the _Boston Symphony Orchestra_!! (He specifically asked me to tell you this!)\n\nMy love to you; and keep well until I see you again.\n\nLove to Olga.\n\nLenushka\n\n169. Leonard Bernstein to Jerome Robbins\n\nPhilharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Steinway Building, New York, NY\n\n[early 1944]\n\nDear Jerry,\n\nII is finished, and should reach you very soon. It's much shorter than we had hoped, but it doesn't sustain. It's difficult to be bored for a long time on stage, & not bore the audience too. (This is _musical_ talk again.) At any rate, it provides all the chances you need for pantomime, gum, drinks, or peanuts. And it is constructed so that it can be easily changed around to suit your timing. When you get it, cross out the last measure (unfinished) of page 10, & proceed to page 11. You will notice that II is really part of I. I think the connection to III is a knockout. I changed my mind from dying out of II to a recurrence at the end of it of the excited opening material, giving the feeling of Let's _Do Something!!_ And at the least expected moment the girl arrives. I think you'll agree when you hear it. I don't think that the introducing of \"Much faster\" in II will hurt: when it appears in III it's all different. I'd like to cut a few measures of it, tho', in III; and have changed the tempo mark to \"Somewhat faster.\" God I wish you were here. It's so hard to write about these things. Be good, though, & happy, & like the stuff as much as I do.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n(There's a phrase most Aaron-like in II \u2013 I hope you don't mind. It's so pretty I can't remove it.)\n\n170. Leonard Bernstein to Jerome Robbins\n\nPhilharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Steinway Building, New York, NY\n\n[early 1944]\n\nDear Jerry,\n\nIt's awfully hard for us to keep up with each other. I've had a flood of special deliveries that appall me. Jerry \u2013 _everything_ has gone out to you from #1 to #4 inclusive! Why don't you have it? And I sent two copies for you, keeping three, but apparently [J. Alden] Talbot kept one en route. Henceforth I'll send three \u2013 one for Talbot.\n\nI'll do everything possible to get recordings to you pronto. It's next to impossible to find the time, but I'll do my best. I can certainly sympathize about the pianist; it's hard to play anyway, apart from the special jazzy style. Wait till he tries number I!\n\nKeep up the spirit. It's gonna be fine. And I'm in the thick of the Variations. And actually with ideas. _And_ please like #II!\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n171. Leonard Bernstein to Jerome Robbins\n\nPhilharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Steinway Building, New York, NY\n\n[28 February 1944]\n\nDear Jerry,\n\nSlow, slow, but sure. Number 5 is done and being shipped. It's true enough connective tissue, \u00e0 la movies, and ought to come off. It's more or less all development of the competition motive, with some of the music of Girl #1 to use (during the rotation) for the conspiring of the two girls.\n\nThe pauses at the beginning indicate nabbing the exiting pas-de-deux couple, and indecision about the situation. (Rotation.) Then the competition comes in earnest, developing, through a scherzo-like section to a \"dancy\" section, by which time I imagine them on the dance floor! In the last measure a snare drum rolls, fortissimo, continuing beyond the music as a lead-in to the first variation (\u00e0 la circus). I think it works.\n\nMy only worry is that it may all be too short (don't forget the repeat! It lasts about 2 minutes). If you need more build up, let me know. I'm leaving tonight (Feb. 28) for Montreal, Canada, where I conduct the Montreal Symphony. I stay until Mon. 8th. Write me at _The Hotel Windsor_ , Montreal.\n\nAt last, it begins to take shape. I can't wait to finish it. I plan to begin orchestrating in Montreal. Has it occurred to you (as it has to lots of composers, etc., for whom I've played it) that this could be a wow for two pianos alone (with maybe percussion?). It would save much time, rehearsal worries, difficulty of performance, and so on. Billy Schuman thinks it's a natural, & predicts that the orchestration will be very difficult. I only _suggest_ this \u2013 you can throw it out of the window. But let me know.\n\nI've just spoken to Hurok. The dates are settled \u2013 April 18, 22, 24. We'll talk about rehearsal schedules later. I hope it will be orchestrated in time! Pray for me.\n\nThese are hectic times. When I return from Montreal I have three concerts with the Philharmonic, including my symphony (alas, no broadcast!). Then, boom, the ballet. I'll be a wreck, but I hope a happy one.\n\nAnd you take care of yourself too. We need one healthy guy in this project.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\nThere's much more, of course. To answer your letter:\n\n1) I'm making the rhythms as simple as I can. The music more or less depends on them, and they can't be scored any more simply. It has to be \u2013 and I think it's all feasible enough. (A word for _two pianos_!)\n\n2) I love your description of #1. It surely can be played a little more slowly, if you need it. I raced it in recording.\n\n3) About the two extra bars on page 6: if you need them, OK; but it makes awful music. Maybe we can straighten it out in N.Y. at the last minute.\n\n4) About the ending of #2: Throw it out. It's not necessary, and I see your point. It's very easily fixed; and I used it at the beginning of #5, where it works much better. Do you want the revised ending immediately?\n\n5) I don't see how #3's beginning can be extended. Is it _absolutely_ necessary? It gets so dull. If worse comes to worse, OK; but try to avoid it.\n\n6) In \"much faster\" (changed to \"somewhat faster\") it's perfectly OK to extend those contrapuntal bars. Just double them. And a slower pace is OK.\n\n7) On the pas-de-deux, repeat anything you want. (But use the extra bar as it was used at the beginning.)\n\n8) On Variation 2 (which turned out very pretty, and as Aaron says, \"dancy\") the feeling is mostly sweet plus cocky. Your idea, I think. And change the last chord (it's too sour). The left hand should be:\n\nThis chord represents a sort of ballet-ish _bow_ (or male equivalent of curtsey).\n\nThere remains only your variation, which I'm saving for last, the Lindy hop & fight (oy!) and the gag finale. Not too bad. I hope to have it. I hope!! I hope!!!! Again, pray, & be good in the bad West.\n\nLove again\n\nL\n\n172. Leonard Bernstein to Jerome Robbins\n\nNew York, NY\n\nSaturday [11 March 1944]\n\nDear Jerry,\n\nJust a fast one. I've been in Canada for almost two weeks conducting the Montreal Symphony Orch., and returned to find a batch of wires, letters, etc. from you which I have _yet_ to untangle. Your last is the one from British Columbia (hello, fellow-Canadian!).\n\nI must dash to conduct a concert at West Point tonight. It's a fearfully frantic year, & I'm almost crazy. But the ballet comes along fine. Have you received No. 5? I hope it's O.K. And I brought the Finale (everything up to the final gag, including a wow Boogie Dance) to the blueprint today.\n\nDidn't you receive my letter to Los Angeles? Judging from your writing, you didn't; and that was a long one, full of discussion. I hope it catches up with you. I told you then that it was OK to cut the end of #2 \u2013 you're absolutely right. I'm enclosing the new ending (beginning as if the first measure of p. 12).\n\n(I posed in that letter the problem of whether it might be better to use 2 pianos & percussion, only. It's wild, and only a suggestion.)\n\nNow \u2013 Variation 2. I swear to you, Jerry \u2013 it's not melancholy at all \u2013 not a whit! It must have been played ridiculously. It's whimsical, _very dancy_ , a little poignant in the harmony, full of a lyrical jazziness. The main thing is _sweet_ and _sympathetic_. The last chord represents a gracious ballet _bow_.\n\nThese things are really impossible to discuss like this. For God's sake, get home! I need you!\n\nI'll record the new stuff as soon as I can, but I haven't a minute now for days. Bear with me.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\nLove to Mitropoulos, if you see him.\n\n173. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\n988 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA149\n\nTuesday [25 April 1944]\n\nDear El Bee,\n\nGot your Friday note today. Poor thing \u2013 you don't even know my address \u2013 988 Memorial Drive Cambridge. (Tel. \u2013 for you \u2013 Kirkland 3042).\n\nI'm tickled about all the excitement, but wish it didn't mean Boston gets a measly two days of you, instead of two weeks. Now that _Rodeo_ and _Fancy Free_ are hopelessly married,150 I'd better watch out that people don't say my new one151 shows Bernstein influences! It's amusing to ruminate on where it will all end \u2013 but right now it makes a question mark as big as your piano.\n\nI wrote to Phillie for the _Our Town_ parts. Hope they arrive in time!\n\nYou must have all the Cambridge news from Helen Coates, so I won't repeat. Our Sanders Theatre concert is tonight.152 Irving Fine plays the _Danz\u00f3n_ [ _cubano_ ] fine. Apparently all Cambridge Society plans to attend in force.\n\nV[ictor] wired from Miami. He should be in these parts in about five days. (Remember him?)\n\nBe a good boy \u2013 take care of yourself \u2013 and don't forget your one and only begetter.\n\nA\n\nGive my best to Jerry [Robbins]. He's a sweetheart.\n\n174. Joseph Szigeti153 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nPalos Verdes Estates, CA\n\n16 May 1944\n\nDear Bernstein (if you'll allow a grandfather to drop the \"Mister\"!)\n\nThanks for your letter to which a hurried reply as my wife's _eye_ blood-vessels have been burned by a criminally negligent doctor who gave her infra-red and other \"rayons\" for her _hand_ arthritis! He didn't shield her eyes and she is now suffering untold torture (she was taken to LA to a specialist & will be away for at least 48 hrs).\n\nAs I played Mozart A major, Tartini, Prokof[iev] & Chausson in Chicago in _March_ my program had to avoid these works, naturally! Your programs will have Beeth[oven] the first night154 and Mozart D major No. IV with Bart\u00f3k's Rhapsody No. I (dedicated to me) (9\u00bd min.) the second night,155 with which choice I feel sure you'd be \"d'accord\". The Bart\u00f3k record is no longer on sale but some of our mutual friends are sure to have it (John Hammond's wife? Goddard Lieberson? perhaps Serly? or the boys at Record Collectors Exchange?)\n\nIf we can't get a _cimbalom_ player who can follow your beat (gypsies often cannot!) we'll have to give the cimbalom part to a piano (with paper fixing between strings). Kuyper or the personnel manager should enquire at Blue Danube Restaurant in Chicago (the pianist there is Harmati) about cimbalom.\n\nLooking forward to our working together.\n\nVery cordially yrs,\n\nJoseph Szigeti\n\n175. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nDepartment of Music, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA\n\n20 May 1944\n\nDear Lensky,\n\nI think I solved the _Our Town_ problem. It repeats the waltz as you like, and removes entirely the \"ties that bind\" section. Some fancy juggling of tonalities on the way, of course. Heinsheimer says he will copy a set of parts \"special\" if you intend to do it three or four times. OK? And how soon would the part have to be ready for the Stadium, if that's to be the first one?\n\nI'll never forget that face of yours in Reuben's.156 I've never seen you look so sad. Why you wouldn't even look me in the eye! What on earth were you thinking at that moment??? And the contrast with everyone else seeming so pleased and happy. And me worrying about my lost organ (the voice, I mean). You seemed in a mood to make the most out of any disapproving remark I let drop in your direction. Aren't you idiotical \u2013 you know very well I have you hopelessly under my skin. But I'll always watch you like a hawk \u2013 that goes without saying.\n\nHow does the dinner seem in retrospect \u2013 I mean aside from your personal feelings.\n\nYou see you owe me a letter.\n\nAlles \u2013 but _alles_\n\nA\n\n176. Harold Newman to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHargail Records, 299 Madison Avenue, New York, NY\n\n1 June 1944\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nHere's the long promised royalty statement.157 Am I supposed to charge for any of the sets sent out for you? I don't know. [annotation by Helen Coates: (No \u2013 all gratis)]\n\nSorry, AmMus refused permission re the K[oussevitzky] Concerto158 \u2013 it is reserved for Koussevitzky.\n\nGlad Lukas is appearing with you at the Stadium.159\n\nGood luck,\n\nHarold\n\n177. Herschel, Janice, and Lois Levit160 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nCamden ( _sob_ ), NJ ( _sob_ )\n\n3 July 1944\n\nDear Lennie of the Lenap\u00e9s,161\n\nMy tongue hung low and drippy over your program for this week at Ravinia Pk. Oi!!! We noted, with a certain degree of pride, that information as seen in the NY _Times_. How marvelous that your symphony can be heard again \u2013 but where do I come in? I have yet to hear it, really. If it is at all possible, please send us a copy of any decent recording you've made of it. Do you think you'll ever do it in Philly? Conduct your symphony, I mean. At any rate, you'd better send the recording or I'll get Lois' boy friend after you. _Then_ what will you do?\n\nMitropoulos conducted the first two weeks at The Dell \u2013 we heard [Arthur] Rubinstein do the Brahms B\u266d \u2013 as an encore he played the Rhapsodie in B minor, some encore! He & Mitropoulos were pretty terrific. Dimitri made a big hit with his playing & conducting of the Prokofieff 3rd. Tonight we hear [Nathan] Milstein do a couple of jobs: the Mendelssohn & the Lalo.\n\nWill you be back with the Philharmonic in the fall or are you going to freelance? It certainly would be great if you can get to the Academy to do your symphony.\n\nBest wishes,\n\nHerschel & Janice & Lois\n\nP.S. Dear Lennie, Incidentally, for the summer we are at the address on the back envelope. The house is strictly from modern, as a matter of fact Herschel calls it the \"Museum of Modern Art\" for short.162 If you get the chance come visit us \u2013 there's a Steinway and you can have your own room & bath. Let us know when. J\n\n178. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\n33 West 67th Street, New York, NY\n\n26 July 1944\n\nDear Serge Alexandrovich,\n\nI am sending you, with my love and deepest congratulations, a few notes on your birthday, which form a small sketch for the piece I hope soon to have for you. Life is so complicated and busy not that I cannot set any really definite date when I expect the composition to be finished, but I am trying to make it as quickly as possible without sacrificing any quality: \u2013 I want this to be as fine as I can make it, since it is for you, who represent quality itself to me.\n\nPlease accept this little sketch now, and let us hope it grows into a composition worthy of your greatness.163\n\nShirley joins me in wishing you long life and happiness.\n\nDevotedly,\n\nLeonard\n\n179. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\n2074 Watsonia Terrace, Hollywood, CA\n\n[August 1944]\n\nDear Serge Alexandrovich,\n\nHere in Hollywood one sometimes loses perspective on symphonic music; the commercial aspects are so important to everyone here \u2013 and the quality is reserved for the mediocre. So it is a great pleasure to contemplate my program with the Boston Symphony \u2013 it is a thought like a spring in the desert.\n\nIf the entire first half is to consist of the Brahms [First] Piano Concerto, I thought that the second half might offer _Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht_ of Schoenberg (this is Schoenberg's anniversary year), followed by a suite from my ballet _Fancy Free_. This seemed well rounded to me, and my ballet suite (about 15 minutes) might make a good closing piece.164\n\nIf you feel that _Fancy Free_ should come after intermission, then the program could close with a more usual fin-de-concert piece like the _Firebird_.\n\nDon't you think there should be a short overture, or the equivalent \u2013 perhaps Mozart \u2013 before the Brahms? Or perhaps the radio requirements prevent this?\n\nWhat I should really like is to have ready the composition I am planning for you \u2013 but I guess I just can't be finished in time. Did you receive the little birthday sketch I sent you?165\n\nI hope these program ideas are satisfactory. I would be so grateful for any advice you would give me on this concert. I'm very excited about it, and I want it to be good.\n\nI think of you every day, and send you my love \u2013\n\nLenushka\n\n180. Sid Ramin to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHeadquarters, 84th Inf. Div., Special Service Office,166 A.P.O. 84, c\/o Postmaster, New York\n\n10 September 1944\n\nDear Len,\n\nJust a note to let you know that I'm leaving for overseas shortly.\n\nIn the past, I've been able to tell you where I was and a bit about what I was doing, but the following address makes that a little difficult; however, I can tell you that I'm able to get to New York very frequently \u2013 so there's your clue.\n\nI was home on furlough and heard some of your recordings \u2013 the side dedicated to Shirley brought back some wonderful memories and the William Schuman bit delighted me.167 By the way, I saw a copy of _I Hate Music_ (Five Pieces for Children) displayed very prominently in a large music store in St. Louis.\n\nSince mail is being censored, I find it hard to write to the folks at home \u2013 they're thirsting for news and I'd like to tell them what's happening but I can't.\n\nMy pleasures are very simple now and eating at a nice restaurant or club and seeing a musical is just about the ultimate in enjoyment for me at this stage in the game. Yesterday I saw _One Touch of Venus_ for the second time, ate at the Kungsholm and had a couple of drinks at a good bar \u2013 it all made for a pleasant day. The dance routines (Agnes de Mille) in _Venus_ impressed me tremendously \u2013 but, then again, maybe four years in the army have warped my sense of what's good and what isn't. I expect to be in New York again several times and would like to see you for a minute if you're available and have a minute.\n\nMail is important in the life of a soldier whether he be overseas or in this country. Overseas, though, the importance of mail cannot be overemphasized and getting a letter from you will mean very much to me.\n\nEach day must be exciting and busy for you and I often think of the contrast between an average day now as compared to the days when we could ramble through the park in Roxbury and while away the hours.\n\nHow are your folks? Do you ever run into Harold Shapero?\n\nBest always,\n\nSid\n\n181. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n33 West 67th Street, New York, NY\n\n[received 28 September 1944]\n\nDearest, wonderful A,\n\nI'm a dawg, a dawg, a dawg not to have done this before. You can always check on me because your last letter was a birthday letter one full month ago. But I've reread it so many times, because it brings back something that you think everything is O.K. without, and then suddenly you find it isn't at all, and somehow something's got to be done about the Aaron Copland side of one's life,168 which is always turning out to be a major side. If that sentence makes sense, especially in Tepoztlan, you're a genius. Just a new way, of course, this being the 57936th letter I've written you, of saying that I adore you.\n\nFor the rest, I'm back in town, with problems, being busy, all of which is boring old fluff for you by now. One realistic chimera is that I've got to move by Saturday (Three Days) and I have no apartment. I have thought of temporizing in your loft, for maybe a week or so, if Helen (Coates) still can't find me a place;169 but I hesitate to ask, and maybe I will find one. I spend the weekends in Detroit now (horreur) conducting broadcasts of the Detroit Symphony (three). Next week is in Boston with the Ballet, so I'm really running out on Helen and leaving the whole problem to her. I'm looking at a really wonderful place on East 57th (Kostelanetz' building), but it's a cooperative and you have to buy it for $5000 and then pay $175 a month upkeep, and then the Board of Directors has to vote on me, and decide whether I look rich enough and dependable enough and presentable enough to be accepted. They've looked into forty references besides my bank balance, and I resent it and stand for it only because it's such a dream of an apartment and I can play music there and I want to live in it.\n\nThe show [ _On the Town_ ] is a wild monster now which doesn't let me sleep or eat or anything; in fact the world seems to be composed of the show the show the show, and little else, except a _Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht_ or a Schumann symphony here and there. Maybe it will be a great hit, and maybe it will lay the great _egg_ of all time. It's an enormous gamble.\n\nYou're sweet to dedicate the _Our Town_ piece to me; I could do with a dedication or two in these grim loveless days.\n\nGod how I wish I were with you. How long do you plan to stay? Forever? Indefinitely? It can't be. At least come back for the opening of the show, which will be, with the grace of God, and if we get George Abbott to direct which looks likely, around Christmas time. And please write a lot, and find me someone nice to bring home as a present, and write a great piece, and give my love to Victor, and I had lunch with P[aul] Bowles and [Yvonne de la] Casafuerte today and got drunk. Bless you, I love you.\n\nL\n\n182. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nTepoztlan, Morelos, Mexico\n\n9 October 1944\n\nDear Dawg,\n\nYou're in the delightful position of getting a letter from me without having to answer it, because I'm coming home before you can safely get one here. I have just two more weeks in Tepoztlan (till the 23rd), then to Mexico City for two days, and then I fly to Washington (the 25th). Martha Graham is supposedly doing a ballet of mine that week-end.170 No one has seen any public announcement of the event \u2013 nor have I \u2013 but [Harold] Spivacke keeps writing it will take place, so I go on faith. I ought to be back in my hole on 63rd St by Oct. 30th or Nov. 1st. Then we can turn on the \"AC side of your life\", whatever that is.\n\nIn retrospect the summer seems frightfully short. I never got settled until August, and didn't get a piano until the middle of the month. Also, I've been alone a lot of the time. V[ictor] has been away a good deal, doing odd jobs or seeing odd females up in Mexico DF. I find I don't particularly thrive on solitude. So, altho the setting was perfect, inspiration has been spurty. I guess I'd better come home.\n\nSometimes Mexico seems too much to bear. In Sept. the rain got out of hand, and it poured like hell for three weeks. Then we had a small cyclone that sounded very big in our valley. Then suddenly the water works of the town, being all above ground, goes kaput. Then comes the news of a minor rebellion two miles away and the government sends troops. Then the cook announces the horrifying news that eggs have just gone up to 4 cents apiece. Then suddenly the sun comes out, there's water in the excusado, the troops go away, the eggs go down to 3\u00bd cents and Mexico seems like heaven on earth. It's a peculiar country.\n\nI'm tickled pink that the show isn't going to come off until Christmas.171 That means I can hang around the theatre during rehearsal period, than which I adore nothing better \u2013 as you know. I hope you found a perfect place to live in, but _not_ in the Far East 50s. (Too far away.)\n\nTill velly soon.\n\nLove,\n\nA\n\n183. Leonard Bernstein to Philip Marcuse172\n\n40 West 55th Street, New York, NY\n\n25 October 1944\n\nDear Phil,\n\nThanks very much for your recent letter, and for the Shostakovich173 records. The latter arrived yesterday, but I have not yet had the chance to hear them yet. I'm curious to hear how it all sounds, even to the thumping of my irrepressible foot. Who knows, hearing this thumping on the record may cure me of that bad habit. Anyway, it will be good for me to hear just how it sounds to the radio audience. [...]\n\nThe show174 goes into rehearsal in early November, and I'm working night and day to have the score ready by then.\n\nPlease give my thanks to the person who made the recording, and, again, my thanks to you for sending them to me.\n\nSincerely yours,\n\nLenny Bernstein\n\n184. Philip Marcuse to Leonard Bernstein\n\nStockwell & Marcuse Advertising, 2026 National Bank Building, Detroit, MI\n\n26 December 1944\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nHere's hoping that _On the Town_ will be a tremendous success. I read _Variety_ 's preliminary review of it, and I gather that it was damned good even though the reviewer didn't know how to say it.\n\nAlthough we haven't communicated for a couple of months, I have been following your progress and enjoying your radio appearances. We saw _Fancy Free_ two weeks ago and found it truly terrific. So did everyone else.\n\nWe look forward to seeing you in New York three weeks hence, and once again, our best wishes for your newest musical triumph.\n\nSincerely,\n\nPhil Marcuse\n\n185. David Oppenheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\nGermany\n\n27 December 1944\n\nAre You Happy???\n\nDo You Stay Awake Nights??\n\nWould your autobiography be entitled: \"My Life as a Mole\" or \u2013 \"Digging my way thru Europe\"??\n\nDo you fall flat on your face when someone whistles [...] Have a _crush_ on screaming music? Burpgunitis etc. etc.??\n\nTry Bernstein's Little Battle Pills \u2013 Delicious to chew slowly.\n\nNibble your neurosis away!!!175\n\nN.B. For adventurers only \u2013 my ass!!\n\nI've been watching _N_ [ _ew_ ] _Y_ [ _ork_ ] _er and_ no _On The Town_ yet. [...] Do I get score & book over here? And are you gonna write?\n\nA letter I wrote to you to California came back \u2013 you had moved and not left a forwarding address.\n\nNow \u2013 what are you doing \u2013 how is Marketa [Morris]? Adolph [Green], Judy [Holliday], Betty [Comden] \u2013 I'd sure like to have Judy here to line my foxhole.176 She is 20th Century Foxing?? I saw a bad picture of her in a movie magazine some time ago.\n\nWill you conduct the N.Y. orch this year? Or is Art177 still mad?\n\nLove,\n\nDave\n\n1 Robert Gundersen (1895\u20131941).\n\n2 Gaston Dufresne taught solf\u00e8ge and played double bass in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Presumably Bernstein was hoping to find work for Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle at Tanglewood.\n\n3 Mary Louise Curtis Bok, founder of the Curtis Institute.\n\n4 Miquelle's son.\n\n5 Probably Alvin Ross, an artist friend.\n\n6 The composer himself was among those \"knocked for a bingo.\" Schuman wrote in his diary: \"A most remarkable performance \u2013 Bernstein should develop into the first sensational American conductor. He has everything. Koussevitzky so excited by Bernstein performance \u2013 he walked up to the stage & kissed us both in public!\" (Swayne 2011, p. 120).\n\n7 Bernstein conducted _The Rio Grande_ at Tanglewood on 15 August 1941.\n\n8 The soloist in the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 was Carlos Moseley, later the Managing Director of the New York Philharmonic.\n\n9 Probably the family of Ben Quashen who studied with Hindemith at Tanglewood.\n\n10 Samuel Barber (1910\u201381), American composer. Bernstein was never particularly enthusiastic about Barber's music, nor did they get on in later life. Bernstein recorded the Violin Concerto (with Isaac Stern) and the Adagio for Strings. A performance of the _Second Essay_ from 1959 was published on CD in _Bernstein Live_ (New York Philharmonic NYP2003).\n\n11 The United Service Organization, which provided (and still provides) entertainment for United States troops.\n\n12 The National Youth Administration (NYA) was originally set up under the New Deal as part of the WPA. It organized educational and cultural opportunities for Americans between the ages of 16 and 25, including the establishment of orchestras for young musicians.\n\n13 Judith Tuvim was the real name of Judy Holliday.\n\n14 The National Youth Administration. See note to Letter 95.\n\n15 Horatio Alger (1832\u201399) was the author of numerous rags-to-riches tales for children. He travelled to California to gather material for his stories.\n\n16 Presumably the music for songs by The Revuers referred to in Letter 96.\n\n17 In some of Bernstein's letters to Copland, names were blanked out at a later date.\n\n18 Mitropoulos conducted the world premiere of Copland's _Statements_ with the New York Philharmonic on 7 January 1942.\n\n19 Presumably the fortified Bel\u00e9m Tower.\n\n20 Bernstein opened a studio for teaching the piano and musical analysis at 295 Huntington Avenue, Boston, in December 1941.\n\n21 Judy Holliday (1921\u201365), American actress. Born Judy Tuvim, she was a member of The Revuers. She later married David Oppenheim. One of her greatest Broadway successes was her Tony-winning performance as Ella in _Bells are Ringing_ , written by Comden and Green with music by Jule Styne and choreography by Jerome Robbins.\n\n22 Lizzie (Elizabeth) Reitell (1921\u20132001) was Adolph Green's first wife. She later had an affair with Dylan Thomas in the last months of his life.\n\n23 They married in 1941, but as Bernstein gloomily predicted, it didn't last.\n\n24 Probably a reference to Artur Rodzinski, who was Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1933 to 1943, when he moved to the New York Philharmonic.\n\n25 A reference to _Conch Town_ , which Bernstein almost completed in a version for two pianos and percussion, but never finished. He later harvested it for several works including _Fancy Free_ (the \"Danz\u00f3n\") and _West Side Story_ (\"America\").\n\n26 The first performance of Bernstein's Clarinet Sonata was given at the Institute of Modern Art in Boston on 21 April 1942 by David Glazer, with Bernstein at the piano, in a concert promoted by Young American Musicians. A lukewarm review by Winthrop P. Tryon in the next day's _Christian Science Monitor_ described it as \"well-constructed in general, and in particular, too, as far as the mere music went. Whether it was inevitably an ensemble composition for wind and keyboard instruments might be questioned. Both the clarinet and the piano have plenty of business allotted to them, and both chime together all right, if for its own sake chiming counts greatly. But the problem of treatment of two qualities of sound seemed more or less ignored. The music turned out to be abstract in a way not usually intended in studies of the sort. But, for all anybody knows, that may be one of the very purposes of Young American Musicians, to get things free of the old tracks.\"\n\n27 Probably Jean Middleton, who was a pianist and a composition pupil of Arthur Berger's, and one of Bernstein's longer romantic relationships during the 1940s.\n\n28 On 24 May 1942, _The New York Times_ published a letter signed by 11 composers (Aaron Copland, Arthur Berger, Edward T. Cone, Henry Cowell, David Diamond, Anis Fuleihan, Alexei Haieff, Frederick Jacobi, J. B. Middleton, Harold Morris, and William Schuman) who had been performed in a concert of works chosen by members of the Music Critics Circle. The letter was a furious protest against Olin Downes' scathing review of this event. A short extract gives a flavor of the composers' mood: \"Mr. Downes does not hesitate to lambaste savagely and hold up to ridicule ten of the twelve works carefully selected in the first place by their original performers, and chosen in the second place for rehearing by his own fellow-critics. This leaves Mr. Downes in a position of lonely grandeur from which he can survey the stupidity of every one concerned but himself. Perhaps we American composers are as puerile-minded as Mr. Downes gloatingly proclaims, but we are not so half-witted as to be led into a discussion of the merits of our compositions with the pontifically minded Mr. Downes. Others may do so if they care to. We shall continue to write our compositions, they will continue to be played, and Mr. Downes will, no doubt, continue to survey the field from his isolated post.\"\n\n29 After conducting a successful performance of _The Second Hurricane_ under the auspices of the Institute of Modern Art in Boston on 21 May 1942 (attended by Copland), Bernstein conducted a second performance on 5 June at the Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, MA.\n\n30 Downes' response to the protest letter by Copland and others appeared in _The New York Times_ on 7 June 1942, under the title \"Critic's Duty. Further Examination of Reaction to Circle Concerts of American Works.\" Downes wrote a lengthy and exhaustively argued defense of his position.\n\n31 Fritz Reiner.\n\n32 A Yiddish word (sometimes spelt \"tsuris\") for trouble or difficulty.\n\n33 Marion Bauer was a leading figure in the League of Composers.\n\n34 Albert Sirmay. See note to Letter 395.\n\n35 \"The Frau\" was Bernstein's nickname for his psychoanalyst, Marketa Morris.\n\n36 Victor Kraft, \"the most important romantic relationship of [Copland's] life\" (Pollack 1999, p. 239).\n\n37 Walter Hendl (1917\u20132007), American conductor who studied at the Curtis Institute with Fritz Reiner, and at Tanglewood with Koussevitzky (when he met Bernstein). He was Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra 1949\u201358 and in 1958 became Associate Conductor to Fritz Reiner at the Chicago Symphony. From 1964 to 1972 he was Director of the Eastman School of Music.\n\n38 David Oppenheim (1922\u20132007), American clarinetist, record producer, television producer, and academic administrator. Oppenheim and Bernstein were extremely close friends in the 1940s, and remained on very affectionate terms for the rest of Bernstein's life. They first met at Tanglewood in 1942. Oppenheim appears as the dedicatee on the 1943 publication of Bernstein's Clarinet Sonata and he made the first recording of the work with Bernstein in 1943 for Hargail Records. In 1948 he married Judy Holliday, who had worked with Bernstein as a fellow member of The Revuers (Oppenheim and Holliday divorced in 1957). He was hired by Goddard Lieberson to work for Columbia Masterworks and served as director of the label from 1950 to 1959, producing recordings by artists such as Bruno Walter and George Szell, before moving to television, first at PBS and then at CBS as a producer of arts documentaries, several of which involved Bernstein, the most famous of which was probably _Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution_ in which Bernstein discussed the Beatles, the Monkees, Bob Dylan, and Janis Ian whose \"Society's Child\" became a hit after being featured in the broadcast (see Letters 527 and 533). In 1969, Oppenheim began the last and most successful part of his career when he became Dean of the School of Arts at New York University. According to his obituary in _The New York Times_ (3 December 2007), he \"transformed NYU's arts programs into a major institution\" and among his enduring achievements was to secure a huge donation from the Tisch brothers that enabled NYU to build its Tisch School of Arts. He retired from the University in 1991.\n\n39 With this pithy, three-word postcard, written in pencil, Bernstein re-established contact with David Oppenheim, a few weeks after meeting him for the first time at Tanglewood.\n\n40 From the mention of the Broadway revival of _Porgy and Bess_ (13 September\u20132 October) it is possible to date this letter. Bernstein's reference to Diamond's \"terrific talent\" was probably the result of seeing some orchestral works, including the First Symphony that Diamond recalled Bernstein playing from the full score; it had been given its premiere by Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic on 21 December 1941.\n\n41 Paul du Pont was the costume designer for the 1942 revival of _Porgy and Bess_.\n\n42 According to John Dunning (Dunning 1998, pp. 430\u20131), _The Man Behind the Gun_ was a war drama series broadcast from 7 October 1942 until 4 March 1944. The show's regular music staff included Bernard Herrmann and Nathan Van Cleave, and the writers included the young Arthur Laurents. David Diamond's incidental music for the program was apparently first used on 14 October 1942 (the show's second episode) conducted by Herrmann (see Kimberling 1987, p. 127).\n\n43 The Riobamba Club, at 151 East 57th Street, opened on 10 December 1942, a glittering social event reported at length in the _New York Evening Post_ the following day. This makes no mention of Bernstein's contribution, but the singer Jane Froman topped the bill and may well have introduced Bernstein's \"Riobamba\" on this occasion.\n\n44 The most lasting success this tune had was as the \"Danz\u00f3n\" in _Fancy Free_.\n\n45 The reason for the \"gift\" was that Miquelle had lent Bernstein the Steinway on which he composed _Jeremiah_. A month later \u2013 as a sign of how grateful he was to her, and of how much he valued their friendship \u2013 Bernstein gave Miquelle the complete autograph short score of _Jeremiah_ (inscribed on the first page \"To Ren\u00e9e with love & gratitude, Lenny, Jan. 5 1943\"). This was returned to Bernstein after Miquelle's death in 1979. In a note to Helen Coates concerning the manuscript, Bernstein wrote: \"HC \u2013 This is very precious \u2013 the entire symphony in _final_ sketch! I had no idea where it was all these years, but of course I had given it to Ren\u00e9e in thanks for her having loaned me her Steinway on which the symphony was composed (52nd St.). I am so happy to have it back.\"\n\n46 _Danz\u00f3n cubano_.\n\n47 The fire at Boston's Cocoanut Grove nightclub on 28 November 1942, which killed almost 500 people.\n\n48 In other words, the date for Oppenheim to join the army.\n\n49 \"Jack\" is mentioned in several of the Bernstein\u2013Oppenheim letters. He is probably the composer Jacob (Jack) Avshalomoff (1919\u20132013), who studied with Bernard Rogers at the Eastman School and was a classmate of Oppenheim's.\n\n50 The \"Calamus poems\" are a group of poems in Walt Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_ that celebrate \"the manly love of comrades.\" They are Whitman's clearest published declaration of his ideas about homosexual love.\n\n51 Related, too, to Arnold Park, Rochester, where Oppenheim lived until December 1942.\n\n52 Almost certainly a reference to Oppenheim's help with copying sections of Bernstein's _Jeremiah_ Symphony, and specifically the end of the Scherzo (\"Profanation\").\n\n53 Karen Horney (1885\u20131952), German psychoanalyst who settled in the United States. Her book _The Neurotic Personality of Our Time_ (1937) was a bestseller.\n\n54 Praying (from Yiddish).\n\n55 A reference to Howard Hanson, Director of the Eastman School.\n\n56 Allen McHose (1902\u201386) was chair of the Theory Department at the Eastman School.\n\n57 Edys Merrill, with whom Bernstein shared an apartment. She was the dedicatee of _I Hate Music! 5 Kid Songs_ , and she had inspired the title: when Bernstein's playing became too much for her, she would go round the apartment singing \"I hate music! But I like to sing \u2013 La dee da da dee.\"\n\n58 Though Oppenheim wrote this theme out in 6\/8 and C major, it is in 3\/4 and A major, and comes from the first movement of Mendelssohn's D minor Piano Trio.\n\n59 The Office of Price Administration, a regulatory authority that could control prices and ration scarce supplies. The OPA banned \"non-essential driving\" in 1943 to save gasoline.\n\n60 WXQR is a classical radio station in New York City, on air since 1939.\n\n61 The basement caf\u00e9 of the 44th Street Theatre, demolished in 1945 (the last show to run there was _On the Town_ ).\n\n62 \"Lenny-Penny\" or \"Lennypenny\", a nickname Copland occasionally used in letters to Bernstein (see, for example, Letter 75).\n\n63 Copland was in Hollywood to write the score for _The North Star_. The cast included Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Erich von Stroheim, Farley Granger, and Walter Brennan, and it was directed by William Wyler. Copland's extensive score includes songs with lyrics by Ira Gershwin.\n\n64 The Town Hall Music Forum in New York devoted to Copland took place on 17 February 1943. Bernstein played Copland's Piano Sonata, and Daniel Saidenberg conducted _Music for the Theatre_ and the first performance of _Music for the Movies_.\n\n65 WNYC is a public radio station in New York City, on air since 1924.\n\n66 Bernstein originally conceived a group of six pieces, but by the time of publication by Witmark in 1944, he had added \"Dedication to Aaron Copland\" to make _Seven Anniversaries_.\n\n67 _The North Star_ was based on a story by Lillian Hellman, with a screenplay by her. It was made by Samuel Goldwyn at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to help boost support for America's alliance with the Soviet Union against Germany. The \"North Star\" of the title is a farming collective in Ukraine, a community whose life is shattered by a brutal Nazi occupation.\n\n68 _P.M._ was a short-lived left-leaning newspaper published in New York between 1940 and 1948.\n\n69 The NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski gave a broadcast performance of Stravinsky's _Symphony in C_ on 21 February 1943. Bernstein's reply ended with a plea for Copland to put in a word for him, and his reaction to Stravinsky's symphony: \"Can anything be done about me? Do they need Sonata-players in Hollywood? I heard Igor's symphony too. What a fine first mov't! A little long, but so good. Main criticism: sounds too much like Harold Shapero. I just live for the moment when you pin that medal on me. I love you. L.\"\n\n70 The card depicts three \"Skyscrapers of New York City\" (the Empire State Building, the Rockefeller Center \u2013 where the Advanced Music Corporation had its address \u2013 and the Chrysler Building).\n\n71 A recording of the radio broadcast given by Oppenheim and Bernstein on 21 February.\n\n72 Bernard Rogers (1893\u20131968) was a composition pupil of Nadia Boulanger and Ernest Bloch. He taught at the Eastman School during Oppenheim's time as a student there.\n\n73 Artur Rodzinski (1892\u20131958), Polish conductor who was appointed Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, 1943\u20137. Bernstein became the orchestra's Assistant Conductor in September 1943 (see Letter 152).\n\n74 _Shadow of a Doubt_ was directed by Alfred Hitchcock with a screenplay co-written by Thornton Wilder. It was released in January 1943.\n\n75 _Serenade_ by James M. Cain. A few years later, Bernstein contemplated a musical setting of this novel. See Letters 262\u2013265.\n\n76 Collectively these pieces \u2013 the _Six Anniversaries_ and \"Dedication to Aaron Copland\" \u2013 became the _Seven Anniversaries_ , published in 1944.\n\n77 This short piece was subsequently orchestrated as \"Variation 2 (Waltz)\" in _Fancy Free_ (1944); the ballet is dedicated to Adolph Green. I am grateful to Sophie Redfern for helping to clarify this, and for showing me the relevant pages in the sketches for _Fancy Free_. These include sketch pages for clarinet and piano headed \"Extension by Leonard Bernstein\" (in Green's hand) \"of a theme by Adolph Green\" (in Bernstein's hand).\n\n78 The cellist Jesse Ehrlich was one of Bernstein's friends from Harvard (he played the cello in the orchestra for _The Birds_ ), and he was a roommate at Tanglewood in 1940.\n\n79 Copland wrote about Harris in _Our New Music_ (1941).\n\n80 According to Paul Bowles' review published on 15 March 1943 in the _New York Herald Tribune_ , the League of Composers Concert at New York Public Library on 14 March included the _Pastoral_ for viola and piano by Elliott Carter, a String Quartet by Vincent Persichetti, songs by Beatrice Laufer, Lukas Foss' Duo for cello and piano, a group of songs by Van Vactor, Wilde, Bacon, Bricker, and John Cage, and Bernstein's Clarinet Sonata.\n\n81 Paul Hindemith (1895\u20131963), German composer and violist. He emigrated to the United Status in 1940, returning to Europe in 1953.\n\n82 _Lady in the Dark_ ran on Broadway in 1941\u20132, and returned there in February 1943 with Gertrude Lawrence reprising her starring role as Liza Elliott.\n\n83 Copland's _Lincoln Portrait_.\n\n84 _I Hate Music! A Cycle of 5 Kid Songs_.\n\n85 Probably a reference to Caspar Hauser (1812\u201333), the mysterious German youth of reputedly noble origin who inspired a poem by Verlaine and is mentioned by Herman Melville in _Billy Budd_ and by Hans Christian Andersen in _Beauty of Form and Beauty of Mind_ , as well as being the subject of Jakob Wassermann's 1908 novel _Caspar Hauser oder Die Tr\u00e4gheit des Herzens_.\n\n86 Paul Bowles wrote in his review that the Clarinet Sonata \"had something which is at a premium in contemporary music: meaty, logical harmony. It was also alive, tough, and integrated. The idiom was a happy combination of elements from both east and west of the Rhine, but only indirectly from that far away. There were stronger hints of what goes on north and south of the Rio Grande, these perhaps more directly via Copland. Through most of this (the andante seemed less real) ran a quite personal element: a tender, sharp, singing quality which would appear to be Mr. Bernstein's most effective means of making himself articulate. The work was expertly performed by David Oppenheim, with the composer at the piano.\"\n\n87 Andr\u00e9 Kostelanetz (1901\u201380), the Russian-born American conductor who had commissioned Copland's _Lincoln Portrait_ and had exclusive performance rights at the time.\n\n88 George Antheil (1900\u201359), American composer whose career began in Europe as an experimental composer of works inspired by technology ( _Airplane Sonata_ , _Ballet m\u00e9chanique_ ). In Paris he met the likes of Erik Satie, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Virgil Thomson, and Ernest Hemingway. He went to Hollywood in 1936 and subsequently worked regularly as a film composer while continuing to write concert works.\n\n89 Bernstein's New York conducting debut took place the day after he wrote this letter. On 30 March 1943 he conducted the premiere of Paul Bowles' one-act zarzuela _The Wind Remains_ (after Lorca) at the Museum of Modern Art. The choreography was by Merce Cunningham, and the sets were designed by Oliver Smith. At the same event he conducted _Homenaje a Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca_ (1936) by Silvestre Revueltas.\n\n90 Frederick Fennell (1914\u20132004), American conductor who studied with Koussevitzky at Tanglewood in 1942 when he was a classmate of Bernstein, Lukas Foss, and Walter Hendl. Fennell later made numerous recordings for Mercury with the Eastman Wind Ensemble.\n\n91 The \"Third Serenade\" was presented by the Museum of Modern Art; it was one of five \"Serenades of rare music ancient and modern on alternate Tuesday evenings beginning March 2, 1943,\" so-called because they were modeled on the concerts given by _La S\u00e9r\u00e9nade_ in Paris before the outbreak of the Second World War, which had been organized by the Marquise Yvonne de Casa Fuerte, co-organizer of the Museum of Modern Art \"Serenades\" with Virgil Thomson.\n\n92 Herbert Stothart (1885\u20131949), American composer and arranger who spent the last 20 years of his life working for MGM. His credits included _A Night at the Opera_ for the Marx Brothers, _The Wizard of Oz_ for which his background score won an Oscar, and _Mrs. Miniver_ , which Bowles himself described in an article for _Modern Music_ (November\u2013December 1942) as \"the regular, overstuffed, plush tonality of Hollywood.\"\n\n93 This is less surprising given that Virgil Thomson was one of the organizers of the concert. But he did single out Bernstein for praise, describing his conducting as \"superb and musicianly.\"\n\n94 Constance Askew (1895\u20131984) was a generous patron of artists, writers, and musicians, including Virgil Thomson. She was married to the art dealer Kirk Askew. John Houseman described her as \"a New England woman of means, of broad cultural experience and striking beauty.\" The arresting portrait of her by Pavel Tchelitchew (1938) now hangs in the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, CT.\n\n95 George Chavchavadze (1904\u201362), Russian pianist.\n\n96 Rhoda Saletan.\n\n97 The songs were published by Witmark.\n\n98 This is the address on the headed paper, but by the time he wrote this letter Bernstein was living at 15 West 52nd Street.\n\n99 Will Geer (1902\u201378), American actor and activist. Following his university studies in Botany, Geer began his acting career in the late 1920s. In 1934, he joined the Communist Party and toured government work camps with Woody Guthrie and Burl Ives as well as working as a classical actor. He appeared regularly as a member of The Group Theatre at its summer home in Pine Brook Country Club, Nichols, CT. Blacklisted in the 1950s for his refusal to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he renewed his interest in botany, setting up the Theatrum Botanicum, an outdoor theater for blacklisted actors with a garden in which every plant mentioned by Shakespeare was grown. Geer later achieved fame as Grandpa Zebulon Walton in _The Waltons_. At his deathbed, Geer's family sang Woody Guthrie's _This Land is Your Land_ and recited poetry by Robert Frost. His ashes were buried in his own Shakespeare Garden.\n\n100 Koussevitzky performed Copland's _Lincoln Portrait_ several times in March and April 1943 in Boston and New York. At Carnegie Hall on 3 April it appeared on the same program as Schuman's _A Free Song_ and Barber's _Essay for Orchestra No. 1_ (\"Billy & Barber\"), with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in the second half.\n\n101 Edys Merrill.\n\n102 _The Wind Remains_.\n\n103 The pianist Jes\u00fas Mar\u00eda Sanrom\u00e1 (1902\u201384).\n\n104 See note 87 to Letter 134.\n\n105 Probably the two-volume edition of Havelock Ellis' _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_ published by Random House in 1940.\n\n106 Bernstein often spelt it \"Rohrschach\"; Oppenheim's \"Rorschach\" is correct.\n\n107 Name blacked out.\n\n108 On 18 May 1943, Bernstein took part in an evening presented by The Little Red Schoolhouse (a fund-raiser to buy scientific equipment for the progressive school in Greenwich Village) at Town Hall, with Virgil Thomson as master of ceremonies and Bernstein as commentator and pianist, to \"illustrate the influence of folk music and jazz on the contemporary composer.\" Bernstein illustrated his points by playing his piano transcription of Copland's _El Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_. The event was reviewed by Paul Bowles in the _New York Herald Tribune_ on 19 May 1943.\n\n109 Copland's nickname for his car.\n\n110 In Letter 140, Copland called it a \"two volume affair\".\n\n111 The Blue Angel was a nightclub founded by Herbert Jacoby. An article in _Time_ magazine from 26 April 1943 \u2013 just a couple of weeks before Bernstein wrote this letter to Ren\u00e9e Longy \u2013 evokes Claude Alphand's singing at the club:\n\nThe De Gaullist movement has found its loveliest voice. She sang last week at a new Manhattan cabaret, the Blue Angel, opened by balding, long-nosed, toothy Herbert Jacoby, ex-secretary to France's imprisoned ex-Premier Leon Blum. Chic as a Paris bandbox, its jet-black walls garnished with white lilies and orchids, the Blue Angel gave off more than a suggestion of the smarter mortuaries. But it ceased to be funereal when a swarm of De Gaullist refugees and friends produced an opening-night crush of such confusion that New York Daily News Columnist Danton Walker, for one of the few times in his professional life, was presented with his own check.\n\nMany of the throng went especially to hear Claude Alphand sing. She is a beautiful, blonde, rather waxwork-like Frenchwoman who accompanies her balladry on the guitar. Rated by many as the best French chanteuse since Yvette Guilbert and Lucienne Boyer, she sings with a feline throatiness and great stylistic elegance. Her favorite song is: Prenez le temps d'aimer [...] \u2013 Alphand's delivery of such sentiments makes her worth $750 a week to the Blue Angel's Jacoby.\n\nMme. Alphand has only recently turned professional. Before the war she was prominent in Paris society; she is the wife of Herv\u00e9 Alphand, former Treasury attach\u00e9 of the Vichy Government in Washington. Her father, Robert Raynaud, founded La D\u00e9p\u00eache Marocaine, the first French daily newspaper in Morocco. When the Alphands arrived in the US three years ago, Herv\u00e9 Alphand said: \"In France now there are only two things to do: to work and to be silent. I have come here to work and to be silent.\" But he did not stay silent long. Less than a year after his arrival, he announced his disagreement with Vichy policy, resigned, went to England where he joined the De Gaullist fighting forces.\n\nMme. Alphand had to find a way to earn her living. Her friends had long admired her repertory of some 200 salty popular songs. Helped by a group of them (Lady Mendl, Henry Bernstein, Elsa Maxwell), she began appearing at a French hangout called Le Petit Palais. Among Manhattan's Francophile intelligentsia, her nostalgic music was sensational. Manhattan's Liberty Music Shop issued an album of Alphand recordings, quickly sold 1,000 copies.\n\nToday, though Manhattan's swankest pub-crawlers flock to hear her, Mme. Alphand is already tired of professional life. Says she, with a Gallic shrug: \"If I am not to sing, then I must sew, I must make hats or something.\" But she admits that she is not doing badly in the new world, says: \"Heaven was very charming to me.\"\n\n112 Three popular French _chansons_.\n\n113 A French folk song.\n\n114 Bernstein's original French text is included out of interest. The following is an English translation:\n\nEverything is so French these days. I've just read Gide in French. I go to play every Sunday evening at The Blue Angel, a new club of a Parisian sort (like the old Ox on the Roof, or the Blue Ribbon); the clique of the Serenade Concerts (your friend the Marquise, etc.); my world seems these days to be completely French. So what to do about it? Nothing but to write a word to the first Frenchwoman among all Frenchwomen. D'you think I'm drunk? It's not drunkenness at all \u2013 it's friendship.\n\nThe immediate cause of this letter is Mme Claude Alphand, the extraordinary singer at The Blue Angel. Each time she sings \"Les Moules marini\u00e8res\" or \"La Belle Journ\u00e9e\" or \"Tu m'as voulu, tu m'as eu,\" I am forcefully reminded of \"Mon Mari est bien malade.\"\n\nWhat are you doing these days? Not still the assembly line, I hope! In any case, I will be in Boston next week and I insist on seeing you again. Our old friend, the Institute of Modern Art (damn!) has invited me to play up there on Thursday evening. Well, it's a few dollars and a trip to Boston paid for! But what an existence! On the Tuesday, I've a very important lecture-recital at Town Hall; and on the Wednesday, a lecture at the Art Alliance in Philly!!!! And Thursday it's Boston! I'll keep all the news for your ears, not your eyes....\n\nLenny.\n\nAnd look who has won the Paderewski Prize! Gardner Read! _Frightful_.\n\n115 Koussevitzky's letter to _The New York Times_ published on 16 May 1943 was headed \"Justice to Composers,\" and was a plea to support creative musicians: \"What is being done for the composer of our day? [...] It is time to wake up to our responsibility toward the composer and to repay the debt long standing that we owe him. [...] We musicians must be first to stand by the composer because we owe him most. We have ripened to this consciousness. Therefore I say the time is ripe to act.\" He goes on to propose the setting up of a fund to support the work of composers, initially by a donation of $1 from each professional performing musician in the country. This would, he argues, \"go a long way toward establishing a composers' fund. A far-reaching and wise plan must be worked out for a proper distribution of the fund [...] For that purpose an organizing committee must be formed without delay. Whatever action we take now will lay the groundwork for the impelling and just cause of the composer. Embracing that cause, we shall ascend to new heights, we shall gain in confidence, in self-esteem and in fortitude.\"\n\n116 Billy the Kid.\n\n117 Hindemith's.\n\n118 This became _Appalachian Spring_.\n\n119 Stokowski conducted the America premiere of Copland's notoriously difficult _Short Symphony_ with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on 9 January 1944 (though according to Copland himself it was an \"extremely inadequate reading\").\n\n120 James Petrillo (1892\u20131984), the powerful leader of the American Federation of Musicians. In July 1942, Petrillo imposed a ban on American musicians making commercial recordings for major American companies because of a dispute over royalty payments. The union settled with Decca and Capitol in October 1943, and with RCA and Columbia in November 1944. During the strike, Petrillo had to authorize the release of new recordings.\n\n121 An autograph sketch and a fair copy of _The Nicest Time of Year_ (both with a slightly different title, \"The Nicest Time of Day\") are in the Leonard Bernstein Collection. The tune was used for \"Lucky To Be Me\" (\"What a day, Fortune smiled and came my way,\" etc.) in _On the Town_. But, as indicated in this letter, it was composed as a single song a year before Bernstein started working on the show. My thanks to Sophie Redfern for drawing my attention to this manuscript.\n\n122 The envelope is addressed to \"Pvt. David Oppenheim, A.S.N. 12208749, 1633rd S.V., Brk. 130, Co. A, Camp Grant, Illinois.\"\n\n123 Gail Kubik (1914\u201384), American composer who studied at Harvard with Walter Piston and with Nadia Boulanger. During the Second World War he was Music Director of the Motion Picture Bureau of the Office of War Information.\n\n124 Fritz Reiner (1888\u20131963), Hungarian-born conductor, and Bernstein's teacher at the Curtis Institute. One of the most inspiring (and feared) conductors working in America, Reiner was Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1938\u201348), conducted regularly at the Metropolitan Opera, and became Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1953.\n\n125 Bernstein's appointment as Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic.\n\n126 _Duffy's Tavern_ was a popular radio comedy show that ran from 1941 to 1951 and often featured guest stars.\n\n127 Ernst Lubitsch.\n\n128 Possibly a name invented by Adolph Green for this list.\n\n129 William Perlberg.\n\n130 William LeBaron, the producer who went on to make _Greenwich Village_.\n\n131 The eventual star of _Greenwich Village_ was Carmen Miranda. Adolph Green, Betty Comden, Judy Holliday, and Alvin Hammer all appeared in the film.\n\n132 The _Top of the Mark_ cocktail lounge at the Mark Hopkins Hotel.\n\n133 _The North Star_.\n\n134 Brennan plays the part of the pig-farmer Karp in the film.\n\n135 Elizabeth Reitell, Adolph Green's first wife.\n\n136 See note 77 to Letter 132.\n\n137 Randall Thompson (1899\u20131984), American composer. He taught Bernstein orchestration at the Curtis Institute. Thompson's Second Symphony was one of the works Bernstein conducted during his first year at Tanglewood (1940), and he remained extremely fond of the piece, playing it in 1959 and 1968 in New York Philharmonic concerts, and recording it for Columbia Records in 1968. An undated note in Bernstein's hand (a draft reply to the Thompson scholar Byron McGilvray) reads as follows: \"Randall was a real friend, right from the beginning. At Curtis we shared the joys of both orchestration (which I studied with him) and the London _Times_ crossword puzzle, of which we were both secret fans. Beyond this, we shared a common conviction that Curtis should be reconceived, & turned from a conservatory-factory into a real place of learning. (We were both academically orientated, as Harvard men should be.) Randall did not exactly succeed in this, and we both left together (as we had entered together), he as dismissed director, and I with my diploma.\"\n\n138 \" _Baby_ Steinway\" is the piano Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle had loaned Bernstein on which he composed the _Jeremiah_ Symphony. See note 45 to Letter 115.\n\n139 Alexei Haieff (1914\u201394), American composer.\n\n140 Charles Mills (1914\u201382), American composer who played in jazz bands from the age of 17. He was commissioned by Mitropoulos to compose a work for the New York Philharmonic in 1951. His output includes six symphonies, and some of his compositions involve jazz groups.\n\n141 Bernstein did get the commission, and the result was _Fancy Free_.\n\n142 During the \"Petrillo Ban\" of 1942\u20134, even a small company such as Hargail Records had to obtain a release from James Petrillo of the Associated Federation of Musicians before a recording could be issued.\n\n143 The identity of the \"Frau\" was shrouded in mystery until the emergence of this letter in 2013. For Marketa Morris' letters to Bernstein, see Letters 197, 256, 260, and 261.\n\n144 i.e. the Clarinet Sonata.\n\n145 Jerome Robbins (1918\u201398), American dancer, choreographer, and director. A temperamental and intensely demanding genius, he was without doubt the person who forged the most productive creative relationship with Bernstein: their first collaboration was the ballet _Fancy Free_ , followed by _On the Town_ , _Facsimile_ , _West Side Story_ , and _Dybbuk_.\n\n146 Bernstein is discussing the earliest stages of his work on _Fancy Free_. Progress on the score is documented in several further letters. See Letters 165, 166, 169, 170, 171, and 172.\n\n147 I am most grateful to Sophie Redfern for establishing the chronology of the undated letters from Bernstein to Robbins about _Fancy Free_. She has kindly provided the following information: the contract for the ballet (mentioned in Letter 165) is dated 17 November 1943; the \"song\" described in Letter 165 was the precursor to the \"radio\" mentioned in Letter 166, as can be seen in Bernstein's sketches for the ballet.\n\n148 Shirley Gabis Perle wrote about this letter on 26 January 2013 (by email): \"I remember writing that letter (what nerve), but who knew, as his father famously said, that he would become Leonard Bernstein. His response came on a post card that I didn't save \u2013 he was very annoyed by my criticism. [...] I don't suppose I could have written it if it were not for the depth of the connection between us \u2013 a connection that remained throughout our lives. I subsequently played the Philadelphia premiere of the Sonata with Stanley Drucker \u2013 to make restitution? The piece, after all, does have Lenny's vitality and charm \u2013 I was obviously a stickler for profundity in my youth.\"\n\n149 Copland was a visiting lecturer at Harvard University in 1944.\n\n150 A week before Copland sent this letter, _Fancy Free_ had its triumphant first performance on 18 April 1944, by Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House, conducted by Bernstein. The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo season at City Center in April 1944 included Copland's _Rodeo_. As for the two ballets being \"hopelessly married,\" they were often mentioned together in press reports.\n\n151 Copland's \"new one\" was his \"Ballet for Martha,\" the work that became _Appalachian Spring_. The sketches are dated \"June 1943\u2013June 1944, Hollywood, New York, Cambridge.\" It was first performed on 30 October 1944.\n\n152 This concert took place on 25 April 1944. The program included works by Walter Piston (Violin Sonata and Piano Trio) and Copland (Piano Sonata played by the composer, Violin Sonata, and _Danz\u00f3n cubano_ played by Copland and Irving Fine).\n\n153 Joseph Szigeti (1892\u20131973), Hungarian violinist, pioneer of twentieth-century repertoire, and a friend of Bela Bart\u00f3k: Szigeti is dedicatee of the First Rhapsody and the _Contrasts_ (with Benny Goodman).\n\n154 4 July 1944, Bernstein's Ravinia debut. Reviewing the concert in the _Chicago Daily Tribune_ (5 July 1944), Claudia Cassidy commented that Szigeti \"had an off night, almost as if gremlins rode malevolently on his usually silken bow,\" but that \"the eye and ear inevitably gravitated to the slight young figure on the podium [...] A fascinating fellow, this Bernstein, dynamic, emotional, yet under complete control.\"\n\n155 8 July 1944. Szigeti was evidently back on good form. Though Claudia Cassidy in the _Chicago Daily Tribune_ (9 July 1944) noted that the Bart\u00f3k suffered from \"obvious skimpiness of rehearsal,\" she praised Szigeti's Mozart: \"played with his usual patrician serenity and with a special grace and verve for the Rondo, and the orchestra had a touch of the Mozart fire that warms rather than consumes. Mr. Bernstein conducted quietly and carefully, getting his effects more simply than before, but with no less ardor. He has what it takes to learn as he goes along.\"\n\n156 Probably Reuben's restaurant and deli at 6 East 58th Street in New York.\n\n157 Written on a royalty statement for sales from January to May 1944 of the Hargail Records discs (set MW-501) of Bernstein's Clarinet Sonata. A total of 457 copies sold in that period, with a royalty of 4\u00a2 per set, making a total of $18.28. An annotation by Helen Coates at the top of the page reads: \"Thanks for statement. Send royalty to D[avid] Opp[enheim], P.F.C. 12208749, 413th Infantry, Camp Carson, Colo[rado], U.S. Army.\" Sales of this recording seem to have been livelier than those of the sheet music: a royalty statement from M. Witmark for the three months ending 25 November 1944 lists sales of a mere nine copies of the Clarinet Sonata.\n\n158 Koussevitzky's own Concerto for Double Bass, Op. 3.\n\n159 Lukas Foss appeared with Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic's Lewisohn Stadium concerts on 14 July 1944, conducting Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major, with Bernstein as the soloist \u2013 probably the first of their many appearances together in New York.\n\n160 Herschel and Janice Levit (and their daughter Lois) became friends of Bernstein while he was studying at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia \u2013 they were introduced in 1940 by Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle. The Levits lived near Bernstein's student rooms and he became a regular visitor (often calling round to take a bath). It was in the Levits' apartment on South 22nd Street that Bernstein finished his piano arrangement of _El Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_. Humphrey Burton reports that Bernstein said their upright piano was \"just right,\" \"like a Mexican bar room piano\" (Burton 1994, p. 84).\n\n161 A reference to the Lenni Lenape tribe of American Indians who lived along the banks of the Delaware River in Pennsylvania.\n\n162 The address (noted in pencil by Bernstein on the first page of this letter) was 628 Stetson Rd, Elkins Park, PA, and it is indeed \"modern\" \u2013 in fact it's a magnificent house designed in 1940 by Louis Kahn for his friend Jesse Oser.\n\n163 The sketch enclosed with this letter is inscribed \"A happy birthday and many more glorious years for Serge Alexandrovich: with love, Lenushka, N.Y.C, July 26, 1944.\" It is an early version of what became, with very small modifications, the start of the _Age of Anxiety_ Symphony. The tempo marking is _Andante contemplativo_ (changed to _Lento moderato_ in the Symphony), otherwise the music is largely the same apart from minor changes; no instrumentation is given \u2013 in the Symphony it is played by two clarinets. It is interesting to find this idea so fully formed in Bernstein's mind as early as 1944: W. H. Auden's poem _The Age of Anxiety_ \u2013 the inspiration for the work as a whole \u2013 was not published until July 1947, three years after this sketch. The eventual work was not only first performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Koussevitzky __(on 8 April 1949), but dedicated \"To Serge Koussevitzky, in tribute\".\n\n164 In the end, the concert, given on 24 and 25 November 1944, consisted of just two works: Brahms' First Piano Concerto with Jes\u00fas Mar\u00eda Sanrom\u00e1 as the soloist, and Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony.\n\n165 See Letter 178.\n\n166 Ramin served as a Corporal (20120408) in the 84th Infantry Division. From the end of August 1944, the 84th started to arrive at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, in preparation for departure to Europe. The Division sailed on 20 September 1944 and arrived in England for training on 1 October, landing on Omaha Beach in Normandy a month later, before taking part in the Ardennes Offensive (the Battle of the Bulge). Sidney N. Ramin of Roxbury, Mass., is listed in the _Roster of Officers and Enlisted Men, 84th Infantry Division, European Theatre of Operations \u2013 World War II_ (Viking Press, 1946). During his time in the Army (in which Ramin was in Special Services), he also found time to arrange the music and conduct the orchestra in a revue called _It's All Yours_ , performed at the Stadt Theater in Heidelberg and in Paris (personal communication from Sid Ramin).\n\n167 Two of the _Seven Anniversaries_.\n\n168 When Bernstein wrote this letter he was hard at work with _On the Town_ , but the need to do something about the \"Aaron Copland side\" of his life and career was ever-present.\n\n169 An indication of the growing importance of Helen Coates in managing Bernstein's domestic affairs, as well as the difficulties of finding an apartment in New York City.\n\n170 The first performance of _Appalachian Spring_ took place in the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress on Monday, 30 October 1944.\n\n171 _On the Town_ opened at Broadway's Adelphi Theatre on 28 December 1944.\n\n172 This was one of the earliest contacts between Bernstein and his Detroit friends Philip and Barbara Marcuse. In the 1950s, the Marcuses provided a kind of model of stability for the newly married Bernsteins, and offered them warmth, advice, and support.\n\n173 Probably a broadcast of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, which Bernstein conducted in Detroit during the 1944\u20135 season.\n\n174 _On the Town_.\n\n175 This recalls a much earlier Bernstein letter to Oppenheim (see Letter 122).\n\n176 Oppenheim and Judy Holliday were married in 1948.\n\n177 Artur Rodzinski.\n3\n\nConquering Europe and Israel\n\n1945\u20139\n\nThe post-war years saw Bernstein's conducting career flourish, not only in the United States but also as the first American-born conductor to develop an extremely successful career in Europe. His letters home from London, Prague, Paris, and elsewhere are fascinating evocations of great cities recovering from war. These were also the years during which Bernstein composed some of his most serious orchestral scores: _Facsimile_ \u2013 a ballet with Jerome Robbins \u2013 and _The Age of Anxiety_ Symphony, composed for Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony. Despite the encouragement of George Abbott and Betty Comden, Bernstein did not immediately follow up the Broadway success of _On the Town_. Koussevitzky, an inspiration as well as a mentor, gave Bernstein regular opportunities to work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but their master\u2013pupil relationship was not without its difficulties, as the tense exchange of letters in December 1946 reveals: Koussevitzky objected strongly to Bernstein's proposal to program his own music in concerts with the orchestra, and Bernstein's only option was capitulation, in order to restore amicable relations. The Koussevitzky connection was not only important personally but also professionally. _The Age of Anxiety_ was commissioned by Koussevitzky, who conducted its first performance on 8 April 1949. But it was Bernstein who gave the first American performance of Britten's _Peter Grimes_ on 6 August 1946, and on 2 December 1949 the world premiere of Messiaen's _Turangal\u00eela-Symphonie_ (a work to which he never returned after the first three performances) \u2013 both of which were commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in memory of Natalie Koussevitzky. Bernstein also conducted the first European performance of Copland's Third Symphony, another Koussevitzky Foundation commission, in Prague on 25 May 1947. In other words, Bernstein's reputation for playing large-scale works that were recently composed was nurtured to a significant extent on repertoire that Koussevitzky had commissioned.\n\nIn February 1946, at a party given by the Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau, Bernstein met Felicia Montealegre. In the course of the year they grew ever closer \u2013 a relationship Bernstein chronicled in his letters to Helen Coates \u2013 and at the end of December the couple were engaged in Hollywood. Though the engagement was broken off in September the following year, they were eventually married four years later, in September 1951 \u2013 a union that both parties entered into in the full knowledge of its potential difficulties, the most significant being Bernstein's sexuality. Something of his turmoil about this is revealed in letters from Marketa Morris (the \"Frau\"), whom he consulted from the early 1940s onwards, and Ren\u00e9e Nell, another psychoanalyst Bernstein consulted in the later 1940s.\n\nBernstein's visits to Israel were to become a central part of his career, and they did much to define his Jewish identity. His letters from 1948 to his mother and sister, to Koussevitzky, and to Copland reveal something of the profound impact the country and its people had on Bernstein, the warmth and passion of his commitment to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and the joy he drew from the experience of working with these musicians. For Bernstein, conducting always had to be \"fun\" \u2013 in other words a genuinely rewarding experience \u2013 if it was to be worth doing at all, especially when he could never find enough time for composition. In the Israel Philharmonic he found an orchestra with which he was usually at his happiest, even when \u2013 as on his 1948 visit \u2013 he was confronted with an astonishingly punishing schedule, and concerts that were often interrupted by bombing raids; he was there, after all, during the Arab\u2013Israeli war. On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion had declared the establishment of a Jewish state to be called the State of Israel. War broke out the next day, and was at its height when Bernstein arrived to work with an orchestra that was not only a cultural symbol, but a potent national one as well.\n\n186. Leonard Bernstein to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle\n\n40 West 55th Street, New York, NY\n\n3 January 1945\n\nDear Ren\u00e9e,\n\nHow sweet of you to remember, and send me the Michelangelo. I adore it. I hope it was you, because it contained no card, no greeting of any sort, and I am at a loss as to what occasion it represents. New Years? Christmas? Some obscure but meaningful anniversary? The opening of the show? Paul Bowles' birthday?\n\nWell, the show [ _On the Town_ ] has opened and is a phenomenal hit, in spite of all. The reviews are fantastic raves, especially the _Times_ and _PM_ , and the _Hollywood Reporter_ , which called it the greatest musical ever produced! It's thrilling, and I would be a rich man, except that whatever money I get goes back to Uncle Samovitch for taxes. But it's nice to feel that you've earned a stupendous sum, even if you hold it only for a week.\n\nNow I am bleary with a throat infection, and a general let-down collapse, and struggling to get back into my beard (long-hair) and study Brahms' First for Pittsburgh next week. It will be fun to be back there, and this time with a whole program including _Fancy Free_ , the Ravel Concerto, _Euryanthe_ and Brahms' First. I stretch long and loud, yawn, smile, toss my mangy curls, and close with love, to get back to the _Partitur_.1 Let me hear how everything goes with you. When do you come around again?\n\nLove, and thanks again.\n\nLenny\n\nSpookietchka\n\n187. George Abbott2 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Town House, Los Angeles, CA\n\n20 February 1945\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nAccording to the calendar you must now be back in New York where I shall not arrive for another five weeks, by which time you will probably be waving your baton in some distant city.\n\nI hope soon, however, that we shall all find ourselves together again discussing _life_ and _integration_.\n\nI'll postpone that for the moment and take up the subject of opera. I have constituted myself an authority on the subject because I don't like opera; also I have seen very few operas. I find myself moved by the sheer beauty of the sound that assails me, and occasionally by the visual effect, but never by the story. I cannot get from it the feeling of being carried away (to quote from a recent musical comedy hit). Plays, movies, symphonies, novels seem to me to be artistic wholes. Operas seem magnificent anachronisms. So, when I talk of opera, in re [my] interest, I am talking about a new form which does not now exist: I am talking about something which I expect you to create. It will have integration all right, but it will be unhampered by tradition, it will use picture techniques, top dancing or any other feature that adds up to excitement \u2013 and it will ruthlessly eliminate the _ridiculous_.\n\nAs far as _On The Town_ is concerned, please don't let yourself be distressed by minor criticism from some of your pals. It is a wonderful score \u2013 a bit too profligate perhaps, too many fresh melodies thrown in where developments of existing ones would have done. That, however, was not your fault \u2013 except as you share the responsibility for an original structure that wasn't very practical \u2013 but the result of changes done in a hurry. The final result may not have accorded with the ideal upon which it was based, but it is good. And, what is more, you should feel proud that you have proved yourself so adaptable. Had you been the inflexible type, you could have gummed the whole works. In my opinion you should congratulate yourself that you have had the experience and learned so much of practical theatre matters without going through a disaster to pay for it.\n\nI read _Self-Analysis_3 on the train. I gave myself the works. But I'm afraid my subconscious is an almost empty cellar. The book more reposes in the hands of one whose subconscious is boiling away. [...] We were on the train coming out and there's a fellow who not only needs it, but who knows he needs it. We deduced that he hated his mother \u2013 we also staged _King Lear_ \u2013 it was quite a pleasant trip.\n\n_Kiss & Tell_4 is going to be a good picture. Everything is going substantially as I would have it.\n\nThe only flaw in my California life is that I have strained a muscle in my side and have to give up tennis for a few days. Since tennis is practically the rock upon which my local life is founded, I am very sulky about the matter.\n\nGive my best to Betty [Comden] and Adolph [Green] when you see them. I wish I were there. But I soon will be.\n\nYours, as always,\n\nGeorge\n\n188. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nThe Windsor [Hotel], Montreal, Canada\n\n28 February 1945\n\nDear Helen,\n\nCould you reserve two tickets for Arthur Rubinstein (for _On the Town_ , natch) for Friday eve., March 9th. And _prepaid_ , please. He's a swell guy. The concerts are great.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n189. Betty Comden to Leonard Bernstein\n\n29 April 1945\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nThis must be the first letter I have written you since those apologetic little notes of Revuer days, airily explaining why no check was enclosed \u2013 yet. No \u2013 a quiet nine piece orchestration is not what is on my mind right now. I'm spoiled forever by the sound of thirty pieces anyway.\n\nWe've been meeting with Paul [Feigay], we've been meeting with Oliver [Smith] \u2013 we've been meeting with George [Abbott] \u2013 and the last has been, needless to say, the most fun of all. And the history of these meetings is briefly this, some of which you know already: We had originally intended to get an idea and do a show with George, leaving one for P[aul] and O[liver] Inc. for some other time. But in the mean time through Bill we were approached with the idea of _The Greeks Had a Word for It_ \u2013 made into a musical about the twenties, and involving Gypsy R. Lee. After the reading of the play, which is good, we realized that it is not typical of the twenties at all \u2013 it was just done at that time \u2013 so why bother with it? Better to make up out of whole cloth and our fevered brains \u2013 a story of our own, using the twenties as a background. Much as we wanted to ignore the whole thing and concentrate on something for G.A. we couldn't help being intrigued by the period, its color and significance \u2013 and against our will got some ideas. These were enthusiastically received by everyone, and they seemed eager to plunge at once. Extremely un-anxious to face as much terrifying vagueness as we had been subjected to before, and dying to do something \u2013 anything \u2013 with George, we said we would do the thing only if he were involved. We told George all about it, and he got really excited about what we've worked out so far \u2013 has met with the Fitelson Gang, and it looks as though something will work out \u2013 a co-producing venture plus, of course, George's directorship. Being a very smart man, and not liking the idea of a \"star\" type deal (possibly involving 10% of the show \u2013 and I mean Gypsy of course), and not liking the idea of having to write a show \"around\" anyone \u2013 George doesn't think Miss Lee is essential to the show, but thinks we should get to work and write it, and if there's a part for her, fine, and if not \u2013 fine again.\n\nThings are hardly in what you would call a definite state just yet, but we have, naturally, been talking about someone who might be equipped to knock out a coupla tunes to go along with all this \u2013 and your name just happened to come up. Not having talked to you, Lenny, since our \"opera\" meeting, I have no real idea what you are planning. But word filtered down to us from Bill and Shirley, that you like the idea, but (this from the latter) that you didn't feel too keen about working with Feigay and Smith again. As you can see from the above we had a qualm or two ourselves. But now George is in the picture, very much so. And we are sort of stimulated by the prospect. Having him makes all the difference in the world.\n\nI am not going to send you a card saying \"I will\/will not do the show\" \u2013 and expect you to underline and return. But we would so love to hear from you, since talking to you is impossible for another week. Musically of course the show has terrific possibilities \u2013 and the period and theme are surprisingly significant plus allowing for lots of beauty and general appeal, as well.5 It would be wonderful to do this show with you, Lenny \u2013 of that we are sure. Please write.\n\nMuch love,\n\nBetty\n\n190. Izso (Isadore) Glickstein6 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n7 May 19457\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nPlease accept my heartfelt thanks for the wonderful gift you sent me. I enjoy immensely playing and singing your finale of _Jeremiah_.8\n\nYou have brought more dignity to the Jewish people than anyone else I know.\n\nI had breakfast with your father today and he told me you may be at Burton's Bar-Mitzvah. I hope you will.\n\nGod bless you!\n\nI. G. Glickstein\n\n191. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein\n\n13 May 1945\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nIt was rather nice seeing you the other night at Al and Dick's.9 What with your letter and our chance meeting, I thought that maybe (as you said) we could get \"that old show out of our heads\" and do some work. However I have just finished reading the interviews in _Dance Magazine_.10 Have you seen them? Well, in yours, you talk about the trilogy idea based on _Fancy Free_ , even mentioning _Bye Bye Jackie_11 by name and describing the material. And somehow, Leonard, it all sounds like your idea, and to boot my name isn't even connected with my own registered play.12\n\nNow it all might be the fault of the interviewer, and if it is, too bad, because it makes you appear to be dishonest. But if it is something you did yourself, it is a low, dirty trick \u2013 and I wouldn't try it again. Fortunately the majority of people in the dance world already know about _Bye Bye Jackie_ and the Theatre Guild and others have read it, so that if and when it's done, it won't seem that you have supplied my material and ideas.\n\nI don't like writing a letter like this. But I thought it best we get straightened out on things like this. We are well suited to work together as far [as] talents are concerned, and it would be good if we could manage to do some more ballets. But this kind of business is not a good gesture either as a friend or business associate. So let's have no more of it.\n\nSincerely,\n\nJerry\n\n192. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Bernstein\n\nMexico City, Mexico\n\n24 June 1945\n\nQueridisima Hermanita,\n\nI'll be home very soon. I leave tomorrow. I love this place madly, but I can't wait to get back. I go to Hollywood tomorrow, where [Irving] Rapper has arranged a dinner for me which includes my following fans, believe it or not: Bette Davis, Cary Grant, Van Johnson, Ethel Barrymore, Judy Garland, Dana Andrews, _and others_. Want to join me there?\n\nM\u00fc la d\u00fc,\n\nLad\u00fcm\n\nBought you a _fantastic_ opal!\n\n193. Bette Davis13 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nRiver Bottom, [Glendale, CA]\n\n[late June 1945]\n\nLeonard,\n\nThis is to say hello, that I will be listening Sunday, and any other time I know you will be on the air \u2013 to say I hope so very much \u2013 opportunity will often present itself so I can see you again, and to say \u2013 you and your music came along when I needed them desperately. I had hit a new low, and since being exposed to your mighty talents, I am on high \u2013 there is probably nothing in the world so encouraging for the future of the world as a super talent in someone \u2013 it is the only true inspiration and help in believing the world is really worthwhile. I feel privileged to have spent an evening with you \u2013 and thank you so much for playing for me when I know you didn't feel like it. It is an evening I will always remember with the most enormous pleasure. It is hard to have all this _said_ to one, I know that. Thus the _written_ expression of my delight at meeting you.\n\nIrving14 has very nicely been willing to be messenger boy for me \u2013 wish I were my own messenger boy and could be there to _see_ you conduct. You won't mind if I become a 1945 version of Madame von Meck, as regards you.15 There are some changes in the script already. We have seen each other \u2013 that is not according to style \u2013 and financially there is no similarity. The only resemblance:\n\n1. I am older.\n\n2. I adore your music.\n\n3. I like you.\n\nBye for now.\n\nBette\n\nP.S. If you ever have time, send me an autographed photograph, would you:\n\n\"A real fan I am \u2013 Leonard Bernstein.\"16\n\n194. Bette Davis to Leonard Bernstein\n\nRiver Bottom, [Glendale, CA]\n\n[after 1 July 1945]\n\nDear Piotr,\n\nThat is not the right spelling \u2013 but you get the idea. Your wire I adored. A letter I wrote you for Irving to take to you in San Francisco is still waiting for him to pick up \u2013 he went a day too early. When I have recovered it, will send it on.\n\nI am in bed with a cold, and loved my hour with you and your music from San Francisco. Only one thought: if they have you must they inflict upon us Mr. S.17 \u2013 a duller violinist never lived in my opinion. If you disagree we will talk about that later. The rubles I am saving up to bring in person. Anyway you were very sweet to wire \u2013 I so hope I see you soon. Your _Fancy Free_ music is \u2013 well \u2013 it is Bernstein, and musically I can give you no greater compliment in my opinion. My letter written a few days ago still goes \u2013 the Baroness Von Davis adores your music and likes you \u2013 till later.\n\nBette.\n\nI sent your stockings off to be framed today. We created great gossip, all because you asked me to sit beside you at the party while you were playing. Such simple basic people the Hollywood person is. I am flattered \u2013 hope you are \u2013 all jealousy and I don't blame them. Will drink a toast to you every Wednesday night, in memory of the Wednesday last week when I first heard you play \u2013 I am only furious about one thing, that all the time you were here last summer I didn't have the chance to meet you \u2013 it is so silly.\n\nBye again.\n\nB\n\n195. Bette Davis to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Summer 1945]\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nIrving and I are working together. The set \u2013 so Irving says \u2013 is very like your apartment.18 If so how you must love it. I was most happy to contribute for your composer \u2013 and hope his career proves to be all you feel it is.\n\nRead about you so very often in the _New York Times_ \u2013 my bible of New York \u2013 and it is so wonderful to know that your triumphs continue. It must be a great satisfaction to you. Your Madame Von Meck \u2013 me \u2013 is very proud \u2013 only feels slighted that no requests for funds have been forthcoming \u2013 can't I get you into my debt somehow? You are not living up to your predecessor \u2013 he was much more helpless. Thank you for your message about my marriage.\n\nThat was as far as I got last week. In the meantime, I banged my head on the windshield and was away for a couple of days, but a hard Yankee head is able to take it, thank god. Our picture progresses very well today \u2013 maybe my head was injured after all \u2013 anyway my best to you Lennie \u2013 and here's to our next meeting. It was so nice to hear from you. Love,\n\nB. Von Meck.\n\nBette\n\n196. David Oppenheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n7 August 1945\n\nLensky,\n\nDid I dream that you called me the \"laziest guy I know\" or did you actually say it? Let me know. Future relations may depend on it. The actual quote was: \"Besides your other faults you are the laziest guy I know\". My impression is that you merely stated the thing as a fact without anger. A good thing.\n\nThe new atomic bomb is the most frightening thing that has happened ever ever.19 Why am I the only one I know to realize this? The whole future of mankind depends on its future use. Imagine what could happen if a few unscrupulous men were to control the principle. Or what a counter-revolutionary device it is. Or how it makes a war with Russia more possible. And when you figure it is still in its primitive stages.\n\nOf course the good it can do should not be underestimated, & really referring to the principle of atomic power, not the bomb. Men are knocking at the portals of heaven (you may quote me).\n\nWhen mother said there was a call from Montreal this morning I was a bit scared that something was the matter. I'm glad you called though. After you left Monday I felt very blue. Hearing you cheered me up. [...] I hope to hell you do get out to Frisco. My time would be so limited. You might have to meet me someplace to make it all worthwhile. We'll see later.\n\nI have started _The Well of Loneliness_20 but I have little patience for anything just now, being worn out, nervous as a cat and as irritable. Reaction to 30 days of hard living & no sleep. In fact after you called I had breakfast, read the paper and went to sleep for 6 more hours.\n\nMother sends regards to you and to Helen.\n\nI have to stop now before I fidget right off the chair.\n\nPlease don't be lonesome. Be happy, serene and effective & write!\n\nLove,\n\nDave\n\n197. Marketa Morris21 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nCountry Club House, Tannersville, NY\n\n21 August [1945]22\n\nMy dear Lenny,\n\nI just read an article about the possibility of your going to Hollywood. Shall I congratulate you?\n\nIt seems that your decision of not continuing with our work is now a definite one \u2013 so that a few words of mine won't disturb your decision. Of course I would like to get some information about your trip to Mexico, your plans for the next future and last [but] not least how you feel mentally!\n\nIf you feel that writing or talking to me could still influence you and that you are sort of uncomfortable or afraid of it \u2013 skip it please and let's wait.\n\nNot only am I personally interested but I also would like to have your report for my records. But \u2013 I am repeating \u2013 _only_ if it _doesn't interfere with your emotions_.\n\nI am enclosing something which might interest you.\n\nHow do you feel about the Peace?\n\nSincerely yours,\n\nMarketa M.\n\nTo the 5 of September: Tannersville N.Y., Country Club House.\n\n198. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nNew Hotel Jefferson, St. Louis, MO\n\nSaturday [1 September 1945]\n\nAaron darling,\n\nWell, the monstrous experiment of juxtaposing you and Ch\u00e1vez turned out to be just that \u2013 a monstrous experiment \u2013 but such fun! [...] Everyone loves your piece \u2013 and, strangely, the _Sinfonia India_ was a big hit. One of those Bernstein surprises.\n\nI love you & miss you \u2013 and here are the reviews. It gets lonely: won't you send a slight letter? Too many people & dinners & dullards here. Nice \u2013 but what happens after midnight.\n\nSee you velly soon.\n\nLove\n\nL\n\nI'm here til next Sunday (9th).\n\n199. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nNew Hotel Jefferson, St. Louis, MO\n\nThurs [September 1945]\n\nMy darling A,\n\n[...] I wish you were here. How about dropping in on me suddenly, like a visit? I have a suite, and it's not far. We'd really have a vacation. I've banged my head around over these programs for Paris (I hope it's still on) and come up with these:\n\nI.\n\nSchuman: Prayer\n\nV. Thomson: Five Portraits\n\nBarber: Violin Concerto\n\n\u2014\n\nBernstein: Jeremiah\n\nGershwin: Am[erican] in Paris\n\nII.\n\nPiston: Concerto\n\nHarris: Symph no. 3\n\nBlitzstein: Freedom Slop23\n\n\u2014\n\nRandall Thompson: Scherzo from Symph II\n\nSessions: Adagio from Symph\n\nCopland: Lincoln or Billy\n\nThat seems to take care of everybody (except D[avid] D[iamond]), and the programs are a little long, but not too much so. And boy, they're hard! Most of the pieces are short, no? I don't think either program is over an hour and a half. What do you think? Couldn't I play the Ravel Concerto on the European program, and your Piano Sonata on the chamber music?\n\nI offer no cheery word on the subject of your father, since I know you're the best one in the world at that.24 But I hope you're better, and back in stride: I refuse to take _arthritis_ seriously in you! It doesn't go at all.\n\nI love you, and hope you'll write soon, if you don't drop around personally; my love to Victor & Ted.\n\nL\n\nThe St. Louis Jazz Society is taking me on a tour of old Southern jazz haunts tonight!\n\n200. David Oppenheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n19 September 1945\n\nDear Len,\n\nI read in the paper and Shirl tells me that you are up to the neck in auditions. How does it look? Many vacancies to fill? How does your clarinet section shape up? If I were to get out could you hire me for next season or can't you fire a man merely because you have someone else you would rather have play in his place? What does 1st clarinet pay in your orch? Naturally that is the prime consideration. Gotta compare your offer with dozens of others. If I am not let out in time and Local 66 doesn't reinstate me, we will have union trouble.\n\nAll the above assuming you don't run in to a great virtuoso of the licorice st\u00fcchel to replace hypothetical me. Don't!\n\nI've been getting down to L.A. to my Aunt Pauline's for some quiet outdoor weekends, complete [with] charcoal broiled breakfast \u2013 eggs, bacon et al.\n\nMy cousin Judy is here now. She is the one (do you remember) who introduced herself and a hundred other kids to you as my cousin in Detroit. Wonderful charming 15 yr old colt \u2013 the only girl cousin on mother's side of the family \u2013 my pet. She saw you at the Berkshire concert this year.\n\nNothing much to say. I'm grand, as Shirl puts it, except for the old army disease, lackanookie. And not a thing to do about it here. Well, can't keep me in for ever. Congress would raise too big a stink.\n\nLove,\n\nDave\n\n_Seymour's address?_\n\n201. David Oppenheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\nUnited States Army\n\n20 September 1945\n\nBoy, are you lucky \u2013 the second letter from me in as many days. But I just got your note. And it was so good hearing from you that I just had to write.\n\nI had no idea that your season was just 12 weeks. I did imagine though that the wages would be low, being paid by the city etc. Too bad you got going so late. Still, 12 weeks is a short season and it kills the season for a musician. I can see where it is hard getting the right players. What is the net result now? How do you stock up and can you whip them into something that satisfies you and that can play modern things? I think you can.\n\nHere is my setup. Quite a while ago it was announced that men with 45 points up to May 12th and\/or 50 up to Sept 2nd would not be sent overseas. I had 47 on the first count, 52 on the second. OK.\n\nToday an order came out restricting to the camp area all men with between 45 and 59 points. These men (me) will be shipped someplace by the 24th \u2013 Monday (this being Thursday). So almost by the time you receive this I will be entrained for my new station. What, what, what for, or why for, I don't know. Maybe training cadre for new recruits or processing cadre for dischargees. I wish I knew. I don't, but I'll let you know along with my new address. Pray that I am shipped a few thousand miles _East_.\n\nI was supposed to go to Frisco, Sunday through Thursday, for some kind of parade, but now it is off. I was planning to wire you tonight for Seymour's address.\n\nAfter a month, a good month too, of feeling in contact and in tune and in love with Mad, I suddenly find myself out of contact. I wish I understood why. It has happened before, but without much reason, that has to do with thinking and dreaming too much about her. I don't know why this should have the effect it did, if it did. But that is the way it is. Here, away from you all, your memories remain clear and bright for a while, then suddenly dim and it leaves me very much alone. But I am stronger now than ever and I don't feel unduly depressed. _I miss you all, and it all_.\n\nI haven't slept well either. I sleep, yes. But not the timeless death sleep I used to sleep. When I wake up now I am aware of every hour, the full 8. The way it used to be, I felt as though I had just closed my eyes when I got up. Now it is like I feel when I am sleeping with someone, e.g., slightly conscious because of the fear of rolling too much and waking them up. And I dream now too. At my aunt Pauline I practically floated off the couch two nights in a row. And who was the lucky girl? Aunt Pauline. Aren't I awful though.\n\nI'm looking for a score to _Daphnis_. Can you help without troubling too much.\n\nDon't pills help your sleeping? Or don't you want to try that? When the season or the rehearsals begin you will be better. Meanwhile try doing one thing at a time, forgetting the rest and stop having emotional orgasms. Why you have done all you can, that is enough. Forget it and go to sleep, relax, play some game etc. Really, Lensky, you may be the world's best musician, but you need some looking after \u2013 and some common sense. After all what is _really_ important. You, or whatever it is you are beating your head against the wall about?\n\nAnd don't dare say I don't understand how much I don't understand how much it means to have the right kind of players etc. But a little horse sense, or you won't be conducting anything after 40. You'll have ulcers, diabetes, angina and coronary thrombosis etc. etc. etc. Christ man. Take it easy. Do I have to desert to see that you do?\n\nTell Shirley I'll write her soon. And hello to Helen please.\n\nLove,\n\nDave\n\n202. Mildred Spiegel to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Boston, MA]\n\n25 September 1945\n\nDear Pete,25\n\nI was asked by an organization in Boston to write to you for them. The United Order of True Sisters (in existence for 70 years and founded to benefit crippled children) would like to know if you could play for them \u2013 from 30 to 45 minutes \u2013 at a luncheon and meeting at the Copley Plaza \u2013 Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 29th. They want to pay you $200 plus all expenses. It is to be their biggest affair of the season and they naturally want a big attraction to help them raise a lot of money. They maintain rooms in the Children's Hospital and work in conjunction with the Harvard Commission on infantile paralysis.\n\nOf course I told them about the busy year you have ahead of you, etc., and that the date might conflict, etc., but I'd write you anyway.\n\nI am in no way connected with this group so please don't feel that a refusal would in any way affect me personally \u2013 just do as you like about it. If you can make it, they'd like lighter stuff \u2013 some Chopin, your Liszt Rhapsodie, some boogie-woogie and you can talk too if you don't want to play all the time.\n\nI know you're terribly busy these days, so have Helen drop me a note so that I can tell them your answer.\n\nThings are getting gradually better all the time \u2013 had my first Hershey bar in years today \u2013 also had lunch with Re La Mi.26\n\nGonna see your ballet again next week \u2013 the same night as _Undertow_ and _The Gift of the Magi_ \u2013 Lukas conducts.\n\n[...]\n\nBest of luck for the orchestra. I know it will be a brilliant yearrrr. Will hear you in February. Take care of yourself and get some sleep some time.\n\nMuch love to you and Helen from\n\nMildred\n\n203. Joseph Szigeti to Leonard Bernstein\n\nPalos Verdes Estates, CA\n\n1 October 1945\n\n[Telegram]\n\nJust learned with shock of Bart\u00f3k's death.27 Would it be possible for us to give part of your program pair December 31 January 1 or failing that January 21, 22nd as Bart\u00f3k memorial with one orchestral work and the Portrait in D major and Rhapsody #1 dedicated to me. Naturally no fee involved. These two works take only 19 minutes together. Am doing Berg memorial with Metropolis [Mitropoulos] General Motors December 30. Rhapsody which we played at Ravinia would have first New York performance.\n\nJoseph Szigeti\n\n204. David Oppenheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n4 October 1945\n\nDear Len,\n\nJust a few interestin' facts about some interestin' people we know.\n\nI saw Seymour [Meyerson] in Frisco. Both he and the town are fine. I like him very much. We had a good time roller-coasting etc. [...] That we missed you was obvious in the way the conversation kept turning back to you. He is a great guy, Len. An amazing combination of artiness and common everydayness, plus a healthy objective interest in people and things that make him nice to be with.\n\nAnd the town is wonderful. I like the hills, water, fog, crooked angling streets, cable cars and the variety of good bars and restaurants. Lots of music too. If my aunt weren't here in L.A. I would go to S.F. on these 3 day passes. But I enjoy even more than S.F. a place to stay and vegetate. I hate the eternal search for rooms and walking lonely streets in search of companionship, that goes with being in a big town minus connections. And I could never get there enough to make any lasting ones.\n\nI thought that your _P.M._ interview was swell, esp. the statement on government sponsorship of music and art etc. But tell me more. How would it work out in relation to other private endeavors as regards comparative wages and as to who is used etc. It could be another political football. I am definitely interested in the idea though.\n\nThat is all! You don't deserve more.\n\nLove,\n\nDave\n\nTell Shirl that I will write, and soon.\n\n_Hello Helen!_\n\n205. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\n1239 Broadway, New York, NY\n\npostmark 8 October 1945\n\nDave Dollink,\n\nYou dope. I've been delaying writing you in hopes of receiving your new address. Your last letter said you were on your way \u2013 and here you are, exactly as before. Anyway, it's a pleasure to have word again.\n\nI'm awfully happy that you and Seymour [Meyerson] hit it off. He's a top-notch kid, and so are you, of course, so it's a natural. I did receive your little recordings, but they wouldn't make [i.e. work] on my machine. Finally (yesterday) I hit on a plan for making them go, and was finally able to distinguish some highly hysterical (or drunk) carrying-on about roller-coasters & trolleys. But you both talk simultanacklach, so most of it is lost to posterity. Excellent spirit, though.\n\nTonight's my big, big night.28 I'm a nervous wreck, but the orchestra is so fabulous and excited and young and interested and in tune and precise and enthusiastic, etc., etc., that if it's not a hit tonight I won't understand it. (Aaron's _Outdoor Overture_ , Shostakovich 1st [Symphony], Brahms 2nd [Symphony].) And the latter is a joy.\n\nYou really ought to hear it. Aaron was at the rehearsal this morning, and said \u2013 \"At last we have American Brahms \u2013 lyrical, like a popular song.\" I'm happy.\n\nI miss you like the devil. So what _is_ happening to you? Don't be so vague.\n\nEwige Liebe,\n\nLenny.\n\nYour remarks on government subsidy are to the point. It's a matter of reconciling this with the popular interpretation of the \"democratic method\". I'm thinking of agitating for a public referendum in NYC. Much love \u2013 and if you come across the article on me in _Collins'_ disregard half of it as pure invention.\n\n206. Rosalyn Tureck29 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n448 Riverside Drive, New York, NY\n\n5 November 1945\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nAt long last, here is your \"personality analysis\". I cannot take these things seriously but they are wonderful fun especially since the person who did it does not know to whom the doodling belongs.\n\nAccording to the analysis it looks as tho you must face the fact that you definitely fit into the genius category. As far as I am concerned from what I heard in your conducting the other night, you do.\n\nI hope to see you at the party after my recital on the 12th.\n\nRegards,\n\nRosalyn\n\n[Enclosed with this letter is the \"Personality Profile\" for Bernstein:]\n\nThis person's character shows a peculiar and great singleness of purpose. The sex development is practically nil and the personality which might have started to assert itself at one stage in the man's development has become completely absorbed by career.\n\nThe career is complex. Its division is almost geometric and the line of demarcation, very clear. For each phase of the career, there is a well thought-out and deliberate development. The dark areas indicate the creative and the white areas the mechanical. The mechanical seems to dominate the subject and he is more curious about the development of it at this stage than he is about his creative development. There is one point about the career, which seems to come early in the middle life, which indicates the great peak of success. The subject will have attained a very happy balance of creation and mechanics.\n\nThe sex symbol is interesting in that the line \u2013 the only line connecting it and the rest of the personality chart \u2013 extends right to the career symbol. This indicates that the subject's development is completely concentrated in his career. His personality symbol shows the same direction. There is no embellishment, no additions to it, there is no sign that any development of self has been accomplished. The sign connecting it with the career is merely two extensions from the sex symbol.\n\nIt is interesting to note that, in spite of the fact that the sex symbol is not developed as a physical unit, it is present and the aesthetic aspects of it will be found in this man's career creations later in life.\n\nThis man may not be a good mathematician, but he has an excellently organized mind. It is well disciplined as demonstrated by the complete lack of extraneous matter. It is also the mind of a purist.\n\nThis man has great ego-maniacal tendencies and will often go to bizarre ends to gain a point. By nature though, he is retiring and socially shy. His great ego, however, serves as a shield against society.\n\nA fruitful creative life is indicated, but an extremely lonely social life will be his lot.\n\n207. Joseph Szigeti to Leonard Bernstein\n\nPalos Verdes Estates, CA\n\n27 October 1945\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI am delighted that I have at last succeeded in wresting [Harl] McDonald's30 permission to play the Bart\u00f3k pieces with you on March 4th and 5th \u2013 that is, a fortnight before my appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Carnegie Hall. I am intensely looking forward to doing the Bart\u00f3ks with you; you know how much he means to me.\n\nI hope that Elkan Vogel of Philadelphia has already sent you the Bart\u00f3k _Portrait_ Opus Five [No. 1]. It was at Bart\u00f3k's express wish that I revived this forgotten piece of his in Budapest in 1939. He was present at the rehearsals and of course at the concert too, and admitted that this forgotten youthful work of his still meant a great deal to him. (I think it must have been written around 1905 or 6.)\n\nIn the score he gave me, he made a few slight retouches which I will show you in December when I am playing in New York with Mitropoulos. He cuts out the two trombones on page 13, and the first harp \u2013 i.e. one of the two harps \u2013 on page 15.\n\nAs to rehearsals, here is my schedule immediately before our concert: February 26th, Baltimore; 27th, Washington; March 1st afternoon, Baltimore, Peabody; March 3d Sunday afternoon, New York City, Frick Museum. So you can dispose of my time, say on Saturday afternoon, March 2d, and Monday and Tuesday morning.\n\nAll good wishes, and au revoir in December.\n\nYours ever,\n\nJ\u00f3ska\n\n208. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\n1239 Broadway, New York, NY\n\n11 November [1945]\n\nArmistice Day. Ha.\n\nDollink Dovidl,\n\nI'm a swine. I haven't written a word in almost a month. Which is not to say that I wasn't thrilled at this seeming prelude to a discharge \u2013 or is it? And which is not to say that I miss you like crazy, & wish you home, and in my magnificent orchestra. Of course there would be union difficulties, since I don't suppose you're in this local. That's a big headache. Same is true of Jesse Ehrlich, who is getting out next week. I have huge hopes & plans for next season \u2013 all my favorite guys in the orchestra, 24 weeks at least, a commercial radio sponsorship, which looks very likely, and a greatly increased Victor recording contract, which I've already got.\n\nSeymour [Meyerson] has _not_ been here, but seems to be arriving this week \u2013 just when I'm about to leave for a week in your favorite city of Rochester. I'm doing _Jeremiah_ there for the first time, with a mezzo soprano named Zelda Goodman, a student at the school. She's sweet, and it ought to be fun. Last week was Cincinnati \u2013 great triumph \u2013 and this week I had my 3rd pair with my _own_ \u2013 do you hear? \u2013 my own orchestra. They're the best yet. So much love for music makes them sound as no other organization. And I could still use you in it. And how.\n\nI've just returned from a run-through of Adolph & Betty's new show.31 It's a killer, a beast, and slumps only in regard to the score, which is fine but dullish, like so much Gould.32 If that boy had an iota of real _personal personality_ he'd be the best one around. But, alas.\n\nBe a good guy and don't copy my delay in writing. Aren't you ever coming back \u2013\n\nAll my love,\n\nL\n\n209. Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle to Leonard Bernstein\n\n814 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD\n\nJour de la Ste Ren\u00e9e, 12 November 1945\n\nCher P'tit Kietchka,\n\nHow to begin... I don't know! \u2013 because last week and now the next few days make my heart very full of you, for many \"anniversaries\" are now crowding in together with a very pleasant feeling of pride and well-being while basking in and relishing your musical doings.\n\nIn two days it will be two years that you had your \"big chance\" \u2013 as they say \u2013 and as all of us who know you _knew_ , you've kept right on.\n\nI need not gush and certainly do not want to, for my appreciation of your talents and all attendant accessories is more deeply and dignifyingly rooted than that.\n\nHowever, since it seems a total impossibility to get to you or see you unhurriedly and en \"t\u00eate \u00e0 t\u00eate amical\" I _must_ write and tell you how completely satisfying it is to know you, and to find you growing and maturing all the time; even though there is still more to be done and reached.\n\nMy second visit to your orchestra rehearsal last Monday pleased me far more than the first, mainly because you did so much that was really beautiful with the Mozart, and what is more you put it across.33\n\nYou know what my criticism of the last movement's tempo was (even though Helen said to me beamingly that it was a real Koussy clip, therefore marvelous) \u2013 I don't agree. Should that be a criticism? Koussy always takes _El Sal\u00f3n_ at a more deliberate pace than it is meant, or so I've heard, yet _you_ don't play it that way.\n\nOf course we all know what a temptation it is to play faster than necessary or slower in slow movements; but again, Lenny, _you_ of all people must not give in to that sort of thing. Your sense of tempi is usually so completely right, please don't lose your balance and throw us off ours. But, the rest of the Mozart was so good and so very elegant and nicely wrought that it was a real delight to hear.\n\nWhy did you not tell me that you are doing _La Cr\u00e9ation du monde_ at your next concert? Lucky I got the N.Y. paper yesterday for the first time in months!! So I'll be at rehearsal next Monday together with a young friend who cannot attend the concerts, since she works from 3 or 4 on till 11 p.m. (Please tell Helen to put me and Geraldine Viti on the list for admittance.)\n\nSomehow, Randall's symphony let me down. I had a more exalted recollection of it... very likely because it had been your first conductorial vehicle and I must have been more eyes, heart and anxiety than ears then.\n\nLast night, more nostalgia besieged me... you will know why when I tell you I went to see _Of Mice and Men_ again. Five years have elapsed; and it is just as new, strong and right as it was. It very likely will be so for many years. Aaron's music is so right for it too. It is a very poignant experience. Thanks for all time Lenny for having introduced me to Aaron's music.\n\nWhy did you not warn me and tell me Marc was back and not looking so well? I could not recognize him \u2013 a dreadful feeling \u2013 only when that marvelous smile of his burst forth did I know who it was... Oh! but what infinite sadness in that smile, darling \u2013 I was shocked. What's happened?\n\nWhen are you to conduct in Boston? And where will you be on November 23, 24, 25?\n\nAll my love,\n\nRen\u00e9e\n\nP.S. Please remember to bring your cuff-links to rehearsal on Monday. You know I want to have them engraved.\n\n210. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\nNew Hotel Jefferson, St. Louis, MO\n\npostmark 27 November 1945\n\nDave,\n\nIf it weren't for the fact that you'll probably be out of the army and living around the corner from me by the time I return to NYC, I should be all wails and drama at this moment. Such a teaser as last week with you was! It hit me most clearly as the train pulled out of Penn Station, and I realized that we hadn't even said hello. Maybe we'll never really have to say hello again. Wide-eyed idealism.\n\nHave yourself a time in New York, and be very good to Seymour [Meyerson]. You're so good together, and I like to think of you as reciprocally understanding, even complementary. Singly you're vastly superior guys. Together you're practically God. Let me hear from you in this bleak, foggy place, where, of all things, a charming southern thunderstorm is now raging. The streets are very dark and full of lonely faces. The hotel is very bright and full of lonely faces.\n\nMuch love,\n\nL\n\n211. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nLimestone Road, Ridgefield, CT\n\nTuesday [?4 December 1945]\n\nMuy querido chatito,\n\nHere is your \"slight letter\". It's being written from the top of a bleak looking ridge on which sits perched a little house in which sits writing little me to you. I've been here since Sunday. Whether I stay the winter or not depends on whether I can get old Posh34 up and down the garage without falling off the cliff. The main assets to the house are 1) a nice work room with Steinway grand and 2) a lovely view out the Steinway window. But the ground is snow covered and makes me think longingly of Cuba.\n\nI missed Leinsdorf's concert35 \u2013 being here \u2013 and couldn't even get the broadcast. But last week I was in Cambridge listening to Faur\u00e9 for two days36 \u2013 and discussing tangled Tanglewood problems with Judd & Koussie. (Did you know that Rodzinski offered his place for sale in the _Times_ \u2013 for $40,000? Maybe you'd like to buy it \u2013 in which case I could rent a room from you at $6 per week. Otherwise maybe I'd better write to Mrs. MacSomething Furniss for a house.) Kouss empowered me as ass't problem unraveller to invite you on the faculty \u2013 _and_ \u2013 aside from _Grimes_ being at his exercise, there is a good possibility \u2013 says Kouss \u2013 that he will invite you to conduct a Festival concert of your own. Maybe you'd like to dash off the text for a pageant for the Music & Culture people, which also seems to be on Kouss' mind. Well \u2013 sounds like a busy summer. (Stravinsky says maybe he'll come, but no definite answer until Jan 15.)\n\nI've tried to imagine what the [ _Sinfonia_ ] _India_ and _Sal\u00f3n_ sound like juxtaposed \u2013 but the mind rebels (Antheil in his book says I composed the _Sal\u00f3n_ in the Hollywood-Franklin Hotel, which he recommended to me. How do you like that for hanging on to the skirts of fame?) Anyway St. Louis seems to have accorded the familiar L.B. triumph.\n\nDave O[ppenheim] came to see me. He's a sweetheart. And so are you \u2013 (but for very different reasons).\n\nL[ove],\n\nA\n\nP.S. My phone no. Ridgefield 637 \u2013 Ring one three.\n\nP.P.S. Thanks to you I'm now a member of the Baldwin family.\n\nP.P.P.S. I'm writing a Symphony \u2013 just in case you forgot.37\n\n212. Seymour Meyerson38 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nCamp John T. Knight, Oakland, CA\n\n5 December 1945\n\nThat you, Lennie!\n\nMy return to the Oakland Army Base was heralded by the collective \"Did you have a good time?\" and made official when everyone in our section walked me over to the PX39 for gooey ice-cream sundaes and lots of cakes.\n\nFlying time was approximately 22 hours, with far too many waits for re-fuelling and what seemed like stupid and pointless conversations between our pilots and the Commanding Officers of the different fields. Navy goes in for a helluva lot of tradition which makes Army routine seem much more sensible simply by contrast.\n\nAt any rate, Dave [Oppenheim] and I have solved our transportation problem, and will probably return the same way. [...]\n\nThe night Helen [Coates] invited me to see _Der Rosenkavalier_ with her at the Met, we had dinner at the Damascus Gardens, a small Armenian restaurant on 32nd Street. The conversation as we ate was highly personal, and I tried to avoid a good many of her questions. The thing that continually surprised me was not how much she knew about your sex life (in itself kind of \"shocking\") but how she accepted it, and sought to discover what satisfactory arrangements could be made for you in order to [be] assured that your career would not suffer. You can imagine how perplexed and embarrassed I felt, but since she was so frank I thought it was all right to listen, and also to see just how far her knowledge ran. The greatest shock for her was the idea that you would one day marry and have a family. The slightest mention of this idea caused her to tremble. I was very much caught by the look in her eyes, that expression which inferred an end to her way of life with you, should some \"other\" woman enter your life. Maybe that's why she can afford to be so tolerant towards your perversity?\n\nSeeing David this coming Saturday. Do you think February will really come?\n\nMuch love,\n\nSeymour\n\n213. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\n1239 Broadway, New York, NY\n\npostmark 18 December 1945\n\nDovidl,\n\nNu? The last I heard was from Seymour \u2013 that he was in doubt as to whether you ever reached camp by 8:00 a.m. after your bout with a stray damozel in a S.F. apartment. Watch it, baby: no point in fucking up your chances for immediate discharge. And I hear you are now being groomed for Wall Street.\n\nI am collapsed at the moment with a tough concert tonight,40 and very little energy. Christmas will be nothing but sleep, eat and you know. My sun lamp helps somewhat.\n\nSt. Louis was a joy. What a _La Mer_! And an immaculate 5th Brandenburg.\n\nGreat love to you.\n\nCome back.\n\nL\n\n214. Leonard Bernstein to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle\n\nRidgefield, CT\n\npostmark 31 December 1945\n\nDear R\u00e9lami,\n\nYour invitation came just a little bit too late for me to change my commitments. Funny you should have asked me and Aaron, because here I am at his sweet snowbound little country house, one hour from New York, and without that slightest indication that New York exists even one hundred miles from here. Anyway it was sweet as hell of you to ask us, and I hope you have a real good rest. To say nothing of a very happy and prosperous Nouvelle Ann\u00e9e.\n\nWhat do you think of our friend Hendl?41 Were you there by any chance? I was out of town conducting, unfortunately, and missed the excitement, but I'm sure it was swell.\n\nWhen does Claude get back?\n\nAaron sends his best, and I my love.\n\nSpook\n\n215. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\n1239 Broadway, New York, NY\n\npostmark 19 January 1946\n\nDear Davrelink,\n\nThere's a limit to this silence routine. You _are_ supposed to be out, you know. And then comes word from Seymour [Meyerson] that you're very much _in_ , and that he's just seen you in your new layout. What, may I ask, is giving? What is the Hotel Vanderbilt?42 Was your letter written from there implying that you lived there? Are you still dully employed in financeering? Of course I wouldn't dream of anyone else's playing the Klarinetten piece \u2013 but I've had to assign it tentatively to Hoffman, since you said you'd be out in January and here it is almost February. Tell all, and very quickly since time wastes fast, and anyway I miss hearing from you.\n\nYour letter was wonderful but so N!43 I couldn't answer sooner because I've been tearing around the globe again \u2013 but now it's serious. Let me know.\n\nI've been in Rochester a second time (playing the piano too) and seeing no sign of orchestral resentment. Who told you that anyway? They love you there, and your licorice44 teacher even expected you might play Ea on our tour in March. On the other hand Bill Schuman loved you too. (You really impressed him, you charm-monger.) But Juilliard is overcrowded to the bursting point. What will you do? Tell all, my love.\n\nLove, my love,\n\nL\n\nI leave Wednesday for Cincinnati, so write immediately. My love to Seymour & San Fran.\n\n216. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein\n\nLate Monday night [21 January 1946]45\n\nLen,\n\nIt was a really wonderful concert tonight. I'd never heard you really play anything but _Fancy_ and _Town_ \u2013 & the Bach was quite an exciting experience. Then the Stravinsky was new to me \u2013 & God! What an experience. 3 Bravos for that alone. I rode along on the _Don Juan_ nicely anticipating the Variations \u2013 & then I sat & chuckled & gurgled & beamed & nodded & emphasized & had a wonderful time. They sounded marvelously \u2013 & the only complaint was a little something on the encore of Harold's dance, trying to picture him keeping up with it. But it sounded wonderfully unsaddled by dancers.\n\nSo thank you for a very special evening of music. Good luck & continuous success.\n\nJerry\n\n217. Joseph Szigeti to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe King Cotton [Hotel], Greensboro, NC\n\n2 February 1946\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nI was so sorry not to have been able to call you last week but the only time I had was on the day of your _Symphonie de Psaumes_ and I didn't want to bother you _then_! I listened in on Monday and was greatly impressed by your performance.\n\nAs to the order of the two Bart\u00f3k pieces I know it would be more orthodox to play _Portrait_ and then _Rhapsody_ but I have the inescapable feeling that the reverse order would be more _right_! The sturdy, \"typical\" Bart\u00f3k first and then this unexpected \"horizontal\" piece... Especially as it is in a way a \"memorial\", the transcendent ending of _Portrait_ seems more appropriate than the brusque (and not very effective) ending of _Rhapsody_.\n\nIn haste, all good things to you!\n\nYours ever,\n\nJ\u00f3ska\n\n218. Leonard Bernstein to Carlos Moseley46\n\n1239 Broadway, New York, NY\n\n23 February 1946\n\nDear Carlos,\n\nThis Prague thing is very exciting indeed: and if I guess correctly, my profound gratitude is due one Moseley.\n\nThe programs have been tentatively settled, & cabled to Prague, as follows:\n\nI.\n\nSchuman \u2013 Am. Fest. Overture\n\nHarris \u2013 Symph. #3\n\nGershwin \u2013 Rhapsody (Eugene List)\n\n\u2014\u2014\n\nMe \u2013 Jeremiah Symph.\n\nII.\n\nRandall Thompson \u2013 Symph. #2\n\n\u2014\u2014\n\npseudo-Czech group:\n\nDvo\u0159\u00e1k \u2013 Husitska Overture\n\nBart\u00f3k \u2013 Rhapsody #1, Portrait in D \u2013 Szigeti\n\n\u2014\u2014\n\nBarber \u2013 Essay #1\n\nCopland \u2013 El Saloon\n\nI think they're swell programs, and I hope you agree. Will we see each other soon?\n\nWhen do I go in order to rehearse sufficiently?\n\nAre new injections required?\n\nDo send me details.\n\nAffectionately,\n\nLenny Bernstein\n\n219. Paul Feigay47 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n137\u2013145 West 48th Street, New York, NY\n\n17 April 1946\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nAs you know the business of _On The Town_ on the road has been very disappointing everywhere in spite of the terrific notices. Up to date we have personally lost over $50,000.00, in getting the show ready for the road and the losses on the road. The first week in Chicago the loss was $6,500.00, and then last week we lost $1,600.00, and that was due to the fact that we did not charge off any but cash bills.\n\nWe must appeal to you for help. Full royalties have been paid with the exception of the last few weeks in New York. We ask that royalties be waived retroactive to the opening of the run in Chicago and until such time as we start again operating at a profit and royalties should be paid out of each week's profit up until such payments equal 80% of the royalties due.\n\nUnless we can secure urgent and immediate cooperation from all persons receiving royalties we will be forced to close the run in Chicago immediately, regardless of the fact that business is on the upswing there.\n\nA copy of this has been sent to each person receiving royalties. Please sign the enclosed letter under \"agreed to\" and return it to me as soon as possible.\n\nVery truly yours,\n\nPaul Feigay\n\n220. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\nOrly Field Airport, Paris, France\n\npostmark 7 May 1946\n\nDearest Dave (Dearer than Crockett, Diamond, Jones, the King, Glazer),48\n\nAt this very moment life is a horror. I developed a stiff neck and a stinking cold during my first day in Paris. It would have disappeared, but there's no rest. One spends most of one's days in ATC offices, bureaus, Embassies, and most of one's nights driving to and from the airports. The flying racket is grand, but always involves the wrong times of day.\n\nAll this notwithstanding, the city is so fantastically beautiful that one cannot but be excited. The French are very depressed, and as they say here, on vive tr\u00e8s mal. But my flight to Prague has just been called \u2013 so bless you & all my love,\n\nL\n\n221. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nPrague, Czechoslovakia\n\n9 May 1946\n\nDear Helen,\n\nThings are beginning to pick up. Thank God! So far all the wonderful things Europe holds have offered themselves to me as dim visions, due to the fact that I caught a monstrous cold in Paris on my very first day there, and it's still with me. I've had horrible stiff muscles and aches, and sinus blowups. But now it begins to abate, and I'm beginning to be able to receive all this fabulous wonder.\n\nThis is the greatest day in Czech history. As you remember one year ago on May 5th, with Patton's army 20 miles away and the Russians at the East door, the people of Prague made a revolution against the Nazis. They just couldn't wait. The next day they were liberated by the Red Army. So this whole week is festival \u2013 the first anniversary of liberty. And are they celebrating, as no American would ever dare to do. Outside in the streets the whole town is dancing \u2013 to miked-up records of boogie-woogie and Strauss waltzes! People have come from all the provinces \u2013 Moravia, Slovakia \u2013 in their heavenly national peasant costumes, and the gaiety is beyond description. This morning there was a great parade and celebration in the huge Masaryk stadium, where generals of all the Allies spoke, including the great Konev, McNarney, and chiefs of staff from France, England, Yugoslavia, etc. It was a super-colossal demonstration, with tanks, planes, and the works. Last night there were fireworks on the Moldau, and up in the great Hrad\u010dany Castle. It is the only place on earth to be this week.\n\nOf course, the people look on the Russians as their liberators, but all the Hearst talk of the Red Terror here and the iron grip of Russia is nonsense.49 The Czechs are free as much as men can be, with joy in their reconstruction. It is rather in Paris where the spirit is way down, where the elections bore no fruit, where everyone is pessimistic and wretched (I think probably as much from guilt at their self-defeat as from _la vie dure_ ). The Czechs are happy and look to the future. They are the sweetest people on earth, and I'm going to have a marvelous week.\n\nMy love goes to everyone \u2013 please give it to them, and let this letter go to them all. There's so little time to write. More later.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n222. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Bernstein\n\nHyde Park Hotel, London, England\n\n9 June 1946\n\nDarling,\n\nIt's all a mess. I didn't want to go to England. The plane trip was ghastly and a full day overdue, always stopping to fix the foolish crate. The hotel is dreary beyond description. The food is inedible, what there is of it. The English are very down, except for Victory Day (yesterday) when 10,000,000 people went berserk in London. In an ogrish way. (Why do I always hit the parades?)\n\nAnd worst of all, I'm stuck with horrible programs. I can't fix them \u2013 it's too late. All Ford-Hour stuff, masses of Wagner excerpts, with and without Marjorie Lawrence, and waltzes & polonaises by the score. The one help is _Appalachian Spring_. What a dream of a piece.\n\nI have rarely felt so lonely. I don't really know why, but I react to everything with big, soggy depressions. And H[elen] C[oates] is no help there. How I regret not bringing you instead.\n\nAre you a stage-manager yet? What is the state of your maidenhood? A letter from you would help a lot. Soon, please.\n\nFirst rehearsal tomorrow morning. First concert the day after. ( _Jeremiah_ , of course, is out.) If I hold up through this I'll be extremely grateful. My love to all around. And many kisses to you. I miss you terribly.\n\nL\n\nDon't forget to phone my best to the family.\n\n223. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\nHyde Park Hotel, London, England\n\npostmark 14 June 1946\n\nTo the Royal Husbandman,\n\nBuilder of the House,\n\nDecorator of the interior,\n\nDefender of the Faith:\n\nGREETING.\n\nThis is the dullest yet. Of course, I hit Victory Day again, with parades, illuminations (fireworks to us), and 10,000,000 mad folk releasing their repressions in a \"frightfully gay\" holiday. Now it's over, and it's still dull. Crowds hanging around Buckingham Palace, waiting for Royalty to appear. The sun came out for twenty minutes today, and everyone is grateful.\n\nI'm not happy. The programs are a mess, and there's nothing I can do to change them. I'm tired, usually depressed, and have little if any clarity of mind. I sleep when I have nothing pressing, and try to ignore the dreariness of this hotel and all of London.\n\nI envy you in the excitement of building up your new home. Let me hear about it. This was the time you _were_ going to write, remember?\n\nAll my love,\n\nLenny\n\n224. David Oppenheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\nTuesday a.m., Intermission\n\n[June 1946]\n\nLenushka,\n\nThis is the time I _did_ write. Remember!\n\nThe news here is good. We have had much success in your absence. Felicia [Montealegre] has a lead role in _Swan Song_ , the Ben Hecht\u2013C. MacArthur affair and seems to be doing well in it considering she's a nervophysical wreck and can't swallow food any more, what with 3 days notice on her role. But H[elen] Hayes came up to her dressing room to tell her how much she liked her (I was there) and how much she liked her clothes \u2013 so I guess she will live on that for a while. I didn't even know it was Hayes until she had gone. She calls herself Mrs. MacArthur.50 Who am I to know? She's not a girl any more.\n\nAs for your favorite schizophrenic (looks wrong) he has played for Laszlo H[alasz]51 & will continue to do so for the duration of next season. I signed something or other Monday. You must have primed Fallioni like crazy. He welcomed me into his office like a lost brother\u2013old sweetheart combined \u2013 gave me the parts to about seven operas \u2013 told me to call him \"when ready & if I needed advice.\"\n\nAt the audition I played _Carmen_ & _Traviata_ & _Butterfly_. I wasn't great \u2013 but I was OK, I guess. After I had played the _Traviata_ solo (which I loathe) Laszlo said there was no question about my tone now for some notes. Then the beginning and about 3 pages of Butterballs52 & I'm sticking to him like glue thru a million Puccini rubatos.\n\nHe then conceded that I had \"mastered the instrument. Have you the courage to play 1st?\" To which I replied modestly \u2013 with much Frauentruth \u2013 that I didn't have the courage to play anything else. So he said to Fallioni \u2013 \"Good boy\" \u2013 & that's it.\n\nFallioni says over again \"I think this will make Lenny very happy, eh.\"\n\nThe house I live in now, not mine to own. We accept each other, with all our faults.\n\nI have made a down payment of $5.00 on a small 5\u20326\" porcelain bathtub which when I raise the sufficient capital \u2013 $13.00 \u2013 I will install in my bathroom.\n\nCheer up friend Lenny. Soon you will be back with those who love you and in the [...] Berkshires. Not long from now. We miss you and I miss you.\n\nLove,\n\nDave\n\nBest to Helen\n\n225. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Bernstein\n\nHyde Park Hotel, London, England\n\n17 June 1946\n\nDarling,\n\nYour letter came this morning \"bringing hope & cheer.\" As a matter of fact, I've been feeling infinitely better since writing you last, when skies were really greymalkin. I had my _L\u014dondonshein_ d\u00e9but yesterday, and apparently it was a huge success, though the _Times_ critic is still back in 1905, worrying about the question of a baton or no baton. Incredible country. The state of music is a shambles, the programs are embarrassing, the standard of performance abysmal.\n\nI am constantly saying, if you were only here! What fun all this nonsense would be! I saw _three_ shambles in a row that would have thrown you. First, a concert conducted by a wildman named de Sabata, who makes Mitrop[oulos] look like a sissy. He beats his head and jumps in the air & the bloody British public screams in delight. Then, the theatre: _The First Gentleman_ with wonderful Robert Morley & heavenly Wendy Hiller, but a play to make one wince (long scenes of dying in childbirth), and the British public screams. Then, the ballet. That was the end. Three ballets in a row at Covent Garden, one more lamentable than the last. And corn! And no imagination, and the audience screamed. So much for the British public.\n\nPeter Lawrence is here, to be followed by the whole crowd. Wait til Nora Kaye gets brought here by two liveried footmen! That will be the take [talk] of the season.\n\nGod, I should have brought you. I miss you [...] and love you so much. But, as you say, you're here with me, and people often catch me giggling to myself, when I am making Rybernian conversation with you on the latest British idiocy.\n\n[...]\n\nAll my love \u2013 be well \u2013 and somehow that Schirmer deal smells bad. I hope it all works out.\n\nIf Kouss lets me, I may stay on here till July 4th to conduct opening night _Fancy Free_ at Covent Garden. I'll let you know.\n\nBless you,\n\nL\n\n226. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\nHyde Park Hotel, London, England\n\n22 June 1946\n\nDearest Serge Alexandrovich,\n\nI have wanted to write you every day since your generous permission to stay an extra week in England arrived by cable \u2013 but I have not been able because I _could_ not decide to stay and give up even one week of Tanglewood. You know so well what that paradise means to me \u2013 there are only six weeks in all, and every one is so important. Besides, I did not want to upset your plans if anything depended on me in the first week. But two things have finally made me take the decision to stay. First, I have had a serious throat infection this week, and had to cancel one concert (Leinsdorf substituted for me!) \u2013 and I need a week's rest in the countryside to get strong and well again for the great work this summer.\n\nThe second reason is that I am to make records here on July 1st,53 and since that is so important, I suppose I must remain, and then conduct my ballet on the 4th. But I promise, when I return I will feel healthier, and be able to work harder; and I _will_ take the _first_ plane after July 4th!\n\nMy concerts are all over here, and they have been very successful, although the programs could not be materially altered. For example, last night was my final concert, in sold-out Albert Hall (over 5,000 people in the audience) \u2013 but the program! Handel's _Water Music_ , Grieg's Piano Concerto (with a bad pianist named Eileen Joyce) and Tchaikovsky's Fifth. At least I had a chance to play a major symphony, and it was a great experience to play the Fifth for the first time. Some people in the audience came back and told me that it was better than _Nikisch!_ (That, of course, meant it was in the Koussevitzky tradition, but not so good.) Isn't it strange how in this small world all the lines of history and destiny come around eventually in perfect circles? I think that gives me more hope than anything else.\n\n_Appalachian Spring_ has had a great success here. I have played it also in the provinces, where they love it, almost more than in London! But the greatest joke is that the _Times_ called me [a] \"real Wagnerian conductor\" after my _Tristan_ and _G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung_ with Marjorie Lawrence! I had never done _G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung_ before, and my whole Wagner repertoire has been almost nothing! So much for the critics.\n\nMy greatest love to you, and all my blessings for the greatest Tanglewood season so far, and for many, many more. I cannot wait until I join you there.\n\nDevotedly,\n\nLeonard\n\n_Kisses for Olga_\n\n227. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\nHyde Park Hotel, London, England\n\npostmark 24 June 1946\n\nDear Solo Cl[arine]t,\n\nFelicitations and bravo, and all the best for the best of seasons with the best of orchestras under the \u2013 what am I saying? I'm very happy. Don't rub it in about Fabbioni. Everything's impartial as a chessmatch. Can I help it if we're both white knights?\n\nAnd kiss Felicia from me. I think it's swell, but I hear _Swan Song_ isn't so swell. Does it last? And what of Gloucester?54 I wish I could see her in it.\n\nAs for bathtubs, I could put two of yours into the one I have here, but I'd give anything to be in yours instead. England has begun to pall. I gave my final concert last night (great success) to a sold-out Albert Hall. Tchai[kovsky]'s 5th. Quite an experience, first time.\n\nI've just come through a strep throat. Canceled one concert. Penicillin worked miracles. Now I'm off to Glyndebourne for the week, to see Britten, & the rehearsals of his new opera _The Rape of Lucrece_ ,55 and to rest in the country. Maybe a side jaunt to Brighton (beim-sea).\n\nThen back here to record the old Ravel Concerto, with crack boys (including [Reginald] Kell, Brahan,56 etc.).\n\nThen to conduct opening night of the Ballet Theatre _Fancy Free_ July 4th. Then home. (Kouss has sent special permission to let me miss first week in Tanglewood, which I loathe to do. But no can help. ( _British ink! Diluted shit!_ )57 When do you go up? Where will you live? Is it all set with the Union? I hope you haven't forgotten (or delayed) to act on that.\n\nAlso (not also, but _also_ , Deutsch) I will be joining you in the Boiks [Berkshires] around July 8th. I shall miss that opening week terribly. To say nothing of missing you. But hold on. I'm coming.\n\nI've been to a Sadler's Wells party tonight. What a bloody bore. And I've had a siege of singing \"Barney Google\"58 with big Andrews Sisters codas.\n\n... with his goo, goo, googly eyes \u2013\n\n_I mean_ \u2013\n\n_Goo\u2013 goo\u2013 goo\u2013 gle\u2013 y\u2013_\n\n_eye.....s!!!_\n\nAll my love,\n\nL\n\n228. Felicia Montealegre59 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Summer 1946]\n\nLennie dear!\n\nI'm in the middle of a rehearsal \u2013 I'll try my best to talk to you between cues \u2013 my God what a life! I don't get time to eat any more. I'm playing Raina in _Arms and the Man_ which we will open with the first of July [...]\n\nI was so happy to receive your \"note\" \u2013 I was just a little hurt at your not saying good bye \u2013 you see dear, even though I know you are terribly busy and \"confused\" I still halfheartedly hope you'll remember my existence without me forever reminding you.\n\nAre you happy in London \u2013 do you like it? I hope you finally caught up with your sleep, that you're rested and enjoying everything as much as you can. [...]\n\nWhen I see you again (I wonder how long it'll be before I do) I must have a long talk with you. I've been thinking ( _actually!_ ) and there's a lot \u2013 but a lot \u2013 I want to say. I'll probably have to get Helen Coates to make an appointment for me \u2013 but I intend to have my say! Oh darling, you can be _so_ silly sometimes \u2013 life isn't that serious, honest it isn't! I know I shouldn't take some things too seriously, specially where you are concerned, as for example I haven't even looked at another man since I met you (well, perhaps one or two \u2013 but that's all!) and I'm not exactly beating my head against the wall \u2013 I'm training myself just beautifully, but I must confess that it's rather difficult sometimes!\n\nI never found out how long you were to stay in England. Do you think you might find time to write me again \u2013 a postcard maybe? I'll be leaving for Gloucester on the 17th \u2013 the address is: Bass Rocks Summer Theatre, Gloucester, Mass.\n\nGoodbye darling \u2013 please be good and by the way, why don't you marry Helen off to a retired English Colonel who'll take her off to live in Sussex \u2013 well, it's a good idea anyway!\n\nPip pip, old boy. I do love you rather. A kiss to you with a whiff of K.Y.!\n\n[Felicia]\n\n229. Felicia Montealegre to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Summer 1946]\n\nDarling!\n\nIt's nearly three but I can't go to sleep \u2013 I'm feeling particularly lonely tonight; it's rather dreadful getting home late after the show, opening the door, putting on the light and being faced with the most acute aloneness \u2013 but then as you once remarked, New York is full of people like me (no consolation at all!).\n\nI should be very happy \u2013 and, of course, there are moments when I am. This job has been a wonderful stroke of luck for me, and a grand beginning.60 It's such a satisfaction to be actually _working_ and not just studying and preparing \u2013 you know \u2013 it's feeling that you belong at last to the \"something\" you were striving for.\n\nI miss you so much. I wonder why an ocean in between should make such a difference but somehow it does \u2013 there's something so irrevocable about it. I talked to Shirley today and I was told you had postponed your return \u2013 well, at least it means you're staying for something worthwhile. I felt so badly when I heard how miserable and disappointed you were.61 Cheer up my love and think of Tanglewood, you'll be happy there I know!\n\nIt's hot as hell \u2013 mierda! mierda! David [Oppenheim] was here this afternoon \u2013 his usual wonderful refreshing self \u2013 I was soundly kissed in your name, merci monsieur! Twas nice... The same to you \u2013 many of them, with love.\n\nFelicia\n\n230. Samuel Barber to Leonard Bernstein\n\nCapricorn, Mount Kisco, NY\n\n[August 1946]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI return the Berlioz with thanks. It is all I had to wear in Boston. Whether it was due to _Peter Grimes_ , the Benedictine or the very pleasant evening I spent with you, I do not know: but on arriving at 625 Park, clutching the Berlioz, I allowed the taxi to drive off with tuxedo, diamond studs et al, and nothing has been returned. Perhaps I should wear khaki after all.\n\nEnclosed also my favorite critic which will be good for your ego, especially two \"wiederums\".\n\nSam\n\n231. Leonard Bernstein to Barbara Marcuse\n\n\"Wednesday, but which one?\" [4 September 1946]\n\nMy dear Barbara and m\u00e9nage,\n\nNothing, absolutely nothing, could please me more than a shot at Charlevoix [northern Michigan] the Beautiful. But Charlevoix the Unattainable it must be. The Six Weeks were over, true, leaving a gray and bewildered and _Grimes_ -weary Bernstein to plunge headlong into a new ballet for production this fall. (Ballet Theatre, of course, and J. Robbins). Roughly two weeks of mad note-jostling, and it's not finished yet, and tomorrow it's back to the fiery furnace (32 West 10th St., by the way, a 4-flight walk-up! The times!) and on to opening night in two weeks.62 So that's me at the moment, as usual, and goodbye to all this autumnal glory in the Berkshires, and even to the chance of seeing you. But don't you ever come to New York? You really must, you know. A few mad hours by plane, that's all. And I do miss you \u2013 there always arrives that moment when I recall the quiet security I sometimes borrowed from the Marcuse \"set-up\". Alas.\n\nShirley is \"between shows\", as they say. Dave [Oppenheim] is on the verge of becoming 1st clarinet in my orchestra; England was ghastly; Tanglewood was hectic but rewarding; I have _four weeks_ with the Boston Symphony this winter; and I never said that S[hostakovich]'s 9th was a bore. Tell Phil to take his favorite mag and send it back to Russia.\n\nAll my love,\n\nLenny (Hruba) Nonadjustable\n\nI think I'm going to Palestine, Vienna, Paris, and maybe (shh!) Russia in the spring!\n\nBlessings on Ann and small Ph.63\n\n232. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\n32 West 10th Street, New York, NY\n\n6 October 1946\n\nDearest Serge Alexandrovich,\n\nIt sometimes seems that the courage necessary for living simply and clearly in this world is all but a superhuman quality. This has been a week of shadows and misunderstandings which has left me tired and not a little depressed. There has been this incredible muddle, to begin with, over the appearance of my orchestra in Boston. Everyone involved has apparently used subterfuge in one sense or another, leaving me exposed and guilty of an offense I have never committed. I have finally extracted a promise from Miss Canterbury, which she assured me would be put into writing to you, me, and Mr. [George] Judd, that all mention of my name would henceforth be left out of all her publicity. She will also enclose a slip in her program material stating that I will not appear in November. They are trying to negotiate for another conductor (possibly Stokowski). In any case, it will be a mess; but I am rid of it, I think. I have written to Adams, stating that I will not appear in Boston. What more can I do? The Canterbury woman has been promising since August that she will cancel the engagement, only to proceed with publicity and newspaper advertising behind our backs. Her excuse is that her own Board of Directors will not allow her to break the engagement, no matter how much she _personally_ would like to.\n\nWell, _enfin_ , whom does one trust in this world? I don't know what to believe of all these commercial people; but when you told me that _you_ had doubted _me_ , I was really grief-stricken. If there is no trust between us, dearest Serge Alexandrovich, there is no trust in the world! I believe with all my heart in our bond and in our beautiful relationship; and I am sure that you do. Something so strongly based and real in its love cannot be injured by the meddling of these meaningless interferers!\n\nTo make things even sadder, I have had a miserable weekend with poor David Diamond, who has more or less cracked up emotionally. He has always been subject to hysterical actions, but this time it was a real collapse, brought on by the death of a girl who was very dear to him. I truly think that we shall have to convince him to have proper treatment and care in a qualified psychiatric hospital; otherwise there is only a bad end ahead for this talented and affectionate boy who has lost control of his emotional processes.\n\nLet us talk about happier things. I have been trying to revise our Boston programs to include the Bart\u00f3k work; but the only place where it will fit would be along with the Mahler. Also, since Ruth Posselt must play in New York also, we cannot bring either the Bart\u00f3k or Mahler to New York. Is it definite that Ruth plays in New York? If so, the programs might look like this:\n\nBoston and New York\n\nI. Gluck \u2013 Alceste  \nStravinsky \u2013 Le Sacre  \nSchubert \u2013 [Symphony] #7\n\nII. Bernstein \u2013 Facsimile (ballet)  \n(or an American overture)  \nHindemith \u2013 [Violin] Concerto (Posselt)  \nBeethoven \u2013 [Symphony] #7\n\nBoston only\n\nIII. Bart\u00f3k \u2013 Music for strings, etc.  \nMahler \u2013 [Symphony] #7\n\nBart\u00f3k and Mahler is a very heavy combination, I think, and our old plan of a Mozart Symphony with the Mahler is certainly better; but this was the only place I could find for the Bart\u00f3k. What do you think? I would also leave my ballet flexible until we can hear it performed this month. I have been looking through the Mahler score, which has marvelous things in it, and is also very long. (I have not been able to find out the exact timing.) I would still love to do it, if you wish. Would it be interesting to give the _Shostakovich #7_?\n\nThe concerts here are going marvelously, and it is only this great activity, and all this heavenly music that keeps me going through a week such as I have had. We did the Mozart \"Linz\" Symphony last night, which more than atoned for the agonies of the weekend. It _is_ a marvel! Perhaps I can do that with the Mahler?\n\nI wait to hear from you, with my love and faith strong and intact as always.\n\nDevotedly,\n\nLeonard\n\n233. Leonard Bernstein to Solomon Braslavsky64\n\nNew York, NY\n\n10 October 1946\n\nDear Professor,\n\nI have been suddenly inspired to write you a note (if you can pardon the lack of \"a propos\"). Having listened through a Kol Nidre service, and again the next day to a Yom Kippur service in a completely different kind of synagogue, I have come to realize what a debt I really owe to you \u2013 personally \u2013 for the marvelous music at Mishkan Tefila services. They surpass any that I have ever heard; and the memories I have of them are so bright, strong, and dear, that I shall probably never be able to estimate the real influence those sounds exerted on me. And please tell Cantor Glickstein that he is still my favorite cantor.\n\nAll good luck,\n\nLeonard Bernstein65\n\n234. Solomon Braslavsky to Leonard Bernstein\n\n133 Elm Hill Avenue, Roxbury, MA\n\n16 October 1946\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nI don't know how to thank you for your letter. After all, a note of praise from your pen means much not only for myself, but for the entire Mishkan Tefila. I, therefore, hope you will not scold me for making your letter public in the _Jewish Advocate_.66\n\nA propos (no lack of it on my side) the services at Mishkan Tefila. Another great musician attended our services the first day of Rosh Hashonoh, Dr. [Hugo] Leichentritt. He, too, never heard as beautiful a musical setting as here. [...] We, of course, know the reason, but why discussed here? I wish I could say it to the \"group\" in New York who condemn [Salomon] Sulzer, [Louis] Lewandovsky and others, and are advocating Gretchaninoff (!), Dessau, Milhaud, etc., as proponents of _real_ Jewish music. They would not even mention my name in the _Manuals_.\n\nI am trying to clear my decks for November 13 at Symphony Hall. I should like very much to show you my Symphony or, at least, the four short items of Synagogal music which are published now by the McLaughlin and Reilly Society.67 Will you be able to find a half hour for me during your stay in Boston? I hope, yes.\n\nMany thanks and best wishes for a real happy and successful New Year, with great achievements,\n\nS. Braslavsky\n\n235. Paul Wittgenstein68 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n310 Riverside Drive, New York, NY\n\n16 October 1946\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nI wanted to say \"good-bye\" and \"thank you\" after the concert yesterday.69 But when Beethoven and the tremendous applause was finished and I wanted to go to the stage and see you, I found the door closed.\n\nI can only repeat what I have already said: the Ravel concerto is almost as difficult for the orchestra as it is for the soloist, and a success depends upon the conductor as well as upon me, therefore should be divided 50 and 50! I know this out of experience and appreciate with thanks what you have been doing.\n\nThe performance of the concerto on Monday was, I think, really excellent! Please let the fact that it wasn't quite as good on Tuesday not spoil your remembering of it!\n\nDon't reply to this letter.\n\nSincerely & friendly,\n\nYours,\n\nPaul Wittgenstein\n\n236. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\n32 West 10th Street, New York, NY\n\n[25 October 1946]70\n\nDearest Serge Alexandrovich,\n\nI don't know quite how to say this, but I am in the position of having to come to Boston. We have tried everything \u2013 Reiner, Stokowski, [Jos\u00e9] Iturbi (lesser names they do not accept) \u2013 [Manuel] Rosenthal (they never heard of him) \u2013 Morton Gould (he is what they call \"box-office poison\" in Boston) \u2013 everything has failed. We even concocted an idea to send a concert of operatic excerpts with our friend [Laszlo] Halasz, but he would do it only if I took over _Onegin_ , which I am not up to at this moment. It would be disastrous to do _Onegin_ without sufficient preparation; and knowing the situation at the Center as I do, I cannot accept that responsibility. Especially since the premiere is scheduled for the very next night after the Boston visit!\n\nI know that you will understand, better than anyone on earth, what my situation is, and what my obligations are. There is no alternative left; and I do it with a heavy heart, I assure you. I can only hope that the entire incident will be soon forgotten; for it has been the most difficult moment of my short career.71 The last thing in the world I ever expected to do was to do something against your wish; and here Fate has plunged me into this _impasse_.\n\nI think I mentioned the proposed program to you:\n\nPurcell \u2013 Fantasy on One Note\n\nWalton \u2013 Portsmouth Point Overture\n\nBritten \u2013 Violin Concerto\n\n\u2014\u2014\n\nElgar \u2013 Enigma Variations\n\nI have thought of substituting Dvo\u0159\u00e1k's Second Symphony for the Elgar (I did it here this week, and fell in love with it.) If you have any objection to this, or to any other piece on the program, please let me know, and I will change it immediately.\n\nAll the reports of your performance of Aaron's Symphony are superb. I regret so much that I could not hear an actual performance; but the rehearsal that I did hear was a great experience.\n\nI had my ballet premiere last night, and all the reactions seem very favorable for the score. I think it would make a nice little concert piece; and I look forward with so much eagerness to hearing it with the Boston Symphony. It will be a real joy for me.\n\nAgain, dear Serge Alexandrovich, I know you will be sympathetic to my predicament with the City Symphony; and please, please forgive me for ever having caused such an unpleasant experience for you.\n\nIn all devotion,\n\nLeonard\n\n237. Lukas Foss72 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nSymphony Hall, Boston, MA\n\n9 November 1946\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI received your invitation to participate in the B'nai B'rith contest. I am eager to do so. The only unperformed piece I have is _Song of Anguish_. Even though my neoclassic friends prefer my later biblical venture, I agree with Aaron who felt that _Song of Anguish_ is as good as anything I've done. I would love to see you and perhaps Tod Duncan (who has learned the part) premiere it in March, but there is one difficulty concerning my entering it in the contest: it lasts 18 minutes instead of the demanded 15. May I enter it anyway?\n\nGood luck with your Boston concert on the 13th. I am unfortunately in Baltimore on that day. But I have already bought tickets for _Facsimile_ on the 18th. The best to Helen.\n\nAs always,\n\nLukas\n\nP.S. As I now approach the mature age of 25 this contest is one of very few I can still have a crack at. It's funny not to be \"too young\" anymore but \"too old\" for many of these things. No more prodigy stuff. Actually I feel good about it.\n\nL. F.\n\n238. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Bernstein\n\n22220 Saticoy Street, Canoga Park, CA\n\n7 December 1946\n\nMine deeoah,\n\n_Mine_ God! and Dine God! and I miss you terribly. This would, as usual, be your meat. But Felicia is really working out. It's a little early to tell anything, but I sense a possible future. How can I tell you in a letter? It must mostly wait. But I can send you signposts, sort of, as we go along.\n\nThis week has been Coma-week. Doing zero, absolutely. When the sun is out it's divine; otherwise freezauk\u00fcd\u00fc. Many fireplaces and scotch, and our own bungalow make it the luxury of all time. Beautiful horses (and can Felicia outride me!), and a pool, when possible.\n\nI've gotten a great idea on the picture and Lester seems sold on it. If it works it will be sensational \u2013 a Hollywood _first_ \u2013 and a really significant vehicle for my debut. The writers are dopes \u2013 but this has nothing to do with them.\n\nTwo recurrent refrains, which I shall not repeat, dominate this letter: _I miss you_ , and _Any signs of a job_? I pray for you. I'm sure you'd do marvelously out here, if we could get you a test. I'm sort of working on it.\n\nI hear _If The Shoe_ is a fiasco,73 goody two-shoes.\n\nAdolph, Betty & Adolph are doing fine, looking great, and send you love. They say Elizabeth Taylor at MGM is your type, but you're prettier.\n\nWrite me great gobs of stuff. We're taking a little Ford convertible to Mexico next week. Wish you could come. Shit.\n\nSunday there's a party here. Dinah Shore & George Montgomery & Buddy Rogers & Billy Wilder & Ad. & Betty & Ad., and so many more. Then Sunday night Rapper is threatening one with Gregory Peck & Lana [Turner] and everything. But that's all. I do nothing but rest. I'm tant fort and grand.\n\nM\u00fc la d\u00fc! and Felicia sends hers & will write soon. I miss you horribly. M\u00fc la d\u00fc,\n\nLadim\n\n239. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\n12 December 1946\n\nDear H,\n\nThings are beginning to move again. These last two weeks have really done wonders; I have rarely felt so rested. Felicia and I have just returned from a little side trip through Tijuana, Mexico and Palm Springs \u2013 and it was a gorgeous little interlude. The desert is just perfect now, and the mountains beat everything. We ride and sleep and eat and gain weight and become brown.\n\nAs I say, things are beginning to move again. I've had an idea which may make this picture74 a phenomenal thing for Hollywood. It would involve me in four ways \u2013 composer, conductor, actor and writer. (I've already done a little writing on the screen play.) In other words, really my picture. If it's to be done at all, it must be begun now, while I'm here, so that there's a musical basis before I leave. Then I can finish it in June, assuming that the Soviet invitation doesn't go through, which I expect will be the case. Even if I have to dash back for two weeks after Tanglewood for final touches or retouches, it would be worth it. Financially it would be more than worth it, and artistically it will be a great satisfaction. I am beginning negotiations now, and hope to complete them soon. Of course, I will call Kouss first and try to avoid another hitch with him. I think you would be very excited about this idea.\n\nAs to the _Facsimile_ , I hope to have the ending in a very few days, along with program notes. When I send it, get it to [Arnold] Arnstein, and tell him to make parts. The cost should be stood by Harms, who would have to have scores & parts in their rental library anyway. (They have to pay _some_ copyist. And they'll rook me for it in the end, as usual. Ah well, the way of the world.) Cowan, by the way, has an idea on my publisher problem. We'll see.\n\nFelicia and I grow closer all the time. She's an angel, and a wonderful companion. I shouldn't be surprised if it worked out beautifully in the end.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n240. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\n22220 Saticoy Street, Canoga Park, CA\n\n22 December 1946\n\nDear H,\n\nLife moves on apace. I'm toying with the notion of becoming engaged to Felicia. No marriage yet \u2013 she must stay here and do a movie contract, and I must travel. We think of it for June, and it's an exciting and somewhat confusing prospect, as you must imagine. But it's good \u2013 I know that, and there's no harm in trying. The pursuit of happiness, you know, is one of our few human rights. Listen to Winchell Sunday night. If I decide, he will probably announce it.\n\nYour notes on the _Facsimile_ ending are exactly right. The new ending replaces the old ballet ending after the long pause. I've sent it out, and I think it's good. I spoke to Kouss the other day, and he has me in circles. He wants me to marry immediately, he says movies are fine, \"but not now\", whatever \"now\" is, and he doesn't want me to play _Facsimile_! This after many calls & wires to Burk, and head-splitting figuring on broadcasts. I don't know what to say to him in argument \u2013 he's so self-contradictory. What a difficult relationship!\n\n[John N.] Burk75 told me you had a cold. Do watch out; everyone in the East seems to have one, Kouss, Blum, etc. Always on vacation one gets a cold! I have so far been spared. The climate makes me sleepy, but the horses and much sleep make up for it. I am now just ripe for a _real_ vacation \u2013 just beginning to be relaxed. Well \u2013 perfection never did exist anywhere.\n\nOn the movie \u2013 don't worry. I won't sign any contract until after I return. Negotiations are proceeding now, and I'm composing a little, and having story conferences \u2013 but that's all. I don't think it would hurt my conducting career, and it seems like my old friend \"fun\".\n\n[...]\n\nI'll call you from Cincinnati (next week already!) Meanwhile get well and rested. Have you been able to see your _friend_ at all during your rest-month?\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n241. Serge Koussevitzky to Leonard Bernstein\n\nBoston Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Hall, Boston, MA\n\n23 December 1946\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nMy last talk over the telephone with you left a very disturbing impression. And these are the reasons:\n\nSpeaking of your programs you stubbornly insisted on the performance of your own composition, even for the broadcast. Do you realize that you are invited as a guest conductor, to show your capacity as interpreter of great musical works? May I ask you: do you think that your composition is worthy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston organization? Can it be placed on the same level as Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Stravinsky, Prokofieff, Bart\u00f3k or Copland?... You may answer my question saying that I often perform also works of lesser value and scope. But you must not forget that I am the permanent conductor, that I stand at the head of this organization to further and develop the musical culture of this country, and, therefore, have the obligation to help young composers. Thus, my responsibilities are very different from yours, or other guest conductors.\n\nI also want you to know my reaction to your \"assurance\" that Thor Johnson was invited as conductor of the Cincinnati Orchestra, following your recommendation. Do you believe that the Directors of an old musical organization, such as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, would be so na\u00efve, to consider the recommendation of even a very influential lady in the choice of a permanent conductor? Or do you believe that your influence is so great in this country that a word from you would be enough to bring about immediate decisions? If so you are profoundly mistaken. The Trustees of the Cincinnati Orchestra were exceptionally thoughtful and serious regarding this question. I do not want to go into details now, but can tell you that the engagement of Thor Johnson had nothing to do with your recommendation.\n\nI am writing in this direct manner because I consider it superfluous to talk to you as if you were a \"spoiled child\". You are fully grown up and have to realize that you are responsible for every word you say and all of your actions, especially responsible on account of your gifts and the position you are beginning to occupy.\n\nThink it over, and I hope you will understand the motive which dictates this letter.\n\nYours,\n\nSerge Koussevitzky\n\n242. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\nCanoga Park, CA\n\n27 December 1946\n\nDear Serge Alexandrovich,\n\nI have been deeply grieved all day on account of your last letter. I immediately sent you a telegram, trying to explain the misunderstanding, but I canceled it, realizing that it was not a thorough clarification. I must write you instead, because of my love for you, and my need for you to understand.\n\nWhy do these misunderstandings happen? Is there an evil element in my nature that makes me do and say immoral things? Is it that I say one thing and mean another? Or is it that communication between two people who are as close to each other is so difficult? If so, then life is too difficult; something is missing in the human constitution.\n\nYou must realize that I never meant to suggest that Thor's appointment had anything to do with my recommendation. I was simply reporting an interesting coincidence \u2013 that I had been discussing him with Mrs. Wyman a short time before. And I was so happy to hear that it had come true! But certainly not through _my_ efforts.\n\nAnd you know I am happy to play only what you suggest and approve in my Boston concerts. Whenever I conduct in Boston I am conducting for _you_ , deep inside, and whatever I may do well is a tribute to you. My main concern is to make you proud of me, and justified in all your efforts for me. So when you asked me suddenly on the phone to take off my own piece, I was surprised, and merely questioned, why? Certainly I believe in my music, or else I would not have written it \u2013 not on a level with Beethoven and Bart\u00f3k, naturally, but in its own smaller terms. But if you feel it is wrong to play it, I will certainly follow what you say, and gladly.\n\nI have had a very difficult year trying to adjust myself to the conventions of my profession. The r\u00e9clame means absolutely nothing to me \u2013 in fact, it only complicates further my already complicated life. Managers, agents, public charm, the terrifying sense of competition in other conductors \u2013 the whole desperate race with time would be worth nothing if it were not for the magical joy of music itself. And this joy is bound up tightly with you, who are my only \"spiritus genitor\". That is why I become so depressed when misunderstandings come between us.\n\nForgive me, and\n\nBelieve me,\n\nLeonard\n\n243. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\nMontgomery, OH\n\n2 January 1947\n\nDear Serge Alexandrovich,\n\nIn my excitement about answering your last letter I completely forgot to tell you the most exciting news of all \u2013 that I have become engaged to a wonderful girl from South America named Felicia Montealegre. We plan to be married in June, when I return from Europe. I am very happy, and I hope you will be.\n\nThis news seems to have leaked out into the papers already76 \u2013 and I did want to be the first to tell you, before you might read it. But this has been impossible, since I have been stranded for five days all over the Southwest due to bad flying weather. My plane kept stopping and stopping; so I spent one night in Texas, another in Arkansas, another sitting up on bad trains, and so on. But I am finally here in Cincinnati, tired but happy, and I have had my first two rehearsals today. The orchestra needs a great deal of work, but they respond well, and I hope for an exciting concert.\n\nI am staying with friends who have a wonderful big farm where I can rest a day or two before going to Chicago. Everyone here seems very satisfied with Thor [Johnson]'s appointment, including most of the orchestra men. It was a wonderful move on their part, and a difficult one to make because of the natural opposition to the appointment of a young American. It took courage, and I am sure Thor's success will justify the appointment in every way.77\n\n244. Farley Granger78 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nFriday, 3 [January] 1947\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI just received your very sweet letter. It was wonderful to hear from you. Lenny, we all miss you very much. Ethel and Saul79 talk of you all the time and last night we played the _Jeremiah_ twice, after which we decided to build you a city.\n\nI am so glad we became friends, and I hope I see a lot more of you, though it seems no one gets that privilege for long.\n\nFelicia told us about your horrible New Year's. I wish you could have stayed. We all had such a wonderful time.\n\nI am having dinner with Felicia tonight. She is a great girl, and I'm sure loves you very much.\n\nYour letter was late because it went to the studio first.\n\nLenny thank you for being so kind, and please write when you can.\n\nRurally yours,\n\nFarley\n\n245. Leonore Goldstein80 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n1141 Hampton Park Drive, Richmond Heights, MO\n\n30 January 1947\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nThere are three reasons which impel me to send these lines to you \u2013 and I don't know which to name first \u2013 yes \u2013 I think I do \u2013 it's your engagement to be married.\n\nMrs. [Kate] Ratcliffe confirmed what I had read in the _Times_. I am never certain when such items appear in the daily press, but I do _believe_ Mrs. Ratcliffe so here are the very heartiest good wishes for your, and your sweetheart's, happiness \u2013 and may it continue to the end of time. I know she is lovely or you would not have chosen her.\n\nThanks over and over for the fine _Leonore III_ Overture. I sat here along with my best concert concentration and listened reverently and so admiringly for your really wonderful Beethoven VIIth. No one could have conducted it better: it was a delight and I wish I could have joined the Providence audience in applauding.\n\nI fear I shall not hear the next radio concert on Tuesday, for I shall be with relatives in New York and Heaven only knows what my granddaughter has planned for that evening.\n\nWill you conduct the Bostonians in New York? If so, I simply _must_ get into the hall \u2013 but how? I know the concerts are sold out. Has the conductor enough influence to melt Mr. Judd's icy heart and have him sell me a seat anywhere in the Hall? I shall be in New York from Feb 3 to Feb 17th and I am hoping that your New York concerts come during these dates.\n\nThat you should be conducting that great orchestra for a month is a real triumph \u2013 and you \u2013 a youngster \u2013 under thirty.\n\nMy thanks for the pleasure you gave last Tuesday, and much love from\n\nLeonore III\n\n246. Felicia Montealegre to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Hollywood, CA]\n\nThursday night, 6 February [1947]\n\nLenny, my darling, my darling!\n\nFirst of all, today is my birthday \u2013 I am a quarter of a century old, a very frightening fact! It is also a year ago that I sat at your feet, a little drunk but terribly exhilarated at the Arraus'. All day I've been wanting to telephone you and it took a lot of self control not to do so \u2013 it seemed rather silly. However...\n\nJust came back from the Kellys [Gene and Betsy] where I saw \u2013 yes \u2013 _Of Mice & Men_ \u2013 I feel drained and weak, it's so _great_! It's difficult to believe that it came out of Hollywood. I kept thinking of you all through it and listening attentively to Aaron's fabulous score, and remembering the things you had mentioned and loved.\n\nThe biggest thing that has happened to me since you left is the most beautiful, warm, affectionate black cocker spaniel puppy in the world who is at this moment biting at my pen while I write. She's mine, my very own! I bought her a week ago having fallen in love at first sight (pedigree papers and all for $35). Stanley Donen81 christened her Nebish, which she isn't at all but the name stuck. I didn't know whether I'd be able to keep her at first (as a matter of fact it still isn't certain). I've gone through tortures because of David, who I am convinced now is verging on insanity. He decided to cross Joanie who was with me when I bought her and loved the idea of a puppy; he reacted in such a strange way and in a Captain Bligh fashion, told me I must \"get rid of her\" cause she would interfere with his _work!_ She's been such a good girl though (of course I'm constantly taking her out) and I haven't found anyone who'll take care of her for me until my life is settled \u2013 he hasn't brought the subject up again, but I'm living with a Damocles' sword precariously swinging over my head. I refuse to give her up \u2013 we've become inseparable. You'd love her \u2013 everybody does (except David of course). A propos, I could talk to you about him for hours \u2013 he really worries me. I think he's quite sick.\n\nOh sweetie \u2013 your concert! I finally heard it last Tuesday. It's useless to even try to tell you how magnificent it was \u2013 j'\u00e9tais tellement fi\u00e8re de toi! I'm dying to hear the next \u2013 it's so frustrating to know you've already played it and we don't hear it till next week!\n\nStanley gave me a party at his apartment last night \u2013 I didn't know it was for me until midnight when for no apparent reason the lights were turned off and in comes Gene with a lighted cake which Betsy baked herself, and everybody singing the \"happy, happy\". I fought back the usual tears but could have bawled for hours \u2013 aren't they wonderful? Tonight Joan had a special dinner for me \u2013 just us and Adolph [Green] and Allyn [Ann McLerie] \u2013 with another cake and more candles to blow and wishes granted. It was sweet, but I could have felt more cheerful. Sometimes I miss you so much I actually feel sick to my stomach.\n\nYour father gave me the surprise of my life \u2013 such a nice affectionate letter \u2013 I just loved him for it.\n\nThank you for the check. The great Montealegre career is at a complete standstill \u2013 I am seriously contemplating going back, defeated but healthy! The only trouble is though that I won't get a job in New York either! Oh _shit_.\n\nI will have you know for further reference that I have a learner's permit and will have a license next week. I drive alone all over the place, up hill and down dale, heavy traffic and all \u2013 and I'm _great_! So there!!\n\nWhat's with you? You never really tell me how you feel \u2013 is that so difficult? I don't believe it. Are you still terribly worried and depressed about things, or have you decided not to think about it at all. I keep wondering about you and wishing I could be with you \u2013 you always sound so happy and communicative over the telephone, but unfortunately your letters leave me \"con gusto a poco!\" I know, you warned me.\n\nWhen are you due back in New York \u2013 please write me soon, this place is bad enough without your making things worse.\n\nMy love to your family \u2013 of course it's good to be home again. I rather envy you. Where's Shirley and what are her plans?\n\nBoss darling \u2013 good night \u2013 much much love and many many kisses.\n\nFely\n\n247. Bette Davis to Leonard Bernstein\n\nButternut, Sugar Hill, Franconia, NH\n\n[?February 1947]82\n\nLennie,\n\nHow really thoughtful of you to write me about my attempt to be a pianist in _Deception_. From you it meant very much, as you can imagine. You were conducting in Boston the other day \u2013 and here I am with my project sitting not far away \u2013 and unable to come down and hear you. I would have so much loved it. You are doing wonderful things and I am always somewhere else. I read about it though and always the things said are complimentary \u2013 and of course I think that is as it should be. Your signed photograph is now on my wall \u2013 and a proud possession. It is really exciting about the baby \u2013 and so unbelievable to me \u2013 but at this point there is definite evidence so I must believe it.\n\nReally so many thanks for your letter \u2013 I beamed for days.\n\nLove,\n\nBette\n\n248. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nRochester, NY\n\n26 February 194783\n\nDear H,\n\nI. Testimonial for [Menahem] Pressler: _A genuine pianistic poet._\n\nII. The Palestine program, as I recall, is:\n\nSchumann #2\n\n_Jeremiah_\n\nRavel Concerto.\n\nIII. Brussels: Everything seems to be by Aaron or me! I would like to divide the program into three parts, for instance:\n\n_Movies_ : Copland (both suites) appr. 20 min.\n\n_Ballet_ : Fancy Free (appr. 25 min.)\n\n_Theatre_ : Gershwin\u2013Bennett Porgy (appr. 14\u2032)\n\nThis would make a nice program, but short (roughly an hour). If satisfactory, this should be it. Otherwise I'll have to cast about for another ballet & play _On the Town_ with _Porgy_. _Undertow_ is a possibility, but I don't like it. Furthermore, to be really representative about American film music, I _should_ play something like the _Spellbound_ score,84 but I can't stand that kind of Hollywood stuff. Which leaves only Aaron, which precludes a Copland ballet. Would you explain all this to the man and get his reaction?\n\nIV. The PCA85 business is cleared. All is set for March 25th, I believe.\n\nV. Diamond. I think someone should be put in charge of a fund \u2013 not us: we've had our share. Won't Margaret do it? Or, if not, Olga or Mrs. Hirschman. I think musicians should be tapped first; Rodzinsky, Szell, Monteux, Kouss, Dimitri, also Smallens etc. \u2013 all the conductors who have ever played D's music. Also composers: Alec Wilder, Hanson, Goddard Lieberson, etc., etc. I think _chief_ contributor should be Alice Berezowsky.86 I'm serious: she started it.\n\nVI. We are staying overnight in or around Vassar after the concert, leaving next day for Providence. I could go back to N.Y. with you if you can get me a flight to Prov[idence] next day. Although it makes a lot of extra traveling. Don't you think it's simpler to stay over?\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n249. Adolph Green to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Hollywood, CA]\n\n[February 1947]\n\nDollink Lennie,\n\nWhat is there to say?\n\nYou are brilliant, brash, you (28) \u2013 I am fat, old (49 \u00bd)87 and feeble. In short, what is there to say?\n\nBetty & I are Hollywood successes, it seems. _Good News_ is about to go before the camera, causing a minor revolution at M.G.M. No picture has ever before been done there without 4 years of preparation, 15 scripts, etc., etc.\n\nNow we are grappling with the horns of an Arthur Freed dilemma. We've been offered a second picture, at mightily increased salaries, and a plum it is by M.G.M. standards: a G-R-E-E-A-A-T-T SCREEN CREDIT. _Easter Holiday_88 \u2013 with J. Garland, G. Kelly, F. Sinatra, K. Grayson.89 All songs by Irving Berlin & we would have to work with Irving B. \u2013 naturally we won't stay in Hollywood but Freed has told us that he can arrange for us to write the bulk of it in N.Y. We are therefore tempted.\n\nMaybe we'll write this thing & be finished just in time for us to write a big, successful show together next winter.\n\nGlad that I didn't marry A.A.90 out here \u2013 double, double doubts \u2013 but _away with them!!_\n\nI feel completely sure now that I want to marry her, and I'm very anxious to get back and do it.91\n\nWill you be around at the end of March? We'll make it then. You must be on hand.\n\nLove to everyone,\n\nAdolph\n\nThere's an item in the Sunday _Times_ about the Hammerstein Rodgers show _Allegro_. Rodgers says \"it will combine dance, music and drama as an integrated unit\".92\n\nAbout time too. It's an unprecedented notion, very daring, never before attempted \u2013 Ahhhh! \u2013 shit, fuck, balls!!!\n\nP.S. I love you.\n\nOur associate producer, one Roger Edens,93 is a great fan of yours, but very displeased with your Boston program. He complains about that Beethoven & Schubert junk and feels it's ruining your career to have to play it. I'm just passing along this opinion for what it's worth. Stick to the moderns, he says.\n\n250. Leonard Bernstein to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle\n\nLehigh Valley Railroad [on board train]\n\n3 March 1947\n\nCh\u00e8re Re-La-Mi [written in musical notation: D-A-E, i.e. Re-La-Mi],\n\nThinking of you on this ghastly train (ghastly pen!), even to the point of recalling your address. So many things made me think of you \u2013 a man from Baltimore next to me at lunch, _Homemade pies_ on the menu; Claude's appearance backstage in Symphony Hall \u2013 etc. etc.94\n\nI'm beginning a week's tour with the Rochester orch. and I'm up to my neck in penicillin. Overtired, I guess, and inevitable consequences. I'll live.\n\nWill I see you before I go to Europe April 9th?\n\nLove,\n\nSpooky\n\n251. Sid Ramin to Leonard Bernstein\n\n32 West 53rd Street, New York, NY\n\n[March 1947]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nJust a note to congratulate you on your engagement and to wish you continued happiness and success. I guess I ought to apologize for not using your \"secret\" phone number and letting you know how I'm making out, but I guess you know me by now.\n\nIncidentally, your engagement came as quite a surprise (I don't know why it should) and now you've got me thinking about whether I ought to be next.95\n\nThe recordings I was so proud of several months ago, and wanted you to hear, have since lost a lot of the original appeal (as far as my wanting to play them for people). I guess that's a good sign, although I still think there are some good spots worth listening.\n\nHowever, if I have to bring some recording to use as an excuse to see you and your new phonograph, I think I can manage to pick a few better ones, twenty or thirty!!\n\nReally, Lenny, I'd like to see you and ask a bit of advice in regards to quite a few things that are popping here; also keep you posted on what the past year and a half in N.Y. has held for me. And then, of course, I'd like to see you without having the meet through lots of people, for a change. So...\n\nOf course, I don't know where this letter will find you, but when you get back to N.Y. (if you're away right now), how about a letter and an appointment?96\n\nBest regards to everyone,\n\nSid\n\n252. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\nPark Hotel, Tel Aviv, Israel\n\n25 April 1947\n\nDear Serge Alexandrovich,\n\nIf you ever wanted to be involved in a historical moment, this is it.97 The people are remarkable; life goes on in spite of bombs, police, everything. There is a strength and devotion in these people that is formidable. They will never let their land be taken from them; they will die first. And the country is beautiful beyond description. It is a real tropical vacation for me, with the wonderful Mediterranean and the sweet, warm spring.\n\nThe orchestra is fine, and I am having a great success. [Charles] Munch has just finished his weeks here, and we finally met: he came to my rehearsal this morning, and was so excited that he wants to arrange a big concert for me in Paris. Tant mieux.\n\nI miss you, and can't wait to return to Tanglewood. Please don't be worried about me; the bombs fly, but the newspapers exaggerate.\n\nMy love to Olga, and to you my deepest devotion,\n\nLeonard\n\n253. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nHotel Castiglione, Paris, France\n\n27 May 1947\n\nOld Charmer!\n\nIt's done. Fait. The Symphony's98 been heard. Two days ago in Prague.\n\nFirst I must say it's a wonderful work. Coming to know it so much better I find in it new lights and shades \u2013 and new faults. Sweetie, the end is a sin. You've got to change. Stop the presses! We must talk \u2013 about the whole last movement, in fact.\n\nThe reactions were mixed. Too long, said some. Too eclectic, said Shostakovich (he should talk!). It lacks a real Adagio, said Kubel\u00edk. Not up my street, said Wee Willie Walton. And everyone found Chaikovsky's Fifth in it, which only proves their inanity. I haven't seen the press yet, but I think it will be good. It just wasn't a wow, that's all; it was solid, it was serious. The orchestra was exhausted (end of the festival), and the rehearsals were nightmares. (We had six!) But at the concerts they played marvelously. Even to catching our private rubatos in the third movement\n\nwhich, by the way, is my favorite part. That's the real inspiration \u2013 the real Aaronchen. I could make out fine _anti_ cases for mov'ts I & II (and of course IV) but not III. That's my personal wow.\n\nBy the way, I do it awfully well, and I'd love to do it in the States. Maybe Tangle[wood] \u2013 well, maybe the City Center.\n\nThere is much to say. Letters are impossible. But won't you write me and tell about May and Harvard and the Virgil [Thomson] Opera and where you are and Koussie and Victor [Kraft] and everyone? And D[avid] D[iamond]?\n\nIf you write me to Holland I'll be sure to get it. I'm there June 8\u201313. Write now, and they'll hold it for me. G. de Koos, Noordeinde 62A, Den Haag, Holland.\n\nPalestine was a real thrill. More later. Will you be in NYC for my stadium week?\n\nLove, Love,\n\nL\n\n254. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMexico, D.F.\n\n4 June 1947\n\nYoung Charmer!\n\nJust received your forwarded Paris letter and I'm dashing a hasty reply on the chance that it will reach you in Holland. It was fun to read the various reactions to the Symph \u2013 including your own. I've decided that it's a tough job to write an almost 40 min. piece which is perfect throughout. That's about all I'll concede for the moment! You were an angel to struggle with rehearsals at the tail-end of a Festival. The part of your letter I liked best, of course, was your saying you'd like to do it zum States.\n\nDidn't I tell you I was coming to Mexico to conduct the Symph myself? I've had 3 rehearsals already and the concert is still 2 weeks away. My main trouble is giving cues for entrances. Well, anyhow it's very good experience and I'm getting a kick out of it. (Kouss said to me before I left \"If you ruin _my_ Symph I vil keel you.\")99\n\nAll my N.Y. news is probably stale for you by now. Virgil's opera100 was original-looking on the stage \u2013 no one has ever seen anything quite like it. But I thought there was more music in _Four Saints_ [ _in Three Acts_ ]. It's as if a new musical idea hadn't occurred to him in 10 years. The prosody, as per usual, is superb \u2013 but then it's easy to have good prosody if you have nothing else on your mind (I'm quoting myself).\n\nD[avid] D[iamond] looked much improved when last I saw him. I suppose Helen Kates told you of our financial crisis which was solved until August.\n\nBob Shaw did a bee-utiful job with my new chorus.101 Most people seemed to like it, but the press was only mildly interested. I can't imagine how you'll react to it. Any ho you won't have to conduct it \u2013 since there's nothing but voices. (I decided that Bob's conducting technique derives from the football cheerleader. Or did you say that already?)\n\nI was in Cuba the night you played the Symph in Prague. Mexico seems so naively serious by comparison. I see _Jeremiah_ on display here in the record shops. Ch\u00e1vez spoke of asking you to come to conduct a week in August. Did he wire you? And just before getting your letter I was talking about you (I seem to be always talking about you!) with de Spirito102 and Carrington103 at lunch. You'll be glad to hear that San Juan de Letran still thrives and that I live one block away.\n\nI'll be at the Stadium concerts. And thanks Gawd for Tanglewood so's we can talk \u2013 finally. I've lectures all prepared for you about your City Center programs \u2013 completely disinterested since I leave for Brazil on August 14. Your ex-mentor sends you an abrazo muy fuerte \u2013\n\nA.\n\n255. Lena Horne104 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n16 July 1947\n\nDear Leonard Bernstein,\n\nI would very much like to have you as my guest at a party at Jerome Robbins' home, 421 Park Ave., on Thursday night July 24th from 8:00 to 1:00 (corner of 56th Street).105\n\nWe will share delightful drinks and entertainment for the benefit of the fighting veterans organization, United Negro and Allied Veterans of America.106\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nLena Horne\n\n256. Marketa Morris to Leonard Bernstein\n\nContinental House, Stamford, NY\n\n23 July 1947\n\nLenny,\n\nYour letter stirred up lots of problems.\n\nTo go into them adequately would require an elaborate paper \u2013 and that does not agree with my vacations. I try a compromise. I have to be honest in the first place. Honest and short means usually: it hurts! I have to rely on your perspicacity and your English to translate my thoughts into a good, nice, considerate English. Will you?\n\nI don't think that our work will be finished in five months. But there is even some risk of your feeling worse after this period since many problems may have come into the open without finding a solution.\n\nUnder the given circumstances I would want to start only if you are taking the responsibility for such a possible outcome.\n\nOf course there is a chance that we may come to some essential clarification. No way to deny it. It's fifty fifty \u2013 and you have to know it.\n\nIn your dreams there is confusion, you are not able to go where you have to go: two _simultaneous engagements_ or dates and so on. You are seeing Felicia and the day she leaves you _have_ to see a boy.\n\nThe same old pattern. You can't give up. Very eager to resume analysis but the queer fish resistance is as big a fish as your drive to get well.\n\nIf you could give up Europe for the solution of your problems, you would have solved quite some of them and we had the most promising start. But would I make it a condition, which, I have to confess was very tempting \u2013 I am sure it wouldn't work out, since you would use it against me, that is, against our work.\n\nI don't quite understand your dream involving your parents. What does Rochester mean? Did you intend to leave alone by plane (which you missed!). Could it indicate that it is a \"force majeur\" and not your own incapacity that you can't separate yourself from them. Being inside still a child as you say (giving up childhood).\n\nYou are toying around with the possibility of being a dull and uninteresting talent \u2013 or losing your place in the score (Koussevitzky).\n\nRemember that you wanted to challenge people and find out whether they would still love you.\n\nIt's all very sketchy, I know. But I still hope that you can pick out something of help for you.\n\nI did intend to go to Tanglewood, indeed, but it did not materialize.\n\nI had an interesting letter from George today who himself is going to the Berkshires.\n\nLenny, I hope very much that you understand what I really want to convey to you! Do you?\n\nI am back in town between the 5\u201310th of Sept.\n\nSincerely.\n\nM\n\n257. Richard Adams Romney (\"Twig\")107 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n34 Beekman Place, New York, NY\n\n25 July 1947\n\nMy dear Lenny,\n\nI can't resist writing you, even though I know that the mood I am in should prompt me to be still. I feel sad \u2013 and alone in the way only a neurotic can feel alone.\n\nThe idea of living with someone else came crashing down around my knees last night just as hurriedly as it had spent itself in the sky the day before. The thought of having to be responsible to an irresponsible degree for someone else's living condition makes me balk like I have heard men do just before they take a wife. Living in this little box has a security that is that of a desperate grasping squeeze... I'm reminded of the Steig drawing of the man in the box who thinks \"people are no damn good\"! I tripped over a stone yesterday. This was it: the nearer my time came to report to the VA108 for my chance for psycho-analytical treatment, the more tense I noticed myself to be. I translated it as a natural resistance \u2013 for certainly, beyond the chance of talking about myself, hashing over my imaginary reflections, and being an \"actress\", there is a deep conviction that my locked doors must not be opened. The fear of falling with my faults is funny \u2013 for I believe that by uncovering one recovers, yet recognition has not healed me of the failings lately (like Christian Science, for instance, has led me to believe). Why, when one sees an error of premise doesn't that seeing dispel its tenacity? Is it the old self-authority commanding \"thus far and no farther\"?\n\nWell, I sweat through the interview, with the best manners I could muster \u2013 by that I mean without personal messiness, and found I have to go through another interview \u2013 also not an MD or Psychiatrist \u2013 which will determine whether I am in worth[y] condition to take the time of the Psychiatrist. Then it is probable that psychiatric survey and not psycho-analytical treatment will be granted. So \u2013 with all my resistance to being analysed, I am depressingly disappointed that a possibility of being treated is quite improbable. Another contradiction! Perhaps I should take a part-time job and see if I can earn my analysis \u2013 even on through my school-time-days to come. (The analyst Bruce Knight is arranging for me to see is named Berkeley \u2013 and lives near you on 11th Street, I believe. Have you ever heard of her? I wish she wasn't a her.)\n\nHelen wrote me a lovely thank you card \u2013 and it delighted me a good deal. She mentioned your great success with _Appalachian Spring_ \u2013 but I knew of it the day before by my own conviction. I went into Liberty and listened to the Koussevitzky recordings and was disappointed at his interpretation. There is a lovely excitement in the way you play the \"saddle\" part \u2013 is it Part III? \u2013 Koussy rushes it, instead of syncopating it \u2013 and the way you end it is moving. Oh, butch, you're wonderful!\n\nThis morning's book list from Holliday advertises Auden's new thing along with a new one of Edith Sitwell's. When I get round to send you [ _The Age of_ ] _Anxiety_ I will also include _The Shadow of Cain_ which the book store insists \"reflects more directly the tragic impact of contemporary events on an acutely sensitive and perceptive nature.\" Then they add, \"In their likeness and unlikeness, these two books are an absorbing study.\"\n\nI have been to Lewisohn [Stadium] twice this week. Hans Schwieger is the poorest conductor I have ever heard with a first rate orchestra. He conducts as if he were leading a hofbrau band.[...] The Philharmonic must realize that many people take to concerts in the summer because of the outdoor \"tranquility\", and it is their initiation to the best music \u2013 therefore they could increase their winter subscription lists with new enthusiasts, but there is a vital danger in sandwiching the very best with the slip-shod. Evidently you set the standard for their summer concerts extremely high. I have heard from many diversified tastes that your concerts were electric. Mr. Schwieger has been a sad let-down.\n\nDo I sound mean, Pappie. Hating people again?\n\nYou set me such a fine example of living with other people, I am more aware than ever of my anti-social side. Please don't let my untidy sick mind bore you away from me (I want you to feel a teensy bit responsible so that you won't give me up as unworthy of your good affection). You've touched me deeply \u2013 honestly you have.\n\nI'm going to close \u2013 hoping you can scribble a card when you're squatting in that hammock. Kisses to Helen. (Gobbles to you.)\n\nTwig\n\nTell Helen to get _The Gallery_109 from her lending library (it's already out of stock).\n\nWhy don't you try a tone poem of _Anxiety_?110 The four themes \u2013 their inter-relationship, pairing-off drama \u2013 etc. might make a good thing. And you could do it! Name it _T_ he _W_ anderer _I_ n _G_ reenwood after me (forgive that!) [...]\n\n258. Richard Adams Romney (\"Twig\") to Leonard Bernstein\n\n34 Beekman Place, New York, NY\n\n29 July 1947\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nForgive all of the overheatedness in my past letters, but know it is only because I know you don't want me to be sillily overboard that I ask your forgiveness. You made me very very happy in those few days, and I have had to try to know what it was about your example and good heart that made me wish I could get right against you.\n\nHere is a snap of me taken on the wharf of Hamilton, Bermuda that I hope you will look at when you forget what I look like. I think it quite good.\n\nWhat do you think of the _Anxiety_ idea? There is so much musical-subtlety in it, and those various metres brought about by the different roads the couples take and their differing means of transportation, to say nothing of the moods, and the separateness that becomes oneness under alcohol and\/or libidinal urges. You mentioned it being good ballet material, yes, but I think, first, it should be composed as music by itself and therefore protect it from being too obvious program music, and then if some clever choreographer can put the musical composition to work, with what added quality good music may give to the themes and material, well and good.111 I would rather have \"it\" in the concert hall, where it can be less \"handled\" than in the ballet school where many talents brush it up. It's too good a thing for many hands.\n\nI am beginning to suffer more for lack of occupation, but until the VA makes some kind of a decision regarding their award of psycho treatment, I don't think I can obligate my time just yet. Do I ring self-excused and lazy? Hummm. If the VA vetoes treatment, I am determined to work it out on my own but taking temporary work during my school days, and immediately before school begins.\n\nThe _Tribune_ had a high compliment of your first night.112 I wish I could have seen and heard the performance. I read it at a friend's house \u2013 and will get you a copy if you weren't able to grab it in Pittsfield.\n\nSpeaking of my friend, she is Anne Gibson Clark \u2013 and she is toying with the idea of going home to Grand Rapids to pick up her convertible, and then taking me to Tanglewood one week-end to hear some more music. What you do think of that?\n\nKiss Helen for me and tell her I will write her the letter I want to, in answer to her friendly card, very soon. She couldn't have been kinder to me and I thank her every time I think of her \u2013 which is every day.\n\nLots of love,\n\nTwigling\n\n259. Leonard Bernstein to \"Twig\" Romney\n\nBox 102, Lenox, MA\n\n1 August 1947\n\nDear Twig, fighting to the last,\n\nThis should be five or six letters by now. There are so many things to say, and the super-varied contents of your three letters call for all kinds of discussion. But I'm not in my \"analyst\" mood right now, having an uncomfortable back condition these days, and having just finished a long and difficult lecture. So let me just not be \"Pappy\" now, and send you my love and thanks for all the three books (which I keep trying to find a minute to crack) and to tell you how often I think of you.\n\nThe concerts here have been tops; and mine have given me the utmost satisfaction. The reactions have been marvelous, and Kouss was ecstatic. I wish you could have been here: \u2013 can't you get up for my next one on Aug 7th?\n\nI don't quite understand the rise and fall of Bruce Knight. What _really_ happened? And have you met Miss Berkeley?\n\nI have to dash off for a diathermy on my poor aching back. Write more and often, and better still, come (though I can't promise you space here for a while) and I love your photograph.\n\nBless you, and don't let your resistance interfere with going through with the analysis.\n\nAll the affection you need \u2013\n\nL\n\nThe enclosed sheds much light!113\n\n260. Marketa Morris to Leonard Bernstein\n\nContinental House, Stamford, NY\n\n28 August 1947\n\nLenny,\n\nLet me be very brief. I feel in your letter that some part in you expects my support for the cancellation of Palestine! That you dare not to see it, but that you would want to do something completely radical \u2013 for your Resurrection!\n\nThe only thing you can do: try to feel whether that is what _you_ want. Not what I want!\n\nPlease call me up after Labor day (or even before) best between 9\u201312 a.m. [on] 4751 because I would want to arrange for our first session in New York. Will you? It has technical reasons.\n\nI don't quite understand why you were pleased not to feel the necessity to thank me for my time? No obligation for conventional feelings? That's okay? But how about some genuine, warm feeling of gratefulness? Could you imagine?\n\nIn N.Y. I refused to take a brother in law of a patient of mine who wanted to come to St[amford] and have daily sessions by saying: not even if he would pay $25 a session.\n\nI am mentioning it deliberately to show you that it is not only you who has to give up and make sacrifices \u2013 but that I am willing as well to do so, if necessary. I even proposed to see you once more, if you would have wished. I understand perfectly that you did not since you were so busy making so important decisions.\n\nWe'll talk about it more in N.Y.\n\nHave a nice time \u2013 a productive time first of all!\n\nYours,\n\nMarketa\n\nFor the sake of order: I am charging (since last year) $10 a session. We had one in N.Y. and 3 in Stamford.\n\nYou had no dream? How come after all these important events?\n\nM\n\n261. Marketa Morris to Leonard Bernstein\n\n562 West 113th Street, New York, NY\n\n[?1947]\n\nLenny,\n\nI got your dream letter. You know that it is quite impossible to give a written interpretation to a dream \u2013 and more so a dream without interpretation.\n\nWhy am I living in Brooklyn?\n\nJimmy's Restaurant in Greenwich V[illage]\n\nWhy another cab to go to Brooklyn?\n\nWhat's about 289?\n\nIt's getting dark at four o'clock in the afternoon?\n\nSwitches putting on lights _upstairs_ and not _downstairs_? What's the difference between up and downstairs in this beautiful, big, expensive house?\n\nWhat about the two girls blocking the exit from behind your desk?\n\nWrite me if you feel like \u2013 besides the dreams! F[or] i[nstance] why cannot you relax and just simply _not_ compose? Remember, _you had_ the idea that adjustment to homosexuality could facilitate heterosexuality! Couldn't adjustment to relaxation constitute a capacity of creative work? Of course not _pretending_ to relax only.\n\nMarketa\n\nI could see you Monday at 12 (noon) or at 7 p.m. Tuesday at 11 a.m. OK?\n\n262. James M. Cain114 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n666 South Carondelet Street, Los Angeles, CA\n\n1 October 1947\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nTwo proposals have been made to me, one by a leading playwright and a reputable producer, the other by the most successful operetta composer we have, hooked up with a highly successful librettist, to put _Serenade_ on the stage;115 but I am bound to report that in spite of a high personal regard for all of these various gentlemen, all I could detect in their ideas was the most obvious theatrical claptrap, and accordingly I did my best to discourage them. _Serenade_ , unfortunately, as seems to be the case with most of my stories, has problems that don't yield to a socko waltz tune, and I am not sure they yield at all. You, though, might be able to get somewhere with it. I mean, I have followed your work & think it might suit your gifts.\n\nAs for my doing your libretto, I can only say I never did one, and have a suspicion that at my age I shouldn't try to learn.116 The rights, for your information, are in the clear, that is the dramatic rights; I own them, and while the publisher cuts in for 25% of anything paid on account of performances, I make the deal, and naturally would be reasonable. My suggestion would be to get in the market for a poet, or poetess, and I would think that the _New Yorker_ , which is in touch with every poet there is, may be of some help, if you were to write them, or better still go in there. Katherine White, I understand, is still with them, and could no doubt think of somebody. After that you are in the lap of chance, but no worse with a _New Yorker_ nominee than with me.\n\nTo elucidate the rights thing, which on re-reading doesn't seem wholly clear. A contract leasing you the right to produce an opera based on the book would be one thing, and would be made by me, either with you or with your producer. Royalties paid me would be split with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., my publisher. Your libretto & score would be another contract, made by producers, publishers, etc., with you and your librettist, lyricist, etc. If I did the book, I would be involved in it, but as I hesitate, that complication most likely won't arise.\n\nI should naturally be delighted if you undertake the job, and wish you all luck with it. It has a _theme_ , as the picture people found out, as horrendous as the Motif of Sulphur Yellow Truth in Mencken's concert program; but no doubt you know all about that, and let us hope, what to do with it, or how to get rid of it.117 Many thanks for your felicitations. The lady,118 as you may have heard, has yodeled quite a bit of opera herself.\n\nSincerely,\n\nJ. M. Cain\n\n263. Leonard Bernstein to James M. Cain\n\n9 October 1947\n\nDear Mr. Cain,\n\nThank you very much for your kind letter of October 1 and for your kind comments about me and my gifts. I am happy to learn that the rights are clear, but to be frank, I am not reconciled to the fact that you would not be able to write the libretto from your work. However, I will follow your suggestion and look about for a collaborator though at this writing I have some ideas myself as to the book and lyrics.\n\nUnfortunately, I will not be able to give the matter my entire time immediately although the first act is fully formed in my mind both dramatically and musically. I will be occupied with my conducting here until at least the end of the year and then I have foreign commitments to conduct, which will consume the first months of the coming year. However, then I shall have free time and nothing will delight me more than to concentrate on the work.\n\nAt the moment I have no producer and therefore I am proceeding on my own insofar as the work is concerned and what I would like to have from you is the right to dramatize the book for musical purposes until September, 1948, which I believe will give me ample time to finish what I have in mind.\n\nI understand that in the event of our adopting a writer of the book and a lyric writer, we will have to arrange for royalties to be divided, among all of us.\n\nMy sincerest thanks for your kindness and encouragement to proceed in the matter and if you will be good enough to send me a little note regarding the rights, I shall be grateful. It is difficult at long range to discuss these matters from a practical standpoint or try to get together on the book and lyrics and on more technical business, but I believe we understand each other thoroughly and I assure you I shall give the matter my sincerest cooperation.\n\nSincerely yours,\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\n264. Leonard Bernstein to James M. Cain\n\n32 West 10th Street, New York, NY\n\n8 November 1947\n\nDear Mr. Cain,\n\nI liked your letter very much, not only because of your encouraging words, but also because it was a real Cain special.\n\nI am not completely convinced that you're not my librettist; but, of course, that has to be your decision. May I hope you will keep thinking about this possibility?\n\nWhat I would like from you right now is an option on the rights to dramatize the book which would extend to December 31, 1948. I think this would give me enough time to make real inroads into the work. So much of this coming year is to be taken up by conducting engagements, here and abroad, that I feel a good year is necessary. I can let you know fairly soon about the producer arrangements.\n\nIf you'll be good enough to send me a note regarding these rights, I shall be very grateful. I am sure then that we can get together via attorney or what-have-you on the more technical business.\n\nDon't you ever come east? I do wish we could have a chance to talk about it. For instance, do you belong to the school that believes in the complete deletion of the theme, as you call it, for operatic purposes, or do you agree with me that it could be handled intelligently and without offense?\n\nMany thanks, and best wishes.\n\nSincerely,\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\n265. James M. Cain to Leonard Bernstein\n\n666 South Carondelet Street, Los Angeles, CA\n\n2 December 1947\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nA thousand pardons for not answering your note sooner, and forwarding the reservation requested, but I have been down under the ice winding up a novel, and I know of nothing that claims so much of one's time, and leaves so little juice for anything, except possibly, but not in no way probably, the tying of one's shoes.\n\nThe enclosed letter will do it, I think.119 I haven't consulted lawyers or agents, as they commonly scream for a quid pro quo, as I don't think we are to that stage yet, or that it is even much of a stage, financially speaking, with regard to anything operatic. However, I have had a good many things of the same kind before, and think this will do it, if it covers what you are concerned about.\n\nAbout the libretto: I try to picture myself pulling this off, but have no faintest notion how to go about it, either to block it out by scenes, or what kind of writing to put in it, or anything. I still think you need a poet, and still think Katherine White of the _New Yorker_ should steer you towards a suitable one. She knows every poet in the world, together with how much he drinks before dinner, whether he does it before breakfast, whether he can write iambic hexameters or free verse, and all relevant things. I used to know her quite pleasantly and think she would like to cooperate on that account, as well as being terrifically impressed by you. No, I have no objection to the damned theme, but think as a practical matter it is the most unsuitable to stage use, though it has been tried now and then with no great objection by the police. I merely think it is unpleasant. But if it were used symbolically, a sort of inverted Faust idea, with addiction to _man_ standing for cerebral, cold, and sterile things, and _woman_ pulsing with all those hot, life-giving elements, it might do. Personally, I still say you'd do a hell of a sight better to put the time in on Aaron Burr120 or someone like that. There's a good book out on him, by the way, by Holmes Alexander.\n\nWill be in New York, in any event, around 28th or 30th of this month, or shortly thereafter, & will ring you then. Until then, all luck with it, and I confess the greatest curiosity as to what in the name of God you have in mind.\n\nYours,\n\nJ. M. Cain\n\n266. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nHotel Castiglione, Paris, France\n\n3 May 1948\n\nDear H,\n\nThis is it \u2013 le jour de d\u00e9part to be carried off by the Orient Express into the wilderness of Europe. Nobody knows what will happen. Everyone secretly expects war, but is afraid to say so to himself. It is obvious here that the entire war-plan is being instigated and manufactured in America. There is no need for it \u2013 but I have a horrible feeling that America will have its way. God forbid.\n\nThese last days in Paris have been pure heaven. I haven't begun to see everyone I wanted to see \u2013 but I've spent much time with Ellen [Adler] (who sends you all her love) and Fran\u00e7ois [Val\u00e9ry] and my wonderful shipboard roommate, and my darling Comtesse Marie-Blanche [de Polignac] (and her big Sunday evening last night to which I took Ellen, and where I sang them the _Bonne Cuisine_ ) and Nadia [Boulanger] and Otis Bigelow. It's been exciting and warm, & Paris is breathtaking.\n\nThe traveling plans became complicated at one point \u2013 (Milan to Budapest) \u2013 of course \u2013 because a train would take me through Yugoslav territory, & no Yugoslav permit is faintly possible. I finally found a way to take a train to Zurich, then fly (the next day) to Prague, then to Budapest. This means a Czech permit, & four hours of waiting around the Czech Consulate, plus many grey & pink and mauve cards for the Russian Zone, where I may still be held. But I've made good friends at the American Embassy and they've helped a lot. At least I'll have a night in Switzerland.\n\nThe big news is that I may have _two_ concerts in Paris \u2013 the other with the Conservatoire (and Neveu) on the 30th! Sudden cancellation. I'll know in a few days. It would make an awful scramble (8 rehearsals in 3 days), but I'm game, if it means a public concert. You know, I suppose, that the Radio concert is again without public.\n\nWell \u2013 I'm off to the hinterland, and I'll make every effort to come back.\n\nLove to all & you,\n\nL\n\n267. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nMilan, Italy\n\n16 May 1948\n\nDear A,\n\nThese should either thrill, amuse or infuriate you. Imagine making an Italian debut with _Appalach_ e! [i.e. _Appalachian Spring_ ] I love the one that wonders what a \"Balletto per Marta\" is, and the one that says it reminds them of American movies, and the one that thinks I'm 6 feet tall.\n\nAnyway, it was a wild success, as was Munich (which was a real international problem), and now on to Budapest. It's all exciting as hell, and I'll write you at length later. My train leaves for Zurich in half an hour.\n\nLove love love,\n\nL\n\nBest to V[ictor] K[raft].\n\nIf you don't want to keep these notices, send them to Helen C., please?\n\n268. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nBudapest, Hungary\n\n20 May 1948\n\nDear H,\n\nThey say there hasn't been such a scene in a Budapest concert hall since Toscanini was here. The audience stamped & shouted, & especially for Bart\u00f3k, which they say has never really been heard until I did it, although it's always being played here. Well \u2013 another one under the belt. Everyone is wild with excitement. I've never known what success was before this. [...]\n\nThe _Times_ story on Munich is garbled, but good to see.121 I think the Tanglewood programs are perfect. I'm eating like a king. Of course, I'm a bit tired and rushed ( _three_ rehearsals yesterday!) but so happy. Budapest is ugly & beautiful together.\n\nIf Shirley wants to join me in Holland or Paris do have her come. Just get her on a plane or something. She seems to need it, and I would love to see her here.\n\nThe bobby-soxers tonight beat everything I've ever seen. I'm exhausted. Off to bed; tomorrow on to Vienna. I'm crossing my fingers for _that_ one.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\nWhat iron curtain? It's only cellophane.\n\n269. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nParis, France\n\n29 May 1948\n\nDear H,\n\nSo much has happened that I don't know where to begin. I didn't write from Vienna since everything is censored from & to that city (all your clippings and notes bore the stamp of the censor!) \u2013 and besides I had quite a hectic time. It was the toughest city of all to conquer \u2013 a chauvinistic, provincial, nationalistic town, convinced that only Viennese can do anything at all, and that all Americans are fools. There was a mess over the program (I suddenly found myself saddled with a violin soloist) \u2013 and the orchestra was exhausted (five different concerts that one week, with 5 conductors and 12 rehearsals!) and besides they were all very antipathetic. It's the first time it ever took me 3 rehearsals to overcome the natural hostility of an orchestra, but we made it! Love & music conquered all; and the concert turned out a great triumph. I had been forewarned that nobody ever goes to concerts any more in Vienna for lack of money (even Bruno Walter's second concert was only half full \u2013 for the Mahler!!)122 \u2013 but still I had an almost sold-out house. Of course, the violinist helped \u2013 he's been there before. And he turned out to be good, despite the fact that we had to do the Dvo\u0159\u00e1k Concerto! The final trouble was that I had to cancel _Jeremiah_ \u2013 it would have been impossible in the rehearsals and with such a hostile, exhausted orchestra. It's just as well: the house came down, and, as the manager said, \"Ganz Wien in ein' Schlag!\"123 The political situation is a horror: more of that later. I have learned and learned and become very sad. It looks fairly hopeless at the moment.\n\nI was _furious_ at the _Times_ announcement that I had accepted the C[ity] C[enter]. What crust! How dare they! Mortie [Newbold Morris] should be strung up. What will Palestine think \u2013 that I accepted the orchestra just for a gag? It's psychologically horrible for them \u2013 and I do hope you'll make it clear to the Palestine people that this story is false. It's the last straw.\n\nThe orchestra here is angelic. They learned _Jeremiah_ in one rehearsal, and are so fast and good and in love with me that I actually cancelled today's rehearsal! First time I ever felt I could dispense with a rehearsal in Europe. Jennie [Tourel] is greater than ever.\n\nI see Ellen [Adler] a lot & she sends her love. Fran\u00e7ois [Val\u00e9ry] and Nadia [Boulanger] are coming to Holland for my concerts! It just angers me that this second year I still don't have a debut in Paris \u2013 after all the ego-building of these triumphs; to do just a broadcast here is an anticlimax. Well, what to do? Paris operates in terms of press agents, and [Charles] Kiesgen is asleep. The Conservatoire concert didn't work out after all \u2013 a matter of finance & intrigue with the Radio. It's a shame, but it would have been too hectic anyway.\n\nI've had to call off the Prague concert too [...] a wire from Bruno Z[irato] practically threatened excommunication if I went. So it's off. Another shame.\n\nWhat's this with your Hebrew? Are you studying? I'm terribly impressed. But you should learn to write script, not print! [...]\n\nNow that the book contract is signed, I have qualms. The old question \u2013 When?\n\nI guess it's just as well for Shirley to stick around in America. She wouldn't be much happier in Holland, though I probably would. (A propos, Vienna paid me in greenbacks, & I travel about with a bulging wallet of 20s and 50s!)\n\nI did write you from Budapest didn't I? I hope so, but if not \u2013 it was a tremendous experience, and they asked me to stay on a month, giving daily concerts \u2013 and they wouldn't be able to meet the demand! That's how wild the success was. Especially, of all things, the Bart\u00f3k!\n\nNow, for Philadelphia, damn them. I hardly know what to plan (I'm not in a planning frame of mind). But I _must_ play a concerto. Maybe Mendelssohn _Italian_ , Ravel Concerto and Shosty #5. Or Mozart _Linz_ first. Or Copland 3rd and Beethoven Concerto. Or (maybe this is best) Mendelssohn, _Jeremiah_ , and Beethoven Concerto. Yes, this is best. Try & push it.\n\nI guess that brings [me] up to date. I'll write next week from Holland. Give Shirley all my love, & tell her it happens to all of us, and it had a great deal of joy in it, after all; & these things are always made of joy and pain together.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n270. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim\n\nScheveningen, Netherlands\n\n10 June 1948\n\nDear D,\n\nThe sun is out, I'm waiting for horses to be brought, I live like a king, I have screaming audiences and flowers at my concerts, and even a lover. There are a few other facts: the sea outside my window is a wonder; the Dutch word for cunt is kunt; there is a performer here named Cilli Wang; and I've bought you a sweet hand-painted chess-set in Budapest.\n\nI send all my love to you & Judy.\n\nL\n\n271. Leonard Bernstein to \"Twig\" Romney\n\nScheveningen, Netherlands\n\n20 June 1948\n\nMy dear T,\n\nWell, it's over. The big swing around this beautiful messy continent is at an end and I am swollen with success, lush with living, loving and learning.\n\nGermany and Austria were fabulous, filthy, Nazi, exciting. Budapest was grim and gay. Milano was the greatest. Paris a joy, as ever, and Holland a comfort, where I've soaked up milk and lobsters and sun, and been horseback riding every day. I'm happy, and a little bit drunk, to celebrate the end of the tour. I don't lift an arm until July 1st! (I sail the 22nd for New York, arriving the 29th, when you will probably be leaving.)\n\nNo sign of Thad anywhere. He missed a thrilling concert \u2013 not just musically, but politically. More anon.\n\nMore anon also about the Russian regions. It's not so good, to put it mildly.\n\nMaybe we can have a moment before we leave New York. As they say here, _tis te hopen_.\n\nAll the best, dear Twig, and if I don't see you, I hope you will love Europe as much as I have. I have a strange lack of nostalgia for America. I could go on here for ever.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n272. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nc\/o Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Tel Aviv, Israel\n\n29 September 1948\n\nDear A,\n\nA word to say me voici, and Gott sei Dank, and it's all beautiful beyond words.\n\nMarc [Blitzstein] cheered me up immensely the day after you brought me down so about the _Age of A_ [ _nxiety_ ] \u2013 he went into positive fits of joy. Who knows?\n\nHow would you like some of the enclosed for a present? It's just for you, it's terribly blond & Swedish, & it will be in America (Philadelphia!) by December. Mmm. It was lovely.\n\nI've already started working like a dog. Thirty-five concerts in the next two months! Somehow in Israel one finds strength for everything.\n\nMy suite & garden are a joy. Real Garden-of-Eden stuff: palms, mimosa, cactus, & what a sea! You must try Israel one day.\n\nHow's by the movie?\n\nYou old bastard, I love you.\n\nL\n\nEveryone awaits the 3rd Symphony with bated breath. Just to take _you_ down a bit, _Billy the Kid_ was _not_ played here, only the Celebration Dance, alone & only, and that had to be repeated. You old encore composer!\n\n273. Leonard Bernstein to \"Twig\" Romney\n\nTel Aviv, Israel\n\n20 October 1948\n\nDear Twig,\n\nI tried hard to call you during my three days in New York last month \u2013 between a wonderful Wyoming visit and my flight to Israel. You had gone, of course, that very day. But it's good to have your note, and to know that you are now ensconced in the sheltered halls of old V\u2013a, studying, and, I presume, making love like a beaver.\n\nThis is such a beautiful experience that I can hardly write of it. Truly I feel I never want to leave, despite all the tragedy and difficulty. I sit here in this charming city in a blackout, with the fucking Egyptians raising hell to the south, my beloved Jerusalem without water, and in siege. But the concerts go on \u2013 dozens of them \u2013 never one missed \u2013 with huge and cheering audiences \u2013 sometimes accompanied by shells and machine guns outside. And Haifa is certainly one of the fabulous beauty-spots on earth. Life is hectic, but pleasant beyond words: the orchestra is the most intelligent and responsive I've known: and I think I've fallen in love.\n\nAdd it up: do you blame me for having no nostalgia for the States? This is a most miraculous people with a heroism and devotion I have never before seen. I know: \u2013 I visited the front in Jerusalem. I could weep with the inspiration of it. Everyone is young, inspired, beautiful in this new Army, and everyone is truly alive in this new State. So they slander and babble in Paris, but these people will never be downed.\n\nI think of you often and with affection, Twig. I shall be back Dec. 9 or so. But I hear that the Philly Orchestra has cancelled the season! Otherwise \u2013 it would be lovely to see you.\n\nAll the best,\n\nL\n\n274. Leonard Bernstein to Serge Koussevitzky\n\nTel Aviv, Israel\n\n29 October 1948\n\nDear Sergei Alexandrovich,\n\nHow to begin? Which of all the glorious facts, faces, actions, ideals, beauties of scenery, nobilities of purpose shall I report? I am simply overcome with this land and its people. I have never so gloried in an army, in simple farmers, in a concert public. I am in perfect health, and very happy \u2013 only a little tired from the fantastic schedule we have here: 40 concerts in 60 days, here, in Haifa, in Jerusalem, Rehovoth, and so on. The concerts are a marvelous success, the audiences tremendous and cheering, the greatest being special concerts for soldiers. Never could you imagine so intelligent and cultured and music-loving an army!\n\nAnd Jerusalem \u2013 what shall I say of my beloved Jerusalem, tragic, under constant Arab fire, without water (only a pail a day) \u2013 with machine guns outside accompanying our performances of Beethoven symphonies! I have visited the fronts, entered Notre Dame, where we held out a few paces only from Arab\u2013British guns, inspected the strategic heights around the city and the Palmach bases. I have played piano in hospitals for the new wounded of the Negev, and in camps for soldiers and \"Kibbutzim\" people. I have been decorated with the Jerusalem Defense medal and the Palmach insignia. I have almost grown to be part of all these wonderful people and history-making days. Believe me, it will end well: there is too much faith, spirit, and will to be otherwise.\n\nWhile in Jerusalem I took a side-trip to a formerly Arab village called Ain-Karem where the captain of the Commandos turned out to be named Moshe Koussevitzky! He tells me he is your nephew, son of your brother, and is a charming, warm person, doing a great and heroic piece of work. I photographed him, and am sending you a print enclosed. I hope this makes you very happy.\n\nI am holding auditions for young conductors next week (I have reason to believe there are real talents here). Our good friend Mrs. Frank Cohen advises me that she wishes to donate a scholarship for an Israeli conducting student at Tanglewood next summer. Would you be willing to accept one, as an active pupil if possible, if we find a very talented one? Do please let me know as soon as you can, so that I can make arrangements while I am still here.124\n\nI hope the season goes as wonderfully as always \u2013 though I am sure this one will surpass all top standards set before. We all love you and pray for you here, and all your dear friends send you warmest wishes, including the President Weizmann, our beloved MacDonald [Ambassador James McDonald] (who is doing a fine job), and the members of the orchestra, who wait only for your visit one day.\n\nAll my love to you and Olga.\n\nLeonard\n\nI feel that I shall spend more and more time here each year. It makes running around the cities of America seem so unimportant \u2013 as if I am not really needed there, while I am really needed here!\n\nBy the way, I met Moshe Koussevitzky just next to the spring of John the Baptist!\n\n275. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nTel Aviv, Israel\n\n8 November 1948\n\nDearest A,\n\nWell, we've gone and done it. The [Third] Symphony seems to be a success! Of course we could have used much more rehearsal (our schedule is unbelievable), but after the fourth performance it has begun to sound, and quite magnificent at that. It's really a fantastic piece! I must confess I have made a sizeable cut near the end125 (after the second performance) and believe me it makes a whole lot of difference. Hope you enjoy the enclosed. Most people loved it (the symph.).\n\nIn the midst of all this marvelous history & miracle-land & excitement of life, I have miraculously fallen in love. It's the works; and I can't quite believe that I should have found _all_ the things I've wanted rolled into one. It's a hell of an experience \u2013 nervewracking & guts-tearing and wonderful.126 It's changed everything. The Swedish is all yours now.\n\nHope the picture goes beautifully, & my love to all the nice people in H'wood. I can't wait to hear the B[enny] G[oodman] concerto. (By the way, B.G. here means Ben-Gurion. Strange world, no?)\n\nMuch love,\n\nL\n\nHope very much to be able to do the May 4, but I can't be sure til I get back to the States, which will be early in Dec. Where will you be?\n\n276. Leonard Bernstein to Jennie Bernstein\n\n[Israel]\n\n[November 1948]\n\nA wonderful hot day. We left our grand pre-fabricated house, Helen, as you see, in the lead, followed by our friend Katya, m'self and artist Yosi.127 Driving to Ain-Harod we passed so close to Nazareth that we couldn't resist having lunch there. It's a marvelous town; and while Helen ran around photographing everything and everyone in sight, I had a glorious Arab meal, with kh'umus and t'hina, and a fine Arab lad shined my boots. Bought rosaries (blessed by the church) for various Cath[olic] friends, and headed for Ain-Harod, the largest kibbutz in the land.\n\nOf course, first thing I had to have a horse. The gent in charge, a real kibbutz lion, took me out. I had a sort of Palomino beauty which I soon discovered I couldn't handle. So the lion-gent exchanged horses with me (I took his dray-horse), and it turned out he couldn't handle him either. Then the stable-man was called in, and he didn't do better, and since it became a bore to go only in circles we called it a day and went swimming in a marvelous pool in the middle of nowhere. The best swim-sun-and-air I think I've ever had \u2013 or thought I had until I went to Elat, but more of that anon. Meanwhile, there is a concert coming up for all the kibbutznicks of the vicinity, 5000 strong.\n\nJennie T[ourel] sang like an angel. The audience was, as always, the most attentive and appreciative in the world, although they don't know the conventions of clapping, so that Jennie T. lost an encore or two that had been planned. I finally played ye _Rhapsody in Blue_ , and we adjourned to a huge party where we danced and sang and drank and made with the Hora until Godknowswhen A.M. To bed, in a real guest-house (a fantastic achievement for a kibbutz) \u2013 then up betimes and on to Acre (old Arab city which Napoleon couldn't take) and with the military governor of Galilee went off to visit an Arab village. The road up to it was, as you can see, a real reducer. Since we were with the governor, whom the Arabs adore and fear, they staged for us what is known as a \"Fantasia\", with guns going off, music, dancing and nineteen lunches, coffee sessions, etc. Whole lambs are brought, torn to pieces by the host (who never sits with the guests but waits until they are through, then with his pals dives into the leavings. When they are through the women pounce on _their_ leavings, then the children, then the dogs. Such is the hierarchy.) Then, already sick with so much food, we proceeded to mount the local camels, who are nasty, haughty, dirty beasts. Jennie T., who will do anything for a photograph, allowed herself to be ruptured on one. Accompanied by the elders of the village (Druses, and splendid figures they are) we jolted back to Haifa for a concert \u2013 one of the worst I've ever given. Arabic burps punctuated the Mahler, which was worse in Jennie's case than in mine. Next morning a great Oriental dancer named Yardena Cohen128 performed for us \u2013 then quick to Lydda airport for the big climax \u2013 the trip to Elat. This is the newly-won spot on the Red Sea, southernmost Negev, across from Aqaba (Transjordan) on the Gulf. A beautiful flight (we were flown by the army in a Dakota with bucket seats) and landed in a wonderful Arizona-like wilderness, dry and windy and awesome. After a marvelous swim in the Red Sea (which is the bluest thing you ever saw) and a hard-tack dinner we drove up into the hills and entertained the soldiers stationed there. Jennie sang Carmen, of course \u2013 and this place at night really knocked me out. If you can imagine an intimate desert, where every rock and dune seems familiar, this is it. Yosi and I wandered afterwards for hours through the hills. I never wanted to leave, and did everything to miss the plane the next morning. But no soap: they waited for me. So sadly back to T[el] A[viv], and concerts and parties and god-damned professional life, which is driving me mad. But I leave tomorrow for Holland, and my one nostalgia, besides Jerusalem, will be Elat.\n\nLove, Lenny\n\n277. Leonard Bernstein to Philip Marcuse\n\nHotel Schenley, Pittsburgh, PA\n\n26 January 1949\n\nPhil,\n\nMany thanks for the clipping. It makes me very angry, and doubly so to think of all the fuss that's made over the Furtw\u00e4ngler & Gieseking business,129 while no attention at all is paid to this _echt_ Fascism in our own cities. How did H[enry] R[eichhold] ever let himself be quoted in such out-and-out Nazi lines? Have they set the date for burning the library in Cadillac Square?\n\nMuch love to you and Babs.\n\nL\n\n278. Ren\u00e9e Nell130 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n470 West 24th Street, New York, NY\n\n30 January 1949\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nThank you for your nice letter and poem to which I have this to answer: \"When the real animus and the real anima web, you can get married and take your wife to bed.\"\n\nSome short remarks on your dream: when you are unconscious (\"taking a nap, sleeping\"), you find that your rather undifferentiated feeling is playing tricks on you, bringing people into your psychology whom you do not want to have in there. Rather than finding out what these people really want from you, or why they were invited, you get angry at that side of yourself who played the trick on you. You get in touch with that side by hurting it, then you regret. You would know more if you would try to make her understand why you don't want these people anymore. Then, when you do get away from the unwanted collective, you get into an even less desirable one, a very pedestrian collective (street). Being alone now, without anything but yourself, you are eager to make contact with some other side, contact in the usual average pedestrian way \u2013 sex \u2013 which is the substitute for human relationship. When you find that that is impossible you are caught in some very dull, past aspect of your own bourgeois-side. That shows very nicely why you are so eagerly seeking homosexual contact in reality, it seems the way out or the escape from the fear of being caught in bourgeois patterns, and seems to symbolize the free and non-bourgeois life. They talk about your work in the dream; your fear always seems to be that being a conductor and being set in a profession is the same as being dully married and leading a middle-class life. I am sure it could be that way, but must not be that way, and will stop to look to you that way the moment you get some real color into your life; then you can give up to the so-called \"colorful life\" you are leading.\n\nFreud's definition: Id \u2013 subconscious; Ego \u2013 conscious; Super-Ego \u2013 conscience. Ego is the whole of consciousness. Jung: has the same concept of the Ego, he terms it the center of consciousness, the difference between F[reud] and J[ung] is in the way [the] use and function of the Ego are seen. With F. it is the censor and adaptor to reality. With J. it is understood as the channel for the forces that want to flow from the inside to the outside, and vice versa, it has a consciously screening function and serves the forces of the Self or the unconscious. With F. it is supposed to master them. To F. the Ego is the human being as such, therefore it has a very high value; to J. it is an aspect of the human, subordinated to the Self, which means the unspoiled essence of the human being. The Self is to J. the highest value in a human being. I hope that does not confuse you more.\n\nI wonder if you have enough contact with my way of analysis yet that the long distance dream-interpretation means anything to you. Generally it is difficult to get anything out of such answers in such an early stage of work; later when one is more attuned to each other it is easier. Let me know.\n\nI hope you have a fairly good time, not too many tensions.\n\nKindly,\n\nRen\u00e9e\n\n279. Leonard Bernstein to Howard Hoyt131\n\n32 West 10th Street, New York, NY\n\n8 February 1949\n\nDear Howard,\n\nFor a period of one year from the date hereof I hereby engage you, and you hereby accept such engagement, to act as my exclusive adviser and representative, to assist me in securing employment and negotiating contracts for my services as a performer in radio, television and motion pictures, as a composer of scores and incidental music for motion pictures, and in negotiating a contract for the production of _Operation Capulet_ , a dramatico-musical composition based on _Romeo and Juliet_ , for which I am currently composing the score and some of the lyrics.132 Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein, it is clearly understood that my services as a conductor are excluded from the scope of this contract.\n\nIn consideration of the above services, I shall pay you a sum equal to ten percent (10%) of the gross compensation served or received by me in connection with any employment and contracts in the above fields, which contracts are entered into or negotiated for during the terms hereof, and upon extensions, additions, renewals and substitutions of such contracts and employment. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein, it is understood that I shall pay you no compensation with respect to my ASCAP royalties.\n\nVery truly yours,\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\nAccepted and agreed to by Howard Hoyt\n\n280. Leonard Bernstein to Hans Heinsheimer133\n\nHotel Schenley, Pittsburgh, PA\n\n9 February 1949\n\nDear Hans,\n\nGood news for a change!\n\na) Kouss has promised, finally and definitely, the premiere of _The Age of Anxiety_ for April. Originally it was to be the 22nd and 23rd, but my benefit for Weizmann and Truman on the 23rd interferes. He has promised to find some other week in April.134 Will you check officially with Leslie Rogers at Symphony Hall?\n\nb) I've just this minute finished scoring the first movement (and, to quote Bill Schuman, is it beautiful!!). I'm mailing it to you, registered, and you can begin extracting at once. I hope to finish the second movement by next week. It's a mad race, and I'm exhausted, but it's challenging: and I hope to have it all scored by the beginning of March. (Please God!)\n\nPlease let me know right away how the print comes out: I've been using a Parker 51 pen on it, just as an experiment. If it's no good \u2013 I have the other ink with me, and can change.\n\nI've set two Rilke poems for Jennie Tourel (when? I don't know!) and she will do one or both at her March 13th Town Hall recital. I hope to have more of them soon. They make a fine group: \"Lovesongs\" by Rilke.\n\nAnd love to you \u2013\n\nLenny B\n\n281. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nColumbus, OH\n\nValentine's Day [14 February] 1949\n\nDear H,\n\nThis is a blessed day for a tired guy. Quiet and raining here, and peaceful enough to orchestrate like mad (page 67 already!).135 Concert tonight in Zanesville, O., then return here, and I can work til three tomorrow afternoon, when we leave for Dayton.\n\n[...]\n\nIt's been a grim weekend: I've been overtired again, and had the jumps at the concerts. I played a very inferior Mozart Concerto, but the Shost[akovich] was great. Too much farewell party. Also, Reiner has left a trail of hostility against me in the orchestra136 and around it, which makes it still very difficult to establish _rapport_ with the men. It's the first time I've had this problem, and it does remove the element of fun to an alarming degree. (The critic Lissfelt,137 whom you've no doubt been reading, is one of the Reinerites who is simply basically antagonistic. What a sourpuss!)\n\nI think I'll manage all right on tour, if I can get enough rest. I've set myself a deadline of having the score finished by the time I return to N.Y. for the Rutgers concerts. Let's hope & pray.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\nIzler Solomon138 just called & we may have a drink tonight. Tossy S[pivakovsky]139 is here playing Bart\u00f3k with him.\n\n282. Arthur Laurents140 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n8227 Lookout Mountain, Hollywood, CA\n\n[?April 1949]141\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI'm sending a copy of this to Jerry [Robbins] so that there won't be any wheels within wheels and we'll all be abreast of what is what.\n\nQuite frankly, I was disturbed by our phone conversation Monday night. Unless I seriously misinterpreted you, this is what I understood you to say: You conceive of the show's script as being written in an almost purely poetic style; you have doubts (understandable) whether I can write in that style without forcing; and \u2013 most important \u2013 if my writing cannot be that poetic, then you would not have complete faith in the project and, therefore, would rather abandon it before spending any actual working time.\n\nIt is this last point which I found disturbing. I myself have enormous enthusiasm for and belief in the show. I spent a good deal of time and money in New York talking about it and would not have worked on it there _and_ all these weeks here had I not, quite naturally, assumed the thing was settled: we were going to do it. It is difficult to work on something you feel may explode in your face at any moment. But difficult or not, I cannot turn back. I am \"in\" it, and _want_ to be \"in\" it; I must proceed. True, the possibility of chaos does superimpose an unfortunate level to plow through before working. But I'm working. As Jerry knows too well, I was in a vaguely similar situation myself before \u2013 when I first started in analysis, incidentally. But even then, I had spent time on the project and had worked on it, and then pulled out (for reasons, which I now regretfully admit, were erroneous and foolish).\n\nBe that as it may, the phone call brought up several problems I had not realized existed. First, the possibility that, even at this date, you might not do the show. Second \u2013 the conception. What I have tried to do is make the scenes between the lovers poetic in contrast to the violence of the world they live in. I do not think the rest should be ultra-realistic but I am doubtful whether I think it should be as poetic as you apparently do. Almost pure poetry is competing with Shakespeare on his own play. I can't stand up to that, the show can't stand up to that, no one today, unfortunately, could stand up to that. That is realistic fact. Plus the fact that I don't completely see the show that way. Also \u2013 and this would naturally follow your concept \u2013 you conceive, as I do, of the lovers' scenes as being almost completely musical but the others as being almost completely musical, too. I admit I do see less music and certainly \"songs\". I don't mean this as a cut-and-dried rule. As you will see, the last scene in the first act calls for music almost throughout, for example.\n\nPerhaps both you and Jerry disagree with me about the concept: perhaps the difference is merely one of degree (which I fervently hope). I am not adamant or absolute in my feelings; they can be modified. But a musical show (and I see this as a musical show or whatever you want to call it, but _not_ as an opera or even a modified opera) is a collaboration. A collaboration calls for compromise. Certainly, I don't ask either of you, any more than you ask me, to compromise to the point where you disbelieve in what the final outcome will be. That is foolish and makes for bad working conditions and, more important, bad work. We all must create as we feel and believe. I would not ask you to write a pop tune any more than I would ask Jerry to create a Berlin Ballet M\u00e9canique. You might be able to do it, but it's doubtful whether it would be very good. So you would have to do _your_ conception of a pop tune, and Jerry, his conception of the Ballet M\u00e9canique (which, in his hands, might be very funny, come to think of it). I think we all know each other's work, we all can concede and adjust, and there can be a meeting point.\n\nI don't feel that the current lack of exact agreement is a crisis nor do I mean to provoke one. The only serious point in my mind \u2013 and forgive if I repeat this \u2013 is the one I have stressed. Namely, we agreed to work on the show, to do it, and now \u2013 again, unless I misunderstood \u2013 you are unsure whether you will or will not do it \u2013 unless the conception is the way you visualize it. This stand leaves me on a high wire and I don't know how to walk a tight rope although I am willing to learn. Mind you, no word, line or scene I've written or will write is sacred. I agree some of it should be more poetic. In the very first scene, for example, I was counting on the initiation-ritual being sung in contrast to the sharp violence of the opening (and thus to set the pattern of the show). You told me on the phone that you did not think there should be any music in the scene (although if you look at the graph you yourself drew up in New York, I'm sure you will find music indicated there). But I wonder if we do not disagree about the quantity as well as the quality of poetic language and the quantity of the music. And those points must, of course, be settled soon.\n\nI'm continuing on the script, whipping the rest of Act One into shape so that I can send it off to you and Jerry by, I hope, the week-end. After you read it, you will be able to judge whether our concepts are so far apart after all. Please let me know \u2013 and as soon as you conveniently can. The high wire is awfully thin. I'm still planning, too, on coming to New York sometime toward the end of the second week in May.\n\nBest to you both,\n\nArthur\n\n283. Arthur Laurents to Leonard Bernstein\n\n8227 Lookout Mountain, Hollywood, CA\n\n[?April 1949]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI'm sorry you've decided not to do the show, sorrier still because of the main reason which led you to drop out. I think I understand. And feeling as you do, your decision is undoubtedly all for the best.\n\nOne thing I'd like to make clear \u2013 and I trust you will believe me. I did not start out with \"a priori prejudices\". Rather, I started out with admiration for your work and eagerness to become a friend. Along the line, hostility popped up. But since I felt it from you, just as you say you felt it from me, and made the exact same efforts you did, I can only conclude we were both projecting a little and, possibly, were further impaired by the occasional whispers which are ever present.\n\nIt's a pity we had such a short run. However, now that the tension is gone, there is probably a much better chance that we can become friends. I certainly hope so.\n\nWhatever show or venture you embark on next, please know I'll be rooting for you.\n\nArthur\n\n284. Ellen Adler142 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Paris]\n\n[?Spring 1949]\n\nDearest little Lennie,\n\nOnce I wrote you and never mailed the letter and now I can't even find it. I have heard all about you from Bobby Lewis who was here, and now from Harold143 who arrived a few days ago. I know that you are writing a musical and that you arrived at 161 West 54144 with several other talented young men, each of you with agents flanking you, all of which amused my mother greatly.\n\nI am well. By this time I speak French, I look French and I am assimilated into Paris, all of which makes me miss New York the more. I see your friends around from time to time, once [Fran\u00e7ois] Val\u00e9ry,145 at a caf\u00e9, who told me he was about to write a play about Noah's ark. Now and again I see Nadia [Boulanger] who looks more and more like a Grant Wood146 and is indeed a lurid creature. And then there is, of course, Marie Blanche147 always seen sweeping into an enormous automobile, and leaning, almost toppling into the arms of her tall, blonde painter friend. But I suppose Bigelow148 is the funniest. At first this lad was strictly a right-bank spectacle and very dashing, now he is to be seen in the leftest of left-bank hangouts and always sporting a pair of blue jeans. So there, you see, is the evolution of Paris. I started with the left-bank and shall end up on the right, Bigelow started with the right and was doomed for the left.\n\nI have heard wonderful, wonderful things about your last tour and am happy that everything goes on so very well.\n\nParis is magical, romantic, perfumed and a city of miracles. A spring such as has never been before is here, and it is quite elegant as only Paris can be, and I am very happy. I think of you often, Lennie. Take care of yourself and give my love to all the people about you such as Helen [Coates], Shirley [Bernstein], D[avid] D[iamond] and A[aron] C[opland]. In fact, everyone but Burtie149 because he's a kid and I want him to take me flying one day.\n\nAnd kisses to you,\n\nEllen\n\n285. Leonard Bernstein to Peter Gradenwitz150\n\n1025 Park Avenue, New York, NY\n\n11 May 1949\n\nDear P,\n\nJust time for a few notes:\n\n1) A great joy to receive _our_ book, & many thanks for the sweet dedication.151\n\n2) _The Age of Anxiety_ was a walloping success, & I thought of you often in preparing it.152 Everyone adored it, which amazed me.153\n\n3) Doesn't look so good for you & Tanglewood this summer. I have very little to do with it this year \u2013 just a token appearance, and I've taken a farm 45 miles from it! Have you heard from them?\n\n4) I'd love to see the \"Bernstein article\". The Variations you saw remain about the same.\n\nMy love to you & Rosi & the kids, & from Helen \u2013 sorry this is too short \u2013 I'm rushed with plans for a new show.\n\nLenny\n\n286. Farley Granger to Leonard Bernstein\n\n8227 Lookout Mountain, Hollywood, CA\n\n15 May 1949\n\nMy visible verb, my very Dear,\n\nIt's Sunday morning, I am playing _Jeremiah_ and loving it, and you very, very much. It was so wonderful talking to you the other night. I am sorry that I woke you again, and Shirley too. I hope so very much she really doesn't dislike me. But I have a feeling we two (Shirley and I) will work out well.\n\nLast night I wore the cuff links you gave me. They are so beautiful, and I thank you always. But the thing with me is that I don't feel that I have to wear something you gave me, to be reminded how much I love you. Because [e]very kind, and happy, and warm thing that happens to me I share with you. You are in the lovely adolescent green of the spring trees, you are in the breath of the warm breeze. You surround me with a rare and God given feeling \u2013 called love (you are also making a bit of a poet out of me).\n\nMy picture is still going very well and I am most happy in my work. Tell Betty and Adolph that for a night club scene in the picture the studio reproduced the Village Vanguard.154 I'm getting a kick out of working in the same place the Revuers did.\n\nI was asked if I would like to do a picture in China, a thing called _Rickshaw Boy_ which sounds very exciting but will not come into being for a while. How about arranging a few concerts for the Far East.\n\nSaw _Ball Game_ again and agree with you, there's a good deal of ham in our boy Gene.155\n\nPlease thank Helen for me, that was very sweet of her.\n\nWrite me as much as you can. I will call again soon, but will not make it a late one next time. You are a wonderful man and I love you.\n\nF\n\n287. Leonard Bernstein to William Schuman156\n\nSinging Brook Farm, Charlemont, MA\n\n15 July 1949\n\nDear Bill,\n\nI love it when excuses pop up for me to write you \u2013 it seems the only way we get to communicate these days. There are three such at the moment: and may I preface them with my warmest hello to you & Frankie.\n\n1) I take it you've received a copy of the enclosed from [James] McDonald in Israel. I wish I could say that I'd heard the boy, but I don't recall any such experience, although I do remember hearing good things about him. Of course, I'm all for this Israeli stream into Juilliard on general principles, since Israel is the most musical country I've ever seen, and Juilliard is the best school I know for developing that native talent.\n\n2) At the risk of seeing the Juilliard School turned into a little Tel-Aviv, I make so bold as to propose another Israeli for the student body \u2013 a young conductor who is now here at Tanglewood \u2013 Elyakum Shapirra \u2013 who won a competition over there & was selected to be one of Koussy's chosen \"Three\". He arrived displaying great musicality, integrity, etc., & a lack of knowledge caused by his years in the Israeli Army. He desperately needs schooling, is wild to go to Juilliard; & I think [Jean] Morel would be marvelous for him. The kid's a natural, but such a primitive! He needs Kulture. It would be a great blessing to him.\n\n3) A strong recommendation for Ralph Berkowitz, whom, I hear, you are considering for an additional post at Schirmer's. A nicer guy you couldn't find, nor a harder-working, or more knowledgeable.\n\nThere! Now I can go back to Mann's _Dr. Faustus_ which sits particularly well in this divine isolation 40 miles from Tanglewood. I'm at last finding a few days for myself \u2013 to read, to sleep: it is a most welcome novelty.\n\nLet me hear from you.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n288. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Bernstein\n\n[Wednesday] 20 July 1949\n\nMain,\n\nNo need to voice my reaction to the rumor heard the other day of Alan J. [Lerner]'s plan to do a show with Loewe, nor to the item confirming it in today's _Times_.157 The bastard. A fine double-x. Destroy this letter.\n\nNo word yet from Adolph and Betty and Adolph. I am really irked at the Lerner thing. Rest and think, main foot!\n\nThe enclosed came to Tangle for you.\n\nI wormed the Gabe personally each night, but he still drags his arms to the ground. Well, so many of us do, and nobody worries.\n\nIt was lovely seeing you for an extra hour at the Shelton, even under such trying conditions.\n\nFarfel's mad, and the world is full of apes. I suppose you're as disappointed in Lerner as I am. Maybe you should have snapped up Michael Dreyfuss.158\n\nLoveoah,\n\nDein\n\n289. Menahem Pressler159 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nTel Aviv, Israel\n\n15 August 1949\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nAlthough much in arrears (for which I am only very little to blame, having had so many appearances and marriage to boot), I still could not deprive myself of the pleasure of writing to you and telling you how much I enjoyed playing your _Anniversaries_.\n\nOn the occasion of American Independence Day I was invited to play on the radio an American programme. For this programme I also chose seven of your _Anniversaries_.\n\nAll the time (for it is ever fresh in my memory) I wanted to write to you and tell you how much I liked them on account of their quaintness, and rare and thrilling harmonizations so strangely appealing to the senses and the intellect. These dedications are real masterpieces of modern art and I admired them very much.\n\nWith my best regards to you and your sister. I am admiringly yours,\n\nMenahem Pressler\n\n290. Olivier Messiaen160 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n13 Villa du Danube, Paris, France\n\n5 October 1949\n\nCher Ma\u00eetre et ami,\n\nI hope you have had the time to look carefully and to work on the very difficult score of my _Turangal\u00eela-Symphonie_.161 Take great care of the dark photocopy that I gave you: it's the only copy that it is possible for your work \u2013 if you lose it, that will be a catastrophe! You will have realized that this work is very long (1#fr1\/2> hours) and very difficult for the whole orchestra. You will decide for yourself how many rehearsals are necessary. The work requires, in addition, the presence of 2 soloists: an Onde Martenot solo and a piano solo. The only possible Ondiste is Ginette Martenot. The only possible pianist is Yvonne Loriod.162 Ginette Martenot is leaving in any case for New York (being invited for a different event) and Boston, and she will be there from 28 October to 1 January. The Boston Symphony Orchestra thus does not need to concern itself with her travel expenses.\n\nOn the other hand, the piano solo part of my symphony is of a difficulty such that only Yvonne Loriod can play it with the special techniques that it requires (triple notes, modes, very complex rhythms, birdsong, lightness, power, passion, etc.), and to play it _by heart_. Yvonne Loriod has a matchless technique, she is a composer, she is the best French pianist for ultra-modern music, and finally she is the specialist in my music, having played my piano works for the last seven years in all the great cities of Europe. She has already been working for a year on the piano part of my symphony, and not only does she know it by heart, but she understands the whole orchestral score perfectly. The [piano] part is considerable in the work on account of its difficulty and importance, and no one on earth can play it with such brilliant eloquence.\n\nMoreover, I also think that my presence would be quite useful at the rehearsals, for giving exact tempos, and the balance of timbres. It would be a great joy for me to hear my work.\n\nI therefore ask the Boston Symphony Orchestra:\n\n1. To engage Yvonne Loriod and Ginette Martenot to play the parts for piano solo and Onde solo of my symphony and to send them their contracts (date of the concerts, total fees, etc.)\n\n2. To kindly pay the expenses of Yvonne Loriod and myself for about 25 days \u2013 a total of $524.\n\n3. You told me that you would give the _Turangal\u00eela-Symphonie_ in the last week of November 1949 in Boston and the first week of December 1949 in New York (Boston Symphony Orchestra). I remind you that this will be the world premiere in Boston, and the second ever performance in New York. Will you be very kind and specify for me the _exact dates_ of the two concerts?\n\n4. _The orchestral material of the Turangal\u00eela-Symphonie is ready_. It belongs to my publisher Durand et Cie, 4 place de la Madeleine, Paris (8e). When should Durand send it? And to whom? Would you prefer that I bring it myself?\n\n5. I recommend especially your studying my work. Serge Koussevitzky commissioned it from me in 1944, which is to say that I have worked on it for a long time. Of all my works, it is the most accomplished and the most original. I am 41 years old, and I put into my symphony all my powers of love, of hope, and of research. But I know that you are a brilliant man and that you will conduct it as I feel it.\n\nI await a prompt reply and ask you to believe my feelings of warm admiration.\n\nOlivier Messiaen163\n\n291. Arturo Toscanini164 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n15 October 1949\n\nMy dear Bernstein,\n\nI compared the Victor recording of the Love Scene from Berlioz's _Romeo_ with the broadcast and confirmed the fact that the Victor is much faster.\n\nAnd I confirmed also another fact \u2013 namely that every man, no matter the importance of his intelligence, can be from time to time a little stupid. So is the case of the old Toscanini.\n\nYour kind visit and dear letter made me very happy. I felt myself forty years younger.\n\nI hope to see you very soon and it will give me a great amount of pleasure.\n\nMost cordially, believe me, dear Bernstein.\n\nYours ever,\n\nArturo Toscanini\n\n292. Leonard Bernstein to Burton Bernstein\n\nNew York, NY\n\n1 November 1949\n\nM'nape,\n\nJust spent an evening with Irwin Edman165 (Dept. Philosophy, Columbia) who made me nostalgic for the shelter of academic life, & made me therefore think of you. Also there was Henry Simon, who submitted our \"Conversation\" (with Spendoah on Beethoven) to his editors who were mad for it & want more and thought the character of YB (Younger Brother) was a masterstroke.166 I'll send you a copy as soon as I make some.\n\nI saw your North Country Epic to Hi-lee,167 and loved it. But I never hear any real news from you, appraisal of your courses, directions you may be finding \u2013 all the thousand new things that happen in a freshman year. Come on, a good long one.\n\nAs for me, only two weeks or so remain before my season starts, and in them I have yet to finish the Herman piece (Woody, remember?) which is on the home stretch; to do music (incidental) for a production of _Peter Pan_ (if they raise all the money); write the book, prepare the Messiaen,168 read scores & concerti for the season, etc. It's a grind. I've been going to parties \u2013 lots of them \u2013 a strange new occupation for me. [...] Life is very pleasant.\n\n_Regina_169 was panned by the morning papers, loved by the afternoon ones. It has a fighting chance. By the way, it was a marvelously exciting opening night.\n\nI await that long letter.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n293. Olivier Messiaen to Leonard Bernstein\n\n13 Villa du Danube, Paris, France\n\n6 November 1949\n\nCher Ma\u00eetre et ami,\n\nThank you for your fine letter.\n\nYou must have been looking at the score of _Turangal\u00eela-Symphonie_ and noting that it is a gigantic and very difficult work. I thank you deeply for conducting my work, since I know (having seen you in _The Rite of Spring_ ) that you will do it in a way that is marvelous and brilliant.\n\nYou will understand now that _Turangal\u00eela_ is the work of my life. It's why I've been so insistent about it being presented under the best possible conditions.\n\nI have sent to Mr. Judd a very detailed analytical note for the program of _Turangal\u00eela_ , asking him to make an English translation.\n\nFurthermore, Mr. Judd has telegraphed me that you will conduct _Turangal\u00eela_ 3 times: 2 and 3 December and 7 December. He did not tell me in which cities: I think it's in Boston each time.\n\nThere are some difficulties being raised about the arrival of Ginette Martenot and Yvonne Loriod into the USA by the union of orchestral musicians. I have said to them that neither Ginette Martenot nor Yvonne Loriod are orchestral musicians, but that they are playing in _Turangal\u00eela_ as soloists. And this must be put on the program and on the posters: _Turangal\u00eela-Symphonie_ for piano solo, Onde Martenot solo and large orchestra.\n\nSoloists:\n\nPiano solo: Yvonne Loriod\n\nOnde Martenot solo: Ginette Martenot.\n\nLukas Foss (who is generosity and kindness personified) agrees with me about this.\n\nThe difficulties are thus overcome now.\n\nYvonne Loriod and I will take the liner _\u00cele de France_ on 10 November, disembarking at New York on 16 November in the afternoon. We will meet Ginette Martenot there. I will be attending two concerts (17 and 18 November) when Leopold Stokowski conducts my _Liturgies_ , and then we leave at once for Boston.\n\n_So, Yvonne Loriod, Ginette Martenot and myself will all three arrive in Boston on 24 November. I will have all the orchestral parts for Turangal\u00eela with me._ (You already have the score.) It will be necessary to start the rehearsals on my arrival, owing to the extreme difficulty of the work. Yvonne Loriod knows _Turangal\u00eela_ completely by heart. She can thus assist you rehearsing with certain musicians separately. I can do the same (especially with the percussion which is substantial and very difficult). Finally, I am completely at your disposal \u2013 as is Yvonne Loriod \u2013 to rehearse the work with you at the piano and to demonstrate some of the rhythmic features, tempos, etc. I will attend all the rehearsals and will do everything in my power to be useful to you (balance of timbres, nuances, etc.).\n\nThese concerts will be the greatest joy of my career. See you soon! Believe always in my total admiration, my gratitude, and my friendship.\n\nOlivier Messiaen170\n\n294. George Abbott to Leonard Bernstein\n\n630 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY\n\n25 November 1949\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nJust after you left, Bob Fryer171 came into my office inquiring if I would be interested in doing a musical comedy version of _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_. As soon as I had a chance to think it over, I was most enthusiastic. It seemed positively inspirational. I am now entering into contracts to do same, and this is to find out if you can take a minute out of your busy life to consider whether you would like to go in on it.\n\nI am going to write the book with Betty Smith.172 And I am going to try to get your old friend, Jerry Robbins, to do the dance, and beyond that, there are no thoughts at the present moment.\n\nIt will be a love story of the married couple rather than a tragic matter, and quite gay, albeit poignant, I hope.\n\nI talked to your secretary today. She told me that you were conducting this afternoon, so I knew I could not reach you by phone.\n\nI thought maybe if you were interested in this we could get Betty and Adolph to do the lyrics.\n\nLet me hear from you as soon as you can tear yourself away from all those woodwinds.173\n\nLove,\n\nGeorge\n\n1 The German word for an orchestral score.\n\n2 George Abbott (1887\u20131995), American theater director, producer, and writer, who also had a successful career in Hollywood. By the time he collaborated with Bernstein, Robbins, Comden, and Green \u2013 all making their Broadway debuts \u2013 in _On the Town_ in 1944, Abbott had already had decades of experience: first as an actor (his debut was as Second Yeoman in the 1915 revival of Gilbert and Sullivan's _Yeomen of the Guard_ ), then as a writer, producer, and director. His earlier Broadway musicals included _On Your Toes_ (1936; book), _The Boys from Syracuse_ (1938; book, producer, and director), and _Pal Joey_ (1940; producer and director).\n\n3 _Self-Analysis_ by Karen Horney, first published in 1942.\n\n4 _Kiss and Tell_ was a 1945 comedy starring Shirley Temple as the American teenager Corliss Archer. It was based on the Broadway play of the same name (both were written by F. Hugh Herbert, 1897\u20131958). The stage play had been produced and directed by George Abbott: it opened at the Biltmore Theatre on 17 March 1943 and ran for a total of 956 performances, closing on 23 June 1945.\n\n5 The show became _Billion Dollar Baby_. Bernstein wasn't able to write the score, so Comden and Green turned to Morton Gould. The choreography was by Jerome Robbins, Oliver Smith designed the sets, and Max Goberman was the musical director \u2013 all of them later involved in _West Side Story_ \u2013 and George Abbott directed. It ran for 220 performances, from 21 December 1945 to 29 June 1946.\n\n6 Izso G. Glickstein (1891\u20131947) was the Russian-born cantor at Temple Mishkan Tefila, where Bernstein had his formative musical experiences. He described Glickstein as \"a fabulous cantor who was a great musician and a beautiful man, very tall, very majestic [...] and he had a tenor voice of such sweetness and such richness\" (Burton 1994, p. 8). Glickstein was indeed an outstanding cantor, as can be heard on his recordings of \"Baroish Hashonu\" and \"Yaale tachnunenu miarev,\" made for Victor in 1925 (Victor 68710).\n\n7 Dated \"7\u20135\u20131945,\" so possibly 5 July 1945.\n\n8 Bernstein must have sent Glickstein the arrangement of \"Lamentation\" for voice and piano or organ version (adapted by F. Campbell-Watson), published by Harms in 1945.\n\n9 A restaurant that was a favorite with the _On the Town_ company.\n\n10 Francis A. Coleman, \"Composer Teams with Choreographer,\" _Dance Magazine_ (May 1945), pp. 12\u201313.\n\n11 _Bye Bye Jackie_ , subtitled a \"ballet play,\" was written by Robbins in 1944 and was proposed to several composers including Aaron Copland (see Pollack 1999, p. 486) and Paul Bowles, as well as Bernstein (Burton 1994, p. 140). In an interview by Anna Kisselgoff for _The New York Times_ (29 May 1994), Robbins recalled the project, intended as a way of explaining the background of one of the sailors in _Fancy Free_ : \"It was about Jackie, a boy living in Brooklyn, who's getting letters from his brother in some foreign place... The kids on the block begin horsing around, and Jackie can't take it. He sees that everyone in the background he's caught in is going off. So he enlists in the Navy, and his girlfriend says, Bye-bye, Jackie. It was a mood piece that went in and out of reality.\" Robbins explained that the work was never choreographed because Bernstein didn't want to write the score. Their next collaboration was _Facsimile_ , in 1946.\n\n12 Robbins' irritation is understandable. Coleman's interview with Bernstein includes the following remarks: \"For some time, Leonard Bernstein has considered the composition of a trilogy of ballets to be built around _Fancy Free_. Mr. Bernstein explains that the trilogy would consist of three one-act ballets with a connecting link in the story which would enable them to be presented as a complete evening's entertainment. The opening work, to be called _Bye, Bye Jackie_ , is to furnish a picture of adolescence, in a Brooklyn setting, of tender and emotional quality. _Fancy Free_ would become 'something akin to the scherzo movement of a symphony', and carry the story of the ballet through its middle section. Following it, the third work, yet to be planned, is to furnish the fitting climax to this vignette of American life.\"\n\n13 Bette Davis (1908\u201389), American actress, and an idol of Bernstein's. As her delightful letters demonstrate, their admiration was mutual.\n\n14 Irving Rapper (1898\u20131999), British-born film director. He was friend of Bernstein's and director of several of Bette Davis' most important films, including _Now Voyager_ (1942), _The Corn is Green_ (1945), and _Deception_ (1946).\n\n15 Nadezhda von Meck (1831\u201394), Tchaikovsky's great patron who stipulated that they should never meet. Coincidentally, one of the reasons Bernstein visited Hollywood in the summer of 1945, en route to San Francisco, was to discuss a possible role in a film to be directed by Irving Rapper: a biopic in which Bernstein would play Tchaikovsky opposite Greta Garbo as Madame von Meck (see Burton 1994, p. 142).\n\n16 Bette Davis received the signed photograph she had requested and sent a telegram on 14 August 1945: \"Please forgive delay in acknowledging photograph. Madame von Meck is very grateful and loves it. Bette.\"\n\n17 Evidently, Bette Davis wasn't a fan of Joseph Szigeti, who appeared with Bernstein at a Summer Promenade concert of the San Francisco Symphony on 1 July 1945. Szigeti played the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and the program also included a suite from _Fancy Free_ and Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony.\n\n18 Though the letter is undated, the first paragraph refers to _Deception_ (1946). Rapper directed this _film noir_ with a cast led by Bette Davis, Paul Henried, and Claude Rains. It tells the tempestuous story of Christine (Davis) and her stormy relationship with a composer (Rains) and a cellist (Henried). Erich Wolfgang Korngold wrote the Cello Concerto by \"Hollenius\" performed at the film's climax.\n\n19 This letter was written the day after the bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and two days before the bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August.\n\n20 The famous lesbian novel by Radclyffe Hall, first published in 1928, which had been the subject of an obscenity trial in England and legal challenges in the United States.\n\n21 Marketa Morris (1889\u20131965) was a psychoanalyst, known to Bernstein and his closest friends as the \"Frau\". A brief article announcing her death appeared in _The New York Times_ on 26 May 1965: \"Milwaukee, May 25. Mrs. Marketa Theiner Morris, a psychoanalyst who practiced in New York from 1942 to 1958, died here Sunday at the age of 76. She was the wife of Prof. Rudolph E. Morris of Marquette University. Mrs. Morris, who taught child psychology to teachers in Prague from 1936 to 1938, practiced here for six years until her retirement in 1964.\" The letters from Marketa Morris to Bernstein provide some insights into Bernstein's innermost thoughts from the psychoanalyst he consulted most regularly in the 1940s, including comments on his dreams and on his sexuality. It is apparent from the letters that while Morris saw Bernstein on a number of occasions, she was frustrated by his schedule, which made it impossible for him to see her on a regular basis.\n\n22 There is no year on this letter, but it can be securely dated 1945: not only did Bernstein spend some time in Hollywood that year, but on 15 August 1945, a few days before it was written, the Japanese surrender ended the Second World War in the Pacific, the \"Peace\" to which Morris refers.\n\n23 i.e. _Freedom Morning_ , composed in 1943.\n\n24 Copland's father, Harris Copland, died in 1945 (see Pollack 1999, p. 15).\n\n25 Mildred Spiegel's pet-name for Bernstein.\n\n26 Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle.\n\n27 Bart\u00f3k died in New York on 26 September 1945.\n\n28 The opening concert of the New York City Symphony season. In _The New York Times_ (9 October 1945), Olin Downes waxed enthusiastic: \"Leonard Bernstein, with an orchestra materially improved over that of last season, conducted a concert of exceptional brilliancy last night.\" The Shostakovich was a highlight: \"For vividness, conviction, imagination we do not expect soon to hear this performance surpassed.\" Downes also enjoyed the high spirits of what Copland called \"American Brahms\": it was \"a reading of high excellence. We believe Mr. Bernstein is now in a good place, with an orchestra of young musicians like himself to work with, and a repertory to mature in. Here is a conductor.\"\n\n29 Rosalyn Tureck (1913\u20132003), American harpsichordist and pianist noted for her Bach playing, though she made her Carnegie Hall debut playing the Theremin.\n\n30 Harl McDonald (1899\u20131955), general manager of the Philadelphia Orchestra (1939\u201355) as well as a teacher at the University of Pennsylvania and a composer.\n\n31 _Billion Dollar Baby_ opened on 21 December 1945.\n\n32 Morton Gould (1913\u201396), American composer and conductor. Bernstein never had a high opinion of his music.\n\n33 The Mozart symphony that Bernstein conducted on this occasion was No. 39 in E flat major K543, a work he performed many times subsequently, and recorded with the New York Philharmonic (1961) and Vienna Philharmonic (1981). Olin Downes reviewing the concert in _The New York Times_ (6 November 1945) had some of the same criticisms of this early performance as Longy. He commented that it was played with \"vigor and clarity\" but that Bernstein \"was inclined to drive rather than release song from the instruments.\" Paul Bowles in the _New York Herald Tribune_ was more enthusiastic: \"The high point of sonority in last night's concert came with the Mozart Symphony. Here the orchestra showed that it was no longer 'good, considering', but good, period. The audience responded with rounds of applause.\"\n\n34 Copland's nickname for his car.\n\n35 Possibly a reference to one of Erich Leinsdorf's concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra on 11 and 13 October 1945, which included _Appalachian Spring_.\n\n36 At the end of November 1945, the Harvard Music Department put on four days of concerts to celebrate the centenary of Faur\u00e9's birth. On 25 November, Copland wrote an article in _The New York Times_ previewing what he described as \"a shrine for Faur\u00e9 devotees.\"\n\n37 Copland was working on his Third Symphony.\n\n38 Seymour Meyerson was a close friend of Bernstein and of David Oppenheim, but otherwise he remains a mystery. He is _not_ the same Seymour Meyerson who served in the Army Signals Corps, became a scientist specializing in mass spectrometry (and also co-authored a booklet called _Folk Dancing for Fun_ , which helped pay his way through university). I am most grateful to this Seymour Meyerson for taking the time to explain that he wasn't the one who knew Bernstein.\n\n39 An abbreviation for \"post exchange,\" a type of store operated at US Army bases, which in turn generates income to support recreation, sports, and entertainment.\n\n40 It was an unusual program, including Beethoven's Op. 131 String Quartet arranged by Mitropoulos for string orchestra, Ravel's _Sh\u00e9h\u00e9razade_ (with Jennie Tourel as the soloist) and _Alborada del gracioso_.\n\n41 Walter Hendl was Rodzinski's 28-year-old assistant at the New York Philharmonic. When Rodzinski was taken ill, Hendl took the concert on 8 December (the Overture and Scherzo from Mendelssohn's _Midsummer Night's Dream_ , Schubert's \"Great\" C major Symphony, and Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto) at very short notice. On 9 December 1945, _The New York Times_ reported that Hendl's debut \"offered a striking parallel to that of Leonard Bernstein, who first attracted wide attention, when at the last moment he was called upon to conduct the Philharmonic.\"\n\n42 The Hotel Vanderbilt in San Francisco was used by the Army's Officer Pay Section, where Oppenheim was working.\n\n43 It's unclear what Bernstein means by \"so N\".\n\n44 Clarinet.\n\n45 On 21 January, Bernstein conducted the City Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky's _Symphony of Psalms_ , Strauss' _Don Juan_ , Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, and Three Variations from _Fancy Free_.\n\n46 Carlos Moseley (1914\u20132012) was to have a long association with Bernstein. In 1941, Moseley was the soloist in Brahms' Second Piano Concerto with Bernstein conducting, at Tanglewood. In 1946 he was working at the State Department, promoting American music abroad, the subject of this letter. In 1955 he joined the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, first as press officer, then associate manager in 1959 (in time for the orchestra's tour to Russia), managing director from 1961 to 1970, president from 1970 to 1978, and finally chairman.\n\n47 Paul Feigay (1918\u201383), American theater and television producer. Feigay's first Broadway credit was as co-producer with Oliver Smith of _On the Town_ , and his subsequent career included producing the television series _Omnibus_ with Bernstein in the 1950s. _On the Town_ ended its successful Broadway run on 2 February 1946, and the arrival of the tour in Chicago (including Nancy Walker and Adolph Green in the cast) was greeted enthusiastically by Claudia Cassidy in the _Chicago Daily Tribune_ in her review published on 2 April. Feigay's letter is an interesting snapshot of the vicissitudes of producing a Broadway show, even one as ostensibly successful as _On the Town_.\n\n48 David Glazer (1913\u20132001) had given the first performance of the Clarinet Sonata with Bernstein on 21 April 1942. From 1951 until his retirement he played in the New York Woodwind Quintet.\n\n49 Bernstein's optimism is heartening, but the situation in Czechoslovakia was volatile, and deteriorated sharply over the next two years. On 26 May 1946, two weeks after Bernstein wrote this letter, the first Czech post-war general election had a voter turnout of 93.9%. The result was a victory for the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Edvard Bene\u0161 continued as president, and Jan Masaryk, son of the founding father of Czechoslovakia, continued as foreign minister. The Communist Klement Gottwald became prime minister. The Communists controlled only a minority of ministries, but these included some of the most important, notably Information, Finance, and the Interior (including control of the police). Through their position of power in these ministries, the Communists were able to establish a solid base from which to launch the Soviet-backed coup in February 1948, beginning four decades of Communist rule that ended with the Velvet Revolution of 1989.\n\n50 The famous actress Helen Hayes (1900\u201393), who was married to Charles MacArthur. Something of a legend in the American theater, she is one of a select group to have won an Emmy, an Oscar, a Grammy, and a Tony. She had two Broadway theaters named after her. In 1955 the former Fulton Theatre was renamed the Helen Hayes Theatre; after that was demolished in 1982, the nearby Little Theatre was renamed in her honor.\n\n51 Laszlo Halasz (1905\u20132001) was the first Music Director of New York City Opera, from 1943 to 1951. He then became Recording Director for Remington Records, as well as a conducting teacher at the Peabody Conservatory and Eastman School of Music.\n\n52 i.e. _Madama Butterfly_.\n\n53 The recording session on 1 July 1946 was for Ravel's G major Piano Concerto, in Bernstein's dual capacity as soloist and conductor, made with the Philharmonia Orchestra.\n\n54 Felicia was appearing at the Bass Rocks Summer Theatre in Gloucester, MA.\n\n55 Britten's _Rape of Lucretia_ was first performed at Glyndebourne on 12 July 1946.\n\n56 Presumably Bernstein means Dennis Brain, principal horn of the Philharmonia Orchestra.\n\n57 The ink has become progressively fainter on the page and here Bernstein refills his pen.\n\n58 The song \"Barney Google (with the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes)\" by Billy Rose and Con Conrad.\n\n59 Bernstein first met Felicia Montealegre Cohn (1922\u201378) in February 1946, at a party given by Claudio Arrau after he had played the Brahms D minor Piano Concerto with Bernstein conducting the New York City Symphony. Felicia was not only a beautiful and gifted actress, but had been a piano pupil of Arrau's. During the autumn of 1946 she and Bernstein saw each other regularly and grew increasingly close. Bernstein took Felicia with him to Hollywood in December, and it was there that their engagement was celebrated by a party. Leonard Lyons reported in his \"Times Square Tattle\" ( _The New York Times_ , 8 January 1947): \"This is how Leonard Bernstein's engagement to Felicia Montealegre, the Chilean actress, was announced: Lester Cowan, producer of _The Beckoning Fair One_ in which Bernstein will costar, conduct and compose the musical score, gave a hoe-down for them at his ranch. Sinatra sang, Gene Kelly danced and John Garfield donned boxing gloves. Then came a song written by Ann Ronell, author of 'Willow Weep for Me', 'Big Bad Wolf', etc. The tune was a blending of Haydn's 'Surprise' Symphony, Mendelssohn's Wedding March and Bernstein's _Fancy Free_ , _On the Town_ and _Jeremiah_. The lyrics ended with the announcement: 'This party has been staged, Because they got engaged. Len & Felicia, Are now officia\u2013lly Two.' \" In the summer of 1947, Felicia spent time with the Bernstein clan at Tanglewood, and Humphrey Burton wrote of the tensions: \"Felicia came to Tanglewood for two long spells that summer [...] Life was not easy for her despite her official status as Leonard's fianc\u00e9e. There was rivalry with Shirley, ostensibly about such mundane matters as who should sit next to Leonard at meals. Helen Coates was also fighting to maintain her old position. Felicia said later that her self-confidence was undermined as Leonard constantly found fault with her\" (Burton 1994, p. 166). By September 1947, the couple had decided to call off the engagement and the _Journal-American_ on 11 September reported that \"Leonard Bernstein's matrimonial plans have been cancelled.\" Four years later, on 12 August 1951, the Associated Press announced the couple's second engagement, made by Mrs. Serge Koussevitzky at a supper for the faculty of the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, where Bernstein had been teaching and conducting during the summer. This time, the engagement was followed by their marriage a month later, on 9 September 1951.\n\n60 During the summer of 1946, Felicia performed in the Broadway production of _Swan Song_ by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht at the Booth Theatre.\n\n61 A reference to Bernstein's unhappiness during his visit to London in June 1946.\n\n62 The new Bernstein-Robbins ballet _Facsimile_ was first performed on 24 October 1946 at the Broadway Theatre, New York, by Ballet Theatre, with Bernstein conducting.\n\n63 Philip and Barbara Marcuse's children, Ann and Philip.\n\n64 Solomon Braslavsky (1887\u20131975) was born in Ukraine and studied in Vienna, where he was subsequently appointed professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary and conducted Jewish choirs and orchestras before moving to Boston to become Director of Music at Temple Mishkan Tefila in 1928 (see Sarna 2009, p. 39, for details of Braslavsky's early career). Bernstein was overwhelmed by the music he heard at Temple Mishkan Tefila, and wrote to Braslavsky in 1973 that he would \"never forget the tremendous influence you and your music made on me when I was a youngster.\"\n\n65 The text of this letter is taken from the version published in the _Jewish Advocate_ on 17 October 1946, p. 6.\n\n66 Braslavsky wasted no time doing so: the letter appeared in the _Jewish Advocate_ on 17 October 1946, just a week after Bernstein wrote to Braslavsky.\n\n67 The Preface for this publication was written by Hugo Leichentritt, who pointed out the similarities between Hebrew sacred music and Gregorian chant, and writes that \"Mr. Braslavsky's arrangement is distinguished by a close acquaintance with the peculiar style of this old religious music, and by the skill and beauty of its harmonic treatment.\" A review by Jules Wolfers appeared in the _Jewish Advocate_ (25 September 1947): \"Four extremely interesting Hebrew chants arranged for four part mixed voices and organ [...] have recently been published by McLaughlin and Reilly, Boston. That a Catholic publishing house is the medium through which these chants are issued is in itself indicative of the all-over worth of this music. The day is past when Jewish music was of interest only to Jews. [...] For Jewish choirs and choral groups their chants are obviously a must. In addition, any person interested in Jewish music will probably wish to acquire this set. Publication of four traditional Jewish chants by a firm named McLaughlin and Reilly must make some sort of publishing history. This is a commendable and heart-warming gesture.\"\n\n68 Paul Wittgenstein (1887\u20131961), Austrian-born pianist who commissioned a number of important new works for piano left hand after he lost his right arm during the First World War. The composers he commissioned included Britten, Hindemith, Korngold, Prokofiev, Franz Schmidt, Richard Strauss, and Alexandre Tansman. The most famous Wittgenstein commission was Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, the subject of this letter.\n\n69 Wittgenstein performed the Ravel concerto with Bernstein conducting the New York City Symphony on 14 and 15 October, in a program that also included Ravel's _Le Tombeau de Couperin_ and Beethoven's _Eroica_ Symphony. Olin Downes, reviewing the Monday performance in _The New York Times_ (15 October) praised Wittgenstein's playing: \"in a most authoritative way, he interpreted the music... He has a singing tone as well as five fingers with well-nigh the virtuosity of ten, and he is a colorist who understands not only the piano part but every detail of the orchestration. Mr. Bernstein, conducting, supplied a spirited accompaniment and both men acknowledged the long applause.\"\n\n70 Though this letter is undated, it must have been written on 25 October 1946, the day after the \"ballet premiere\" that Bernstein mentions (the first performance of _Facsimile_ ). The concert to which the letter refers was given by the New York City Symphony on a visit to Boston on 13 November 1946. Though Bernstein had included the _Enigma Variations_ in his New York programme on 11 November, the _Christian Science Monitor_ announced the change to Dvo\u0159\u00e1k's Second [Seventh] Symphony in a short article published on 12 November.\n\n71 It's difficult to see what Koussevitzky's problem was with Bernstein bringing his own New York City Symphony to Boston, but clearly the whole episode distressed Bernstein. Relations between the two continued to deteriorate in the last weeks of 1946.\n\n72 Lukas Foss (1922\u20132009), German-born American composer, conductor, and pianist. Foss' friendship with Bernstein lasted fifty years, from the time of their first meeting at Tanglewood in 1940 until Bernstein's death in 1990. He consistently supported Bernstein's compositions and often appeared as the piano soloist in _The Age of Anxiety_. He conducted the first performance of the _Symphonic Dances from West Side Story_.\n\n73 It certainly was. _If The Shoe Fits_ (with a score by David Raksin) opened on Broadway on 5 December 1946 and closed after just twenty-one performances.\n\n74 This refers to a project that was never realized. Bernstein is referring to the proposed film _The Beckoning Fair One_ in which he was to co-star and for which he was to compose and conduct the score (see Letters 228 and 238).\n\n75 Program annotator for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.\n\n76 The Associated Press broke the news of the engagement in Hollywood on 31 December 1946 and it was quickly reported by the East Coast press.\n\n77 Thor Johnson (1913\u201375) was appointed Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1947, announced as the youngest native-born American conductor to lead a major American orchestra. He remained in Cincinnati for eleven years. During his tenure of the orchestra he conducted the premieres of 120 American and European works, many of which he had commissioned.\n\n78 Farley Granger (1925\u20132011), American actor best known for his roles in two Alfred Hitchcock films: _Rope_ and _Strangers on a Train_. His first Hollywood appearance had been as Damian Simonov in _The North Star_ (he met Aaron Copland during the filming). According to Granger's memoirs ( _Include Me Out_ ), he subsequently had a two-night fling with Bernstein in the late 1940s.\n\n79 Ethel Schwartz and Saul Chaplin were married at the time. They divorced in 1949.\n\n80 Leonore Goldstein (1875\u20131971) was on the Board of Directors of the St. Louis Symphony for over sixty-five years. Bernstein often called her \"Leonore III\" after Beethoven's overture. She was the wife of Dr. Max Goldstein, founder of the Central Institute of the Deaf in St. Louis.\n\n81 Stanley Donen (b. 1924), American director of some of the most famous Hollywood musicals. His credits include _On the Town_ , _Singin' in the Rain_ , and _It's Always Fair Weather_.\n\n82 This letter is undated, but must date from early 1947. Bernstein had a four-week guest engagement with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in February 1947, and Bette Davis was pregnant at the time: her daughter Barbara was born on 1 May 1947.\n\n83 Place and date added by Helen Coates.\n\n84 The score for _Spellbound_ was composed by Mikl\u00f3s R\u00f3zsa.\n\n85 Progressive Citizens of America. In Bernstein's FBI file, an Office Memorandum dated 2 March 1949, to the Director from D. A. Ladd, indicates (p. 10) that \"Buffalo informant [redacted] advised that on March 25, 1947, Bernstein had been the principal speaker at a meeting of the Progressive Citizens of America in Buffalo, New York.\"\n\n86 Alice Berezowsky was a friend of Koussevitzky, wife of the composer Nicolai Berezowsky, and author of the book _Duet With Nicky_ (1943).\n\n87 Adolph Green was 32 at the time of writing this letter (b. 2 December 1914).\n\n88 Evidently, this was a working title for _Easter Parade_ , released in 1948. Comden and Green were not involved.\n\n89 _Easter Parade_ , with a score by Irving Berlin, starred Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Kathryn Grayson were not in the film.\n\n90 Allyn Ann McLerie (b. 1926), Canadian-born actress. Her Broadway debut was in Kurt Weill's _One Touch of Venus_ (1943), and she performed in the ensemble of _On the Town_ before replacing Sono Osato as Ivy Smith.\n\n91 Adolph Green married Allyn Ann McLerie on 21 March 1947. They divorced in 1953 and she married the actor George Gaynes the same year.\n\n92 Lewis Funke: \"News and Gossip Gathered on the Rialto,\" _The New York Times_ , 16 February 1947. Concerning _Allegro_ , Funke wrote that although Rodgers and Hammerstein were \"standing guard over it like a couple of Fort Knox sentries, Mr. Rodgers admitted the other afternoon that it would be a departure from the conventional. In a mood of convivial candor he even breathed, 'experimental', and said it would combine dance, drama and music as an integrated unit \u2013 something the avant garde has been talking about for a long time.\"\n\n93 Roger Edens (1905\u201370) was a composer and producer in Hollywood, an important member of Arthur Freed's team at MGM. Edens is perhaps best known for nurturing the talent of the young Judy Garland (they became lifelong friends). He was Associate Producer on a string of successful MGM musicals. Comden and Green's greatest Hollywood success was _Singin' In The Rain_ (1952), for which they wrote both the story and the screenplay. Most of the songs were by Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, but the new song for which Comden and Green wrote lyrics was \"Moses Supposes,\" with music by Roger Edens.\n\n94 In spring 1947, Bernstein was listed as a member of the Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle anniversary committee, set up to celebrate her 50th birthday. It is a sign of how widely admired she was that the members of the committee included Samuel Barber, Olin Downes, Gian-Carlo Menotti, Fritz Reiner, and Randall Thompson. Its aim was to encourage donations from friends, colleagues, and former pupils to pay the outstanding mortgage on her cottage on Cape Cod to \"insure her future security\" in honor of her \"long-standing devotion to the profession.\"\n\n95 Sid Ramin married Gloria Breit on 9 January 1949.\n\n96 Note in Helen Coates' hand: \"Tried to call him but he was in Boston.\"\n\n97 April 1947 was a crucial time in the history of Palestine, soon to become Israel. On 2 April the British government referred the problem of the future of Palestine to the United Nations, and on 13 May the UN appointed a Special Committee to examine the question of Palestine.\n\n98 Bernstein conducted the European premiere of Copland's Third Symphony with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra on 25 May 1947, at the Prague Spring Festival.\n\n99 Koussevitzky had commissioned Copland's Third Symphony, and gave the first performance in Boston on 18 October 1946.\n\n100 Thomson's _The Mother of Us All_ was first performed on 7 May 1947 at Columbia University. The cast included Teresa Stich-Randall as Henrietta, her operatic debut.\n\n101 _In the Beginning_ was first performed on 2 May 1947 at Harvard Memorial Chapel by the Collegiate Chorale, conducted by Robert Shaw.\n\n102 Romolo de Spirito (sometimes given as \"di Spirito\"), a tenor who specialized in the performance of music by American composers. In his New York debut recital (27 February 1944) he included songs by Paul Bowles, David Diamond, and Virgil Thomson.\n\n103 Carrington Welch, who was Romolo de Spirito's regular accompanist.\n\n104 The legendary singer and actress Lena Horne (1917\u20132010) was closely involved in the civil rights movement. She fought institutional racism in Hollywood in the 1940s (her scenes were customarily shot so that they could be removed for distribution to states in the South), she refused to sing for segregated audiences of troops, and she worked with Eleanor Roosevelt to pass anti-lynching laws. She was named as a Communist sympathizer \u2013 along with the likes of Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, Aaron Copland, Judy Holliday, Langston Hughes, Burl Ives, Zero Mostel, Dorothy Parker, Pete Seeger, and Artie Shaw \u2013 in the infamous _Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television_ (1950), and she was blacklisted by Hollywood. After her death in 2010, the president of the NAACP \u2013 America's oldest and largest civil rights organization \u2013 described Horne as \"an outstanding, groundbreaking entertainer and a staunch civil rights activist who stood on the side of justice and equality. Lena Horne won the hearts of millions of Americans of all backgrounds as a glamorous and graceful actress and singer. She broke many color barriers and fought valiantly to bring down the institutionalized racism that plagues our society and prevents all Americans from an equal opportunity to pursue the American dream.\"\n\n105 This may have been the occasion referred to by the television personality Ed Sullivan \u2013 \"at the very least a facilitator, if not an informant, for the FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee\" (Vaill 2007, p. 171) \u2013 when he put pressure on Jerome Robbins in 1950 to disclose \"the names of people who had been at a cause party for Soviet\u2013American friendship he'd allowed the singer Lena Horne to give at his apartment\" (Vaill 2007, p. 172). At that point Robbins did not name names, though he did so when he testified in public to the HUAC in May 1953.\n\n106 This was one of many organizations supporting African-American causes that came under suspicion from the government. FBI records reveal that the United Negro and Allied Veterans of America was described by US Attorney General Tom Clark on 4 December 1947 as \"subversive and among the affiliates and committees of the Communist Party, U.S.A. which seeks to alter the form of government of the United States by unconstitutional means.\"\n\n107 Richard Adams Romney (1918\u20132009) was often known to his friends as \"Twig\". A collection of letters to him from Bernstein, Christopher Isherwood, Osbert Sitwell, Pavel Tchelitchew, John Van Druten, and others is to be found in Yale University Library (Beinecke Library, Gen Mss 462). Romney's obituary published in the _Albany Times Union_ (19 July 2009) includes the following information: \"Richard Adams Romney, born July 15, 1918 in Salt Lake City, Utah, died in Troy, N.Y. on July 15, 2009. Mr. Romney had been a resident of the Van Rensselaer Manor since September 2001 where he received wonderful care and made many friends. A veteran of the US Coast Guard, he served in the North Sea, receiving an honorable discharge in 1944. Mr. Romney was a resident of Manhattan's Upper East Side from 1945 to 1997 where he worked in the real estate and insurance industries. From 1950 to 1954, he was a gallery assistant at the Betty Parsons Gallery, Manhattan, the first home of artists like Ellsworth Kelly, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. He was the original owner of Pollock's _Number 3, 1949_. The great relationship of his life was that with the American heiress and supporter of the arts, Alice De Lamar. Their correspondence for half a century resides in the Beinecke at Yale. There are no surviving family members.\"\n\n108 The United States Department of Veterans Affairs. Romney had served as a Coast Guard in the Second World War.\n\n109 _The Gallery_ by John Horne Burns (1916\u201353) was published in the summer of 1947 and acclaimed by the likes of Gore Vidal, Edmund Wilson, and John Dos Passos. Burns, a Harvard graduate, served as a US intelligence officer in North Africa and Italy during the war, and his book is one of the first to explore gay life in the army.\n\n110 This letter indicates that the suggestion for using Auden's _The Age of Anxiety_ as an inspiration came initially from Romney, who developed his idea in the letter of 29 July 1947. Romney sent Bernstein a copy of the poem very soon after it was first published in July 1947. In Bernstein's reply of 1 August he thanks Romney for the books, but after that there is no mention of _The Age of Anxiety_ in his letters to Romney until May 1950.\n\n111 Romney predicts the early performance history of _The Age of Anxiety_ with uncanny accuracy. After its first concert performances in 1949, the work was used for a ballet by Jerome Robbins in 1950.\n\n112 Presumably a reference to Bernstein's concert at Tanglewood on 27 July 1947 when he conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Mozart's _Magic Flute_ Overture, Schubert's \"Great\" C major Symphony, and Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring_ , the first time anyone other than Koussevitzky had conducted the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood. _The New York Times_ reported that the concert was attended by 8,500 people and that \"Dr Koussevitzky listened from his box in the center of the music shed, and later appeared on the stage to congratulate Mr. Bernstein.\"\n\n113 Whatever was \"enclosed\" has not survived.\n\n114 James M. Cain (1892\u20131977) was an American writer and journalist whose novels included _The Postman Always Rings Twice_ (1934), _Mildred Pierce_ (1941) and _Double Indemnity_ (1943) as well as _Serenade_ (1937). Though Cain disliked the label, he was one of the leading writers of \"hardboiled\" crime fiction.\n\n115 The \"most successful operetta composer we have\" and the \"highly successful librettist\" who had approached Cain (in 1940) were Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II (see Hoopes 1982, p. 366), so Bernstein had reason to be flattered by Cain's positive response to his request for permission to base an opera on _Serenade_.\n\n116 This project was reported in _The New York Times_ more than a year after the exchange of letters between Bernstein and Cain. On 5 December 1948 an article headed \"Opera Projects\" stated: \"Leonard Bernstein has asked James M. Cain for permission to base an opera on _Serenade_. He also asked Mr. Cain to write the libretto for him. The author declined the job, suggesting the composer was competent to write his own book. He promised, though, that he would give no one else prior operatic rights to the novel before the end of the year. He himself is skeptical about the project, for he wrote his agent, Harold Ober: 'I know that anyone who undertakes any stage work based on this book is letting himself in for a thousand headaches.' It was in April that Mr. Bernstein gained his promise from Mr. Cain. Since the composer\u2013conductor will not be back from Palestine till some time this week, it is not known how far he has gone with his plans.\" In fact, this project went back to the autumn of 1947, as we see in the correspondence between Cain and Bernstein.\n\n117 The \"theme\" of _Serenade_ referred to in the letters between Cain and Bernstein needs some explanation. In the original novel, the opera singer John Howard Sharp loses his voice, ostensibly as a consequence of the trauma of his gay relationship with a famous conductor. His voice is restored when he falls in love with a young Mexican prostitute. Cain explained his premise in a letter to his old friend (and erstwhile colleague on the _Baltimore Sun_ ), H. L. Mencken: \"The lamentable sounds that issue from a homo's throat when he sings are a matter of personal observation.... But the theme demanded the next step, the unwarranted corollary that heavy workouts with a woman would bring out the stud horse high notes\" (see Paul Skenazy, _James M. Cain_ , New York: Continuum, 1989, p. 54). In the end, Bernstein abandoned his _Serenade_ project, but a few years later plans were made for a Broadway musical based on the same story. Louis Calta reported in _The New York Times_ on 11 November 1954 that \"The musical stage rights to _Serenade_ , James M. Cain's earthy and highly successful novel of 1937, have been purchased [...] Arthur Laurents [...] has agreed to do the adaptation. Shortly the producers hope to announce the composer and lyricist for the musical venture.\" Stephen Sondheim was auditioned as a potential lyric writer, and Bernstein was asked whether he wanted to compose the score (see his letter of 6 May 1955 to Felicia, Letter 353). This project, too, came to nothing. The 1956 film adaptation of _Serenade_ , starring Mario Lanza, differs wildly from Cain's novel.\n\n118 Cain's new wife, Florence Macbeth, was an opera singer.\n\n119 Cain attached a formal agreement, reserving for Bernstein the dramatic rights to _Serenade_ until 31 December 1948.\n\n120 Burr was Vice-President of the United States under Thomas Jefferson. In 1804, he challenged Alexander Hamilton (former Secretary to the Treasury) to a duel in which Hamilton was mortally wounded.\n\n121 A report of the concert appeared in _The New York Times_ on 11 May 1948: \"at the close of the performance, the audience stood on its feet and applauded [Bernstein] for more than ten minutes in repeated curtain calls, amid a storm of 'bravos'. After the first half dozen bows, Bernstein returned to the podium and with the orchestra, repeated the final portion of the [Ravel] concerto.\"\n\n122 Bruno Walter conducted Mahler's _Resurrection_ Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic in the Musikverein on 15 May 1948. It's extraordinary to think that this legendary \u2013 and marvelous \u2013 performance (with Maria Cebotari and Rosette Anday as the soloists) was given to a half-full house. A recording of it has been issued on CD by Sony Japan (SICC 92\u20133) and others.\n\n123 \"All Vienna in one go,\" but Bernstein's Viennese debut was also his one and only concert with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. The program consisted of Schumann's Second Symphony, the Dvo\u0159\u00e1k Violin Concerto (with Gerhard Taschner), and the Ravel G major Piano Concerto with Bernstein directing from the piano. Bernstein's report of an enthusiastic audience may be true, but the concert wasn't a critical success: according to Burton (1994, p. 178), \"several Viennese critics disliked Bernstein's conducting style intensely [...] he did not work again with the Vienna Symphony and it was nearly twenty years before he overcame his prejudice and accepted another Viennese conducting engagement.\"\n\n124 Koussevitzky sent a telegram on 9 November 1948: \"Deeply moved your letter authorize you select outstanding student conductor. Heartiest greetings to all and orchestra. Love Serge Koussevitzky.\"\n\n125 Bernstein was never afraid to make cuts in recent pieces, even ones as substantial and significant as Copland's Third Symphony.\n\n126 This latest love may well have been Yossi Stern, the Hungarian-born Israeli artist (1923\u201392), who illustrated Letter 276.\n\n127 This letter, describing Bernstein's experiences in Israel, is illustrated on every page by Yossi Stern.\n\n128 Yardena Cohen (1910\u20132012), Israeli dancer, choreographer, and teacher. In the 1940s this legendary figure in the dance history of Israel created dance dramas and pageants for kibbutzim. Many of these featured female characters in the Old Testament as the central roles. Cohen opened her Haifa dance studio in 1933 and ran it for the next seventy years. She died on 23 January 2012, at the age of 101.\n\n129 The \"Furtw\u00e4ngler & Gieseking business\" is a reference to the banning of Walter Gieseking from a concert tour of the United States at the time Bernstein sent this letter, and of Wilhelm Furtw\u00e4ngler from returning to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic the same month, both because of concerns about their Nazi past. The \" _echt_ Fascism\" that so enraged Bernstein was taking place in Detroit. According to a report in _The New York Times_ on 21 January 1949, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra \"had been warned by Mr. [Henry] Reichhold that every man would be fired if that were necessary to weed out disloyalty to the conductor [Karl Krueger].\" Reichhold, the orchestra's president added: \"I think a shake-up and good housecleaning is just what the Detroit orchestra needs.\" Georges Miquelle, the orchestra's principal cellist (married to Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle in 1919; they later divorced) was fired in public by Reichhold during a rehearsal on the grounds that he had apologized to the violinist Erica Morini about the orchestra's poor accompaniment for her \u2013 an apology that both Miquelle and Morini denied was ever made.\n\n130 Ren\u00e9e Nell (1910\u201394) was a Jungian psychoanalyst. In 1938 she escaped from Berlin to Switzerland where she studied with Carl Jung at the University of Zurich, before moving to the United States and setting up her practice in New York City. A pioneer in work with young offenders, she later established The Country Place in Litchfield, CT, describing it as \"a residential community for the psychologically disturbed adult who has more insight than he or she can use, who knows how he or she should act but withdraws from action.\" Humphrey Burton identifies her as the \"Frau\" (Burton 1994, p. 108), but the letter from Bernstein to David Oppenheim on 22 October 1943 confirms that the \"Frau\" was in fact Marketa Morris. Bernstein later became disenchanted with Nell's analysis, writing to his sister Shirley on 26 April 1950: \"My feeling is one totally apart from analysis: I want only to cope, and through my own powers, without aid \u2013 especially of the indulgent, personal sort that was forthcoming from Miss Nell.\"\n\n131 Howard Hoyt was a theatrical agent and manager who had previously worked as Eastern story editor for MGM.\n\n132 The only known use in Bernstein's papers of _Operation Capulet_ as an early title for what became _West Side Story_. Jerome Robbins first put the idea of the show to Bernstein on 6 January 1949. Robbins, Bernstein, and Arthur Laurents met for the first time to discuss the project on 10 January, and a month later Bernstein signed this agreement with Howard Hoyt.\n\n133 Hans Heinsheimer (1900\u201393) was a legendary figure in the world of music publishing. He first worked in the opera department of Universal Edition in Vienna (1923\u201338), then went to New York to take up a position at Boosey & Hawkes, promoting new works by Copland, Bart\u00f3k, Stravinsky, and Britten. He was fired by Ralph Hawkes in 1947 for writing his memoirs ( _Menagerie in F Sharp_ ), since Hawkes wanted a worker rather than an author. Heinsheimer was immediately hired by Schirmer, where he worked closely with Bernstein, Samuel Barber, and others.\n\n134 The first performance was on 8 April 1949.\n\n135 Bernstein was working on his Second Symphony, _The Age of Anxiety_.\n\n136 The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, with whom Bernstein was conducting a series of concerts. Reiner left as Music Director in 1948.\n\n137 J. Fred Lissfelt, music critic of the Pittsburgh _Sun-Telegraph_.\n\n138 Izler Solomon (1910\u201387), American conductor. He was Music Director of the Columbus Philharmonic Orchestra (1941\u20139) and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (1956\u201376).\n\n139 Tossy Spivakovsky (1906\u201398), Russian-born violinist whose performances of modern concertos such as those of Bart\u00f3k, Menotti, and Sessions were particularly admired.\n\n140 Arthur Laurents (1917\u20132011), American playwright, screenwriter, and stage director. His Broadway credits included the books for _West Side Story_ , _Gypsy_ , and _Anyone Can Whistle_ , and he directed the original production of _La Cage aux Folles_.\n\n141 This letter is undated, but the evidence points to some time in April 1949, when Bernstein began to have doubts about the viability of the project that would eventually become _West Side Story_. In Bernstein's \"Excerpts from a West Side Log\" (Bernstein 1957, p. 47), he included an entry on 15 April 1949, while conducting in Columbus, Ohio: \"Just received the draft of first four scenes. Much good stuff. But this is no way to work. Me on this long conducting tour, Arthur between New York and Hollywood. Maybe we'd better wait until I can find a continuous hunk of time to devote to the project. Obviously this show can't depend on stars, being about kids; and so it will have to live or die by the success of its collaborations; and this remote-control collaboration isn't right. Maybe they can find the right composer who isn't always skipping off to conduct somewhere. It's not fair to them or to the work.\" Bernstein was plainly uneasy about committing himself and was quoted by Craig Zadan as saying: \"I remember receiving about a dozen pages and saying to myself that this is never going to work. [...] I had a strong feeling of staleness of the East Side situation and I didn't like the too-angry, too-bitchy, too-vulgar tone of it\" (Zadan 1974, p. 15).\n\n142 Ellen Adler (b. 1927) is the daughter of fabled acting teacher Stella Adler. Ellen's close friends included Marlon Brando and Ren\u00e9 Leibowitz as well as Bernstein. In 1957 she married David Oppenheim (they divorced in 1976). Ned Rorem was bewitched by her \"dizzying black-tiger beauty\" (Ned Rorem, _Knowing When To Stop: A Memoir_ , New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994, p. 578).\n\n143 Harold Clurman, Ellen Adler's stepfather.\n\n144 161 West 54th Street is an imposing apartment building near the intersection with Seventh Avenue in Manhattan.\n\n145 Fran\u00e7ois Val\u00e9ry, son of the poet Paul Val\u00e9ry.\n\n146 Adler \u2013 delightfully \u2013 likens Nadia Boulanger's austere appearance to the stern faces in paintings such as Grant Wood's _American Gothic_.\n\n147 Marie-Blanche de Polignac (1897\u20131958) was a soprano, pianist, patron of the arts, and heiress to the Lanvin fashion fortune founded by her mother, Jeanne Lanvin. She was an intimate friend of Francis Poulenc, who dedicated several works to her.\n\n148 Otis Bigelow (1920\u20132007), actor, dancer, writer, and later theatrical agent, who spent a year in Paris in 1948\u20139.\n\n149 Burton Bernstein (b. 1932) is the younger brother of Leonard and Shirley. He studied at Dartmouth College and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, and from 1957 to 1992 he was a staff writer for _The New Yorker_. He is the author of a biography of James Thurber as well as books about the Bernstein family ( _Family Matters: Sam, Jennie, and the Kids_ ) and about his elder brother ( _Leonard Bernstein: American Original_ , with Barbara B. Haws).\n\n150 Peter Gradenwitz (1910\u20132001), German-born Israeli musicologist and music critic, and an astute commentator on Bernstein's music and his use of jazz idioms. The two became friends when Bernstein visited Israel in 1948 to conduct the Israel Philharmonic. Gradenwitz wrote extensively on Bernstein and his music, from contemporary reports of Bernstein's Israeli concerts for _The New York Times_ to the book _Leonard Bernstein: unendliche Vielfalt eines Musikers_ (Zurich: Atlantis Verlag, 1984), published in an English edition in 1987.\n\n151 Gradenwitz's _The Music of Israel: Its Rise and Growth Through 5000 Years_ was published by Norton in 1949 and dedicated \"To Leonard Bernstein as a token of friendship and sincere appreciation\".\n\n152 Bernstein worked on his new symphony while in Israel, and the first performance of any part of _The Age of Anxiety_ was given there. The \"Dirge\" was played at a Gala Soir\u00e9e in aid of the Israel Philharmonic Pension Fund on 28 November 1948 in Tel Aviv. In his notes for this concert, Peter Gradenwitz wrote of \"the first performance anywhere of a Dirge for piano and orchestra composed by Leonard Bernstein during the few leisure hours left to him on his crowded Tel-Aviv days and completed in full score just in time for tonight's concert \u2013 this is a most expressive song of lament showing the composer's style developed on distinctly novel lines.\"\n\n153 The world premiere of _The Age of Anxiety_ took place in Boston on 8 April 1949, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky, and Bernstein himself playing the solo piano part.\n\n154 Probably a reference to _Side Street_ (released in 1950), a thriller set in New York. Granger's most celebrated film role came the following year when he played Guy Haines in Hitchcock's _Strangers on a Train_.\n\n155 _Take Me Out to the Ball Game_ was a 1949 MGM musical starring Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Esther Williams.\n\n156 William Schuman (1910\u201392), American composer. He formed a dance band while still in high school and was soon collaborating with Frank Loesser, a neighbor who was also at the start of his career (Loesser's first publication, _In Love With A Memory of You_ , has music by William Schuman. With typical modesty Schuman later said \"Frank Loesser has written hits with Hoagy Carmichael, Burton Lane, Jule Styne and other Hollywood grand dukes, but I have the distinction of having written a flop with him.\"). Schuman's subsequent career was as one of America's most distinguished symphonists, president of the Juilliard School and Lincoln Center.\n\n157 A story in _The New York Times_ on Wednesday, 20 July 1949 reported that Alan Jay Lerner and Fredrick Loewe were \"at work on a new musical [...] that is set in the United States in the nineteenth century\" (the show that became _Paint Your Wagon_ ). From Bernstein's angry reaction in this letter, it seems Lerner must have suggested a collaboration. A quarter of a century later these two Harvard graduates did work together on _1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_.\n\n158 Michael Dreyfuss (1928\u201360), American actor and director.\n\n159 The pianist Menahem Pressler (b. 1923) fled Nazi Germany to Palestine. He made his American debut with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1947. Olin Downes reviewed their Carnegie Hall performance of the Schumann Concerto in _The New York Times_ , describing Pressler as \"one of the few of the young pianists who consider his instrument the agent of glamorous song and not merely a contraption of wires and keys. This, indeed, was the playing of a free artist.\" Pressler later achieved renown as pianist of the Beaux Arts Trio. Regarding his relationship with Bernstein, Pressler has written: \"I always had a fine relation with Mr. Bernstein. Although he invited me to play with him and the City Center Orchestra to make my debut coming from Israel, Mr. Judson, my manager, insisted that I do it with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Ormandy. But I played his pieces and met him many times in different places, even here in Bloomington. Recently I played his Clarinet Sonata with [Richard] Stoltzman\" (email from Menahem Pressler, 12 January 2013).\n\n160 Olivier Messiaen (1908\u201392), French composer. His first major international commission was from Koussevitzky, for the _Turangal\u00eela-Symphonie_.\n\n161 Bernstein conducted the world premiere of Messiaen's _Turangal\u00eela-Symphonie_ with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on 2 December 1949.\n\n162 Yvonne Loriod (1924\u20132010), French pianist. A pupil of Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire, she went on to give the first performances of all his major works featuring the piano. In 1961 she became Messiaen's second wife.\n\n163 Written in French; English translation by the editor.\n\n164 Arturo Toscanini (1867\u20131957), Italian conductor, and one of the most celebrated performing musicians of the twentieth century. This letter was sent after Bernstein had visited him and asked about the different speeds in Toscanini's broadcast and studio recordings of Berlioz's _Romeo and Juliet_ (see Burton 1994, p. 196).\n\n165 Irwin Edman (1896\u20131954), American philosopher.\n\n166 A reference to the \"Imaginary Conversation\" subtitled \"Why Beethoven?\" that was published in Bernstein's _The Joy of Music_ (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959), pp. 21\u201339, in which \"L.B.\", \"L.P.\" (\"Lyric Poet,\" described as a \"poet's poet from Britain\" \u2013 Stephen Spender), and \"Y.B.\" (\"Younger Brother\") converse (see B. Bernstein 1982, pp. 179\u201380).\n\n167 A letter to Shirley Bernstein (\"Hi-Lee\"), presumably a \"North Country Epic\" since it had been sent from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where Burton was a student.\n\n168 Messiaen's _Turangal\u00eela-Symphonie_.\n\n169 _Regina_ is an opera by Marc Blitzstein based on Lillian Hellman's _The Little Foxes_. It opened at the 46th Street Theatre on Broadway on 31 October 1949, the day before Bernstein wrote this letter.\n\n170 Written in French; English translation by the editor.\n\n171 Robert Fryer (1921\u20132000), theatrical producer whose first Broadway show was _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_. He later had a string of successes including _Wonderful Town_ , _Sweet Charity_ , _Chicago_ , and _Sweeney Todd_.\n\n172 Betty Smith (1896\u20131972) was the author of the novel _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_. She collaborated with George Abbott on the stage adaptation.\n\n173 According to a note in Helen Coates' hand, Bernstein replied to Abbott by phone on 12 December, turning down the project. The score for _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ (which ran for 257 performances in 1951) was composed by Arthur Schwartz, with lyrics by Dorothy Fields. Robbins was involved informally (uncredited show-doctoring); the musical director was Max Goberman, whose greatest Broadway successes were _On the Town_ and _West Side Story_.\n4\n\nMarriage, Passport Problems, and Italy\n\n1950\u201355\n\nBy 1950, Bernstein had decided that he needed Felicia in his life \u2013 though he seemed unable to tell her directly: two letters sent from Israel to his sister Shirley suggest that he wanted her to be a kind of intermediary \u2013 wooing her back by proxy. Strange as this may seem, it worked, and they were married (after the shortest of second engagements) in September 1951. Extended trips abroad meant that it wasn't only his personal life that was being run by remote control. The production of _Peter Pan_ , for which Bernstein wrote delightful incidental music, was in rehearsal while he was in Israel, and Marc Blitzstein took on responsibility for overseeing things \u2013 describing them in lively detail to the absentee composer. The now-familiar tensions were building: Bernstein the composer was being sent ideas for a new musical by Betty Comden, while Bernstein the conductor was meeting Wilhelm Furtw\u00e4ngler at the Holland Festival before setting off to other European destinations with his brother and sister. The result is a charming series of letters to Bernstein's parents in August\u2013September 1950. That relationship took an odd turn the following year when \"Sam\" and \"Jennie\" became the dysfunctional principals in the one-act opera _Trouble in Tahiti_ : writing to Shirley from Mexico in 1951, Bernstein wrote that \"the two characters, by the way, have gotten themselves called Sam and Jennie, and I think you'll see why.\" That same letter raises a serious issue for Bernstein \u2013 and many of his friends \u2013 in the early 1950s: the \"Red Scare\" and the witch-hunting activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy and others. Aware that others were already coming under scrutiny, Bernstein says it's time to prepare \"our blazing orations now,\" adding that \"I hope I'm as brave as I sound from this distance when it catches up with me.\"\n\nMeanwhile, there was the more private matter of his marriage to Felicia. Bernstein's letters to friends and family suggest that he regarded the first few months of their life together almost as a kind of social experiment, while an undated letter from Felicia underlines the strength of her love for him, but that she was under no illusions: \"you are a homosexual and may never change \u2013 you don't admit to the possibility of a double life, but if your peace of mind, your health, your whole nervous system depend on a certain sexual pattern what can you do?\" It was the birth of Jamie, their first child, in 1952 which transformed their marriage from a slightly uneasy alliance to something that could endure.\n\nPlans for new projects came and went, some of them fascinating, such as an idea discussed with Blitzstein in 1952 for an opera on the life of Eva (Evita) Per\u00f3n. But conducting engagements in Europe and Israel were piling up, and finding time for composition was becoming increasingly difficult. In 1953 the U.S. State Department became a significant player in Bernstein's future \u2013 and a thorn in his side. These were perilous times for Americans with liberal sympathies, especially those involved in film, theater, radio, television, and music. Bernstein was one of the 151 names in the entertainment industry whose \"Communist\" associations were chronicled in _Red Channels_ , published in June 1950, and he came under suspicion throughout the fifties. While he was never summoned by the House Un-American Activities Committee (Copland, Robbins, and Diamond \u2013 among many others \u2013 weren't so fortunate), Bernstein was required to provide exhaustive details about his former associations with groups regarded as suspect, to renounce Communism, and to pledge his loyalty to the country \u2013 all in order to have his passport renewed. The State Department demanded sworn testimony, and the result is Bernstein's long and grimly absorbing affidavit (Letter 328). He wrote to his brother Burton, and to David Diamond, about the humiliation of this episode, but at least he was able to travel again, and in 1954 and 1955 Bernstein wrote a series of long, warm, and often funny letters to Felicia \u2013 including the bizarre tale of the disturbed young man who pursued Bernstein around Italy, threatening to blackmail him. He finished one important new work, the _Serenade_ for violin and orchestra, but another was to prove much more intractable: _Candide_ was to give Bernstein a lot of trouble, and took years of precious composing time, but he stuck with it. On the domestic front, things were a great deal happier, with Felicia expecting a second baby whose nickname _in utero_ was \"Fink\".\n\n295. Marian MacDowell1 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHillcrest, Peterborough, NH\n\n4 March 1950\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nI have just written Lukas [Foss] that I could not help feeling a deep personal pride in your programme with the Philharmonic last Sunday. I think Lukas did his part extraordinarily well, but I don't know when I have been so stirred and excited as I was during the playing of your composition. A splendid piece of work! It came over very well on the radio but I wish I might have been there.2\n\nEvery now and then I most particularly wish I were not ninety-two for I can't do as many things that I would like to do. As for instance, when you are here, leading the local Philharmonic, I am afraid I dare not take the risk of the fatigue which would be entailed should I attempt to go to the concert.\n\nI am really very well but with too little strength to do the things I want to do. I would beg you to come and see me but I know you are going to be overly busy and I dare not hope for it. All the same I would love to.\n\nI have just one regret \u2013 that while Lukas had been a devoted Colonist you should never have been there.3\n\nLet me thank you for the very kind letter you wrote me a couple of weeks ago. When I heard you converse in the Green Room of the New York Philharmonic giving an outline of what you had done this season and what you are going to do it seemed incredible.\n\nWith every warm good wish and deep admiration.\n\nMost sincerely yours,\n\nMarian MacDowell\n\n296. Marc Blitzstein4 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n4 East 12th Street, New York, NY\n\n16 April 1950\n\nLenny dear,\n\nYour casual throwaway phrase: \"If you run into trouble on lyrics (in _Peter Pan_ ), consult Marc \u2013 he's my deputy\" \u2013 has borne all kind of fruit: raw, ripe, rotten.5 First, they wanted \"Dream With Me\" revised to make Wendy virginal but grown-up, intimate but not \"commercial\", etc. So I re-did it. Then it was decided that what the last few minutes of the play needed was a reprise, not a new song. Scurryings about, searching for a spot to introduce \"Dream With Me\" before the end; no luck. So \"Who Am I?\" took its place in the finale, with new lyrics by M.B. More stuff was needed for the mermaids' song, to fill in a spot-in-one \u2013 while they changed sets from the Pirate Ship (thirty-one) to the Nursery (now thirty-three). At this moment that set-change is so complicated that even more insert-music-and-lyrics would seem to be required; and so on. At this moment, two days before the first preview, the production seems generically right (if you like _Peter Pan_ at all), but specifically right almost nowhere.6 That will change for the better; the tricks are cute, adding up to what seems a Hippodrome extravaganza. Hershy [Kay] has done a fine brilliant transparent job of orchestration; Trude [Rittmann] remains the best person in the field for \"incidentals\";7 Miss Arthur gets curiouser and curiouser, which may even help her performance, if she gets over opening-night jitters. [John] Burrell8 is sound theatrically, but lacking in inventiveness. Great hulking crises in matters of flying equipment, set-troubles (Alswang9 is fine but should be pruned down, too many busy gadgets on stage), and musicians'-union bickerings. [Ben] Steinberg10 is almost (not quite) a loss; he refuses to bang down a beat for the poor unmusical performers. The seat of the trouble, I'm afraid, is Peter Lawrence's ineptitude as a producer; much as I like him personally, he's in a deep-sea fog, or appears to be. Who knows? It will probably turn out to be the hit of the century.\n\nI cabled you re Ballo of Radio-Roma, because I had a radiogram from him, asking me to send _Regina_ for consideration at the Venice Festival; and I thought you might talk it up. I hope I didn't shackle you with needless problems during your overworked stay in Italy.\n\nPeter Frye wants to do _Cradle_ in Israel this summer \u2013 Chamber Theatre in Tel Aviv (Guttmann-Bartov, manager). I'd love it, and I'd love to come. Could I send the score to Helen, with instructions not to release it until everything is settled?\n\nThe new opera is nearly half-finished! I seem to be working mightily, but need a couple of weeks' rest badly. One song, lied-like, is the best I've ever written. And I have sunk my teeth into a translation of the whole of the _Dreigroschenoper_ as a sort of memorial to Kurt [Weill]. Folks (Cheryl [Crawford], Lee Strasburg, Gadg [Elia] Kazan, etc.) are wildly enthusiastic at the seven songs already completed; and it may turn out to be a production.11\n\nThis has got to stop somewhere. Love. Have you seen Kit?\n\nMarc\n\n297. Leonard Bernstein to Burton Bernstein\n\nTurin, Italy\n\n18 April 1950\n\nDear Frent,\n\n\u2013 Then they lost my tails at the Naples hotel half an hour before the concert (which was at six, & rehearsals had lasted til four, with many chills and fevers and a raw cold hall) and the piano broke down mitten der Ravel in Milano, and every city I come to there's always a mess. But such fun & fury! And big successes, natch. Speaking of natch, they called Schoenberg's _Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht_ \"Verkl\u00e4rte Natch\" in Naples. I have just come to Turin by sheer dint, having been in Milan on Sunday (which is 2 hours from here) but had to go to Rome yesterday for a meeting with [Sol] Hurok & Kouss. So I told the Turin people I'd be late, took a 7 a.m. plane this morning, Rome to Milan, hired a private car in Milan (15,000 lire!!), sped to Turin, arrived at this glad-rags hotel, called the orchestra people \u2013 and there's nobody there who knows anything \u2013 in fact there's nobody there, & they're all eating & who am I anyway, and \"Vabbene, Maestro, vabbenissimo.\"\n\nThen there was the time the bed fell on grandfather...12\n\nLoved your letter. You're growing it up, growing it up, M\u00fc la d\u00fc. Be sure to be in N.Y. when I arrive mid-July.\n\nLad\u00fcm\u00fc\n\n298. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Bernstein\n\nSharon Hotel, Herzlia on Sea, Israel\n\n26 April 1950\n\nSweedie,\n\nWithout even waiting for cable news of the _Peter Pan_ opening, I hasten to write you apropos your letter which I received Monday in Rome. I arrived in Jewland yesterday, a hulk of a once proud ship, ridden with intestinal bugs of some sort. The three weeks in Italy were screaming successes, but a nightmare of impossible schedules, cold rainy weather, and diarrhea. Everyone became my doctor; I used fourteen different medicines indiscriminately and somehow got through. Once in Israel, having two days before my first rehearsal, I decided to avoid Tel-Aviv, and ensconced myself here for two days of quiet & sun and swimming. First, no rooms: so I took one in a house down the road, which is rather nice, but eat, etc. in the hotel. Then \u2013 no sun: in fact, a good old New England gale just begun to blow up. I sleep a lot, read a lot ( _Male & Female_13 is more than fascinating, though often in unintelligible prose), and to outgrow this great weakness which follows on these three Italian weeks of superhuman effort. By the way, the _A_ [ge] _of A_ [ _nxiety_ ] brought the house down in Turin, despite a wretchedly nervous and unprepared performance. At the last minute I had to conduct from the piano, since the designated conductor proved incompetent. That is a chore! But at least I know that it can be done, given enough rehearsal, and omitting the famous last piano chord. I shall try the same method here in Israel.\n\nThis hotel is most impressive, full of Miami-type rich American Jews, but too small. The food is good, though meat is almost non-existent \u2013 which is OK, since I am on a rather lean diet \u2013 perf\u00f6\u00f6rce. (By the way, Italians are always saying \"per forza!\" which makes me think of you.) The parents were to come here on Friday next & stay here, but a cable from Dad says the boat is late & they will arrive only Monday, May 1st \u2013 so I'll grab their room Friday to Monday, on which day I move into my little house (occupied until then by the Parays).14 You have heard that [Paul] Paray is finished here, including the American tour, & that Kouss & I will share the tour, with some assistance from [Eleazar de] Carvalho.\n\nBut all this is not what is uppermost in my mind \u2013 and psyche too. How strange that you should have written just now of Felicia! Ever since I left America she has occupied my thoughts uninterruptedly, and I have come to a fabulously clear realization of what she means \u2013 and has always meant \u2013 to me. I have loved her, despite all the blocks that have consistently impaired my loving-mechanism, truly & deeply from the first. Lonely on the sea, my thoughts were only of her. Other girls (and\/or boys) meant nothing. Even the automatic straining toward general sexuality of the moment \u2013 which had always carried a big stick with me, was of no importance. I have been consistently aware of the great companionship of this girl \u2013 seen clearly and independent of the damnable tensions that discolored it, the fears melting into thin air. I fret, for the first time in my life, jealousy \u2013 a growing resentment of her current affair, and a certain knowledge that D[ick] H[art] was horribly wrong for her. Over all this, a real knowledge that she and I were made for each other, then as now: that we have everything to give each other. Just as right is my feeling that it would have been wrong to marry when we planned in '47, in struggle with the complex tensions of both our young lives then. I would marry her tomorrow, sight unseen, ignorant of all she has lived through these two years or so, willing to learn, insatiably eager to learn.\n\nOn the boat I was seized by these feelings \u2013 and more: a grave intuition that she was in trouble and needed someone. I prayed it might be me she needed. So strong was this conviction (though I admitted to myself that intuitive deductions are all too easy in mid-Atlantic) that I wrote her a letter explaining my urge. I felt humble writing it, vastly apologetic for the indifferent treatment I had afforded her during her troubled time in California, and in fact all through our \"engagement\". After mailing it, I was afraid that I had been guilty of bad manners, of possibly trying to disrupt what may have been a good relationship with Hart, of possibly yielding to the impulse of a moment of loneliness. Now I know, weeks later, how sincere and deep the impulse was. I have had no answer, and have thought that my worst fears were justified. Of course I sent it to Washington Place; she may not have gotten it; it may have been intercepted; or she may have reacted only with anger at my interference. How your letter gives me a renewed hope.\n\nI would write all this directly to her, but the unknown fate of my first letter to her gives me pause. I don't mean to use you as a go-between \u2013 I know you understand that as deeply as you do my desire to have her know my feelings. So many things become clear when abroad \u2013 so many cow-webs [ _sic_ ] are cleared away: the tongues of dear friends persuading me that she was wrong for me, etc., the psychiatric womb wherein one is safe from the need to cope with sexual adjustment, etc. My feeling is one totally apart from analysis: I want only to cope, and through my own powers, without aid \u2013 especially of the indulgent, personal sort that was forthcoming from Miss Nell.\n\nHow is Felicia? Did [Eva] Gabor leave, as I hear she might, and did Felicia replace her? Is she still in the show? How does she feel about her career? Is her health OK? These things, of course, I would love to hear directly from her; but if that is not possible, let me hear them from you. I am thrilled that you are close again: that should always be: you have so much for each other.\n\nOnly one thing more: last night I dreamed at length that I had found her and solved our problems together. It was a hard dream, but full of richness. And, on awakening, I was desolate at the thousands of miles that still lay between us, and the grayness of doubt and not-knowing. My day-dreams are of her flying to Israel, and our being married in Jerusalem. Ren\u00e9e [Nell], of course, would be the uninvited fairy who would pronounce the curse. Strangely, though, I think she'd be delighted. I was not at all surprised at your news of Ren\u00e9e: I had always seen these things, but had always diminished their importance in the light of her values and of my affection for her. Of course, I have no intention of returning to her, or, I hope, to anyone, if I can begin really to live my life (as I can now) and not only live on the circumference of it. And, willy-nilly, Ren\u00e9e has helped to that point \u2013 a point where my world changes from one of abstractions and public-hungry performance to one of reality, a world of creativity, of Montealegre-Cohn, of Spanish & French and travel and rest and love and warmth and intimacy. I've never felt so strongly as these weeks in Italy how through I am with the conductor-performer life (except where it really matters) and how ready I am for inner living, which means composing and Felicia. I'll probably never stop conducting completely, but it will never again be in intensity and emphasis what these last seven years have been.\n\nMy interest in _Peter Pan_ grows strangely neutral; I feel that the basic defection of Peter Lawrence, and the manifestations thereof in choosing [John] Burrell & [Ben] Steinberg,15 has (or have?) robbed it, prima facie, of the real life it could have had. If it's a hit, so much the better. But thanks for all your news: and I'm very grateful to Marc. I am shocked by the idea of my name in lights on this show! But these things pass. You are right: I shall never again operate in such a way.\n\nMany thanks for the Mitrop[oulos] profile \u2013 I'd love to see the rest (you stopped in mid-paragraph). And the [Wanda] Landowska picture is a gem. Two things were missing from your letter: there was no word of Gabey, and especially no word of Hi-lee [Shirley]. I miss you terribly, and a long letter from you with no personal word in it makes me worry a little: you will please rectify this situation.\n\nTremendous love, and I await impatiently your reply on all counts. The gale is now over, the sun is out, and I wish you and Felicia were both here.\n\nLovingly,\n\nL\n\n299. Leonard Bernstein to \"Twig\" Romney\n\nKing David Hotel, Jerusalem, Israel\n\n9 May 1950\n\nDear Twig,\n\nYour news is good: and I hope your sense of future is as strong and high as that to be found here. Pretty inspiring stuff, and fairly original, I'd say, in a world of passivity and backsliding.\n\nTonight I give a gala concert here celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Hebrew University. Irony: the University buildings lie in the unspeakably touching view from my window here, across the Old City, but they are unused, unavailable, in Arab hands. Such angering nonsense. But the University functions well in temporary borrowed buildings here, and will celebrate doubly hard tonight.\n\nI am tired, but, as always, goaded on to any amount of activity by the passion in this air. I will be in Holland the first two weeks in July, then flying to America for Tanglewood, then leaving again in mid-August for the Edinburgh Festival. We should be able to see each other there (I shall be in Scotland about Aug 20 to 25): then I return to Holland to finish the Festival. Do let's meet.\n\nThe _Age_ [ _of Anxiety_ ] is already recorded by Columbia, & should be released in the fall. Glad you like it \u2013 I do too.16\n\nTill Scotland, then, be good and tranquil. Helen sends a kiss.\n\nL\n\n300. Leonard Bernstein to Hans Heinsheimer\n\nTel Aviv, Israel\n\n11 May 1950\n\nDear Hans,\n\nThe good news about _Peter Pan_ continues to pour in from all sides. What a pleasure. Now to do something really important musically. I can see more and more clearly that the conducting side of my life will diminish rapidly, and the writing side augment. I feel myself less and less a performer. Maybe you'll have a Bernstein catalogue after all. We have to follow our insides, not our externals: was soll'n wir machen? It is a tide.\n\nI was horrified to read about Weill.17 This must have been a great shock to you. We will all miss him.\n\nGood news about the recordings. How did Goddard [Lieberson] ever agree to a non-Brigitta album?\n\nHow is the \"plugging\" situation?\n\nI was very much pleased with the published songs, but furious at the word-changes in \"Peter Peter\". They may have been necessary for purposes of the show \u2013 but certainly not for general consumption. I find the new lines almost unsingable, awkward and without meaning. Can something be done before more copies are made (if there is a demand)?\n\nThe _Age_ [ _of Anxiety_ ] was a wild hit in Torino, and a great success here with the musicians, though the public seems a bit puzzled. I have decided that the ending is all wrong (don't scream!). It is only a shame that the recording is already made and the 2-piano version published. But I am still going to change that Epilogue. After all, Bart\u00f3k published two endings now and then.\n\nIs it possible that I can see _Peter Pan_ before the recording takes place, or is it to be done immediately? I'd love to have something to say about it. But I suppose not.\n\nMy best to Nat [Broder]: and thank him for all his efforts. And to you, warm greetings from this marvelous land. I hope we meet somewhere in Europe.\n\nFondly,\n\nLenny B\n\n301. Betty Comden to Leonard Bernstein\n\n350 East 69th Street, New York, NY\n\n15 May 1950\n\nDearest Lenny,\n\nKnowing, as I now do, that you save every scrap of correspondence you get, from Koussevitzky's pages on life, music, and your career \u2013 to Auntie Clara's hot denunciations of meat, I write this letter with the full burden of realizing that it must top my incomparable \"Musicraft\", or \"Sam [Paul] Puner\" file of a few years back. As if this were not enough, I have the added load of trying to tell you what has been happening these last weeks with you so far away \u2013 and successfully bridging the gap of time and miles. Need I add that when I say \"I\", I am really referring to a certain dark fellow [Adolph Green] as well as myself \u2013 although somehow, through some odd trick of fate, it is I, only myself, who is stuck with actually writing the letter. Anyway \u2013\n\nI should begin by saying that the show we all want so much to happen \u2013 is not truly an existent entity yet, although we are still working at it, and very hard, too. When you tore off in that hot flush of enthusiasm \u2013 we started meeting, and, as you know, met with Jerry [Robbins]. He got interested in the idea \u2013 and had some general \"feelings\" about it \u2013 but nothing very specific, and since then \u2013 we have met \u2013 just ourselves \u2013 and a few times with Oliver [Smith]. We talked a great deal about the house on Middagh Street \u2013 and the many people who lived there, and what they wanted and how they behaved \u2013 and tried like fury to settle on some main characters, and a line of action. What kept happening is that the feeling of the thing kept veering from what we consider one bad extreme to another \u2013 either it acquired that \"young hopeful\" quality of something like _Look, Ma_ or _Stage Door_ \u2013 being about young artistic people trying to \"get ahead\", or it became about eccentric characters too removed from audience sympathy and identification \u2013 too bizarre \u2013 too enfant terriblish \u2013 too personal. We tried staying in the House for the whole show. We tried getting out of it for most of the show. To arrive at some main story and characters we attempted, finally, a kind of modern _Boh\u00e8me_ \u2013 the girl a smart 1950 tramp and the guy a writer or musician, involved in the House \u2013 which led us out of the House altogether to thinking of just \"a modern love story\" \u2013 (Does this strike a familiar chord?) \u2013 who needs the eccentrics except as background people \u2013 let's write that contemporary big relationship story. This ended nowhere \u2013 after spending a full day and evening with Oliver. Back to the House idea. We even went to Brooklyn with the boy from Middagh Street himself18 \u2013 and roamed the Brooklyn Heights streets \u2013 and saw where the house originally stood \u2013 and looked at the breathtaking view of Manhattan \u2013 and got all inspired, and came back \u2013 and still have not captured what we want on paper. But what has disturbed us particularly is that we get no musical thoughts whatever. We find it hard to think of \"number\" \u2013 the musical expression of what the show should be. We cannot hear it. We sometimes feel it is more a play \u2013 and not suited to musical theatre at all. Have you had any time to think of it at all? \u2013 and if so, what does it seem to mean to you, musically? All of which brings us to how we wish you had not sailed away before anything could be talked out and either concretized \u2013 or discarded. All we have to go on is your parting enthusiasm. That evening should have been followed up by a week of intensive meeting together, but it was impossible. It just feels like no way to work together at all \u2013 being so far apart, and not being able really to talk things out. We feel so far removed from what you may be thinking \u2013 and even wonder if we have been proceeding at all along the lines that you are. Or are you? We know that outside of being frantically busy you have been sick \u2013 but if you have had any fleeting thoughts or impressions about the Idea \u2013 or any concretizing of your own feelings about it \u2013 please enclose them in return mail.\n\nTo add to our situation, we are, as you can tell from the postmark, still in the East \u2013 having run into that situation in Hollywood we all thought might happen. Not the right property. We _could_ be doing _The Life of Sigmund Romberg_ \u2013 but as the creators of _Bazooka_19 we do not feel we could do the subject justice. MGM is out buying us things \u2013 but it has dragged on this long, and may a little longer \u2013 and what does that do to the date department you may well ask. All we know is \u2013 we will do the picture soon.\n\nWe want so much for the show to be. We are keeping at it \u2013 and in fact have a date to see Jerry about it today or tomorrow. I just felt we had to apprise you of the thoughts we have been having \u2013 and also to ask you what has been churning in your head these many weeks. Maybe this will be the first of a series of letters which in a few months will add up to S-H-O-W \u2013 a show that will open next spring. Please write \u2013 we will again soon. Onwards and upwards!\n\nMuch love,\n\nBetty\n\nIt's so wonderful about _Peter Pan_!\n\n302. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Bernstein\n\nTel Aviv, Israel\n\n19 May 1950\n\nShalom Shvestoah!\n\nSince I couldn't sleep last night after the concert I have made this a do-nothing day: relaxo profundo on the wonderful beach for three or more hours, followed by relaxo in bed, followed by relaxo with Irwin Shaw's novel. Concert coming up again in an hour and a half \u2013 but I want to begin a letter anyway: there is so much to say. Relaxo always brings on tension for me \u2013 I'm so unused to any period without release of some sort. I have been engaged in an imaginary life with Felicia, having her by my side on the beach as a shockingly beautiful Yemenite boy passes \u2013 inquiring into that automatic little demon who always springs into action at such moments \u2013 then testing: if Felicia were there, sharing with me that fantastic instant when the Khamsin is suddenly gone, and a new wind, west from the sea, comes in to cancel the heat with its almost holy approach \u2013 and the test works. It's surprising how true some of the old saws out of the analysis book can be: \"to establish a good relation to yourself is the prerequisite to any other relation.\" This self-relation is what I have begun to find: I have discovered the core in myself of human relationship (words, words til now) \u2013 the core of a sunburst of quiet energy, and always apropos of Felicia. This, after years of compulsive living, of driving headlong down alleys of blind patterns, dictated by God knows what vibrations \u2013 this is a revelation. Not that the demon absents himself: he still pokes me when his occasions arise \u2013 the French horn player, the artist in Jerusalem: but the old willingness to follow him, blind to any future, blind to the inner knowledge of the certain ensuing meaninglessness \u2013 that is gone. So the demon diminishes.\n\nHow can I tell you how touched I was by your letter? You have grown so \u2013 you are more than understanding: you understand so many things I didn't say. And you've become articulate in a way I never expected. Your control problem is all too familiar to me \u2013 an old Bernstein custom. We can work through it: only it can't be planned, like a Bar-Mitzvah, for a certain date. One day \u2013 boom! I feel you're on the road.\n\nI'm happy about Felicia's reaction \u2013 especially by the apparent lack of ingrown hostility. We are both in such a strange condition: she with her double-edged sword, I with pure waiting. Waiting is a salutary state for me: heretofore it wasn't possible without tension. But now I feel such a certainty about us \u2013 I know there's a real future involving a great comradeship, a house, children, travel, sharing, and such a tenderness as I have rarely felt. I want to comfort her for all her heavy wandering, and to make it right. Only one thing: why does she insist on prolonging the suffering? Is she as sure as you that her present life is not her future? I sure hope she is: \u2013 I know from some almighty source that Dick was created for other things. And Felicia is for me, because the thought of her makes me strong enough to deserve her. This is by now repetitious, probably the product of having no contact with her except through you, and I must stop this proxy-relationship. You're a darling, and you have been good and loving in your handling of a delicate position.\n\nThanks for the idea about Aaron's concerto: I've written him & Dave [Oppenheim], although I suspect Ormandy will get it.\n\nWhat of Kay Brown? Never a word from her. And what motivates your dark words about Betty & Adolph? You scare me. As for _Tree_20 I thought Alex North was to do it. I'd hate to be strung up again with a show \u2013 that would be too much after last year. What of Charlie Feldman & _Streetcar_?\n\nThe parents are furious that you haven't written. Neither has Burtie. What is with that journalistic tycoon? I miss him terribly. The aforesaid parents dash about madly: mother is a regular Marco Polo, & Daddy, in his bungling way, is on top of the world. Helen flies about with seventy friends, busy and protective as ever. Since our housekeeper speaks only French and Bulgarian, Helen has to deal with her in her own mad French, which is mostly a series of those old American whinnies plus endless strings of Oui Oui Oui Oui \u2013 replacing the former yes yes yes yes. In French, these strings begin to approximate Rybernian. Weep weep.\n\nIt seems I've been here forever & there's still over a month to go. It's partly, I guess, not seeing you (which had become a pleasant lifelong habit) & partly the waiting game with Felicia. I don't feel the same permanence & in-living here that I felt last trip, during the war. Of course there was Azariah [Rapport] then \u2013 it all seems so impossible and of a different life. I realize now that he personified for me the war, the incredible bravery of these people, the beauty of their vision. Now, in an American double-breasted plaid \u2013 zero.\n\nGive Fel. my dearest love, & tell her not to suffer any longer than absolutely necessary. I treasure the page from _Cue_ [Magazine].\n\nBe well; remind Gabey that I exist, & write more often. A letter takes ages (your last took 14 days, what with return for additional postage, etc.). And if Felicia feels she can write \u2013 even a line \u2013 it would make me so happy!\n\nBless you, dear Hilee,\n\nL\n\n303. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nc\/o Israel Philharmonic, Tel Aviv, Israel\n\n21 May 1950\n\nShalom Aaron,\n\nSo much time goes by: I don't know you any more \u2013 not even through your music, which is not exactly forthcoming. I played your violin sonata with a fine fiddler here the other day, and had a real old-fashioned nostalgic kick. Those faraway days when the C# was holy and the form so surprisingly right. _Where's your music?_ God knows we need it. There hasn't been a real exciting American premiere in years.\n\nI fought with Kouss valiantly over the Clarinet Concerto, to no avail. Benny & Tanglewood don't mix in his mind. Shirley had a good idea the other day: to do it with Dave O[ppenheim] at the NY Philh. next Feb. Then someone tells me he read that you've disposed of it to Ormandy. What is the story? I'd love to do it in New York with Dave. Let me know.\n\nWhat's up? Movies? [Emily] Dickinson? A piano concerto? Eric [Erik]21 & Victor? _You?_\n\nIsrael is lovely, weather delightful, concerts fine, [Jascha] Heifetz in top form, Roy Harris 3rd successful, the people gay & forward-looking. I miss you.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n304. David Oppenheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n26 May 1950\n\nDear Len,\n\nOf course I'd love to do Aaron's piece22 with you next year. Of course Metro is beckoning with many $s and all kinds of offers, but I guess I'd rather stay our number one clarinettist.\n\nYesterday, tho', I heard a rather dispiriting rumor that Mitropoulos was promising the piece in the fall with McGinnis23 but I have no confirmation and it may be untrue. It certainly seems possible though. I'll call Aaron. Meanwhile see if you can set it with the Philharmonic, because even if it is already programmed it will be good for me to be mentioned.\n\n1. House is being plumbed\n\n2. Judy24 is in Hollywood doing B.Y.25\n\n3. Mrs. M. is the only nice person I know\n\nI may tour for a month with a woodwindy quintet this summer, or I may go to Aspen, Colorado, to play at the festival, or both.\n\nSee you in Tanglewood, a weekend, or week middle maybe.\n\nEnjoy,\n\nDave\n\n305. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nScheveningen, Netherlands\n\n13 July 1950\n\nDear H,\n\nEnd of Round Seven \u2013 these concerts are thankfully over, and I leave tonight (earlier schedule, luckily) for New York. I've never been so anxious to get back \u2013 not for the country, particularly (I'm always chez-moi anywhere) but for people I desperately miss. The concerts have been gratifying, and the Mahler was a sensation in Amsterdam. I have been weak again, and accepted a week with the Concertgebouw the first days of September (7th & 9th). I thought \u2013 as long as I am here anyway until the 2nd I couldn't resist the offer. I had looked forward to it for so long anyway! They are now attacking for me to stay the whole month, and give [Eduard] van Beinum a rest (he is quite tired and ill). But I doubt that I shall.\n\nThe _Age_ [ _of Anxiety_ ] went well last night. Fine response: van Otterloo is a very intelligent and hard-working guy.26\n\nBut best of all \u2013 only 3 concerts in 2 weeks! And cold, cold air, a grim northern sea, angry clouds \u2013 all this is a blessing after months of relentless blue and gold.\n\nI feel much better, though not up to par at all: but I'm prepared for the grind ahead. I hope you've rested, that the Kibbutzim don't prove insufferably hot, and that your trek eastwards proves rewarding. Don't load up with too many 16 \u00d7 16 rugs in Damascus!\n\nTonight I shall hear Furtw\u00e4ngler before the plane.27 He was at my concert last night, and seemed very happy. A nice man: who can judge?\n\nI am more than depressed by the news: not so much out of anxiety as out of a great disappointment in man \u2013 a heavy realization that people really don't want peace, or aren't simple or strong enough simply to decide to have it. It makes all planning seem a little bit ridiculous.\n\nHowever, we go on. Round Eight...\n\nL\n\n306. Betty Comden and Adolph Green to Leonard Bernstein\n\nM.G.M., Culver City, CA\n\n23 July 1950\n\nDearest Lenny,\n\nWe have delayed writing only to try to find out more definitely just what our dates here will be. Talking to you and hearing you sound so low was not as pleasant as getting your marvelous letter, and we wished we could all have been more close \u2013 about our plans, but apparently both you and we are planning on a somewhat later date than September 1. You have taken a couple of more weeks in Holland, and it looks as though we will have to be here until nearly the end of September. Certainly, as far as your staying on in Holland for a rest and vacation goes \u2013 if you must, then do it. On the other hand \u2013 by that time, we should be winding up here, so if you could come out for those last weeks, we could undoubtedly accomplish something. Feasible? \u2013 ou non?\n\nWe are still exploding with the desire to do a show. As we wrote you, the Middagh Street opus bore no edible fruit, and we are happy to hear you are not what they call married to same. To make a further stab at an idea, we came out here by train, as you may know \u2013 and spent three days closeted with ourselves and our heads \u2013 digging \u2013 and did get an idea we liked \u2013 except that present conditions in this frightened and frightening world seem to have ruined its practicability.\n\nRoughly, it was a post-war theme, capturing, we hoped, some of that Age of Anxiety feeling: Four guys who had been together in the war in the same outfit \u2013 pals, they thought never to part \u2013 who naturally drifted apart as soon as peace disbanded them \u2013 and who try to have a reunion.28 They had something together during the war \u2013 a warmth, a companionship, a sharing, a true friendship \u2013 which they try to recapture \u2013 but the great \"levelling\" is not there any more. They are from utterly different walks of life now \u2013 maybe an artist, a rich advertising fellow, an elevator man, a stage carpenter. They either meet by accident or plan the evening, and at some point in the night their great comradeship reasserts itself \u2013 and although at the end they know they won't ever see each other again, they realize that they had a little glimpse of what life could be \u2013 and why should that special kind of togetherness exist only when people have their backs to the wall as in a war or crisis. Or \u2013 possibly the story could have been told through one of the protagonists, the guy who has lived on this memory, and for this day, who looks up to the others and has his memory realized, and then sees it finish when they say goodbye.\n\nAnyway, this idea interested us and we did a little work on it, but it doesn't seem at all possible now.\n\nSince then we have been up to our earmuffs in this Picture we are writing.29 But, as stated earlier, we feel if you could come out toward the end, to vacation \u2013 at the same time, we might get something done.\n\nPlease write, and forgive our delay in answering you.\n\nAll our love,\n\nB and A\n\n307. Leonard Bernstein to Sam and Jennie Bernstein\n\nParis\n\n17 August 1950\n\nDear Sweet Parents,\n\nWe have had a magnificent stay here these few days, in spite of a tough rehearsal schedule, complications with travel accommodations, etc. \u2013 plus the fact that we all three arrived so tired after the plane trip. But we've slept a lot (especially Shirley & Burt, who slept through my rehearsals) and feel really happy and well. Paris is of an unbelievable beauty now \u2013 cool, invigorating, and dewy; and the fact that so many Parisians are away for the summer kind of leaves the city open & clear for the tourists. We've fallen in love with it again, all over: and Burtie is already an old Parisian, with a beret and all.\n\nTomorrow we leave for London with the orchestra (by train and boat): we will stay in London two nights, see the shows, do the town \u2013 and then proceed to Edinburgh by plane Sunday noon, the 20th. My concerts are the 21st and 23rd: we go to Holland directly on the 24th, and will stay there until September 9th. Why don't you write us there \u2013 to the _Kurhaus, Scheveningen, Holland_.\n\nFrom there we go to Ireland (to this great castle): and Burtie will fly home from Shannon on the 18th, arriving the 19th, while we fly back to Paris, where we will stay til the 24th at the St. James Hotel; then we plan to drive south with Peggy Riley and her husband (wonderful girl) and Harry Kurnitz,30 the Hollywood writer, arriving in Rome about a month later.\n\nSounds great, doesn't it? It should be a real rest, fun, and inspiring.\n\nDaddy, hope you're caring for your health: & Mamma, have fun. We wish you were both along! Kisses from us all \u2013\n\nLenny\n\nI'm writing to Israel about the Apes' refrigerator.\n\n308. Leonard Bernstein to Sam and Jennie Bernstein\n\nLondon [headed paper of British European Airways]\n\n24 August 1950\n\nDear Apes,\n\nWe've become the most seasoned travelers on the globe by now. At the moment we're sitting at Northolt Airport waiting for our plane to Amsterdam. We left Edinburgh this morning in a blaze of glory (but at 7:00 a.m.!). The final concert last night was a triumph, with a stamping, screaming ovation. I never conducted better. But even more exciting was Scotland itself. We all fell in love with the Scots \u2013 a great, friendly, proud people: and Burtie is considering skipping his next term at school to go back there and shoot grouse \u2013 to say nothing of Italy and Israel. I think it would be the most wonderful thing for him to visit Israel, don't you?\n\nWe're all very well \u2013 not a cold in a carload \u2013 but a little tired. In Holland for the next two weeks we should gain weight and get a good rest (at least the kids will). The food will be great \u2013 and the horses \u2013 and the sea. And two weeks in one place \u2013 what a joy!\n\nWe have had no word from you yet \u2013 and we want to know how you are. Don't forget to write us \u2013 every bargain has two sides \u2013 and we've been writing steadily.\n\nAdolph [Green] may come over to Europe, & we may vacation together with Allyn Ann [McLerie]31 and some other friends. It would be such fun (Allyn is dancing here with the Ballet Theatre). We may even take a house in Southern France, after all. I have two whole months free \u2013 no dates except Milan in November. Isn't it wonderful?\n\nWrite us to Holland \u2013 the Kurhaus, Scheveningen.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n309. Leonard Bernstein to Sam and Jennie Bernstein\n\nScheveningen, Netherlands\n\n1 September 1950\n\nDear Jen & Sam,\n\nMy first performance of Beethoven's Ninth was a triumph!32 I have been very worried about this event \u2013 the big test in every conductor's life. But it was so exciting \u2013 the solo quartet was the best I've ever heard \u2013 the chorus was marvelous \u2013 the orchestra never played better. What a tremendous experience it is to do this work! Like tearing your guts out. The public went crazy. Tonight I repeat it. Then tomorrow we are taking a wonderful car to Germany, of all places, for two days. We can get about as far as Cologne, and then come back in time to move to Amsterdam Sunday night. (Monday morning is my first rehearsal there.) Then it's all rest & swimming & sleeping until November!\n\nWe're all getting fat on milk and herring and butter and lobster and never felt better. Burtie sleeps at least 12 hours a night, and Shirley about the same. Only old Lenny gets up early to make the money.\n\nI have an interview now \u2013 so cheerio for the moment \u2013 and we'll write you all about Germany in a few days.\n\nLove & kisses from us all,\n\nLenny\n\n310. Leonard Bernstein to Sam and Jennie Bernstein\n\nExcelsior Hotel Ernst, Cologne, Germany\n\n2 September 1950\n\nDear Apes,\n\nWe have had a most dramatic day driving a little Skoda (a Czech car loaned us by a friend) into the Rhineland, down the Rhine, through Arnhem, D\u00fcsseldorf, and over Hitler's Autobahn to Cologne. We are amazed at the wonderful food, the thriving big city, the luxury of this hotel. It's been raining all day, and Germany looks twice as tragic and ruined and dramatic through the rain. Tomorrow we drive to Bonn \u2013 where Beethoven was born \u2013 and Belgium and back to Holland \u2013 it's all like a wonderful dream for the kids \u2013 Burtie is being the mighty American conqueror here \u2013 and now we're going to investigate Cologne nightlife. We've just finished a dinner of Wiener Schnitzel which Burtie says ranks with Mrs. Hathaway's.\n\nWrite us to Amsterdam \u2013 c\/o Concertgebouw.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n311. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nAmerican Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy\n\n16 February 1951\n\nDear Lensk,\n\nTho' I think of you every day I couldn't figure out where you were in space, until a letter from Helen today tipped me off. I think of you as dashing madly about from one triumph to another, with orchestras vaguely in the background, while here _I_ sit in your ex-apt on the Janiculum while Asunta sings your praises. Somehow it all seems as per usual.\n\nI hear you're ditching us at Ta\u2013foot33 this year. I'll miss you \u2013 it was nice to have you put for some weeks of the year. Well you want to do it \u2013 so do it.\n\nAmerica seems a million miles away. Rome feels like a haven for some reason \u2013 perhaps because we have so little contact with what goes on under the surface here. I haven't been anywhere as yet \u2013 just got my Morris-Minor34 (Moyshe to you) last week \u2013 and began at the beginning with the Coliseum at midnight.\n\nHaven't heard a word as to how the Israel Symph. has been received. I'm in Tel Aviv Apr 5 and [Ben-Zion] Orgad is in charge of rounding up 30 composers for me. We are to live together for 5 days in that there Art Colony. And Pesach [Passover] is to be out in a Kibbutzim. If you've got any good advice, send it.\n\nWhat plans have you for the future? What do you see? What do you know?\n\nJust think \u2013 I have a whole Quartet35 you don't know. I'm writing something that I think will be commissioned, but if not, I'm not writing it. In any case I could only write pretty music in this villa.\n\nMake good concerts.\n\nLove,\n\nA\n\nP.S. Erik sends his best.\n\nP.P.S. V[ictor] is in Brazil \u2013 taking jungle pictures, etc.\n\n312. Nadia Boulanger36 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n36 rue Ballu, Paris, France37\n\n19 February 1951\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nForgive my silence \u2013 you have plunged me into an abyss of perplexity.\n\nI like your idea \u2013 but to come to N[ew] Y[ork] to play American works superbly played by great conductors \u2013 what na\u00efvet\u00e9 and what folly on my part.\n\nI offer you:\n\n1. Cantata: Igor Mark\u00e9vitch (or if you prefer, a cantata by Bach).\n\n2. Ask Copland, Piston and a young unknown American to write a Triptych for the occasion.\n\n3. A group of Monteverdi (I guarantee their effectiveness).\n\n4. Works by my sister.\n\nI need a program within my means because \u2013 I am only what I am.\n\nIf you only knew how much I am moved by your affection \u2013 all so simple and so generous.\n\nThank you.\n\nNadia B38\n\n313. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Bernstein\n\n\"Privada del etc.\", Cuernavaca, Mexico\n\n16 May [1951]\n\nDear Ape,\n\nSo fine to get your last letter: you sound so much better and busier and everything despite the job-problem. Perhaps by now something is a-happen, as they say here? I have never had an answer to my last letter (since our letters cross continually, and you are a stinking correspondent) in which I talked about all other kinds of work from those we know so well. Were you at all reached by this or was it just bilge? What of the Engel sessions?\n\nBut it is still wonderful to read a cheerful letter from you, even if it is stuffed with problems about Bob C. and company. I know that one will work out all right: you sound so sensible about it, and self-knowing. It is high time that you could have a relationship with a guy that was not confined necessarily to either heaven or boredom. Just a nice relationship, with warmth and affection and companionship and even passion. And I fully understand the traumatic situation with him and me and D.O. [David Oppenheim] I know you'll lick it. Meanwhile, please, no compromises with Felicia or anyone else. I find myself missing her, though, although, Goddammit, not half so much as I do you.\n\nI wrote Adolph and of course have no answer. What is with his opus? Bob Rossen39 arrived here again last night and just left for Mexico.40 He is lonely and restless and beset with all the problems of a martyr and hero without being either of them. He is wretchedly lost, having lost Hollywood, and makes braver speeches than he feels. I think he may go back and face the Committee41 next week. A man like him (only slightly sensitive and bright) can hold up only so long without his work or his family, and the absence of both together leaves him functionless. He talks by turns of settling here with his family, of going to Israel to live, of Rome, of England. He feels finished in the States. It's a mess, and I am very sorry for him. It can also happen to all of us, so we had better start preparing our blazing orations now. Maltz42 is also living here (Cuernavaca has become a great haven for these poor guys) and regaled us the other night with tales of his lovely year in jail. I lost my dinner. It is utterly incredible that a man of his solemnity and innocuousness and faith in Jeffersonian democracy should be put away with a raft of moonshiners in a West Virginia jail. Dimitryk43 has certainly made a ghoul of himself: and the boy in the biggest jam right now seems to me to be Garfield.44 He will wind up in a great perjury mess if he doesn't watch out. It may already be too late. Actually, I suppose, there is nothing to be done when your life and career are attacked but strike back with the truth and go honestly to jail if you have to. This dandling about to save a career can neither save the career no make for self-respect. I hope I'm as brave as I sound from this distance when it catches up with me.\n\nIn any case Ross Evans45 walked in the other day with a six-week old puppy, rescuee of an accident between a boxer and a gloomy Airedale bitch, the pup is a dream, a _Boxdale_ (copyright term) and I have named him Machito because he is so macho and he has lovely fleas and will probably wind up on West 55th Street like all the rest, but I love him. The house is bedazzled with pee and shit of all colors, and the whole cycle recommences: Outside! On the paper! Not here! Who's the funniest little Ape? Who's the little Fellowuhss? Well if it isn't the little...! I am just at the crisis of deciding whether to return him or brave it through. He is always guilty and doesn't know why he is punished, and I am dienetically re-experiencing a whole lifetime of European hotels and trains and the carpet in the Israel house. Wish you were here.\n\nBy the way, might you come? Bob Presnell46 writes that he is coming after all, probably next week; and that should be pleasant, if I can work with someone around. The show is going great guns,47 and I keep wishing for you to sing it at, and get the right answers and responses. There are so many aspects of it that only you could understand, libretto-wise as well as musically, and it's a bore to have to figure everything out for myself. The two characters, by the way, have gotten themselves called Sam and Jennie, and I think you'll see why. I have about four and a half scenes sketched out of the seven, and am amazed. It should be roughly finished in a couple of weeks, and then I'll send you a sort of libretto. It's real fun to write music. You may quote. I am ruthlessly turning down offers, still. I finally refused that Harp Concerto commission for Rosenbaum in Philly, and turned down the newly-reforming Detroit Symphony, as well as a three-month stay in Australia. It's much too pleasant just to sit, and sitting here in Cuernavaca is in itself an occupation. I don't know what happens to time here: it gets destroyed, it works on a life of its own, and the days rush by so frighteningly fast that it is tiring only to think of the date. Martha [Gellhorn] and I are talking about a Caribbean jaunt in the fall. But plans in general are hard to make. And it is now time for us to go forth in her jeep to the tennis courts. So bless you and all my love. And write a guy, for cry-eye. Love from Machito, the diarrhetic darling.\n\nX\n\nTell me more about the Chodorov play. Is it just a play or is there chance for real music? The idea is fine.\n\nCome to think of it, why don't you come down for a visit? Maybe drive with Presnell? It would be free! His address: 126 E 56.\n\nX\n\n314. Felicia Montealegre to Leonard Bernstein\n\nheaded paper of the National Broadcasting Company, Inc. [New York, NY]\n\n[before 9 August 1951]\n\nDarling!\n\nNo word from you \u2013 and I _don't_ wonder why! Let's let it lie for the nonce \u2013 this is hardly a step to take with such great vacillation \u2013 someday it may become the most natural and longed for event \u2013 if that blissful state of mind should take over (oh happy day!) and I'm still not yet wed, we'll just get on with it and be miserable for ever after!\n\nI miss you terribly \u2013 you couldn't have been sweeter or more tender. Both of you helped me so wonderfully through what would have been otherwise a very tough time. I love you for it. However it has made N.Y. seem so grim by comparison \u2013 thank God for Hilee [Shirley]!\n\nRehearsals are ginger-peachy. I have a reading for a play tomorrow \u2013 was interviewed for a movie (that old story!) which will be shot here in the East. I had my first real \"sortie\" with Bert the Card and Claude at Sardi's, ran into the Davids \u2013 the Diamond one looking frighteningly thin and peaked and rather cold towards me (judge of my joy!) \u2013 had a pleasant lunch with Goddard [Lieberson] (?) \u2013\n\nI feel very well, have had no dire accidents \u2013 that is, _yet_ \u2013 and life goes on in its own plodding way \u2013 but I am strangely happy though it could be just an overwhelming sense of relief!\n\nI'm afraid I won't be able to get there for the _Missa_48 \u2013 it breaks my heart, but I just have to take this TV thing seriously.49 I hope it's going well and that it's a big smasheroo \u2013 (just don't bow this time!)\n\nOh sweetie!\n\nCall me any way \u2013 I kiss you long and sweet.\n\nFeloo\n\nP.S. She's not yours \u2013 follow me!\n\n315. Leonard Bernstein to Philip Marcuse\n\n127 Wolcott Road, Brookline, MA\n\n5 September 1951\n\nDear Fil,\n\nBoth your letters have lain, screaming for answer, for months, and everything conspires to prevent same. Tanglewood swamped me this summer, and just before the end of the season Felicia and I decided to marry, inducing further activity.\n\nIt's wonderful, & I'm deeply happy about the marriage. I've kind of rediscovered this lovely girl, and believe that we will have a fine time of it. The wedding is Sunday the 9th, & we leave straight for California to see her family, then on to Mexico for the winter, returning probably in March or April.\n\nI'm afraid that this will rule out the 9th Symphony in Detroit. I have been so pleased with the idea, & attracted by the notion of another \"special\" in Detroit, that I have hesitated to write you a yes or a no. But I fear that the no triumphs. This will be a composing year. I may make an exception & do a little festival of 3 weeks at the City Center in N.Y. in the spring, but I've not yet decided. This is a crucial year, & much will be crystallized. I'll be in touch with you throughout.\n\nWon't you & Babs say some special little prayers for us? Let me hear from you soon, via Helen Coates, 155 E. 96th St., New York.\n\nMuch love to both of you.\n\nLenny\n\n316. Leonard Bernstein to Burton Bernstein\n\nRemount Ranch, Cheyenne, WY\n\n18 September 1951\n\nBaud\u00fcm\u00fc,\n\nEvery turn on this ranch makes us think of you. We almost thought of going up to Sheridan, but this took precedence \u2013 and it beats everything. We've been here two days & have to leave today and hate to. Such beauty & luxury: & the Knoxes are real pals.\n\nEvery day marriage gets better.50 It may take a lot of days, but I think the big crisis is over. (That took place in Detroit, but Phil & Barbara [Marcuse] were so great, as you know, & they really helped enormously.)\n\nNow get this:\n\nLast night _we went lionhunting_.\n\nWe really did. Mountain lions. Didn't find one. But the deer abounded. It's infinitely better than Irish deerstalking. It's civilized. We piled into a Chevvy convertible, top down, in the freezing high air, wrapped in heavy winter clothes & earmuffs and gun in hand. You drive slowly around the hills, shining a strong torch into the trees & rocks and sipping Dewar's White Label. Now there's a plan. It was marvelous, despite the lack of lion, but we did get one shot at a porcupine and missed. All in all, _we went lionhunting_.\n\nBaud\u00fcm\u00fc, be smart at school this year, and be serious and learn and become the wonderful guy you are to become. Can't wait til Xmas.\n\nFelicia loves you & sends a big hug*, & so do I.\n\nApe-husband-hunter,\n\nLennuhtt\n\n*She adds _undying_ and _passionate_.\n\n317. Leonard Bernstein to Philip and Barbara Marcuse\n\nHumboldt 53, Cuernavaca, Mexico\n\n9 October 1951\n\nDear Gentle People,\n\nThere it is, the address I mean, and now let's have words from you, lots of them. This is not a moment for lots of words from us: it is a moment of getting installed in a new house, new life, new everything. The tensions (do you recall this word?) accumulate still, are fought, lived through. Every once in a while a state of comparative ease is reached which promises well for the future. And now we have a glorious grand huge house with a huge garden and a huge pool, and tomorrow there ought to be a huge piano and then there should be some huge work. I am not quite sure what F[elicia] is going to do all winter while I am at the piano, and in my own world, so to speak. But most of that, of course, depends on what security she will manage to find in a marriage contracted in insecurity. We hope and we pray and we wait.\n\nWhat did you think of the Cadillac idea? Me, I think it's great; and it is a real come-on for me. The Buick is in fine shape (got us here safely, sans accident, sans blowout, sans being pinched).\n\nLet's have a glorious letter!\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\nFelicia adores you both and is as grateful as I am for your presence on earth, and sends her warmest.\n\n318. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nHumboldt 53, Cuernavaca, Mexico\n\n18 October 1951\n\nDear Sorelymissed A,\n\nFirst off, thanks for the delectable wire on the wedding day. If this thankyou is a bit late, f\u00edjate, no m\u00e1s, the enormous automobile trip we have made from Boston to San Francisco (stopping for days at ranches on the way) to L.A. and thence to Cuernavaca. It took about a month; and we are slowly settling now into a glorious house and garden and pool. The piano has arrived, I have written an extra aria for Captain Hook (what shit!) to grace the new road production of _Peter Pan_ , and am now starting on the long hard road of writing some real things. I have decided, coute que coute, to finish my little opry [ _Trouble in Tahiti_ ] and then write a few more little opries. There may be some stray notes \u2013 like even a piano sonata, and a new idea for an orchestra piece; but the main stem is still that old devil theatre, and I have to see just what my connection with it is.\n\nI still haven't seen the score of the Piano Quartet, and long to. Isn't there something you can do?\n\nWrite to me about your life in Boston. Did everything work out well for a house for you and E[rik]? Give him my best, and thank him also for the wire. What word from Victor? Does he find marriage as fascinating as I do (what a word for marriage)? Actually it is the most interesting thing I have ever done, though there are times when one's interest must be that of a person in an audience, or one would go mad. It is full of compensations and rewards, and reveals more to me about myself than anything else ever has, including a spotty array of analysts.\n\nAs I say, write, long and lovingly, and give my love to Irving [Fine] and Verna [Fine] and Lukas [Foss] and Tillmange.\n\nDear old Judgenose, I miss you.\n\nL\n\n319. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nHumboldt 53, Cuernavaca, Mexico,\n\n14 November 1951\n\nDearest Aa,\n\nToday is the fourteenth of November, which makes four reasons to write you. 1) that you have just written me; 2) that it's your birthday, whether you like to be reminded or not; 3) that we met on this day about fourteen years ago; and 4) that Bruno Walter celebrated your birthday most spectacularly eight years ago by getting sick.51 So we owe each other this here Martini on this here day. With all my love.\n\nAlso, we bought a phonograph, and there in the same shop was the Clarinet Concerto and the Quartet, on both of which I am therefore now an expert.52 I am disappointed in the Concerto, and I think it may be a little on account of the performance. I remember it as being so much fun when you struggled with it on the piano (of course everything is more fun when _you_ do it on the piano with your apologetic grin), and Benny [Goodman]'s performance is ghastly and student-like, I think. But there is also something that does not quite satisfy about the score, despite its evident beauties. The opening is still ravishing, and I find to my dismay that it is in places less like Satie than like the _Rosenkavalier_ trio. Tant mieux, say I, though surprised not a little. Strange, in fact, how many touches of Strauss there are; there is even a slight _Don Quixote_ feeling here and there. I still disapprove of the cadenza, finding it cute but arbitrary; but it is the last part that disappoints me because the last part was so much fun. Of all things, the form. Doesn't seem to work.\n\nBut the Quartet, ah, there is another matter. I rejoice particularly in the scherzo, because I think it is the longest sustained piece of continuity you have written in a long time, and it is really continuous, yes, really, and it goes and goes in a remarkably convincing way. I feel rather close to the tonal way in which you are handling tone-rows (I've done it too, here and there); and I find that this movement is a real triumph. The last movement is beautiful too in a way which has already become awfully familiar to Coplandites, so that it is not such a thrill as the second. And the first is lovely, but I never did go for you and fugues, especially here where the opening is so reminiscent of the third Hindemith Quartet. Imagine, Hindemith! Who'da thunk it? But it makes a fine piece, especially for records, because you want to hear it again and again (of course with two or three mambos in between); and I still think you are a marvelous composer.\n\nThat's the good news for today, and I seem to have started a piano sonata right in the middle of all my stage-operations, nolens volens, as Kouss used to say.\n\nThe lectures look awfully inviting, and I wish I were around. Instead I've got to start thinking up some of my own for the Brandeis festival. Let me know how they come out.\n\nAs for T'wood, I am not surprised, though a bit beset by wonderment. Yes, I suppose I'll be coming back, but don't say anything yet: I just _might_ have another brainstorm. Sometimes I think I don't really understand about T'wood any more. More of this anon.\n\nAre you really thinking of coming here in May? As far as I know, this house is available then. I think you would love it, though it's very large and expensive (2000 pezozzees a month!) But maybe now that you're rich... Let me know. Of course I'd much rather have you around Boston in June to help us out at Brandeis, but I realize that's too much to ask.\n\nSo you're a Village weekender, just like all the Harvard boys? I find it very chic, and send Eric [Erik] my best.\n\nDear Aa, it was a real joy to have your letter and I miss you and hope you will continue to write zillions more like that Piano Quartet.\n\nMuch love,\n\nL\n\n320. Felicia Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[?late 1951 or 1952]\n\nDarling,\n\nIf I seemed sad as you drove away today it was not because I felt in any way deserted but because I was left alone to face myself and this whole bloody mess which is our \"connubial\" life. I've done a lot of thinking and have decided that it's not such a mess after all.\n\n_First_ : we are not committed to a life sentence \u2013 nothing is really irrevocable, not even marriage (though I used to think so).\n\n_Second_ : you are a homosexual and may never change \u2013 you don't admit to the possibility of a double life, but if your peace of mind, your health, your whole nervous system depend on a certain sexual pattern what can you do?\n\n_Third_ : I am willing to accept you as you are, without being a martyr or sacrificing myself on the L.B. altar. (I happen to love you very much \u2013 this may be a disease and if it is what better cure?) It may be difficult but no more so than the \"status quo\" which exists now \u2013 at the moment you are not yourself and this produces painful barriers and tensions for both of us \u2013 let's try and see what happens if you are free to do as you like, but without guilt and confession, please!\n\nAs for me \u2013 once you are rid of tensions I'm sure my own will disappear. A companionship will grow which probably no one else may be able to offer you. The feelings you have for me will be clearer and easier to express \u2013 our marriage is not based on passion but on tenderness and mutual respect. Why not have them?\n\nI know now too that I need to work. It is a very important part of me and I feel incomplete without it. I may want to do something about it soon. I am used to an active life, and then there is that old ego problem.\n\nWe may have gotten married too soon and yet we needed to get married and we've not made a mistake. It is good for us even if we suffer now and make each other miserable \u2013 we will both grow up some day and be strong and unafraid either together or apart \u2013 after all we are both more important as individuals than a \"marriage\" is.\n\nIn any case my dearest darling ape, let's give it a whirl. There'll be crisis (?) from time to time but that doesn't scare me any more. And let's relax in the knowledge that neither of us is perfect and forget about being HUSBAND AND WIFE in such strained capital letters, it's not that awful!\n\nThere's a lot else I've got to say but the pill has overpowered me. I'll write again soon. My wish for the week is that you come back guiltless and happy.\n\nF\n\n321. Marc Blitzstein to Leonard and Felicia Bernstein\n\nFerris Hill Road, New Canaan, CT\n\n19 July 1952\n\nDear L and F,\n\nSitting in the kitchen with Cheryl [Crawford] and Ruth [Norman], eating raspberries for breakfast, it comes all over me what a fine time I have been having recently. The _Regina_ concert started, really sparked, the sense of well-being; then Brandeis and the _Threepenny_ [ _Opera_ ]; then Mina's;53 then Tanglewood and you-all. Not a great deal of work to show for it; maybe something just as good for me now, and for which I have apparently been hungry: well-being, that says it. It comes over me that for a long time since the Broadway _d\u00e9b\u00e2cle_ of _Regina_ I have been slowly withering on the vine. How one needs these vanity-assuagements!\n\nYou are a lovely host-and-hostess, did you know? It goes so smoothly, the guest feels he isn't in the way \u2013 that, I suppose, is the stumbling-block of most visits. And if this note betrays a contented kind of stupor, then it does. I have little guilt about it.\n\nWill you let me know about _Trouble_ [ _in Tahiti_ ]? What you decided, how it came off, how you feel after the performance. _Reuben_ calls, and I return to grappling with it. One small session with [Lotte] Lenya first; then a week-end on [Edward T.] Cone's boat at Water Island; and off to Brigantine and Jo [Davis]'s and the garage. I promise to be more cooperative in the matter of showing you the opera next time.\n\nMy love and thanks to Helen. And to you two, you chuckle-birds. Write me simply: care Davis, Brigantine, New Jersey.\n\nMarc\n\n322. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\nSunset Farms, Lee, MA\n\n21 July 1952\n\nDear David,\n\nReports fly in from all sides that you are really happy at last, and this makes me happy. Apparently Rome has been a joy for you, work-wise and heart-wise; and I cannot resist writing to tell you how glad I am.\n\nFelicia and I live in a constant thrilled expectancy of the child (due at the end of August or so): and it is all an experience to be cherished. Tanglewood proceeds beautifully; the same breathless six weeks. My little opera was a dud at Brandeis, due mostly to the half-baked state in which it found itself at premi\u00e8re time; but now the revisions are almost finished, and a new (the true) ending composed; and I look forward to a more reasonable and telling production here at T'wood on 10 August. Then the baby; then a full season in New York (imagine!) without a single conducting date: nothing but composing to my heart's content. God, I have waited long for that.\n\nBest to you, & write of your plans and your new works.\n\nLenny\n\n323. Marc Blitzstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\nBox 74, Brigantine, NJ\n\n15 August 1952\n\nYour letter is full of good spirits. The modest expression of what must have been an enormous satisfaction, in the success of _Trouble in Tahiti_ , does you credit. I'm hoping you have copies of the improvements, so I may snag one for my files. And I am happy to see that the Rialto-code-word for the work is not \"Trouble\" but \"Tahiti\".\n\nOf course Evita P\u00e9ron (I can't remember if the accent should fall on the \"o\")54 can make a fine operatic subject: her end, of cancer, while young, doesn't fill the picture of tragedy, really seems senseless (except for the saw that \"Death is democratic\"). But she has glamor, power, evil, and a saint's fa\u00e7ade \u2013 all qualities which, incidentally (aside from the \"good works\") characterized Regina Hubbard. That makes me wonder if Lillian [Hellman] is the precisely right librettist. Once the Latin color is snagged, and the expanded picture of power-area registered, will she (L) not find herself treading well-worn paths? Then you could call the opera \"The Bigger Foxes\" or \"The Same Old Part of Another Forest\".55 But I'm happy you've found a subject.56 Watch out for Fleur Cowles, who has a first-hand interview book on Eva; she may try to claim ownership of what is surely public material. Or, on a second thought, perhaps involve her (Cowles).\n\n_Reuben_ really goes well. More later.\n\nI shall probably be back in town after the first. How is Felicia bearing up these last weeks before the event?57 My love to her and Helen. And remember, we have a September date to do the records of \"3d Opera\".\n\nHelen probably told you that Mina's mother died. She might relish a short note. (Mrs. Mina K. Curtiss, Williamsburg, Mass.)\n\nI hug you.\n\nMarc\n\n324. Leonard Bernstein to Solomon Braslavsky\n\n205 West 27th Street, New York, NY\n\n19 September 1952\n\nDear Brasy,\n\nI want to thank you for _both_ your beautiful letters. You are a warm and good soul!\n\nThe baby is beautiful beyond works (her English name is _Jamie_ ), & the mother is just as beautiful. We are slowly getting settled in a new apartment, and should have a wonderful home-like year.\n\nBest to you & your family, and a Happy New Year.\n\nLenny Bernstein\n\n325. George Abbott to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Carter, Cleveland, OH\n\n23 April 1953\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nWhat a joy it is to work with agreeable people!58 Next time let's put in the contract that any job writers have to submit to a psychiatric test to be sure we get a fairly congenial type. Anyhow Rodgers and Hammerstein would pass the test.\n\nThe show is beginning to take form.59 The scenery never quite works, but it will be when we get where there's a better crew.\n\nThank you for the wire. Give my love to the beautiful Felicia.\n\nI hope next year doesn't get by without our being together on some exciting effort.\n\nYours for diminished sevenths.\n\nLove,\n\nGeorge\n\n326. Arthur Miller60 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nRoxbury, CT\n\n[?June 1953]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI especially appreciated your note because as it happened I was about to go in and shake up the _Crucible_ production myself. It is done now. I've removed all the sets, and as much of the fakery as possible, and tried to make it look as much like my work as possible.61 Some night soon when you are at a loss for what to do I wish you'd go in again and let me know what you think. It is my first try at \"directing\", and although I could not, under the circumstances, do half of what I would had I started from the beginning, I think you'll get a weird feeling as well as a sense of horror at what production can do to a piece of writing.\n\nI don't know what you do in the summer but if your mind ever turns North give me a call and come up with your wife and baby. We have plenty of room and eat often. I mean it.\n\nSincerely,\n\nArt Miller\n\n327. Francis Poulenc62 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n24 July [1953]63\n\nMy dear Bernstein,\n\nI've tried, in vain, to obtain your address in the United States. It's promised to me, but I'm still waiting. So I am sending my letter to Salabert USA (I think, after all, that Schirmer is your publisher). I want to thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all that you've done for my dear _Mamelles_ [ _de Tir\u00e9sias_ ]! I have received some press cuttings and I know that it went very well. With you I was calm, since you played the piece by heart, better than me. As I have a great weakness for this score, you've given me true pleasure, and you have all my gratitude.\n\nAt the moment I am composing a big opera based on the _Dialogues des Carm\u00e9lites_ for La Scala. I hope you'll like that too. Let me know when you are coming to France, Danton 52\u201323, 5 rue de M\u00e9dicis, Paris.\n\nUntil then, I say again thank you, thank you, and I embrace you.\n\nFrancis Poulenc\n\n328. Leonard Bernstein: sworn affidavit for passport application64\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\n3 August 1953\n\nLeonard Bernstein, being duly sworn deposes and says:\n\nI am a citizen of the United States and was born on August 25, 1918 at Lawrence, Massachusetts.\n\nI attended Harvard University and was graduated in 1939 with a bachelor of arts degree. While at college I majored in music. Thereafter I attended the Curtis Institute of Music from 1939 until 1941.\n\nAfter these studies I became assistant to Serge Koussevitzky at the Berkshire Music Center in 1942 and Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1943 and 1944. Commencing in 1945, I was Music Director of the New York City Symphony Orchestra for three succeeding years.\n\nIn May 1946, I was honored to be selected as the representative of American conductors at the International Festival at Prague and conducted two concerts of American music. I also conducted at Prague again in 1947 as well as in other European cities.\n\nIn addition to my work as a conductor and musician I have also composed two symphonies and other musical compositions including the score for several musical shows and two ballets.\n\nI cite the details listed not as a record of achievement, but rather as the briefest kind of summary to indicate that my life and interest have been devoted almost exclusively to the world of music.\n\nThe practice of my profession, which is also my livelihood, necessarily entails frequent travel abroad and any restriction on such travel would be a most serious impairment of my right to engage in my chosen profession and an interference with the right to earn a living. Since travel was resumed after the war I have fulfilled engagements in Europe and elsewhere almost every year and my pending application for a passport is for the same purpose.\n\nIn connection with engagements to conduct concerts in Brazil, Italy, Israel and at other places I applied to the State Department for a renewal of my passport in April, 1953 but to date the travel document has not yet been issued. I was informally advised that the application is being considered in connection with Regulations of the Department of State having to do with the \"Limitation on issuance of passports to persons supporting [the] Communist movement\".\n\nAlthough I have never, to my knowledge, been accused of being a member of the Communist Party, I wish to take advantage of this opportunity to affirm under oath that I am not now nor at any time have ever been a member of the Communist Party or the Communist Political Association. I have never (to paraphrase the language of the Regulation) knowingly engaged in activities which supported the Communist movement under circumstances which would warrant the conclusion that I engaged in such activities as a result of direction, domination or control exercised over me by the Communist movement.\n\nI have not adhered to the so-called Communist Party line or followed it \"on a variety of issues and through shifts and changes of that line.\"\n\nThe Regulations referred to are said to have a possible application to my case by reason of the fact that my name has been linked in various ways with a number of organizations which have been denominated as subversive by the Attorney General in connection with the government employee program.\n\nI wish to state generally as to all the organizations involved that my connection, if any, with them has been of a most casual and nebulous character. Almost without exception, their very names are practically unknown by me except in the vaguest kind of way. In fact, in now attempting to recall them and my connection with them, I have had to rely on the memory of my secretary and refer to old scrapbooks, clippings, etc. Needless to say I never knew their real character as they were later denominated by the Attorney General of the United States. I never could claim any exact knowledge as to their objectives or purpose except the humanitarian, benign or cultural one mentioned at the moment I was accosted by some person or scanned the letter or other sugar-coated communication soliciting funds, the use of my name or my services as a musician and conductor.\n\nI wish to emphasize that the name and real purpose of the organizations to which my name became linked through a charitable and well intended impulse, and obviously without the probing deliberation required, are hardly more than a blur in my memory. The link, if any, was on \"paper\" and not a personal one. Besides my ignorance of their underlying purpose, I have no recollection or knowledge of ever having really _joined_ any of them which had a membership roll in the true sense. I do not recall the address of most of them or the years or the city in which they functioned or the names of the officers or principals. I have no knowledge or recollection of ever having attended an organizational meeting of any one of them. It is my general recollection that my name or sponsorship was usually requested in connection with some public function or activity such as a banquet, benefit or concert.\n\nThe letter of enticement would frequently excuse me from any personal participation of a non-political character. I did not thereby espouse or intend to espouse the concealed and ulterior purposes of such groups. I did not possess the requisite suspicion and caution to probe the devious and subversive objectives of those by whom I and too many others were innocently exploited. And, needless to state we did not have the facilities to make the proper determination.\n\nLike almost every other person who has achieved some prominence, I have received hundreds and perhaps thousands of letters in the past ten years soliciting my assistance in one form or another for some charitable, cultural or liberal cause which is always made to appear worthwhile and which would appeal to many good Americans. The great majority calling for my services or appearance on a particular date would have to be declined because of prior engagements in this country or abroad. Those asking for the use of my name as a sponsor would usually be accepted on the basis of the prominence of the person soliciting me or the fact that other well known persons, not known by me to be suspect, had previously agreed to the use of their own names. The fallacy of this procedure in evaluating an organization has been demonstrated in too many cases involving others to require elaboration. In the event I did grant the use of my name to an organization, my secretary would usually advise it by telephone or in the letter of acceptance that I could not take part in its activities or undertake any responsibility as a sponsor. The letter of solicitation and my reply usually comprised the entire extent of my connection with or contribution to the organization.\n\nThe character of my sponsorship was usually of an innocuous character. In the case of the _American Committee of Yugoslav Relief_ I recall it was Quentin Reynolds who asked me to lend my name to a Town Hall American folk song and jazz concert. The _National Negro Congress_ asked me to serve on an audition board at a negro talent try-out at Town Hall. It is my recollection that I could not attend. The _American Youth for Democracy_ tendered me a dinner and a scroll. I did not attend the dinner and received the scroll in the mail. I assume that this honor was bestowed on me because I had been designated by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce and others at various times as one of America's \"outstanding young men\". While I consented to the use of my name on the letter head of the _American Council for a Democratic Greece_ , I have no present recollection that I ever attended or participated in its functions or met any of the persons active in it. I have no present recollection of the basis for linking my name with _Action Committee to Free Spain Now_ or the _American Committee for Spanish Freedom_ but I assume some nominal connection did exist.\n\nI recall that I did permit the use of my name by the _Civil Rights Congress_ under the mistaken impression that it was identical with the American Civil Liberties Union. In fact, I only learned of this mistake within the past few days. The only connection with the _Council on African Affairs_ I can recall is a small contribution made in response to the representation it would be used to buy food for starving negroes in South Africa.\n\nWith respect to the _Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee_ I recall being tendered a dinner by the Boston chapter in the latter part of 1944 and attending one or two similar events perhaps in New York or San Francisco. I also believe I made a contribution to a hospital in Mexico City which was being sponsored or assisted by this group.\n\nThe _Jefferson School of Social Science_ has asked me to lecture on music subjects on several occasions but I do not recall complying with these requests. My secretary recalls I made a small contribution to it. During the war, I recall I had some slight association with the Music Committee of the _National Council of American-Soviet Friendship_ which had the support of many outstanding Americans. I recall that my teacher, Dr. Serge Koussevitzky, Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was chairman of the Music Committee at the time.\n\nI am advised that my name appears among more than 100 others in a paid advertisement inserted in the March 3, 1945 issue of the _New York Times_ advocating support for Representative John M. Coffee's Resolution H.R. 100 which recommended severance of our relations with Spain. Among the other signers were Quentin Reynolds, James Montgomery Flagg, Franklin P. Adams, Hon. Stanley M. Isaacs and the Hon. Joseph E. Davies. The _Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade_ is listed as the organization sponsoring the advertisement. I recall no connection with this organization and believe that Paul Robeson communicated with me about the use of my name on this occasion. I met Mr. Robeson one time while we were both backstage during a concert.\n\nThe last occasion on which my name was probably used in what may be described as a controversial setting was in early 1949. The world famous Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was expected to arrive in the United States. I recall the _New York Times_ music critic solicited outstanding American musicians to sign a cable of greeting. According to the _New York Times_ clipping this cable read as follows:\n\nWe are delighted to learn of your forthcoming visit to the United States and welcome you as one of the outstanding composers of the world. Music is an international language and your visit will serve to symbolize the bond which music can create among all peoples. We welcome your visit also in the hope that this kind of cultural interchange can aid understanding among our people and thereby make possible an enduring peace.\n\nIn this manner, I suspect I became, with other conductors, composers and musicians, a member of the welcoming committee. The arrival of Shostakovich and other musicians was apparently exploited as a propaganda event by means of a conference and formal dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel under the auspices of an organization, which I am informed, is not on the Attorney General's list.\n\nIn any event, I did not attend the dinner or the conference and did nothing to promote them either than second a welcome to a fellow composer who came to the United States with the permission of this government.\n\nThe controversy which followed the Waldorf Astoria conference in March, 1949 brought unfavorable publicity to myself and others and shortly thereafter my name was included among a list of \"prominent people who, wittingly or not, associate themselves with a Communist-front organization and thereby lend it glamor, prestige or the respectability of American liberalism.\" This article, which appeared in the April 4, 1949 issue of _Life_ Magazine convinced me that my name and my good intentions were being improperly exploited by cleverly camouflaged organizations which concealed their true objectives and Communist aims behind a plausible and appealing front. Since that time I have attempted to be most circumspect about permitting the use of my name to organizations in general.\n\nPerhaps one saving grace with respect to my response to organizational appeals is that during the very same period which found me linked to groups later declared subversive, I was also lending my name to activities completely opposed to communism. I have been most active in the cause of Jewish philanthropy and the promotion of Israel as an independent state free from Soviet domination. I have been honored to accept invitations to preach the sermon in Jewish temples in Boston, Chicago and Houston. My religious training and belief would necessarily make me a foe of communism.\n\nI have contributed to the American Red Cross, made radio appeals on its behalf and given concerts in hospitals under its auspices. I made contributions to the Salvation Army, the Boy Scouts of America, the Riverdale Children's Camp, the Al Smith Memorial Hospital Fund, the Harvard Scholarship Fund, the Greenwich House, the National Urban League, the National Federation of Infantile Paralysis, the Irvington House, the United Jewish Appeal, the United Unitarian Appeal, B'Nai B'Rith, American Friends Services Committee, Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society, United World Federalists, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Grace Congregational Church, American Friends of Hebrew University, the Y.M.C.A., New York Guild for the Jewish Blind, the Order of the Purple Heart and many others.\n\nI have permitted the use of my name to organizations having no possible Communist-front implications such as The Nation Association, the Planned Parenthood campaign, European Friends of ORT, the Riverside Children's Association, the American Fund for Palestinian Institutions, the Brooklyn Philanthropic League, the Exhibitions of Palestinian Art in America, the American Christian Palestine Committee, the American Red Magen David for Palestine (similar to American Red Cross), American Arts Committee for Palestine, the Hebrew Union College, the United Jewish Appeal (musicians group), Golden Anniversary of the City of New York, the National War Fund, the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation and the World Festivals of Friendship, among others.\n\nI have donated my professional services to a number of organizations and for a number of causes. These would include War Bond drives, the National War Fund, the Music Box Canteen, the American Theatre Wing War Service, Veterans' Administration Hospitals, New York Stage Door Canteen and many others. I have participated in hundreds of benefit performances in the past ten years for worthwhile charitable and cultural purposes.\n\nWhile abroad on previous occasions, I have no reason to believe that my work or activities were a source of possible embarrassment to the government of the United States. Every impression I received, from both the foreign press and other observers, was to the contrary. I had reason to believe sincerely that I was making a small but genuine contribution to international good will and understanding. In this connection, I would like to point out that I have received official and semi-official letters of commendation from members of the Foreign Service of the State Department following my appearances at concerts in European cities. I have also been invited to return on most occasions. The State Department has asked me on several occasions to submit material of a musical nature for dissemination in connection with its information programs abroad. As recently as July 9, 1952 I acceded to a State Department request for the use of my music from the production of _On the Town_ for a Voice of America program. In 1947 I was invited by the State Department to appear on the Austrian section of its International Broadcasting Division and in 1948 I was invited to serve as a visiting lecturer at cultural centers maintained by the State Department in South America.\n\nIn retrospect, perhaps the most profound effect made upon my life, philosophy and thoughts was by the celebrated conductor Serge Koussevitzky under whom I studied and who was, among other outstanding achievements, initiator and director of the Berkshire Music Center and the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 until several years before his death in 1951. Koussevitzky, already famous, and twice honored by the Czar as early as 1903, left Russia with the advent of Communism and in my close and long time association with him I came to know and share his strong antipathy for Soviet Communism and its evils. While he detested Communism he loved Russia and its people deeply and always looked forward to the day when they could join the people living in a free world.\n\nMost of the events which have been discussed occurred when I was a young man and while I do not desire to take refuge under any claim of immaturity, I was in fact, inexperienced in the realm in which I dabbled. I have, since reaching my majority, voted almost exclusively in New York City where the voter, during this period has had the opportunity to vote for candidates of political parties other than the two major political parties. I have never, during this time, voted for or otherwise supported any candidates except those of the Democratic and Republican parties.\n\nI have in the past spoken out against the inhibitions imposed upon creative artists, particularly composers, under the Soviet regime. I have frequently and publicly stated this viewpoint, in my lectures on 20th-century Operas and Symphonies at Brandeis University at Waltham, Massachusetts, commencing this year. In February 1948 I publicly expressed somewhat the same viewpoint in the Theatre Arts Magazine in which I commented on the proletarianization of Russian art and music. In this statement I referred to the Soviet effort to force its serious composers to write music limited by mass appeal and described one of the resultant products as \"dreadful\". I added that in the case of the ballet suite in question \"the Soviet idea of music for the masses seems to have reached an all time low\", and further, \"there comes a point beyond which simplicity of thought can become infantile\".\n\nIn conclusion, I am informed that the United States Supreme Court has stated, in the case of an avowed official of the Communist Party itself, that many organizations have several purposes or objectives, some good and some bad, that persons join such organizations for different purposes and that the evidence of membership to fulfill the bad purpose should be \"clear\", \"unequivocal\" and \"convincing\". What then should be the judgment in a case where membership is practically non-existent, the true purpose is unknown and the connection with the organization is of the most nominal and tenuous character?\n\nI have attempted in the foregoing pages to set forth some of the facts which may be of assistance to the State Department in the consideration of my passport application. I express the hope that they may place in better perspective the allegation which has given rise to the long delay in passing upon the problem.\n\nI realize now that I might have made the task of the Passport Division of the State Department an easier one if in 1949, when I came to realize that I had been imposed upon, I had made a public disavowal of the harmful significance which had been attached to the use of my name and prestige by questionable organizations. Unfortunately I did not do so and confined my efforts to advising only my friends and associates of the true situation. I recall that in 1949, in discussing the matter in correspondence with Mr. Edward A. Norman, President of the American Fund for Israel Institutions, that I stated in part as follows:\n\nLet me state for you and for the record that I am not and never have been a member of the Communist Party, nor have I ever subscribed to communist doctrine or ideology. I have been away from the United States for many months on an extended concert tour, and I have not seen a copy of _Red Channels_ ,65 and I do not, therefore, know to what associations or organizations you refer, but I can say unequivocally that I have never belonged or subscribed to any cause which I understood committed me to support of a subversive doctrine, either communist or fascist.\n\nIt is possible that, in the turmoil of life to which an artist is subject, and particularly during those days when the necessity of war created many temporary alliances, that I did sponsor activities without closely examining their affiliations. If so, and if any of these have been investigated and found subversive by the government of my country, I disown and disavow them completely.\n\nI assure you again I have only one allegiance to one flag and to one country, the United States of America, whose democratic form of life I cherish and will defend at any time.\n\nI wish to conclude this affidavit by repeating in the most solemn way the affirmation of loyalty to the United States and opposition to Soviet Communism which I expressed at that time.\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\nSubscribed and sworn before me this 3rd day of August, 1953.\n\nMaud T. Sauss, Notary Public.\n\n329. Leonard Bernstein to Burton Bernstein\n\nRFD66 #2, Hillsdale, NY67\n\n17 August 1953\n\nCher Baud\u00fcm\u00fc,\n\nIt is hard to know where to write it up on you: are you still in France? Did you get set back by the strikes? Will this letter get to American Express? Are the trains running? These and other questions beset me. But better to write & not reach you than never to write at all.\n\nThis morning I am drawing my first breath after a long haul: Brandeis \u2192 Stadium \u2192 Tanglewood, without interruption. I am d\u00e4dt. We have changed our plans brilliantly (Feloo's decision): to remain here blessedly until the first of Sept, & loaf & compose and swim. Then I to Brazil on the 5th, alone (Chile wasn't such a good idea after all), then on to Iz [Israel]. Felicia, barring a great starring role, will join me in Iz (maybe with baby) around mid-October, & continue on through Italy with me.\n\nRemember our rehearsed Washington investigation in the Napoleon bar in Boston? Well, it came true. Not a subpoena: but since my passport was not to be seen I finally went down to Washington & had to have a hearing with an ape at the State Department, & _got it_!! The great experience of it all was my lawyer whom I was insanely lucky to get \u2013 Jim McInerney,68 formerly heard of Criminal Investigation in the Dept of Justice \u2013 an old Commie-chaser \u2013 just the right person to have on my side. And what a great person he is. It was worth the whole ghastly & humiliating experience just to know him, as well as the $3500 fee. Yes, that's what it costs these days to be a free American citizen.\n\nAll too depressing, but at least it's settled. I am told that the other things will be cleared as a result: the Committee files, & even _Red Channels_. McI[nerney] knows all these people on first-name terms: he's a great & valuable ally. But it's shameful that one needs such an ally to retain 1st class citizenship.\n\nWhere are you & where are you going? Dubrovnik?\n\nLet us hear!?!\n\nLove from all of us.\n\nLad\u00fcm\u00fc (Lennuht)\n\n330. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\nRFD #2, Hillsdale, NY\n\n17 August 1953\n\nDear D,\n\nThis is the first moment for a breath in some months now. It has been an uninterrupted madness \u2013 the Brandeis festival, the two crazy weeks at the Stadium (recording each night from midnight on after the concert),69 and boom, Tanglewood. It's over now, & here come a blessed two weeks up here in the hills to loaf & compose & swim. I thought it would never happen. I am off to Brazil on 5 Sept. until the end of the month. Then all of Oct in Israel (why don't you hop over?) \u2013 then from Nov 5 on in Italy (Scala, _Florence_ , & Rome). Isn't it nice \u2013 concerts in Florence too? Felicia will be with me from mid-October on, and we can make up for lost time.\n\nYour letters all sound so ecstatic that I'm beginning to think you should never return to this country. Apparently you have everything you want now (except more performances: and they're coming). Let's hope it sustains: and why shouldn't it?\n\nI have had a to-do in Washington getting my passport renewed. Ghastly & humiliating & expensive experience. But it worked out, largely due to a great lawyer named McInerney; and I can travel. But it's a pretty pass one has come to when one has to suffer so much embarrassment & costliness to retain one's first-class citizenship! I sometimes tremble for my country.\n\nWe have had the best Tanglewood summer so far: only a dearth of new works and\/or American works. But it has been smooth & highly successful on the academic level. Ch\u00e1vez was here, & a charmer he is. I did Sibelius 4th & stupefied the audience, poor kids, who didn't know what to make of it.\n\nNow these two weeks I have to cram in a violin & orchestra piece & an opera (begin them, at least) \u2013 since it will be steady conducting until December. Very hard to know how to balance one's life & work. And you \u2013 are you turning exclusively literary? Libretto \u2013 and I hope music too.\n\nBest to you and Ciro.70 It's not long til November.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n331. Lillian Hellman to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[?Autumn 1953]\n\nLennie dear,\n\nThis time I think I have it. I don't know, but maybe Voltaire's _Candide_. I think it could make a really wonderful combination of opera \u2013 prose \u2013 songs. It's so obviously right that I wonder nobody has done it before, or have they? I am very excited by it, but I want to read it two or three times more, think about it, and not decide until \u2013 Anyway, please reread it quickly and let me know what you think, if you are free when you come back, etc. I think done right, it could have real style & wit, and great importance. Write quick. Much love to you, Madame, child & Italians.\n\nLillian\n\nI wouldn't want to do the song lyrics. So if you like the idea \u2013 and I still do by the time you write \u2013 who would be good? Maybe a good _poet_?\n\nAnd it would have to be written with kind of doll-like fairy tale scenery.\n\n332. Betty Comden to Leonard Bernstein\n\n350 East 69th Street, New York, NY\n\n26 September 1953\n\nDearest Lennie,\n\nYour many questions from exotic parts I shall answer in a moment, but I must start with some news which we hope you will like and which might affect your plans \u2013 nay, _will_. George A[bbott]. is feverishly anxious to revive _On the Town_ \u2013 and to do it at once. Both Adolph and I love the idea, and so does Jerry, and George will talk to Oliver about it. The idea, although not worked out at all yet \u2013 would be to have the six of us possibly getting all the money ($100,000 George thinks) together among ourselves, so we would own the thing. Ideally, we should open in January \u2013 and George thinks a week of prevues in N.Y. and no out-of-town session. There are of course some workings on it we would all like to do. G.A. for some reason wondered whether we'd write another song for it. I don't think anything that drastic need be done \u2013 but of course we can't do this without you \u2013 nor would it be any fun to do it without you. I told George I'd write and get your ideas and schedule. This would of course eliminate your going on with your tours to any of those other cities beyond beginning of December. Coincidentally, two nights ago Chris showed the movies he had filmed of the performance of _On the Town_ \u2013 and they looked simply marvelous and whetted our desire to see the wonderful thing running again. George is sure it will be a smash. We think it will be, too. What do _you_ think? Please come home December as planned hmm?\n\nAs far as working on other shows in December we are still faced with no Hollywood date in Feb. We have made no, but I mean _no_ , show plans \u2013 meeting daily though we have been. True, I have been getting settled here with help problems that cripple the creative spirit \u2013 but things are straightening out now.\n\nThe other questions: Yes, Atkinson on _Carnival_ [ _in Flanders_ ]71 was great, and as you know the show has moved to the elephant graveyard along with _Hazel Flagg_.72 We are still the warmest ticket on B'way73 \u2013 with _Can-Can_74 breathing hotly on our necks. The performances have been excellent. As for road company, Roz's75 plans, and the theatre TV deal, we have had three or four meetings since you left, and they have all been as thoroughly unresolved and unsatisfying as the one you attended. Roz won't say if she's staying or going, and we are on the same old tenter-type hooks.\n\nAs for other departments, Susanna is back at school \u2013 Alan is big and plump. Steve is fine. We had a party last night for Lena [Horne] and Lenny H[ayton], small but musical and late \u2013 and I merely stayed up a few minutes longer to give Alan a bottle at 5:45. I could pretend that sleepiness makes me write this way \u2013 but you know better \u2013 having plowed through the same hieroglyphs on Baker's pudding and other vital topics.\n\nAnyway \u2013 isn't it exciting to think of _O_ [ _n_ ] _T_ [ _he_ ] _T_ [ _own_ ] again! And please tell us when to expect you.\n\nBest on the tour, which sounds wonderful \u2013 and much, much love.\n\nB\u00e4ddim\n\n333. Felicia Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n\"Monday night 2 a.m.\"\n\n[September 1953]\n\nDarling,\n\nYour wire was waiting when we got back from several movies last night \u2013 I had spent the whole day having visions of you crashing in the jungle somewhere and the whole _Handful of Dust_ bit. Helene, la Belle, has been advised though by now I'm sure you've received everything \u2013 by carrier pigeon if necessary.\n\nHad dinner with Bob and then went to the Anna Russell opening. She didn't use any of the material you described and was, I'm afraid, not very funny or professional (two fs?) We then met Harold C. [Clurman] at Sardi's \u2013 the usual were there. Just took Henry out and he shicked it up.\n\nAfter seeing you off I came home and spent the day in bed. I felt really sick from tiredness and I suppose prospective loneliness. I'm going to miss you mine ape.\n\nYesterday I had Jamie to myself and it was delicious. We went to the park where she carries on like a soap-box orator and stops traffic with her beauty. I was proud, Lennuhtt.\n\nExactly a year ago this minute I started having labor pains \u2013 the best thing we ever did was to get married \u2013 you bet \u2013 and me la\u00fc d\u00fc too.\n\nAs you can gather by now there is no news _at all_. This is just so you won't \"hacer el rid\u00edculo\" at Amer. Express.\n\nI kiss you wildly and passionately.\n\nF\n\n334. Felicia Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[before 7 January 1954]\n\nMy darling,\n\nFirst of all thank you for the sweetest telegram you ever sent, and which I received with rather mixed emotions \u2013 it's awful to think you'll be away for that long, it's wonderful you are finally having such a well deserved vacation, it's terrible that I'm not there (we've never had a joyful relaxed holiday together), it's good that you'll be on your own and away from me for a while \u2013 and that's how it goes and will always go, I guess, being the ape that I am.\n\nI couldn't write before this \u2013 at first, just after you left, I was feeling so numb I would not have been able to coordinate my thoughts \u2013 and then I started working and had to dedicate _all my time_ to it, but I will go into that later.\n\nWhat I have to say is hard \u2013 before I start I want you to accept the possibility that most of what I say is true. I know that I tend to dwell on things till they get way out of proportion, but not now.\n\nI was happier in Italy than I have ever been with you \u2013 we had fun, we shared everything, we were truly relaxed for once (I am sorry I ever suggested we come home \u2013 I needed to see Jamie but I should have waited). Here in New York all the old problems and tensions seemed to be lying in wait \u2013 plus the whole Bernstein clan. I love Burt and I love Shirley but they are _your_ brother and _your_ sister. There is no wall keeping me out, but there is blood and a shared past between you \u2013 they are, with Sam & Jennie, your family. I have no family really apart from you and Jamie \u2013 and this is all I need. This place is our home \u2013 yours and mine \u2013 it is beautiful because we have made it so and both our personalities are blended in it \u2013 but all of a sudden it becomes so \"Bernstein\" that I have a hard time keeping in touch with myself, but mostly keeping in touch with you. I can not change this, it is the way things are, but put yourself in my place and admit that it can be a little wearing. You will probably say that all this is a sign of possessiveness \u2013 it isn't. My objecting to Jamie being called \"Jamela\" comes from the same source \u2013 it isn't our way of calling her, it is the Bernstein way \u2013 something quite foreign to me, something I cannot share in which perhaps does smack a bit of the ghetto to me \u2013 it's possible.\n\nPlease don't brood about all this \u2013 it will explain a little my strange behavior before you left. I was also, may I say, terrified about your flying that day and kept cursing Waldner all through the day and sleepless night!\n\nI have never worked so hard on a show before. I've given it all my time and concentration. We've managed to rewrite the whole thing \u2013 it is less obvious and trivial but still dreadfully mediocre. I do have the satisfaction of having created a real character and that has been fun \u2013 the director is exciting and between us we've done really good work.\n\nJamie manages to keep her _joie de vivre_ in spite of constant falls, bumps and cracks \u2013 however she cannot seem to live without music specially \"Sandy the Sandman\" and it is driving us all crazy.\n\nRosalia has arrived and all is well \u2013 everything is clean and in its place, the books are right side up, Miss M. likes her. What could be better?\n\nHow wonderful that _Medea_ triumphed again \u2013 it would have been so anti-climactic otherwise.\n\nDearest, dearest Lennhutt I love you so.\n\nFelicia\n\nPlease give me news of Nancy.\n\n335. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nPalace Hotel, St Moritz, Switzerland\n\n7 January 1954\n\nDarling Goody,\n\nWhen I finally got your letter today it seemed that I had waited for it so long I have already composed it myself. Did you think that I was unaware of all that \"bad trouble\" you were going through? That arrival home must have been one of the worst, with all things conspiring to exaggerate your feeling of left-outness: first Miss Marx vying with you for the role of mater-familias; then your feeling that Jamie was being presented to me rather than to you; and then all the \"clan\" business. All at once. Each one of these is soluble and understandable enough by itself, I suppose, but all three at once must have been too much. I don't think it will ever again be like that. This was our first time away and first time returning; it was a crisis (Waldner must have got his dates mixed) and I hope the hard work on the show provided the necessary means of getting through it. I hope you were great in the show, and that all New York is clamoring for you again. I hope Miss Marx has quieted down in her enthusiasm for showing you what she has done for us while we were away (which again is understandable, however irritating it must have been for you). I hope you have been sleeping and having fun and success, and that you have changed the whole dining room into magenta and beaten gold. I hope Jamie can say mama as well as nana now, and that you really understand that you mustn't take it so hard. And I hope you and Shirley and Burtie can exist again on a relaxed level. There is so little I can do to prevent that particular tension: I had missed them both a lot on my long trip (and had not seen Burt for six months), and I was conscious every second we were together that I must not display too much affection or invoke the past overmuch. That was as hard for me as it was for you, and it seems silly to deprive us all of a warm, easy relationship. You wouldn't want that, I know, especially since all tensions between S[hirley] and B[urton] and myself only provoke more tensions between you and me, as well as between you and them. I don't really think it will ever again be so hard as it was this last time, with everything hitting you in the face at once. At least let's hope so, lovely Goody; and please be happy. We have so much to be happy and grateful for: let's both try not to injure it.\n\nEveryone misses you tremendously in Italy, and they all speak of you in tones of hushed wonder. I received some photos of us at the Scala, and people all said: \"Molto pi\u00f9 bella nella natura.\" I miss you mightily here: it is a lovely place, though I've had only two days of it (after the last _Medea_ ), then had to return to Milan yesterday for a fifth _Medea_ matinee, which was a glorious farewell, and only late this afternoon have returned here after a long snowy tortuous drive with Maria Ricordi; so, to put it in the old terms, I'm still dead tired. Now I have again two days, and then back to Milan and on to Genoa to catch the boat. Not very much rest in all, but even the slight amount is a boon, and it's glorious to be on skis again, no matter how awkwardly. Tomorrow I shall really make a try at getting better: up to now I've had to be monstrously careful because of the Scala performances; now I can relax and spend more time at it. Nancy is here, looking much better, and skating her head off. I wrote you from Milan about her operation (did you get all those letters with other letters enclosed, a check from your mother, etc.?), and we have run into the whole smart international set, wild mad playboys and playgirls (mostly lonely, once-beautiful women, unhappily married or getting divorced or already divorced, accompanied by huge dogs, and wild queers who are amusing and repulsive, and I seem to be the toast of the bar. That is, for one night, the first, which was bar night \u2013 molto dancing and club fun \u2013 and no more. It's all too easy not to rest up here, and I'm resting. There also appeared Hakim (Rafael) who went up and down screaming how beautiful you were, and where were you, and why did you ever pick me instead of him. And a pretty blonde named Jenny who will probably turn up in New York. I returned today to find that Ruggiero had broken his arm skiing yesterday. And I became real good friends with von Karajan, whom you would (and will) adore. My first Nazi. Had dinner last night at Fosca Crespi's with Wally, who sends you his dearest love, as does Nancy and Maria Ricordi and Ruggiero (he really does) and Isabel who finally did appear for _Medea_ with Letizia Boncompagni and husband, but without Laurence, and all the servit\u00f9 of the Duomo and all the folks of the Scala. And that's my social news for the night, Marvin.\n\nI've decided to go along with Lillian on _Candide_ , imagine, after having written her a letter saying no and tearing it up, I think it will be more feasible than the David piece this spring, and will allow me to do other things as well, like the violin piece, and maybe refurbishing _Peter Pan_ for Edwin Lester, who is thinking of doing it with Mary Martin. I'm dying to do David, but for next year. I got lots of ideas, or at least a clearer idea, about the libretto coming over on the plane, and it now looks much more like a big three-act opera with chorus and ballet, which nixes it for this season. I've also decided to give Finzi my general representation in Europe, which was a good decision I think, even if she is always rushing about, because she is young and energetic and will work hard for me, and her assistant Paola is clear-headed for the menial tasks. There is also a lot of talk about London in the winter, and Karajan has asked me to Vienna, etc. So we should have fun next year too. The way it looks now, if you agree, is Europe in May, lit and kiboodle; then Rome (Academy) till Xmas, say; then some real European conducting for two months or so, then home. Almost a year abroad! What do you think? Do you think this plan has any beneficial bearing on paragraph #1 of this letter?\n\nI love you so much, and want you not to worry, ever, or be unhappy, when we must be very happy always. Be good to yourself, and make Liz Arden take away your eye-circles, and help her do it from inside.\n\nAll my love,\n\nL\n\n336. Leonard Bernstein to Cheryl Crawford76\n\nVineyard Haven, MA\n\n6 July 1954\n\nDear Cheryl Crawford,\n\nI received your roundabout request for a short overture to _Tahiti_ and have given it some thought. I would love to oblige you, but I can't for several reasons. One, that the opening trio number is itself a prelude and its function in the opera should be just that. Two, that the only material suitable for an overture (outside of writing a whole new special piece) would be the prelude itself, which would cause repetitiousness. Three, I am so rushed in the writing of _Candide_ that I couldn't begin to think of writing a special new piece to precede the opera. I am sure you know how it is, when a piece is two years behind you, to attempt to make any sizeable change. I hope the production is going well and I would love to be kept informed of your progress. Can you send me your itinerary? Please give my love to Alice77 and David78 and all the cast.\n\nVery sincerely,\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\n337. Elia Kazan79 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nWarner Bros Pictures Inc., Burbank, CA\n\n14 July 1954\n\nIllustrious Maestro,\n\nI have sent the letter to Bob Anderson who will send it to his agent who will no doubt despatch the necessary information to the Dearest Maestro at La Scala.\n\nI am almost through here. And I ought to leave in three weeks. Don't ask me how the picture is. You never know. Everybody always likes the rushes. They don't mean anything. If my basic story is good I guess I'll have a good picture. Certainly my actors are fresh and real. In fact I don't think anybody has ever seen any of them except their mothers and that's the way I like it.80\n\nI'm still kind of punchy from my Hoboken episode,81 but in a punchy way I'm having a lot of fun. I lack some of my usual doggedness and tenacity but I guess it will all come back if I live long enough. In a word, I'm tired.\n\nWhen I get through with this, I'll come back east and sit out front and enjoy your work. How's it coming? I hope it will be wonderful. When you get all done with it I want to talk with you about a project for us both. My idea, in a sense, is to take a novel and dramatize it entirely as a series of musical numbers with hardly anything in between. You might call it an opera except for the fact that it's not one at all and derives from a much more native source, musical comedy. I'll be starting to think about it.\n\nBetty [Lauren] Bacall misses you. This I know for a fact. What other emotional havoc you brought on out here there is no record of, but she misses you.\n\nSwim a lot. The Pacific is a dirty, cold ocean. You've got the good one there.\n\nLove and kisses,\n\nGadg\n\n338. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nVineyard Haven, MA\n\n29 July 1954\n\nDear Aa,\n\nI miss you. That's the long and short of it. I don't miss Berlioz or the crowds or the pewpils or the scenery or the meetings on the green furniture of Seranak,82 or even the hot crowded Monday forums, I miss you, ecco. And Lukas.\n\nI want to hear about things like how the Piano Concerto (yours) went, and the immortal problem of Farrand\u2013Roth, and dirty gossip, and what of next year, and how is _Tender Land_ going.\n\nMe, I stay put on this heavenly island, intending never to leave except to Venice for a week in Sept. to conduct my new piece with Isaac [Stern].83 It's finished, imagine, & all orchestrated except for the finale. Man, I need you around for some solid criticism. I could use it. _Candide_ crawls along: it's the hardest thing I ever tried, and \u2013 you won't believe this \u2013 it's very hard trying to be eclectic. I am raising the unwilling ghosts of H\u00e9rold and Auber. A new wrinkle.\n\nLove, & write. A big hug to Lukas, & give my best to [Charles] Munch & [Jean] Morel & Olga [Koussevitzky] & all that sort of thing.\n\nAs I said, I miss you.\n\nL\n\nP.S. [John La] Touche sends all the best, as does Lillian.\n\n339. Darius Milhaud84 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nAspen Institute, Aspen, CO\n\n17 August 1954\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI am _overjoyed_ at the idea that you will conduct _David_ at the Scala85 \u2013 Ghiringhelli86 hopes very much you can stay until January 13th and from Dec 1st. I will certainly fly to Milano!!\n\nAs for the orchestra score that you asked now I really think the _best_ would be to have one done at the Library of Congress Kouss Foundation as it costs only 5 cents a page. The orchestra score would not be more than 45 dollars I think and you would have your own score that you could keep.\n\nMay be the foundation would be willing to pay for it, otherwise I will be delighted to give it to you as a present and as a proof of my great admiration. Just let me know. The piano score will be soon ready in printing.\n\nVery affectionately,\n\nMilhaud\n\nI _missed_ you in Jerusalem. Everything was OK (orchestra, choir, soloist) but George Singer87 was _horrible_ , hysteric and _can't hold a tempo_.88\n\n340. Leonard Bernstein to Frankie and William Schuman\n\nVineyard Haven, MA\n\n30 August 1954\n\nDear Frankie and Bill,\n\nYour joint letter gave me much food for thought (and sickroom sympathy) \u2013 and, well, you talked yourselves right out of an Italian premi\u00e8re.89 With regret I bowed to your dark warnings, after another look at the score (which I love); and you will be supplanted by the far simpler (and far less interesting) Piston's 4th. Now aren't you sorry to be such Cassandras?\n\nI've finished my _Serenade_ (blithely attributed to the authorship of William Schuman in a _Sunday Times_ squib a few weeks ago) and it looks awfully pretty on paper, at least. The Italian critics will hate it; but I like it a lot.\n\nThe Charaks (?) tell me you are much better, & that they are building you a permanent Vineyard residence. You can't do better than this extraordinary, passionate island. We've loved it this summer. Shall we start making dinner plans _now_? I'll be back from Europe around the 17th.\n\nLove to you all from us all, & be well.\n\nLenny.\n\nThink of it: I was 36 last Wednesday. As a friend put it, 3 and 6 are 9, which is the cube [ _recte_ square] of 3; & 3 times 6 are 18, the digits of which add up to 9; and 3 from 6 leaves 3 which is the cube [ _recte_ square] root of 9. Which means in short, I'm getting old.\n\n341. William Schuman to Leonard Bernstein\n\n241 Elk Avenue, New Rochelle, NY\n\n3 September 1954\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nThanks very so much for your note with the terrible news that you have taken my advice and are not performing my 6th [Symphony] in Venice. You can appreciate that it was very difficult advice for me to have given but I feel that it would have been unfair of me to have been less than candid. Until you find an appropriate moment to program the Symphony, I will be nourished by your stated love of it which, as I think you know, means a great deal to me.\n\nI also noticed in the _New York Times_ that authorship of your _Serenade_ for violin was credited to me. Am I to understand that you are now denying that I wrote the piece and claiming it for yourself? Naturally, I assumed that you were giving me this work because I am sick and old and so disappointed that you could not perform the 6th. In fact, in my mind, it already took the place of the second favorite composition of my authorship, the first being \"The Happy Farmer\", and now I am patiently awaiting the first royalty checks from my _Serenade_. Incidentally, if there is an extra copy around, please send it. I am dying to see it.\n\nI am quite well aware that you are now 36 years of age because last Wednesday I tuned in the radio and heard my name followed by the piece of brilliant piano music which I recognized as your anniversary present to me of several years ago. The whole program was devoted to your music and I enjoyed it immensely, the clarinet piece and all (they played the movements out of order). One of these days you simply must take time off and write a great big opera. It is good to know that you will be back the 17th and we look forward to seeing you.\n\nLove to your house from ours.\n\nBill\n\nP.S. Dictated by phone and signed by Miss Martin so that you will get the note without delay.\n\n342. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nHotel Bauer-Gr\u00fcnwald, Venice, Italy\n\n11 September 1954\n\nDarling,\n\nI just had a cable from George which said you were having a second hurricane \u2013 unbelievable! I tried to get through by phone, but no soap. He assured me everything was OK, but I can't help worrying about it. I'll try and call you from London Monday night. Be safe!\n\nI've missed you terribly \u2013 you would love Venice: and it's been a charming week. Ciro [Cuomo] showed me a picture of you that he carries, & I nearly broke down. You're so lovely, & such a _terrific_ actress (I just rediscovered this last week at Woodstock) and I love you more than I can tell you.\n\nIsaac [Stern] plays the _Serenade_ like an angel \u2013 and everyone adores it, Diamond included. If it goes well tomorrow it should be a knockout. The weather is hot & fine, & the Lido is a joy \u2013 though there's too little time to enjoy it. (Last night we rehearsed til 2 a.m.!)\n\nI've bought you gorgeous things. I can't wait to show them to you. All my love and a fountain of kisses for Jamie. I pray you're all OK. Love to Allyn.\n\nL\n\n343. Darius Milhaud to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMills College, Oakland, CA\n\n23 September [1954]\n\nDearest Lenny,\n\nLovely to have your letter.\n\nI answer your questions:\n\n1. Cuts. _Not one note_. I know it is a long opera. _But so it is_. 2 hours 50 \u2013 we must not lose a _second_ between changing scenes.\n\n2. George Singer. _David_ is easy to prepare \u2013 choirs are easy to sing. Solo parts have no problem. They have in all Italian operas good people to rehearse with. Why take this terrible George Singer, who will prepare all wrong. We need a young conductor from the Scala who teaches choir and soloists notes, solfege, and articulation. Someone who makes _precise work_ , and not this frightful hysteric lunatic.\n\nNow if the Scala wanted him absolutely, and wanted to ruin the preparation, and that you will have to rebuild everything, then they should not have ask[ed] me first.\n\nThat is my sentiment from the bottom of my heart.\n\nAnd I admire _you_ and have a great affection for _you_.\n\nDarius\n\n344. Leonard Bernstein to Barbara and Philip Marcuse\n\n205 West 57th Street, New York, NY\n\n26 November 1954\n\nDearest Babs and Fil,\n\nI've let you down terribly, I know, and I'm taking advantage of the fact that today is Thanksgiving, a season of joy and forgiveness and blessing-counting, to try to make reparation. Your nice Mrs. Gilbert phoned some weeks ago with your messages, and I was sorry she had no time to come and visit with us.\n\nI'm taking this time out of the simple family joys (it seems the whole family is here, both sides) to send you our love and greetings. These last months have been overcast with relentlessly gloomy activity. How can activity be gloomy, you ask? It can. We have had big lyricist trouble in _Candide_ , and have only now, this minute (two weeks ago, that is) made a final and utter break with Mr. LaTouche. At the point of the break the show was less than half-finished. So, here we are. It should have been finished by end of summer. Nothing wasted of course. I did get off a little 34-minute thing for violin and orch. called _Symposium_ which Isaac Stern played like an angel with me at the Venice Festival in September. Didn't read about that in _Variety_ , eh? Small wonder. Then, a long stretch of trying to eke out _Candide_ with Touche, and not getting much of anywhere. Then the last two weeks of searching desperately for a new lyricist, in vain. But other things interspersed: an article published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ (cover piece too, imagine) \u2013 did you read it? And last week, no, two weeks, who knows \u2013 a TV stint on _Omnibus_ that seems to have knocked the national press for a loop. Did you happen to catch it? If not, see last week's _Variety_. I count on that mag as our personal intermediator. Also this week's _Life_ , a ghastly inadequate account of the proceedings, but still, _Life_ Mag. I haven't appeared in that one since '48, when a glorious picture of me as one of America's 50 leading \"Super-Dupes\" graced their pages. Then black silence. So this must mean something, a toe in the door.\n\nSo then, good news. I have postponed my Scala trip to February instead of leaving Sunday (God!) when I was supposed to. I had royally screwed up my schedule for this season. But now things are straightening out. Lil[ian Hellman] and I have decided to do what I've been screaming for since the beginning: namely to write the lyrics90 ourselves. It's so natural and right: what were we futzing with Touche for all this time? So now I feel creative and set-up again, and ready for a two-month creative dash; and this time _Candide_ will get finished by Feb. 1st, when I leave. I'll be in Milan for three solid months; then all of May in Florence, for that festival; then some concerts with the Israel Orch. in Italy; then the Holland festival in June; then Tanglesberg in July and August; then, Godwilling, the production of _Candide_. Then, maybe a vacation.\n\nItem: among the greater things for which to give thanks on this Thanxgiving Day: we're going to have another baby! Next July. Which is also a problem, because it makes me have to think of cancelling the Holland thing in June, maybe. In any case, not a word: because Felicia won't get any jobs if it is known she is preggy. Isn't it wonderful?\n\nBack now to the family joys. Jamie is beyond any description beautiful and wise: and Felicia is blooming all over in her joyful condition. Did you catch her last night on Kraft Cheese?91 A bad adaptation of Jane Austen's _Emma_ , but she was fabulous in the high comedy style.\n\nThere's the news up to this moment. Tune in again, etc. Do you get to New York this ensuing period? Let me hear from you, sooner than you heard from me.\n\nLove from us both.\n\nLenny\n\nLooking this over, I am struck by its hectic tone. Are you? But for a change, it's _nice_ hectic.\n\n345. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nGrand Hotel Duomo, Milan, Italy\n\n4 February 1955\n\nDarling,\n\nImagine, I've been here three days and no sign of sinuses or bronchs or the trots or anything. And today, actually, the sun came out, and it was pure spring. It's a joy to be here: deep in rehearsals again \u2013 the cast in the afternoon, & the chorus in the morning, and conferences at night with Luchino [Visconti], who is marvelous to work with. I've gotten all steamed up about _Sonnambula_ , as with _Medea_ , getting wild ideas for cutting & staging and tempi. It's going to be a dream, I think. Luchino has planned a small production, perfect in every stylistic detail, just as I have planned a small orchestra, with emphasis on buoyancy & youth. I wish you could come in time to see it. We open the 19th, & the last one will be around the 25th. Callas is greater than ever. She has shrunk to a pinpoint, & is positively beautiful, even offstage. She has ash-blonde hair, and dresses much better \u2013 and sings like a doll. Last night I heard her as Maddalena in _Andrea Chenier_ , and she was a divine coquette of 17 or so, completely believable! We had our first reading of _Sonnambula_ today, & she made me cry.\n\nI've hunted everywhere for an apartment, but they are all too expensive, or too crowded, or too something. And besides, an apartment is a bore to take care of, whereas at the Duomo I have everything at the touch of a button. So I have decided to stay here, especially since they came down to 5,000 lire a day for this old duplex of ours, which is already reasonable. It's just the same: the same brass bar loose on the stair rug, & hot as hell upstairs, cold downstairs, and all modernistic & hideous \u2013 but I've come to love it, & think of it as home, even. Once I unpack, & get a piano & chairs & table & cushions in, it will be OK, & just waiting for you.\n\nI miss you my darling. Everyone asks for you (I saw the Ricordis tonight) & waits for you. Write me all about everything, right away. Isn't it glorious to be free of _Samarkand_?92 A big kiss to Jamie, and make her say _Daddy_ at least once a day.\n\nAll my love,\n\nL\n\n346. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nGrand Hotel Duomo, Milan, Italy\n\n11 February 1955\n\nMy darling,\n\nI miss you terribly, and love your letters. They carry a whiff of something warm and familiar and joyful. Imagine \u2013 after three years: joyful! Is it wonderful: home has always been the spot in which I happened to be: and now it is _a place_ , with all that one place connotes. The dining-room one apologizes for, & my studio where you get blind with cigarette smoke; and the two \"modern\" chairs you hate in the library, and the marvelous sala, and the hall wallpaper you can't stand, and our country bedroom, and the loud canary, and Jamie spreading her presence like a marigold, and the difficulties below-stairs, and Bill with his weather, and all the problems and tensions and joy and noise and quiet. Home. A new experience.\n\nHere all is up in the air. Callas is still abed with her farunculo, being a real old-fashioned prima donna, suffering, pale, Violetta. Of course we will have to postpone the prima of _Sonnambula_ , which was scheduled for the 19th, to I don't know when: and it is a mess, with my having to go to London for the prima of _Wonderful Town_ on the 23rd. Very complicated indeed. But pazienza: it will all work out. They love me at the Scala, & do everything to help. I've had some fine rehearsals already, & have fallen for the score, hook, line, etc. It never stales for some reason: fresh & noble & pure.\n\nYou won't believe it, but Charlie Roth93 just arrived, & I'll have to see him tomorrow. God, what a burden he is.\n\nAll the Ricordis are waiting for you to come, as is Wally, & Luchino (a doll), and Ghiringhelli & the works. It is fun here, really. You won't be bored. Wally is giving a Ballo in Maschera next Tuesday: that sort of thing. Ghiringhelli sent you a telegram of love on your birthday, & still awaits an answer, kind of hurt & pouting. Do send him one.\n\nI visited the sartoria of the Scala the other day \u2013 an incredible experience. On the outskirts of Milan \u2013 a huge warehouse with 40,000 costumes, and thousands of new ones constantly being made, all by hand, & such materials & designs & care of work! (I'm going to have tails made for me there!) Ghiringhelli wants to sell about 10,000 of them, since the constant procession of new productions creates a surplus of costumes they cannot house. I promised him I would ask you if you would ask Eaves or Brooks94 if they'd be interested in buying such a number of really marvelous costumes. Do let me or him know.\n\nWhat is this with _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_? What part? Who How What? It sounds glorious \u2013 tell me more. And of course, I want to hear all the news of the opening of _Samarkand_. There must be a lot to tell.\n\nI'm so relieved you've been given the OK by all your MD's. I hope you're blossoming in spite of your kepepelt [cold]. You sounded so strange on the phone: remote & unexcited; and I couldn't decide if it was the kepep or 7:00 a.m. (which was ungodly, but I couldn't help it, as I'd been trying for days, & had to take the call when it got through) or just plain old _abstractness_. I'm planning something with an emerald when you get here (this _must_ have something to do with the foregoing) \u2013 and Callas is going to wear moonstones in _Sonnambula_ , imagine. I'm wandering.\n\nI've never worked so close to a show: really into everything: painting the sets, & spending one hour arguing about the color of the cuff of a sleeve of one costume for one chorus-lady, and kind of co-directing with Luchino, & planning out every second. I'm learning, learning. It's a glorious theatre. Tonight is Nanni's birthday, so a party: & first I'm going with Wally & Luchino to a revue with an incredible sequin-blonde dame who calls herself Dorian Gray. I'm trying to get out of _Boh\u00e8me_ (which is an old production, & therefore a bore for me) & do instead _Traviata_ with Callas & Luchino & a fabulous d\u00e9cor de Lila di Nobile (do you know of her?) \u2013 but [Victor] de Sabata is supposed to do it, but his heart is bad, & it's therefore indefinite, but how can one be sure, & as you see \u2013 it's all very complex.\n\nI hope you can get here in time to see _Sonnambula_ at least once: it will be a sweet production, slightly campy, with the stage apron advanced way out, so that Callas sings in the middle of Scala, & sings her last fabulous aria with all the houselights up, & flowers flying from the boxes and \u2013 you must see it.\n\nMy darling lady, I love you & miss you & wait for your letters with real impatience. Love to everyone, & a big hug & millions of kisses to you & Jamie & Fink.95\n\nL\n\n347. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nGrand Hotel Duomo, Milan, Italy\n\n28 February 1955\n\nMy Darling,\n\nI am so happy that you got out of that Samarkand affair when you did. Of course, it would have been a different show with you in it, but maybe not with Schneider.96 As they say here, meno male.\n\nI have just had two days of that nameless Milan disease again, fever and bed. No symptoms, no diarrhea, nothing, just fever and bed. It's becoming a bore. Maybe I have something glorious and important like hepatitis. Now begins the Settimana Santa, with dress rehearsals and the whole bit you know so well. I'm not quite up to it, as usual, and I can't seem to memorize the recitativi, but I suppose it will all be fine in the end. I spent three days in London (how I wished you were with me) and it was if anything grayer and colder than Milano, with whipping rain and wind and snow Londonness. The show was a smash,97 and the Rag98 was encored, and the people screamed (tears running down, not quite, not in London town) and the press was as good as the London press ever is. The experts forecast a year's run at least.99 Which would pay for Fink, and save our lives.\n\nThe black fairy100 will not give up. He arrived in Milano, and I bought him lunch and listened to his drivel and sent him home. He wanted to become my assistant, imagine, and co-conduct all tours with me, etc. I told him to knock it off and go back to Vienna. Since then there has been arriving a series of letters, really unbelievable, in which he is threatening me: blackmail, no less! Unless, he says, I make him the world's top conductor (\"And when I walk on to the podium, God himself will sing\") he will send around copies he has made of all my letters to him in the past, and ruin everybody's lives. The idiot. Of course, there is nothing in any of those letters, nor has there ever been any relationship between us of any kind: but it's still annoying, _aburridisimo_ , and all the rest, to think of that ugly little maniac running around making trouble. I've been sending back his letters and _parcels_ (whatever they may be) by the ton, unopened. Crazy people always scare me, and especially this one.\n\nSpeaking of such things, the Diamonds are here, as is to be expected, and very sweet they are, faithful to the end. They want us to stay with them in Florence, but no.\n\nI don't quite understand about your big trip here with Helena. You mean you would wait until April to come? Que lata! What does Karish say? I know it would be lovely to make the trip with Helena, and I'd love you to, but can't she come earlier too? Your traveling tourist wouldn't make no never-mind. But I hope you don't expect to start with her a pension too! Of course I'll find a nice inexpensive place, as soon as you tell me definitely that she's coming and when. I hope you sent an answering cable to Ghiringhelli.\n\nI have to dash off to rehearsal. God, I wish I could have a week of sun and rest. When and where? Please tell me when you will be coming so I can try to promote a week off from the Scala to fit your arrival. Then maybe we can go to Sevilla for Holy Week, or something glorious like that.\n\nI miss Jamie and you terribly. Everyone writes that you are both in the pink, and that helps. But do come in person!\n\nAll my love, darling Bubbles.\n\nL\n\nCan Jamie say \"Sonnambula\" yet?\n\n348. Betty Comden to Leonard Bernstein\n\n350 East 69th Street, New York, NY\n\n17 March 1955\n\nDearest Leonard,\n\nShortly after the arrival of your letter, for which many thanks, came photostats of the London reviews101 which cheered us considerably \u2013 particularly the one which said our score was full of \"toe-tapping tunes\" and the one about the cab driver who will soon be whistling his fares home with \"Ohio\" and the \"Wrong Note Rag.\" We won't rest until some New York cabbie whistles _us_ home with \"A Million Kids Just Like You etc.\" For the further popularization of the above and others we have completed a new venture \u2013 an album. And it is of this that I am now writing you \u2013 in the main, that is.\n\nOne Bob Israel, head of Heritage Records called us about making an album \u2013 having heard of us from Harold Rome with whom he just made two highly successful albums \u2013 one \"retrospective\" (anyway back to _Pins and Needles_ ) and the other _Fanny_ (also rear-view if you like). Herbie Harris, drummer-boy extraordinaire also urged this lad to get in touch with us. Although cool at first \u2013 and seemingly not at all familiar with us \u2013 Israel blossomed, after one meeting, into the most hysterically devoted fan we ever had \u2013 and after a few rehearsals with a pianist named Milton Greene,102 and the above mentioned Herb Harris, we cut a platter of some nineteen items one rainy afternoon \u2013 and it is about to be released to the unsuspecting public. At least each and every Sadvorousky will buy one apiece.\n\nHere's what is crammed into a twelve-incher:\n\n_On the Town_\n\nNew York New York\n\nLonely Town\n\nTaxi Song\n\nSome other Time\n\nCarried Away\n\n_Billion Dollar Baby_\n\nBad Timing\n\nBroadway Blossom\n\n_Good News_ (!?X!?X!!!)\n\nFrench Lesson\n\n_Two From the Aisle_\n\nIf\n\nHow Will He Know\n\nCatch Our Act at the Met\n\n_Peter Pan_\n\nDistant Melody\n\nCaptain Hook's Waltz\n\nMysterious Lady\n\n_Wonderful Town_\n\nOhio\n\nIt's Love\n\nQuiet Girl\n\nWrong Note Rag\n\nThe last two shows were in the above order \u2013 not chronological as all else above \u2013 because _W_ [ _onderful_ ] _T_ [ _own_ ] was a better ending. You may wonder at our not doing much in the way of _material_ -ish things in _WT_. This was so decided because of our burning desire to get the _songs_ on records \u2013 somehow. Maybe someone might hear one and make a record? It seemed more important than getting the special stuff recorded. This boy is now so excited anyway he wants to make yet _another_ album. He is convinced it is a smash. We've heard it and are timidly pleased with it \u2013 hoping it will sound to others as good as we blushingly admit it sounds to us. He (Bob) has played it for a few outsiders who echo his enthusiasm. Steve [Kyle] thinks it's terrific.\n\nHere comes the somewhat embarrassing part. Adolph and I would be thrilled and honored if you would write a little something about us for the record jacket. The thing will be called, I believe, simply _Comden and Green_ and our pictures will adorn the front. The back is wide open for a paean of praise \u2013 say, two\u2013three hundred words long.103 Gene O'Kelly may say a word or two about us because of his movie connections with our lives \u2013 but we more than anything hope you will send us something printable about us \u2013 if you can and want to, and have the time to.\n\nOther news \u2013 we're in Hollywood two and a half weeks to come up with outline for new picture to write this summer. Hope to write show \u2013 maybe. Family all well. Adolph well. Miss you very very much.\n\nSend very very much love,\n\nBetty\n\n349. Leonard Bernstein to Marc Blitzstein\n\nGrand Hotel Duomo, Milan, Italy\n\n20 March 1955\n\nDear Marc,\n\nYou're right to be boiling mad, and I would be too; and you're also right in knowing that _Regina_ has never slipped my mind, to put it mildly. It is very hard to get definite word out of these people: there is a kind of compulsion to let things simmer for ages before taking any real step. I don't know if you can feel this ambiente at the Scala; it is such a world of its own, and so convinced that almost nothing else exists or happens on earth, that the time-continuum becomes different from the normal one, and all the time ordinarily allotted to all worldwide decisions is gathered together for Scala purposes only. And this combined with the enormous amount of work and number of hourly problems of work make delays inevitable.\n\nI have brought up the subject on several occasions. Ghiringhelli seems to take it for granted that the work will be done next year, every time I mention it: but it is really up to de Sabata. The latter, a very fine gent, loves the piece, and readily quotes and sings from it (especially \"Watching my gal watch me\", which he performs by heart at the piano) but he has worries about the translation. He has told me that he feels that the \"tough\" quality of the English has no decent equivalent in Italian; and at the same time he feels that the work will not mean much to the Scala public in the original English. I have suggested a kind of bilingual version, wherein all the Negro parts (not affecting plot: i.e. Chinkypin, spirituals, etc.) could be done in English and the \"white\" parts in Italian. How does this strike you? With a pick-axe? Each time we discuss this (between acts of _Sonnambula_ or other interruptions) he always ends by saying \"We must have a long talk about this soon\". And that's why I've been delaying writing to you \u2013 until there was something definite to write. But I'm writing anyway to tell you that the work is very much on my mind, and that I love you and it. What suggestions do you have? I tried to think of _Regina_ in English here, watching _Porgy_ having such a big success: but _Porgy_ is different, obviously, the story being so apparent and drawn in huge choral strokes. But maybe you feel that _Regina_ would work just as well in English. There is also a slight worry about the amount of spoken stuff: the Scala is not well adapted for talk, and the Italians don't understand too well the Opera-Comique idea. Karajan did _Carmen_ here in a sort of horrid version of the \"talk-version\", and it was a large bomb. I don't know what all this adds up to in your mind, but I would love to know soon what you think. I shall try tonight to corner de Sabata (he's been ill) and talk it out. We have had, for example, a tentative date for a month to talk about my Violin _Serenade_ which he likes, and haven't yet said a word. You get the picture?\n\nStill, with all this being true, I still apologize for not having written. It has been a wild rush, as you know; and this is now the first breathing spell, now that _Boh\u00e8me_ is finally on (and I alternate operas almost daily). The critics murdered me for _Boh\u00e8me_ , which is natural, since they think they \"know\" this one; but the public loves it. It's really not a very good production, and I have little to do with the stage, which is ridiculous; but the orch. is divine. The cast is mediocre, the sets likewise, the direction horrid. All this in contrast to _Sonnambula_ , which was closely worked out from the beginning by Luchino and me, and shows it. I learn, I learn, all the time.\n\nNow that I have a little time free from rehearsals, etc., I can begin to do the things I have been postponing for six weeks: get _Regina_ settled, give some real thought to the problems of _Candide_ (which are multitudinous) and all the rest. Let me hear from you about the translation business, and about all the other news that your ire prevented you from sending this time.\n\nIt's wonderful to have Felicia here, and we are taking off the next couple of days, probably driving to Florence to see David [Diamond] and Ciro [Cuomo].\n\nLove from us both,\n\nLenny\n\n350. Leonard Bernstein to Marc Blitzstein\n\nGrand Hotel Duomo, Milan, Italy\n\n28 March 1955\n\nDearest Marc,\n\nI've been through hell over _Regina_. I am furious and disgusted, and what is worse, helpless. I now understand the run-around I've gotten: and I've spent the better part of three days discussing it with de Sabata. The latter is genuinely thrilled with the music, there is no doubt. But since the score did not supply the full dialogue, he was waiting for the arrival of the libretto before putting to rest his qualms about the subject matter. After reading the libretto, he finds he cannot allow it to be done at the Scala. He says that the public will not accept such a theme: it is too sadistic, cruel (he even doubts whether censors here would pass it, which is nonsense), and non-operatic in nature. The talk of money is not for the Scala, nor is the spectacle of a woman letting her husband die, etc. etc. etc. I talked it all out with him, tried to explain the values of the play, that it was internationally famous and loved,104 etc. etc. etc. To no avail. I dug up a copy of Ghiringhelli's letter to me last fall saying that it was _definite_ for next season: he admitted that there was a misunderstanding. I have one card left to play: that I will take it to Florence for the Maggio [Musicale] next year. That might make him react. And I will talk to them in Florence about it. I am now angry about it, especially after your last letter with all your suggestions and willingness to change and set spoken lines and all the rest.\n\nThe worst is that de Sabata admires you so very much, and wants to see everything you've done: and is worried that _Regina_ might ruin you here at the outset. Gian-Carlo [Menotti] is here for the _Saint_ [ _of Bleecker Street_ ], and while not agreeing with de S. does agree that it is a dangerous work for the Scala public. Screw them, say I, and do it anyway. That's the duty of an opera house, in whatever city.\n\nI'm going to have one last fling with de Sabata on it, and then bring up the subject in Florence.\n\nDear Marc, I'm sorry. What can I do? _Tahiti_ is off in Florence also, through Italian bungling of another sort. And the headlines scare me. And Burtie sends a miserable letter from Puerto Rico. It is all in all a depressing day, and the sun is shining away as though it were really spring.\n\nMuch love from us both.\n\nLenny\n\n351. Elia Kazan to Leonard Bernstein\n\n7 April 1955\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nI felt terrible about their passing you by.105 Tiomkin's speech told the whole story. I agree with him.106 You wrote one of the really original scores and I felt terrible about what happened. Anyway, I hope you feel that you want to do more pictures because I'm going to come at you with another one.\n\nBudd and I really have a very good idea.\n\nI'm going to Greece and Turkey. I'll be back on June 2. Where will you be this summer? I'll be driving around a lot. Where will you be? I'll be headquartered at Box 25, Sandy Hook, Connecticut. I'd like to see you. Let me know your plans.\n\nLove,\n\nGadg\n\n352. Betty Comden to Leonard Bernstein\n\n350 East 69th Street, New York City, NY\n\n21 April 1955\n\nDearest Lenny,\n\nA short note about a number of things. First, many many thanks for your beautiful words about us. Second, we are still wildly furious about the stupid Academy and could not hear the next ten minutes of the telecast because of our disappointment. Third, saw _Trouble in Tahiti_ 's opening and was re-thrilled, re-inspired, and cried like \u2013 like an idiot. It was a triumph.\n\nTo get back to the album, one of the things Adolph and I hoped to accomplish with it was getting our _songs_ recorded \u2013 so that maybe _someone_ would hear one and decide to do something with or about it. And that has already happened. Lena H[orne] and Lenny H[ayton] were here at a small gathering \u2013 and Adolph brazenly put on the record, and comes \"It's Love\" both L[ena] and L[enny] got excited and asked about a verse \u2013 and getting hold of it \u2013 and then at the _Tahiti_ opening, there they were and Lena said she's been rehearsing it like mad for nearly a week \u2013 and it's great!! Incidentally we'll ship you an album as soon as we have one \u2013 in about two weeks.\n\nAs for _Trouble in Tahiti_ and my crying \u2013 it was beautifully performed by Alice Ghostley, and it is a truly remarkable piece of work \u2013 and I had that feeling of closeness, and desire for us to be working with you, and the sadness of the pressure of time, and everything all at once overwhelming me.\n\nThe \"personal prayer\" \u2013 your notes about us \u2013 is our prayer too. Again, our thank yous.\n\nLove,\n\nBetty\n\n353. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nVia Salaria 366, Rome, Italy\n\n6 May 1955\n\nDarling Bubbles,\n\nRome is beautiful as I have never seen it: blue blue sky, cool air, and the warm sea, and everything blooming away luxuriantly. I am glad I came; but I miss you here. Perverty it is, of course, as is to be expected, but it is not all so, and I am holding my own very well indeed. I have seen a lot of [Gina] Lollobrigida, a gem of a girl: I went to her singing lesson, and watched her work on her current film, and all with _Serenade_ in mind. Remember that one? It's all in the works again, since they fired their Doggyinthewindow composer; Bob Joseph arrived in Milano with Henry Margolies (a charming man, actually, rich and quiet and sensitive) and we have been talking _Serenade_.107 The indicated combination would be Lolly and Luchino a marvelous combo, and both are very eager about it. I am sure that with the right activity Luchino can get to America. I realize not that Reiner spoke through her ass when she said that Luchino could not be gotten over; she is a big speaker with no authority for one half of what she says. I am sure something will work out. And I would be happy for a postponement of a year on _Candide_ : I'd like to have that time to let it cook, and see what should really be done with it. It's wrong the way it is now, that's all I know. The tape has not arrived yet, so I know nothing of the audition sound. I wait every day for word from Lil about May, and I could go to Paris or wherever, but no word from her. Soon it will be too late. I'm a bit sick of the whole thing, and would adore to get going on _Serenade_ and the M\u00fcnch symphony.108\n\nI will leave here Saturday to go back to Milano for the opening of the _Saint_ [ _of Bleecker Street_ ]: then I have to go to Geneva, of all places, to rehearse the Israel orch there (13th\u201315th), then a concert in Trieste (16th\u201318th), then to Florence (19th\u201322nd) then to Genoa to pick up the Israel gang and make the tour. That's the restful prospect at the moment. I wish you were here to do it all with me. Who's going to writhe out front during my Mozart concerto? But meanwhile I am basking in the Roman sun, and having a sort of social life, and thinking about nothing at all. Lunched with the Roberts yesterday, who sent you dearest love. Tonight cocktail party for me at Ruggiero's followed by dinner at the Chisholms. Thrilling. I spent an afternoon at the American Academy hearing the young music, very exciting indeed. Made me want to compose. Saw a revue, ghastly intellectual type, heard Bricktop, saw La Brignone [Lilla Brignone] act in a bad play of [Curzio] Malaparte, etc. I am sneezy with spring blossoms, but not too much so. The cats are all in the garden (say _that_ in six languages) and this is a beautiful house with divine food and comforts and all and all.\n\nI loved both your letters, and ate up every word, and read them over and over. All is as I feared about _Tahiti_. I realized from the notice that the opera had been reduced to a comic aria by Ghostley. You are right in everything you say about it: the same was true this summer in Westport. I am sure that a recording with Ghostley would be ill-advised, despite her talent: because on a record the vocal aspect only is heard, and that won't do for the touching parts. Why won't people realize that it is the touching parts that the opera is about? The rest is only either comment or diversion. I'd love to see you direct it one day. Thanks for not letting them put in the Trio before the office scene: what a cheap amateur notion! The office set simply _has_ to be ready, and that's all. I do hope Heinsheimer will not be high-handed again about the recording. If it is done I should conduct it, and only if it is well planned out with the right cast. He's one for getting things on at all costs.\n\nI've just had word that the _Candide_ tape has arrived in Milano, so I will hear it shortly.\n\nPlease engage a suite for Charlie Roth at Bellevue.109 I can't wait to break his four-time-fixed nose.\n\nI'm terribly worried about Burtie \u2013 no word in over a month, and nothing since my answer to his desperate letter. I wrote him again begging for a word, but nothing. Maybe you should send him a telegram, and insist on some word from him. I really am very troubled about him. Please did [i.e. do] it.\n\nGive my congrats to Marian and Julian (so glad theirs is ugly) and to Pat and Roald.110 Yesterday a lady told me to rub my left little finger on her nose and then said we were sure to have a boy. No end to the ways of determining sex. Are you bigger and biggering? I hope it's not too hot in NY, and that you stay comfortable through these months. I'm dying to hear about the summer house. Write me care of Finzi, Via Manzoni 5.\n\nYes I _am_ interested in a '52 Jaguar! Is it openable? Let's get it, but make sure someone looks carefully at it to see if it's in good condition, etc. And it really _must_ be a convertible, don't you think? Art Stanton was a darling and acted quickly, but I have changed my mind. Too much trouble for too little worth.\n\nI miss you my darling, and long to come home and see what the hell has happened to that little stranger Jamie, and just have a nice long endless booze hour. Keep well and happy, and un sacco di love. Di nuovo,\n\nLennuhtt.\n\nWhat do you mean, Shirley quit her job? What will she do instead?\n\nI can't tell you what the light is like at this moment on this terrace. And the birds sing in a glorious way. Luchino sends you dear love.\n\nThanks for the _Nation_ puzz!\n\n354. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nGrand Hotel Duomo, Milan, Italy\n\n10 May 1955\n\nDarling Madrina,\n\nI long for the sight of you, belly and all, and I'll push myself fast through these next three weeks of conductifying to get home fast. Rome was a delight: weather such as I have rarely beheld, and uninterruptedly, day after day. I got a lot of sun and garden-lolling, and got to the sea three times. There was also a great series of parties, nice people, mostly theatre kids, and it's the same all over. We played the snapping 123 game for hours and sang old Rodgers songs, figurati. I saw a lot of Lollo[brigida] and of Henry Margolies and ultimately of Arlene Francis and Marty Gable (the latter I don't like atall atall, but he's also a producer of _Serenade_ ) and it looks as if things are really cooking for _Serenade_ with la Lollobrigida! I had her sing various times, and when she relaxes it is really lovely, though too small a voice for theatre: but she still has a year to train and make the voice grow. And now Luchino is involved as a possible director which would be great with Gina (and also great for the show, I think) and _Candide_ can go fly a kite. I am not going to waste another year nohow.\n\nNo word at all from Lillian [Hellman] or Ethel [Linder Reiner]: I sat waiting in Rome for a cable which would make me go to Paris, but nothing came, and thank goodness, since I got a bit of a rest. I don't understand what is happening. I began to take the Royal Jelly cure (Queen-bee) and it seems to be doing something: I don't need so much sleep, for example. But it's still too early to tell whether it works or not.\n\nI'm back at the Duomo for two days, just to clean up some items, and then I got to Geneva for a few days (I leave Thursday, stay until Saturday night, when I take a sleeper to Trieste). Address in Geneva: c\/o de Toledo, 46 Quai Gustave Ador. Address in Trieste: Hotel Excelsior (15th, 16th, 17th). From the 18th through the 22nd I'm in Florence (Grand Hotel). The rest Helen has.\n\nI just got the _Candide_ tapes (what a mess at the customs!) and I'm off to the Ricordis to hear them. Did I tell you that Maria [Callas] had an operation? You might drop her a note. She's fine now. Address: Corso Porta Nuova 10. Remember?\n\nI have to run: I'll keep writing. Much love to the _kids_ , fijate, and a sacco to you.\n\nL\n\n355. Leonard Bernstein to Barbara and Philip Marcuse\n\n[En route from Trieste to Florence, Italy]\n\nheaded paper of the Excelsior Palace Hotel, Trieste\n\n18 May 1955\n\nDearest Marcusi,\n\nHere I sit on a train from Trieste to Florence, at the moment stuck forever in the station of Venice, with apparently no intention of continuing, and I am writing you on stationery from the hotel as you can see, and I am thinking about you very hard. I keep wondering how Phil is (and what he is, now that he has become so fascinating and mysterious with the sort of problems I thought only I had); and I keep hoping you really will show up at Tanglefoot. Felicia has been with me for five weeks (up to about three weeks ago) and I am now doing the last lap by myself. Scala is over (it was a mistake to give 3 months to it: I lost my Milanese glamor) and I am currently doing concerts: last night in Trieste (they loved me in Trieste) and now Florence, and then I pick up the Israel orchestra, which is now touring Europe, and do concerts with them in Genoa, Florence again, Naples, Perugia, Bologna, and finally Milano; and then I go home, having dutifully cancelled Holland as per your instructions, to witness the birth of my newest human bean. I should be home the first week in June, and the Bean is expected about mid-June, and we go to the Berkshires beginning of July. Of course none of these dates will work out accurately, and it will be a typical Bernstein confusion; but somewhere in it all I hope to find word from you about your summer plans and your combined _stati d'animo_ , as we say here. I love you as much as ever and miss you, and hope to see you. I was sorry to have had to turn down the very exciting proposals of Kellman, etc., for a Detroit Festival; but there must be a limit somewhere. I discovered in an old book of Chinese divination that my problem is one of self-limitation, and I am therefore working hard on it (as if I didn't know before out of my own private little Jewish divination what my problem was). Some day, preferably soon, I simply must decide what I'm going to be when I grow up.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\nHugs to the kids.\n\n356. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nGrand Hotel, Florence, Italy\n\n23 May 1955\n\nDarling Bubb,\n\nVera brought me your note, which was another breath of spring in primaveral Florence, as were Jamie's kisses. From Vera's description of Jamie and of her talk I don't know what to expect; apparently she has grown and changed so that I won't recognize her. It's a bit frightening to contemplate: I can't wait to see her again. To say nothing of you. Everyone at the parties and the green rooms is again, as before, stating with certainty that it will be a boy this time. Must mean it will surely be a girl. I'm prepared.\n\nThe concerts in Trieste and Florence have both been extraordinary wows, like the great old days. The Prokofieff grows with each performance,111 and I have been playing a hell of a piano these days, I don't know why. Certainly I haven't practiced. At least now the piano-playing is over, and I now begin to concentrate on the _Serenade_ and Isaac [Stern], which is less nerve-wracking, but harder work, because there is a great shortage of rehearsal time with the Jew orchestra. Off to Genoa tomorrow, Sterns in hand. David D[iamond] gave me a charming party last night: he is in fine shape. Titi has been around a lot, and sends you her love, as do all the other Florentines.\n\nYou won't believe this, but the black fairy112 is in again, having covered half the earth from Vienna to New York, he promptly set forth again to Florence, with what money I don't know, and has been beating at the gates to see me (active at T'wood, assistant on the Israel tour, all the old crap) and I have consistently refused to see him. Luckily another pupil of mine, [Piero] Bellugi, has been around, and I got him to take charge of Roth and keep him away from me. According to Bellugi, Roth is madder than ever, and more dangerous. He is now threatening to expose us \"all\" as communists, the idiot. I am just afraid that he will cause some sort of stink through making a scene, with the consulate here, or somehow. He appeared in my dressing room last night after the concert, and I threw him out, and he left with an air of Well That's It, Now I Do My Worst. I'm really scared both for him and of him. He has no money to get back to the US, and will have to go to the Consulate to be shipped home, and that will cause talk. I alternate between saying Ho-Hum and Jesus-Christ. What a horror he is.\n\nTremendous news: I've got a kepepelt [cold], at last. I only hope that I hold out these next 10 days. Lillian has been constantly on the phone, and I may have to go to Paris for two days either after Genoa or after Milano on the 3rd. I hope not, I really do. I'm also a bit embarrassed about all this peddling of the script to all these directors \u2013 it seems almost everyone in the world has been approached short of the Chinese Theatre, and that does not make good talk. In London she is seeing Rex Harrison and [John] Gielgud and [Garson] Kanin and God knows who else, and in Paris [Ren\u00e9] Clair and [Julien] Duvivier and [Jean] Renoir and God knows who else, and for me there is really no work to show that really adds up. It is a situation I don't like at all. I had forgotten what a charm Lil has: speaking to her over the phone reminded me of why one sticks to her through thick: she has a real attractiveness in spite of everything, and a kind of combination of power and helplessness that in a woman is irresistible.\n\n_I want to come home!_ Just think, in addition to coming home to you and Jamie, there will also be Fink \u2013 and a Cadillac! The latter is a slight worry \u2013 do we have the money? If we do, let's get it, and sell the Olds[mobile] in the fall if we have to. There's always the great idea of the two Nashes!\n\nAll my love,\n\nL\n\nVera says you look glorious!\n\nI spent four hours yesterday looking at emeralds for you, and the only decent one I found cost 21,000,000!!! So, let's wait until Lollobrigida makes us a fortch and then you'll _swim_ in emeraldi.\n\n357. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nHotel Colombia, Genoa, Italy\n\n27 May 1955\n\nDarling,\n\nI am just about to leave Genoa, which was after all great fun, in spite of the exhaustion. I had to rehearse the orch. here for the forthcoming tour, and it was a job and a half, teaching them the _Serenade_ and the Berlioz, neither of which they knew, and at a time when they were so tired they could barely read the notes. Then [...] the hall was not available for rehearsal, etc. We finally did it, by sheer dint, rehearsal all afternoon the day of the concert, after which I rushed around Genoa looking for a set of chimes, of all things, which Maria [Callas] helped me to find through Ricordi's [...] and then there was the concert, and the report is that never before has Genoa seen such a success. Imagine, with my funny modern music and unpopular Berlioz! I had feared for the size of the audience as well as for their applause, and was surprised delightfully on both counts. The papers are raves, and Isaac [Stern] played better than ever, and the orchestra really did miracles, everything considered. Then they just went on to Rome, while I stayed here, thank God, for two days with the Sterns [...] A lovely afternoon yesterday at the home of Maria's old parents; today we rented a car and drove to Portofino, but the sun went in bang and we had to come back. But at least it was a breathing spell. Now on to Bologna, and the rest of the one-night-stands, for six days. _Then home_!\n\nListen: Lillian, from London, asks that I stop off in Paris for a day en route home, and I really can't refuse; but I worry so that you'll spring the Fink while I'm not looking that I hesitate. Keep me informed every minute about how things look and feel; if OK by you, I'll go to Paris, and be home probably on the 5th or 6th. I can't wait, really I can't; and you can't scare me with Jamie's tantrums. I've been expecting them all along. I'm dying to see her.\n\nI loved your letter, and the Caddylacky sounds like a dream and I wish you were here to hear the _Serenade_. My, how pretty it is. Terrible about Agee:113 I was prepared for it.\n\nDarling girl, it won't be long now. Please stop yourself up with adhesive tape or corks till I get home!\n\nLOVE\n\nX\n\n358. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nL'Orangerie, Le Cannet, Alpes-Maritimes, France\n\n17 July 1955\n\nPapa Lensk!\n\nAren't you both smart! Take a _big_ double bow. Hope Felicia and the Knabe are doing fine.114\n\nI'm sitting on top of a mountain in a villa overlooking Cannes and the Mediterr[anean]. Picked me a real nice spot (very different from Lago di Garda). It's work in the morning and work in the evening, and the beach in the afternoon (very different from Tanglewood).\n\nWhich reminds me \u2013 how is the old girl? (Tanglewood). Has anyone noticed anything missing?\n\nAfter I left you in Rome I conducted in Paris and London. Watch out, I'm gettin' good.\n\nAnd what, may I ask, has been happening to you? (Did you see the Amer[ican] issue of _The Score_ , with _2_ articles on Bernstein? If not, they'll tell you.)\n\nGuess who I met in Cannes? \u2013 Kiki Speyer and son.\n\nI hear you had to abandon _Canticle_ [ _of Freedom_ ] in Hollywood for lack of a chorus. Too bad. Tell Edie to send me Tanglewood school programs. Want to see what you're up to.\n\nLove,\n\nA\n\n1 Marian MacDowell (1857\u20131956), pianist and widow of the composer Edward MacDowell. Though well into her nineties when she wrote this letter, Mrs. MacDowell remained an indefatigable enthusiast for new music. In 1896 she had bought Hillcrest, a farm in Peterborough, New Hampshire, as a quiet place for her husband, Edward MacDowell, to compose. After his death in 1908, this idyllic location became home to the MacDowell Colony, where composers, writers, and artists could work side by side in peace and quiet. Mrs. MacDowell lived to the age of 98. Colonists, and the works they created at Hillcrest, included Copland ( _Billy the Kid_ ), Virgil Thomson ( _The Mother of Us All_ ), Thornton Wilder ( _Our Town_ ), James Baldwin ( _Another Country_ ), and Du Bose and Dorothy Heywood ( _Porgy and Bess_ ).\n\n2 Mrs. MacDowell is writing to express her enthusiasm for the _Age of Anxiety_ Symphony which she had heard broadcast from New York on 26 February 1950.\n\n3 Bernstein himself spent time at the Colony only after Mrs. MacDowell's death, but his stays in 1962, 1970, and 1972 were all productive, as he recalled in 1987 when accepting the 29th MacDowell medal: \"All of those times I was writing works which had, at least in intent, a vastness; which were dealing with subjects of astronomical if not mystical and astrological dimension. The first time was _Kaddish_. The second time was _Mass_. The last time was to write the six lectures that I later gave at Harvard known as the 'Norton Lectures'. This vastness is inherent somehow in this place. The air smells higher here, and sweeter, and closer to the vastness.\"\n\n4 Marc Blitzstein (1905\u201364), American composer: a brilliant and innovative musician and a committed Communist. He met a violent death, murdered by three Portuguese sailors in Martinique. Bernstein's student production of _The Cradle Will Rock_ in May 1939 took place less than two years after the famous Broadway opening of the original staging by Orson Welles and John Houseman (recounted in gripping detail in Houseman 1972, pp. 245\u20139 and 254\u201378). Bernstein was a dedicated advocate of Blitzstein's music (recording the _Airborne Symphony_ twice), as well as a close friend. Blitzstein was godfather to Jamie Bernstein, and the two younger Bernstein children are named after characters in Blitzstein's stage works: Alexander after Alexandra in _Regina_ , and Nina after the heroine in _Reuben Reuben_. In 1964, Bernstein led a performance of _The Cradle Will Rock_ from the piano as part of the Blitzstein Memorial Concert at Carnegie Hall. The cast included some from the original 1937 production.\n\n5 Bernstein was conducting in Italy and Israel during the preparations and opening of this revival of _Peter Pan_ , for which he had written new songs and incidental music.\n\n6 The opening night of _Peter Pan_ at Broadway's Imperial Theatre was on 24 April 1950.\n\n7 This letter gives a glimpse into the preparations for Bernstein's score of _Peter Pan_ , and the involvement of not only Blitzstein but also Hershy Kay and Trude Rittmann.\n\n8 John Burrell directed the production.\n\n9 Ralph Alswang, the set and lighting designer.\n\n10 Ben Steinberg was the show's conductor.\n\n11 Blitzstein was clearly already at work in 1950 on his English version of _The Threepenny Opera_. Bernstein conducted the first performance of this in 1952 at Brandeis University in Walthau, Massachusetts, with Lotte Lenya leading the cast and Blitzstein providing narrations.\n\n12 A reference to James Thurber's short story _The Night the Bed Fell_ (1933).\n\n13 _Male and Female_ by Margaret Mead, published in 1949.\n\n14 The conductor Paul Paray and his wife Yolande. Paray was briefly Music Director of the Israel Philharmonic in 1949\u201350.\n\n15 See notes 8 and 10 to Letter 296.\n\n16 This is the only mention of _The Age of Anxiety_ in Bernstein's letters to Romney, who had sent Bernstein a copy of Auden's poem when it was first published, with suggestions for its musical treatment (see Letters 257 and 258).\n\n17 Kurt Weill died on 3 April 1950.\n\n18 Oliver Smith, who had lived there.\n\n19 _The Baroness Bazooka_ (1942) is a delicious send-up of operetta by Comden and Green.\n\n20 The score for _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ was eventually written by Arthur Schwartz.\n\n21 Erik Johns (1927\u20132001). He became Copland's secretary in 1948 and they had a romantic relationship. He was later the librettist of _The Tender Land_ (under the pseudonym Horace Everett).\n\n22 The Clarinet Concerto.\n\n23 Robert McGinnis (1910\u201376), principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic from 1948 to 1960. He was succeeded by Stanley Drucker.\n\n24 Judy Holliday was married to David Oppenheim at the time.\n\n25 _Born Yesterday_ , directed by George Cukor. Judy Holliday won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Emma \"Billie\" Dawn.\n\n26 Bernstein's _Age of Anxiety_ was given at the Holland Festival in Scheveningen on 12 July 1950 by the Hague Residentie Orchestra conducted by Willem van Otterloo, with Bernstein at the piano.\n\n27 On 13 July 1950, Furtw\u00e4ngler conducted the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 and _Leonore_ No. 3 Overture, and Brahms' Symphony No. 1. The whole concert was broadcast and has been issued on CD by Tahra (Furt 1012\u201313).\n\n28 This is very similar to the story and screenplay that Comden and Green wrote for _It's Always Fair Weather_ (1955), with a score by Andr\u00e9 Previn, directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly.\n\n29 The next Comden and Green film to be made was their greatest Hollywood success, _Singin' In The Rain_ (1952).\n\n30 Harry Kurnitz (1908\u201368), American playwright and screenwriter whose Hollywood credits included _Witness for the Prosecution_ and _How to Steal a Million_. He collaborated with No\u00ebl Coward on _The Girl Who Came to Supper_. In the 1930s he had also worked as a music critic for the _Philadelphia Record_.\n\n31 See note 88 to Letter 249.\n\n32 Bernstein's first performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was given on 30 August 1950 in the Kurzaal, Scheveningen. It was performed by the Residentie Orchestra of the Hague, the Hague Toonkunstkoor, and the soloists Corry Bijster (soprano), Annie Hermes (contralto), Frans Vroons (tenor), and Willem Ravelli (bass). In the first half, Bernstein doubled as soloist and conductor in the Piano Concerto No. 1. An unsigned review appeared in _De Tijd_ on 31 August 1950. The critic was lukewarm about some aspects of the performance, complaining of \"sensationalized tempi [...] superficiality and lack of nobility in the expression,\" but the overall impression of Bernstein's Beethoven was \"very handsome and very lively, and the applause was exuberant.\"\n\n33 Tanglewood.\n\n34 A popular British car, made from 1948 to 1972.\n\n35 Copland's Piano Quartet was composed in 1950.\n\n36 Nadia Boulanger (1887\u20131979), French teacher, conductor, and composer. On 5 December 1974, Bernstein recalled his first meeting with Nadia Boulanger in a letter to Sylvia Vickers: \"I first visited Paris after the war (1947?), conducting the Radio Orchestra. I believe it was Fran\u00e7ois Val\u00e9ry (son of Paul) who took me at that time to the house of Marie-Blanche de Polignac, the beauteous Countess who had the great 'salon' of those years. I believe they were Sunday evenings, and since Marie-Blanche was a charming singer and music-lover (& patron) her salon was filled with the likes of Poulenc and B\u00e9rard and Val\u00e9ry and, I think, Cocteau. It was there that I met Nadia, and have adored her from that day to this. I never studied with her, but I _feel_ that I have since everything she said impressed me so profoundly. (Besides, so many composers who are close to me, such as Copland, _did_ study with her.) I have almost never returned to Paris without visiting with Nadia, or at least speaking to her on the telephone. She is a super-faithful correspondent and has thus filled in the long gaps between Paris visits, if only with a few always moving lines. [...] She is to this day so terribly aware of time passing, of missed contacts, of the need to be near those we love during every troubled moment. Only last week I had another note from her, in her own shaky but still legible hand, imagine, at her age and in her near-blindness. May she live forever.\"\n\n37 Written on the headed writing paper of the \u00c9coles d'art am\u00e9ricaines, with Boulanger's personal address printed at the foot of the page.\n\n38 Written in French; English translation by the editor.\n\n39 Robert Rossen (1908\u201366), American film director who won an Academy Award for _All the King's Men_ (1949).\n\n40 Presumably Mexico City, since Bernstein wrote this letter while staying in Cuernavaca, Mexico.\n\n41 The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), set up in 1938 to investigate subversive activities or Communist links of American citizens.\n\n42 Albert Maltz (1908\u201385), American author and screenwriter. One of the Hollywood Ten who were blacklisted in 1947 for alleged involvement with the Communist Party.\n\n43 Edward Dimitryk [Dmytryk] (1908\u201399), Canadian-born film director. Another one of the Hollywood Ten.\n\n44 John Garfield (1913\u201352), American actor and a friend of Bernstein's who had been among the guests at the party for his engagement to Felicia in 1947. Garfield appeared before HUAC on 23 April 1951 (a few weeks before Bernstein wrote this letter). When he refused to name any names, Garfield's life quickly disintegrated, and a year later, on 21 May 1952, he died of a heart attack at the age of 39.\n\n45 Ross Evans was Dorothy Parker's secretary and sometime lover.\n\n46 Robert Presnell (1914\u201386) was a screenwriter, married to the actress Marsha Hunt (b. 1917). Both were friends of Bernstein, and both were blacklisted in Hollywood during the \"Red Scare.\"\n\n47 Bernstein was composing _Trouble in Tahiti_.\n\n48 Bernstein conducted Beethoven's _Missa solemnis_ at Tanglewood on 9 August, in memory of Serge Koussevitzky who had died in Boston on 4 June 1951.\n\n49 Felicia was getting regular work in TV drama series. In August 1951 she appeared in \"Death Sabre,\" an episode of _Suspense_ , with the young Leslie Nielsen.\n\n50 Felicia and Leonard had been married nine days earlier, on 9 September.\n\n51 Bruno Walter's illness gave Bernstein the chance to make his spectacular debut with the New York Philharmonic on 14 November 1943.\n\n52 The first recordings of Copland's Clarinet Concerto (Benny Goodman, Columbia String Orchestra, conducted by Copland) and the Piano Quartet (New York Quartet \u2013 Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Alexander Schneider, Milton Katims, and Frank Miller) were released on the same disc by Columbia Records (ML 4421).\n\n53 Mina Kirstein Curtiss (1896\u20131985), writer, translator, and biographer of Georges Bizet. Her younger brother was Lincoln Kirstein, one of the most important figures in the development of ballet in the United States.\n\n54 It should be on the \"o\". Her full name was Eva Mar\u00eda Duarte de Per\u00f3n.\n\n55 Hellman's plays included _The Little Foxes_ and _Another Part of the Forest_.\n\n56 This project for an opera on Eva Per\u00f3n came to nothing, but it's clear from this letter that Bernstein was contemplating it within days of her death (on 28 July 1952). The theatrical potential of her story was famously explored quarter of a century later in _Evita_ by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.\n\n57 Jamie Anne Maria Bernstein was born on 9 September 1952.\n\n58 _Wonderful Town_ had opened at Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre on 25 February 1953, directed by George Abbott. The show had a book and lyrics by Comden and Green, and a score (composed in four weeks) by Bernstein.\n\n59 Abbott was directing _Me and Juliet_ by Rodgers and Hammerstein, which had a pre-Broadway tryout at the Hanna Theatre in Cleveland.\n\n60 Arthur Miller (1915\u20132005), American playwright. _The Crucible_ was widely perceived at the time as an attack on McCarthyism. Miller was summoned to testify before HUAC in June 1956, following a routine request for a passport renewal (a parallel with Bernstein's situation in 1953; see Letter 328). For refusing to name names, Miller was found guilty of contempt of Congress in 1957, a conviction that was reversed a year later.\n\n61 _The Crucible_ opened at the Martin Beck Theatre on 22 January 1953. In June 1953, Miller made several revisions and recast some of the roles. Brooks Atkinson wrote in _The New York Times_ (2 July 1953) that in this revised version, \" _The Crucible_ has acquired a certain human warmth that it lacked amid the shrill excitements of the original version. The hearts of the characters are now closer to the surface than their nerves.\"\n\n62 Francis Poulenc (1899\u20131963), French composer. Bernstein conducted _Les Mamelles de Tir\u00e9sias_ at the Brandeis University Festival of the Creative Arts in June 1953. For Columbia he recorded Poulenc's Concerto for Two Pianos (with Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale), the _Gloria_ , and \u2013 as pianist \u2013 three songs with Jennie Tourel. Bernstein commissioned Poulenc's _Sept R\u00e9pons des T\u00e9n\u00e8bres_ for the New York Philharmonic. Shortly after Poulenc's death, Benny Goodman and Bernstein gave the world premiere of the Clarinet Sonata, on 10 April 1963.\n\n63 Written in French; English translation by the editor.\n\n64 This lengthy document, a kind of \"loyalty oath,\" is a chilling reminder of its time: McCarthyism was at its height, and thousands of Americans were investigated for alleged Communist sympathies. A number of Bernstein's friends had been ordered to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Jerome Robbins testified on 5 May 1953 and named several names (see Vaill 2007, pp. 215\u201320). Aaron Copland appeared as a witness on 25 May 1953. He wrote a darkly amusing account of his grilling by Senator McCarthy (printed in Copland and Perlis 1992, pp. 193\u20135): \"My impression is that McCarthy had no idea who I was or what I did, other than the fact I was part of the State Department's exchange program at one time... It occurred to me... as McCarthy entered that it was similar to the entrance of Toscanini \u2013 half the battle won before it begins through the power of personality.\" David Diamond was also summoned by HUAC, and according to Howard Pollack (Pollack 1999, p. 191), a nervous Diamond asked his mentor for advice: \"What if I'm asked a question about Lenny?\" Copland's sage reply was, \"You say what you feel you have to say.\"\n\nInstead of being called to HUAC (which was well aware of his alleged associations with \"subversive\" groups), Bernstein endured a different kind of torture: \"He was not subpoenaed to appear before HUAC or Senate committees but was instead drawn into living hell in July 1953 by the US State Department's refusal to renew his passport\" (Seldes 2009, p. 69). The State Department was entitled to use its regulations to refuse or revoke passport applications if it believed that an applicant had Communist sympathies or associations (a practice halted in 1958, at least in theory, by the Supreme Court's landmark judgment on the right to travel in the case of Rockwell Kent et al. v. John Foster Dulles). Bernstein's sworn affidavit, printed here in its entirety, was a comprehensive document, \"a humiliating confession of political sin\" according to Seldes (2009, p. 70). It had the desired short-term effect, since he received his renewed passport a few days later, on 12 August 1953.\n\nBut this document was to haunt Bernstein for years to come. In 1954 it was presented to the American Legion for its approval, so that Bernstein could be allowed to work in Hollywood to compose the score for _On the Waterfront_ (see Seldes 2009, p. 71) \u2013 a film directed by Elia Kazan, with a screenplay by Budd Schulberg and including Lee J. Cobb among its stars: all three had named names to HUAC. That all three should have been involved in the creation of a film about the shame and danger of informing is bitterly ironic.\n\nThe submission of this affidavit didn't end Bernstein's problems. His declassified FBI files make for absorbing reading (they are available online at vault.fbi.gov\/leonard-bernstein) and show not only that he continued to come under suspicion, but that this affidavit was often used as a document that indicated the need for further investigation. In 1954\u20135 the FBI compiled a report for William F. Tompkins, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Internal Security Division in Eisenhower's administration. On 1 October 1954, Tompkins wrote to the Director of the FBI with the subject: \"Leonard Bernstein. Security Matter \u2013 C[ommunist]. Fraud Against Government.\" The alleged \"fraud\" was based on apparent contradictions between Bernstein's 1953 affidavit and the information gathered by the FBI about his political affiliations. A memorandum was sent to the New York office by the FBI Director on 12 October with instructions to start an investigation, adding that \"this matter should be handled immediately.\" The reports subsequently sent to Tompkins reveal that informants against Bernstein in the past were recontacted for this investigation. Almost a year later, on 11 August 1955, J. Edgar Hoover wrote to Tompkins that the Bureau had \"forwarded additional information for your consideration with regard to a possible violation on the subject's part of the Fraud Against the Government Statutes. It is requested that you advise this Bureau of any decision reached by you relative to this matter.\" After reviewing this \"additional information,\" Tompkins replied that \"the only available evidence linking the subject with the Communist Party is based on hearsay rather than personal knowledge. As such it is insufficient to warrant prosecution of the subject under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001 [relating to making \"materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation\"] and Section 1541 [relating to fraudulent issue of a passport], for his denial of Communist Party membership or having ever knowingly engaged in activities connected with the Communist Party movement.\" That investigation was closed in September 1955.\n\nBut Bernstein was the subject of other security (rather than fraud) investigations by the FBI between 1951 and 1958, catalogued in an Office Memorandum dated 31 August 1959 from G. H. Scatterday to Alan Belmont (then Assistant Director of the Domestic Intelligence Division). This memorandum also states that \"During the security investigation of Bernstein, Washington Field Office reviewed HCUA [House Committee on Un-American Activities] files which were found to be replete with information concerning Bernstein's connection with C[ommunist] P[arty] front organizations.\"\n\nDuring the Kennedy years, Bernstein's past was raked over yet again. On 1 September 1961, Hoover wrote to Kenneth O'Donnell, Kennedy's Special Assistant, responding to a request for \"name checks concerning eighty individuals in connection with the Advisory Committee on the Arts\" and attaching a rehashed summary of the FBI's findings on Bernstein since the 1940s. In 1962 the New York Office of the FBI sent the Washington Field Office a photograph of Bernstein, with a bizarre memorandum headed \" _Unsub_ : American musician alleged to be a Soviet agent.\" During the early 1960s, several concerned cranks wrote directly to Hoover, one of the oddest being a nun from the Sisters of St. Joseph in Brooklyn, NY (as with the names of all informants, her name has been redacted in the released Bernstein files). In a letter postmarked 9 March 1963, she wrote: \"It has been brought to my attention that Leonard Bernstein, the noted conductor of the new Lincoln Center in New York City, has Communistic tendencies. For this reason I am writing to you with the hope that you will be able to enlighten my Community (two thousand Sisters of St Joseph) and me with the truth. His performances are listed among our very limited number of programs which may be seen. I do not know if the Bureau is permitted to disclose any findings of Mr. Bernstein's past life [...] May God bless you for your wonderful work.\" J. Edgar Hoover replied personally on 13 March, thanking his correspondent (\"My dear Sister\") for \"the kind sentiments you expressed concerning my efforts as Director of the FBI,\" explaining that information in FBI files is \"confidential and available for official use only pursuant to regulations of the Department of Justice,\" and ending: \"I trust you will not infer either that we do or do not have information regarding Mr. Leonard Bernstein.\" A note attached to Hoover's reply states that \"Leonard Bernstein was placed on the Security Index 5\u20132\u201351, and was canceled 3\u201318\u201352, when the Prominent Individuals Subdivision of the Security Index was discontinued.\"\n\nAs late as April 1966, when Bernstein applied for his passport to be renewed so that he could go to Vienna to work with the Vienna Philharmonic, an FBI Memorandum recycled much of its earlier material. By 1967, an internal memorandum added Bernstein's support for civil rights organizations to an otherwise familiar summary: \"Bernstein has been active in the civil rights movement and in 1965 Harry Bellafonte organized a group of musical and literary artists to take part in the Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, march. Bernstein was one of the artists who made up this delegation.\" That additional information was communicated to Mrs. Mildred Stegall (aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson) at the White House on 5 March 1968 after she requested a routine security check.\n\nIn the available files, two further episodes attracted the FBI's attention. The first, unsurprisingly, was the event held in the Bernstein apartment on 14 January 1970 to raise funds for the legal defence of the Black Panthers. Through off-the-record press briefings and leaks to friendly journalists, the FBI sought to discredit Bernstein and his wife. Ten years later, after some of the FBI files relating to this event had been made available under the Freedom of Information Act, a furious Bernstein was quoted in _The New York Times_ (22 October 1980): \"I have substantial evidence now available to all that the F.B.I. conspired to foment hatred and violent dissension among blacks, among Jews and between blacks and Jews. My late wife and I were among many foils used for this purpose, in the context of a so-called 'party' for the Panthers in 1970 which was neither a party nor a 'radical chic' event for the Black Panther Party, but rather a civil liberties meeting for which my wife had generously offered our apartment. The ensuing FBI-inspired harassment ranged from floods of hate letters sent to me over what are now clearly fictitious signatures, thinly-veiled threats couched in anonymous letters to magazines and newspapers, editorial and reportorial diatribes in _The New York Times_ , attempts to injure my long-standing relationship with the people of the state of Israel, plus innumerable other dirty tricks. None of these machinations has adversely affected my life or work, but they did cause a good deal of bitter unpleasantness.\"\n\nThe last event covered in the available FBI files is one that shows the organization at its most paranoid. Bernstein's _Mass_ was written for the inaugural event of the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on 8 September 1971. On 9 July and on 16 August 1971 memoranda were sent to Charles D. Brennan, then Assistant Director of the Domestic Intelligence Division, with the subject \"Proposed plans of antiwar elements to embarrass the United States Government.\" The second described a \"plot by Leonard Bernstein, conductor and composer, to embarrass the President [Nixon] and other Government officials through an antiwar and anti-Government musical composition to be played at the dedication of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts [several lines redacted]. The purpose of this action was to embarrass high Government officials, possibly even the President who might be present.\" It also cited Bernstein's visits to discuss the _Mass_ with the priest and peace activist Daniel Berrigan while he was in Danbury Jail (he was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list for his anti-Vietnam campaigning). The FBI memorandum of 16 August also describes an attempted visit that was thwarted: \"On 7-14-71, Bernstein attempted to visit Berrigan at Danbury but was denied admission by prison officials after consulting Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C.\" On the day of the first performance, 8 September, Brennan received another memorandum (for information only) summarizing the situation and citing a report in _Human Events_ that \"Bernstein intended to embarrass the President with an antiadministration bombshell,\" but reminding Brennan that Nixon had already announced he would not be present out of courtesy to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, stating that the formal opening \"should really be her night.\" Nixon's views on Bernstein were robustly antagonistic. While he will certainly have known of Bernstein's alleged Communist associations in the past, Nixon also regarded him as a dangerous musical modernist. In a White House memorandum to Bob Haldeman dated 26 January 1970, Nixon offered these thoughts: \"As you, of course, know those who are on the modern art and music kick are 95 percent against us anyway. I refer to the recent addicts of Leonard Bernstein and the whole New York crowd. When I compare the horrible monstrosity of Lincoln Center with the Academy of Music in Philadelphia I realize how decadent the modern art and architecture have become. This is what the Kennedy\u2013-Shriver crowd believed in and they had every right to encourage this kind of stuff when they were in. But I have no intention whatever of continuing to encourage it now.\"\n\nOne final request for a security \"name check\" for Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Bernstein was made during the Ford administration, with the FBI submitting the following on 18 November 1974: \"Mr. Bernstein, who you advised is a conductor [...] has been the subject of various security-type investigations conducted by the FBI since the early 1950s based on information that he had affiliated with or supported in some manner 15 organizations cited as communistic or subversive. Leonard Bernstein [...] has been active in the civil rights movement. [...]. On May 12, 1971, Leonard Bernstein and his wife hosted a fund-raising party in support of Philip F. Berrigan and five co-defendants charged with conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up heating systems in Federal buildings in Washington, D.C.\" While this document describes an alleged \"conspiracy,\" it makes no mention of the humiliating defeat suffered by the government when its case failed to secure any convictions on major charges at the trial of the so-called \"Harrisburg Seven.\" Perhaps this isn't such a surprise in the context of Bernstein's FBI file, which for more than twenty years reveals that officials repeated hearsay allegations of his \"Communist\" associations without ever, it seems, making any serious attempt to discover whether there was a shred of truth in them. The \"Red Scare\" is generally thought of as a phenomenon of America in the 1950s. Bernstein's FBI files reveal that for the security services, at least, it was still an active issue in the 1970s, with campaigning for civil rights, and against the Vietnam War, being added to lists of \"subversive\" activities.\n\n65 _Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television_ was published by the right-wing magazine _Counterattack_ on 22 June 1950, and named 151 actors, writers, musicians, journalists, and others as Communist sympathizers, giving what purported to be details of their affiliations with suspect organizations. Bernstein was included, along with a number of his friends and colleagues such as Marc Blitzstein, Aaron Copland, Olin Downes, Lillian Hellman, Judy Holliday, Lena Horne, John LaTouche, and Arthur Laurents. Eric Barnouw prints a complete list of those named, and describes them as \"151 of the most talented and admired people in the industry \u2013 mostly writers, directors and performers. They were people who had helped make radio an honored medium, and who were becoming active in television. Many had played a prominent role in wartime radio, and had been articulators of American war aims. In short, it was a roll of honor\" (Barnouw 1990, pp. 122 and 124).\n\n66 The Rural Free Delivery Service of the United States Postal Service.\n\n67 Address added by hand, on the headed writing paper of the Berkshire Music Center, Tanglewood.\n\n68 James McInerney (1905\u201363), American lawyer. He joined the FBI in 1935 and was responsible for investigating internal security cases at the Department of Justice during the Second World War. In 1950, he was appointed Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division by President Truman. With the change of administration in 1953, McInerney left the Justice Department and returned to private practice in Washington until his death in a car accident in October 1963. His most famous clients were the Kennedy family, for whom he handled many delicate matters.\n\n69 Bernstein and the New York Stadium Symphony Orchestra recorded four symphonies for American Decca on 22, 24, 26, 29, and 30 June 1953: Beethoven's _Eroica_ , Brahms' Fourth, Schumann's Second, and Tchaikovsky's _Path\u00e9tique_. A month later, on 28 July, they recorded Dvo\u0159\u00e1k's _New World_.\n\n70 Ciro Cuomo was Diamond's Italian secretary-companion who became his devoted friend.\n\n71 _Carnival in Flanders_ was a dismal flop, opening on 8 September and closing four days later. Set in Flanders in 1616, the cast included Dolores Gray and John Raitt. It had music by Jimmy Van Heusen and lyrics by Johnny Burke. The sets were by Oliver Smith.\n\n72 _Hazel Flagg_ , with a score by Jule Styne and lyrics by Bob Hilliard, ran on Broadway from 11 February to 19 September 1953.\n\n73 _Wonderful Town_ began its successful Broadway run of 559 performances on 25 February 1953.\n\n74 _Can-Can_ , with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, opened on 7 May 1953 and ran for 892 performances.\n\n75 Rosalind Russell (as Ruth Sherwood) was the star of _Wonderful Town_.\n\n76 Cheryl Crawford (1902\u201386), American theater producer. Bernstein was to encounter her again two years later when he was working on _West Side Story_ (she withdrew before the show opened). In this letter he responds to Crawford's request for an overture to accompany a summer tour of _Trouble in Tahiti_.\n\n77 Alice Ghostley (1926\u20132007), American singer and actor. She sang the role of Dinah in _Trouble in Tahiti_ on tour, and again when it arrived on Broadway as part of a triple bill called _All In One_ (alongside dances by Paul Draper and Tennessee Williams' _27 Wagons Full of Cotton_ ), described by Brooks Atkinson in _The New York Times_ (20 April 1955) as \"an evening of superb theatre art.\"\n\n78 David Brooks (1915\u201399), American singer, actor, producer, and director. He directed _Trouble in Tahiti_.\n\n79 Elia Kazan (1909\u20132003), American film director and co-founder of the Actors Studio. As a student at Williams College he was known as \"Gadget\", shortened to \"Gadg\". His notorious appearance as a \"friendly\" witness at the HUAC hearings made him very unpopular among his more liberal friends and colleagues, but his gifts were such that Stanley Kubrick called Kazan, \"without question, the best director we have in America.\" Much of this letter is about _On the Waterfront_ , for which Bernstein wrote his only score composed specially for Hollywood. The majority of the music had been already been recorded in Hollywood, on 24, 27, and 28 April 1954 (see Burlingame 2003, pp. 130\u20131). Bernstein's _Symphonic Suite from \"On the Waterfront\"_ was made in 1955 and first performed on 11 August 1955 at Tanglewood. It was dedicated to Alexander Bernstein, who had been born on 7 July.\n\n80 Kazan is exaggerating a little, since Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger had appeared in earlier films, but _On the Waterfront_ was their first major success; it was a screen debut for Eve Marie Saint.\n\n81 Some of _On the Waterfront_ was filmed in Hoboken, NJ.\n\n82 Serenak was the home of Serge Koussevitzky in the grounds of Tangleword.\n\n83 Bernstein's _Serenade after Plato's Symposium_ for violin and orchestra.\n\n84 Darius Milhaud (1892\u20131974), French composer whose music, with its elements of polytonality and jazz, appealed strongly to Bernstein. One of Bernstein's first recordings (in November 1945) was of Milhaud's _La Cr\u00e9ation du Monde_ , a work he conducted regularly.\n\n85 Bernstein was due to conduct the stage premiere of Milhaud's opera _David_ at La Scala in January 1955. At short notice, he canceled in order to devote time to _Candide_ , and Nino Sanzogno took over conducting duties for _David_.\n\n86 Antonio Ghiringhelli, _sovrintende_ (general manager) of La Scala.\n\n87 George Singer (1908\u201380) conducted the world premiere of Milhaud's _David_ in Jerusalem on 1 June 1954.\n\n88 Milhaud was more diplomatic about Singer in his autobiography, _My Happy Life_ : \"It was George Singer who took on the job of conducting David and he needed all the patience he could muster [...] in the end the singers, the Orchestra of the Jerusalem Radio reinforced by the brass from the Police Band, the Jerusalem Radio Chorus and the Students' Choir of the Conservatoire [...] gave my work a rousingly ardent reading. It was, after all, their piece\" (Milhaud 1995, p. 228).\n\n89 Bernstein originally planned to play Schuman's Sixth Symphony in his Italian concerts.\n\n90 For _Candide_.\n\n91 Felicia appeared in ten episodes of _Kraft Television Theatre_ between 1949 and 1956. _Emma_ was broadcast on 24 November 1954, and Felicia played the title role of Emma Woodhouse in a cast that also included Roddy McDowall as Mr. Elton.\n\n92 Felicia appeared opposite Louis Jourdan in the out-of-town tryouts for _Tonight in Samarkand_ , a play by Jacques Deval presented in Princeton and Boston. She was not in the cast of the short Broadway run that followed.\n\n93 Charles Roth was \"a young conducting student Bernstein taught in 1950 and 1951 at Tanglewood\" (Burton 1994, p. 245). Roth was a disturbed individual who threatened to blackmail Bernstein, or to make public Bernstein's letters to him. He is referred to in several letters to Felicia from 1955 as the \"Black Fairy\".\n\n94 Eaves and Brooks were the two leading theatrical costume companies in New York.\n\n95 Bernstein's pet-name for Alexander before he was born.\n\n96 _Tonight in Samarkand_ was directed by Alan Schneider, whose later Broadway credits included the original (1962) production of Edward Albee's _Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?_\n\n97 The London production of _Wonderful Town_ opened on 25 February 1955 at the Prince's Theatre.\n\n98 \"The Wrong-Note Rag\".\n\n99 A slightly optimistic forecast: the London production of _Wonderful Town_ did well, but only ran for 207 performances.\n\n100 \"The Black Fairy\" was Charles Roth. See note 92 to Bernstein's letter (346) to Felicia of 11 February 1955.\n\n101 For _Wonderful Town_.\n\n102 Milton Greene (1913\u20132000) was a conductor, arranger, and pianist whose most important Broadway credit was as the original conductor of _Fiddler on the Roof_.\n\n103 Bernstein did as Comden requested and wrote a charming tribute for the record jacket:\n\nEver since we first met, there has been a beloved object in my life called Betty-and-Adolph. This prodigy, apart from being two very dear people, has for many years supplied me with pure, profound laughter, as it has so many others; and it has a way of turning every hearer into a doting fan. But Betty-and-Adolph is not only a thing of laughter. With the years, it has grown in warmth, understanding, theatrical mastery, subtlety and appeal, always making its personal, sweet-sour comment on the follies and lovable sentimentalities of American life. Betty-and-Adolph as performers represent something complete and exquisite. In recent years I have watched them as creators going forward with increasing power, in a fluid state of development that may lead to any number of new forms. It is my belief that this joyous Cerberus will eventually furnish us with what will one day be known as American opera. Nowhere else in America is there to be found this combination of musical instinct and knowledge, theatrical perfection and literate immediacy. It has been my joy to work with them on two shows, and it is my hope to continue forever.\n\n104 Blitzstein's _Regina_ is based on Lillian Hellman's _The Little Foxes_ (1939), an extremely successful play that was made into a film starring Bette Davis in 1941 before Blitzstein adapted it for his opera. Regina was first performed on Broadway on 31 October 1949, conducted by Maurice Abravanel.\n\n105 _On the Waterfront_ won eight Academy Awards in 1955, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), Best Supporting Actor (Eve Marie Saint), and Best Director (Kazan). Though Bernstein's score was nominated, it didn't win.\n\n106 The winner of the Academy Award for Best Score was Dimitri Tiomkin, for _The High and the Mighty_.\n\n107 In 1955, the idea of a musical version of James M. Cain's _Serenade_ \u2013 which had so appealed to Bernstein in 1947 \u2013 was explored once again, with Arthur Laurents writing the book. As this letter shows, Bernstein was approached to compose the score.\n\n108 A very early mention of the work that became the _Kaddish_ Symphony.\n\n109 Bellevue Hospital in New York is famous for its psychiatric facilities.\n\n110 Patricia Neal and Roald Dahl. Their first child, Olivia, was born on 20 April 1955. Olivia's tragic death from measles encephalitis seven years later left Dahl \"destroyed\" according to Patricia Neal. He never spoke of her, but on the twentieth anniversary of her death he dedicated _The BFG_ to Olivia's memory.\n\n111 Bernstein programmed Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony for the concert in Florence, along with Mozart's Symphony No. 39 and the Ravel G major Concerto directed from the piano.\n\n112 Charles Roth. See note 92 to Bernstein's letter of 11 February 1955.\n\n113 The writer James Agee died of a heart attack on 16 May 1955.\n\n114 Alexander Bernstein was born on 7 July 1955.\n5\n\nWest Side Story\n\n1955\u20137\n\nIt was in the summer and autumn of 1955 that _West Side Story_ started to take shape as a viable project. Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, and Bernstein had quietly set the idea to one side since first discussing it in 1949, but quite suddenly it was on again, thanks to the impetus of reports in the news about gang warfare. The story told in Bernstein's 1957 _West Side Log_ is that the moment of discovery happened in Hollywood when he had a meeting with Laurents in August 1955, but a letter written to him a month earlier by Laurents suggests that it was more complicated than that. Still, it was the outcome that mattered: a new outline, introducing Puerto Rican immigrants, and, with them, the Latin American musical elements that would be so crucial to the score's colors. As well as refining the plot, a second vital factor was bringing Stephen Sondheim into the project to write the lyrics. Over the next two years, the four collaborators were mostly able to discuss the project in the same place and at the same time \u2013 so there's not much correspondence between them about the show \u2013 but before they got down to serious work, Robbins responded in detail to the new Laurents\u2013Bernstein outline, giving important clues about how he wanted the show to develop. It was not only as a creative genius that Robbins' role was of such fundamental importance in the evolution of _West Side Story_. On a personal level, he was one of the very few people who could get complete commitment from Bernstein, and who could insist on \u2013 and inspire \u2013 music of the highest quality. Robbins' letters to Bernstein are often brusque and brutally honest, but the respect they had for each other is unmistakable.\n\nPreparations for the troublesome _Candide_ kept Bernstein from devoting himself exclusively to what was still known as \"the Romeo show\" in mid-1956. And on top of all that, and a busy conducting schedule, there were also television projects. For _Omnibus_ , Bernstein's \"Introduction to Modern Music\" prompted Gunther Schuller to write a long, eloquently argued letter about how to present a balanced account of recent developments in music: he questioned Bernstein's stance on Schoenberg and his complete omission of Webern. (An intriguing sideline: while it's tempting to read too much into the impact of a single letter, can it be a coincidence that a year after Schuller wrote, Webern's _Six Pieces for Orchestra_ were included on a Bernstein program with the New York Philharmonic, and in one of the Young People's Concerts?)\n\nWhile Bernstein was working feverishly on the last stages of _West Side Story_ , Felicia took Jamie and Alexander to visit her family in Chile, partly to give him some peace and quiet, and partly to escape what must have been an increasingly intense atmosphere. The consequence is an exchange of letters between Bernstein and Felicia that chronicle the final weeks of composing the show, the rehearsals in New York and Washington, D.C., the changes Bernstein was forced to accept (reluctantly in some cases \u2013 but judging from the manuscript evidence of earlier versions of some numbers, the instincts of Robbins, Laurents, and Sondheim were unerringly right), and the euphoria of the first night of the out-of-town try-out at the National Theatre in Washington. Felicia was delighted to hear Bernstein's exciting (and excited) news, and wrote back with plenty of her own, above all some delightful vignettes of the children.\n\n_West Side Story_ opened at Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre on 26 September 1957 \u2013 and the day after, Bernstein and Felicia flew to Israel for the inaugural concerts of the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv. Bernstein wasn't in New York for the cast recording of _West Side Story_ , but Sondheim was, and he sent Bernstein a wonderfully detailed account of the sessions. Parallel to _West Side Story_ , there was another major development in Bernstein's career: two weeks before the show opened in Washington, Bernstein signed the contract to become Music Director of the New York Philharmonic: over the next decade, the inevitable consequence of this appointment was a shift in the focus of Bernstein's activities, and it was as a conductor that he would need to concentrate most of his energies. _West Side Story_ was a ground-breaking hit, certainly \u2013 but it was to be Bernstein's last triumph on Broadway.\n\n359. Arthur Laurents to Leonard Bernstein\n\nDune Road, Quogue, NY\n\n19 July [1955]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI'm sending a copy of this letter and the enclosed to Jerry. Obviously, it is the barest of skeletons \u2013 but it is on the line we worked out and agreed on. And will, I hope, be some sort of basis for all of us to do some thinking on before we meet again.\n\nI don't know whether you've been so busy that you've missed all the juvenile gang war news.1 Not only is it all over the papers every day, but it is going to be all over the movie screens. Arthur Miller, or so I read, is doing an original drama on the subject for the movies.2\n\nBy accident, then, we have hit on an idea which is suddenly extremely topical, timely, and just plain hot. For this reason, I hope we can get to serious work on it as early as we planned. But more than that, if there is any way of getting the thing done this season, I hope we can find it. To my way of thinking, it would be perfect timing to present this on Broadway early in the spring. I don't know if it's possible but with all this splurge of interest in the subject, I think we would be missing a big opportunity if we didn't capitalize on it.\n\nIncidentally, I hope you noticed I didn't say \"East Side Story\".3 This was because of our mutual feeling that the locale should not be specific or definitely placed in any specific city.\n\nLove to Felicia, your brood and yourself.\n\nArthur\n\n360. Arthur Laurents to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Beverly Hills, CA]\n\nMonday [?Summer or Autumn 1955]4\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nThis, frankly, is an all-out attempt to get you to come out here for a week. And Jerry and I are going to phone you later this week. I would not write this if I did not really think it was important. I wouldn't be staying out here myself, for that matter, no matter how pool-lush the life is. Let me explain.\n\nThe Comden\u2013Green\u2013Styne show5 has bogged down. For many reasons; maybe you know them. Beginning with Leland [Hayward]'s exit, with Jule's [Styne's] productions, with Betty and Adolph's movie work. They don't know how much more work they will have to do on their latest, when they can get back to their show, etc. Furthermore, they spoke to Jerry about doing the lyrics for ours. I understand you spoke to them, about the lyrics. Jerry told them you and I planned to try ourselves. If you and he feel they are right and would like to have them join the project, I am, you know, willing to go along.6 I don't know how right they are but Jerry seemed to think they could be guided and helped and even pushed \u2013 as, he says, they never really have been into doing a good job.\n\nBut that is secondary. The point is that Jerry's decks are clear _at this moment_ for the spring. He and I have been working very well together. By the end of this week, we should have a pretty good outline to go over with you. His concern about the spring is: Will the show be ready? You know him and how he wants his commitments committed well in advance. If you came out, I am absolutely convinced a) the show would be ready and b) we could convince him that it would be ready and thus he would commit himself for a spring production. He would also take it as an evidence of your faith and more, we could actually wind up all the preliminary work we have all talked about and that is so damn necessary. It would not take more than a week. The fare is inexpensive now and you could stay here. There is plenty of room, he has a man who cooks and cleans (lush life), a big pool (lush life), you and I could work during the day and hash it over with him at night. I admit: no social life. One big party, Jerry says. Unless you make your social life quite late at night or in the afternoons. But what are the words, what can I say to urge you to please come out? None I suppose beyond the fact that I \u2013 again \u2013 am convinced that the outline would be set and the show would be set for spring. Which is really what we all want. Please think very seriously about all this and then make your reservation to come out Sunday night and start work Monday. One week, that's all.\n\nAs for production contracts, that's no part of this really. Except Bob Joseph has really been shooting off his wild mouth rather stupidly, and what he hasn't mucked up, Arnold Weissberger has done, and brilliantly. The plan is now for a collaboration agreement between you, Jerry and me to be drawn up, and _then_ proceed from there. But I suppose David Hocker, whom we just spoke to, will or has informed you about all this.\n\nLenny \u2013 again and again: please do come out for the one week. It is terribly important if you want a spring production. I know I do.\n\nMy love to Felicia and your brood and, obviously, to you.\n\nArthur\n\n361. Jack Gottlieb7 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n806 California Avenue, Urbana, IL\n\n2 October 1955\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI saw _It's Always Fair Weather_ last night; it was very disappointing. True, there were many funny moments, but they didn't add up. For me it was a slick pastiche without any integration. But more than this, what actually disturbed me was the New York-ese evocation. I should think that after _On the Town_ and _Wonderful Town_ Comden and Green had had their say on the subject. It seems that this gold mine doesn't exhaust itself for them. Don't they ever have pangs about using the same kind of subject matter? \u2013 three soldiers instead of three sailors, the New York stereotypes, etc. Besides repeating themselves, I also felt that at several points they veered dangerously close to _Guys and Dolls_. As for the music \u2013 [Andr\u00e9] Previn may be a great pianist, but really now!\n\nWhat this is leading up to is _East Side Story_. If I'm not wrong, this is supposed to be a Bronxite version of _Romeo and Juliet_. The basic idea is novel (as was _Carmen Jones_ ); so was _Fair Weather_. When I think of what might have really been done with the idea of three war buddies meeting again after ten years \u2013 what a truly great drama ( _not_ musical) could have come out of it. Similarly, _East Side Story_ \u2013 are you sure this is stuff for a _musical_ , and, if it is, are the now familiar gimmicks of the floating crap game, chewing-gum drawl, subway rendezvous ( _S_ [ _ain_ ] _t of Bleak_ [ _Bleecker Street_ ]), etc., ad nauseam, going to be rehashed again? I hope not. Enough metropolitana! Also, don't forget that there are historical connotations involved in _Romeo and Juliet_. When Blacher's version was done at Tanglewood (e.g.) from the historical orientation, how fully could one accept a Negro as Romeo and a white girl as Juliet \u2013 even though the whole medium is, to begin with, artificial?\n\nFor the past two weeks I have been taking my Doctorate entrance exams \u2013 harmonic and formal analysis, ear training and dictation, counterpoint, history, and an English exam and the Miller Analogy Test. I am exhausted! If nothing else, these exams point up how really ill-equipped I am! I still can't write a fugue \u00e0 la Gedalge; my dictation is abominable. It's quite sickening. Actually, I am nothing but an animal in music. I work and respond with emotions; the craft is negligible. One other person is taking the degree with me \u2013 Kenneth Gaburo \u2013 a Gershwin award winner who has just finished a Fulbright in Italy. He is about 33 and is certainly far advanced in relation to myself. If there were ten of us, I wouldn't mind, but it is so easy to make comparisons when only two are involved. He won the Gershwin award along with James Dalgliesh, who has since died.8\n\nIt's a good thing that no one else but myself eats my food. I make enough spaghetti for ten people, pot roast like rubber, stuffed pepper like the stones. For anyone else it may be amusing; for me it's just a pain. At least I keep the pots clean \u2013 so there's [no] chance of my developing dysentery. If I could only cook \u2013 !\n\nThree times a day \u2013 morning, noon, night \u2013 I journey back and forth to school. That is the extent of my contact with the world. From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. I keep busy at the desk and piano. I practice about 5 hours every night, plus accompany dance classes 1 hour per day. I knock myself out, so that there will be no time to wallow in self-pity. The only misery comes when I try to fall asleep \u2013 it's so damn difficult. I enjoy my students, but, at the same time, I resent their drain upon my time which could be spent composing \u2013 preparing lessons, correcting assignments and tests, private coaching sessions; ugh! I'm sorry to say that the main trouble is that my body is in Urbana, Illinois, but my heart and mind are on W. 57th St in Gotham. If there were only someone to talk to \u2013\n\nLove,\n\nJack\n\n362. Jerome Robbins to Arthur Laurents and Leonard Bernstein\n\n18 October 1955\n\nDear Arthur and Lenny,\n\nI am dictating this in 15 minutes I have free during lunch, so I'll get right to it. Excuse the directness, but it's the only way I can get this off to you.\n\nIt concerns the outline, but before I tell you my objections I want you to know that I think it's a hell of a good job and very much on the right track, and that these differences are incidental to the larger wonderful job you are both doing.9\n\nI don't agree with the 3 act division. I feel strongly that this negates the time pressure connected with the whole show and mitigates against the tenseness of the story being crammed into 2 or 3 days. Moreover, there's not sufficient material in Act II or III to stand up by themselves. And it's a serious mistake to let the audience out of our grip for 2 intermissions.10\n\nAct I, Scene 2. Would like to suggest that the meeting between Romeo and Juliet be more abrupt rather than an observing of each other from a distance at first. In general, suddenness of action is something we should strive for,11 beginning with the tempo key in which we establish Scene 1. Its violence and excitement should cue us for all our dramatic moments; i.e. the suddenness and horror of the murders at the end of the rumble, the discovery of love, etc. etc.\n\nAct I, Scene 5. You are away off the track with the whole character of Anita. She is the typical downbeat blues torch-bearing 2nd character (Julie of _Showboat_ , etc.) and falls into a terrible clich\u00e9.12 The audience will know that somewhere a \"my man done left me\" blues is coming up for her. Furthermore, this puts the girl above the age limit and experience that the gang should have and completely disturbs the adolescent quality.13 If she's \"an-older-girl-kicked-by-love-before-experiencing-the-worst\" (and I'm quoting you) she's much too experienced for the gang, or else is sick, sick, sick to be so attached emotionally and sexually to a younger boy of a teen age gang. I can't put the above strongly enough and at the risk of offending you, Arthur, forget Anita and start writing someone who is either older (like Tante) or younger with the same emotional timber of the rest of the gang.\n\nAct I, Scene 6. The jitterbug dance should finish completely and then start again as an encore with Bernardo entering,14 otherwise we kill the hand, the dance and the audience's pitch. You might consider the reading of the headlines here because this will tie in with second drugstore scene after murders have been committed. (See later note in Act III, Scene 5.)\n\nAct II, Scene 1. I again object to Anita's downbeat note, the \"oh-God-am-I-suffering\".15\n\nAct II, Scene 2. I wonder about \" _children_ playing games and marrying themselves\". Just as long as it doesn't become cute, coy or silly, okay.\n\nAct II Scene 3. There are extremely wrong things here. First, it's another reprise of the Bernardo-Romeo-Juliet scene of Act I, Scene 2, the first time they all meet: and either the fight scene must be provoked immediately or else we're boring the audience and stalling.16 Don't understand why Bernardo doesn't plunge into the scene that follows with his provoking Romeo to a fight. In other words, rather than heightening the following scene, I feel it lessens it and robs it. The only thing I like is the character color of Juliet's strength. I thought the version of Romeo steering someone away from the rumbles was a better idea.\n\nAct III, Scene 2. I am starting to feel we're in serious trouble with the so-called love ballet. (See note on dancers at end.)\n\nAct III, Scene 3. Want to know why Juliet doesn't go with Romeo immediately.17\n\nAct III, Scene 5. There are a couple of things I can't adjust here. The boys are jitterbugging to avert suspicion from the police \u2013 but what has happened about the death of their beloved Mercutio? In other words, how do you make compatible the effect of the murders on the boys with what you have written?18 I think this _can_ be one, but isn't indicated at all in the outline. Here's where the newspaper headlines, with references to the teen-age gang war and murders could be used. The \"hey that's me\" effect.\n\nAct III, Scene 6. From the outline I'm inclined to feel that it's all a little too goofy. Juliet becomes Ophelia with the reeds and flowers and is playing a \"crazy\" scene.19 I had to read the whole thing a couple of times to find out why Romeo died20 and I also think it's too right on the head placing it back in the bridal shop.\n\nAs for the all-over picture, we're dead unless the audience feels that all the tragedy can and could be averted, that there's _hope_ and a wish for escape from that tragedy, and a tension built on that desire. We must always hold out the tantalizing chance of a positive ending. Romeo and Juliet particularly must feel this and be sure of it. It's another reason why I dislike qvetchy Anita so much. Let's not have anyone in the show feel sorry for themselves.21\n\nAbout the dancing. It will never be well incorporated into the show unless some of the principals are dancers. I can see, easily, why Romeo and Juliet must be singers, but Mercutio has to be a dancer, maybe Anita, and for sure some of the prominent gang members, otherwise, if any of the dance sequences do take place over the stage, your principals will move to the side and a terrible separation happens.22 Practically, it's easier to rehearse with separate units, but with all the experience I've had it's by far most beneficial to the unity of the show to have the principals do everything. It's a sorry sight and a back-breaking effort, and usually an unsuccessful one, to build the numbers around some half-assed movements of a principal who can't move. Think it over.\n\nI'm sending this off as fast as possible, so please excuse the abruptness. Let me hear from you both.\n\nLove,\n\nJerry\n\n363. Leonard Bernstein to Burton Bernstein\n\n205 West 57th Street, New York, NY\n\n29th October 1955\n\nDarling Baud\u00fcm\u00fc,\n\nHere we have been complaining for weeks at having had no word from you, and here today I find a letter you sent immediately, and I am contride, contride. You also sent a pretty photo, which we all thought looked exactly like me, and it does, and we miss you more and more each day. As you say, it's all downhill from here on, and maybe no more than just a nice warm winter in the tropics. But, to judge from the letter to the folks, which they showed us yesterday, you are bored. Are you bored? Is there a promotion coming up for you? And a pay increase?\n\nWe just returned from Boston where the _Lark_23 had its premiere and it seems to be a large hit. Raves, and the audience lapped it up. My music sounded good as hell, with marvelous voices (on tape: and cheap [Kermit] Bloomgarten wouldn't rent good enough equipment, so that it grizzled a bit) but still it sounded pretty. I think there's the kernel of a short Mass there, and I may expand it into one for the Juilliard commission (two birds technique, as of old).24\n\nI'm sorry you missed my last _Omnibus_ show, On Jazz, and it seems to have had an ecstatic reaction all over the country. Columbia wants to record it, and all the others in a series, and there is serious talk of filming it (and others) for commercial release in theatres. Goodness. Next one coming up in about three weeks, on Bach, about whom I know nothing about whom.\n\n_Romeo_ proceeds apace, with a new young lyricist named Steve Sondheim, who is going to work out wonderfully. I still have high hopes of a spring production. No deal reached as yet with Bob Joseph and Co. We may have to give it to other producenicks. I wrote a spic song called \"Maria\" which may finally bring me to jukeboxes, who knows. And one called \"Cool\" which will never see a jukebox.\n\n_Candide_ is a certainty for next fall. [Tyrone] Guthrie is signed, and a big rewrite job must take place next late spring and summer. So no T'wood. We're toying with the idea of a huge house in Englewood. Imagine, with a pool and huge grounds. It's one of those monstrosities, but we could make it cheerful and fine. We just may buy it, if we can get it cheaply.\n\nThe first Symph of Air concert comes up on the 9th, with Aaron's new _Canticle of Freedom_ , and Mahler 2nd. Wish you were here.\n\nSo, as you see, life is busier than ever, and everything goes swimmingly except that Felicia just doesn't seem to get work. She is depressed, and I don't blame her. Alexander is a heartthrob, a wonder, and so is Jamie. We long for you. I'm going to try to get to P[uerto] R[ico] for some local research on the Romeo show: any excuse, but I may get away with it. Let's hope. When can you next have a leave?\n\nAll our loves; and do write soon, not following my detestable example.\n\nLennuhtt\n\n364. Marc Blitzstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n30 December 1955\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nYou have written, and so I answer, although I had planned to do nothing, but let the thing sink into the impassive past. But I am a bum actor; and seeing you both at Eddie Albert's25 was perhaps too soon. My belligerence to Felicia (poor girl, it wasn't her fault I was left alone with her) _was_ Reuben,26 _was_ Bourbon, to the extent I can't remember what I said, but it was probably nonsense \u2013 but it was really your outrageous treatment in subjecting me to a private meeting in your drawing-room with the worm Robbins.27 I have met him at parties, or could; one can't help that. But that it should come from you, who have been over the whole story with me, have once been furious with him (\"slap his face\" and \"my stomach turns at the thought of working with him again\" were two of your phrases),28 and with the passage of time have let that fury cool and dim and at length yield to other considerations \u2013 this is hard to take. I do apologize to Felicia. About you and me \u2013 I don't know what to do about our friendship, or my continuing fondness for you. A few more body-blows \u2013 put it down to your ego, your thoughtlessness, I don't care \u2013 might make any intimacy permanently untenable.\n\nNo, I did not send Jamie a gift.29 Right now, with a sudden unexpected lawsuit against me for \"pilfering\" _Threepenny Opera_ , I was too poor to afford any gifts, including mother, Jo, etc. But she has my love, as does Lex. I don't send cards.\n\nWe'll probably meet at Lillian's, New Year's Eve. Let's not get into this talk; I should only become \"quarrelsome\". Let's let it ride a bit.30\n\nMarc\n\n365. Robert Shaw to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Georgian Terrace, Atlanta, GA\n\n14 February 1956\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nPlease accept my apologies for not contacting you before we left New York concerning your wonderful choruses in _The Lark_ and my attempt to program them through the Spring Tours.\n\nIn the last few hectic days of rehearsals, I discovered \u2013 as I have every season for the past eight years \u2013 that the program already was too long, and simply couldn't see my way to getting them installed and rehearsed adequately (which latter was the principal item).\n\nI do think they are absolutely (and variously) captivating and exciting pieces \u2013 and I continue to hope that we may be able to perform them in some suite-form in the near future.\n\nAgain \u2013 many thanks. It was a delight to see you again.\n\nAll good wishes,\n\nBob Shaw\n\n366. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\nVineyard Haven, MA\n\n25 May 1956\n\nDear Dov,\n\nThe news is sad indeed. I had no idea your mother was in so bad a state. Poor Sabina [Diamond's sister] \u2013 what that girl has been through, what with one thing and another. And what it must be doing to you \u2013 breaking up your household, your work, your peace, and all for such a rush trip home. Mightn't it be possible to bring your mother to you in Italy, and have her spend her last days in all that beauty and quiet, and with you? It would save you so much and keep you together (all of you) \u2013 but I suppose that travel is just too much for her now.\n\nI've been searching my brain and my acquaintances for a couple to take your villetta, but in vain. I do hope it all works out well. We must see you of course, when you come, even if only for a bit: so do call us when you arrive, or write us here. The phone is Vineyard Haven 1396.\n\nIt's all like a d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. Here we are again, Lillian and us, back at the Vineyard, exactly like two summers ago, with a T'wood leave of absence, but this time with Tyrone Guthrie, who will direct, and incidentally will save the show, I think. Other change: new lyricist, Richard Wilbur, a marvelous young poet who has never written a lyric in his life, and is already doing wonders. I now have hope for _Candide_ , for the first time in ages. We go into rehearsal after Labor Day.31 Meanwhile I am concurrently writing the other show (the Romeo one, with Arthur Laurents and Robbins and a charming gifted boy named Steve Sondheim) and it begins to look like something. Both at once. It's a wild situation, even for me. And, again, concurrently, I must do something about the Boston Symph commission (not a note yet). Plus concerts this summer, in order to support my expanding brood, plus writing TV shows for the fall, plus plus plus. It doesn't look like a relaxing summer, to say the least, but there is much sky and water and air and beauty here, and I love it. I've been here for a week all alone (Felicia follows with brood and company in a few days). It is cold and sunny and bracing, and I am having fun cooking for myself and feeding the furnace and making the fireplaces and watching the late spring come hesitantly forth.\n\nWe are all well and send our love to you and Ciro [Cuomo]. Let us hear of your arrival.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n367. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nVineyard Haven, MA\n\n13 June 1956\n\nDear Aa,\n\nAh, the pressures. When I think that I have thanked you in my mind for the score of _Tender Land_ a hundred times & I have never had a second to write it, I am aghast. I guess I kept thinking I had written, so often had I thought you thanks.\n\nThe more I look at the score the more beautiful & special it becomes. And though I still have grave reservations about the libretto (which led you into unavoidable dangers) I find that it has a great theatrical value after all, due largely to the marvelous tonal world created by the music. It has its own _ambiente_ , & its own authentic \"world\", as every work should: & that is the important thing, hoe-downs to the contrary. It's always the work of a master, no denying. So thank you, dear Aa, very much.\n\nWork here on the island goes in five directions, & I hope gets somewhere. Anyway the island is a dream.\n\nDid you know that David D[iamond] is arriving soon?\n\nAre you coming this way, & if so can we have lobsters-in-the-basket all together like a d\u00e9j\u00e0-vu? This whole summer is a kind of d\u00e9j\u00e0-vu, what with _Candide_ & Lillian & the same house, \u2013 nothing changed. Have fun at T'wood. Best to Jack.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\nGuess who else is arriving \u2013 tomorrow, I think \u2013? Charlie Roth, that gangster maniac. Prends garde. Sauve qui peut.\n\nL\n\n368. Richard Rodgers32 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n488 Madison Avenue, New York, NY\n\n9 October 1956\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nWe were committed many weeks ago to see Judy Garland this past Sunday night and there was no way to cancel it. However, I have had reports from innumerable people about your performance and the infinitely kind things you had to say about Oscar and me.33 I am writing to Paul Feigay to see if I can get a kinescope of the broadcast. I can't tell you what it means to us to have your friendship and enthusiasm.\n\nAll fondest to Felicia and you.\n\nAs ever,\n\nDick\n\n369. Leonore Goldstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n4615 Lindell Boulevard, St. Louis, MO\n\n17 October 1956\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nI cannot begin to tell you what a glow of pleasure and satisfaction came over me as I read a notice in last evening's _Post Dispatch_ over your appointment to the conductorship of the Philharmonic \u2013 an avalanche of thoughts came to mind. First, your and Felicia's joy at the great reward for your fine work, Miss Coates' pride that \"her boy\" had been so honored and also the happiness of your dear parents. Do you realize that you are the very first American to have reached this exalted position, and at such a young age! I am as excited as though you were of my own kith and kin. How I wish myself in Carnegie Hall when you walk on the stage this winter for your first concert as guest, and as the real boss for the next season. What music you will make with that magnificent organization.\n\nOur first concert will be given this week. Harry Farbman34 will conduct before a group of guests are to appear and then Golschmann35 remains for 10 weeks until the close of the season.\n\nI have also noted that _Candide_ will soon be produced and I am sure that will be another feather in your cap \u2013 if it can hold any more.\n\nI must stop \u2013 your minutes are scarce but be assured that I share your great honor and congratulate you warmly.\n\nAffectionately,\n\nLeonore III\n\n370. Solomon Braslavsky to Leonard Bernstein\n\nTemple Mishkan Tefila, Boston, MA\n\n18 October 1956\n\nMy dear Lenny,\n\nYesterday I read the good news about your appointment as co-conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for the next season.\n\nSo, you finally made it. Naturally, this is only the beginning. But I am mighty proud of you and everything that happened for two reasons.\n\nFirst, my prophecy became reality. I always predicted to you, your father and to all of our mutual friends that you will land a big position as conductor. It is true, you are a great composer and you rank high among American composers. But few, if any, of the great composers, past and present, are good conductors, not to speak of great conductors [...] (I remember Arnold Schoenberg conducting Beethoven's 9th Symphony. It was pitiful indeed). _But you are_ and you will remain a great composer, but above all you will make history as a great conductor.\n\nThe second reason is that you reached your goal by your _own_ merits (no string[s], no politics) and with your _own name_. It is neither BERNini, nor STEINkovsky. It is what you always were, what you are and what you always will be.\n\nCongratulations and best wishes for great success. May the Lord bless and keep you in good health and happiness.\n\nWith kindest regards to Felicia and the two little geniuses, I hope,\n\nCordially yours,\n\nSolomon\n\n371. Lukas Foss to Leonard Bernstein\n\nUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA\n\n25 November 1956\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nMailed to you today a full score of my _Psalms_.36\n\nThis is one time I am really curious to hear what it'll sound like \u2013 never had so many instrumental\u2013texture\u2013ideas before. Will you have a chance to glance at it? I wish _Candide_ luck and all your other projects \u2013 have not yet congratulated you about the N.Y. Philharmonic directorship. My feeling there was mostly \"congratulating the Philharmonic\".\n\nIf N.Y. is going to be that exciting musically we better leave our sunny West and come back.\n\nWe will be in N.Y. actually from Jan 14th to February 5th. See you then I hope. Love to Felicia.\n\nLukas\n\n372. Stephen Sondheim37 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n11 East 80th Street, New York, NY\n\nFriday [1956]\n\nDear Lunnit (sp.?),\n\nYou have the distinct privilege of being the first person in these Continental United States to receive correspondence typed on my new and not completely paid-for IBM Electric Typewriter. How about these margins?\n\nApart from showing off this latest acquisition, I do want to reiterate how much I like the _Candide_ music. And, though I was hesitant to say so last evening, I also want to reiterate the offer I made earlier this year \u2013 if at any time you want help on the lyrics (or even the music) you need only ask.38\n\nSee you soon.\n\nLove,\n\nSteve\n\n373. Gunther Schuller39 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n14 January 1957\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nCongratulations on your stunning exploration of the why's and wherefore's of modern music on _Omnibus_ last Sunday. You are \u2013 it goes without saying \u2013 uniquely qualified for the task. I am very confident that you made many converts with your lucid and detailed explanations which, although of necessity assumed that the viewer knew very little of the composer's vocabulary and method, nevertheless at no point talked down to the audience. How few composers would be able to do this with your naturalness, conciseness and virtuosity!\n\nHaving said that much, however, I also felt moved to point out a serious flaw in your delineation, namely an unfortunate intrusion \u2013 conscious or subconscious, it is hard to say \u2013 of your own personal viewpoint of the subject in the latter half of the program.\n\nAfter a very _factual_ exploration of how atonality developed logically from chromaticism, you allowed your own _qualitative_ feelings about Wagnerian heaviness and\/or excessive emotionalism creep in to such an extent that it became quite apparent what \"camp\" you were in. This is all the more a shame since the actual statements you made (juxtaposing the new objectivity of Satie and Hindemith with post-Wagnerian romanticism and expressionism) were mostly valid statements per se \u2013 in cold print they would appear quite sound \u2013 but the slightly sarcastic coloring & inflection you gave these thoughts made it too obvious which way you wanted the listener to be swayed. In other words, you seemed to momentarily abandon at the crucial point the very \"objectivity and clarity\" you mentioned so often.\n\nGiving the picture this slant was a little unfair. The further we get into the middle of our century the more objectively we see some of the highly controversial and heated arguments of earlier decades (you indicated this yourself when you said it seems that the two camps were coming closer together, that a kind of synthesis may be in the making). It has thus also become clear that Debussyan chromaticism, which you had in the anti-Wagner camp, is a lot closer to late Wagner than anybody including Debussy was for a long time willing to admit, and that the important works of the Impressionists were to an until recently greatly underestimated extent responsible for not only the break-through to atonality but the instrumental sound and coloring of early Sch\u00f6nberg and almost all of Webern.\n\nThere is not such a big jump, after all, from Debussy's _Jeux_ or parts of _Pell\u00e9as_ to _Parsifal_ in one direction, and to _Erwartung_ or _Pierrot lunaire_ in the other direction, as was first thought to be the case. Is the mysticism of _Pell\u00e9as_ , the lushness of the _Firebird_ really so much closer to the \"objectivity & clarity\" of Satie than the expressionism of _Pierrot_?\n\nThe role of Debussy in this whole development has only lately been correctly assessed. His own explorations into \u2013 or _almost_ into \u2013 the regions of atonality, his experiments with rhythmic counterpoint and irregular rhythms, and above all his concept of the break-up of textures and lines have been only belatedly evaluated, and their important influence on Webern is still all but unappreciated.\n\nThat brings me to the subject of Webern. Since most of the young generation of European composers, certainly the important ones, are greatly under his influence (much more so than Sch\u00f6nberg's), omitting him in your portrait of modern music tilts the argument heavily to one side. Mind you, I appreciate the problems involved. It would be hard, on a program directed primarily at a nationwide audience of laymen, to spend time talking about a composer almost totally unknown \u2013 even as a name \u2013 in America. More than that, if you _had_ decided to talk about Webern and objectively place him within the present situation, your whole original point about the \"two camps\" would have had to go, and from a viewer's or layman's point of view your picture of 2 opposing factions is a much more attractive one. Yet should that have been allowed to govern your decisions? Obviously for the sake of fairness and objectivity, you should have taken the chance of beclouding the issue a little \u2013 of making the situation less black & white.\n\nThe point about Webern, of course, is that he _was_ able to cut his ties with romanticism much more thoroughly than Sch\u00f6nberg or Berg. Sch\u00f6nberg's whole unsuccessful struggle to pour atonal expressionistic ideas into classical forms was avoided from the start by Webern. The \"objectivity, clarity & simplicity\" which Sch\u00f6nberg couldn't attain (and which you saw only in the music of the other camp) is certainly Webern's most important contribution to contemporary music. What \u2013 except neo-classic Stravinsky \u2013 could be less verbose, less heavy, less square, less involved with these and any other Wagnerian attributes you care to name than Webern? The trouble is that at this short range we still blame the relative weaknesses & discrepancies of Sch\u00f6nberg's art on the 12-tone system, or on the Wagner-influence, or on Mahler etc., etc. \u2013 rather than on Sch\u00f6nberg himself. I am convinced that Sch\u00f6nberg's music, _if_ it is \"neurotic\", \"lacking in humor\", \"subjective\" or what have you (and all these points are debatable), it is so because Sch\u00f6nberg's _personality_ \u2013 and not the 12-tone system or atonality per se \u2013 was such as to cause this. He would have written (and did write) the same under another system. What different and opposite musical concepts & styles are possible within atonality or 12-tone is becoming increasingly obvious. By this serious omission, therefore, you failed to present a complete picture of the 12-tone side, and thus slanted the argument considerably in one direction.\n\nIn this connection you may be interested in the following account by a composer friend of mine (Boulez) of an evening in Paris 3 or 4 years ago. It was told as proof of the genuineness of Stravinsky's conversion to the serial technique. Stravinsky was in the company of a group of young composers (incl. Boulez, Nono, Stockhausen, etc.) and one old school-chum of the master. They were discussing problems in contemporary music, drinking quite a bit; and Stravinsky, as you know, when he does drink gets very sad & nostalgic. At one point he turned to his old friend and, almost in tears, said (not verbatim, but in effect): \"You know, of all of us (meaning himself, Sch\u00f6nberg, Bart\u00f3k, Hindemith etc.), the only one who went in the right direction was Webern. I've been composing wrong all my life\". A pathetic & touching story. It is hard to say whether Stravinsky actually meant _all_ of that, but his continuing adoption of 12-tone thinking \u00e0 la Webern (not Sch\u00f6nberg!!) would seem to indicate that he meant it to be quite an extent, and if he did, what does this do to your \"two camps\"?\n\nI write you with all this because I like to discuss subjects close to my heart with people I respect & admire. I need not emphasize that I appreciate & admire your absolutely unique combination of abilities. So it is not in the sense of hostile criticism that I write you this letter, but rather in a spirit of friendly discussion.\n\nWith best wishes,\n\nSincerely yours,\n\nGunther Schuller\n\nP.S. Have a piece about jazz in the Jan 12th issue of _Sat. Review of Literature_. I think it might interest you.\n\n374. Aldous Huxley40 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n3276 Deronda Drive, Los Angeles, CA\n\n4 April 1957\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nAs a very busy man with a large correspondence, I can well understand your annoyance at receiving yet another letter from a perfect stranger. But, at the risk of being a bore, I am writing to ask if you would be at all interested in reading a dramatic version of my novel _Brave New World_ , which I have recently made, with a view to a musical setting. (I envisage the piece as a play with music and dancing, rather than a conventional \"musical\".) The story calls for a very resourceful composer, who can run the gamut from the primitive dances of the Indian Reservation to the music of the hypothetical future. So I naturally thought of you41 and am hopefully writing this on the off chance that you may have the time and the inclination to consider such a project.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nAldous Huxley\n\n375. Felicia Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Santiago, Chile]\n\n\"Thurs. and Fri.\" [10\u201311 July 1957]\n\nDearest darling Lennuhtt,\n\nIt's all most peculiar, wonderful, strange and yet most familiar. There has been a constant stream of friends \u2013 about _twenty_ at the airport last night \u2013 and all day today \u2013 exhausting but so heart-warming and nice. I never realized I was loved that much, or that my coming would be such an event \u2013 I'm truly overwhelmed by it all! The children are a smash \u2013 Jamie has taken over the Alessandri household already \u2013 what a delight it is to see all those children together! I'm so sorry that you can't see it too \u2013 the squealing, the giggling, the mixture of languages and in the midst of it all Jamie is the queen, the glamorous beautiful imperious pixie and they are at her feet ready for her slightest whim. Alexander spent the afternoon there and the way he and Jamie flung into each other's arms was one of those rare and beautiful moments \u2013 they really adore one another.\n\nThe trip was a _nightmare_! The Miami bit in spades \u2013 it was about 100 degrees, no sign of anybody from the Chilean airline, nobody knew where it was and when we finally found it they didn't know when the plane was leaving \u2013 we spent five hours in that fucking airport. The only air-conditioned place was the restaurant where we went twice but couldn't linger because the children got so restless. Anyway we finally were called in and found that part of the seating space was taken up with cargo! The flight itself wasn't bad except between Panama and the next stop we ran into a terrific storm and poor Jamie got sick. [...] They both were marvelous though, never cried and were perfect lambs. Alexander once in a while would cry out \"vamos a la calle\" out of sheer desperation! It's just _too long_ \u2013 absolutely the end of the world \u2013 plus they made more stops than were bargained for so we arrived bedraggled, weary and worn at _midnight_ \u2013 imagine!!\n\nI think of you constantly and love you more than ever \u2013 Jamie talks about you all the time and said yesterday that she must write because poor Daddy was all alone. She looked out the window in the plane and said she saw a map below. [...]\n\nChita's house is small but adorable with divine food which I've been gobbling up. Yesterday I had a full two course lunch then tea with all the trimmings and then went to Madeleine's for dinner at ten and gorged \u2013 it must be something in the air \u2013 it's nippy, but clear and sunny.\n\n_Following night_. Thank you for your darling cable which I got this morning. As you can see there's no chance of writing in the daytime \u2013 I took the children to Mamita this morning and they went crazy with the chickens, ducks, rabbits, turkeys, a dog and oranges which they plucked from the trees and ate on the spot. She is the darling of all time \u2013 so full of love and goodness, thrilled by the children, supplies them with fresh eggs every day and things that she grows \u2013 and she's getting old and sick and it breaks my heart.\n\nAbout the \"girls\" I'll tell you in my next \u2013 they're marvelous. Madeleine especially has taken a great turn for the better \u2013 details later cause I'll never finish.\n\nMy darling do write \u2013 don't work too hard \u2013 tell me how everything is going with the show \u2013 if Grace is taking care of you.\n\nAs for me I'm bewildered and miss you so that it hurts. I think it's the incredibly depressing distance between us.\n\nI do love you.\n\nFelicia\n\nMy love to Helen and the Kats.\n\n376. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\n19 July 1957\n\nDarling,\n\nThe main news is that I love you and miss you, more than I could ever have known. It's all very well to talk about the salutary effects of periodic separations, and all that; but it's lonely in that big apartment upstairs, and everything looks different without my _people_ there. Booze-hour isn't the same with anyone else, sleeping is particularly strange in one of two beds with the other unoccupied. I've managed not to eat alone once so far: that's no problem. But it's different, that's all. In fact, as I've discovered, it's the main difference there can be in living.\n\nBut there's little if any time to think about any of the above. The work grinds on, relentlessly, and sleep is a rare blessing. Jerry continues to be \u2013 well, Jerry: moody, demanding, hurting. But vastly talented. We start on the book Monday, trepidation in hand; and the score is still not completed. At the moment the Problem is the usual one of the 2nd act ballet, which is finished, and will probably not work at all and be yanked and we'll have to manufacture a new one. It's going to be murder from here on in. My nights are all spent on work, so no fun at all. The only relief is dinner. Once at Ofra's (all goes swimmingly, and Shirley is still in the dark) \u2013 once with Lukas [Foss] (who missed you by a day, sends you great love, and was intuitive enough to ask Burtie \"Are you in love? You seem dreamy and different.\") and once with Steve [Sondheim] and once with Debbie and once with George Sch\u00fctz and once with [Kenneth] Shermerhorn, etc. etc. And once at the Ricordis. Last weekend was all work. No Stony Point. Maybe this weekend.\n\nLast night was Martha [Gellhorn] night. She finally made it: and we talked in our customary natter for hours. How she loves you and knows you! And how she knows and loves our love (yours and mine). She finds my life ridiculous, of course, but finds me in better shape than ever, all of which she attributes to you, and rightly of course. I was telling her what a marvelous girl you are, how beautiful and bright and witty and wise, and she said: \"But how did it take you so long to find out what is perfectly obvious?\" Well, I always knew it; I didn't have to find it out; I just suddenly became _aware_ of it, found myself able to experience it and share it, and just be plain grateful for it. I'm endlessly lucky in you, and lucky that you've been strong enough to stick out the bad times. You wonderful girl, you, with whom I am recently in love all over again.\n\nI must run: Big Daddy calls. Big hugs & kisses for my two angels \u2013 and love to all the family. Write more & lots! You have time, I haven't! Have a glorious time \u2013 I kiss you.\n\nL\n\n19 July\n\nToday is Helen's birthday. Do cable her. Grace quit \u2013 I have a fine new maid. Greetings to Rosalia & Julia.\n\n377. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\n26 July 1957\n\nMy darling,\n\nI loved your letter (I guess we've established the usual pattern of crossing letters so that nothing ever gets properly answered) \u2013 but it's wonderful just to hear from you \u2013 except to hear that you're sick \u2013 what a bore. I was afraid that abrupt change in climate might do something like that. And of course it was also only natural that the usual reaction to Chita would set in \u2013 too much of a good thing. But you're used to that: don't let it get you down.\n\nI can imagine what a trial it is to be in a place where everything is at a premium \u2013 like the old days in Israel \u2013 & where medicine is backwuhts and the trunks don't arrive \u2013 very Israeli, all that. Don't you dare stop smoking \u2013 you're absolutely right!\n\nA propos Israel: I sent a long nagging cable about _Jeanne_ [ _d'Arc au b\u00fbcher_ ] & just had a letter this morning saying that it's absolutely impossible to get a chorus to prepare it. I'm furious but helpless. There just isn't a chorus that operates in the summer, & they claim they'd need 8 months to learn it, etc. etc. Shit.\n\nSo that's out, my darling; but don't let it discourage you from coming to Is. anyway.\n\nStill no word from Buenos Aires!\n\nMilton Goldman has been calling about a part for you in a play version of _Diabolique_. Interested? And Tony Mines called for you today. Gave him your address.\n\nThe show \u2013 ah, yes. I am depressed with it. All the aspects of the score I like best \u2013 the \"big\", poetic parts \u2013 get criticized as \"operatic\" \u2013 & there's a concerted move to chuck them. What's the use? The 24-hour schedule goes on \u2013 I am tired & nervous & apey. You wouldn't like me at all these days. _This is the last show I do_. The Philharmonic approved the contract yesterday & all is set. I'm going to be a conductor, after all!\n\nNo news on the Burtie\u2013Ofra\u2013Shirley front,\n\nWeather: good \u2013 coolish, fair. I don't get to see it much; & my air-conditioned studio saves my life.\n\nDarling I love you & miss you \u2013\n\nL\n\nDined with Marc last night \u2013 sends fondest love.\n\n378. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nSun a.m. [28 July 1957]\n\nDarling,\n\nGuess where I am \u2013 on a plane. Guess my destination \u2013 Miami. And as always with any flight involving Miami (as you know too well) there's shit to spare. I was to have left last night: arrived breathless at Idlewild to be told that the flight had been cancelled \u2013 only nobody had taken the trouble to inform me of same. No other flights available, except one that would have landed me in Miami at 5 a.m. or so. So back to the Osborne, heckle & peckle, & dinner with Burt, Ofrah, & back to Idlewild this monank\u00fcd\u00fc, & here I am. Now, to be consistent, there should be nobody to meet me at the airport, the convention is over, forced landing at Palm Beach, or something worthy of the tradition.\n\nOh, I didn't tell you why I'm going. Columbia Records is having its annual convention, imagine, & it will be fun & games at the Americana Hotel (this year's hotel). I dread it. Home tomorrow, in time (I hope, barring airport Miamisms) for a _run-thru_ of Act One! Imagine \u2013 already! Where does the time all go to? In a minute it will be August & off to Washington \u2013 & people will be looking at _West Side Story_ in public, & hearing my poor little mashed-up score. All the things I love most in it are slowly being dropped \u2013 too operatic, too this & that. They're all so scared & commercial success means so much to them. To me too, I suppose \u2013 but I still insist it can be achieved with pride. I shall keep fighting.\n\nI miss you all terribly \u2013 especially you who have come to mean something miraculous to me. You reside at the very core of my life, my darling. I hope your kepepelt [cold] is better, & that the fun goes on. Ofrah bets you won't stick out the two months. She's probably right. But if you come home, what would you find? I'd be no good to you \u2013 & you'd hang around the show & get sick of it, & my whining, etc. etc. And then, if I have to go to B[uenos] A[ires] after all \u2013 what's the fun without you there? Anyway, don't make any rash decisions yet.\n\nThere's Palm Beach down there, looking hot, damp and sunless. We'll be landing soon \u2013 & I'll probably drop you a line on Americana stationery, which I am sure is pure gold-leaf.\n\nBless you my love.\n\nL\n\nAbrazos to all.\n\n_Dere Jamie and Alejito:_\n\n_I love you so mucho!_\n\n_Dady_\n\n379. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nSat. night, 3 August 1957\n\nDarling,\n\nTwo big events:\n\n1) I've gotten out of Buenos Aires! The agent, one Uhlfelder, was here in town, & came to see me, & it's settled, & wow, what a relief. So you can return in peace, & I can see my two angels before Israel \u2013 & we can leave from here, after seeing the opening on the 26th, _like a Mensch_. Look: we go to the opening, & then we wait up for the papers, & before you know it it's time for the plane, and Scheu, we're off.\n\n2) I signed the Philharmonic contract. Big moment. Bruno [Zirato] arrived at 10:30 a.m., contract in one hand & a big chilled bottle of Brut in the other, & much emotion (he couldn't write his name for the shaking of his hands) & I'm in \u2013 like for life. I made a coup: the lawyers had fallen out so far that the contract was up to 20-odd pages, & growing: & the disputes were growing correspondingly. So I scotched it by tearing up the whole thing, & writing a one-page letter that said I was engaged for such a period for so much money, sincerely yours. They loved it. Simple, & trusting. We'll settle the details as they come along.\n\nOther events \u2013 nothing but the show. We ran through today for the first time, & the problems are many, varied, overwhelming, but we've got a show there, & just possibly a great one. Jerry is behaving (in his own way) & Arthur is doing well. But the work is endless: I never sleep. Everything gets rewritten every day: & that's my life at the moment. And imagine, we open two weeks from Monday.\n\nSome beautiful shots of you & the kids arrived (taken by the hi-fi man at the vineyard \u2013 remember) \u2013 & they melted me. I miss you so!\n\nI loved your last letter. Did you get mine from Miami?\n\nI hope the trunks are there, & all is in order. My love, & have fun, dear lovely one.\n\nL\n\n380. Igor Markevitch42 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nL'Aiglerie, Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland\n\n3 August 1957\n\nMy dearest Lennie,\n\nFirst of all I want to tell you how delighted I am at the project of _Icare_.43 I have carefully looked at the dates, and if nothing unexpected happens until then, I will be able to come from Montreal two days before the concert44 in order to follow the last rehearsals, as you had asked me to do.\n\nThis revival is going to be a great event for us. To help you prepare it, I am sending you by the same mail a record which was made during one of my executions. Unfortunately there are whole passages where certain instruments are completely lost, but as one says elegantly: \"It is better than a spit in the eye.\"\n\nHere is a letter that Bart\u00f3k wrote concerning _Icare_ which I am sending you in French:\n\nCher M. Markevitch, Permettez \u00e0 un coll\u00e8gue qui n'a pas l'honneur de vous \u00eatre connu, de vous remercier de votre merveilleux _Icare_. J'ai n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 du temps pour \u00e9tudier et comprendre toute la beaut\u00e9 de votre partition, et je pense qu'il faudra beaucoup d'ann\u00e9es pour qu'on l'apprecie. Je veux vous dire ma conviction, qu'un jour on rendra justice avec s\u00e9rieux \u00e0 tout ce que vous apportez. Vous \u00eates la personnalit\u00e9 la plus frappante de la musique contemporaine, et je me r\u00e9jouis, Monsieur, de profiter de votre influence. Avec ma respectueuse admiration, B\u00e9la Bart\u00f3k.\n\nThe letter is from the autumn 1933, and had neither date nor address, reason for which I didn't answer it. I add, as I already told you, that I didn't know yet the name of Bart\u00f3k. I would be very pleased if you would send me a word to let me know when you receive the record.\n\nI wish you every possible luck for your new show, my dear Lennie, and I also remind you to keep the promise you made me, to kiss the whole of Israel for me. In the meantime it is Topazia and me who do it with you sending you our most affectionate thoughts.\n\nYours,\n\nIgor\n\n381. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\n\"8 Aug already!\" [1957]\n\nDarling,\n\nI had a real scare with the news of Asian flu \u2013 & when your letter came about how you were all down with it I got scareder. But your cable made me feel better \u2013 please be careful! I can't bear the thought of you all sick.\n\nI missed you terribly yesterday. We wrote a new song for Tony that's a killer, & it just wasn't the same not playing it first for you. It's really going to save his character \u2013 a driving 2\/4 in the great tradition (but of course fucked up by me with 3\/4s and what not) \u2013 but it gives Tony balls \u2013 so that he doesn't emerge as just a euphoric dreamer.\n\nThese days have flown so \u2013 I don't sleep much; I work every \u2013 literally every \u2013 second (since I'm doing four jobs on this show \u2013 composing, lyric writing, orchestrating, & rehearsing the cast). It's murder, but I'm excited. It may be something extraordinary. We're having our first run thru for _people_ on Friday. Please may they dig it! And f\u00edjate, I leave for Washington on Tues. the 13th \u2013 so soon, so soon. It's all rushed by like a cyclone.\n\nOf course we're way behind on orchestration etc. \u2013 but that's the usual hassle.\n\nHow are you? You don't say. Are you fatter from eating? (Me: I'm a bit skinnier.) Do you smoke? (I do, lots.) Have you skied? (I haven't). Do you love me?\n\nBless you & _be well_.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\nI adored Jamie's letter, especially the lentils.\n\n382. Felicia Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Santiago, Chile]\n\n\"Tues. & Wed.\" [August 1957]\n\nMy own blessed wonderful darling,\n\nI refuse to write about \"latas\"45 so I'll skip the whole miserable bit and only tell you that we're on the mend. Jamie has been up for two days and is fine again and Rosalia got up today.\n\n_Too incredible_! Just got your cable this minute. I suppose there must have been something in the papers about this monstrous epidemic \u2013 thank God it wasn't anything worse, just la grippe but in spades. I now read in the paper that it has spread all over the world and that even you may get it \u2013 if there is a vaccine handy take it!\n\nI bless the day you couldn't come \u2013 I went to Klecky's [i.e. Paul Kletzki's] concert last week and oh Lennuhtt! What a shampepuhls... Granted a lot of the musicians were sick, but still! Klecky made \"Un grand scandal\" \u2013 stopped the orchestra in the middle of Beethoven's Fourth and screamed, ranted and then apologized to the audience and started again. We later had dinner at the house of a Canta Maya46 type lady with the upper echelons of Chilean music, Vincente Salas Via, Juan Orrego etc. and he let them have it! I wanted to crawl under the groaning b\u00f6wewehd \u2013 it was ghastly and embarrassing, said he didn't want to finish out his contract etc, etc. But he's right \u2013 like everything else in this insane place it is a hit or miss affair (mostly miss), no musicianship or love of music, no discipline (since they can't be fired) and a devil take it attitude which is hardly conducive to good music. So, with a heavy heart I must say don't did it!\n\nThat Catholic priest you made friends with in Washington called Father Woolen is here \u2013 we met this afternoon and a charming fellow he is. He adores you and talks about you with enormous respect and enthusiasm. He's been all over South America giving concerts of all sorts \u2013 organ recitals, chamber music, piano concertos with different orchestras. Madeleine is in charge of him here (part of her job) and is giving him a small dinner party tomorrow.\n\nLast night I had dinner at an old friend's very old rich family \u2013 ancient Milan type mausoleum house \u2013 much marble, Aubussons, great food, old retainers and in the midst of all this, a passion for jazz! He's an authority, has a fabulous collection of old and recent records among them your _Omnibus_ which he says is the greatest thing to come into his life since the birth of his son \u2013 we listened to it in religious silence, eight of us, and it is really so _wonderful_. You can't imagine what hearing your voice did to me \u2013 so much of your personality and warmth comes through it and then the clarity of your mind and your articulateness. I was so proud of mine Lennuhtt!\n\nAlexander woke up in the middle of the night and carried on a long telephone conversation with you \u2013 he's managed to avoid the flu but has a cold and a cough and can't go out. Jamie is up and about and looks beautiful but is also coughing as is everybody else. Honestly what shit luck. We haven't been able to do a thing or go anywhere \u2013 oh well!\n\nI adore your letters and literally live from one to the next \u2013 please don't stop or I perish.\n\nM\u00ef la\u00fc d\u00fc\n\nTia\n\nFely\n\n383. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\n[New York, NY]\n\n11 August 1957\n\nDearest Fely,\n\nIt's 4:00 a.m. & I've just finished another of those incredible nights (which begin in the early morning) \u2013 work & work & work. I'm so sleepless by now I'm punchy. And I'm beginning to miss you _seriously_. And I feel a little bit uncomfortable about you all in that place with no milk and the economy of post-war Germany, & medieval plagues rampant. And then \u2013 you PO\u00d6AH \u2013 the Valparaiso episode, which I just heard about, an accident, yet, and no trunks, & \u2013 God, what are you clothing yourselves with? What are you eating? What a ghastly way to have a restful summer! Why not just chuck it all, as soon as you're all well again, and come home? I'm sure the trunks will be here by Xmas. Why feel you _must_ stick it out just by way of meeting a challenge, a whatever? You've had a good sound month of what sounds like sheer penance. Basta!\n\nBurtie and Ofra are weeking it up in Stony Point, & Shirley weekends with them and _still knows nothing_! Incredible. We had our run-through for People yesterday, & it was a smash. But I'm worried: there is so much that doesn't work \u2013 for me \u2013 & I'm sure for [Walter] Kerr & others. But there's a great show there. Darling, think seriously about coming home. I love you & miss you.\n\nL\n\n384. Burton Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\n[early August 1957]\n\nDearest Feloo,\n\nBy far, your last letter was the grimmest single document I've perused since the publication of the famous Abe Miller letters.47 Even the Abe Miller letters failed in many respects to equal the bathos and pain \u2013 nay, the utter desperation \u2013 of yours. Needless to say, you have my pity, sympathy and concern; in fact you have everyone's. Now, obviously, all that's left to do is come home, and quickly \u2013 even if your trunks haven't arrived in Valparaiso yet. Sergeant, you have done your duty \u2013 now get the hell out of there... and come back to New York in time for the annual Influenza Festival which is about to begin here any day now. (Chuck [Solomon] claims to have a new vaccine ready in three weeks time.) Really, do what Lennuhtt says and come home. The Chile country is \"basheert\" by you \u2013 I've never heard such a tale of woe. I hope everyone is better by now. Has Alejito gotten it yet?\n\nThe news from here is, to say the least, markedly better than your dispatches. Firstnik, _West Side Story_ is going to be a large hit and lives up to our highest expectations. Steve even went as far as to say, \"It's so good even Felicia will like it.\" The run-through I saw was before an ideal audience of theatre folk, so one shouldn't really gauge it by audience reaction \u2013 but still, it was quite exciting. The strange thing (something I've never experienced before) is that B. Lennuhtt comes off as second best: the show actually is a monster ballet (a jot repetitious in spots) where no one is actually directed but choreographed instead. It's too much of a good thing, if you know what I mean (you know what I mean?). There's so much balletics going on on stage that the music is shunted into second place by the sheer physical force of arms, legs and torsos. But on the whole (and you know how I hate to say this about a run-through from past experience) the show is in frighteningly good condition and looks like a sure thing. I hope that by the time I see it with sets and costumes and everything in Washington next week Jerry will have been convinced that there's too much ballet for the show's own good \u2013 or am I being na\u00efve? Anyway, there's very little to fix outside of Lennuhtt's nose... So come home already.\n\n[...]\n\nThe _New Yorker_ 's still fun and I got a raise, or did I write you that already? I've really been accepted there as a permanent fixture; the senior editors talk to me in terms of five or ten years from now. Good luck.\n\nI've been doing a lot of flying and I'm well on my way towards getting my private license back. Just a question of time.\n\nSo come home. Get well. Abrazos for all.\n\nMu lau du,\n\nBB\n\n385. Felicia Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Santiago, Chile]\n\n\"Monday\" [12 August 1957]\n\nMy darling,\n\nTomorrow you're in Washington \u2013 with my meager and distorted sense of our capital I see you all rehearsing in a gleaming white Grecian temple with marble steps to spare just across the street from the White House \u2013 what I'd give to be there with you, misery and all! After all somebody has to cart in the sandwiches or would I be homing in on weepy Sylvia's domain? By the time this reaches you the sets will be up \u2013 with the accompanying gestures. Oliver [Smith] and Jerry [Robbins] won't be speaking. Irene [Sharaff] will arrive (avec la petite Japonaise) and you will keep calling her Gloria. The dancers will find they can't move in their costumes etc. etc. \u2013 from way down here it sounds like sheer heaven. But you must be so tired! Who's helping with the orchestration \u2013 and why do you always have to do everything yourself? Are you living on dexamils48 \u2013 what else?!\n\nTony's new song sounds delicious \u2013 but can he sing it? I thought you were going to change the name \u2013 have you made any cast changes? Someone sent me the pictures of the Sunday Times \u2013 it all looks so exciting! Oh Lennuhtt \u2013 maybe maybe \u2013 I don't dare hope. What theatre, what hotel \u2013 nobody tells me these things!\n\nJamie calls me Tia Fely \u2013 what can you do? She is going to an English kindergarten [...] in the mornings. She has an incredible capacity for enjoying herself \u2013 at least one member of this safari is having a whale of a good time! As for \"muh\" I am bored senseless \u2013 my friends are all sick in bed, it's been raining and cold, no activities are possible and I ain't got nothing to read! Faut[e] de mieux I'm reading _Mario the Magician_ and _Death in Venice_. I miss the _New Yorker_ \u2013 I read _Time_ mag. avidly from cover to cover, even the financial section!\n\nYour Father Woolen turned out to be a _pest_ \u2013 plus there's something about a priest who is so unpriestlike which is rather off-putting.\n\nHad a rather Mexican-type afternoon \u2013 a dear old maid of ours who lives with Mamita was like everyone else sick with the flu but it developed into pneumonia and there wasn't a hospital bed to be had or an ambulance free in all the city! We finally got a hospital to put in an extra cot in a large room and waited till 10 p.m. for the ambulance \u2013 she could have died and there was nothing one could do.\n\nI was asked to give an informal talk on theatre and TV at the Catholic University but it had to be postponed because there were no pupils. I also went to a rehearsal of the Teatro Experimental and the same thing \u2013 no director, no leading lady, no nothing! Most frustrating as you can imagine \u2013 but, c'est la vie! God, I hope it is nice and warm in Israel (they've had the \"Japan 305\" there already). I will lie on the beach with [...] [Zvi] Haftel and live it up! I hear Sam isn't going \u2013 do I hear sighs of relief?\n\nI've just taken my _first_ sleepenk\u00fcd\u00fc and I'm beginning to feel a deliciousness \u2013 I know that from now on there'll hardly be time for you to brush a tooth but please, please let me know how it goes.\n\nEveryone is thinking of you.\n\nP.S. I love you I love you I love you pshh, pshh, pshh.\n\n386. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nJefferson Hotel, Washington, D.C.\n\n15 August 1957\n\nDear Beauty,\n\nWell, look-a me. Back to the nation's capital, & right on the verge. This is Thurs. We open Mon. Everyone's coming, my dear, even [Richard] Nixon and 95 admirals.49 Senators abounding, & big Washington-hostessy type party afterwards in Lennuhtt's honor. See what you miss by going away. Then next Sunday, which is my birthday, there is the Jewish version \u2013 a big party for me, but admission is one Israel bond. All helps the show. We have a 75 thou. advance, & the town is buzzing. Not bad. I have high hopes. I also have a new pen, as you can see, which I adore, because it writes every time, & without a ball-point.\n\nIf I sound punchy it's because I am.\n\nUp all night trying to put together an overture of sorts, to carry us through until I do a real good prelude. Orchestra reading all day yesterday \u2013 a thrill. We have surprisingly good men, who can really play this terribly difficult stuff (except one or two of them) \u2013 the orchestrations have turned out brilliant. I tell you, this show may yet be worth all the agony. As you can see, I'm excited as hell \u2013 oh so different from _Candide_.\n\nNow \u2013 how about my plan that you all come home?\n\nLou Silverstein is getting us (cast, authors, orchestra) all Asian-flu shots \u2013 black market, of course \u2013 so we won't conk out. I don't know what we do in this show for understudies (we have them \u2013 but...) or for substitutes in the orchestra. If the guitarist gets sick, it takes a week for another to learn the part. Same for all the winds. It's a tough show.\n\nWhat else is new? The show the show the show...\n\nI want to see my three Kats!!\n\nLove, Daddy\n\n387. Carol Lawrence50 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nWashington, D.C.\n\n19 August 1957\n\n[Telegram]\n\nI'm so lucky to be me, to have the privilege of singing your music and to know you. I shall always be a most ardent fan. I thank you for letting me be Maria.\n\nLove,\n\nCarol\n\n388. Felicia Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Santiago, Chile]\n\n\"Tues.\" [20 August 1957]\n\nSweetness!\n\nOh joy oh bliss oh rapture. Your cable with the frabgeous news has just arrived \u2013 thank you! I'd been desperate for some word all day long. Congratulations to one and all \u2013 how happy, how marvelously happy you must be.51 As for me I'm busting with pride and frustration \u2013 of all the moments to miss sharing! Last night I spent the evening looking at my watch and imagining the proceedings \u2013 Oh God! How exciting it must have been! Were you very nervous \u2013 did you sit through it or pace? Did anyone go to Washington to hold your hand? Is there still a great deal to be done apart from an Overture? Did you get my wire? I was miserable cause I didn't have your address or name of the theatre but your letter arrived in the nick.\n\nWhy haven't we left? I sure had a good excuse. Jane Broder cabled about a _Studio One_ ,52 rehearsals beginning this week and CBS called me on the telephone no less! But though sorely tempted I just couldn't do it to Chita \u2013 she looked so crushed and depressed. I simply had to wait for the sick to get well, the sun to come out and give everyone the chance to show us a good time \u2013 the epidemic was such a blow to them all and they felt so guilty and miserable. You will understand I know. Anyway things _are_ better. I spent the day in the country which I'd been pining to do since I arrived. It was more beautiful even than I remembered \u2013 a glorious jewel of a day, trees blossoming in profusion, lambs grazing, a soft smell of eucalyptus in the air and for the first time I wished desperately that you could see it, because _that_ is Chile \u2013 the earth, the smells, the snow-covered mountains, the country bread baked in outdoor ovens \u2013 all this I will yearn for always just as I don't care if I ever see Santiago again.\n\nEven the orchestra managed to sound like something \u2013 the last concert was quite good. _Firebird_ , no less, and a [Goffredo] Petrassi piece which I rather liked. Klecki [Kletzki] is good but that's about all I can say for him \u2013 pas tr\u00e8s grande chose.\n\nThen there are the parties being given and planned and we hope to get to do some skiing this weekend with the children. Their noses have stopped running and they're blooming once more. Alexander is so beautiful and naughty and funny I could eat him! Jamie has become so Chilean it's disconcerting \u2013 her Spanish is incredible, full of imagineses de repentes and Por Dioses! They are both really frightfully clever \u2013 the Alessandris think Jamie is a genius \u2013 God forbid!\n\nDarling, I hope this reaches you for your \"Jewish\" birthday and that it is a delicious one. I will get you a great present (I wonder where?). In the nonce my boundless love will have to do \u2013 and many many kisses of all sorts. I do so long for you.\n\nTia,\n\nF.\n\n389. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nJefferson Hotel, Washington, D.C.\n\n23 August 1957\n\nDarling,\n\nIt's all too exciting. I never dreamed it could be like this \u2013 reviews such as one would write for oneself \u2013 the whole town up and doing about the show \u2013 the delicious long lines at the box office \u2013 morale high \u2013 dignitaries every night \u2013 the Senate practically in toto \u2013 parties \u2013 hot newspapers \u2013 all the atmosphere of a mid-season opening \u2013 gala-emeralds, furs \u2013 the works. Only thing missing \u2013 _you_. How I longed to have you there & share the excitement! Of course, as they say, it's only Washington, not New York \u2013 don't count chickens. But it sure looks like a smash, & all our experiments seem to have worked. The book works, the tragedy works, the ballets shine, the music pulses & soars, & there is at least one history-making set. It's all too good to be true.\n\nI've just got lunched at the White House \u2013 no m\u00e1s. Invited by Sherman Adams53 & the whole gang. Again \u2013 you should have been there! What a beautiful place \u2013 such credenzas, such breakfronts. I really felt \"in\". Adams & Rabb & Gen. Snyder \u2013 all were talking of nothing but _West Side Story_ \u2013 I think the whole government is based on it. Jim Hagerty (Ike's press secretary) turns out to be a fan of mine! It's all so crazy and unexpected. Even Adams turns out to be an amateur musician.\n\nNow listen! When are you coming home? I have a constant feeling you're about to turn up any minute \u2013 but look, the time is drawing near. Only 10 days to Labor Day and the summer's over. What I hope is that you'll be back for the Philly opening (Monday the 9th) which is our anniversary, for Chrissake \u2013 or even for Jamie's birthday on Sunday. Please try to manage it, huh? Why stick around that plag[u]ey place, bored as you are, after Labor Day? Let me know right away when you plan to return, and darling, hurry home. I can't stand not seeing the children, and I need my girl!\n\nI love you,\n\nL\n\nI'm 39 in 2 days!!\n\n390. Cole Porter54 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nLos Angeles, CA\n\n23 August 1957\n\n[Telegram]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI hear glowing reports about your new show.55 All my congratulations to you and Jerry.\n\nBest,\n\nCole Porter\n\n391. Felicia Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Santiago, Chile]\n\n\"Montag\" [Sunday, 25 August and Monday, 26 August 1957]\n\nDearest Lennuhtt,\n\nAnd today is the Baroness' birthday and I'm not yet there yet! Like the idiot, fool, ridiculous ass that I am I made a special trip at 2 a.m. to send you a cable, address it to the theatre so you'd be sure to get it \u2013 forgetting completely that it is Sunday and probably the only day off you've all had for months!\n\nAnyway, it is sure to be a happy birthday \u2013 such reviews! My God! I carry them around with me to read over again in my free moments. How has Arthur taken it all \u2013 one of the reviews gave the book to Jerry \u2013 oh my! I hear from B[urton] B[ernstein] that there's little to fix apart from your nose.\n\n_Next day_ \u2013 why does one ever telephone \u2013 such a frustrating five minutes! What do you mean Flora Robson?\n\nAnyway I'm waiting to hear from Pan American \u2013 your \"new found\" success gave me courage and we should be off _in style_ a week from tomorrow. Rosalia will follow later by Cinta. My plan is to go straight to Washington (the plane stops there anyway). The children can stay overnight so you can see them and then take a train to New York with Julia. I will have Helen send a suitcase on to Wash[ington] with summer clothes so that I won't need to go to New York at all. How's that for peanuts?\n\nOf course, this last week I've been having a _very good_ time \u2013 dinner parties galore, lunches in terraces, trips to the country and the mountains \u2013 the moment one leaves Santiago it is breathtakingly beautiful! And spring really is here, the trees are abloom, the sun is warm and it is nice \u2013 actually _very nice_. I am glad to have stayed on, it would have been too sad to leave with such a memory of misery!\n\nSince there is _nothing_ to buy, there will be an enormous lack of regalitos.56 I've been wracking my brain and everybody else's thinking of an adequate and fun birthday present for you \u2013 as yet notens\u00fcd\u00fc! I almost got you a race-horse cause it was named after me \u2013 but then, we lost Alfred Vanderbilt who could have kept it for you. Then, of course, there are copper mines, cattle farms, vineyards etc. and that's no[t] any good.\n\nDarling, next time you hear from me t'will be in my own Flora Robson tones. I'll wire arrival time etc. Please remember _not_ to mention my hair which no doubt will look \"desperate\" after the trip! At the moment Zorina57 would die of envy, it is so silky and _straight_. I do look awfully well and my _beauty_ is toasted to in the chicest circles, my dear!\n\nListen, please love me still when I get back. I may not be such a raving beauty there but I love _you_.\n\nF\n\n392. Felicia Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\n[Santiago, Chile]\n\n\"Tuesday\" [27 August 1957]\n\nDearest Helen,\n\nBless you for sending me the Washington reviews \u2013 I'm still groggy from the impact! Overwhelmingly wonderful. I can only imagine how blissfully happy Lenny must be, bless his heart!\n\nAnyway, the time has come to pack up and leave. I hope to get a Pan American flight the 3rd of Sept which leaves me directly in Washington. I will take the children and Julie with me and Rosalia will take Chita back alone from here. Lenny can then see the children and they can take a train later to New York. Now, if you can send my summer clothes to Washington in a suitcase I can simply stay on with Lenny for a while and dispense with New York entirely. [...]\n\nAll this would need to be sent at once though, cause as you know I have nothing but winter clothes with me! I only hope it won't be difficult and a bore for you. I'm sure Ofra would be happy to help \u2013 she knows my clothes rather well.\n\nWe've been having a very nice time this last week \u2013 the weather is heavenly! We took the children to the mountains and they had a marvelous time! They are looking beautiful!\n\nEvery one sends love to you and Marie Grace. See you soon.\n\nLove & Kisses,\n\nFelicia\n\n393. Goddard Lieberson58 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nheaded paper of CBS Television, New York, NY\n\n30 August 1957\n\nLen,\n\nI know you're up to ears in unsolicited praise at this point, but I've found myself so full of this project of yours all this week that I need to let you know what I think of it \u2013 if only as a sort of palliative which will allow me to get back into the heart of hackwork, which is my domain right now.\n\nWe've glutted the language with so many all-words and non-words that by now a term like \"fine\" has little meaning. But it has meaning for me, and it's that word which I now find myself stuck with when I think about the way your talent has combined with your material this time.\n\nI mistrust my initial impression a little \u2013 I really can't believe that any one thing can be the best thing of its sort in my memory \u2013 all I know is the way I felt on Saturday afternoon was very like the experience of _Anne Frank_ a couple of seasons ago59 \u2013 I kept telling myself afterwards that there must have been something wrong with me for those three hours \u2013 something wrong that enabled the play to work on me the way it did.\n\nI must have been something like a perfect piece of audience on Saturday because I've never known anything in musical theater to do me in the way _West Side Story_ did. I'm usually a pain in the neck about those things \u2013 thinking all the while, officiously, how it ought to be better done and what I'd see thrown out. But Saturday it just threw me around and that's about the end of it.\n\nPeople muttered at times about [Gian Carlo] Menotti \u2013 in a good way \u2013 saying that it's the most moving thing since _The Consul_ \u2013 all that lobby crap \u2013 for me Menotti's always been somewhere over the fence because I don't like his use of language and I don't think the whole thing is comfortable \u2013 I never have learned to believe it \u2013 I don't know _The Consul_ , but the rest of it falls the way I've described \u2013 which is a failing in me, I guess, but nonetheless a fact. If it doesn't just happen, then it isn't right.\n\nI haven't ever seen a production which held together the way yours does \u2013 in which the units of work produced by different people fitted so well into a whole \u2013 I don't know how it really was. I know you must have had your problems \u2013 but none of them show up as scars.\n\nFor me, it has terrific power \u2013 terrific unity \u2013 excellent individual work, though I think the women are by and large better than the men \u2013 I can't say enough for Carol Lawrence this time \u2013 I've always liked her \u2013 and [Chita] Rivera is beautifully inside the work \u2013 which I didn't think she'd really be \u2013 she doesn't splash out of the production as I figured she might. This probably isn't going to make her, but it's great for the show. I think the men are at least good and will improve for sure \u2013 [Larry] Kert particularly. He seemed a little nervous still \u2013 but that's like a headcold and can be got rid of.\n\nThe amazing thing to me is that everything seems to work so well \u2013 with the possible exception of the 2d Act ballet, you never get the half-vision of what was attempted against the way it comes off \u2013 I know if you tried to tell somebody why the Balcony Scene works, it'd sound wrong \u2013 yet it's the most moving single musical sequence I've seen since the park bench scene in _Carousel_ \u2013 which I think is a great, great moment.\n\nThe Anita\u2013Maria duet is almost on a level with the Balcony Scene for me \u2013 just amazing.\n\nI hope Kert gets his first two songs into shape \u2013 because they're terrific \u2013 \"Maria\" particularly \u2013 and it isn't quite happening \u2013 or anyhow, didn't on Saturday.\n\nThere's such a fabric there \u2013 and such a flow \u2013 I wouldn't have believed that it'd be possible on this earth at the end of the first week out of town. I still find it a little tough to be sure about \u2013 and yet I know how it was.\n\nFor God's sake, change the last five minutes \u2013 you don't need to say all that crap, because everything you've been saying since 8:40 has been saying it for you. And much better than any single invention could do, I think.\n\nLynn, that sponge, cried for ten minutes afterwards and the glue and mascara ran all over the National lobby.\n\nI won't go on \u2013 there's nothing duller than praise, when you've had a surfeit of it, I imagine \u2013 and you're the last person in the world I'd be caught writing fan mail to \u2013 I only had to say, you really did it, man.\n\nDo you know that when you do a work like this you give a boost to everyone who spades around in the same field? It's kind of like knowing that those productive currents and vibrations are still in the air, if you'll only work and reach and not forget.\n\nSo, thanks for it.\n\nG\n\n394. William Schuman to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMartha's Vineyard Island, MA\n\n1 September 1957\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nIt's just wonderful news that we hear of the show, and Frankie and I are so happy for you and with you. We send love and all the best for the NY opening where we hope to be present. Excuse this fast note but the sun is out on this beautiful island and I can't afford to miss a minute of these last precious days. We missed you up here and you'll have to arrange next year sans summer rehearsals.\n\nLove from the 4\n\nSchumans\n\nI'm delighted you're doing the 6th [Symphony] \u2013 just heard.\n\n395. Albert Sirmay60 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nChappell & Co., Inc., New York, NY\n\n11 September 1957\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI'm afraid that I'm too repetitious and maybe annoying in expressing so many times my admiration for your score of _West Side Story_. However I do not want to miss to say that it gives me immense satisfaction to read in the article of the _Evening Bulletin_ the same words that I used to you on the opening night in Washington and last night in Philadelphia. It was quite a thrill to see my own words \"theatrical history\" and \"milepost\" repeated by a professional critic.\n\nWell, my dear Lenny, I didn't need any printed words to make me aware of the greatness of your score. So bear with me and accept again from me my warmest and most enthusiastic congratulations.\n\nLove,\n\nSirmay\n\n396. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\nWarwick Hotel, Philadelphia, PA\n\n12 September 1957\n\nDear David,\n\nIt seems impossible that I haven't written you in all this time \u2013 and yet it's true. Six months or so have elapsed since you left \u2013 six months of one straight monochromatic labor on this show, which is now thankfully open, and provisionally a smash hit.61 The three weeks in Washington were phenomenal \u2013 sell-outs, raving press & public. Now simile in Philly. It really does my heart good \u2013 because this show is my baby, my tragic musical comedy, whatever that is; and if it goes in New York as it has been on the road we will have proved something very big indeed, & maybe changed the face of the American musical theatre.\n\nBut the fact remains that I haven't written a letter in all this time \u2013 hardly to anyone \u2013 and what makes it worse, I have had this news for you for at least two months now that I _will_ be doing the 4th Symph \u2013 with the Philharmonic next year. I should have let you know long ago \u2013 but it's just been impossible to do anything but work on the show. Now I breathe a little \u2013 it's on, & going; & it's not all I want, nor will it ever be; but it's good, & I'm proud, & I can write a letter again. I forget the exact date fixed for your Mercury Symph., but it will be in January \u2013 with, I am almost positive, a Columbia recording (I've almost talked the Kouss Foundation into it). And Mischa Elman playing Mendelssohn on the same program will insure the public. Only hitch: it won't fit into the Sunday broadcast. What an impossible business, making programs in terms of split minutes! But that's a small sacrifice, especially if we get the recording. I'll be happy to renew acquaintance with it again. 10 years!\n\nThe family is home again after a long summer in Chile (I don't know what happened to the summer!) and it's such a joy to be with them again. F & I leave for Israel the 27th (the day after the N.Y. opening of _West Side Story_ ) & will be there through the month of October. Then home again. Can you make it?\n\nYou _were_ marvelous in New York, in spite of all the tragic train of events, & I was proud of you. Give my love & Felicia's to Ciro [Cuomo], & many congratulations. Let me hear what you're doing.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n397. Margot Fonteyn62 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHampshire House, New York, NY\n\n24 September 1957\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nThank you more than I can say for arranging seats for us for _West Side Story_ on 3rd October. We are longing to see it and would never have got in without your help. It is so kind of you & I am sure you are overwhelmed with requests.\n\nThe Met. Opera House are holding 4 seats should you wish them for tomorrow night. I wish I were dancing, but we are so lazy in the ballet, we only dance now and then!\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nMargot Arias\n\n398. Ren\u00e9e Longy Miquelle to Leonard Bernstein\n\n24 September 1957\n\nDearest Spookietchka,\n\nI have been meaning to write you long since but now I can't delay any further since I have\n\n1) to tell you how very much I like _West Side Story_\n\n2) how marvelous it was to see you, talk and reminisce, and\n\nLastly to wish you the very best Broadway opening and a splendid journey to Israel.\n\nThank you for being you \u2013 for your friendship \u2013 you enjoy a very large place in my heart as you know. God speed to both you & Felicia, and all my love.\n\nRelami [Ren\u00e9e]\n\nIf you have a recent picture of yourself (not a snapshot) please send it me \u2013 sort of a delayed birthday present! The last picture (and only one) I have dates back to Xmas 1945.\n\nAre you giving any exciting new works in Israel? Where can you be addressed there? Till when?\n\n399. Lauren Bacall63 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nLos Angeles, CA\n\n25 September 1957\n\n[Telegram]\n\nIt was worth all the Dexamyl. It's a smash, you're a smash and I'm thrilled for you.\n\nBlessings and love,\n\nBetty\n\n400. Betty Comden, Steven Kyle, and Adolph Green to Leonard Bernstein\n\nNew York, NY\n\n26 September 1957\n\n[Telegram]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nWe can but echo the deathless words of Samuel Hochman: So what's wrong with the hair business? But seriously folks we know tonight will be everything you hoped it to be.\n\nMuch love,\n\nBetty, Steve and Adolph\n\n401. Albert Sirmay to Leonard Bernstein\n\nNew York, NY\n\n26 September 1957\n\n[Telegram]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nFor the masterwork which you have created in your score for _West Side Story_ my unlimited admiration and my heartfelt wishes for a long-lasting success which you so well deserve with your immense talent.\n\nAlbert Sirmay\n\n402. Stephen Sondheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n11 East 80th Street, New York, NY\n\n26 September 195764\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nYou know \u2013 only too well \u2013 how hard it is for me to show gratitude and affection, much less to commit them to writing. But tonight I feel I must. _West Side Story_ means much more to me than a first show, more even than the privilege of collaborating with you and Arthur and Jerry. It marks the beginning of what I hope will be a long and enduring friendship. Friendship is a thing I give and receive rarely, but for what it's worth I want you to know you have it from me always.\n\nI don't think I've ever said to you how fine I think the score is, since I prefer kidding you about the few moments I don't like to praising you for the many I do. _West Side Story_ is as big a step forward for you as it is for Jerry or Arthur or even me and, in an odd way, I feel proud of you.\n\nMuch as I want to write music, I'm not sure I like the idea of doing another show without you.\n\nI will, of course, and I'll play it for you, and you'll criticize it, and I'll be hostile and sarcastic about your criticism. But I look forward to that criticism and I hope you'll give it freely.\n\nMy gratitude and affection, then (in token of which I offer the enclosed unusual portrait of L. Bernstein in a moment away from J. Robbins), and also my best wishes for good luck to our little divertissement. May _West Side Story_ mean as much to the theater and to people who see it as it has to us.\n\nSteve\n\n403. Roger L. Stevens65 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nNew York, NY\n\n26 September 1957\n\n[Telegram]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nThanks for your graciousness in remembering the dim dark days when it looked like everything was off. My faith was simple because with so many remarkable tunes the production just had to work.\n\nRoger\n\n404. Stephen Sondheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[New York, NY]\n\n23 October 1957\n\nDear Lenny or Lennie,\n\nI have one of the most unusual and authentic excuses ever proffered for not writing you before this: my electric typewriter blew a fuse. Started to print words like thhhisss, and made interpretation even more difficult than blotted longhand. But I hope this reaches you before you leave for London. Helen tells me that you've been receiving almost none of the mail she's sent you. In a way, I hope it's true, because otherwise my news may be redundant to you.66\n\nFirst of all, your questions about the show67 could not have arrived at a more opportune time. Ten minutes ago, the phone rang \u2013 it was Martin Charnin, informing me that Stephanie Augustine suddenly had to go on for Carol [Lawrence]. This was at four-thirty, so my guess is that something happened to her during the Kaleidoscope (the ballet starts around four-fifteen \u2013 by the way, today is matinee day, in case you're hopelessly confused by my incoherence). Charnin couldn't fill me in on the details, since he had to go on for Krupke (the number, not the actor), but I'm going to the show to see how Mrs. Hyman68 does. [...]\n\nOn the whole, the cast has been healthier than I expected \u2013 a few cases of flu (Al De Sio, who had refused the shot, and whose name outside the theater has been spaced so as to read Aldesio; Charnin, who had received the shot, and one other, whose name escapes me at the moment), a few broken ankles, torn ligaments and sprained wrists (Calin, Roll, Grover Dale, Lynn Ross) [...] But there have been no serious crises until today.\n\nI don't know if Helen sent you all the notices, but knowing her maternal instincts, I suspect she omitted Harold Clurman's in _The Nation_. I'm afraid it's the end of Frank Lewis and his ground rules69 for us, friend, since I'm cancelling my subscription immediately and trust you will do the same. Clurman's was a nasty, personally antagonistic (why? that's the question on a hundred lips; what did you do to him?) piece accusing us of base motives in writing the show. He called it a \"phoney\" and said we were \"intellectuals slumming\" for the purpose of making money. The review was framed by statements to the effect that the show would run a year, but no longer. The only personal pan in the review was directed at me, but he obviously was offended by the whole thing.70 His, however, is the only real blast we got ( _Time_ and _The New Yorker_ weren't great, but they weren't more than ordinarily unkind) [...]\n\nFrom all indications, however, the show is a smash. We're sold out through February, even though tickets haven't yet been placed on sale beyond December 21st (the extra months are the result of mail orders). The License Commissioner has demanded an investigation of the box office; this, Hal [Prince] assures me, is the sign of a genuine blockbuster \u2013 it happened on _My Fair Lady_ and _South Pacific_. The question is how long will the situation last. Part of the cause for the unavailability of seats, even at the brokers', is the continual flow of theater parties \u2013 every matinee and evening for the next six weeks except for six performances or so. There will be an Actors' Benefit performance November 24th, so jot it down \u2013 it should be very exciting. Anyway, Art or no, we'll be making money for a while.\n\nSomeone named Ullman (Abe, I believe) at Schirmer's keeps calling me for house seats and telling me apocryphal news of sheet music sales and forthcoming recordings. So far, only one has been out on the market: Jill Corey singing \"I Feel Pretty\" [...]\n\nRosemary Clooney has recorded \"Tonight\", but I haven't heard it yet. So has Vera Lynn, an English thrush, as we say in _Variety_. Sammy Davis wants to do \"Cool\", \"Something's Coming\" and \"Tonight\", but no action yet. Mickey Calin got a recording contract with something called Teen-o-Rama Records (they told him that he'd get his picture in all the teenage fan magazines, so he signed) and is recording \"Cool\" tomorrow. (He's also gotten numerous movie offers, which should be a surprise to no one.) Incidentally, _Variety_ named the Corey version of \"Pretty\" as one of its weekly best bets (Best Bets, that is). Another one that week was a song by Mary (Rodgers) and Sammy Cahn called \"I Love You Whoever You Are\".\n\nAs for the cast recording, I was amazed at Goddard [Lieberson]'s efficiency and dispatch, as well as his efforts at maintaining quality. You will probably be displeased with the record for reasons stated below as well as dozens of others, but on the whole I think it's pretty good \u2013 at least, by show album standards. It was recorded simultaneously for stereophonic tape (to be released in November as the first show so recorded) and sounds much better than the record. Some of the balancing isn't all it could be, but most of the trouble we had was due to lack of time \u2013 time on the record and time in the recording studio. As we had suspected, the amount of music was way overlong. Someone had goofed on the pre-recording timing, claiming that the Balcony Scene (starting with the singing) was 2:40, whereas it turned out to be 5:10. I don't have time to go into all the suggestions for remedying this, but the only one that worked was to cut out the best part \u2013 namely, the dialogue. Consequently, to our ears, the scene has been emasculated, going straight from the second chorus to the sung \"Goodnight\"s, with four hurried lines spoken over the bridge between. Thus the first \"goodnight\" has to start on the fifth instead of the second, which ruins it, because the second doesn't fit in with the harmony. It's too bad, but I assure you there was no other way out \u2013 at least, none that occurred to us. You are also likely to be disturbed by the following (I tell you these not to ruin your final three weeks before you hear them, but to soften whatever shocks you may get when you're finally back at the Osborne).\n\nFLASH! Hal just called to say that Carol's singing voice gave out at the top of her range, though her low notes and speaking voice remained. She's at the doctor's right now, will probably not go on tonight, but will tomorrow, if all is well. He saw Stephanie from \"I Have A Love\" on, says that she's okay [...] Jerry wanted to fire her immediately (without giving her a chance to do a whole performance, in effect), but he's in a bad mood anyway \u2013 he started his new ballet for the City Center on Monday, and it's apparently not going well.\n\nDrawbacks in the recording, cont'd: A very fast tempo for the prologue, not so much to save time as to make it more interesting. Without the accompanying action, it tended toward monotony. Incidentally, we included street noises and shouts throughout the album, which works very well for the most part, though they tend to drown out the music in The Rumble. 2) Larry [Kert]'s voice on \"Something's Coming\" gets a little froggy in a few places and he sang the wrong rhythm for \"come on, deliver\", but it was by far the best of the takes, because the feeling was right. Unfortunately, it was the next to last song recorded and he was very tired, having been at the session for nine hours. His best is \"Maria\", which was the first number he recorded. 3) Frank Green took Larry's part in The Rumble (shouting \"Riff, don't!\") and came in about ten bars too late \u2013 just before the stabbing \u2013 but the orchestra played it so well, that we didn't try another take (it was already the third). Also, they forgot to blow the police whistle at the climax. (By the way, the orchestra was increased to 37 men for the recording.) 4) \"America\" and \"I Feel Pretty\" don't sound any better on the record than they do on the stage. 5) A trumpet player goofed badly on the change of key in the final procession. Oddly enough, nobody heard it until it was too late. I was out getting five minutes' sleep during it (I also slept during \"America\", since the session lasted from 10 a.m. to 1 a.m.). There will be a hundred other subtle and unsubtle goofs that will probably anger you, but the general reaction to the record so far (it came out last Friday \u2013 first order being 46,000 copies \u2013 is that good?) has been wonderful. _Variety_ raved, and Douglas Watt in the _News_ gave it a good notice (where he objected to anything, it was to the material, not the recording). The singers were not at their best, Lenny, but they were tired. One thing you ought to like: Goddard insisted that the final chorus of \"Krupke\" be played very slow with a heavy vaudeville beat. Jerry must have had conniptions. Another sidelight: Irv and Sid71 put a major cadence at the end of \"I Have A Love\". I had conniptions, so it was changed back to the relative minor. I presume you didn't want it changed. I certainly didn't.\n\nSo all is very cheery at the Winter Garden, although benefit audiences have dampened the general atmosphere. They seem to like the show, though, and word-of-mouth is good. Only in the applause for individual numbers and scenes can that intramural too-many-martinis feeling be noticed. Sometimes the hand for \"America\" hardly covers the scene change, and sometimes Lee [Becker] has no trouble getting the audience to stop at the end of \"Krupke\". \"Something's Coming\" and \"The Jet Song\" still get weak hands, but the applause at the end of the ballet is constant \u2013 or almost so. Benefit audiences don't really get with it till the rumble, and sometimes not until \"Krupke\". But, as I say, they end up liking the show, so don't worry. I haven't seen a complete performance in two weeks, so I don't know how sloppy they're getting, but Jerry's going to do some rehearsing tomorrow.\n\nI have much more to tell you, but I wanted to send this letter off this afternoon so that it would have a chance to slip in to you between Jewish holidays. I'll write you again, but if I don't stop now \u2013 I have to go out \u2013 I won't finish it for another four days. Love to Felicia [...]\n\nMiss you. Come back on the seventh and no excuses. The groaning board72 is set up and I've peeked at all the letters.\n\nLove,\n\nSteve\n\n405. Paul Tortelier73 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n13 October 1957\n\nMy dear Leonard,\n\nI regret not to have been able to see you after our last performance of the _Schelomo_ [by Bloch]; I wanted so much to thank you again and to tell you \"au revoir\"!\n\nHow is it going now in the formidable Frederick Mann Hall? I often think of you and Isaac [Stern] after the dreamlike days in Israel that we love.\n\nWith my son Pascal (10 years old) we are going to hear [Arthur] Rubinstein tomorrow night in his Paris recital; that will be a great joy to hear him again and \u2013 perhaps \u2013 to talk few minutes with him after the concert.\n\nWell, I must take the coach to the airport now and consequently must leave you quicker than I would like.\n\nMy love to Isaac.\n\nMes hommages \u00e0 votre charmante femme avec la reconnaissance et amiti\u00e9 de votre\n\nPaul Tortelier\n\nP.S. Also my best remembrance to the orchestra if it is not asking too much.\n\n406. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n16 November 1957\n\nDear A,\n\nI tried valiantly to call on your birthday, but no soap. Also yesterday, idem. So, _per forza_ , a letter \u2013 Happy birthday. Just got back from Izzyland and London, and first thought was \u2013 14 November: there's something terribly familiar about that. Then I realized it was my debut date in 1943, and your birthday (in 1938). (Do you realize that next year on your birthday it will be 20 \u2013 twenty \u2013 XX \u2013 _Twenty_ \u2013 vingt years we know each other?!!)\n\nAnd then I realized that I've missed you very much \u2013\n\nAs I say, happy birthday\n\n& love\n\nLenny\n\n407. Lukas Foss to Leonard Bernstein\n\nUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA\n\n22 November 1957\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nNow that it is official let me again congratulate you and New York and music in America. All I can say is I shall be much more homesick than ever for New York.\n\nMy own life almost took a turn which would have made it look a little more like yours (or, let us say, like a provincial version of yours). Thor Johnson is leaving Cincinnati and I was offered his job. Cincinnati is not like New York, but it compares to my present UCLA orchestra much like NY compares to Cincinnati. In fact it would feel heavenly to have a _real_ orchestra for a change. Having had considerable repertoire experience over the last 5 years, I was tempted, but finally decided against it. They demanded that I conduct 80 concerts in 28 weeks including pops, junior high, neighborhood concerts, tours etc. Aaron thought I should do it for 2 years \u2013 almost changed my mind. I wonder what you would have advised. Felt like giving you a ring, then felt silly. Now the dice have fallen. I am staying here.\n\nI've got a new piece to play for you when I come in January. All my love to Felicia and you, from both of us \u2013\n\nAnd again: Congrats\n\nLukas\n\n408. Leonard Bernstein to Goddard Lieberson\n\n21 November 1957\n\nDear Goddard,\n\nMy thanks to you are so overdue by now that your beautiful gift-plant makes it imperative that I rise from my bed of pain to thank you. You did a wonderful job on the _W_ [ _est_ ] _S_ [ _ide_ ] _S_ [ _tory_ ] album. It must have been a hectic session, from all I hear, with split-second decisions to be made all the time \u2013 and you did a heroic job.\n\nAs to the plant \u2013 it is lovely, & we thank you & Brigitte with great warmth.\n\nAs to the bed of pain, I'm going to the hospital tomorrow for some check-ups on this ridiculous back of mine, as well as some enforced sleep. S-L-E-E-P, glorious word.\n\nLove, Lenny\n\n409. Joshua Logan74 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n22 November 1957\n\nDear Leonard,\n\n_West Side Story_ is one of the most moving events of my theatergoing experience. Your music is such a part of the whole I can't find out where it began or ended. I was just involved & became the slave of all of you from the moment the curtain went up. Thanks for giving us all such a beautiful experience.\n\nAlso congratulations on your new job with the Philharmonic.\n\nBest always,\n\nJosh\n\n1 It is worth noting that Laurents wrote this letter more than a month before the meeting between Laurents and Bernstein when they discussed the idea of warring gangs of Puerto Rican and white American teenagers.\n\n2 Nothing seems to have come of this idea, but Miller writes at length about his observations of gang warfare in Brooklyn during the summer of 1955 in his autobiography _Timebends_ (1987), pp. 360\u20139.\n\n3 _East Side Story_ was one of the several titles for what became _West Side Story_. For years the collaborators called it simply _Romeo_. One short-lived early title was _Operation Capulet_ (see Letter 279). A much later title, announced in the press as late as June 1957, was _Gangway!_ \u2013 an idea that was quickly (and mercifully) abandoned.\n\n4 This undated letter urges Bernstein to go out to Hollywood (where Laurents, Robbins, and Bernstein all worked at various times in 1955) in order to make progress on _West Side Story_. It's probable that this letter was written before the meeting between Bernstein and Laurents on 25 August 1955 (when Robbins was in New York). But it's also possible \u2013 from Laurents' reference to \"all the preliminary work that we've all talked about\" \u2013 that he wrote the letter after the meeting to request a week's visit from Bernstein to consolidate ideas already discussed, especially as Robbins arrived in Hollywood in mid-September to work on the film of _The King and I_ (he was clearly in California when Laurents wrote this letter). The meeting on 25 August in Beverly Hills was described by Bernstein: \"Had a fine long session with Arthur today, by the pool. (He's here for a movie; I'm conducting at the Hollywood Bowl.) We're fired again by the Romeo notion; only now we have abandoned the whole Jewish\u2013Catholic premise as not very fresh, and have come up with what I think is going to be it: two teen-age gangs as the warring factions, one of them newly-arrived Puerto Ricans, the other self-styled 'Americans.' Suddenly it all springs to life. I hear rhythms and pulses, and \u2013 most of all \u2013 I can sort of feel the form\" (Bernstein 1957, p. 47). However, Laurents had already raised this idea a month earlier, in his letter to Bernstein of 19 July 1955 (Letter 359). The eventual outcome was the radically altered outline that introduced the idea of conflict between white and Puerto Rican gangs (printed in Appendix One) to which Robbins responded on 18 October 1955 (Letter 362).\n\n5 _Bells Are Ringing_.\n\n6 Comden and Green were tentatively considered for _West Side Story_ , and during September 1955 they were apparently contemplating taking it on; they were unable to do so because of existing Hollywood commitments. By October 1955, Stephen Sondheim had joined the show's creative team to write the lyrics.\n\n7 Jack Gottlieb (1930\u20132011), American composer who began work as Bernstein's musical assistant in 1958 and subsequently became publications director of Amberson Enterprises, Bernstein's publishing company.\n\n8 In 1954, Kenneth Gaburo and James Dalgliesh were joint winners of the ninth annual George Gershwin Memorial Contest (organized by the B'nai B'rith) for the best orchestral composition by a young American composer.\n\n9 The outline by Arthur Laurents and Bernstein (see Appendix One) and Robbins' detailed reply in this letter are documents of great importance in the genesis of _West Side Story_. Laurents and Bernstein had evolved the new outline after discussing the project in California in August 1955. Newspaper reports of recent gang violence made them rethink the dramatic outline of a show on which progress had been virtually stalled since Robbins had first proposed the idea in January 1949. Bernstein has written marginal annotations on Robbins' letter that reveal some of his reaction to Robbins' criticisms. These are described in the notes that follow.\n\n10 Marginal note by Bernstein: \"good points.\"\n\n11 Marginal note by Bernstein: \"I thought it _was_ sudden.\"\n\n12 Marginal note by Bernstein: \"True, but maybe a slightly diff[erent] angle.\"\n\n13 Marginal note by Bernstein: \"How much older?\"\n\n14 Marginal note by Bernstein: \"Good point. Both things can happen.\"\n\n15 Marginal note by Bernstein: \"Not necessarily bad \u2013 but avoid clich\u00e9!\"\n\n16 Marginal note by Bernstein: \"True. But there are 2 scenes, so how to achieve the flow like one scene?\"\n\n17 Marginal note by Bernstein: \"?\"\n\n18 Marginal note by Bernstein: \"Don't see any incompatibility here.\"\n\n19 Marginal note by Bernstein: \"Why not?\"\n\n20 Marginal note by Bernstein: \"True. Maybe he doesn't know \u2013 but we know he's doomed.\"\n\n21 Marginal note by Bernstein (with a line beside the whole paragraph): \"All true.\"\n\n22 Marginal note by Bernstein: \"Right.\"\n\n23 Lillian Hellman's adaptation of Jean Anouilh's _The Lark_ , for which Bernstein wrote the incidental music.\n\n24 According to Jack Gottlieb's note in the score of Bernstein's _Missa Brevis_ , it was Robert Shaw who suggested this idea when he attended a performance. In 1988, to mark Shaw's retirement as Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Bernstein produced the \"short Mass\" that he had contemplated more than thirty years earlier. See also Letter 365.\n\n25 Eddie Albert played Reuben in the original production of Blitzstein's _Reuben Reuben_.\n\n26 Subtitled an \"urban folk opera,\" _Reuben Reuben_ opened in Boston on 10 October 1955 and closed quickly, before reaching Broadway. Blitzstein was still reeling from the disappointment when he wrote this letter.\n\n27 Blitzstein never forgave Robbins for naming names when he testified to the HUAC.\n\n28 This is a fascinating comment; Bernstein's own correspondence contains no remarks about working with Robbins after his HUAC performance, but it would be surprising if Bernstein and Arthur Laurents had not been angered and disappointed by Robbins' conduct. And yet, only a few months before Blitzstein sent this letter, Bernstein and Laurents had got back to serious work on _West Side Story_ , and brought Stephen Sondheim into the creative team.\n\n29 Blitzstein was her godfather.\n\n30 This was not a lasting rift. As Eric Gordon put it, \"Lenny and Felicia Bernstein remained loyal to Marc. They had already made their first child, Jamie, Marc's godchild. Their son Alexander's name is the male form of Alexandra from _Regina_. And their third child they named for Marc's heroine in _Reuben Reuben_ \u2013 Nina\" (Gordon 1989, p. 405).\n\n31 In December 1956, Diamond played as a violinist in the pit orchestra for Bernstein's _Candide_ , though this much-needed paying engagement was interrupted when he was subpoenaed by the HUAC. There's at least one irony in the timing of Diamond's subpoena: _Candide_ was partly intended by Hellman and Bernstein as a polemic against HUAC and Joseph McCarthy's Senate hearings.\n\n32 Richard Rodgers (1902\u201379), American composer, best known for his collaborations with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein. These creative partnerships resulted in more than thirty Broadway musicals, including several established classics of the American musical theatre.\n\n33 The episode of _Omnibus_ referred to by Rodgers is \"The American Musical Comedy,\" first broadcast on 7 October 1956.\n\n34 Harry Farbman was Associate Conductor of the St Louis Symphony Orchestra.\n\n35 Vladimir Golschmann was the orchestra's Music Director.\n\n36 Foss' _Psalms_ (for chorus and orchestra) were first performed in May 1957 at the New York Philharmonic in a concert conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos that also included Kod\u00e1ly's _Psalmus Hungaricus_ , Walton's _Belshazzar's Feast_ , and the premiere of Nils Viggo Bentzon's _Variazioni brevi_.\n\n37 Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930), American composer and lyricist. He first met Bernstein in October 1955: according to Bernstein's datebook, Laurents and Sondheim had their first meeting with him on 18 October. Sondheim adds some interesting details: he heard about _West Side Story_ from Arthur Laurents at the opening-night party for Ugo Betti's _Isle of Goats_ on 4 October, and played for Bernstein the following day, on 5 October: \"I auditioned for him without Arthur, and it was the day after the _Isle of Goats_ opening. Remember, Lenny and Arthur had to wait for a week till Betty and Adolph knew whether they could get out of _Winter Wonderland_ (I think that was the title). I was put on hold for that week, which is when I went to consult Oscar [Hammerstein]. My first official meeting after accepting the job was with Arthur alone, the next with both of them\" (Sondheim, personal communication). Bernstein and Sondheim had more than forty meetings between November 1955 and February 1956, and by the time Sondheim celebrated his 26th birthday on 22 March 1956, the score of Act I was starting to take shape \u2013 with _Romeo_ still as the working title.\n\n38 Seventeen years later, Sondheim provided more than just help: for the 1973 revival of _Candide_ , he wrote several new lyrics including \"Life is Happiness Indeed\" (a replacement for Bernstein and Parker's \"The Venice Gavotte\"), \"This World,\" \"The Sheep Song,\" and half of \"Auto Da Fe.\"\n\n39 Gunther Schuller (b. 1925), American composer, conductor, writer on music, and jazz historian. Two works by Schuller were performed by Mitropoulos in the 1956\u20137 New York Philharmonic season, and his father Arthur Schuller was a violinist in the orchestra for more than forty years. Bernstein relished the kind of discussion prompted by this letter, and Schuller's enthusiasm may well have encouraged him to program Webern's music. In January 1958, Bernstein included Webern's _Six Pieces_ Op. 6 in his Philharmonic concerts, and in December 1965 he conducted Webern's Symphony on the same program as Mahler's Seventh. In 1964 Schuller and Bernstein collaborated on Schuller's _Journey Into Jazz_ , composed specially for the _Young People's Concerts_ , where it was conducted by the composer and narrated by Bernstein. The following is part of Bernstein's spoken introduction to the performance: \"These days [...] there is a new movement in American music actually called the 'third stream' which mixes the rivers of jazz with the other rivers that flow down from the high-brow far-out mountain peaks of twelve-tone, or atonal music. Now the leading navigator of this third stream \u2013 in fact the man who made up the phrase \u2013 is a young man named Gunther Schuller. He is one of those total musicians, like Paul Hindemith [...] only he's American. Mr. Schuller writes music \u2013 all kinds of music \u2013 conducts it, lectures on it, and plays it. Certainly he owes some of his great talent to his father, a wonderful musician who happens to play in our orchestra. We are very proud of Arthur Schuller. But young Gunther Schuller \u2013 still in his thirties \u2013 is now the center of a whole group of young composers who look to him as their leader, and champion. And so I thought that the perfect way to begin today's program about jazz in the concert hall would be to play a piece by Gunther Schuller \u2013 especially this one particular piece which is an introduction to jazz for young people.\"\n\n40 Aldous Huxley (1894\u20131963), British author of _Point Counter Point_ and _Brave New World_ who settled in the United States in 1937. One of Huxley's warmest and most enduring friendships in Los Angeles was with Stravinsky.\n\n41 He had already proposed the idea to Stravinsky who rejected it, as did Bernstein. See Joseph 2001, p. 31.\n\n42 Igor Markevitch (1912\u201383), Ukrainian-born conductor and composer.\n\n43 _Icare_ was originally conceived as a ballet for Serge Lifar in 1932, but it was not staged and Markevitch subsequently reworked it as a concert piece.\n\n44 Bernstein conducted _Icare_ with the New York Philharmonic on 10, 11, 12, and 13 April 1958. The performance from 13 April has been released on CD in _Bernstein Live_ (New York Philharmonic NYP 2003).\n\n45 A Spanish colloquialism for \"annoying things\".\n\n46 Probably a reference to the actress Canta Maya, who appeared in the 1946 film _Bailando en las nubes_ ( _Dancing in the Clouds_ ).\n\n47 Abe Miller, born Abraham Malamud, was Sam Bernstein's cousin and he was eventually employed by the Samuel Bernstein Hair Company. Miller and Sam Bernstein \"had corresponded over the years, Sam convincing [Abe] that his future lay in the New World\" (Burton Bernstein 1982, p. 62). In 1921 he escaped from Korets (Ukraine) via Warsaw, Danzig, and Cuba (where he survived for a year hawking his wares from a wooden box), before eventually arriving in the United States.\n\n48 Dexamyl was a drug introduced in 1950. It contained amphetamine to elevate mood, and barbiturate to counteract the side effects of the amphetamine.\n\n49 _West Side Story_ opened at the National Theatre in Washington D.C. on 19 August 1957.\n\n50 Carol Lawrence (b. 1932) created the role of Maria in _West Side Story_ ; 19 August was the date of the opening night in Washington, D.C.\n\n51 Felicia's letter reacting to the very enthusiastic reception of _West Side Story_ in Washington, D.C., was written the day after it had opened at the National Theatre.\n\n52 _Studio One_ was a long-running television drama series. Felicia appeared in eleven episodes between 1949 and 1956.\n\n53 Sherman Adams (1899\u20131986), White House Chief of Staff for President Dwight D. Eisenhower.\n\n54 Cole Porter (1891\u20131964), American composer and lyricist. After studying at both Yale and Harvard, Porter went to Paris where he took orchestration lessons from Charles Koechlin. On his return to America, Porter became hugely successful on Broadway with shows such as _Anything Goes_ (1934), _Kiss Me, Kate_ (1948), and _Can-Can_ (1953).\n\n55 _West Side Story._\n\n56 Spanish for \"gifts\" or \"treats\".\n\n57 Vera Zorina (1917\u20132003) was the stage name of Brigitta Lieberson, wife of Goddard Lieberson. From 1938 to 1946 she had been married to George Balanchine. Zorina was a dancer and actress who specialized in playing the title role in Honegger's _Jeanne d'Arc au b\u00fbcher_.\n\n58 Goddard Lieberson (1911\u201377), English-born record producer who became president of Columbia Records (1956\u201371 and 1973\u20135). After studying composition at the Eastman School, he joined the classical division of Columbia Records. He took a leading role in the introduction of the long-playing record. As well as overseeing important classical recording projects (such as Stravinsky's recordings of his own work), Lieberson also produced many of the most successful Broadway cast recordings, including _West Side Story_ , which was recorded a month after this letter, on 29 September 1957 at Columbia's 30th Street Studio.\n\n59 A stage adaptation of _The Diary of Anne Frank_ , by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, opened on Broadway on 5 October 1955 and ran for 717 performances.\n\n60 Albert Sirmay (1880\u20131967; originally Szirmai), Hungarian operetta composer who moved to New York in 1926 where he took a job with Chappell & Co., becoming music editor for the likes of Gershwin, Porter, and Jerome Kern. He is credited as the editor of the piano-vocal scores of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musicals: _Allegro_ , _Carousel_ , _Flower Drum Song_ , _The King and I_ , _Me and Juliet_ , _Oklahoma!_ , _Pipe Dream_ , _The Sound of Music_ , and _South Pacific_ ; and he also edited the piano-vocal score of Weill's _Lady in the Dark_. He later became a great Bernstein enthusiast, particularly _West Side Story_ in which he invested $500 as one of the show's original backers (see Simeone 2009, pp. 30 and 113).\n\n61 _West Side Story_ opened for try-outs in Washington on 19 August 1957, then in Philadelphia on 10 September, before the Broadway opening on 26 September.\n\n62 Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias (1919\u201391), ballet dancer who became _prima ballerina assoluta_ of the Royal Ballet, London. She married the Panamanian diplomat Dr. Roberto Arias in 1955, and was appointed a Dame of the British Empire in 1956.\n\n63 Lauren Bacall (b. 1924, as Betty Joan Perske), American actress. Her idol was Bette Davis and both were friends with Bernstein. Bacall married Humphrey Bogart in 1945. When Bogart became ill in 1956, she wrote a touching letter to Bernstein. (\"So sweet of you to take time out to write, and so lovely to hear from you as always. Bogie is coming along, still terribly weak from the treatments and still twenty-five pounds under weight. But in about three weeks it will all be over, thank God, and we can start fattening him up and getting him really well. He's had a time of it but has been saintly throughout.\") Bogart died on 14 January 1957. In 1988, Bacall made a memorable appearance at Bernstein's 70th birthday gala at Tanglewood, singing \"The Saga of Lenny\" (Stephen Sondheim's witty parody of \"The Saga of Jenny\" by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin).\n\n64 Sondheim wrote this letter on the day of the Broadway opening of _West Side Story_.\n\n65 Roger L. Stevens (1910\u201398), American theater producer and real-estate magnate. Stevens remained loyal to the production of _West Side Story_ when Cheryl Crawford withdrew \u2013 the \"dark days\" to which he refers. He later became Chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Stevens was a larger-than-life figure. He was a property developer by profession and someone who relished the big gesture \u2013 none bigger than in 1951, when he led a syndicate to buy the Empire State Building. Stevens gave enthusiastic support to _West Side Story_ , and this extended to organizing the opening-night party in New York. His continued involvement resulted in rather a convoluted formula for the original production credits: \"Robert E. Griffith and Harold S. Prince (by arrangement with Roger L. Stevens).\"\n\n66 Sondheim's detailed and amusing account of _West Side Story_ early in its Broadway run is a mine of information, as is his discussion of the one-day recording session for the Columbia Records cast recording made on Sunday, 29 September 1957. Bernstein was unable to be at the recording as he had flown to Israel for the inaugural concerts in the Frederick Mann auditorium straight after the opening night of _West Side Story_.\n\n67 The original cast members of _West Side Story_ mentioned in this letter played the characters shown in parentheses: Stephanie Augustine (standby for Maria); Lee Becker (Anybodys); Mickey Calin (Riff); Martin Charnin (Big Deal); Grover Dale (Snowboy); Al De Sio (Luis); Larry Kert (Tony); Carol Lawrence (Maria); Eddie Roll (Action); Lynn Ross (Estella).\n\n68 Stephanie Augustine was married to Joseph Hyman.\n\n69 Frank Lewis compiled the cryptic crosswords in _The Nation_. \"Ground rules\" was the example given by Lewis in a note at the bottom of the puzzle as a potential clue for \"lures\". Sondheim and Bernstein shared an enthusiasm for fiendish cryptic crosswords.\n\n70 Harold Clurman's review of _West Side Story_ ( _The Nation_ , 12 October 1957) was a rather bitter attack on the show and its authors, and Sondheim's quotations from the review are exactly as they appear in Clurman's original. The only number he seemed to enjoy was \"Gee, Officer Krupke\".\n\n71 Irwin Kostal and Sid Ramin, the orchestrators of _West Side Story_.\n\n72 This is a phrase that crops up occasionally in Bernstein's correspondence. Traditionally, a \"groaning board\" was a table weighed down by an abundance of food.\n\n73 Paul Tortelier (1914\u201390), French cellist. He played in Koussevitzky's Boston Symphony Orchestra (1937\u201340) before embarking on a very successful solo career. Though not a Jew, he was very sympathetic to the State of Israel, and he stayed regularly with his family on a kibbutz.\n\n74 Joshua Logan (1908\u201388), American theater and film director. Logan's Broadway credits included _Annie Get Your Gun_ and _South Pacific_ , for which he also co-wrote the book and shared a Pulitzer Prize with Rodgers and Hammerstein. Logan had known Bernstein for several years by the time of _West Side Story_. A telegram from Logan dated 17 November 1955 reads: \"Dear Leonard, I know this will be an exciting evening and the more so because of you. Josh Logan\" (sent on the opening night of Lillian Hellman's adaptation of Jean Anouilh's _The Lark_ , for which Bernstein wrote the incidental music).\n6\n\nThe New York Philharmonic Years\n\n1958\u201369\n\nIn 1940, Aaron Copland had joked with Bernstein about the time \"forty years from now when you are conductor of the Philharmonic.\" In fact it was just eighteen years later that Bernstein became Music Director of the orchestra, and over the next decade he was to take it on tour all over the world, to make hundreds of recordings, and to give a staggering number of concerts: in 1971 he conducted his 1,000th concert with the Philharmonic, and plenty more followed (his last concerts with the orchestra were in October 1988). In 1958, the press, particularly the _New York Times_ , was often critical of playing standards in the orchestra, but Bernstein soon lifted both the morale of the musicians and the quality of their performance. Howard Taubman was chief music critic of the _Times_ from 1955 to 1960 and wrote enthusiastically about Bernstein: he warmly welcomed his appointment and was generally positive about his concerts. Taubman's place was taken by Harold Schonberg, who grumbled for years about Bernstein's showmanship and often questioned the value of his musical interpretations. It is sometimes true that a hostile critic can ruin the career of a music director, but Bernstein's popularity was such that even Schonberg's most acidic notices made little impact.\n\nThis was the decade where Bernstein had the most regular contact with other composers: commissioning a great deal of new music (something for which he doesn't always get the credit he deserves), arranging events like the celebrations for Aaron Copland's sixtieth birthday at the Philharmonic, encouraging Stravinsky to come and conduct the orchestra, and corresponding with a startling range of composers about their work: the likes of Stockhausen, Xenakis, Feldman, Cage, and Carter, alongside Poulenc, Messiaen, and friends such as Copland, Foss, Diamond, and Bernstein's erstwhile orchestration teacher Randall Thompson.\n\nTours with the Philharmonic resulted in some remarkable personal encounters, and one of the most memorable came early in Bernstein's tenure, when the orchestra traveled to the Soviet Union in 1959. During this visit he met Boris Pasternak, at a time when the author had been publicly denounced by the Soviet authorities for _Doctor Zhivago_ , and a year before his death. For the rest of his life Bernstein would treasure Pasternak's letters \u2013 and their meetings at the author's _dacha_ and in the green room at one of the concerts. When Bernstein took the orchestra to Japan, Felicia stayed at home, and a long letter he wrote to her is a wonderfully evocative description of the sights and sounds of that country.\n\nBack in the United States, Bernstein was becoming an ever more public figure. Euphoric about the election of President Kennedy in November 1960, he was involved in the ball for Kennedy's Inauguration the following January, and was quite a regular visitor to the White House during the Kennedy years. When the president was assassinated in November 1963, Bernstein was quick to pay tribute to the death of a leader who had become a friend, conducting a televised performance of Mahler's \"Resurrection\" Symphony. Five years later, when Robert Kennedy was assassinated, it was Jacqueline Kennedy who took care of the funeral arrangements, and she asked Bernstein to be in charge of the music. Her moving letter of thanks is eloquent testimony to the warm friendship between the two of them.\n\nIn the 1964\u20135 season, Bernstein took a sabbatical year in order to compose. He conducted just one concert (of his own music) right at the end of the season, and otherwise limited his activities to four Young People's Concerts. The largest project that presented itself at the start of this year was a new musical based on Thornton Wilder's _The Skin of Our Teeth_ , a collaboration with two of Bernstein's best friends, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. By January 1965, this had foundered, and Bernstein wrote to David Diamond about \"a dreadful experience, the wounds still smarting. I am suddenly a composer without a project, with half of that golden sabbatical down the drain.\" The friendship with Comden and Green survived this unhappy episode, but the \"golden sabbatical\" threatened to produce no new music whatsoever. What saved the day was a commission from Rev. Walter Hussey of Chichester Cathedral on England's south coast for a set of Psalms. Some of the music originally composed for _The Skin of Our Teeth_ was quickly recycled in the _Chichester Psalms_ (the opening movement and the lyrical theme of the second). The correspondence with Hussey contains no mention of this, but it does show Bernstein laying out his preliminary thoughts about the work in some detail, the decisive moment when he decided that setting the Psalms in Hebrew was something that excited him, and the circumstances of the first British performance on 31 July 1965 \u2013 seemingly a rather idyllic visit, at least by Bernstein's standards, with all the family able to travel with him to England. Two weeks before the Chichester performance, these same _Chichester Psalms_ had featured as the new work in his only New York Philharmonic concert of the season \u2013 a programme that also included the _Serenade_ and _The Age of Anxiety_. In short, the sabbatical didn't produce the new Broadway show that was hoped for, but it did result in one of Bernstein's most popular concert works. The _Chichester Psalms_ was one of just two substantial pieces to be composed during his years at the Philharmonic \u2013 the other was the _Kaddish_ Symphony, finished in time for its premiere in Israel in December 1963, but not without a struggle. As the most searching and musically advanced expression of Bernstein's Jewish faith, the work required of him a large emotional investment. The dedication to the memory of President Kennedy was, of course, only added at the last moment, and by the time the symphony was first played in the United States (by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Charles Munch), Bernstein's friend Marc Blitzstein had also been murdered in Martinique. Bernstein's use of the word \"Kaddish\" refers to its specific meaning as a prayer of mourning: praising God in spite of personal loss. Thus, Bernstein wrote ruefully to his sister Shirley in January 1964 that \"It's an open season on Kaddish, all right. The President. Marc.\"\n\nBoth works from the 1960s were described by Bernstein during his interviews with John Gruen in 1967: \"I've written two works in the last 10 years, can you imagine, since I took the Philharmonic, which was at the point when I finished _West Side Story_. Since then I've written two works, neither of them for the theatre [...] one was _Kaddish_ and one is the _Chichester Psalms_ \u2013 they're both biblical in a way. So obviously something keeps making me go back to that book.\"1\n\nIn spite of his commitment to the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein continued to work in Europe and Israel, including his first visit to Vienna since 1948. On that occasion he had worked with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, but now he was conducting concerts and recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic. His relationship with this orchestra was to flourish over the next quarter century, but initially Bernstein was profoundly disturbed by the anti-semitism within it. Georg Solti, another Jewish conductor with extensive experience of working with the orchestra, wrote not to allay Bernstein's concerns, but to counsel a spirit of forgiveness. Solti added that Helmut Wobisch \u2013 the former SS man who was the orchestra's manager and one of its trumpeters \u2013 was \"despite everything [...] probably one of the few trustworthy members of that orchestra.\" Neither Solti nor Bernstein found it easy to work with the Vienna Philharmonic, despite its fabled past, but both managed to establish a musical relationship that became increasingly close over the years.\n\nMeanwhile the Bernstein family continued to grow: in 1962, Felicia and Leonard's third child, Nina, was born \u2013 and, as he had with Jamie and Alexander, Bernstein waxes lyrical and adoring about their new sister. Bernstein himself reached a personal milestone in August 1968: his 50th birthday. One of his oldest friends, Adolph Green \u2013 who had known Bernstein since 1937 \u2013 wrote a funny, and deeply affectionate letter summarizing what their long friendship meant and, above all, how their first meeting had made such a lasting impact: \"What am I wheezily, puffily, floridly trying to tell you??? The simple fact that suddenly there was meaning in my life. I felt _alive_.\"\n\n410. Jule Styne2 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nNew York, NY\n\n2 January 19583\n\n[Telegram]\n\nI need a fella who can play in a publisher's office for singers, who can write a ballet and play the dance rehearsals and then orchestrate it, who can write the music for a new musical comedy and then orchestrate it, and who can write a ballet and play for Agnes de Mille and Michael Kidd and Jerome Robbins too, and who can take this ballet and orchestrate it the hard way with the orchestra sitting the wrong way and the horns pointing into the trombone player's ear; who can also do a tour of one night stands, lecture on why the oboe is a double reed instrument, also, what's going on in the world of music in five continents. This fellow must also be able to orchestrate the telephone book; also this fellow must be able to conduct practically every major symphony orchestra in the world like Adolph Green. Besides playing piano in publisher's offices, and writing ballets, this fellow must also be able to have the possibility of becoming the world's most famous conductor and musician and pianist. He must be a member of the union and must be available to open with the Philharmonic January 2, 1958. Do you know of such a fellow? I do. Good luck. Can you cook?\n\nJule Styne\n\n411. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein\n\n154 East 74th Street, New York, NY\n\n[January 1958]4\n\nLenny,\n\nIt was a terrific concert!!! I heard it Sunday \u2013 I'd been sick all week so missed both rehearsals and the Thursday evening premier[e]. I learned so much about _Sacre_ [ _du Printemps_ ] by watching you. _That_ certainly ain't no \"divertissement\". Wow! Boy I hope I can make the stage version have as much stature. Bravo again and again, and also for the Webern which was beautifully played.\n\nJulius Rudel of NYC Opera called me about staging _Trouble in Tahiti_. Wanted to speak to you about it and couldn't get you today. So will you call me about it? Also I would like to talk more about your jazz piece etc. etc. and about ballets, shows, operas etc. So do call.\n\nAnd again congratulations on the concert. You should be _very_ proud. Bask well in all the praise being heaped upon you \u2013 you deserve it all.\n\nLove,\n\nJerry\n\n412. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein\n\n154 East 74th Street, New York, NY\n\n13 February 1958\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nIt was good to see you last night at the opening. I hope your back feels better. I can't think how a skiing trip is going to help your back any more than it would my leg, but anyway, good luck.\n\nI checked with Edith [Weissmann] this morning. She had returned your call and got as far as the desk as I had reported to you.\n\nI asked you if you had time for any composition because I could use _Fugue with Riffs_ as part of a larger piece of yours, in the fashion we had always talked about \u2013 you know, some crazy pas de deux perhaps, and enough to make at least a twenty minute work. Maybe there's a possibility of selecting some of the dance music from _On the Town_ and adding them to it. What do you think?\n\nEnclosed are two interviews which struck me with as much force and excitement as anything I've read in many, many years. The potential of using this first interview as a basis of an examination of the Beat Generation and their search, pain, drives, ecstasies, depressions and astonished puzzlement could make a wonderful theatre piece.5 My instinct is to use a protagonist who would answer the questions, but open up all the \"meanings\" and possibilities of those answers. I'm sure you'll see the immediate places such as \"visions\", \"motorcycle rides\", \"jazz\", \"dope\", \"Paradise\", \"Heaven\", \"tremendous\", \"empty phantoms\" and most of all the very very painful last line. I can visualize a lot of these things being episodic experiences which well up and take over the protagonist and leave him with everything inside him and a cool, knowing exterior. In a way these are our _W_ [ _est_ ] _S_ [ _ide_ ] _S_ [ _tory_ ] kids a little older. Do you know any of these Beat people? They're scary, and what's most frightening is that it _isn't_ an act or an adopted attitude and fa\u00e7ade to deal with life, but a real living thing.\n\nI'd appreciate hearing from you on this as soon as possible. Drop me a note and give me at least your immediate reaction, and if you are interested, when do you think you will be able to have a talk on it.\n\nAll the best,\n\nJerry\n\n413. Lukas Foss to Leonard Bernstein\n\nUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA\n\n16 March 1958\n\nCher Lenny,\n\nNews just reached me (via Siegfried Hearst) that you want me to do Mozart C major on a program on which you plan to do my Symph. Donnerwetter!!! What a festive occasion that will be for me.6 You will be amused to know that what _elates_ me most is the fact that you schedule my new piece sight unseen. Makes me feel that I have come into my own as composer. Thanks _ever so_ much for the confidence implied (that something I put out is worth playing \u2013 and this coming from the most \"knowing\" of musicians). Seems the days of Lukas selling his music at the piano are over and gone. Just played it for a few musicians though, who think that it is my \"most\"; curious what _you_ will say. I finished the score day before yesterday and sent it off to you yesterday.\n\nYou will see that it is a virtuoso piece for orchestra, the kind where the difficulty makes for brilliance (I hope). It's no \"sight-reading\" piece, and a half hour long. Here is hoping you didn't schedule [Stravinsky's] _Agon_ , Aaron's _Short Symphony_ & Boulez's _Polyphonie X_ to go with it. (You could probably pull it off, too.)\n\nThe Mozart will be splendid \u2013 my favorite slow movement.\n\nHow was your skiing trip? It was wonderful having Felicia with us.\n\nMuch, much love to both of you.\n\nLukas\n\n414. Felicia Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[New York]\n\nThurs. night [1 May 1958]\n\nMy darling Lennuhtt,\n\nAm dying to hear how it's going \u2013 the reports so far sound like a nightmare! I hope that at least your sense of humor has not abandoned you \u2013 think of the pastry makers it will all make!\n\nChildren are wonderful \u2013 I am better \u2013 the first days after you left I utterly collapsed. I looked a mottled green with cold sores on my mouth etc. Have nothing sensational to report \u2013 just got back from dinner at the Oppenheims with Glen[n] Gould, Eugene Istomin and Vladimir Golschmann. Glen[n] and Gene sat at the piano and loudly and eternally played four hands \u2013 sometimes I hate music!7\n\nWent to the opening of _The First Born_8 last night \u2013 a crasher if there ever was one, a truly abysmal evening! Your \"score\" is never heard I'm afraid \u2013 the girl sings a little snatch of something for no good reason that I could see, and your triumphant finale is utterly drowned in applause since the curtain comes down simultaneously \u2013 and there you are!\n\nHave a reservation for the twelfth, will arrive the thirteenth in Lima. The fan mail keeps pouring in \u2013 my ego is having a field day!\n\nPlease write a few lines \u2013 it's unbearably lonely around here without you. Kisses from the three of us and very special love from me,\n\nFelicia\n\n415. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nHotel Tamanaco, Caracas, Venezuela\n\n2 May 1958\n\nDarling,\n\nWow, what a three days. First: we're the all time smash. Second, it's all wildly exhausting, but such fun & stimulating. Venezuela is really one of a kind \u2013 stinking with money, progressive architecture, happy, low on culture, & lower on education. It's mostly a billionaire top stratum & penniless others. But there is arising a middle class, & they love music, to say the least. I've had two concerts in a magnificent hall called the Aula Magna9 \u2013 sheer perfection with mobile baffles by [Alexander] Calder, what else? And both sold out to the rafters. In between we gave a special outdoor concert for 7,000 middle classers in an equally perfect Concha Acoustica: they ate up Copland and Roy Harris. So all is not lost. I'm the local hero, I'm loaded with presents; tons of records of folk music, [and] a liki-liki, which is a great beige linen national garment, very handsome with a high collar held by gold links.\n\nI've met the new president of the Junta,10 most charming, loved the Schuman 6th, fijate. Such houses, such jewels, such luxury I've never ever seen. And, again, of course, everyone knows you & loves you. The American Ambassador (at whose gorgeous residence I just had a party) is named Sparks; and his wife is a lovely lady who knows you of old \u2013 Andr\u00e9e van der Brengen. Do you remember her? An angel. And dozens of others whose names go thru my ears like wind. They've all been expecting you, & are sorely disappointed. But we'll be back \u2013 I've become a national institution, & you'll even like it, you'll see.\n\nTomorrow ploughing on to Maracaibo, to conduct in my liki-liki, then on to Colombia, where I hear a big revolution is fermenting. Just in time for some fireworks. This should be a peppery tour. I hear Paraguay should just about be ready with their revolution when we arrive (May 1st was pretty tense here, too).\n\nBut it seems we're doing good \u2013 much more, according to all concerned, than Nifty Nixon, who has flubbed his whole mission in spades so far.11 Can't wait to hole up with him in Quito.\n\nSo when are you coming already? You're missing a great trip \u2013 much fun; & I'm missing you. Try & come as early as you can. I hope you're resting, & that the back is a thing of the past. You must get all healthy again for the trip. So far, I've been well, though sleepless & oversmoked. But that's usual. Your Joan12 still haunts me \u2013 how did you like _Time_ on the subject?13 I thought the picture was great. Brigitta14 will _fry_.\n\nThanks for the cable. How long for those two guatoncitos!\n\nNicolas is not very bright, pobrecito, but he's trying hard, & he's very sweet. Things are never quite in order, & it always seems as though it was easier before when I knew where everything was. Trouble with a valet is that if he leaves you for a second you're lost & helpless. Also he's developing an old-maidish protectiveness worthy of la Belle.15 He scolds people when something is not done for me that should have been done \u2013 like water in the dressing room, or whatever \u2013 & makes long, indignant Theta-ridden speeches about the great maestro, & how he should be treated. Ah well, it's all so familiar. Love to her, by the way, & to Mither [Mother] & to all the Kats. Do try to come early, like Quito, & let me hear _soon_!\n\nAll my love, dearest one.\n\nL\n\n416. David Oppenheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\nColumbia Records, 799 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY\n\n7 May 1958\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nBelieve it or not, I am still going to the office day after day even though you are not here, and so are a lot of other people. Life is tending to go on despite the wonderful reports we are getting back in the _New York Times_ about your concerts.16 I am delighted things are going so well and I suppose by now the Ravel Concerto must be almost ready to record. This is something we must consider when you return.\n\nAlso, while you were away, Felicia came to dinner with Glenn [Gould], Eugene I[stomin] and Vladimir Golschmann, and I am afraid it was not too stimulating an evening. To begin with, an enormous competition between the two young pianists corralled them out of the party, except for some horrendous noises they made on an untuned Baldwin in a room without a rug and without much furniture. Vladimir turned pages, I smiled encouragingly, and Ellen17 and Felicia tried to communicate with each other by a combination of gestures and lip reading, which was not entirely successful I understand.\n\nThe evening ended when Glenn played his own cadenzas to Beethoven's First Concerto on a chair some inches too high, thereby ruining his left arm and impairing all his concerts from here to eternity.\n\nAlso, Van Cliburn was there in spirit \u2013 all things pianistic dimming in comparison with his coming ticker-tape parade. The pianists, especially the young ones, have a sort of haunted, old look, directly traceable to the affairs in Moscow.18 We shall see just how long young Mr. Cliburn can sustain his glories, but if he can maintain his fees for a couple of years, I predict mass suicide involving quite a few of our friends.\n\nIf the above sounds like sour grapes, it is because Victor signed him over my dead body. But this we can discuss another time, too.\n\n[...]\n\nI saw your Bach program rerun Sunday and it was marvelous.\n\nI hope this finds you as well as the press releases have described you and that you will find time to answer me quickly \u2013 always in the affirmative.\n\nLove,\n\nDavid O.\n\nP.S. Incidentally, I see that you have returned the Duke Ellington scores. What is your impression? Can you use them? I think he is waiting to hear, or at least Irving Townsend in our Pop Department is. My impression is that these could be done in a recording session in addition to all of the others you and I are planning. Anyway, let me know.\n\n417. Leonard Bernstein to William Schuman\n\nGran Hotel Bolivar, Lima, Peru\n\n14 May 1958\n\nDear Bill,\n\nIt['s] so unbelievable to be in the lland of the llamas that I spend most of the day saying PERU over & over to myself, just for sanity. Peru?!? Auckland. Mozambique. And here it is, a nice normal warm capital like any other, beautiful, full of people and a number of things. Felicia has just arrived, making it all perfect.\n\nThe tour so far has been a smash; receptions such as I've never experienced, warmth & love from audience after audience, great reviews \u2013 & the orchestra playing like Gods. Every day they become more and more my orchestra, more than I could ever have expected. Your [Sixth] Symphony was remarked by a Caracas critic to be the most important offering we had, and the main feature of our _three_ concerts there.19 It's been great.\n\nBut now I find myself in a spot with our dear old Sixth [Symphony]: we can't play it except in the capitals, where there's a sophisticated audience of some sort; & the time lapse between capitals is such that the orchestra doesn't retain the piece. Last night, for example, it was really ragged and \"forgotten\" after more than a week; it's not a piece you can tour with; we've had to take it off the La Paz & Quito programs because the enormous altitude prevents the necessary blowing (almost _no_ oxygen at all in La Paz \u2013 13,000 feet up); & I'm scared of the next performance, 8 days away. I think we're going to have to take it off the program for the rest of the tour, heartbreaking as it is; I know you'll understand. It's just plain murder to the players and to the piece. It's just one of those works that has to be hot off the griddle to be played at all well; otherwise it's a haphazard gamble.\n\nWe miss you both, & love you.\n\nWe also love the Sixth!\n\nLenny\n\n418. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\nGran Hotel Bolivar, Lima, Peru\n\n19 May 1958\n\nDear Dovidl,\n\nImag\u00ednate, here we are in Peru, lland of the llama, lland of llove. Felicia has just joined me (we've been two weeks touring South America already in Panam\u00e1, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador) & she'll be with me for the rest of the trip \u2013 Peru, Chile (at last!), Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico \u2013 the works. Our reception everywhere has been magnificent \u2013 warm, thrilling, just the opposite of Nixon's, pobrecito. We think of you often, and miss you. I realize I have several letters from you as yet unanswered, & I beg forgiveness. These last months have been wild. But with beautiful, rewarding highlights: Felicia as Joan at the final concerts of the season, brave & inspiring & unforgettable (the whole orchestra in tears, Honegger notwithstanding); the television shows, especially those for the kids; the orchestra itself, which has become _my_ orchestra to an astonishing degree of flexibility, warmth and respect; this exhausting but lovely trip. [...] We'll be home by June 15th. Hope to find a letter from you.\n\nLove from us both.\n\nLenny\n\n419. Rosamond Lehmann20 to Felicia Bernstein\n\nFlat F, 70 Eaton Square, London SW1, England\n\n26 May 1958\n\nMy dear Mrs. Bernstein,\n\nI meant to write this at once, but to my horror found I'd mislaid my address book when I left New York the morning after seeing _West Side Story_ \u2013 and have only just re-discovered it in a folder stuffed with lecture notes etc. etc. I hope for your sake you are still away and will not have been conscious of my discourtesy. I _never_ can thank you properly for your incredible generosity and kindness in enabling me not only to see the opera but to take my two dear far-from-wealthy spinster cousins who had been longing in vain to get tickets ever since the opening night. They are extremely earnest Educationalists, and got me down beforehand by spectacled conjectures about the Puerto Rican Problem being \"too serious a subject for frivolous treatment\" etc. etc. \u2013 but like myself were completely bowled over, breath-taken by the end of Act I. It was easily the most fascinating & exciting dramatic experience I've had for years, and I _still_ feel exhilarated, amazed and heart-wrung by the whole affair. Would give anything to see it again! Words are quite inadequate to thank & congratulate your husband. I have the records \u2013 that's something. It _is_ serious of course, and beautiful; also terrifying, moving, funny & disturbing. It was the high spot of my whole Marathon \u2013 and as I say I can never thank you adequately. I was very sorry indeed to miss you both \u2013 and thrilled to read of your husband's brilliantly successful S. American tour. I hope you are back safe and sound \u2013 & that he is able to have a rest. Or does he never?! I'm only just back, & still semi-prostrate from too many thousands of miles of flying \u2013 but I did enjoy a lot of it & confess I miss being spoilt & made much of! \u2013 as I was, everywhere. Martha [Gellhorn] is still abroad.\n\nAgain, so many thanks.\n\nAffectionately,\n\nRosamond Lehmann\n\n420. Martha Gellhorn21 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMexico\n\nJuly 4 [1958] \u2013 Independence now from what?\n\nLennypot my dearie one,\n\nI waited for the right time to write about _West Side Story_ but probably the exact right time will never come, so now on a rainy (can you beat it?) Cuernavaca morning, my fourth here, and my first not spent jumping with rage and activity against this house, I shall begin. But I know I am not going to do it well enough.\n\nHow can it be called a \"musical comedy\"? It is a musical tragedy, and were it not for the most beautiful music, and the dancing which is like flying, people would not be able to bear to look and see and understand. Certainly they would not pile into that giant stadium, paying huge sums, in order to be wracked by fear and a pity which is useless because how can help be offered, how can a whole world be changed? Tom and I found it beautiful and terrifying. But then he and Omi22 must speak for themselves. Omi had seen it before, found it more enthralling the second time. Enough about their feelings.\n\nI was literally frozen with fear. Do you realize there is no laughter in it, no gayety that comes from delight, from joy, from being young? You do, of course, and all of you knew what you were writing about. The immensely funny song, \"Please Officer Krupke\" (I will get these titles wrong, but near enough), is not laughter, but the most biting, ironic and contemptuous satire. And I felt it to be absolutely accurate \u2013 not the perfection of the wit, in music and words \u2013 but accurate as describing the state of mind of those young. Again, the Puerto Rican girls' song, when one longs for the beauty of home and the other mocks [\"America\"], is not laughter; but the hardness of life, the rock of life, a dream of something softer (softer inside, where it counts) as against the icy measuring rod of modern big city young. The love songs made me cry (they had before, when I heard the whole show twice in one day, listening to [Irwin] Shaw's record in Switzerland).23 But this time, with the visual picture there, and the murderous city outside, and in America, where _West Side Story_ becomes a sociological document turned into art, they made me cry like a sieve, from heartbroken pity.\n\nBut what stays in my mind, as the very picture of terror, is the scene in the drug store, when the Jets sing a song called \"Keep Cool, Man.\" I think I have never heard or seen anything more frightening. (It goes without saying that I think the music so brilliant I have no words to use for it.) I found that a sort of indicator of madness: the mad obsession with nothing, the nerves insanely and constantly stretched \u2013 with no way to rest, no place to go; the emptiness of the undirected minds, whose only occupation could be violence and a terrible macabre playacting. If a man can be nothing, he can pretend to be a hoodlum and feel like somebody. I couldn't breathe, watching and hearing that; it looks to me like doom, as much as these repeated H-bomb tests, with the atmosphere of the world steadily more and more and irrevocably poisoned. I think that drug store and the H-Bomb tests are of the same family.\n\nWhat now baffles me is that all the reviews, and everyone who has seen the show, has not talked of this and this only: the mirror held up to nature, and what nature. I do not feel anything to be exaggerated or falsified; we accept that art renders beautiful, and refines the shapeless raw material of life. The music and the dancing, the plan, the allegory of the story do that; but nature is there, in strength; and surely this musical tragedy is a warning?\n\nIt shames me to speak of music to anyone, owing to my hopeless ignorance and to the fact that I do not hear it, only feel it. I love your music \u2013 everything you wrote (much more than I like anything you conduct). It may be part of my loving you, but it wouldn't work entirely. I love some people whose writing and painting I deplore. No, it isn't that personal at all. I think I love it because it seems to me real. You'll have to figure that out for yourself.\n\nThank you for giving us perfect tickets, where Tom24 could hear \u2013 you can imagine my anxiety about that, in advance \u2013 thank you very much, darling pie.\n\nI think you must write music, more and more, and I think you will. My theory about this is that what one does and is and how one lives, grows and changes. Americans are fools to fear age. It is needed and proper; all one must certainly do is change with one's age, live one's own age, let one's shape (inside and out) alter as it should. I think that, being you, you had to have the great hectic period of doing everything, being everyone and going everywhere. I think that's raw material; and you had to swallow it all, for you will need it. But I also think you will chuck it, without effort or regret, in time; because that will be the time to work on the raw material yourself, draw your conclusions, make your own private gift out of all you saw, did, heard, felt. I think you will really write music, and be concentrated and used by that, in perhaps eight years from now. All you have to do is not ruin your health before that long slow hard second work-period of your life begins.\n\nYou must try to get a book called _Brighter than a Thousand Suns_ by Dr. Robert Jungk. It was published in Germany, translated and published in England. The first part is slow and tedious going, and one sees how necessary it is, later. It is the story of the atomic scientists; it is the human side of how we have launched ourselves (and how accidental and ignorant and pitiful it all is) into doom. I find it needed reading, and too fascinating to stop. Now I must find some nuclear physicist, who is an honest man, to check with. But it is specially a book for us, who have no part in that world \u2013 and that world this very minute rules us. We must know; we may be ineffective to control our destinies, but we cannot ever be sheep. I do not believe in an atomic-hydrogen war, I don't think it is necessary or will happen. I believe the world is going to be poisoned (literally, physically) without that. It might be that if people realized they were daily and invisibly being led to the slaughter, they would not go in silence. If they knew that right now the entire population of the world is infected, and that growing children are most susceptible to this kind of infection, there would be revolt. Anyhow, you read it. It is certainly the other side of the coin of the mad children, living in the streets and dreaming sick dreams.\n\nOmi and I are here preparing this pleasure dome. We were robbed of course. It is not as bad as the house you and Feli had, but I must say I preferred your wide range of Navajo-Mexican striped rugs to the false pretensions of this house. I have removed every movable object and most of the furniture; the clothes cupboards seem to have been built for 1920 type movie stars and are useful warehouses. The servants are charming and pea-brained. The roof leaks like a faucet and is covered with slender brown boys gently and imperceptibly laying back broken tiles. The view would be perfection, a wide sweep from the black range of the mountains that rise towards the Mexico plateau, the Chinese follies of the Tepoztlan hills, the volcanoes behind them, and to the west the beginnings of the blue Taxco range. The idiot owners have elected to plant mingy palms and other uncertified trees in such a way that the only manner to see the whole view is to lie on one's stomach at certain points in the garden, or climb to the top of the wall. The doom of everyone is to have to walk with fools nor lose the common touch; but how many and heavy the fools, and maybe the touch is not worth keeping.\n\nWhen in N.Y., I seem to have gone mad. Within a week (thinking that I knew what I was doing) I arranged four book contracts, two for Tom, two for me, and five articles for me. People leapt to offer me these contracts, paying more money than I have ever before received. The reason for this is that I really do not want to do any of the work, and I certainly do not want a cent more money than I have. The result is that I have to finish my book of collected war reporting by September 1. Beginning in October, and going through until April, I have to do two articles on England, one each on Poland, Hungary and Czecho. My only hope is that I won't be able to get into the last two countries. On April 15, Tom and I return and drive about this benighted land (not this one, the Estados Unidos) for three months, leaving presumably more dead than alive for some quiet spot where we have agreed to grind out a book on the subject in four months. I am surely mad. The only good I can see in it is that it forces me back to work habits, which I have lost, and will be a long dismal training for my muscles. There isn't a ray of light until a year from this coming Xmas. I also have to deliver a short story to the _Atlantic_. I wrote it years ago but in my usual way, I do not feel I have tinkered enough. (I never believe the thing is ready until I can recite every word of it by heart, and go on changing \"a\" to \"the\" with a maniacal desire for exactitude.) Well. That's what going to America does for one. I have already warned Tom that next spring's three months' jaunt may be the last visit of my life. I know I don't believe in progress. I want to live quietly and harmlessly and perhaps do one or two things right, if possible.\n\nBut on the other hand, I have grown lazy and I need to get back into that awful discipline of three hours a day at the typewriter and nothing at all else happening in the day, so as not to get cluttered in the noggin. So here and now we start. I have seen no one in Cuernavaca yet, and only been busy buying out the grocery stores; but in any case we live so far from the center, and have no car, that I think perhaps I'll only have an occasional loving chat on the Buena Vista terrace. Dread seeing Vera. What can I say to her? It appears that slob Ross [Evans] returned for a visit (sponge on Vera for a change?) last February and again departed \"to look for a job in the north.\" And she loves him. Mr. [Somerset] Maugham is not the only one who knows about human bondage.\n\nI hope little Feli is getting some rest on the Cape. You don't know how to, I think, and perhaps don't really want or need it. But do remember she weighs less than you. I find her always more beautiful, and more miraculous. Alexander has my vote for President right now. I trust you will not ruin Jamie by spoiling (Feli will not help you in that ruin) but I see it will be hard to avoid.\n\nYou know how I love you \u2013\n\nM.\n\n421. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\nVineyard Haven, MA\n\n16 August 1958\n\nDear Dovidl,\n\nMy 40th birthday approaches, and that makes me sentimental and pseudo-philosophical, and I also think of you when I get that way. I'm going through the usual fortyish motions of stocktaking, examination of life-purposes, re-examination of motives and drives, efforts at great self-knowing \u2013 and that's been my summer. My first free summer in twenty years: and it's been so shocking to have it that I've literally done nothing: not a note, imagine, not a bar, no letters written, only programs planned, sailing, and most important of all, spending huge gobs of time with my children. What splendid companions they are!\n\nBut not a note written: and I wonder, as I study my hairline in the mirror and pray desperately against baldness, whether any composer who is _really_ a composer could go for two months without composing, and doing nothing else either. Where will it all lead? Baldness, I expect.\n\nThe Philharmonic season looms large and exciting and frightening. There will be much more television, more difficult programs, more \"point\" being made, more Handel, more Vivaldi. [Var\u00e8se's] Arcanes [ _Arcana_ ],25 at last, and all kinds of Ruggles and Riegger, & the Sessions Vln. Concerto, and Ives #2 and Aaron Variations & Ned Rorem #3 & Bill Russo & Ken Gaburo and and and. A sort of overall look at the whole picture. Not the _whole_ picture, of course: that's impossible, and I have to leave out all kinds of important fellers like Virgil and you and Marc and [Norman] Dello Joio (important?) and [Paul] Creston (ugh) and Ben Weber and [Andrew] Imbrie and [Leon] Kirchner. The Klee26 arrived, & believe it or not, I haven't had a chance to look at it yet! That's my summer.\n\nI haven't heard your 4th [Symphony] yet on records: I will when I get back to town in the fall.\n\nI hope Goldoni27 is fun, & rewarding on several levels. Felicia's Joan is never to be forgotten. She joins me in\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\nI'll be in Milan for a few days in Nov (10\u201315 or so). Will I see you?\n\n422. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein\n\n154 East 74th Street, New York, NY\n\n13 October 1958\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nA deep bow of thanks for your wonderful letter. I'm so glad you liked it and I'm so sorry you didn't get to see the Chopin. I think you would have had a ball.28\n\nTomorrow starts rehearsals of _West Side Story._ You've _got_ to come in and take them musically over their material, at least once, so they know what you're about, especially while the European conductor is here. We'll prepare them all and get them ready for you, but you _must_ (IT'S IMPERATIVE) do this for the sake of the success of the show.29\n\nDybbuk Dybbuk Dybbuk.30 I'm sending over an unseen but continually haunting prodder who will creep into your sleep and into your spare moments and will say the words Dybbuk Dybbuk Dybbuk. With this ghost's effort I know that suddenly something will be on paper that will get us all started. I've heard from [Ben] Shahn who is wonderfully enthusiastic and excited about the idea of working with you, so please keep haunted and jot down a few of those scribbles that turn out to be the basis, theme and dramatic motifs for the whole ballet.\n\nLove,\n\nJerry\n\n423. Thornton Wilder31 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n50 Deepwood Drive, Hamden, CT\n\n27 October 1958\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nMrs. Alma Mahler-Werfel has chosen some words of mine as the title of her new volume of memoirs32 and I wish to give a small party for her on the publication of the book. I am asking about twenty friends to meet her at the Algonquin Hotel \u2013 reception room 306 \u2013 on November 11 \u2013 Tuesday \u2013 between 5 and 7.30. She tells me her daughter \u2013 the sculptor \u2013 Gustav Mahler's daughter \u2013 will be there.\n\nDon't trouble to answer this. But it would be a great pleasure if you and Mrs. Bernstein could come.\n\nCordially yours,\n\nThornton (Wilder)\n\n424. Larry Adler33 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[London, England]\n\n24 December 1958\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nIt being impossible to keep a secret these days, you will no doubt have heard that a certain show whose title contains that part of New York where nobody, but nobody ever goes, opened in London and was not unfavorably received.\n\nI took 2\/3 of my children to see it last night, despite a darkling article in the _Telegraph_ \u2013 \"Should children be _allowed_ to see _W_ [ _est_ ] _S_ [ _ide_ ] _S_ [ _tory_ ]?\" They got it all, loved it all and in their comments were far more perceptive than those of several adults around us during interval.\n\nI think your score is historic. Only in _Porgy and Bess_ have I heard music become both words and plot and character, and it happens again with your music. (I might add a footnote here; in 1954 your score for _Waterfront_ and mine for _Genevieve_ were both nominated for an Oscar and I can tell you that had Dmitri \u2013 tote dat corn, lift dat theme \u2013 Tiomkin not edged us both out, this letter might not have been so easily forthcoming.)34\n\nFurther along in the true confessions hour, I am, or at least was, about to start work on a musical myself. But after that score of yours, where does one go except to say, \"Face facts, Wotan, you ain't ready yet.\"\n\nSo, my heartfelt congratulations. You, as a musician, know how another musician feels when he hears something that says something new, different and honest.\n\nRegards to Arthur Laurents, who got me my tickets. Also, if you see him, from [i.e. to?] the boychick of the fiddle, Isaac Stern.\n\nSincerely,\n\nLarry Adler\n\n425. Louis Armstrong35 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nCBS Television Network, New York, NY\n\n5 January 1959\n\nDear Daddy Bernstein,\n\n_Man_. I sitting in your office rehearsing my lines, and it is _knocking_ me out. You're _My Man_ and that's for sure. From your Swiss Kriss36 Trumpet Player.\n\nRegards,\n\nLouis Armstrong\n\nSatchmo\n\n426. Leonard Bernstein to Martha Gellhorn\n\nArizona Biltmore, Phoenix, AZ\n\n7 January 1959\n\nDearest Marthy,\n\nHappy New Year. At long last, a rest \u2013 although God knows it takes fully as much energy to unwind and force the inactivity as it does to be active. But at least they're not all pushing from all sides: I have only my own sick silly psyche pushing from inside.\n\nI'm not staying at the above \u2013 just using the luxuriousissimo facilities & living with friends. Burtie has been with me, left yesterday, all is calm. We started out last week in Sun Valley. Skied three days on the daisies (and a bit of snow) and then left for the hot glorious desert, horses, tennis, swimming. Lord, if I only had a bit of peace in me \u2013 a bit only, is that too much? \u2013 how I could be enjoying all this! And Poland? And Alaska? And is here next? Did you do the hols in London? Are you as petrified as I of the lunik lunacy?37 What the hell are we fiddling with? When do you arrive in this favorite land of yours for your Okie junket?\n\nI met Ernest Hemingway at Sun Valley last week, and was taken totally by surprise. I had not been prepared by talk, photos, or interviews for a) that charm, and b) that beauty. God, what goes on there under his eyes? What's that lovely adolescent tenderness? And the voice and the memory, & the apparently genuine interest in every living soul: fantastic. We spoke tenderly of you: he said you were brave.38 His present wife seems to be a professional Ja-sayer, though simpatico enough. The question is not How could you have married him, but How could you have done anything else?\n\nDearest love to you, every day, always, dearest potato-pipe. I played tennis today & almost wept with nostalgia for our version of tenny.\n\nWrite me \u2013\n\nL\n\n427. Martha Gellhorn to Leonard Bernstein\n\n20 Chester Square, London, England\n\npostmark 14 January 1959\n\nDearest Lenushka,\n\nI loved your Xmas card, both of you looking so beautiful and so tired and the children so beautiful and benign, like happy little dolls. I am saving my first-in-my-life vote for Alexander who will surely be President unless he decides it's all a silly joke and he'd rather live.\n\nSo much to say but I won't say it, probably. This is my last letter, anyhow, for some time, because now I am going to start on a novel and that means silence, fasting and prayer. A novel about Poland. Most daring. I was there 16 days; and learned more and felt more than I have, probably, since Spain. Terrifying and wonderful nourishing experience. I was also frightened the whole time, and I am not used to being; frightened for everyone because they are too brave. And all my desperate faith in the human spirit was revived and rewarded, because there they _are_. Proof.\n\nShall I say some ominous aunt-like words about peace? I think I will. It is a subject that I have really thought and worked on, you know. So: no one besides yourself will ever help you to get it; everyone, even with the best will in the world, will nibble and shred it. You have to fight for it, yourself, and it is perhaps that most essential fight there is. If you haven't got (and keep clinging to, through every reverse) a hard kernel of your own private peace, maybe no bigger than a pea, you cannot be, do or give any _real_ thing. Practically, I find it works like this: one learns what conditions one needs, for oneself, to bring back or foster one's interior nugget of certainty and calm and happiness. For me, it's absolute solitude and silence, in the country; long walks, no timetable of any kind, no telephone, no mail, no newspapers. Long mooning walks, reading, sleeping a great deal. No booze, simply because booze makes me nervous. And then, after a longer or shorter cure of this (depending on how much my peace has been eaten away) I can start to work: and that sets it firmly. I have no idea what you need, but you must, by now, have learned for yourself. No other person gives it, you know, though anyone can take it away. Sex has nothing to do with it either.\n\nThe Xmas hols, just terminated, ruined me as usual. I cannot bear any season given over to organized official good cheer, and too many people, plans, parties. So, as soon as I'd put little Sandy on his plane for Switzerland, I rushed off to my usual country hotel for three days alone. Whereupon an old friend (known for 30 years, now aged 74) was in the hospital in London, and I had to take over everything by telephone. That fixed the peace allright. I'm hanging on however, and have now got the telephone here turned off all day, will not accept any invitations nor give any, and I mean by God to come back to myself and to where I really live. You see, I get physically sick when the peace all goes. I think you don't do that, though I am not sure. But I think you hardly know who you are, or why you are doing what you are doing.\n\nInterested about Ernest [Hemingway]. Tenderness is a new quality in him; but people do luckily change all their lives and the luckiest ones get better as they grow older. His main appalling lack was tenderness for anyone. I longed for it in him, for myself and for others. I'd almost have settled for others. I do not remember his voice as being anything much, but I always was thrilled by his memory. He was interested in everyone but there was a bad side. It was like flirting. (Like you, in fact, he has the excessive need to be loved by everyone, and specially by all the strange passing people whom he ensnares with that interest, as do you with your charm, though in fact he didn't give a fart for them.) So he would take people into camp; they became his adoring slaves (he likes adoring slaves) and suddenly, without warning, he would turn on them. That was always terrible to see; it made me feel cold and sick and I wanted to warn each new conquest of what lay in wait for him. But one couldn't; they wouldn't believe; they were on the heights of joy \u2013 for he can be a great life-enhancer and great fun, and his attention is very flattering.\n\nBy the time I did marry him (driving home from Sun Valley) I did not want to, but it had gone too far in every way. I wept, secretly, silently, on the night before my wedding and my wedding night; I felt absolutely trapped. When I fell in love with him was in Spain, where for once he did have tenderness for others (not me, he was regularly bloody to me, lustful or possessive, and only nice when he was teaching me, as if I were a young man, the arts of self defense in war. And also he liked being the only man in Spain who took his woman around with him, and I was blonde, very helpful in brunette countries, raises one's value.) I loved him then for his generosity to others and for his selfless concern for the Cause. That was all gone by the time I married him. I think I was afraid of him though I certainly never admitted it to myself or showed it to him. You will also be surprised to hear that I have never been more bored in my life than during the long long months when we lived alone in Cuba. I thought I would die of boredom. But it was very good for me. I wrote more with him than ever before or since in my life, and read more. There were no distractions; I lived beside him and entirely and completely alone, as never before or since.\n\nI am very glad he now speaks pleasantly of me. I never speak of him one way or the other with anyone. The whole thing is a distant dream, not very true and curiously embarrassing. It has almost nothing to do with me. What I write you here is, as you can understand, secret and between us only and forever.\n\nHe ought to be happy and he ought to be gentle; because life has showered gifts and blessings on him; and I hope he is.\n\nConsidering this was to be a quick letter, only saying that I love you and wish you well for 1959 and all years to follow, it has rather swelled, has it not.\n\nMy darling Lenny.\n\nMarthy\n\nP.S. Bertrand Russell uses the word \"impiety\" in relation to luniks and further attempts and he is right.\n\n428. Darius Milhaud to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMills College, Oakland, CA\n\n9 January 1959\n\nMy dear Lenny,\n\nEverybody tells me that you made a magnificent performance of my old _Cr\u00e9ation du monde_. It is too bad I didn't hear it.39 Generally I always listen on the radio to your programs which I love. They are full of miracles. For instance Schumann (Robert!) 4th Symphony sound[ed] like a transparent, light, tender orchestra.\n\nBravo, dear.\n\nBest wishes for the New Year from both of us to your family.\n\nMilhaud\n\n429. Leonard Bernstein to Mary Rodgers40\n\n22 January 1959\n\nMy dear little Miss Rodgers,\n\nI am happy to inform you that you have won the contest for the best word to replace \"classical\". Your magnificent choice of EXACT will ring down through the centuries, and no doubt enter Webster's 567th edition, if only as a footnote.\n\nCongratulations; and please accept the enclosed gift as a token of our esteem and gratitude for your fine thinking.\n\nFaithfully yours,\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\n430. Darius Milhaud to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMills College, Oakland, CA\n\n29 January 1959\n\nLenny dear,\n\nI was deeply touched by all the nice things you said about _Cr\u00e9ation du monde_ , and you explained everything so _clearly_. You are just marvellous. The performance was _remarkable_ too and you were so exciting in the Gershwin.\n\nLucky Philharmonic!\n\nI hope it will not be years before we see you.\n\nMost affectionately,\n\nMilhaud\n\nI should, I think, tell you that it is preferable not to use all the strings in _Cr\u00e9ation_. It's \"sharper\" with soli.\n\n431. Joe Roddy41 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nLife, Time & Life Building, Rockefeller Center, New York, NY\n\n24 February [1959]\n\nDear Leonard,\n\n1. The _Leonore_ [Overture No. 3] played Thursday night was the work of the best-sounding (that's a loathsome simplification) orchestra I have heard in years.\n\n2. The television program Sunday was \u2013 again \u2013 the best one you have done. The pattern is set and you cannot allow a poor one. That's fine with me. But I defy you to improve on \"How Dry I Am\".42\n\n3. Items 1 and 2 above are not set-ups for a complaint, but I have one. My children are pissed off, which is a concern of yours. They claim that at the last Saturday morning children's concert the TV strong-men blinded them by aiming great flood lights into the audience. Presumably the purpose of this was to make them \u2013 my spawn \u2013 look bright on television screens around the country. They don't give a good damn about being seen around the country because they came there to see you and the concert and they could not see either at times. They claim they cannot hear when they cannot see, but that's the exaggerated howling of the angry young men. I think they have a case.\n\nAnd as for me, I think the picture of the Child Listening Fervently is a wearying clich\u00e9 by now anyway. I strongly suspect you of being Christ (but hell, you know all that) and you of all people know perfectly well that \"suffer little children to come unto me\" is not to be understood this way. Even Kenneth Tynan knows that.\n\nI have urged your appointment as Secretary of State and you will be hearing from the Feds about this suggestion any day now.\n\nHighest regards,\n\nJoe Roddy\n\n432. Jule Styne to Leonard Bernstein\n\n237 West 51st Street, New York, NY\n\n20 March 1959\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nAs you know, I am devastated and shocked... as, no doubt, you were by Mr. Brooks Atkinson's and Mr. Walter Kerr's review of the show.43\n\nI can understand them not liking the songs or a song; or not liking the book or direction; or not liking the performance or a performance... However, for Atkinson, a man of his high intellect, to write in his column his last line \"a mongrel musical drama\" about this show in this day and age, is shocking. This is unfair criticism.\n\nSince you expressed yourself with great joy and thought the show was a beautiful musical and almost felt sure that it was a hit, I would appreciate your writing a letter to the _New York Times_ Mail Bag immediately. I feel a letter coming from you, since they know how honest you are, would be of tremendous assistance to the show. I know you have the courage and honesty to consider writing this letter.44\n\nThanks again for your and Felicia's niceness and God Bless.\n\nLove,\n\nJule\n\n433. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\n23 May 1959\n\nDavid, David, David,\n\n(That's in answer to _three_ letters of yours.)\n\nThe season is over: we've been to London and back in a week to see my _two_ shows there (imagine that!), & it's as expected: _West Side_ is booming, _Candide_ is limping, & I guess always will. Since our return I've been doing mail mail mail with Helen \u2013 a whole season's worth, Lord \u2013 and spending days on the editing of my book that S[imon] & S[chuster] are bringing out in the fall (nothing new: just a collection of TV scripts & miscellaneous writings. But what time it takes to edit!)45\n\nAnd so, finally, a minute to write you. And say how touched we both are by your wish to present us with the Trittico Dodecafonico! You are sweet. It's awfully hard to tell anything much from the photos: obviously color does a lot of the meaning; but what one can see is _fascinating_. I showed them to Danny S. [Saidenberg] & gave him a spiel, which I hope helps when he visits you this summer.\n\nI've also talked twice to Oliver Daniel46 based on a cooky notion I had that you might do well to just chuck ASCAP at this point & cross the stream. He looked into the story of you & BMI & couldn't learn enough to satisfy him. If you think it's a good idea, write Oliver (he has asked to have you do this: & it is promised to be kept confidential); & tell him the whole sordid tale. I sense an interest there. I wasn't up enough on the facts to give him the whole story. (I am also still trying to get in touch with Nissim.)\n\nI saw David O[ppenheim] yesterday & reminded him about releasing the 4th Symph: he has promised it for the early fall.\n\nAnd Tommy [Schippers] is apparently doing _Klee_ in Russia! Isn't it wonderful? But, as you say, when on earth will he rehearse it? Strange, fancy type fellow, that. I suspect also, frightened to death.\n\nDear David, this time we _must_ meet in Italy! We don't alas, come to Firenze, but we do go to Venice on 26th Sept, & thence to Milan (concerts on the 28th & 29th). Meanwhile, June & July on the delicious old Vineyard, where I hope to recoup some energy & sanity, & maybe even _write_ something, please God!\n\nBless you & love from us both\n\nL\n\n(& Best to Ciro!)\n\n434. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\nVineyard Haven, MA\n\n[Summer 1959]\n\nDear D,\n\nThe Vineyard is glorious, a blessing every day. I've decided that gratitude \u2013 rather, gratefulness \u2013 is the essence of joy, the basic emotion, what we feel when we hear music we love, or look at our loved ones, or simply breathe on this golden island; and growing old means only losing that emotion. The retention of gratefulness is the guarantee of continued youth, don't you think?\n\nWhen I go into N.Y. to open the Stadium, I shall have a talk with Stanley Adams.47 I've written him already & we have an appointment. I decided to go to the top, after failing with the underlings. We'll see. Meanwhile, write Oliver [Daniel].\n\nAs to the Ford grants, they were part of a special project for _performers_ , who were asked to select composers they wanted concertos from. That's out. But I have a feeling Spivacke48 could be in. Why not write him? I'll put in a blast too.\n\nVery odd to think of you & Tommy S. [Schippers] together, I don't know why.\n\nI know nothing of Marlon [Brando] or his whereabouts. Irene Lee49 will be visiting you shortly \u2013 ask her.\n\nI'll write after Stanley Adams.\n\n  [Dosvidaniya]\n\nLenny\n\n(I'm studying Russian out of a little book, & I think of you every time I pronounce a hard L. What a delicious language!)\n\n435. Boris Pasternak50 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Peredelkino, near Moscow, Soviet Union]\n\n1\u20133 September 1959\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nI am exceedingly touched and most thankfully surprised by your kind friendly wire. If other interjacent notes from me will not anticipate this my uttermost decision I hope to have the happiness to attend your concert on the eleventh. To that end, no daring or intending to trouble you to write anything, I shall by my own care look after four passes (for me and my family) to the performance. Only please indicate my name to the attendant before the door of your artistic room on the evening, that I may be admitted to you after the concert.\n\nBesides that I shall try to get the luck the honour and the right to invite you to dinner at Peredelkino Wednesday the ninth at three o'clock.\n\nI shall confirm it afterwards once more.\n\nObediently yours,\n\nB. Pasternak\n\nSept 2nd 1959\n\nNo it will not go \u2013 I think it better to renounce to that great pleasure and not to meet apart from the concert evening (the 11) when I shall experience myself the delight and ecstasy all the town speaks of, & hereupon I am congratulating you fervently in advance.\n\nExcuse my unexplainable discourtesy. My involuntary ungraciousness is my misfortune, not my fault. But I shall hear and see you.\n\nWith the same devotion,\n\nIdem.\n\n3 September 1959\n\nLast note.\n\nPlease be welcome on the day and hour you dispose the best, except the intervals between 1\u201321\/2 and after 8 in the evening, when I can be about on walks. The best hour remains that of the dinner (3 o'clock). Come _as it were unawaitedly_. Ask the guidance of the concert organisation to provide for the return car. Agree with them upon my being admitted in the evening of the concert in the entr'acte.\n\nI wish you the renewal of your habitual triumphs I know of from hearsay.\n\nRespectfully yours,\n\nB. Pasternak\n\n436. Boris Pasternak to Leonard Bernstein\n\nPeredelkino, near Moscow, Soviet Union\n\n9 September 1959\n\nFor Mr. Leonard Bernstein,\n\nPaste this dedication in your copy of my novel. It was so fine and kind of you to have wired to me from Leningrad, to have got the desire to find and to meet me. After-tomorrow I shall attend to the marvel and triumph of art which are your performances. In grateful presentiment of it.\n\nB. Pasternak\n\n437. Boris Pasternak to Leonard and Felicia Bernstein\n\nMoscow, Soviet Union\n\n12 September 1959\n\nDear friends,\n\nIn the morning of the next day Saturday \u2013 Fatigue, yearning, exhaustedness, like after a sleepless night or a big command event, a great night fire in the town, a conflagration, having devoured [a] lot of houses, or a mighty storm with a powerful inundation.51 So must be art. We must will its produced impression, long, and pine for it. Art must leave us love-stricken and sorrow overcome, like a deep-felt parting or separation. Art is language of greatness, greatness is disclosure, its sight, its tragic and suffering _being exposed to view_.\n\nDon't stand you both so often before my mental eyes, I will be along, don't hinder me to be diligent and working.\n\nB. Pasternak\n\nHearty greetings to all yours; to Mr. St[even] Rosenfeld; to the whole orchestra, to the fiery, dear, expansive Mr. Zimmermann; to Goldstone and Varga.\n\nDear My Felicia, who was the lady you sent after me out of the lobby in the concert-room in the entr'acte? She wore a dark, straight, long dress, not girdled in the waist, that seems a sort of brocade. Her husband was dressed in a light brown suit.\n\nThey figure, they are present in my greetings, I am feelingly asking their names. Having spoken with them, I was so absent minded in the crowd, as to not have demanded to be presented to them. Write me be so kind about them, about her and him.\n\nAnd forget I implore you, my stupid idiotic speeches when in commotion I employed one word instead of another (for instance I used the word \"wife\" for \"woman\" that in reality I intended to say), and gave occasion to think I have been foretelling incidents towards some certain future.\n\nThe Same, in the same state of affectionate devotion.\n\n438. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\n205 West 57th Street, New York, NY\n\n19 October 1959\n\nDear David,\n\nWhat a shock! The first I heard of Tommy [Schippers] taking off your Klee piece was _your_ letter, which greeted my homecoming. I've thought hard; but there's nothing I can do about it. That he should replace it with yet _another_ Barber piece is too silly, and that I will do something about.\n\nSimultaneously, I heard two fine pieces of news: I ran into Stanley Adams in Washington, who said that all was _set_ & definite for you to get a year's advance! Then Marc told me that the Minna C[urtiss] thing was in the bag for 4 thousand. Wonderful news, & congratulations.\n\nBut meanwhile you say you are broke; I hope the enclosed helps until the big money arrives, which should be soon.\n\nWe finally saw the paintings which are startling & fascinating! More about that later \u2013 I'm dashing off to Springfield & Boston with that goddamn Shosty #5!\n\nLove, & don't despair,\n\nL\n\n439. Karlheinz Stockhausen52 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMeister-Johann-Strasse 6, K\u00f6ln-Braunsfeld, Germany\n\n8 November 1959\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nHow friendly you have written me! It is good that you understood my decision so well. I agree perfectly with your \"postponement\". That gives me an idea:\n\nShould we not give Carnegie Hall the last lubrication before she will die? E.g. with _Kontra-Punkte_ (instead of _Gruppen_ 31st March), and David Tudor as pianist under your direction?\n\nCarnegie Hall would be delighted by such a last honour: she would feel like Carnegie Walhalla, and then she will never be jealous of Lincoln Hall during her long death.\n\nIn the parcel (which I sent to you) you will find a tape 71\/2 inches\/sec. with a copy of an old performance of _Kontra-Punkte_ (1955) and copies of _Gruppen_ performances in K\u00f6ln and Donaueschingen (worse, but with corrections). You will find also a little score of _Kontra-Punkte_ and a record with the electronic composition _Gesang der J\u00fcnglinge_.\n\nA last word on your letter: you should never be sad. You are the only artist since long time ago who gave me the impression to be more than a \"serious\" one, who can fill a room with life, with Unbefangenheit, with Aufger\u00e4umtheit just by his presence, just by speaking and laughing about everything. That's gold of endowment without any merit; and I wish with all my heart that nobody could ever ruin or distort your soul. We live for music \u2013 yes; but we can say as well that music exists for us. There is a secret relationship between your soul and Mozart's soul, perhaps you know it: brilliant seldom stars appearing from time to time at the sky of this earth, light and transparent like angels, making everybody happy for a little moment of this long serious history... homeless like only homeless ones can be.\n\nI know what I say; one half of my soul is like you are, like Mozart's; but I am a strange mixture of heaven and hell.\n\nThanks for having met you, thanks for having heard you and seen you (during your concert I became so angry against you, that I could not stay: I listened too serious, too egoistic); but now, already soon after the concert, I discovered you in my own mind, in my own soul. I even don't think any more that something like this can be destroyed: misdeal yourselves without any limit, spread on this earth as much as possible, reserve nothing.\n\nYours,\n\nKarlheinz Stockhausen\n\n440. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nPalm Springs, CA\n\n12 November 1959\n\nDearest Aa,\n\nHappy Birthday! I'm all alone, imagine, out in the desert, in a rented house (all Japonee, & ugly) & a wonderful pool, & a Baldwin, and big rocky desert hills, & sun & fine air, all alone thinking of you. How I miss seeing you, & have missed it for years; how much I was looking forward to visiting some Sundays ago, & couldn't because Felicia wasn't well; thinking about how we can splurge it up a year from now at the Philh. for your 60th; thinking about those inside wheels of me that compose music, and are so rusty now (I wrote a bar today!), and how long I can go on being an all-time maestro without writing; & thence to Mahler (I bought lots of albums of Mahler, & I've been listening & crying as I listen \u2013 _Das Lied_ is still one in a million) \u2013 & thence to Bruckner (I bought some of his symphs too, having never heard #6, 8 or 9!!) & find him impossibly boring, without personality, awkward & dull, masked in solemnity.\n\nBut Mahler makes me think of you, hard, and of our music, which I don't think I really understand the direction of any more (or the purpose); & I long to talk to you & have you explain it to me, & reassure me that new music is just as exciting as it was when you showed me all about it 20 years ago.\n\nAnd I long also to kiss you and wish you a very happy birthday \u2013\n\nAlways,\n\nLenny\n\n441. Fritz Reiner to Leonard Bernstein\n\n1320 North State Parkway, Chicago, IL\n\n14 November 1959\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nMany thanks for sending me your book.53 I shall look forward to enjoying it on my Christmas vacation at Rambleside.54\n\nMeanwhile it is gratifying to read in the inscription that my teaching and ideas about music are remembered by my most brilliant and successful student.\n\nThanks again and arrivederci presto.\n\nYour friend,\n\nFritz Reiner\n\n442. Lukas Foss to Leonard Bernstein\n\n11 December 1959\n\nDear L,\n\nHave you answered Stockhausen yet?\n\n\"None of your business Lukas\" \u2013 Right. I am trespassing. But since you showed me his letter,55 forgive my thinking about it. I just thought of the perfect answer. Allow me:\n\nDear Mr. Stockhausen,\n\nI am of course the most gifted man of music in the USA but I have as much in common with W.A.M. as the man in the moon. _And you know it_.\n\nSincerely,\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\nWho is that man who dares out-flatter the flatterers, who dares manipulate you as if you were vain and childish (like the great S[erge] K[oussevitzky])? He is a man who built an international reputation not on a composition but on promises and promises, on a _platform_. \"I will lead music to...\". Dictators promise and dictators flatter potential enemies into temporary allies, pulling the wool over their eyes. Did not Hitler once call the Italians \"Aryans among Latins\"? Ludicrous flattering which made the recipient quiver with joy. \"Look here, everybody, the man whom I expected to hate me, whom everyone fears, he praises me, he wants to do business with me, he sent me a gift...\"\n\nWhat floors me is: it works. It's so ludicrous that it works. It worked on Stravinsky and it probably works on you.\n\nBut Lenny, suppose for a moment that Mozart were reborn, and that we'd all know: it's Mozart. What kind of a letter would a composer, would Stravinsky, would Stockhausen, would I write to him? Surely not: \"I who am suspended between heaven and hell found you in my soul\" but simply:\n\n\"Dear W.A.M. please allow me to show you my music. I need your advice, your criticism, and I hope you'll like me and the music. Yours...\"\n\nWhen I admire someone I do not \"bestow\" praise. Genuine admiration makes one modest, humble \u2013 in fact \u2013 a beggar.\n\nLukas\n\nP.S. There is no possible apology for this letter of mine. Though I speak the truth it is quite obvious that I wrote it out of jealousy.\n\n443. Francis Poulenc to Leonard Bernstein\n\n13 December [1959]\n\nDear Bernstein,\n\nForgive my late reply to your kind message. I accept very happily your commission for 61\u201362, very flattered to be numbered among the ten eminent composers. Since I will be going to New York in February, we can talk about that. As I am not a man of symphonies _alla Brahms_ or Shosta[kovich], we'll see what I could write, because I want to do a good job. I've just finished my _Gloria_ for Boston (60\u201361), so you don't need to fear a choral work. That said, I thank you and embrace you, hoping to see you soon.\n\nFrancis Poulenc56\n\n444. Joe Roddy to Leonard Bernstein\n\n_Life_ , Time & Life Building, Rockefeller Center, New York, NY\n\n13 February 1960\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nThe Mahler-mania in me is getting out of control and I cannot suppress an urge to sing the Second Symphony this week. I remind you, with good cause, that I am a survivor of City Center performances of the _Symphony of Psalms_ and the _Airborne_ [Symphony] conducted by you, Ninth Symphonys of Toscanini and Koussevitzky, Berlioz Requiem of Munch, and about one thousand ditties ranging from Ives to Byrd led by Robert Shaw when I was a Collegiate Chorale kid.\n\nThe best and worst that can be said of my voice is that it is harmless. It is white. I too am white.\n\nI have crashed many a chorus in recent years, but this time the idea of legality pleases me. This morning I called one F. Austin Walker at Rutgers who said he would be pleased to have me \u2013 the flu and all that having decimated his mankind. If it's all right with you, it's all right with him.\n\nI will call Helen Coates Tuesday for the news of Resurrection or Rejection.57 Because the programs are printed and all that sort of thing, I will not insist on special billing, advance payment or the services of a claque.\n\nBest,\n\nJoe Roddy\n\n445. William Schuman to Leonard Bernstein\n\n130 Claremont Avenue, New York, NY\n\n21 March 1960\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI was so pleasantly surprised by your charming and thoughtful call that I didn't tell you how touched I was that you should want to celebrate my 50th birthday. And I am delighted that you will celebrate it along with Barber's 50th and the 150th of R[obert] S[chumann], not to mention the Dean's (A[aron] C[opland]) 60th. You set me thinking about the program and I greatly appreciate your having consulted me. Actually, of course, any work of mine that you perform would afford me great pleasure. However, since this is a special occasion, I would like very much to be represented by a work with which I feel a close identification with you and one which will be having its own birthday next season too.\n\nIt will be 20 years next season that you and I first went over my Third Symphony with Kouss. But it is not just for sentimental reasons that this would be my choice for the program. On this occasion I would love to be represented by a piece of some weight and one that has been widely accepted. If you prefer No. IV (a tape of this will be sent to you tomorrow or Wednesday), fine. My idea for the program would be as follows:\n\n1. W[illiam] S[chuman] Symphony No. III\n\n2. Barber Violin Concerto\n\nIntermission\n\n3. Robert Schumann Symphony No. IV\n\nIn my view the order could also be 1, 3, 2, or 3, 2, 1. This is the closest I will probably ever come to making up a Philharmonic program. But I won't be the least bit insulted if you cannot carry out my suggestion.58\n\nOnce again, thank you for your vote of confidence. I told Frankie that Felicia will be calling and we will look forward very much to seeing you \u2013 it has been too long.\n\nAffectionately,\n\nBill\n\n446. Larry Kert59 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n6 April 1960\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nHow excited I am at the thought of you in the pit for the overture. And Carol [Lawrence] coming back next week \u2013 well I am flying.60\n\nSecco Records called me yesterday. I told them to add \"some additions\". Is there anything from _Peter Pan_ I could do? Also what would you say if the album said \"Leonard Bernstein presents Larry Kert\"?61 There would be no extra work involved for you, just your permission I guess. They want me to start on the album around the first of May. I sure hope it's a good one.\n\nCan't wait to see you on April 27th. Nope I'm not bugging you.\n\nSincerely with love,\n\nLarry K.\n\n447. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nGreen Park Hotel, Half Moon Street, London, England\n\n1 May 1960\n\nDear Lensk,\n\nEveryone's been writing me how wonderfully you did the _2nd H_ [ _urricane_ ].\n\nAlso, was sent the write-ups. Naturally I'm tickled pink. Now I hear you're recording it \u2013 so I can hear it, and maybe CB[S]-TV will screen it for me when I get back end of June. Anyho this is just to say denks and denks again. (Did you get my wire? I really _was_ all agog.)\n\nWhen you get this I'll be in Tokio! (care Amer. Embassy.)\n\nHad a nice concert here with the London Symphony Orch \u2013 big house and lots of enthusiasm. The English \u2013 of all ages \u2013 tend to spoil me anyhow, so I like it here.\n\nI imagine Lukas has given you an earful about the Russkys. (Some nice lady piano teacher at the Leningrad Cons. asked after you most warmly.) It was an experience I wouldn't have wanted to miss.\n\nHave fun with your new house. And love to you and Felicia.\n\nAaron\n\n448. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein\n\n916 North Foothill Road, Beverly Hills, CA\n\n3 June 1960\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nThank you so much for your letter. It came almost in an ESP way, arriving after I had just had a meeting with [David] Selznick telling him that if he went to New York and enlisted you that then I would be interested in the project, otherwise not. I must have heard you writing a letter a few days before.\n\nThe opera idea about the Chassidic ghetto sounds really exciting. Sure I'd love to work on it.\n\nOur Chino has been set for four weeks now, so unfortunately I won't be able to see Nikiforos. I'll keep him in mind if anything changes or turns up for him.\n\nThe garage idea is a good one, but true to Hollywood standards turns out to be a super garage and I seem to be spending most of my energy in pushing walls closer to each other, washing colors out of the sets, and acting like a sheep dog in trying to keep the script in a nice well directed herd aimed for the success it was in New York. I run from side to side barking warning noises about strayed lines, changed lyrics and cut choruses.62 My they're getting tired of me.\n\nKeep well, rest well and I promise not to pluck you out of your island repose unless I know that only you can do what has to be done.\n\nAll love as always.\n\nJerry\n\n449. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein\n\n916 North Foothill Road, Beverly Hills, CA\n\n16 June 1960\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nThis just got to me. If this is _your_ version of what happened about \"Somewhere\", it's news to me. Sure, we differed on it \u2013 but nothing was played by any orchestra that you did not know of. Nor would I ever be destructive to your music \u2013 I have too much respect for your taste and talent.63 If it _is_ your version (which I doubt) you owe me an apology I think \u2013 and if it isn't, I think you ought to put it straight. I don't think, Lenny \u2013 if I _am_ to be accused of fang and claw \u2013 that I ever used them on you. I fought _for_ \"Somewhere\" \u2013 over Arthur and occasionally Steve's objections.\n\nMaybe I'm jumping the gun, and if so, forgive me \u2013 I value our collaboration and friendship in spite of difficulties we have when working (I'm sure we both have moments of wanting to brain the other). I find it always the most stimulating and valuable of all I've ever had anywhere. Moreover I always felt from you an admiration for my musicality as I've had for your theatrical ideas \u2013 so the item came as a shock. If that bit came from Arthur or Steve \u2013 I can understand it \u2013 but I'd appreciate hearing from you, and getting me or the paper straight.\n\nSigned \u2013 like in Dear Abby,\n\n'Upset'\n\nJerry\n\n450. Dimitri Mitropoulos to Leonard Bernstein\n\n12 July 1960\n\nDear Lenny, Dearest Friend,\n\nI really ask you to forgive me for my silence, especially after your so generous and wonderful visit to me at the hospital, followed by your nice thoughtful gift of Gauloises cigarettes, which, it goes without saying, I enjoyed to the utmost!\n\nWhat made me especially happy was to think and see that I mean something to you. Besides that, I want to assure you that your wonderful and justified development in the artistic musical world is the best gratification for me since the time I first met you in Boston. I remember in one certain instance when I told you, just like a prophet, that you are the _\u00e9lu_ , and certainly at that time I could not even foresee what happened, today.\n\nSo God bless you, dear friend, and keep on progressing, without paying any attention to criticism \u2013 and certainly you know as well as I that the higher you go, the more you will be criticized.\n\nWith many affectionate regards,\n\nDimitri64\n\n451. Leonard Bernstein to Saul Chaplin65\n\nVineyard Haven, MA\n\n18 July 1960\n\nDear Solly,\n\nThe three scores I've received look lovely (though I'm in no shape this summer to look at them microscopically). I wait in dread for the new version of the Prologue!66\n\nI hear it's all getting VERY expensive. That's life in Hollyburg. If it's not expensive, how can it be good? [...]\n\nMuch love,\n\nLenny\n\n452. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nVineyard Haven, MA\n\n[July 1960]\n\nDearest A,\n\nA greatly belated welcome home! And the fact that I think of you every day, and often twice a day, does not compensate for not having written you. But then, you haven't written me either (except: loved your cable about the _Hurricane_ ).\n\nBut today I must write, because last night I heard the test-pressing of the _2nd Hurricane_ recording which will be out in time for your birthday. It's badly engineered in places, especially when there is choral complexity (the voices are too distant and unclear, the orch. is too present) \u2013 but in general I think you'll be delighted. Of course, it's similar to the TV version, with me narrating, preserving a line or two of dialogue here & there, & cutting Fat's Song plus 2 other small cuts. But mainly I'm writing because I'm so impressed all over again with the music. It is lovely & endlessly fresh: neither the simplicity nor the grandeur stales. Felicia loves it; Jamie & Alexander sing it marvelously by the yard. I hope you like it; it will be our November release on Columbia, along with _Billy_ & _Rodeo_ , making a delightful, gay (though costly) birthday package!\n\nAnd \u00e0 propos birthday. The Pension Fund concert I had planned for your birthday in Carnegie Hall is off, alas; too complicated to get all the participants I wanted (Ormandy, etc.), & perhaps not the right note for Pension Fund events. _But_ , I have a better idea, which is something nobody else can do for your 60th, and that is to make a whole TV show for the kids (the Shell series, originating in Carnegie) on the subject of the Venerable Giggling Dean.\n\nImagine, Judge-Nose for one hour, coast-to-coast! This will happen on the 12th November (Sat.) at noon in Carnegie Hall, & probably be telecast the following day, Sunday afternoon. I want you to participate, do you hear?! Either to conduct a piece, or play the piano, or maybe narrate the Lincoln piece, or maybe conduct same with me narrating. In any case it should be fun. Please say you'll do it, & that there aren't sixty other conflicting homages on the same day.\n\nA couple of weeks ago I watched & heard you conduct the BSO for 90 minutes on WGBH-TV, and it was a joy. Man, you've improved incredibly! Clarity, meaningfulness of beat, ass not extruding. Only problem: die head too much in die score. You must to know die Musik better (or at least trust yourself more). But the big thrill was hearing the Symph #1 again \u2013 what a scherzo! And I had real pleasure out of your colloquy with Walter P[iston]. Even the Diamond _Rounds_ sounded good! Want to succeed me at the Philh.?\n\nI long to see you, & hear about your phenomenal travels. Any significant liaisons? When will we ever meet again?\n\nI sorely miss T'wood also. My love to it, & its inmates. Me, I haven't written a note.\n\nMuch love,\n\nL\n\n453. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nBerkshire Music Center, Tanglewood, MA\n\n28 July 1960\n\nDear Lensk,\n\nA big pleasure to get your letter. On my one day in N.Y. before coming here I had Roger Englander show me the _2nd H_ [ _urricane_ ]. That was a big pleasure too \u2013 a revival only you could have made so moving. I hope the recording is as good. (Only one reproach: you didn't mention Edwin [Denby]'s name as collaborator.) Goddard had written me about the birthday package and I'm pleased as punch about that _too_. (He's also bringing out [William] Masselos' performance of the _Piano Fantasy_ which I want you to hear \u2013 performance is _superb_ , I think.)\n\nAbout the TV \u2013 Nov. 12; of course I'll do anything you like. Whatever else happens it will give us a reason to \"confer\", i.e., see each other for a change! The only thing I don't want is to be presented as \"grandpa for the kiddies.\" One item you might consider is a selection of songs from the _Old American Songs_. I did them with The Little Orchestra and W[illia]m Warfield 2 years ago. Warfield does them wonderfully and the orchestral versions are fun-things. (You might show the kids the original versions of the songs I worked with.) If you have a quintet of singers the \"Promise of Living\" from _The Tender Land_ works fine. (Or that and the Square Dance can be performed in the choral version with orch.) Etc. Etc... The hard thing will be to illustrate my \"tougher\" side, no?\n\nThe idea of _you_ watching me conduct for 90 min. struck terror... After 8 performances of the Symph #1 on tour I think I can trust myself to peek outside \"die score\"! Anyway I've been getting lots of conducting practice: in 3 months I've had concerts with 7 different orchestras.\n\nWe need you in Tanglewood \u2013 but badly. That's a whole chapter by itself. Our summer is enlivened by Luciano Berio who is guest composer and has stirred things up considerably. But otherwise, routine reigns. Too bad...\n\nAside from music, I had a lovely time in London and in Tokio. The only thing I didn't do was write music, h\u00e9las!\n\nLove to you always,\n\nAaron\n\n454. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nThe Faculty Club, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada\n\n[14 August 1960]\n\nDarling,\n\nJust a quickie:\n\nWe've arrived67 into a glorious kind of Pacific autumn here, with marvelous light over the sound, snow-capped peaks all around, and really _cool_ air. I'm ensconced in this palatial suite at the University, where it is said Queen Eliz. was impregnated. Probably a canard.68 Anyway I'm sleeping in her bed.\n\nDenver was marvelous.69 Now begins the piano nightmare. (You told me so, I know.)70 And I still can't memorize the Bart\u00f3k or _Daphnis_.71 Paresis.\n\nAll is well, the back is great so far, and the press conferences are enormous & ghastly. I've just written David K[eiser]72 at length, offering myself for a long period on the opening\u2013closing basis of the coming season. OK? Call you from Seattle.\n\nAll my love, my darling,\n\nL\n\n455. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\nMark Hopkins Hotel, San Francisco, CA\n\n26 August 1960\n\nDear Aa,\n\nLoved your letter. First instant to catch up: two weeks gone out of seven, seems like two years \u2013 much work, but also glorious fun. All record-breaking crowds, and screaming ones at that. Like Russia. And Hawaii \u2013 now there's a chapter. Just arrived from there last night, utterly spent. Mon dieu, quelle beaut\u00e9!\n\nSan Fran is all gold and blue, & teeming.\n\nI think your idea of the _American Songs_ is great. But we must be careful not to do too much stuff out of repertoire: there's so little rehearsal time, and you know how it's jammed into the busy week. But I'm sure we can swing some of the songs (& maybe an Emily [Dickinson] one too \u2013 hein?) and mebbe your tougher side through the Variations, which I could show at the piano first. Then perhaps the scherzo of the 3rd Symph, and finally a pop thing like _Rodeo_ or _Lincoln_. How would you like to participate \u2013 that is, in what capacity? Conductor or speaker in _Lincoln_ or pianist or speechifier? Don't bother answering; just mull, & we'll confer when I get home. There's time.\n\nMuch love, I miss you.\n\nLenny\n\n26 Aug 60 (I'm 42!!!)\n\nPS. About Edwin:73 There were supposed to be big credits on the screen about his authorship, which were cut for time reasons. I couldn't really mention him, since we didn't do the play. But I had him invited to the event, in the hopes that I could have him stand up for a bow, but he didn't show. In any case, I had a sweet & very thankful telegram from him after the show. (The recording is poorly engineered \u2013 diction, etc. obscure. Alas.)\n\n456. Marni Nixon74 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Mayfair Hotel, London, England\n\n28 August 1960\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nJust saw _West Side Story_ for the first time \u2013 here in London \u2013 and it's a tremendous show! I am \"up\" for the voice dubbing for the picture they are making at Goldwyn \u2013 for Maria's singing voice. Can you help me in any way there? Would certainly appreciate anything you think you can do to help.75\n\nHoping you are well, and I understand we might get together for another fling at Pierre Boulez next March. Hope so!\n\nI'm at present vacationing with my husband [Ernest Gold] \u2013 who just completed the score for _Exodus_ and we've been in London for a while & now we will travel on the continent for a while before going back to Hollywood.\n\nAh \u2013 have you ever been on vacation? I suspect you haven't found the time for years now. It's wonderful!\n\nSincerely,\n\nMarni Nixon\n\n457. Leonard Bernstein to Saul Chaplin\n\n20 September 1960\n\n[Telegram]\n\nDear Solly,\n\nBetween Dixie and Berlin I send urgent pleas to consider rerecording some of the tracks I heard in Hollywood. Cool, Mambo and Jet Song are OK although slowish but America is much too slow and Rumble dies of Adagio. Also rhythms wrong at end of Something's Coming. Prologue of course is impossible and embarrassing. Johnny [Green] know[s] of feelings. Please try to redo and correct as much as possible.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n458. Leonard Bernstein to Nadia Boulanger\n\nNew York, NY\n\n22 December 1960\n\nMy dearly beloved Nadia,\n\nI am so happy that you have accepted our invitation!76 Not only will your visit give great musical joy to a large public, but enormous personal joy to all of us who for so long have regarded you as the unique and adorable person you are.\n\nDon't you think it would be marvelous to play something of one or two of your former pupils?\n\nI look forward to seeing you with keen anticipation; and I was deeply moved by your beautiful letter.\n\nAlways,\n\nLenny (Bernstein)\n\nJoyeux No\u00ebl!\n\n459. Lukas Foss to Leonard Bernstein\n\nUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA\n\n[?December 1960 or January 1961]\n\nCarissimo,\n\n_West Side Story_ score arrived and I am having a great time with it. Love it more and more. I am _proud_ to do it!! But _when_ can I get the definitive (final) version? And when is that one and only rehearsal?77\n\nI am anticipating yet another Bernstein feast \u2013 on Saturday eve. May 20th. Ojai Festival.78 Don't know if you know about the Festival. It's famous around here. Stravinsky did _Les Noces_ and other works one spring, Copland conducted it another. This year it's mine. I am doing away with the large orchestra which makes for too skimpy rehearsal time, on the meager budget. I am using never more than 30 players, but the best in Los Angeles. Anyway, on that Saturday, the program \u2013 my pride and joy \u2013 will be:\n\n_Anniversaries_ (Me at the piano)\n\n_Rondo for Lifey_ (Divace + Me)\n\n_West Side Story_ jazzed up (Previn and [Shelly] Manne and... the bass)\n\nMasque from _Age of Anxiety_ (with fade out on pianino)\n\n(Andr\u00e9 plays, I conduct \u2013 or vice versa)\n\n20 minutes of non-jazz improv. (my improv. Chamber ensemble)\n\nMozart C major 4 hand Sonata (Andr\u00e9 & Me)\n\nI think that's a gem of a program. The shift from non-jazz to jazz back to non-jazz is subtle and meaningful thanks to your music and its enormous jazz\u2013non-jazz range. Incidentally Andr\u00e9 and Shelly offered to donate their services and seem as pleased with the whole thing as I am.\n\nLove to Felicia. _Did_ you get the record, notes, charts \u2013 that messy little package? Until February, cher ami\n\nLuke McLuke\n\n460. Leonard Bernstein to Sid Ramin\n\n[January 1961]\n\nSid,\n\nMake it for tpts and tbns (4 each available) and percussion, but if you have time, add optional parts for horns and winds.79\n\nBlessings and luck!\n\nLenny\n\nIf you're rushed, first make it for _brass_.\n\n461. Frank Sinatra80 to Leonard and Felicia Bernstein\n\nWashington, D.C.\n\n12 January 1961\n\n[Telegram]\n\nGreetings,\n\nI thought I'd better send you a rundown of activities along the Potomac. First of all, the workaday side of it, I must ask you not to make any outside appointments for the entire day of the eighteenth which is Wednesday if you remember. This will be a tough day of rehearsal and as it behooves us all to put on a really slick show the next night81 I think we should devote this entire day and night to rehearsals. And you know how much I like rehearsals. The morning of the nineteenth will be final orchestra rehearsals and we will start the dress rehearsal at noon.\n\nNow for the social side of this hoedown. Exhibit A will be a supper party that Ambassador Kennedy is giving in honor of the entire cast immediately after our gala performance. This will be black tie for the fellows and something dazzling for the girls. Exhibit B is the inaugural ceremony itself at noon of the twentieth and the parade which follows. Sections of seats have been allotted for us for both events, for those who want to attend. I must ask you to please tell Miss Lovell in my office at the Statler Hilton Hotel whether or not you want to attend these two functions. Exhibit C is the little wing-ding dinner which I am tossing for all of us at seven thirty on the evening of the twentieth. We will also go _en masse_ from this dinner to the Inaugural Ball at the Mayflower, which is pretty dressy for boys and girls. Black tie or white tie diamond and emeralds and all that jazz. Everything is shaping up for something that we all will be remembering for a long time and believe you me I don't think I have ever been so excited.\n\nLove and kisses and I'll be waiting for you.\n\nFrank Sinatra\n\n462. Saul Chaplin to Leonard Bernstein\n\n11 April 1961\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nAfter much discussion with Bob Wise, it was decided that the opening of the picture would be handled in the following manner: the helicopter shots would be kept the way they are now except for the \"motto\" whistles which will precede the long orchestral note. Also, we _will_ add the finger-snaps during the long note. The general feeling here is that the helicopter shots are very unusual and dramatic, and not at all travelogue-y. It is felt that they do progress the audience to the locale of the picture in a most effective manner. In any event, the opening will be kept this way for the preview. If, at that time, anyone feels that the high shots slow the opening of the picture, or interfere with the dramatic content of the \"Prologue\", the proper changes will be made.\n\nYour recital of Jerry's report to you concerning the picture has been on my mind constantly. He has, conveniently, omitted a significant amount of information in his usual vaguely dishonest manner.82 Isn't it interesting that he didn't think it important to mention various large mistakes in the numbers he shot? Isn't it curious that he didn't mention that the Jets are out of sync during a section of \"The Jet Song\"; or that there's half a bar of music missing during the fugue of \"Cool\"; or how I pleaded with him to just \"try\" the faster version of \"Cool\" and how he refused; or how several sections of \"America\" and \"I Feel Pretty\" wouldn't cut together except through Bob Wise's ingenuity; or how he staged \"One Hand\" and was always aware that we were going to use just one chorus and had no _objection_ whatever? I could further mention how he kept encouraging Natalie Wood to sing her own track so that as late as last Friday I was still having trouble from that quarter. I could go on endlessly reciting blunders, which he neglected to mention to you. But, I assure you, we've corrected, and are correcting, all of his mistakes without talking about them. I hope on the other hand, he mentioned how exciting the \"Quintet\" turned out; or how wonderful the \"Taunting\" is; or how touching \"Somewhere\" is; or many other facets of the picture which, I'm sure, slipped his mind since we managed to muddle through without him.\n\nThe reason for this diatribe is quite simple: the fact that Jerry is going to derogate all of us concerns me not at all; the fact that many people will believe what he tells them, since it's fashionable to regard us all out here as sun-loving, bungling, no-talents, also doesn't concern me. What _you_ believe, however, concerns me deeply. I can only reiterate that never in my experience has so much money and care been expended in the making of a movie. If it is not perfect in every detail, my only answer is \u2013 what is? It isn't because we didn't try like Hell. Jerry, of course, is wildly talented. He is also wildly destructive of people and relationships. For me, one doesn't compensate for the other. He is easily the most reprehensible person I've ever known. And so, when the golden day dawns when I will, at last, be freed from _West Side Story_ , I will make it a life's work never again to mention his name or think of him. That, indeed, will be a time for wild celebration.\n\nI'm sorry to have kept you this long at a time when I know how busy you are. I wish you great success with your tour and I'm sure you'll have much better luck with Alaska than I did. (Remember _Bonanza Bound_?).83\n\nLove and sholom,\n\nSol\n\n463. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nHotel New Nagoya, Nagoya, Japan\n\n30 April 1961\n\nDarling,\n\nHow can I describe the last two days? Paradise. At last, really Japan \u2013 once we got out of mad gay Tokyo. About 16 of us were put up at that famous Japanese inn called Minaguchi-ya, where I think I had the most beautiful day and night anyone has ever had. The gardens \u2013 the beauty \u2013 the sea \u2013 the quiet \u2013 the deep charm of Japanese rooms, the smell of new tatami (the straw mats used for carpeting) \u2013 the elegance of simple flower arrangements \u2013 the marvelous food \u2013 and oh, the girls. We were welcomed in a way that made me feel I'd never been really welcomed before. The girls crowd around, laughing, attending, bubbling, dressing & undressing you, preparing your kimono, your bath (oh that wonderful bath of old scoured wood) \u2013 and with none of the artificial gaiety of the Geisha (who embarrass the wits out of me) but with a natural spontaneous joie de vivre & delight in making you happy. I had the Emperor's suite, mind you, & slept in his bed, & had his breakfast (about 17 courses) and it was coincidentally the Emperor's birthday, so Lennuhtt was the Emperor (which is _Tenno_ in Japanese, so now you can call me Tennuhtt). The morning after we visited the famous nearby temple Shuken-ji, a terribly moving Zen sanctuary with the most overwhelming gardens I have ever seen. The entire side of a mountain covered in every green imaginable, spotted with huge red azalea, & pierced by a long, narrow graceful waterfall from top to bottom. I shall never forget the sound of that silence, or the odors, the color, the peace.\n\nAll this is really to say that in two days you would change your whole mind about things Japanese. I know you would. You would adore the food (most of it anyway), the sense of beauty, the natural grace of people and houses. You'd even change your mind about paper windows & walls & screens & doors & mats & sitting on the floor. It is the way to live. I insist on bringing you here some time, without the orchestra and la Belle and Tourel.\n\nNow today that Paradise is all over, as we've moved into another noisy characterless big city, which doesn't even have the fun of Tokyo, but only the ugliness. But from here on it gets good again \u2013 more Japanese style inns, & Kyoto, which I can't wait to see, & Kobe, & _pearls_. I bought me two black kimonos today \u2013 one silk, one wool: something for you, don't dare really. Bought Axel a great boy-doll in honor of Boys' Day which is the big festival tomorrow. It's a Samurai-boy on a horse, in a glass case, & featuring a huge phallus, which I don't know how I'll explain to him. Then visited Nagoya Castle, a breathtaking piece of architecture, and a museum reminiscent of the Hermitage in terms of costumes, prints, & paintings. Now sleep. Then a koto-player is coming for to play the koto. Then sleep. Day off. Thank God. My big nose is still sick, & needs a big rest. All else is great, concerts et al. are smashes. Minimum of Saudeks [Robert and Elizabeth], etc. All under control. Only I miss you terribly.\n\nMy love, my little maid of Orleans, my swan, I miss you. My dearest love to the littles.\n\nL\n\nO, that inn! I had always thought the idea that Japanese made men happy was a commercial notion from Brando movies: but it's true!\n\n464. Felicia Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n1 May [1961]\n\nHa-ha Rennuhtt (or is it Chi-Chi),\n\nHip! Hip! Your letter arrived and not so chop-chop either \u2013 but then who can figure it out? I feel I cannot waste a minute if this is to reach you at all.\n\nIt was so wonderful to hear from you \u2013 sort of unbelievable since I confess that I still have the childish notion that the Orient is never-never land \u2013 it's hard to picture you all there. I mean like Helen Coates painted on a kaki-mono or Jack Fishburg84 meditating at a Buddhist Temple, or you for that matter being fed by some dainty geisha \u2013 anyway Tokyo sounds disastrous and shatters all my childhood dreams.\n\nNew York, however, is exactly the same as you left it \u2013 the same set, the same cast of characters. There is _nothing_ new on _any_ front. Alexander is in bed with a cough (not serious). Henry is fine and looks beautiful. He was not allowed by the doctor to go to the country since he's still convalescing \u2013 so I took BB & Ellen instead. I've been with the \"liver pip\" for about a week so I was afraid to go by myself. It was to _die_ there \u2013 no dogwood yet, but forsythia, daffodils, jonquils, pinks, blues \u2013 dreamy! I can't bear that you're missing it \u2013 still, I guess you're getting spring in spades there! But somehow it's not the same when it doesn't belong to you.\n\nI'm off to Rochester in a few days \u2013 I've worked hard and feel secure \u2013 I wonder if they are?\n\nDon't buy me a \"simple\" pearl \u2013 I've decided I don't want rings any more!\n\nKiss you long with all my love,\n\nF\n\n465. Nadia Boulanger to Leonard Bernstein\n\n\u00c9coles d'Art Am\u00e9ricaines, Fontainebleau, France\n\n5 May 1961\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nJust receive[d] the score of _West Side Story_ \"at the request of the composer\". Well \u2013 it sounds rather miraculous as I had just ordered it! Too beautiful \u2013 not to be true!\n\n_Merci_ \u2013 I am enchanted by its dazzling nature \u2013 perhaps facility is a danger, but it is enough to be aware of that and follow it.\n\nUntil soon. I often think of you, of the problems and temptations that your gifts give you \u2013 divergent and convergent.\n\nWith my greatest affection to all of you.\n\nNB85\n\n466. Felicia Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n8 May [1961]\n\nMy darling,\n\nYour wonderful beautiful letter from Nagoya followed me to Rochester \u2013 it arrived just in time for the concert and inspired me to new heights \u2013 in other words it went tickety-boo to the races! Hollenbach86 turned out to be a jolly good conductor, the chorus was wonderful and your old Maid of Orleans did you proud. And here I am back at the store covered with laurels, my ego in top form for at least six months!\n\nWe are all counting the days to your arrival \u2013 such an enormity of events have taken place since you left that I feel it should all somehow quiet down once you are home safe and sound \u2013 so did it!\n\nLove to all \u2013 kisses to you from the littles \u2013 I love you,\n\nF\n\n467. Leonard Bernstein: Stephen Sondheim Acrostic\n\n5 July 1961\n\nS tephen Sondheim is a maker and solver of puzzles:\n\nT he mind's jig-saw, creativity's crossword, and\n\nE specially the heart's cryptologies.\n\nP uzzler-poet of word and note, now puzzled, now puzzling,\n\nH e may on occasion inch apart\n\nE nough to reveal the delicate cracks between;\n\nN ext moment the pieces are magnetized, spring together with a\n\nJ olt of rightness: himself a puzzle, self devised, self-soluble.\n\nS tephen Sondheim loves Christmas: not\n\nO nly for the riddle of giving the precisely definitive gift;\n\nN ot, surely, for the getting of it; but for the warm\n\nD ecembral restatement of remembrance.\n\nH e is compulsively loyal,\n\nE ven to friends disloyal to each other. Finally,\n\nI f you like his words, wait til you hear his\n\nM usic, _qua solutum acrosticon est_.\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\nJuly 5, 196187\n\n468. Leonard Bernstein to Arthur Laurents\n\n31 October 1961\n\nDear Arthur,\n\nI've been meaning to tell you, ever since I saw the _W_ [ _est_ ] _S_ [ _ide_ ] _S_ [ _tory_ ] film,88 that I had never realized until that moment how much I admired and, yes, even revered your work on the show, and how much we all owe to you. It becomes all too painfully obvious as one sees the line-by-shot destruction of the book by the H'wood exegists (there's no such word!), and the clearest of all is the line, however fine, between whatever art is, and non-art. I just wanted to say a personal Thank you.\n\nLenny\n\n469. Francis Poulenc to Leonard Bernstein\n\nLe Beau Rivage, Lausanne\u2013Ouchy, Switzerland\n\n1 November 1961\n\nDear Bernstein,\n\nGreat news!! The _R\u00e9pons des T\u00e9n\u00e8bres_ are finished. I hope that you will like them. It's very simple (because of the children) but also, I believe, very moving, with nothing decorative like the _Gloria_ and completely internal. It's penitence, but \"poverty is not a vice\" as Markevitch put it in his _Rebus._ For a long time I've wanted to tell you that I went _twice in five days_ to see _West Side Story_ in Paris. I was _fascinated_ , that's the exact word, by everything that you have expressed and suggested. For someone who loves the interval of a sixth\n\nyou'll know how much I liked the big love duet. Bravo!\n\nThe boys have told me that they played the Double Concerto, and recorded it, with you. What a joy! I cannot wait to hear it.\n\nThank you for remaining a faithful friend.\n\nI embrace you, dear Bernstein\n\nFr. Poulenc89\n\n470. Leonard Bernstein to Igor Stravinsky90\n\n5 January 1962\n\nDear Ma\u00eetre,\n\nIt is our pleasure to hope to make a double celebration of your coming birthday. First we want to devote a special Pension Fund program to your works; this would occur on the 21st of March and be a gala celebration. Then, on the following Saturday, the 24th, we are planning to play another program of your music for a Young People's Concert, and this one would be nationally televised a month or so later.\n\nRemembering your charming cooperation with us on a previous television program, and recalling your kind telegram last season after our _Oedipus Rex_ program, I am encouraged to ask you again if you would not join us on this television show as well. Perhaps you could say a word of greeting to the young people (who, as you have said, understand your music better than anyone!) \u2013 and then, if you wish, conduct the orchestra in some final work, like part of _Petrouchka_ , or whatever you would like.\n\nI don't have to tell you what an honor it would be for us all to have you present (at both occasions, preferably, since they are so close together), besides helping us, reciprocally, to honor you in the way we would like to. To say nothing of my personal delight.\n\nYours always,\n\nLB91\n\n471. Igor Stravinsky to Leonard Bernstein\n\n1260 North Wetherly Drive, Hollywood, CA\n\n11 January 1962\n\nMy dear Leonard,\n\nI was delighted to receive your letter of January 4. I was also pleased to hear of your plans to perform my music during the spring season.\n\nAlas, I cannot appear on television myself before I complete _Noah_92 (when will that be?): on this point my television contract is very strict. And, two times also, I can't be in New York in March. The best I can do is send you my fondest greetings and to hope that all goes well. Perhaps, too, you would be kind enough to greet the children from me.93\n\nCordially,\n\nIgor Stravinsky\n\nP.S. Franz Waxman has urged me to try to persuade you to conduct a concert of my music in his (mid-June) Los Angeles Music Festival. I would be very happy if you would accept, of course, though I know you must be busy at that time (as I am; I can't participate myself).\n\n472. Nadia Boulanger to Leonard Bernstein\n\n1 Sutton Place South, New York, NY\n\n20 February 1962\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nWhat can I say to you? Words seem feeble [...] and I don't know how to tell you how grateful I am, but that must not prevent me from trying. Your spontaneity, your affection touch me deeply \u2013 and after this very moving week, for so many reasons, passed so quickly, alas.94 I drown \u2013 yes, I drown in the memory of _ma Petite_ ,95 hoping for you to receive a little of all that you give \u2013 and a little of the indefinable joy which gives peace to the heart, to life and to the spirit. And at the moment when this mystery is about to bring a new life into your existence I pray to God for [her] and for both of you.96\n\nRead what isn't written, and feel all that goes to you, from the bottom of my heart.\n\nNadia97\n\n473. Fritz Reiner to Leonard Bernstein\n\nRambleside, Weston, CT\n\n5 March 1962\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nCarlotta & I are very happy over the safe arrival of Nina Maria and hope that we shall have the opportunity of seeing her \u2013 as well as the rest of the family.\n\nI felt most unhappy at missing my concerts with the Philharmonic but was forced to give in to the doctor.\n\nWe are being very quiet and getting a good rest before leaving for Chicago on the 16th. Will be back for the rites of spring in Connecticut and hope that your plans are going to include Redding plus a visit to Rambleside.\n\nAffectionate greetings to all and a welcoming kiss to the new Princesa.98\n\nFaithfully,\n\nFritz\n\n474. Rudolf Bing99 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Sacher, Vienna, Austria\n\n18 June 1962\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nApparently we cannot come to an agreement with your lawyer's requests which I consider totally unreasonable.\n\nI _have_ fulfilled my promise \u2013 I _have_ a signed agreement with Zeffirelli! It is unfair and unreasonable to expect me to release you if Zeffirelli dies or breaches his contract (both of which I hope and trust are only remote possibilities). In such case I gladly agree to _consult_ with you on a substitute but the decision must remain the Management's \u2013 unless you agree to run the Met! Really I feel this has now gone on long enough \u2013 even beyond contract there should remain an ounce of mutual trust and confidence \u2013 so please sign now and I won't worry. I have no intention of killing Zeffirelli and substituting Karajan as Director! You got all you want \u2013 so now please give me what I want: Bernstein!\n\nThanks and regards,\n\nRudolf Bing\n\nNo further \"clause\" is needed \u2013 attach this note to the contract! Bing100\n\n475. Louise Talma101 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH\n\n4 July 1962\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nWe miss you just terribly. There's been no real gaiety since you left. We've had a couple of games of anagrams, but without you there's no excitement. You're one of the blessed ones who make everything they encounter come alive. It's a rare and precious gift, and I wish you a long enjoyment of it.\n\nA letter from Thornton [Wilder] contains a message for you: \"Tell Lennie I know all about the Kaddish because it's in _Finnegan's Wake_ , and give him my uproarious regards.\" He also says: \"It sounds as tho' you were a congenial crowd \u2013 the 'Round' gives earnest of that. Anyway, with you and Lenny there the tone is set is How to be civilized though an artist.\" I quote the sentence exactly, punctuation, or rather the lack of it, capitalization and all.\n\nHave a wonderful and refreshing time in Spain.\n\nLove from all of us,\n\nLouise\n\n476. Leonard Bernstein to Adolph Green and Phyllis Newman\n\nBarcelona [written on the headed paper of the ocean liner _Leonardo da Vinci_ of the Italia Line]\n\n3 August 1962\n\nDarling Greens,\n\nDoes this notepaper look familiar? Do you suddenly feel queasy at the sight of it? Does it bring back gorgeous salons filled with square brown chairs, Doman & Pythias, Fancy Hat balls, ping-pong, the Lido Bar? Ah, the beautiful past we have shared!\n\nAnd then, & then, you did Capri, which I trust was heavenly. And I did the highlife of all time \u2013 two weeks of Princesses & Maharanees & phony Barons, parties without end, villas to make you gasp. I was the kid of the moment: it was all insane, ignoble, absurd, & vastly entertaining. But I wouldn't want to live there.\n\nI drove here yesterday, through Provence. God, what charm and beauty! Felicia has been in Paris for a week buying out Chanel: she & Mike join me here any minute now, & then we tootle off as tourists in this wild heat. I'm tired but strangely exhilarated by this feeling of holiday, and I'll be home the 15th to rest and to hug you both. A big kiss to Adam and God bless your new home.\n\nUn abrazo fuerte,\n\nLenny\n\n477. Karl B\u00f6hm102 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Alden, New York, NY\n\n30 November 1962\n\nMy dear friend Bernstein,\n\nAt the conclusion of my guest appearances at the Philharmonic Hall with your magnificent orchestra,103 I am sending you my heartfelt thanks for your wonderful cooperation and for making it possible for me to be the first \"foreign\" conductor to appear at the new hall with the New York Philharmonic.\n\nEverything was just perfect, and the members of your orchestra are musicians of the highest caliber. I felt at home with them right from the start of the first rehearsal, and I am very grateful to every one of them for their assistance, help and attitude.\n\nMy thanks also go to you personally for your sentiments, and I shall never forget the way in which you behaved when I was very sick in Vienna, after a dangerous eye operation. Then I experienced that you are a real and great human being.\n\nWith best wishes to you, Mrs. Bernstein and your children from Mrs. B\u00f6hm and\n\nYours very sincerely,\n\nKarl B\u00f6hm\n\n478. Morton Feldman104 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n337 Lexington Avenue, New York\n\n7 January 1963\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nThe score you have of _Structures_ underwent surgery last summer. C. F. Peters will send you the new version later in the week.\n\nAt the Stockhausens New Year's Eve. After drinking in the new year he announced \"and now we will have some music.\" Most of the guests' eyes lit up. They thought they were going to twist. He then went to the phono[graph] and played two hours of Stockhausen, Foss and Feldman.\n\nFondest regards from your non analytic\n\nMorton\n\n479. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\n10 January 1963\n\nDear D,\n\nThis isn't exactly the moment for catching up on ages, literally, of Riverflow, but I have to write you today to say that Lina A[barbanell] died on Monday (or rather Sunday, I think, the 6th). We were all shocked: she had gone into hospital for removal of a tumor, and couldn't take it. Poor great gallant lady. 84 years old! Of course Marc is all but destroyed, and I think he'd deeply appreciate some word from you.105\n\nA is born, B dies, C is in agony, D has some joy, E is humdrum, & we are all of them. I have not yet finished my 3rd Symphony ( _Kaddish_ ) which will be _something_ when and if it gets written. I had hoped by now to have it complete. Alas. Once I have finished it, I can rest in peace: it is my Kaddish for everybody. Last week had joy in it: Mahler #5. Glorious. This week, R[oberto] Gerhard's #1. Next week, East Lynne. \u00c7a continue. Newspaper strike. Jamie has chicken pox. Alexander is a sensitive dream; Nina is funny & bright. Felicia is brave and a little tired. I am exhausted, and off to bed.\n\nLove to you all, and a very happy '63.\n\nL\n\n480. Leonard Bernstein to Olivier Messiaen\n\nNew York, NY\n\n18 March 1963\n\nCher Ma\u00eetre,\n\nIt is curious to be writing to you after some _thirteen_ years \u2013 the year of the first performance of _Turangal\u00eela_. But I think of you very often, and I keep up to date with your music. Last season we had the great joy of presenting the _Trois Petites Liturgies_ of which we have made a record for Columbia to be released next year. I hope that you will be pleased with it.\n\nToday I am writing to you on the subject of your impressive work _Chronochromie_.106 Despite my best intentions, it will not be possible to give this enormous work with the rehearsals that are allowed in a typical week of the season; but I believe that it would be possible to perform just the final part on its own, separately (i.e. the \u00c9p\u00f4de and Coda). Would that be blasphemous and meddlesome? It seems to me that this part, on its own, would be very effective in a concert, and very moving. If you have objections to this, do not hesitate to let me know. My address: 895 Park Avenue, New York, 21.\n\nWith my warmest good wishes,\n\nLeonard Bernstein107\n\n481. Olivier Messiaen to Leonard Bernstein\n\n230 rue Marcadet, Paris, France\n\n26 March 1963\n\nCher Ami,\n\nI was extremely touched by your letter, and thank you with all my heart for it. I, too, think of you often, and \u2013 if you remember \u2013 I have applauded you several times after your marvelous concerts in Paris.\n\nThank you a thousand times for the _Trois Petites Liturgies_ on record for Columbia. Who are the solo Ondiste and pianist? And who is conducting? Is it _you_? (During my trip to Japan, Seiji Ozawa also spoke to me of a performance of the _Trois Petites Liturgies_. Was that the same or another one?)\n\nYour _name_ and the first performance at Boston in 1949 are at the head of the magnificent edition that Durand has given the _Turangal\u00eela-Symphonie_.\n\nNow let me reply on the subject of _Chronochromie_.\n\nThe division of the work into seven sections (Introduction \u2013 Strophe I \u2013 Antistrophe I \u2013 Strophe II \u2013 Antistrophe II \u2013 \u00c9p\u00f4de \u2013 Coda) is a formal division. But there is no break between these sections, and the work forms _a whole_ , _without interruption_. The \u00c9p\u00f4de uses only 18 solo string instruments, in 18 real parts, namely 6 1st violins, 6 2nd violins, 4 violas, 2 cellos. That's not interesting except by contrast with the rest of the work. The rest is written for a very large orchestra, with a solo xylophone and marimba (plus a set of 25 tubular bells for which the part is rhythmically difficult). Finally, all of the work, and above all the two Strophes (where the harmonies of the strings and the woodwind counterpoints of birdsong must underline the _rhythms_ and the _durations_ of the metallic percussion instruments by _coloring_ them) justify the title: _Chronochromie_ , that is to say: _Color of Time_.\n\nWould you like to wait a little while? _Chronochromie_ is entirely engraved, the plates are at the printer at this moment \u2013 and the work will appear in large score and pocket score here in two months, around 15 June, from Leduc, publisher, 175 rue Saint Honor\u00e9, Paris (1er), France.\n\nI will send you a score at that time, and you will see the music for yourself.\n\nThank you again for your letter, and all my best wishes.\n\nOlivier Messiaen108\n\n482. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\n2 May 1963\n\nDear David,\n\nAs usual, these words are penned in haste. Will there ever be no haste? I'm coming to think that only children, who believe themselves immortal, are blessed with time.\n\nI've been working on Brandeis for you. (California is out.) I suspect that [Arthur] Berger still harbors some ancient grudges; but I approached President Sacher directly, and he informs me that he would like you to come for an interview when you are here. At least it's a step.\n\nDeaths are frequent. Felicia's mother died 2 days ago in Chile, & poor F. has been there for an agonizing week, watching her mother die. A nightmare. And yesterday we lost that angelic Nat Prager, our 2nd trumpet player \u2013 after 34 years of glorious and uncomplaining service.\n\nDeath and spring. I am back with the orchestra again, and love it. The _Kaddish_ is still unfinished, and its premiere is now set for December in Israel. I don't know if it'll ever be ready.\n\nI must fly now to conduct. Bless you, & let me know how spring is in Florence.\n\nLenny\n\n483. Morton Feldman to Leonard Bernstein\n\n337 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY\n\n19 June 1963\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI had a talk with Jack Gottlieb on the phone this evening, and he gave me some of your thoughts on _Structures_. I was struck by the fact that you felt a lack of \"rhythmic interest\" in this piece, because what I was actually after was an atonal rhythm, or, more precisely, no rhythm.109 It is the juxtaposing of various weights of sound which make for the movement, rather than any rhythmic design. This is equally true of _Out of Last Pieces_ and is in fact one of the basic ideas throughout my work.\n\nThe key to my music is that I want to resolve each piece into one overall color (regardless of how the piece is notated). Because of this, what makes for an \"interesting\" composition for someone else has no place in my thinking.\n\nThat's that \u2013 and what are _you_ doing these days?\n\nMorty\n\n484. Leonard Bernstein to Louis [?]\n\n25 June 1963\n\nDear Louis,\n\nI have finally listened to the recordings of ancient pianists & composers that you so kindly sent me. It has been a ball! Grieg performing his _Papillon_ like a young lady just out of conservatory, Busoni stuttering his octaves, Ravel heavy and rhythmically obscure, [Teresa] Carre\u00f1o running out of gas in the Liszt Rhapsody, [Vladimir] de Pachmann setting an all-time record for ritards at the end of Chopin's C# minor waltz, et al, et al \u2013 and all marvelously authentic, surprising, other-planetary, incredible. It is a thrill to hear these records: we not only extend our knowledge of past pianistic styles, but we gain a fresh view of our own age. And not only pianistically; this glimpse into the past, to the thoughtful observer, becomes nothing less than a revelation of the present!110 I thank you for sending it to me.\n\nAffectionately\n\n[Pencil draft, unsigned]\n\nP.S. Congratulations on the new baby.\n\n485. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\n24 August 1963\n\nDear DD,\n\nWelcome! I had no idea you were already here: not a word have I had, or Aaron, or anyone. Your birthday card was the first modest sign. You were sweet to send it, to remember. How goes it? Plans? Medical matters?\n\nI am at this second in the hurried grip of time, for a change: my last day in the country. Tomorrow (my birthday!) I rehearse the ork all day for the tour, which starts on Tue[sday]. Gone for 4 weeks to H'wood & back. But I wanted at least to say hello-&-have-a-good-visit-and-a-successful-one before I vanish for a month.\n\nBest news is that I have finished _Kaddish_ this summer. That's all I did. I had virtually no vacation. My text still needs cleaning up \u2013 and a short section or two remains undecided; but actually it's a piece! My first in 6 years \u2013 my first _concert_ piece in 9 years! I can't wait for you to see it. Will you be in town late Sept? (when I return?) Let Helen know: on me \u2013 she can send you my itinerary.\n\nGood health, love to you and Sabina.\n\nL\n\n486. John Cage111 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nStony Point, NY\n\n17 October 1963\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nTwo points. First, I am very grateful to you for having decided to present my work and that of [Morton] Feldman and [Earle] Brown before your audiences. We all admire your courage in doing this at the present time, for actual hostility toward our work is still felt by many people.\n\nSecond, I ask you to reconsider your plan to conduct the orchestra in an improvisation. Improvisation is not related to what the three of us are doing in our works. It gives free play to the exercise of taste and memory, and it is exactly this that we, in differing ways, are not doing in our music.\n\nSince, as far as I know, you are not dedicated in your own work to improvisation, I can only imagine that your plan is a comment on our work. Our music is still little understood and your audiences, for the most part, will be hearing it for the first time. It would seem best if they could do so without being prejudiced. I admired Aaron when he presented my work at Tanglewood, letting the audience know beforehand that, though he didn't share my views, he felt the music, since it was seriously written and had found a following among composers, performers and audiences around the world, had a right to be heard attentively. I feel the opposite way about Smallens who, I am told, after conducting a first performance of Webern for the League here in New York, turned toward the audience and joined them in derisive laughter.\n\nSurely there must be some less provocative way to conclude the program, one which will leave no doubt as to your courage in giving your audiences the music which you have chosen to present.\n\nWith best wishes and friendliest greetings,\n\nJohn Cage\n\n487. Leonard Bernstein to John Cage\n\n[October 1963]\n\nDear John,\n\nYour letter astonishes me. What, for example, makes you think that our orchestral improvisations should in any way constitute a \"comment\" on your work and that of your colleagues? What, again, gives you the idea that everything in this part of the program must be confined to the realm in which you work? The overall idea is _Music of Chance_ and there are chances and chances in your work as well as that of Brown and Feldman and _as well_ in total improvisation. We are trying to have as comprehensive a look at the aleatory world as is possible in half a complete program; and it seems clear to me that improvisation is an essential part of such a look. And, finally, how can you deny that your music enlists \"free play of taste and memory\" when you write for an orchestra that may or may not play at any given time, and if it _does_ play, render approximations?\n\nIf it will make you feel any better, I shall be happy to play the improvisation _before_ your work, thus avoiding the tendentious notion of its being a final comment on the preceding music. I hope that this will alleviate your concern, and prove to you the integrity of my intentions.112 Most cordially.113\n\n488. Claudio Abbado114 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nBerlin\n\n28 October 1963\n\nDear Maestro,\n\nI want to thank you by heart for everything I learnt by you during the weeks that I spent in New York with the Philharmonic. What I learnt from your rehearsing, from the musical and human point of view, I tried now to actuate in the rehearsals of my last concerts. So I succeeded in finding always a human contact with the orchestra, forgetting everything of the dictatorial way that I had in past years. The results have been wonderful, and I could musizieren in a completely new way in the last concerts in Rome, Venezia and Berlin. For all here in Berlin, also because the orchestra is better, I have been particularly happy. With this orchestra, with whom I will conduct also tonight and tomorrow, I have been invited for a European tourn\u00e9e.\n\nComing back to New York, I should be very happy to have the opportunity to speak with you about your music and about your wonderful interpretation of II [Symphony of] Mahler.\n\nGrazie ancora ed arrivederci presto!\n\nClaudio Abbado\n\n489. Mary Rodgers to Leonard Bernstein\n\n24 November 1963\n\nFor many years \u2013 six to be exact \u2013 I've been your highly expendable \"children's expert.\" We all know you don't need a children's expert, and you don't need me for early morning joke telling either. But for me, it's a nice job. I love it. I love you.\n\nIt's occurred to me that I've never bothered to mention this before \u2013 and now seems a good moment.\n\nWhat Kennedy115 did for the affairs of the world, you do for the heart of the world. It seemed to me, tonight, that you two are not (were not) unalike \u2013 in courage, in conscience, in warmth and in purpose.\n\nI'm grateful, _very_ grateful, that there is one of you left.\n\nBless,\n\nMary\n\n490. Leonard Bernstein: Talk given at the \"Night of Stars\" Memorial to President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden\n\nNew York, NY\n\n25 November 1963\n\nMy dear friends,\n\nLast night the New York Philharmonic and I performed Mahler's Second Symphony \u2013 the _Resurrection_ \u2013 in tribute to the memory of our beloved late President. There were those who asked: Why the _Resurrection_ Symphony, with its visionary concept of hope and triumph over worldly pain, instead of a Requiem, or the customary Funeral March from the _Eroica_? Why, indeed. We played the Mahler Symphony not only in terms of resurrection for the soul of one we love, but also for the resurrection of hope in all of us who mourn him. In spite of our shock, our shame, and our despair at the diminution of man that followed from this death, we must somehow gather strength for the increase of man, strength to go on striving for those goals he cherished. In mourning him, we must be worthy of him.\n\nI know of no musician in this country who did not love John F. Kennedy. American artists have for three years looked to the White House with unaccustomed confidence and warmth. We loved him for the honor in which he held art, in which he held every creative impulse of the human mind, whether it was expressed in words, or notes, or paints, or mathematical symbols. This reverence for the life of the mind was apparent even in his last speech, which he was to have made a few hours _after_ his death. He was to have said: \"America's leadership must be guided by learning and reason.\" Learning and reason: precisely the two elements that were necessarily missing from the mind of anyone who could have fired that impossible bullet. _Learning and reason_ : the two basic precepts of all Judaistic tradition, the twin sources from which every Jewish mind from Abraham and Moses to Freud and Einstein has drawn its living power. Learning and reason: the motto we here tonight must continue to uphold with redoubled tenacity, and must continue, at any price, to make the basis of all our actions.\n\nIt is obvious that the grievous nature of our loss is immensely aggravated by the element of violence involved in it. And where does this violence spring from? From _ignorance_ and _hatred_ , the exact antonyms of learning and reason: those two words of John Kennedy's were not uttered in time to save his own life; but every man can pick them up where they fell, and make them part of himself, the seed of that rational intelligence without which our world can no longer survive. This must become the mission of every artist, of every Jew, and of every man of good will: to _insist, unflaggingly_ , at the risk of becoming a repetitive bore, but to _insist_ on the achievement of a world in which the mind will have triumphed over violence.\n\nWe musicians, like everyone else, are numb with sorrow at this murder, and with rage at the senselessness of the crime. But this sorrow and rage will not inflame us to seek retribution; rather it will inflame our art. Our music will never again be quite the same. This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly, than ever before. And with each note we will honor the spirit of John Kennedy, commemorate his courage, and reaffirm his faith in the Triumph of the Mind.\n\n491. Walter Hussey116 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Deanery, Chichester, England\n\n10 December 1963\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nI hope you will forgive me for writing to you and will not think me presumptuous. I did have the pleasure of meeting you briefly in New York when you kindly allowed me to attend one of your rehearsals, at the request of my friend, Dr. Chuck Solomon. But you will not remember this.\n\nThe choirs of Chichester, Salisbury and Winchester Cathedrals combine for a short festival each year which takes place in the three Cathedrals in turn. I enclose copies of the programmes for the last two years to give you some idea of the sort of thing it is. It has proved extraordinarily successful and I think it will be fair to say that it reaches a very good musical standard. Naturally, it is concerned to a great extent with the wealth of music written for such choirs over the centuries, but I am most anxious that this should not be regarded as a tradition which has finished, and that we should be very much concerned with music written today.\n\nThe Chichester Organist and Choirmaster, John Birch, and I, are very anxious to have written some piece of music which the combined choirs could sing at the Festival to be held in Chichester in August, 1965, and we wondered if you would be willing to write something for us. I do realize how enormously busy you are, but if you could manage to do this we should be tremendously honoured and grateful. The sort of thing that we had in mind was perhaps, say, a setting of the Psalm 2, or some part of it, either unaccompanied or accompanied by orchestra or organ, or both. I only mention this to give you some idea as to what was in our minds.\n\nI have always been most eager to do anything I possibly can to foster the ancient links between the church and the arts. Before I came to Chichester when I was in Northampton, I got Henry Moore to carve a Madonna and Child, and Benjamin Britten to write a cantata. I am most eager to carry on this work and it would be a great pleasure and encouragement if you felt you could help us. Please do. We would of course be only too happy to pay a fee to the best of our resources.\n\nI shall be of course delighted to give you any further help I can or information you may require, and again may I express the hope that you will forgive me approaching you.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nWalter Hussey\n\n492. Iannis Xenakis117 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nBerlin, Germany\n\n7 January 1964\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nI want to thank you very much for including me in your concerts in New York. It made me very happy and proud. I think that the piece except its creation by H[ermann] Scherchen had its first real performance on January 64 by you!118\n\nUnder your impulse the series of these concerts brings New York at the head of the cities who care for new music, because of the real popular character you give to them and because of the first quality of the orchestra and of the performers.\n\nI wanted to write you one month ago, but I fell ill and had to support a heavy and painful operation in Paris. Now I can write you, being back in Berlin (I have received a Ford Foundation award and I am an artist in residence of Berlin for one year).\n\nI wish you all the most brilliant success for your effort and that other concert organizations take you as a model.\n\nThanking you again.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nXenakis\n\nP.S. If there is any time left to you, I would appreciate very much to have your opinion on my piece. I'll send you my book _Musiques formelles_ in French119 (Mr. Karl Haas told me that you speak French) hoping that you'll enjoy it.\n\n493. Harpo Marx120 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n15 January 1964\n\nLeonard,\n\nOn one of your children's concerts I would love to conduct my version of the Haydn Toy Symphony which runs seven minutes. My salary to go to Musicians Aid Soc of N.Y. I have done the symphony on several occasions & most recently with the Philadelphia Symphony using little children to play the toy instruments in the last part. I will be in New York February 14 for two weeks \u2013 do you think you could set it up for that time?\n\nAs I don't read music, in order to stay in good standing with Local 47 I do all my corresponding on score-paper.121\n\n494. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Bernstein\n\n[New York]\n\n25 January 1964\n\nDarling Hilee,\n\nThis is the first second I've had to write in months. I've been trying to call you for days to \"be\" with you at the death of Marc:122 but no answer, no answer. I called you from Paris (en route home from Israel, having just been told that our plane _would_ stop in London) and then again from the London airport, but no answer, no for an answer. And the wretched luck was that my plane _to_ Israel decided _not_ to stop in London. And so on, for bad communications.\n\nIt's an open season on Kaddish, all right. The President. Marc. I take it you've read substantially what we've read: first an auto accident; then a new story about being beaten by three sailors; then the blessed word _robbery_ reiterated by the Consul in Martinique, & now by the police.\n\nWe pray the story gets no murkier \u2013 or should I say clearer? We are all shocked and miserable, as you must be, & I wish we could be together, at last, at last.\n\nThe _Kaddish_ itself gets its comeuppance in Boston this week, Friday the 31st. I wish you could be there. It will be a regular reunion: B[urton] B[ernstein]'s birthday and all. Felicia is there already, rehearsing. I'm staying out of it 'til the last minute: M\u00fcnch is in love with the piece, but scared witless, & can't beat it (7\/8, etc.) the chorus... Jenny T... oy. Maybe you're wise to miss it.\n\nMarc is dead, & I've lost an arm. Felicia can't stop crying. Come home, darling Shirley \u2013 we want you with us! It's been far too long, too many distances, interruptions, silences. Please come home.\n\nI love you as always \u2013\n\nL\n\nDo you realize we have loved Marc for 25 years?\n\n_Kaddish_ : they loved it in Tel-Aviv, but it may never go in English. I'm nervous.\n\n495. William Schuman to Leonard Bernstein\n\n27 January 1964\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nI couldn't get you by phone to tell you several things.\n\nIn the first place, yesterday's performance of the _Eroica_ was undoubtedly the best, the most exciting and the most moving that I have ever heard. Frankly I had not expected to stay tuned in after the Var\u00e8se. You wouldn't let me get back to work.\n\nI wanted to speak to you about Marc. Actually, you two were so close, I felt the need of making a condolence call. Schuyler Chapin tells me that you and Dave Oppenheim are planning a memorial program this spring. Of course this is wonderful, and I am wondering whether you could consider doing one or two pieces from _Sacco-Vanzetti_.123 And here, I keep wondering whether Marc finished the vocal score. In my last conversation with him \u2013 just one year ago this month \u2013 I gathered that mostly it was done. If this is the case, could not the work be completed and orchestrated by another? If this is a possibility, I am very much afraid that you are the only one who can do it. It's a thought.\n\nAnd mostly, I called to wish you with all affection a stunning success with the new work this week.124\n\nYours,\n\nBill\n\n496. Walter Hussey to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Deanery, Chichester, England\n\n10 February 1964\n\nDear Dr. Bernstein,\n\nThis is splendid news! I am indeed delighted to hear that you will write something for our Festival. It will be a great privilege for us all and I can assure you that everyone will do their utmost to do justice to the work.\n\nYes, by all means change from the second Psalm to something more familiar if you wish. We shall be very happy to leave it to you. And as regards the time, of course, we must leave this also to you: but the joint Festival with Winchester and Salisbury goes in rotation and so is only held here once in three years. It is to be held here at the end of July, 1965, and so as you can well imagine we are very much hoping that it may be possible to perform the work then. I shall be sad for it to receive its premier[e] elsewhere! However, I am so proud and pleased that you will write something for us that it would be unfair and presumptuous to try and press further.\n\nI will try to send you within a few days particulars as to the sort of numbers that will be available in the combined choirs, in case this should be of any assistance to you. Please let me know if there is anything further I can do.\n\nAgain, my warmest thanks,\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nWalter Hussey\n\n497. Walter Hussey to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Deanery, Chichester, England\n\n14 August 1964\n\nDear Dr. Bernstein,\n\nWe are all tremendously looking forward to the setting of the second Psalm which you kindly said you would write for us for our three Choirs Festival next year.\n\nThis year's festival has just taken place at Salisbury and I thought perhaps you would be interested to see what has been happening, so I am sending you a copy of the programme. A tremendous lot of people turned up and it proved very successful \u2013 I think the performance of Britten's _Cantata Misericordium_ was quite outstanding.\n\nOur Choirmaster and Organist has given me one or two particulars which he thinks might be helpful to you. The string orchestra will probably be the Philomusica of London, a first rate group. In addition, there could be a piano, chamber organ, harpsichord and, if desired, a brass consort (three trumpets, three trombones). It is not really possible to have a full symphony orchestra for reasons of space and expense and the fact that the combined strength of the three cathedral choirs is about 70 to 74 (all boys and men).\n\nThe Festival was founded a good while ago, but then lapsed for about thirty years and has recently been re-started with great success. I think it has throughout its time been of great value to English church music as a means of hearing works of large scale, impossible for any single Cathedral choir, but I am certain it must also provide new works in new idioms to keep the tradition really alive. I hope you will feel quite free to write as you wish and will in no way feel inhibited by circumstances. I think many of us would be very delighted if there was a hint of _West Side Story_ about the music. I hope you will not mind my writing like this, but I talked of it with Chuck Solomon125 when he was here recently, and he said I was certainly to say it to you.\n\nOnce again let me say how enormously grateful I am to you for saying that you will help us in this way. It will be exactly what I should wish for when the Festival is here at Chichester next year.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nWalter Hussey\n\n498. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n19 September 1964\n\nSonnet on receiving an honorary doctorate with Aaron Copland126\n\nThis day, my will demurring, I grew old.\n\nI could have written memoirs on that stage\n\nFor the first time. A long wave had unrolled,\n\nAnd beached me, spent with swimming and with age.\n\n_Doctor honoris causa_. First for him,\n\nA craggy cedar planted by the sea\n\nSince Adam. Then they called on me to swim\n\nAshore, and simulate that salty tree.\n\nA poor impostor, I, Not even brave,\n\nA plotter with no plan, and less than bold.\n\nThey fished me, red-eyed flounder, from the wave,\n\nWounded, rigid, open-mouthed, and cold.\n\nWith velvet bait they plucked me from the sea\n\nAnd dropped me, panting, near a cedar tree.\n\nMuch love,\n\nL\n\n499. Walter Hussey to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Deanery, Chichester, England\n\n22 December 1964\n\nDear Dr. Bernstein,\n\nI do apologize for burdening you with another letter. I have a horrid fear that you will be regarding me as an arch nuisance but I am most eager that we should have the work which you promised for our combined Choirs in time to learn it and rehearse it properly before the Festival. May I say again that I hope you will feel entirely free to write your setting exactly as you wish to. I hope you would not, at any rate on our behalf, feel any restrictions from the point of view of tradition or convention. The work would not be performed during any sort of religious service and I firmly believe that any work which is sincere can suitably be given in a cathedral and to the glory of God. No one feels more proud and grateful than I do of the tremendous value of the tradition of English Cathedral music, but I am sure that it is a very good thing for something like our Three Cathedrals Festival to have a sharp and vigorous push into the middle of the 20th century, and if you should feel inclined to write something that would do this I am sure nobody could do it better and we should be most happy and grateful.\n\nIt would be a great help if I could know the title and description of the work within the next six weeks as our preliminary announcements and publications will be appearing very soon after that.\n\nAgain, do let me apologize if I seem tiresomely importunate, but Chuck Solomon assures me that we shall get the work and I am most anxious that we should have it in time to prepare it properly. The prospect is a tremendous thrill to us all. I can assure you that the musicians will do their utmost to do [it] full justice, and I do not believe they will fail. I am more grateful to you than I can possibly say.\n\nI do not suppose there is any chance of your being in England at the end of July? We should of course be delighted to welcome you to Chichester and I believe that in the place itself and the Festival Theatre as well as the Music Festival you would find much to enjoy.\n\nWith all good wishes,\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nWalter Hussey\n\n500. Leonard Bernstein to Mary Rodgers\n\n[New York, NY]\n\n[1964]\n\nDear Mary,\n\nI just found a most moving note from you, dated a year ago, apropos the assassination [Letter 489]. In all the grief of those days a lot of mail went unanswered. But this one cannot go unanswered. Thank you, you dear girl, and irreplaceable assistant!\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n(If you haven't been a \"children's expert\" heretofore, you sure will be after the new one. Have a good one!)\n\n501. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\n28 January 1965\n\nDear Dd,\n\nFinally the date is settled for your celebration \u2013 the week of 25 April, '66, concerts on 28th, 29th, 30th and 2 May. I had planned for you to conduct the _Rounds_ and the Piano Concerto (for which Schumacher is already engaged); but having since received the 5th Symphony, which I find your absolute _best_ to date, I will take the occasion to open the program with it myself (sorry to do you out of one conducting stint) \u2013 and then you can conduct the concerto with T[homas] S[chumacher]. I'm delighted and hope that you are. (The program will probably close with a staple \u2013 Sibelius #1 or something.127 The whole year is devoted to a survey of the symphony in the 20th century, including all 7 of Sibelius, owing to his centenary. And that's another reason for doing your 5th instead of the _Rounds_. There'll also be some others you'll love \u2013 Vaughan Williams #4, Aaron #3, Nielsen #3, Bart\u00f3k 2-pno Concerto, & Webern Op. 20, Mahler #7, #8 & #9! A big year, a lot of work: I look forward to it.)\n\nWhat are you doing in Florence? What has happened to the Iron Curtain trip? Last I heard, you were in Copenhagen.\n\nYou've probably heard about the collapse of _Skin of Our Teeth_ : a dreadful experience, the wounds still smarting. I am suddenly a composer without a project, with half of that golden sabbatical down the drain. Never mind, I'll survive.128\n\nGood news about Aspen. But the best news is the 5th Symphony. I have the \"waves\" in the first part, and the end particularly. The fugue is a killer. I hereby accept the dedication with due formal ceremony and much affection.\n\nL\n\n502. Walter Hussey to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Deanery, Chichester, England\n\n5 February 1965\n\nDear Dr. Bernstein,\n\nI am very sorry to bother you with another letter and I do not want to seem impatient, but I am constantly being pressed by the Organist and Choirmaster for particulars as to title etc. of the work which you most kindly said you would write for us. He is directing the Three Choirs Festival and has got to get his publicity out and tells me that it cannot be held up any longer. I am sure you will understand.\n\nHe also tells me that the music has to be printed and then circulated to the three choirs to practice individually before they come together for common rehearsals. I am sure you are conscious of all this and please do not think me impatient; but your work would of course be the highlight of the Festival and all of us are most anxious that it should be done as well as we can possibly manage.\n\nAgain, my apologies for bothering you with a tiresome letter.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nWalter Hussey\n\n503. Leonard Bernstein to Walter Hussey\n\nNew York, NY\n\n24 February 1965\n\nMy dear Dean Hussey,\n\nI was on the verge of writing you a sad letter saying that I could not find in me the work for your Festival when suddenly a conception occurred to me that I find exciting. It would be a suite of Psalms, or selected verses from Psalms, and would have a general title like _Psalms of Youth_. The music is all very forthright, songful, rhythmic, youthful. The only hitch is this: I can think of these Psalms only in the original Hebrew. I realize that this may present extra difficulties of preparation; but more important, does it present difficulties of an ecclesiastical nature? That is, are there no objections, in principle, to Hebrew being sung in your Cathedral? If not, do let me know soon, so that I may plunge ahead, and have a working score for you by early April. The orchestration would follow a month or so thereafter.\n\nIf there _are_ objections I should also know soon, for obvious reasons. I would be sad, but I would understand.\n\nFaithfully yours,\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\nP.S. The Psalms involved would be:\n\nNos. 23, 100 and 131, complete;\n\nNo. 2, vs. 1\u20134; No. 108, vs. 3; No. 133, vs. 1.129\n\n504. Walter Hussey to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Deanery, Chichester, England\n\n2 March 1965\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nThank you very much for your letter. I was delighted to receive it and am indeed grateful for all the good news it contains.\n\nI do not think that there is any ecclesiastical objection to the use of Hebrew. The meaning of the words could always be supplied by a translation in the programme. It will of course, as you say, present a little problem in the preparation of the work, but no doubt it will be possible for the Hebrew to be printed phonetically as in Bloch's _Sacred Service_.\n\nI will write to you again shortly giving you the numbers in the choir etc. In the meanwhile let me say again how pleased and excited I am at the splendid news of your letter \u2013 and in this the Choirmaster and Organist joins me.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nWalter Hussey\n\n505. Solomon Braslavsky to Leonard Bernstein\n\nTemple Mishkan Tefila, Boston, MA\n\n16 March 1965\n\nMy dearest Lennie,\n\nLast Friday I received your record of the _Kaddish_ Symphony.\n\nI immediately opened the wrapping and looked for a bill, but instead I found a very \"long letter\" from you consisting of _four_ priceless words. Last Saturday morning I saw your father in the Temple and I told him that I just got a priceless _Purim_ present from Lennie.\n\nWell, needless to say how happy I am to be able to play the Symphony again and again in search for some more jewels of liturgical value which only you are capable of working in such an artistic manner, and for this I am very much indebted to you.\n\nI shall also like to listen again to the recitations so beautifully done by Felicia and evaluate it from its philosophical as well as its artistic point of view. I only regret that I am at present extremely busy with my duties in the Temple and I shall have to wait for a while before I will be able to put aside a few hours for a thorough consideration of this beautiful music.\n\nWith many thanks and all of my best wishes to you and your dear family, for good health and lots of happiness.\n\nYour devoted,\n\nSolomon\n\nP.S. I shall write to you after my first hearing of the records in the near future [...]\n\n506. Walter Hussey to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Deanery, Chichester, England\n\n14 April 1965\n\nDear Dr. Bernstein,\n\nI promised to let you have the particulars as regards the choir and the orchestra for the Festival in July. I have now got these from John Birch.\n\nThere are 46 boys, 8 male altos, 9 tenors and 12 basses. All the adults are professional singers and the boys are all members of our three Choir Schools, and I think really very competent.\n\nThe orchestra is the Philomusica of London and the players required for the rest of the programme are strings \u2013 3.2.2.2 (3 players), 1 (1 player) \u2013 18 players in all plus a chamber organ. Other players could be provided if you wished, for example trumpets and trombones, percussion, piano and harpsichord. I dare say you know of the orchestra but I think it is fair to say that they are highly competent players and perhaps the best chamber orchestra in London.\n\nWe are all tremendously excited about _The Psalms of Youth_. I do hope all goes well. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you.\n\nPlease let me know if there is any further help or information I can give you.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nWalter Hussey\n\n507. Leonard Bernstein to Walter Hussey\n\n11 May 1965\n\nDear Dr. Hussey,\n\nThe psalms are finished, Laus Deo, are being copied, and should arrive in England next week. They are not yet orchestrated, but should be by June, and you should receive full score and parts in ample time for rehearsal. Meanwhile the choral preparation can start forthwith.\n\nI am pleased with the work, and hope you will be, too; it is quite popular in feeling (even a hint, as you suggested, of _West Side Story_ ),130 and it has an old-fashioned sweetness along with its more violent moments. The title has now been changed to _Chichester Psalms_ (\"Youth\" was a wrong steer; the piece is far too difficult). The work is in three movements lasting about eighteen and a half minutes, and each movement contains one complete psalm plus one or more versions from another complementary psalm, by way of contrast or amplification. Thus:\n\nI. Opens with a chorale (Ps 108, vs. 3) evoking praise; and then swings into Ps. 100, complete, a wild and joyful dance, in the Davidic spirit.\n\nII. Consists mainly of Ps. 23, complete, featuring a boy solo and his harp, but interrupted savagely by the men with threats of war and violence (Ps. 2, vs. 1\u20134). This movement ends in unresolved fashion, with both elements, faith and fear, interlocked.\n\nIII. Begins with an orchestral prelude based on the opening chorale, whose assertive harmonies have now turned to painful ones. There is a crisis; the tension is suddenly relieved, and the choir enters humbly and peacefully singing Ps. 131 complete, in what is almost a popular song (although in 10\/4 time!). It is something like a love-duet between the men and the boys. In this atmosphere of humility, there is a final chorale coda (Ps. 133, vs. 1) \u2013 a prayer for peace.\n\nI hope my score is legible. In order to help with the Hebrew text, I shall enclose a typewritten copy of the words (the Hebrew words of Ps. 2 are a tongue-breaker!). The score contains exact notes on the pronunciation.\n\nAs to the orchestra, I have kept to the prescribed forces, except that there will be a large percussion group necessary (xylophone, glockenspiel, bongos, chimes, etc., in addition to the usual timpani, drums, cymbals, etc.). Also, I am sure more strings will be necessary than the number you list \u2013 especially the low ones. Certainly _one_ bass will not do the trick. One of the three trumpets must be very good indeed, in order to perform several difficult solo passages. There is also an extensive harp part.\n\nOne last matter; I am conducting a program of my own music with the New York Philharmonic in _early_ July, and I have been asked if I could include the _Chichester Psalms_. I realize that this would deprive you of the world premiere by a couple of weeks; do you have any serious objections?\n\nIn any case I wish you well with the piece; and I may even take your performance as an excuse to visit Sussex in late July. I should dearly love to hear this music in your cathedral.\n\nFaithfully yours,\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\n508. Walter Hussey to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Deanery, Chichester, England\n\n11 June 1965\n\nDear Dr. Bernstein,\n\nI have just returned after being away for five weeks as a result of a tiny cerebral thrombosis. In due course the doctors assure me that I shall be quite fit again and need take no notice of it, but just at present I feel slightly old and tired!\n\nThe _Chichester Psalms_ arrived yesterday and I do indeed thank you for them. They are splendid and exactly the sort of thing that I was hoping for. So far as I can judge they seem to be admirable and I thank you most warmly for them.\n\nIf it is at all possible for you to come over and hear them in late July we shall be delighted for you to do so. In this case please come and stay at the Deanery. Would you like to conduct them?\n\nAs to the orchestra, Mr. Birch has got this in hand and will I am sure follow your wishes.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nWalter Hussey\n\n509. Walter Hussey to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Deanery, Chichester, England\n\n8 July 1965\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nThank you very much for your letter.\n\nI expect by this time you will have heard from Mr. Robert Lantz giving you a formal invitation to come for the Music Festival, and the final rehearsal and the first performance of the _Chichester Psalms_. It is unfortunately impossible to get lodgings anywhere in this part of the world at the time, they are all booked up eight or nine months ahead for the Goodwood Race Meeting which takes place on the Monday to Saturday of that week. This is most unfortunate for us because it does make it frightfully hard for any people to get accommodation for the Music Festival within a fifteen to twenty mile range. I have had a word with numbers of hotels and they all tell me the same. However, I shall indeed be delighted for you and Mrs. Bernstein to come here and Mr. and Mrs. Robert Elwes, who live just a mile or two from the Cathedral in a very lovely house, will be delighted for the children to go there. They have two children aged 13 and 10 of their own, and a swimming pool, if only the weather will allow them to use it! They are very nice people indeed and I am sure you could feel absolutely happy for them to be there. If this would be satisfactory for you Mrs. Elwes says she would be delighted for them to be there from Thursday until Monday, and of course I shall be only too glad for you to be here.\n\nI am delighted to hear that Chuck Solomon hopes to be in Chichester for the Psalms and I have written to tell him so, but my only fear is that if he had not made the arrangements already he may well find it impossible to get anywhere. It would be great to see him again.\n\nPlease tell me if there is any way in which I can help you further.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nWalter Hussey\n\n510. Leonard Bernstein to Walter Hussey\n\n17 July 1965\n\nMy dear Dean Hussey,\n\nOur Psalms had their \"creation\" last night, to a standing ovation, and I was overjoyed for you as well as for myself. I enclose this morning's _Times_ review, which pays you just credit for your kindness. Even juster credit is paid you by the program notes. I'm having them sent you: won't you need them for your own use?\n\nI have your last letter, and am most grateful for your solicitude. Mrs. Bernstein and I will be most happy to stay at the Deanery; and my children are terribly excited at the prospect of living with an English family, and making British friends of their own age. Please tell Mr. and Mrs. Elwes how very grateful we are. The only minor hitch is that our visit is planned one day earlier; we should arrive on the 28th and leave on Sunday, 1st August. I hope this does not complicate your and the Elwes' lives.\n\nWe are leaving here the 27th, arriving in London that night, which we shall spend at the Savoy Hotel. We have covering bookings at the Savoy for the whole 10-day period, so don't hesitate to evict us if you would have to; in any emergency there will be a roof over our heads.\n\nLooking forward with immense pleasure \u2013\n\nYours,\n\nLeonard Bernstein131\n\n511. Walter Hussey to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Deanery, Chichester, England\n\n22 July 1965132\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nI am _delighted_ you & Mrs. Bernstein & the children can come over to England for the first performance of the Psalms. All is ready \u2013 except the weather! Miss Chavez133 of CBS records will meet you at London Air Port and has laid on a car, if you should require it, to bring you to Chichester the next day.\n\nI am very glad that the Psalms have met with such a warm reception \u2013 I'm sure they entirely deserve it.\n\nI wrote to Chuck a while back, but have not heard. Still, he may well turn up when the time comes!\n\nThere was an excellent article about the _Chichester Psalms_ in the _Times_ (of London), but I'm afraid I haven't got a copy now. However, I'll have one when you come.\n\nLooking forward to seeing you with great pleasure \u2013 & some little apprehension!\n\nYours ever,\n\nWalter Hussey\n\n512. Walter Hussey to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Deanery, Chichester, England\n\n1 August 1965\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI hope you arrived safely back at the Savoy last night \u2013 with no breakdowns!\n\nI cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am for the _Chichester Psalms_. This morning the Bishop of Chichester said to the Archdeacon \u2013 they were a new revelation to him & brought home afresh the meaning of them, joyous & ecstatic & calm & poetic \u2013 he said you could imagine \"David dancing before the ark\".\n\nWe were _all_ thrilled with them. I was specially excited that they came into being at all as a statement of praise that is oecumenical. I shall be tremendously proud for them to go around the world bearing the name of Chichester.\n\nI hope the family are enjoying their brief stay in London. They won the hearts of all who met them! But especially Felicia, who has gone straight to the number 1 place of the most charming & attractive of wives.\n\n_Please_ come again any time you can. You will always be welcome & it will be an honour to have you here.\n\nBless you indeed for everything.\n\nWalter\n\nP.S. I wonder if there is _any_ chance of getting the MS \u2013 to go with those of Britten and others who have written things for us? It doesn't matter if it is terribly crossed out & untidy!\n\n513. Felicia Bernstein to Walter Hussey\n\nSavoy Hotel, London\n\n3 August 1965\n\nDear Walter,\n\nThis is the first chance I've had to sit down in relative peace since our drive back from Chichester! As you can imagine it's been non-stop \u2013 finally today I asked for time off to see an old childhood friend and write to you.\n\nWe will all remember Chichester for many reasons but the main reason is you. We talk about you so much and miss you already; so you see, for all our sakes you simply must return the visit. Do come!\n\nBless you for all your kindness and hospitality, and think of us once in a while as you stare at the yellow carpet! A reference to the coffee disaster!\n\nWith best wishes from us all.\n\nFelicia134\n\n514. Leonard Bernstein to Walter Hussey\n\nSavoy Hotel, London\n\n6 August 1965\n\nDear Walter,\n\nWe are all about to leave London, and in this last hour I wanted somehow to talk to you again, to thank you, not only on a social level, but on the deepest personal one, for all the things you are, do, and stand for. I shall carry sweet memories of Chichester for a long time.\n\nThe Psalms are, of course, dedicated to you, and you should receive the very first published copy. Meanwhile I shall arrange to have a photocopy sent you.\n\nAgain, Felicia and I send you our most affectionate thanks.\n\nLenny B.135\n\n515. Leonard Bernstein to Walter Hussey\n\n20 September 1965\n\nMy dear Walter,\n\nChichester seems awfully far away by now, but the memory of our days there is a glowing one, reinforced this week by the test pressing of the recording, which should be out within the month. I'll see that you get one of the first copies.\n\nI have also been busy proofreading the vocal score, which is to appear at the same time as the record, and of course you'll get one of these too.\n\nApropos of the printed score, I must confess that I have yielded to a very human weakness. I could not resist sharing the dedication between you and Chuck Solomon. (You get the first credit, as having commissioned it, and there is then a line dedicating it to Chuck.) I happened to talk to him the other day, and he sounded very _down_ ; and in that instant it occurred to me that this dedication would set him up for at least a year. It's just what he needs \u2013 and I am sure that you, of all people, will understand the nature of this gesture, since you and Chuck are such good friends, and since he was the originator of our relationship, yours and mine. I somehow feel I owe this to him. I hope you agree.\n\nAgain, thanks from us all for your kindness and friendship.\n\nYours,\n\nLenny136\n\n516. Walter Hussey to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Deanery, Chichester, England\n\n16 October 1965\n\nMy dear Lenny,\n\nI found your letter here when I returned from a fortnight's holiday, and that is the reason it has gone unanswered so long. I am very sorry.\n\nThank you indeed for writing it. I also carry with me the most happy memories of your visit \u2013 now we are having the most wonderful, cloudless weather that we should have had then!\n\nYes indeed, I entirely understand about Chuck and approve his sharing the dedication. I am sure he will, rightly, be as pleased as a dog with two tails. I sent him, some while ago, a letter thanking him for his part in the _Chichester Psalms_ and telling him it would never have come about apart from him!\n\nOf course I am only to pay the bill for the car-hire. I was only anxious that we should not _both_ pay it.\n\nI am most anxious, and so are many other people, to hear the record. It will be very exciting. It is _most_ good of you to say you will send me a copy of the score and the record. It's far more than I deserve. Have you the original score you wrote? I feel awful asking, but I should love to have it if you can spare it, to put with the others. It doesn't matter how rough it is \u2013 Britten's is in pencil & a mass of scratching out!\n\nGive my love to Felicia and the children. I look back on your visit as a great time and a very happy one.\n\nYours ever,\n\nWalter\n\nP.S. I hear rumours that the BBC want to do the _Chichester Psalms_ again from here, with a different orchestra. I do hope they are true!\n\n517. John Cage to Leonard Bernstein\n\nStony Point, NY\n\n28 October 1965\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nWas very good to be with you, Felicia, and the Fosses. I'm now organizing a show and sale of 20th century music mss. (Stable Gallery April 1966) for the benefit of the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Inc. Gifts to the Foundation are tax-exempt. Will you give us a page of your work?137 Wd. be very grateful.\n\nAs ever,\n\nJohn (Cage)\n\n518. Leonard Bernstein to Walter Hussey\n\n29 October 1965\n\n[Dear Walter,]\n\nI can't describe to you the surprise and pleasure of receiving your gift. It is at least as extraordinary of you to remember my liking your pen as it is for you to have sent me one.\n\nAnd, of course, the pen's first act-in-office is to write this note, sending thanks and affection.\n\nThe recording and the published score should be arriving any day now. Meanwhile I am sending you my original \"fair copy\" \u2013 though alas, only a photostat of the manuscript, since the true-original is committed to the Library of Congress, as is the case with everything I write. This is the next-best; it is all in my own hand, and I hope it pleases you.\n\nBless you, your health, your work, and your touching generosity in sending me this treasureable pen.\n\nWarmest greetings,\n\nLenny138\n\n519. George Szell139 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nNew York, NY\n\n29 October 1965\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nMany many thanks for your sweet note. Your wishes for pleasure with your orchestra have already come true: I am enjoying myself with them thoroughly and find them in better shape & spirits than I can remember.140 The prospect to spend a little time with you after you return is positively _enticing_. I hope it _will_ happen. Meanwhile, all good wishes for a pleasant & restful vacation.\n\nEver cordially,\n\nGeorge\n\n520. Yo-Yo Ma141 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n138 East 94th Street, New York, NY\n\n21 December 1965\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nDo you still remember me? Now I am ten years old. This year I learned with Prof. Leonard Rose three concertos: Saint-Sa\u00ebns', Boccherini's and Lalo's. Last week my sister and I played in a Christmas Concert in Juilliard School. We are invited to give a joint recital in Brearley School on January 19, 1966 at 1:45 p.m.\n\nIf you have time, I would be glad to play for you.\n\nYo-Yo Ma\n\n521. Leonard Bernstein to John Adams142\n\n[27 January 1966]\n\nDear Mr. Adams,\n\nI am touched by your intelligent letter, but hard put to answer it. When you depict me as \"turning my back\" on \"new\" musical trends you do me a disservice, to say nothing of making an irrelevancy. One writes what one hears _within_ one, not without. Lord knows I am sufficiently exposed to the \"influences\" of non-tonal music; but obviously I have not been conditioned by them. Mahler apart, I cannot conceive music (my own music) divorced from tonality. Whether this is good or bad is, again, irrelevant. The only meaningful thing is the truth of the creative act. The rest of the chips will fall where they may.\n\nGood luck to you.143\n\n522. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nHotel Bristol, Vienna, Austria\n\n2 March 1966\n\nFleshy darling,\n\nIt is a week to the hour that I am in Vienna, and this is literally the first moment free. It's been all rehearsals, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, studying at night, & trying (not too successfully) to get some sleep. The time-change threw me for a loop; I'm just now coming out of it.\n\nBut all goes well.144 The orchestra is cheering, the directors are fawning, the press is voluminous and astonishingly sympathetic. Fischer-Dieskau is a dream-singer \u2013 I've never heard anyone better.145 And the rest of the cast is superb, with a weakness here or there \u2013 but not important. Dr. Caius is a German with a frightful accent in Italian which will sound bad on the record, & Oncina's Fenton is not ideal. But you can't have everything. The Opera people have given me extra rehearsals; the orchestra goes overtime without a word of protest (never before, since Strauss himself, says Dr. Hilbert). In short, I'm a sort of Jewish hero who has replaced Karajan \u2013 and all this at the moment of the general elections which happen tomorrow, & are full of anti-Semitic issues & overtones. It's a strange feeling...\n\nI've just come from a place in Nussberg \u2013 a suburb \u2013 an old palais devoted to vineyard activity, where some members of the orchestra took me to play for me \"Schrammelmusik\" \u2013 old, authentic, \"kitsch\" Viennese tunes arranged for 4 instruments \u2013 the original _Rosenkavalier_ stage-music. Fantastic. Lots of glorious wine, platters of hot roast chickens, hams, Gott weiss was. Very touching, from orchestra men: toasts, good feeling. As I say, a very strange moment for me.\n\nThe Kripsies146 have been here, & invited me daily to his performances & to dinner or lunch \u2013 I funked out ever time, being left with a bad conscience, especially since they sent me (us) huge lilies, & today, as a _farewell_ gift (!) two boxes of Demel chocolates. They're in San Francisco now: and I've written a conscience-letter.\n\nMaazel is also here doing _Carmen_. I heard 10 minutes & left: _bad_. But the musical life is wilder than Milan: everything seems to center around it, & _Falstaff_ is the event everyone is waiting for.\n\nMany of Willie Weissel's147 friends have written or called \u2013 I don't dare to accept or answer: _qu\u00e8 lata_. Luchino [Visconti] is tired & morose, at once doing _Falstaff_ & preparing _Rosenkavalier_ for London, & cutting a movie: he's insane, & surrounded by numerous young Italian assistants, which gives him pleasure. And now I go to be fed & f\u00eated by Regina Resnick [Resnik], who lives across the square, & has been preparing a risotto for days.\n\nAs you can see, it's a fascinating, glorious life so far. The haut-monde is yet to come. Bet you can't wait! But I'll tell you one thing: I can't wait for you to come. You'll love Vienna, somehow I smell it.\n\nHave a great Buffalo, love to Fossies, & come soon. I miss you!\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\nI read a bad Kerr notice of Mendy's148 play in the _Trib_. Are they all bad? Give him & Susan my love. And the kiddies: kiss them. And write me. And make the kiddies write me \u2013 xxx\n\n523. Leonard Bernstein to Sam and Jennie Bernstein\n\nHotel Bristol, Vienna, Austria\n\n19 March 1966\n\nDear Folks,\n\nAt last I have a minute to write you. I am enjoying Vienna enormously \u2013 as much as a Jew can. There are so many sad memories here; one deals with so many ex-Nazis (and maybe still Nazis); and you never know if the public that is screaming _bravo_ for you might contain someone who 25 years ago might have shot me dead. But it's better to forgive, and if possible, forget. The city is so beautiful, and so full of tradition. Everyone here lives for music, especially opera, and I seem to be the new hero. What they call the \"Bernstein wave\" that has swept Vienna has produced some strange results; all of a sudden it's fashionable to be Jewish.\n\nBut I work very hard, practicing & studying, recording (20 sessions!) and rehearsing. So far everything has gone brilliantly, but I'm tired \u2013 too many parties, also. Don't be upset by that bronchitis story: I had it for only two days. And I really feel very well.\n\nThis morning I went to _Shul_ , imagine, with Regina Resnick [Resnik]. The old, famous Wiener Schul, restored as it used to be, on _Judengasse_ (what a name for a street!). But it was warm and heartening. I ran into a Bar Mitzvah _and_ a _Rosh Chodesh_ , got a _Misheberach_ & held the Torah for Rosh Chodesh, got a plug from the Rabbi & even attended the Kiddush afterwards. Very sweet. And tell Prof. Braslavsky that I met his old friend Rothenberg, who sends his greetings. They all remember him here.\n\nNow I have a TV interview, a cocktail at Princess Hohenlohe, and then a dinner party with the recording people from London. So I'm off \u2013 and I send you much love. Soon you should receive some chocolates from Demel \u2013 the best on earth. Be well & take care of yourselves.\n\nYour Wiener Schnitzel,\n\nLenny.\n\nShabbos, 19 March '66 after Havdala[h]\n\nJennie: Every morning I eat Vienna rolls \u2013 what you always used to call _Vianna_ rolls. Remember?\n\n524. Victor de Sabata149 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nSanta Margherita Ligure, Italy\n\n28 June 1966\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nIn my purest and deeply felt joy I read this very morning that _at last_ you plan to write an opera. Very seldom in my life I felt so thrilled and impatient! I wish to have your new score near my heart as soon as possibly! I am sure this will enable me to plunge into _real music_ , a thing that \u2013 let us be sincere! \u2013 I am vainly longing for since centuries. Useless to tell you how often I think of you and your incandescent musical vitality. To know that a Bernstein does exist helps a lot. Ciao!\n\nTuo affezionatissimo,\n\nVictor de Sabata\n\n525. Robert Russell Bennett150 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n150 East 50th Street, New York, NY\n\n26 November 1966\n\nCaro Maestro,\n\nThere is no reason why my opinion should be of especial value to you, but I can't resist sending you this note to voice my enthusiastic approval of your decision to give full time to music composition.\n\nMy opinion is not without substance because I once, when we were both much younger, tuned into a broadcast and hear a Sonata for clarinet and piano written by you, and as I turned away from the loudspeaker I said to Louise, \"This is one of our big composers.\" As years have gone by I felt a certain reluctance to see you pursuing the conducting, and even the composing of Broadway music, as being a waste of that precious commodity, time, when so much is needed for the full realization I had in mind. I never saw Gustav Mahler conduct. If he was as great as I have been told, he is just about the one exception that proves the rule as far as I am concerned.\n\nI leave you to comb through the history of our profound composers and see how they fared at strictly commercial roundelays. Of course, someone will answer this remark by bringing up that innocent era of Mozart and Haydn when \"popular music\" was the reaction of a whole era to the deep expression of Bach, for instance. Be that as it may, you have at least one enthusiastic vote for your career as a real composer.\n\nAll the best as always,\n\nRussell\n\n526. Georg Solti151 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n17 Woronzow Road, London, England\n\n19 May 1967\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nI hope that you will not regard this letter as interference, but I felt that I had to write to you about Mr. Wobisch.\n\nI first heard from John Culshaw152 about the reports in the Vienna Press concerning you and Wobisch. Two days later Wobisch telephoned me about another matter, at the end of the conversation he told me more about the reports and how very distressed he was about them. Afterwards, I felt that without wanting to interfere in a matter which does not concern me at all, I had to write to you for purely human reasons.\n\nAs another Jewish conductor, I understand your feelings surely better than anyone else. If somebody, after the Nazi horrors, does not want to work with a German or Austrian orchestra, as is the case with several Jewish artists, I understand only too well. I have been through great soul searching in the past about this, and several times have been on the verge of breaking contact with them. But finally I always had the conviction that one must forgive the past and try to work to help and educate the younger generation in these orchestras.\n\nI am aware of Wobisch's political past, as surely you were before you went to Vienna. However, working with him and knowing him for the past ten years, I have come to the conviction that despite everything he is probably one of the few trustworthy members of that orchestra.\n\nWobisch worked very hard to bring you to Vienna and to prepare your appearances and successes there; I even heard from Mr. Rosengarten of Decca that Wobisch went as far as threatening to change the orchestra's contract from Decca to Deutsche Grammophon unless they were released to make _Rosenkavalier_ with you. As you will know by now this involved the postponement of my own recording of the opera with the orchestra, which should be enough indication of my real neutrality in this issue.\n\nIf Wobisch should have to resign as a result of this controversy with you, I am convinced that not only would this be bad for the orchestra, but that both you and I might well find any replacement totally unacceptable for political and human reasons.\n\nI hope that these few lines may have helped in some way.\n\nWith kindest regards,\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nGeorg Solti\n\n527. Janis Ian153 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n7 June 1967, \"Evening tide\"\n\nHello sir,\n\nExcuse the formality of the address, but if you remember everyone was bopping about calling you \"Lenny\", and since I felt rather strange doing that we decided on sir.\n\nI would have written sooner but... Well, no excuses. I didn't really have much to say except thank you, and I'd said that. But now I want to tell you what's happened.\n\nIf you didn't see, the biggest rock station in California wrote out a public apology for their recent timidity, and thanked you for showing the way. More stations on the West Coast went on \"Society's Child\", and now it's number one in California. I'm waiting for it to hit the top 20, so NY stations will be forced to play it. Except the station manager of WMCA or WABC said he'd _never_ play it because he wanted to keep his children's ears free from the \"objectionable\" lyrics.\n\nAnyway, this is just to say that you're lovely and thanks again for everything.\n\nJanis Ian (me)\n\nP.S. Is it okay if when a reporter asks what I think of you I just say that you're gorgeous and charming?\n\n528. Leonard Bernstein to Lukas Foss\n\nCasa Malone, Orbetello, Grosseto, Italy\n\n8 August 1967\n\nPoor, dear, blessed Luky-Puky!\n\nA grief ago! I pray that period has lengthened to a vague unpleasantness ago. When I read the accounts in the paper I was sure something like what you described had happened: I wanted to rush home and set things right. But I can't rush anywhere: the _dolce far niente_ has taken over. I do nothing. No note written, no score studied, no idea thought out. I'm a fish, living with other fish underwater in my glorious diving gear. I have a rubber motorboat and a divine Maserati (my first & last pure playboy object); my summer romance & constant companion is Alexander; I read the mail & some newspapers; I fret from afar over race riots, Vietnam, tax hikes, bad N.Y. weather, increasing horror in the world from Cairo to Memphis, Tenn. I fret over Myrow's _Salome_ libretto (lousy, pompous, meaningless, imitative in the worst way, and corruptive of youth). I fret over your neoclassicism & Philharmonic tragedy154 (Oh, well; it gave Brigitta a chance for a big triumph, no?)\n\nI don't sleep (it is now 4.30 a.m.). My back has been in agony for a month. Felicia can't take the sun. But the water and sky & air are divine, as is the weather and this house-&-garden; and you have a birthday in a week. Bless you. Time... I am tortured by the passing of time, to the point where I can hardly enjoy the passing of these beautiful days. Each day is a horror because it leads me one day closer to the end of summer; & the guilt of not working is intolerable. But my brain & creative innerds are dormant, or dead. Why? I shriek inside. For what, for whom? Shall I leave music & enter politics? My tune of the summer, obsessive, is the Beatles'\n\nWill you still need me\n\nWill you still feed me\n\nWhen I'm sixty-four?\n\nAt least it's gay and simple and no trouble.\n\nJohn Gruen155 sits with me for hours, a tape-recorder between us, and I talk, talk, talk. I have been photographed to a crisp. Israel was astonishing and semi-sad and like a religious experience. The concerts there were my last conscious acts.\n\nI have a gnawing feeling that David O[ppenheim] is still miffed at me. Ask him. I miss him a lot; if he can, would he write?\n\nRio \u2192 Warsaw \u2192 Buffalo! Only Luky could concoct that itinerary. But at least have fun, feel like Marco Polo, adventurize!\n\nI long to see you in September. I rejoice in your \"fan letter\" and in the good news of the _Phorion_ tape. I pray for you to write beautiful music. I love you.\n\nL\n\nHugs to Corny & Chris-Andrew and L-Baby and the Opps. And the Rivers and rest. How did _Phorion_ phare in Chicago? Phabulously, I hope.\n\nWrite again before you leave.\n\n529. Leonard Bernstein to Stephen Sondheim\n\nCasa Malone, Orbetello, Grosseto, Italy\n\n19 August 1967\n\nDear SS,\n\nThe appearance on my desk, _faute de mieux_ , of a pack of Winstons brings you instantly and clearly into the room. Besides I can't sleep o' nights, nor have I been able to for over a month. And these guilty sleepless hours, drugged yet jumpy, are my only epistolary moments. Reading H. P. Lovecraft this evening has also brought you to mind, as has Nina's incessant playing of the _WSS_ album. In, out, let's get cracking. Neutral territory. One-handed catch. Then the Princes appeared for dinner, reporting you depressed at Merrick's failure to announce your work among his plans, or, indeed, to come up with a theatre. And beside these, I just happen to think of you often, apropos a thousand trivia, all warmly nostalgic.\n\nA strange summer. Glorious weather, sea, boats, diving gear, skis, sun and air \u2013 all the goodies. But a fearsome back (how's your back, Lenny? And now I'm to be 49) prevents aquatic fun, and nameless anxieties (is that the word?) forbid work. Not a note, scores unstudied, books unread. Thoughts and ideas are absent, except for such stuff as _Improvised, eh? Garbled and poor!_ Felicia sleeps badly too: only the children prosper. I teach Alexander Hebrew \u2013 my one real activity. I shudder at the heaps of unanswered mail. I itch.\n\nThere's my report. What's yours?\n\nYou should have come to this Eden-on-the-Sea; we could have moaned together.\n\nIf you see or talk to Jerry, please tell him I'm simply too guilty to write him, owing to the absence of a single idea. Total non-energy.\n\nI hope your musical is ship-shape.156 I read that _Lion in Winter_ is to be cinematized. I hope you are loving somebody, regularly and in bed. I hope the soul-brothers haven't reached Turtle Bay yet. I hope the world can survive its awful weight a bit longer. I hope \u2013\n\nI send you wee-hour love and personalized sentiments. Be dour if you must, but be happy.\n\nLenny\n\n530. Joe Roddy to Leonard Bernstein\n\n25 October 1967\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nBecause you have one of the last grasps left of the human comedy, I am counting on you to see me into, and then out the other side, of this absurd fix I am in. For all the Mahler I never knew before, for Ives, for much Haydn, for an overwhelming _Missa Solemnis_ , for the world's first _Falstaff_ , for the _Chichester Psalms_ , for _Candide_ , for \u2013 well, Christ, for ninety percent of the music that matters to me nowadays, I am in debt to you. Clinking oceans of gold pieces would not repay all. So really, it cannot matter, can it?, that there is an ice cream stand at Expo 67 on which there is writ in chocolate sauce _L. B. OWES J. R. $100_. Debt for debt, mine is hardly worth mentioning.\n\nExcept that, weeks from now when you are savoring a distraction or two instead of settling down to write the next to last song for that Brecht show, into the mind of you will come the picture of me. I will be seen sitting, sitting and sitting at some many Philharmonic rehearsals, day after day after day. Why, you will then ask yourself, did he come round so often? Why, why, why? Then a terrible thought will come over you, a thought so disruptive that it may dislodge forever that shred of melody you were counting on to get you started again, the thought that I was sitting there not watching and listening to you work with the orchestra at all, but instead just waiting there like some mouse creep of a bail bondsman from Baxter Street worrying about his cheesy C-note.\n\nBut, my ever so dear friend, that is not why I was there, nor why I will be there tomorrow maybe. I like it there, but you know all that. I just want to protect you from that blinding light in which I might glow, though dully, like a mouse. I don't want you to lose that shred of tune, and surely you don't want me to sit there at rehearsals with these grotesque introspections.\n\nUnless I know\n\nThat you know\n\nAbout my dough\n\nAt Expo,\n\nI can't show\n\nAt rehearsals any mo'\n\nBo'.\n\nLove,\n\nJoe Roddy\n\n... and I don't even know what present you bought for your sister.\n\n531. Leonard Bernstein to Joe Roddy\n\n27 October 1967\n\nDearest Joe,\n\nWhy, you will ask yourself, $112.49? Precise figures follow: $100, plus interest (at, I believe, the going rate of usury, 4%), making $104, plus interest compounded for compound guilt and shame, making $108.16, plus further compound interest for neglect and discourtesy.\n\nMy only redeeming feature for my life-long inability to remember debts owed is my concomitant inability to remember debts owed to me by others. In short, money is the thing that interests me least of all this world's wonders.\n\nBut:\n\nNow that you know | But be my beau,  \n---|---  \nThat I've eaten crow | Dear Joe,  \nOver the dough | Fo'-  \nYou lent at Expo | ever. And FO'-  \nNever go | GIVE!  \nAway no mo', |\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n532. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland\n\n[New York, NY]\n\n12 November 1967\n\nDear A,\n\nIt's two days before your birthday, but I'm already thinking hard and tenderly about you; and this note is your birthday present carrying with it such abiding love as I rarely if ever get to express to you in our occasional meetings. I don't know if you're aware of what you mean, have meant for 30 years, to me and my music and so many of my attitudes to life and to people. I suppose if there's one person on earth who is at the centre of my life, it's you; and day after day I recognize in my living your presence, your laugh, your peculiar mixture of intensity and calm... I hope you live forever.\n\nA long strong hug.\n\nLenny\n\n533. Janis Ian to Leonard Bernstein\n\nRichard Armitage Management Corp., 130 East 57th Street, New York, NY\n\n[November 1967]\n\nHello Sir,\n\n(\"Sir\" on account of \"Lenny\" sounds too presumptuous, and \"Mr. Bernstein\" too unpresumptuous)\n\nI guess you know what happened by now, everyone calling up and apologizing for not playing \"Society's Child\", and then playing it and it turned into a top twenty record... and the album too... and the new record looks like it will...\n\nBecause of that, because you drilled me on Spanish, because you're a nice person, I'd like to invite you to my concert.\n\nIt's to be at Philharmonic Hall on December 8 (a Friday night). I'd really like to have you there, and though I can't quite explain why, I'm sure you understand.157\n\nIf you can come, would you please call Jean Powell who's my manager, and let her know how many tickets you'll want. Or ask David [Oppenheim] to call if he's around, as we're inviting him too and it'll be killing two birds with one stone.\n\nI really hope you can come.\n\nYours for sunshine etc.\n\nJanis\n\nP.S. Passed my Spanish Regents with an 86.\n\n534. Leonard Bernstein to Joe Roddy\n\n[New York, NY]\n\n7 January 1968\n\nDear Joe,\n\nYour piece in _Look_ was a fine Xmas present, in that it is always a gift to read something sanely considered and well told.158 I have, naturally, a few objections (oh, two or three hundred) \u2013 nothing sensational, like what's so special about sport-jackets (Dimitri [Mitropoulos] wore them constantly, as do you) and who ever lived like Scott Fitz[gerald] \u2013 anyone \u2013 who, me? \u2013 at 32 W. 10th? 40 W. 55th? The Chelsea? What else? Oh, _On the Town_ is _not_ in any sense a version of _Fancy Free_ : there is not one note in common \u2013 only three sailors.\n\nBut all these I forgive easily; what may take a bit more time is your quoting a quote which is a misquote to begin with, and by Ned Rorem, at that! I never expected that you'd reach that far and that low, just for a kicker. But peace, I'll get over it. And I'll manage to survive not being loved by you, which should patently disprove Ned's quote.\n\nThis note was started as a thank-you, and so it should end, with the addition of a Happy New Year.\n\nLenny\n\n535. Richard Rodney Bennett159 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Munich] _as from_ 4 Rheidol Terrace, London, England\n\n25 January 1968\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nI wanted to write as soon as I arrived here in Munich, but the time has been so taken up with rehearsals for my opera that this is the first moment I've had.\n\nThe performances of my symphony were, it seemed to me, absolutely perfect.160 They had all the passion and excitement that I hoped I was writing into the work, plus a brilliance & power which I couldn't have imagined. It was a most thrilling time for me, and I am extremely grateful, both for the chance to write the work and for the marvellous performances. I was only sorry not to hear them all. Paul tells me the Saturday one was especially good.\n\nI hated to leave N.Y. but there seem to be all sorts of things in the air & I rather feel I shall be back _quite_ soon. So I hope to see you again before very long.\n\nWith many thanks,\n\nYours,\n\nRichard\n\n536. Leonard Bernstein to Stephen Sondheim\n\nHotel Sacher, Vienna, Austria\n\n19 April 1968\n\nDarling Steve,\n\nLife is good, the gods are kind, _Rosenkavalier_ is sensational, I've never worked so hard, etc. etc. My third act rehearsal was almost ruined by my staying up all night with your enthralling Dodecahedron.161 Things like that. But why I'm _really_ writing is, as they say here, _das volgendes_ :\n\nThe Funke literary effort.162 It was sent me by dozens of people and I never really read it to the end, what with all the hectic goings-on here, until yesterday, when I found myself shocked by the last line.163 Shocked for you, that is \u2013 and I want you to know (as if I needed to tell you!) that, natch, I could never be the source of such a stupid and indelicate remark. But I have talked to Stu[art] O[strow] and told him so, that I will gladly write Funke if you'd like me to, that it's all too silly, life is too short, that I hope you've not been offended, that I love you.\n\nAnd there you are. Tomorrow morning I get up and play a Mozart concerto for thousands of people and I haven't practiced a note. Tonight's _Rosenkavalier_ boasted the presence of Strauss' son who made known that never before... but why go on. Fact is, I miss you and can't wait to get back and dig in.164\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n537. Jacqueline Kennedy165 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nWashington D.C.\n\n9 June 1968\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nIt's 4:00 in the morning \u2013 after this long, long day. We stayed in Washington, at my mother's house.\n\nEveryone has gone to bed but I just want to stay up by myself \u2013 to think about so many things \u2013 and about today.166\n\nIn awful times I think the only thing that comforts you is the goodness in people.\n\nI want to write you that tonight \u2013 or this morning \u2013 whatever it is \u2013 because when I come home I will be so tired \u2013 and I may start thinking about the badness in people.\n\nWhen your Mahler started to fill (but that is the wrong word \u2013 because it was more this sensitive trembling) the Cathedral today \u2013 I thought it the most beautiful music I had ever heard. I am so glad I didn't know it \u2013 it was this strange music of all the gods who were crying. And then \u2013 if only you could have seen it \u2013 it was the time when Ethel had thought of the most touching thing \u2013 having the littlest nephews and nieces, small children, before that terrifying array of Cardinals and gold and Gothic vaults, carry all the little vessels for Communion up to the high altar, so they could have some part in the farewell to the uncle they all loved so much. They were so vulnerable \u2013 and your music was everything in my heart, of peace and pain and such drowning beauty. You could just close your eyes and be lost in it forever. That is what I thought the whole service might be like \u2013 but as you and Monsignor Duffy and the Archbishop have found out, I don't know very much about liturgy and ritual.\n\nSo out of all the confusion \u2013 all your days of conferring, postponing, canceling, adding etc., etc., etc., \u2013 with every one under strain and out of control, I think something emerged that is as beautiful as your Mahler, and that is the way you have been, through all of this.\n\nThe only thing that mattered in the world was that Ethel should have what she wished as music for her husband.\n\nAll the music that meant so much to her \u2013 all the music the church could or couldn't play \u2013 all the intermediaries who cling to their old ways, even through this. Now [we] have the most Ecumenical of Archbishops \u2013 through all that, dear Lennie \u2013 you were so tender and gentle and understanding \u2013 and tactful and self effacing \u2013 so she had _everything_ she wanted, including the last solo that I didn't know of until I heard it \u2013 and that is what I mean by what I said in the beginning of this endless letter \u2013 it is the goodness of people that is the comfort.\n\nI think your goodness and those few soaring moments of Mahler together are more beautiful than if you had played the most beautiful Requiem all the way through.\n\nAnd it was so much more appropriate for this Kennedy \u2013 my Kaleidoscopic brother-in-law \u2013 and his wife who loved him mystically. If there had been anything organized or unified about it, it would not have been Bobby and Ethel!\n\nAnd now we know they were something this world will never see again.\n\nWill you tell your noble orchestra, drowning in heat and cables when I passed them \u2013 that so many people all this day have said: how beautiful you were \u2013 how many people cried \u2013 people who don't know music, and all the ones who were saying the day before, \"You should have so-and-so's trumpets, Fourmier (or a name that sounds like that)167 Requiem, a Beethoven quartet \u2013 a brass quartet?\" etc. etc. all the people who really know music \u2013 which I don't \u2013 today, yours was the time when they wept.\n\nThank you dear Lennie \u2013 I had better not write any more \u2013 I could have spared 6 pages of my mother's writing paper and said all I mean and feel so much more coherently, but I wanted to thank you tonight.\n\nWith my love, and to Felicia\n\nJackie\n\n538. Adolph Green to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[August 1968]168\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nNot being one of the valiant ones (already, is this sentence defiantly grammatical???), I have tasted death on a considerable number of occasions (no, but it's certainly going to be haphazardly, helplessly, convolutedly kind of maybe Jamesian) \u2013 well, anyway, blackest despair \u2013 the dark night of the soul \u2013 the journey into cold sweatland 7 nights a week, the sprawling, crawling, pumping, exploding, expanding and contracting, 4 A.M. \u2013 Mippy-Bosch time \u2013 lost and screaming in the depths \u2013 the pits of hell. (Wow!!)\n\nHowever \u2013 like others of my ilk who have descended whimpering into the maelstrom, I have from time to time been conversely blessed (this is not Jamesian at all, it turns out \u2013 rather Micawber-Dickensian), emerging suddenly from darkness to light, tasting unexpected moments of re-birth.\n\nMost fortunately, in one or two of the instants that I have been re-born, I have known it and recognized it, not by hindsight, in a sad desperate, wandering through the jungles of Recherche \u00e0 temps perdu (wow, wow!!) in search of a landmark that may never have been there \u2013 but known it and gloried in it, at the very moment of borning.\n\nOne such on-the-spot recognized re-birth occurred on a hot July night in 1937, when I, a sallow, bloated (195 lb.) unemployed Hungarian-American Pirate King-to-be, disembarked on the steps of the mess Hall of Camp Onota, to be greeted by my mentor, monitor, R[obert] Weil, counselor of Dramatics, who had loyally and rigorously and self-effacingly plotted and planned my engagement extraordinaire at Uncle Lou's Heavenly Haven for Healthily well-fed young Hebrews.\n\nI was immediately introduced by Robert to you, a handsome lad of possibly 12 to 14, or so you appeared in the well-gathered post-dusk as you came down the steps to greet me and whisked me at once indoors, to the inner sanctum of the outer mess-hall \u2013 with piano, for our first music quiz. About 5 minutes after we had made our first tentative and mutually suspicious hellos and I had triumphantly _not_ identified your Anna Sokolov music (??) as Shostakovitch (was this the future Miss Turnstiles??) and you had sprung up and thrown your arms about me for accomplishing this sensational-non-feat, I felt a sudden, complete exuberance, the fresh air of 1,000,000 windows opening simultaneously and a sense that my life had been building towards a turning point and that it had happened \u2013 now.\n\nMy sense of the \"turning point\" was as sure and conscious, as Judy H[olliday] knew and felt in her own more subterranean way about me when we met the following summer, and she took me up to her apartment and pressed my tattered trousers, on an ironing board with me standing around before the eyes of her horrified mother in my less than provocative jockey-shorts. She told her mother that this unappetizing young stranger and she were going to go places together and very soon (based on no knowledge, information or past association whatever).\n\nBut back to us (or have I left us at all?), since in not too long a time to come from _our_ meeting, we were all 3 and 4 and more bound together with mysterious and continuing consequences that still continue, on and on.\n\nWe trouped the Onota Hills that night, for hours and hours up and down, to the dock and back to the camp gate and up and around the bunks and back and forth, and every moment was a new miracle. I knew I had been listening to music all these years and making my funny and odd full-orchestra phonograph sounds, with soloists thrown in simultaneously, in preparation for this meeting and that I had been carefully rehearsing Sibelius' 5th Symphony to give you its definitive performance that night. All those seemingly hopeless years that I wandered around NY in my sloppy shabbiness, conspicuously sporting rubbers over my shoes in every kind of weather, were not hopeless, were not wandering at all. I had always been on the road, leading straight to these hills, this night.\n\nHave I ever told you that I often used to sing aloud to myself in those days as I stumbled around Times Square or Bryant Park \u2013 Brahms' First, the Sibelius 5, _Petrouchka_ , or whatever, always hoping, some kindred spirit would perk up his or her ears and join me on the next phrase with arms thrown round me? I was looking for _you_ to join me the whole time.\n\nOn and on we hiked that night, and the miracles kept exploding around me. Why had I treasured every word and measure and record scratch of [ _I Wish That I Was Born In_ ] _Borneo_ , all those years from my pre-historic childhood, if not to share them with you with that night? There was no other soul in the universe, besides you and me, to savor and bellow that Crumit masterpiece with every treasured nuance, into the starry midnight sky. Somehow, someway back in Sharon and the Bronx we had stored up _Borneo_ , shored up our memories of it, for this night.\n\nWhat am I wheezily, puffily, floridly trying to tell you??? The simple fact that suddenly there was meaning in my life. I felt _alive_. There was _Borneo_ , Sibelius, T. S. Eliot, _Alice In Wonderland, L'Histoire du soldat, Of Thee I Sing_ , with Auden and Spender, Gilbert and Sullivan, old old movies, Palestrina, Black Pete, eighteen million wires and associations I had been waiting all this time to connect with.\n\nI knew as we walked and sang and talked, that you, the boy L. B., was nothing less than a genius, but this knowledge was only another comfortable fact to me, by now \u2013 part of the magic of our continuing dialogue.\n\nLeonard, my friend, it seems that you are now 50 or about to be, and I am 50 and certainly have been (and never the twain shall meet, and that last phrase certainly means nothing, but my pen jes' wrote it down).\n\nWhatever our ages, and until we stop all walking, we are still taking that walk in the night around the Onota hills. It seems haphazard, and unexplained as ever, but it goes on, and it is all still the same moment of re-birth of me.\n\nHow happy your friendship makes me. It fills me with the simple and complicated joy of knowing there can be a meaning to life \u2013 that our haphazard and rambling walk is filled with endless connections into the past and the future.\n\nHwhatt I'm saying is \u2013 I'm not writing \u2013 I'm only looking for a way to say I love you, my friend. Happy birthday.\n\nAdolph\n\n539. Harold Byrns169 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nKudamm 50A, West Berlin, Germany\n\n28 September 1968\n\nMy dear Leonard Bernstein,\n\nIt was more than a good deed (just here in Germany) to bring Mahler's Fifth. Since I have done this work innumerable times myself (as all other works by our beloved Gustav Mahler), I am in a position to really embrace you as a _Br\u00fcder in Apoll_ , as Mahler called people (la Burlesca of the Ninth). Your insight into the \"cookies\" of Mahler's spiritual secrets touched me profoundly. You see, right after coming back from the USA in 1952, I started to re-introduce Mahler in many a European country. Your Mahler-cycle on records is one of the great achievements of our period, I mean also in a \"missionary\" way.\n\nWhen Mrs. Byrns and I came backstage after your last concert, you asked me \u2013 after Shonah Tovah and before Leihitraoth170 \u2013 if I played still under Mahler. Great Jove, no! I was not even 7 when he passed on.\n\nBut I wanted you to see a fagotto part retouched 3 times by Mahler's own hand. In fact, being a close friend of Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel, I studied most of Mahler's work anew with his _manuscripts_. Quite an exciting experience.\n\nPerhaps, you do remember me, my name was, until 1939 _Bernstein_ and it was our great late friend K[o]ussevitzki who suggested to me to change into Byrns. It was K[o]ussevitzki who gave me the first breaks in the USA.171\n\nAnd more than that: some time ago, many European papers carried headlines in the music columns: \"Two Bernsteins get the Mahler Medal\" from the Bruckner Mahler Society of America, as some people still remember me under my real name (which is your name!).\n\nFrom 1952 I conducted Mahler cycles in many European centers (Vienna, Roma, Torino), where I am for the past 17 years steady guest. Also I am steady guest conductor at the Norddeutsche Rundfunk Hamburg and Hanover (I was actually born in Hanover, where my father had one of Europe's leading concert managements \u2013 Gieseking, Erdmann, Hindemith, etc., etc.) [...]\n\nMahler, my dear Leonard Bernstein, is the very backbone of my spiritual and human existence. I was 15 when I played (4-mains) the _Fifth_ with a schoolmate, and I knew I would be a conductor and my life's main task would be to help Mahler. _His day_ , indeed, _has come_!\n\nI was interested to hear you went to [Walter] Felsenstein's _Traviata_. He is one of my oldest friends and I conducted _Entf\u00fchrung_ and _Zauberfl\u00f6te_ and Mahler's 3rd and 4th at the Komische Oper 9 and 8 years ago! Yes, you are so right (and so said Klemperer): \"the chorus is fabulous\". [...]\n\nAnd now let me sign off. I want to reassure you that this missive is a sign of my \u2013 how shall I say \u2013 inner relation, and _subsequently_ friendship for another Bernstein.\n\nTake good care of yourself and, when I come to New York again, I should very much like to just chatter with you. There are many things about Mahler's life and stories (true ones) that you may not know yet. Have you been to Toblach where I induced the mayor of the town (with the Wiener Mahler Gesellschaft) to have the plaquettes on the tiny cottage and the Bauernhaus (where I stay frequently)?\n\nAgain, lehitraoth, mazal tov,\n\nHarold Byrns\n\n540. Leonard Bernstein to Adolph Green\n\n2 December 1968\n\nTo Adolph, on his 50th(?)172 Birthday\n\nROUND NUMBERS...\n\nAre misery to escape from:\n\nThey're so round.\n\nThe roundest is O,\n\nNext roundest 100,\n\nAnd neither experienceable.\n\nWhich leaves 50,\n\nRound enough, God knows,\n\nA hollow glob\n\nWithin which\n\nWe skitter and slide\n\nLike a doomed bug.\n\nHuis clos.\n\nThere is, however,\n\nComfort, however freezing cold.\n\nTomorrow, yeah, tomorrow,\n\nWe are in our Fifty-First Year,\n\nAnd the perfect N-dimensional circle\n\nIs busted.\n\nSo live for tomorrow (song title).\n\nI did, and am still alive, barely.\n\nSo I clasp you\n\nIn my freezing cold embrace,\n\nAnd comfort you with refrigerated love.\n\nAs the Romans would say,\n\nL\n\n541. Leonard Bernstein to Alan Fluck173\n\nHotel de Paris, Monte Carlo, Monaco\n\n11 September 1968\n\nDear Alan,\n\nFor the puzzle, for your warmth and ingenuity, for all these dear signatures, for the beauty of the idea, for the drawing, for... well for all the love contained in that charming packet, I send my sincerest thanks. It makes me want to sit down immediately and write the Youth Orchestra an overture. Alas, there is hardly even time to write this letter. It was only last night, after a concert and much grisly socializing with princely royalty and TWA officialdom, that I attacked your puzzle, and regained some cheerfulness and faith in what has seemed to me these last weeks a fairly hopeless world. Thank you for that. And today, owing to a sudden bad cold-cum-cough-cum-you name it, I am in the enviable position of being able to cancel lunches, etc, and spend my one free day of the tour in bed, and writing you this letter. I don't mind the work, you understand (although the programs are very heavy) but the \"official\" part of it \u2013 receptions, press conferences, etc. \u2013 have felled me. And so I cough my farewell to you, sneeze a kiss to all the Farnham youth, and thank you rheumily again for the brilliant puzzle. Hope to see you in London.\n\nAffectionately,\n\nLenny B\n\nP.S. Why was the _Candide_ mss. clue (65 across) inverted? Some subtle meaning I've failed to catch?\n\n542. Randall Thompson to Leonard Bernstein\n\n22 Larch Road, Cambridge, MA\n\n27 October 1968\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI felt grateful to you when I heard that you and the Philharmonic were to play my Second Symphony \u2013 \"our symphony\".174 Now that you have done so and I have heard the way you did it, I have no words worthy to express my gratitude and admiration. At a rough guess this must have been about the six-hundredth performance. I have never heard a more beautiful one, or one that expressed so fully and so lovingly what I wanted to say. My hearty congratulations and thanks to each and everyone concerned. You have given me a joyous experience.\n\nGratefully & devotedly, your old friend\n\nRandall\n\n543. Leonard Bernstein to Alan Fluck\n\n17 September 1969\n\nDear Alan,\n\nI have just listened to young Overbury175 playing the _Anniversaries._\n\nReactions:\n\na) You are an angel to have sent the tape. A perfect birthday present.\n\nb) The boy is marvelous. A natural. One reservation: a feeling of dynamic sameness, lack of contrast. But this may well be due to tape difficulties. The whole tape came over very distantly on my machine, necessitating full volume turn-up.\n\nc) I am moved to write a hundred more _Anniversaries_.\n\nd) I love you for being so good to Helen.\n\nSummation: Thank you, bless you, more power to you.\n\nAlways,\n\nLenny B\n\n544. Elliott Carter176 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nMead Street, Waccabuc, NY\n\n24 October 1969\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nHere is a great deal of the _Concerto for Orchestra_ we spoke about.177 I appreciate your interest and am sending a copy which is still somewhat in the state of a sketch: i.e. the percussion part throughout will probably be revised somewhat in order to scale it up or down in the light of the entire work \u2013 the third movement \u2013 287\u2013419 \u2013 may be slightly revised, and the fourth movement I am still in the state of writing out in score having about 100 measures more to do, which I hope to finish in the next two weeks.\n\n_The score you are receiving is not to be used for conducting_ (if it could with its crazy binding) _because a number of details_ (mistakes and changes) will be different in the final score.\n\nThe work was originally suggested to me by St. John Perse's long poem about America _Vents_ which has a rather large Whitmanesque vision of winds blowing over our continent, changing everything, wiping away the old world, bringing in the new, and of the poet stating:\n\nO vous que rafra\u00eechit l'orage... Fra\u00eecheur et gage de fra\u00eecheur.\n\n... Et vous avez si peu de temps pour na\u00eetre \u00e0 cet instant.\n\nSuch lines as the opening of the poem:\n\nC'\u00e9taient de tr\u00e8s grands vents sur toutes faces de ce monde\n\nDe tr\u00e8s grands vents en liesse par le monde, qui n'avaient ni d'aire ni de g\u00eete,\n\nQui n'avaient garde ni mesure, et nous laissaient, hommes de paille\n\nEn l'an de paille sur leur erre... Ah oui, de tr\u00e8s grands\n\nvents sur toutes faces de vivants!\n\nOr\n\n(Ces grands vents)\n\nSur toutes choses p\u00e9rissables, sur toutes choses saisissables, parmi le monde entier des choses...\n\nEt d'\u00e9venter l'usure et la s\u00e9cheresse au coeur des hommes investis,\n\nCar tout un si\u00e8cle s'\u00e9bruitait dans la s\u00e9cheresse de sa paille, parmi d'\u00e9tranges d\u00e9sinences: \u00e0 bout de cosses, de siliques, \u00e0 bout de choses fr\u00e9missantes.\n\n[...]\n\n(The poem ends:)\n\nQuand la violence eut renouvel\u00e9 le lit des hommes sur la terre,\n\nUn tr\u00e8s vieil arbre, \u00e0 sec de feuilles, reprit le fil de ses maximes...\n\nEt un autre arbre de haut rang montait d\u00e9j\u00e0 des grandes Indes souterraines,\n\nAvec sa feuille magn\u00e9tique et son chargement de fruits nouveaux.178\n\nAs soon as the piece began to take shape, however, I forgot about the poem and find its false epic tone a little too bombastic for my taste. I have quoted it at length because [it] gave me the overall mood of an idea of the work, which was finally reformulated into my own, human and musical terms.\n\nTechnically this is a work built on four main strata of chords, with different interval structures. The normal state of these are five note chords and their complementary seven note chords (of which pairs there are 38, all of which are used).\n\nThe five note chords are associated with the four movements of the work [...] Each of the movements is embedded in the others \u2013 movement I contains elements of II, III, IV etc. as on page 1 of analysis, and emerges and disappears throughout the work.\n\nThe opening and some of the important climaxes (138\u2013140, 285\u20136 and the coda) combine elements of all four movements simultaneously, as indicated at the top of p. 1 of the analysis.\n\nEach of the movements has a characteristic tessitura, as the analysis shows, and a characteristic temporal behavior. Movement II appears in a fast version at the beginning, and during its long statement gradually slows down, a pattern it continues at each secondary appearance. The reverse is true of mvt IV. Movements I and III combine ritardation and acceleration: mvt 1 tends to start each successive pattern of ritardation at a faster point, and mvt III starts each successive pattern of acceleration at a slower point. All of this is not carried out too schematically.\n\nAs for the many \"metrical modulations\" which occur in the work: the tempi of this work should be somewhat flexible since it deals primarily in written out rubati, but the carry-over of note values from one tempo to another should be quite exact so as not to break the continuity. For instance, from 26\u201327 the septuplet of 8th notes of the piano should be exactly the same speeds as the regular 8th notes in 27; in 40 to 41, the piano's triplets in 40 should flow evenly into the septuplet under the triplet, the beats in the piano's left hand in 40 state the tempo of 41, as I have indicated in red pencil [...] The same applies to all other \"metric modulations\" which I think are clearly marked.\n\nThese changes should be fairly accurate as the whole pacing of the work depends on progressive reappearances of materials coming in at different tempi, i.e. mvt IV material comes in bit by bit faster over the entire work, and this will not come out if the tempo changes are not reasonably accurate.\n\nAs you can see, while the work has an underlying structure of chords and tempi, it should be played in a way that gives the impression [of] freedom almost abandon.\n\nIf I can clarify anything please feel free to call on me \u2013 we shall be returning to 31 W 12th St, WA-9-1618, in a week or so, and hope to get in touch with you and see you quite soon after.\n\nWith kindest regards to Felicia,\n\nElliott\n\n1 Bernstein, taped interview with John Gruen, Italy, 1967, transcription online at <http:\/\/www.leonardbernstein.com\/kaddish_commentary.htm> (accessed 19 March 2013).\n\n2 Jule Styne (1905\u201394), British-born American composer whose Broadway successes included _Gentlemen Prefer Blondes_ , _Bells Are Ringing_ , and _Gypsy_.\n\n3 This telegram was sent the day of Bernstein's Carnegie Hall concert with the New York Philharmonic which included Schumann's _Manfred_ Overture, Strauss' _Don Quixote_ , the American premiere of Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2 (with Bernstein as soloist), and Ravel's _La Valse_.\n\n4 The only New York Philharmonic programme in which Bernstein conducted both Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring_ and a work by Webern (the _Six Pieces for Orchestra_ , Op. 6) was at Carnegie Hall on 16, 17, and 19 January 1958.\n\n5 Robbins' idea for a theater piece based on the Beat Generation was sparked off by the interviews he enclosed with the letter. The first can be identified from Robbins' quotations: it was given by Jack Kerouac to Mike Wallace and published in the _New York Post_ on 21 January 1958, soon after the publication of Kerouac's _On The Road_ (Wallace's first question was: \"What is the Beat Generation?\"); the second was almost certainly another Wallace interview with Beat poet Philip Lamantia. See \"Interview with Jack Kerouac: Lowell Author Gives His Version of the Beat Generation,\" _New York Post_ , 21 January 1958, reprinted in Kevin J. Hayes, ed. (2005), _Interviews with Jack Kerouac_. University Press of Mississippi, pp. 3\u20136.\n\n6 The planned program mentioned in this letter took place a year later, in Carnegie Hall on 9, 10, and 11 April 1959. The concerts included Handel's Harpsichord Concerto in F, Mozart's Piano Concerto in C, K467, the first New York performance of _Symphony of Chorales_ by Lukas Foss, and Wagner's _Tannh\u00e4user_ Overture. Reviewing the concert in _The New York Times_ (11 April 1959), Howard Taubman praised Foss' \"finely balanced\" interpretation of the Handel, in which he played the harpsichord, and enjoyed his stylish Mozart playing that had \"elegance, but not at the sacrifice of virility.\" Foss' _Symphony of Chorales_ was a commission by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation. Taubman was largely unimpressed: \"The first movement has some brilliance, the second some appealing serenity of mood and the third an attractive pastoral quality. But all of it goes on and on with a meandering garrulity. Agreeable ideas are worried and turned ponderous. It is all reminiscent of a diluted Mahler.\"\n\n7 See Letter 416, describing the same evening.\n\n8 _The Firstborn_ by Christopher Fry opened at the Coronet Theatre on 30 April 1958. It included incidental music by Bernstein. The cast was led by Anthony Quayle; it also included Michael Wager, a friend of the Bernsteins.\n\n9 The Aula Magna of Caracas University, built in 1952\u20133. The architect was Carlos Ra\u00fal Villanueva. Alexander Calder's magnificent \"flying saucers\" are memorable visually and useful acoustically.\n\n10 The new President of Venezuela was Wolfgang Larraz\u00e1bal, who was in office for less than a year, from 23 January to 14 November 1958.\n\n11 Vice-President Nixon's trip to South America (27 April\u201315 May) revealed to the US government just how bad relations were with Latin America, and reached its low point on 13 May when he was attacked by an angry mob in Caracas.\n\n12 Felicia had played Joan of Arc in Bernstein's New York Philharmonic performances of Honegger's _Jeanne d'Arc au b\u00fbcher_ on 24, 25, and 27 April 1958.\n\n13 _Time_ (5 May 1958) described the occasion as \"a family triumph\".\n\n14 Brigitta Lieberson, the wife of Goddard Lieberson, who performed as Vera Zorina. She played Joan in the first American performance of the work, given by the New York Philharmonic under Charles Munch on 1 January 1948.\n\n15 La Belle H\u00e9l\u00e8ne was the Bernsteins' nickname for Helen Coates.\n\n16 Between 29 April and 14 June 1958, Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic undertook an extensive tour of Central and South America, giving concerts in Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Mexico.\n\n17 Ellen Adler became Oppenheim's second wife in 1957.\n\n18 Van Cliburn had just won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.\n\n19 Schuman's Sixth Symphony (composed in 1948) was played in Caracas on 2 May, then on 13 May in Lima, the day before Bernstein wrote this letter.\n\n20 Rosamond Lehmann (1901\u201390), British novelist. Her friends included many of the Bloomsbury Group, among them Lytton Strachey and his wife Dora Carrington, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and Leonard and Virginia Woolf. In the 1940s she had a ten-year affair with the poet Cecil Day Lewis. This warmly appreciative letter about _West Side Story_ was written less than a month before the death of Lehmann's daughter Sally \u2013 a tragedy that virtually put an end to Lehmann's writing career and led her into Spiritualism.\n\n21 Martha Gellhorn (1908\u201398), American journalist and author. Gellhorn's work as a war correspondent started with the Spanish Civil War, which she witnessed with Ernest Hemingway (he dedicated _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ to her, and they married in 1940). She covered Hitler's rise to power, and was one of the first journalists to report on the concentration camp at Dachau. She later covered the war in Vietnam, the Six-Day War in 1967, and numerous other international conflicts. She divorced Hemingway in 1945, and in 1954 she married Tom Matthews, editor of _Time_ magazine. The Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism was established in her memory. Her friendship with Bernstein was a curious one. Though both were politically liberal, there were few other obvious connections between the two of them aside from being tennis partners when they were both at Cuernavaca in Mexico; Gellhorn was not musical, but she clearly liked Bernstein. For Gellhorn's remarks on Hemingway, see Letter 427.\n\n22 \"Omi\" was Martha Gellhorn's mother, Edna Gellhorn, n\u00e9e Fischel.\n\n23 Gellhorn had already written to Bernstein about hearing the cast recording at Klosters, Switzerland, earlier in the year. In a letter dated 18 March 1958, Gellhorn told Bernstein that she \"wept at parts, and roared with laughter at others. It is almost tangible music.\"\n\n24 Tom Matthews, former editor of _Time_ Magazine and Martha Gellhorn's second husband. They married in 1954.\n\n25 Bernstein's broadcast performance of _Arcana_ was released on CD in _Bernstein Live_ (NYP 2003).\n\n26 Diamond's _The World of Paul Klee_ for orchestra.\n\n27 Diamond was working on a musical comedy based on _Mirandolina_ by Carlo Goldoni.\n\n28 Bernstein had been to see the Broadway run of Robbins' _Ballets USA_ , which included _New York Export: Opus Jazz_ (music by Robert Prince and sets by Ben Shahn), Debussy's _Afternoon of a Faun, 3x3_ (with a score by Georges Auric), and _The Concert_ , the first of Robbins' ballets to music by Chopin. _New York Export: Opus Jazz_ was performed again at President Kennedy's 45th birthday party in the old Madison Square Garden \u2013 the occasion when Marilyn Monroe sang \"Happy Birthday, Mr. President.\"\n\n29 These rehearsals were for the cast that was about to take the show to England (including George Chakiris as Riff, Marlys Watters as Maria, Don McKay as Tony, and Chita Rivera as Anita), and the \"European conductor,\" Lawrence Leonard. It was first seen at Manchester Opera House on 14 November 1958, before heading to London where it opened at Her Majesty's Theatre on 12 December and ran for 1,039 performances.\n\n30 The paragraph about _Dybbuk_ is a reminder of how long Robbins and Bernstein spent contemplating this project. The ballet was completed in 1974, but they had first considered the story soon after collaborating on _Fancy Free_ , three decades earlier, and Robbins was eager to make progress straight after _West Side Story_. The proposed collaboration with the artist Ben Shahn never came about because he died in 1969. (When _Dybbuk_ was presented by New York City Ballet in 1974, the designs were by Rouben Ter-Arutunian.)\n\n31 Thornton Wilder (1897\u20131975), American playwright and novelist, author of two of the most celebrated plays written for the American stage \u2013 _Our Town_ and _The Skin of Our Teeth_ \u2013 and the novel _The Bridge of San Luis Rey_. All three won Pulitzer Prizes for Wilder.\n\n32 Alma Mahler (n\u00e9e Schindler, 1879\u20131964) was married in turn to Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius, and Franz Werfel. Her memoirs were published in 1958 with the title _And the Bridge is Love_ , a quotation from Thornton Wilder's 1927 novel _The Bridge of San Luis Rey_ (\"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning\"). The sculptor Anna Mahler (1904\u201388) was the second daughter of Mahler and Alma. Like her mother she married several times, including the composer Ernst Krenek, the publisher Paul Zsolnay, and the conductor Anatole Fistoulari.\n\n33 Larry Adler (1914\u20132001), American harmonica player for whom Vaughan Williams and Milhaud composed pieces. Adler was blacklisted in Hollywood and moved to London in 1949.\n\n34 Adler's name was not credited because of his blacklisting; instead the arranger and conductor Muir Mathieson was named as the composer of the score for _Genevieve_ \u2013 an error that was only rectified officially in 1986. The nominations for Best Music Score at the 27th Academy Awards were: _The Caine Mutiny_ (Max Steiner); _Genevieve_ (Larry Adler); _The High and the Mighty_ (Dimitri Tiomkin); _On the Waterfront_ (Leonard Bernstein); and _The Silver Chalice_ (Franz Waxman).\n\n35 Louis Armstrong (1901\u201371), jazz trumpeter and singer. In 1956, he appeared on Bernstein's album _What is Jazz?_\n\n36 Swiss Kriss was a herbal laxative that Armstrong used and promoted.\n\n37 A reference to the early years of the Space Race, starting with the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957.\n\n38 Gellhorn was married to Hemingway from 1940 to 1945. See Letter 427.\n\n39 Clearly Milhaud had heard the performance by the time he wrote to Bernstein again three weeks later, on 29 January 1959.\n\n40 Mary Rodgers (b. 1931), American composer and author. She is the daughter of Richard Rodgers. A graduate of Wellesley College, where she majored in music, Rodgers had a Broadway hit in 1959 with _Once Upon a Mattress._ She worked as assistant to the producer of Bernstein's Young People's Concerts. In 1972 she published her first children's book, _Freaky Friday_.\n\n41 Joe (Joseph) Roddy (1920\u20132002), American journalist. He worked on the staff of _Look_ magazine and _Life_ magazine as well as writing for _The New Yorker_ , _The New York Times_ , and _Harper's_ magazine. A friend of Bernstein for many years, he was a passionate music-lover who regularly attended rehearsals at the New York Philharmonic.\n\n42 In _The Infinite Variety of Music_ , broadcast on 22 February 1959, Bernstein took the four notes of Irving Berlin's \"How Dry I Am\" (G-C-D-E), showing how they were used by composers from Handel ( _Water Music_ ) to Shostakovich (Fifth Symphony). The script was printed in Bernstein 1966, pp. 29\u201346.\n\n43 The show was _First Impressions_ , a musical based on Jane Austen's _Pride and Prejudice_ , with music and lyrics by Robert Goldman, Glenn Paxton, and George Weiss, and a libretto by Abe Burrows (of _Guys and Dolls_ fame), who also directed. _First Impressions_ opened on 19 March 1959 and closed on 30 May, after just 92 performances. The production was under the overall supervision of the Jule Styne Organization, hence Styne's interest in it.\n\n44 Bernstein didn't write to _The New York Times_ about Atkinson's acidic review. He wrote to Styne that he \"would love to help out and did enjoy the show,\" but that he \"makes it a rule not to do this kind of thing as so many people ask for it\" (from the draft reply in Helen Coates' hand on Styne's letter).\n\n45 _The Joy of Music_.\n\n46 Oliver Daniel (1911\u201390) was an energetic promoter of new music. In 1954 he created the Concert Music Department at Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), a rival to ASCAP. Daniel also helped to establish Composers' Recordings Inc. (CRI).\n\n47 Stanley Adams (1907\u201394), American songwriter probably best known for writing the English lyrics for _La Cucaracha_. He was President of the American Society, of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) 1953\u20136 and 1959\u201380.\n\n48 Harold Spivacke (1904\u201377), chief of the Music Division at the Library of Congress from 1947 to 1972.\n\n49 Irene Lee Diamond (1910\u20132003), Hollywood script editor and philanthropist. She was the Hollywood story editor who had recommended movie treatments for both _The Maltese Falcon_ and _Everyone Comes to Rick's_ (immortalized as _Casablanca_ ). In later life she became a generous patron of the arts and of AIDS research. She was unrelated to David Diamond.\n\n50 Boris Pasternak (1890\u20131960), Russian poet and novelist most famous for _Doctor Zhivago_ , for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1958. This caused a scandal in the Soviet Union, where the book had been refused for publication owing to its critical stance on Stalin and Socialist Realism (the manuscript was smuggled abroad so that the book could be published). Pasternak at first accepted the Nobel Prize, but after intolerable pressure from the Soviet government (including the KGB surrounding his house in Peredelkino), he was forced to decline it: \"In view of the meaning given the award by the society in which I live, I must renounce this undeserved distinction which has been conferred on me.\"\n\n51 Bernstein's concert on 11 September was Pasternak's first appearance in public after his denunciation following the _Doctor Zhivago_ scandal. Bernstein was overwhelmed by his meeting at Pasternak's _dacha_ , but they never met again as the great writer died a few months later, on 30 May 1960. On 13 July 1960, Rabbi George Lieberman from Long Island, NY, wrote to Bernstein about his admiration for the writer, and to ask whether, during their meeting, Bernstein had touched on Pasternak's Jewish antecedents: \"Was he a formal convert to Christianity? Now that he is no more, we may never know whether he took the step. On the basis of your conversation with him, could you draw any conclusions on this point? Were you in his home in Peredelkino and did you notice any icons in it?\" Bernstein's draft reply is written on the back of Rabbi Lieberman's letter: \"My conversations with P. never touched on this point. (They were in fact virtually monologues by him on aesthetic matters.) But he conveyed the impression of a Tolstoyan Christian, a worshipper of nature and the divine spark in man. I saw no icons at his home. I suspect that he felt little or nothing about _Jewishness_ , though he may have been deeply interested in _Judaism_. This is a guess.\"\n\n52 Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928\u20132007), German composer, and a leading light of the post-war avant-garde.\n\n53 Bernstein's first book, _The Joy of Music_ , was published in 1959.\n\n54 Reiner's home in Connecticut.\n\n55 See Letter 439.\n\n56 Written in French; English translation by the editor.\n\n57 Bernstein's performances of Mahler's _Resurrection_ Symphony in which Roddy sang (as a member of Rutgers University Choir) were given in Carnegie Hall on 18, 19, 20, and 21 February 1960, with Phyllis Curtin and Regina Resnik as the vocal soloists.\n\n58 Bernstein played most of Schuman's suggested program. The only change was to end with Robert Schumann's Third (\"Rhenish\") Symphony instead of the Fourth. The concerts were given on 13, 14, and 16 October 1960 with Aaron Rosand as the soloist in Barber's Violin Concerto.\n\n59 Larry Kert (1930\u201391), American actor and singer who created the role of Tony in _West Side Story._\n\n60 A reference to the only time Bernstein conducted any of _West Side Story_ in the theater: the Overture at the opening night of the Broadway revival on 27 April 1960 (at the Alvin Theatre).\n\n61 Bernstein did not agree to Kert's proposal about the title of his album (a note typed by Helen Coates at the top of the letter says \"cannot use L's name on Album\"). It was released by Secco Records as _Larry Kert Sings Leonard Bernstein_ (CELP 4670). At Bernstein's suggestion (jotted down by Helen Coates at the foot of the letter) the record included \"Build My House\" from _Peter Pan_ as well as songs from _West Side Story_ , _On the Town_ , and _Wonderful Town._\n\n62 Robbins' entertaining description of his time in Hollywood working on the early stages of the film version of _West Side Story_ shows just how tenacious he needed to be (\"like a sheep dog\") and shows the obvious concern he had for the way the show was being treated. However, a sharply contrasting account can be found in the long letter from Saul Chaplin to Bernstein about Robbins' work on the film (see Letter 462).\n\n63 Robbins was angered by an unidentified newspaper report about his treatment of \"Somewhere\" in _West Side Story_. It is likely that he is referring to Bernstein's comments (hitherto kept private) about Robbins changing the orchestration of \"Somewhere\" at the 1957 dress rehearsal of the show in Washington, DC. Amanda Vaill summarized what happened at this rehearsal as follows: \"As the orchestra swelled into the lush refrain of 'Somewhere' after the ballet's end, Jerry sprang out of his seat and ran down to the pit to demand that the conductor, Max Goberman, cut the orchestration and give the first bars to an unaccompanied flute. 'Take that Hollywood shit out!' he cried. Without a sound, Lenny Bernstein got up and went to a bar across the street where Steve Sondheim found him staring at a row of neat Scotches lined up in front of him. Jerry later said he didn't realize Lenny was even in the theatre at the time and thought he'd understand that to make the 'extremely sensitive transition' into the duet work right, 'the song should start simply, purely.' [...] Jerry also admitted that 'my tactics were not of the best'\" (Vaill 2007, p. 287). Evidently, some version of this story had got out and Robbins was irritated. This letter is of more general interest for Robbins' very positive view of their collaborations and their friendship.\n\n64 Mitropoulos died of heart failure on 2 November 1960, a few months after sending this letter.\n\n65 Saul Chaplin (1912\u201397), American composer and film-music supervisor. He first met Bernstein in 1944 and saw him conduct _Fancy Free_ at the Hollywood Bowl in August that year. Chaplin was Music Supervisor and Associate Producer for the film version of _West Side Story_.\n\n66 The Prologue of _West Side Story_ , which was extensively reworked for the film.\n\n67 Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic arrived in Vancouver on 14 August, and gave concerts in the city on 15 and 16 August.\n\n68 Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip stayed at the newly opened Faculty Club in July 1959, a year before Bernstein's visit. Prince Andrew was born on 19 February 1960 (so the story is, indeed, a canard).\n\n69 The New York Philharmonic gave a concert in Denver, CO, on 13 August.\n\n70 Bernstein appeared as soloist in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in one of the Vancouver concerts.\n\n71 Bart\u00f3k's _Concerto for Orchestra_ and the Second Suite from Ravel's _Daphnis and Chloe_ were on the Vancouver programs.\n\n72 David Keiser was President of the Board of the New York Philharmonic.\n\n73 Edwin Denby, librettist of _The Second Hurricane_.\n\n74 Marni Nixon (b. 1930), American soprano whose concert repertoire includes works by Schoenberg, Webern, Ives, and Boulez, and whose parallel career has been as the dubbed singing voice of several screen legends in film musicals, including Marilyn Monroe (the high notes in \"Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend\"), Deborah Kerr ( _The King and I_ ), Audrey Hepburn ( _My Fair Lady_ ), and Natalie Wood ( _West Side Story_ ).\n\n75 On Bernstein's recommendation, Marni Nixon was chosen to dub Natalie Wood's singing voice as Maria, and she was in Hollywood less than a month after sending this letter. She was widely experienced in contemporary classical repertoire (on 31 March 1960 she had given the first American performance of Boulez's _Improvisation sur Mallarm\u00e9 I_ with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic), and was already familiar to film studios as the singing voice of Deborah Kerr in _The King and I_. She arrived in Hollywood in late September 1960 to work on _West Side Story_ for $300 a day, and had to tread a delicate path, since Natalie Wood was convinced she could do her own singing. Nixon's own account of the recording deserves quoting at length: \"The sessions were set up so that Natalie would first record a song on her own and then I would get up and record the whole song again. I knew that this was going to be embarrassing and traumatic for her, but I was just an employee and went along with it. Musicians, especially ones this good, are noted for their disdain of mediocrity [...] As Natalie sang, they showed their displeasure by playing poorly. They kind of sawed away at the notes instead of playing with the sensitivity of which they were more than capable. Then, when I got up to sing the identical song, the same musicians would sit up in their seats and play with renewed vigor and passion. When I finished a take they would even applaud. I was both very embarrassed and disgusted at their rudeness to poor Natalie who was, after all, doing her best\" (Nixon 2006, pp. 133\u20134).\n\n76 Nadia Boulanger conducted a series of concerts with the New York Philharmonic in February 1962 (see Letter 472).\n\n77 This concerns the first performance of the _Symphonic Dances from West Side Story_ , which Foss conducted with the New York Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall on 13 February 1961 at the _Valentine For Leonard Bernstein_ , a Pension Fund Benefit Concert, concluding a first half that had opened with Aaron Copland conducting the _Candide_ Overture followed by the _Jeremiah_ Symphony conducted by Vladimir Golschmann, with Jennie Tourel as the soloist. The second half of the programme, produced by David Oppenheim and presented by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, was a series of \"Valentine Surprises\" of music from Bernstein's Broadway shows and _Fancy Free_.\n\n78 The Ojai Festival, in California, was directed by Foss in 1961, the occasion on which the programme he outlines was given with Andr\u00e9 Previn, Shelly Manne, and others.\n\n79 Given the scoring (including 4 trumpets and trombones), this note is almost certainly in connection with Ramin's orchestration of the _Fanfare for the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy_ , first performed in January 1961, which Ramin orchestrated for 1 piccolo, 2 flutes (ad lib.), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 3 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, timpani, and percussion.\n\n80 Frank Sinatra (1915\u201398), American singer, actor, and entertainment legend. He had known Bernstein since the early 1940s when they had both worked in New York nightclubs such as the Riobamba (see Letter 115).\n\n81 Sinatra is confirming arrangements for the Inaugural Ball for President Kennedy at which Bernstein conducted his _Fanfare for the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy_.\n\n82 This brutally frank account of Jerome Robbins' work on the movie of _West Side Story_ was intended for Bernstein's eyes only, but it conveys something of the profound frustration felt by the producers \u2013 Robert Wise (also the movie's co-director), Walter Mirisch, and Saul Chaplin \u2013 about what they felt to be Robbins' high-handed and unreasonable behavior on the set, as well as Chaplin's concern that Robbins was giving a very selective account of the movie's problems in his reports back to Bernstein.\n\n83 _Bonanza Bound_ was a 1947 musical set in Alaska in 1898, with a score by Saul Chaplin, book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, sets by Oliver Smith, and musical direction by Lehman Engel. Try-outs opened at the Shubert Theatre in Philadelphia on 26 December 1947, but despite the talent involved in the show, it closed there a week later, never reaching Broadway. Bernstein toured to Alaska with the New York Philharmonic in 1961.\n\n84 Jack [Joachim] Fishberg (1904\u201370) was a violinist in the New York Philharmonic for forty-four years.\n\n85 The first paragraph of this letter is in English. The remainder is in French, translated by the editor.\n\n86 Theodore Hollenbach, conductor of the Rochester Oratorio Society from 1945 to 1986. Felicia was performing Honegger's _Joan of Arc at the Stake_ in Rochester.\n\n87 An earlier version of this acrostic, dated 22 March 1957, is printed in Bernstein 1982, p. 136. It contains several differences from the text printed here.\n\n88 The film version of _West Side Story_ had its premiere in New York on 18 October 1961.\n\n89 Written in French; English translation by the editor.\n\n90 Igor Stravinsky (1882\u20131971), Russian-born composer; a dominant figure in twentieth-century music. His professional relationship with Bernstein was always friendly, but as Charles M. Joseph writes: \"although his correspondence with Bernstein was cordial enough, the [Stravinsky] archives disclose some hostility in Stravinsky and his circle of friends. Bernstein's _The Age of Anxiety_ , Symphony No. 2 of 1949, was inspired by W. H. Auden's book of the same name. Auden was not pleased and quickly distanced himself from any association with the work. He gave Stravinsky a copy of the book in which he wrote on the title page, 'Leonard Bernstein is a shit.' Stravinsky himself, Craft told me, walked out of a performance of the same symphony and wanted to leave _West Side Story_ as well. [...] Perhaps at the root of this reprobation was an envy of Bernstein's public appeal, as well as an aversion to the charismatic conductor's mission to catechize about music, to convince people 'what to feel', as Stravinsky described it.\" (Joseph 2001, pp. 226\u20137). Joseph also points out that \"Commercial record sales were another target of Stravinsky's annoyance. Bernstein was a major competitor for recording royalties, hitting home in a way that Stravinsky could not fail to notice. John McClure of Columbia Masterworks recalled that Stravinsky never accepted the fact that other conductors, especially dynamic ones like Bernstein, could steal the composer's thunder\" (Joseph 2001, p. 229).\n\n91 Pencil draft of the letter Bernstein sent.\n\n92 An earlier title for _The Flood_ , commissioned by CBS Television and first broadcast on 14 June 1962.\n\n93 Stravinsky was eager to see the broadcast of \"Happy Birthday Igor Stravinsky,\" Bernstein's _Young People's Concert_ first relayed on 26 March 1962. He sent a telegram to Bernstein on 6 April: \"Please tell Roger Englander Saturday May 5 is ideal for me. Many thanks. Would you lunch with me before or after the screening? Another great favor I have to ask is could you please record the three snippets John McClure has from _The Flood_. Cordially, Stravinsky.\" A draft reply is written below, partly by Bernstein and partly by Helen Coates: \"Everything set for screening Sat. May 5 at 1 p.m. Delighted to have lunch with you afterwards. Will make every effort to accommodate you on _The Flood_ snippets. Warmest greetings.\" Bernstein did in fact record part of the soundtrack for the CBS television relay of _The Flood_. According to Charles M. Joseph's _Stravinsky Inside Out_ : \"The work was finally recorded at the CBS studios in Hollywood on 31 March. [Robert] Craft led the orchestra for the audio taping (although the televised program led the audience to believe that Stravinsky himself was on the podium), and Leonard Bernstein helped as well. A week later the composer wrote to McClure in New York, providing specific instructions for a passage to be recorded by Leonard Bernstein\" (Joseph 2001, p. 152). Joseph goes on to quote from Stravinsky's 6 April letter to McClure, is which the composer raises the question of how the credits should read for the shared conducting duties: \"It seems to me you invite speculation and call undue attention to a problem by saying two people conducted and not saying who conducted what. Therefore, leave out the word 'conductor' _entirely_. Say 'recording supervised by the composer'\" (Joseph 2001, p. 152). Bernstein himself believed that Stravinsky's coolness towards him near the end of the composer's life was down to Robert Craft: \"I could _kill_ him \u2013 I mean, he spoiled such a lovely relationship between Stravinsky and myself\" (Cott 2013, p. 31).\n\n94 Nadia Boulanger conducted four concerts with the New York Philharmonic on 15, 16, 17, and 18 February 1962. The program comprised Faur\u00e9's Requiem, the premiere of a specially made orchestral version of Virgil Thomson's _A Solemn Music_ , and three Psalms by Lili Boulanger. There was another, more somber reason for this being a \"moving week\": the Faur\u00e9 Requiem on 17 February was dedicated to the memory of Bruno Walter, who had died that day. Bernstein addressed the audience before the performance:\n\nMy dear friends, I bring you the heartbreaking news that Bruno Walter died this morning. It is almost too much to bear. Last year our beloved Mitropoulos \u2013 and now this great genius, who for forty years has been so close to us here at the Philharmonic \u2013 who has guided us so wisely, and so generously brightened and enriched our lives. Like Mitropoulos, he was one of the saints of music \u2013 a man all kindness and warmth, goodness and devotion. We can only mourn, and pay tribute. I would like to add that the Philharmonic and Mlle Boulanger will perform the Requiem of Faur\u00e9 in memory of Bruno Walter.\n\n95 Presumably Boulanger's sister, Lili (1893\u20131918).\n\n96 Nina Maria Felicia Bernstein was born on 28 February 1962.\n\n97 Written in French; English translation by the editor.\n\n98 Nina Bernstein.\n\n99 Rudolf Bing (1902\u201397) was General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera from 1950 to 1972.\n\n100 A draft of Bernstein's reply (in Helen Coates' hand) is attached: \"Whole starting point of this venture was the prospect of collaboration with Z[effirelli] & without that collab. the whole project loses its orig. meaning. It was not simply a case of finding a suitable opera to conduct at the Met, but rather to make my first appear. at the Met in this specific collaborative enterprise. I must therefore insist on collaborating with Z. or have approval of a substitute.\"\n\n101 Louise Talma (1906\u201396), American composer. She was a pupil of Nadia Boulanger and a regular at the MacDowell Colony, along with composer friends of Bernstein such as Irving Fine, Lukas Foss, Harold Shapero, and Arthur Berger. In her will, Talma left a bequest of one million dollars to the MacDowell Colony. Talma's letter refers to Bernstein's first visit to the Colony, in 1962, when he went there to work on the _Kaddish_ Symphony.\n\n102 Karl B\u00f6hm (1894\u20131981), Austrian conductor. He established a warm friendship with Bernstein. The two conductors admired each other greatly.\n\n103 B\u00f6hm conducted a month of concerts with the New York Philharmonic in November 1962, sixteen in all between 1 and 25 November.\n\n104 Morton Feldman (1926\u201387), American composer. A leading figure of the musical avant-garde and a pioneer of Indeterminate music.\n\n105 Lina Abarbanell (1879\u20131963) was an opera singer and casting director. She was Marc Blitzstein's mother-in-law. As a singer, her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on 25 November 1905 was as Gretel in the Met premiere of Humperdinck's _Hansel and Gretel_ , given in the presence of the composer. She later became a successful casting director (including _Street Scene_ and the movie version of _Carmen Jones_ ). Though her daughter Eva died in 1936, she remained close friends with Blitzstein. Bernstein included Lina Abarbanell's name in the opening scat trio of _Trouble in Tahiti_ (\"Who but Abarbanel[l] buys a visa\").\n\n106 _Chronochromie_ was composed in 1959\u201360 and first performed on 16 October 1960 by the Orchestra of South-West German Radio conducted by Hans Rosbaud. The New York Philharmonic performed two movements (\"Strophe\" and \"Antistrophe\") at a concert on 24 July 1965 conducted by Lukas Foss.\n\n107 Written in French; English translation by the editor.\n\n108 Written in French; English translation by the editor.\n\n109 In a marginal note, Bernstein has written: \"Jack [Gottlieb] misrepresented my reaction.\" Bernstein performed (and recorded) Feldman's _Out of Last Pieces_ with David Tudor and the New York Philharmonic in February 1964 as part of an extraordinary programme that included \"Autumn\" from Vivaldi's _Four Seasons_ and Tchaikovsky's _Path\u00e9tique_ Symphony in the first half, and music by Cage ( _Atlas Eclipticalis with Winter Music_ ), Earle Brown ( _Available Forms II_ ) and Feldman's _Out of Last Pieces_. Bernstein was fascinated by Feldman's music even if he wasn't particularly sympathetic towards it.\n\n110 Though the recipient of this letter has not been identified, this pencil draft of Bernstein's letter has been included because of his interesting comments on some of the legendary pianists of the past.\n\n111 John Cage (1912\u201392), American composer and musical pioneer.\n\n112 Bernstein did place the orchestral improvisation at the start of the second half of this programme, which was given on 6, 7, 8, and 9 February 1964. The first half included \"Autumn\" from Vivaldi's _Four Seasons_ and Tchaikovsky's _Path\u00e9tique_ Symphony. According to Harold Schonberg's review in _The New York Times_ (7 February 1964) it was an unusually long evening, ending at around 11.05 p.m. Of the second half, Schonberg wrote: \"these pieces, with their new sounds, apparent chaos and weird textures, shook the audience quite a bit. Not unexpectedly, the most unconventional was Mr. Cage's [ _Atlas Eclipticalis_ ]. He used an orchestra of more than 80 players, and each instrument was equipped with a contact microphone that led into a little preamplifier on the floor. This preamplifier led into an electronic mixer, which fed into six amplifiers, which went to six loudspeakers scattered through the hall. The piano was amplified, and on the podium was, instead of a conductor, a mechanical affair with a spoke that slowly revolved. When eight minutes were up, the piece was over. In the Brown piece, though, two live conductors were needed \u2013Mr. Bernstein and the composer. One might think that Mr. Cage's piece, and the others, would have caused some kind of demonstration. What happened was that during the progress of the work, people walked out. When it was over, there was a more general exodus. There were a few lusty boos, a few counter-cheers, but on the whole the music fell flat. So did the music of Mr. Feldman [ _Out of Last Pieces_ ] and Mr. Brown [ _Available Forms II_ ]. The audience, the part that remained, seemed more amused than anything else. Its amusement had started with a demonstration of IBM music, and an improvisation by full orchestra that lasted a minute and a half.\"\n\n113 Draft reply written in pencil on the verso of Cage's letter.\n\n114 Claudio Abbado (b. 1933), Italian conductor. In 1963 he won the Dimitri Mitropoulos Prize, which enabled him to work for several months with the New York Philharmonic. Abbado has kindly supplied this reminiscence: \"For the 1963\u201364 season, I was assistant conductor at the New York Philharmonic, an opportunity given me by the Mitropoulos Prize, which I won that year. So I had the opportunity to watch and conduct major concerts, working with George Szell, Josef Krips and soloists such as Arthur Rubinstein and David Oistrakh, as well as with Bernstein. Just to mention one episode, I remember very well during the rehearsal of Mahler's Second Symphony that Bernstein went to sit in the hall and asked me to get on the podium. He wanted to hear the very complex part, in the finale, where the principal ideas are played by the small orchestra offstage. Bernstein was surprised and very happy that I was aware of how difficult this passage was, though he didn't know that I had actually already done that symphony in Europe\" (Claudio Abbado, personal communication).\n\n115 President Kennedy was assassinated on 22 November 1963.\n\n116 Walter Hussey (1909\u201385) was Dean of Chichester Cathedral from 1955 to 1977, and before that was vicar of St. Matthew's, Northampton. In both these posts he commissioned an extraordinary range of new music, literature, and works of art for the Church. In Northampton these commissions included Benjamin Britten's _Rejoice in the Lamb_ , Gerald Finzi's _Lo, the full, final sacrifice_ , W. H. Auden's _Litany and Anthem for S. Matthew's Day_ , Graham Sutherland's _Crucifixion_ , and Henry Moore's _Madonna and Child_. At Chichester, he continued his commissions, notably stained-glass windows by Marc Chagall, a magnificent tapestry by John Piper \u2013 and Bernstein's _Chichester Psalms_.\n\n117 Iannis Xenakis (1922\u20132001), Greek composer and architect.\n\n118 On 2 January 1964 (repeated on 3, 4, and 5 January), Bernstein conducted the first US performances of _Pithoprakta_ by Xenakis and _Atmosph\u00e8res_ by Ligeti.\n\n119 _Musiques formelles_ was published in Paris in 1963.\n\n120 Harpo Marx (1888\u20131964; born Adolph Marx), American comedian and actor, the second-oldest of the Marx Brothers (Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo). He was famous for never talking during performances or on screen (though in fact he had a deep, rich speaking voice). Harpo was also a regular of the Algonquin Round Table (with the likes of Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woolcott, George S. Kaufman, and Robert Benchley). He wrote this letter just before his decision to retire from public life, and he died on 28 September 1964.\n\n121 This letter is written on a sheet of manuscript paper, decorated with treble and bass clefs, rests, a fermata, and a double bar at the end of the last sentence. The titles at the head of the sheet have been filled in by Harpo Marx as follows: Prod.: \"Maybe\", Title: \"Letter to Maestro Bernstein\", Page: \"3,472\", Arranger: \"Harpo Marx\".\n\n122 Marc Blitzstein was murdered in Martinique by three Portuguese sailors on 22 January 1964.\n\n123 The Blitzstein Memorial Concert took place at Philharmonic Hall on 19 April 1964. Bernstein included \"With a Woman to Be\" from _Sacco and Vanzetti_ , extracts from _Regina_ and other songs, and a complete performance of _The Cradle Will Rock_ narrated by Bernstein and directed by him from the piano.\n\n124 A reference to the Boston premiere of _Kaddish_ , conducted by Charles Munch on 31 January 1964, the first performance of the work in the United States.\n\n125 Dr. Cyril [Chuck] Solomon was Bernstein's doctor for many years and a personal friend.\n\n126 Bernstein and Copland were both awarded honorary doctorates of music by the University of Michigan, conferred on 19 September 1964 (the date of Bernstein's sonnet), as recorded in _The Proceedings of the Board of Regents (1963\u20131966)_ , University of Michigan, p. 577 (electronic edition: Ann Arbor, MI:University of Michigan, Digital Library Production Service, 2000).\n\n127 The concerts of Diamond's music took place along the lines discussed here: Bernstein conducting the world premiere of Diamond's Fifth Symphony followed by Diamond conducting his Piano Concerto with Thomas Schumacher as the soloist. In the second half, the eventual choice was Sibelius' Second Symphony.\n\n128 The saga of _The Skin of Our Teeth_ is an unhappy one, though it did eventually provide some of the musical material used in the _Chichester Psalms_. As long ago as 12 September 1962, Sam Zolotow reported in _The New York Times_ that \"the Broadway association of Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Adolph Green and Betty Comden will be renewed with the song and dance version of Thornton Wilder's fantastic comedy, _The Skin of Our Teeth_ , winner of the 1943 Pulitzer Prize\" and announced that everything would be \"ready for a Broadway presentation during the 1964\u201365 season. [...] As explained yesterday by Mr. Bernstein, the reason for the long-range project is that 'we haven't started work on it yet.' Miss Comden said: 'We have been meeting on and off whenvever we can. Intensive work, however, will be done during the 1963\u20134 season.'\" A year later, on 29 August 1963, Zolotow wrote of it as \"an early 1965 entry,\" to which Robbins would turn his attention after the upcoming \"Tevye\" \u2013 not yet called _Fiddler on the Roof_. Another year later, on 4 September 1964, Zolotow wrote of the $400,000 investment in the project from CBS (following the success of their backing of _My Fair Lady_ and _Camelot_ ) and promising that Columbia Records would be making the cast recording of _The Skin of Our Teeth_. But by the New Year, the whole project had fallen apart and the persistent Zolotow delivered the bad news on 5 January: \"Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Adolph Green and Betty Comden have cancelled their plans to do a musical version of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize play, _The Skin of Our Teeth_ ,\" adding that Bernstein \"had told a friend that six months of work had gone in the wastebasket due to a dispute with his colleagues.\"\n\nBernstein himself wrote about this project in the poem he composed for _The New York Times_ as a report on his sabbatical in 1964\u20135, published on 24 October 1965:\n\nSince June of nineteen-sixty-four\n\nI've been officially free of chore\n\nAnd duty to the N. Y. Phil. \u2013\n\nFifteen beautiful months to kill!\n\nBut not to waste: there was a plan,\n\nFor as long as my sabbatical ran,\n\nTo write a new theatre piece.\n\n(A theatre composer needs release,\n\nAnd _West Side Story_ is eight years old!)\n\nAnd so a few of us got hold\n\nOf the rights to Wilder's play _The Skin of Our Teeth_.\n\nThis is a play I've often thought was made\n\nFor singing, and for dance. It celebrates\n\nThe wonder of life, of human survival, told\n\nIn pity and terror and mad hilarity.\n\nSix months we labored, June to bleak December.\n\nAnd bleak was our reward, when Christmas came,\n\nTo find ourselves uneasy with our work.\n\nWe gave it up, and went our several ways,\n\nStill loving friends; but still there was the pain\n\nOf seeing six months of work go down the drain.\n\nThe \"loving friends,\" Comden, Green, Robbins and Bernstein \u2013 who remained the closest of friends even after this harrowing project \u2013 had a tough time trying to recapture the success of earlier collaborations such as _On the Town_ (1944) and _Wonderful Town_ (1953). The surviving musical material is fairly desultory: a couple of numbers that were reworked for the _Chichester Psalms_ , and Sabina's opening aria (\"Oh! Oh! Oh!\"), which survives in a pencil sketch.\n\n129 Printed in Hussey 1985, p. 113.\n\n130 Never one to waste a good idea, Bernstein used almost all of \"Mix!,\" a cut number from _West Side Story_ , in the second movement of the _Chichester Psalms_. His recycling of the music originally written for \"Mix!\" had uncanny parallels with the idea of conflict in the original song: \"Lamah rag'shu goyim\" (\"Why do the nations rage\"), a passage from Psalm 2 about the futility of nation fighting nation. Hussey's \"hint\" of _West Side Story_ (see Letter 497) turned out to be a very apt choice.\n\n131 Printed in Hussey 1985, p. 116.\n\n132 Hussey has written \"1963\" but this is an error. The _Times_ article to which Hussey refers appeared on 19 July 1965, three days before he wrote this letter.\n\n133 Quita Chavez was classical promotions manager for CBS Records in London.\n\n134 Printed in Hussey 1985, p. 118.\n\n135 Printed in Hussey 1985, pp. 118\u201319.\n\n136 Printed in Hussey 1985, p. 119.\n\n137 A note in Helen Coates' hand at the top of the letter reads: \"Sketch of Psalm XXIII ( _Chichester Psalms_ ) sent to him Nov. 15th.\" This sketch was requested by Cage as part of his _Notations_ project, started in 1965. Cage donated all the manuscripts he collected to Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) in 1973, where Bernstein's sketch now forms part of the John Cage Notations Project collection.\n\n138 Printed in Hussey 1985, pp. 119\u201320.\n\n139 George Szell (1897\u20131970), Hungarian-born conductor who was Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1946 until his death.\n\n140 The same day that Szell wrote this letter he conducted the first of four concerts with the New York Philharmonic (28, 29, 30 October, and 1 November 1965), which included Mussorgsky's Prelude to _Khovanshchina_ , Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 (with Gary Graffman as the soloist), and Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. He remained with the orchestra until 22 November, conducting three further weekly programs in the subscription series.\n\n141 Yo-Yo Ma (b. 1955), American cellist; he had already played for Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy as a child prodigy by the time he wrote this letter to Bernstein.\n\n142 John Adams (b. 1947), American composer, who was a student at Harvard in 1966. Adams writes about the circumstances of this letter in _Hallelujah Junction_ : \"Despite my hunch that Boulez's was the wrong way to make art, I continued to try embracing the beast. Still in my freshman year, and by way of venting my frustration with the direction contemporary music was heading, I wrote a letter to Leonard Bernstein. I had never met him, but for some reason I felt the need to prick such a famous superstar to see if he might possibly bleed. I thought maybe that sharing my own frustration would perhaps sting him enough to elicit a response. Composed more in the negative spirit of a heckler at a baseball game than in any true seriousness [...] it was prompted by my hearing of his most recent piece, _Chichester Psalms_. [...] In my letter I chided him, asking 'What about Boulez?' A week later there in my mailbox at Wigglesworth Hall was a letter \u2013 from Leonard Bernstein\" (Adams 2008, p. 32).\n\n143 Draft letter written in pencil, unsigned.\n\n144 Bernstein was in Vienna to conduct _Falstaff_ at the Vienna State Opera.\n\n145 Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sang Falstaff in this production. See Letter 546.\n\n146 The conductor Josef Krips and his wife.\n\n147 William Weissel was the Viennese-born assistant manager of the New York Philharmonic.\n\n148 \"Mendy\" was the nickname of the actor Michael Wager (1925\u20132011). The play mentioned by Bernstein is _Where's Daddy?_ by William Inge, produced by Wager and directed by Harold Clurman. It ran for just 22 performances in March 1966.\n\n149 Victor de Sabata (1892\u20131967), Italian conductor, renowned not only for his operatic conducting (especially at La Scala, Milan), but also for his performances of twentieth-century orchestral repertoire and for his phenomenal musical memory. When Bernstein first saw de Sabata conduct in London in 1946, he described him in a letter to his sister Shirley as \"a wildman\" (see Letter 225), but once Bernstein came to know him at La Scala in the 1950s he developed a warm admiration for de Sabata. In 1977, he wrote a short tribute entitled \"Memories of Maestro de Sabata\":\n\nThe first word that comes to mind as I call up memories of de Sabata is _generosity_. It seemed to me to inform and characterize all his actions: his abundant love for music and for the colleagues with whom he produced it; the abundance of his passions and of his patience; his profound gratitude for his own gifts; his kindness to young performers like me; his devotion to his public, whether in Milan or Pittsburgh \u2013 all of it generous, generous. It was also in the music he composed: the spirit of _abbondanza_.\n\nIt was because of his sudden illness in 1953 that I was called upon to open the Scala season with Cherubini's _Medea_ , Callas and all. There were only six days for me to learn an unknown score, to make cuts and repairs, to meet and cope with Callas (which turned out to be pure joy), to make a difficult debut alla Scala, and all with severe bronchitis. In all this Maestro de Sabata was intensely helpful and encouraging; he gave me the extra measure of courage that I needed. And two years later, when I returned to conduct a new performance of _Sonnambula_ , he virtually saved my life. \"Too slow! Too slow!\" I can still hear him chiding. \"Bellini was Sicilian; and Sicilian blood runs hot! Run with it! Run!\" Who knows what a boring disaster I might have made without that affectionate warning!\n\nThere was much other good counsel besides; and of course he was equally generous with his praise. And this abundance of spirit flowed through all his conducting: one has only to listen to his old recording of _Tosca_ with Callas. I still believe it to be the greatest recording of an Italian opera I have ever heard. I have only to listen to it \u2013 any dozen bars of it \u2013 and the spirit of de Sabata is in the room with me. Leonard Bernstein, May 1977.\n\n150 Robert Russell Bennett (1894\u20131981), American composer and arranger. After studying with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, Bennett began working as an arranger and orchestrator on Broadway, collaborating with Kern ( _Showboat_ ), Gershwin ( _Girl Crazy_ , _Of Thee I Sing_ ), Porter ( _Anything Goes_ , _Kiss Me, Kate_ ), Rodgers ( _Oklahoma!_ , _Carousel_ , _South Pacific_ , _The King and I_ , _The Sound of Music_ ), and many others. He also composed extensively for symphony orchestra, concert band, and chamber ensembles.\n\n151 Georg Solti (1912\u201397), Hungarian conductor. This letter serves as a reminder of the dilemma that faced Jewish musicians working in Vienna during the 1960s. In dealing with anti-Semitism, Solti \u2013 himself a Jew \u2013 had an outlook that was a mixture of humanity and pragmatism: to look forward rather than back, with the aim of rebuilding Europe after the ravages of war. He established a productive working relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic during the 1950s that grew into a warm and enduring association. The same was to happen with Bernstein, but not until he had come to terms with the fact that Helmut Wobisch, the orchestra's manager (and also one of its trumpeters), had been an active Nazi during the Second World War. Solti played a crucial role in this: his advice to Bernstein \u2013 to give Wobisch a chance rather than to condemn him out of hand \u2013 was both wise and realistic: he knew the Vienna Philharmonic very well by 1967, whereas Bernstein had made his debut with the orchestra only the year before; and Solti's letter is also written by someone who had clearly learned to rise above the gossip-mongering that was a constant feature of the city's musical life.\n\nBernstein quickly took his colleague's advice to heart. According to Humphrey Burton (1994, p. 354), Bernstein \"brushed aside [Wobisch's] past: he would refer to him openly as 'his SS man'.\" Wobisch's well-documented past was catalogued in detail in a letter to Joseph Wechsberg from Simon Wiesenthal on 3 February 1967 (a copy of which was sent by Wechsberg to Bernstein) confirming Wobisch's membership not only of the Nazi Party and the SS, but also of the SD (Sicherheitsdienst), the intelligence agency of the SS and the party. Despite these grim associations, both Solti and Bernstein found Wobisch friendly and supportive, and Bernstein was to spend much of the latter part of his career performing and recording the symphonic repertoire with the Vienna Philharmonic (including Mozart's late symphonies, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Mahler, and Sibelius). Solti's letter was a timely and characteristic intervention, encouraging Bernstein to take a conciliatory approach.\n\n152 John Culshaw (1924\u20131980) was a producer for Decca. He is best remembered for producing the Solti _Ring_ and for numerous recordings conducted by Benjamin Britten.\n\n153 Janis Ian (b. 1951), American songwriter, singer, and author. The CBS News Special, _Inside Pop_ \u2013 _the Rock Revolution_ , was broadcast on 27 April 1967, presented by Bernstein and produced by David Oppenheim. In this program, Janis Ian performed \"Society's Child,\" which Bernstein discussed as a social protest song.\n\n154 Foss' \"Philharmonic tragedy\" was the cancellation at the last minute of the first performance of Foss' Variations. According to _The New York Times_ (9 July 1967), this was because \"the materials needed to perform the new work were not ready.\" The other work on the program was Honegger's _Joan of Arc at the Stake_ , conducted by Seiji Ozawa, with Vera Zorina (whose real name, Brigitta, Bernstein uses) playing Joan. _The New York Times_ review suggests that it was indeed the triumph Bernstein suggested: \"Her diction was beautiful, her voice was musical, and her intensity was compelling.\"\n\n155 John Gruen's _The Private World of Leonard Bernstein_ was published in 1968.\n\n156 The musical Bernstein hopes is \"ship-shape\" is _Follies_ (information from Stephen Sondheim). Ted Chapin explains that: \"In June of 1967 _The Girls Upstairs_ [the original title for _Follies_ ] was scheduled for the coming Broadway season, to be produced by David Merrick and Leland Hayward. The plan ultimately fell through\" (Chapin 2005, p. xxii). _Follies_ eventually opened in 1971.\n\n157 Bernstein has written a draft reply at the foot of this letter: \"Dear Janis, I'd love to come but I can't and I'm flattered you asked me & thought of me. I wish you a _howling_ success. LB\"\n\n158 The 9 January 1968 edition of _Look_ magazine (pp. 74\u20137) included an article by Joe Roddy entitled \"How to Think about Leonard Bernstein,\" mostly about his tenure at the New York Philharmonic and his relationship with the orchestra.\n\n159 Richard Rodney Bennett (1936\u20132012), English composer and pianist.\n\n160 Bennett's Symphony No. 2 was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its 125th anniversary and first performed on 18 January 1968, conducted by Bernstein.\n\n161 Sondheim's \"Dedicated Dodecahedron\" puzzle was published in _New York Magazine_ on 15 April 1968.\n\n162 \"The Funke literary effort\" refers to an article by Lewis B. Funke published in _The New York Times_ on 8 April 1968, under the headline \" _West Side Story_ Collaborators Plan Musical of Brecht Play\".\n\n163 Derived in part from comments made by Bernstein \"speaking from Vienna,\" Funke ends with what seems like an unduly brusque comment: \"Mr. Sondheim, who will do the lyrics, will have to wait until Mr. Bernstein completes some of the score.\" Understandably, Bernstein was keen to clear up any misunderstanding this remark might have caused.\n\n164 Bernstein's desire \"get back and dig in\" refers to the planned musical based on Brecht's _The Exception and the Rule_ that he was working on with Sondheim and Jerome Robbins. Though several songs were written and there are a number of sketches in the Leonard Bernstein Collection, the project was abandoned.\n\n165 Jacqueline Kennedy (1929\u201394), First Lady of the United States during the presidency of John F. Kennedy, from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. She had come to know and like Bernstein during his frequent visits to the Kennedy White House.\n\n166 Shortly after midnight on the morning of 6 June 1968, Jacqueline Kennedy's brother-in-law, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Los Angeles. The younger brother of President Kennedy, Robert had served in his brother's administration as Attorney General, then as Senator from New York. He had just won the California Democratic primary in the 1968 presidential campaign, running on a radical platform of social justice and racial equality. Jacqueline Kennedy phoned Bernstein later on the same day (6 June) to ask him to oversee the musical aspects of the funeral Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral, New York. The funeral took place on 8 June; Bernstein conducted the Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony with thirty members of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and part of the last movement of Verdi's Requiem. As reported in _The New York Times_ (9 June 1968), \"Mr. Bernstein's role in the Mass was specifically requested by the Kennedy family, with whom he has been friendly for several years.\" As Jacqueline Kennedy wrote in her letter, the Mahler was played at a particularly touching moment in the Mass, during the Offertory procession. _The New York Times_ described this \"procession by eight Kennedy children who marched in twos up the sanctuary behind two candle bearers to present the hosts and the wine used in the consecration of the Mass.\"\n\n167 Presumably one of the suggestions was Faur\u00e9's Requiem.\n\n168 This undated letter was sent on the occasion of Bernstein's 50th birthday in August 1968. It is particularly valuable for Green's recollections of their first meeting at Camp Onota in 1937. Bernstein and Green were near contemporaries, though not quite as near as Bernstein imagined when he responded a few months later (2 December 1968), with a poem to celebrate \"Adolph, on his 50th(?) Birthday,\" actually his 54th.\n\n169 Harold Byrns (1903\u201377), German-born conductor (born Hans Bernstein) who studied with Erich Kleiber and Walter Gieseking at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin and became Kleiber's assistant. After moving to the United States, Byrns became known as a specialist in contemporary music. In October 1949, he conducted a concert for Schoenberg's 75th birthday in Los Angeles (attended by both Schoenberg and Stravinsky), including the First Chamber Symphony; the same year he made the first recording of Bart\u00f3k's _Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta_ and gave one of the earliest performances of Stravinsky's Mass. Byrns was particularly devoted to Mahler's music, and was a friend of Alma Mahler.\n\n170 Hebrew greetings, meaning \"a good year\" and \"see you soon.\"\n\n171 Bernstein has added two exclamation marks beside this paragraph: the remarkable coincidence of two conductors called Bernstein, both of whom Koussevitzky attempted to persuade to change their names. Byrns took his advice, whereas Bernstein didn't.\n\n172 In fact, Adolph Green's 54th birthday.\n\n173 Alan Fluck (1928\u201397) was Director of Music at Farnham Grammar School and the moving force of the Farnham Festival with its numerous commissions of pieces for young musicians. Fluck had a warm friendship with Bernstein. He commented on this letter that for Bernstein's 50th birthday he \"made a gigantic crossword puzzle, 50 words across and down. Clues and answers were all based on the life and works of LB. I sent it to him in Brussels and received this [letter] a month later.\"\n\n174 \"Our symphony\" given Bernstein's long history conducting the work, as well as the enduring friendship between the two men. Bernstein conducted Thompson's Second Symphony at Tanglewood in 1940, and later with the New York Philharmonic in 1959 and 1968 (followed by the recording praised in Thompson's letter of 16 January 1970, Letter 545).\n\n175 Michael Overbury (b. 1953), English organist. After his youthful success as a pianist, he was organ scholar at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and subsequently held positions at New College, Oxford, St. Alban's Cathedral, and Newark Parish Church, before being appointed Director of Music at Worksop Priory in 1999.\n\n176 Elliott Carter (1908\u20132012), American composer. He studied with Walter Piston at Harvard and later with Nadia Boulanger. Stravinsky called Carter's _Double Concerto_ (1961) \"the first American masterpiece.\"\n\n177 Carter's _Concerto for Orchestra_ was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its 125th anniversary. Bernstein conducted the world premiere performances at Lincoln Center on 5, 6, 8, and 9 February 1970, and recorded it on 11 February.\n\n178 The following is an English version of the quoted passages, in the translation by Hugh Chisholm:\n\nThese were very great winds over all the faces of this world, great winds rejoicing over the world, having neither eyrie nor resting-place,\n\nHaving neither care nor caution, and leaving us, in their wake,\n\nMen of straw in the year of straw... Ah, yes, very great winds over all the faces of the living!\n\nOver all things perishable, over all things graspable, throughout the entire world of things....\n\nAnd airing out the attrition and drought in the heart of men in office,\n\nFor a whole century was rustling in the dry sound of its straw, amid strange terminations at the tips of husks of pods, at the tips of trembling things.\n\nWhen violence had remade the bed of men on the earth,\n\nA very old tree, barren of leaves, resumed the thread of its maxims...\n\nAnd another tree of high degree was already rising from the great subterranean Indies,\n\nWith its magnetic leaf and its burden of new fruits.\n7\n\nTriumphs, Controversies, Catastrophe\n\n1970\u201378\n\nBernstein relinquished his post as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 1969, but he remained firmly in the public gaze. Two events stirred up controversy \u2013 both of them for questionable reasons. When Felicia hosted a reception (at the behest of the American Civil Liberties Union) to raise funds for the legal costs of thirteen members of the Black Panthers, this was seized upon gleefully by the press and widely misreported. Declassified files reveal that it gave the FBI yet another excuse to take an interest in Bernstein's allegedly suspicious activities. \"Radical chic,\" the phrase coined by Tom Wolfe to describe the event, is a resonant one, and doubtless contributed to sustaining the widely reported but largely mythical version of the story \u2013 that Bernstein gave a party for the Black Panthers. As Bernstein told Jonathan Cott in 1989, \"It's a legend and it dies hard. It _wasn't_ a party and _I_ didn't give it. [...] So what am I to do? You can't beat the legends... except by telling the truth. And ultimately, maybe, legends die.\"\n\nIn 1971, Bernstein caused controversy again, this time at the highest levels of government \u2013 in this case the paranoid and criminal administration of Richard Nixon. The problem was a rumor, investigated by the FBI, that Bernstein's newly finished _Mass_ was intended to embarrass the President by promoting an agenda of peace. Nixon detested Bernstein, and when the FBI passed the investigation back to the White House, what ensued was something close to black comedy. So convinced were Nixon's aides that Bernstein was out to cause trouble that they lost any kind of grip on common sense. Pat Buchanan \u2013 then an advisor to Nixon, later a conservative pundit \u2013 wrote this memorandum on 28 July 1971:\n\nMy view is that we ought to find someone who can definitely translate that Latin Mass Bernstein is working on \u2013 to make sure this is accurate. Then, we might want to sand-bag him; i.e. wait until it is too late for him to change his format \u2013 and then unload on him. Another course would be to have this released to front-page and force him to back down. However, we should be able to get a copy of what he is preparing \u2013 as there will have to be rehearsals \u2013 and once we get that, get us a good Jesuit to translate, maybe Father McLaughlin will do and once translated \u2013 leak the thing. But we ought to move rapidly lest the President be tied into attending and forced to back down.1\n\n_Mass_ was Bernstein's first work to be written in the 1970s, much of it conceived during a stay at the MacDowell Colony. It was followed by three other large-scale pieces. The ballet _Dybbuk_ \u2013 which Jerome Robbins had been urging him to write since the 1940s \u2013 finally saw the light of day at New York City Ballet in 1974: it turned out to be the last of their collaborations. It is a very demanding score, making use of some twelve-tone techniques, about which Oliver Knussen wrote as follows: \"After the militant anti-atonal statements which abounded in his Norton Lectures at Harvard, it is surprising to find Bernstein making use of numerical formulas derived from the Kabbalah [...] and producing his most austerely contemporary-sounding score to date.\"2\n\nThe Norton Lectures, given on six consecutive Tuesday evenings in October and November 1973 and published as _The Unanswered Question_ , were the most fully developed expression of Bernstein's thoughts on music, and his attempt to apply Noam Chomsky's theories of linguistics to it. Bernstein's work was criticized by some academics as unsystematic \u2013 but surely the important point is that his conclusions are so often inherently musical. Virgil Thomson and Bernstein had known each other for thirty years, and Thomson was sometimes a harsh critic of Bernstein's music; but he was impressed by the lectures. He praised Bernstein's \"skill in explaining music\" and went on: \"Myself I find nothing reprehensible about your bringing in linguistics. You needed an authority to support an 'innate musical grammar' and Chomsky's heavy artillery is surely that.\"\n\nThe musical _1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_ turned out to be an unhappy experience. It was overlong when it was tried out in Philadelphia, but the score includes a great deal of music that is beautiful (some of the best numbers were later salvaged by Charles Harmon and Sid Ramin for _A White House Cantata_ ). Written by Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner as a celebration of the United States Bicentennial, by the time the show opened on Broadway it was doomed \u2013 especially as it had been cut to shreds, against Bernstein's wishes. Friends were well aware of the trials and tribulations, and rallied round: during the try-out in Philadelphia, Robbins did his best to encourage his old friend (\"Take care of your house. You can do it. Come on kid, get the spirit up again. No limp cocks!\"), while Sondheim sent a telegram saying \"you're still the only artist writing musicals with one exception that is.\" The great photographer Richard Avedon was (understandably) overcome by the beauty of the music. But it was to no avail. Despite the wonderful score, and clever lyrics by Lerner, _1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_ was a failure. Another commission intended for the Bicentennial (finished a year too late) was _Songfest_ , an anthology of thirteen poems for solo voices and orchestra. Completed in 1977, it was much admired by Bernstein's old friend and collaborator Oliver Smith, and was praised by others: Oliver Knussen pointed out the lessons Bernstein appeared to have learned from Britten, especially the _Spring Symphony_ (which Bernstein knew well, having conducted it in 1963), but he also valued the originality of the score: \"I can't think of another living composer who could approach Bernstein's complete involvement with and response to such varied texts.\"3 Despite the quality of the music (and the sensitivity of Bernstein's settings), _Songfest_ is hardly ever performed. It deserves better.\n\nFrom a creative point of view, the 1970s must have been rather disheartening for Bernstein: of four major works, only _Mass_ could be counted a success, and even that was the focus of some very hostile criticism. But the musical disappointments were as nothing to the turmoil in Bernstein's personal life. In 1974, Felicia was diagnosed with cancer \u2013 Bernstein's letter to her from New Zealand is full of reminders to see her doctor. But things quickly got even worse. By 1976 their marriage was in tatters: _Newsweek_ announced a \"trial separation\" \u2013 Felicia was increasingly disturbed by what Humphrey Burton has described as \"intimations that her husband was abandoning the discretion that was part of their unspoken covenant\" (Burton 1994, p. 414). Burton's evidence is pretty damning: Bernstein was having affairs with at least two men, one of them Tom Cothran, a young musician Bernstein had met in 1973. Felicia was not prepared to see their family life put in peril and gave him an ultimatum: either he must stop seeing Cothran alone, or he need not come home. Bernstein's daughter Nina \u2013 who was 13 at the time \u2013 recalled some difficult family scenes in an interview with Ginny Dougary in 2010: \"My mother was a fairly conventional lady and so she expected to be treated like one. The deal was that he would be discreet and that she would maintain her dignity. And then he was not discreet, and so that was that.\"4 Bernstein and Cothran set up in a new apartment for a few months, but then Felicia was diagnosed with lung cancer, and Bernstein begged to be allowed back. Nina recalls that \"The whole thing was terribly awkward and painful,\" and, of course, matters were made worse by the intrusive glare of publicity. When Felicia died on 16 June 1978, Bernstein blamed himself. Humphrey Burton writes about this with harrowing honesty: \"The crushing impact on Leonard Bernstein was that he believed himself responsible for his wife's death, and his sense of guilt never left him. Felicia was the greatest love of his life. He never recovered from her loss, and he never forgot the curse she uttered when he told her he was leaving her for Cothran. She had pointed her finger at him in fury and predicted, in a harsh whisper: 'You're going to die a bitter and lonely old man.'\"5\n\n545. Randall Thompson to Leonard Bernstein\n\n22 Larch Road, Cambridge, MA\n\n16 January 1970\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nWhat a glorious recording of my Second Symphony!6 What can I say to express my appreciation and my happiness? The whole interpretation is perfect \u2013 and inspired. The orchestra is superb and seems to be breathing with you all the way through. The engineering is both sensitive and powerful, refined in solo passages and rich in the _tutti_. And throughout, the rhythm is so vital that the whole work throbs with life. I wrote it exactly forty years ago, in this very village, for Koussy. It's yours now, and I see him smiling.\n\nThank you from the bottom of my heart.\n\nTi abbraccio.\n\nRandall\n\n546. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau7 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nBaur au Lac, Zurich, Switzerland\n\n9 February 1970\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nJust because I don't want to miss a chance of making music with you please give me a hint whether you would like me as Kurwenal in the Bayreuth _Tristan_ production of which I heard.8 You know how opera houses are in their short notice planning.\n\nIn case of \"yes\" it would be a great thrill. Should you already have made an agreement with somebody else, I am still your greatest admirer. Only \u2013 I am dying to sing with you again. So please let me know.\n\nEver,\n\nSir Dieter Falstaff\n\n547. Rabbi Judah Cahn9 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n10 Park Avenue, New York, NY\n\n28 February 1970\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI received the copy of Rabbi Schindler's letter addressed to you and the note which you added to it.\n\nLenny, since 1934, I have been deeply involved in inter-racial affairs. I believe my credentials are quite adequate to demonstrate that for thirty-six years I have put my physical being, my professional standing, and my financial means on the line any number of times when the struggle for civil rights demanded it, and you know this.\n\nWhen Felicia spoke to me, I suggested that the best way to handle the situation was to drop it.10 Your friends will never question your motives, even if they do not agree with you. To defend yourself is totally unnecessary. Frankly, as your friend for all these years, and one who loves you deeply, I needed no letter explaining why you called a meeting in support of the Black Panthers. I know that you were motivated by the highest ethical imperatives, and you acted in a way that you thought just and right. I do believe, however, that you must give me equal credit for ethics and motivation.\n\nI believe that the need to defend oneself is a necessity, if we are going to defend others. If those I personally defend would, in turn, defend me, then such a defense has a top priority in my scale of values. If, on the other hand, those who seek my assistance would, if they could, destroy me, then logically it would be a mistake to give such a group my special, personal assistance.\n\nHowever, in order not to neglect out concern for all groups who are struggling to achieve civil rights, whether or not we agree with the philosophies of those groups, we should continue to support the American Civil Liberties Union, whose purpose it is to defend the rights of those who espouse unpopular causes.\n\nAt no time, since the Hitler holocaust, has the Jewish people been faced with the complexity of problems which now confront us. Both of us are wholly committed to the future and safety of our people, and I will not, under any circumstances, give special time and energy to strengthening those who are outspoken in their avowed attempt to destroy me. Since Hitler, I take such \"forthrightness\" very seriously.\n\nI will fight for the right of the Panthers to a just trial. I will fight to secure justice for them, as I would for any other group, but I will do so through channels which are already established for such purposes. Frankly, I would not open my home and ask my friends to make special contributions to their cause. This constitutes a difference of opinion. I honor you for your position, and I ask you to honor me for mine.\n\nAs for \"lessons,\" Lenny, as you know, it is not the lessons but the practicing that makes the artist. I have been practicing a long, long time, and I took my lessons when it was not so fashionable.\n\nWith my best wishes and kindest regards to your family.\n\nAs ever,\n\nJudah\n\n548. Leonard Bernstein to Ingmar Bergman11\n\n11 August 1970\n\nDear Ingmar Bergman,\n\nI have just talked with my good friend Humphrey Burton in England who tells me that he spoke to you about the possibility of our working together on a production of _Tristan und Isolde_. Even though Humphrey reported that you had misgivings I want to tell you personally how very much I would love the opportunity of our working together, particularly on a project as fascinating and challenging as _Tristan_.\n\nThe _Tristan_ idea has been growing in my mind ever since Wieland Wagner asked me to do a production at Bayreuth, but there never was time during the years I was with the New York Philharmonic. Now that my time has become more flexible, I return to _Tristan_ as one of the major projects I want to achieve in the near future. The idea would be to produce it at the Bayreuth Festival in 1973 and to record and film it thereafter. I realize that you may not be interested in staging the opera at Bayreuth but I can think of no one on Earth better suited for a free, fresh and \"inner-directed\" film version.\n\nCould we talk about this? I will be going to Japan next month, then back in New York from mid-September through January '71. In early February I go to Paris for concerts and then generally around Europe and Israel until the end of April.\n\nI am your profound admirer, and want to work with you!\n\nIn friendship.\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\nP.S. Of course, if you were interested in the Bayreuth staging as well, that would be a more than welcome bonus.\n\n549. Leonard Bernstein to Stephen Sondheim\n\n[Christmas 1970]\n\nDear Steve,\n\nThese balls are not meant to symbolize any contribution to your testicular powers. They are simply beautiful carpet-balls ( _bocci_ , I believe), and when I saw them I knew they had to be for you. So Merry Xmas!\n\nAs for your gifts, I bless you for the _Listener_ book, thank you for the _Company_ record, and adore you for the gum-machine.\n\nHappy 1971, and have a glorious _Follies_!\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n550. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nHotel Sacher, Vienna, Austria\n\n18 February 1971\n\nDear H,\n\nThe Paris concerts went gloriously, finally, in spite of all kinds of problems:\n\n1) my usual Parisian diarrhea, really bad this time, 2) a cut thumb, 3) a bad back, 4) the failure of the Berlioz material to arrive until the last day of rehearsal (sent to wrong address!) so that I had to use _their_ material which was full of errors, had no rehearsal numbers or markings or anything. A nightmare, necessitating hours of extra work & fatigue for orchestra & conductor. But finally all was well, with audiences screaming & happy.12\n\nRehearsals here go beautifully: I seem to be playing most of the notes of the Ravel,13 & my stomach, back, thumb, etc. are very well indeed. Tonight I'm even going to the Opera Ball!\n\nI've received both your letters, with enclosures (sad about Ethel L[inder] R[einer],14 horrid and shocking about Debs Myers!).15 Very pleased at your progress report on the dictaphone \u2013 brava!\n\nI'm feeling better than I had expected \u2013 all is well.\n\nLove to all, & to you,\n\nL\n\n551. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Bernstein\n\nHotel Sacher, Vienna, Austria\n\n25 February 1971\n\nMine Hilee,\n\nStrange, but everything seems to be going well, & better. Or, as they say here (pure Annie M), es geht _g\u00fc-at_. Paris (as always) was a bit of a trial \u2013 the trots in spades, the back, the cut thumb, the usual list. But great concerts, and now Vienna \u2013 why, I even drink the tap water! Back great, thumb prima, stomach glorious (or as glorious as my Tumburger can be). _And_ the concerts are, so far, tops. Sunday I think I conducted one of the really best ones of my life \u2013 including playing the Ravel. It was fleed, my dear, _fleed_.\n\nBut you, mine ape, have you vot to do, vot to eat? I worry about you. How about a letter telling all. Find out my tour schedule from Felicia, & send me a letter. Simple. A.B.C. We leave on tour Sat. a.m. for Munich. Back in Vienna 13th March for a Unicef benefit, then off for another week, then back here for three more weeks. Schreib!\n\nAnd love to Mither when you talk to her.\n\nI hug it upon you.\n\nL\n\nI do a March [?] every day, _plus_ the London Times, _plus_ an occasional Telegraph, etc.16 So you see, my time is well spent, intellectually.\n\n552. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nDan Hotel, Tel Aviv, Israel\n\n16 April 1971\n\nDear Helen,\n\nLife is not too kind to me at the moment: I left Vienna a wreck and went straight to Eilat for some days of sun and sea \u2013 my first four free days in months. Well, there was no sun, no sea \u2013 only stormy weather, nothing to do but watch the mindless hippies on the beach. Very lonely. I came back to Tel Aviv early \u2013 same bad winter weather. We had our first rehearsals yesterday \u2013 the orchestra is in fine form, but I'm not. I'm depressed most of the time, and longing to get home.\n\nI've been worried at not finding any mail from you here. I hope you're all right, and that your brother is not causing you too much anxiety. My mother seems to be enjoying herself, although her activities are necessarily limited.\n\nToday is again a free day, and I'm spending it mostly in bed. It's storming outside. What a non-holiday! People here can't remember such weather at Pesach-time in years.\n\nPlease call Dr Gaylin17 and ask him if he can reserve some time for me the week of May 3rd. I should be back on the 3rd. I have a dentist appointment that day which will have to be cancelled. [...]\n\nEveryone asks for you \u2013 with affection \u2013 Katia, etc.\n\nBe well, and let me hear from you.\n\nMuch love,\n\nL\n\n553. Jamie Bernstein18 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nCambridge, MA\n\nSunday 18 April [1971]\n\nHey, Dadz!\n\nA quiet, pleasant Sunday eve in rainy Cambratch... I stayed here this weekend, cause I've been in New York over Spring break for a week and a half. This was my first week back, in which I had a paper due Monday, a paper due Tuesday, and a paper due Wednesday, for God's sake. So this past week has been an incredible hassle, and this weekend was blissfully uncluttered. Friday night: two girlfriends and I went out and had a deliciously sickenening (whoops!) Italian dinner, after which we played gin rummy and watched C movies on television. Saturday: zero. Slept till twelve (for the first time in months), ate, had a nap, ate, did some leisurely reading. _Then_ Jane Weeks, some other people and I decided to go and see the Russian Easter service, cause we'd always heard how beautiful it was, and Mummy had just given us a big pep talk about it, so we decided to go to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral on the Fenway. Well... it sounded good. We got there, and damned if it wasn't a _modern_ church! Oh, God, were we disappointed! Where were the onion domes, the gold? Just wood and plaster and a gold-plated gaudy chandelier with flickering red electric \"candles\". [...] _No seats_! Hundreds of _ugly_ people, badly dressed, very upper middle, very reformed Jewish in a funny way. So okay, there we all were, waiting for the fireworks, and out comes this little dumpy priest in an ugly ill-fitting robe, and starts mumbling most unmusically.\n\nAnd then the chorus opened their mouths. AAAAAAUUGGHHH!!!! Good _God_! That poor chorus must have been made up of volunteers out of the congregation, I guess, because it really was indescribable. I never did figure out what key they were in.\n\nSo we split. No offense to the Russians, _but_ , as Nina would say, but gee whiz...\n\nWe dropped someone off in Harvard Yard, got back on to Mass. Ave., and _the car stalled_. So we all have to get out and push the car down Massachusetts Avenue at one thirty in the morning like a bunch of Keystone Cops! Oh, God, it was funny. Anyhow, that was Saturday. Today I got up at one, ate, read the paper, went to the library for a while, ate, watched _The Wizard of Oz_ on TV, and now here I sit, tapping away and watching a Diana Ross (of Supremes fame) special. As I said, a quiet, pleasant Sunday eve.\n\nBruce couldn't come up this weekend; he had to go down to Etlontik City to visit his dying grandfather. Oh, dear God, I know what he's going through. Otherwise Bruce is in pretty fine shape. [...] I've been going through some strange changes lately, and I've been a big pain in the ass some of the time, and boy, Bruce was so patient. He has his bad days too, God knows, and then I have to be patient. And sometimes we both run out of patience, but love ain't a bowl of latkes.\n\nBruce leaves on June 3 for his summer job in England. And guess what?! Mummy said I could travel this summer, and stay with Anya, and the Smiths, and stuff like that. OBOY!!! SUMMER!!!!!!! I can't wait. And the bestest part of all is going to be those few weeks when I don't have to do _anything_ but sit in the country and swim and play tennis and read what I _want_ to read, and lie in the sun and see my friends in New York... oboy, is that ever going to be loads of fun. And then when I get to England, I can see Bruce, and I even got invited to West Pakistan by Pinkie Bhutto,19 and if you've been keeping up on your current events, you'll know that Pinkie's father20 is the Alessandri of West Pakistan. Far out! I'd _really_ like to go, and see what the vestiges of the Arabian Nights look like. Hey Daddy... you think you can get yourself invited to Red China to conduct? Boy, that's the place I want to go to more than anywhere else.\n\nWell, it being eleven and all, I think I'll get a head start on this week and go to bed early. Say a big _Hello, Grandma_ to Grandma. I hope she's grooving on her trip, man, and I sure hope you feel better yourself. Anyhows, see you soon. Hurry back; I can't remember what you look like already!\n\nLove and kisses,\n\nJamie.\n\nP.S. I got into Adams House, in case I lived here next year. Eliot House is a most unpopular house these days: all preppies and jocks. Were you one of those? I think if you were going here now, you'd be in Lowell House. Adams House is where all the hippies are. Birds of a feather spoil the broth, I always say... J\n\n554. Oliver Smith to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Watergate Hotel, Washington, D.C.\n\n8 September 197121\n\nDearest Lenny,\n\nWhat can I say? Nothing but to hug and embrace you to express my feelings concerning _your_ superb _Mass_. You are such a genius that with you I am speechless with admiration and humility.\n\nTo work on this project was a rare privilege.22 Thank you deeply for making this possible.\n\nAll my love,\n\nOliver\n\n555. Christa Ludwig23 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nParis\n\n13 November 1971\n\nDear Maestro,\n\nI want to say thank you for the recital! I loved so much, no: I _love_ so much to make music with you! I heard the tape and I think we shall do it again. My voice is sometimes unsteady and breathless. And I also think that the placement of the microphone is too close. So, let's do it in Vienna.\n\nBest regards.\n\nYours,\n\nChrista\n\n556. David Charles Abell24 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n466 Poplar Street, Winnetka, IL\n\n21 November 1971\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nI would like to thank you very much for the fantastic time I had in Washington D.C. in September. It was thrilling to be in as big and important a production as your _Mass_. I think it is a great piece of music, and my favorite parts are the Epistle, and from the \"Agnus Dei\" to the end. I was an alternate in the Berkshire Boy Choir and I was in over half the performances and all of the recording (the two easiest sessions I have ever seen or been in).\n\nRecently, I heard the piece on radio and was so excited about it that I didn't do my homework so I could listen to it! I can't wait until I can get the record, but the stores around here are slow getting it in. Wasn't the recording changed a little from the performances? (Ron Young singing the first \"I don't know\").\n\nIs _Mass_ going on Broadway or to Los Angeles or any place like that? I'm sure if you took it around to different cities, the crowds would be miles long.\n\nI wish I could re-live the fantastic experience I had in Washington, but anyway it will benefit me in many ways all my life.\n\nSincerely,\n\nYour friend and admirer,\n\nDavid Abell\n\nBerkshire Choirboy\n\n557. Richard Rodney Bennett to Leonard Bernstein\n\n4 Lonsdale Square, London, England\n\n[1971]\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nThis is a big thankyou letter. I gather from Sam Spiegel that you put in a very kind word for me over _Nicholas and Alexandra_ , and I am very grateful indeed. It was a very happy and I think successful job altogether, and both Sam and the director, Franklin Schaffner, were splendid to work for, considerate and helpful. So altogether I feel pleased and satisfied and without your kindness it would not have happened. There will be a sound-track album very soon and I will make sure they send you a copy.\n\nI was hoping that Andr\u00e9 Previn would be conducting it, and I know he wanted to do it, but there were contractual problems. The man who always does my films for me25 \u2013 I have a mortal dread of conducting \u2013 did it, and did a very good job.\n\nCongratulations, very late in the day, on the huge success of the Kennedy _Mass_. I have been reading avidly about it, and long to hear an English performance. I'm sure plans for it are well under way.\n\nNow I think of it, I hope you won't be _dismayed_ when you hear the _Nicholas_ score... It's rather a curious mixture stylistically.\n\nExcuse frightful typing.\n\nYours ever,\n\nRichard Bennett\n\n558. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\n6 February 1972\n\nF ifty is nothing but twice twenty-five:\n\nL et me take over one half of the weight,\n\nE xtending my years to seventy-eight \u2013\n\nS eventy-eight \u2013 still here, and alive!\n\nH appy birthday, dear Child-Bride,\n\nY outhful always, at my side.\n\nAll my love,\n\nBen\n\n559. Richard Rodgers to Leonard Bernstein\n\n598 Madison Avenue, New York, NY\n\n27 March 1972\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nIs there anything you don't do better than anyone else? Your playing last night was so simple and pure that it gave a grace that little song never had before.26 Your words were kind, too, but taking the trouble to be there was the kindest of all. I appreciate it tremendously.\n\nFondly,\n\nDick\n\n560. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nHotel Sacher, Vienna, Austria\n\n14 April 1972\n\nDear H,\n\nThis is a brief moment grabbed out of a monstrous schedule just to send love and say that all is well with health \u2013 though not with the schedule. There's been some poor planning (too much at once) and the Vienna Philharmonic simply doesn't know Mahler27 \u2013 so it's all from scratch. Besides, I don't feel like performing much these days: I'd rather be quietly composing. But I'll get through it, somehow \u2013 and there is the compensation of beautiful music.\n\nThe sun is just beginning to show itself for the first time since I arrived here.\n\nI hope all is well with you, and thanks for all the envelopes filled with goodies.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny.\n\nFelicia is in Venice for a few days, returning on the weekend. Then, I guess, she'll return to NYC on Monday.\n\n561. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Bernstein\n\nHotel Sacher, Vienna, Austria\n\n21 April 1972\n\nDearest Hilee,\n\nI think of you with every puzzle (and in Europe that's 2 or 3 a day). But when a _Nation_ puzzle arrived from la Belle with a _whole wrong diagram_ then I had to write. It's not enough to think: one must share. What is happening to our world?\n\nWhat indeed?\n\nI want to write music.\n\nI've had Vienna.\n\nI think I've had performing.\n\nSpring is _not_ here, and all is somewhat sad, foolish, exaggerated. Very tiring indeed.\n\nWhy don't you ever write me, you thriving, prosperous, presidential wonder?\n\nPlease call BB & Ellen & send my love. I can't write any more \u2013 Mahler calls.\n\nAnd special hugs for Ofra.\n\nAnd mostly to mein Schwest \u2013\n\nL\n\n21 Ape, '72\n\n562. Luciano Berio28 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nVilla della Mendola 131, Rome, Italy\n\n28 April 1972\n\nCaro Leonardo,\n\nI want to thank you once more for your precious contribution to _C'\u00e8 musica e musica_.29 The 9th program, where you led the way deeply into yourself and through American music, was certainly one of the best. I hope you will be able to see it soon. In 10 days this incredible TV adventure will be finally over \u2013 and now, because of these 12 TV hours on music I have more \"enemies\" in Italy than I ever had (mainly singers and conservatory professors and one music critic wrote that I have prostituted music).\n\nI will be in NY very soon and I hope to see you.\n\nLove, as ever,\n\nLuciano\n\nP.S. Maybe a correspondent of an Italian newspaper (\"Messaggero\") will call you for a short interview. Please give him a few minutes \u2013 even on the phone. I promised him that you will not push him away.\n\n563. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Bernstein\n\n3 October 1972\n\n_For Mine Schwest\u00f6ahs_\n\n\"Nothing Could Be Finer Than to Be a Forty-Niner\"\n\nI thought of finding you a gift\n\nOf cashmere, silk or leather;\n\nBut nothing seems so precious as\n\nOctober's Bright Blue Weather.\n\nWhen H. H. Jackson thought it up\n\nShe had her head together,\n\nAnd Hilee in mind, as high she penned\n\n\"October's Bright Blue Weather.\"30\n\nSo may it be for all your life\n\nAnd when your birthdays trouble you\n\nRemember you are shone upon\n\nBy high O. B\u2013B\u2013W.\n\nLove mo\u00f6ahs,\n\nL\n\n564. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein\n\n7 October 1972\n\nLen,\n\nTried to reach you before departing.\n\nIf the ballet isn't working out (I think it _is_ , and is mostly there) then we'll do it next year when you are less pressured.31 I'll tell the N[ew] Y[ork] C[ity] B[allet] _not_ to count on it for their Gala of June 7th \u2013 that way they don't get fucked up on their money raising \u2013 and if by chance something breaks there for you, and you feel more optimistic \u2013 or one of your miracles occurs \u2013 we can always do it in June with less commotion around it. Anyway, write me in London, care of Royal Ballet, Covent Garden Opera House.\n\nLove to all,\n\nJ.\n\n( _Interplay_32 went very well!)\n\n565. Benjamin Britten to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Red House, Aldeburgh, England\n\n[Spring 1973]\n\nMy dear Lenny,\n\nPlease forgive p. c. (I'm not supposed to write!) \u2013 but I was very touched by your wire. The present little medical blow is maddening, boring & v. painful! I am just coming up to one of these miracle modern operations and shall be inactive for several months \u2013 which means I'll miss _Owen Wingrave_ (first time on stage)33 & _Death in Venice_ (first time ever!).34 But they must look after themselves. It was so good of you to think of me with the 1001 things you have to do.\n\nYours ever,\n\nBen\n\n566. Jennie Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n21 March 1973\n\nBirthday reflections.\n\nThis seventy five year _young_ mother and grandmother is counting her blessings, moments filled with joy and pleasure. I am indeed blessed to have such precious children and grandchildren. All these wonderful things in my life will keep me happy and young. How do I love you all, let me count the ways?\n\nWith all my love,\n\nJennie (Elizabeth Browning)\n\nCirca 1898.\n\n567. Benjamin Britten to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Red House, Aldeburgh, England\n\n[?December 1973 or 1974]35\n\nMy dear Lenny,\n\nI am so sorry I haven't answered your last letter \u2013 but writing is still very difficult for me. I do want to write a proper letter to you, & to say how touched both P. & I are that you have come on to the board of the Maltings Friends, how deeply I have been touched personally by your concern about me, & several other things too! Can I have your address to write to, please?\n\nWith much Xmas love from\n\nBen\n\n568. Virgil Thomson36 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n222 West 23rd Street, New York, NY\n\n14 March 1974\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nMy warm congratulations on the success of _Candide_.37 Way back in 1945, when I used to help out the French radio with broadcasts of American music from discs available through U.S. Information Service, by far the most popular with the public were excerpts from _On the Town_. And the French musicians around simply could not get over their astonishment that in New York an _op\u00e9rette_ composed in so advanced a musical style could be successful.\n\nSo still, with _West Side Story_ and _Candide_ you remain world master of the \"musical\". All honor to you!\n\nNow that I have been through the Norton lectures (three by video, all six by reading) it is clear that your skill in explaining music is also tops, as indeed it was when you used to do it at Carnegie Hall.\n\nMyself I find nothing reprehensible about your bringing in linguistics. You needed an authority to support an \"innate musical grammar\" and Chomsky's heavy artillery is surely that. Especially since post-war researches in the physiology of hearing, though they do support a syntax based on the harmonic series as unquestionably built into the human ear, are being treated by both the Germanic twelve-tone world and the French-based solfeggio world as \"controversial\".\n\nSo the linguistic argument, though merely an analogy, as you pointed out, does carry weight. And it enables you to by-pass vested musical interests.\n\nI am sure your conclusions are valid, and I see no reason why you should not have used any material conveniently to hand for expounding them. All the more so since that material is relatively familiar and hence easily acceptable. I enjoyed everything.\n\nMany thanks for the courtesies of your office.\n\nI am returning the borrowed scripts with gratitude.\n\nEver warmly your admirer,\n\nVirgil\n\n569. Alan Jay Lerner38 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n15 May 1974\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nBlessings tonight. I can't wait to see it and hear it.39\n\nIf Jerry wants any more changes after tonight I'll put a contract out on him.\n\nI'm starting the second act40 and waiting for you like Duse for D'Annunzio. The room is ready, the piano has been tuned, the plane is revved up and I have fired my children.\n\nHurry,\n\nAlways,\n\nAlan\n\n570. Maurice Abravanel41 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nUtah Symphony, Salt Lake City, UT\n\n4 June 1974\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nPlease accept my apologies for having taken so long to thank you for your lovely telegram. I passed it on to all the participants who thank you for your kind message.\n\nThe two performances went exceedingly well and were highly successful, and your _Mass_ was exceedingly impressive and moving even in the very large auditorium. We had in excess of 12,000 attending between the two consecutive nights.\n\nIn addition to the fact that I felt it essential to present _Mass_ in our city, I felt very gratified that it was only possible through cooperation among our orchestra, Repertory Dance Theatre, some people from Ballet West, the Music and Theatre Departments of the University of Utah, in addition to three other universities in the state from which we borrowed sound equipment and robes. As far as I know, it is the first time so many organizations worked together for the common goal. 6,195 University of Utah students attended, which is almost one-third of the total enrolment.\n\nI discovered that you and I are part of the establishment and were therefore (especially!) outrageously censured by a small but very vocal group. Also, our top Roman Catholic personage was personally against _Mass_ , but even though quite a few of his people prompted him to do something about it, he refused to take any stand against it.\n\nMy associate conductor, Ardean Watts, did a fantastic job of organization and conducting. He used our entire orchestra plus a dozen extras, 185 singers and 10 dancers. The set was terrific, and I think that you would have been very happy with the whole thing. Of course I knew that you were working on _Dybbuk_ which is a much more important thing.\n\nI was putting in a strong pitch for asking you to serve again on the National Council on the Arts. I realize that right now, as I was told, it would be hopeless to expect President Nixon to appoint you, but I would like to know whether you would be ready to again serve. Even if you could attend meetings but rarely, your name alone would mean a great deal to the Endowment and in particular to its music component.\n\nI am not quite sure that you yourself know how much your name means and how much more it could mean for us, the hewers of wood, who have to confront day in and day out the unrelenting putdown of the symphony orchestra in America.\n\nForgive me for having written such a long letter. Again, many thanks for having written _Mass_ and so much other beautiful music, and for having done so much for music in our nation.\n\nWith best wishes always.\n\nAffectionately yours,\n\nMaurice\n\n571. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein\n\nClarendon Hotel, Christchurch, New Zealand\n\n[August 1974]\n\nDearest F,\n\nThis letter has been a-borning for days, ever since arriving in Auckland, but there was always a reason to postpone \u2013 until we'd seen something to write about, until the first concert was over, until the first Mozart Trial by Fire42 was over, etc. Well, they're all over now, and all is more than well \u2013 triumphant concerts, orchestra in top form, even the Mozart last night in Wellington was a joy, with only a moment here and there of Frozen Fingers, and no Heart Attacks to speak of. Mozart again tonight here, and _Steinways_ all the way, which is 50% of the joy. (And I can't tell you the joy of having Axel43 along, he's a glorious companion.)\n\nInterruption: the \"Physiotherapist\" has just arrived for massage purposes. Be back in a flash.\n\nAn hour later:\n\nTerrific treatment \u2013 all those neck and shoulder pains gone. A genius; he brought along his 2-year-old daughter Katie, who \"helped\". The aches aren't serious \u2013 just this sudden spate of thick schedule \u2013 much rehearsing in Auckland, then nightly concerts in a row, all in different cities. Tonight is Christchurch (where I was greeted at the airport this morning by, natch, the Christchurch Hebrew Youth Group or something, with flowers and planted trees in Israel) \u2013 and they have a gorgeous new concert hall where I've just been trying out the piano: I'm really looking forward to this concert.\n\n_Don't forget Dr. Clarke check-up_.44\n\nTomorrow is a free day, and Alexander and I are going skiing in the nearby Alps. Yesterday in Wellington we spent the afternoon sailing in the harbor: glorious it was, with buckets of beer and a jolly crew of real leathery mates. The city is a beauty \u2013 all great green hills around a huge harbor, and the cleanest air in the world. Architecture abysmal, however. Auckland even worse: it's all so new, just a century old, that everything is either the worst Victorian or plastic office buildings. The houses are sort of seaside shacks with a curiously familiar Oaf Gloves look.\n\nBut oh, the country around Auckland \u2013 that whole north tip! You would adore it: all rolling Scottish hills and Scandinavian fjords, massive firs, etc. \u2013 and anomalously, mitten drinnen, _palms_ and other tropicalia. Rain forests. Monster fern-trees, vines. And around it all, the green hills with the millions of little sheep grazing peacefully. I don't know anything quite like it. Also, in that region, we discovered some thermal pools, hot mineral baths, and we became addicted: we went out there twice, and whiled away two mindless afternoons soaking in these pools while it rained on us, shone on us, and rainbows adorned the Hobbema skies.\n\nAside from a bit of a dust-up with the press on first arrival from Hawaii, we've found the people warm and simple and delightful \u2013 sort of provincial British midlands mixed with beautiful Maoris (Tahitians who came over in the 14th century) plus all kinds of other Islanders \u2013 Fijians, Samoans, etc., who keep arriving owing to the population explosion back home. It's all a beautiful mixture.\n\nAnd the milk! The best on earth.\n\nInterruption: concert time \u2013 (to be continued).\n\nIt's now two days later; it's all one can do to find ten minutes to write a letter. So much activity! First the concert itself, Mozart & Mahler, in the great new concert hall here \u2013 and I mean _great_. I've never played the piano so well \u2013 really deep Mozart, and no nerves. You'd have been proud of the Town Hall.\n\nAnd yesterday, a free day. Axel and Paul and I were taken skiing by some charming local ladies & small son \u2013 it was bliss. A perfect day, cool, brisk mountain air and a hot sun \u2013 dream Chilean weather. We came back last night in rapturous exhaustion, Axel and I both with banged-up knees & Paul with torn Pectorals. We're all limping around today, happy as clams.\n\nAxel is actually doing a local crossword (in the authentic British style)45 while I finish this letter, and then we're off to mad gay Brisbane, & the Australian leg commences \u2013 probably all downhill from here on. New Zealand was climactic, and those who say it's a final refuge when the crunch comes are probably right.\n\nWe miss you terribly; it seems incredible that ten days ago I had a last glimpse of you standing in the airport being abandoned by your males. I hope you're not too lonely, that there are all kinds of cheery _visitors_ and chums, and that Nina is also not lonely. I miss her so. And Jamie, of course, would have gone bonkers over all this; it's a pity for her to miss it, and that Axel doesn't have her to share so many things with. But he's having a great time: he even acquired a cute dimply girlfriend of 17 in Auckland.\n\nWell, the siren blows for Australia, and we're off, as Shirley would say, across the straits of Magellan. Take care of yourself, rest, have fun, and I fervently hope to find a letter from you waiting in Brisbane, full of news about the Dakota and Dixie's love life and the great Sublime Kitchen of Life.\n\nHugs and kisses to all, and so much love to you, my angel.\n\nBen\n\nP.S. Don't forget to see Dr. Clarke. Or have I already mentioned that?\n\nxxx\n\n572. Lukas Foss to Leonard Bernstein\n\n12 September 1974\n\nDearest Lenny,\n\nWelcome back. I know you could not care less, but I do: ages ago a Mr. Buketof[f] sent me a form (the 111st of the year) to fill out: the 15 best American orchestral pieces \u2013 for some European library. I sent him my choices. 2 Sundays ago I open the N.Y. _Times_ , find an asinine list of 11 pieces, find myself listed, also among the jurors who \"deliberated\" to arrive at their idiotic choices.46 I called Buketof[f], asked him to fish out _my_ list: sure enough, it has little in common with the published one. Mine starts with _Age of Anxiety_ , proceeds to Aaron's _Variations_ etc. No Harris, no Brown. So I wrote to the _Times_ a small note of protest for publication, calling their list: \"conspicuous for the absence of America's best composers.\" (So far not publ. to my knowledge). You can laugh it off; but I can't write about my frustration to all the colleagues. In fact I won't write to any but you. Basta.\n\nI'm off for 7 long weeks, 3 to Jerusalem, 4 with the Jerusalem Symphony all over Europe. Also trying to write a string quartet. There must be a saner way of life. What is it? How was Kyoto without me and my Buddhist nuns? Congrats!!!\n\nWrite the flute piece.\n\nArigato.\n\nLove to Felicia, Nina, Jamie, Alexander [and] you.\n\nLukas\n\n573. Christa Ludwig to Leonard Bernstein\n\nVienna, Austria\n\n1 February 1975\n\nDear Maestro,\n\nYou are so famous, but in N.Y. the telegram office doesn't know your address! When your wishes for New Year arrived I learned that you have a new home. So I am really very sorry that when I came back from holidays and I saw your cable, my answer couldn't reach you. But I do hope that things will go better for Israel, but: oil! It is a terrible world. But we can hide ourselves a little bit in the music. I am glad that you come back to Salzburg. Why don't we make music together any more?!\n\nThe best to you and your family.\n\nLove,\n\nChrista\n\nI think it is wonderful that our _Lied_ [ _von der Erde_ ] and Brahms Lieder are now on records!\n\n574. Thornton Wilder to Leonard Bernstein\n\nEdgartown, MA\n\n20 July 1975\n\nDear Leonard Bernstein,\n\nAs I told you on the phone:\n\nI did not want an opera to be made of _The Skin of our Teeth._\n\nBut I admired and trusted you, and was persuaded. I trusted you and the fellow-worker you would select.47\n\nWhen your fellow-work fell apart \u2013 who was left to write the book? \u2013 I felt relieved of my commitment to you.\n\nHereafter, while I'm alive no one will write or compose an opera based on that play.\n\nTorn from its context, Sabina's opening aria \"Oh! Oh! Oh!\" sounds awful, unmotivated, synthetic vivacity.\n\nThe nearest thing to it would be Zerbinetta's aria (or rondo). Who cares what her words are, except as are implied somewhat in Ariadne's abandonment? _These_ words bear the weight of a crowded historical story of many facets.\n\nI'm sorry to disappoint you, but my mistake was to have said \"yes\" in the first place; yours, to have not followed through with the original plan offered me.\n\nAlways with much regard.\n\nEver,\n\nThornton\n\n575. Stephen Sondheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[New York, NY]\n\n23 July 1975\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI encountered the enclosed when I was organizing my files (well, it's better than working). I thought you might like to have them for future archivists, as your corrections are on them in your inimitable handwriting.\n\nLove from Kanagawa,48\n\nSteve\n\n576. Stephen Sondheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n15 November 1975\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nThanks for the good wishes. We got one terrible review (from Kevin Kelly, very bitchy) and one mixed (Eliot Norton, heavy on the good side), the rest raves.49 The show needs an enormous amount of work on details: clarity, making the numbers land (the \"button\" problem again,50 God save us), timing, etc. But the structure is sound and the production startling and terrific. Keep your fingers crossed.\n\nHope things have taken an upturn on your show and your spirits.\n\nBack to rewriting the opening number.\n\nLove to Felicia,\n\nSteve\n\n577. Stephen Sondheim to Leonard and Felicia Bernstein\n\n16 January 1976\n\nDear Lenny and Felicia,\n\nJust a note to thank you for the tree \u2013 I've discovered that it thrives if you keep yelling 'Bonsai!' triumphantly at it. It's easily fooled.\n\nLove,\n\nSteve\n\n578. Stephen Sondheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n26 January 1976\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI've responded to the Societi Musiki Shiki as per your request. I sent them my collection of Bernstein birthday and Christmas compositions and advised them to make their own choice. I also offered to conduct for them, since I figure that the placement of downbeats is irrelevant in Japan.\n\nLove,\n\nSteve\n\nP.S. Your letter arrived with no postage and came from the Dead Letter Office. Should I read anything into this? S.S.\n\n579. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Barclay, Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA\n\n[February 1976]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\n_Good Morning!_\n\nI wanted to talk to you last night just for a moment. I understood your black moment of despair \u2013 but for God's sake, you are a big, capable, enormously talented man \u2013 with tons of energy \u2013 and so is Allan [ _recte_ Alan Jay Lerner] and _don't_ sink (like that down moment). It's understandable; but now is the time to muster up all your wonderful optimism and get it still moving, come to the aid etc., and above all \u2013 as in the show, _keep it going!_ You _are_ rehearsing in public, you are in _some_ chaos, but as in our democracy, you must believe your system will work, which I _know_ you do, in order to move it. Your show now is exactly like the one you are writing about.51 Now you _can_ make it work much _much much_ better. Take care of your house. You can do it. Come on kid, get the spirit up again. No limp cocks!\n\nOle Coach Jer[ry]\n\nSee you about 1.\n\nLOVE\n\n580. Stephen Sondheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\nNew York, NY\n\n4 May 197652\n\n[Telegram]\n\nThe point is it's over and you're still the only artist writing musicals with one exception that is.\n\nLove\n\nSteve\n\n581. Sid Ramin to Leonard Bernstein\n\n8 May 1976\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nJust a note to thank you again for your marvelous gift. Not only is it lavish but the inscription on the inside of the beautiful Gucci leather case is something I will always remember and treasure.\n\nAs you may know, Lenny, I'm always on cloud nine when I'm in the same room with you. The show made it possible for us to spend some time together and I savoured every minute.\n\nFrom our pre-orchestration meetings to our post-orchestration meetings to our Fine and Schapiro53 festivities, I look back at the last three months with great affection.54 Especially, one very long and late meeting (in [Apartment] 92 [in the Dakota]) when we talked into the dawn. I'll never forget it.\n\nI'm sorry the show didn't work out for you (for us!) but I will be eternally grateful for the wonderful moments I've had (including that great night at the Variety Club) in just being with you.\n\nGloria joins me in sending you much love.\n\nAlways,\n\nSid\n\n582. Richard Avedon55 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n407 East 75th Street, New York, NY\n\n[May 1976]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI know it isn't what you dreamt it would be,56 but you can _not_ be responsible for anything but your music which is _superb!_ I wept during \"Take Care of This House\" as I haven't since \"... and make our garden grow!\"\n\nAnd:\n\nRehearse\n\nSeena\n\nThe dirge during the second act funeral \u2013\n\nThe Red, White, and Blues\n\nand much more. It's just beautiful, Lenny, and everyone near me was moved, and happy, and so was I, and it was because of your music.\n\nYou stand alone. Terrifying, but true.\n\nLove always,\n\nDick\n\n583. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\n\"Xmas 1976\" [December 1976]\n\nDearest Helen,\n\nAt this very crucial turning-point57 in both our lives my annual wishes for a happy new year carry very special weight. So: a very Happy '77, with all my love.\n\nAs always,\n\nLenny\n\n584. Leonard Bernstein to Irwin Kostal58\n\n17 June 1977\n\nDear Irwin,\n\nI've just heard the Fiedler\u2013Pops recording of my _Mass_ music, and I am so pleased that I must write you. What a job of sound-making you did! I almost don't miss the voices...59\n\nI hope all is going well with you. My warmest thanks for _Mass \u2013_\n\nand my affection,\n\nLenny B\n\n585. Oliver Smith to Leonard Bernstein\n\n70 Willow Street, Brooklyn, NY\n\n18 December 1977\n\nMy dear friend,\n\nYour _Songfest_60 is a composition of such emotional variety and richness, it is difficult to be articulate about it after one hearing except to express to you the tremendous emotional effect it had on me. It contains ravishing sound, humor, tenderness, strident joy and anger, and sweet melancholy. Whatever I say to you is inadequate in expressing the joy your beautiful music gave me.\n\nYou are such a dear, great artist, and I hug you again with great love and thankfulness.\n\nOliver\n\n586. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nHotel Sacher, Vienna, Austria\n\n28 January 1978\n\nDear Helen,\n\nI haven't written in all these three weeks (this pen is finished!) because I've been spending all my time between rehearsals in bed, sleeping and trying to regain my strength. It's a long, slow haul, and I still don't feel quite up to snuff. The doctor says that I don't need medicine, but a vacation in the sun, and that's just not possible for many weeks to come. So I muddle through, and _Fidelio_ goes surprisingly well (tremendous reaction & critics) considering that I don't feel my full powers, and that I had to cancel so many rehearsals. Tomorrow is the live TV broadcast \u2013 I pray it will go well.61\n\nSo you too have had the flu! Isn't it ghastly? It's as though one's whole body had been attacked, ear-lobes, toe-nails & all. I also have no appetite & have lost weight: I hope yours is restored to normal.\n\nI'm expecting Felicia on the 3rd of February & I hope you can give her a pleasant birthday party. She sounds splendid on the phone.\n\nDo take care of yourself, & write \u2013 I love hearing from you.\n\nAlways,\n\nLenny\n\n587. Betty Comden to Leonard Bernstein\n\n117 East 95th Street, New York, NY\n\n2 July 197862\n\nDearest Lenny,\n\nThe impossible letter must be written. I have seen you, and we have talked, and I have felt close to you, and it is hard to write when you are close, and you know that so much is both expressed and understood without the need for the written word. Yet I think of you and feel for you, and I think of Felicia, and what this last year must have been like for you, and the void that is now, and I wish I could write something to lessen the pain so visible in your eyes.\n\nThat Felicia was an extraordinary person, we all know. She impressed me the moment you brought her to our green living room on 55th Street. Her patrician beauty and her cool sparkle awed me a bit. I later came to enjoy her great earthy streak, crazy sense of humor, and her many sudden radiant bursts of warmth, and I wish I could have gotten closer than I did. I was close enough to feel totally bereft now.\n\nYou must not blame yourself for not coming through this as a kind of patriarchal leader and rock of ages. If I am bereft, what must you be? You are entitled to full grief, and floundering, and, yes, weakness. These are the feelings you expressed to me. This is a deep tragedy you are experiencing. You are so much, Lenny \u2013 so many qualities and gifts and inner voices not given to many human beings. You will find your strength somehow in them \u2013 and in the beautiful elements added to them by the co-mingling of your life and Felicia's.\n\nMuch love, always, from Steve and from me.\n\nBetty\n\n588. Nadia Boulanger to Leonard Bernstein\n\n\u00c9coles d'Art Am\u00e9ricacies, Fontainebleau, France\n\n7 August 1978\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nTo try to be with you in your commensurable distress.\n\nAnd you knew so well, and for so long. Hope she did not suffer too terribly. Life sometimes is so difficult to stand. May your courage be as great as your sorrow.\n\nForgive these poor lines, I feel myself so sick and miserable.\n\nWith love,\n\nNB\n\n589. Andr\u00e9 Previn63 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Watergate Hotel, Washington D.C.\n\n28 August 1978\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nIt bothered me a lot to hear you sounding so depressed when I spoke to you the day after the concert. I thought about it quite a lot. At first I came to the naive conclusion that writing to you about it was none of my business, but then, the more I gave it thought, the more I realized that both as an old friend and as a musician, it _was_. I've been an admirer and a follower and, in a more remote way, a disciple since I first heard you make music in San Francisco in 1950 with the Israel Philharmonic. You've touched, directly or circuitously, a great many musical decisions of mine, but what's more important, the lives and ambitions of every conductor in this country. That's the kind of statement usually found on the scrolls of Doctorates, but for all its grandiloquence it happens to be true. Therefore, if you were to succumb to a depression, however temporary, that would keep you from your usual frighteningly energetic achievements, you'd be letting down an amazing number of musicians. You've kept those of us who grew up in the same years as you feeling young; you've kept those older than you correctly infuriated, and you've been a lighthouse of constancy to all those 20-year-old current phenomena. As a friend, I can see that this is a burden you might not want right now, but as a member of that weird band who feel that a day without music is an irresponsible waste, I have to tell you that you're stuck with it. I'm certainly not entitled to be a spokesman, and all this sounds terrifyingly pompous, but we depend on you and love you and trust you.\n\nWhen I celebrate my 60th birthday, you will be a hell of a lot younger than [...] Karl B\u00f6hm is right now, and I will expect you to play the Triple Concerto while I conduct.\n\nSee you soon.\n\nAndr\u00e9\n\n590. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nPeekskill, NY\n\n5 September 1978\n\nDear, dear Lenny,\n\nThat was a _beautiful_ note you sent me. I was so pleased that you were pleased with the _Jeremiah_ movement.64 It sure is a beauty!\n\nAnd now the sad part. I'm not going to be present at the \"Remembrance\" for Felicia on the 18th because I am under contract to conduct the same day in Virginia (Norfolk). But my thoughts will be with you and the family that day.\n\nAs ever,\n\nAaron\n\n591. Leonard Bernstein to Burton Bernstein\n\n\"Sharm-el-Skeikh, Tiran Straits, Sinai, Israel (or, by the time you get this, Egypt?)\"\n\n[October 1978]\n\nDearest BB,\n\nI've thought of you all day, driving down the old S[inai] Peninsula (with the McClures and Tommy C.) and hearing your voice from Eilat to Sharm, Bedouin by Bedouin, camel by camel (one dead by the road in rigor mortis) & glorious geological grandeur by g. g. g. But the climax came tonight, walking up the beach from our Tunisian shrimp dinner, as we were confronted by one of the truly great signs of my experience, repeated at intervals along the strand, in the usual 3 languages. The English reads (and this may well merit a _New Yorker_ appearance):\n\nSECURITY WELL DESTINED\n\nFOR ABSORPTION SUSPICIOUS\n\nOBJECTS ONLY.\n\nI cannot get it out of my mind: it defies all intelligibility. \"Only\"!\n\nAside from this I've thought of you often this month (Holidays _very_ late this year) climaxed by _Shmini Hatzsreth_65 (gasp! of childhood total recall) only yesterday. Rosh, Kol, Yom, Succoth, etc. have come and gone in a welter of rehearsals & concerts & much sleeping in between. Very difficult to resume the old schedules, but God knows I've tried, acquitted myself passably, & have these 4 days of desert holiday before attacking the even more rigorous set-up in Vienna. I'll make it...\n\nThis great wonderful Sinai... give it back?!\n\nNot one word have I received from anyone all month. I have phoned & written: not been answered. What is happening to the loving old family? Do call Mamma (if that is indeed her name) & give her my love. Tell Horse she's a cad not to have called or written.\n\nAnd much love to all, & to you, \u2013 mine Brothoass,\n\nBen\n\nBest from Moish [Moshe Pearlman].\n\nI hope the book goes apace.\n\n1 Published by Alex Ross in _The New Yorker_ online: <http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/newsdesk\/2009\/08\/the-bernstein-files.html> (accessed 26 February 2013). It would be reassuring to think that this bizarre episode was the only time that the words of the Latin Mass came under suspicion from a Presidential aide. Presumably, Buchanan's main cause for alarm might have been the last line of the Agnus Dei: \"Dona nobis pacem\" (\"Grant us peace\"). It's surprising that Buchanan felt the need to \"get us a good Jesuit\" to provide a translation, since he had himself been educated at Jesuit-run institutions: Gonzaga College High School and Georgetown University, and English translations of the Mass were so readily available.\n\n2 Oliver Knussen, \"Bernstein: _Dybbuk_ ,\" _Tempo_ , No. 119 (December 1976), p. 34.\n\n3 Oliver Knussen, \"Bernstein: _Songfest_ ,\" _Tempo_ , No. 128 (March 1979), pp. 21\u20132.\n\n4 Dougary 2010.\n\n5 Burton 1994, pp. 446\u20137.\n\n6 Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic recorded Thompson's Second Symphony for Columbia Records on 22 October 1968, straight after four concert performances. It is difficult to argue with the composer's delighted response to Bernstein's magnificent recording of the work, which has been reissued on CD by Sony Classical (SMK 60594).\n\n7 Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1925\u20132012), German baritone who had sung the title role in Bernstein's Vienna production and recording of Verdi's _Falstaff_ in 1966, the reason he signs himself \"Sir Dieter Falstaff\" here.\n\n8 See Letter 548.\n\n9 Rabbi Judah Cahn (1912-84) was the founding Rabbi of the Metropolitan Synagogue of New York, which has always had a reputation as an informal and liberal Reformed synagogue. Cahn was a family friend of the Bernsteins, and he was also passionate about music (he appears as a speaker on Bernstein's recording of Bloch's _Sacred Service_ ).\n\n10 A reference to the fundraiser for the legal defense of the Black Panthers held in Bernstein's apartment. On a number of occasions Bernstein explained that the event had not been intended to endorse the radical (armed) agenda of the Black Panthers. But Tom Wolfe's description of the event as \"radical chic\" (in _New York Magazine_ , 8 June 1970) has refused to go away.\n\n11 Ingmar Bergman (1918\u20132007), Swedish film and theater director, described by Woody Allen (in a TV interview with Mark Kermode) as \"probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera.\" Unfortunately, the plan outlined by Bernstein for a filmed production of Wagner's _Tristan und Isolde_ came to nothing.\n\n12 Bernstein's concerts with the Orchestre de Paris at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre des Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es in February 1971 included Ravel's _Tombeau de Couperin_ and the G major Piano Concerto (directed from the piano), and Berlioz's _Rom\u00e9o et Juliette_.\n\n13 Bernstein's concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic on 20 and 21 Februrary 1971 included Haydn's Symphony No. 102, Ravel's G major Piano Concerto (directed from the piano), and Schumann's Fourth Symphony.\n\n14 Ethel Linder Reiner was a Broadway producer whose credits included _Candide_ in 1956. Her death was announced in _The New York Times_ on 11 February 1971.\n\n15 Debs Myers was described in his _New York Times_ obituary as a \"political press aide.\" He worked on Senator Bobby Kennedy's Senate campaign and on both of Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaigns. He died on 2 February 1971 at the age of 59.\n\n16 Cryptic crossword puzzles.\n\n17 Bernstein consulted the psychiatrist Willard Gaylin regularly in the early 1970s.\n\n18 Jamie Bernstein (b. 1952), the eldest child of Leonard and Felicia Bernstein.\n\n19 Benazir Bhutto (1953\u20132007), the first woman in modern history to lead a Muslim state, attended Harvard (Radcliffe College) from 1969 to 1973. Her nickname at Harvard was \"Pinkie\".\n\n20 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.\n\n21 8 September was the opening night of _Mass_ at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.\n\n22 Oliver Smith designed the sets for _Mass_.\n\n23 Christa Ludwig (b. 1928), German mezzo-soprano with whom Bernstein collaborated on numerous occasions from the late 1960s onwards, notably in Mahler (Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3, _Das Lied von der Erde, Des Knaben Wunderhorn_ ), Brahms (lieder), and in Bernstein's own work: the _Jeremiah_ and _Kaddish_ symphonies, and, in December 1989, as the Old Lady in _Candide_.\n\n24 David Charles Abell (b. 1958) is now a successful conductor. At the time of writing this letter, he was a member of the Berkshire Boy Choir and had performed in the original production of Bernstein's _Mass_. At the time he conducted Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday concert at the 2010 BBC Proms, he wrote: \"None of that would probably have happened if I hadn't been in _Mass_ at age 13\" (David Charles Abell, personal communication).\n\n25 Marcus Dods (1918\u201384), British conductor. He was music director for all of Richard Rodney Bennett's major film scores: _Billion Dollar Brain_ (1967), _Far From the Madding Crowd_ (1967), _Nicholas and Alexandra_ (1971), _Lady Caroline Lamb_ (1972), and _Murder on the Orient Express_ (1974).\n\n26 Bernstein played his own arrangement of Rodgers' \"Nobody's Heart Belongs to Me\" from _By Jupiter_ as part of the \"Celebration of Richard Rodgers\" held at the Imperial Theatre on 26 March 1972 in honour of Rodgers' forthcoming 70th birthday (28 June 1972).\n\n27 On 15 and 16 April 1971, Bernstein conducted performances of Mahler's Fifth Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic. A few weeks later (6 and 7 May) he conducted Mahler's Fourth Symphony.\n\n28 Luciano Berio (1925\u20132003), Italian composer. Bernstein commissioned Berio's _Sinfonia_ , which was first performed by the New York Philharmonic on 10 October 1968.\n\n29 This innovative television series, presented by Berio and broadcast in 1972, included an episode entitled \"Nuovo mondo\" in which Bernstein appeared.\n\n30 \"October's Bright Blue Weather\" by Helen Hunt Jackson (1830\u201385) was first published in her _Verses_ (Boston, 1870). Her poetry was admired by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and she was a lifelong friend of Emily Dickinson. As well as poetry, Jackson also wrote a popular novel ( _Ramona_ ) about the government's mistreatment of Native Americans.\n\n31 _Dybbuk_ was slowly taking shape when Robbins wrote this letter, but there was still much to be done. _The New York Times_ reported (12 July 1972) that Bernstein was planning to take \"nearly a year off from public performing to give his undivided attention to writing music\" and as a result he did get the score finished. The ballet was first performed by New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center, New York, on 16 May 1974.\n\n32 _Interplay_ was Robbins' second ballet (after _Fancy Free_ ). It was set to a score by Morton Gould and first performed at Billy Rose's Concert Varieties on 1 June 1945. It was subsequently taken into the repertoire of the New York City Ballet. In October 1972, the Joffrey Ballet gave a successful revival, the one referred to in this letter.\n\n33 _Owen Wingrave_ was originally composed as an opera for television, first broadcast on 16 May 1971. In this letter Britten is referring to the work's stage premiere, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 10 May 1973.\n\n34 The world premiere of _Death in Venice_ was given at Snape Maltings on 16 June 1973.\n\n35 Undated, written inside a Christmas card from Britten and Pears.\n\n36 Virgil Thomson (1896\u20131989), American composer and critic. Thomson had known Bernstein since the 1940s, when he encouraged Bernstein, Paul Bowles, and others to develop as tonal composers. As a critic, he always took Bernstein's music seriously. In John Rockwell's obituary of Thomson in _The New York Times_ (1 October 1989), Bernstein was quoted as follows: \"The death of Virgil T is like the death of an American city: it is intolerable. Virgil was loving and harsh, generous and mordant, simple but cynical, son of the hymnal yet highly sophisticated. He will always remain brightly alive in the history of music, if only for the extraordinary influence his witty and simplistic music had on his colleagues. I know that I am one twig on that tree, and I will always cherish and revere Virgil, the source.\"\n\n37 The 1974 Broadway revival of _Candide_ opened at the Broadway Theatre on 10 March and ran for 740 performances.\n\n38 Alan Jay Lerner (1918\u201386), American lyricist and librettist who was a contemporary of Bernstein's at Harvard. A plan to work together on a show in 1949 came to nothing (see Letter 288), but in 1957 Lerner and Bernstein wrote two choruses for the Harvard Glee Club. In 1976 they collaborated on _1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_ \u2013 a work that has, alas, become more famous for its catastrophic failure on Broadway than for the beauty of Bernstein's score and the brilliance of Lerner's lyrics (both heard to advantage in _A White House Cantata_ , arranged from the show by Charlie Harmon and Sid Ramin after Bernstein's death). Lerner's most productive collaborations were with Frederick Loewe: _Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady, Gigi_ , and _Camelot_ ; he also worked with Kurt Weill ( _Love Life_ ) and Burton Lane ( _On A Clear Day You Can See Forever_ ).\n\n39 The first performance of _Dybbuk_ took place the day after this letter was written.\n\n40 Presumably the second act of _1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_.\n\n41 Maurice Abravanel (1903\u201393), Greek-born American conductor. He was a pupil and friend of Kurt Weill and conducted the original productions of several of Weill's Broadway shows, including _Knickerbocker Holiday, Lady in the Dark, One Touch of Venus, The Firebrand of Florence_ , and _Street Scene_. In 1949 he was conductor for the Broadway run of Blitzstein's _Regina_. Abravanel was Music Director of the Utah Symphony Orchestra from 1947 to 1979, leaving an extensive legacy of recordings. The orchestra's home was renamed Abravanel Hall in 1993.\n\n42 In August\u2013September 1974, Bernstein was on tour with the New York Philharmonic to New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. Bernstein's concerts began in Auckland on 16 August, and ended in Nagoya, Japan, on 6 September. In Wellington (17 August) and Christchurch (18 August) the programme was Mozart's Piano Concerto K503 (with Bernstein as the soloist) and Mahler's Fifth Symphony.\n\n43 Alexander, their son.\n\n44 In June 1974, Felicia had mastectomy surgery.\n\n45 A \"British-style\" cryptic crossword.\n\n46 This article appeared in _The New York Times_ on 25 August 1974. Written by Raymond Ericson and headed \"The Pick of Modern American Music,\" it included no work by Bernstein. According to the report, Igor Buketoff collated the list in _The New York Times_ from the responses of a jury of nine experts. Foss (like Diamond) was one of the American composers who actively supported Bernstein's music from the 1940s onwards. Foss was understandably hurt that his choice of Bernstein's _Age of Anxiety_ had been ignored by _The New York Times_.\n\n47 Thornton Wilder died in December 1975, a few months after writing this letter, but the story of Bernstein's attempt to set _The Skin of Our Teeth_ went back more than a dozen years (see note to letter 500). Why was Bernstein in contact with Wilder about this project as late as 1975? Perhaps it was because the revue _By Bernstein_ that opened on 23 November 1975 at the Chelsea Theater Center, New York, included \"Here Comes the Sun\" and \"Spring Will Come Again,\" both originally written for _The Skin of Our Teeth_ in 1964, before being recycled in the _Chichester Psalms_ the following year. Perhaps Bernstein also contemplated including Sabina's opening aria (\"Oh! Oh! Oh!\"), described by Wilder in unflattering terms in this letter. Sketches for this survive in the Leonard Bernstein Collection.\n\n48 \"Kanagawa\" is a reference to _Pacific Overtures_. Tryouts for this show started at the Shubert Theatre, Boston (8\u201329 November 1975), and then the Kennedy Center Opera House, Washington, D.C. (4\u201327 December 1975), before opening on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on 11 January 1976.\n\n49 The reviews for the Boston tryout of _Pacific Overtures_.\n\n50 The \"button problem\" refers to finding the most effective way to end a song.\n\n51 The tryouts of _1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_ were in Philadelphia: it was proving to be an exceptionally troublesome show. Jerome Robbins was not only Bernstein's most regular theatrical collaborator and a trusted friend, but he was also a brilliant \"show doctor.\" Despite a score that is often very beautiful, _1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_ failed when it moved to Broadway.\n\n52 4 May 1976 was the opening night of the troubled _1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_ on Broadway, where it ran for just seven performances.\n\n53 Fine and Schapiro is a famous Kosher restaurant and delicatessen in New York.\n\n54 Ramin (and Hershy Kay) orchestrated _1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_.\n\n55 Richard Avedon (1923\u20132004), American photographer who helped to \"define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century,\" according to his obituary in _The New York Times_ (1 October 2004). Avedon and his wife Evelyn were close friends of the Bernsteins, and he loved Bernstein's music (a few years earlier, on 3 January 1972, he had written to Bernstein and Felicia about _Mass_ : \"I play it over and over (not while I'm photographing), and when I'm not listening, I sing 'I Go On' and cry a lot. How can I thank you?\").\n\n56 _1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_.\n\n57 One of the very few allusions in Bernstein's correspondence to his separation from Felicia in 1976\u20137. The story of this traumatic episode is eloquently told by Humphrey Burton (1994, pp. 426\u201341). Felicia and Leonard were reconciled by the summer of 1977, but she was already suffering from the lung cancer that would kill her a year later.\n\n58 Irwin Kostal (1911\u201394), American orchestrator and arranger. One of the original orchestrators of _West Side Story_ with Sid Ramin. His Hollywood credits included _West Side Story_ (again with Sid Ramin) and _The Sound of Music_ (conductor and music supervisor), winning Oscars for both. He also conducted the 1982 digital re-recording of the soundtrack to Disney's _Fantasia_.\n\n59 The album _Music from Mass \u2013 Overture to Candide_ by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra was issued by Deutsche Grammophon. It included nine movements from _Mass_ arranged for orchestra by Irwin Kostal.\n\n60 The first complete performance of _Songfest_ took place in Washington, D.C., on 11 October 1977.\n\n61 The live performance of _Fidelio_ from the Vienna State Opera on 29 January 1978 was released on DVD (Deutsche Grammophon 073 4159) in 2006. It's a magnificent performance that has been widely praised, not least by John Steane in _Gramophone_ who said that it constituted \"one of the great artistic experiences of a lifetime.\"\n\n62 Felicia Bernstein died on 16 June 1978, having been ill with cancer for several years.\n\n63 Andr\u00e9 Previn (b. 1930), German-born American conductor, pianist, and composer. Previn was the piano soloist in Beethoven's Triple Concerto (with Yehudi Menuhin and Mstislav Rostropovich) in the gala concert conducted by Bernstein on 25 August 1978. This was a celebration of his 60th birthday with the National Symphony Orchestra, at its summer home, Wolf Trap in Virginia.\n\n64 Copland conducted the Lamentation from Bernstein's _Jeremiah_ Symphony (with Christa Ludwig as the soloist) at the gala concert for Bernstein's 60th birthday at Wolf Trap, on 25 August 1978.\n\n65 Often given as Shemini Atzeret, the \"Eighth Day of Assembly,\" a Jewish holiday sometimes combined with Simchat Torah.\n8\n\nFinal Years\n\n1979\u201390\n\nThere was no lack of glory in the last decade of Bernstein's life \u2013 nor any shortage of love \u2013 but Felicia's furious prediction doesn't feel too wide of the mark either. In terms of composition, the last ten years are difficult to assess: there are some fine pieces, of which _Halil_ for flute and orchestra is certainly among the best. Typically for Bernstein the inveterate self-borrower, the fast section of _Halil_ (starting at p. 15 of the published full score) was derived from an occasional piece: the music he wrote in October 1979 for the 50th Anniversary of CBS in 1978 (the main notes of the theme, C\u2013B flat\u2013E flat, spell out C\u2013B\u2013Es [S] in German). But with the opera _A Quiet Place_ , there's an inevitable sense of declining powers \u2013 made manifest by its integration of _Trouble in Tahiti_ , which emerges as much the strongest part of the work. Bernstein longed to write the Great American Opera, and had done for decades, but while he made some glorious contributions to American musical theater \u2013 _On the Town_ and _West Side Story_ are unquestionably two of the greatest scores ever written for Broadway \u2013 Bernstein felt he should push himself further, and in a more \"serious\" direction. But this was not something he could do by himself. Perhaps if Jerome Robbins had wanted to write an opera, it might have happened, since Robbins was one of the very few people from whom Bernstein took criticism and who had superb theatrical instincts. John McClure, Bernstein's long-time record producer, surely put his finger on the problem of the late years: \"Felicia was vital to his stability as was Jerry Robbins, the only two people who could make Lenny sweat.\"1 It's very hard to escape the feeling that he was right.\n\nThe letters from the 1980s are less substantial \u2013 above all because Bernstein no longer had Felicia to confide in when he was away, but also because of an increasing reliance on phone calls and faxes. Even so, there were still faithful letter-writers, Stephen Sondheim and Jerome Robbins among them, and there are interesting \u2013 often touching \u2013 letters to and from other musicians, especially conductors. Bernstein's profound admiration for Karl B\u00f6hm is apparent from the letter that he sent in 1981 to his ailing colleague on his deathbed. There are delightful letters from Carlos Kleiber (requesting an autograph for his son, but in a way that is full of humor and charm), from Yehudi Menuhin praising Bernstein's controversial performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra of Elgar's _Enigma Variations_ , and from Marin Alsop early in her conducting career. She wrote to send heartfelt thanks to Bernstein for his inspiration, and for the opportunity to work with him in Japan. It's well known how warmly Alsop admires her mentor, but Jonathan Cott's 1989 interview reveals just how highly Bernstein also thought of her: \"There's a young woman named Marin Alsop. She was a student of mine at Tanglewood \u2013 she did Hindemith's _Mathis der Maler_ and Roy Harris' Third Symphony under me, and she's fabulous, she is simply wonderful\" (Cott 2013, p. 125).\n\nBernstein's 70th birthday brought tributes from friends, celebrities, and even politicians. Ronald Reagan wrote to congratulate him, as did Frank Sinatra (an old friend \u2013 they'd worked together in nightclubs in the early 1940s), Miles Davis, and Claudio Arrau, who recalled fondly the first meeting of Bernstein and Felicia at his party in 1946. But there's a feeling of nostalgia about many of these greetings \u2013 celebrating great times that have, to a large extent, been and gone. In terms of Bernstein's compositions, it certainly seemed to be the case: _A Quiet Place_ (1983, revised in 1984 and 1986) was his last large-scale work.\n\nAnd yet in the concert hall he continued to give triumphant performances with orchestras in New York, Vienna, Amsterdam, Munich, London, and elsewhere: these were not just huge public successes, but inspiring accounts of Schubert and Schumann, or of Copland, Harris, and Ives. There were extraordinary and daring concerts of Tchaikovsky in New York and Sibelius in Vienna, and Mahler performances that it seems too easy to describe as \"revelatory\" \u2013 but Bernstein's understanding of Mahler grew ever deeper, and his interpretations evolved as a consequence: the thrilling drive and drama of his earlier Mahler gave way to a kind of visionary splendor. It's as if Bernstein's frustration about his inability to compose with any consistency over these last few years found a more positive counterpart in his conducting of music by others. After Felicia, he didn't \u2013 indeed, he couldn't \u2013 find any lasting personal relationships. There were some passionate affairs, there was infinite love poured out on his children, but there was a certain loneliness: as a musician, Bernstein's interpretative insights grew deeper and richer, and yet at the same time his extreme celebrity carried with it the inevitable problems of having less time to spend with people he loved and cared about, or even to be alone. He fell out with David Diamond in a viscious exchange of letters, after half a century of friendship \u2013 and the publication of Joan Peyser's tell-all biography hurt him (even though he claimed never to have read it). What disturbed him was probably not so much what it said, but the people who said it: friends and colleagues who Bernstein felt had been disloyal by sharing secrets that should have remained private. But there were still faithful friends, and Bernstein took great pleasure in their company, as they did in his \u2013 for instance, he took Sid and Gloria Ramin to Israel in 1986. His devoted secretary Helen Coates died in 1989, and by the start of 1990 concerns about his own health started to preoccupy him. A malignant tumor was diagnosed and in great secrecy he was given a course of radiation therapy. Still, he managed a trip to Prague to conduct Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (and to spend time talking with President V\u00e1clav Havel). After a few days delayed convalescence, he set off for the first Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan (where Marin Alsop worked as his assistant), but it quickly became apparent that his condition was worsening. He struggled through the concerts there and in Tokyo. Humphrey Burton quotes an anguished diary entry made by Craig Urquhart2 about Bernstein's dependency on massive doses of painkillers: \"The real question is why he bothers at all. Here is a very sick man who knows he is doing his _danse macabre_ \" (Burton 1994, p. 519). Bernstein had to withdraw at very short notice from his last engagement in Japan \u2013 a big outdoor concert \u2013 earning some criticism in the Japanese press, who were unaware of the seriousness of his condition. He returned to New York and was soon on the road again, for concerts at Tanglewood. The major event was the 50th anniversary concert of Tanglewood and \u2013 on a more personal note \u2013 the 50th anniversary of Bernstein first conducting there. The Bernstein family was out in force for the occasion, including his mother, Jennie. Heavily medicated and fighting for breath, he conducted the \"Four Sea Interludes\" from Britten's _Peter Grimes_ , and the concert ended with Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Listening to the published recording of this concert, it's immediately apparent that Bernstein was uncomfortable, but in the Scherzo third movement he succumbed to a coughing fit that prevented him conducting for several minutes. The Boston Symphony Orchestra kept playing, and Bernstein was able to resume conducting for the last movement, but only with the greatest difficulty. It was his last concert \u2013 and he knew it. Back in New York he told Craig Urquhart: \"You know it's incredible how I did my first concert at Tanglewood and I did my last concert at Tanglewood. There's a real sense of closure\" (Burton 1994, p. 524). On 5 September his mother Jennie, then in her nineties, wrote: \"You are surrounded by a beautiful family, your children and grandchildren. That in itself should be good medicine for you.\" But by then it was far too late. His apartment in the Dakota began to resemble a hospital ward, and on 9 October a statement was issued announcing his retirement from conducting. Five days later, at 6:15 p.m. on 14 October in his apartment at the Dakota, Leonard Bernstein died.\n\n592. Oliver Smith to Leonard Bernstein\n\n70 Willow Street, Brooklyn, NY\n\n23 July 1979\n\nDearest Lenny,\n\nYesterday I had the enormous pleasure of hearing you conduct at Tanglewood.3 You were simply wonderful. I felt so proud of you. I made a darting trip up to \"welcome\" you back along with the enthusiastic thousands to whom you bring inspiration and joy and so much of your innermost being. Unfortunately I had to rush back and didn't have the opportunity to go back stage, see those eyes open very wide with delight and give you a great hug. I do so now.\n\nYou were simply magnificent. The Haydn Mass in B flat was so joyous I was ready to embrace the church, something I am sure would horrify you. I heard the chorus rehearsing as I came on the grounds, only one half hour before the performance! I thought: just like Lenny.\n\nI was a little apprehensive about the Shostakovich on such a steaming afternoon. You made it absolutely riveting, with all its prolix fascination and strangeness as well as introspective qualities. I was as thrilled as the audience and found a joyous release in joining in the ovation.\n\nIt is wonderful we are finally again doing _West Side Story_.4 It is my favorite theatrical effort. This week I take off to England for a few weeks to rest up for the battles to follow, to which I am looking forward.\n\nMeanwhile I send you my love and a tender embrace of thanks.\n\nOliver\n\nP.S. I am very sorry to miss the Mahler 9th.5 It is something very special to you and your interpretation is the greatest. I shall never forget that great performance in Vienna several years ago at the Musikverein.\n\nLove,\n\nO\n\n593. Leonard Bernstein on Aaron Copland\n\nTribute delivered at the Kennedy Center Honors, Washington, D.C.6\n\n2 December 1979\n\nLast month Aaron Copland celebrated his 79th birthday, out of which evolved a plethora of toasts, lunches, speeches, tributes and honors, of which tonight's honor is certainly the grandest. But if all this happens when he is 79, what volcanoes will erupt when he hits 80 a year from now? I can't begin to imagine; but whatever monster celebrations, fireworks and celebrations may take place, they will never suffice to honor in proper degree this great gentleman of American music. Never have we had a composer of his superb lyric and symphonic quality who has been personally so admired, respected and \u2013 let's say it \u2013 _loved_ by so many people as Aaron. I speak not only of the music but also of the man. Ask anyone who knows him: \"What is Aaron like?\" And they will surely respond by describing the Copland grin, the Copland giggle, the Copland wit and warmth, and width of his embrace.\n\nHe has always had time for everyone \u2013 especially the young (that is the mark of a great man: time for _people_ ); and his unmistakeable sharp \"judge-nose\", as he once described it, has always been sniffing out new talent, in whatever hamlet or continent it might be hiding, to encourage with praise, to nurture with criticism, and to help on its way to public exposure.\n\nAnd yet he is also the most moderate, balanced, objective, sane and non-melodramatic man I have ever known. When he exaggerates, it's to make us laugh; when he understates, it's to point up an irony. Everything else is plain truth \u2013 \"plain\" is one of his favorite words \u2013 and \"truth\" is the very essence of the man.\n\nAll of these qualities \u2013 the generosity, the wit, the quirkiness, the compassion and tenderness and plainness \u2013 all of these inhabit his music with a mirror-like truth. But there are other qualities in the music which reflect aspects of the man he never allows us to see. The music can have an extraordinary grandeur, an exquisite delicacy, a prophetic severity, a ferocious rage, a sharp bite, a prickly snap, a mystical suspension, a wounding stab, an agonizing howl \u2013 none of which corresponds with the Aaron we loving friends know \u2013 but comes from some deep, mysterious place he never reveals to us except in his music.\n\nI have known Aaron intimately for 42 years, and I have only once seen him in a state of anger. Once. And I recall a luncheon date in which he was uncharacteristically quiet, mentioning only that he had a headache. I learned much later that day that his father had died on the previous night. And once \u2013 again only once \u2013 have I seen him weep when, at a Bette Davis movie that caused me to oo and ah and marvel and groan \"NO, NO, NO\" at the unbearable climax (I am always very vocal at the end of Bette Davis movies), he turned to me, his cheeks awash with tears, and sobbed, \"Can't you shut up?\"\n\nNow usually men of such restraint and moderation, who also harbor such tumultuous inner passions and rages, are sick men, psychotics who are prone to unpredictable and irrational explosions. Not so Aaron. The unpredictability is all in the music, which is why that music is so constantly fresh and surprising, as is the music of Beethoven. The man himself is sanity itself \u2013 and that is why the first moment I met him \u2013 on his 37th birthday \u2013 I trust[ed] him instantly and relied completely on his judgment as gospel and have done so ever since. It is my honor to present him to you, my first friend in New York, my master, my idol, my sage, my shrink, the closest thing to a composition teacher I ever had, my guide, my counselor, my elder brother, my beloved friend \u2013 Aaron Copland.\n\nLeonard Bernstein\n\n30 November 1979\n\n594. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein\n\nPeeskill, NY\n\n4 December 1979\n\nDear Lensk,\n\nHow to thank you for that _splendiferous_ talk at the Kennedy Center Sunday night. (Not to mention the special effort needed to be in 2 cities almost simultaneously!)\n\nAnd everyone around me seemed to be enjoying the talk as much as I did (including Mrs. Carter,7 who was seated next to me).\n\nIt was truly a night to be remembered \u2013 thanks a million!\n\nLove,\n\nA\n\n595. Francis Ford Coppola8 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Sentinel Building, 916 Kearney Street, San Francisco, CA\n\n7 March 1980\n\nMy most respected Maestro Bernstein,\n\nCertainly the telephone conversation that my assistant Tess related to me broke my heart. The confusion that comes when four different artists attempt to assemble a collaboration; the complexity of each individual's time, place and temperament \u2013 the more difficult areas of lawyers, agents and deals \u2013 is the reason very often that desirable collaborations never happen at all.\n\nI'm sure you can understand how hard it must be on me, who essentially must be the pivot-point for the project \u2013 and also work as writer and director, when it's quite obvious to me that my ideas are being auditioned by you, and I can plainly see that every so often those with whom I wish to collaborate are obliged to talk to their agents to see whether or not a deal has been struck.\n\nSo that, as I understand it, the collaboration hinged on whether in fact you were committed and approved the project as it had been (however vaguely) outlined by me to you, Betty [Comden] and Adolph [Green].\n\nI didn't know I was expected to call you or that you were waiting to hear from me, as of course I had just assumed that we were all friends enough that if you or anyone wished to talk to me, you would simply call, and not stand on ceremony.\n\nIn short, as I see the entire situation, it is as follows:\n\nMy ideas and concept for this kind of musical\u2013opera\u2013film are too embryonic in form to really be presented to collaborators who must have something defined and specific so that they can do their work. I guess I had hoped that the discovery of this kind of unprecedented film would be made together, on a slow, arduous hit or miss kind of artistic exploration. But I realize now that this process is too difficult to put together between three different groups of artists, who are also all working on other things and have a tight schedule. I also understand, Maestro, that your own composition schedule is heartbreakingly short, and that you can ill afford to waste your time.\n\nI have personal opinions also, about this matter, which I have never mentioned because it would have been rude to you, whom I have always admired. My opinion is that for a composer of your scale and stature to limit his composition, which is the flower of his work, to take a second chair to certain other of the performing arts of which others are perfectly capable, is wrong. But no one can _write_ music like Bernstein. And Bernstein's theatrical music is as good as any that has _ever_ been written.\n\nAnd so I came to say... \"Here, let me give you musical cinema. Take theatrical music to its next step, in a medium that the whole world will see and respond to.\" Well, that is my dream, and I know as sure as I know anything that it is your dream too. Please bear with me \u2013 maybe we'll work more informally, over the next six months or even year.\n\nBut then when we put these sketches together, it would be a pleasure to fully collaborate with you and Adolph and Betty.\n\nExcuse me for the ownership and the beginning of a new movie studio, Zoetrope Studio, which makes you want to say that I have gone from being an artist to a \"mogul\". Zoetrope Studios will create the most modern, electronic studio in the world, and its first work will be TUCKER by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green \u2013 who knows, maybe even Jerome Robbins, and Francis Coppola. I'd sure want to see that film.9\n\nMaybe someday you'll say: \"I didn't know he was going to be Francis Coppola\".\n\nWith sincere love,\n\nFrancis\n\n596. Leonard Bernstein to Stephen Sondheim\n\n16 March 1980\n\nDearest Steve\n\nThis Es\/la10 tritone comes with warmest memories of work and play and friendship. S\u2013L is almost a quarter of a century old, and it seems all wrong that I should not be in attendance on your glorious 50th. But I'll be down in the Caribbean with my children on that date, and will be thinking strongly and affectionately of you. More power to you and much merriment.\n\nL = 50 = Love = Lenny\n\n597. Stephen Sondheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\nNew York, NY\n\n19 March 1980\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nAs usual, clever, appropriate, poetic and touching. Thank you for this one, and the others, and what's behind them.11\n\nI am sorry you won't be here, but I suspect you'll have a better time anyway among the natives.\n\nLove,\n\nSteve\n\n598. Jennie Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[August 1980]12\n\nI remember saying, \"Dear son, some day you will have it all.\" Your Dad of blessed memory objected to your career out of his love for you.\n\nYou write and think young. Stay that way my dear, for many more healthy musical years.\n\nWith much love and good wishes,\n\nYour ever loving,\n\nMom\n\n599. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein\n\n12 November 1980\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nThank you for sending me the tape and score of your latest work.13 I really like it very, very much, and I'm in love with so many of the middle movements. I'd love to do it, but I worry about it because, as you know, music tends to shrink when you add dancing to it, and the pieces themselves are so short to start with that I don't know how it would avoid resulting in broken, tiny pieces. At least, that's my reaction now. Let me know if you have any suggestions, and we'll get together. But I do love the work.\n\nSorry that I've only gotten to this now. I just finished the Mozart Rondo in A minor, and I like it, although like the music, it is a fairly quiet work. If you want to come see it, let me know.\n\nAll my love,\n\nJerry\n\n600. Doriot Anthony Dwyer14 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n3 Cleveland Road, Brookline, MA\n\n25 July 1981\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nJust a note to tell you, in writing, that it was an enormous pleasure you gave me this year, to play your _Halil_ with you. It is rare one flutist plays a solo with a great conductor who is _that_ involved in the same work. I suspected as much and the anticipation nearly tore me apart, and I loved _Halil_ right from the start. Still it was more than that: even if it had _not_ been your composition, I knew once you decided to perform it you were giving it your creative attention & delivery. _That_ is what was added to make this time a magical, great adventure for me.\n\nI _hope_ we can work together again in some similar capacity. I don't expect, exactly. But I will keep on with this stimulus, this gift of your composition & performing with such as you & I _do_ thank you for it \u2013 a lot!\n\nDoriot\n\n601. Leonard Bernstein to Karl B\u00f6hm\n\n13 August 198115\n\nDear Maestro Karl,\n\nThey tell me you are now very ill, worse than our last time in Munich. Some people even imply that you feel your life coming to a close \u2013 for me, an inadmissible thought. The years of physical age have mounted close to 90, and even I, on the eve of my 63rd birthday, can feel their weight and the concomitant panic at time running out before all our works can be finished.\n\nI have always been somewhat amazed at the warmth and musical closeness of our relationship. After all, you were born in the lap of Mozart, Wagner and Strauss, with full title to their domain; whereas I was born in the lap of Gershwin and Copland, and my title in the kingdom of European music was, so to speak, that of an adopted son. That is why I was so surprised to receive your message, some months ago, when you were stopped by illness from completing your _Elektra_ recording, that if you should in time not recover to finish the missing central love scene, I, of all people, must be the one to complete it for you. You can imagine the honor I felt at this request and, also, my sense of inadequacy at the prospect of replacing so great a master.\n\nBut you _must_ recover; I know what your recuperative powers can be. You are resilience itself. I have observed it in brilliant action last January in Munich when I watched and heard your last _Entf\u00fchrung_. It was charming and subtle as ever, but I did notice the difficulty you were having in moving, the extra long time it took you to reach the podium, and the extra effort the singers on stage had to make in order to follow your beat, usually small, but always so clear. Backstage, in the interval, you asked me if you might attend one of my _Tristan_ rehearsals for only 20 minutes \u2013 all you thought your body could bear. Remember that you stayed for all of it \u2013 all 91 minutes of Act I (in a not very well polished first run-through). Remember, if you can, that you came bounding down the aisle to my podium, when orchestra and singers had left, your eyes aflame, and your cheeks ablaze. \"Na Bernstein,\" you said looking up (up!) at me from floor to stage, \"jetztz hab' ich endlich zum ersten Mal im Leben _Tristan_ geh\u00f6rt.\" You looked like a young man, burning, radiant. I was in heaven, not only because of this unbelievable _imprimatur_ from the Wagnerian pope himself, but also because I was watching a mystical, quasi-Faustian rejuvenation. \"Auch das Vorspiel?\", I asked timorously, knowing that there was at least a five-minute difference between your timing of the Prelude and mine. \"\u00dcberhaupt das Vorspiel,\" you answered, and began to give me an extraordinary analysis of what I had just done in terms of phrasing, tempo relationships, etc. You _taught_ me, in wisdom, what I had been performing by intuition. You were a young, strong man.\n\nYou are young. Please stay so, for me, for my colleagues, for the holy art. What you have done in music has already made you immortal; does that not encourage you to remain with us, and teach us forever?\n\nI pray for you, as does the whole world of music.\n\nWith devotion,\n\nBernstein\n\n602. Leonard Bernstein to Richard Horowitz16\n\nAugust 1981\n\nFor Dick H,\n\nDear friend, and cherished colleague, Dick:\n\nBless you for each and every stick,\n\nEspecially these new birthday sticks\n\nWhich are delicate, strong, and _free_ , and six!\n\nLoving thanks,\n\nLenny\n\n603. Lukas Foss to Leonard Bernstein\n\n1 September 1981\n\nHi Lenny,\n\n_Halil_ arrived this morn. What a moving piece. As an x-flutist (I used to play well at 15) I enjoy the flute writing, and I love the Alto Flute's role. The end reminds me of the 1st version of the _Age of Anxiety_ with that reentry for one chord; here it is reentry for 2 notes. It works though and if I can't get Rampal or Galway to play it with me, I'll have my 1st flute in Milwaukee learn it (she is wonderful).\n\nSometime can I hear a tape or will the record be out soon?\n\nLove\n\nEver\n\nLukas\n\n604. David Charles Abell to Leonard Bernstein\n\nHotel Schweizerhof, Berlin, Germany\n\n30 April 1982\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI want to thank you from my heart for having made possible my debut with _Mass_ in Berlin. When I stepped off the podium last night, I felt so wonderful, I could have conducted the whole piece through right there again. Had I planned it all when I was twelve years old sitting backstage at the Kennedy Center listening to _Mass_ , I could not have done better than the reality. It gives me so much joy to conduct your music. I know it so well and I love it so much and believe in it and understand what it has to say \u2013 it makes me very happy that _Mass_ is the first piece I have conducted professionally. I grew up with _Mass_ , and I hope God will permit me to grow old and die with it too.\n\nThere are some things about this production which would please you very much. I think that the space it is in, an enormous arena, is better for the work than an opera house. The Deutschlandhalle, however, is just _too_ big.17 I would like to see _Mass_ done in a smaller arena in three-quarter round as it is here. When we see each other next, I'd like to discuss this production and what should be done in the future.\n\nEveryone here working on the show \u2013 the cast, the staff, singers, players and dancers \u2013 send their love and gratitude. It is really wonderful working with this Czech orchestra, all very fine musicians, who consider it such an honor to be invited to the West to play an American piece. They understand the music quite well and find a lot of joy in it. As with every production of _Mass_ that I know, the piece has brought the cast together as a family. It is an experience which everyone comes away from a little bit changed. I am always in awe of its power.\n\nI wish you joy with your tours and hope that you are having time to work on your new opera. I have a feeling that \"Tahiti Two\" is a very important work for you and for all of us who know and love you. I am looking forward to hearing it and seeing it and studying it.\n\nI hope to see you in Milano at the end of the month. If not, until July.\n\nShalom,\n\nDavid Abell\n\nP.S. And the flowers! I'm having them framed \u2013 will you sign them? Thanks so much.\n\n605. Yehudi Menuhin to Leonard Bernstein\n\n15 Pond Square, Highgate Village, London, England\n\n[1982]\n\nDear Lennie,\n\nI asked a friend to send me a tape of your _Enigma Variations_ in London recently.\n\nI have just listened to it and it is the most moving performance of the work I have ever heard.\n\nI just wanted you to know how much I admire your interpretation and how I felt it revered Elgar's every indication.\n\nLove,\n\nYehudi\n\n606. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\n19 July 1983\n\nDearest Helen,\n\nI want you to have this _in writing_ on your birthday, since flowers can wilt and the telephone-voice is ephemeral. This is only to say, once again and for always, this I cannot imagine my life without you, not one year of it out of the soon-to-be-three decades.18 My admiration, gratitude and deep _respect_ are matched only by the intensity of my prayers for your health and happiness.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n607. Leonard Bernstein to Stephen Sondheim\n\n28 July 1983\n\nDear SS,\n\nSaw [ _Sunday in the Park with_ ] _George_ Tues eve (but not you). It (and you) is brilliant, deeply conceived, canny, magisterial, and by far the most _personal_ statement I've heard from you. Bravo.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n608. Kristin Braly19 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n10 January 1984\n\nDear Man,\n\nSomehow, in the midst of clicking cameras and microphone-bearing reporters, mystified onlookers and frantic volunteers, conducting students, my buzzing musician colleagues [...] the wires, lights, echoes and occasional blurtings of babies, I discovered that Leonard Bernstein was not just an image on a screen, a part of the title on a page of sheet music, a dusty recording on my shelf. What had been a name to me became a heart. His heart was in my heart, and I warmed myself by the fire of his affection. I wanted to hold him in silence. But so many needed him, his touch, his smile, that I became very small.\n\nAt home, after the concert, I found myself alone, surprised and shaken. From all those hands and faces, would he remember mine?\n\nIf only I were a cat needing a fish, how simple life would be! But here I am, traveling the human road, and needing Leonard Bernstein.\n\nKris Braly, viola,\n\nBaltimore Symphony\n\n609. Christa Ludwig to Leonard Bernstein\n\nVienna, Austria\n\n8 March 1984\n\nDear Lenny\u2013Maestro,\n\nIn the last weeks I worked on the _Wunderhorn-Lieder_ and found out that my voice isn't suitable any more to these songs and I don't want to be my own competition to the wonderful records we made \u2013 18 years ago!\n\nSo, I am really very sorry, but wise enough not to sing with you in the coming summer!\n\nI hope I am not making you and Harry [Kraut] too many problems with my cancellation, but _please_ understand my point of view.\n\nLove,\n\nChrista\n\n610. Mary Rodgers to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Watergate Hotel, Washington, D.C.\n\nreceived 24 July 1984\n\nDearest Lennie,\n\nThe last time I had as glorious a time in DC was '57 \u2013 _West Side_ \u2013 you asked me if I'd like to work on the Y[oung] P[eople's] C[oncert]s \u2013 and you've been making me happy \u2013 musically, personally, too, ever since.\n\nWith deepest love and praise and delight. _A Quiet Place_ is not uncomplex but boy is it worth it. It's truly wonderful.20\n\nLove you,\n\nMary\n\n611. Oliver Smith to Leonard Bernstein\n\nBox 184, Yellowgate, North Salem, NY\n\n4 August 1984\n\nDearest Lenny,\n\nIt was a wonderful occasion to attend your opera _A Quiet Place_ at the Kennedy Center. The work is very moving, absorbing and complex. All is held together by the wrenching beauty and intensity of the score, which as I told you at the party gave me the good \"old goose pimples\" of emotional involvement. I especially loved the trio at the end of Act I, and all the third act. That does not mean I did not appreciate the second act, which is full of its special delights.\n\nWhile melding the two operas may make for a better balanced evening, I still feel the two operas have very separate emotional values. The performances were superb and could not have been better. It was also beautifully directed and simply, but very effectively designed.\n\nI can think of no modern opera of such intensity or in a sense generosity. By letting it all \"hang out\", you have bared your soul, which few modern composers are prepared to do. Thank you for your beautiful music.\n\nI do love you.\n\nOliver\n\n612. Alan Jay Lerner to Leonard Bernstein\n\n21 Bramerton Street, London, England\n\n16 April 1985\n\nMy dear old chum,\n\nBobby passed on to me your interest in trying to reshape and make something out of _1600_ [ _Pennsylvania Avenue_ ]. I gather that although there is no schedule you would like to get it done some time before the _tri_ -centennial.\n\nTo get to the point: _of course_ a fresh pair of eyes is needed. Even though I've had an eye implant and don't wear glasses any more (can you believe it?) I don't think this brand new one will be sufficient, and I would welcome a writer with ideas on how to reorganise and rewrite.\n\nAs far as the lyrics are concerned, I suddenly seem to have taken on a new lease of life and am scribbling away like fury. I have a musical in rehearsal here in July which John Dexter is directing,21 and am two-thirds through the score of another that Allan Carr plans to put into rehearsal sometime in the autumn. Besides that I am just completing a huge tome for Collins on a history of the musical theatre since Offenbach. So if the right time for you should be impossible for me, and time adjustments cannot be arranged, as much as I would dislike it I would understand if you had to turn to someone else for any additional lyrics. But I truly hope that will be only the last resort. I would love to have another crack at it.\n\nIt is very interesting how _1600_ started because Robby22 remembers its inception one way and I have a clear memory of it in another. Originally I wanted to do five episodes which were critical in the history of the White House. I remember that I thought the entire production would look like a rehearsal, on the theory that democracy is still rehearsing. Robby, on the other hand, is convinced that the original intention was to write a sort of \"Upstairs Downstairs\" history of the White House \u2013 without the upstairs. In other words, it would be told strictly through the eyes of a multi-generational servant family. What I think we got was a mixture of both with moments of the black experience thrown in, all of which added up to a horse with three heads. I still vote for the \"upstairs\" story \u2013 perhaps now even more than ever because the upstairs material is fresher and we have been surfeited with the history of the blacks in America. Another reason is because I don't \u2013 and didn't \u2013 do that sort of thing very well. But, I am open to any and all approaches.\n\nIn any event, I have some two thousand books and crates of pre-play material that are finally about to be shipped over to me and I will be able to examine all those early versions.\n\nI am, at long last, not happily married but ecstatically so to a smashing lady23 \u2013 we've been together for five years and married for four, a track record for me. We bought a house too quickly that was and is too small, but we have finally got around to looking for a place large enough to accommodate all that I left in storage. I adore living in London and I've had the most wonderful five years of my life here. So whenever we meet \u2013 which I hope will be soon, somewhere \u2013 prepare yourself for a bubbling version of your old Virgo friend.\n\nI hear the new _West Side Story_ album is terrific. We have been in Spain for a few days on hol and this is our first day back, but I've already ordered a copy.\n\nI think of you often. And always with love.\n\nAye,\n\nAlan\n\n613. Stephen Sondheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[April 1985]\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nThanks for the album \u2013 very impressive \u2013 but I wish you'd have asked me before restoring that first (and not-my-favorite) Jets quatrain.24\n\nLove,\n\nSteve\n\n614. Leonard Bernstein to Stephen Sondheim\n\n25 April 1985\n\nDear Steve,\n\nIt's particularly hard to apologize to today's Pulitzer Winner for a bit of thoughtlessness (or perhaps it's easier: you might understandably be in a euphoric and forgiving mood). In any case, I _was_ thoughtless, so carried away by the fun of presaging the Gym-swing-music that I neglected to consult you for approval. I am sorry, but also (forgive me) singing and leaping about in celebration of your new glory. And does your show deserve it!25\n\nCongrats\n\nBlessings\n\nLove\n\nLenny\n\n615. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\nBen-Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, Israel\n\n27 August 1985\n\nDearest Helen,\n\nA quick note from Ben-Gurion Airport, en route to Munich & Japan and...\n\nThe last two nights have made concert history here (Mahler #9).26 I don't think I've ever heard it played with quite so much passion and tenderness. The orchestra is transformed, the newspapers ecstatic. I'm enclosing the one _non_ -ecstatic review, at least of _Halil_ ; the rest is the usual rave. I personally, on the other hand, have fallen in love all over again with _Halil_ , and Ransom W[ilson] is playing it like a god.\n\nI think of you so often, and send you love from so many friends \u2013 especially the Lishanskys, who gave me a great fish-festival dinner-party after our Haifa concert.\n\nKeep well, and cool. I'm managing to do so, although I frankly don't understand how, given this formidable schedule of rehearsals, travel, concerts, receptions, parties, time-changes... But I've survived my birthday, and feel younger than ever.\n\nA big hug & kiss,\n\nLenny\n\n616. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein\n\n9 December 1985\n\nLenny,\n\nWhat a _good_ concert!27 Especially the Copland & the last movement of it. Thank you! It was good to see you working again, and so finely. Sorry I couldn't get back stage to say hello & thanks in person.\n\nHave a good holiday season \u2013 & all love.\n\nJerry\n\n617. Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates\n\n19 July 1986\n\nFor HGC\n\n[Echo from Haydn's _Creation_ ]\n\nThe Heavens are tellin'\n\nThe glory of Helen!\n\nAnd me too, I'm yellin'\n\nHOORAY FOR HELEN!\n\nAnd _I'm_ tellin' Heaven:\n\nShe's now eight-seven;\n\nSo you better keep her well 'n'\n\nHappy! PRAISE HELEN!\n\nAll love, as always,\n\nLenny\n\n618. Yevgeny Yevtushenko28 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nPeredlikino, near Moscow, Russia\n\n[?September 1986]\n\nMy dear Lenny!\n\nI haven't seen you for ages. I send you with a kind help of Sarah Caldwell my script _The End of_ [ _the_ ] _Musketeers_. In my immodest opinion it could be very easily transformed into kind of \"sparkling tragedy\", full of joy and bitterness, strange mixture of French champagne with a womit [vomit]. Probably, only composer who could create music for such kind of theme are you, because you are all of my musketeers and it could be your own confession, like it was mine. Of course it needs a lot of work if you'll like it in collaboration with me and one American poet. I am waiting for your answer. I was hopelessly trying to find you in USA.\n\nMy love and respect,\n\nYevgeny Yevtushenko\n\n619. Leonard Bernstein to Yevgeny Yevtushenko\n\n\"Napoli \u2013 Paris \u2013 Zurich \u2013 Jerusalem\" [sent from Jerusalem]\n\n27 September 1986\n\nMy dearest poet-friend Yevgeny,\n\nI have just tried to telephone you to Peredelkino; I _think_ I got through to someone who understood. In case not, the message was: I finished yesterday reading the _Musketeers_ script. I loved it; I love you.\n\nFurther, I am moved and excited and want to work with you (and, of course, an English or American lyricist, although you are already a great lyricist).\n\n_Further_ : I believe this will be a great musical work \u2013 _not_ an opera in an opera house, but directly for _film_. It is a natural film, \"cast of thousands\" as they used to say in the great old days of Eisenstein and Cecil B. de Mille \u2013 a wildly funny epic that tears out your heart even while you laugh. I don't know exactly how this film should be made, or where; perhaps it is all _animated_ , like Disney cartoons, or played by robots (they make fantastic ones now in California) or eventually by _real_ actors and singers, or all together. Maybe someone like Fellini should direct it; it should be a _major international project_.\n\nWhat is the next step? I don't know now, but I will soon. I will be in Wien, Hotel Bristol, this next week, then back in New York on 8th October. Then I become _composer_ for five months! In this period we can decide many things. Where and when can we meet? Can you call me in Vienna, or if too late, in New York?\n\nBeginning of _big_ song: music already shouting in my head!:\n\nLive before you die!\n\nDon't die until your death!\n\n(in Eb)\n\nCall me, write me, come to me, or all three... we have a lot of work to do, and play...\n\nMuch love,\n\nLenny\n\n620. Sid Ramin to Leonard Bernstein\n\n6 October 1986\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nWhat an experience!29 The Via Dolorosa, The Masada, wading in the Dead Sea, peering into Lebanon, exploring Jerusalem, meeting new friends, hearing and seeing you conduct in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and so much more.\n\nThere is no way I can express my feelings towards you and to you when I think of our magnificent trip to Israel. A first visit would always be exciting but the circumstances that permitted me (and Gloria) to share with you, be part of your routine, to be included in your success and adulation, to listen to you, to learn (!) from you, and, most important, to _be_ with you \u2013 is something I will never forget.\n\nIt's incredible for me to realize that we spent so much time together in Israel (and in Fairfield) and the thrill of being with you will never diminish. It seems you are a bit biased. Whatever I do, right or wrong, you always justify my mistakes or ignorance with a kindness and warm admonition that I am grateful for and love.\n\nAnd so, Lenny, I thank you again for a \"dream trip\" and my gratitude for including me in your life knows no bounds.\n\nImagine, from Roxbury to Jerusalem!\n\nWhere next?\n\nWith love, from your devoted and oldest,\n\nSid\n\n621. Sid Ramin to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[New York, NY]\n\n15 October 1986\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nAfter spending so many wonderful hours with you in Israel, I thought you'd like to have something to remind you of the many wonderful hours we spent together over a half-century ago. God, that sounds ancient!\n\nThe first few letters were written in the summer of 1933, when you were in Sharon and I was at Revere.30 Luckily you numbered your pages so that you can now better follow the order in which they were originally written.\n\nIn 1937, when you were at Harvard, I began to \"seriously\" study with you... no more governing chords, finishing chords, pre-finishing chords, etc. Your notes to me show that we really started with the basics... and we're still at it!\n\nNow on to the next fifty!\n\nWith love as always,\n\nSid\n\n622. Leonard Bernstein to Stephen Sondheim\n\n[1986]\n\n_Sorrowful Song_\n\nLast night\n\nI sat down and wrote a poem.\n\nThis morning\n\nI looked at it and didn't like it much.\n\nSo I started\n\nAll over again,\n\nMaking (major and minor but) significant\n\nChanges.\n\nThis evening\n\nI looked again and didn't like it much better.\n\nSo I changed it back\n\nTo Version One\n\nWhich I wrote last night,\n\nAnd this is it.\n\nLove,\n\nL\n\n623. Leonard Bernstein to Harry Kraut31\n\n7 April 1987\n\nDear Harry,\n\nHaving just finished Martin Gardner's brilliant\/hateful wipe-out of occultism (in the _N.Y. Review of Books_ , a propos the collected _oeuvre_ of Shirley MacLaine) I find myself beset by feelings of paradox \u2013 and thinking of _you_. I guess your paradoxical duality is one of the things I most like in you (and, for that matter, in any thinking\u2013feeling person \u2013 including myself, in those ever-decreasing moments when I like myself).\n\nWhich of us worth his salt is not a paradoxnick? There's something in the Bible we all believe, even if not literally; and there's also something in Darwin and Freud that grabs us equally. Wm. Blake vs. Martin Gardner, X vs. Y, and on down the list of all the antitheses that engender free inquiry and democracy.\n\nI like to think of myself, and of you, as primarily rational humanists, but then, there I go inhaling cosmic energies via Aaron Stern.32 And then, there _you_ go, so movingly, pursuing your profound and loving experiment with Patrick Porter.33 I can't tell you how touching I find it.\n\nThis is not a sketch for some future lecture, but a spontaneous love-letter on your birthday. Have a happy one and many more.\n\nLenny\n\n624. Maureen Lipman34 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nLondon\n\n[April 1987]\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nThe show is off and the star is off-colour, but the memory is just the grandest. _Wonderful Town_ ended in triumph, with a dynamic show, encores and bravos, a weeping star, the weeping star's children in _Wonderful Town_ T-shirts, coming on stage bearing flowers \u2013 the whole audience on its feet and a mass \"Conga\" round the stage and auditorium.35 The rafters sang with your wonderful music and I hope it continues to do so right through the next production (which should never have been allowed in!)\n\nLooking back, we had just the best notices we could have wished for, but no advertising, no record \u2013 no hype! You can't exist without it now in the West End. We had \"a perfect gem\" as the _Punch_ critic said \u2013 but we needed a master jeweler \u2013 Van Cleef & Arpels even! \u2013 to set us, invisibly, into the bracelet of Shaftesbury Avenue! I wish I had hot latkes [potato pancakes] for every person who came to the dressing room glowing with the pleasure of seeing a _real_ show with a book, lyrics, music and a HEART. After being disappointed by the Phantom of the Chessboard school of musical theatre.\n\nEnough. Onwards. I know you are working on a new project with Stephen Sondheim and I wish you huge success. I'm taking three months off to do a second book and I hope it will be OK to include a wonderful picture of you and I \u2013 me kissing you on the nose, taken by Christina Burton of Watford.\n\nMeanwhile \u2013 this really is the point of this rambling missive \u2013 _Thank you_ , for the privilege of your music in _Wonderful Town_ and for the joy of translating it, through Ruth, for the last year. God bless and take care of you.\n\nLove,\n\nMaureen (Lipman)\n\n625. Leonard Marcus36 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n299 Under Mountain Road, Lenox, MA\n\n20 September 1987\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nMerely a line to tell you that 1) you nearly caused me to have an accident and 2) I heard a performance of the Mahler Second that was more overwhelming than anything I remembered even you ever having done \u2013 and that goes back to my unforgettable first encounter with the work, singing it as a teenager under you at Tanglewood.\n\nEarlier today I drove down to NYC from Lenox. When I got close enough to catch a City station worthwhile fielding, the radio was in the middle of the Mahler. Almost immediately, even with the lo-fi of car radio, I realized I was surrounded by an extraordinary performance. By the middle of the last movement, I concluded that a new champion of the work had succeeded in snatching from you the belt reading \"Most in Tune with Mahler's Soul.\"\n\nI anticipated the penultimate choral chord \u2013 and what genius did it take to bring this epic to its perfect climax simply by expanding a dominant from closed to open position? \u2013 but what I heard so overpowered my expectations that I did something I haven't done in a couple of years.\n\nI cried.\n\nIt only lasted a moment, but in that moment, I nearly swerved into another car as we came to the 59th Street exit of the West Side Highway.\n\nYou needn't worry. By 42nd Street I had already forgiven you. During the interim, Marty Bookspan had announced which Philharmonic concert had just been rebroadcast.\n\nDoes anyone realize how dangerous great music can be? I mean, Plato's dead and all that, but even he could only have had a more formal, Dionysian version of Rock in mind, and everybody knows to complain about _that_. No, I'm referring to the perils of the classics. I hope Surgeon General Koop doesn't find out.\n\nAs always, with love.\n\nLenny\n\n626. Leonard Bernstein to Claudio Arrau37\n\n20 December 1987\n\nDear Claudio,\n\nI am at this moment remembering, with deep emotion, our Brahms D minor in 1946. It was your birthday; and besides playing like a god, you had a post-concert birthday party at your house. It was at this party that I met a ravishing girl called Felicia Montealegre, who was not only a fellow-Chilean of yours and your one-time pupil, but who also shared your birthday, _and_ for three decades thereafter shared my life.\n\nSo you see, my dear Claudio, how closely intertwined our lives have been, with Music playing the r\u00f4le of Destiny. May we long continue this closeness.\n\nA very happy birthday, and may you go from strength to strength.\n\nLove,\n\nLenny38\n\n627. Claudio Arrau to Leonard Bernstein\n\n29 February 1988\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI cannot thank you enough for your beautiful words of good wishes on the occasion of my 85th birthday. Imagine, 85, hard to believe.\n\nAs I sat holding the Festschrift on my lap, we all remembered our dear Felicia. Your words have special meaning for us and always will.\n\nNow that you yourself are getting to be a grand old man, don't let the thought of age bother you. It really is not so bad. Some of us get better and stronger and I hear that is what is happening to you. So God bless you because nothing is more wonderful than fulfillment in later life.\n\nAll our love.\n\nAs ever,\n\nClaudio\n\n628. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein\n\n19 April 1988\n\nDear Lenushka,\n\nSorry we didn't meet yesterday. It was _Fancy Free_ 's 44th birthday \u2013 and I was looking forward to giving and getting a big hug!\n\n_But_ , I was very happy to know you were working hard on your new piece \u2013 and I know how much that means to you, _and_ all of us.\n\nWe do have some things to solve, not much, but things we can settle so we can move ahead.39 _W_ [ _est_ ] _S_ [ _ide_ ] _S_ [ _tory_ ] is in pretty good shape as we outlined it with only one spot a bit bumpy. [ _On the_ ] _Town_ needs some talking about. I've a few ideas. So let's get it done & out of the way.\n\nI look forward to Tuesday (and the hug) and any other time you can manage to make for us.\n\nLove,\n\nJerry\n\n629. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein\n\n117 East 81st Street, New York, NY\n\n10 June 1988\n\n[Note at top:] Lenny: _First, play the tape!_ Then read this.\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nHere's a tape of the _On the Town_ Ballet such as we have put together musically and I have choreographed. It combines the elements we talked about and where I had some problems we made some temporary fill-ins and adjustments. I know there will be places which you think are over-extended musically, such as in the Penny Arcade and in the Dance Hall section which follows it, but they don't seem over-extended when you watch it with dancing. However, I'm certainly looking forward to your reactions and help.40\n\nScott, the pianist, did a wonderful job and I like the total buoyancy of the piece. It still is episodic which curtails a dynamic flow-through feeling. But, I like the little reprise of the fugato leading back into the finale material very much. I know you will love what I have choreographed for the fugato and the music that comes after it. It's all joyous and now that I've completed sketching it, I'll do better by it when I get back to it. But I'm most anxious to get your reaction.\n\nSorry I can't be there to dance it for you. You know how much respect I have for the music and anything we have to add has been an imperative necessity to make the logic and the story work out.\n\nSo how are you? I miss you and hope you're not too tired and that the tour has been wonderful. I cannot come to Chicago but I hope to see you on the 26th of June.\n\nI send you a big hug and await your response.\n\nLove,\n\nJerry\n\nP.S. I've started finding out about the _Dance in America_ tape rights. Of course if I can manage to help, I will.\n\n630. Miles Davis41 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nc\/o Shukat & Hafer, 111 West 57th Street, New York, NY\n\n28 June 1988\n\nDear Leonard,\n\nHaving received the Son[n]ing Award in Copenhagen which only Isaac Stern, Stravinsky, you and I have received42 I am reminded of what an honor it is to be in your and their company.\n\nI also think about the time when my wife,43 who was the lead dancer in _West Side Story_ , said to me: \"Leonard wants you to think about playing this music\", and I replied \"how am I going to play this corny shit\". Needless to say it turned out to be a classic.\n\nYou are one of America's true geniuses along with [Thelonius] Monk, [Dizzy] Gillespie, [Charles] Mingus and [Charlie] Parker. You are a true musician and if you chose to be you could be a great pianist in addition to being a great composer and conductor.\n\nOn this your 70th birthday, I wish you all the best and wish you many more productive years in pleasing the world with your music.\n\nSincerely yours,\n\nMiles Davis\n\n631. Gerald Levinson44 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nSwarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA\n\n9 July 1988\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nI send greetings and wishes for much nachas, as well as \"harmony and grace,\" on your birthday. After having made so much great music as composer, conductor, and teacher over the past seven decades, I'm sure you won't be content to rest on your laurels now.\n\nI'll always be grateful for the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship that allowed me to spend an inspiring summer at Tanglewood in '71 \u2013 not least for the unforgettable _Missa Solemnis_ you conducted that season. Hanging around the B.S.O. all summer certainly contributed to my appetite for the big orchestra, of which you've heard some of the fruits. And fellow TMC Fellows of the time are now friends and colleagues. The ties that keep bringing me back to that wonderful place formed then and keep growing.\n\nFinally, here's a coded message for your seventieth. A key is included for the lower stave;45 you're on your own for the upper stave.\n\nMany happy returns \u2013 from Ari, too.\n\nJerry Levinson\n\n632. Ronald Reagan46 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe White House, Washington, D.C.\n\n5 August 1988\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nNancy and I are delighted to join with your many friends and admirers gathered in Tanglewood to extend warmest congratulations to you on your 70th birthday.\n\nYour remarkable career as a conductor, pianist, and composer has greatly enriched American culture. Your memorable compositions during a long and prolific career have captured the hearts and dreams of generations of your countrymen.\n\nFrom _West Side Story_ to _On the Waterfront_ , your music has cheered us, thrilled us, rallied us, and gladdened us. Today, we salute you for your rare gift for music and your outstanding contribution to the artistic life of our Nation.\n\nHappy Birthday and God bless you.\n\nSincerely,\n\nRonald Reagan\n\n633. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\n[postmark Stamford, CT]\n\n8 August 1988\n\nDear DD,\n\nThank you for the birthday wishes, but how dare you talk of no communication from me when the last I've seen or heard from you was after I'd lost five years of my life learning & teaching & performing your 9th Symphony and you walked off with your 75,000 bucks and little or no thanks and remained unheard from except via certain people who read your weighty input to a Peyser book which I have promised my children on my honor never to read.\n\n... and I think that after decades of saving you from suicide, mental collapse, poverty, public fantasizing, and generally spoiling other people's lives you may owe me a bit more than a green, posterity-oriented birthday greeting, but never mind...\n\n... (as always, ungenerous to my colleagues)\n\nGoodbye & good luck.\n\nL47\n\n634. Claudio Arrau to Leonard Bernstein\n\n18 August 1988\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI salute you on the wonderful occasion of your 70th birthday and wish you many more years of success, happiness and fulfillment.\n\nI cannot believe that so many years have gone by since we first met and first performed together and Ruth and I introduced you to Felicia, your beautiful bride to be. Then, I felt like an older brother full of admiration for your God-gifts. Today, I feel more like a loving uncle delighting in your enormous growth and achievements. May the gods continue to carry you to the ultimate portals of your deepest hopes and wishes.\n\nYours ever,\n\nClaudio\n\n635. Frank Sinatra to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[Reno, NV]\n\n25 August 1988\n\nDear Genius,\n\nHappy Birthday!\n\nYou are one of the few who deserves everything warm and wonderful that will be said about you on this marvelous occasion of reaching what Abe Lincoln would have called 3 score and ten.\n\nAnd I think it's sensational this big bash in your honor is being held at your beloved Tanglewood in the shade of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.\n\nBe assured, Lenny, that between songs here in Reno, where I am performing tonight, I raise a toast in your honor, in gratitude for all you have done for the musical world which bows towards you in appreciation this day, and for all you have done for the personal world I alone inhabit and which is a far better place because of your friendship, which I will always cherish.\n\nHappy Birthday, young man. I can hardly wait for your next seventy.\n\nWarmest hugs,\n\nFrancis Albert\n\n636. David Del Tredici48 to Leonard Bernstein\n\n1 September 1988\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nAmong all the wonderful things, I was most moved by _Mass_.49 It is way out there (a place I, too, inhabit), takes every kind of chance, and succeeds wonderfully. The pacing of the whole musical, dramatic unfolding is so skilful!\n\nThoughts of the moment and thanks for the never-to-be-forgotten music.\n\nDavid\n\nP.S. Look forward too, to Fall!50\n\n637. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond\n\n[postmark New York, NY]\n\n24 October 1988\n\nDear old Dovidl,\n\nI've just returned from Europe and discovered your letter of two months ago. I don't want to discuss details, but I do want to say that I'm sorry I wrote you in the way I did. I should never have sent that letter in such a burst of anger (I can't remember ever having written such a letter to anyone, and besides, the anger was probably related to something else and only triggered by you).\n\nSo, I'm sorry; but I must say I meant every word of it.\n\nShalom uv'rachah [peace and blessings to you]\n\nLenny51\n\n638. David Del Tredici to Leonard Bernstein\n\n28 November [1988]\n\nLenny,\n\nYou were every bit as terrific as I thought you'd be. _Tattoo_52 came to life like I'd dreamed and in 4 different ways, too. I love your Rubens, Van Gogh, Vermeer, Rembrandt versions of the piece!\n\nAnd most of all I love you.\n\nAll my gratitude, love, and envy.\n\nDavid\n\n639. Leonard Bernstein to Charles Harmon53\n\n[New York, NY, with hand-drawn postage stamp \"Namibia State Prison\"]\n\n\"New Year's\", 1989\n\nDear Lito,\n\nOverleaf, behold my refuge from ragweed,54 1941, and the garret where I wrote my Clarinet Sonata, and started a ballet called _Conch Town_ (bits to be found in _Fancy Free_ , all the shows, including the whole tune of \"America\" in _West Side_ ). The house was dark brown then, and all I could afford.55\n\nLove,\n\nLB\n\n640. Stephen Sondheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n22 March 1989\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nThanks for the telegram, and for the quick glimpses of your face on Sunday night's broadcast when you were listening to the song.56 I empathized with your apprehension at the start of it and was therefore doubly pleased at your relief when you realized that it was going to be affectionate (as well as brilliant, of course).\n\nAs you may have gathered, I called you when you were on vacation \u2013 it was just to give a nostalgic Christmas hello. I was about to do so again two weeks ago but Harry [Kraut] said you were in the slough of despond and it was not a good time. I'll try again. It would be nice to see you. Or at least talk.\n\nLove,\n\nSteve\n\n641. Leonard Bernstein to Marin Alsop57\n\n20 August 1989\n\nMy Marvelous Marin,\n\nThe bronchitis has finally felled me, and I've cancelled everything for this Sunday (a _necessary_ Sabbath!) Forgive me, and do understand that I'm with you, every 16th-note.\n\nBe glorious.\n\nLove\n\nLB\n\n642. Leonard Bernstein to Doriot Anthony Dwyer\n\n20 August 1989\n\nDear Darling Doriot,\n\nForgive & forget! I am in temporary collapse, abed, and have cancelled all activities for the day (including my own kiddies' concert) so that I can do this coming week with full powers. I know you'll understand.\n\nHave a great party \u2013 and I do so look forward to our Shosty!\n\nLove,\n\nLenny\n\n643. Yo-Yo Ma to Leonard Bernstein\n\n[No place]\n\n31 October 1989\n\nDear Mr. Bernstein,\n\nIt was so wonderful to have the chance to see you in New York last week. Thank you for your time and for the lunch. My only regret is that I did not get to see the letters that you received from Boris Pasternak with his comments on the meaning of art.\n\nI am very excited that you are willing to write a trio for Mr. Stern, Manny [Emanuel Ax], and me; I can't tell you what a thrill it is. Although you must hear this from so many people, I would just like to add that those of us who have the privilege of coming in contact with you do feel truly blessed.\n\nWarmest wishes,\n\nYo-Yo Ma\n\n644. Carlos Kleiber58 to Leonard Bernstein\n\nThe Carlyle, New York, NY\n\n[October 1989]\n\nDear Maestro, Dear Lennie!\n\n\"Non per me, ma per altri\", \"che voi dire, per altri\"?59 It's my son: he has become a fan of yours. (This is an understatement.) He is working at Unitel in Munich, translating your Salzau _Romeo und Julia_ tapes\u2013commentaries into German. He \"schw\u00e4rms\" about you on the phone and I hear about Romeo sitting in the garden, the triangle that shouldn't sound like a doorbell \u2013 in short (he is 24) you seem to have revived his interest in music (something I haven't managed to do) and he is pestering me for the following:\n\nHere is a CD of _West Side Story_. Do you by any means think it _possible_ for you to sign the first CD of the set (on the label-side with an indelible thingamajig) with a \"dedication\" to _Marko_ (with a K) _Kleiber_? and leave it (have it left) at the Met or the Carlyle?60\n\nThis would make him the happiest person in the world, renew his respect for me (cause I know you personally) and generally improve the morale all round.\n\nKindest greetings and best wishes from your old\n\nCarlos\n\n645. Stephen Sondheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n6 November 1989\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nI was playing over my \"Anniversary\"61 and noticed an error, which you might want to correct in future (let's hope) editions: namely: in the third bar of the fifth system, the soprano note on the second beat should be a G, not an A. And why did you change the final cadence from a G major chord to an E major chord? Is there a runic significance I missed?62\n\nLove,\n\nSteve\n\n646. Lukas Foss to Leonard Bernstein\n\n19 November 1989\n\nHi Lenny,\n\nMust write to you because these San Francisco Symphony days you are _with_ me: 2nd half of program: \"Masque\"63 and [ _On the_ ] _Waterfront_. 4 evenings in a row at Davies Hall. It's great. 1st half is [Copland's] _Billy the Kid_ and _Time Cycle_.64 Practicising \"Masque\" again is always a revelation; every note so right, so inventive (what I used to love in Stravinsky). Have to practice a lot to get my fingers to do it and my brain to memorize it all, but it worked. 2 evenings behind me, 2 more to go.\n\nDoing _Waterfront_ without cuts (there is a cut suggested in print[ed score] from 32 to 33 which I really thinks makes for a lot less drama). Enough! Don't want to bore you.\n\nHope you are doing what I _should_ be doing \u2013 composing.\n\nLove,\n\nLukas\n\n647. Stephen Sondheim to Leonard Bernstein\n\n20 December 1989\n\nDear Lenny,\n\nWhat a terrific letter \u2013 thank you! You'll be interested to know that the rhyme you particularly liked (\"He goes..., etc.\")65 was the rhyme that Cole Porter liked when Jule [Styne] and I played a few songs for him. I always detected his influence on your work.\n\nAnd thanks for the advance birthday present. It's indeed tempting to set \u2013 maybe for your 75th. I'm still a slow writer.\n\nIf you have the time and inclination when you get back from tanning yourself, give me a call and let's have our semi-annual evening alone.*\n\nLove,\n\nSteve\n\n*I'll even play you the new score66 SS\n\n648. Marin Alsop to Leonard Bernstein\n\n14 July 1990\n\nDearest Maestro,\n\nI wanted to telephone you, but didn't want to disturb your rest.\n\nThank you for introducing me to Japan \u2013 and vice versa!\n\nThe greatest enticement (if it can be called that) to come on this trip was the opportunity to work with you once again.67\n\nAnd, once again, it was an inspiration. You haven't ever let me down since I first wanted to become a conductor when I was 11 and saw one of your NY Phil concerts! But more than that, you've been a constant source of energy and integrity and leadership and innovation to our world.\n\nI hope only that I can make a small contribution and always make you proud of me.\n\nI love you \u2013 and thank you for helping _all_ of us.\n\nMarin\n\n649. Jennie Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein\n\n5 September 1990\n\nDearest Son,\n\nI have confidence in you, that you are on the right track. I know you are watching out for yourself. No one can do it for you, but you and you alone.\n\nI feel a lot better now because I am looking towards your quick recovery. As you know dear, if you stay well, I will stay well.68 You are surrounded by a beautiful family, your children and grandchildren. That in itself should be good medicine for you.\n\nLooking forward to a Happy (Jewish) New Year for you, and your dear family.\n\nI want to wish you happy composing and so much love.\n\nYour one and only\n\nMother xxx\n\n650. Georg Solti to Leonard Bernstein\n\nChicago Symphony Orchestra, 220 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL\n\n10 October 1990\n\nMy dear Lenny,\n\nI was more than sorry to learn of the announcement you have made yesterday and I would just like to send these few lines, to let you have my warmest thoughts and support, both now and in the future.\n\nIt is wonderful that you will continue to write and teach; do keep in touch and let me know if we can meet when I am in New York next, in April.69\n\nAs ever,\n\nGeorg\n\n1 John McClure, personal communication, 20 February 2013.\n\n2 Craig Urquhart was Bernstein's assistant from January 1986 until 1990. He is a vice-president of the Leonard Bernstein Office, and founded the Bernstein newsletter _Prelude, Fugue & Riffs_.\n\n3 The program on 22 July consisted of Haydn's _Thereisenmesse_ and Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony.\n\n4 This important (and acclaimed) revival of _West Side Story_ opened at Broadway's Minskoff Theatre in February 1980 and ran for 333 performances. It was directed by Robbins \u2013 his first work on Broadway for sixteen years \u2013 with the close involvement of several people involved in the original 1957 production, including sets by Oliver Smith, costumes by Irene Sharaff, and lighting by Jean Rosenthal. The Musical Director was John DeMain, who went on to conduct the world premiere of Bernstein's _A Quiet Place_ at Houston in 1983.\n\n5 Bernstein conducted Mahler's Ninth Symphony at Tanglewood a week later, on 29 July.\n\n6 Bernstein delivered this speech at the second annual Kennedy Center Honors gala on 2 December 1979. Copland, Henry Fonda, Martha Graham, Tennessee Williams, and Ella Fitzgerald were the five artists honored with lifetime achievement awards. The _Washington Post_ (9 December) described Bernstein's tribute to Copland as \"a piece of magic.\"\n\n7 Rosalynn Carter, wife of President Carter and First Lady.\n\n8 Francis Ford Coppola (b. 1939), film director whose screen credits include _The Godfather_ and _Apocalypse Now_.\n\n9 Coppola's _Tucker: The Man and his Dream_ was eventually released in 1988, but as a biographical film rather than the \"musical\u2013opera\u2013film\" outlined to Bernstein in this letter. The genesis and tribulations of this project are described in detail by Gene D. Phillips in _Godfather: The Intimate Francis Ford Coppola_ (Lexington: Kentucky University Press), pp. 261\u201378.\n\n10 \"Es\" (E flat) is normal German spelling for \"S,\" while \"La\" is solf\u00e8ge for A and can be used to spell \"L\"; by a neat coincidence these musical spellings for Stephen and Leonard form a tritone (augmented fourth) \u2013 an interval that is of particular significance in _West Side Story_. Sondheim was born on 22 March 1930 and started working with Bernstein on _West Side Story_ in October 1955.\n\n11 A reference to the piano pieces that Bernstein often sent Sondheim as birthday gifts (Stephen Sondheim, personal communication).\n\n12 An inscription written inside a birthday card.\n\n13 The _Divertimento for Orchestra_ first performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa on 25 September 1980. Bernstein has written a note at the top of this letter outlining ideas (perhaps the result of a discussion with Robbins) for a ballet treatment:\n\nFanfare | 1 \u2013 Tutti  \n---|---  \nWaltz | 2 \u2013 Diminished corps (girls?)  \nMazurka | 3 \u2013 Pas de 6  \nSamba | 4 \u2013 Pas de 4: Kay Thompson & Boys  \nTurkey | 5 \u2013 Pas de 2 (Castles)  \nSphinxes | 6 \u2013 Solo: joke on [Martha] Graham vs. ballet on cadences  \nBlues | 7 \u2013 Solo blues  \n[March] | 8 \u2013 a) Adding company gradually during flutes  \n| b) Tutti march.\n\n14 Doriot Anthony Dwyer (b. 1922) was principal flute of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1952 until 1990. She gave the American premiere of _Halil_ with the Boston Symphony conducted by Bernstein in a Fourth of July concert of Bernstein's music given at Tanglewood. Bernstein inscribed her copy: \"For my beautiful colleague Doriot, with all the old affection and a brand new admiration, Lenny \u2013 4 July '81\".\n\n15 Bernstein received word on 13 August that Karl B\u00f6hm was gravely ill, and immediately wrote to him. It is unlikely B\u00f6hm ever saw this letter as he died in Salzburg the next day, 14 August.\n\n16 Richard Horowitz (b. 1924), American percussionist and baton maker. He joined the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 1946 and played with it for 66 years, retiring as principal timpanist in 2012. He made his first baton in 1964 for Karl B\u00f6hm and subsequently made batons for many of the world's leading conductors, including Riccardo Chailly, Carlos Kleiber, James Levine, Charles Mackerras, and Klaus Tennstedt, among others. In 2008 he was interviewed in _The New York Times_ : \"I made Bernstein's batons. He's buried with one of my batons. I think he gave them away more than anything else, gave them to his students. [...] Bernstein's, I made out of corks from Champagne bottles.\"\n\n17 Built in 1935 for the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, the Deutschlandhalle has a seating capacity for concerts of about 10,000.\n\n18 Bernstein's arithmetic is shaky here: he first met Helen Coates in October 1932, almost fifty-one years before writing this letter. If he was counting back to his New York Philharmonic debut, that had taken place almost forty years earlier, in November 1943. Miss Coates began working as Bernstein's secretary in 1944.\n\n19 Kristin Braly (b. 1948), was a violist in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra until 2005. She wrote this letter two days after playing in the performance of Mahler's _Resurrection_ Symphony given in aid of Musicians Against Nuclear Arms that Bernstein conducted in the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, with an orchestra drawn from members of the National Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony.\n\n20 The first Washington performance of _A Quiet Place_ was given at the Kennedy Center Opera House on 22 July 1984.\n\n21 The stage version of _Gigi_ , directed by John Dexter, opened at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, on 17 September 1985.\n\n22 Possibly Robert Whitehead, one of the producers of _1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_.\n\n23 Liz Robertson married Alan Jay Lerner in 1981.\n\n24 The \"Jets Quatrain\" refers to the passage beginning \"Oh, when the Jets fall in at the cornball dance\" in the \"Jet Song,\" included on Bernstein's recording of _West Side Story_ made in September 1984. This passage is not in the first piano-vocal score, nor on the original cast recording. It is printed in the 1994 full score (pp. 43\u20134) and the revised 2000 piano-vocal score, marked in both editions with an optional cut.\n\n25 _Sunday in the Park with George_ won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Sondheim and James Lapine.\n\n26 The performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony given in Tel Aviv on 25 August 1985 (Bernstein's 67th birthday) has been released on CD by Helicon Classics (HEL029656).\n\n27 On 5, 6, and 10 December 1985, Bernstein conducted an unusual program comprising the Third Symphonies of Roy Harris, William Schuman, and Aaron Copland.\n\n28 Yevgeny Yevtushenko (b. 1933), Russian poet. This was a project that clearly excited Bernstein (see Letter 619), but nothing came of it. Among Yevtushenko's earlier poems, the most famous \u2013 and the one that caused controversy with the Soviet authorities \u2013 was _Babi Yar_ which provided the inspiration for Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13.\n\n29 In Autumn 1986, Bernstein conducted a series of concerts with the Israel Philharmonic to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. The first performance of _Jubilee Games_ was given in Avery Fisher Hall, New York, on 13 September, and Bernstein then went to Israel to conduct the work in the opening concerts of the 1986\u20137 season. Sid Ramin (who had helped with the orchestration of _Jubilee Games_ ) and his wife Gloria went with Bernstein on this trip \u2013 their first visit to Israel.\n\n30 These are Bernstein's letters to Ramin printed in Chapter I.\n\n31 Harry Kraut (1933\u20132007) was Bernstein's business manager from 1971, and became a valued confidant.\n\n32 Aaron Stern was a close friend of Bernstein's in the 1980s. He believed that the arts could be used as a way to greater self-knowledge and cultural transformation. With Bernstein's support he established an institution, the Academy for the Love of Learning.\n\n33 Probably Patrick K. Porter, who founded Positive Changes in 1987 to help people bring about lifestyle changes through hypnosis and counseling.\n\n34 Maureen Lipman (b. 1946), English actress and writer.\n\n35 The London revival of _Wonderful Town_ opened at the Queen's Theatre in August 1986 and ran until April 1987, with Maureen Lipman as Ruth and Emily Morgan as Eileen. She recalled the occasion of her meeting with Bernstein: \"The memory lingers of our meeting: him in tan leather trousers and a bright turquoise macram\u00e9 pullover, hugging me and telling me I was a wonderful Ruth and my brain saying 'take a mental picture of this moment! It'll never come again!'\" (Maureen Lipman, personal communication).\n\n36 Leonard Marcus, a Harvard music graduate, was appointed editor-in-chief of _High Fidelity and Musical America_ in 1968, a post he held until 1980. Before then he had worked in Minneapolis, had studied conducting with Bernstein and composition with Copland, and was assistant manager of the classical department of London Records from 1959 to 1961. He subsequently worked at Columbia Records and as editor of the Carnegie Hall programs. He became conductor of the Stockbridge Chamber Orchestra (later the Stockbridge Sinfonia) in 1975 and later became the orchestra's conductor emeritus.\n\n37 Claudio Arrau (1903\u201391), Chilean pianist.\n\n38 Written for a published tribute to Arrau on his 85th birthday on 6 February 1988.\n\n39 For the forthcoming _Jerome Robbins' Broadway_.\n\n40 Like Robbins' letter of 19 April, this concerns the preparations for _Jerome Robbins' Broadway_ which opened in February 1989. The show included sequences from _On the Town_ and _West Side Story_ , and early versions of the extracts from _On the Town_ were filmed at piano rehearsals in April and May 1988. This, or something very similar, must be the tape that Robbins describes (copies of these rehearsal tapes are in the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts).\n\n41 Miles Davis (1926\u201391), jazz musician.\n\n42 The L\u00e9onie Sonning Music Prize is Denmark's highest musical honour. The first recipient, in 1959, was Stravinsky, and the second was Bernstein (1965). Other winners included Lutos\u0142awski (1967), Britten (1968), Shostakovich (1973), Messiaen (1977), Stern (1982), Boulez (1985), and Miles Davis himself (1984).\n\n43 Frances Elizabeth Taylor married Miles Davis in 1958; they divorced in 1968. In the original production of _West Side Story_ she played Francisca (credited as Elizabeth Taylor).\n\n44 Gerald Levinson (b. 1951), American composer, a pupil of George Crumb, George Rochberg, and Olivier Messiaen. Levinson met Bernstein on a few occasions, notably at Tanglewood in 1987 when Levinson's first symphony, _An\u0101hata_ , was performed. Levinson recalls: \"In '87 when Oliver Knussen conducted a spectacular orchestra concert which concluded with my _An\u0101hata_ (and included Peter Serkin playing Stravinsky's _Movements_ ), Lenny and Seiji Ozawa followed my piece with the score, and both \u2013 but Lenny in particular \u2013 were very enthusiastic. Backstage afterward he said it brought him to tears ('That bad, eh?' I stupidly responded). I asked if he'd like to keep the score (my publisher, standing beside me, nodded vigorously); he said, 'I don't think I'd ever conduct it, but I'd love to possess it'\" (Gerald Levinson, personal communication, 23 March 2013).\n\n45 The lower stave is written using Messiaen's _langage communicable_ , an alphabetical code for musical spelling (the decoded message is \"Mazel Tov and Gesundheit on your Seventieth\"). The upper stave includes a Bernstein-ish version of \"Happy Birthday,\" followed by references to several Bernstein tunes, described by Levinson as follows: \"Once Happy Birthday is done it keeps on going through a medley of bits of Bernstein tunes: 'Maria,' 'New York New York,' and 'Trouble in Tahiti.' And the durations of the rests, carefully counted out in numbers in parentheses, add up to 70\" (Gerald Levinson, personal communication, 23 March 2013).\n\n46 Ronald Reagan (1911\u20132004), fortieth President of the United States. Reagan was not known for his interest in music, and his conservative political outlook was diametrically opposed to Bernstein's. One of Bernstein's kinder assessments of Reagan's presidency is to be found in his November 1989 interview with Jonathan Cott: \"The last time I went to the White House was during the last days of Jimmy Carter's administration. [...] I love the White House more than any other house in the world \u2013 after all, I'm a musician and a citizen of my country \u2013 but since 1980 I haven't gone back there because it's had such sloppy housekeepers and caretakers. [...] We had eight lovely, passive, on-our-backs, status quo, don't-make-waves years with Ronald Reagan. The _fights_ I had with my mother! 'Don't you dare say a word against our president!' she'd say to me.\" (Cott 2013, pp. 81, 82, and 83).\n\n47 The real source of Bernstein's rage was almost certainly Diamond's contribution to Joan Peyser's book, in which, among other things, he was quoted as saying that Bernstein \"often hurt him very much.\" Diamond replied to Bernstein's furious letter on 26 August 1988 with a long, 12-page diatribe in which he challenged Bernstein's claims, made some harsh comments about the effect of fame on his old friend, defended his own cooperation with Peyser, and ended with a plea: \"Lenny \u2013 don't make our friendship a poisoned one. Make it instead as rich as it once was. Take me out of this horrible depression your letter has caused me. No matter what I will be at your concerts this fall.\" After returning from concerts in Europe, Bernstein replied on 24 October (see Letter 637). But it was too late: after almost fifty years, their friendship was over.\n\n48 David Del Tredici (b. 1937), American composer.\n\n49 _Mass_ was performed at Tanglewood on 27 August 1988 by the Opera Theater of the Indiana School of Music to celebrate Bernstein's 70th birthday.\n\n50 When Bernstein was to conduct Del Tredici's _Tattoo_.\n\n51 This is the last letter Bernstein wrote to Diamond. See note 47 to Bernstein's letter (Letter 633) of 8 August 1988.\n\n52 Bernstein conducted the US premiere of _Tattoo_ with the New York Phiharmonic at concerts on 17, 18, 19, and 22 November 1988.\n\n53 Charles (Charlie) Harmon joined Amberson (Bernstein's publishing company) as his personal assistant in 1982. After Bernstein's death, Harmon contacted many of the people who had been close to Bernstein, requesting photocopies of letters. These are an invaluable addition to the Leonard Bernstein Collection in the Library of Congress. Harmon also edited several Bernstein works for publication, including the full orchestral scores of _West Side Story_ and _Candide_ , and the definitive piano-vocal scores of _On The Town_ and _Wonderful Town_.\n\n54 Bernstein suffered from acute hay-fever all his life.\n\n55 Written on a postcard on the verso of which is a picture of the house in Key West, Florida, where Bernstein stayed in the summer of 1941. An arrow points to the right-hand window on the top floor and reads \"This was my first abode. Cattie room in KW, 1941.\" Another postcard from Bernstein to Charles Harmon (undated, but with the same image of the house in Key West, with an arrow pointing to the same top-floor window) reads: \"This room is where I worked on my Clarinet Sonata, late _August '41_ , when I was fleeing from Ragweed & total hayfever (2 nights & days by train from Boston). LB. P.S. The house was then a drab dark grey-brown.\"\n\n56 Sondheim's reference to \"the song\" concerns his affectionate spoof \"The Saga of Lenny\" (based on the \"Saga of Jenny\" by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin) written for Bernstein's 70th birthday gala concert at Tanglewood in August 1988, when it was sung by Lauren Bacall. This was broadcast in the _Great Performances_ series on 19 March 1989, the Sunday night mentioned by Sondheim.\n\n57 Marin Alsop (b. 1956), American conductor, who became Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2007. As an undergrautate at Yale, she played with Steve Reich and Philip Glass, developing a passionate interest in new music. A decade earlier, when she was nine years old, Alsop's father had taken her to one of Bernstein's _Young People's Concerts_ : \"I immediately knew that I wanted to become a conductor. Becoming his student at Tanglewood in 1988 was a dream come true. To have a hero exceed my expectations was too much to hope for, but Leonard Bernstein certainly did that and more. I loved being around him, soaking in his way of looking at the world and connecting the dots in life. His encouragement and support were invaluable on every level\" (interview for National Public Radio, 12 October 2012).\n\n58 Carlos Kleiber (1930\u20132004), conductor. Famously elusive, his performances were legendary for their unique combination of blazing intensity and attention to detail.\n\n59 This near-quotation comes \u2013 aptly enough \u2013 from Act II scene 6 of Verdi's _Don Carlos_.\n\n60 This letter was probably written while Carlos Kleiber was in New York to conduct Franco Zeffirelli's production of _La Traviata_ at the Metropolitan Opera.\n\n61 The third of Bernstein's _Thirteen Anniversaries_ , published in 1989, is \"For Stephen Sondheim (b. March 22, 1930)\" dated at the end of the piece \"20 March 1965\".\n\n62 Bernstein's annotations on this letter include \"Right?\" beside the \"G, not an A\" (it is corrected to G in the 1990 revised edition); Bernstein has written \"Beats me\" next to Sondheim's question about \"runic significance\" of the final cadence that ends in D major in the 1990 edition.\n\n63 \"Masque\" is the Scherzo from _The Age of Anxiety_ Symphony, a movement described by Bernstein in 1949 as \"a kind of fantastic piano-jazz [...], by turns nervous, sentimental, self-satisfied, vociferous.\" Foss specialized in playing the solo piano part of _The Age of Anxiety_ : he was the soloist in the first New York performance (26 February 1950; see Letter 295), and he recorded it twice with Bernstein conducting (in 1950 and 1977).\n\n64 Foss composed _Time Cycle_ (for soprano and orchestra) in 1959\u201360. The first performances were given on 20, 21, and 23 October 1960 by Adele Addison with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Bernstein.\n\n65 A reference to lyrics from _Gypsy_ :\n\nWherever I go, I know he goes\n\nWherever I go, I know she goes\n\nNo fits, no fights, no feuds and no egos\n\nAmigos\n\nTogether!\n\n66 The \"new score\" was _Assassins_ , which opened Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on 18 December 1990. It includes a crazed and darkly amusing monologue addressed to Leonard Bernstein by Samuel Byck (1930\u201374), a psychopath who attempted to hijack a plane in order to crash it into the White House and kill President Richard Nixon.\n\n67 In June 1990, Marin Alsop traveled with Bernstein to the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan.\n\n68 Jennie Bernstein outlived Leonard. She died in December 1992 at the age of 94.\n\n69 This letter was written a few days before Leonard Bernstein's death on 14 October 1990.\nAppendix One\n\nArthur Laurents (with Leonard Bernstein): Outline for Romeo sent to Jerome Robbins\n\n[New York, undated, shortly before 18 October 1955]\n\n_ROMEO_\n\n_Act One_\n\n_Scene One: Back Alley \u2013 Nightfall._\n\nAgainst music, we see two or three shadowy figures beating up a boy. A lookout signals, the assailants flee. Their clothes are different from the \"cool\" outfits of the boys who stroll on: Mercutio and members of his gang including Romeo and Benvolio. Their exaggerated talk is interrupted by the discovery of a kid who was beaten up: A-rab. Baby, the youngest member of the gang, is shocked by what has been done to A-rab and by the \"Puerto Rican mark\" left on him. The others are enraged, want to have a rumble with the Puerto Rican gang because there have been too many of these raids (by both sides). It is up to Mercutio to decide \u2013 and he does in a \"Let's Have A Rumble\" song with the gang. During this, the formalized ritual of sending scouts to summon the PR gang leader, Bernardo, to a War Council is done. Benvolio, the best fighter, is to be one scout. Romeo \u2013 much to Mercutio's pleasure for M is Romeo's protector and Romeo doesn't partake too much of gang activities \u2013 volunteers to be the second scout. But Romeo's real reason is to see Rosalind who loves dancing and will probably be at the Crystal Cave, the dancehall where Bernardo is and which is neutral territory. The \"Rumble\" song comes back as the scouts start off on their mission.\n\n_Scene Two: Crystal Cave \u2013 Later._\n\nA wild mambo is in progress with the kids doing all the violent improvisation of jitterbugging. Benvolio and Romeo enter, searching for Bernardo. Benny (Benvolio) has to keep Romeo's mind on their mission, for the latter thinks only of Rosalind who snubs R as she whirls by. They find Bernardo and start negotiations. Romeo keeps looking around for Rosalind. (All this in pantomime.) Then Romeo sees a lovely young girl, dressed more simply, more innocently than the others; obviously a newcomer being shown around by an older, more experienced girl: Juliet and Anita. Romeo goes to Juliet and, as they meet, the music goes into half-time, the dancers keep going but as in a dream state, the lights change. Now there is dialogue \u2013 between the two. It is finally interrupted by Bernardo who pulls Juliet away. The music goes back to tempo and the number finishes and the lights go back to normal. Bernardo is Juliet's brother and Romeo's opponent. Thus, the two lovers learn, to their mutual dismay, that they belong to opposing factions. Benny takes Romeo off to report the results of their meeting with Bernardo to Mercutio; and Bernardo, despite the pleading of Anita, sends Juliet home with one of his Lieutenants as escort.\n\n_Scene Three: Gang Hangout \u2013 Later._\n\nA shack of some sort, depending on the designer. Mercutio and the gang are horsing around when Benny and Romeo enter, to report. Romeo, his mind on Juliet, gets the facts wrong so Benny takes over: War Chieftains from the two gangs (Mercutio and Bernardo and aides) are to meet in Doc's Drugstore at midnight. Then Mercutio, in song, proceeds to give Romeo some advice about love: the older bon vivant (probably just old enough to vote if that) to the neophyte. The gang joins in a razzing, possibly they chase Romeo \u2013 who tries to duck them \u2013 in a number which overflows out of the set. And at the end, he does elude them.\n\n_Scene Four: Tenement \u2013 Later._\n\nThis is in the Puerto Rican area and shows the scrabbly building Juliet lives in, with a fire escape. Puerto Rican music from the unseen interior of the flat as Romeo moves in the shadows looking for her house. Then she comes out on the fire escape and the \"balcony\" scene begins. This should go from dialogue to song and back, ending in song. In it, these facts: Romeo works for Doc as drugstore delivery boy and general helper; Juliet sews in the bridal shop and has not been long in this country (let us take the dramatic license of eliminating all accents) and Anita is her confidante and adviser. Plus, of course, R and J's mutual lack of caring about prejudice, gangs, hostility, etc. It might end with \"Good night\" and \"Buenos noches\", the latter repeated lovingly by Romeo.\n\n_Scene Five: Street or outside Crystal Cave._\n\nBernardo taking his girl, Anita, home, before he goes to the Rumble meeting. Various points can come up here: Bernardo's hatred of the \"American\" gang and thus his hate for Romeo as beau for his sister (as opposed to Anita's feeling that love is love and it all ends anyway); note of future disaster, heightened by Anita's plea to B not to get into bloody rumble. She is probably a little older than Bernardo and tho she has been kicked by love before, is still in love with Bernardo \u2013 but expects the worst. Her attitude is explained in a torch version of Mercutio's song after Bernardo has gone off to the rumble.\n\n_Scene Six: Drugstore \u2013 Midnight._\n\nMercutio and his aides impatiently awaiting Bernardo. Doc (possibly a Jew) tries vainly to stop the coming rumble. Here the violence, restlessness, lost feeling of these strange kids should be explored. The bursting inside then which needs a release should build and build until it explodes into a violent cold jitterbug number kicked off by a record on the jukebox. First the boys dance by themselves. But, as the set should show both inside and outside the drugstore, as gang girls come along the street, they grab them as partners, though still maintaining that frozen-faced solo quality such jitterbugging has. At the peak, Bernardo and aides enter; the dance continues to its finish, though the attitude of Mercutio and his gang changes subtly. They are aware of Bernardo but will not, deliberately, stop for him. At the conclusion, silence: the girls go, the boys line up in formalized gang positions. Mercutio, as \"host\", offers cokes; negotiations on the rumble begin. Time: sundown; place: Central Park. But the type of rumble is argued over as Romeo \u2013 who has arrived with a happy \"Buenos noches\" \u2013 argues for the simplest and least bloody kind: a \"fair fight\" between the two best fighters from each side. Romeo, who seems to have grown, to have become stronger as a result of his love, manages to prevail. Partly because, however, of Mercutio's fondness for him and happiness that Romeo is finally interested in the gang. Bernardo wants to fight Romeo at the rumble but Benny is the best fighter for Mercutio's gang. At this point, Shrank the policeman enters. He is suspicious because the boys are so quiet: he is their common enemy and this is the one time all are allied against the same thing. He suspects they are planning a rumble. No one says a word but Shrank, starting quietly, builds himself up to a frustrated frenzy which makes him throw everybody out of the store except Romeo since he works for Doc. Shrank makes a crack against both sides and goes. Romeo and Doc are alone. There must be some sharp note to underline the prejudice that stands between Romeo and Juliet, then Doc goes (his closeness to Romeo must emerge here, too) leaving Romeo to close up, turn out the lights as he sings softly of his love.\n\n_Act Two_\n\n_Scene One: The Neighbourhood._\n\nThis is a musical quintet which covers various parts of the neighbourhood in space and the whole day in time. Its theme is \"Can't Wait for The Night\"; its mood is impatience of different kinds, exemplified by five of the principals: Mercutio (with humor) and Bernardo (with anger) can't wait for the rumble; Romeo can't wait to see Juliet; Juliet, at her bridal shop sewing machine, can't wait to see Romeo. Only Anita strikes a different note: she is afraid of the night because of what the rumble may bring. It should end with Juliet and thus go directly into:\n\n_Scene Two: The Bridal Shop \u2013 Late Afternoon._\n\nEveryone has gone except Juliet who has pretended she has to finish up a wedding veil needed for the next morning. Romeo comes in and they arrange the mannequins as a bridal party, almost like children playing a game, and marry themselves. Here again, dialogue goes in and out of song. The entrance to the shop is at the rear of the stage and as they leave at the end, the curtain closes for:\n\n_Scene Three: Outside the Park._\n\nBernardo and his aides come from one side and, after a moment, Juliet and Romeo from the other. Bernardo is furious that his sister is with a member of the other gang. He wants to provoke a fight but Romeo won't be provoked and Juliet becomes surprisingly strong. Romeo is going to take her home and no one is going to stop that \u2013 and no one does. Alone with his aides, Bernardo says the hell with a fair fight: get ready for a real rumble.\n\n_Scene Four: Central Park \u2013 Sundown._\n\nMercutio and his gang are waiting for Bernardo and his. They, too, are actually prepared in the event that the \"fair fight\" should bust into a bloody rumble. Romeo enters on this and tries to talk them out of it. Bernardo and gang arrive. Romeo tries to prevent any rumble. Bernardo accuses him of stalling and really tries to make Romeo fight, finally spitting at him. Romeo almost lunges, but won't fight. This enrages Mercutio who slams Romeo out of the way, leaps at Bernardo and the fight is on. The scene is probably underscored and, here, breaks out into a stylized gang canon as both gangs take up positions for the fight. It does break out into a fracas when Bernardo, almost beaten, whips out a knife and stabs Mercutio. Romeo, horrified at what has been done to his protector, grabs a broken bottle from A-rab and plunges it into Bernardo. There is a wild moment of mel\u00e9e \u2013 then everybody clears because of the two still bodies on the ground. Both Bernardo and Mercutio are dead. This is horrifying even to the kids. A clock begins to chime as they slowly leave the scene. Romeo stares at the bodies. A police whistle, a siren, the roving light of a police car picks over the ground; the whistles, the sirens louder, music \u2013 the chase is on and Romeo runs as:\n\n_CURTAIN_.\n\n_Act Three_\n\n_Scene One: Juliet's Apartment \u2013 Sundown._\n\nThis is a very crowded place: room made into rooms for all purposes: a curtained corner for Juliet who is dressing up happily as her family sings a gay street song in Spanish (mother, father, uncle). During this, the clock strikes the same hour as in the previous scene. And, after a time, faint police whistles, sirens. But the song goes gaily on until Shrank comes in. Juliet's family's English is too poor to understand what he says, so she must translate the terrible news: their son has been murdered by Romeo. Shrank goes, and the family goes to claim the body. Juliet starts to go with them when Romeo appears on the fire escape which is right outside her little corner. His one drive has been to find her and tell her it was a horrible mistake. But her first reaction is: you killed my brother. He tries to explain but there is a police whistle and shouts: they are after him. Juliet doesn't call to the police. She stands, confused, as Romeo whispers \"meet me at the hangout\" and disappears. As he goes, Anita comes into the flat and sees him. She would call the police but Juliet stops her. Anita's attitude has changed. Bitter, angry over the death of her lover, Bernardo, she tells Juliet to stick to \"your own kind\". This is a duet for both girls. But Juliet's confusion resolves itself during the duet: Romeo is her own kind, for she loves him. And at the end, she starts down the fire escape to meet him. Immediately the apartment moves off (as it did in the balcony scene) and three other fire escapes appear behind it for:\n\n_Scene Two: Love Ballet._\n\nAs Juliet shins down the fire escape, other girls wind down the other fire escapes, all going to meet lovers representing Romeo. The dance goes from forgiveness to love to passion to actual sex. It ends with:\n\n_Scene Three: The Hangout._\n\nRomeo and Juliet are in the positions the dancers were at the end. Romeo sings a happy song to Juliet about what their world will be and, in dialogue, they agree to run away together and be safe with each other. This dream-plan is broken by the arrival of Benny. The police have found out where the hangout is (the gang is constantly moving from one shack to another) and are on their way. Benny is furious with Juliet: a lousy Puerto Rican, in his mind, has prevented Romeo from making a safe getaway. Romeo kicks him out, tells Juliet Doc will know where to find him and runs.\n\n_Scene Four: Streets._\n\nRomeo running from the police who fire at him and wound him. He escapes.\n\n_Scene Five: The Drugstore._\n\nThe same jitterbugging tune is being played in a muted way and the gang is going thru the motions of dancing to avert suspicion from the police. Doc comes up from the cellar to get more bandages and medicine. Romeo is down there: he has been hit badly. Doc goes down again and the gang vents its bitterness against Puerto Ricans, now specifically for murdering their leader and for causing one of their good men to be shot by the police. Juliet comes in, seeking Doc, and all the hatred is turned against her. The kids tell her Romeo is dead and jeer at her extreme reaction. She almost faints and instead of offering her water etc., they hideously offer her all kinds of poison so she can kill herself for love and pay for the evil she has done. This is done with macabre humor. All their prejudice and hate and violence comes out in the taunting until, able to bear no more, she grabs the bottle Benny holds and runs out of the store. Doc returns to see her run out. He doesn't know what the gang has done but realizes they have driven her away. He tells them off for what they really are \u2013 and yet winds himself down because, somehow, what they are is not their fault. He goes to tell Romeo and the kids' reaction is: all that because of a dirty Puerto Rican.\n\n_Scene Six: The Bridal Shop._\n\nThis scene is almost completely in song. Juliet has put on the wedding veil, is arranging the mannequins as she sings. Her strangeness is explained by the empty bottle of poison which she addresses for a moment. She is becoming more and more delirious when Romeo comes in. He is very weak but so happy to see her. She is so happy to see him: in her delirium, she thinks they are at least in their own world which has been transported to heaven. He doesn't realize at first that she has taken poison. But when he does discover the truth, it is too late. She sinks to the floor, he cradles her in his arms, they both start a reprise of their balcony song but they never quite finish. The lights change, the walls disappear, the music soars upward and the audience swoons.\n\n_THE END_\nAppendix Two\n\nBernstein's Letters and Postcards to Mildred Spiegel\n\nIn December 1991, Mildred Zucker (formerly Mildred Spiegel) sent details to the Leonard Bernstein Office of all the letters and postcards she had received from Bernstein. Her annotated list was divided into two sections (\"Contents of Letters\" and \"Contents of L.B. Post Cards\"). The following includes the most significant items, which have been amalgamated into a single chronological sequence.\n\nThe additional indented comments are taken from a long letter of 23 July 1978 that Mildred Zucker wrote to Jack Gottlieb, full of information (\"I have been continuing my homework about Lenny and came across a few more facts\"), and ending as follows: \"I consider it a great privilege to have been a close friend of Lenny's. It was thrilling for me to watch him grow and reach such great heights. Lenny was and still is a great source of inspiration to me. Give him our love.\"\n\n29 December 1935, Boston, MA: Lenny asked me to turn his pages at a lecture.\n\n2 January 1936, New York, NY: Has a lot to tell me. Reminds me to turn his pages.\n\n24 June 1936, Philadelphia, PA: Description of Curtis Institute audition\/judges' reaction. They thought he should be at Curtis.\n\n29 June 1936, Philadelphia, PA: Attended Robin Hood Dell concert \u2013 writes his reaction upon hearing _Romeo and Juliet_ Overture of Tchaikovsky. Appointment with [Jos\u00e9] Iturbi.\n\n\"In June 1936 in Philadephia, Lenny had an audition with Merrs. Simpkin and Lorenz (arranged by Don, his Harvard roommate). They were greatly taken with his playing. Among other things they said: 1) The boy is an artist. 2) He has stage personality. 3) Interpretation a little youthful and immature. 4) He ought to be at Curtis \u2013 not for what they could teach him but for what contacts he could make. 5) Mr. Lorenz confided to a girl, 'You see a great boy \u2013 you'll see a greater man'. They also arranged an interview with Iturbi. While visiting Don at 2008 N. Park Aven., Lenny attended a Robin Hood Dell concert where he heard Spalding play the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto under Alexander Smallens, also the _Romeo and Juliet_ Overture of Tchaikovsky and a rehearsal of Harold Bauer playing the Schumann.\"\n\n3 August 1936, Sharon, MA: Wrote me about an eleven-page letter which he will show me. He has grippe and asked me to visit him.\n\n4 August 1936, Sharon, MA: Invites me to Sharon for lunch.\n\nAugust 1936, Sharon, MA: Eleven-page letter written in the blackest of moods describing a clash with his father who did not want Lenny's friends visiting. He also poured his heart out about his friends.\n\n13 September 1936, Alfred, ME: He is staying at a farm. Will come to visit me at York Harbor, where I am playing with a trio.\n\n\"In September 1936, he wound up at Elm Top Farm in Alfred, Maine for a short vacation. He borrowed the farmer's truck and drove to the Emerson House at York Harbor, Maine, where I was playing with my trio. I was delightfully surprised to see him.\"\n\n9 July 1937, Pittsfield, MA: His activities at Camp Onota as a music counselor \u2013 casting for _The Pirates of Penzance_ , first month, then _Of Thee I Sing_ , second month.\n\n\"In July 1937, on his night off from Camp Onota, he went to Cap Allegro and was in the clutches of a million women, playing all evening \u2013 Lecuona, Ravel and de Falla etc.\"\n\n21 January 1938, Cambridge, MA: Announcement \u2013 he's soloist in Ravel Concerto. He changes the printing and writes Boston Symphony and not State Symphony. [See Letter 18].\n\n6 April 1938, Minneapolis, MN: Describes visit to Mitropoulos \u2013 quiet, interesting week.\n\n2 May 1938, Cambridge, MA: He wrote out two measures of a theme.\n\n7 July 1938, Sharon, MA: Thinking of putting on _Cradle Will Rock_. Rehearsal with Forum Quartet, and off to a publicity tea in Scituate, MA.\n\n\"In July 1938, Lenny was at the Sharon summer home (17 Lake Ave) and entertaining persuasive notions of putting on _Cradle Will Rock_ that summer. He returned my copy of the Bach _Well-Tempered Clavichord_ Vol. I which he had borrowed and marked up for his Harmonic Analysis class at Harvard.\"\n\n25 July 1938, Sharon, MA: Audience reaction to his Newport concerto where he earned $50.00 playing in a home and made many friends. Summer plans.\n\n15 August 1938, Sharon, MA: Describes trip home in the fog \u2013 from the Berkshires, Massachusetts.\n\n25 August 1938, Chicago, IL: En route to the West. Bus driver would not stop at Pittsfield, where Lenny wanted to visit me.\n\n18 September 1938, California: En route home from trip out West. \"Glorious trip. We live in a great country.\"\n\n29 December 1938, New York, NY: Staying in New York for the New [Year] \u2013 work to do \u2013 wishes me a happy New Year.\n\n30 December 1938, Maywood, NJ: Saw _On Your Toes_. Will let me know of his arrival. It may be by plane.\n\n7 July 1939, New York, NY: Having a terrible time with his nerves. No future. Staying with Adolph Green. Looking around for work.\n\n3 October 1939, Woodstock, NY: Went to see [L\u00e9on] Barzin about a conducting class. Out of the question. Lenny's plans depend on Curtis examination.\n\n\"In early October 1939, he went to Woodstock to see Barzin who was doubtful as to whether he'd have a conducting class that year.\"\n\n20 October 1939, Philadelphia, PA: Curtis Institute \u2013 Fierce desire to work hard \u2013 helpful, considerate faculty \u2013 lists subjects and teachers \u2013 majoring in piano and conducting \u2013 practices three hours a day.\n\n9 November 1939, Philadelphia, PA: Studying _Tristan_ \u2013 found a deli that sells Halvah \u2013 more in accompanying letter.\n\n9 November 1939, Philadelphia, PA: Description of piano lesson with Vengerova. Offers to teach me when he returns home. Made friends with Mme Miquelle.\n\n20 January 1940, Philadelphia, PA: Curtis Institute \u2013 Hard work \u2013 one tremendous piece of news \u2013 will tell me when he returns home.\n\n1 February 1940, Philadelphia, PA: Mitropoulos has plans for him to come to Minneapolis and be official assistant conductor and pianist for the orchestra \u2013 be at every rehearsal and ready to take over \u2013 will be presented as soloist with orchestra \u2013 also as a composer.\n\n28 February 1940, Philadelphia, PA: Curtis Institute \u2013 He was the only conducting student to get an A from Reiner. Helen Coates sent him brownies.\n\n29 March 1940, Philadelphia, PA: Writes that my letter was the most wonderful letter he ever had. Heard Cleveland Orchestra and Rodzinski in Wilmington, Delaware. Koussy came to Curtis and remembered him.\n\n10 April 1940, Philadephia, PA: Writing vocal quartets, settings of poems by Kenneath Fearing. No contract from Minneapolis and no confirmation about the Berkshires. Going to Washington with Mme Miquelle for the weekend.\n\n23 April 1940, Philadelphia, PA: Letter explaining why Mitropoulos cannot import him. The union claims that Lenny is not a necessary function that cannot be filled by local people. Manager did not want Lenny because he was a student.\n\n3 May 1940, Philadelphia, PA: Coming home on weekend. Writes me to cultivate my left dimple for the occasion. Sings \"Love in May\".\n\n22 June 1940, New York, NY: Leaving for telecast. Will write from New Hampshire. Writes card in Aaron [Copland]'s studio using his card. I asked him what score he would like. He suggested Schumann's 4th Symphony, _Petrouchka_ , Debussy _Nocturnes_ , _Firebird_ , _Don Juan_ , _Till Eulenspiegel_.\n\n27 June 1940, Hanover, NH: Kenny Erhman looking for him. Leaving for Cranwell School for Boys, Lenox, Massachusetts.\n\n\"In June 1940 he did a television show in Hanover, NH, while staying with Raphael Silverman (Hillyer).\"\n\n15 July 1940, Lenox, MA: Made an auspicious conducting debut. Lenny writes it was terrific, thrilling, awe shedding. Letter to follow.\n\n16 July 1940, Lenox, MA: Conducted his own first concert at Tanglewood \u2013 Randall Thompson's Second Symphony \u2013 marvelous time \u2013 Koussy and orchestra like him. Plans to conduct _Scheherazade_ , Copland's _Music for the Theatre_.\n\n24 October 1940, Philadelphia, PA: Reiner is furious at Koussy for stealing his pupil. Never feels wholly alive in Philadelphia.\n\n13 December, 1940, Philadelphia, PA: Practices four hours at the piano \u2013 Mozart Concerto, restudying Chopin \u00c9tudes in 3rds and 6ths. Teaching \"rich brats\" at the Meadowbrook School on Wednesdays.\n\n18 January 1941, Philadelphia, PA: Life is dull and lonely, but very active. He is broadcasting the Stravinsky two-piano concerto on February 1st, 5:30 p.m. on NBC. He will imagine me at the other piano.\n\n7 February 1941, Philadelphia, PA: Vengerova wants to make a two-piano team with him and another student. She was swept off her feet with their Stravinsky. Feels like he is finishing up a jail sentence and can't wait to get away from there fast enough. _Bored_.\n\n12 March 1941, Philadelphia, PA: Next broadcast April 26th.\n\n21 April 1941, Philadelphia, PA: Plans to be home May 4th. Will be on the air.\n\n21 July 1941, Lenox, MA: Big success conducting William Schuman _American Festival Overture_ on the same program with Koussy conducting the _Faust_ Symphony. Lenny got two more bows than Koussy. Lenny got a screaming ovation. Conducted _Mastersingers_ Prelude at Esplanade \u2013 22,000 people in audience \u2013 $150.00.\n\n2 December 1941, Boston, MA: Theme from Schumann Symphony.\n\n5 December 1941, Boston, MA: Card announcing opening of his studio for the teaching of piano and musical analysis at 295 Huntington Avenue, Boston.\n\n20 December 1941, Boston, MA: Christmas card and invitation to see his new studio.\n\n6 October 1942, New York, NY: No real secure job yet. Doing odd jobs.\n\n23 June 1943, New York, NY: One week late for my birthday. Wishes me success and happiness.\n\n12 July 1943, New York, NY: Will conduct Goldman Band concerts. Leaving for Hollywood in August for a month vacation. Will conduct Boston Symphony concerts in Boston on August 1st and 2nd before leaving.\n\n11 August 1943, Brookline, MA: Rehearsals for Tanglewood \u2013 will be back at end of month for Army induction.\n\n22 October 1943, New York, NY: Written on Philharmonic Symphony of New York stationery. Wonderful and exciting.\n\n15 December 1943, New York, NY: Thanks me for the \"glorious Halvah\". Do I ever get to New York?\n\n26 June 1944, New York, NY: My wonderful cards delight him. Was in the hospital having his septum out. Leaving for Chicago to begin his summer season. Will conduct at Stadium in New York.\n\n20 September 1944, New York, NY: Wants to know how I am. Will conduct _Fancy Free_ in Boston on October 2nd and we will get together. Some day we will play the Saint-Sa\u00ebns 5th Concerto together.\n\n19 February 1945, St. Louis, MO: Conducting was wonderful, responsive orchestra, audiences wild. Middle of a huge tour across the continent through Canada and back.\n\n4 September 1945, New York, NY: Thanks me for my most touching card. He asked if I heard of his acquisition of the New York City Center Orchestra. It was a thrilling birthday gift.\n\n11 December 1945, New York, NY: Came home from a two-week bout in St. Louis and found my heavenly Halvah \u2013 beautiful surprise.\n\n24 December 1945, en route from Minneapolis to New York: He talked of me with mutual friends, and loved me very much.\n\n1 February 1946, New York, NY: Coming in March to Boston and wants to spend some time together. He is redoing the Beethoven 1st Concerto. It is full of me.\n\n9 April 1947, New York, NY: Am I coming to Tanglefoot?\n\n15 April 1948, New York, NY: Off to Europe to conduct in Munich, Budapest, Vienna and Milan.\n\n29 November 1951, Cuernavaca, Mexico: Encouraging me to teach in Israel. He is composing, sunning, swimming. Opera progresses slowly \u2013 throws away more than he keeps.\n\n3 January 1952, Cuernavaca, Mexico: Wishing me happiness for my marriage. He feels lazy.\n\n4 December 1961, New York, NY: He is sick in bed. The Halvah is like Manna from Heaven. It cheered his ailing days.\n\n9 February 1962, New York, NY: He was overcome with nostalgia when he met a mutual friend in Aspen, Colorado. Memories of my Madison Trio, joyful early days.\n\n3 June 1970, Paris, France: Conducted Mahler 3rd in Paris, Verdi Requiem in London, _Fidelio_ in Rome. He can hardly keep up with himself.\n\n10 January 1972, New York, NY: While he was in Vienna, he recalled meeting \"under Beethoven\" when we met for two pianos [under the Beethoven statue] at the New England Conservatory.\nBibliography\n\nArchives\n\nThe vast majority of the letters published in this book are in the Leonard Bernstein Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Thanks to the work of Charlie Harmon and others in the Leonard Bernstein Office, the Bernstein Collection also includes many photocopies of letters from Bernstein as well as those written to him.\n\nOther collections in the Library of Congress containing letters from Bernstein include those of Aaron Copland, David Diamond, Hans Heinsheimer, Serge Koussevitzky, and Helen Coates, as well as the papers of other members of the Bernstein family, notably Leonard's sister Shirley, his brother Burton, and his wife Felicia.\n\nBernstein's letters to Jerome Robbins about _Fancy Free_ are in the Robbins Papers at the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts, and other letters from Bernstein are drawn from the institutions and private individuals listed below:\n\nLeonard Bernstein Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.\n\nAaron Copland Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.\n\nDavid Diamond Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.\n\nHans Heinsheimer Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.\n\nSerge Koussevitzky Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.\n\nJerome Robbins Papers, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, New York, NY.\n\nRichard Adams Romney Letters, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT.\n\nYevgeny Yevtushenko Papers, Manuscripts Division, Special Collections, Stanford University Library, Stanford, CA.\n\nPat Jaffe, New York, NY.\n\nPhyllis Newman, New York, NY.\n\nShirley Gabis Rhoads Perle, New York, NY.\n\nSid Ramin, New York, NY.\n\nBooks and Articles\n\nAdams, John (2008): _Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life_. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.\n\nBarnouw, Erik (1990): _Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television_. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n\nBernstein, Burton (1982): _Family Matters: Sam, Jennie, and the Kids_. New York: Summit Books.\n\nBernstein, Leonard (1957): \"Excerpts from a West Side Log,\" _Playbill_ , 30 September, pp. 47\u20138; repr. in Bernstein 1982, pp. 144\u20137.\n\n\u2014\u2014 (1959): _The Joy of Music_. New York: Simon and Schuster.\n\n\u2014\u2014 (1966): _The Infinite Variety of Music_. New York: Simon and Schuster.\n\n\u2014\u2014 (1982): _Findings_. New York: Simon and Schuster.\n\n_Bernstein Live at the New York Philharmonic_ (2000): Disc notes for NYP 2003, New York: Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York.\n\nBurlingame, Jon (2003): \"Leonard Bernstein and _On the Waterfront_ : Tragic Nobility, a Lyrical Song, and Music of Violence,\" in Joanne E. Rapf, ed.: _On the Waterfront_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 124\u201347.\n\nBurton, Humphrey (1994): _Leonard Bernstein_. London: Faber and Faber.\n\nChapin, Ted (2005): _Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies_. New York: Applause Books.\n\nChaplin, Saul (1994): _The Golden Age of Movie Musicals and Me_. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.\n\nCooke, Mervyn, ed. (2010): _The Hollywood Film Music Reader_. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n\nCopland, Aaron, and Vivian Perlis (1984): _Copland: 1900 Through 1942_. London: Faber and Faber.\n\n\u2014\u2014 (1992): _Copland Since 1943_. London: Marion Boyars.\n\nCott, Jonathan (2013): _Dinner with Lenny: The Last Long Interview with Leonard Bernstein_. New York: Oxford University Press.\n\nCrist, Elizabeth B., and Wayne Shirley, ed. (2006): _The Selected Correspondence of Aaron Copland_. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.\n\nDougary, Ginny (2010): \"Leonard Bernstein: Charismatic, Pompous \u2013 and a Great Father,\" _The Times_ (London), 13 March. Online version at www.ginnydougary.co.uk, accessed 19 March 2013.\n\nDunning, John (1998): _On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-time Radio_. New York: Oxford University Press.\n\nGordon, Eric A. (1989): _Mark the Music: The Life and Work of Marc Blitzstein_. New York: St Martin's Press.\n\nGottlieb, Jack, ed. (1998): _Leonard Bernstein_ [...] _A Complete Catalog of His Works. Volume 1: Life, Musical Compositions & Writings_. [New York:] Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company.\n\nHoopes, Roy (1982): _Cain_. New York: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston.\n\nHouseman, John (1972): _Run-Through: A Memoir_. New York: Simon and Schuster.\n\nHussey, Walter (1985): _Patron of Art_. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.\n\nJoseph, Charles M. (2001): _Stravinsky Inside Out_. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.\n\nJowett, Deborah (2004): _Jerome Robbins: His Life, his Theater, his Dance_. New York: Simon and Schuster.\n\nKimberling, Victoria J. (1987): _David Diamond: A Bio-Bibliography_. Lanhau, MD: Scarecrow Press.\n\nLaurents, Arthur (2000): _Original Story By: A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood_. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.\n\nMangan, Timothy, and Irene Herrmann: _Paul Bowles on Music_. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.\n\nMassey, Drew (2009): \"Leonard Bernstein and the Harvard Student Union: In Search of Political Origins,\" _Journal of the Society for American Music_ , vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 67\u201384.\n\nMilhaud, Darius (1995): _My Happy Life_ (trans. Donald Evans, George Hall, and Christopher Palmer). London: Marion Boyars.\n\nMoorehead, Caroline, ed. (2006): _The Letters of Martha Gellhorn_. London: Chatto and Windus.\n\nNixon, Marni (2006): _I Could Have Sung All Night: My Story_. New York: Billboard Books.\n\nOja, Carol J., and Kay Kaufman Shelemay (2009): \"Leonard Bernstein's Jewish Boston: Cross-Disciplinary Research in the Classroom,\" _Journal of the Society of American Music_ , vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 3\u201333.\n\nPollack, Howard (1999): _Aaron Copland: The Life of an Uncommon Man_. London: Faber and Faber.\n\nSarna, Jonathan D. (2009): \"Leonard Bernstein and the Boston Jewish Community of His Youth: The Influence of Solomon Braslavsky, Herman Rubenovitz, and Congregation Mishkan Tefila,\" _Journal of the Society of American Music_ , vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 35\u201346.\n\nSeldes, Barry (2009): _Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician_. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press.\n\nSimeone, Nigel (2009): _Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story_. Farnham: Ashgate.\n\nSwayne, Steve (2011): _Orpheus in Manhattan: William Schuman and the Shaping of American Music_. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.\n\nVaill, Amanda (2007): _Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins_. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.\n\nZadan, Craig (1974): _Sondheim & Co._ New York: Macmillan.\n\nWebsites (selective list)\n\nLeonard Bernstein Collection, Library of Congress: <http:\/\/memory.loc.gov\/ammem\/collections\/bernstein>\n\nOfficial Leonard Bernstein website: www.leonardbernstein.com\n\nLeonard Bernstein's Boston Years: Team Research in a Harvard Classroom [includes interviews with Lukas Foss, Raphael Hillyer, Sid Ramin, and Harold Shapero]: <http:\/\/isites.harvard.edu\/icb\/icb.do?keyword=bernstein>\n\nFBI Records: The Vault (online archive): <http:\/\/vault.fbi.gov>\n\nThe Harvard Crimson: www.thecrimson.com\n\nInternet Broadway database: www.ibdb.com\n\nNew York Philharmonic Digital Archives: <http:\/\/archives.nyphil.org>\n\n_The New York Times_ : www.nytimes.com\n\n_Time_ Magazine: www.time.com\nIndex of Compositions by Bernstein\n\nNote: this is an index of works mentioned in the present book. For a complete catalogue of Bernstein's compositions, see Gottlieb 1998.\n\n_Age of Anxiety, The_. _See_ Symphony No. (i)\n\n_Anniversaries_ (unspecified) (i). _See Seven Anniversaries_ and _Thirteen Anniversaries_\n\n_Birds, The_ (1939; incid. music for play by Aristophanes) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n73, (vi) n77\n\nFirst performance: 21 April 1939, Cambridge, MA, Sanders Theatre, Harvard Classical Club, Charles T. Murphy and Lawrence B. Leighton (dirs.), Leonard Bernstein (cond.); orchestra members included Raphael Silverman [Hillyer], first violin, J[esse] Ehrlich, cello and David Glazer, clarinet\n\n_By Bernstein_ (revue) (i) n47\n\nFirst performance: 23 November 1975, New York, Chelsea Theater Center\n\n_Candide_ (1954\u20136; book: Lillian Hellman; lyrics: Richard Wilbur, John LaTouche, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman and Leonard Bernstein) (i) n104, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii) n77, (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi) n14, (xxvii) n23, (xxviii), (xxix) n59, (xxx) n53\n\nFirst performance: 29 October 1956, Boston, Colonial Theatre, cast incl. Barbara Cook (Cunegonde), Robert Rounseville (Candide), Max Adrian (Dr. Pangloss); Tyrone Guthrie (dir.), Samuel Krachmalnick (cond.)\n\nFirst New York performance: 1 December 1956, Martin Beck Theatre, cast as above\n\nOrchestrations by Bernstein and Hershy Kay\n\n_Chichester Psalms_ (1965) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n128, (vii), (viii), (ix) n142, (x), (xi) n47\n\nFirst performance: 15 July 1965, New York, Philharmonic Hall, John Bogart (boy alto), Camerata Singers, New York PO, Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\nFirst UK performance: 31 July 1965, Chichester Cathedral, Choirs of Chichester, Salibury and Winchester Catherdrals, Philomusica of London, John Birch (cond.)\n\nDedication (on printed piano-vocal score): Commissioned by the Very Rev. Walter Hussey, Dean of Chichester Cathedral, Sussex, for its 1965 Festival, and dedicated, with gratitude, to Cyril Solomon\n\nMuch of the score is recycled from earlier music:\n\na) two numbers composed for the abandoned musical _The Skin of Our Teeth_ : \"Here Comes The Sun\", used in the first movement, and \"Spring Will Come Again\", used for the outer sections of the second movement\n\nb) a cut number from _West Side Story_ (\"Mix!\"), used for the central section of the second movement\n\nc) a sketch headed \"Wartime Duet?\" used as the main 10\/4 theme of the third movement\n\n_Conch Town_ (1941\u20132) (i), (ii) n25, (iii)\n\nPlanned ballet, unfinished; manuscript for two pianos and percussion virtually complete. Started during Bernstein's stay at Key West in August 1941, he was \"working very hard\" on it in April 1942 with the plan to \"turn it into a ballet\" ( _see_ Letter 106). Bernstein later used material from _Conch Town_ in _Fancy Free_ and _West Side Story_\n\n_David_ (January 1954) (i)\n\nPlanned \"big three-act opera\" ( _see_ Letter 335), not composed\n\n_Dedication to Aaron Copland_. _See Seven Anniversaries_\n\n_Dybbuk_ (1972\u20134) (i) n145, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n39, (vi)\n\nFirst performance: 16 May 1974, New York, New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, New York City Ballet, Jerome Robbins (choreo.), Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\n_Extension of a Theme by Adolph Green_ (by 21 February 1943) (i)\n\nFirst broadcast performance: 21 February 1943, New York, WNYC, 6:30\u20137:00 p.m. ( _see_ Letter 125), David Oppenheim (clarinet), Leonard Bernstein (pf)\n\nReworked as the \"Waltz\" variation in _Fancy Free_\n\n_Facsimile_ (1946) (i) n104, (ii) n145, (iii), (iv) n11, (v), (vi), (vii) n70, (viii), (ix), (x)\n\nFirst performance: New York, Broadway Theatre, Ballet Theatre, Jerome Robbins (choreo.), Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\nDedication: For Jerome Robbins\n\n_Fancy Free_ (1944, including material from 1941\u20133) (i) n104, (ii), (iii), (iv) n25, (v) n44, (vi) n76, (vii) n141, (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi) n30, (xxii) n65, (xxiii) n77, (xxiv), (xxv) n32, (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii)\n\nFirst performance: 18 April 1944, New York, Metropolitan Opera House, Ballet Theatre, Jerome Robbins (choreo.), Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\nDedication: For Adolph Green\n\n_Fanfare for the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy_ (by January 1961) (i) n79, (ii) n81\n\nFirst performance: 19 January 1961, Washington, D.C., National Guard Armory, Inaugural Gala, orchestra, Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\nA reworking of \"This Turf is Ours\", a cut song from _West Side Story_\n\nOrchestration by Sid Ramin\n\n_Firstborn, The_ , incidental music (1958; incid. music for play by Christopher Fry) (i)\n\nFirst performance: 30 April 1958, New York, Coronet Theatre\n\n_Halil, Nocturne for Solo Flute with Piccolo, Alto Flute, Harp and Strings_ (1981) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nFirst performance: 27 May 1981, Jerusalem, Sultan's Pool, Jean-Pierre Rampal (flute), Israel PO, Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\nFirst US performance: 4 July 1981, Tanglewood, Doriot Anthony Dwyer (flute), Boston SO, Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\nDedication: To the Spirit of Yadin [Tannenbaum], and to his Fallen Brothers\n\nPartly derived from the _CBS 50th Anniversary Music_ composed in October 1977\n\n_I Hate Music: A Cycle of 5 Kid Songs_ (by 14 March 1943; _see_ Letter 133) (i) n57, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nFirst performance: 24 August 1943, Lenox, MA, Town Hall, Jennie Tourel (mezzo-sop.), Leonard Bernstein (pf)\n\nDedication: For Edys [Merrill]\n\n_Jeremiah_. _See Symphony No.(i)_\n\n_Kaddish_. _See Symphony No.(i)_\n\n_Lark, The_ (1955; incid. music for play by Jean Anouilh adapted by Lillian Hellman) (i), (ii), (iii) n74\n\nFirst performance: 28 October 1955, Boston, Plymouth Theatre, Russell Oberlin (counter-ten.), members of New York Pro Music Antique, Noah Greenberg (dir.)\n\nFirst New York performance: 17 November 1955, Longacre Theatre, cast as above\n\nMusic from _The Lark_ was later reworked as the _Missa brevis_\n\n_Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers_ (1970\u20131; additional texts by Stephen Schwartz and Leonard Bernstein) 70 n104, 268 n3, 301, 502, 503 (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n55, (viii), (ix), (x)\n\nFirst performance: 8 September 1971, Washington, D.C., Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, cast incl. Alan Titus (Celebrant), Norman Scribner Choir, Berkshire Boy Choir, Maurice Peress (cond.)\n\nOrchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, Hershy Kay and Bernstein\n\nDedication (added after the first publication of the piano-vocal score): For Roger L. Stevens\n\n_Missa brevis_ (1988) (i) n24\n\nFirst performance: 21 April 1988, Atlanta, GA, Symphony Hall, Derek Lee Ragin (counter-ten.), Atlanta Symphony Chorus, Robert Shaw (cond.)\n\nDedication: For Robert Shaw\n\nDerived from music for _The Lark_ , 1955\n\n_Nicest Time of Year, The_ (by 12 July 1943, _see_ Letter 148) (i)\n\nProbably unperformed at the time. The melody used the following year for \"Lucky To Be Me\" in _On The Town_\n\n_On the Town_ (1944; book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, on an idea by Jerome Robbins) (i), (ii) n43, (iii) n60, (iv) n75, (v) n104, (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii) n9, (xiii), (xiv), (xv) n90, (xvi) n173, (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii) n61, (xxiii) n128, (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii)\n\nFirst performance: 13 December 1944, Boston, Colonial Theatre, cast incl. Betty Comden (Claire DeLoone), Nancy Walker (Hildy Esterhazy), Sono Osato (Ivy Smith), Adolph Green (Ozzie), Cris Alexander (Chip), John Battles (Gabey); Jerome Robbins (choreo.), George Abbott (dir.), Max Goberman (cond.)\n\nFirst New York Performance: 28 December 1944, Adelphi Theatre, cast as above\n\nOrchestrations by Bernstein and Hershy Kay, Don Walker, Elliott Jacoby and Ted Royal\n\nDedication: none, but the _Three Dance Episodes from \"On the Town\"_ are dedicated to Sono Osato (I), Betty Comden (II) and Nancy Walker (III)\n\n_On the Waterfront_ (1954; film score) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nSound recording: 25\u20138 April 1954, Hollywood, CA, Columbia Pictures Studio, North Gower Street, orchestra, Morris Stoloff (cond.), supervised by Leonard Bernstein\n\nBernstein also played the piano for part of this recording: he performed the solo in saloon scene, approx. 37 minutes into the film (the manuscript of the music for this scene is headed \"4C - Juke Box\")\n\n_Peace, The_ (1941, incid. music for play by Aristophanes) (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nFirst Performance: 23 May 1941, Cambridge, MA, Sanders Theatre, Harvard Student Union Theatre, Robert Nichols (dir.), Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\n_Peter Pan_ (1950, incid. music for play by J.M. Barrie) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii)\n\nFirst performance: 24 April 1950, New York, Imperial Theatre, cast incl. Jean Arthur (Peter Pan) and Boris Karloff (Captain Hook); John Burrell (dir.), Trude Rittmann (music coordinator), Ben Steinberg (cond.)\n\nOrchestrations by Hershy Kay\n\n_Piano Trio_ (1937) (i) n18\n\nFirst performance: 1937, Madison Trio: Mildred Spiegel (piano), Dorothy Rosenberg (violin), Sarah Kruskall (cello)\n\nLater performance: 1939?, Harvard University, Paine Hall, Raphael Silverman [Hillyer] (violin), Jesse Ehrlich (cello), Mildred Spiegel (piano) [according to Raphael Hillyer]\n\nDedication: For the Madison Trio: M.S., D.R., S.K.\n\nOn the last page of the autograph score, Bernstein has written \"Revised Apr. 1937\"; Bernstein's movement listing on the inside front cover of this manuscript calls the work \"Pianoforte Trio, op. 2\", as do the autograph parts\n\n_Quiet Place, A_ (1983, rev. 1984; libretto by Stephen Wadsworth) (i) n46, (ii), (iii), (iv) n4, (v)\n\nFirst performance of original version (in one act; the second work on a double bill with _Trouble in Tahiti_ ): 17 June 1983, Houston Grand Opera, John DeMain (cond.)\n\nFirst performance of the revised version (in three acts, incorporating _Trouble in Tahiti_ ): 19 June 1984, La Scala, Milan, John Mauceri (cond.)\n\nFirst U.S. performance of the revised version: 22 July 1984, Washington, D.C., Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, John Mauceri (cond.)\n\n_Riobamba, The_ (1942) (i), (ii) n80\n\nFirst performance: 10 December 1942, New York, Riobamba Club, 151 East 57th Street ( _see_ Letter 115), possibly Jane Froman (singer), who headed the bill on the club's opening night\n\nDerived from music in _Conch Town_ and later reworked as the \"Danz\u00f3n\" in _Fancy Free_\n\n_Serenade_ (1947\u20138; 1955) (i); (i), (ii)\n\nPlanned musical setting of James M. Cain's _Serenade_ , not composed\n\n_Serenade after Plato's Symposium_ (1954) (i), (ii) n83, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix)\n\nFirst performance: 9 September 1954, Venice, Teatro La Fenice, Isaac Stern (violin), Israel PO, Bernstein (cond.)\n\nFirst US performance: 15 April 1955, Boston, Symphony Hall, Isaac Stern (violin), Boston SO, Charles Munch (cond.)\n\nDedication: To the Beloved Memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky\n\n_Seven Anniversaries_ (1942\u20133; completed by February 1943) (i) n59, (ii) n110, (iii) n65, (iv) n75, (v), (vi), (vii)\n\nFirst broadcast performance (as _Six Pieces_ and _Dedication to Aaron Copland_ ): 21 February 1943, New York, WNYC, 6:30\u20137:00 p.m. ( _see_ Letter 125), Bernstein (pf)\n\nFirst known public performance: 14 May 1944, Boston, Opera House, Bernstein (pf)\n\nDedications: I. For Aaron Copland; II. For My Sister, Shirley; III. In Memoriam: Alfred Eisner; IV. For Paul Bowles; V. In Memoriam: Natalie Koussevitzky; VI. For Sergei Koussevitzky; VII. For William Schuman\n\n_Six Pieces_. _See Seven Anniversaries_\n\n_1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_ (1976; book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner)\n\nFirst performance: 26 February 1976, Philadelphia, PA, Forrest Theatre, Ken Howard (President), Patricia Routledge (President's Wife), Gilbert Price (Lud); Donald McKayle (choreo.), Frank Corsaro (dir.), Roland Gagnon (cond.)\n\nFirst New York performance: 4 May 1976, Mark Hellinger Theatre, cast as above; Gilbert Moses and George Faison (choreo. and dir.), Roland Gagnon (cond.)\n\nOrchestrations by Sid Ramin and Hershy Kay\n\n_Skin of Our Teeth, The_ (1964\u20135) (i), (ii) n31, (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nPlanned musical, not completed. Two numbers (\"Here Comes The Sun\" and \"Spring Will Come Again\") were reworked for _Chichester Psalms_\n\n_Sonata for Clarinet and Piano_ (1941\u20132) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n38, (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix) n76, (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi) n144, (xxii), (xxiii) n157, (xxiv) n48, (xxv) n159, (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii)\n\nFirst performance: 21 April 1942, Boston, Institute of Modern Art, David Glazer (clarinet), Bernstein (pf)\n\nFirst broadcast performance: New York, WNYC, 21 February 1943, 6:30\u20137:00 p.m. ( _see_ Letter 125), David Oppenheim (clarinet), Bernstein (pf)\n\nFirst New York public performance: 14 March 1943, New York Public Library, League of Composers Concert, David Oppenheim (clarinet), Bernstein (pf)\n\nDedication: For David Oppenheim\n\n_Sonata for Violin and Piano_ (by August 1940; _see_ Letter 58) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nFirst performance: 1940, Cambridge, MA, Raphael Silverman [Hillyer] (violin), Leonard Bernstein (piano)\n\nDedication: For Raphael Silverman [Hillyer]\n\n_Songfest_ (1977) (i), (ii)\n\nFirst performance: 11 October 1977, Washington, D.C., Kennedy Center, Clamma Dale (sop.), Rosalind Elias (mezzo-sop.), Nancy Williams (mezzo-sop.), Neil Rosenshein (ten.), John Reardon (bar.), Donald Gramm (bass-bar.), National SO, Bernstein (cond.)\n\nDedication: For my mother\n\n_Symphonic Dances from West Side Story_ (1960) (i) n72, (ii)\n\nFirst performance: 13 February 1961, Carnegie Hall, New York, New York PO, Lukas Foss (cond.)\n\nOrchestrations by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal with Bernstein\n\nDedication: For Sid Ramin, in friendship\n\n_Symphonic Suite from \"On the Waterfront\"_ (1955) (i) n79, (ii), (iii)\n\nFirst performance: 11 August 1955, Tanglewood, MA, Boston SO, Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\nDedication: For my son, Alexander\n\n_Symphony No. 1, Jeremiah_ (1939\u201343) (i), (ii) n66, (iii), (iv), (v) n52, (vi), (vii) n138, (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix) n77, (xx) n23, (xxi)\n\nFirst performance: 28 January 1944, Pittsburgh, Syria Mosque, Jennie Tourel (mezzo-sop.), Pittsburgh SO, Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\nDedication: For my father\n\n_Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety_ (1945\u20139; rev. 1965) (i) n163, (ii), (iii) n72, (iv), (v), (vi) n111, (vii), (viii), (ix), (x) n2, (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi) n90, (xvii), (xviii), (xix) n63\n\nFirst performance of \"Dirge\" (only): 28 November 1948, Tel Aviv, Habima Hall, Gala Soir\u00e9e in aid of the IPO Pension Fund, Leonard Bernstein (pf), Israel PO, George Singer (cond.)\n\nFirst complete performance: 8 April 1949, Boston, Symphony Hall, Leonard Bernstein (pf), Boston SO, Serge Koussevitzky (cond.)\n\nFirst New York performance: 23 February 1950, New York, Carnegie Hall, Lukas Foss (pf), New York PO, Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\nFirst performance of revised version: 15 July 1965, New York, Philharmonic Hall, Philippe Entremont (pf), New York PO, Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\nDedication: For Serge Koussevitzky, in tribute\n\n_Symphony No. 3, Kaddish_ (1963; rev. 1977) (i) n2, (ii) n108, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi) n23\n\nFirst performance: 10 December 1963, Tel Aviv, Frederick Mann Auditorium, Hannah Rovina (speaker), Jennie Tourel (mezzo-sop.), Abraham Kaplan (choirs dir.), Israel PO, Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\nFirst US performance: 31 January 1964, Boston, Symphony Hall, Felicia Montealegre (speaker), Jennie Tourel (mezzo-sop.), New England Conservatory Chorus, Columbus Boychoir, Boston SO, Charles Munch (cond.)\n\nFirst performance of revised version: 25 August 1977, Mainz, Michael Wager (speaker), Monserrat Caball\u00e9 (soprano), Wiener Jeunesse Chor, Wiener S\u00e4ngerknaben, Israel PO, Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\nDedication: To the Beloved Memory of John F. Kennedy\n\n_Thirteen Anniversaries_ (1974\u201389) (i) n61\n\nDedications: I. For Shirley Gabis Rhoads Perle; II. In Memoriam: William Kapell; III. For Stephen Sondheim; IV. For Craig Urquhart; V. For Leo Smit; VI. For My Daughter, Nina; VII. In Memoriam: Helen Coates; VIII. In Memoriam: Goddard Lieberson; IX. For Jessica Fleischmann; X. In Memoriam: Constance Hope; XI. For Felicia, On Our 28th Birthday (& Her 52nd); XII. For Aaron Stern; XIII. In Memoriam: Ellen Goetz\n\n_Trouble in Tahiti_ (1951, libretto by Leonard Bernstein) (i) n46, (ii), (iii) n47, (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi) n45\n\nFirst performance: 12 June 1952, Brandeis University Festival of the Creative Arts, cast incl. Nell Tangeman (Dinah), David Atkinson (Sam), Constance Bingham, Robert Kole and Claude Heater (Trio), Elliot Silverstein (dir.), Leonard Bernstein (cond.)\n\nFirst New York performance: 19 April 1955, Playhouse Theatre, cast incl. Alice Ghostley (Dinah), John Tyers (Sam), Constance Bingham, John Taliafero, James Tushar (Trio), David Brooks (dir.), Joseph D. Lewis and Urey Krasnopolsky (pfs), Max Rich (drums), Leonard Gaskin (bass)\n\nDedication: For Marc Blitzstein\n\n_West Side Story_ (1949\u201357; based on an idea by Jerome Robbins, book: Arthur Laurents, lyrics: Stephen Sondheim) (i) n4, (ii) n104, (iii), (iv), (v) n145, (vi) n5, (vii) n132, (viii) n140, (ix) n173, (x) n76, (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx), (xxxi), (xxxii), (xxxiii), (xxxiv), (xxxv), (xxxvi), (xxxvii), (xxxviii), (xxxix), (xl), (xli), (xlii), (xliii), (xliv), (xlv), (xlvi), (xlvii), (xlviii), (xlix) n58, (l), (li), (lii), (liii), (liv), (lv), (lvi), (lvii), (lviii)\n\nFirst performance: 19 August 1957, Washington, D.C., National Theatre, cast incl. Carol Lawrence (Maria), Chita Rivera (Anita), Larry Kert (Tony), Ken Le Roy (Bernardo), Mickey Calin (Riff), Art Smith (Doc); Jerome Robbins (concept and dir.), Max Goberman (cond.)\n\nFirst New York performance: 26 September 1957, Winter Garden Theatre, cast as above\n\nOrchestrations by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal with Bernstein\n\nDedication: To Felicia, with love\n\n_White House Cantata, A_ (scenes from _1600 Pennsylvania Avenue_ ), arr. Charlie Harmon and Sid Ramin (1997) (i), (ii) n38\n\nFirst performance: 8 July 1997, London, Barbican Centre, Nancy Gustafson, Dietrich Henschel, Jacqueline Miura, Thomas Young, London Voices, London SO, Kent Nagano (cond.)\n\n_Wonderful Town_ (1952\u20133; book: Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov, lyrics: Betty Comden and Adolph Green) (i), (ii) n43, (iii) n60, (iv) n113, (v) n171, (vi) n58, (vii) n73, (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii) n60, (xiv) n128, (xv), (xvi) n53\n\nFirst performance: 19 January 1953, New Haven, CT, Shubert Theater, cast incl. Rosalind Russell (Ruth), Edith Adams (Eileen), George Gaynes (Robert Baker), Jordan Bentley (Wreck), Cris Alexander (Frank); Donald Saddler (choreo.), George Abbott (dir.), Lehman Engel (cond.)\n\nFirst New York performance: 26 February 1926, Winter Garden Theatre, cast as above\n\nOrchestrations by Don Walker assisted by Seymour Ginzler and Sid Ramin\n\nArrangement:\n\n_El Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_ (Aaron Copland), transcribed for solo piano (by 10 December 1940; _see_ Letter 74) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n107, (vi), (vii) n160\n\nFirst known public performance: 18 November 1941, Boston, Copley Plaza Hotel, as part of recital for the Chromatic Club, Leonard Bernstein (pf). The program for this concert makes no mention of the Copland transcription being a first performance. Since it had been finished a year earlier, it is likely that Bernstein had played it before, possibly at private concerts\nGeneral Index\n\nAbarbanell, Lina (i)\n\nAbbado, Claudio (i)\n\nAbbott, George (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n4, (vi), (vii) n6, (viii), (ix) n173, (x)\n\nAbell, David Charles (i), (ii)\n\nAbravanel, Maurice (i) n104, (ii)\n\nAction Committee to Free Spain Now (i)\n\nAdams, Franklin P. (i)\n\nAdams, John (i)\n\nAdams, Sherman (i)\n\nAdams, Stanley (i), (ii)\n\nAdler, Ellen (i), (ii), (iii) n146, (iv), (v)\n\nAdler, Larry (i)\n\nAlbert, Eddie (i)\n\nAlexander, Holmes (i)\n\nAlger, Horatio (i)\n\n_Allegro_ (musical) (i), (ii) n60\n\nAllen, Elizabeth (i), (ii)\n\nAlphand, Claude (i), (ii)\n\nAl Smith Memorial Hospital Fund (i)\n\nAlsop, Marin (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nAlswang, Ralph (i)\n\nAmber, Lenny (pseudonym for Leonard Bernstein) (i)\n\nAmerican Arts Committee for Palestine (i)\n\nAmerican Christian Palestine Committee (i)\n\nAmerican Civil Liberties Union (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nAmerican Committee for Spanish Freedom (i)\n\nAmerican Committee of Yugoslav Relief (i)\n\nAmerican Council for a Democratic Greece (i)\n\nAmerican Friends of Hebrew University (i)\n\nAmerican Friends Services Committee (i)\n\nAmerican Fund for Israel Institutions (i)\n\nAmerican Fund for Palestinian Institutions (i)\n\nAmerican Legion (i) n64\n\nAmerican Red Cross (i)\n\nAmerican Red Magen David for Palestine (i)\n\nAmerican Youth for Democracy (i)\n\nAndrews, Dana (i) n62, (ii)\n\nAntheil, George (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nArlen, Harold (i)\n\nArmstrong, Louis (i)\n\nArrau, Claudio (i), (ii) n59, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)\n\nAskew, Constance (i), (ii)\n\nAtkinson, Brooks (i) n61, (ii), (iii) n77, (iv)\n\nAuber, Daniel Fran\u00e7ois Esprit (i)\n\nAuden, Wystan Hugh (i), (ii) n163, (iii), (iv), (v) n116, (vi)\n\n_Age of Anxiety, The_ (i), (ii) n110, (iii) n16, (iv) n90, (v) n116\n\nAugustine, Stephanie (i)\n\nAvedon, Richard (i), (ii)\n\nAvshalomoff, Jacob (Jack) (i) n49, (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nAx, Emanuel (i)\n\nBacall, Lauren (Betty) (i), (ii), (iii) n56\n\nBach, Johann Sebastian (i), (ii), (iii) n29, (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix)\n\nBarber, Samuel (i) n58, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix) n94, (x) n133, (xi), (xii)\n\n_Adagio for Strings_ (i) n10\n\n_Second Essay_ (i) n10\n\nViolin Concerto (i) n10, (ii), (iii) n58\n\nBarrymore, Ethel (i)\n\nBart\u00f3k, B\u00e9la (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii) n133, (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii)\n\n_Concerto for Orchestra_ (i) n71\n\n_Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta_ (i), (ii), (iii) n169\n\n_Portrait_ Op. 5 No. 1 (i), (ii), (iii)\n\n_Rhapsody_ No. 1 (i), (ii)\n\nBaudelaire, Charles (i)\n\nBauer, Harold (i)\n\nBauer, Marion (i), (ii)\n\nBaxter, Anne (i) n62\n\nBearson, Lawrence (i)\n\nBeat Generation (i)\n\n_Beckoning Fair One, The_ (unrealized film project) (i) n59, (ii) n74\n\nBeery, Wallace (i), (ii)\n\nBeethoven, Ludwig van (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x) n27, (xi), (xii) n151, (xiii)\n\n_Fidelio_ (i), (ii)\n\n_Leonore_ No. 3 Overture (i), (ii) n27, (iii)\n\n_Missa solemnis_ (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nPiano Concerto No. 1 (i), (ii) n32, (iii), (iv) n70, (v)\n\nString Quartets (i), (ii)\n\nString Quartet Op. 131 arr. Mitropoulos (i) n40\n\nSymphony No. 1 (i) n27\n\nSymphony No. 3 (\"Eroica\") (i) n69, (ii) n69\n\nSymphony No. 4 (i), (ii)\n\nSymphony No. 5 (i), (ii) n99\n\nSymphony No. 7 (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nSymphony No. 9 (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nTriple Concerto (i), (ii) n63\n\nBeinum, Eduard van (i)\n\nBellafonte, Harry (i)\n\nBellini, Vincenzo (i) n149\n\n_Sonnambula, La_ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\n_Bells are Ringing_ (musical) (i) n21, (ii) n5, (iii) n2\n\nBen-Gurion, David (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nBennett, Richard Rodney (i), (ii), (iii) n25\n\n_Nicholas and Alexandra_ (i)\n\nSymphony No. 2 (i)\n\nBennett, Robert Russell (i)\n\nBerezowsky, Alice (i)\n\nBerezowsky, Nicolai (i), (ii) n86\n\nBerger, Arthur (i) n27, (ii) n28, (iii), (iv), (v) n101, (vi)\n\nBergman, Ingmar (i)\n\nBerio, Luciano (i), (ii)\n\nBerkowitz, Ralph (i)\n\nBerlin, Irving (i), (ii), (iii) n42\n\n_How Dry I Am_ (i)\n\nBernstein, Alexander (son of LB, sometimes \"Axel\" or \"Fink\") (i), (ii) n4, (iii) n79, (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x) n30, (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv)\n\nBernstein, Burton (brother of LB) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii)\n\nBernstein, Felicia (wife of LB) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx), (xxxi), (xxxii), (xxxiii), (xxxiv), (xxxv), (xxxvi), (xxxvii), (xxxviii), (xxxix), (xl), (xli), (xlii), (xliii), (xliv), (xlv), (xlvi), (xlvii), (xlviii), (xlix), (l), (li), (lii), (liii), (liv), (lv), (lvi), (lvii), (lviii), (lix), (lx), (lxi), (lxii), (lxiii), (lxiv), (lxv), (lxvi), (lxvii), (lxviii), (lxix), (lxx), (lxxi), (lxxii), (lxxiii), (lxxiv), (lxxv), (lxxvi), (lxxvii), (lxxviii), (lxxix), (lxxx), (lxxxi), (lxxxii), (lxxxiii), (lxxxiv), (lxxxv), (lxxxvi), (lxxxvii), (lxxxviii), (lxxxix), (xc), (xci), (xcii), (xciii) n44, (xciv), (xcv), (xcvi) n55, (xcvii) n57, (xcviii), (xcix), (c), (ci), (cii), (ciii). _See also_ Montealegre Cohn, Felicia\n\nBernstein, Jamie (daugher of LB) (i), (ii) n4, (iii) n57, (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx), (xxxi), (xxxii), (xxxiii), (xxxiv), (xxxv)\n\nBernstein, Jennie (mother of LB) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx)\n\nBernstein, Nina (daughter of LB) (i) n4, (ii) n30, (iii), (iv) n96, (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi)\n\nBernstein, Samuel (father of LB) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix) n148, (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix) n47, (xx), (xxi), (xxii)\n\nBernstein, Shirley (sister of LB) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv) n130, (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx), (xxxi), (xxxii), (xxxiii), (xxxiv), (xxxv), (xxxvi), (xxxvii), (xxxviii), (xxxix), (xl), (xli), (xlii), (xliii), (xliv), (xlv), (xlvi), (xlvii), (xlviii), (xlix) n149, (l), (li), (lii), (liii)\n\nBerrigan, Daniel (i)\n\nBerrigan, Philip (i)\n\nBigelow, Otis (i), (ii)\n\n_Billion Dollar Baby_ (musical) (i) n5, (ii) n31, (iii)\n\nBing, Rudolf (i)\n\nBirch, John (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nBizet, Georges (i) n53\n\n_Carmen_ (i), (ii) n11, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)\n\nBlack Panthers (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nBlitzstein, Marc (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n66, (viii), (ix), (x) n104, (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv) n11, (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix) n65, (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii) n29, (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii), (xxix) n122, (xxx)\n\n_Cradle Will Rock, The_ (i), (ii) n29, (iii), (iv) n56, (v) n4, (vi), (vii) n123\n\n_Regina_ (i), (ii) n4, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n104, (viii) n123, (ix) n41\n\n_Reuben Reuben_ (i) n4, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n30\n\n_Sacco and Vanzetti_ (i)\n\nBloch, Ernest (i) n71, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n9\n\nBlue Angel, The (nightclub) (i)\n\nB'nai B'rith (i), (ii), (iii) n8\n\nBohm, Jerome (i)\n\nB\u00f6hm, Karl (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n16\n\nBok, Mary Louise Curtis (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\n_Bonanza Bound_ (musical) (i)\n\nBonney, William H. (Billy the Kid) (i)\n\nBoston Symphony Orchestra (i), (ii) n26, (iii) nn72\u20133, (iv) n75, (v), (vi) n94, (vii) n107, (viii) n2, (ix), (x) n163, (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi) n75, (xvii), (xviii), (xix) n82, (xx) n112, (xxi) n153, (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii) n73, (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx) n13, (xxxi) n14, (xxxii), (xxxiii)\n\nBoulanger, Nadia (i) n66, (ii), (iii) n88, (iv) n71, (v), (vi) n123, (vii), (viii), (ix), (x) n146, (xi), (xii), (xiii) n76, (xiv), (xv), (xvi) n101, (xvii) n150, (xviii) n176, (xix)\n\nBoulez, Pierre (i), (ii), (iii) n74, (iv), (v) n142, (vi) n42\n\n_Polyphonie X_ (i)\n\nBoult, Adrian (i), (ii)\n\nBourke-White, Margaret (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nBowles, Paul (often \"Pfb\") (i), (ii) n74, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii) n85, (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv) n11, (xxvi) n33, (xxvii) n102, (xxviii) n36\n\n_Wind Remains, The_ (i), (ii) n88, (iii) n101\n\nBoy Scouts of America (i)\n\nBraggiotti, Mario (i)\n\nBrahms, Johannes (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n28, (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix) n151, (x) n23, (xi)\n\nDouble Concerto (i), (ii)\n\n_Haydn Variations_ (i)\n\nPiano Concerto No. 1 (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n59, (v)\n\nPiano Concerto No. 2 (i), (ii), (iii) n46\n\nSymphony No. 1 (i), (ii) n27, (iii) n69, (iv)\n\nSymphony No. 2 (i)\n\nSymphony No. 3 (i)\n\nBrain, Dennis (\"Brahan\") (i)\n\nBraly, Kristin (i)\n\nBrandeis University (i) n83, (ii) n11, (iii), (iv), (v) n62, (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix)\n\nBrando, Marlon (i) n142, (ii) n80, (iii) n105, (iv), (v)\n\nBraslavsky, Solomon (i), (ii) n66, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)\n\nBrennan, Charles D. (i)\n\nBrennan, Walter (i) n62, (ii)\n\nBritten, Benjamin (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n55, (viii) n68, (ix), (x) n133, (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv) n152, (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii) n42\n\n_Cantata misericordium_ (i)\n\n_Paul Bunyan_ (i) n107, (ii) n108\n\n_Peter Grimes_ (i) n107, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\n_Rape of Lucretia, The_ (i), (ii) n55\n\n_Rejoice in the Lamb_ (i) n116\n\n_Sinfonia da Requiem_ (i)\n\nViolin Concerto (i) n53, (ii)\n\nBroder Jane (i)\n\nBroder, Nathan (i)\n\nBrooklyn Philanthropic League (i)\n\nBrooks, David (i)\n\nBrown, Earle (i) n109, (ii)\n\nBrown, Kay (i)\n\nBruckner, Anton (i), (ii)\n\nBurgin, Richard (i)\n\nBurk, John N. (i)\n\nBurke, Johnny (i)\n\nBurns, John Horne (i) n109\n\n_Gallery, The_ (i)\n\nBurr, Aaron (i)\n\nBurrell, John (i), (ii)\n\nBurrows, Abe (i) n43\n\nBurton, Humphrey (i), (ii) n130, (iii) n151, (iv), (v), (vi) n57, (vii)\n\nBusoni, Ferruccio (i) n10, (ii)\n\nByrns, Harold (i), (ii)\n\nCadman, Charles Wakefield (i)\n\nCaesar, Irving (i)\n\nCage, John (i) n79, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n112, (vii)\n\nCahn, Judah (i)\n\nCain, James M. (i), (ii), (iii) n114, (iv), (v)\n\n_Double Indemnity_ (i) n114\n\n_Mildred Pierce_ (i) n114\n\n_Postman Always Rings Twice, The_ (i) n114\n\n_Serenade_ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n119, (v), (vi)\n\nCalder, Alexander (i), (ii)\n\nCalin, Mickey (i), (ii)\n\nCallas, Maria (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n149\n\nCamp Onota (i), (ii), (iii) n43, (iv) n168, (v), (vi), (vii)\n\nCampbell-Watson, Frank (i), (ii) n8\n\n_Can-Can_ (musical) (i), (ii) n54\n\n_Carnival in Flanders_ (musical) (i)\n\n_Carousel_ (musical) (i), (ii), (iii) n150\n\nCarre\u00f1o, Teresa (i)\n\nCarter, Elliott (i) n79, (ii), (iii)\n\n_Concerto for Orchestra_ (i)\n\nCarter, Jimmy (i)\n\nCarter, Rosalynn (i)\n\nCasafuerte, Marquise Yvonne de la (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nChadwick, George Whitfield (i)\n\nChagall, Marc (i) n116\n\nChapin, Schuyler (i)\n\nChaplin, Charlie (i)\n\nChaplin, Ethel (n\u00e9e Ethel Schwartz) (i)\n\nChaplin, Saul (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n82, (vii) n83\n\nCharnin, Martin (i)\n\nChasins, Abram (i)\n\nChausson, Ernest (i)\n\nChavchavadze, Prince George (i)\n\nCh\u00e1vez, Carlos (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)\n\n_Sinfonia India_ (i), (ii)\n\nChavez, Quita (i)\n\nCherubini, Luigi (i) n149\n\n_Medea_ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n149\n\nCincinnati Symphony Orchestra (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nCivil Rights Congress (i)\n\nClaman, Julian (i)\n\nClark, Anne Gibson (i)\n\nCliburn, Van (i)\n\nClooney, Rosemary (i)\n\nClurman, Harold (i), (ii) n143, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n148\n\nCoates, Helen (i), (ii), (iii) n3, (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x) n45, (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx) n96, (xxxi), (xxxii), (xxxiii), (xxxiv), (xxxv), (xxxvi), (xxxvii), (xxxviii), (xxxix), (xl), (xli), (xlii) n173, (xliii), (xliv), (xlv), (xlvi), (xlvii), (xlviii), (xlix), (l), (li), (lii), (liii), (liv), (lv), (lvi), (lvii), (lviii), (lix) n15, (lx) n44, (lxi), (lxii), (lxiii) n61, (lxiv), (lxv) n93, (lxvi) n100, (lxvii), (lxviii) n137, (lxix), (lxx), (lxxi), (lxxii), (lxxiii), (lxxiv), (lxxv), (lxxvi), (lxxvii) n18, (lxxviii), (lxxix), (lxxx)\n\nCohen, Mrs. Frank (i)\n\nCohen, Yardena (i)\n\nColeman, Francis A. (i) n10\n\nColombo, Ted (i)\n\nColumbia Records (i), (ii) n38, (iii) n120, (iv) n137, (v), (vi) n52, (vii) n62, (viii), (ix), (x) n58, (xi), (xii) n66, (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii) n128, (xviii) n6, (xix) n36\n\nComden, Betty (i), (ii) n43, (iii) n54, (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii) n21, (xiv) n131, (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii) n2, (xix), (xx), (xxi) n6, (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx), (xxxi), (xxxii), (xxxiii) n29, (xxxiv) n58, (xxxv), (xxxvi), (xxxvii), (xxxviii) n103, (xxxix), (xl), (xli), (xlii) n37, (xliii), (xliv), (xlv) n77, (xlvi) n83, (xlvii) n128, (xlviii), (xlix), (l)\n\nCommunist Party (i), (ii) n98, (iii) n49, (iv) n106, (v) n42, (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x)\n\nCone, Edward T. (i) n28, (ii)\n\nConverse, Frederick (i)\n\nCopland, Aaron (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix) n66, (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx), (xxxi), (xxxii), (xxxiii), (xxxiv), (xxxv), (xxxvi), (xxxvii), (xxxviii), (xxxix), (xl), (xli), (xlii), (xliii), (xliv), (xlv), (xlvi), (xlvii), (xlviii), (xlix), (l), (li), (lii), (liii), (liv), (lv), (lvi), (lvii), (lviii), (lix), (lx), (lxi), (lxii), (lxiii), (lxiv), (lxv), (lxvi), (lxvii), (lxviii), (lxix), (lxx), (lxxi), (lxxii), (lxxiii), (lxxiv), (lxxv), (lxxvi), (lxxvii), (lxxviii), (lxxix) n11, (lxxx), (lxxxi), (lxxxii) n28, (lxxxiii), (lxxxiv) n37, (lxxxv), (lxxxvi) n78, (lxxxvii), (lxxxviii), (lxxxix), (xc) n104, (xci), (xcii), (xciii), (xciv) n133, (xcv), (xcvi), (xcvii), (xcviii), (xcix), (c) nn35\u20136, (ci), (cii), (ciii), (civ), (cv) n64, (cvi) n65, (cvii), (cviii), (cix), (cx), (cxi), (cxii), (cxiii), (cxiv), (cxv), (cxvi), (cxvii), (cxviii), (cix), (cxx), (cxxi), (cxxii), (cxxiii), (cxxiv), (cxxv), (cxxvi), (cxxvii) n36, (cxxviii), (cxxiv), (cxxx)\n\n_Appalachian Spring_ (i) n118, (ii) n151, (iii) n170, (iv) n35, (v), (vi), (vii), (viii)\n\n_Billy the Kid_ (i) n30, (ii) n82, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix) n1, (x), (xi)\n\n_Canticle of Freedom_ (i), (ii)\n\n_City, The_ (i)\n\nClarinet Concerto (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\n_Dance Symphony_ (i)\n\n_Danz\u00f3n cubano_ (i) n46, (ii), (iii)\n\n_El Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico_ (sometimes \"El Saloon\") (i), (ii), (iii) nn26\u20137, (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii) n107, (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii) n160, (xviii), (xix), (xx)\n\n_Hear Ye, Hear Ye_ (i)\n\n_In the Beginning_ (i) n101\n\n_Lincoln Portrait_ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii)\n\n_Music for the Movies_ (i) n63, (ii)\n\n_Music for the Theatre_ (i), (ii), (iii) n63, (iv), (v), (vi)\n\n_North Star, The_ (i) n62, (ii), (iii) n133, (iv), (v) n78\n\n_Ode_ (i)\n\n_Old American Songs_ (i) n52, (ii), (iii)\n\n_Our Town_ (i) n50, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\n_Outdoor Overture_ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii)\n\nPiano Concerto (i)\n\nPiano Quartet (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nPiano Sonata (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii)\n\nPiano Variations (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) (orchestral version)\n\n_Quiet City_ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\n_Rodeo_ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n150, (v), (vi)\n\n_Second Hurricane, The_ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x) n73\n\n_Short Symphony_ (i), (ii)\n\n_Statements_ (i)\n\n_Tender Land, The_ (i) n21, (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\n_Third Symphony_ (i), (ii) n37, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)\n\nViolin Sonata (i)\n\nCoppola, Francis Ford (i)\n\nCorwin, Norman (i) n62\n\nCott, Jonathan (i), (ii), (iii) n46\n\nCouncil on African Affairs (i)\n\nCourtnay, Alex (i)\n\nCowan, Lester (i) n59, (ii), (iii)\n\nCowell, Henry (i) n74, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n28\n\nCraft, Robert (i) n90, (ii) n93\n\nCrawford, Cheryl (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n65\n\nCreston, Paul (i) n74, (ii)\n\nCulshaw, John (i)\n\nCunningham, Merce (i) n88\n\nCuomo, Ciro (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)\n\nCurtin, Phyllis (i) n57\n\nCurtis Institute of Music (i), (ii), (iii) n21, (iv) n32, (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x) n66, (xi) n72, (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii) n3, (xviii) n37, (xix), (xx), (xxi) n137, (xxii), (xxiii) n160, (xxiv)\n\nCurtiss, Mina Kirstein (i), (ii)\n\nCzech Phiharmonic Orchestra (i) n98\n\nDale, Grover (i)\n\nDalgliesh, James (i)\n\nDaniel, Oliver (i), (ii)\n\nDavies, Joseph P. (i)\n\nDavis, Bette (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n63\n\nDavis, George (i)\n\nDavis, Miles (i), (ii) n41, (iii) n43\n\nDebussy, Claude (i), (ii), (iii) n28, (iv)\n\n_La Mer_ (i)\n\nDeLange, Eddie (i)\n\nDel Tredici, David (i), (ii)\n\n_Tattoo_ (i) n50, (ii)\n\nDello Joio, Norman (i)\n\nDeMain, John (i) n4\n\nDe Mille, Agnes (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nDemuth, Charles (i)\n\nDenby, Edwin (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n73\n\nDe Sio, Al (i)\n\nDe Spirito, Romolo (i), (ii) n102, (iii) n103\n\nDessau, Paul (i)\n\nDetroit Symphony Orchestra (i), (ii) n129, (iii), (iv)\n\nDiamond, David (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n74, (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi) n28, (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii), (xxix) n102, (xxx), (xxxi), (xxxii), (xxxiii) n64, (xxxiv), (xxxv), (xxxvi), (xxxvii), (xxxviii), (xxxix), (xl), (xli), (xlii), (xliii), (xliv), (xlv) n27, (xlvi), (xlvii), (xlviii), (xlix), (l), (li), (lii), (liii), (liv), (lv), (lvi) n47, (lvii)\n\nPiano Concerto (i)\n\nPrelude and Fugue No. 3 (i), (ii), (iii)\n\n_Rounds_ (i), (ii)\n\nSymphony No. 1 (i) n66, (ii) n40\n\nSymphony No. 2 (i)\n\nSymphony No. 4 (i) n66, (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nSymphony No. 5 (i)\n\nSymphony No. 9 (i)\n\n_World of Paul Klee, The_ (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nDiamond, Irene Lee (i)\n\nDimitryk, Edward (i)\n\nDonen, Stanley (i), (ii) n28\n\nDownes, Olin (i) n28, (ii), (iii) n28, (iv) n33, (v) n69, (vi) n94, (vii) n159, (viii) n65\n\nDu Pont, Paul (i)\n\nDuffy, Monsignor (i)\n\n_Duffy's Tavern_ (radio show) (i)\n\nDufresne, Gaston (i)\n\nDuke, Vernon (i)\n\nDulles, John Foster (i)\n\nDunham, Katherine (i)\n\nDvo\u0159\u00e1k, Anton\u00edn (i) n26, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)\n\nDwyer, Doriot Anthony (i), (ii)\n\n_Easter Holiday_ (provisional title for _Easter Parade_ ) (i)\n\n_Easter Parade_ (film) (i) n89\n\nEastman School of Music (i), (ii) n37, (iii) n49, (iv), (v) n71, (vi), (vii) n51, (viii) n58\n\nEddy, Nelson (i)\n\nEdens, Roger (i)\n\nEhrlich, Jesse (i) n18, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nEhrman, Kenneth (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii)\n\nEisenhower, Dwight D. (i), (ii) n53, (iii) n141\n\nEisner, Alfred (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n97, (viii), (ix), (x)\n\nElgar, Edward (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nEliot, T.S. (i)\n\nEllington, Duke (i), (ii)\n\nEllis, Havelock (i) n104, (ii)\n\nElman, Mischa (i)\n\nElwes, Mr. and Mrs. Robert (i)\n\nEnglander, Lester (i)\n\nEnglander, Roger (i), (ii) n93\n\nEssen, Viola (i)\n\nEuropean Friends of ORT (i)\n\nEvans, Ross (i)\n\nFarbman, Harry (i)\n\nFassett, James (i)\n\nFaur\u00e9, Gabriel (i)\n\n_Requiem_ (i) n94, (ii) n167\n\nFaye, Alice (i)\n\nFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (i) n85, (ii) n105, (iii) n106, (iv), (v) n68, (vi)\n\nFeigay, Paul (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nFeldman, Charlie (i)\n\nFeldman, Morton (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n112\n\nFennell, Frederick (i)\n\nFiedler, Arthur (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n59\n\nFine, Irving (i), (ii), (iii) n101\n\nFine, Verna (i)\n\n_First Impressions_ (musical) (i) n43\n\nFischer-Dieskau, Dietrich (i), (ii)\n\nFishburg, Jack (Joachin) (i)\n\nFizdale, Robert (i) n62\n\nFlagg, James Montgomery (i)\n\nFluck, Alan (i), (ii)\n\nFonteyn (de Arias), Margot (i)\n\nFord Foundation (i)\n\nFoss, Lukas (i) n58, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n89, (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii) n101, (xix), (xx) n106, (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv) n154, (xxv), (xxvi) n46, (xxvii), (xxviii)\n\n_Phorion_ (i)\n\n_Psalms_ (i)\n\n_Song of Anguish_ (i)\n\n_Symphony of Chorales_ (i)\n\n_Time Cycle_ (i) n64\n\nVariations (i) n154\n\nFran\u00e7aix, Jean (i)\n\nFray, Jacques (i)\n\nFreed, Arthur (i)\n\nFrings, Kurt (i)\n\nFry, Christopher (i)\n\nFrye, Peter (i)\n\nFryer, Robert (i)\n\nFuleihan, Anis (i) n28\n\nFuller, Donald (i)\n\nFurtw\u00e4ngler, Wilhelm (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nGabis Rhoads Perle], Shirley [(i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)\n\nGaburo, Kenneth (i), (ii)\n\nGalway, James (i)\n\nGarbo, Greta (i) n15, (ii) n74\n\nGarfield, John (i) n59, (ii)\n\nGarland, Judy (i), (ii) n89, (iii) n93, (iv)\n\nGebhard, Heinrich (i), (ii), (iii) n18, (iv)\n\nGeer, Will (i), (ii)\n\nGellhorn, Martha (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n22, (v) n24, (vi), (vii), (viii)\n\nGershwin, George (i) n6, (ii) n51, (iii) n8, (iv) n60, (v), (vi) n150, (vii)\n\n_Porgy and Bess_ (i) n40, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\n_Rhapsody in Blue_ (i), (ii)\n\nGershwin, Ira (i), (ii), (iii) n63, (iv) n56\n\nGhiringhelli, Antonio (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nGhostley, Alice (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nGide, Andr\u00e9 (i), (ii)\n\nGieseking, Walter (i), (ii)\n\nGilbert, Helen (i)\n\nGinzler, Robert (i) n4\n\n_Girl with the Two Left Feet, The_ (Revuers sketch with improvised score by LB) (i), (ii), (iii) n65\n\nGlazer, David (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nGlickstein, Izso (Isadore) (i), (ii)\n\nGluck, Christoph Willibald von (i)\n\nGoberman, Max (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n5, (v) n173, (vi) n63\n\nGold, Arthur (i) n62\n\nGoldman Band (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii)\n\nGoldman, Edwin Franko (i)\n\nGoldman, Milton (i)\n\nGoldstein, Leonore (i), (ii)\n\nGoldwyn, Samuel (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)\n\nGolschmann, Vladimir (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n77\n\nGoodman, Benny (i) n153, (ii), (iii) n62\n\nGoodman, Zelda (i)\n\nGordon, Beatrice (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)\n\nGottlieb, Jack (i), (ii) n24, (iii), (iv)\n\nGould, Glenn (i), (ii)\n\nGould, Morton (i), (ii) n6, (iii), (iv), (v) n32\n\nGrace Congregational Church (i)\n\nGradenwitz, Peter (i), (ii) n152\n\n_The Music of Israel: Its Rise and Growth Through 5000 Years_ (i)\n\nGraham, Martha (i), (ii), (iii) n6, (iv) n13\n\nGranger, Farley (i) n62, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)\n\nGrant, Cary (i)\n\nGrayson, Kathryn (i)\n\nGreen, Adolph (i) n17, (ii), (iii) n60, (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n21, (viii), (ix), (x) n23, (xi), (xii) n76, (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix) n47, (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx), (xxxi), (xxxii) n58, (xxxiii), (xxxiv), (xxxv), (xxxvi), (xxxvii), (xxxviii), (xxxix), (xl), (xli), (xlii), (xliii), (xliv) n77, (xlv) n83, (xlvi), (xlvii) n128, (xlviii), (xlix) n172, (l), (li), (lii)\n\nGreen, Frank (i)\n\nGreen, Johnny (i)\n\nGreene, Milton (i)\n\nGreenwich House, The (i)\n\n_Greenwich Village_ (film) (i) nn130\u20131\n\nGretchaninoff, Alexander (i)\n\nGrieg, Edvard (i), (ii)\n\nGruen, John (i), (ii)\n\nGuthrie, Tyrone (i), (ii)\n\n_Guys and Dolls_ (musical) (i), (ii) n43,\n\nHaftel, Zvi (i)\n\nHaieff, Alexei (i) n28, (ii)\n\nHalasz, Laszlo (i), (ii)\n\nHall, Radclyffe (i) n20\n\n_Well of Loneliness, The_ (i)\n\nHammer, Alvin (i) n131, (ii)\n\nHammerstein, Oscar (i), (ii) n115, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n37, (vii) n60, (viii) n74\n\nHandel, George Frideric (i) n6, (ii)\n\n_Water_ Music (i), (ii)\n\nHanson, Howard (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nHarburg, E.Y. (Yip) (i)\n\nHargail Music Co. (Hargail Records) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)\n\nHarmon, Charles (Charlie) (i), (ii) n38, (iii)\n\nHarris, Roy (i), (ii) n74, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)\n\n_Ode to Truth_ (i)\n\nSymphony No. 3 (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nSymphony No. 5 (i)\n\n_Harvard Advocate_ (i), (ii)\n\nHarvard Scholarship Fund (i)\n\nHarvard University (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv) n41, (xv), (xvi) n59, (xvii) n73, (xviii), (xix), (xx) n77, (xxi) n149, (xxii), (xxiii) n3, (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii) n39, (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx)\n\nHaydn, Joseph (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n13\n\n_Creation, The_ (i)\n\nMass in B flat (i)\n\nHayes, Helen (i)\n\nHayton, Lenny (i), (ii)\n\nHayward, Leland (i), (ii) n156\n\n_Hazel Flagg_ (musical) (i)\n\nHebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society (i)\n\nHebrew Union College (i)\n\nHeifetz, Jascha (i)\n\nHeinsheimer, Hans (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi)\n\nHellman, Lillian (i), (ii), (iii) n65, (iv), (v), (vi) n104, (vii), (viii) n23, (ix) n31, (x) n74\n\nHemingway, Ernest (i), (ii) n87, (iii) n21, (iv), (v)\n\n_For Whom the Bell Tolls_ (i) n77\n\nHendl, Walter (i), (ii) n89, (iii)\n\nHenried, Paul (i) n18\n\nHerbert, F. Hugh (i) n4\n\n_Kiss and Tell_ (i)\n\nHerbert, June (i)\n\nH\u00e9rold, Ferdinand (i)\n\nHeusen, Jimmy Van (i) n71\n\nHiller, Wendy (i)\n\nHillyer, Raphael (i) n18, (ii) n73, (iii). _See also_ Silverman, Raphael\n\nHindemith, Paul (i), (ii), (iii) n9, (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix) n68, (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii)\n\n_Mathis der Maler_ Symphony (i)\n\nViolin Concerto (i)\n\nHitchcock, Alfred (i) n73, (ii) n78\n\n_Rope_ (i) n78\n\n_Shadow of a Doubt_ (i)\n\n_Strangers on a Train_ (i) n78, (ii) n154\n\nHocker, David (i)\n\nHolliday, Judy (i), (ii) n54, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n38, (vii), (viii) n131, (ix), (x), (xi) n104, (xii), (xiii), (xiv) n65\n\nHolm, Hanya (i)\n\nHonegger, Arthur (i)\n\n_Jeanne d'Arc au b\u00fbcher_ (i), (ii) n57, (iii) n12\n\nHoover, J. Edgar (i)\n\nHorne, Lena (i), (ii) n65, (iii), (iv)\n\nHorney, Karen (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nHorowitz, Richard (i)\n\nHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) (i) n70, (ii) n98, (iii) n105, (iv), (v), (vi) n60, (vii), (viii), (ix) n79, (x) n27, (xi) n28, (xii) n31\n\nHoyt, Howard (i), (ii) n131\n\nHughes, Langston (i) n104\n\nHunt, Marsha (Mrs. Robert Presnell) (i) n46\n\nHurok, Sol (i), (ii)\n\nHussey, Walter (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix)\n\nHuston, Walter (i) n62\n\nHutcheson, Ernest (i)\n\nHuxley, Aldous (i)\n\nHyatt, Dick (i)\n\nIan, Janis (i) n38, (ii), (iii)\n\n\"Society's Child\" (i) n38, (ii)\n\n_If the Shoe Fits_ (musical) (i)\n\nImbrie, Andrew (i)\n\nIrvington House, The (i)\n\nIsaacs, Stanley M. (i)\n\nIsherwood, Christopher (i) n107\n\nIsrael, Bob (i)\n\nIsrael Philharmonic Orchestra (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n150, (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x)\n\nIstomin, Eugene (i)\n\n_It's Always Fair Weather_ (film) (i) n81, (ii) n28, (iii)\n\nIturbi, Jose (i), (ii)\n\nIves, Burl (i) n98, (ii) n104\n\nIves, Charles (i) n74, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)\n\nJackson, Helen Hunt (i) n30\n\nJacobi, Frederick (i) n28\n\nJacoby, Herbert (i) n111\n\nJames, Henry (i)\n\nJefferson School of Social Science (i)\n\nJohns, Erik (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nJohnson, Lyndon B. (i)\n\nJohnson, Thor 215, 216m (i)\n\nJohnson, Van (i)\n\nJoint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee (i)\n\nJones, Sandy (i)\n\nJoyce, Eileen (i)\n\nJoyce, James (i) n87\n\nJudson, Arthur (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nJudd, George (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nJuilliard School (i), (ii), (iii) n51, (iv) n73, (v) n90, (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix)\n\nKahn, Louis (i) n162\n\nKaltenborn, Rolf (i), (ii)\n\nKarajan, Herbert von (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nKarp, Frieda (i)\n\nKates, Helen (i.e. Helen Coates?) (i)\n\nKay, Hershy (i) n4, (ii), (iii) n54\n\nKaye, Nora (i)\n\nKazan, Elia (\"Gadg\") (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n80, (v)\n\nKeiser, David (i)\n\nKell, Reginald (i)\n\nKelly, Ellsworth (i) n107\n\nKelly, Gene (i) n59, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n28, (vi)\n\nKelly, Kevin (i)\n\nKennedy, Jacqueline (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nKennedy, John F. (i), (ii), (iii) n28, (iv) n81, (v), (vi) n141\n\nKennedy, Robert F. (i), (ii), (iii) n15\n\nKennedy Center for the Performing Arts (i), (ii), (iii) n21, (iv) n48, (v), (vi), (vii), (viii)\n\nKent, Rockwell (i)\n\nKerouac, Jack (i) n5\n\nKert, Larry (i), (ii) n67, (iii), (iv)\n\nKidd, Michael (i)\n\nKirchner, Leon (i)\n\nKirkpatrick, John (i)\n\nKirstein, Lincoln (i)\n\nKleiber, Carlos (i), (ii) n16, (iii)\n\nKleiber, Erich (i) n169\n\nKlein, Kenneth (i), (ii)\n\nKletzki, Paul (i), (ii)\n\nKnussen, Oliver (i), (ii), (iii) n44\n\nKober, Arthur (i)\n\nKod\u00e1ly, Zolt\u00e1n (i)\n\n_Psalmus Hungaricus_ (i) n36\n\nKorngold, Erich Wolfgang (i), (ii) n18, (iii) n68\n\nKostal, Irwin (i) n4, (ii) n71, (iii)\n\nKostelanetz, Andr\u00e9 (i), (ii)\n\nKoussevitzky, Moshe (i), (ii)\n\nKoussevitzky, Olga (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii),\n\nKoussevitzky, Serge (often \"Kouss\" or \"Koussie\") (i), (ii), (iii) n21, (iv) n26, (v) n66, (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi) n76, (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii) n37, (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx), (xxxi) n89, (xxxii), (xxxiii), (xxxiv), (xxxv), (xxxvi) n115, (xxxvii), (xxxviii), (xxxix), (xl), (xli), (xlii), (xliii), (xliv), (xlv), (xlvi), (xlvii), (xlviii), (xlix), (l), (li), (lii), (liii), (liv), (lv), (lvi), (lvii), (lviii), (lix), (lx), (lxi), (lxii), (lxiii), (lxiv) n86, (lxv), (lxvi), (lxvii), (lxviii), (lxix) n112, (lxx), (lxxi), (lxxii), (lxxiii) n153, (lxxiv), (lxxv) n160, (lxxvi), (lxxvii), (lxxviii), (lxxix), (lxxx), (lxxxi) n48, (lxxxii), (lxxxiii), (lxxxiv), (lxxxv), (lxxxvi), (lxxxvii) n82, (lxxxviii), (lxxxix), (xc) n73, (xci), (xcii), (xciii) n171, (xciv), (xcv), (xcvi)\n\nKoussevitzky Music Foundation (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n6\n\nKraft, Victor (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii)\n\nKraut, Harry (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nKrips, Josef (i) n114, (ii)\n\nKrueger, Karl (i) n129\n\nKubel\u00edk, Rafael (i)\n\nKubik, Gail (i) n74, (ii)\n\nKurnitz, Harry (i)\n\nKyle, Steve (i), (ii)\n\nLa Scala, Milan. _See_ Teatro alla Scala, Milan\n\nLadd, Alan (i)\n\nLamantia, Philip (i) n5\n\nLambert, Constant (i), (ii)\n\nLandowska, Wanda (i)\n\nLaTouche, John (i), (ii) n65, (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nLaufer, Beatrice (i) n79\n\nLaurents, Arthur (i) n42, (ii) n117, (iii) n132, (iv), (v), (vi) n65, (vii) n107, (viii), (ix), (x), (xi) n4, (xii), (xiii) n9, (xiv) n28, (xv), (xvi) n37, (xvii), (xviii), (xix)\n\nLawrence, Carol (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nLawrence, Marjorie (i), (ii)\n\nLawrence, Peter (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nLeBaron, William (i)\n\nLederman, Minna (i), (ii)\n\nLee, Gypsy Rose (i), (ii)\n\nLehmann, Rosamond (i)\n\nLeichentritt, Hugo (i)\n\nLeinsdorf, Erich (i), (ii)\n\nLenya, Lotte (i) n11, (ii)\n\nLerner, Alan Jay (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n23\n\nLessard, John (i)\n\nLester, Edwin (i)\n\nLevant, Oscar (i)\n\nLevinson, Gerald (i)\n\nLevit, Herschel, Janice and Lois (i)\n\nLewandowsky, Louis (i)\n\nLewis, Frank (i), (ii) n69\n\nLieberson, Brigitta (i), (ii) n14, (iii) n154\n\nLieberson, Goddard (i) n38, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix) n14\n\nLipman, Maureen (i)\n\nLissfelt, J. Fred (i)\n\nLittle Red Schoolhouse (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nLloyd, Norman (i) n25\n\nLoesser, Frank (i), (ii), (iii) n156\n\nLoewe, Frederick (i), (ii) n38\n\nLogan, Joshua (i)\n\nLollobrigida, Gina (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nLowe, Jack (i)\n\nLongy, Ren\u00e9e. _See_ Miquelle, Ren\u00e9e Longy\n\nLoriod, Yvonne (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nLubell, Bob (i)\n\nLubitsch, Ernst (i)\n\nLudwig, Christa (i), (ii), (iii) n64, (iv)\n\nLynn, Vera (i)\n\nLyons, Leonard (i)\n\nMcCarthy, Joseph (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nMcClure, John (i) n90, (ii) n93, (iii), (iv)\n\nMcDonald, Harl (i)\n\nMcDonald, James (i), (ii)\n\nMacDowell Colony (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nMacDowell, Edward (i) n1\n\nMacDowell, Marian (i)\n\nMcHose, Allen (i)\n\nMcInerney, James (i), (ii)\n\nMcLerie, Allyn Ann (second wife of Adolph Green) (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nMcPhee, Colin (i), (ii)\n\nMa, Yo-Yo (i), (ii)\n\nMaazel, Lorin (i)\n\nMahler, Alma (i), (ii) n169\n\nMahler, Gustav (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n32, (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii)\n\n_Lied von der Erde, Das_ (i), (ii) n23\n\nSymphony No. 2 (\"Resurrection\") (i) n122, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n114, (vi), (vii) n23, (viii), (ix)\n\nSymphony No. 3 (i) n23, (ii)\n\nSymphony No. 4 (i) n27\n\nSymphony No. 5 (i), (ii) n166, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n27, (vii) n42\n\nSymphony No. 7 (i), (ii) n39, (iii)\n\nSymphony No. 8 (i)\n\nSymphony No. 9 (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nMalipiero, Gian Francesco (i)\n\nMaltz, Albert (i), (ii)\n\nMann, Thomas (i)\n\nManne, Shelly (i) n78, (ii)\n\nMarcus, Leonard (i), (ii) n36\n\nMarcuse, Barbara (i) n172, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nMarcuse, Philip (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)\n\nMargolies, Henry (i), (ii)\n\nMarkevitch, Igor (i), (ii), (iii)\n\n_Icare_ (i)\n\n_Rebus_ (i)\n\nMartenot, Ginette (i), (ii)\n\nMartin, Mary (i)\n\nMarx, Harpo (i)\n\nMatthews, Tom (i) n21, (ii) n24\n\n_Me and Juliet_ (musical) (i) n59, (ii) n60\n\nMead, Margaret (i) n12\n\n_Male and Female_ (i)\n\nMeck, Nadezhda von (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nMendelssohn, Felix (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)\n\nMenotti, Gian-Carlo (i), (ii) n94, (iii) n139, (iv), (v)\n\n_Saint of Bleecker Street, The_ (i), (ii)\n\nMenuhin, Yehudi (i) n63, (ii), (iii)\n\nMeredith, Burgess (i) n62\n\nMerrick, David (i)\n\nMerrill, Edys (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nMessiaen, Olivier (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n45\n\n_Chronochromie_ (i)\n\n_Trois Petites Liturgies de la Pr\u00e9sence Divine_ (i)\n\n_Turangal\u00eela-Symphonie_ (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nMetropolitan Opera House (i), (ii) n124, (iii) n150, (iv), (v) n105, (vi) n16, (vii) n60\n\nMetropolitan Synagogue of New York (i)\n\nMeyerson, Seymour (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nMiddleton, Jean (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nMignone, Francisco (i)\n\nMilhaud, Darius (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n33, (vii), (viii)\n\n_Cr\u00e9ation du Monde, La_ (i), (ii), (iii) n84, (iv), (v)\n\n_David_ (i), (ii)\n\nMiller, Abe (i)\n\nMiller, Arthur (i), (ii)\n\n_Crucible, The_ (i)\n\nMills, Charles (i)\n\nMiquelle, Georges (i) n129\n\nMiquelle, Ren\u00e9e Longy (sometimes \"Re La Mi\") (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii) n45, (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix) n160, (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi) n129, (xxvii), (xxviii)\n\nMiranda, Carmen (i) n131\n\nMirisch, Walter (i) n82\n\nMitropoulos, Dimitri (i), (ii) n16, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi) n40, (xvii) n140, (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii) n40, (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii) n36, (xxviii) n39, (xxix), (xxx) n94, (xxxi) n114, (xxxii), (xxxiii), (xxxiv)\n\nMishkan Tefila (Synagogue) (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nMontealegre Cohn, Felicia (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi). _See also_ Bernstein, Felicia\n\nMonteux, Pierre (i) n94, (ii), (iii)\n\nMontgomery, George (i)\n\nMontreal Symphony Orchestra (i)\n\nMoore, Henry (i)\n\nMorel, Jean (i), (ii)\n\nMorgan, Brewster (i) n62\n\nMorley, Robert (i)\n\nMoross, Jerome (i), (ii)\n\nMorris, Harold (i) n28\n\nMorris, Marketa (\"The Frau\") (i), (ii), (iii) n35, (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii) n130\n\nMorrison, Paul (i)\n\nMoseley, Carlos (i) n8, (ii)\n\nMostel, Zero (i) n104\n\nMozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix)\n\n_Magic Flute_ Overture (i) n112\n\nPiano Concerto in C, K467 (i)\n\nRondo in A minor (i)\n\nSymphony No. 36 (\"Linz\") (i), (ii)\n\nSymphony No. 39 (i)\n\nMunch, Charles (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n14, (vi), (vii) n124\n\nMusicraft (i), (ii)\n\n_My Fair Lady_ (musical) (i), (ii) n74, (iii) n128, (iv) n38\n\nMyers, Debs (i)\n\nNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (i) n104, (ii)\n\nNational Council of American-Soviet Friendship (i)\n\nNational Federation of Infantile Paralysis (i)\n\nNational Negro Congress (i)\n\nNational Urban League (i)\n\nNational War Fund (i)\n\nNational Youth Administration (NYA) (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nNell, Ren\u00e9e (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nNeveu, Ginette (i)\n\nNew York City Symphony (sometimes \"City Center\") (i) n28, (ii) n69, (iii) n70, (iv) n71, (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi)\n\nNew York Guild for the Jewish Blind (i)\n\nNew York Philharmonic Orchestra (formerly New York Philarmonic-Symphony Orchestra; often just called \"the Philharmonic\") (i) n62, (ii) n66, (iii) n72, (iv), (v) n93, (vi) n107, (vii), (viii), (ix), (x) n24, (xi) n40, (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix) n125, (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii) n140, (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi) n159, (xxvii), (xxviii) n33, (xxix) n41, (xxx) n41, (xxxi) n46, (xxxii), (xxxiii), (xxxiv), (xxxv), (xxxvi) n51, (xxxvii) n62, (xxxviii), (xxxix), (xl), (xli), (xlii), (xliii) n39, (xliv), (xlv), (xlvi) n44, (xlvii), (xlviii), (xlix), (l), (li), (lii), (liii) n12, (liv) n16, (lv), (lvi), (lvii), (lviii), (lix), (lx) n75, (lxi) nn76\u20137, (lxii) n84, (lxiii) n94, (lxiv), (lxv), (lxvi) n106, (lxvii) n109, (lxviii), (lxix), (lxx), (lxxi) n147, (lxxii), (lxxiii), (lxxiv) n160, (lxxv) n166, (lxxvi), (lxxvii) n177, (lxxviii), (lxxix) n6, (lxxx), (lxxxi) n28, (lxxxii) n42, (lxxxiii) n18, (lxxxiv), (lxxxv) n64, (lxxxvi)\n\nNewman, Harold (i), (ii)\n\nNewman, Phyllis (third wife of Adolph Green) (i)\n\nNielsen, Carl (i)\n\nNielsen, Leslie (i) n49\n\nNixon, Marni (i)\n\nNixon, Richard M. (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n66\n\nNorth, Alex (i)\n\nNorman, Edward A. (i)\n\nNorman, Ruth (i)\n\nNorton, Eliot (i)\n\nO'Donnell, Kenneth (i)\n\nOdets, Clifford (i)\n\nOffenbach, Jacques (i)\n\n_Omnibus_ (television series) (i) n47, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n33, (vi), (vii)\n\nOppenheim, David (i), (ii), (iii) n21, (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi) n85, (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii) n122, (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii) n157, (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx), (xxxi), (xxxii), (xxxiii), (xxxiv), (xxxv), (xxxvi), (xxxvii), (xxxviii), (xxxix), (xl), (xli), (xlii), (xliii), (xliv), (xlv), (xlvi), (xlvii) n130, (xlviii) n142, (xlix), (l), (li), (lii), (liii), (liv) n77, (lv), (lvi) n153, (lvii)\n\nOppenheim, Ellen. _See_ Adler, Ellen\n\nOppenheim, Judy. _See_ Holliday, Judy\n\nOrder of the Purple Heart (i)\n\nOrmandy, Eugene (i) n159, (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nOtterloo, Willem van (i)\n\nOverbury, Michael (i)\n\nOzawa, Seiji (i), (ii) n154, (iii) n13, (iv) n44\n\nPachmann, Vladimir de (i)\n\nParay, Paul (i)\n\nParker, Charlie (i)\n\nParker, Dorothy (i), (ii) n104, (iii) n45, (iv) n120\n\nPasternak, Boris (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\n_Doctor Zhivago_ (i), (ii) n51\n\nPeck, Gregory (i)\n\nPerlberg, William (i)\n\nPerle, George (i) n111\n\nPerle, Shirley Gabis Rhoads. _See_ Gabis, Shirley\n\nPer\u00f3n, Eva Mar\u00eda Duarte de (i), (ii)\n\nPersichetti, Vincent (i) n79\n\nPetrillo, James (i), (ii)\n\nPhiladelphia Orchestra (i) n111, (ii), (iii) n159, (iv)\n\nPiatigorsky, Gregor (i)\n\nPiston, Walter (i), (ii), (iii) n66, (iv), (v) n123, (vi) n152, (vii), (viii), (ix), (x) n176\n\nSymphony No. 4 (i)\n\nPlanned Parenthood campaign (i)\n\nPolignac, Marie-Blanche de (i), (ii), (iii) n36\n\nPollock, Jackson (i) n107\n\nPorter, Cole (i) n74, (ii), (iii) n60, (iv) n150, (v)\n\nPorter, Quincy (i) n74\n\nPosselt, Ruth (i)\n\nPoulenc, Francis (i) n147, (ii) n36, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)\n\n_Biches, Les_ (i)\n\nConcerto for Two Pianos (i) n62\n\n_Dialogues des Carm\u00e9lites_ (i)\n\n_Gloria_ (i) n62, (ii)\n\n_Mamelles de Tir\u00e9sias_ (i)\n\n_Sept R\u00e9pons de T\u00e9n\u00e8bres_ (i) n62, (ii)\n\nSonata for Clarinet and Piano (i) n62\n\nPower, Tyrone (i) n46\n\nPrall, David (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nPrall, Margaret (i), (ii)\n\nPresnell, Robert (i)\n\nPressler, Menahem (i), (ii)\n\nPrevin, Andr\u00e9 (i), (ii), (iii) n78, (iv), (v), (vi)\n\nPrince, Harold (i) n65, (ii), (iii)\n\nProgressive Citizens of America (PCA) (i)\n\nProkofiev, Sergei (i), (ii) n68, (iii) n111, (iv) n140\n\nPurcell, Henry (i)\n\n_Pursuit of Happiness, The_ (radio show) (i), (ii)\n\nQuashen, Ben (i)\n\nRains, Claude (i) n18\n\nRaksin, David (i) n73\n\nRamin, Gloria (n\u00e9e Gloria Breit) (i) n95, (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nRamin, Sid (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi) n71, (xii), (xiii), (xiv) n38, (xv), (xvi) n58, (xvii), (xviii), (xix)\n\nRampal, Jean-Pierre (i)\n\nRapper, Irving (i), (ii), (iii) n18, (iv)\n\n_Deception_ (i) n18, (ii)\n\nRavel, Maurice (i)\n\n_Alborada del gracioso_ (i) n40\n\n_Bolero_ (i), (ii), (iii)\n\n_Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9_ (i), (ii) n71\n\nPiano Concerto for the Left Hand (i) n66, (ii)\n\nPiano Concerto in G major (i), (ii), (iii) n159, (iv), (v), (vi) n53, (vii), (viii), (ix) n121, (x) n123, (xi), (xii) n111, (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi)\n\n_Sh\u00e9h\u00e9razade_ (i) n40\n\n_Tombeau de Couperin, Le_ (i), (ii) n69, (iii) n12\n\n_Valse, La_ (i) n3\n\nRCA Records (Victor) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nRead, Gardner (i)\n\nReagan, Nancy (i)\n\nReagan, Ronald (i), (ii)\n\n_Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television_ (i) n104, (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nReichold, Henry (i) n129\n\nReiner, Ethel Lindner (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nReiner, Fritz (i), (ii) n21, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n66, (vii) n76, (viii), (ix), (x), (xi) n31, (xii) n37, (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii) n94, (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii)\n\nReitell, Elizabeth (first wife of Adolph Green) (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nResnik, Regina (i) n57, (ii), (iii)\n\nRevueltas, Silvestre (i)\n\nReveuers, The (i), (ii), (iii) n43, (iv) n46, (v) n54, (vi) n55, (vii), (viii) n65, (ix), (x) n71, (xi), (xii) n16, (xiii) n21, (xiv) n38, (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii)\n\nReynolds, Quentin (i), (ii)\n\nRiegger, Wallingford (i)\n\nRiley, Peggy (i)\n\nRimsky-Korsakov\n\n_Scheherazade_ (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nRiobamba Club (i), (ii) n80\n\nRittmann, Trude (i)\n\nRiver, Walter Leslie (i)\n\nRiverdale Children's Camp (i)\n\nRiverside Children's Association (i)\n\nRobbins, Jerome (i), (ii) n21, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii) n11, (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii) n111, (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi) n173, (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii) n4, (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx) n28, (xxxi), (xxxii), (xxxiii), (xxxiv), (xxxv), (xxxvi), (xxxvii) n30, (xxxviii), (xxxix), (xl) n128, (xli) n164, (xlii), (xliii), (xliv), (xlv), (xlvi) n4, (xlvii), (xlviii), (xlix), (l), (li) n40, (lii)\n\nRobeson, Paul (i)\n\nRobinson, Earl (i)\n\nRoddy, Joe (Joseph) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nRodgers, Mary (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nRodgers, Richard (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n60, (vi) n74, (vii) n40, (viii) n150, (ix)\n\n\"Nobody's Heart Belongs to Me\" (from _By Jupiter_ ) (i), n26\n\nRodzinski (sometimes \"Rodzinsky\"), Artur (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii) n41, (xviii), (xix)\n\nRogers, Bernard (i) n66, (ii) n49, (iii), (iv)\n\nRogers, Buddy (Charles) (i)\n\nRogers, Leslie (i)\n\nRoll, Eddie (i)\n\nRomberg, Sigmund (i) n115, (ii)\n\nRome, Harold (i)\n\nRomney, Richard Adams (\"Twig\") (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n16\n\nRorem, Ned (i) n142, (ii), (iii)\n\nRosand, Aaron (i) n58\n\nRosenthal, Jean (i) n4\n\nRosenthal, Manuel (i)\n\nRoss, Alex (i) n1\n\nRoss, Alvin (i)\n\nRoss, Lynn (i)\n\nRossen, Robert (i)\n\nRoth, Charles (the \"Black Fairy\") (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nRothko, Mark (i) n107\n\nRouault, Georges (i)\n\nR\u00f3zsa, Mikl\u00f3s\n\n_Spellbound_ (i)\n\nRubinstein, Arthur (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n114\n\nRudel, Julius (i)\n\nRuggles, Carl (i)\n\nRussell, Anna (i)\n\nRussell, Bertrand (i)\n\nRussell, Rosalind (i) n75, (ii)\n\nRusso, William (i)\n\nSt. Louis Jazz Society (i)\n\nSt. Louis Symphony Orchestra (i) n90, (ii), (iii)\n\nSabata, Victor de (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)\n\nSaidenberg, Daniel (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nSaletan, Rhoda (i) n95, (ii), (iii)\n\nSalvation Army, The (i)\n\nSanrom\u00e1, Jes\u00fas Maria (i), (ii)\n\nSapiro, Aaron (i)\n\nSaputelli, Bill (i)\n\nShermerhorn, Kenneth (i)\n\nSchippers, Thomas (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nSchlick, Frederick (i)\n\nSchlick, Robert (i)\n\nSchoenberg, Arnold (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n74, (viii) n169\n\n_Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht_ (i), (ii)\n\nSchreiber, Lew (i)\n\nSchubert, Franz (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nSymphony No. 7 (i.e. \"Great\" C major Symphony) (i) n41, (ii), (iii) n112\n\nSchuller, Gunther (i), (ii)\n\nSchumacher, Thomas (i)\n\nSchuman, Frankie (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)\n\nSchuman, William (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii), (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii)\n\n_American Festival Overture_ (i), (ii), (iii)\n\n_Newsreel_ (i), (ii)\n\nSymphony No. 3 (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nSymphony No. 6 (i)\n\n_Undertow_ (i)\n\nSchumann, Robert (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)\n\n_Manfred_ Overture (i) n3\n\nSymphony No. 2 (i), (ii) n123, (iii) n69\n\nSymphony No. 3 (\"Rhenish\") (i)\n\nSymphony No. 4 (i), (ii), (iii) n13\n\nSchwartz, Arthur (i), (ii) n173, (iii) n20\n\nSchwartz, Ethel (i)\n\nSchwieger, Hans (i), (ii)\n\nScriabin, Alexander (i), (ii)\n\nSeeger, Pete (i) n104\n\nSeldes, Marian (i) n46\n\nSelznick, David (i)\n\nSerkin, Peter (i) n44\n\nSerkin, Rudolf (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nSessions, Roger (i), (ii) n66, (iii) n68, (iv), (v), (vi)\n\nShamalter, Gene (i)\n\nShapero, Harold (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n101\n\nShapirra, Elyakum (i)\n\nSharaff, Irene (i), (ii) n4\n\nShaw, Artie (i) n104\n\nShaw, Robert (i), (ii), (iii) n24, (iv), (v)\n\nShepherd, Arthur (i)\n\nShore, Dinah (i)\n\nShostakovich, Dmitri (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix)\n\nPiano Concerto No. 2 (i) n4\n\nSymphony No. 1 (i)\n\nSymphony No. 5 (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n17, (v), (vi) n42, (vii), (viii)\n\nSymphony No. 7 (i)\n\nSymphony No. 13 (i) n28\n\nSibelius, Jean (i), (ii), (iii) n151, (iv), (v)\n\nSilverman, Raphael (i), (ii) n73. _See also_ Hillyer, Raphael\n\nSimon, Henry (i), (ii)\n\nSinatra, Frank (i), (ii), (iii) n59, (iv), (v) n155, (vi), (vii) n81, (viii), (ix)\n\nSinger, George (i), (ii)\n\n_Singin' in the Rain_ (film) (i) n43, (ii) n81, (iii) n93, (iv) n29\n\nSirmay, Albert (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nSitwell, Edith (i)\n\nSitwell, Osbert (i) n107\n\nSmallens, Alexander (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nSmith, Betty (i)\n\nSmith, Oliver (i), (ii) n88, (iii), (iv) n5, (v) n47, (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix) n71, (x), (xi) n83, (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii)\n\nSokolov, Anna (i), (ii)\n\nSolomon, Cyril (Chuck) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)\n\nSolomon, Izler (i)\n\nSolti, Georg (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n152, (v)\n\nSondheim, Stephen (i) n117, (ii), (iii), (iv) n6, (v), (vi) n28, (vii), (viii), (ix), (x) n63, (xi), (xii), (xiii) n69, (xiv) n63, (xv), (xvi), (xvii), (xviii) nn161, (xix), (xx), (xxi), (xxii) n24, (xxiii), (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii), (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx), (xxxi), (xxxii), (xxxiii), (xxxiv), (xxxv), (xxxvi)\n\n_Assassins_ (i) n65\n\n_Follies_ (i) n156, (ii)\n\n_Gypsy_ (lyrics) (i) n65\n\n_Pacific Overtures_ (i) n48, (ii)n49\n\n_Sunday in the Park with George_ (i), (ii) n25\n\n_South Pacific_ (musical) (i) n60, (ii), (iii) n74, (iv) n150\n\nSpeyer, Kiki Jacqueline] [(i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)\n\nSpeyer, Louis (i) n94\n\nSpiegel, Mildred (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n18, (v), (vi)\n\nSpivacke, Harold (i), (ii)\n\nSpivakovsky, Tossy (i)\n\nState Department. _See_ US Department of State\n\nStegall, Mildred (i)\n\nStein, Gertrude (i)\n\nSteinberg, Ben (i), (ii)\n\nSteinberg, William (i) n82, (ii)\n\nSteiner, Max (i)\n\nStern, Isaac (i) n10, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix)\n\nStern, Yossi (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nStevens, Roger L. (i)\n\nStockhausen, Karlheinz (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nSt\u00f6hr, Richard (i), (ii)\n\nStokowski, Leopold (i) n68, (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)\n\nStoltzman, Richard (i)\n\nStothart, Herbert (i)\n\nStrauss, Noel (i)\n\nStrauss, Richard (i), (ii) n68, (iii), (iv), (v)\n\n_Don Juan_ (i), (ii)\n\n_Don Quixote_ (i), (ii)\n\n_Rosenkavalier, Der_ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii)\n\n_Till Eulenspiegel_ (i)\n\nStravinsky, Igor (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\n_Agon_ (i)\n\n_Dumbarton Oaks_ (i)\n\n_Firebird_ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\n_Flood, The_ (i) nn92\u20133\n\n_Histoire du Soldat_ (i), (ii)\n\n_Noah_ (early title for _The Flood_ ) (i)\n\n_Noces, Les_ (i)\n\n_Petrouchka_ (i), (ii), (iii)\n\n_Sacre du Printemps, Le_ ( _The Rite of Spring_ ) (i), (ii), (iii) n112, (iv), (v)\n\n_Symphony of Psalms_ (i), (ii)\n\n_Symphony in C_ (i) n68, (ii)\n\nStresemann, Wolfgang?] [(i)\n\nStroheim, Erich von (i) n62\n\nStyne, Jule (i) n21, (ii) n156, (iii) n72, (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)\n\nSulzer, Salomon (i)\n\n_Swan Song_ (Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur) (i), (ii), (iii) n60\n\nSzathmary, Arthur (i) n44, (ii) n56\n\nSzell, George (i) n38, (ii), (iii) n114, (iv)\n\nSzigeti, Joseph (i), (ii), (iii) n155, (iv) n17, (v), (vi), (vii), (viii)\n\n_Take Me Out to the Ball Game_ (film) (i) n155\n\nTalma, Louise (i)\n\nTanglewood (Berkshire Music Center) (i), (ii) n21, (iii), (iv) n75, (v), (vi), (vii), (viii) n107, (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv) n37, (xvi) nn38\u20139, (xvii), (xviii) n77, (xix) n89, (xx), (xxi), (xxii), (xxiii) n45, (xxiv), (xxv), (xxvi), (xxvii) n59, (xxviii), (xxix), (xxx) n72, (xxxi), (xxxii), (xxxiii), (xxxiv), (xxxv), (xxxvi), (xxxvii), (xxxviii), (xxxix), (xl), (xli), (xlii), (xliii), (xliv), (xlv), (xlvi), (xlvii), (xlviii), (xlix) n79, (l) n93, (li) (\"Tanglefoot\"), (lii), (liii), (liv) n63, (lv), (lvi), (lvii) n174, (lviii), (lix), (lx), (lxi) n14, (lxii), (lxiii), (lxiv), (lxv), (lxvi) n49, (lxvii) n56, (lxviii) n57, (lxix), (lxx)\n\nTartini, Giuseppe (i)\n\nTaschner, Gerhard (i) n123\n\nTaylor, Davidson (i)\n\nTaylor, Elizabeth (i)\n\nTaylor, Frances Elizabeth (i)\n\nTchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (sometimes spelt \"Chaikovsky\" by Bernstein) (i), (ii) n15, (iii), (iv) n74, (v), (vi) n69, (vii) n109, (viii) n112, (ix) n140, (x), (xi)\n\nTchelitchew, Pavel (i) n93, (ii) n107\n\nTeatro alla Scala, Milan (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi)\n\nTheatre Guild (i)\n\nThiede, Alexander (i), (ii)\n\nTompkins, William F. (i)\n\nThompson, Randall (i), (ii), (iii) n21, (iv), (v), (vi) n66, (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii) n94, (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi)\n\nSymphony No. 2 (i), (ii) n137, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n174, (vii) n6\n\nThomson, Virgil (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n87, (vii), (viii), (ix) n93, (x), (xi) n107, (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv) n102, (xvi), (xvii) n94, (xviii), (xix)\n\n_Four Saints in Three Acts_ (i)\n\n_Mother of Us All, The_ (i), (ii) n1\n\nTortelier, Paul (i)\n\nToscanini, Arturo (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n64, (v)\n\nTourel, Jennie (i), (ii) n40, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n62, (viii) n77, (ix)\n\n_Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A_ (musical) (i), (ii) n173, (iii) n20\n\nTulin, Mischa (i)\n\nTureck, Rosalyn (i)\n\nTurner, Lana (i) n69, (ii)\n\nTuttle, Frank (i)\n\nTuvim, Judith. _See_ Holliday, Judy\n\nUnited Jewish Appeal (i)\n\nUnited Negro and Allied Veterans of America (i)\n\nUnited Unitarian Appeal (i)\n\nUnited World Federalists (i)\n\nUrquhart, Craig (i)\n\nUS Department of State (State Department) (i) n46, (ii), (iii) n64, (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii)\n\nUS Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) (i), (ii)\n\nVal\u00e9ry, Fran\u00e7ois (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n36\n\nVan Druten, John (i) n107\n\nVar\u00e8se, Edgard (i), (ii)\n\n_Arcana_ (i)\n\nVaughan Williams, Ralph (i) n33\n\nSymphony No. 4 (i)\n\nVengerova, Isabella (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nVerson, Cara (i), (ii)\n\nVeterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (i)\n\nVickers, Sylvia (i) n36\n\nVienna Philharmonic Orchestra (i) n33, (ii) n122, (iii), (iv), (v)\n\nVienna Symphony Orchestra (i) n123, (ii)\n\nVilla-Lobos, Heitor (i)\n\nVisconti, Luchino (i), (ii)\n\nVivaldi, Antonio (i), (ii) n109, (iii) n112\n\nWager, Michael (i) n8, (ii) n148\n\nWagner, Richard (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\n_G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung_ (i)\n\n_Meistersinger_ Prelude (i)\n\n_Tannh\u00e4user_ Overture (i) n6\n\n_Tristan und Isolde_ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nWallenstein, Alfred (i), (ii)\n\nWalter, Bruno (i) n66, (ii), (iii) n38, (iv), (v), (vi) n94\n\nWalton, William (i)\n\n_Belshazzar's Feast_ (i) n36\n\n_Portsmouth Point_ (i)\n\nWang, Cilli (i)\n\nWarfield, William (i)\n\nWarner Bros. (music publisher) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x)\n\nWarren, Harry (i)\n\nWasterlain, Viola (i)\n\nWatts, Ardean (i)\n\nWaxman, Franz (i) n34, (ii)\n\nWeatherly, Robert (i), (ii) n90\n\nWeber, Ben (i)\n\nWebern, Anton (i), (ii) n39, (iii), (iv), (v) n4, (vi) n74, (vii)\n\nSymphony Op. 20 (i)\n\nWeil, Robert (i), (ii)\n\nWeill, Kurt (i), (ii) n90, (iii), (iv), (v) n60, (vi) n63, (vii) n38, (viii) n41, (ix) n56\n\n_Lady in the Dark_ (i), (ii) n60, (iii) n41\n\n_One Touch of Venus_ (i), (ii) n90, (iii) n41\n\n_Threepenny Opera, The_ (i) n11, (ii), (iii)\n\nWeissel, William (Willie) (i)\n\nWeizmann, Chaim (i), (ii)\n\nWelch, Carrington (i), (ii) n103\n\nWesselhoeft, Dr. (i)\n\nWhite, Katherine (i), (ii)\n\nWhiteman, Paul (i)\n\nWhittemore, Arthur (i)\n\nWilder, Alec (i)\n\nWilder, Billy (i)\n\nWilder, Thornton (i) n73, (ii) n1, (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n128, (vii)\n\nWilliams, Susan (i)\n\nWise, Robert (Bob) (i), (ii)\n\nWittgenstein, Paul (i)\n\nWobisch, Helmut (i), (ii)\n\nWolf, Kathryn (i), (ii)\n\nWorks Progress Administration (WPA) (i), (ii), (iii)\n\nWyler, William (i) n62\n\nXenakis, Iannis (i), (ii)\n\nYaddo (artists' community), Saratoga Springs, NY (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)\n\nYevtushenko, Yevgeny (i)\n\nYoung Men's Christian Association (YMCA) (i)\n\nYoung People's Concerts (i), (ii) n39, (iii), (iv) n40, (v), (vi) n57\n\nZanuck, Darryl (i)\n\nZeffirelli, Franco (i), (ii) n60\n\nZirato, Bruno (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)\n\nZorina, Vera. _See_ Lieberson, Brigitta\n\nZucker, Mildred. _See_ Spiegel, Mildred\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\nThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2017 by Josh Barkan\n\nAll rights reserved.\n\nPublished in the United States by Hogarth, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.\n\ncrownpublishing.com\n\nHOGARTH is a trademark of the Random House Group Limited, and the H colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.\n\n\"The Kidnapping\" was first published as the winner of the Lightship International Short Story Prize 2013, in _Lightship Anthology 3,_ Alma Books, U.K., 2014.\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.\n\nISBN 9781101906293\n\nEbook ISBN 9781101906309\n\nFrontispiece photograph by Frederick Bertrand\n\nCover design by Elena Giavaldi\n\nCover illustration by Alexander Henry Fabrics\n\nv4.1\n\nep\nFOR MARIANA\n\n# Contents\n\nCover\n\nOther Titles\n\nTitle Page\n\nCopyright\n\nDedication\n\nThe Chef and El Chapo\n\nThe God of Common Names\n\nI Want to Live\n\nAcapulco\n\nThe Kidnapping\n\nThe Plastic Surgeon\n\nThe Sharpshooter\n\nThe Painting Professor\n\nThe American Journalist\n\nEverything Else Is Going to Be Fine\n\nThe Prison Breakout\n\nThe Escape from Mexico\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nAbout the Author\n\n# THE CHEF AND EL CHAPO\n\nHow the hell \"El Chapo\" Guzm\u00e1n chose my restaurant to come into, I'll never know. It was just like the stunt he's done in a few other cities\u2014Nuevo Le\u00f3n and Culiac\u00e1n. Guzm\u00e1n\u2014\"Shorty\"\u2014it was him, with all his narco clothing. He had on a baseball cap with some of that digitalized camouflage the U.S. Army invented for Iraq, and a beige down parka. It was one of those cold days in June, after the rainy season has started, and the most badass narco in the country must have felt just a touch of a chill. Crazy! In my restaurant. With fifteen bodyguards swarming around him. The guards came in first. They all had AK-47s swinging in their arms. They came in fast and polite, rushing past the ma\u00eetre d'. The leader of the guards, a tall guy with a neatly trimmed thin mustache and a diamond earring, swooped into the center of the dining room and yelled out, \"The Boss will be coming soon. Everyone give us your purses and cell phones and continue with your meal. Nobody leaves before The Boss is done. If you cooperate, everything will be fine. You'll get your purses and phones returned when The Boss is done. Leave your check. The Boss will pay for your meal.\"\n\nI knew Shorty was short, of course, but when he came in, it was surprising to see just how small the biggest drug kingpin was. He walked in quickly, like he knew where he was going. He turned to the first table, to the left, and introduced himself. He removed his cap and said in polite Spanish, \"Hello, my name is El Chapo Guzm\u00e1n. Nice to meet you.\" He smiled and extended his hand to shake with one of the customers, an old man in a blue blazer who, fortunately, had the presence of mind to shake back. The customer looked like he'd just seen a ghost.\n\nGuzm\u00e1n went from table to table shaking hands like a politician asking for votes of approval. But the way he smiled, with a permanent grin and his eyes a little too focused on the clients, he seemed to be saying: You will like me! I'm not so fucking bad, right? After he reached the last table, he chuckled, cracking himself up. He was the most badass jokester in the world. He was the biggest gentleman, extending his hand of courtesy to every diner, after he'd killed hundreds.\n\nEvery day, I drive from the neighborhood of Santa Fe, in Mexico City, to the restaurant, and I pass guys selling tabloid newspapers in the morning. They run up and down the street, at the stoplights, trying to find clients, waving papers in the air, and the covers always have a narco like Guzm\u00e1n with some gory detail like the bodies El Chapo dissolved in acid on a farm after he got pissed off at some other narcos, or like the photos of headless and handless bodies dumped in the middle of the streets of Veracruz. El Chapo killed the son of his brother-in-law. He's fifty-five and head of the Sinaloa Cartel, and he's one smart narco, because he not only escaped from prison\u2014with the help of dozens of people he bought off, pushed out of a maximum-security prison in a laundry cart\u2014he's managed to live to the age of fifty-five when most narcos never make it even close to being a grandpa.\n\nEveryone in Mexico knows about him: how he married yet another young woman, some beauty queen, and how she had twins in a hospital in Los Angeles. How the guy controls all the cocaine, pot, and most of the meth and heroin that's going into the U.S. I've only been in Mexico two years, building the restaurant up, but anyone who's spent time down here knows the names of all these narcos like they're the heroes and devils of the soap operas that are on all day in every housewife's home and in every cantina.\n\nSo it didn't take a genius to know the guy who'd just walked into my restaurant was capable of killing me and every one of my clients, and I was the head chef.\n\n\u2014\n\nEl Chapo asked to be escorted to a private room, in back, where we sometimes have lunches for important business people. My restaurant is in the neighborhood of Polanco, on the border with the most expensive neighborhood of Las Lomas, where all the international banks are located. The food in my restaurant is a mix of French with new American cuisine\u2014meaning anything is OK, fusion with Asian touches, wasabi with bourbon crab, pork with chanterelle mushrooms in a ginger cream sauce with Beluga caviar sprinkled on top, arugula salad with truffle shavings and Cointreau sauce.\n\nI wake up early in the morning and go to the San Juan market, in the center of Mexico City, to buy the freshest produce I can find. The market looks typical, at first, in a wide concrete warehouse, but the stalls are full of the latest vegetables trucked in pickups from small farmers, and there are even a few Korean stands where you can find Asian vegetables that are less common in Mexico City. Fusion cooking has been the rage in the U.S. for thirty years, but in Mexico it's a new thing, so I've received more attention than a comparable chef would get in the U.S. That's one of the reasons I came to Mexico. A friend of mine, who was living in Mexico, came into a restaurant where I was the head chef in Pittsburgh, he tasted some cured duck breast I was preserving in the cellar of the restaurant, he slurped up the homemade vinegars we were using in the salad dressings and to pickle baby carrots and peas, and he told me I could be an instant hit in Mexico City.\n\nMy body is covered with tattoos, with bright oranges and blues swirling in sci-fi flames up my legs and arms, and the thought of going to somewhere new, out of the U.S., appealed to me. I had already done the \"successful chef\" thing in the U.S. I found myself staying after work with adoring clients who had watched too many episodes of _Iron Chef,_ who thought I could throw knives in the air and prepare delicious meals in half an hour or less. The reality is, it takes time to make good food. Those shows are bunk. It takes hours of planning and experimenting. It was nice to ride the wave of the food obsession in the U.S., but I wanted to see if I could go somewhere out of my comfort zone, somewhere where food was not synonymous with pornography, where people still loved the food for how it tasted and not for what it said about them. So I jumped at the chance to open the new restaurant in Mexico City.\n\nI needed clients with money to do the kind of food I wanted. But I was looking for clients who needed their palettes awakened, who hadn't already read about everything in some glossy magazine. I was looking for new markets in which to hunt down ingredients, for new adventures.\n\nEl Chapo was led into the back room, and he sent one of his guards to summon me. If it was adventure I'd been looking for, ironically I was going to get more of it than I'd bargained for.\n\nThere's a fine leather bench along the walls of the back room, and El Chapo was perched on the bench, leaning back, his legs so short I had the sense he was swinging his feet beneath the table when I came in to meet him. A guard blocked the door, to the left, to the main dining room. Another stood pointing an AK-47 my way. El Chapo sat, alone, waiting to speak to me.\n\n\"Sit down,\" he said. He spoke in Spanish.\n\nI sat in front of him. He looked me over and then spat on the polished wood top of the table.\n\n\"What kind of chef's costume is that?\" he said. \"Don't you have any self-respect? I thought you were supposed to be the latest hot chef in this town. Fucking Mexico City. Everyone thinks they're so fucking important in this city. They don't know anything.\"\n\nI never wear a white chef's hat. That seems ridiculously pretentious to me. I usually have on some T-shirt with a retro rock band that I like. I tend to wear bicycle riding pants and clogs in the kitchen, under my apron. I like to ride, whenever I get a little bit of time, and I tend to wear a bicycle cap or a baseball cap with some heavy metal logo. I had on a baseball cap, with the letters AC\/DC on the black front. The truth is, El Chapo and I looked a little similar, each in our baseball cap.\n\n\"What kind of outfit do you want me to wear?\" I asked, politely.\n\n\"Oh, have some self-respect, man. If this is the getup you have to make yourself feel important then don't try to change what you do for me. But you look like some kind of wannabe athlete, not a chef. Everyone wants to be something other than what they are. Politicians pretend to be saints. Crooks act like they love their wives. I would have thought a chef was something different...But I see you're a phony, just like all the rest.\"\n\n\"I'll try to do my best,\" I said.\n\nThis was going to be harder than I thought. I knew that if El Chapo Guzm\u00e1n was coming into my restaurant, he was probably doing it for PR, to let everyone in the city know this was his territory, that he could come and go at will, that they could have a five-million-dollar bounty on his head and he could still make a mockery of every counter-narco cop in the country. If he could come into a fancy restaurant and pay for everyone in broad daylight, then it would be enough to strike terror into every last person in the city. I had heard this was the effect of his stunts like this in other cities. He seemed like a god who could come and go as he pleased, invulnerable to any human boundaries. But if he was coming into my restaurant, in particular, I guessed it wasn't just to make a statement. If he was coming into my specific joint, it was to see if the food was any good. My job then, like any great chef, was to be a magician. A chef who's truly great sits a person down at a table, makes them wait longer than they want until they're beginning to salivate\u2014to be a little cranky, to doubt the abilities of the kitchen\u2014and then comes out with plate after plate of unexpected wonders, with flavor combinations that pop and surprise in perfect ecstasy, until the patron willingly pulls out their wallet, pays much more than they think they should, but without any regret, with a clamoring, in fact, for the next opportunity to eat more of the food. And all the while, the chef has to come up with just a few dishes on the menu that will please everyone. Each person eating thinks the magic has been made just for them, but it's been made for the eighty to a hundred clients of the day.\n\nReluctance, I was used to. Someone who was already saying I looked like a pansy was another thing. It was going to take more than the usual tricks to win El Chapo over. It didn't seem like he was the kind who would want to kill me if I failed to charm him, but it was always an option.\n\n\"Would you like something from the menu, today?\" I asked El Chapo. I used reverse psychology. I knew if I asked him this way, he would say he wanted something made just for him.\n\n\"Do I look like the kind of guy who eats what all the other pigs out there are eating?\" El Chapo said. He pointed to the door to the main dining room. Normally, there's a hum of patrons talking, eating, ordering fine wines, and privately licking their knives, even though that's gauche. You can tell how much your patrons like the food by how much sauce they leave on their plates. I always inspect the plates as they come into the kitchen. Where there are marks where people have been sopping up the sauce with bread, I take note and try to make those sauces more frequently, though you always have to try something new.\n\nThere was barely a sound from the other side of the door to the dining room.\n\n\"Something special, just for you, then?\" I said.\n\n\"Do you know how I became the jefe?\" El Chapo said. \"It wasn't just killing people. Anyone can kill people. Anyone can be the baddest badass around. That will get you about twenty percent of what you need to be the capo.\" He leaned in closer to me, as if he were about to give me the secret key to the universe. \"What made me the jefe was coming up with a better plan. What made me the jefe was someone else telling me what I had to do, and me coming back to them with something better than what they asked for. You want fifteen tons of the product in Chicago, by Monday? OK, I'll get it there. But I'm also going to build a tunnel under the border so we can ship over three hundred tons next week. And I'm going to ship two kinds of product on the same planes into LA. Those idiots. They were just shipping pot on the planes, when they could have been shipping coke.\" He looked under the table, as if he wanted to be sure there were no bugs in the restaurant recording what he was saying.\n\n\"It's making do with less to make more,\" he said. \"So here's what I want you to do. I want you to give me something that tastes so good I almost cum in my pants, that makes me and my compadres slap you on the back and give you an extra million-dollar tip for cooking so well. And I want you to do that without salt, without pepper, and with no more than two ingredients. And if you can do that, then I'm serious. You're going to get some unexpected tip. And if you can't...\" He gave his chuckle again, the same jokester laugh he'd given to the patrons, outside, when he'd introduced himself to them, the great El Chapo shaking their hands. \"If you can't,\" he said as he put his right hand up to his head in the shape of a pistol, cocked his thumb, pointed into his ear, and released. \"Pow!\" he said, and he started laughing.\n\n\u2014\n\nI came down to Mexico City with my wife. We have a four-year-old son, and one of the pleasures of Mexico City has been seeing how kid-friendly, how kid-obsessed, the place is. Mexicans love their kids more than just about any place I've ever been. There's a big park in Polanco, not too far from my restaurant, called Chapultepec, and on Sundays I walk with my wife and son, Jimmy, through the park. I leave the cooking up to the sous chefs on Sunday. I close the restaurant on Monday. It was because of Jimmy that I opened a gourmet hot dog restaurant in Pittsburgh, before moving down to Mexico City. He loves hot dogs. He takes a dog in both fists and shoves it in. There's something primal about the way kids eat food, shoving the good things into their mouths, tossing what they don't like onto the floor. Behind the hidden-flavor sophistication in a fine restaurant I want the patrons to feel that primal energy, to feel like they're pushing food in and tossing it out on the floor, all as they constrain themselves to holding a fork delicately in front of their mouth and then popping it in.\n\nI like to watch the patrons eat like animals. I like to see them roll their eyes upward in delight, just as Jimmy does when he eats a hot dog with mustard and all the fixings.\n\nA couple days before El Chapo came into the restaurant, Jimmy was in Chapultepec Park, next to one of the big artificial lakes where the fountains spout water into the air, and he dashed away from my wife and clambered over the lip of the stone border around the water before I could grab him. He went straight into the water. I thought he could drown, even though the water is no more than a couple feet deep. I had my riding pants on, since I'd gone into the restaurant earlier in the day to check up on how everything was going. (Sundays are a day off, but sometimes I pop in, unexpectedly, to make sure everything is keeping up to standards.) With all my clothes on and shoes, I jumped straight over the lip of the lake into the water and grabbed Jimmy, and threw him up into the air, out of the water. \"Never do that again, Jimmy,\" I said. He'd scared the living daylights out of me and my wife. Jimmy thought the whole thing was hilarious. He laughed and spit water out of his mouth, into my eyes. He had no sense of the danger he was in.\n\nSo this wasn't about me anymore, I realized, as I went back into the kitchen to cook for El Chapo. This was about me and my wife and Jimmy and all the patrons out in the restaurant. Going to a restaurant is putting trust in the chef. A chef is meant to do more than delight. He's meant to block out the pressures of the world, for a few minutes. For a couple hours, the patron sits at the table, with a nice white tablecloth, and they're allowed to forget about the outside world, to forget about their business deal going sour or their dying grandmother, or the problem they're having with their spouse. Food, at its best, can be like an amulet, something that wards off evil like a magic shaman. I could feel the weight of the magic that I needed to perform as I went into the kitchen.\n\nIt may sound crazy, but people like to eat what they are. If they have voracious habits they can't change, they like sweet foods. If they are tight with their money, they prefer to eat bread and mashed potatoes. If they are flamboyant they like elaborately thin vegetables, fried and piled up high like a fancy hat. We are all cannibals, eating ourselves, eating the secrets we have within. There's a reason the pedophile has poor dental work, teeth that have eaten too many sweets.\n\nI went to the main meat fridge in the kitchen, and I started to pull out things that I thought El Chapo might like. El Chapo was a short bull. He was an animal. He was dark and earthy. He snorted when he spoke. Beef, alone, wouldn't be enough to get his attention. I needed something darker. I thought of some wild boar I had in the fridge, some elk or venison. The boar meat might be close, but the elk and venison were too delicate. If I could have found a slab of water buffalo, that would have been about right. I ate a piece of cured water buffalo meat once, in a restaurant in Sri Lanka, and it tasted as black as the thick skin on the animal.\n\nAnd then I realized, only one thing would make El Chapo absolutely happy. Human flesh. I knew human flesh would do it. But I couldn't give him what he wanted unless I could cut that flesh off of myself, to save the life of me and the other patrons outside, waiting to see if they would make it to another day.\n\nI found a block of Wagyu beef and took it out of the fridge. I sliced it in thin delicate shavings and then piled the shavings up on six different plates, for El Chapo and some of his henchmen. The first ingredient would be the beef. The second would be human blood. I took one of the sharp knives off the wall of cutting utensils and cut my thumb. I squeezed drops of blood onto the beef, letting the crimson color sink into its thin wafers. The plates looked colorful and there were only two ingredients. I made the plate for El Chapo bigger than the rest, to fit his big ego. I was about to tell the waiters to bring the dishes out, but then I stopped, for a second, and tasted the meat. The ingredients were wrong. The dish was close but not quite right. There was a bitterness, a tough saltiness to my blood that wasn't quite perfect, as if the totality of my experiences in life came out in the flavor of the blood, and I realized normal blood wouldn't be enough.\n\nEl Chapo had eaten everything. He had eaten, I guessed, in the finest restaurants of Vegas and in London, Tokyo, and Paris. His empire was global. I knew he was a billionaire. This dish had to be unlike anything he had ever eaten in any of those fine restaurants. But normal blood wouldn't do. I thought of the baby piglets, lambs, and veal that were the staples of every great restaurant in Europe. It was precisely the tenderness and innocence of those animals, the very thing that made vegetarians cringe at such dishes, which made meat-eaters relish such food. Like old people rubbing on creams to remove their wrinkles, the restaurant patron craves baby carrots, the youngest peas, and other new-grown shoots and lettuces to pass across their tongue before they are chewed and ingested. The desire of someone like El Chapo\u2014who had devoured young women like his wife, and who dressed like a teenage hip-hop star\u2014to avoid his true age, was strong. He needed to dominate all the people around him, like a dirty old man who preys on young girls. So I knew, suddenly, that I needed the blood of a kid.\n\nI went out the door and into the main dining room. There were a dozen of El Chapo's guards there, watching the patrons eat. Most of the diners' plates were empty, and they were waiting for El Chapo to finish his meal so they could go. When I came into the dining room, I heard a few gasps from some of the clients and saw an older woman start to cry. I had no idea how bloody my apron looked. I saw a young girl with two long pigtails running down the back of her hand-knit blue sweater. Her mother was holding her tight by her side, telling her, gently, not to be worried. I came up to the mother, well done up with makeup, who looked like she went to the spa once a week. I had to convince her to give up her daughter.\n\n\"My son's name is Jimmy,\" I said. \"He looks about the age of your daughter. Please trust me if I tell you I need your daughter to come into the kitchen for a second.\"\n\n\"Why?\" the mother asked. She looked tortured, like she was in the middle of a bank robbery and I'd just become one of the bank robbers.\n\n\"There will be time to explain later,\" I said, in as calm a voice as I could manage. I tried to be commanding. A command would be the only way to get the mother to relinquish her daughter. I said in a soft, but firm and commanding, voice, \"I need your daughter to come back to the kitchen with me.\"\n\n\"Only if I come, too,\" the mother said.\n\nSo I told her all right, she could come, too. The guards of El Chapo told me to hurry up. \"What are you doing wasting time?\" the head guard, with the diamond in his ear, said. \"Get in the kitchen and give The Boss his meal. He's hungry. He's been waiting for you.\"\n\nI went back into the kitchen with the daughter and her mother. I stood in front of the plates of Wagyu beef growing moister and plumper as it absorbed the blood.\n\nI put my thumb up to the face of the mother, where I had the slice from the knife I had made before. The wound was pink and the blood was sticky. \"You see this?\" I said to the mother. \"I need to do the same to your daughter.\"\n\nShe looked at me like I was a crazy terrorist. She tried to pull the knife out of my hand. I had a choice: Give in, let the girl go, admit that I might be crazy, a Dr. Frankenstein in the kitchen, admit that the whole thing was an overreaction on my part. But I have learned, in life, that you have to go with your gut. I didn't think, I just took action. I put my hand up against the mother's mouth and made her stay quiet. I grabbed one of the dish towels and stuck it into her mouth. Her eyes pleaded with me not to do anything to her daughter. I picked up the knife again, I pulled up the hand of the child and cut her thumb, deeper than I would have liked in the heat of the moment, and blood came pulsing out. I lifted her high into the air, with her pigtails flailing behind as she cried out for her mother, who was trying to yell, and I squeezed the blood of her hand onto El Chapo's plate.\n\nThe waiters looked at me like I was insane, but the rule in a fine restaurant is to never question what the head chef demands. They brought the food out to El Chapo, and I made sure they brought the plate with the young girl's blood specifically to him.\n\nI followed out a few minutes later, and I could see El Chapo licking his thumb, picking up the plate to get more of the sauce on his lips and into his mouth.\n\n\"There are only two ingredients in the dish,\" I told El Chapo.\n\n\"What is it? It's fucking good. It's fucking delicious,\" he told me. \"The others agree. I've eaten all over the world, and I've never eaten anything this tasty.\"\n\n\"It's Wagyu beef with human blood,\" I told him. \"The blood is mine.\" I held up my thumb to prove I wasn't lying. There was the cut, irritated and sticky with drying blood. I didn't mention the girl. If El Chapo knew, he might develop a fetish for young blood. He might look for her in the main dining room and take her away. He might rape her. There was no telling what kind of habits he could develop. I've read, from survivors of airplane crashes, that once the taste of human flesh is tried, once the taboo is broken, it's hard to go back.\n\n\"Son of a bitch,\" El Chapo said. \"You think I'm an animal. Some kind of cannibal.\" He spat on the table with venom, like a rattlesnake. I couldn't tell if he was going to pull out a gun and shoot me, or not.\n\n\"I don't think anything,\" I said submissively.\n\n\"You people in the 'normal world,' you know nothing about who I really am,\" El Chapo said. \"A cannibal! Nothing could be more ridiculous.\" He picked up his plate and held it in front of his face, looking into a mirror. He threw the plate against the wall and the white china, with blood, broke into pieces.\n\n\"But I never lie,\" he said. \"Even if someone attempts to trick me. I'm the most honest person you'll find in all of Mexico. Come here!\" I approached, as commanded. He took my thumb and squeezed my wound until I cried out, hoping my finger wouldn't burst. New blood came forth from the thumb. \"You should be happy just to keep your life,\" El Chapo said, looking me straight in the eyes, letting me know he could kill me every bit as easily as he'd tossed the plate. \"But I challenged you, and you gave me something with two ingredients, and it's the best thing I have ever tasted.\"\n\nHe ordered one of his guards to bring me my tip. He pulled out a couple thick piles of hundred-dollar bills from a brown briefcase, and left the money on the table. He put my thumb on the money, until some of the blood seeped into the face of Ben Franklin on the bills. \"Now you are guilty of entering the world of blood, too,\" he said.\n\nHe stood up quickly and walked into the main dining room. The girl was back with her mother, sitting at their table, the mother still in tears. I prayed El Chapo wouldn't discover she'd been involved with the meal. I hoped he wouldn't see the girl's thumb was just like mine.\n\nEl Chapo looked around the room and saw the girl, next to her crying mother. He stood in the middle of the patrons. \"What's wrong, little girl?\" he said to all the customers. He walked up to the girl. \"Didn't you like your meal? Please finish eating, everyone. I hope you've seen the great El Chapo isn't such a bastard after all. Please enjoy your meal. It's compliments of me and my associates.\" He waved his hands wide in appreciation to his guards and bowed to them.\n\nThe mother held her daughter, hiding the girl's face from the \"great\" El Chapo, and he left with his hands raised in the air like a boxer accepting applause after winning another fight, though the room was silent. The guards returned everyone's purses and cell phones, and then disappeared.\n\n\u2014\n\nTwo months after El Chapo came into my restaurant, I went with Jimmy to the Museum of Anthropology in Polanco, not far from where I work. The museum is enormous, with a courtyard where Jimmy can run around, so I like to take him there when I can. At the far end of the museum, like a magnet drawing all the visitors forward, are the rooms with the remains of the Aztec empire\u2014high stone temples covered in alabaster, which had reached up to the broad sky at the center of the ancient city of Tenochtitlan in the middle of what is today Mexico City. The halls with Aztec art are filled with clay statues, and one is of a god that looks like a robot, square with big round eyes. This is Tlaloc, the god of rain and thunder. He controlled the water, necessary for the corn to grow. The Aztecs prayed to dozens of gods, and at the top of their pyramids they sacrificed thousands of people to keep the gods satisfied.\n\nJimmy ran ahead of me in the Aztec galleries, past stone knives with small eyes made of turquoise that the Aztecs used to cut out the hearts of the sacrificed people. Young victims were always considered the most worthwhile for placating the gods. They had more potential energy for the rest of their lives stored within, so they were believed to be the most valuable offerings.\n\nFor two weeks, I hadn't been sleeping well. I didn't know what to do with the money El Chapo had left me as my tip. I kept thinking about what he'd said to me, that now I was guilty, too. My wife had told me I should be practical and use the money to keep building up the restaurant, or to put it into the college fund for Jimmy. She told me I would be turning bad money into good, taking it from the drug dealers and making it into something positive. She told me I should be proud I'd saved everyone in the restaurant that day. But whenever I looked at the money, and thought about the possessed way I'd lifted the girl to put her blood on the beef to give to El Chapo, I wasn't so sure I was a hero. It wasn't just that I'd tortured her mother and cut the girl's finger; I was playing with black chef magic, thinking I could outsmart El Chapo. What if he'd reacted differently to my dish? What if he'd reacted in anger and killed me, or more people? I was just as guilty of giving in to my ego, of thinking I could control him, as El Chapo thought he could control the world.\n\n\"Come over here,\" I told Jimmy. He was lost, wandering among the Aztec gods, and I had to call him a couple more times before he complied. I'd told his mother I wanted to go with Jimmy alone to the museum. Jimmy and I came to a stone pyramid altar, twenty feet high, which used to sit on top of one of the pyramids of Tenochtitlan. From my backpack, filled with snacks and a juice bottle for Jimmy, I pulled out a big envelope with the twenty thousand dollars El Chapo had given me. The envelope was new, but you could still see, faintly, the blood on some of the bills within. \"Take this envelope up to the top of the pyramid,\" I told Jimmy. \"Put it on the round stone.\" I told him to go to the place where the Aztecs used to leave the sacrificed hearts. I looked around to make sure there were no guards coming. \"Keep going! Put it up there,\" I said to Jimmy. He placed the envelope just where I told him, on the stone altar. He made a face at me. He told me he didn't want to come down. \"It's fun up here,\" he said. I could hear the guard coming. I told Jimmy to hurry. I told him we had to go home.\n\n# THE GOD OF COMMON NAMES\n\nThis is a Romeo and Juliet story. But it's set in Mexico, where I live and work as a teacher.\n\nOne day, about a month ago, this black SUV pulls up in front of the private New Hampshire School where I teach in San Jer\u00f3nimo. The New Hampshire School is one of those precious schools where rich Mexicans send their kids to give them an exclusively foreign-feeling education. English is spoken in half of the classes. The students take ski trips to Vail, in Colorado, over Christmas break with the other students. They dream of getting into places like Harvard and Yale, but most end up at places like Bucknell University or, if they're less brilliant, the University of Miami, Florida.\n\nThree blocks up the street from the school, there's a fantastic bakery where you can get croissants stuffed with walnut paste and a dog-grooming store where they import weight-loss dog food for breeds like yellow Labs. There's a wine store with two-hundred-dollar bottles of imported French wine and an electrolysis beauty salon that keeps humming with one laser plucking after another. I'm told permanent Brazilian waxes there are the thing.\n\nBlack SUVs aren't all that uncommon at our school. The kids come with their drivers and bodyguards, who bring them in the morning. But what made this SUV unusual is that it showed up in the middle of the day, when the kids had already eaten lunch and were all in their classes. The other thing that made the SUV unusual was that no kid came out of it. I could see the Cadillac come into the parking lot. I was teaching my usual tenth-grade class in American History and Culture. We had just done a unit on American outlaws like Jesse James and the Chicago gangsters of the '20s, and the kids were into that.\n\nTwo of my students, who almost never pay attention, had perked up during the unit. One was Jos\u00e9 Cachez Jim\u00e9nez and the other was Sandra Fern\u00e1ndez de Guanajuato. I make up a seating chart at the beginning of each semester, where I place the students randomly in new desks. I do this to avoid having cliques form, and I do it because one of the big social differences between American students and Mexican students is how everything in Mexico revolves around the group. American students, of course, like to hang out together, but they tend to break off in groups of two or three after school. But in Mexico it's all about big groups of eight or so buddies or female pals. They do everything together. They play soccer together, go to the movies together, have parties together, and then work together or swap business deals together as they get older.\n\nIn any case, Sandra and Jos\u00e9 ended up randomly in my class sitting next to one another, in the back. There's some strange law about teaching that even when you seat students randomly, the ones in the back tend not to pay too much attention. I would hear them tittering, a few weeks into the class, when my back was turned to the students, while I was writing on the board. I'd see Sandra and Jos\u00e9 casting glances back and forth, even while taking exams.\n\nSandra's face is long and thin; she wears her hair with a lot of wavy curls that she's spent hours combing so they cascade one below the other in bountiful thick semicircles, frozen perfectly with lots of hairspray. If Frank Gehry were a hairstylist instead of an architect, this would be his kind of head of hair. She wears red lipstick that she regularly freshens. Excessive makeup is illegal in the school, but the definition of what's excessive is different in Mexico. Unless you have false eyelashes, you're OK in the New Hampshire School. Outside of school, I saw Sandra in an upscale mall, once, with tight jeans with sequins stitched on the back pockets, in the shape of crosses\u2014but coquettish, round crosses that let you know she's religious and she believes in God but if some boy wants to come along and find his way into her pants, that would be OK.\n\nIn class, the students all have to wear uniforms with green and blue plaid skirts for the girls and blue blazers with the New Hampshire crest for the boys.\n\nJos\u00e9 is the kind of guy who likes to have his blazer always unbuttoned. He sneaks in a soccer shirt when he can, under the blazer, of the national soccer team or of one of his favorite teams in Italy.\n\nI never turn the kids in for clothing violations, because I figure the whole pretension that the kids are future Ivy Leaguers is ridiculous. And besides, they're kids. All I'm interested in is that they learn to read a bit better, that they start to understand just a little of the wide history out there that most of them are oblivious to, and that they consider the possibility there's more than only one right answer. If they can get away from the idea that history is a right or wrong answer, with only dates to memorize, then I feel I've done my part.\n\nThe man who came out of the SUV was wearing a white cowboy hat. He was tan in a way upper-class Mexicans around Mexico City don't like to get, meaning his skin was rough and leathery. He had on a crisp, Western-style shirt with fake cowboy stitching on the pockets, and he was wearing a pair of mirrored aviator glasses. Needless to say, this isn't the typical kind of parent that comes to pick up their kids at the New Hampshire School. Two men in black suits, with white shirts and pink ties, who looked like private security guards, trailed behind the man with the cowboy hat as he came into the school.\n\nFor another couple minutes, I forgot about the man I'd just seen in the parking lot. I continued with the latest course section about American Prohibition and the women's suffragist movement, how women finally fought to get their full right to vote.\n\nThen a knock came at the door to the classroom. I turned away from the blackboard, where I was writing, and went to the door. There was the guy with the white cowboy hat. I looked through the glass window of the door, and for a second I had the certain feeling I should leave the man outside and call security. But I also had the feeling I was going to be in deep trouble if I didn't open the door. So I did. Or, more like, after we made eye contact the man with the hat let himself in.\n\nHe turned to the class as a whole, and there was suddenly complete silence. He walked toward the back slowly, letting the sound of his white crocodile-skin boots click precisely until he got behind Jos\u00e9 and stood next to Sandra. \"Your romance,\" he said in Spanish, \"is over. You hear me?\" He turned to everyone in the class and said, \"It's over.\"\n\nHe took his son Jos\u00e9 by the collar of his green Mexican national soccer team jersey, holding the shirt beneath Jos\u00e9's blazer. The boy stood up obediently and bent over, like a little child hoping not to be caned by his father, even though he was about five feet ten. The father pulled Jos\u00e9 up through the middle of all of the desks until he got to me. I watched the whole rebuke in silence, holding my textbook, trying to think how best to respond to let the father know I was the boss in this room. But get real. He was the boss. So I just stood there silently, obediently, with his two guards at the doorway. \"And you,\" the father said when he got up to me. He spoke in English to let me know he could tell me what to do in English, too. He had a thick Mexican accent to his English. It made \"you\" sound more like Jew. \"Jew,\" he said. \"I am going to hold Jew personally responsible for these two. If they ever\u2014ever\u2014do anything together again, I'm going to come kill you. Is that clear?\" He paused for a second, as if he realized the way he had just spoken to me in public was too much, a bit outrageous for a school, and then he added, \"Look, these two people, they're from different families. That's all you need to know. I'm asking you to keep them apart.\"\n\nHe took Jos\u00e9 away, and Sandra sat in the back of the room crying.\n\n\u2014\n\nApart from the tremendous fear I felt from the man threatening me, it was funny that he called me a Jew. Not funny in the way of _ha ha,_ but funny that he made that mistake of pronunciation, because I am a Jew. I'm a secular Jew, maybe even an atheist Jew, meaning that I grew up as a Jew in Chicago, and my parents sent me to temple, but I don't believe in God. But I do feel an extreme sense of ease in a temple, so it was with great surprise, when I came down to Mexico eight years ago, that I discovered there was a large group of Jews living in Mexico City. The thought that there could be Jews in Mexico had simply never occurred to me. Mexico was a place of tamales and tacos, mariachi bands and guacamole. What would a bunch of Jews be doing in a place like that?\n\nWhen I first arrived in Mexico City, with a backpack, with no real plan other than to find some eventual work, a friend of mine who worked for the U.S. embassy let me stay in her apartment in the neighborhood of Polanco. The first day I arrived in the city, I walked outside to get some groceries. I wandered around the upscale neighborhood. It was a Friday, and around evening I saw all these men walking with black fedora hats and long black jackets toward who knows where. At first I just saw one or two, who stood out oddly against the other people walking to a nearby mall, where there are stores like El Palacio de Hierro, which is like Saks Fifth Avenue. The men looked like they'd been Photoshopped into the scene from Brooklyn or Jerusalem. The few Orthodox men I saw grew into somewhat larger groups as they walked into the distance, to the end of the sidewalk.\n\nWhen I got home to the apartment I was staying in, I asked my friend what these Jews were doing in the neighborhood. \"Oh, there are lots of Jews here,\" she said. \"Maybe forty thousand of them.\" My friend was from El Paso, Texas, and she'd definitely been raised Catholic: hence she used the \"them,\" which is the way even I thought of the Jews, as \"them.\" We were a \"them.\" Always had been, since the days when the Jews first went to Egypt. Even as a nonreligious Jew, it was part of my identity that I was a \"them.\"\n\nThe next week, when Friday came around, I followed the men to temple. I was clearly not dressed appropriately to enter. I stood at the door, watching the men go in, feeling like I should stay outside. But curiosity got the better of me, and I asked one of the men, in broken Spanish, if he had a yarmulke I could borrow. He looked at me suspiciously, at first. He eyed my corduroy pants and white button-down shirt. It wasn't a suit, but it was the best I had in my backpack, and I'd ironed my clothes neatly, and he must have seen the good intentions in the crisp creases because he nodded slightly toward the door and let me in. He gave me a tallit, he found me a yarmulke, and he took me inside the main temple, and in the center of the room I saw the scrolls of the Torah eventually revealed, with handles gleaming so brightly that even in the dim light of the temple they shined like silvery moons.\n\nI returned to the temple the next week, and while the women were separated from the men, and while I still didn't believe in God, and while I fumbled through some Hebrew as the other men recited together in unison, I was dragged to a Shabbat dinner afterward, in the basement of the temple, where candles were lit, and where I first set my eyes on Sara.\n\nShe had soft freckles and her cheeks were a bit pink and upwardly round, her eyes were a turquoise that pulled me into her gaze. She wore a long black skirt and plain black shoes with stockings, as was required for an Orthodox woman to be considered modest.\n\nWhat can I tell you about the walks we took throughout the city the next six weeks? They were the kind of ambles where the sun feels warm and perfect on the skin and on the brow. They were the kind of walks where birds seem to constantly sing. We wandered through the Parque Lincoln, where all the trendy restaurants are located. We saw the people eating their meals happily, laughing, raising glasses of wine and seeing people like us as passersby. We watched the dogs play in the park, leaping for balls thrown by their masters. We walked by the beautiful fountains in the Bosque de Chapultepec. We walked to the ice cream store called La Michoacana, where they served us mango and guava sorbets.\n\nBut after six weeks, one afternoon after I'd taken Sara home, as I stood outside of her apartment under her second-story balcony\u2014not going upstairs because I knew her father was very strictly Orthodox and didn't approve of me\u2014she stood on the balcony waving at me below, and then the screen door opened and her father came out and he stood tall with his black pants and black jacket and white shirt, and with the fringes of his tallit just poking from under his shirt, and he looked down at me with the beard on his face looking heavy, with the weight of gray crowding out the rest of his once-brown beard, and he raised his hand like a hammer, banging it in the air, and he said in Spanish, \"You. You sir. You! Go away. You are not good for my daughter. You are not a real Jew. You! That's enough. I don't want to see you around here anymore.\"\n\n\u2014\n\nAfter school, I coach one of the girls' basketball teams at the New Hampshire School. It's part of my contract. I have to coach a sport. It's part of the motto of the New Hampshire School that students will excel not only in the mind and in the heart but also on the field. Growing up, I used to love to watch the Chicago Bulls play basketball. I marveled at Michael Jordan flying through the air and reverse-dunking the ball. It was like he had escaped the bounds of this earth and the bounds of his background in the 'hood.\n\nI was never a natural-born basketball player, myself. I'm too short, only five feet eight. But I'm pretty quick with my hands, so I could always play as a guard.\n\nI remember on one of those early dates with Sara, as we walked through the Parque Lincoln, I saw some kids shooting hoops in a made-up basketball court. A ball came rolling over to me, and I picked it up and dribbled for a few seconds. I thought of throwing the ball from the distance to show Sara I could make a long shot, but then I thought that would look like showing off, so I decided to throw the ball to her, instead, and when the ball came into her chest, where I expected her to grab it, she didn't know how to fully raise her hands properly, to spread them wide to catch the ball, so it went straight into her chest, hitting against her plain white shirt, smashing her breasts.\n\nShe gave me this look of betrayal, like I had just intentionally hurt her. I went running up to her as she sucked in air, looking at the smudge of dirt on her shirt. \"Why did you do that?\" she said.\n\n\"I'm so sorry,\" I said. But I was more than sorry. I was afraid we wouldn't be able to go out anymore. I was afraid the distance between us might be too great. While I'd been growing up watching TV, and Jordan hit the hoops, she'd been wearing long, modest clothes, and occasionally playing jump rope. Attraction is one thing: turquoise eyes, a beautiful smile. But maybe there was too much to overcome.\n\nI thought about that moment with Sara\u2014it was years ago, before we'd gotten married\u2014as I watched Sandra come out to play on the basketball team. She wasn't very good as a student in class, and she may have spent hours combing her hair in perfect curls, but on the court she was an aggressive tiger, wearing her hair back in a long ponytail.\n\nYou might think that after the incident with Jos\u00e9's father, earlier in the day, Sandra would have gone straight home, but I think, like me, she must have been terrified of deviating in any way from the normal routine.\n\nSo, there she was in her basketball shorts and white court shoes trying to go through the motions of shooting hoops from the three-point range. Usually, she was a good shooter. Usually, the ball went in with a nice swish, her hands following through in a delicate downward dip after the shot. But she was missing them all, today, and I saw her shoot even an outright air ball.\n\nI called Sandra over while the other girls continued throwing hoops.\n\n\"Are you OK?\" I asked.\n\n\"You have no idea what it feels like to have him take Jos\u00e9 away like that. It's none of his business,\" she said.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" I said, trying to be genuinely polite, \"I know it's not my place to ask. But what did you and Jos\u00e9 do together that got him so mad?\"\n\n\"We've just been hanging out,\" she said. She looked at her shoes. She chewed her gum a little, dejectedly. She knew gum was forbidden during practice.\n\n\"Just hanging out?\"\n\n\"His father and my father\u2014 They don't get along. They're from the same business. They compete against each other, and whenever one gets the upper hand they get furious at each other.\"\n\n\"And what business is that?\" I asked. But I already had more than an inkling of the answer. I'd heard the same rumors all the kids in the school had heard. The rumor was the fathers were both in drug cartels, high up.\n\n\"Just a business,\" she said. \"A very lucrative business. So sometimes they get pissed off at each other.\"\n\nShe looked at me stone-faced, as if wanting to let me know she didn't appreciate me asking that kind of question. \"So if Jos\u00e9 comes back to class,\" she said, \"what are you going to do? Are you going to make him sit apart from me? Are you going to tell the principal and make us stay apart?\"\n\n\"I don't know what I'm going to do,\" I said, and I meant it. I didn't have a clue what to do. There was the very real possibility I could get involved in something violent if I didn't do what Jos\u00e9's father said. There was the very real possibility that Jos\u00e9 and Sandra had been making love in some motel, somewhere in the city, and that I shouldn't be encouraging their sex at that young an age. There was the very real possibility I should just shut up and go about my business teaching and pretend this day had never happened. But beneath all those clear, rational ideas was the vision of Sara's dad yelling down at me from the balcony telling me I wasn't a real Jew, that I had no right to be with Sara, even though we knew we wanted to be together.\n\n\u2014\n\nLater that night, I asked Sara if she remembered our wedding day.\n\n\"Of course I do,\" she said. \"Why must you bring up something so bitter?\"\n\n\"Well, do you think your father was right?\" I said. I genuinely wanted to know. I truly needed to know.\n\nHer father had refused to attend the wedding until the end of the ceremony, and just after I broke the glass beneath my foot, indicating that I hoped for a life of happiness together with Sara even as we remembered that joy must always be tempered, her father came into the temple and yelled it was an abomination that we had just married. He stood like a prophet foretelling doom, shaking his hands in the air, yelling against us with so much force that drops of his spit seemed to fly out like bullets, caught in the shaft of light coming down from the highest window of the temple. He was a well-respected man in the Orthodox community, so no one tried to shut him up, but there were a couple of men who walked up to him, put their arms around his shoulders, and tried to give him comfort. The question I wanted to know was whether Sara felt I had been an impostor that day, dressing up for a Jewish wedding when she knew I did not believe in God? And I wanted to know if she thought her father had been right, that the divide between us was too big to overcome? Sara had certainly paid the price in marrying me. We had married in a temple different from the one where she grew up. We had married in a Conservative, but not an Orthodox, temple. There is no such thing as Reformed Judaism down in Mexico City. You are either a Jew or not a Jew. The shades of gray, as found in the U.S., don't exist.\n\nHer father had never spoken to Sara again, after our wedding. In the end, during the last words he said to her, he stood frozen like a statue as he yelled in the temple, shouting out to his daughter, \"Sara, how could you do this to me? You, who were always my favorite daughter.\"\n\nThere was probably nothing crueler I could have asked Sara after she'd made such a sacrifice of her father in order to marry me. But I felt, following the events of the day with Sandra and Jos\u00e9, I wanted to know after eight years whether she was happy with her decision, or with _our_ decision.\n\nWe had just eaten some tacos from around the corner\u2014I had ordered some pork tinga tacos and she had her usual beef. She rarely went to temple now, and we didn't keep kosher at home, but she still never ate pork.\n\n\"I will always feel, in some ways, that a piece of me was cut out that day,\" Sara said, looking at me with the same intensity she'd looked at me the day the basketball flew into her chest. \"I will always feel sad that my father couldn't understand that a good man is a good man whether he is Muslim, Asian, or whatever. You're a good man. That's why I married you. But if I could have married you and kept him happy at the same time, I would have done that. My father used to tell me to never burn any bridges. He used to tell me you never know when you will have to walk back over a bridge you have left behind. I miss the community sometimes. Of course I do. But I don't miss the irrational exclusivity that keeps people in and out. It felt like a prison. That's why I left. And you already know all this, so why are you bringing the subject up?\"\n\nI felt, after dragging her into the muck of our marriage, that I owed her an explanation for what had brought the thoughts of our marriage day back to me. The night before our wedding day, her father had come to me where I lived in the south of the city, far away from his neighborhood of Polanco. I was living alone then. Sara stayed residing with her family until our wedding day.\n\nHer father came to my apartment building. Like Sara, I lived on the second floor, and like Sara, I had a balcony, though not nearly as nice, or as big, of one as the apartment where she lived. Her father had come all the way to the south of the city, but he didn't want to get too close to me, so he didn't knock on the door\u2014at least that's why I think he didn't knock. Maybe he thought somehow I could infect him if we came too close\u2014me an atheistic, secular Jew, him a pure man who studied the Torah into the wee hours of the night. So instead I heard a small rock tap against the window of my balcony door. I went out onto the balcony, and I looked around. I couldn't see anyone, at first. I only heard the sound of a forlorn whistle, the haunting wail like a steam train of a _camote_ wagon, which roasts bananas and sweet potatoes. I thought maybe I had heard a tap that wasn't really a tap, from the stone. But just as I was about to go back in, the form of a black fedora hat and a black jacket, and the silent, bluish-white glow of his shirt became clearer, below me.\n\n\"I have tried with warnings,\" Sara's father said. \"I have tried with reason. Reason is what the Torah teaches us. Two things that are different should not be joined together. But if you will not listen to reason, then I will ask you as a humble man who loves his daughter. Please. Please! I'm begging you. Don't do this to an old man. Don't make me die before my time. Let my Sara marry someone worthy of her. Don't let me lose her.\"\n\nHe was not such an old man. He was no older than sixty-five. His pleading was haunting, touching, and certainly I felt for him. I asked him if he wanted to come upstairs to talk to me. I asked him, couldn't he come upstairs so I could convince him I was worthy of his daughter? But he just shook his head in the moonlight, bending down on one knee, praying as if he could no longer hear me. I went downstairs and opened the door and walked up to speak to him, and when he saw me coming he told me the only way I could redeem myself was to not show up at the wedding tomorrow. \"Better not to come. Better to break her heart than to ruin her life,\" he said.\n\n\"Me, ruin her life?\" I said. \"Haven't you already ruined it? Look at you. Just look at your pale, wrinkled face. You quiver and worry, wringing your hands like some kind of medieval caricature of a Jew in the shtetl. You claim you're the only person who knows right, that there is only one way to live, and that I'm not a real Jew, that I'm a dirty atheist. You negate life itself, wrapping yourself in a small bubble of virtue, blind to everything outside your community, fearful of it, cursing it, and demanding your daughter do the same.\"\n\nI could no longer hold my tongue. I no longer felt the impulse to try to placate him. Who was he to tell me I shouldn't show up at my wedding tomorrow? It was Sara's and my decision to make alone. I told him so. He put his hands up, against his ears, to block the sound of my voice, and then he ran off.\n\nHe disappeared within the shadows of the curvy streets of the night like a chimney sweep, darker than coal. \"It's not my fault, it's yours,\" I whispered after him, as he ran away.\n\nBut now, years later, I wondered if I had done wrong to separate his daughter from him forever.\n\n\"There are these two kids in my tenth-grade class,\" I told Sara, \"and today the father of one of them came to school and said they should break up, they shouldn't be together.\" I told her the rest of what had happened that day.\n\n\"How can you equate the kids of two rival narcos to us?\" she said, at the end of what I told her.\n\n\"I'm not,\" I said. \"I know it's different. But is there any real reason why the two of them should be kept apart, if they love each other, other than that their fathers hate each other?\"\n\n\"You complicate your life,\" Sara said. \"Stay out of it. Let the fathers take care of it. Or, if you really feel like doing something\u2014before you meddle with the two kids in your class, go visit my father and make things right.\"\n\n\"Make things right? You know the fault was never mine. It was him.\"\n\n\"It takes two to build a wall,\" she said.\n\n\u2014\n\nIt was a windy, sunny day three weeks after Jos\u00e9's father had come into the classroom. The days were getting longer. Spring was in the air, even though the seasons don't change all that much in Mexico City. But it felt like a spring day, with a gentle breeze and the sky bluer than usual, without the frequent pollution of Mexico City, and I stood in front of one of the small motels that litter the city, made for romantic affairs, usually between bosses and their secretaries, or between married men and their lovers. This motel was called Amor del Para\u00edso and was located near the Central de Abasto, a market where every kind of food is sold, and where all the restaurants of Mexico City come to buy their fish in the football field's length of stalls.\n\nI had parked my car a block away, after following Sandra and Jos\u00e9 riding in a small, black BMW that belonged to Jos\u00e9. As they drove through town, I saw them lean into each other at the traffic stoplights, Jos\u00e9 kissing Sandra as she turned into him, and I could see him twist his head back, occasionally, to see if any of the security guards of his father were following, or the guards of Sandra's family. He must have sensed someone was on his tail, but the mind sees what it is inclined to see, so he couldn't imagine his teacher was following him.\n\nI had listened to Sara, and also to Jos\u00e9's father when he'd spoken to the students in class. I separated Jos\u00e9 from Sandra, as far away as possible, placing him in the front right corner of the classroom, near the door where his father had peered through the window before telling me what to do with my class. It was embarrassing to move Jos\u00e9. It meant admitting to everyone in the class that I wasn't their leader: that I was a coward, that I would teach them the rights and wrongs of history and about great leaders like FDR but that in this class I wouldn't practice what I would preach. It's hard to talk about the women's suffragist movement when you won't even let a tenth-grade boy and girl, who love each other, sit next to one another.\n\nBeyond separating them, I went and told the principal what had happened in the classroom. This was the ultimate cover-your-ass move. I hated reporting on Sandra and Jos\u00e9. I hated reporting on Jos\u00e9's father, too. It went against every fiber in my body. But Sara had asked me to do this, and she was right that it was common sense. What if Jos\u00e9's father came back with guns? What if he became more violent? The administration had to know what was happening inside the classroom and to decide what to do next. The principal shook her head as I told her of the incident. She wiped her palms on her tight wool skirt and said she agreed Jos\u00e9 and Sandra should be separated in the classroom. We discussed the possibility of expelling both of them, because of the threat of violence in school, but we laughed at the very moment we said this. That may have been the right punishment, but you don't play God with the cartels, you accommodate yourselves to them. For the same reason, no extra security was placed around the school. Everything was left as before, to imply nothing had happened, except the separation of Jos\u00e9 and Sandra in the classroom to comply with the father's will.\n\nThat was the official response. The unofficial response was that I wanted to see what Jos\u00e9 and Sandra were up to. You could certainly call this voyeurism. It's what it was. But I liked to think of it as chaperoning the two of them. I know it might sound insane\u2014me, a defenseless teacher without any weapons, and the people who wanted to hurt Sandra and Jos\u00e9, narcos with guns. Certainly, in class, I hadn't found the strength to stand up and protect them. But it was precisely because I hadn't been able to stand up to Jos\u00e9's father, so far, and because I felt such cowardice was wrong, that I fought to find the strength to try to take care of Sandra and Jos\u00e9 in private. Any teacher worth their salt feels the students in their class are there more than to learn; they're there to grow safely into adulthood. A teacher is as much psychologist, protector, and nurturer as the teacher of a subject. This is why they have parent-teacher conferences. This is why they take care of the students at prom, to make sure they get home safe. This is why they spend their short lunch break trying to help the poor student who doesn't have anyone else to speak to in class. In whatever limited way I could, I wanted to try to protect Sandra and Jos\u00e9. If I could find a way to keep them safe from their parents, I became determined to do that. So, every day for three weeks, I followed them.\n\nThis was the fourth time in three weeks Sandra and Jos\u00e9 had come to this motel. The first time they'd come, I'd stood far in the distance, not approaching closer, waiting a couple of hours until I saw them exit the hidden curve of the motel's in-and-out entrance. They were safe, still together, still unharmed, still undiscovered by their fathers, and I breathed a sigh of relief as they came out, Jos\u00e9 looking carefully left and right to make sure none of his father's security guards were watching.\n\nThe second time, the man working at the check-in desk asked me if I needed anything, and I said I just wanted to know the rates of the place for future use. I was too scared to go any closer, and I left early, back to my home and to Sara.\n\nThe third time, I grew so bold as to walk into the area of parked cars until I found Jos\u00e9's car in front of one of the doors. I put my ear against the door, and I could hear them laughing with two friends, the four of them smoking pot. I heard the high laughs and rambunctious jumping on a bed of four teenagers goofing around. That was enough for me. I didn't need to know more. But I kept following them, feeling like I was their guardian angel. If I had to castigate them, or separate them in public, at least I could protect them in private. I looked for ways they might be able to escape from the motel. I checked out where there were exits and what roads anyone who wanted to harm them would come from. If I knew the exits, maybe I could lead them to safety when the time came, alert them to get the hell out of the place before it was too late.\n\nThis fourth time, as I stood across the street waiting for Jos\u00e9 and Sandra to come out, I saw two black Cadillac SUVs approach from the right, down a one-way street that led to an on-ramp of the highway that passed in front of the innocuous motel. I couldn't tell who the bodyguards inside the SUVs belonged to\u2014Sandra's or Jos\u00e9's family\u2014but I knew they must have something to do with them. By now, I'd discovered there was a small rear entrance to the motel. It was made for the cleaning crews, so they could take laundry in and out. I'd had far too much time to explore the place\u2014the bland beige paint that covered everywhere except the blue palm trees stenciled on the interior courtyard, where the cars were parked, and a red heart painted on the door to the check-in desk.\n\nWhen I saw the SUVs approach, I ran across the street behind them as they pulled in front of the motel, and I hurried along the dying cacti and volcanic rocks littered with juice boxes, condoms, and other trash thrown along the side of the motel. A furniture construction warehouse, small and old, with sawdust flying to the ground toward the motel, ran along the path to the back, and I squeezed between the two buildings hearing the sound of a whirring table saw. It was the sound of wood being ripped in two for cheap pine furniture in poor homes. I reached the back door. It was jammed for a second. I picked up a rock and smashed at the lock. The door wasn't closed with a key, it was just stuck from loose hinges, causing it to lean sideways. When I came into the inner courtyard, I looked fast to see if Jos\u00e9 and Sandra were in their usual room, parked on the left, and they were. Across the thirty-yard courtyard, I could see the two black SUVs. The men had gotten out from the SUVs, and they were entering the check-in area to ask, no doubt, for the check-in book. I'd looked before, the second time I'd visited the place, to see if Jos\u00e9 was smart enough to use a fake name, and he was. At least he had no illusions that no one would come for them. It might take a couple minutes for the men to pry out of the man at the front desk where the two of them were staying. But it wouldn't take longer, so I knew I had no time to waste.\n\nFor a moment, as I stood in front of their door\u2014the cheap wood dry with the dust of the city, the unmistakable sounds of the two of them making love\u2014I thought about turning and fleeing. What the hell was I doing here? What if I was wrong about the guys in the SUVs? What if the men dressed in black that came out of the SUVs wanted nothing to do with them? What if they were looking for someone else? There's an edge, at the point of a knife, when you can fall to the side that gets cut or to the side left safely behind. But I didn't waste time knocking when I found the door unlocked. I opened the door and saw Jos\u00e9 on top of Sandra.\n\nHer hair was sweaty, spread to all sides. Jos\u00e9 looked at me and said, \"Son of a bitch! What are you doing here? I'll kill you.\" He reached for a gun, beneath the bed. He was ready for what he knew was coming. I put my hands in the air and held them there. Jos\u00e9 stood up, his chest hairless, thighs firm from playing soccer, hair still held back from gel and from Sandra's fingers combing through his hair. He was a naked man with a gun. Sandra tried to cover herself quickly with the blanket, but one of her legs strayed out from beneath the covers, and she could barely hide her breasts.\n\n\"What the fuck?\" Jos\u00e9 said. \"Mr. Jacobs. What the fuck? What are you doing here?\" He was still holding the gun pointed at me, but he lowered the 9mm a little.\n\n\"You have no more than two minutes to get out of here,\" I said. \"There are security guards. Coming. Fast. At the check-in desk. You have two minutes to get out of here, at best, or they're going to find you.\"\n\n\"How do you know this?\" Sandra said. \"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Get out the window, quick,\" I said, pointing at the window that led to the pathway between the motel and the building where furniture was made. \"Open it and get out now. Or come with me to the back entrance.\"\n\n\"You're crazy,\" Sandra said. \"If they've come this far they're going to cover every way out. They're not going to let us escape.\"\n\nJos\u00e9 put his pistol down, threw on his jeans, and grabbed his pistol again. He ran barefoot, without a shirt, to the window and tried it, but it was locked. I told them we had to go. I told them we should run out the way I'd come. I waved at them to follow me, but Jos\u00e9 and Sandra wouldn't listen. I ran back into the motel parking lot and hoped that if I led by example, they'd follow. I'd done as much as I could. I'd stuck my neck out way too far to stay around to see what would happen next. I ran to the back of the motel, farthest from the check-in desk, heading to the door I'd come in before. When I got to the back, I turned around and saw the men opening the glass door at the check-in desk, and I knew I didn't have time to fully escape, so I hid behind a Coke vending machine.\n\nI can only tell you what I heard next: the sound of men running with polished black shoes over the pavement. The sound of the men running up to the room where Sandra and Jos\u00e9 had been mating. The sound of glass breaking. Perhaps from a chair? Jos\u00e9 told Sandra he'd broken the window. He told her to go out before him. He must have had his arms behind Sandra, trying to push her out the window. The sound of a small gun firing, which must have been Jos\u00e9 shooting at the men running after them. The sound of the guards letting out round after round of their large pistols. The guards weren't from Jos\u00e9's father. They were from Sandra's. They shot Jos\u00e9. \"Come with us, you slut,\" they yelled at Sandra. But she told them she'd rather die than leave Jos\u00e9. \"If you come any closer I'm going to kill myself,\" she said, and she must have found a pistol, because there was one more gunshot and then she didn't make any more noises.\n\n\u2014\n\nA week after the death of Sandra and Jos\u00e9, I was in Polanco, in the evening. It was Friday night and I saw the Jewish men dressed in their black fedora hats, heading to temple. I had walked in the Parque Lincoln earlier in the evening, with Sara, after school. I felt I needed to be back in the park where we used to stroll. I needed the calm order of the tall palm trees that spread over the park, protecting the walkers below like umbrellas. After the shooting of Sandra and Jos\u00e9, I had told Sara immediately what had happened and where I was at the time of the shooting. I had even confessed to her I had been following Sandra and Jos\u00e9 for three weeks.\n\n\"You crazy, irrational man,\" she said, but then she held me tight, stroked my head, and let me know she loved me as much as ever. By her fingertips, I could tell it was precisely the fact I cared so much about Sandra and Jos\u00e9 that had moved her to give me comfort, and to marry me in the first place.\n\nAs we walked in the Parque Lincoln, and I saw some of the Jewish men gathering to go to the synagogue, I said to Sara, \"Why don't we go to temple? Why don't we find your father and tell him we're sorry he's so far apart from us?\"\n\nSara looked at me sternly. She gave me a look that said it was better not to stir up old wounds. What she actually said was, \"But you don't believe in God.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't,\" I said. \"If ever I needed proof of the absence of God, look at what happened to Sandra and Jos\u00e9.\"\n\n\"That's not proof of anything,\" Sara said. \"That's proof bad things can happen to good people, or to people who don't deserve what they get. But that's proof of nothing. Besides, you can't prove whether God exists or not. That's why they call it faith.\"\n\n\"Why should your father care whether I believe in God or not?\" I said. \"Isn't it enough I'm proud to be Jewish? Isn't it enough I try to live my life in a good way?\"\n\n\"For me, it doesn't matter,\" Sara said. \"For me, I can see your intentions are good, and that's close enough to God for me. But for him, God is God and you've betrayed his faith.\"\n\n\"I'd like to go to temple and find him,\" I said. \"I don't want us to live the rest of our lives feeling he has disowned you because of me. I'm not comfortable with that burden.\" Following Sandra and Jos\u00e9's death, I felt a need to go to the temple to find him.\n\nSara relented, after we had a few more rounds discussing the futility of seeking her father out. I saw a man with a black fedora, black pants, and shiny shoes, walking down the Calle Goldsmith toward Avenida Horacio, and I decided to follow him. Sara followed with me, though I could feel her lagging half a step behind, the weight of her resistance wanting to pull me back to the park. There was no need to follow the man; we knew, of course, exactly where we were going. There was no doubt where the temple was where Sara's father would be walking to this very moment, and who knew if this other gentleman was going to the same temple or to another? We walked together in silence for ten minutes, and then came to the imposing door of the temple with Hebrew letters written above the door.\n\n\"I'll wait outside,\" Sara said. \"I'm not dressed properly to go in.\"\n\n\"Please,\" I begged her. \"Do this for me. For us. With a gesture we can repair things. You were the one who told me a wall is built by two people, not by one.\"\n\n\"You go in first,\" she said.\n\nI paused in front of the long handle, feeling the weight of the door, the weight of the thousands of years of tradition the temple represented. But I am a man of faith, too, I thought, even if I don't believe in God. I am a man of faith in the brotherhood of all men, and I belong to my tradition as much as Sara's father, I thought.\n\nWhen I came into the temple the men were already grouped below on the bottom floor, davening, listening to the rabbi lead the prayers and reciting to him their responses to his calls. The women were upstairs in the temple. I saw Sara walk behind me, and then upstairs to the section for women, as I went inside the main temple area, below, to find her father.\n\nThere he was on the right-hand side, in back, as I remembered his place had been eight years before. It was as if he had stood in the exact same spot, praying, the whole time. His beard was now fully gray and his yarmulke sat sternly on his head like an anvil. I didn't want to surprise him too much, by coming up from behind, so I chose to enter his bench row from the center left, where he could see me for a while as I came closer to him. The wood of the long bench, as I moved sideways toward him, was worn smooth from generations of congregants coming every day to pray, especially every Sabbath. When I came close to him, I could see his eyes wander left and he seemed to see me. But he showed no immediate expression. He continued praying, looking at the book with Hebrew lettering in his hand, and calling out in response to the rabbi. It was as if I weren't there, as if an iceberg had come close to his ship, the _Titanic,_ and he refused to acknowledge any ice. His ship was impenetrable, a fortress, impregnable. I came closer and closer, and was close enough that I could easily reach out to his hand to touch it. But still he made no motion to acknowledge me. It was now or never. I could leave this second with things as they were. I could leave with the same wall of silence between him and me and his daughter that had lasted eight years. For a moment, I considered moving back to the left, sidling into the center of the temple, and leaving. But the thought of Sandra and Jos\u00e9 came to me, the sound of Sandra shooting herself, and I whispered into the old man's ears, \"Your daughter loves you and would like to talk to you. And I love you, too.\"\n\nAt the mention of the word \"daughter\" his eyes widened for a second, then they resumed their half-open shape of deep meditative prayer. If this plea wouldn't work, then I thought I would try one more. I turned to him and whispered, \"I'll do anything. I will do anything to make you happy.\"\n\nHe turned up to the balcony to see if Sara was there. He must have found she was. He turned back down, not acknowledging my presence. Then he turned to me directly and said, \"Will you accept there is only one God, that he is the God of Abraham and Isaac, and that he is your God? Will you denounce that you don't believe in God?\"\n\nWhat he wanted me to do was to denounce who I was. What he wanted me to do was to be only who he wanted me to be. What he wanted me to do was to believe in rote faith for no more reason than that I had been born into a faith. And even if I did that, I knew he would find other problems with me: that I wasn't Orthodox enough, that I didn't keep kosher, that I didn't follow my daily life as he wanted me to. He wanted to find divisions; and wanting to find divisions, he would always find them. Who was he to try to tell me what to do, when I had done nothing but try to treat him with respect, and to give love to his daughter? Sara wasn't asking me to make this choice. She had asked me, in fact, not to come see her father. She had had that wisdom.\n\nAnd yet, looking up at the front of the temple at the scrolls of the Torah, it came to me that what the man was asking me to do was to give a name to a feeling that was mutual. We both believed there were mysteries to the universe. We both believed the ways and reasons why men acted were often unknowable, and that they were often worthy of punishment. We both believed a life should be lived as morally as possible. He wanted faith, and faith I couldn't give him. But there is wisdom in seeking common ground, in breaking down walls that don't need to exist. If his faith meant I would honor him and his daughter and that I would seek to live a moral and just life, then I would say what he wanted me to hear. In naming, each hears the name they want to hear, and if it's the same name it will be heard as the same, even if it is different. \"Yes, I have come to tell you I believe in God,\" I said. \"I will no longer call myself an atheist.\"\n\nHe turned to me and hugged me, coldly, but with a pat on the head that let me know he was giving me forgiveness. He looked up at Sara and nodded for her to come down so he could talk to her. He went out behind the main room of the temple to the entryway to speak to her. And as he went up to Sara and hugged her, and whispered something into her ear, speaking to her for the first time in eight years, I thought to myself, I believe in the God of family. That will be my God, however we have to name it. It was not that I would believe in his God. I couldn't. But I would believe in the God of common names.\n\n# I WANT TO LIVE\n\nI was waiting in the waiting room of the Spanish Hospital in Mexico City. I'm a nurse. Or at least I used to be, until I retired down to Mexico. I came down, in part, because the cost of living had become more than I expected in the U.S. and mainly because, at a relatively young age, I decided I wanted to live my life to the fullest. I didn't want to die with the regret I never did all the things I would like to do. So, at the age of fifty, after working as a nurse for twenty-five years in Cleveland, I came down to Mexico City. For five years I integrated myself into the city and the culture. I learned Spanish, taking intense language classes and generally speaking to everyone I could.\n\nThings were going swimmingly until three weeks ago, when I came in to get a checkup at the hospital for the first time. I hadn't exactly come in with no idea of what they would tell me. My mother died of breast cancer and my aunt died of breast cancer and my grandmother died of breast cancer. It runs extra-prevalently in certain families. The same way some families have heart disease or mental health diseases, others have a risk for breast cancer. I usually avoid sharing such information with doctors, precisely because I am afraid of what they will tell me. My whole adult life I was a nurse giving out logical, rational information to patients, but the minute the tables were turned on me and I was a patient, it felt the other way. As a new patient at the Spanish Hospital, three weeks ago, they gave me a sheet with a checklist of all the health problems that might be troubling me. I could honestly check _no_ for almost everything on the list. When it came to a history of breast cancer in the family, I checked _no,_ at first. Then I scratched out my check mark. Then I left the yes box blank. And then, after tapping the pen they had given me on the clipboard, I finally checked _yes_.\n\nAfter a brief talk with Dr. Rodriguez, the general practitioner who examined me, they brought in another doctor, Jim\u00e9nez, a specialist in breast cancer. \"I see you have mentioned there is a history of breast cancer in your family,\" Dr. Jim\u00e9nez said. I explained to him who had died in my family. He insisted we do a standard genetic test to see if I had inherited the gene for having a high probability of breast cancer. The test was arranged that very day; they took a sample. And a week later, two weeks ago, they told me I had the gene BRCA1, which gave me an 87-percent chance I would develop breast cancer, unless I had a double mastectomy.\n\nIt was under these circumstances that I was waiting in the waiting room when I saw a woman across from me waiting, too. She was quite young, no more than thirty. She had long, brown, perfectly combed hair and a stunningly beautiful face. Her eyes were wide and round in a way that reminded me of Japanese anime dolls. Her cheeks were fleshy and healthy. Her ears were petite, and she wore a couple of big fake diamonds that seemed an effort to show off her whole face. It was hot in the waiting room. We were in the waiting room for reconstructive surgery. I was very torn by the idea of having my breasts removed. I wasn't sure, at all, that this was something I was willing to let happen. At the same time, I was deeply worried about the consequences\u2014a near certainty of getting breast cancer, sometime in the next five years\u2014if I didn't.\n\nLooking across at the other woman, I couldn't help but say, aloud, without thinking, \"It must be nice to still be so pretty and perfect.\"\n\nThe woman stared at me, then turned sharply away. I saw her fold one hand under the other in her lap. The suddenness with which she moved her hands struck me as odd. She played at the hemline of her skirt. The skirt was long and floral and accentuated the fact that she had a surprisingly fit body. She was in all ways, it seemed, a near perfect specimen of beauty, and it certainly didn't escape my notice that _her_ breasts were perfectly intact. She had on a red silk chemise that attracted attention to her breast area, and when she bent forward and down to fix the hemline of her skirt, smoothing it, I couldn't help but see her young, well-formed breasts. Her body was evenly tan and her breasts curved firmly upward, so that even with her bending forward, the firmness of the curve, and the health of her breasts, was more than evident.\n\n\"It's so unfair,\" I found myself saying, involuntarily aloud. \"Look at you. Just look at you.\" There were only the two of us in the waiting room, so there was no way for her to avoid me or to misconstrue what I was saying. She looked simply gorgeous in the most stereotypical of ways. She looked like she could be on the red carpet of an Oscars awards ceremony, with cameras taking photos of her. \"You could be a movie star,\" I said. \"And me, now they want to take away my breasts. Option A, they say, is to do a double mastectomy. Option B is to die. I used to tell patients about these kinds of crazy dilemmas and I would tell them all rationally, just like they have told me, but it's different when you're suddenly on the side of being a patient...But you, the gods seem to have made you perfect.\"\n\nIn the quickness with which the woman in front of me kept moving her hands, I could only notice her perfection, even her perfume smelled sweet. The woman tried not to listen to me; she looked away and laughed, a kind of shocked laugh when I continued insisting on her beauty, but when I declared the gods had made her perfect she shot up her right hand, holding the palm in my direction, and on her palm I saw, carved in a pink hideous X, a large scar that took up the whole of her hand. She raised her other hand, and the palm had the same hideous scar. She was marked with two Xs, puffy and thick, fleshy and with a rawness that indicated they would most likely never disappear, even with the best of reconstructive surgery.\n\nShe turned away from me and lifted her perfectly combed hair, held with hairspray that kept it perfectly in place, light brown with streaks of blonde, thick and rich. She bent to show me her neck even more clearly. It was a thin, pale brown, delicate long neck made for caressing; only, in the center of the back of her neck there was another X, marked as crudely as the first two.\n\n\"I'm so sorry,\" I said. \"How did it happen?\"\n\n\"Some things are not meant to be shared,\" she said. She spoke in Spanish. \"You're asking something too private.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"I'm listening.\" Over the years, as a nurse, I have learned that what everyone really wants to do, what they really need to do, is to tell their story, locked inside. If they can just get the story out, it can do more good than even the surgery they are facing. I have learned that\u2014more than running around changing IVs and helping doctors prepare for surgery and changing bedsheets for patients\u2014the biggest role a nurse plays is psychologist. \"Yes, tell me. Tell me,\" I said. \"Tell me and maybe your story will help me feel better, too.\"\n\n\"You want me to tell you such a personal story, but you want me to tell it for you rather than for me,\" the woman said. \"Do you think you can stomach such a story?\" She held her palms in the air for me to clearly see the two Xs. It wasn't like me to blurt things out the way I'd done. I must have looked tense, an animal lost at sea. I had no family in Mexico. I was, completely, all alone. She was right, I wanted the story for me and not for her.\n\n\"Yes, I'm sure I want to hear about the scars,\" I said. \"I'm all alone, here in Mexico. I'm waiting to see if they're going to remove my breasts. I never had kids, and the man I was once married to left me. I'm divorced. I could use hearing your story. I'm in deep trouble. I don't know _what_ I will do if they get rid of my breasts. I think I'll feel like I'm just going to die, like they're getting rid of my body and soul.\"\n\nShe sucked in deeply and examined me. I must have looked well on my way to becoming a grandmother. She must have felt pity for a woman my age having to confront breast cancer alone.\n\n\"Forgive me,\" she said, \"but I can see you are a foreigner. Only a foreigner would insist so much I tell a personal story for them. Yet, since you insist, I'll tell you, because it seems it might help you\u2014on the condition you don't judge me before I finish telling you the entire story.\"\n\n\"Oh, I won't judge. I can see someone did something wrong to you.\" Since she spoke to me in Spanish, I did the same.\n\nShe leaned back and closed her eyes, as if retreating to a time far away. She kept her eyes closed as she began to speak, opening them only as she got into her story, so rapt in her tale she barely saw me as she talked.\n\n\"I have been a very foolish person. I have used beauty like a drug. But I became the person who did so much wrong, I think, or who participated in so much wrong because I grew up with nothing, first. When I was a kid, I was completely an orphan. I grew up in Sinaloa, and I grew up in an orphanage. My father ran off, away from my mother before I was even born. I have no idea where he went. He was a man who just wanted to plant his seed in every woman he could find. I hear he was from Brazil, but I really don't know. He came and went, arriving on a boat in a storm and leaving only a few weeks later, after he had wooed my mother. My mother was very beautiful, they tell me, and she died when I was two. She had been raised as an orphan also, so when you say the gods have made me perfect and that everything has been given to me, I laugh, because the only thing I know is that life is like a wheel that circles and circles. What happened to my mother was passed on to me. She chose a bad man to live with and to have a baby with, and I guess I did the same.\n\n\"But I loved my bad man. That's the thing\u2014I suppose I loved my bad man just like my mother loved hers. Bad men are like addictions. They lure you in with sex and fulfilling whatever dream you have, and they make your heart rush with their masculinity, and that's what Enrique did to me.\n\n\"But every addiction starts somewhere, and my addiction to my beauty began when I lived in that orphanage. I didn't know that I was beautiful, and what the power of being beautiful is, until I was six years old. Yes, of course, I knew that people always looked at me longer than they looked at other kids. When you are beautiful people envy you, they look at you and they want to get close to you. But they also want to punish you and harm you because you are everything they want to have and what they are jealous of.\n\n\"When I was six, a wealthy woman came to the orphanage where I was growing up. The orphanage was run by nuns. There were children crying all over the place. Each group of children had to look after the others. One room had the kids who were infants, on up to three-year-olds. Another had the kids who were from three to eight, which is where I lived. And then there were the oldest kids, who were, by then, considered untouchables who would never be adopted by anyone, destined for failure. The three- to eight-year-olds were expected to change the diapers of the babies. I was changing the diapers of one of the infants when the wealthy woman, La Se\u00f1ora Elvira de Castilla, came into the orphanage. She had a long face, full of wrinkles that had been stretched tight with plastic surgery. Her gray hair was as brittle and dry as dusty straw. She walked with her body rigid, like she was afraid of bending over because it might hurt her bony figure. She was someone, I would discover, who always looked in mirrors. The mother superior took La Se\u00f1ora around the orphanage, bringing her into each room, and when La Se\u00f1ora saw me she said, 'Stop. Stop. That one is beautiful. She is exactly what I am looking for.' She grinned at me like a cat looking at its prey. She came up to me and stared deep into my eyes, seeming to see a reflection of beauty too alluring and powerful for her, which reminded her of whom she had once been, or wanted to be. She pinched my cheek until it left a sting I could still feel the next day, when I was delivered by a nun to her dark, front house door.\n\n\"La Se\u00f1ora didn't treat me like an adopted daughter. She treated me more like her servant. She made me sleep in the servants' quarters with the other old muchacha she had. She made me wash the floors and clean food in the kitchen and dust the banisters of her house, where she lived, otherwise, alone. She made me wind up the grandfather clock in the old study where her husband had once worked, before he'd died. She made me stand behind her as she sat at the boudoir for hours putting on makeup, having me comb her hair, one long brushstroke after another, the gray, long hair, like pieces from a skeleton, coming off in my brush.\n\n\"She would barely let me go out, since she barely went out. She had caged birds in her house, in large cages I had to regularly clean. The birds stank, even though they were beautiful, exotic tropical birds from South America, and I would watch them gnawing at the bars of the equally exotic birdcages.\n\n\"So it shouldn't be surprising that, like those birds, I searched for any way I could get out of the house. I looked for excuses to go to the market to buy fruit and vegetables. I never had any money of my own to go shopping. La Se\u00f1ora would give me exactly the small amount she wanted me to spend on the food. She never gave quite enough, so she knew I would have nothing to spend on myself. It was always embarrassing to come to the end of the shopping and to find, with one of the last vendors, that I would have to tell them to take some of the food back because I didn't have enough money to pay for everything. I would walk home eating a mango or plum, and when I got home La Se\u00f1ora would tell me she knew I was eating some of the food and that I shouldn't be such a little thief.\n\n\"At the age of sixteen, then, it shouldn't come as any surprise I ran away, one day. I left without any extra clothes. I was afraid if I left with anything that seemed unusual, La Se\u00f1ora would notice and slam the door before I could leave, or she would immediately call the police and have them search for me. So I ran away with only the black dress I had on, with a white lace top like a maid's bib attached to the dress. For six days, I wandered the streets. I slept in alleyways so no one would find me, in the corners of stairwells, and once even behind a garbage dump, because I had looked in the garbage for food and then had fallen asleep, so tired. It was the day after that that I found Enrique, or, I should say, he found me.\n\n\"I am not going to lie and say he did not look like a drug dealer, or a pimp. He looked like a criminal, straight-up. He had on a white suit with a red handkerchief. He had on a pair of shiny, gray alligator-skin boots that were so polished they looked like leather mirrors. His black hair was gelled back with tons of oil, and his eyes were hidden by dark sunglasses. His smile was almost nonexistent. If he smiled, it was despite himself. But when he took off his dark glasses his eyes looked through me, and through everyone he saw. His eyes came to black points that shined like glass, which seemed to calculate and take everything in all at once, figuring out the value of anything before him, what kind of gold he could turn something into that looked to others like nothing. He had the eyes of someone who won at cards, who could sit down at a table, assess the situation, and walk away with all the money on the table.\n\n\"He took one look at me and said, 'Allow me, please, to take you out to breakfast.' He spoke to me like a gentleman, even though, by that time, my clothes were covered with dirt, and the lace bib attached to the dress was gray with filth.\n\n\"He took me to one of the fanciest places for breakfast, on the main plaza of the city. When he walked into the restaurant, the waiters all stood at attention. The headwaiter came up to him and said, 'Se\u00f1or Enriquez, your usual seat?' and they took him to a table that looked directly out onto the plaza. He ordered me a large breakfast of huevos divorciados, a plate of fruit, coffee with fresh cream, sweet rolls, and an extra plate of strawberries. La Se\u00f1ora Elvira had never allowed me to eat with her, only to serve her. I truly didn't know how to eat in the company of a man who was well-dressed and who wanted me to sit at his side. I ate, sometimes, with my fingers, because I didn't know any better. I picked up some of the pieces of strawberry with my hands, without thinking, though I tried to eat with a fork and knife because I knew that was what a lady was supposed to do.\n\n\"Enrique watched me eat like a wolf, and at one point he began to laugh, after I told him a little about working for La Se\u00f1ora, and as he watched me eat the fruit with my fingers. 'She tormented you,' he said. 'She turned you into an animal. That's what I like, a beautiful animal. The regular women out there, they are either too soft or\u2014if they are tough\u2014they have no physical beauty. But you have both, because of the way you were raised.' He told me he was going to buy me all the clothes I wanted. He told me he was going to let me see just how beautiful I was. He told me I was the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen. He was no older than twenty-nine, but I liked that he didn't look like a boy. I wasn't looking for a teenager then, like the boys I had sometimes stared at with longing in the marketplace. I wanted someone who could keep me safe, and he had everything I needed then.\"\n\nShe stopped, suddenly, and came out of her dream for a second. She looked over at the secretary in the waiting room, but it was clear there was no movement forward from the doctor to speak to either of us. We were two patients who were going to have to wait to see the doctor. It was a Tuesday around lunchtime, and who knew if the doctor was even with a patient, or if it was just going to be one of those waits, in Mexico, that can take forever?\n\n\"And the scars?\" I said. \"What happened with the scars?\" The lady's story was engaging, but I had to admit I was getting impatient to hear about the scars. I was still trying to figure out what any of this had to do with my potential double mastectomy. The lady had suggested there was some connection. I was glad she was getting her story out, and I wanted to hear more, but I was feeling anxious about what the doctor would tell me, and this story wasn't necessarily comforting me.\n\n\"The scars are always there. Even before they give them to you. But I told you, you will have to let me finish the story. You want everything to be revealed quickly, you want this story to be immediately about you. Just listen. This story is not instantly about you. It's about me. And you will have to not judge me.\"\n\n\"I promise,\" I said. \"I guess I promise.\" I was beginning to lose my patience, a bit.\n\n\"Do you want to hear, or not? Just listen to what someone else has to say.\" I heard her say the word \"selfish\" under her breath. She shook her head and pressed her hands, anxiously, one against the other. She looked at the palms of her hands, where the scars were. She looked at them, seemingly in disbelief, and continued.\n\n\"Over the next two years, once Enrique picked me up off the streets, I began to shop and to buy clothes, voraciously. I bought long, bright gowns, purple and gold, with sequins sewn all around the necks of the dresses. I was only sixteen when I met Enrique, and I had never had a quincea\u00f1era party, so Enrique gave me a sort of party like that, even if it was a year too late. He invited the various other small-time leaders of the drug cartel he was in. It was a way of trying to move up the ranks. At the same time as he was selling more drugs and killing more people and proving he could be tough enough to become one of the bigger leaders of the cartel, he wanted to show me off as his girlfriend and as the woman he intended to make his bride. A couple hundred people were going to come to the party, and he wanted me not only to look good but to be able to perform something for the guests. 'I think you could be a good entertainer,' he told me. 'Most of those singers who get all the attention on TV, they start out like us\u2014people who the rich try to keep down\u2014but then they show their pure soul and their talent and they prove the rest wrong. I don't see any reason why you couldn't be a famous actress or an entertainer. Just look at you. You're more beautiful than Ninel'\u2014a popular singer, at the time. 'We're going to turn you into something, too. You and I, we're going to rise, together.'\n\n\" 'Really?' I said. 'You really think I can be something? You really think I could be someone people would admire, with talent?' When I said 'talent,' I was thinking of the soap opera stars. It never occurred to me to think of a serious stage actress or a serious opera singer, or a simple singer in a church choir. I wanted to be like the pop stars and the soap opera stars and the stars of the movies in the theaters, which La Se\u00f1ora Elvira had never let me go to, and that I went to with Enrique religiously.\n\n\" 'With your beauty, anything is possible,' Enrique said. 'Life is for the taking. You have to take what you want. The people who want to stop you from becoming what we want to become are everywhere. But I'll be your prince. I'll make you into what you want.'\n\n\"So I started to take dancing and singing lessons. I started to pose in front of the mirror as I sang, and to practice my moves. I learned to sway dramatically in those most sentimental of moments, when you want to hold the audience enraptured with your song. I started out learning traditional songs, because tapping into the traditional songs was all I knew, at first, and they were easier to learn in voice lessons. I put on more and more jewels. Fake ones, at first, much bigger than these fake diamonds you see me wearing now. I covered myself in big hoop earrings and rubies. I watched videos of the pop stars, and I did the same moves with them on TV, walking back and forth on my imaginary stage. Jumping and shaking and twirling. Enrique told me I had always had the talent within me to be a star, it's just that others were preventing me from being what I could be.\n\n\"You see, we were in this together. The idea was we were going to both rise up until people could admire us the way Enrique said we should be admired. That's why Enrique wanted me to compete to be a beauty queen, and that's why he was strategizing and working so hard to move up the ranks of his cartel. And I want to tell you, I could see how much we needed each other. At the party for me that he threw with his couple hundred guests, he would pull my hand, bringing me forward from one group of invited men to another, showing me off, telling everyone I was his novia\u2014his girlfriend. He told me to wear a bright red dress, because he knew no other woman would have the guts to be dressed so brightly, so young, and at a party where I was meeting all these men for the first time. As each of the men would come up to me and Enrique, to shake his hand and to show their loyalty to him, or for him to show his loyalty to them, the men would whistle under their breath, as if to say, 'Oh my god, how did you get such a beauty?' They gave Enrique the look that said, 'I wish I could be in bed with her. Caray!' They shook their hands rapidly in front of their faces up and down when speaking to the others, just next to us, after they had met me with Enrique. It was the waving of hands that said: 'She's too hot! Fuck, man. That Enrique is one lucky cabr\u00f3n.'\n\n\"You might think a young woman would feel like a cow on display, like a sex object these crude men wanted to rape, if they could. And you might not be far off, if you did think that. But that's not how I felt, at the time, at all. What I felt was that I was radiating. What I felt was that, for the first time in my life, I was the object of attention, not because I was the servant being called to attention by La Se\u00f1ora Elvira but because I was envied and admired.\n\n\"When I sang at that first party, up on stage with a group of sixteen mariachi players Enrique had brought in just to make me look good, I sang so-so. I looked beautiful on stage, but my voice wasn't as good as how I looked. Enrique was furious with me, afterward, that my voice wasn't good enough. 'You are going to have to do better,' he would tell me. 'You are simply going to have to do better. I am not going to let you embarrass me in front of the people who I invite to my parties.' And then he hit me. It was the first of many times he would hit me on the cheek. But out in public, after I had sung that first time, he came up confidently on stage, holding the microphone so close it gave a reverberation feedback, a wince-inducing high-pitched echo as everyone watched Enrique on stage, and he said, 'Wasn't that just beautiful? Please, everyone, give a round of applause for Esmeralda Sanchez. She is going to be the next movie star and pop star of Mexico.'\n\n\"People clapped politely, but without much enthusiasm. Enrique went backstage to tell me to do better, and he hit me. I felt the pain so sharply, after having tried my best, after feeling I was finally beginning to be someone more than what La Se\u00f1ora Elvira had told me I was, after having been presented to all the other men at the party. But I didn't take this as a sign Enrique was at heart what he, of course, was\u2014a violent man. I took it as a sign I had failed and that I needed not to fail the next time. I would need to work harder.\n\n\"And so, I did work harder, one dancing and singing class after another. Pushing myself harder and harder. Singing with records and tapes in the dance studio Enrique constructed for me. The dance studio began to feel like one of those birdcages La Se\u00f1ora Elvira had in her house. At times, I felt I wanted to stop practicing, but Enrique would come and check in on me. He would even lock me in there, occasionally, if I told him I was tired of practicing so much.\n\n\" 'I need a break,' I told him, once.\n\n\" 'You can take breaks another day,' he told me. 'Everyone out there in this city, they think the only way to make it in this world is to be born with connections, to be born rich. But you and I know otherwise. When you have nothing, you have to make it yourself. I'll be your connection for you, but you have to have the talent, too.'\n\n\" 'And how do you show _your_ talent?' I asked him.\n\n\" 'Excuse me?' he said, with indignation. 'Are you saying it doesn't take talent to lead my business? To make my business decisions every day?' He was building up his section of the cartel, more and more. He was rising, quickly, in the cartel. This is what he told me regularly, and it was something I could see, as well. The men around him were becoming more solicitous. They started to walk with him, his old friends, less as equals and more as men showing respect to their leader.\n\n\"A year later, I finally fulfilled Enrique's dreams. Not his final dreams for me at all, to become a big star, but his dreams for me in Sinaloa, as a first step to the big time. I competed to be Miss Sinaloa. My makeup was caked-on thick, and I had extensions on my lashes. I posed in evening gowns and in a green bikini with bows. I crossed one leg alluringly in front of the other. The men whooped, in the audience. They hooted and hollered with lust. The announcer had to tell them to keep their shouts down and to show some respect. I felt the heat of the lights and the sweat on my forehead, and I worried the heat might somehow ruin my makeup, that something out of my control might cause me to be just a little off and to lose the contest, which would cause Enrique to lose faith in me and to hit me, as he had done, by now, a number of times. I began to associate my beauty with the pleasure of Enrique's adoration, but also with the pain when I disappointed him.\n\n\"But on this day, when I completed my dance and singing routine, I was relieved to see I had not failed Enrique. The announcer on stage, dressed in a tuxedo with big white ruffles, placed the crown on my head, and I felt like a true princess wearing that tiara. I felt the love and adoration and appreciation of the crowd. I began to cry on stage, as all beauty queens cry, but I was crying not only because all of my hard work had paid off, and not only because I knew Enrique would be proud of me and would love me more, and because he was right, he had pushed me hard and proven to me that with hard work I could be something more than I thought; I was crying because I felt for the first time I had escaped the clutches of La Se\u00f1ora Elvira and the clutches of the orphaned life, the wheel of life that had first made my mother an orphan and then me. I was escaping from that past. The wheel of life could no longer control me. And so, I cried on that stage, letting my mascara run a bit beneath my eyes, a mark of imperfection that was perfectly meant for the moment.\n\n\"Enrique didn't wait to meet me after the contest, behind stage. He ran up the side of the stage and took the microphone from the announcer, who looked at him as if this was a bit odd, but by then everyone knew who Enrique was and that they shouldn't disappoint him, or their personal safety might be on the line. Enrique lifted my hand in the air, as if I was the champion boxer of the country, as if I was not the beauty queen of Sinaloa but the real queen of the city and nation. 'Ladies and gentlemen, this is my queen,' he said. 'And I wish to announce we are going to get married.' I was as surprised as everyone in the audience. Enrique hadn't said anything definitive about marriage, up to this point. He had kept me close, as if I was the only one who mattered to him, but I knew well that a man like Enrique could lose interest and suddenly want to be with another woman. He was tough and full of intensity, full of whatever he needed at any moment. Announcing the marriage, on stage, I was both filled with elation and relief, a sense that now he would be mine and I would be his, that we would truly fulfill, together, our dreams and his dreams. As I said, I felt he knew more than me at that point. But I also wondered why he hadn't asked me, in private, as he should have. The side of me that had been caged for so long could not help but ask him, behind stage, why he had made the announcement before asking me what my intentions were.\n\n\" 'Are you disobeying me, mi amor?' he said. 'Do you think I don't have good reason to tell everyone out there?' I could see the well of anger within him bubbling to the surface at the idea I had challenged him, for a second. And then he switched moods, entirely, pretending I had said nothing and that he had said nothing that was acrimonious. He swept me off my feet, with my tiara on my head, and told me he loved me and adored me and that he wanted to make me the happiest wife I could ever be. He pulled out a big diamond ring, which was a real diamond, not like the other fake costume jewelry I so often wore. He slipped the ring on my finger and pulled me out to the car, a long, white limousine he had rented just for the occasion. There was a sunroof. We drove around in the limousine, with a jeep of his cartel compadres carrying weapons in front, and a black SUV with support in back. The three vehicles drove around the city, honking, letting everyone know I had just won the Miss Sinaloa contest and that we were going to get married. Once in a while, Enrique would tell me I should stand in the back of the limousine and peek out the rooftop and wave at my public. 'Go ahead, wave! Wave to them. They are all your people, now. They all adore you.' I did as he commanded. I was with my prince, the man I was going to marry. I stood with my head through the roof, waving, with a crowd in the central plaza waving back at me, and Enrique standing next to me. He held my hand, fingering the diamond he had placed on my ring finger. He gave me a big kiss on the lips, in public, in the central plaza. Shouts, egging him on to be manly, made him kiss me again. I wrapped my arms around him, and for a fleeting second, despite the fact I knew I was more and more his possession, despite the fact I knew he was the leader of a cartel that others feared, despite the fact I knew his cartel must be killing hundreds of people, despite all those things I grabbed him closer to me and I felt, 'This is my man.' \"\n\nListening to the woman, who I now knew was Esmeralda Sanchez, who I thought for a second I had seen on TV, once, in a cantina\u2014now that she'd mentioned she'd been elevated to Miss Sinaloa\u2014I could see she was reliving each experience as she told it to me. She sat in the waiting room waving her arm as she'd once waved at the public. Only now her hand had a scar on it.\n\n\"And the scar?\" I said. \"The scars...\" I tried to remind her she was supposed to be telling me about her scars.\n\n\"The story of the scars will come soon enough. But I cannot just tell you the story about them right away, or you won't understand, and you won't understand why this story is important to you and why I'm telling it to you.\" She stood and straightened her long flower skirt and walked to the far end of the waiting room and filled a cup of water from a watercooler. She went to the bathroom to freshen up, it seemed. I asked the secretary if the doctor was back yet, and she said he was still busy with another patient, or maybe out to lunch. I'd wanted the doctor to come quickly, before, so I could talk with him about whether I should have the mastectomy or not, and to have the certainty of a decision made crystal clear. But now, before I met the doctor, I felt I needed to hear the rest of the beauty queen Esmeralda Sanchez's story. I hoped the doctor wouldn't come before she could tell me what I needed to hear. It seemed to me all of a sudden that she must have the answers, like a fortuneteller, as to what I should do, she was telling her story so passionately.\n\nShe came back from the restroom, sat down, and began to tell her story, again.\n\n\"Three years went by, with Enrique's business in the cartel growing and growing, with other narcos feeling more and more threatened by him as he took over more of their territory in the drug business, when one night, on June second, a date I will never forget, a group of men broke into the house where we were living, who worked for another cartel. By this time, we lived in a house on the beach that looked out over the water, with high ceilings, crammed full of the art and objects that Enrique felt proved he had made it in his cartel work. He had been collecting large jade and malachite Buddhas and scenes of ancient fantasy landscapes, in the clouds, from China. He bought them not only in Mexico, from dealers who brought to him the art they thought he would like, but also from places like Hong Kong, where he occasionally went for his work. He had a collection of French crystal statues of sports cars, over fifty objects in a case at the base of the stairs leading up to our bedroom. The objects were truly rare, and at his command a number of lights lit the sports cars when he showed off his crystal to guests. At the front door, when visitors came in, there were porcelain cheetahs; and, in an effort to please him, I'd selected red fur coats and suede leather couches of purples and aquamarines, which made the whole place feel like a very upscale home, with rococo designer furniture. A Porsche 911 and two Porsche SUVs sat in the garage. He'd attained more and more of what he wanted, but more was never enough.\n\n\"I saw him less and less because of his work, and because I tried to appear in movies and TV shows, just as he desired. I had a bit of success but not nearly as much as his. I had the looks but not, necessarily, the full talent. And soon, I had even less of the looks. Much less.\n\n\"The night when they came and hurt me so badly, a group of three men, the rival narcos, came into the bedroom. Two held me down on the sprawling, custom-made bed. They did not rape me. I will never understand why, though I think they understood it would torment Enrique more if he could never know, for certain, whether they had raped me. Instead, they carved one of the Xs on one of the palms and the scar on the back of my neck, and an extra scar which I haven't shown you, an X that is the same as the others, on my stomach, just over my belly button. It is important to know they did not make the scar on my other hand. That would come by me, later.\n\n\"I could go into gory details of how they carved the scars into my body, but why turn this into a horror movie? The facts are bad enough, aren't they? The fact they took their time as they cut me. The fact they knew what they were going to do, before they came. It wasn't a crime of animalism, in the heat of the moment as they fought with my husband\u2014who, in fact, was not there. It was a crime of meditation, a well-thought-out act to send my husband a message that his most precious object, the one he had shown off for years as the beauty queen of Sinaloa, was not untouchable, was scarred and belonged to them, and was deflowered.\n\n\"Only, my husband had already, even before the incident, begun to care less and less about me. He was already beginning to lose interest in me. He was already beginning to look at other women, and I suspect to sleep with them, and once I was scarred by these men\u2014in the middle of the night, with blood soaking into the sheets, and especially with the mark over my womb, which had failed to produce a child for us\u2014he lost all interest, completely. He simply almost never came home.\n\n\"The absence of his attention, even though he had hit me over the years, even though he had always treated me more as his possession than a mutual love built by the two of us, made me feel more and more insecure, more and more desperate to win his attention back. I bought brighter and richer clothes, if that was possible. I went shopping for Louis Vuitton and Prada handbags, dresses from Versace, not the most expensive haute couture dresses because those were out of Enrique's league, but I bought whatever he could afford and whatever he would allow me to afford. I bought gold and platinum baubles and sat in front of the mirror and combed and recombed my hair, feeling the brush scrape against my neck, sitting in front of the boudoir off the room where they had scarred me, combing my hair just as La Se\u00f1ora Elvira once had me comb her hair for hours. Once free of her, I was now acting as if she still possessed me, as I tried to repossess Enrique.\n\n\"But Enrique was with other women now, barely hiding them anymore. Once, when I confronted him about an especially young woman, who looked as young as I'd been when Enrique had first found me on the street, but whom, looking at her at a party, I felt had none of the charm I had originally had, none of my toughness, I wondered what he saw in the woman he was nudging up to so closely at the large party, a party now with five hundred. I had sung at the party, and people had politely clapped. I sang better than that first party Enrique had me sing at. I had the moves down now, after years in the profession. But I was still the mediocre performer I had started out as, a beauty queen who was no longer all that beautiful, with the scars on my hand and neck and on my womb, which I now hid. 'What is it about her that makes her so perfect for you?' I asked him at the party. If it seems strange I asked him then and there, directly to his face, it was no stranger than when you, earlier, asked me why the gods had made me so perfect. What I am saying is, the question was involuntary, a question I should not have asked, unless I wanted to be nearly destroyed.\n\n\" 'What makes her so perfect,' Enrique said, 'is that she is what you once were but no longer are. She has potential, and what kind of potential do you have now, with the scars they did to you? But I want you to know I am not rejecting you because of your scars alone, though they are hideous. I am rejecting you because you have lost your edge, your talent, your drive, your animalism. Look at you now, so soft and draped in all of these clothes. I can barely see the puma inside of you that I once wanted. You have failed to give me a child. You have failed in the most basic task of a real beauty queen. Infertility is hardly becoming. Every king needs his heir. Every king must have his concubines. And I have to say, when I look at the scars on your body, I can't help but wonder if they raped you, too, but you just won't admit it.'\n\n\"They were words, in short, of pure bile. Pure hate. They were words to hurt me like a boy who holds a magnifying glass in front of an ant, keeping the focus of light that is too hot on the ant until it burns and dies. And here is the part where you will surely want to, and have to, judge me. Because after that evening, when he said those things to me and touched his new, young female thing, I went up, into the room in the house where we lived, and I took a sharp knife from the kitchen, a small one usually reserved for paring apples and potatoes, and by my own will and with my own self-loathing and with loathing and anger for Enrique, I took my left hand out, a hand that had never been scarred by the three men who had tied me down, and I carved slowly and methodically, and then faster and deeper, with punctures of pain, with pain more that I had let myself become Enrique's thing and his object, and then that I could no longer be that object of desire for him. I wanted him to know I was in torment. I wanted him to wake up from his smug certainty that he knew everything and controlled everything. I wanted him to feel for a second, when he would hear about this carving of my flesh, and when he would be forced to see it, that I loathed him now and myself now so much that I had had the strength, the animalistic strength, to do this self-mutilation.\n\n\"After sleeping, most likely, with the other young woman at the party, he came in the door at four a.m., smelling of sex, with the smell of his cologne mixing with the perfume of another. He came up to his bedroom. By then, we didn't sleep in the same room. Like a phantom, I walked into his bedroom, once he was undressed and getting into his bed. I held my palm up in the air, with blood dripping on the carpet, on a tiger skin rug he had brought from Hong Kong, which stood at the base of his bed. I held the palm up in the air until he could tell something was wrong, something was desperately wrong.\n\n\" 'I did this,' I said. 'I did this because of you!'\n\n\"He rushed up to me and looked at the hand, and the wound was so fresh even he could not deny what he had done. 'Oh, Esmeralda, Esmeralda, what have you done? What have you done? You should never have done that. Never.' He looked at me with a look of pity, and yes, some concern, and maybe even, oddly, a bit of pride that I could be, momentarily, an animal. But I was no longer the queen he wanted. There was a new queen. She would be his new pretty face. The concubine, in those old Chinese tales I would read later, replaces the queen, and even my most desperate cry out could not win him back.\n\n\"The rest of the details of my story are hardly worth noting, how the police and military finally set up an operation to take him out. Usually they took their cut and left Enrique alone, but one day they came in force to kill Enrique, and he got word of their plan first. He met them in a full gun battle in the center of town. The one surprise for this story, perhaps, is that I fought beside him. I, too, carried an AK-47 and fired in the direction of the police who were firing at my husband. We hadn't had sex for a year, when he was shot and killed. The bullets, they truly riddled his body and he fell in the street. He had taken me with him to flee to the next compound. He had rejected me in almost all ways, but he still seemed to want to keep me in the cage of his house, and he still insisted I continue to try to make it in the music business, though my recordings were fewer and fewer. But when the cops came, I was standing next to him, a loyal follower to the end, admiring his drive and talent, loathing my own body, wanting to do what I could to please him. He was my man, and I foolishly still loved him.\n\n\"But it was not then that I learned what I needed to from the experience. It was two years later, long after all the furs and clothes and houses and boats had been confiscated by the government, and I was living in a very small house that I could barely afford, renting only a room in the top floor which had an attic that was too hot. The police had determined I was not a real narco, just the wife of a criminal, and they had let me free. I was already twenty-six. I was walking through the town, one day, and I saw a young girl, and I could see she was an orphan from the same orphanage where I had grown up. I followed her, as if involuntarily, back to the orphanage. There, despite all the changes to my body, was the structure of the orphanage, almost identical to when I had left. Time had flown by, my body was now permanently marked, and I had attempted to run away from this orphanage for so long, and from the orphanage somewhere else, unknown, where my mother had grown up. And standing in front of that door I realized I had spent my whole life running away from that door and that building instead of running to something. I had been running with the subconscious fear that if I did not become a beauty queen, if I did not please Enrique, if I did not do what everyone else wanted from me, I would end up in the orphanage forever, not just the orphanage in front of me but the orphanage of a trapped spirit, a trapped soul. And in my fear I had ended up scarring my body more than anyone else could have ever scarred me, trying to live for others, instead of ever truly living for me, or ever even truly living. 'I want to live,' I told myself. 'I want to live for me and for me alone and not for anyone else and not out of any more fear.' I opened the gate of the orphanage. I walked into that door, the porthole that had marked the gatekeeper of my greatest fear, and I walked inside. I looked around the rooms of the orphanage\u2014first in the room for the babies, where I had once changed the diapers of the smallest infants, and then in the room where La Se\u00f1ora Elvira had come and snatched me away, when for a fleeting moment I had felt some hope, until the once beautiful witch had dashed my hopes. 'I have paid for my beauty,' I told myself. 'I have paid more than enough.' I walked up to the head nun. I raised my palm to her. 'Mother Superior, I have sinned against myself for not loving myself.' I walked around the old orphanage, looking into the corners of the place that had once been my deepest fear. I was not going to let the place dominate me anymore, if I could. I was no longer going to run away from myself, couching my fears in my body. I was going to find some other orphanage to work in, a place where I could help some new young girls.\"\n\nShe stopped her story abruptly, opened her eyes, and looked straight at me and told me she had gone to work in an orphanage. She had completed her promise to herself. She was exhausted from telling her story, and she quickly walked to a sink in the corner of the room to wash away tears that had come to her.\n\nWhile she was at the sink, I thought about her story. It seemed foolish to try to reduce what she had said to one idea or two. Was she saying beauty is only skin-deep and that I should worry less about any scars to my body, because she had suffered much worse? Was it that I should worry less about my fears, and that I should confront them head-on? Was it that I should escape the cycles of life that she had been caught up in, just as my own family had cycles and cycles of breast cancer? Or was it what I think she was really getting at\u2014that to give means more than to take? It was all of these things, perhaps, but when I walked into the doctor's office, when he finally came, after I'd thanked the woman for telling her story to me, a telling that I believe and hope was of some cathartic use for her, as it was for me, I walked into the doctor's office and I told him I needed a double mastectomy; I told him I had made up my mind firmly and said to him, \"You see, doctor, even with all the pain and cruelty and torture out there in the world, I want to live.\" There was nothing more magnificent, more surprising, more awe-inspiring, more mystical than being alive in the world. I thought of the woman with the scars on her body, who had told me the story. I thought of her in her new orphanage; and even with her scars, because of all of her suffering, because of her honesty and her fortitude, her spirit unbowed by the pain, and because she had been there for me when I needed someone to comfort me when I was alone, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever met. She had given me something when I was feeling wholly selfish and afraid. She was much more than her mother could have ever known.\n\n# ACAPULCO\n\nAt 3:42 a.m., according to the police report, we left the nightclub. But don't take the reports too seriously down here in Mexico. They're a joke. That time seems about right to me, though. I have a watch, an expensive Piaget my father once gave me, and after the whole shooting was through, I heard the faint Swiss, precise ticking and the time said 3:50.\n\nI ended up in the nightclub because the client wanted to show me a good time. Never mind that I have a girlfriend\/partner who I've been living with for two years. She and I are going to get married in a few months. But the way business gets done in Mexico, the older men\u2014say about fifty-five\u2014they don't care about being faithful to their wives. They have \"lovers\" on the side. They go to motels on the edge of town to have sex with their secretaries or with their hidden \"gem.\" Me, I'm not into that kind of tradition. It smacks of a macho culture that I left behind when my parents sent me to study architecture at Harvard School of Design. I grew up in Mexico City. My whole family is from Mexico. But I'm halfway in, halfway out. I consider myself proudly from Mexico, but I'm a citizen of the world. I'm as happy eating sushi in Tokyo as having a quesadilla on the streets of Mexico City.\n\nWe went to the nightclub to close the deal. Gonzalo was the client. Sixty years old. The usual paunch that most older, rich Mexican men have. It's the paunch of the _felicidad_ \u2014the happiness. Gonzalo wears a gold Rolex. It's the kind of flashy watch I would never wear because I come from old money, and his money is new. Who knows from where? There are some questions it's best not to ask, with all the cash floating around Mexico these days. If you're an architect, as I am, you don't ask where the dough is coming from, you just ask, \"What kind of pool do you want?\" You give them an option\u2014large or extra-large. I've designed pools that extend off the house and into the ocean, with a long jetty that slices into the Pacific. To me, it's never made sense why a client needs a pool right next to the warm water of the ocean, but for the clients the pool is where the action is at, the trophy, like the trophy bride, that is always immaculately clean, radiating turquoise up to the sky, the center of their personal temple. And believe me, for the clients, their house is their personal temple.\n\nMy own taste is toward the modern. I'm a good architect but not a great architect. I can do nice, sweeping open-floor plans. I can get you that view you want that makes you feel like your house is worth a few million. I do my best. I struggle to get the details. I love the clean, white look of _pilotis_ from an architect like Le Corbusier. But no one is ever going to remember me. Fortunately, you don't have to be amazing to make a living down in Mexico. You just need to be willing to give the client what they ask for. There is a long tradition of great architects in Mexico, like Luis Barrag\u00e1n, and, as is usually the case, most people don't buy their homes or know about them. Bad taste reigns supreme, everywhere. I try to find the clients who have less bad taste so they don't give me too many problems. I build them what they want, and then, in a few smaller places, I try to design what I really care about. It's the life of an architect. So it goes. And it goes easier, since my father is a fairly well-known architect in Mexico.\n\n\u2014\n\nWhen we came into the nightclub, the first thing I noticed was the pole dancing. This club was on the edge of Acapulco, out of town about fifteen minutes, up on one of the side hills and at a sharp pullover. The club stands alone, with no other stores nearby, and it has a sign with two cartoon-cutout women dancing with martini drinks in their hands, all lit up with fifty flashing incandescent bulbs. Some of the lightbulbs are gone, so the sign looks like some teeth are missing.\n\nGonzalo's driver parked his Mercedes-Benz. Gonzalo got out and I followed him in. It was the third club we'd been to this evening. In Mexico, everything's about excess. If you have a party, the music volume has to be at eleven. If you invite one of your cousins over for lunch, you have to invite their parents and their sisters and brothers. It's the same in business. There's no such thing as going to one club to close the deal.\n\nWhen we came into the club, the driver waited by the door, acting as a security guard. Most of the drivers do that for someone like Gonzalo. He was traveling light this evening. He only had his one driver for security. Often, a guy like him drives with two extra cars around as his security detail\u2014one in front, one in back, hugging close to him through traffic with a couple bodyguards in each car to make sure no one kidnaps him. This isn't just for nefarious people. This is for anyone with money. They never know when some group of professional kidnappers or hit men will try to get them. The guards look like Secret Service details. They dress in dark suits and have earpieces to communicate with each other. The main difference is they don't have to hide their weapons as much in Mexico. They let people know they're nearby. They try to be a presence, without bothering anyone at the party or at the business meetings.\n\nI think Gonzalo was traveling with only his driver as his guard because he wanted to be able to take me to some of the smaller, seedier bars, and with four guards it would have been too intrusive. He told me at the beginning of the night he wanted to take me to some of the traditional nightclubs because the women were better there\u2014not so jaded, he said, not so phony. \"I like them with fat butts, you know what I mean?\" he said. He put his hands up in the air and squeezed, as if he were squeezing a big, round ass. \"For me, if they don't have a pretty face, it's a plus. It means they like what they're doing. It means they probably have a sweet boy back home that they take care of. They're mothers. I like the mothers...\"\n\nThat chain of logic made absolutely no sense to me. If they're mothers they were working in the clubs because they had to, not because they wanted to. But I think it's fair to say Gonzalo had a Mommy complex. He needed some kind of mother he maybe never got as a child, and he wanted me to share his fetish. Me, I wasn't interested, but the guy wanted me to design a four-million-dollar home off one of the nearby golf courses, so I was willing to go along for the ride.\n\nIt was just like what you might expect for a cheapo porno bar. Up on stage, to the left as you came in, the lighting was red and dark, a single white spotlight on the woman at the pole. If she was a mother, she was a young mother, no older than twenty-five. Her nipples were big and brown, so she probably was a mother, and her ass was wide, just like Gonzalo wanted, but otherwise she was slim. She shimmied around the pole. She wore a pair of black-velvet high heels. She had on a red G-string. Otherwise, she was naked, cinnamon brown. Gonzalo walked straight over to her. He pulled out a five-hundred-peso note. The lady turned, with her ass in front of his face. She jiggled it up and down, back and forth, like she was playing the bongo drums, or like some Disney porno film version with her ass as some bongo drums. The standard rule with the pole dancers\u2014as I'd learned earlier that evening, and with other clients closing deals\u2014is that you don't touch the dancer. You can push money in her G-string, but you don't touch the merchandise. For that there are lap dances, and there are always plenty of women circling around the nightclubs to offer lap dances and to fill your drink. Gonzalo came about as close as you can to violating the rule. He put his hands up behind the dancer's butt, he came within a millimeter of touching her, putting his hands around each cheek and pretending to squeeze in the air. This was the third time of the evening he'd done this, as if he thought it was hilarious each time. One of the advantages, from his point of view, seemed to be that for a moment his face and hands were caught in the spotlight, so everyone could see he was the big man, the guy putting in the five hundred pesos. After he stuck the money into the strap, he turned around to me and gave me this look like, Not bad, eh?\n\nI gave him the look of approval he wanted.\n\nTo the right of the door, as you came in, there was a long bar-table with a view of the stage to the left. I took a seat at one of the stools and Gonzalo wended his way back to me. He chuckled as he sat down. His hair was combed straight back like some kind of Latin American dictator from the '80s. He had on a pink button-down shirt, the collar wide open showing some black hairs mixed with gray. He had a number of gold teeth fillings that were more noticeable whenever he put his hand with his Rolex up by his mouth, while laughing. There was an old scar over his left eye. His face was smooth from eating a lot, full of fleshiness, and he had a constant slight sweat from eating and drinking. He seemed to feel a bit hot and sweaty wherever he was.\n\nThe whole evening he'd said normal things to me, talking about girls, asking me about my girlfriend, asking me about my father. There wasn't much to say, he kept the conversation light, but now he leaned in close to me and put his heavy arm around my shoulder and whispered in my ear, \"You're a pussy, but even though you're a cunt they say you're a good architect. I want a palace. You give me a palace and I'll be happy and you'll make some good money. You fuck up, you give me a house that other people don't like, and I'll make your life miserable.\"\n\nThere was no mistaking his words. It was some kind of strange threat, from out of nowhere. How did I get this client? My brother Rodrigo had a friend who played golf in Acapulco. That friend had said he knew Gonzalo on the golf course. Three degrees of separation. In Mexico there's usually a personal link, or nothing happens. Rodrigo's friend was the link. I was going to kill him.\n\n\u2014\n\nThe whole time we were in the club it was pretty empty, other than the women working there, the bartender, and Gonzalo's guard, but there were a few bunches of clients randomly scattered at the tables, some in pairs, chattering, some alone staring in wonderment or, like depressed junkies, up at the pole dancer. There were just enough that I didn't notice two guys who slipped in after we had been in the club for an hour. When they came in, I didn't know they were the reason, but Gonzalo excused himself and said he had to go to the bathroom. That left me alone for a while, sitting in the club without having to pretend to be interested in Gonzalo's conversation. I had a chance to take in the soft Latin beat of the music. There were a few trumpets. It was supposed to be happy music, but in the sad red light falling on the pole dancer on stage the trumpets sounded forlorn, and I wondered what I was doing in this club, so far from my girlfriend, Julieta, in Mexico City. She was under the covers now, sleeping like a babe, with our dog, no doubt, on the floor by her side. We live in a loft I designed in the center of the city, with modern lines that were clean enough to get _Wallpaper_ * magazine interested. They did a photo shoot of the loft\u2014a mix of the modern within a traditional Colonial building, downtown. The truth is, I ripped off the style of another architect whom I admire who isn't that well known. The loft looks beautiful, but it never would have gotten into _Wallpaper_ * without the connections of a friend of my father. My father is one of those great architects of Mexico, who people in the outside world know. I got to thinking about my father, and I asked myself why I was in this dump with Gonzalo, trying to get him as a client, and I realized the only reason I was sucking up to Gonzalo, or tolerating him, was because I wanted to prove to my father I could make it without him, that I could get my own big clients by myself.\n\nMy father's clients are serious. They're famous writers, like Carlos Fuentes, or big industrialists who own steel and tuna factories, or telephone and TV companies. You know where their money comes from. They're old, established families that have owned Mexico from the time of the haciendas or who came over from Spain to make their fortunes. I'm not saying they're all nice, or all have good taste, but in as many deals as my father has told me about, I've never heard him say he went to three crappy strip joints, on the edge of town, to keep the customer satisfied.\n\nWhile I was having these thoughts, Gonzalo's driver came up to me and asked me to please follow him to a back room where Gonzalo had gone, earlier, following the two men. The back room had floor-to-ceiling mirrors on the walls, and a mirror on the ceiling. There were cheap chandeliers, barely casting an orange tiger glow that perfectly imitated the clothing of the three women who were on the gold vinyl couches next to Gonzalo and by the two men who had come in. The women wore leopard-skin bodysuits. They had long nails and they put their arms around the three men. One stuck her hand on Gonzalo's hairy chest and stroked him. There was a low coffee table in front of them\u2014a rectangular cube made of mirrors\u2014and on top of it the two other men had made a bunch of lines of white powder cocaine. A lady in a leopard suit grabbed my arm and made me sit in front of the cocaine. One of the two men slapped me on the back and said, \"Take some. It's good. It's good quality.\" I told him, politely, thanks but no thanks. That's one rule I had for myself. No coke. Ever. I didn't do that, and I didn't need Gonzalo so badly that I was going to get trashed that way. It was one thing to drink shots of booze and to go from cheap club to club to get my 10 percent of a four-million-dollar home that many future clients would walk around along the beach of Acapulco. It was another to be told, like a dog, that I should snort coke with a fat client like Gonzalo.\n\n\"Hey boss,\" one of the two guys said. His face was thick and his ears were missing some of their flesh, like a wrestler who's had them pulled at too many times. \"This guy\u2014what's his name?\u2014he says he's not interested.\" He pointed at the coke. \"What kind of faggot is he? Where did you find this guy?\"\n\nI couldn't tell if Gonzalo had snorted some of the coke, or not. He seemed way too subdued to have taken any. He seemed the opposite, not up but down. He had his head leaning back on the couch, and his eyes half shut, and he was taking in the rubbing of the woman in the leopard suit assigned to him. He was staring up at the mirror on the ceiling.\n\n\"I don't really like him, either,\" Gonzalo said in a fairly muted voice, like he was underwater. \"He's been a party pooper all night. He does look like a faggot. But he's not. His girlfriend lives with him at Corregidora 38, in the Center. They have a dog and they live together in a loft. He's an architect who's going to design my next house for me. And if he screws up, if he makes any mistake on the house, his girlfriend is going to be in trouble.\"\n\nI had never given him my home address. I had never told him I had a dog. I had never told him I lived with my girlfriend.\n\n\"Hey faggot,\" Gonzalo said. \"You've been avoiding the lap dances all night. I've offered you women in each of the clubs and in each place you look at your Piaget watch like you have better things to do and like you don't like my Rolex. I don't care if you think I'm a cheap, fat guy with nouveau riche money. Every penny I have, I made it myself. I started my business myself. I don't sell drugs. I didn't make money the cheap, fast way. These guys are not drug dealers. They're just snorting a little coke. Big deal. Every penny I made, I earned it myself. I didn't come from some family where my father was sending me off to Harvard to go to architecture school. I would have liked that. Anyone would have liked that. But that's not the way it was for me. So, here's what you're going to do. You're going to take off your pants right here, right now, in front of all of us, and then you're going to get a lap dance from one of these women.\"\n\nI was more and more convinced he didn't earn his money, pulling himself up by his bootstraps. If he'd made his money the honest way, people would have told me where his money had come from\u2014but before we got together, no one knew. They said he just had it. I was more convinced than ever he was a small-time drug dealer, one of those mini-jefes down the totem pole who thinks he's a big shot. This kind of scum was getting bigger and bigger in Acapulco. It was infecting the whole country like a cancer.\n\nIn Mexico, earthquakes are common. Every architect has to learn how to build around them. You put big buildings on springs that can move with the earth when it ruptures. You reinforce the beams with thick steel rods. You put on extra concrete so the elevated freeways don't fall. If you do it right, the structure survives with only minor cracks.\n\nThe smart thing to do would be to listen to Gonzalo and just do what he said, to go with the flow, to bend. Who cares if it was humiliating? I could take off my pants. I could take off my underwear. I could let the women rub me until I got hard, with the other men watching like animals. I could be the circus animal and design his house, and take the money that I knew was from illegal sources, and get the house printed up in one of the big Mexican architecture magazines that would lead to other clients. It would be a small price of humiliation to keep climbing up the ladder. My father would see me doing better. He would have to admit I could make it on my own. I stood up with one hand on my belt, trying to decide what to do. Should I open my belt or not? If I opened my belt it would be capitulation.\n\nI opened my belt, and I justified it to myself that it was better to live than to be a dead example of someone who had stood up for his principles against these thugs.\n\n\"That's it,\" Gonzalo said. \"That's it. Now dance, dance with one of these lovely ladies.\" One of the older women with long, red nails opened my pants. I stood in front of the other men, and she felt me up while the men laughed at me like I was a circus monkey.\n\n\u2014\n\nSometimes, I think about my watch. There are a million things happening around the world at any second. There are an infinite number of split seconds in a minute. If Zeno's paradox is right\u2014that between any two points there are an infinite number of halfway points, so we should never be able to get anywhere\u2014then the same must be true about choices in life. What if I hadn't opened my belt? What if I hadn't let myself stay in that room for a stupid lap dance that I feigned interest in? I didn't care about the woman who was, supposedly, turning me on, and I cared even less about her twenty minutes later when Gonzalo finally came out of his stupor enough to say he wanted to leave. The two goons who'd been cutting up the coke on the mirror asked Gonzalo, suddenly, when they were going to get paid for some work they had done and for the delivery of a load. I couldn't hear well, since by now I was standing fairly cold while the woman assigned to me gyrated around my body.\n\n\"Just shut up,\" Gonzalo said. \"You'll get paid when I tell you.\"\n\nThe goon with the ears partially missing said, \"Nothing is free, jefe. You pay up soon or things could get nasty.\"\n\nGonzalo's driver came in, and he wasn't having any of this discussion. He told the two goons to calm down. He was sober. He told Gonzalo he had to go to the car now, that it wasn't safe to stay anymore. He said he would deliver me back to my hotel.\n\n\"We're not going to his hotel, yet,\" Gonzalo said. \"He's coming with me and these two women.\" He grabbed ahold of the woman who had been dancing around me, who'd tried to give me a blowjob in front of the other men\u2014she wasn't fully successful because I willed myself not to get it up for her.\n\nIt seemed like the evening was falling apart, completely. Whether I would get the contract to build the house or not, suddenly seemed up in the air. In the morning, when everyone is recovering from their fiesta, there are times when people pretend whatever happened the night before never happened. And that could mean I would have a contract for the house or not, the next day. Oddly enough, though, and one of the reasons I had opened my pants\u2014other than wanting to live\u2014is that I knew these jefes lived according to their own, perverted code. If they said they wanted me to build the house, and even more so if they threatened me, it meant they had fixated on me for some reason, and they wanted it bad. And once they wanted it bad, they wouldn't let go.\n\nGonzalo's driver hurried me into the back of the Mercedes-Benz with the two women\u2014one for Gonzalo and one, supposedly, for me. I had hopes the driver was just humoring his boss, that Gonzalo would finally calm down and let me end the \"fun\" of the evening and go home to my hotel.\n\n\"You'll get your money next Monday,\" Gonzalo said to the two goons, and this calmed them as we got into the car.\n\nFor a moment, sitting in the back of the car, I thought there would be a happy ending. I was sandwiched between the two women. Gonzalo was in front, telling his driver to go faster. The engine of the Mercedes accelerated hard and we swooped around a curve at what must have been ninety miles an hour. On the straightaways the driver was going a hundred. The precision of the machine, the precision of European engineering, was comforting, and I leaned back into the plush leather thinking this was it, a minor moment of humiliation survived, a day I could live with. My head was foggy from the late night, and the bad perfume of the women next to me pressed into my nose, but I began to think of the house I would design for Gonzalo on the beach. I would build it four stories high, one more than usual to give it the prominence he wanted. There would be circles and triangles throughout, primary shapes, just as Louis I. Kahn did in his Center for British Art at Yale, but I would come up with my own style for this house. I vowed I would never let myself rip off the work of any other architect again. This house would be a turning point in my work, a moment of maturation where I would go from cribbing others. And I would do it precisely because Gonzalo had humiliated me. I would give him a house that was better than he deserved, because it would be for me and not for him, and I would use his filthy money to do it.\n\nThe car slid sideways as the driver slammed on the brakes when the headlights pointed out a tree across the road. From a hundred to zero in six seconds. The women next to me came out of their soft leaning-in, tired from their work, ready for sleep, and screamed. I angled forward once the car came to a stop, with the bright lights against the green branches of the tree in front of us. It was a large tree, masking what was beyond. Gonzalo yelled at the driver, \"Get back. Turn this around. It's a trap.\"\n\nThe driver punched the car in reverse, and I was thrown forward and then back hard into the leather seat. Bullets came from the right as the wheels whirled against the pavement. _TaTat! TaTat! Tattattattattat_. When the projectiles hit the front, they didn't break the glass. There must have been bulletproofing. But the bullets kept coming, the glass bending and molding inward, until there was no more resistance, Gonzalo yelling at his driver to go faster, the front window pocked with flying metal, the women grabbing at me and trying to get down, Gonzalo's head flying back and then his body slumping forward, the driver's foot coming off the accelerator as he slumped, too. I hid beneath the bodies of the women on the floor of the backseat. I couldn't see anything, but I heard some men running up to the car and then away from it.\n\n\"They're dead,\" I heard one shout. \"Come on, let's go, they're all finished. We got them.\"\n\nThen another opened up his machine gun against the side door, in the back. He unleashed a wave of bullets. They hit more and more into the door, just behind me. I felt a sting and a piece of metal go into my body somewhere. I heard someone open the door and look in.\n\n\"Yes, they're all dead,\" he said, and he left the door open and ran away.\n\nHow I'd become twisted, with my back against the floor, I'll never know. My hand was splayed above me and I heard a faint _tick, tick, tick,_ with the precision of a Swiss watch, and saw the time: 3:50. One second earlier, and I might have had a different outcome\u2014I might never have been in that car.\n\n\u2014\n\nA couple days ago, I went to a funeral. It was of the woman who gave me the lap dance. Before the funeral, my girlfriend asked why I had to go. I'd told her everything that had happened that night. I didn't want any secrets between us before we got married. She came and saw me in the hospital, from Mexico City to Acapulco, and while it wasn't clear, at first, whether I would live, I told her, through the breathing mask stuck to my face, what had happened. I didn't want to leave any detail out, so I told her about the strange way I'd ended up in the back room with the mirrors and how Gonzalo had insisted I have a lap dance. I told her about the house I wanted to design for him.\n\n\"Why would you want to design a nice house for him?\" she said.\n\n\"Because I wanted to prove him wrong.\"\n\n\"But you don't have to prove anything to anyone,\" she said. \"Not even to your father.\"\n\nThat's why I like Julieta. She tells me what I want to hear. She didn't understand why I'd want to go to the funeral of the women who worked in the club, but she didn't try to stop me.\n\nThe funeral was in a small church in a small town outside Acapulco. The priest started his sermon as a hundred people listened, crammed into the pews. In the front of the church I could see the two children of Gloria, the woman who'd danced for me. I knew her name, now. The children were ages three and five. Two boys. There was no father present. They stood with their grandmother.\n\nThe priest told everyone gathered that as hard as it was to accept, there was always a reason for everything that happened. Everything was God's will. The ways of the Lord were unknowable and mysterious.\n\nI could think of no reason, whatsoever, for Gloria's death. So a man like Gonzalo could get his sexual kicks? So a man like Gonzalo could make enough money to build a four-million-dollar home? I was just as complicit as her, just the same, trying to make a buck off a guy like him. I had let my ambition get the better of me. I was revolted that I'd let myself stay that night in the room with the mirrors, and that I'd let myself \"dance\" with Gloria\u2014not because there's any shame to sex, but because I had no interest in that sex and because Gonzalo had made me do it.\n\nI walked into the parking lot, where there was dirt around the old cars. I picked up a stick. And in the dirt I wrote, \"For the memory of Gloria, who deserved none of what happened.\" I held on to the stick. I drew circles and squares. I was going to make a memorial to her, in a small place by the beach. I wouldn't make the memorial too big. It wasn't for me, wasn't for me to try to get some recognition in the magazines, it was for her. I drew a tower into the air, which represented me and my hopes. I was going to do better. I was going to try to make something of myself while I still had life.\n\n# THE KIDNAPPING\n\nTen seconds before they kidnapped me, son of a bitch, I was walking my dog, Azteca. There are little stalls all over my neighborhood in downtown Mexico City. They sell everything\u2014paper, plastic beach balls, bolts of cloth, straw hats, tight jeans with sequins, bright plastic Tupperware, blow-up superheroes, chilies, tacos, fried pig skin, speakers for local bands, tools, and wedding cakes. You name it, it's being sold down here in the center of town. I like to watch the hot women walking around my neighborhood. I like to even check out the tranny prostitutes\u2014not that I'd ever want to sleep with one of them, but man, they do it up all the way, you know what I mean? They go whole hog.\n\nSo I was walking my dog late at night. Another dog was barking ferociously from a rooftop. I don't usually go the way I was walking after 10 p.m., 'cause walking down that way gets a little hairy. During the day, it's fine. But at night, you gotta be careful. Normally, no one messes with me 'cause of the dog. I have a Xoloitzcuintle, which is some kind of pure-race dog from the time of the Aztecs. It's one of only three kinds of 100-percent pure, authentic, Mexican dogs. People come up to me all the time to try to get close to the dog. They're a little afraid, but they're curious, and they're especially curious 'cause I'm an American, and they know something ain't right with a white-looking guy, a g\u00fcero, with one of these pure Mexican dogs. So it gets their head spinning and they come up and ask me what my dog's name is, and I say Azteca, and that gets them laughing, 'cause it's almost like calling your dog George Washington, or something unduly serious and patriotic like that, and since my dog's big, they keep their distance, and they like that my dog is big.\n\nBut man, those motherfuckers, when I was walking late at night at 11 p.m., trying just to get to my studio where I do some of my bigger paintings, or more conceptual type of work that takes up some larger space\u2014those dudes just came up to my dog and shot him, point-blank, one shot right through the rib cage, and Azteca twisted his ears first toward them, even before they got the shot off, but he didn't have a chance. It was cruel to do that shot. Azteca got blown down. He cried while his rib cage was jerked around. And then my dog, which had always guarded me so well, was kaput.\n\nI was standing on one of those empty streets downtown, in the center of the old Colonial city, where there's always garbage littered around in the middle of the night after all the people coming and going have bought and sold whatever they're going to take home for the day from the stalls. So I was standing naked in that street, other than my dog, the harsh mercury of some streetlights in the distance the only thing making the street safe. Usually, there's at least someone on the street watching, hanging out, talking with their buddies, but these dudes who did the kidnapping, they knew what they were doing. They must have been watching for just the right moment. There was no one, and I mean no one on the street when I finally saw them coming and when they shot my dog.\n\nOne shot. I looked up the alleyway. A car comes screeching up from the shadows. These two dudes, who smell like a combination of too much piss, alcohol, and bad perfume, push me into the car. One of them puts a gun to my head. He tells me to shut up, in really fast, crude Spanish. He tells me to bend over. They put a blindfold on me. They tie my hands behind my back with the leash from Azteca. Azteca was gone, of course. They left him back on the street, stone-cold dead. I tried to tell myself to stay calm. I told myself just to do whatever they wanted me to, 'cause I usually have this attitude that if you stay calm everything will work out. But it wasn't doing me any good. This one jerk, and I mean that with the greatest of all understatements, he spit in my hair, he told me I was a filthy pig and that my mother would never see me again unless I begged for mercy. Beg, he said. Beg, now. Beg for your life. So man, I begged. Oh yeah, I begged. I tried to do it calmly. I tried to do it with all the sincerity I could muster. I'm gonna beg until they get whatever they feel comfortable with, I thought. One of them hit me on the back of the head, and when I came to I had a large welt on my scalp.\n\n\u2014\n\nI'll tell you what's terrifying. It's not being alone in the place where they take you after they kidnap you. It's the fact that you're _not_ alone, that there are other people with you who you know are going through the same hell they're putting you through.\n\nHere's what they did every day for five straight days. They woke me up in the middle of the night, they slapped me on the side of the head, they did all this after I listened to them cut the finger off some young woman in the other room, and then they took me in the back of the car to an ATM, where they forced me to take out all the money I could, the daily limit, before they slapped me on the head again, beat me in the chest, and stuffed me back in the car. You're like a gerbil on a spinning wheel, while they do this. You're in the ninth ring of hell. I mean, you don't know what day it is\u2014whether it's the same day as the day before. Whether they're just gonna fuckin' waste you right there. Whether they've already found a way to get in touch with your family, and whether your family is gonna pay. It's just one big, black hole of no information. Maybe you'll live, maybe you'll die, and that finger they cut off the woman in the next room\u2014that's real. That's her begging for them not to do it. That's them coming in, in a posse of three, and you hear them scuffling with her, and you hear them shouting at her in Spanish, \"They aren't paying, se\u00f1orita. They aren't holding up their end of the bargain. So they're gonna have to be convinced.\"\n\nThe cry from that woman, there was no faking there. They take a pair of kitchen shears. They run it up along the skin. They scrape your knuckles with the edge of the blade of the scissors, until they bleed. I know how they do it, 'cause later they took one of my fingers off and sent it to my family. This is what they do. They tease you. They make you shit your pants. They have you saying, Please no, please don't do it. Please. No. For Christ's sake, I'm a painter. I'll do anything. I'll get you more money. I'll get you any money you want.\n\nThere were two guys when they did it to me. One was the man I saw shoot Azteca. He had a couple Fu Manchu hairs growing out of his jaw, his face was trapezoidal, his eyes sunk in, his skin leathery like a burnt turtle. He had all the look of a Neanderthal you could imagine. He had a tattoo on his right upper bicep that said MAM\u00c1, with a heart below, and a dagger through the heart. The other guy was skinny, like he was addicted to heroin. He never said anything. He would just hold my arm down against the wood table. He was a lot stronger than you'd expect for a junkie. It was like all his junkieness, all his neediness, came out in his grip. He'd hold my bicep, while the Neanderthal threatened to cut off my finger, and then one day the Neanderthal did it. Blood was gushing all over the fucking place. They cut my pinkie. They said they were gonna start with the small fingers first and then go up the scale, with each request to my family that didn't come through for money. One thing about Mexico, it's impossible to send any mail. You can't get any letter anywhere in less than a week. It takes a full eight days just to get a letter sent from one side of Mexico City to the other. So these guys aren't dumb. They use FedEx. They work for the cartels. They aren't some loners. They're pros. They FedEx'd my finger to my family in Pittsburgh.\n\n\u2014\n\nMy father, he's as straitlaced as they come, as straight a shooter as possible. He never lies. Or, if he does, he does it for a good reason, to help someone. He was the football coach at Pitt for twenty-five years before he retired. I'm forty-four. He's seventy-eight. I'm one of seven kids. I used to joke my parents had kids until they realized the Pope wasn't watching anymore.\n\nMy father, his idea of cruelty was making his players run fifteen miles. He'd have them woken up by his assistant at 5 a.m. on a Sunday, and make them run to our house out of town and press the doorbell. Then he'd have them run back into town before breakfast. If he was torturing someone, it was for their own good. He'd tutor his students personally. When the army called him up, he went. There was no question in his mind ever, what you did; you did the \"right thing.\" The guy has a heart of gold, but he has this sense of duty that sometimes blocks out everything else. So if the FBI told him he shouldn't cave in to any extortion, that it was just going to make things worse, that giving in to kidnappers usually results in having someone killed, that he should just listen to the cops and be firm and not negotiate, but only say a deal could be cut\u2014if they gave me back, no charges would be pressed\u2014then that's what he did. It pained him. This kind of decision pained him. It's not the kind of decision he'd like to make for himself, but the FBI had more experience in these matters, and if that's what they told him then that's what he should do.\n\nMy dad coached a lot of winning teams. He's probably the smart one in the family, but if it hadn't been for my mother, I'd probably be dead now. She sent the first amount of ransom. She sent ten thousand dollars behind my dad's back. She sent the money, so they stopped cutting off my fingers for a while. But it was never clear if they were stopping the finger-cutting exercises because they were just gonna kill me.\n\n\u2014\n\nI'm not sure what the purpose of life is, but I can tell you this, every person has a reason to be on earth, and that reason isn't to be kidnapped, isn't to die in some war, isn't to end up some puffy body left in a trench or to be the residue of some crazy drug war, like what they've got down in Mexico now. I kind of think the purpose of life is to sing. I don't mean, literally, always to sing, but to sing metaphorically, to sing in some way of beauty, to raise the spirits of our voices in hope.\n\nSo here's something I did one day, while they had me kidnapped, sitting on the floor with my hands tied behind my back, my head leaning against a hard concrete wall. I started to sing \"Mary Had a Little Lamb.\" I've got a bit of a gravelly voice. I like to smoke my share of stub cigars. I like to drink mezcal, if it's offered to me. Or, more like, I like to give it to friends if they come around. I like to have spontaneous parties. I like to get a bunch of people together and buy too much food. There's a tranny who works in a restaurant below me, and she makes the best plantain empanadas this side of the world, and just looking at the pride on her face when she brings up the food for a party, that's what I like. I want people to be happy, you know what I mean? So I started singing \"Mary Had a Little Lamb.\" Amazingly, they let me sing, at first. I started singing louder and louder. I wanted the woman in the next room to hear. She'd been going downhill. She'd lost two fingers already, and I thought, if I can sing this song loud enough she'll come back to life. So I just started singing. I don't know why in the hell I chose that song. It's just the one that came to me. It's easy, you know. And after I'd been singing for a bit, I swear I heard that other woman singing, too. She wasn't singing the same song. She started singing some Mexican song. But there it was, some other nice song in Spanish that somehow fit together, perfectly, with \"Mary Had a Little Lamb,\" and even though her voice was weak, she was singing with some kind of inner strength, in perfect harmony with the melody of my own song, and the two of us sang to the concrete ceiling, feeling like we'd stolen a moment, going round and round, repeating the songs a few times, like some kind of chorus of monks but with more joy. They shut us up, of course. They came in and hit me on the mouth. But it didn't matter. It's those moments of joy that make life worth living. It's that harmony, when all around you there's dead silence.\n\n\u2014\n\nHere's what I was deadly afraid of when I was kidnapped in that room. It wasn't that I was going to die. After a while, you get exhausted, you start to lose your energy, but what you're really afraid of isn't that you're going to leave this world, it's all the things you never did outside that room.\n\nI mean here's the thing that was getting to me. I'd never had a relationship for more than two years with any single woman. Like I said, I'm a free spirit. I like to drink, I like to have sex, I like to roll around the world like a nomad. I've been to Cuba six times, and when I'm there I'm happy to find some women, to have a good time, to do whatever comes to me in the moment. But while I was kidnapped, I got to thinking about this one moment with my last girlfriend in Mexico, who I went out with for two years. I'd been shuttling back and forth from New York City to Mexico City for thirteen years, mainly living in Mexico. The rawness of the place intrigues me. It's cheap, and I was able to get started as a painter late in life, at thirty-three, after studying to be an architect.\n\nI wanted to live life large. I didn't want to be stuck just in NYC, like all the other wannabe artists. I wanted to paint with all my heart and soul, with everything I've got, and Mexico was a raw place where I could work, a place that inspired me with the Wild West spirit.\n\nMy girlfriend, she'd been in a band. She was the lead singer, but she was really a good girl at heart, from a pretty wealthy family. She said to me, \"Jakob, you can go around the world wherever you want, you can paint the best painting in the world, but until you find that stone within that makes you distrust everything, that makes you fail to put down roots, that makes you think everything is just of this moment and never of another, just a bang, you're never going to be happy.\" She told me this when I said I wanted to break up with her. I wasn't 100-percent certain why I wanted to break up, but like I say, I'm a nomad, I need change, and at some point, anything\u2014even something good\u2014gets too familiar to me, and I cut things off.\n\nSo I'd sit there in all the dead time during my kidnapping and think about that. Being kidnapped isn't like in the movies. Most of the time, they're not beating you up. Most of the time, they're not torturing you. Most of the time, you're just sitting slumped on the floor, with complete dead time on your hands, with time to think over who you are and what you want and why normal life is so hard.\n\nLike a rolling stone. That's what she meant. I'd been a rolling stone, chasing after the bottom of the hill. Maybe I needed to take the time to grow some moss. I sat on the hard concrete floor and cried.\n\nThe reason I was crying was because I'd been an SOB cheating on her just before we broke up. I mean, sure, things had already fallen apart between us. She was using coke. She was taking too much of the stuff, and I'm just not into that. That shit will mess you up. I stay pretty clean with just mezcal and tequila, beers and some occasional ecstasy or something like that. But coke, that'll mess you up. And she was hiding her use of all that from me. She was pretending she wasn't using that shit, and that's not OK with me. I like to be up front, you know what I mean? If there's a problem, I like to be up front about it.\n\nSo I was in Cuba taking photographs for some new art project. I'm mainly a painter, but I like to go wherever my interests lie, and the changes and things happening in Cuba were just totally interesting to me. Fidel was sick and it seemed like the place was already changing a bit, even though his brother Ra\u00fal still had the reins. I went over to take pictures of the things happening. We went into every nook and cranny of Havana. We got great shots of people living in their poor homes, of people waiting in lines, of guys wearing Nike sneakers\u2014when Nikes had been forbidden, forever. One day, we started taking photos of these two young girls, they must have been seventeen. They thought it was just amazing, us taking photos. I went with this photographer partner of mine. And the two of us, we started charming the girls. We went out to a nice bar with them. We took photos that made them feel like they were superstars that were going to be on the cover of _Vogue_. We never promised them anything. We never said we were shooting for any magazine like that, but you know the hopes of young girls. They saw these white dudes with expensive cameras, and they got excited.\n\nI like to wear a straw trilby hat and a Hawaiian floral shirt, with a good pair of jeans. I've usually got some gray stubble on my face, and these girls, looking at the photos you can see how wide-open their eyes are. We each had our own room, and I took one of those girls for a romp, while my partner did the same with the shorter, brown-haired girl. And, oh my god\u2014the one who I had in my room. She was so frickin' hot. She did all the moves on top of me. She took it all off, I didn't have to even do much of anything. And that's just the way it is, you know, for me. I've got to be in the moment. I've got to be taking it all in\u2014everything, from the blade of grass to that mural of Che Guevara. I want it all.\n\nWhile I was on the floor with my hands tied behind my back, I got to thinking what a dick I'd been. How it didn't matter how hot those girls were. There was nothing exploitative about it. They wanted it just as bad as we did. But what kind of power relationship is that? I mean, doing it with some seventeen-year-old girl while my girlfriend was back in Mexico with a drug problem. That just wasn't cool. That was pathetic. So I cried.\n\nAfter I cried, I got to thinking that a person can justify anything. If I could justify sleeping with that girl in Havana, then why would one of those kidnappers feel anything bad about cutting off one of my fingers? They looked like assholes. They looked like trapezoidal thugs, but each one of them had a family\u2014some mom and sister somewhere who they were probably sending money to. Don't make the mistake of thinking that a kidnapper working for a cartel is some kind of heartless, psychotic goon. They may not have gotten enough love from their mom when they were young, but in their mind they're doing the right thing. Christ, Idi Amin thought he was doing the right thing!\n\n\u2014\n\nI'm of two minds as to whether there's a heaven. My logical mind says no way. I like the art in churches. I love the old wood cherubs painted with such bright cheeks in all the beautiful churches of Mexico. Those statues are incredible. But it's some kind of make-believe Disneyland that's just fun to look at. Whether there's a plan for anything, I doubt it.\n\nBut something let me stay alive. And I don't just mean the ransom money my mom sent, which, obviously, was essential. There are stories all the time, down here, of people who pay everything the kidnappers want, who follow every last instruction, and in the end they kill the person they kidnap anyway.\n\nSo the question is, what makes one live and another die? It could just be the luck of the draw, it could just be the way the dice tumble and fall. But I don't quite see it that way. Or I see it that way, and a little more.\n\nI think I have more to do. I think each person is like a plant\u2014they have a length of time they're supposed to live, like a tomato until it gets ripe. And my ripeness just hadn't happened yet.\n\nThose son of a bitches. They kicked the shit out of me. They came at 2 a.m. It was the same guys who'd cut off my finger, and two more guys. Not that they really needed four to kick the crap out of someone already sitting on the floor, tied up. But they came and took turns kicking me. I was half dazed when they did it, at first. They turned on the one bare bulb that lit up my room. There was gray peeling paint on the wall. The bulb shocked me, so suddenly bright, and I looked up at it and a boot came smack into my face. I swiveled my legs around trying to get one of them to fall, but he jumped out of the way. When you try to fight back with your hands tied behind your back, you mainly pull at yourself, tying yourself into knots. I tried in any case, and I was thrown on the floor by the force of the kicks. Some blood bubbled up from my lip and they carried me out, still trying to struggle with almost no force left. I think I got a good jab with one of my legs at one of them, though. Then it was pretty dark, my head blindfolded, but a little light seeped through as lights from the streets penetrated the cloth. You notice the smells at a time like that. The smell of old vinyl in an old car. The smell of upholstery in what's probably a stolen car.\n\nThey dumped me in the middle of a street, Donceles, in the center of town, with my hands tied behind my back, my legs tied up with Azteca's leash. It was like they wanted to remind me they'd killed my dog. They left the blindfold sack over my head. When they threw me out of the car, one of them said, \"Hijo de puta\u2014chinga tu madre!\"\n\nAfter fifteen minutes, I heard a street dog come up to me. There was a whole pack of them. They do that, sometimes, the homeless dogs of Mexico City running around at night. They come in all stripes, almost all mutts, but every once in a while a purebred gets stuck amongst the others, lost from its fancy neighborhood. I felt the dogs sniff at me. They put their noses up close against my crotch. They sniffed my shoes. They pulled a bit at my pockets. One of the bigger dogs tugged at the sack over my head and then I could see up, the face of a black and brown tiger-striped dog holding the bag in its mouth, the burning lights of a mercury street lamp shining like in a concentration camp, a small star in the sky in the infinite beauty and depth of the universe almost hidden behind.\n\n\u2014\n\nThe party was over. Everyone was gone. It was a month after the kidnapping, and I'd had all my friends over to celebrate the fact I was still alive.\n\nThere was the residue of the party all over the place, glasses and bottles. I've fixed up an apartment in the center of Mexico City. I bought it cheap, for thirty thousand dollars\u2014in an old building from the seventeenth century\u2014and even though the building, as a whole, looks like a dump, I've done a ton of work to fix up my apartment. I have high ceilings. You can see the old beams from the time when the Dominican monks and the Inquisition ruled the day.\n\nThe tranny brought up all the food, earlier. As always, I'd ordered too much. That tranny has been through everything. She's been through kicks and shouts. Mexico's a macho country, and it's not easy being a transvestite. They cackle at you as you walk down the street. But I've never seen a trace of anger on her face. She's got the height and slim hips of a man, but she plays up her freckles.\n\nI ate one of the plantain empanadas that was left. The leftover tostadas looked like a mess, with the lettuce wilted and the tomatoes looking like they had sweated and over-ripened into the sauce. But the plantain was still just right, the filling inside good. The air smelled of smoke. There was still the smell of cigars, and we'd smoked more than a few short Cohibas I'd brought back from Cuba. I caught sight of my pinkie as I took a bite out of the empanada, or of where my finger should have been, where the stub ended with a raw skin wound.\n\nI could view it as a wound or as a badge of promise. I could be tough like the trannies I admired. There was a lot more for me to paint. I went into my studio. I have two studios, one the one I was trying to walk to the night they kidnapped me, the other just off the space I've renovated in my old building. I pulled out a canvas. I put it up on the wall. I took out some spray-paint cans, which I sometimes use for background, and I put on yellows and bright greens. I shook those cans as hard as I could. I sprayed on thick the happiest colors I could think of. I wasn't going anywhere. I was going to stay right here and plant roots. I spray-painted an abstract form of a tree with roots. I added a stone in the middle that wasn't rolling anymore. I might call my ex-girlfriend in the morning. I had no intention of getting back together. We were through, but I wanted to call to check up on how she was doing, to make sure she was hanging in there, to be certain she was more or less OK.\n\n# THE PLASTIC SURGEON\n\nI am a plastic surgeon, and down here in Mexico it helps that I'm tall and blond. I'm six feet two, I like to play basketball, and during the summer when I take a vacation up in Seattle, where I have a house and come from, I like to row on the rough waters of the ocean. I don't spend that much time looking in the mirror. I spend more time looking at my hands, my tools, to make sure they're smooth and in working order. But I care about my body. I like to feel sculpted. Like most of my clients, I think it's important how we look. I'd rather my body look good via hard work. My nose is a bit long, and according to most standards of beauty it's not beautiful, but that doesn't bother me because I think people looking at my body can tell I work out, can tell I do the hard work necessary to make myself look good and healthy. Others don't have that kind of discipline. They might want an easy way to look fit, and while that's not my way, I'm more than happy to do the work for them in surgery, to suck out those extra pounds of fat with liposuction, around the hips and abdomen, or to design what they think is a more perfect face. It makes them happy, which is reward enough for me, and every patient is a challenge, a raw tableau to shape, a goal to work at hard, like paddling from one end of a large bay to the other along the most efficient route possible.\n\nSome patients are more challenging than others, however. Not everything always goes smoothly. Sometimes the best calculations go awry, and that's what's been preoccupying me lately. I had a patient die a week ago. I've been trying to calculate why and how he died, and whether his death is going to mean I have less time left to live.\n\nThe patient was Paco. That's a made-up name, because I'm used to keeping the privacy of patients, and he has a long drug-cartel name in Spanish that means Lord of the Heavens. They called him this, in the Ju\u00e1rez Cartel where he came from, because he hired a fleet of Boeing 737 jets to transport cocaine from Colombia up to Mexico, flying in to municipal airstrips around the country, before sending the coke on to the U.S. through an extensive network he'd built up. Paco was one of the most wanted narcos in the country. It's always hard to tell if the Mexican government really wants to catch its fugitives or not. After all, how else do you land your own 737s around the country, with drugs hidden in the payload, day after day, year after year? After Paco died, I heard estimates he'd acquired a fortune of twenty-five billion dollars. That's a lot of smackers. But I can tell you, for sure, after the DEA came to visit my clinic, the U.S. authorities had been hell-bent on capturing him.\n\n\u2014\n\nI'm not sure how Paco found my clinic. My office is one of the smaller ones in Mexico City, in the neighborhood of Polanco. It's on a side street with shady trees, and the usual mix of private homes and guards and upscale apartments you might find on any street in Polanco. The U.S. embassy owns apartments at the end of the street, and there's an OfficeMax supply store around the corner and a Carl's Jr. hamburger place. I'm not one of the top plastic surgeons in the country, and as you can tell by my description, while the neighborhood is nice, and close to clients who can pay, the area is less chic than Las Lomas, where many high-end plastic surgeons have their offices.\n\nPaco, I'm told by the DEA, had been running from the law a couple years by the time he came into my clinic. I don't mean that's when he began his life of crime. From what I understand, he was born into a cartel family in Sinaloa. Sinaloa is the Sicily of Mexico for drug mafias. It's a bit in the middle of nowhere, on the Pacific coast two-thirds of the way up the map of Mexico toward the U.S. If you're like me, these are just names\u2014places of intrigue where Mexican narcos come from. But something changes, crystallizes, when one of the names that flits across the pages of the newspapers comes into your clinic and you're expected to operate on him.\n\nPaco didn't announce who he was when he came, but he didn't seem like a usual patient. My clinic is called Verde, or Green, and it's meant to give off a clean, fresh spa feeling. Most of my patients come for routine Botox and collagen treatments, to add firmness to their lips and cheeks. I can do it all, however: blepharoplasty surgery for women who feel their eyelids are too dominant; rhinoplasty, reducing the thickness of a nose, adding an angular point, or reducing overprominence of the nose in profile; breasts can be augmented and shaped with silicone and saline implants or by reshaping the areola. Many women need breast reduction to reduce the pain and heaviness of large breasts and to create a firmer, more youthful look. Depending on the surgery, my two assistants can do most of the preparatory work; or, if the case is more traumatic, as with a burn victim, I take over from the beginning. Burn victims are complicated. The more surface area, the greater the risk without a full surgical hospital on hand, and unless the skin area is small enough, I send that kind of patient to the big hospitals, where they can get proper treatment.\n\nPaco's hair was long and uncombed when he came into the clinic. He had a six-inch beard and a thin face, and he looked like he had a brown lion's mane around a face that was too skinny for all that hair. He had a long-sleeve, thick cotton shirt, his sleeves were rolled up, his hands dirty, and his jeans dirty, too, which made him look like a car mechanic or one of the homeless guys that sometimes live in the park along Avenida Horacio, nearby. I thought he might be lost and asking for directions, or wanting some change, when he walked into the clinic. He gave a fake name to the secretary and told her he wanted to speak to Dr. John Franklin.\n\n\"Right here,\" I said to him in Spanish.\n\n\"We need to go into your office,\" he said. He didn't ask if I wanted to do this, he told me what was going to happen. He looked alone, when he first came in, but two others with mirrored sunglasses, dressed in plain clothes with similar jeans and shirts like him, holding AK-47s, came in. They told the secretary to clear out any waiting patients. Veronica, my secretary, is probably smarter than me. She has a way of sizing up every patient as they come in. She often guesses what a client is looking for, before they fill out the forms or have their consultation with me. She wasted no time telling two women, waiting in another room, that she was very sorry but could they come back tomorrow?\n\nFortunately, we'd only been open half an hour. It was 10:30 a.m., so no one was in the surgery room.\n\nPaco refused to speak in the reception area. His guards surveyed the front door while he took me into my office. I have a photo of my girlfriend there\u2014things haven't been going well with her. I have a photo of my girlfriend's golden retriever. I've been in limbo, never quite rooted anywhere enough to feel I can have my own pet. I take off, suddenly, to go sea-kayaking on the coast of the Yucat\u00e1n. So I've never made the commitment to having an animal.\n\n\"I want a full makeover,\" Paco said, when we were sitting in my office.\n\n\"I'll be happy to do whatever I can,\" I said. \"But what, exactly, do you mean by a 'full makeover'? That can mean a lot of different things to different people.\" Some men ask for a tummy tuck or complete removal of the wrinkles around their eyes. Others want things plastic surgeons have nothing to do with\u2014penis enlargement or cures for erectile dysfunction. Ninety percent of my patients are women, but I have an increasing number of men who want to enhance their body.\n\n\"What do you think a 'full makeover' means?\" Paco said, sarcastically. \"I want to change how I look so completely, even a master of disguises won't know who I am. I want this beard gone. I want my nose changed. I want my face altered. My teeth. My stomach. I want to walk out of here a ghost no one can recognize.\"\n\n\"That kind of surgery can take weeks of planning,\" I said, \"to do safely, to assemble the right team, to make sure you approve of the plan.\"\n\n\"Do I look like I have fucking weeks or even days?\" he said. \"I've come to you because I heard you're good\u2014good enough, but not famous. They're unlikely to look for me here. You're a somebody but a nobody, and I'm telling you you'll give me a complete makeover\u2014today\u2014or I'm going to kill you.\"\n\nBy the look of the guards, I knew he wasn't bluffing. If it hadn't been for them, I might have thought he was a schizophrenic with fantasies. In Mexico, the surreal can suddenly become real. One minute you're in your practice with Botox patients, the next a narco is threatening to kill you.\n\n\u2014\n\nIn the popular imagination, a plastic surgeon is a greedy guy who makes millions, who cares only about sucking money out of the vanities of his patients. The patients drive BMWs, they can't accept they're getting older, and they ask the plastic surgeon to give them a \"boob job\" so they can keep their rich husband, or the male clients want to get rid of the wrinkles so they can keep their CEO job and their sporty looks. I'm not going to say there's no truth to this. But in my experience, there are far more women who scrape together all the money they have to make one significant change to their body. They're women working as teachers, secretaries, police officers, and in bakeries. They're not hoping to look like the centerfold in _Playboy,_ and they aren't ditzy women or rich bitches, they're women with souls, and hopes, and dreams, just like anyone, and often they had the misfortune to be born with something less than what society says is attractive. They didn't create the norms of beauty. Society did, and judges them. And often they had fathers who told them, when they were growing up, that they weren't beautiful, or, even worse, mothers who belittled them. That's one of the reasons I choose to have my clinic in Polanco. It's a place where I don't have to cater only to the super-rich. It's a place that feels more accessible to the full variety of patients. I charge different rates for different kinds of patients. I don't tell them this, so they don't feel like charity cases. I ask Veronica to use her judgment, as she watches the patients come in, as to what they can afford.\n\nFor me, plastic surgery is like any other medicine. It's a form of healing. And often I'm healing psychological wounds as I reshape the body. I consider it vital to adhere to the Hippocratic oath\u2014to do no harm. Sometimes that oath can be hard to follow, like when a patient is begging you to make them thinner, and they're already thin. Sometimes, no doubt, some of the patients seem to have a frivolous sense of beauty or are unwilling to accept they're growing older. But I try to guide them gently, following the oath, avoiding any violation of the promise I swore to uphold, passed down from the time of the ancient Greeks.\n\nIt wasn't so easy to know what to do with Paco's request. I could tell he was a criminal, given the look of the guards and his threat to kill me. I could tell\u2014since he was trying to change his appearance, completely\u2014he was trying to run away from the law. I could tell that if he was a narco, which was the most likely explanation for his behavior, he'd probably killed dozens of people climbing to his position as a boss. I had no idea he was the Lord of the Heavens. I would find that out only later. But he had a presence, a way of commanding, that let me know he was a big shot who would fully be willing to kill me, and others.\n\nBy the Hippocratic oath, if I helped him change his appearance to run away from the law, then wasn't I becoming complicit in his crimes and in his harm to others? Performing the surgery would break the rule and put the blood of his hands indirectly on mine.\n\nAnd if I didn't stand up to him, wouldn't I just be placing my life above others? Wouldn't I be saying, in effect, that my life was worth more than the many lives of the people he'd undoubtedly killed, and would kill in the future?\n\nAt the same time, it was hard to see how performing surgery on him was really any different from doing so on any other patient coming into my clinic and asking for a change of appearance. What he chose to do with his life\u2014whether to kill, or not\u2014wasn't an act I, myself, was committing. And, while it could be wrong to aid a criminal, the law of self-preservation is valid, too: sometimes it's necessary to do harm for the greater good. My life was my life. It wasn't worth nothing. And the more I lived, the more I might help others. It may seem impossible, but as I went through preparation for the surgery on Paco, I went through all these ideas as I scrubbed my hands and put on my surgical gloves, as I put on my clean medical scrubs, and as the assistants prepped the surgery room. Nothing was cast in stone. At any moment, I could pull out of the situation and say no.\n\nPaco lay on the surgery table with the LED lights focused on his face, where I would begin. I told one of my two assistants, Jaime, to administer the sedative Dormicum intravenously to begin the process of anesthesia. I told him to be careful not to give too much of the sedative. The risk was too great, otherwise, that something could happen to Paco, that his heart could stop during surgery, and the consequences of the death of a narco were obvious.\n\nPaco overheard the conversation, and he said to Jaime, \"Give me double whatever the doctor said. I'm not going to let you torture me.\"\n\n\"The Dormicum is powerful,\" I said to Paco. My other assistant, Marina, cleaned surgical instruments and placed them by my side. \"If too much is administered, you could die.\"\n\n\"I don't give a shit,\" Paco said. \"If I die, nobody killed me. The only person who can kill the great Paco is Paco,\" he said, using his real name.\n\nI signaled to Jaime not to listen to him, but I can't be sure Jaime understood my signal, or whether he refused to disobey Paco, or whether he followed my instructions. Paco went under, and I began the surgery.\n\nWe worked for eight hours. The two guards with the AK-47s came in, and they stood in corners of the room, one by the door, the other by the respirator. They'd dismissed the secretary, Veronica, and told her if she contacted anyone in the police, or told anyone, at all, what was happening, they'd go to her house and kill her.\n\nThe shape of Paco's nose was wide, like a fistful of lead. I narrowed his nose and shortened it, raising the tip. I opened his eyes wider and lifted his eyebrows. I reduced the widow's peak at his hairline and pulled his skin tight around his ears, so he looked ten years younger.\n\nThe respirator hummed, pumping into his body, but after four hours of surgery the sound paused, and I could tell the machine was somehow cut off.\n\n\"What's going on with the ventilator?\" I asked Jaime, calmly, but extremely firmly.\n\n\"I'm not sure,\" Jaime said, and he checked the machine. An electrical outlet was near one of the guards, and Jaime found the machine unplugged. It was extremely strange that the machine could have become unplugged. I couldn't help but think one of the guards had removed the plug, or had kicked it with his feet. It was bad enough I was operating on a killer, but I could no longer be certain the two guards present weren't trying to kill Paco. What if they'd received orders to make him die during the surgery? What if they'd been bought off, by some rival narcos, to kill Paco and make it look like an accident?\n\nI told one of the guards to put the plug of the respirator in, and he didn't respond. I couldn't tell if this was because he didn't want to hear me, or if he'd simply begun to doze off during the surgery.\n\nA patient can last no more than three or four minutes without the respirator before permanent brain damage sets in. I told Jaime, sharply, to plug in the respirator. He bent beneath the AK-47 of one of the guards and reached to plug it in.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" the guard said. \"Are you trying to kill the jefe?\" The guard seemed to snap out of his stupor. He pulled the plug out of Jaime's hand and plugged it in himself.\n\nBeyond Paco asking for extra anesthetic, this was the second strange thing that had happened since the beginning of the surgery, but I decided to focus on the task at hand. I shifted the shape of the skin around Paco's abdomen and thighs. In the eighth hour, as we neared the end of surgery, I could hear the vital sign of his heart slowing. I asked Marina to check if the intravenous tube with the Dormicum was dripping at the appropriate flow rate. She said the drip chamber was open a little wide, and I told her to cut off administration of the fluid. The heartbeat slowed further. It flatlined. With his face in bandages, Paco closed his mouth and eyes, pushing against the clamps that held them open in their proper place. He looked like a phantom, up at me. I ordered Jaime to administer Flumazenil as an antagonist drug to counteract the effect of the Dormicum. I considered defibrillation to revitalize normal heart functioning.\n\n\"What's happening?\" the guard near the door said.\n\n\"His heart has stopped, temporarily,\" I said. \"We'll get it going again soon.\" I shouted this last bit between teeth as an order to Jaime to prepare the defibrillator.\n\n\"No one kills the jefe,\" the guard by the door said. \"Only the jefe can kill himself.\" His heart wouldn't revive, and the guard by the door took a nearby pillow and placed it over the face of Paco and pressed the pillow into his face. The guard seemed to act to kill Paco, to suffocate him, though the patient was already dead.\n\n\"The jefe told me that if he was suffering I had to put the pillow on him to keep the pain out,\" the guard said.\n\nI've been a surgeon for thirteen years, and I couldn't make any sense of all these strange actions. Had Paco been trying to kill himself when he asked for the extra Dormicum, and when he ordered the guards to put a pillow on his face? Was he constructing an elaborate suicide, to end his life but without disgrace? Had the guards tried to kill Paco in the pay of another, rival group of narcos? Had I failed, completely, to oversee the operation correctly? And was I responsible for his death? The only thing I knew was that Paco was definitely dead, and what it meant for me, I wasn't sure.\n\n\u2014\n\nThe disposal of the body was fast. I didn't have any say in the matter. The two guards took out a camera and took photos of Paco lying on the surgery table, his body already losing whatever pallor he'd had. It seemed an odd trophy shot, almost like the photos of Muammar Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein minutes after they were killed. There's something about the final photo of major tyrants\u2014grainy, fuzzy, and stark\u2014which reminds people, when it comes out in the tabloids, that they committed horrible crimes when they were alive. The guards' photography might imply they were truly on the payroll of other narcos, but there was no smiling, no cheering, as they took these shots. Nor was there any crying, nor wrenching of hair, which would show deep loyalty to the Lord of the Heavens. They stayed as neutral as the mirrors on their sunglasses, as professional as hired hit men, pulling out a body bag that they wrapped Paco up in, after they documented he was dead.\n\nAs quickly as they'd come, more than ten hours ago, they disappeared.\n\nIn some crazy way, the ease with which his body was disposed of, the fact all traces of him were gone\u2014minus pieces of tiny flesh and blood that stuck to the scalpels and other surgical instruments\u2014relieved me. It was like a nightmare that was over, and now I could awake.\n\nBut just like a nightmare, which never quite leaves the sleeper alone as they stay up, walking around in the middle of the night, Paco's sudden appearance and disappearance wasn't so easily sewn up.\n\nI decided there was no way I could sleep in my apartment the night of the surgery. I debated whether I should call the police, but for the same reason I'd performed the surgery to begin with\u2014a desire to live\u2014I decided this avenue was impossible. I decided to keep everything hushed up, to say nothing, and I made Jaime and Marina swear they, too, would say nothing.\n\nI went to my girlfriend's apartment. She's forty, and I'm forty-two. She's a Mexican banker, and she often works late hours. She has a reputation, in her office, for being a tough boss. She directs a group of twenty beneath her, in the bond department. My girlfriend is shapely, her breasts are large, she wears high heels, and she has a high voice, all stereotypically feminine, but these outwardly soft signs mask that she's a perfectionist who needs things done her way. When I came into her apartment, she'd just returned from work, and it was ten at night.\n\nWe often barely said hello to each other, when I came over to her place. If she came in from work first, she was likely to give me a peck on the cheek. If I came in first, I was likely to say a big hello, but then to disappear to take a shower before saying more. I couldn't tell her right away, therefore, what had happened during my day. I thought if I told her she might get scared and insist I call the cops. Or, I thought, she might suddenly worry about her own safety. I wanted everything to be normal, for everything that had happened that day to disappear.\n\nWe'd been going out for three years, sometimes breaking apart then getting back together. It was hard for either of us to know what we wanted. I'd take off for Seattle for a couple months, and she wouldn't come with me, or she'd go off to Turkey and not even tell me she was on vacation. We revolved like two atoms in the depths of outer space, attached but with barely enough energy to stay together, without the necessary warmth from the sun.\n\nA week ago, I'd told her I wanted to have a baby. I admit the idea must have seemed like it came from out of nowhere. I told her this because my father had died a couple months before; my sister was in the process of divorcing; I felt everything in my life pulling apart, and I wanted something to come together. I wanted love\u2014a love I seemed incapable of sparking in my girlfriend. She told me, immediately, she didn't want a child. She told me she didn't want to break up, but that she didn't know what she wanted next.\n\nSo I told her nothing about my day, as I came in. I slept in the bed beside her, feeling the space between us, wanting to come closer, but feeling her repelling me.\n\n\u2014\n\nThe next day, the police came to my clinic. They asked if Jaime and Marina worked for me. In an odd way, I was glad the police came, because neither of my assistants had come into work, and I was worried about what had happened to them.\n\n\"Do you know these people?\" a police officer said, showing a photo of Jaime and Marina, their heads sticking out of two steel drums filled with concrete. Their faces were puffy with lacerations on their cheeks, as if they'd been tortured. \"We found their bodies in the main pond of Chapultepec Park,\" the police officer said. \"Do you have any idea why they might have been killed?\"\n\nI decided I couldn't screw around anymore, hiding what had happened the day before. I told the police exactly what had happened. They thanked me for my time and told me they might need to take me in for further questioning, but at the moment I wasn't under suspicion for the murder of my two assistants. They told me a full investigation would be made of the surgery I'd performed on Paco, that any evidence of negligence during the operation would be looked into, and that I'd remain under surveillance. They told me I wasn't permitted to leave the country.\n\nThe DEA came an hour later and did further questioning, informing me who Paco was and that they'd been on his trail, coming in closer and closer, the last two weeks. \"Don't worry,\" one of the agents said. \"We know you don't have any ties to Paco. We'll do what we can to get the local police off your case. The embassy has been informed of your situation.\"\n\nThe embassy may have been informed of my situation, but the question was, what was my situation? Was there someone out there who would be trying to hunt me down, as they had so quickly hunted Jaime and Marina? I told the DEA I wanted immediate protection. I told them I needed someone to be with me all the time, protecting me. I told them I wanted out of the country, fast.\n\n\"No can do about getting you out of the country fast,\" one of the DEA officers said, \"but we promise to put someone on duty to watch what happens to you. We'll make sure nothing crazy happens. It has all the signs of an inside job\u2014the guards wanted to get him. I don't think they'll have any interest in you.\"\n\n\"Then why'd they kill Jaime and Marina?\" I said.\n\n\"Perhaps because they tried to talk about what happened. You did the right thing keeping silent. As long as you stay quiet, you should be fine.\"\n\n\u2014\n\nThree days later, the news was in all the tabloids. I went with my girlfriend to the Parque Lincoln, near her apartment, to take her golden retriever for a walk. I'd canceled all my appointments. I'd closed the clinic. It was seven at night, late July, in the rainy season, and the sky was overcast. We walked through the park, and as I threw the ball, and as her dog, Maya, returned the ball faithfully, dropping it at my feet, I thought this was all I'd ever really wanted, the simple order of throwing a ball and having a dog bring it back, wagging its tail, showing the love and affection between a pet and its master. I'd never been able to have that kind of clarity in my personal life. I'd been married, briefly, to a woman in Seattle, and then divorced. I had few friends in Mexico City, but I'd been in the city ten years. Life was nothing like paddling hard from one end of a long bay, efficiently, to the other. It was nothing like throwing a ball and having a dog bring it back.\n\nAfter a while of me throwing the ball, my girlfriend went up to Maya and took the ball from her. She told Maya to bring it to her, instead of to me. \"He's not your daddy,\" she said. \"I'm your mother, bring the ball to me.\" It seemed a cruel dig at my request, the other day, to have a child with her. She was saying I wasn't a parent; that she was the only parent.\n\nI knew I was being sensitive, and potentially reading too much into everything, but I didn't want to play with Maya anymore.\n\nAcross the park, in front of a large birdcage a couple stories high, I was positive I could see a man who looked just like Jaime, even though he was dead. I told my girlfriend I'd be right back. I told her to please be patient but that I had to run across the park. I still hadn't told her what had happened to me, the other day.\n\nI rushed across the park to where the man stood in front of the birdcage, wearing the same shirt as Jaime. I went up close and said, \"Hey, Jaime!\"\n\nThe man turned around, completely different from Jaime. It was a father holding a bag of peanuts, and his son came running around the base of the cage, laughing and shouting at the birds inside.\n\nThe boy's screams attracted a peacock inside the cage, resplendent in all the turquoise and blue that nature can conjure up to impress. The bird came toward the boy, the father, and me and opened its wide feathers, forming a big fan, so wondrous it stunned us all into silence. The pattern on the tail of the peacock looked like a thousand eyes staring at me, judging me. The bird shook its tail, and the eyes waved back and forth, evaluating me.\n\nAnd it was then that I knew what I had to do. I ran back across the park toward my girlfriend. She was still holding the ball in her hand. She'd stopped throwing the ball at Maya. She seemed to watch me run back from the cage.\n\n\"I know I've been cold and silent the last few days,\" I said, when I got to her, panting a bit from the run, though feeling invigorated from the dash. \"A few days ago, an unknown man came into my clinic, a narco, and he asked me to completely change his body. I did my best to do what he wanted. He died during surgery, and now I feel I'm being hunted. I don't know if I'm safe.\"\n\n\"Really? What a horrible, crazy thing,\" she said. \"You should have told me,\" she said, softly. \"Come here. Let me give you a hug.\" She came close and pressed her large breasts against my chest. It was the first warmth I'd felt in days, maybe even in months and years. I wasn't sure if things would be better between us, for the long run. I wasn't sure if everything would work out with the police. I could see a DEA agent in the distance, watching us, keeping us safe. I could feel her warm chest pressing into mine, feeling wider than the menacing tail of the peacock, and though Jaime and Marina were dead, filling me with confusion and mourning, for a second, wrapped in the arms of my girlfriend, I was the happiest I'd been in ages.\n\n# THE SHARPSHOOTER\n\nI had been down in Mexico City for two years, working with the DEA and CIA on covert activities to break up drug production and smuggling, when my buddy Charlie was shot. Charlie looked as young as I did, twenty-four, hair buzzed short, much taller than me, and a crack sharpshooter, just like me. Growing up, you would not have expected me to be some kind of crack sharpshooting hero-to-be, because I had dyslexia. I struggled to read at a fast enough pace to pass basic tests. But, through willpower, I learned you can do just about anything you put your mind to\u2014including graduating from college with ROTC.\n\nBefore I came down to Mexico, I remember signing up for a class at Wichita State University. It was a class I really wanted to take, on contemporary American literature, but two weeks into the course I got orders from my superior officer that I was going to have weekly training at the same time as the class, and that I had to give it up. I was pissed off, for a second, that the commander on base hadn't thought enough to give us the schedule for training before the classes at the U. began, but orders are orders. I wanted to do what I was told\u2014I had grown up without much money\u2014and I wanted to get a college education, to progress with my life. If they had told me to walk backward to training, I would have done it.\n\n\"Jeremiah,\" my father told me, after I had learned about the scheduling conflict, \"if they want you to sit, sit. If they want you to shit on command, shit on command. If they want you to roll over, roll over.\"\n\nMy father had been in the military for four years in Vietnam. Before he got his cancer, perhaps from all that Agent Orange over there, he told me, \"The proudest thing I ever did was serve in the military. It made me into a man, out of a lazy sack of potatoes. It taught me order, discipline, and how to serve my country.\" He said he had absolutely no problem shooting gooks as he was told. He said there were people who knew better than those of us at the bottom of the heap, and sometimes you should just listen to them. He said all that second-guessing about the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan was done by a bunch of crybabies who needed to toughen up and take one for the team.\n\n\"All those liberals,\" he said, \"are always saying President Bush was fucking up, not showing the caskets of soldiers when they came home to Dover Air Force Base. Well what the hell do they expect him to do? Put those bodies on TV?\" He was a big fan of Rush Limbaugh. If liberals said they wanted Hillary Clinton for prez, then they must want some kind of lesbian sex, he said, 'cause lord knows Bill wasn't giving her any. He'd rant about Obama coming from some Muslim country like Indonesia. \"And now he wants us to believe, after he's tampered with his frickin' birth certificate, that he's not an alien.\"\n\nUnder those circumstances, I was first a Cub Scout and then a Boy Scout. I worked my way up to Eagle Scout. In high school, I occasionally walked around the halls in my Boy Scout uniform with merit badges pinned to my sash. When my father would say some of those things, from Rush, it would disappoint me. I agreed with some of the things my father would say, but I've always been a stickler for facts. Facts are what win battles, I thought. Facts are what win wars.\n\nI used to stay up at night, as a kid, reading Time-Life books my father had about the battles of Iwo Jima and the landing of our troops on D-Day. I was impressed by the way Eisenhower had planned for that invasion, not letting any of the enemy know about the buildup of Marine amphibious ships, and keeping everyone on a need-to-know basis. I memorized those signs from the books that said LOOSE LIPS MIGHT SINK SHIPS and CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES. And one of the phrases I learned is that when you confront the enemy, and when you do something wrong in battle, you have to admit it to _regain the mission_.\n\nWhat I'm getting at is that even though the army exonerated me for what happened six days before I finished my tour in Mexico, the record needs to be set straight. The chips have to fall where they may.\n\nCharlie and I had done everything together for four years when the incident happened, April 26. Stateside, before going down to Mexico, we went through our ROTC training together. Some Marines say the training we get in army ROTC is cushy, but beyond the extra studying with books, and strategy sessions to be leaders\u2014able to explain to the troops, clearly, what our mission is\u2014we go through the same rope courses and rubbing of our faces in dirt. I remember, once, after carrying sixty-pound packs of rocks, running in the hot Kansas sun, with the atrociously humid heat of 114 degrees in the month of August, I was lagging behind Charlie pretty bad, a hundred feet back. We were supposed to be jogging together, as a group. There were thirteen in our training platoon. I was extra-dehydrated. I had failed to obey orders and to drink two quarts before we'd started running. We were out on the WSU golf course, next to the main university campus, and I saw the golfers hiding from the heat under their golf carts, getting out of the carts only to barely lob balls down the fairway. I was tempted to lie down on the patchy grass of the fairway. It was so hot, even the grass was dying. I wanted to sit and say, \"This is it. I can't go on. I can't take it anymore.\"\n\nI had struggled through all the test-taking for years, with my dyslexia. The office of student services, on campus, had told me I had a right to take exams with twice the amount of time, and at first I, regrettably, requested that amount of time. But I told myself it was OK if it was necessary to complete the mission, and I slowly weaned myself off that extra time. I wanted to be a full soldier, complete and proud, just like everyone else, and I learned I could be. Usually I carried my pack, not only keeping up with the group but leading it, yet my legs cramped up bad this day. Charlie could have just left me there to sit on the grass, but he risked his standing in the eyes of the other soldiers\u2014being seen as someone who had a friend that might be going soft\u2014and came back and lifted me off the ground. He carried my pack in front, his in back, and let me hop next to him. We got back a full half hour late to the gym, where all the others were waiting. But Charlie insisted on carrying me to the end of training.\n\nThe soldier, Charlie, watched his buddy, Jeremiah, through binoculars at the Central de Abasto market. For five weeks they had been ordered to direct a sting operation at the market. The place was full of fish stalls, small vendors selling slabs of tuna, shrimp by the kilo, lobsters, oysters, cheap sardines, and tiny fish to cook up and fry in the inexpensive restaurants of Mexico City. The air stank of fish. The stalls were elevated on concrete platforms, where trucks came and unloaded their catch, trucked in from the Gulf Coast on ice. Hundreds of trucks arrived in the first light of dawn, an army that drove from the coast during the night, to bring fresh fish to the whole of the nation's capital, Mexico City. It was precisely all the trucks that made it perfect for smuggling cocaine. Smuggling boats on the coast mingled with other fishing boats near Veracruz, and the trucks at the fish market were so full of blocks of ice and fish, there were a million places to hide kilo bricks of coke.\n\nThe Mexican authorities were corrupt, and Charlie had been bought off, too, but Jeremiah didn't know anything about their corruption. The Mexican authorities pretended they hadn't authorized the operation. They'd said, in front of Jeremiah, gringos should stick to the north where the action was. They insisted all the big cartels were operating and fighting in the north, along the border, or in Sinaloa along the Pacific Coast. It was well known that many of the Mexican authorities didn't want to see what they didn't want to see, so the cocaine, pot, and meth ended up passing through the border into the U.S. and coming by hidden rail cars and in small boats into Texas, or attached to tourists as they flew into New York. The ingenuity of the smugglers was never-ending. The drugs didn't always come on small planes into the deserts of California or into Florida. They came in the bowels of mules, in latex bags in their intestines. They came in boxes stuffed into beehives, they came inside panels of old cars and in trucks as they went over the Mexican border. Everyone was a suspect, and Jeremiah had been trained, during his ROTC classes in Wichita, and then in his Special Forces training, to understand the enemy could be anywhere. So when the U.S. government gave the go-ahead for the sting operation, Jeremiah felt the mission must be getting close to some real drug-busting if the Mexican authorities wouldn't authorize the mission. They must be cutting close to the bone.\n\nCharlie watched as his longtime partner, his buddy Jeremiah, whom he'd gone to Special Operations Group training with, appeared in the distance with a briefcase of cash, to meet his counterpart, the drug dealer Francisco Sosa. Through the binoculars, seeing Sosa live for the first time, Charlie was impressed by Sosa's formality. Often the drug dealers dressed in Hawaiian shirts that draped over their fat bellies, over slacks that fell to white alligator-skin shoes. The look was clich\u00e9d and gave them away. But Mr. Sosa wore a dark, worn-out suit and a frumpy panama hat, which made him look like he was the owner of a large area of fish stalls and truly from the coast, just as he was supposed to be. Through the binoculars, Charlie saw Jeremiah shake hands with Mr. Sosa. Sosa looked left and right, as if making sure no one was watching. He looked convinced the man with the briefcase meant business. He shook hands with Jeremiah again, and took him inside a fish stall.\n\nCharlie watched the whole event from the inside of a fish truck with some dark windows and listening equipment, across the wide parking lot of the market. The outside of the truck looked like a run-down Isuzu delivery truck, one of the miniature vehicles that plied the streets of Mexico City. He switched to an image inside the fish market where Jeremiah talked with Sosa, transmitted by a camera they had put in the market a week ago.\n\nSosa said, \"I promise you the product is fresh and of the highest quality.\" He never referred to the cocaine as coke, but always as \"the product.\" It was known this was the best way to avoid any recordings being used in court, though the judges were mostly bought down in Mexico.\n\n\"Can you give me a taste of it, now?\" Jeremiah said.\n\n\"We can give you a taste of whatever you need. I assure you the product is fresh.\"\n\nSosa told his assistants to bring some of the product. He looked around, to see if he was being followed into the back room of the fish-market stall. The image was clear. The head of a giant swordfish poked a long snout from behind Sosa, so the sword seemed to come out of his hat. Charlie zoomed the camera in on Sosa's hands. There was a brick of the product, a kilo of white cocaine, wrapped in layers and layers of plastic with tape. Sosa cut open the block his assistants had brought him. The outside of the package was brown with dark red blood on top, from the guts of fish the package had been sent in. Sosa stuck in the tip of his penknife, with white mother-of-pearl on the handle, and cut at the dense white brick until a few pieces came off in his hands. He gave the brick to Jeremiah to hold, to feel the weight. He lifted the blade of his penknife up to Jeremiah's face and gave the knife to Jeremiah. Jeremiah picked at the area Sosa had cut. He stuck his finger inside the brick and pulled it out with powder still clinging. He put the finger to his lip and tasted the powder and it numbed and tasted rich and real.\n\n\"My people will expect the shipment in three weeks,\" Jeremiah said. \"Two hundred bricks. No more, no less. On time. To Houston. You know the place. Everything you asked for is here.\" He handed over the briefcase.\n\nSosa took the briefcase and handed it to his assistants. They took the briefcase to a different back room to count. They came back and told their jefe it was all clear. Sosa shook Jeremiah's hand. \"It's a pleasure doing business with you.\" Jeremiah left and kept walking. He took a taxi, as predetermined by the operation, to a safe house.\n\nCharlie sat in the truck and gave a thumbs-up to three DEA and CIA officials in the vehicle. They slapped each other on the back. This was the first test to see if the shipment would work, to be sure they had the real guys. The next time, they would arrest Sosa. With the recordings, they could begin to nail Sosa in the States, or they'd take him out, if necessary, in Mexico.\n\nLater that night, Charlie called his corrupt Mexican counterparts to tell them Jeremiah had delivered the money and that the product would be shipped to their contacts in Houston. It was a perfect scam. The money had come from the U.S. government. The U.S. government thought it was paying for the first phase of a real sting operation. Only next time, when they went in to make the final bust, Sosa mysteriously would not appear. He would be tipped off. Charlie would pocket a million and a half of the current six-million-dollar shipment to Houston, and then retire. Jeremiah had no clue he was being duped by his best friend.\n\nThis is how it happened. This is how you end up shooting your own buddy.\n\nThree weeks before what they call the \"incident\" in the military report\u2014which wasn't an incident but a shootout clusterfuck\u2014I went for drinks with Charlie. It was the day after the first Sosa connection. Charlie wanted to go drinking and whoring, and while I tended to avoid that kind of crap, to remain as upright a soldier as I could, after posing as the decoy with Sosa, which I had been selected for by picking straws with the other guys in the group, I felt I deserved some booze and pussy.\n\nWe started out having a martini at the Condesa DF hotel, a super-fancy place that always seemed out of my budget, where the pool on the roof shines aquamarine, in cool hues, up to the pulsating sky of el DF at night. There were fancy women who went to the hotel, women who wore designer dresses and who walked with imported Italian leather shoes, and me and Charlie sat in one of the white couches with a view of the skyline and of the hemlines of those women as they went by, and it felt like life was good, downing the vodka in shot after shot with a whole bottle Charlie insisted on buying.\n\n\"Ain't this the life?\" Charlie said. He was chewing on some ice, and he popped in a cocktail shrimp from a plate of twenty he had ordered. I thought of the simple bars of Wichita, where the women all look like aging sorority girls by the time they're twenty-five, where the only plan is to get married, find a solid job, and raise the kids, if you don't get caught up in a divorce too soon and they make you pay alimony.\n\n\"I've learned a thing or two over here,\" Charlie said.\n\n\"Like what?\" I said.\n\n\"I've learned black and white can be the same color, if you look at them long enough.\"\n\n\"How's that?\" I said. I was into reading martial arts books and strategy by Sun Tzu about the art of war, and I understood how you could take the power of your enemy and absorb it to fight back at them, but I didn't understand what he was getting at.\n\n\"Well, you know how here\u2014if some Mexican says they're coming to dinner, they may or may not come?\"\n\n\"Yeah, I hate that,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, at some point, I came to realize maybe I was the one with too rigid an expectation the person _should_ come.\"\n\n\"But they should,\" I said. \"Don't give me that crap you're going all culturally relative on me. I hate that relativism. Some things are right. Some things shouldn't be done.\"\n\n\"Okay, okay. Different example. Here, if I call some woman up on a date, and I go out with her and she doesn't like the evening, then she tells me she had a good time. She smiles at me and says I'll look forward to your call. She's giving me the turn-on but she really means the turn-off.\"\n\n\"What's so good about that?\" I said.\n\n\"Because no one has to do what they don't want to. They just do what feels right and worry about everyone else's feelings later.\"\n\n\"It sounds like you haven't thought that one fully through yet,\" I said.\n\nCharlie went over to the pool, where a woman in a long, silk dress with flowers printed on the fabric was standing alone. I watched him from my seat in the leather couch. \"Hey, se\u00f1orita,\" Charlie said. \"How about grabbing one of your woman friends and going out with me and my buddy?\"\n\nThe woman smiled politely at Charlie, and looked down at her shoes.\n\n\"Aren't you interested in going out with a handsome stud like me?\"\n\nCharlie looked as out of place in the hotel as if you had just dropped him out of an army helicopter onto the roof. He was handsome and tall, but his whole body language was stiff. He gestured too much. He waved his hands in the air, trying to persuade the woman she should go with him. He looked like a soldier trying to buy a camel in a foreign land, and these women weren't camels.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" the woman said to him. She was speaking in English, because Charlie had been speaking in English to her. None of us spoke much Spanish. \"I would really like to be able to go out with you, sir, but I'm afraid I'm busy tonight.\"\n\n\"Aren't I good enough?\" Charlie said. \"Don't I look good enough? Don't I look like the kind of guy you would wanna bring back to your mamacita to show off?\"\n\nThe woman winced. She was standing by the edge of the pool, next to a ladder that went in and out of the water, and she started to grip the ladder tightly like she needed something to help her out. She started to step away, trying to walk slowly so she wouldn't seem impolite.\n\n\"Oh, now, don't go away, little honey...\" Charlie said. \"Don't you do that.\"\n\nOne of the men a couple booths away, the manager\u2014a tall Mexican wearing a tailored suit, with a black shirt made of silk and expensive leather shoes, a five o'clock shadow neatly cut in the way of the fashion of the day, and bald in a manly way\u2014came over and said to Charlie, \"I'm sorry, sir, but it seems the woman isn't interested.\"\n\n\" 'Cause she thinks she's too rich or too fancy,\" Charlie said, shaking his head. \"That's what they think, around here.\" He said this turning back to me, but then, speaking so loud he was almost shouting it to the entire rooftop, continued, \"It's all about class, class, class in this fuckin' country. Everyone thinks they were born from some rich Spanish king or queen. Like they're all fucking _g\u00fceros_.\" He was using the word for \"whitey\"\u2014a g\u00fcero. He was saying everyone wanted to be a whitey.\n\n\"I think it's time to hold your liquor better, soldier,\" I said to Charlie. \"It's time for you to get in line for roll call.\"\n\n\"That's your problem, Jeremiah. You're always thinking the only path to take is the one of a soldier. There are other paths, too,\" he said.\n\nIn the heat of the moment, I let the comment slide. I didn't think all that much about what he was saying. I wanted to stop my buddy from getting into a fistfight in a fancy hotel with the other Mexican guy, before he called the bouncers.\n\n\"Come on, soldier,\" I said. I pulled Charlie's arm.\n\n\"She likes me. I'm telling you she likes me. Black is white. I'm telling you.\"\n\nBy that time, the woman had moved quickly to the far side of the rooftop patio. The water from the pool cast strange shadows against everyone's faces. I saw a darkness, and sneer, on Charlie's face I had never seen quite the same way, though he often liked to get into bar fights. I knew the first rule we were taught about being in another country: _Always learn the local traditions and culture_. _Get the other culture on your side_. _Use the strength of the enemy village and government to engage in counterinsurgency_.\n\nThey pulled Charlie off the rooftop\u2014two bouncers\u2014and held his arms behind his back. The bouncers were dressed in crisp white suits, similar to the one of the rooftop manager. They escorted us toward the door. I spoke to the two bouncers in as much broken Spanish as I could. \"Please tell your manager and the se\u00f1orita we are sorry,\" I said. \"We are sorry and we didn't mean any disrespect.\"\n\n\"The fuck I didn't,\" Charlie said. \"I meant every word I said in there. These fancy Mexicans think they're better than everyone.\" When they got us to the front door he said, \"Come on, let's go find ourselves some place that's got some real women to fuck.\"\n\nOutside, he insisted on grabbing his car. He wouldn't give me the keys. He was so worked up, he was going to drive. He was drunk and on his way to getting drunker.\n\nThe rest of the night is more or less a blur. We drove to the Zona Rosa, where the prostitutes hang out. We chose two women. They wore tight miniskirts, the way none of the local women ever did. One had long black hair that cascaded down to her knees. She had on a red skirt, and she let most of her breasts show out of a loose, leopard-patterned camisole. She oohed and aahed at the car as we drove by. \"I want that one,\" Charlie said. \"I want her to give me a fuckin' blowjob.\"\n\nI had no interest in really getting it on with any of these women, but I realized my mission for the evening was going to be to keep Charlie out of any serious trouble and that he'd need me along for the ride. In the military, when you go swimming, when you are out in the bush, you know you always need to have one buddy who's going to keep your ass safe. That's the person you can count on, no matter what. It doesn't matter what they say or what they do, you stick to them like a fly on shit. You are their eyes and ears. You hump them home, if necessary.\n\nI chose the prostitute I thought was the prettiest, but who wouldn't get in the way. I chose a petite thing that looked like she was a good daughter, just trying to make a buck. We went to a bar called the Cuatro Aces, and we sat around with these women getting one drink after another.\n\n\"You see,\" Charlie said to me later in the night, leaning in close to hug his gal, \"these women know a good man when they see one.\" The woman he was with pulled a cherry out of her drink and put it in Charlie's mouth.\n\nWe went to some hotel and grabbed a pair of rooms, and the walls were so thin I could hear Charlie in the next room yelling, \"Come on lady, ride 'em cowboy! Ride it!\"\n\n\"Don't you want to make love?\" the woman I was with asked me. \"Come on, let me make you happy. Let me give you a party.\" It was two in the morning, and I couldn't get out of my mind that we had a ride down to Cuernavaca we were going to have to make the next day, with a couple of Mexican military officers, at 1500 hours, but the booze was pulling at my mind. I'd had a bunch of vodka and tequila. I couldn't help but hear Charlie in the other room saying, \"Yes, yes, more, more. Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me, little lady. Give it to me.\"\n\nI may be a soldier, but I'm not a saint. I didn't like paying for my loving, or for whatever sleeping with a prostitute meant. Call it the relief of manly urges. I had no illusions that the women giving us the blowjobs and sex liked it. I knew they were just trying to make some money. _Know the real face of the enemy_. _Don't be fooled by the smiles locals will give you,_ I remembered from my training. I let the woman get on top of me and ride for a bit. My head was swimming. I remembered the tension of going in to see Sosa with the briefcase. It was just \"the mission,\" but it had been a tense one. I tried to let out some of the tension. I got on top, and with the booze flowing through me, I felt more like an animal, spurred by the sounds of Charlie in the other room, and I thrust hard until I came.\n\nThat night was the beginning of something new with Charlie, something that seemed odd to me, after knowing him and living with him in the next-door bunk from base to base and operation site to site for a few years. A couple days later, I saw him with a gold Rolex. He didn't wear the Rolex when we were with the other soldiers, but he put it on when we went out for a drink.\n\n\"What's up with the new watch?\" I said. \"You get it at one of those pawn shops in el Centro?\" I had been walking around the center of Mexico City, where there are plenty of shops where they buy and sell gold by weight. I figured he must have gotten a deal at one of those places.\n\n\"Nah. Not at a pawn shop,\" Charlie said. \"My whole life my dad used to buy things at those pawn shops. This one's for real.\" He pulled it off his wrist and held it in front of his face like he was holding the Promised Land.\n\n\"Must have been expensive,\" I said. \"How'd you get it?\" Our salaries were shit in the army. People always thought we made good money, because we were Special Forces, but we didn't.\n\nCharlie looked at me and said, \"How the hell do you think I got it? Saving up money. I earned it.\"\n\nBut I knew a new watch like that cost thousands, and he was suddenly spending more on a lot of things. He kept going back night after night to that same prostitute we met in the Zona Rosa. I went back with him once, since he was my buddy and I wanted to let him know I was with him, but I couldn't keep up his pace\u2014either with money or with desire\u2014and I let him just tell me stories of conquering love when he came back to the small base where we lived.\n\nHe started buying fancier clothes, too. He told me he was sending money back to his mother, in Wichita, and the day we were going to meet Sosa for the second time, he had a bag all packed, with some of those nice clothes, next to the foot of our bunk, and he said he was going to go on a nice vacation to Canc\u00fan once the operation was over, when we were going to be given a couple days of R&R. The whole thing seemed odd to me, extravagant, and I couldn't figure out where he was getting the money.\n\nThree weeks after the first contact with Sosa in the Central de Abasto, Jeremiah lay on top of a roof looking over the parking lot and the area where the delivery trucks came with fish, where a football field's length of stalls spread one after the other, and where men carried fish in and out of trucks. It was early morning, and the first light of sunrise was hitting the clouds. Looking through the scope of his M86 sniper rifle, trained on the same storefront across the way where he had met Sosa before with the briefcase, to give him the money, he was so focused on his targets he didn't notice the fiery struggle of dawn. Above his shoulder, crouched on the roof behind him, the head of the Special Operations Group, Colonel John P. Saunders, had come to direct the final sting operation. Saunders had been brought in, unexpectedly, three days ago, and the rumor was he was brought in because the operation might be compromised. He was a veteran of foreign battles, head of a counterterrorism group that had operated in Iraq for three years and then in Afghanistan. He was known as a powerful son of a bitch who didn't take whining from his soldiers. With gray hair cut close, patches for valor and leadership pasted across his battle fatigues, he looked like a puma ready to spring off the roof, watching in the same direction as his soldier below him, Jeremiah. His right hand formed a fist, and his knuckles pressed into the roof tar.\n\nAcross the way, and walking up a staircase to meet Sosa, Charlie carried a briefcase identical to the one brought by Jeremiah before. They had all picked straws, again, to see who would carry the case this time. It was dangerous being the one who delivered, if anything went wrong. Professional buyers used different mules to bring the cash all the time. It was a game of musical chairs. Everyone had to have trust, but everyone had to know that at any moment both sides could disappear, vanishing in the night. The world of drug deals was like a mirage, water that came in the desert like an oasis and then went.\n\nIt had fallen to Charlie to deliver the cash this time. Below Jeremiah, where he looked through the scope, the same Isuzu truck with the listening equipment was in the parking lot, with four men. Six other men were also stationed, with short-range Uzi machine guns, dressed in plain clothes, pretending to be workers on the fish docks. Charlie was protected and surrounded. The plan was to have Sosa taken out with one shot when he came to meet Charlie. Jeremiah would aim with precision and shoot. One shot, to the temple, and Sosa would fall. Sosa would likely be outside for only a second before he would want to retreat into the back room, where fighting would be more difficult. So they wouldn't wait to shoot. In the immediate mayhem, Charlie would jump down in front of the concrete platform where the delivery trucks unloaded, to protect himself. He was wearing a bulletproof vest under his loose plaid shirt. While Charlie crouched beneath the concrete barrier, the other six men with guns on the platform would deal with any return fire. It was the most likely way to get Sosa, with a sniper bullet. It was quick, simple, and efficient and sent the right message: this cartel was going to be eliminated. Colonel Saunders had announced the plan to his group three days ago, when he took over direct command. \"In the second raid, once we know they have delivered the packages to Houston, we will eliminate Sosa. We will let them know operations in this area are forbidden and will cease to continue. Are there any questions?\" Colonel Saunders had asked the group.\n\n\"Why not just bring in Sosa alive?\" Jeremiah had said, during the briefing. \"Get more intelligence. Make an example of him, publicly.\"\n\n\"And just how, Second Lieutenant Young,\" Colonel Saunders said, \"do you think we are going to grab a guy like Sosa alive without more manpower down there to do the job, putting them at risk? And what the hell do you think is the probability a Mexican court will not be bought off, or that our own courts in the U.S., if they ever get jurisdiction for the case, and if we can get him extradited to the U.S., won't give some crap that the evidence we've provided is tainted, that we have somehow failed to protect Sosa's rights, while thousands of young Americans are poisoned in their bodies, through the scourge of drugs, because of this man, destroying the manhood of our country and increasing drug use in the ghetto? This operation is going to be clean and efficient, and legal within the authority vested in this group. It is my final decision, and it will be done this way.\"\n\nJeremiah had looked forward, standing at attention, chin flat and eyes looking into the distance, seeking not to see anything other than the command he had just heard, after receiving the dress-down and final order.\n\nOn the rooftop now, he felt the presence of Colonel Saunders next to him, tense, chewing gum, surveying the target area. Jeremiah squinted into the scope of the gun. He followed the crosshairs just in front of Charlie as he walked up the concrete stairs to the delivery platform. The scope made everything clearer than in normal reality, Jeremiah felt. It showed a man as he was, as a physical body, as a plane in space rather than a mind. Through the scope he always felt he was finally in control, that he was master of his defects, that he knew why God had put him on this planet, making it harder for him to read in order to give him another gift instead, the gift of being a supreme shooter, slow and steady, one of the few who could breathe calmly in and out, so calmly the gun barely moved, maintaining only the will of his targeting, until he followed orders and took out the necessary target. In shooting he felt the certainty he was completing his mission. He had taken out thirty-nine targets during his two years, so far, in Mexico. He had shot from rooftops in Ju\u00e1rez and rooftops in Guadalajara, and out of hotel rooms in Acapulco. He had watched men with briefcases scatter onto the pavement. He had missed only twice. All other times, it was one bullet, one carefully placed projectile, preferably in the base of the skull area, where the flesh was softer, or higher up, between the eyes, if necessary, or in the chest as a last resort, where there were more bones to protect the heart. The bleeding was longer there before death.\n\nThrough the scope, he could see Charlie up on the platform, mouth pursed, eyes looking around for Sosa. Six men came out to meet him. Two approached to give him a handshake. They looked oddly relaxed as they gave him the shake. Not tense and distant the way they usually interacted with the client. Charlie stood on the platform, and he seemed to ask for Sosa. He pointed to the interior, from where Sosa had come out the last time, and raised his hand in the air, questioning. He waited and waited. The other men with him milled about, looking left and right to see if anyone was coming. The pause was getting longer and longer. It was far too long to be normal. Looking through the scope, Jeremiah ran his finger up against the trigger. Soon, Sosa would appear. Soon he would shoot and it would be over.\n\nThe men on the platform suddenly crouched down, their knees pointing forward in the direction of the Isuzu, and they began firing with all their intensity at the vehicle. The truck was no more than forty yards away.\n\nThe bullets hit the truck and the windshield crashed in. The driver inside, a Mexican in on the surveillance group, who was used to blending in with the locals, was instantly killed. The bullets came more and more, against the rear of the truck where the four DEA and CIA operatives listened in.\n\nThe men in plain clothes, in the team on the platform, came running from the fish stalls. They were a mix of Mexican military. The Mexican military had been brought in on the raid at the last second. If things got violent, it was going to be necessary to have their approval and participation, and they had finally chosen to be in on the mission.\n\nJeremiah shot at the men on the platform who were shooting at the Isuzu truck. He aimed, with the precision of a mathematician, and killed one man, with long hair and a black leather jacket, who was firing at the truck. He looked to the left and took out a man wearing baggy jeans and a black T-shirt with a skull. He heard the sound of bullets going back and forth, at the Isuzu truck, pounding harder and harder into the truck and at the gas tank, until the tank gave way and the truck exploded.\n\nThrough the scope he could see Charlie had dropped down to the front of the concrete platform where he was supposed to jump once Sosa was shot. But Sosa had never come.\n\n\"Take him out. He's a mole,\" Saunders said. He put his hand on Jeremiah's shoulders.\n\n\"Who?\" Jeremiah said.\n\n\"You know who. You can sense it, solider. He has betrayed this entire group. He has betrayed his country. I received intelligence last evening that he tipped them off and that Sosa wouldn't come. Sosa hasn't come. It's confirmed true. And now you'll get rid of the cancer within the unit before it spreads. Take him out.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" Jeremiah said. \"Sir, this is not how we deal with such situations, sir.\" He couldn't believe his buddy had betrayed him. He couldn't believe he had betrayed the unit. He could not believe he had betrayed his country. He could not believe he would do such a thing. \"Sir, is that a direct order, sir?\"\n\n\"Yes, it is.\"\n\nAnd though in his conscious mind, if he had had time, he would have reflected harder on the fact that he had the right to disobey an order he knew directly to be against the law of his country, he felt the hand of the colonel press hard between his shoulder blades. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, the truck in flames. He had heard, on the group radio, the cries of the men in the Isuzu truck. He saw the men firing back and forth on the platform. He saw Charlie run along the base of the platform, running away from the scene with the briefcase, toward the taxis. He knew, looking through the scope, that if he wanted to, he could shoot the target between his head and shoulder, at the back of his brain, completing the order just as he was told. But he chose not to. He knew he could not do that. He could not kill someone in his group, even if he had betrayed the group and led to the deaths of others. He moved the scope ahead of Charlie, running. Yet he could not do nothing at all, with the colonel there, ordering him, even if his order was unacceptable. He would shoot in front of Charlie to scare him, to let him know he had been found out, to complete, in some form, the order of the colonel, while disobeying him. He had to do so. This was his dilemma. It was a direct order. He aimed wide, to the left, in front of Charlie's feet as they twisted and hurried across the pavement. The bullet sped forward. The gun recoiled. And then it all happened in what felt like a long moment. There in front of him, through the scope, to his surprise, the bullet caught the tips of Charlie's toes. It hadn't totally missed. It had grazed one of his tennis shoes. Charlie bent forward and down, suddenly arrested, as if suddenly realizing he had feet that he had taken for granted while fleeing. He dropped the briefcase and looked for who was shooting, up at the rooftops. He looked in the direction of Jeremiah. He turned back down and reached first for his foot and then for the briefcase on the ground. He hobbled forward with his left foot slightly wounded. And in that moment of arrested running forward, a pause in his running toward the taxis, one of the men on the platform, who had been fighting for Sosa's cartel, found Charlie was running away and turned to Charlie and fired at him and shot Charlie in the head and in the neck. It was that moment of pause, surely, which led to his death, Jeremiah thought. Charlie lay on the pavement of the Central de Abasto, his head caught in a pothole with the sloppy residue of the fish market, bleeding into a mix of water used to hose off the fish stalls, fish oil from scattered fish bones, and the oil of the idling trucks. His body lay twisted, his hand reaching toward the briefcase, his eyes looking up at the sky, blank now, no longer quivering as they had just done, dead, as Jeremiah looked at him through the scope.\n\nHad it all been in my mind? Was Charlie really gone? My buddy gone? Certainly his suitcase, which was at the bottom of our bunk, was gone when I got back to base. I sat on the bunk bed, thinking of Charlie, shocked and crying. Could Charlie have really been guilty, as the colonel said? There was the watch and the sudden money. But I needed proof, much more proof than that.\n\nWhat I knew is that the colonel had gone crazy. Such a direct order to shoot Charlie could only have come from battle fatigue, from too many tours in Afghanistan and Iraq before being sent to the relative calm of the \"pasture\" of Mexico. But six months later, stateside, out of the heat of the moment in the field, I wasn't so sure the order had come from battle fatigue. I had seen headlines in the newspapers that confirmed what I had seen on my own: drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan, taking out people who had never been judged in a court of law. American citizens shot by the drones. Those were true terrorists, true enemies, and before the incident with Charlie, I had never thought about them too much. Yet now I could see, placed within a command environment of choosing who lives and who dies, and deciding that even American citizens could be shot from the sky, and placed in situation after situation where millions of dollars of cash are given out to buy the loyalty of men who are thieves, like the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai\u2014how far of a step was it from those actions, approved every day by my government, to an order that crossed the line, like the one from Colonel Saunders asking me to kill our own man, simply because he had double-crossed us? Yes, in Saunders's heart of hearts, he must have known somehow that what he had ordered me to do was too much, a crossing into the land of some character like Mr. Kurtz in that novel by Joseph Conrad that I read once called _Heart of Darkness_. Coming home, I began to read up more and more, even at the slower pace of my dyslexia, to make sense of what had happened to me down in Mexico.\n\nThis morning it is Memorial Day, and a full year has passed since I left Mexico. I told the other men in my unit, after the battle where Charlie died, what the colonel had ordered me to do. None of the men would believe me, or they chose not to hear. The army wrote up a report about the \"incident,\" as they called it, and they said that after a case of accidental \"friendly fire\"\u2014as they call such shots from us when we hit our own\u2014the soldier, Charlie Reynolds, was lightly wounded and then taken out by the members of the Sosa Cartel. The description is completely accurate as to what happened, physically, and yet it is completely false. The colonel had me removed from the unit. He said I had done great service to my country but that I was getting tired and needed a rest. The army gave me a Silver Star Medal for the many kills I had made as a sharpshooter, and sent me home.\n\nBack home in Wichita, I got to thinking about truth and lies. I thought about My Country 'Tis of Thee Sweet Land of Liberty and shooting and taking out those thirty-nine people in Mexico, by my hand, by my own will, by my own following of commands and orders, by my own volition, by my own feelings of honor and duty, and so on and so forth, and what all that meant. How, exactly, did killing some drug dealers help to raise the American flag high? Where was one drug user who was using drugs less because of any one of those men I had killed? The drugs would come as long as the people wanted them. Remove one drug dealer and another will mushroom up. And another. And another. Every person smoking a joint, every person snorting coke or injecting or snorting heroin, knows what they are doing, knows they are tied into the drug trade, and yet they are not going to stop doing what they are doing. The feeling of getting high is too powerful, too good. The liquid train of drugs will forever come into the country as long as people want to party, as long as people are sad, as long as people feel they have nowhere to turn in their hour of need, when God and Jesus and nothing above will seem to quiet the pain within.\n\nI began to deeply question what I had been a part of. I began to ride down the wide avenues of my city of Wichita, so neat and clean, each road wide enough to have a military parade, the roads paved and graded, and the box stores of Walmart and Best Buy and one soulless mall after another spreading out in an infinite plain of vapid consumption, while there was no money, I had been told, to send me to college without me joining the ROTC. I was not complaining. I was not whining. I was not saying the government should give me a handout. I was not saying that I had never wanted to be an Eagle Scout or a Boy Scout. But what kind of country, I began to wonder, makes it easier for you to get an education if you are willing to kill than if you want to talk about peace?\n\nAfter Mexico, I couldn't stand living with my father. That was no longer an option. I took an apartment for myself. I lay in bed reading, thinking, and recalling the faces of all thirty-nine of the men that I took out with single bullets. I began to drink hard. I drank Jack Daniel's first, and then moved on to cheaper schnapps. For the better part of six months I drank. And then I saw a homeless vet walking down the street, carrying all his possessions in a shopping cart, wandering from here to nowhere, as I'm sure you've seen so many times before. Before I had gone down to Mexico, I had looked at those homeless vets as failures, as aberrations, guys without discipline who just couldn't hold it together. Not like me. I was a real solider. A kick-ass soldier. I was America's finest. I was bred to be the best. Yada, yada. Just like on the army recruitment billboard that I saw every day in my neighborhood that towered above the street, and over the vets who wandered to the vet thrift store to get some clothes. I saw that homeless vet, and I was tempted to give him my alcohol. I no longer judged him. I went home and poured out all the booze into the toilet. Who dares to judge a homeless vet like that on the street, or to even feel pity for him, until he has been in battle?\n\nThis morning, I saw the front page of the newspaper. There was a glowing, patriotic photo of a soldier at Dover Air Force Base prepping an empty dress-uniform to be placed inside the casket of a fallen soldier. The message of the photo was that America takes care of its own. We make sure we treat our soldiers right.\n\nI hopped in the truck my father had said he didn't need anymore. It was an old, beat-up Chevy pickup, with dents on the back from being used on a farm outside of Wichita, moving equipment. I didn't know where I was going to go, at first. I drove around the endless desert of strip malls, along the flat, wide avenues of the city, passing an International House of Pancakes then a Staples, a McDonald's, a Target, a Hog Wild BBQ, a pawn shop and then another pawn shop and then another. I got out of the car at the A-OK Pawn Shop holding my medal for my tour of duty in Mexico in my hand, and walked into the shop and put it on the counter and asked, \"How much for this?\"\n\n\"This? You sure you want to sell this?\"\n\n\"Yes, I'm sure. How much?\"\n\n\"Truth be told,\" the man at the counter said, \"the value is more in what it means than in what you can sell it for. I can't really get all that much money for a medal. You'd be better off going to a specialty collector than trying to sell it in a pawn shop.\"\n\nI looked around at the interior of the store, old electric guitars from dreams of making it big in a band, old tools from mechanics who couldn't find jobs anymore in construction during the recession, or who had been laid off from the airplane factories because of Chinese competition. I saw weed whackers that looked like they may or may not be able to run anymore, things discarded from garages stuffed with too much junk. I saw merchandise that looked like it had been sold by small-time drug dealers\u2014high-end speakers way too scuffed-up to have ever been owned by someone who had real money from a legal job. I saw videos and DVDs, row upon row of movies no longer wanted, that had been seen, digested, and found not worthy of holding on to. I saw people overweight at the checkout counter buying things on credit cards. I saw a man with a dark tan, with a long mustache falling from side to side and a part down the middle, who looked like the peak of his life had been serving in the military and now he was smoking two packs a day and trying to hold down a job to feed his family. I saw all this as I looked around the A-OK Pawn Shop, with wedding rings that were being sold after marriages had gone sour, diamonds that no longer shined.\n\nA young, disillusioned man could look at this forever, bitter, seeing things he wanted to see reflected back at him, seeing his own reflection in objects. And then it was that I saw my own true reflection, in a mirror between the section of the store devoted to tools and the section devoted to jewelry. I looked up behind the man working at the jewelry section, who had told me my medal might not be worth as much as everyone thought, and I caught the reflection of myself. There was a young man looking too tired, too dejected for his age, his short hair no longer looking buzzed, no longer neat and orderly, no longer standing on the drill field at attention. I saw the bags of sleeplessness around the lower edges of his eyes, and the brown pupils that seemed so dark they swallowed into the iris. What was I doing in this pawn shop? How did I get here? I picked up the medal from the counter where I had left it while I wandered around the store. It was time for me to find that core of humanity inside me, again. It was time to erase the image I had seen of myself in the mirror. I picked up an old acoustic guitar, hidden beneath the electric guitars. It was old and used, but there was still life in it. I strummed on the guitar. I didn't know how to strum well, but I kept picking at the guitar for a while, until the man in the store came over and said to me, \"You seem to play pretty well.\"\n\nI went up to the counter and bought the guitar and went outside and put it carefully in the back of the pickup. I drove out to Charlie's grave, on the edge of town, at the small plot where he had been buried a little over a year ago. There was his tombstone, with plastic flowers still fresh. The military wouldn't give him a burial. They had simply sent the body home.\n\n\"Charlie, you fucked up,\" I said, \"you wanted too much, you got greedy. But they did you wrong.\" I looked down at the grave. \"I did you wrong.\" I left the guitar on his grave, and I went home knowing I was going to go back to school. There were other ways to \"Be All That You Can Be.\" If I had made it as far as winning a medal as a soldier, I was going to be far more as a civilian.\n\n# THE PAINTING PROFESSOR\n\nIn Puebla, the professor was losing his mind. After the bullets of the night before had quieted down, he went outside of his compound to inspect the walls of the fortress of his studio. The studio had been a factory, once. Fifteen feet high, thick walls bordered the compound, and there were small watchtowers on each corner where the guards who had once protected the factory could take aim and fire, if necessary. More likely, they hadn't been protecting the factory from theft, but rather keeping out unionized workers in the old days, the professor had thought, when he'd first bought the place.\n\nHe was a professor of painting in Mexico City, and he had bought the studio in the city of Puebla, an hour and a half away, in the late '70s, when traffic was less bad and it didn't take so long to get out of town to his private painting retreat. The factory had been a sock production facility. The interior of the compound had three buildings. One still had the old, rusted metal molds, like upside-down Christmas socks, which threads were wrapped around. It was a bit of a mystery what the metal figures were for, but they looked like a garden of statues to the professor, like pinwheels floating in the air in the first building. He had left the space alone as a monument to what the compound had originally been. In the second building, he had stored his paintings for thirty-five years and used the wide, industrial open space as a studio. Old fiberglass patched the tin of the roof here and there, letting in a tired light. It was like his brain, he thought, fragments of light coming in and bending, diffused. His thoughts were this way, no longer clear and focused the way they once had been. He was in his mid-sixties. For a man who had been so alert only three years ago, the increasing dullness of his mind, the feeling he was no longer who he had only just been, came to him regularly\u2014and more than usual now, as he looked up at the bullet holes in the front wall of his compound. He would have to do something about the holes. He would have to climb up a ladder and patch them up and paint them over with the creamy, pink adobe he had selected for the outside of his home. He had chosen the color because it was innocuous, keeping the world at bay, he'd hoped, shutting out the world enough so he could be left alone inside his artistic compound, but now, it seemed, the gang warfare in the neighborhood wasn't going to leave him alone.\n\nWhere had his mind gone? he wondered, looking up at the wall where the chunk of plaster was missing, high up, just where a stray bullet had wandered, divotting a piece of the old adobe. Stephen Hawking, the physicist, said there were infinite black holes in the universe. But the holes were supposed to be out there, somewhere up in the heavens. He pointed up at the sky, moving his finger up from where he had picked at the wall, cursing the empty space of plaster. So many holes. They were supposed to be affecting the minds of others, and now he couldn't deny the accumulation of the last three years, the feeling in the morning that he couldn't grasp the newspaper firmly, the feeling he would begin an article and then his mind would wander and he would put the paper down and find he was just staring into space, lost in reverie, but with no beauty to the reverie, just a focus of the mind on things that were too small, like dust motes floating in the air.\n\nHis second wife was inside. His first wife had been more than dutiful to him. His first wife had given him two beautiful daughters, even if the younger one found it difficult to find work, after being laid off as a flight attendant. His first wife had watched him rise in the painting world, evolving from a young, modern painter who painted with bright, bold colors, with patterns that had made him a figure in the Mexican art scene of the early '70s, into a painter that had moved on to scenes with abstract backgrounds with shades and folds so subtle they felt as detailed in their brushstrokes as the fabric in a painting by Caravaggio. Most abstract painters relied on quick, violent brushstrokes, but he'd moved the compositions forward with the elaborate shadings of light and dark, integrating the techniques of Old World masters he had found in Italy, into modern fantasy spaces as wide and open as the skies of the universe. That technique wasn't the part his first wife had to be tolerant of. Those were the things that had made him somewhat famous\u2014a painter's painter. It was his drinking. He was a brooder. He looked for the shadow under every rock. He delighted in pointing out the darkness of the sky to the audiences of Mexico, rendered in such precision and with so much powerful energy that even those who thought he should be painting political art\u2014which he despised\u2014had to admit his brilliance. The students had loved him and clamored to be in his small painting studio, where he let in only six students every year. But there were times when he wouldn't show up in class for weeks, when the demons in his mind would take over, when he would simply sit in his room and drink. And then there had been the multiple affairs he had had with his students.\n\nWhich is how he had arrived at his second wife, a very mediocre painter, one he would normally never have taken into his own studio, but whom he was so attracted to he couldn't say no. He had slept with at least a dozen of his former students by the time he met her. His second wife was good to him, she took care of him, and especially now that his mind was less reliable.\n\nA shopkeeper from next door came out to look at the professor looking up at the bullet holes in the wall. \"It's getting worse,\" the shopkeeper said. \"Last night there were eight of them. I watched them from the window of the store. I had the lights off and I could see them, spraying gunfire one at the other. Didn't you see them?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I saw them,\" Professor Mauricio Sanchez said. When the gunshots had started, at first he had thought it was more of the nightmares, which seemed to echo through his mind too frequently, these days. But then he'd realized it wasn't the case. He'd told his wife, Ana, to stay in bed, to close her eyes and pretend not to hear. Then he'd climbed up the strange, twisting staircase of the third building of the compound, which he had renovated, where he'd created a house of lofts and spaces that felt like the winding layout of a medieval Spanish town.\n\nFrom the rooftop patio he'd peeked over the rim of the wall, the mercury lights in the distance barely giving much sense of the shooters below. The gang members crouched behind cars on both sides of the road that went out of town. He had bought the factory because it was cheap, and it was far from the beautiful, Colonial center of Puebla. The men shot in rapid bursts. He could barely see the car just below him, in front of the compound wall of his studio, but he had a clear view of the cars across the way, where bullets blew through the glass of an old white Ford station wagon. The glass popped and fell within. At least one man was killed. The bullets went past the car into the front of a local hardware store, blowing holes in the glass behind the security bars that were meant to keep out criminals. After the spraying of bullets back and forth, like the roar of infected lions screaming at each other, one of the cars suddenly drove off, tires tearing against the wet pavement, where water had collected from the summer rains. The cancer was gone, for the moment. It was like one of the increasingly frequent headaches that came and went inside Mauricio's brain. They came and rattled. They banged at his temple. And just like the psychiatrists that couldn't give him any medicine that would completely control the headaches, there was no law and order, no police that came\u2014or that would come\u2014to solve the growing violence in his neighborhood.\n\nLast night, in front of that fucking professor's house, that was one fuck of a gun battle I was in, man. That old man, he's been in the neighborhood forever. He's been here since before I was born. This neighborhood is a nothing place, man. This neighborhood is just on the road out of town. I don't know why the fuck he would ever have wanted to come here. I saw the professor last night, looking down at us while we was shooting, and I thought, Why does that guy get to sit up there so nice and comfortable-looking? He was pretending we couldn't see him. He kept peeking over the edge of the roof of his building. I mean what the fuck does he think, that we're just a bunch of cattle down here that can't see nothing? I could have shot that motherfucker to kingdom come last night. I thought about it, too, just to put him in his place. That's why I shot a few bullets up high on the wall, to let him know we can take him out anytime. But I got so much more important things going on than that old cabr\u00f3n, you know what I mean?\n\nMe and my compadres, we never asked for the shit to go down last night, you know what I mean? Yeah, we started selling some drugs in a new area. I admit it. So what? A guy's got to make a living.\n\nI've been selling small packets for four years now, next Saturday. Four years, and I'm still alive. 'Cause I've got what it takes to move up the ladder. Not like a bunch of these sad-asses around the neighborhood. Chucho is the one who hooked me up. He came around four years ago to the little store, around the corner, where my father used to work before they fired him. I was sixteen, then. My father had told me to come help him move some gas tanks onto one of them delivery trucks. My papi never asked me for nothin' unless he needed it, so I went and gave him a hand, and he said he was goin' to give me twenty pesos if I helped him move the gas canisters. Those things are big. Too big for him. And I was trying to pick up change however I could.\n\nSo when I was loading up the canisters, that's when Chucho, who was driving the truck, asked me if I wanted some more regular work, if I wanted to make some real money. He gave me a nod to let me know he was talking about more than fucking twenty pesos. And I was interested, so I went in closer to him and he said, \"Sometimes we've got some things we need distributed around the neighborhood, you know what I mean? I know you. I know all about you. I've heard from your father and others you're a real man. They tell me no one can scare you.\"\n\nSo that's how I started. Delivering small packages, in the gas truck. That's how we moved around town. The old men, like Chucho, they'd sit in the truck while I'd unload the big gas canisters from the back. Those forty-liter tanks hurt like a motherfucker when you take them off the truck. But I'd take them off. I acted like a regular gas man, and then, every once in a while, I'd drop off a package. You know what I mean? A secret package. No one had to tell me what was in them. No one did, at first, but I knew they were drugs. That's how we moved some of the product around the city. It was small shit at first, like that, and then I started moving up.\n\nAnd one time I delivered gas to the professor's house. We had to do some real gas deliveries, too, and he opened them big-ass doors that keep his compound closed. I walked in there, rolling one of those 40L gas tanks on the base, along the ground, the way you have to after you've pulled the thing off the truck. And I noticed he didn't even notice me. It's like that professor, he was just lost in his thinking. He was lost in all those weird pieces of metal that looked like socks hangin' upside down.\n\nIt was strange in there. I couldn't understand why there was so much space for one guy just making some paintings. We had heard about him. A painting professor from el DF. I like painting and all. I had my car airbrushed. Had my friend do it. But I couldn't see no paintings around when I went inside. He had some cool shit in his house. There was some old ceramics and he had a big paper-mache doll of La Catrina\u2014she was all bones and she was a big old skeleton rattling around with a sun hat on her head. I kinda dug that. But I noticed the professor thought I was just some boy. One of the people who just worked for him. Like his muchacha, Carmen. Everyone knows Carmen in the neighborhood. She says nice things about the professor. She says he's a bit weird but that he treats her right. But I didn't feel that one bit. He didn't even notice me. Gave me a two-peso tip, which was the normal tip everyone gave, and I kept thinking\u2014with all that big compound, with all that space, couldn't he have found another peso or two? What's he so hard up about?\n\nThe day he had planned was unraveling. In the morning, after he'd pulled out the ladder and climbed up to the divots from the bullets, and had filled them with some of the adobe he'd found in bags stored in the wide factory space where he also stored his paintings\u2014so many paintings, many under cloth, work from his earlier days that he held on to out of sentimentality, or because they were experiments which he hadn't sold and would be valuable to collectors someday\u2014his muchacha, Carmen, had called to tell him she was feeling sick and she wouldn't be able to make it to clean the house. It wasn't like Carmen to call in sick. She had a mother who had cancer, but even though she needed to help her mother, if she could, she was almost always present. It was one of the things that amazed Mauricio, the way people with the least made the most effort to help others. Some might say it was because they needed money the most and couldn't afford to lose their job, and there was some truth in that, but he felt, without wanting to overly romanticize the poor, that in the case of Carmen, she was simply more giving. He had turned to Buddhism the last few years, because of his older daughter, and because of a half-Japanese, half-Mexican student he'd once taught, who had died tragically in an accident in Japan. He was drawn to the asceticism of the Buddhism he'd learned from the parents of the student. The discipline, the long sitting on a tatami mat focusing and training the mind, had appealed to him. He would sit and think about decoupling from the material world into the spiritual world. And he felt Carmen did this without having to do all of those elaborate meditations. She wanted less, and expected less, and so she seemed happier than those who wanted more, like Mauricio, who, even though he claimed he painted only because he wanted to paint, and even though that was his main reason for painting, his desire to have some fame also was something he couldn't do without.\n\nHe wasn't sure why he needed the attention. He realized, even though he was now an adult man with a gray, rough-cut beard, the need for attention from his second wife and from his former student lovers, and from his children and even from his first wife, made him a little childish. But he liked to give, if he could, so when Carmen called in sick and said she might have to go to the cl\u00ednica, he didn't hesitate for a second and he took her to the hospital.\n\nThe cl\u00ednica was ten minutes away by car\u2014not too far, but Carmen didn't have a car. He took Carmen up to the third floor and waited with her in the lobby thirty minutes until a doctor could see her. The waiting room was crowded, and once she had gone off with a nurse to have a number of tests to see why she was feeling so low in energy, he felt his bladder full, pressing and demanding he take care of it. He felt his body more and more. He had given up drinking four years ago, when he'd understood it was taking over his life. It had seemed better, at first, even though he struggled with the temptation all the time. The only way he could give up the booze was going cold turkey. And, although stopping drinking brought him back on the right track, he found he had this restless energy, a need to constantly move, and with his bladder full, he couldn't hold himself in the lobby anymore and he went off wandering. He found the bathroom on the third floor and it was locked. A sign indicated it was being renovated and was indefinitely closed. He needed to go badly, and he tried to remember just where the hell there was another bathroom in the building. He entered an elevator and wandered down to the first floor where he had once donated blood. In Mexico, you had to donate blood anytime someone you knew needed surgery. He had given blood six months ago, and he remembered there was a bathroom down there. His memory sluiced in and out, sometimes knowing exactly where a bathroom was but then incapable, anymore, of remembering just what he'd eaten for breakfast the day before. Down a hallway he traipsed. He felt his feet shuffle, without the full control of his mind. He felt the weight of his belly, which he hadn't had until the last two years, a byproduct of giving up drinking. He had gone from skinny to fat, a potbelly that must have come as a side effect of the pills the psychiatrist gave him to try to calm his nerves. The blood-donation clinic was just ahead, the place where people waited, and then behind the waiting area the rooms where they took you to give blood. The donation area was closed off, forbidden for people who weren't giving blood, but that's where he had last gone to the bathroom in the hospital, so he opened a door with a sign that said for nurses and patients only. He walked back into an assault of bright fluorescent lights. The halls were suddenly tight like the innards of an endless spaceship, all lit up, far too incandescent. He wondered where the toilet had been. Where had he gone to pee, before? He saw some nurses and patients at the end of the halls, disappearing as he approached wanting to ask for help to direct him, though he didn't want to be found out to have left Carmen.\n\nBefore he could find the bathroom, he opened a door to where he thought he should go, and he entered a room full of complex machines, whirring, with IV needles plugged into the arms of three people donating. This is where he had found himself the last time he'd donated. The machines clicked in powerful ways, letting all the patients know the plasma separators were in control of their bodies, and as he looked at the three patients who seemed like blobs feeding the machines, he suddenly made out the face of one patient and realized it was the man who had been shooting at his studio building the night before. It was one of the men who had been firing wildly. The man's forehead was wide and his black hair greased back. His jaw was tight and triangular. He had the peach fuzz of a mustache he seemed to choose not to shave. He was scowling, it seemed to Mauricio, at Mauricio and at the world. Mauricio didn't mean to stare but his eyes\u2014which were used to taking in all visual details\u2014looked at the mole on the left side of the young man's face, at the premature wrinkles on his forehead, at the wannabe rich gangster fake Gucci glasses perched on his head. This was one of the people taking over his neighborhood and threatening him. He had seen the kid crouched behind the white Ford station wagon the night before, looking up at him as the kid shot in his direction. It had felt like he was intentionally shooting in his direction. And now he stood face to face with this thug.\n\n\"What are you staring at, old man?\" the gangster said. \"Haven't you ever seen someone give blood?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" Mauricio said. \"I was just looking for the bathroom.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm not the bathroom. Even though you might think I'm the toilet. You don't remember me delivering gas to you, once, four years ago, do you?\"\n\nHe tried to remember all the people who had brought him gas, and he could only remember the round face of the man with thick grime on his fingers who had delivered gas the last year, or two. The gas-men came like men from the engine room of a ship, essential for you to move your boat forward in the ocean, and then they disappeared. Sometimes a new engineer popped up on deck, and then was replaced by someone else. The number of gas-men who had come and gone in his adult life melded. He knew he always smiled at them. He knew he always gave them a tip and thanked them; he knew he called out in frustration, sometimes, when his gas ran out and he couldn't find a gas deliveryman. It was strange that\u2014for someone so important, without whom he wouldn't be able to cook or heat his tea in the morning\u2014he couldn't remember any of the gas-men except the one from the present.\n\n\"I know about your two daughters,\" the gangster said. \"I know one of them used to be an airplane flight attendant. I know the other takes yoga classes in the center of town when she comes to visit you. I know you rarely go outside your compound. I know a lot about you, se\u00f1or, and you don't know a thing about me, do you? You think you own the world in there, inside your castle, looking down at us shooting below. You think your daughters are more beautiful than us. But I've got news for you. I sold a small package of coke to your younger daughter. Oh yes, she's a lot more wild than you think. That one who goes biking all the time. That one who you think is fucking up not working anymore. She's lonelier than you, inside your castle.\"\n\nWas it possible this punk could really know so much about him? \"How do you know these things? Who are you?\"\n\n\"I'm like the ghost of the barrio. I'm everywhere and nowhere. I lurk in the shadows. You've seen me all the time in the neighborhood. You just haven't wanted to admit I'm there. But I'm there. Just like that paper-mache statue of La Catrina you have in your kitchen\u2014that bag of bones you've forgotten about. And if you say anything to the cops, I'm going to come and get you.\"\n\nHe was lying, Mauricio thought. He was saying crazy things about his daughters just to torment him. Nothing he said was real. It was all made up. How could he possibly know his daughter had been a flight attendant? How could he possibly know his other daughter liked to do yoga? How could he possibly know he had a statue of La Catrina that he had looked at so many times he'd almost forgotten it was present in his kitchen? And then he realized the boy was no longer a boy. It was the boy who had been around the corner, the one who worked for the small grocery store a block away, but now all grown up. It was the same boy, only he was older now and shooting bullets.\n\n\"Get out of here, old man, and forget you ever saw anything last night, or I'll come and kill you.\"\n\nIt was a threat, like so many other threats to him now: his heart, his lungs, his mind. His mind hadn't been behaving. His mind had been making up dark nightmares and secrets. His mind must be making up this one, too, he thought. This whole conversation was happening in his mind. It wasn't a real conversation. He would shut out the hallucination. He would go. He would find the bathroom. He would go back up to Carmen. He looked away from the bad dream and it merged back into the machines, and the clicking and whirring sounds of blood being sucked in and out, donations being made to save lives of people hidden in back surgery rooms. He felt the texture of the fabric of the earth fold like a drapery around him. The demons were running and running through his brain.\n\nThat old man, when he came into where I was giving blood so they could fix up my compadre, Angelito, he looked like he had just seen some guy trying to rape his daughter. He looked at me like I was the scum of this earth. There he is, thinking he's some kind of clean-cut, perfect professor, and what's he think he's so fancy for? That house, it's just a sock factory. My papi said my grandfather used to work there, fourteen-hour days, sometimes seven days a week. My grandfather, I never knew him. He died before my time, bless his soul, but my papi told me he was one hard motherfucking man. He busted his balls, working in that factory. And then, one day, this guy\u2014the professor\u2014he come into the town and he bought the whole place up like he thinks he's some kind of king, and he locks himself in there, all hidden away. And it's like it's his harem, or something, but they say he never keeps no women in there long-term except his wife and two daughters. He's just some hidden king working on his paintings. And I asked my papi, once, how can I see those paintings? I like paintings. I wanna see 'em, and my papi told me there's no way to see the paintings there, you got to go to some museums in Mexico City. And I'm like, what's he keepin' them hidden for so far away, you know what I mean?\n\nSo one day I was in Mexico City, and I'm in some bus full of people, holding on to the roof with my hands pressed against the ceiling, trying not to fall onto all the other people, 'cause there was a woman with a baby behind me, and we was all swaying like animals stuck together in that bus, with no air to breathe, but my face it gets pressed against a window where the doors are in the back and I look out the window and I see a photo with a poster of some painting by the professor and it says there's a show by Mauricio Sanchez. So I thinks to myself, let me off the bus. Let me off this bus.\n\nI pop out at the next stop, when some guys jump on and off. There's no official stops for the peseros. I squeeze by the baby cryin' and I think to myself I'm going to go see what the old man's art is all about, 'cause I never forgot the time I went into his house to give him that gas, and I thought, that's what someone should do, you know. That's what someone should do to move up the ladder. That's what all of them rich people do. They look at art. And I thought, I want to be someone, you know. So I go up to that museum on the big Avenida Reforma. And it's not like any other building I've ever seen. There's strange statues in front of the building that look like chopped-up metal from a construction site, and the glass on the museum is black and reflecting, keeping the world out, like it's some kind of rich man's glass tomb, and I walk up to the front door and when I get to the door I tug at it, and it's locked, and I think, man I just missed the bus because I was so stupid I thought I should go see this museum, but I know the place ain't for me. Them museums, they say they're for free, but then the guards look at you once you get in there. That's what happened to me. I realized the door wasn't locked, it was just I was opening the wrong side, which made me feel like, why don't they tell you which side to use, and when I gets in there one of the guards he looks me up and down and he tells me it's gonna cost me forty pesos just to look around that building and I say, I just wanna look at the paintings of that professor, Mauricio Sanchez, 'cause he owns this strange fortress-like building in my neighborhood, and they say well, that's fine but it's gonna cost you forty pesos. And I tell them I don't have forty pesos to give them to go into the museum. I just spent three pesos taking the bus, and if I had forty pesos I woulda taken a small taxi. And the guard he tells me I can come back on Sunday when it's free if I want to. And I tell him I'm not going to be in el DF on Sunday. I was just doing a quick in-and-out from Puebla. So he wouldn't let me in without the money. So the only thing I saw was that poster of the professor's paintings.\n\nI slunk outa there and had to wait a bit more to get the bus and when the bus came I felt like a fool for having gotten off to go to the museum, before, so I just walked all the way to where I had to meet these guys to deliver a package. That wasn't a package of drugs, but I was delivering something important\u2014I don't know what that was\u2014in an envelope someone had given me to deliver.\n\nAnd the whole incident, it got me thinking about the professor more and those museums they build that are kinda like the professor's studio, with big doors on them that shut tight. So I thought it was kinda funny when one day I was doing my rounds, making sure all the clients had their stash, making sure the guys below me was delivering, 'cause that's what I spend most of my time doing now, checking up that others aren't fucking up, that they're getting the product to the customers. Lemme tell you, I'm just as good a fucking businessman as them bankers in those big towers. The only difference is they've got the connections from their papis to get there.\n\nAnd so, one day, I'm like checking up on my crew and I see the professor's daughter, and she's buying a little bag of coke from one of my guys. And I'm like, ain't life funny\u2014me I was trying to get into that museum and here's the professor's daughter coming to _me_ to get what _she_ needs. That's the daughter who's the airline flight attendant. She was telling my man that she didn't quite have all the money with her, that she was going to have it for him next time, and asking him if he could just hold her over. And sometimes we'll do that just to make sure the customer don't stop using, know what I mean? So we'll let 'em get away with not paying for a little bag as long as they pay the next time. But I told my compadre, when I seen that daughter, I said to him and to her, right in front of her face, \"If you want some of this, you're gonna have to pay interest. You know what I mean? We could go somewhere and we could have some nice romantic dinner, but that's the only way you're gonna get some of this for free.\"\n\nShe gave me this nasty look like she didn't need me. Her black hair was cut kinda messy and she looked pale like she hadn't found her makeup, and her mascara was put on too thick, like maybe she'd been crying. And I thought, man, I'd like to do her. I would like a piece of the professor's daughter. 'Cause even though she had this messy look, she was as white and pale as they come, and kinda sexy wearing a tight skirt, the way no one does in my barrio\u2014whiter than a g\u00fcera I ain't never tasted in bed before.\n\nAnd she says to me, \"What kind of woman do you think I am? You think I'm some kind of woman who sleeps around for drugs? You think I need your drugs that bad?\"\n\nAnd so, I says to her, \"Well, I didn't see me coming up to you. Looks like you crawled up here to this place all on your own.\"\n\nAnd she just spit on the ground in front of me like she was some kind of boss-queen. She bent her head down to spit, and while she did it I could see her shirt open up a little and I looked down into her chest where her breasts were, and I ain't never seen no breasts that up-close so white and clean. I could almost see her nipples. So I said, \"Sooner or later you're gonna find out everything cost somethin'. Your daddy's been spoilin' you. He's been making you think mangoes fall from the sky. But to get the green mango and turn it orange, without spoiling, you've gotta pick it up off the ground when it falls.\"\n\nShe still gave me some disgusted look like I was just some parasite telling her she'd been sucking at the teat too much of her daddy. I knew she'd go around and find nobody else was gonna give her that coke for free for long. Maybe once. Maybe twice there'd be someone that would give her a packet for free to get her as their customer. But not for long. And I was right. One day, 'bout a month later, I saw her come up to my compadre and she was asking for me and where I am, and I showed up from behind, a back room where I'd been listening to my compay, and when she saw me she said she was still laid off from being a flight attendant and she didn't have any money and could I give her some for free for a couple of days, and I said, \"I told you that's gonna cost something.\" So she said she'd meet me for dinner at this restaurant I told her where to meet me at. And that night I had the first white pussy I ever had in my life. And I can tell you, she didn't seem like she was minding it so much. She looked like she was a nymphomaniac. Some of them rich girls, they'll pretend they don't have a penny and then they'll fuck your brains out. I know she didn't have the money, but she looked like she was OK with it, rocking on top of me in the hotel.\n\nThe professor stood in his studio space in front of a large canvas mounted on its easel\u2014where he had planned on painting earlier in the day before he had to take Carmen to the hospital\u2014and no new painting would come to him. He had been stuck on this painting and series for over six months now. He would put paint on the canvases, and he wouldn't like what he saw, so he would paint over them. Or he would just stand in front of the canvases and nothing new would come to him. Six months ago, he had finally been able to return to his painting, after giving up directorship of the painting department at the university. The stress of running the program, the numerous faculty he had to direct, the meetings with the administration, the setting of standards, the managing of students, had all worn on him for six years and he had had almost no time to do what he was meant to do\u2014paint. It was like having his purpose removed from him, turning him into a body, a vessel instead of a spirit. Halfway through his time chairing the department, he had felt little edges of his mind bend from the stress. He had attributed it, at first, to giving up the drinking, to the effects of trying to go on the straight path. Maybe he needed the juice to keep himself whole. But that was preposterous, he knew, and so he'd continued forward with the Buddhism and with the meditation, trying to heal himself more, which had helped for a while, but the stress built and built. He wasn't meant to be an administrator, even though he was good at it. The university had wanted him to continue directing the program, until they realized his behavior was becoming more erratic. One day, he walked into the university and students heard a howling in his office and they didn't know what was going on. He had locked himself in his office chanting Buddhist prayers and the chanting had risen in sound until it became a full-blown guttural howl, like a sheep trying to find its lamb.\n\nHe resigned quickly. His older daughter took over his painting classes and he moved permanently to Puebla where he thought he could return to being the great painter everyone expected him to be. He had a show lined up in a year. People were expecting great things from him at his gallery in Monterrey. He would have a show at the main museum up there. But six months had passed and nothing but crap would come to the paintings.\n\nStaring at the canvas, in the descending light of the evening as it bent through the fiberglass patches in the roof and slapped against the canvas in harsh dots of light, the light reflected off the white canvas like emergency lights in bright oranges and reds. He watched the light move across the canvas, lost in the sundial. He saw a flash of Carmen coming out of the hospital. He saw a flash of the insolent smile of the gangster in the blood donation room, hooked up to the plasma separator. He saw blood everywhere, sluicing in and out of the machine, and blood on the ground across the street that he had touched earlier in the day with his fingers. The coagulated blood had stuck to his index finger when he'd dragged it through the mud. The images swirled, flashed. He heard a high-pitched buzzing in his ear and then a _gong, gong, gong,_ and he threw the canvas onto the ground and was surprised by the sound of the wood frame clattering against the concrete floor.\n\nHe walked into his younger daughter's room, which she had been using more and more since she was laid off, and since he had moved to Puebla full-time after finishing up directing the painting department. The words of the gangster in the hospital kept coming to him, that his daughter was snorting coke. Had he failed as a parent, too? Was he not there for his daughters? He had wanted to be there for them, always. Often, the painting had taken precedence. Often, his first wife had to do much of the real, day-to-day raising of the children, while he had worked hard in the studio painting and showing his work.\n\nBut he had felt certain he was there for his daughters when they needed him. He would meditate on the floor with his elder daughter. The two daughters looked nothing alike. The elder daughter was plump and happy in her roundness, radiating light off her smile. The other daughter had black hair and pale skin and had inherited his fervent energy, his need to be absorbed in a project at all times. She had finished school and tried to be a chef, but that didn't work out, so she had become a flight attendant. Her eyes often looked sad to him, especially since she had lost her job.\n\nBut perhaps, he now remembered, the look in her eyes had begun earlier, ten years ago, on her twenty-first birthday. That was when he was still married to his first wife, Cristina. A party had been organized at the studio compound in Puebla for his younger daughter. It was the custom of his family to get together, every year, in Puebla for her birthday. The party had started at three, but he had arrived at nine at night, after sleeping in the apartment with one of his female students, whom he had been seeing for six months. His hair was messy from the encounter in bed. He had completely forgotten about the birthday of his daughter. When he arrived at the back of the studio house, at the long patio decorated with his good taste in Mexican pottery that looked like Greek amphorae, traditional Talavera tiles from Puebla, and the trickling fountain, he expected to simply find his good taste reflected back at him, but there, running along the patio, was a table with the tablecloth bent wildly upward at the corners onto the table, as if the process of beginning to clean a big mess had begun. The table was covered with plates dirty with the remains of discarded food, the knives and forks filthy, wine stains covering the tablecloth, and the wax of burnt candles spreading all the way into the fabric.\n\nEveryone had left the party except his two daughters and his first wife, Cristina.\n\nHis wife looked at him quickly, then continued cleaning. His elder daughter said, \"Pap\u00e1, where have you been? You missed the party.\" She looked at him, genuinely baffled he could have forgotten such an important thing.\n\n\"Maybe he was sleeping with some other woman,\" his younger daughter said. \"Maybe he was sleeping with her back in the house in el DF.\"\n\nHer mother, Cristina, told her to shush. Her mother said, in a high voice, she would have no such wild talk in front of everyone. \"Quiet, Alicia. What kind of horrible thing are you making up?\"\n\n\"But it's right in front of your eyes, Mam\u00e1. It's right in front of all our eyes. He's been fucking these women for years. He's been fucking them right in front of our nose, and thinking we can't even see. And there he stands, after forgetting my birthday, and he pretends he doesn't even know what we're talking about. Look at him, with his shoulders hunched, like I'm making things up. Look at him running away, into his studio, he's too cowardly to even admit what he's done.\"\n\nThat was the end of his first marriage. That was the beginning of the sad look on his younger daughter's face. She had found out about the affairs, he had learned later, from the muchacha who cleaned the house in el DF and from former students who eventually spoke to his elder daughter.\n\nInside his younger daughter's room, he didn't want to pry, but he began to look at the surface of her desk and then, after he had made the determination to look inside, her desk drawers. He pushed away pencils and pastels and oils. She had decided to paint since she couldn't find any work. She was painting flowers, lately, and they were three-dimensionally well rendered and with bright colors, but they looked as cold as plastic. He couldn't lie to his daughter about her work, so he told her nothing about them, and since he said nothing she must have known what he was really thinking. He searched inside her closet, inside her shoes. He had no reason to believe anything would be inside them, but he couldn't help but pick up the leather shoes, sniffing the smell of the dry sweat inside like a crazy animal looking for water in the desert. He looked under the bed mattress, and there he found two small plastic baggies, the size of an inch, no more, one with the residue of white powder, and the image of the gangster came back to him telling him his daughter was lonely and unhappy and that she had been buying coke from him, and he went back into the closet looking for the upper reaches of the shelf where he had an old box from his father with a gun his father had received when he was in the Mexican Army. The professor kept the weapon in good condition. He'd had it oiled and maintained regularly, not only to honor his father but because the neighborhood was changing.\n\nHe pulled the gun down with the box and put the box on his daughter's desk and he wanted to swallow the plastic bags and the gun and make them all disappear and he picked up the gun and waved it in the air and hopped on one leg like a warrior and the snaps in his mind were snapping away and he wanted a drink, but he wasn't going to go for a drink, and he bleated and moaned, but no one was in the house with him. His wife had left, back up to Mexico City, after the shootings the night before. She was scared and he had told her she should go.\n\nHe was alone in his castle. He heard the _gong, gong, gong,_ in his brain and he was being called to action. His head felt hollow, and then suddenly full again, like a pile of mercury liquid had been poured into his brain and was sloshing around. But the _gong, gong, gong_ was a knocking at the door. And how had it become so dark? Only fifteen minutes ago, it seemed, the orange light had been moving across the canvas. He pretended the banging and knocking at the door hadn't happened. It might be the police. Maybe it was the police coming to speak to him. When he'd come home from the hospital, when his wife went back up to Mexico City, he had called the cops and told them they needed to do something about the increasing violence in his neighborhood. He had used all of his connections to speak to an assistant and then to the boss of an assistant, on up the chain of command until he'd spoken to the local chief of police of Puebla. Mauricio was known in the city as \"the painter.\" People who knew nothing about art still knew his name in the city, even though he was reclusive, and he had told the chief something had to be done. Things could not continue like this in his neighborhood. The bullets were climbing up the wall. Next time he would peek over the wall and one of the bullets would hit him. There were young children, young men, dying in the neighborhood and no one cared. The chief had said yes, yes, something would be done, police would be sent, but no one had come. But maybe now the police were at the door. The knocking was louder and more insistent and he went through his painting studio and continued through the building with the metal molds of socks and out again to the large front doors that kept the world out.\n\nWhen he got to the doors he tried to gather his thoughts, to shut the creeping mercury off, and he said in a feeble voice that felt to him like a loud voice, \"Who is there? Are you the police? Have you finally come? What took you so long? Who is there?\"\n\nThe knocking didn't stop. It was a persistent bang against the door, but the person banging wouldn't announce who he was. He could open the peephole, but he didn't want to see who it was, he wanted to turn back and run into the house. He felt his father's gun in his hand. The gun felt heavy and pulled down to the ground, the barrel of the handgun pointed at his feet. He needed to look more like a warrior, he thought, so he struggled and lifted the gun into the air and waved it over his head in silent pantomime, wanting to scream, and then he opened the rusted metal box which covered the primitive hole through the thick wood door. On the other side he saw nothing. Not a thing. It must all have been in his head. He must be having hallucinations again. He had to see if it was all just in his head, so he opened the door and looked outside, and he saw emptiness. Absolutely nothing, at all. He left the door open in his shock and scurried back into his compound, forgetting he had left the door ajar, and he went into the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table, an old wood table, and for the first time in years he noticed the paper-mache statue of La Catrina. She was supposed to be a symbol of life after death, but the whiteness of her paper-mache bones came to him now, and he could feel his own mortality coming, and he sat staring at the folds of her rib cage and at her scrawny body, which felt like the withering interior of his body, and in the doorway to the kitchen he felt a presence and he looked over and saw the silhouette of the boy who had turned into a man whom he had seen earlier in the hospital.\n\n\"I told you not to call the cops,\" the man-boy said. \"I told you that if you did I was going to come here.\"\n\n\"Was that you banging at the door?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about, old man? You even left the door open. I've never seen you do that, but you left it open.\"\n\n\"What are you going to do to me?\"\n\n\"You're the one who made the choice to call the cops.\"\n\n\"But they haven't come.\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter. And it won't matter. They won't come. We own the cops. Don't you see? My boss's boss. He owns the cops. That's how I know you called them. But we can't have you making noise. It gets messy.\"\n\n\"Are you going to shoot me?\"\n\n\"You need to show me one of your paintings, first. I tried to see them, once, in the museum in Mexico City, but they wouldn't let me in. So you're going to give me a private showing.\"\n\n\"I'll show you one of the paintings now.\"\n\nHe took the gangster into the studio. He took him in front of the white canvas that he wasn't able to progress on. He picked the canvas up from the floor and put it on the easel. The light switches were far away, in the corner, and he told the gangster to stand in front of the easel with the canvas while he would turn the lights on. The gangster did as he was told. He stood in front of the white canvas. The room was still dark; the professor hadn't turned on the lights.\n\n\"Do you see the canvas? Do you see the whiteness there? That is my troubled mind. No one will want to buy this painting.\"\n\n\"Then that's not the painting I want to see,\" the gangster said. \"I want to see the painting you have that is worth the most money. I want to see the painting that is your most valuable and beautiful one. I want to see the painting that you have been keeping from me and my compays all of this time, hidden in your fortress.\"\n\nThe professor threw on the switch and the bright mercury lights started out dull at first and then they screamed with whiteness so hard he could barely see. He pulled the gun out of his pocket, which he had been hiding. He walked up to the gangster, with the gun pointed at the gangster's head.\n\n\"Go ahead and shoot,\" the gangster said. \"I know you don't have the guts to shoot me or anyone else. That's why you're a professor. You don't have the raw power and beauty and evil inside necessary to shoot another person. It takes a lot of power to do that, to just shoot a man at his face. That's why the new guys they just shoot the AK-47s, because they're too scared to shoot a handgun into another man's face.\"\n\nThe professor could feel the gonging again, the knocking at his temple.\n\n\"Why did you sell the coke to my daughter?\" he said.\n\n\"Because she was a client. Because she wanted to buy, and we don't ask questions. But she didn't always pay, you know. One time she slept with me and I banged her white pussy and I gave her some coke for free.\"\n\nThe gangster reached into his pocket, and he threw some keys in the direction of the professor, hard, making the professor want to protect himself. The gangster fell on the ground and rolled and pulled out a gun, and the professor shot once, twice, a third time into the chest of the gangster while a bullet came out of the gangster's gun, missing the professor, hitting the tin of the roof, breaking a hole through to the dark night outside. The gangster's body lay, spread wide on the floor, the peach fuzz on his face covered with sweat, the hair gel perfectly combed back like he had just looked into the mirror. How could he have shot this man? How? The gun dropped from the hand of the professor and he lay over the body of the gangster and cried. He held the body in his arms and rocked back and forth weeping. He took blood from the chest of the body and went up to the white canvas staring at him like the blank walls of his mind and he smeared the blood on the canvas and rubbed it into the white surface and scratched the blood deeper and deeper into the white paint until the white and the blood dug into his nails. He wanted no part of the blood, but the blood was now stuck hard into his skin, and even after he cleaned his hands he would never be able to clean the blood.\n\n\u2014\n\nFor a year, in the neighboring town over from Puebla of Cholula, the professor climbed the remains of one of the highest pyramids in the world, the Tlachihualtepetl. The pyramid was built by the native Indians and then the church built a sanctuary to the Virgen de los Remedios on top. He did not believe in Christianity, or no more so than he believed that all the gods were the same, but people went to the church to find remedies and he supposed he did the same. From the top of the pyramid, where there is a balcony that gives a view out over the plain that runs until it reaches the base of the giant volcano of El Popo, and in the other direction to the peak of Orizaba, he looked out at the vastness of nature and at the people who dotted the ground. What difference did it make that he had killed one person out of the multitudes, when that person was a gangster? What difference did it make when so many\u2014over seventy thousand\u2014were dying in the drug war? That is what some of his friends told him. The police said he had acted in self-defense and they refused to judge him. There was an investigation. The case was clear, the gangster's weapon was found in the studio, and the shopkeeper had seen the shootout with the gangster the night before. No one blamed the professor. But he blamed himself.\n\nHe had practiced meditation before with his elder daughter, but never with his younger. It was exactly one year, to the day, since the shooting\u2014June 15. He asked his younger daughter to come with him up to the top of the pyramid. He thought it would help both of them to heal on this one-year anniversary. The two daughters came with him. All three of the family walked with yoga mats, and they lay the mats on the ground at the top of the pyramid, on the balcony, in a place they could look out at the width of the valley, with green spreading into the distance until it slowly curved into a darker hue up the majestic mountains. A year ago, El Popo had exploded, but the volcano was calmer now, the lava contained, though there were recent signs of abnormal activity. The professor had been painting for a year, and he would have a show in Monterrey that his gallery owner said would be seen as brilliant. The professor sat on the ground and felt the rays of the sun falling peacefully on his chubby cheeks. He was plumping out more. He was returning to a state of near contentment. His younger daughter sat next to him and she imitated the movements of the elder daughter, folding her legs one on top of the other. All three of them faced the sun, closed their eyes, and held their palms gently in their laps, imitating the pose of the Buddha. The professor felt the presence of his younger daughter beside him. \"I have been blind,\" he said. \"I have been so blind. I was blind to the man I shot. And I was blind to you. I could never see the suffering my affairs with the students had on you, growing up.\" He reached over, with his eyes closed, and touched his younger daughter gently, and she held his hand for a second, her hand warm, then it fell to the side, cold.\n\nHe opened and closed his eyes, and he could not get out of his sight the color red. It was the color of blood and his personal weight to bear. He asked for forgiveness from the heavens. He asked for his daughters to always be beside him. He asked for their love and understanding, and for the power to pay enough attention to them. He asked for his home to no longer be a fortress, to open his art up to the world. He had understood this from the gangster before he was killed. He asked for his mind to be stable. He asked for all of this, silently, and then he turned up to the sky radiating hard and pure light on him, light of judgment and forgiveness, and though he would have to ask for this forgiveness every day for the rest of his life, and though there was much for him to work on, he felt a bubbling lightness inside, a lightness perhaps too strong, too giddy, perhaps unstable, again, perhaps a delusion, his mind sluicing in and out, and he knew the universe was good, and with medication coursing through him his mouth opened partway and formed a vacant, distant smile, and it was not easy to see the trees in the distance.\n\n# THE AMERICAN JOURNALIST\n\nFor twenty years I have been a bounty hunter. Not a guy tracking down bodies, but a journalist based in Mexico City tracking down stories. I've seen it all, drug kingpins strafing bodies with machine guns, firing bullets out of a Hummer while the narcos they're firing at shoot back, until both cars go up in flames. I've seen the nastiest prostitutes working the streets of La Zona Rosa at night, giving blowjobs for a simple sniff of glue. I've seen mothers claiming the Virgin of Guadalupe came to them in a dream, delivering their child immaculately, without sex with their husbands. I've seen swimsuit contestants dive off the cliffs of Cabo San Lucas in Mr. Universe\u2013type contests. I've seen child acrobats beg for money on the streets of Mexico City, at the streetlights, while their fathers swallow flames and show off how resistant their skin can be to glass as they press their backs into broken beer bottles on the hot pavement. I've seen mothers with babies strapped to their shoulders walk a hundred miles to protest the lack of food back home, to politicians who wouldn't give them the time of day. You name it, I've seen it down in Mexico during my time as the main correspondent for the _Houston Chronicle_. And while I was a Marine once, who huffed and puffed carrying a hundred pounds of rocks on my back, in my youth, running through whatever foreign lands they sent me to, I've seen shit down here in Mexico that would make you weep.\n\nThe editors of the paper wouldn't let me file the story about Ernesto. I think because it didn't fit into any of the neat categories I've just described. The papers are fine with stories of poverty or violence, as long as it all fits into a neat bow. A story that fits what we already think is golden. Ever notice that all the roadside bomb stories in Afghanistan are A-OK? Or the stories about drones that have gone astray, killing a few collateral-damage villagers? Stories that make you feel safe, glad you're secure and cozy in the U.S., rather than in some godforsaken place like rural Afghanistan or caught up in the drug war in Mexico, those stories are all right, as long as everyone plays their role correctly. But Ernesto was a bit of an odd tale.\n\nFirst, there was how he looked. Tall, with a big, hairy beard, a white guy with forehead wrinkles who looked like a nightclub bouncer, but he was an insurance agent who worked to save his company a lot of dough in big cases, and he was also a member of a punk rock band. The punk rock part is what ruined it for my editors. What's an insurance company guy doing in a punk rock band? Ernesto collected fine art. He would hang out with some of the top visual artists in Mexico City. He had some of the best oil paintings in his apartment, and he liked conceptual art, like a thousand gold necklaces grouped together, hanging from the ceiling in the shape of a phallus.\n\nBottom line: Ernesto didn't fit the image of a brown Mexican caught up in the violence of Mexico. Which is why they killed the story I sent about Ernesto when he was murdered two days ago. It didn't help that I was with Ernesto when he was shot. The editors told me I was his friend. They said I was writing a biased story from the gut. They told me to take a few days off and then get back to writing \"real stories.\"\n\n\u2014\n\nI met Ernesto a couple of years ago in the port of Veracruz. Some big tanker ship had banged into the pier at one of the enormous port facilities. The case seemed open and shut: a storm had pushed the boat sideways until it smashed into the pier, causing a few million dollars of damage to the pier and sinking a fifty-million-dollar boat. I was already in Veracruz, covering a story about dead bodies showing up from drug violence in the city, and editors always like it if you can get two stories in one location, and they love it even more if there's a story about a natural disaster. Natural disasters fill readers with awe that after all the science we've developed, after all the robots and moon landings, we're still at the mercy of the heavens. Any immense natural disaster story is good, but one in which a complex, expensive machine gets destroyed is even better. It hits home at our vulnerability. So I went over to the port to get the story, as extra gravy, during my time in Veracruz.\n\nErnesto had on a button-down shirt, to give off a look of professionalism, but he was a professional in action, too, his collar wide open, his sleeves rolled up showing off his hairy arms, a clipboard in his hand, and wearing a hardhat. He had half a dozen divers in the water beneath the pier, checking exactly how the hull of the boat hit the dock. He gathered photos. He collected evidence. He proved there was doubt the ship had actually smashed and drowned because of the storm. It could have been due to a drunk captain. The angle of the impact against the dock wasn't congruent with the angle of the prevailing winds and the damage from the storm. In the end, he saved his insurance company fifty million dollars, and only the dock was paid for under the policy.\n\nIf Ernesto had to hire undercover cops to go through garbage in the dumpster behind a bank to prove his case, he would happily do so. He always wore sunglasses, aviator-shaped and large, with a mirrored cover to make it impossible to see his eyes and what he was thinking or calculating.\n\nI'm not sure he ever planted evidence to suit his cause, but I wouldn't put it past him. I kept in touch with him because he was the kind of guy who could give you the kind of dirt, the kind of background information you sometimes needed to finish a story, to give it the color of the panties found from a lover inside the room of a politician, or whatever else the editors in Houston thought could \"sex up the story.\"\n\nBut over time, what I liked about him most was that he would always invite me to the performances of his band, and I'd go.\n\nI wouldn't say his music was punk, per se. It was rock, but with the kind of hammering repetition and rough voice that came out of punk. The drummer of his band had stripes carved on the side of his hair, giving him the look of an attacking tiger. The bass guitarist was round in shape, cutting hard on the rhythm, a fairly well known visual artist. And Ernesto would stand ramrod straight, in a dark nightclub with his mirrored shades on, in the seedy joints he and his pals chose to perform in, where there were sometimes prostitutes. The crowd was upper-middle-class friends from their high school days. The music was a release, a reminder of my own old high school days, a way out of the pressure of the \"real\" stories of one more child caught in the crossfire in a place like Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez.\n\n\u2014\n\nI was writing a story about collectors in Mexico. Carlos Slim is widely known as the richest man in the world, worth personally seventy-five billion dollars. He owns the main telephone company in Mexico, Telcel, a monopoly he was given. He owns bakeries and malls and a chain of fast-food diners. He owns so many things, you can go to malls down here and every single type of shop in the place belongs to him. He's also a collector of art, and he just built a large museum, called the Soumaya, that's so tacky, in many respects\u2014the typography for the name of the museum is the same as the typography for the name of his fast-food restaurant chain, and he has one of the restaurants in the basement of the museum, beneath multimillion-dollar paintings by Van Dyck and Rubens. Slim let his son-in-law design the building, so it ended up a complete disaster of nepotism, a structure with no natural light inside, which makes it almost impossible to see the otherwise fairly good collection. In one of the galleries, there's a silver model of the architectural design of the museum, which rests in a leather case made by Bulgari\u2014part of the whole self-congratulatory monument.\n\nErnesto told me he knew another collector in Cuernavaca who he was willing to introduce me to. It was a politician, a local governor, who collected life-size dolls of _Star Wars_ characters and Superman, all made by a Japanese company called Hot Toys. I had vaguely heard about these kinds of collectibles. I knew there were people who paid a lot for these toys on eBay. But I had no idea just how rare and valuable these kinds of dolls could be. Ernesto told me the governor was paying fifteen to twenty thousand dollars a month on these toys. Some of the individual dolls, with details as precise as the acne scars on a character like Han Solo, were going for as much as ten grand. It was the kind of story that seemed like it could go over well with the editors back home: goofy collections with pop culture dolls that everyone in the U.S. would know about, with the added twist this was all happening in Mexico. My hope was to try to get in the angle about corruption in Mexican politics, the idea that who the hell knew where all the money for this kind of collection was coming from?\n\nI asked Ernesto if the politician was independently wealthy, if he'd had money before he became a politician.\n\n\"His money's all new,\" Ernesto said.\n\nSo I asked Ernesto to introduce this politician to me the next time he went down to Cuernavaca.\n\nA month later, Ernesto called out of the blue. He and his buddies were going to be doing a concert in Cuernavaca, so he invited me down. He set up an appointment with the politician for us to see the doll collection, in the afternoon, the day of the concert.\n\nSome people like to hide their wealth when they know they've acquired it illegally, but others can't help themselves, and they need an audience. That's how a bunch of corrupt guys ultimately get caught. In Mexico there are guys, sometimes, driving three-hundred-thousand-dollar Ferraris around Mexico City, and when you see one you know the guy stole his money, somehow.\n\nI went to the house of the governor with Ernesto, and the governor's maid opened a large wood door, from the sixteenth century. The house was just up the block from the Robert Brady Museum, the home of an American collector who established himself in Mexico in the 1960s, and who was a major friend of the collector Peggy Guggenheim. Brady did a painting of Guggenheim once, with her sunglasses on, holding her three white Maltese poodles. Brady had Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera paintings mixed in with sculptures of clay penises he'd found around the world. My point is, even the good collectors have some weird taste, a mix of good taste with the bad. It's the rare collector who doesn't have some secret fetish lurking in the background.\n\nErnesto and I went into the home of the governor, and after we made it past the Spanish Colonial door, we entered a stone courtyard where monks used to roam, when they were living behind the main cathedral, and the courtyard was filled with life-size statues of Princess Leia, robots like R2-D2 and C-3PO, and a perfect replica of Sigourney Weaver panting with her sweaty shirt in _Alien_ as she tried to escape from the deathly spaceship. There were figures from _Blade Runner_ and of the Transformers. Each doll was handcrafted in Japan in limited edition, sent by airplane to Mexico City, and then brought to Cuernavaca.\n\n\"Nice dolls,\" I said to the governor. \"How long have you been collecting them?\"\n\n\"They're not dolls,\" he told me. \"They're life-size action figures.\" He slapped the back of a figure shaped like Darth Vader, minutes before Vader fights Luke Skywalker almost to the death.\n\nThe governor looked a bit like a life-size character himself, his hair combed up and back Elvis Presley\u2013style. His cheeks were scarred from what looked like bad skin as a child. He had on a kelly green Polo shirt, with the large figure of a polo rider on a horse. This kind of shirt, with the Polo insignia blown up to be three inches high, is well known as the kind of clothing a certain type of narco likes to wear.\n\nThe violence in Cuernavaca had been getting much worse, lately. There were military checkpoints throughout the city. Rival narco groups were fighting in the streets. Not all the time, like up in the north near Ju\u00e1rez, but more and more. The son of a famous poet was killed, but in his case by the police, after some police working for some of the local drug gangs saw the son catching a glimpse of them. Rather than leave potential witnesses alone, the police just knocked off the son of the poet and his friends. They were found dead in a car.\n\nIt was strange to see these action figures from dramatic, violent scenes when all around Cuernavaca you didn't need action dolls to feel the tense moments of Hollywood; you could just go out your front door and into the main streets of the city.\n\n\"Come here,\" the governor said. \"I'll show you one of my favorite parts of the house.\" He took us into the basement, down ancient stone steps with Roman arches overhead, where cobwebs were growing in the corners. I expected him to want to show us his wine collection. Some of these politicians love wine, and they like to show off how\u2014supposedly\u2014sophisticated they are.\n\nHe came to a large wood door with metal plating, with spikes coming out the plating and with iron bars in the center of the door. The door looked like the entrance to an old debtors' prison. The governor pulled out a metal key about a half-foot long, and he twisted an ancient lock open. He opened the door and brought us into the dank space. There were old wheel-racks of the kind they used to torture the early Christian saints; there were metal pincers hanging on the walls, which he explained were used to pinch the genitalia of bandits and free thinkers during the days of the Inquisition. There were hoists to lower prisoners onto hot, burning embers until they cried out in confession. There were handcuffs with chains attached to the walls where prisoners were whipped, until they fell with the weight of their body in exhaustion to the ground, to the point of suffocation. Some cheap flickering lights wavered back and forth, giving the whole place the look of a haunted house. There were some life-size action torture dolls of prisoners attached to the walls, suffering as a branding iron was placed onto their naked flesh. The doll figures had ripped burlap and old cotton clothing, their hair splayed wildly back, their mouths open in terror, as they were abused.\n\n\"Pretty realistic collection, eh?\" the governor said.\n\n\"It's cool,\" Ernesto said.\n\n\"Cool\" was definitely not the word I would have used. The place was giving me the creeps. The governor walked in front of us, and left us to inspect the room a little closer, and suddenly I heard the main door close, and the governor locked the door.\n\n\"You get a better feel for the whole terror of the place if you're forced to stay in there, for a while,\" he said, and laughed. \"I'll be back at some point,\" he said, and he left.\n\nI tried the door, and it was definitely locked. I tried to see Ernesto's eyes, beneath his mirrored sunglasses, but all I got was a blank, mirrored expression. Only his pursed lips, between his beard, gave a sense he didn't think this was in any way funny.\n\n\u2014\n\nAfter an hour of being locked up, the governor came down to the dungeon and opened up the big wood door. For an hour, I'd gone through all the possible reasons the governor could have locked us in there. One option was that he was just one of those incorrigible gamers, one of those guys who loved to make the world of his magic and make-believe real. This is, more or less, what Renaissance fairs are all about, where people dress up like knights in shining armor to fight other knights, to get the love of a thin woman dressed like a damsel in distress. I did a story, once, about Mexican game-addicts, and the governor was showing some of those tendencies\u2014life-size dolls, the grandiose way he showed us his basement with instruments of torture. It had all the signs of someone in way too deep with his hobbies.\n\nAnother possibility I'd run through was that the governor was sadistic and any minute he was going to come down, personally, dressed in black leather to whip and torture us. This was more the Quentin Tarantino scenario, like in his movie _Pulp Fiction,_ where the Gimp is kept in the basement for ages until turning into some kind of animal.\n\nA final option was that Ernesto had something to do with this treatment. I asked him point-blank: \"Do you owe him any money? Is he usually like this?\"\n\n\"It's the opposite,\" Ernesto said. \"If anyone owes any money here, he owes me a few thousand. I sold him a painting a month ago, by a pop artist in Mexico City, and he hasn't paid me yet. But the painting is only five thousand dollars. He should be able to come up with that amount, easily.\"\n\n\"What's the painting like?\" I asked.\n\n\"It's a pink, airbrush version of Darth Vader in a gay pride parade.\"\n\n\"Is the governor gay?\"\n\n\"He might be. But I don't think so. I don't even think he knows what a gay pride parade is. I think he just saw the painting and loved the fact it had Darth Vader in it. As you can see, he's a bit obsessed.\"\n\nSo, while Ernesto and I stood in the haunted house of horrors, I couldn't come up with the reason we were being kept in such a \"nice\" place.\n\nThe governor came down the steps, his feet dragging against the flagstones to the dungeon, and I could hear a few other men behind him, some yelling from the top of the steps to others at the bottom to be sure to protect the jefe, to stand in front of him.\n\nThe door opened and two guards came and took ahold of Ernesto and me. The governor came in.\n\n\"So, have you figured out why you're here, yet?\" he asked.\n\nI felt like giving a sarcastic answer, that the reason I was here was to write a story about his goofy, life-size action doll collection. Oh, the places writing fun stories for the editors back home will get you. But I've learned, over the years, to keep my sarcastic side in check and to play dumb.\n\n\"No idea,\" I said.\n\n\"None at all?\" the governor asked.\n\nGiven his mocking tone, I tried to think further through the potential options for the fun treatment we were being given.\n\n\"How about if I refresh your memory,\" the governor said. \"A year ago, you wrote an investigative piece about allegations of new drug trafficking in Cuernavaca. You wrote about the marriage of my niece to an important businessman, who had just opened a large apartment complex with a golf course, and you raised suspicions that the owners of the golf course\u2014El Para\u00edso\u2014were involved in laundering drug money. Does this ring any bells?\"\n\nIt did, of course.\n\n\"That article was completely false, and you will write a retraction. You are going to turn in your resignation to your newspaper, and they are going to write an article saying you have been dismissed, completely, for improper conduct. The article will appear on the front page of your newspaper.\"\n\nI was used to hearing about these kinds of requests, for local journalists, on a daily basis. There were dozens and dozens of journalists killed trying to cover the drug war. There were more than dozens told to shut up what they were writing, or they would be killed. The situation for local journalists was horrible, and getting even more so all the time. It was something that we foreign journalists talked about regularly when we got together, informally, at a bar in Mexico City every Friday. The noose of the violence was closing on anyone who wanted to expose the truth. But, so far, almost all foreign journalists had been left alone. And there was a fine line that we all knew, usually, not to cross. Don't give any specific details of the hideouts of the drug kingpins. Don't go into too many details about the people being pulled off buses and shot at gunpoint. Keep the articles from a mid-level distance, about the general trends in the drug wars, about the general territorial battle. As long as the focus was kept a little further back, you could get the broad story out while avoiding putting your own life at risk. But it seemed, in naming the governor's niece in passing, I had put the focus in too close. And\u2014who knew?\u2014maybe he had some financial interest in the El Para\u00edso golf club.\n\n\"I'm sorry if you were offended, in any way, by the article,\" I said. \"I had no idea your niece was mentioned.\" I looked at the guards holding Uzi submachine guns.\n\n\"The question isn't whether I was offended but that you're spreading lies,\" the governor said. \"Do you stand by your story?\"\n\nI have learned that if you are going to be in this business, you can be polite, you can weasel around a bit to get the bad guys you report on off your back, you can tell a few white lies to be able to keep reporting the truth; but there are some moments when you have to stand up to the bullies. If you don't, they'll push you right over.\n\n\"Yes, I do,\" I said.\n\n\"Yes, you 'do' what?\" the governor said. \"You stand by your lies?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do stand by the story.\"\n\nOne of the guards twisted my arm behind my back.\n\n\"You see this guy\u2014Ernesto,\" the governor said. \"He never should have brought you here. I don't know what he was thinking. Maybe he was thinking he's some kind of special smartass. Maybe he was thinking he knows more than he knows about everything. Here's the deal. You are going to leave this place, and you are going to retract the story, and you're going to quit being a journalist, and if I see you write one more story, then I'm going to send some people to your apartment in La Condesa and I'm going to have you taken out. You have one week to leave the country.\" He had his men take us upstairs, and they pushed us out the door. I'd never seen Ernesto, such a big guy, look scared before, but leaving the governor's house in Cuernavaca, he took off his shades and he didn't look so big or tough anymore.\n\n\u2014\n\nBack in Mexico City, I got to thinking about my twenty years of writing stories in Mexico. What had it all been for? After all the stories about every kind of human interest I could find, had I made any difference to the world? Had I done anything to help the people around me, or was I just documenting the freak show and the river of human misery? I'm fifty-two years old. I look younger than my years, with big muscles, with the build, still, of a Marine, but my head is bald and no one can deny the passage of time. I could call the editors in Houston and tell them it was time for the ship to come in. I could ask for an editing job that would be cushier than writing the day-to-day ins and outs of a country on the brink of descending into chaos. If you live in Mexico City, you can have a fine, perfectly nice life. I have a fairly comfortable apartment with modern furniture. If you stay away from the riskier stories, you can do all right as a foreign correspondent. The big papers like the _New York Times_ rotate their staff in and out of countries, so you don't get too comfortable in any one place, so you don't lose your edge and hunger as a reporter looking for stories. They do it to eliminate too much bias, as you get too close to the \"natives.\" Maybe it was time to pack it all in. If I left, I didn't have to call it caving in to a piss-ant, small-time politician in Cuernavaca. I could call it coming to a \"lifetime decision\" after some \"reflection.\" But that was a bunch of bullshit. If I left, it would prove I was becoming soft and that I hadn't given a damn about real journalism, about really standing up for the truth, since the first day I'd arrived in Mexico City, twenty years before.\n\nI decided to ignore the threat from the governor. It's not that he was all bluff, but a lot of these evil guys, lurking in the shadows, just try to scare you and then\u2014like a dog barking\u2014they move on. It didn't make much sense for them to try to take out a foreign journalist, especially an American one. It could lead to too many investigations by the CIA and the State Department.\n\nSeven days had passed and I went to a new, fancy bar in Mexico City called La Romita. There's an old, art deco staircase that sweeps up a couple of floors to the main area. The bar is grandiose, with black and white checkered tiles, bartenders whipping up exotic drinks of mezcal mixed with guava juice that they flamb\u00e9. The customers are trendy, dressed in the latest foreign jeans that go for $250 a pair in the Meatpacking District of NYC. Women come and go in strapless concoctions that show off their Acapulco tans. Men wear leather motorcycle jackets, or the latest glasses and shoes imported from Italy. This is the crowd of young hipsters that live off the bank accounts of their mothers and fathers, the elite-in-waiting of Mexico who, while they're young, party hard, proving how cool they are by how much money they can spend, while beggars lurk on the streets outside.\n\nErnesto's band has an underground, decadent touch, and they were invited to play in the bar, so I chose to go see what was up in the club. I wanted Ernesto to know I wasn't going to leave Mexico. I wanted to let him know he shouldn't worry\u2014any more than me, pretending I wasn't visibly worried\u2014about what had happened in the dungeon the week before.\n\nThe ceiling of La Romita is two stories high, with a glass roof that opens to the sky. A wide balcony faces the street, hovering above the uneven sidewalks below. A couple hundred clients were packed into the space, some standing on the staircase that floats to the upper floor, dressed in their finest clothes, one woman with a Gucci cream-colored dress.\n\nAs the band got louder and louder, Ernesto standing ramrod straight, the crowd was into the decadence of seeing a punk-sounding rock band in such an elegant space. Ernesto spewed out his somewhat filthy lyrics, and people ordered fine martinis with Bombay Sapphire gin.\n\nThe gunshots came from out of nowhere. Maybe the guy who shot Ernesto was up on the top balcony of the bar, shooting down at him. Maybe he was mixed into the crowd. Three shots came fast, and by the sound\u2014so powerful it cut into the amplified guitars\u2014it must have been a 9mm weapon, something as big as a Glock 9.\n\nThe crowd recoiled. People shouted and fell to the floor. The bartender, next to me, couldn't see what was happening, at first. He seemed to think it was all part of the show, of the craziness of the packed bar. He lit another flamb\u00e9ed cocktail, and then, when he figured out what was happening, he doused the flame, dropping the drink on the floor.\n\n\u2014\n\nI filed the story, that night, to the editors. I told them, at last, about the threat I'd received from the governor a week before. I hadn't wanted to tell them, because I was afraid they would pull me back home. I didn't want to leave where I'd been living the last twenty years.\n\nI called up the editors and told them, \"You've got to publish this story. The significance is that the violence is now coming to Mexico City. It's finally infiltrating the capital. This is going to be the next wave of the violence.\"\n\n\"Then get out of there,\" they said.\n\n\"But there's no reason for me to leave, yet,\" I said. \"It's not that dangerous for me, yet.\"\n\n\"Well, either it's dangerous or it's not. And if it's not, then this story isn't something new. Look, Shawn, you've been down there too long. You've been down there twenty years. Maybe it's time to come back to Houston. We could find you a position at the foreign desk, or you could take time off to write a book, for a while. You could take the time you need to get back to some real stories.\"\n\nIt was two in the morning. Normally, this was the time when I would finish up going over a last-minute major piece with the editors, before they put the story to bed. But for the first time I could remember, when I said the story should run, they said no.\n\nI went outside my apartment, taking my dog to the Parque M\u00e9xico, which runs in a big oval shape, with tall palm trees, where there was once a racetrack, decades ago. I walked around the park. It was so late, none of the usual people walking their dogs were in the park. I took out a cigarette, and I looked up at the palm fronds waving in dark silhouettes against the lit-up sky, over the giant valley of Mexico City. It was time to pack it in. It was time to move on. I was no longer strong enough, anymore. I was no longer a bounty hunter.\n\n# EVERYTHING ELSE IS GOING TO BE FINE\n\nTo live in Mexico City you have to pretend there aren't many dangers. There are the occasional bullets, of course, which most of you \"gringos\" read about in the papers. I put the word gringos in quotation marks because I know better than to make that kind of slur, but the honest truth is that's the way we think about you guys to the north. We have all sorts of guesses as to why we call you gringos. One of the reasons, supposedly, is that you guys wore green uniforms when you came down and took what are now Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico during the Mexican-American War. So we called you \"green-gos.\" But that doesn't make much sense to anyone who speaks English, which I do. Take the origin as you like it, when we call you a gringo we mean it as a slur.\n\nI know what it's like to speak to you about these things because I work for an American company, run by the U.S. gov't., called U.S. Wheat. I've been working at the company for four years now. It's not ideal. It's a place I found some work, with a degree in biology, when the economic crisis started in 2008. The goal of U.S. Wheat is to make sure everyone in the world\u2014from the Philippines to the tip of Tierra del Fuego\u2014eats as much wheat grown in America as they can. And by \"America\" I'm using that all-encompassing word by which you guys call the U.S. (even though there are other Americas, like South America, and even though we, in Mexico, think about Mexico as being in North America, which you guys think is in Central America. Don't even get the Canadians going on whether they think they're Americans).\n\nIn the office, I never tell my boss I'm gay.\n\nHe's two hundred and fifty pounds and from Kansas. He wears a crisp, white cotton shirt, ironed by his _muchacha_ \u2014the maid that most upper-middle-class Mexicans have\u2014and he pits out, leaving big sweat stains under his arms. He moves as an imposing presence through the office, speaking to us only when he has something he wants us to do. \"You'll have to go to Colombia at the end of April for the Wheat Conference,\" he'll say. And, even though I already have ten other trips planned around then for work, I'll have to jiggle them around to fit in the trip to Colombia.\n\nNo one else at the office knows I'm gay, either. There are four of us. It's a tight space. One of the four is our secretary, and if I told even one of them, they'd all know right away.\n\n\u2014\n\nIf you looked at me, the first thing you would think isn't: he's gay; you'd think: he's a runner. I'm skinny. I'm five feet seven. My chin is fairly triangular at the bottom. I guess I've been told my face is a bit boyish. I have soft brown eyes, with somewhat long eyelashes. My hair is straight and dirty blond, combed with a part on the side, and a bit long like a boy's, though I'm thirty-seven. It's hard to know what we look like to others, but I would say I look like a runner. Someone else might notice my thin legs. They might notice I always rush around, never really stopping, always in some kind of motion. Even when I'm sitting, my hands are moving, or my mouth is moving. I don't like long pauses between sentences. I like to speak fast, even in English.\n\nSo I'm always doing something: sending off a link to a YouTube video, like of a thirteen-year-old girl singing about what it feels like to suck at the tit of her mother. That song is called \"La Tetita.\" It's campy, with this Peruvian girl dressed up in traditional mountain clothing and a tight blouse, swaying back and forth like a little girl, singing out in this high voice, \"De d\u00eda y de noche, la tetita\"\u2014 _All night and all day, the titty_. I just think that's hilarious. So I send that around to a few of my friends.\n\nOr I go to el Cabaret. I like to go to the Cabaret. It's a theater in the neighborhood of Coyoac\u00e1n where they perform all sorts of outlandish, raucous theater. Men dress up as women. People sing in drag. They do political spoofs, making fun of the president, or whatever. I go with a small group of my gay friends who, like me, are out to each other at night but not to our coworkers or to our parents or to most people during the day.\n\n\u2014\n\nSix months ago, I was out running on one of the elevated freeways that stretch across Mexico City. When I'm heading into a marathon, I'll do a twenty-mile run. I run six miles every day, and then I'll do a twenty-miler at the end of training. It's almost impossible to run in normal places in the city. There are a few running tracks and a couple big parks, like Chapultepec, but those get pretty confining when you want to do twenty miles. There are oncoming buses and cars everywhere in the city, and no one follows the traffic rules in any case, so I run up on the elevated freeways. It's illegal to be up there. But, unlike in the U.S., no one ever comes to force you out of the way. There's a Wild West attitude in Mexico, so if you do things like you know what you're doing, most people just let you do what you want. So I run along the side of the freeway, elevated sometimes more than ten stories in the air. Up there I feel free, like no one knows who I am. I look out over the wide valley of Mexico City, with hundreds of thousands of concrete houses below, stretching for miles into the distance until they roll up the ring of mountains far away. The sky is dramatic, with big gray clouds that come and go, indifferent to the activities of the human beings below. There are more and more skyscrapers in Mexico City. In the center there are few, because of the prevalence of earthquakes. Most are up on a hillside called Santa Fe, and only one big tower, of Ixe Banco, stands in the center. The building is fifty-five stories tall, but it looks minuscule and alone beneath the clouds, standing ostracized, smaller than the power of the choices nature makes.\n\nI wonder, sometimes, looking at the clouds, why God made me gay. It's a question that comes to me every time I run, looking at the immensity of the force of nature and at the Catholic churches that dot the floor of the jammed urban valley below. Call it what you will, a gift, a curse, I'll tell you what they call it here: _maric\u00f3n_. Faggot.\n\nSix months ago, on the segundo piso\u2014the elevated highway\u2014a van pulled up beside me and drove slowly, neck and neck, as I ran forward as steadily as I could in my mental running zone.\n\nThe van was a Ford Aerostar\u2014thirty years old\u2014with the paint peeling, white tinged yellow from the Mexican sun. One of the guys on the passenger side rolled down his window. He was drunk and he held a bottle of tequila.\n\n\"Where you running to, faggot?\" he yelled out the window.\n\nI ignored him. I've discovered silence is the best way to confront that kind of comment.\n\n\"Eh, _maric\u00f3n_! I'm speaking to you! Where are you running to in your faggoty clothing?\" I had on my usual electric-blue nylon running jacket with fast-looking white stripes running down the back. I was wearing my black running tights, which hug me like a second layer of skin. My shoes had neon yellow soles and silver reflective mesh. It was standard gear for any runner.\n\n\"He must be a faggot,\" the man yelled, \"because he doesn't answer me.\" The driver, on the other side, seemed to look into his side mirror to see if any cops were behind him.\n\nHe sped up, pulled over in front of me in the lane I was running in, and halted. Four men jumped out of the van. They were all drunk. They spoke with slurred words to each other.\n\n\"Grab the motherfucker,\" the guy who'd been shouting out the window said. \"Hijo de puta,\" he said, which means son of a whore. \"Just tell me you're a faggot. Just tell it to me. Just admit it. Look at your fagotty-ass haircut and the way you run.\"\n\nI didn't break my normal run as I approached them. I thought I could just ignore them and pass through. In Mexico, a lot of times, you have to bluff. You have to pretend you don't hear or see things, because if you do the whole world will come crashing in on you like a tidal wave. It was only when I got closer to them, and I could see they weren't going to let me go, that I started to sprint to the left to get away from them, but the drunk guy who'd yelled at me out of the van lunged and caught the back of my right leg. He pulled my foot out, suddenly, into the air like a ballerina in an arabesque. Then he pulled my other leg out from under me, and I fell with my chin onto the pavement. I struggled as much as I could. I'm small, and a bit scrawny, but I'm tough.\n\n\"Just let me go,\" I said to the guys, firmly, with my face against the ground. \"This is going to be a problem for you if you keep holding on to me.\"\n\n\"You've got to be kidding me. A problem for me, if I keep holding on to _you_?\" the guy who'd had the tequila bottle said. The others laughed in unison, with me squirming like a worm on the ground.\n\nThey kicked me in the ribs. They kicked my face. They kicked me until I went unconscious, and flopped me like a U over the guardrail as a warning sign to any other faggot who might come along. When I finally came to, I felt a wave of nausea, the shock of vertigo, and I looked down from the second floor of the highway at the pavement far below, cars rushing into the remote, aloof distance of the city.\n\n\u2014\n\nThe next time I saw my family, I did not tell my father what had happened on the highway. I did not tell my sister. I didn't tell the one of my two brothers who was present. I didn't tell my grandmother who was there. I believe I am close to my sister and to my father and my brother and my grandmother, but I have never told them I am gay.\n\nThe reason for us all getting together was to celebrate the upcoming wedding of my sister, which would take place in a few months. She had told me over the phone she was getting married, and I was really pleased for her, because I like the guy she'd been going out with. When my father heard the news, he immediately organized a brunch at one of our favorite restaurants in the center of the city.\n\nMy sister hadn't arrived yet for the brunch. My father and I waited at the crowded restaurant to get a seat. It's an old Colonial building, like many in the center of Mexico City, which reminds you of the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish, when Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic king and queen, took Spain back from the Muslims and sent Columbus forth to the New World to bring \"civilization.\" The staircases in the restaurant, of ancient cedar wood, have yellow Sevillian tiles between each step that commemorate the taking of the Mexican people under the \"protective wing\" of the Church.\n\nMy father didn't ask further about my black eye when I told him it was \"nothing.\" It's not that he wasn't concerned, it's that he knows when he's approaching too close into my private life. Sometimes, I imagine he must have known I was gay. It's simply not possible he couldn't know. But we kept complete silence about the matter. I never volunteered if I was going out with someone. I'd simply keep the conversation light, or about something\u2014anything\u2014other than what my sexuality was. As we waited for my sister to arrive with her new fianc\u00e9, my father said we would have to go looking for a bouquet of hideous plastic flowers, that afternoon, to give my sister. It was a running joke in the family to give a kitsch gift to celebrate marriages. It was our way of showing deep love. And I knew I would never get one of those kitsch gifts.\n\nMy grandmother was the only one who didn't follow this protocol of dancing around who I was. Halfway through the meal, later, she turned to me, just after we'd toasted my sister and her fianc\u00e9, and she said, \"And when are you going to get married, Miguelito? You've been a bachelor for too long. Tell us who you're going out with these days?\"\n\nI shrugged my shoulders and said, \"I guess I just haven't met the right one.\"\n\nShe gave me a look like I needed to hurry up. She took my hands in hers, which were old and soft with age, her wedding ring still on her hand, though she had been a widow for twenty-seven years. \"A man without a wife is nothing,\" she said. \"Without a wife a man is like a lost sock fallen to the ground.\"\n\n\u2014\n\nI have been living with a roommate for three years now, and he doesn't know I'm gay. He's home most of the time, and I'm rarely home, traveling the world\u2014especially the Caribbean and South America\u2014promoting U.S. Wheat. He likes to bring friends back to our apartment and to open one beer after another, speaking with his buddies into the night. He's as hetero as they come. He's the kind of guy who plays poker with his friends late into the morning, and wears his jeans a bit baggy, hanging down so his underwear shows. It lets you know he has a lot of hair down there. It lets you know he's a bit stinky.\n\nI take showers every day. I have almost no hair on my body. I like to make sure the bottles in my part of the medicine cabinet are in order. I like to make my bed. I like to cook, when I can, though I'm usually on the road. I don't bring friends over. I don't think they'd like the space. It feels too dominated by my roommate. But I stick with my roommate because he never asks me anything. He just says, \"Hey,\" when I come in the door. He respects my space. I respect his. Everything is properly compartmentalized, and I save on rent.\n\n\u2014\n\n\"If I could have love without sex, that would be my ideal,\" I tell Ra\u00fal. We are on our second date, three months ago. Ra\u00fal is smart. He's a stock trader for Banco Santander. He's older than me, by a few years, and his hair sits like a gray mop on his head. His leather jacket is a size and a half too large for him, and he slouches in his chair, outside at an Italian caf\u00e9 in Polanco, a rich neighborhood of Mexico City, yet in a no-man's-land part of the neighborhood. This caf\u00e9 is known to almost no one. No one fashionable would ever come here or know the place exists. The sign of the caf\u00e9 burns with metallic, fluorescent light. We're the only ones sitting outside, and the caf\u00e9 is about to close.\n\n\"Why would you want love without sex?\" Ra\u00fal says. He seems to ask the question more to the evening air than to me.\n\n\"Because I've never been that interested in penetration, you know? I just want to be hugged. I just want someone to hold me.\"\n\n\"You mean you don't want to be on bottom?\"\n\n\"I don't want to be on top _or_ on bottom. I don't want sex. I want love.\" Like with most people, Ra\u00fal and I lasted no more than a few weeks. We never had sex. Eventually, he got tired of waiting and he moved on.\n\n\u2014\n\nWhen I was thirteen, it happened in back of the cathedral in Cuernavaca where my grandmother used to take me. My parents didn't care about going to church. They went once in a while, and they've been divorced for fifteen years now. But my grandmother took me, regularly, to church, and I became involved. It was the thirteenth of December, and there was a humid chill in the air, though it was a bright, cloudless day.\n\nThe cathedral of Cuernavaca is one of the biggest in Mexico. There's a large patio connected to the main worshipping area. Beneath the portico, around the patio, there are paintings of old frescoes, worn out, with row upon row of the hierarchy of the Church. The priests are scrunched so close together in the paintings, it's hard to tell one from the other. The priests stand over the nuns on the map of the hierarchy. The paintings let you know there's a code of obedience, who is master and who is not.\n\nPadre Francisco took me into his office, after he'd finished the 8 a.m. mass. I was dressed in the long frock of a choirboy. He had never touched me before, but I had heard he'd touched others, and I had remained silent about the rumors I'd heard. He was a major figure in the church, at the time. He told me to put down the large candle he had asked me to carry into his office. He closed the door behind us, and the room was dark except for the big candle, which I had placed on his mahogany desk, where he'd told me to. His cheeks were white with powder, which he seemed to have put on to cover some of the popped capillaries on his face. His glasses were thick, with bifocals and a sharp metallic frame.\n\nWhen I put the candle down, I felt his body suddenly behind me. I felt the weight of his black vestment, a flowing robe as thick as it looked, the heavy cotton brushing against me. He put his claws on my shoulders and squeezed. \"Come now, Miguelito,\" he said. He ran a hand down the side of my ribs. \"The Heavenly Father calls you into his arms,\" he said. He put his lips, old with the juice of wine, against my ear and whispered, \"In the name of the Father I pronounce you my son.\" He lifted my robe and stuck his finger in my asshole. He stuck his penis in me and pushed back and forth, rapidly, for a few minutes, as I lay over the desk with the candle next to my head nearly burning my hair. I didn't say anything. I knew not to say anything. It happened another dozen times, and then he moved on to another.\n\n\u2014\n\nThree days ago, a friend of mine from the Cabaret, Arturo, asked me if I wanted to go to the Vazquez Hermanos Circus with him. The Vazquez Hermanos Circus is one of the five biggest circuses in Mexico. There are more than four hundred smaller circuses that tour around the country. Arturo regularly plays the role of a clown at the Cabaret, and he used to work for the Vazquez Hermanos Circus. After fifteen years of touring with the circus, he gave it up. He loved making the children laugh. He loved handing out balloons to the kids, or play-fighting with the other clowns and watching the whole audience fall back in the aisles with laughter. But the rigors of picking up and traveling after every performance\u2014the circus took six hours to put up, with its three rings, and two hours to take down\u2014wore him out, and he eventually gave up the life on the road.\n\n\"The other thing that got to me,\" he told me once, \"is that when you're a clown no one knows who you really are. They expect you to always be funny. I got tired of people looking at me and assuming the person I was, inside, was the mask.\"\n\nArturo has been a longtime theater partner with me. We go to shows at the Teatro Auditorio Nacional together. Sometimes I get him free tickets, since he doesn't have much money. When the Vazquez Circus came to town, he had two comp tickets, so he asked me to come with him. Arturo can make those sad clown faces, in pantomime, if you don't do what he wants, and I can't resist that look, so I decided to drop what I was doing\u2014preparing for my next U.S. Wheat trip to Nicaragua\u2014to go with him.\n\nDuring the performance, I watched the tightrope walkers sway back and forth as they passed above the arena. I watched the trapeze artists barely grab onto the hands of the receiving man on the other side. I saw a Bengal tiger put his jaws around the neck of the lion tamer. The audience oohed and aahed, on the edge of their seat, wondering if each performer would survive. I was on the edge of my seat, too, but nothing in the show could come close to the fear I experienced after the regular performance.\n\nOn our way out of the ring, I saw a bunch of schoolchildren, tightly grouped together. I saw some priests accompanying them, and it reminded me of the way Padre Francisco used to shepherd us to events around the city of Cuernavaca. Arturo must have seen my reaction because he said to me, \"What's wrong? You look pale as a ghost.\"\n\nI found myself unable to stop looking at one priest in particular. He looked so much like Padre Francisco, though he was much younger than Padre Francisco had been. His metallic glasses were the same, now thirty years out of date. He must have been from the countryside, or he wouldn't have been wearing that kind of glasses anymore.\n\nI pulled my shoulder away from Arturo, who had patted me on the arm to try to comfort me. \"It's nothing,\" I said.\n\nArturo looked at me intently, as if trying to make sure I was truly OK. He tried to distract me. \"Let's go to the back of the circus. I want to introduce you to my friends.\"\n\nAs the audience rushed out of the main tent, Arturo took me back toward the trucks, waiting behind the three-poled, big, movable arena. Dozens of men were already rushing about, putting the hippopotamuses, tigers, elephants, and camels into their cages, giving them straw and snapping the faces of the animals away from the bars if they tried to poke their noses out too far.\n\n\"Come back here, further,\" Arturo said. \"I want you to meet the man who taught me everything I know about acting. He's the one who convinced me to be a clown.\"\n\nWe approached an old, wood trailer, with its red paint beginning to peel off. On the outside center of the trailer a large poster of a clown laughing uproariously was plastered to the wood. The mouth of the clown was open with melodramatic joy, and no sound came out of his mouth, but the promise of laughter was implied.\n\nArturo opened the trailer. I looked around, seeing no one at first, and Arturo pointed toward the floor at a dwarf still dressed in the costume of a clown, with a bowler hat with polka dots, and clown-red cheeks, his lips drawn with makeup in an upward swoop on both sides, a tear penciled in black and white coming down off his left eye. His Rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer nose had already come off. But in all other ways he still looked like he had just come from the stage.\n\nWhen the dwarf saw Arturo he began to pull a long handkerchief out of his short pants. He pulled and pulled, and one handkerchief led to another, all connected in a long line; he pantomimed struggling to get to the end of the handkerchief, and the cloth came further and further, coiling into his hands and down to the floor. He pulled, and he pulled, and it seemed the handkerchief would never end. Arturo pantomimed back, in silent laughter, slapping his knees, throwing his head and chest back uproariously, laughing so the whole audience could see. It was a sign of mutual respect, a sign Arturo had learned well from his master, the dwarf. When it seemed the string of handkerchiefs could come out no longer, the dwarf gave one last harsh tug and pulled out a stuffed rabbit that seemed as big as the pant space around his legs.\n\nJust then, a cold draft of air came from behind me, and I turned to see who was at the door. A man with a baseball cap with the logo of Ed Hardy\u2014with a skull on the cap and a bloody dagger through the skull, in the style of a tattoo, with shiny rhinestones like white diamonds studded all over the cap\u2014had punched open the door. He strode into the trailer, moving slowly with his hands patting the sides of his jeans like he was itching to pull out a gun. He wore a red leather jacket, unzipped most of the way to show a white undershirt below. His hair beneath the cap, to the sides, was gelled back, combed too neatly. The cap sat large on his head and cocked to the side.\n\n\"Hey, you! Midget,\" he said. \"Where's your boss.\"\n\nThe dwarf dropped the rabbit to the floor, gently. He seemed calm. He seemed like this wasn't the first tense moment he had experienced in his life.\n\n\"The manager is out now,\" the dwarf said.\n\n\"No, he's not,\" the young man said. \"Who the fuck is that behind you?\" And, for the first time, I noticed a man counting money in the back of the trailer. The man at the end wore a suit. I realized, now, he had been the ringmaster during the performance.\n\nThe young gangster grabbed the hand of the dwarf and lifted him in the air, so he dangled with his legs kicking. The gangster went to the back of the trailer to the ringmaster. \"You're late on your fucking payments,\" he said.\n\n\"Business has been slow,\" the ringmaster said.\n\n\"Liar. The tents are full. I saw it myself, today. And the jefe doesn't care if your business has been slow. I'm taking the midget as payment, for now. The jefe says he wants a midget. He says he wants someone to dance for him. He says he's bored.\" The gangster pulled out a gun. He dropped the dwarf to the floor. \"Get up,\" he told the dwarf. \"Stand up. Or are you too short? Dance for me. Dance for me, you ugly piece of shit. Dance for me and maybe you'll grow.\"\n\nThe dwarf looked at the gun. He stood up from the floor and began to dance.\n\nThe gangster looked over at Arturo and me. \"And you, faggot!\" he shouted, pointing his gun at me. \"What the hell are you looking at, you fucking pansy? Does this make you sick? Does all of this dancing make you sick? Take off your pants. Take your pants off and dance with the midget.\"\n\nI took my pants off and moved next to the dwarf. The ringmaster made no sounds of protest. Arturo said, \"No,\" but the gangster shot at the floor in front of him and the sound of the gun burst through my eardrums.\n\n\"Get in front of the midget,\" the gangster said. I walked in front of the dwarf. \"Now, you! Midget. Pretend to fuck the faggot. Show him who's on top. Get up on a stool and show us you can make him your whore.\"\n\nThe dwarf got up on a stool and pretended to press his body against me like he was making love. And maybe it was the sight of the priest, earlier, coming out of the circus tent, but I felt, once more, the presence of Padre Francisco, and I bent forward crying.\n\nThe gangster leaned back, roaring. \"Oh, I knew it. I knew you were a maric\u00f3n! This is too much.\" He wiped tears of laughter from his eyes. He took the dwarf and went to the door. \"If any of you says a word about this, if any of you says anything, you're dead.\"\n\nHe pointed his hand in the air like a pistol and fired; then he left with the dwarf.\n\n\u2014\n\nThis morning, I went up to the elevated highway to run. I needed time to think. I needed to make sense of what had happened to me at the circus. Arturo was looking frantically for his friend, the dwarf. The ringmaster had told him to keep quiet about the whole affair. He'd told Arturo he would make the payment soon, and that the dwarf would be returned then. He begged Arturo not to go to the police. \"Just shut up about the whole thing,\" he said. \"Shut up about it and everything will turn out best. If you get the police involved they'll come after me. They'll say I did something wrong. They always screw up everything.\"\n\nThe ringmaster was asking for silence in a country that is always asking for silence. This morning, before I went running, I picked up the newspaper, and I saw a headline about the new president, Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto. The president told the press they were writing too many negative things about the country. They were writing about too much crime instead of all the wonderful, positive things taking place in the country. \"Write about the real news,\" the president said. \"Don't write about the junk.\"\n\nArturo told me he wouldn't stay silent about his friend. After the circus, I had accompanied him to the police, at the nearest station. We went in to file an urgent report of a kidnapping. We told the police officer exactly what had happened\u2014minus me standing without my pants and the dwarf pretending to have sex with me.\n\n\"When do you think you will have some information?\" Arturo said. \"When can we expect to hear something? I don't want this case to become just like one of the others. I want you to do something about this man. He's like a father to me.\"\n\n\"You can rest assured we will look into the matter fully,\" the police officer said. He took the printout of the case and put it on a stack of others. There must have been twenty-five cases sitting in the tray above his desk. He seemed in no rush to touch any of them. He asked his secretary for some tea. \"Give me some extra sugar,\" he said, and he squeezed at her bottom.\n\nArturo and I had spent the last two days driving around the city looking for any sign of the man with the baseball cap and the red leather jacket. If we could find him, Arturo said, we would tell some other police officers where he was located. Or we would free his friend the dwarf and not even bother with the police. \"That's the only way to get anything done in this country now,\" Arturo said. \"If you see your own bicycle has been stolen, you have to steal it back.\"\n\nI was petrified, of course, as to what would happen to Arturo's friend. The more hours after a crime begins in Mexico, the less chance it will ever be solved. The case slips into a collective amnesia. The whole country is weighed down with the guilt of disappeared people who were loved but forgotten.\n\nBut as I ran, what concerned me most wasn't, I have to admit, the dwarf. What concerned me most were my own efforts at amnesia. I had never told anyone of Padre Francisco. I had never shared my inner secret. And the wound that was festering within me wasn't only the wound of being abused by him. In my mind, the questions that I had turned over and over, and that I turned over and over again as I ran, were: Was I responsible for my abuse? Had I somehow led Padre Francisco on? Had I enticed him? Or, was I gay because he had somehow made me that way?\n\nAnd yet, as I ran along the upper floor of the highway, it came to me that for far too long I had been conflating the two\u2014Padre Francisco and me. I had been assuming there was some relationship between the two, when there was none. I realized this as I thought about the dwarf being forced to entertain the gangster, and as I thought over the whole incident at the circus. The gangster had forced the dwarf to perform for him. The gangster had put a gun in front of him. What choice did the dwarf have? If he didn't dance, he would have been dead meat. The gangster had ridiculed the dwarf for being a dwarf, but he didn't _become_ a dwarf because of the cruelty of being put on exhibition. He was a dwarf and had always been a dwarf. And he would die a dwarf. The cruelty of the gangster had nothing to do with who the dwarf, fundamentally, was.\n\nLikewise, I had intertwined the two. I had confused my sexuality with the abuse of Padre Francisco. I had assumed I was somehow responsible for what he had done to me, and though I knew it shouldn't be the case, I felt guilt for being gay. I felt that being gay was a sin. I felt that my sexuality\u2014who I was at my core\u2014was wrong. But if the dwarf was no more responsible for himself than being born who he was, then why should I torment myself for who I am?\n\nSlowly, methodically, I worked through these ideas as I ran along the pavement. It might seem I should have come to these conclusions years ago. It might seem these ideas were so simple that surely I would have understood them before. But until the violence of the moment of being forced to dance with the dwarf, of being forced to be his victim, playing out the role, in some way, that I had once played out with Padre Francisco\u2014yet as a full grown adult who could now think about what he had just experienced\u2014I could not come to these conclusions.\n\nI ran along the upper roof of the city, and I could see layers of clouds upon clouds, just as the mind is layered in all of its confusion. I saw the twinning of lampposts as they came out of the sides of the pavement, climbing up with hard metal, splitting forcefully into two lights that lead against and away from each other. I saw a crow attack a smaller bird and dive at it and try to humiliate the other bird, forcing it away from its hidden nest beneath the highway. I looked down at the traffic on the lower floor, rushing back and forth, cars coming in and out, and I realized the cars stop for no one, you have to break your own path forward through the traffic.\n\n\u2014\n\nThis morning, after running, after taking a shower to clean every inch of my body, I put on my crispest white cotton shirt. I took out an old iron and unwrinkled the fabric. I put on a tie, although I never wear a tie to the office\u2014only when I go out on the road to sell and promote U.S. Wheat. I put on a blue blazer, a pair of smooth khaki pants, and I polished my shoes. I didn't have to go into the office, today. Technically, I was off because I was headed out on the road tomorrow.\n\nI put my running shoes in the closet. I had been running away from myself for years.\n\nWhen I arrived at the office, I asked my boss, the secretary, and my other coworker for a meeting at eleven. They looked at me, surprised to see me in the office and so dressed up. My boss looked me up and down. He said, \"What's up with the spiffy clothes? You going to communion today?\" He said the last words in a sarcastic tone. He knew I almost never went to church. \"How about at eleven-fifteen?\" he said. He always had to have the last word.\n\n\"I can't do it then,\" I said. \"It has to be at eleven.\" I was tired of him always pushing us around in the office. It was all the same to him\u201411:00 or 11:15\u2014so I told him it had to be at eleven.\n\nAt eleven we all gathered around the conference room table. The boss had a box of Cracker Jack with him. He didn't care for local, Mexican snacks, and he bought junk food at the U.S. embassy commissary.\n\nWhen they were all gathered, I closed my eyes and I saw an image of Arturo's friend, the dwarf. I saw him encouraging me, pulling his handkerchief longer and longer until I laughed. I saw an image, in my mind, of Padre Francisco behind me, and I took the handkerchief and I tied up Padre Francisco with the dwarf's cloth, binding his hands and feet, wrapping the cloth, of bright yellow and blue handkerchiefs, around Padre Francisco's eyes. I did not open my eyes, at first. I kept them closed as I spoke. \"I have something I want to tell you. For thirty-seven years I have denied who I am. I have been in the closet my whole life.\" I paused. My voice had started out quavering, a bit, but now it was strong. \"I am gay,\" I said. I opened my eyes and looked firmly at my boss. His mouth was paused, in midair, with bits of snack floating in mid-arc. And then he continued chewing and said, \"You need to get me that presentation to go to Colombia. You're late on that. Everything else is going to be fine.\"\n\n# THE PRISON BREAKOUT\n\nThis morning, I took the first steps to help a prisoner in a maximum-security prison in Mexico make a breakout. I brought in a metal file in the base of my briefcase. I have a black, simple nylon bag, which I have worn for years, as I speak to death row inmates. Usually I carry the bag in the U.S., bringing files to support and represent death row cases in the U.S. I have been living in Mexico City for twenty-two years now. I am a U.S. national. I am also a writer. I was down in Mexico City for five years, writing away, trying to have an intellectual life, reading books seriously, and living the cheaper life that is possible in Mexico, writing some fiction but then basically getting more and more involved in tracking down nonfiction stories for magazines and putting together a book of essays about all of the humanity that I found swirling about me in Mexico. That wasn't going to pay the bills alone, so I took a job working for the U.S. government, looking into the background of death row inmates in the U.S. who are Mexican. Before any of the cases is finally exhausted someone has to, by law, check to see if there are any mitigating circumstances that might help in favor of the death row inmate. Someone has to go into the town of the inmate, or wherever they come from, and speak to the family members and to the people who grew up with the inmate, to see what kind of circumstances the prisoner grew up in, and to see if there is any background information which the court should know about that might help to explain how the prisoner became such a deadly individual.\n\nThis is strange work, in that I am constantly surrounded by people who know they raised a killer, a true killer; and I myself, while I have a lot of sympathy for these killers, do not deny that in 97 percent of the cases the man in prison is someone who genuinely did murder someone. But the more you get into this business, tracking down information about the people behind bars, you can't help but notice many of the cases do not stack up. Many times, it's clear someone behind bars simply could not have been the person who committed the crime he's been convicted of.\n\nFor years and years, when I came across those cases, I simply presented my findings to the court. I did my research as best I could. My job has not been to reopen cases, and I don't generally see my job that way. As I said, in most cases the man is guilty. But guilty or not, you can say I am hired to see the humanity of the prisoners as they work their way through the U.S. justice system, until most of them, after they exhaust all possibilities, are finally put to death.\n\nMy work, which is paid for, is for the criminal justice system in the U.S. I am not paid to help or to work with prisoners in Mexico. Down in Mexico, they don't have the death penalty. But they do happily put prisoners behind bars.\n\nThe case of J\u00e9sus Martinez, in Mexico, is a case I would normally never have been caught up in, precisely because there is no one to investigate cases like Martinez's in Mexico. There are no court-appointed researchers in Mexico to find mitigating circumstances about someone put in the slammer for life. Finding an \"impartial judge\" is even harder in Mexico. There is not a jury system in Mexico the way we have in the U.S. There are not the checks and balances that can force a judge to hold back, to momentarily pause and consider which ways he may be wrong in his assumptions, or which ways the police may have taken evidence improperly, or which ways witnesses may be lying. Instead, the judge is like a god down here, who processes case after case, slowly, with witnesses often rounded up by the police and told they'd better write down on paper what the police want or they're going to be beaten up. I don't want to crap on the system of justice in Mexico too much. No system is perfect, anywhere. Some systems don't even exist, in some countries\u2014that is, in some countries, where there is, for example, shariah, the victim is lined up at a stake and stoned to death to enforce God's will. Mexico is nothing like that. And yet, even with a judge, a robe, and the occasional Latin word thrown in, it is certainly not a place where _I_ would want to be charged with a crime.\n\nIn the case of Martinez, the main piece of evidence against him is that he is deaf and he knows sign language. Someone went into a bank and pointed to the teller, and without spoken words, using only his hands, directed the teller to give him all the money. He had an accomplice in the case, a man he used sign language with during the robbery. Everyone clearly saw two men using sign language. The teller behind the counter put money into the bag she was given, at a Bancomer bank, as slowly as possible. She followed the procedures she was given when she'd trained to become a teller. She put an ink bomb in the bag with the 500-peso notes the thief was taking. The ink bomb was supposed to explode, later, to mark the bills, so they could be tracked down by the cops. But as she was following the procedures, perfectly, and after she'd pressed the button beneath her counter to indicate a robbery was in progress, and just as the co-conspirator in the robbery was holding an elderly woman hostage in the back of the bank to let the tellers know they should hand over the money quickly and without fuss, the teller handed over the money in the bag the robber had given her, the bag was just in front of the face of the crook at the counter, and the ink bomb exploded in his face. In pandemonium, the second bank robber, holding his gun to the temple of the elderly woman, shot her dead. Both of the men committing the robbery signed back and forth it was time to flee. Apparently, according to someone watching the whole thing\u2014there were fifty at the crime scene in the bank\u2014the first robber signed to the other in sign language, \"What the hell have you done? How could you have killed that woman?\"\n\nThe second signed back, \"I didn't mean to, but you scared me when you jumped back from the bag.\"\n\n\"Run, run,\" the first crook signed.\n\nThey ran out of the bank, to bicycles they had waiting. They were both dressed in black, wearing ski masks. The crime occurred in the part of Mexico City where the Avenida Isabel la Cat\u00f3lica enters an area of printers' rows, where hundreds of little businesses print T-shirts, plastic mugs, and business cards, etc. The two rode off on small BMX bicycles, riding as fast as they could, the first crook holding the bag of money, a burlap sack that normally holds coffee beans and that was covered with ink stains and filled with worthless bills. They swerved in and out of the hundreds of small buyers who had come from around the city to order their little entrepreneurial projects in the printers' rows. The crooks disappeared behind the printing machines, into the cracks of Mexico City. The few, fat cops\u2014otherwise known as _panzones_ \u2014ran after the crooks, one of the cops trying to shoot at the criminals as they escaped, but failing to shoot either of them. Back in the bank, people fell to the ground in fear. The old woman, a grandmotherly type, in a nicely ironed brown dress with a sash carefully tied around her waist, her gray hair neatly combed back in place, had crumpled to the ground, dead. Her family would never see the lovely abuelita again.\n\nNeedless to say, the case was a mess, as all cases are a mess, in that there was a genuine victim, a genuine tragedy at hand. A week later, Martinez was hauled in to the local police station by a local cop. He was a deaf man. He knew sign language. He had a BMX bicycle, which he liked to do tricks on. Never mind he didn't fit any of the other descriptions of either of the thieves. He was short when the men who'd committed the crime\u2014everyone agreed, when I eventually interviewed them\u2014were tall. Martinez didn't have any money when they found him. There was no evidence of any coffee bag and none of the 500-peso bills were discovered with him. His whole family agreed, independently, that he had been at a birthday party at the time of the crime\u2014a party for him. He worked as a mime in a troupe, making money downtown doing street theater, when he wasn't working in the mechanics' garage where he worked the rest of his time. The man who ran the garage was questioned independently, by me, about the birthday party. Everyone agreed on the color of clothes Martinez had been wearing at the birthday party; where the party had been held; that friends of his, who he mimed with, had been at the party; what food they had eaten at the party; and the exact time of the party, because the performance troupe of a friend\u2014a group of clowns\u2014had been brought in to perform.\n\nAfter all my time looking at death row cases in the U.S., and meeting families down in Mexico of the perpetrators of crimes, it was clear to me the case against Martinez was so flimsy, based solely on the fact he was deaf, that I couldn't believe he could ever have been convicted. But there he was, behind bars, in a maximum-security prison in Mexico City, placed in prison for the rest of his life, with no real chance of parole, for the killing of a lovely grandmother who I was certain he'd never met before in his life.\n\n\u2014\n\nI have been thinking about what made me bring the metal file in to Martinez this morning. What made me act? What made me cross the line? I am normally an observer, not an actor. I sit on the edge of the world, like most writers, watching and taking in every detail, seeing more, perhaps, than any person should see.\n\nGrowing up in New York, I began to see lies at an early age. I remember, once, as a boy, watching my brother steal some candy from the store around the corner. He ran and ran with the few pieces he'd stolen from Mr. Horowitz's local grocery on Fourteenth Street and Eighth Avenue. He did it for the sport, more than anything. We didn't have much money, but we weren't so poor he needed to rob that candy. I watched from across the street as my brother came dashing out of the grocery, Mr. Horowitz running onto the street after him twisting and huffing and puffing through the cars, until he hung his head, hangdog on the sidewalk, with my brother running away through the alleyways of the West Village. My brother had taken that man's bread and butter, the fruits of his hard work, and I asked my brother, when he got home and he ate the candy slowly in his bedroom, why he'd done it.\n\n\"What? Done what? I didn't do nothing.\"\n\n\"But you stole Mr. Horowitz's candy. I saw you do it,\" I said. I was no older than seven. It was my first experience with a bald-faced lie, something I knew was wrong staring me in the face. I could have told on my brother. I could have gone to tell my parents, or a teacher, or even Mr. Horowitz.\n\nI was shocked when my brother said, \"Georgie did it.\" Georgie was a black boy who lived down the street. \"Georgie took 'em. I didn't do nothin'.\"\n\nAnd I didn't do nothing, either. I watched, I observed. I saw him make his racist accusation, pinning the blame on another boy, simply because he knew he was an easy target.\n\nAs I grew up, I saw the same thing, over and over. I saw the lies pile up. I'm fifty-two. I was born in 1961. I remember, as a kid, watching President Lyndon Johnson on our black and white TV telling us North Vietnam was a country of Communist invaders that wanted to destroy my country, and I watched the older brothers of my friends go off to Vietnam to protect my country from Communism, from the evil red carpet that was going to take over the world, but I never saw that red carpet come close to my shores, all I saw was the silent, faraway look of those boys as they came home, looking older in their faces, like men, when they were only twenty-two. And that was the big lie, the lie that let me know my country wasn't going to tell me the truth, and as a kid I watched the protests up at Columbia University, and I took the subway up there when I was just twelve, and I saw students screaming through megaphones, I heard them shouting, \"Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, President Nixon has got to go!\" By then, they were protesting against Watergate and the bombing of Hanoi, and Nixon and Kissinger's plan to end the war with \"Peace with Honor,\" words which even then I could tell had nothing to do with the photos of bombed-out bodies I saw on the front page of the _New York Times_.\n\nMy parents were hardworking Jews who'd immigrated to the U.S. as kids, just before the end of World War II, ferried through England from Germany. I knew that lie, too, when Hitler said he was going to cleanse Europe and make a Reich that would last a thousand years. I grew up with history books in the house, which told of President Wilson and the gassing of World War I, and of the League of Nations, and of the \"War to End All Wars,\" and of Neville Chamberlain's \"Peace in Our Time.\" And I saw the worn books of Yiddish writers that my father would read and finger over and over, which told of the pogroms my ancestors had fled from in Russia before they'd landed in Germany, before they fled to the U.S. The history was everywhere, the history of lies, and power and abuse, and I read those books in bed, sometimes long after my mother said I had to be asleep, with a flashlight under the sheets.\n\nWhen I was older, I knew of other lies, the lies of another president, Ronald Reagan, as he sent money from the secret sale of weapons to the government of Iran, which he'd labeled the devils of Islamic tyranny, but he sold weapons to them anyway, to funnel money off to his secret war in Nicaragua against the Sandinistas. Those were the images I grew up with in college, photos of people dying in mass graves in Nicaragua and El Salvador, all funded by my government.\n\nI am not telling all these things because it is any surprise to anyone hearing about this, I am telling this to give the context to why I took a metal file in to Martinez this morning. Because when I look back at all these pieces of news, at all these incidents, from the stealing of the candy by my brother to the wars and the lies of my politicians\u2014the leaders of the country whose speeches and pronouncements flooded around me like syrup in the air, inescapable, everywhere\u2014I realize that for years and years, my reaction was always one of quiet outrage, of words of denouncement, of curiosity, of anger, of telling others in caf\u00e9s and at my schools that I was upset, but doing nothing. I did nothing. I watched, and knew, and became more and more knowledgeable, and could see the wrong, and I told myself that what mattered was that at least I _knew,_ at least I was aware, at least I was conscious unlike the others who didn't see, who weren't conscious, who didn't even take the first step to responsibility. Because at least I _knew_. I was _informed,_ unlike those other Joes.\n\nAnd when I came down to Mexico City, at the age of thirty, twenty-two years ago\u2014deciding to leave the world of my country behind in the U.S.\u2014wasn't that a political statement, even though I said it was just because I liked Mexico City better than New York? Wasn't I really saying that I wasn't going to participate in the lies of my country anymore? Didn't that make me somehow cleaner and better than my fellow citizens, because I wasn't going to be tainted with the blood of America?\n\nNo, not me. I was a serious thinker, someone who could see things as they were. I read and I read, and I rented a cheap apartment in La Roma, a neighborhood that is now chic in Mexico City, but that wasn't chic at all when I came to Mexico City in 1991. There was a big earthquake in Mexico City in 1985, and the ground of La Roma is on the part of the city that is much looser, since the city was constructed on an old lake in the center of a valley, and the buildings shook and many fell apart in the quake, so the fear of living in such a neighborhood after so many had died meant that the neighborhood was undesirable. So I found a cheap apartment, and I began to live off the savings I had from working as a young journalist in the U.S. I wrote and I wrote, and I conjured up characters that I thought were pregnant with meaning. None of what I was writing was very good, but I was writing so earnestly, with so much belief that what I was writing mattered. Fiction is nothing like writing journalism, and I wasn't making much progress, but all the time I thought I was doing something that might show what I really felt, that might really change the world. Because isn't that what all those great writers, whom I admired so much, like Dostoyevsky, were trying to do, to change the world? Weren't they trying to reflect the pain and torture of our existence back at us so we might take pause and choose to change our ways and reorganize who we were and how we decided to act?\n\nBut my fiction wasn't any good. My characters had no life in them. They were puppets, extensions of my ideology. And after a while I realized that wasn't why Dostoyevsky and the others wrote, in any case. If they brought us to action, it wasn't because they were trying to get us to change our ways, it was a by-product of them simply creating life, and when we looked at life it made us see the need to make changes. If we saw the world as it truly is then it couldn't help but make us pause and reflect that we had to make personal changes, just as the characters always went in these nice arcs from ignorance to enlightenment, to epiphanies that caused them to change their ways.\n\nAnd yet, as I spent days in my small apartment in La Roma, reading and reading, and writing and failing to write well, what I realized is that I had epiphanies up the wazoo. I was one walking, giant epiphany. I had seen the sickness of the world, right in front of me\u2014how far did you really have to go?\u2014looking out at the poverty in my neighborhood, at the poor men sweeping up the streets so the rich men could walk by and make it dirty, again. Did I really need to know more? Did any of us really need to know more? I began to realize the hard thing was to act. The hard thing was to take action, not to know, because knowing was the relatively easy part. I had _known_ that my brother had stolen the candy, I had _known_ the politicians were lying to us all as they waltzed into other countries and stole from those countries and killed their citizens. I had _known_ I was an earnest young man wanting to be pure when I left my country, looking for adventure. It wasn't the knowing that was hard, it was the doing.\n\nSo I took a job doing more of what I thought needed to be done. I took the job to pay the bills, working for the U.S. government with the death row inmates. I took the job meeting the family members of the death row inmates, seeking out any \"mitigating circumstances\" that might influence their sentences. For, Christ!, wasn't the possibility of saving a life the biggest act of doing you could do? The words \"mitigating circumstances\" were the most Orwellian I could think of. Who doesn't have \"mitigating circumstances\" in life? I found the way most of these men grew up poor, and the small shacks where they grew up, and the places where chickens ran around on the street, and where there often isn't any running water, and hell, yes, there are mitigating circumstances, and I presented my findings to the court as ordered, in neat folders, neatly printed out on paper. And all of this was a form of doing, and yet I felt I was still an observer. I wouldn't have broken the law if the law had come looking for me, because I thought the best way to _do_ is from within the system. You can't change the world unless you work within the world the way it is. I didn't want to be one of those guys throwing himself against the barricades in the French Revolution or in the revolts of 1968. I was a thinking man's doer. That's how I would do things. Let others throw the stones; I would do by working within \"the system\" and making it change.\n\nUntil Martinez. Martinez was different. When I saw Martinez, something clicked in me, and I knew I didn't want to be working within the system anymore. I was, for the first time in my life, about to become, as they say, \"radicalized.\"\n\n\u2014\n\nThe first time I saw Martinez, two months ago, he was on the floor in the corner of his cell, smelling of feces that clung to his body. He was in the back, far right corner of the small area that pertained to him, and I thought he wasn't even present. \"Watch out for the prisoner. Keep going forward,\" the warden of the prison told me.\n\n\"Where is he?\" I asked.\n\n\"There. In front of you. To the right, on the ground.\"\n\nI had been in so many Mexican jails before, nothing should have surprised me. They are nothing like an American jail. The prisoners often have to get their food from their family in the outside world. They sleep so many to a bunk, there is frequently someone sleeping on the concrete floor beneath two others in mattresses above. The prisoners do not always have time out in an exercise yard each day. They often have to bribe the guards who run the prison for basic necessities like toilet paper and chances to ask for their cases to be reviewed.\n\nGiven that Martinez was all alone in his cell, I knew it was almost inevitable his cell had been cleared out, just before I saw him, to give the appearance he had the whole place to himself. There was no real chance the whole place was just for him, since I had never seen such a solitary cell for a prisoner, and this most likely explained his crouching on the floor as if he had just been liberated of the presence of other prisoners. I had been told of the existence of Martinez by a friend who worked, independently, for the release of prisoners, funded on his own dime and based on money he raised himself. He had approached me because he knew about my work with death row inmates in the U.S., and I went to the prison in the south of Mexico City because I thought there might be an article here worth writing, not for the American press, but for a slick glossy magazine called _Gatopardo,_ a bit like _Vanity Fair_ but for Mexicans. The thought I might be exploiting Martinez if we put him in the magazine only vaguely crossed my mind. What I thought of, instead, was that this would be a good chance to get my foot in the door with a magazine that paid well, which reached a sophisticated audience, and that I might be able to do something to further the cause of prison reform with the elites of the country.\n\nWhat I didn't expect with Martinez is that he would act out what he had experienced and what he felt, with such strength of facial expressions with so many movements, like a great mime, every bit as good as the French Marcel Marceau. I had little experience with mimes, and little experience with deaf people, and I expected that I would spend most of my time writing questions on a piece of paper, with Martinez writing his answers to my questions back on the same piece of paper. This definitely happened sometimes, but the first thing I didn't fully expect is that Martinez would be a perfectly good lip reader. Once the warden left me inside the cell and the guards closed the doors, and I was warned he was \"very dangerous,\" I approached a table in the middle of the cell, which took up a good chunk of the space, and I sat down, leaving Martinez in the corner to decide how he wanted to respond to me. I had learned from other prisoners, in other jails, that it was often best not to approach them with too much haste or with too much directness, to let them get adjusted to me and to decide whether or not they wanted to communicate with me. Giving the prisoner the liberty of choosing how to react to me placed them in a position out of their normal routine, and allowed them to enter into a different dynamic with me than with the other prisoners and guards.\n\nMartinez took his time in the corner as I sat at the table, Martinez deciding, it seemed to me, whether he even wanted to approach me. I had a piece of paper and a pencil out, ready to write to him. He looked me up and down, moving his head in a smooth, sweeping gesture. He wore a gabardine trilby hat, which tilted back rakishly on his head, which had been shaved until he was bald. He had on a white undershirt that left his shoulders bare, a pair of worn-out jeans, and a pair of even more worn-out flip-flops. His shirt was clean, which led me to believe the prison had washed it for him just for the interview. He walked back and forth in the prison cell, touching each wall in a repetitive movement, ignoring me, back and forth and back and forth as if a man in a play by Beckett, losing himself in the space, which seemed foreign to him now that the cell was empty of the belongings that were usually there, tapping his head, with the brim of his hat, against each wall before turning to take five paces to the other side.\n\nThis went on for five minutes, and I watched him, and then he abruptly sat down across from me in the other chair provided and he put all of the attention that had previously been focused blankly on each of the walls and stared straight into my eyes. It was a challenge to me, I felt. He sat perfectly motionless, with his back straight, his gaze level into my eyes, still not looking down at the paper. The challenge seemed to be: \"Don't come here just to exploit me, to rob from me. Look at me for who I am.\" And then, after he had my full attention, he wrote as much on the paper. He picked up the pencil and wrote in Spanish, \"They tell me you want my story so you can write an article. They tell me this is for an important magazine and that I should behave. What makes you think I want to speak to you? What makes you think you have the right to just walk in here and take my story to put it in a magazine? I am not some plaything, you know, some object of curiosity.\"\n\nI began to write my answer, but he stopped me from writing and pointed at my lips and showed me I should talk. He used his hands to show me I should speak slowly enough so he could read my lips.\n\n\"OK. You've got me,\" I said. \"I admit there is some element of exploitation in this. But how many other people have come, recently, to try to bring your story to the outside world? Without me, you will stay in this prison for the rest of your life.\"\n\n\"That's a threat,\" he wrote on the paper. \"I don't need threats. I am threatened in here every day. Sometimes, when they don't want to do anything, they threaten to never let us get food again, or that we will have to sleep with that bucket of our shit, over in the corner, forever. There is nothing you can threaten me with. I am prepared to stay in here forever, if I have to.\"\n\n\"So what do you want?\" I said. \"To be a martyr?\"\n\n\"I want you to take me seriously. I want you to promise you will keep coming to this prison after you have written your story. I want you to show me the article you write, before you publish it. If there is something that strikes me as false, as a lie, I will cross that part of your story out and I will ask you not to publish it.\"\n\n\"I can't let you tell me what to do,\" I said. \"It's characteristic of a lot of prisoners that they tell me a bunch of lies, and if I let you edit my article then it might end up with a bunch of your fantasies.\" It was, perhaps, bold of me to tell him this, but this was the truth. Prisoners loved to make up stories. I had almost never met a prisoner on death row who didn't claim he was innocent.\n\n\"You think you're smarter than me. You think you're better than me. How much do you really understand of the other prisoners you have worked with?\"\n\nThis simple question was not really new to me. It was a question I had asked myself, before, but the question had never come to me directly from a prisoner, and the force of the question, the immediacy of it, within only minutes of meeting Martinez, made me stand up and come out of my pose of knowingness. He was right in his question, I could see. He had figured me out in only a matter of minutes. I did feel I knew more than most of the prisoners I investigated. I even felt I knew more than most of the people I interacted with. Arrogance had always been my Achilles' heel. I did not mean to look arrogant, but the way I lifted my chin when I spoke, the way I often paused between my sentences, listening to myself speak, as if I had words that were particularly important to say, made me look arrogant. It was not the image I intended to give off, but it was true about me. My head, which was bald, made me look, in some ways, like a mirror image of Martinez across from me. My head was bald from older age and an effort to keep my skull from looking like that of an old man; it was a way of me trying to remain appearing like someone who was cool. It gave me a suave, debonair look that I liked to use to my advantage at parties, to pick up younger women, sometimes feigning interest in what they told me, even if I wasn't interested, to woo them into a bedroom. I had always thought of myself as fair and righteous and just, even though I often doubted that about myself, and here was Martinez who had called me out on my worst inner feelings and habits in a matter of minutes. It was unnerving to see him across from me, reflecting me back to myself so powerfully and so easily.\n\n\"If you want me to leave,\" I said, \"I will go now. I'm sorry if I have disturbed you today.\"\n\n\"That's better,\" he wrote. \"I can see you are speaking to me sincerely now. No, go ahead, now that you have made the effort to come all the way to this prison, we can talk.\"\n\n\"How did you end up here?\" I asked him, even though my friend in the agency had given me the basic blow-by-blow.\n\nHe stood up from the chair and began to mime what had happened to him. He showed me a party, where he was with his friends, laughing, as he blew out a birthday cake. He drew the candles on the cake in the air in front of me. He showed me a clock with the hands at three o'clock at the party, as he ate a piece of cake. Then he drew a line and shifted his arms back and forth, on a flat plane, to show me he was going to another scene. In that other scene there was a thief asking for money at a window with bars. He pulled out his pockets to show that the person was asking for money. He frowned and pouted, to let me know this wasn't him. He pretended to be a nice old lady. He pretended to be another man holding on to this nice old lady, twisting back and forth to do the face of the man with a gun and the face of the old lady. Then he pointed a gun with his fingers at the temple of the old lady and pulled the trigger and she fell to the ground. He lay on the ground, taking in the full pain of the lady, not moving for a good long while to let me know she was really dead. When he finally got up from the ground he mimed tears coming from his eyes, to let me know the whole story was very, very sad.\n\nI was mesmerized by the story he told with his body, by the way he swayed to and fro, arching his back to make me feel the story he was telling; and by the way he made his face extra expressive.\n\n\"You're an impressive mime,\" I told him when he came back to sit in front of me.\n\n\"Thank you,\" he wrote. \"But I want you to understand I'm not being melodramatic. And I'm not doing this to entertain you or to impress you. I mime because that is how I express my feelings and because you are deaf impaired.\"\n\n\"Deaf impaired?\" I said.\n\n\"Yes, you not only can't sign but you have no idea what it is like to be in my world. So by miming maybe I can hint at some of the things you miss in usual body language.\"\n\n\"Are you saying all deaf people can mime, or that they feel like mimes?\"\n\n\"No, of course not,\" he wrote. \"I am just saying that there are many things you might think you know that you might miss. If you come again, I will teach you some more.\"\n\nHe was, according to my friend, no older than thirty-three, but he knew he had things to teach me, someone nineteen years his senior. It was the first of five meetings over the next two months. I came as often as the warden of the prison would let me. They told me I could visit no more frequently than once every two weeks. The reason they gave was so as not to disturb the prisoners, but I sensed it was because every time I saw Martinez they would have to clear the others out of his cell, and Martinez wrote me as much on his paper the next time I saw him.\n\nOn the last visit, two weeks ago, he stopped writing on the paper and he looked me straight in the eyes, and he mouthed at me, insisting I watch his lips and try to read them as he always watched mine. There was something he clearly did not want to write on the paper, which I kept after each interview but that he must have believed the guards could see. \"I want you to help me escape from here,\" he mouthed to me. \"I do not belong here. You know this now, completely. You know every part of my story.\"\n\nHe had told me, by then, how he had grown up, who the members of his family were, what the hardscrabble ways of his growing up had been. He had poured out every part of his youth, all mimed in front of me as I sat transfixed, watching him act. He had given me all his story, and now what he was asking for was something in return.\n\nI stopped and told him, \"That is something I can't do. If I did that, then I would instantly end up in prison myself, and I wouldn't be able to help any of you on the inside.\" It was a perfectly logical answer. He wasn't the first prisoner to ask me to help him try to find a way to escape. Other prisoners had found enough confidence in me to ask the same question. But he was the first prisoner to make me think twice about my reply.\n\nGoing home, as I drove from the prison through the endless concrete small houses of Mexico City, and then as I paced in my small apartment back in the neighborhood of La Roma, I thought about a flame thrower I had seen the night before in the central plaza of Tlalpan in the south of the city. There, the evening before, I had seen a street performer light on fire a large circle with multiple torch endings and throw the circle around and around, larger than a hula hoop around his body, then on the ground in front of him, moving his body in and out of the flames. The risk of what the performer did, only to make a few pesos, trying to wow the crowd, had entranced me. The performer put his life on the line every night, and like many performers in the city, he probably performed at streetlights as well, doing his show, risking burning his hair, all to make a dime.\n\nDid I have the same guts, not to make a dime, but to help a man who had been condemned to prison for life on completely phony charges? By now, I was more than convinced Martinez had never committed his crime. I had, in between prison visits, interviewed all the other people at his birthday party and the few people I could find who had been at the actual bank crime. It was clear he had never been at the scene of the crime. It was also clear the particular judge who had sentenced him had a particularly bad reputation for sending innocent people to prison.\n\nHow much was I willing to get inside the hoop of flame? I thought about my life in Mexico, how comfortable I felt in the country, how every day that I woke up I felt like there was a new surprise with something to teach me and to fill me with curiosity and awe. I thought about the risk I might lose all of that, the sense of place I had become attached to. I thought about the feeling that in this country, I was always alive. It was not that this country was completely better than mine. I wasn't interested, after a number of years, in comparing one country to the other. But what I felt was that here, people cared about me, and I cared about them. There was time to care. We were not separated by all of the barriers of private spaces and private homes, which carved out so much personal space in the United States that it often felt like we had bubbles keeping us from one another. In Mexico, those bubbles felt smaller, and often nonexistent. This had become my home. I had become a permanent resident of the place. To risk all of that, my right to live in the country, in order to bring some means of escape to Martinez, was risking it all. There was the very real risk that if caught, I could be brought in front of the same kind of despicable judge that had thrown Martinez in prison for life.\n\nBut for the first time in my life I knew I had to let more than my rational mind make decisions for me. I had to step into the ring of fire twirling around and around above my head and around my body. I had to risk it all, to take the action to see if I could make one big wrong right. I packed a metal file in the bottom of my briefcase on the next visit. I opened the stuffing of my briefcase carefully, and made a little sleeve on the bottom, and brought the briefcase to a shoe-repair man to have the bag sewn up properly so it would look right. I could slide the metal file in and out easily. It was a small gesture. It was much less than bringing in a gun, something that seemed far beyond my capacity and that might get Martinez caught, as well as me. It was the most efficient act of rebellion I could think of, and I brought the metal file in to Martinez on my visit in the morning.\n\nFor two months, Martinez took that file which I had brought to him and he scraped and pulled and concentrated the edge of the metal blade against the bars of his cell. On the night of his breakout, he waited until the guards came by on their final round of the evening, before the prisoners were supposed to go to sleep, when the guards made their final roll call. The guards called out the names of each prisoner in each cell. They tapped their batons against the metal bars of each cell, echoing the names of the prisoners, and then it was lights out. A guard came and said Martinez's name, specifically. Martinez made the loudest sound he could, a squeal that was high-pitched, approximating a \"yes.\" He knew when to say his name when he felt the vibration of the other prisoners in his cell calling out their names.\n\nThe night was unusual because it was September 15, the night everyone in the prison had just completed celebrating the independence day of the country, the equivalent of the U.S.'s July 4. On this night, all the prisoners were brought into the main courtyard at the same time to watch a concert. It was one of the few times the prisoners were brought out all together, and one of the few times they were entertained together. The daily life of the interior of the prison was run by the warden, in outward appearance. But a high-level narco, from the north of the country in Monterrey, who ran a large cartel on the outside of the prison, was the real head of the day-to-day life. He had been convicted, but his links to the outside world were still strong. He brought in information and got out his plans for his cartel, and he told the prison warden who he wanted for the D\u00eda de la Independencia music. He chose Los Tigres del Norte, a popular band that toured the country. The inmates had all hooted and hollered listening to Los Tigres. The Tigres knew better than to bring in any women with the band, or a riot might ensue. Hundreds and hundreds of tacos and cans of Coca-Cola were downed. The garbage piled up in bag after bag, loaded into extra trash cans in the corner of the central courtyard.\n\nWhen the last of the guards went by, and Martinez had called out his name, and the other prisoners in his cell went to bed, he pulled at the two cuts he had filed on a single bar, pulled out the bar, and shimmied himself through.\n\nI had discussed the breakout plan with him. Martinez had initially thought he could dress up like a member of Los Tigres and waltz out of the concert with the rest of the band in the heat of the mayhem of the prison-mate fans. He was good at acting, and a perfect mime, but the chance he could fool the other band members and the guards as they went out was far too risky, I had told him, so he had scrapped that idea. Instead we had agreed the large quantity of garbage from the get-together was the key to his escape.\n\nFrom his place of freedom outside of his cell, he ran in the dark, unchecked in his small space for the first time in five years. He ran like a cat freed from his enclosure. His body moved with energy, with the training of a professional mime, keeping to the edges of the shadows and out of any few splotches of light. He ran and felt the ground, listening with his hands for the vibrations of any of the guards as they made their rounds. I knew nothing about the layout of the prison, other than what I had seen on my five previous visits, but Martinez was able to tell me where the garbage was gathered and thrown out every night from the high-walled building. He ran to the garbage containers, which were more than usual, from the party, as he had expected, lifted the lid of one of the large containers, climbed inside the gray plastic container, took one last big breath of unfetid air, smelled the residues of sauces and of soda cans, the sticky sweet residue of Coca-Cola mixing with the warm decomposing smell of corn and chilies, and he buried his whole body beneath the mess, breathing through a plastic bottle that he had cut the bottom off of.\n\nIt was similar to the trick the famous narco El Chapo Guzm\u00e1n had used, making it out of prison in a laundry basket. Martinez had thought of that possibility, too, but after Guzm\u00e1n had used the method, all laundry baskets were inspected entering and leaving prison. But the garbage wasn't suspected. Martinez had figured that out. It was considered too disgusting. He sat in the container for four hours, until four in the morning, when the garbage was always brought outside, each container wheeled out and left for the garbage trucks to come an hour or two later, in the early dawn.\n\nAlong the north edge of the prison, when the garbage canisters were wheeled out and left by a single man whose job it was to do so, I waited thirty-five yards across the street, in the shadows, with a motorcycle, watching with binoculars. When the last of the large plastic canisters was wheeled out, and the man whose duty it was to remove the garbage had gone, I watched intently to see if Martinez had made his break. I saw one of the lids of the canisters push up. I saw Martinez leap out. I flashed a flashlight, twice, at the man covered with garbage. We had agreed his chances would be almost zero if someone didn't come pick him up. The most dangerous moment for a prison breakout was just after the prisoner had found a way outside the prison walls. That was when they stood out, looked unusual in prison clothes, and were so dazed from the adrenaline rush of their escape that other people ran into them, saw something suspicious, and reported them. Or the prisoner went off, running cockeyed.\n\nThis was the moment when Martinez had asked me to come get him in a motorcycle. A car was too big. A car might be spotted by one of the watchtowers.\n\nAnd this was the moment that I had hesitated, for a moment, in the planning. Was I really willing to risk my whole life in Mexico and to fully commit myself to this man? Yet here I was, fully committed, fully taking action for the first time in my life. I wore a black ski mask, like the crooks who had genuinely committed the crime Martinez was accused of. The mask hid the white baldness of my head. I had given Martinez the one signal with the two quick flashes, and he came to me, where the motorcycle was hidden in the long underbrush on the far side of the road. Martinez jumped on the back of the motorbike. I barely looked back at him in the rush of the moment. I focused on balancing him on the back and rushing away as quietly as I could, then racing down the big hill from the prison toward the north of the city. I felt his arms grip my waist. I smelled his body, the residue of the garbage, and the smell of his fright. There was a smell in the night unlike any I had ever smelled before, the smell of a man rushing with all of his fright and elation to freedom. We rode the back roads at first, and then hit the main _eje_ boulevards that break through the city. The red lights blinked, from stop to green, and I cut north through the night like a man bringing a slave in the United States north on the Underground Railroad. And like the people who took a risk bringing those slaves north, I brought him into my home first, briefly, to wash and change his clothes, so he wouldn't stand out as he made his journey to freedom. He stuffed his clothes into the kitchen garbage container in my apartment in La Roma. He scrubbed his body in my shower. He cleansed the last of the residue of the garbage, and of the prison, off his body. He put on some clothes, which I had bought for him. It was too risky to give him my own clothes, or anything that might give me away as helping him if he were caught, and too risky to ask for any clothes from his family. His family would be kept in the dark about his escape until he was settled in a new city, months down the line.\n\nHe washed, and he ate the food I gave him, he wrote down on a piece of paper explaining exactly how the escape had gone, and accentuated the words on the paper by miming some of the scarier moments. Then he jumped on the back of the motorcycle, not waiting longer than an hour, since the prison would find out in the dawn he was gone and they might signal a search to begin. But by then, as the first light of the morning came out strong, as the chickens cockled in the morning, as they do in the streets of Mexico City even in the biggest, most densely inhabited neighborhoods, I had brought him to the bus station and placed him on a bus bound for Oaxaca. The price of his freedom would be exile from his home city, where he had grown up. It was too dangerous, even in a city of twenty million, for him to pretend to melt into the fabric of Mexico City. Someone would eventually see him. Someone would eventually recognize his face. He would have to leave the city, where he had spent almost every day of his life for thirty-three years.\n\nStanding by the bus, after I had bought him his ticket, I gave Martinez a hug. He clasped me like a wiry feline. He rubbed the back of my bald head in appreciation, leaned back, looked into my eyes, and I could see him hold back tears. I couldn't hold back my own. I wept as he took one last look at me and then as he turned with only a small bag, with some peanuts and one extra pair of clothes I had left for him and a few hundred dollars in pesos. He would need every peso to start his new life. I had no idea, exactly, where he would go in Oaxaca. We had agreed it was best for me to know nothing about his final destination. Someday, far in the future, when he was safe, he would write to me, but we had agreed there would be no specific day when.\n\nI felt lighter as I rode home on my motorcycle. It wasn't just the lack of an extra passenger on the back of the bike. It was the lack of the fear I realized I had always carried with me. How much does fear weigh? How much does the fear of righting the wrongs of our daily life weigh? More than I could ever have known. When I got home, I made myself a cup of coffee. I brought it out to the balcony of my small apartment. I looked at the men and women preparing for the rest of their day, sweeping up the ground, cleaning their food stalls, and carrying their heavy loads as they made their journey. I saw the hum of the city, and I felt like I was flying above it all, floating over the metropolis. I would not be able to save each prisoner, each person who had been wronged, but at least I had saved one.\n\n# THE ESCAPE FROM MEXICO\n\nLooking back, the summer when I was twelve\u2014I am in my early forties now\u2014a young, horrible man, the head of a gang, tried to kill me. The day it all began, if you can really pinpoint a single moment when an avalanche begins, was on the soccer field, or what we called in Mexico the f\u00fatbol field, behind my school. Now I am an American, an immigrant of thirty years in the U.S. with my mother, but at that time I was a relatively poor Mexican. My mother worked as an elementary school teacher. My father was more or less a good-for-nothing, even then, someone who tacked from one side to another of quick jobs he made up and small entrepreneurial projects. He believed in making the fast buck, a deal for a small plot of land or to buy a bunch of tires, from a scrap heap, and turn them around to sell to another fool who might think lead had been turned into gold.\n\nThe soccer field was so used, it was nothing more than dust. Grass was never planted on the field in any case; that was the kind of school I went to, a dusty building without grass, and as the players ran down the middle of the field, a cloud of dirt would slowly gather around the players as they duked it out and would follow the players, cycloning around them, until the curtain ebbed and flowed to and fro, moving toward me, the goalie, where a breakaway player would suddenly run out of the cloud and shoot with full force at me, a round, chubby boy, a bit taller than the others, and certainly wider, with thicker arms that might stop the ball from reaching its goal.\n\nThe other boys sometimes called me Fatty, or Gordo, though I wasn't really fat in the way of a boy who couldn't move fast, and certainly not the way Americans, who are fat now, look. You see, at that time, to be even a bit chubby meant to be fat, because there really was no extra food and because everyone had a nickname. I was Gordi the Goalkeeper. The _portero_. My hands were very wide for twelve. I lived for soccer. I stood on the line and lunged with all the energy I could muster, when they kicked the ball. I pretended to be someone much older, one of the players in Europe who played in the World Cup or in the leagues of Spain. My favorite goalie was Toni Schumacher, a monster from Germany who led the German team in 1982, leaping in the air and snatching the ball from the other players, accidentally hitting a couple of them in the head as he waded through his opponents, saving the German team, almost winning them the Cup. You could say Schumacher was rough, and some said he was an animal, but I knew he had simply done what he had to, which is the way the game of life is actually played.\n\nThe day my life began to turn, all the players had left their watches at the edge of the field, next to me, just in the back of the tattered net, with me in the center. That was what every player did, so they wouldn't scrape the faces, arms, or legs of the other players as they jumped in the air, or as they practiced their slide tackles into the other players, like sliding in to first base, trying to gain the approval and praise of all the others. So, all the watches were left by one of the goalies, and everyone trusted me, El Gordi, the most. My nemesis in this story, a thin, tall player for his age, who at fourteen was two years older than me, with a bare chest that was already as big as a sixteen-year-old's and with black hair always gelled back, neatly combed over and over, who could be pretty like a model with his body, if he hadn't been so ugly in his face and if he didn't have a tendency to sneer, was a guy named El Farito\u2014The Lighthouse. He was called El Farito not only because he was taller than the rest but because he swiveled his head further than most could, to hit in a header goal. El Farito was also the head of a gang, whose territory included all the area that surrounded my immediate house, to the east side of the school. The west side of the school belonged to another gang.\n\nIf this sounds strange, that one side of the school could belong to one gang and the other side to another, it is really no different than many other artificial lines in the world. As I tell you this story, I am now a bass player, who regularly plays in the back section of some of the best orchestras, and the line between the first violin section and the second violin section, or between the cellos and violas, is as clear as night and day. The audience sees only \"the orchestra,\" but the players know your whole life is different if you are one of the violinists slogging along the underlying melody in the second violins, or if you get to be the first violinist who plays the bright solo moments.\n\nThe gangs in my neighborhood fought over who controlled each inch of the immediate city. El Farito was one of the leaders of a gang called the Nacos. _Naco_ is generally a pejorative term for someone who is a complete good-for-nothing, an uneducated, trashy person who has no respect for others; but they wore the badge proudly. El Farito's watch was plated with gold. He said he had bought the watch himself, and then another time he said his grandfather had given it to him, but everyone knew he had stolen it from one of the watch stands at an outdoor market that went up on Sunday mornings and down on Sunday afternoons. He walked around with that watch like he was a king. The king of Los Nacos. The rest of his outfit was completely incongruous, a sweatshirt with the skull-and-bones of his gang spray-painted by hand on the back, and some wide bell-bottom pants, even though bell-bottoms had gone out of style in the late '70s and this was 1983.\n\nIf only I had watched the watches as much as I concentrated on the soccer ball. I will never know how the watch of El Farito disappeared. The watches of all the players were left next to me, at the very back of the net. I jumped and lunged, trying to reach the crossbar and the far corners. And in one of those lunges my whole life must have changed, as someone came and stole the watch of El Farito from behind me. Some son-of-a-bitch took it, claiming it for his own, just as El Farito had claimed the watch, initially, for his own, but you can see that in the eyes of a gang leader, what he himself has done to another isn't what he sees as the same being done to himself. I imagine one of the sixth graders\u2014or even younger, a boy I wouldn't suspect as I was playing, looking forward\u2014sneaking his hand into the back of the net, seeing the gold plating of El Farito's watch glisten in the sun that barely peeked through the dusty clouds that day when my life changed, and I imagine him thinking the watch would bring thousands of pieces of candy if it were grabbed and sold, or maybe the child was thinking more practically of how to get more food for his grandparents and family.\n\nHowever it happened, when the players all came back to get their watches at the end of the game, El Farito said, \"Where the fuck is my watch, Gordi? Where did you put it? Show me your pockets.\" He came up to me, standing a full eight inches above me, sweating, his hair momentarily out of place until he would get his big blue plastic comb, and he put his wide hands around my chubby neck and told me that if I didn't find his watch he was going to kill me.\n\nThis wasn't a fake threat, coming from El Farito. It was well known, in those days, that to be a member of the Nacos each gang member had to beat someone up until they nearly died, and occasionally, when the battles between the rival gangs of the neighborhood got particularly bad, someone pulled out a knife and stabbed another person, or if things turned really ugly out came a gun and a couple of the opposing gang members were shot. You see, death was a very real thing in my neighborhood. Not the death of old age and natural dying, but death chosen like savage animals marking their territory, peeing on it, like dogs. The goal of all the marking wasn't just to be the bad boys who were the sexiest, but to make money, to survive, to find a millimeter of space and class and sexiness in a world that didn't give a shit about anyone in my neighborhood. We lived far away from the nice neighborhoods of Polanco and Las Lomas. We lived in Iztapalapa, on the edge of the city, where people from the wealthy neighborhoods were afraid to even say the name of my neighborhood. For the people in the rich neighborhoods, ours was forbidden territory, a place known about only in the newspapers where crime happened and the animals fought amongst themselves, and where a \"civilized\" person, someone much whiter than I was in skin tone, would simply never enter.\n\nFor the life of me, I could not figure out how that watch was stolen. As I played, when I wasn't looking at the dusty cloud of players as they moved down the field, I would occasionally look back to make sure everything was there. But without eyes in the back of my head, I had missed the\u2014probably\u2014young thief that took the watch, and El Farito didn't blame the thief, he blamed me. In the neighborhood where I lived, \"don't shoot the messenger\" had a literal connotation. It was assumed that if you had bad news to tell, you were the bad news, or you were hiding some kind of bad news you had caused. I was in the goal. Therefore, I was the thief. El Farito said, \"I don't care how you get the watch back, but you get my grandfather's watch back by the end of the day, or I'll kill you.\"\n\nAnd, as ridiculous as that might sound, that's how the bullying of me\u2014the following of me by El Farito and his gang\u2014started. Naturally, I couldn't find the watch. I looked everywhere around the goal. I lifted the net and kicked the dirt, and asked everyone else around if they had seen who'd stolen the watch, but everyone that had been watching the game looked down at their feet or said \"no\" in that lying way we all knew we lied to each other. You didn't snitch in my neighborhood. The only thing worse than snitching was failing to defend your mother's honor if someone said something nasty about her.\n\n\u2014\n\nBefore the last class of the day is done, a math class that I need to concentrate in harder or I might fail the course, I run out the back door of the classroom, looking left and right down the hallway, hoping none of the members of the gang have noticed me. Three weeks have passed since the day when the watch disappeared, three weeks during which I have begged for anyone who knows what happened to the watch to tell me, but no one tells me. I don't take the books out of my desk. It's too dangerous for me to pick up my books to study, later. I take an unexpected exit from the building, not through the front door but through the gymnasium in the basement and out through an exit where they bring in food to the gymnasium to sell us snacks. I squeeze through the crates where milk is kept for the students, and crouch behind the crates, waiting like a frog hoping not to be eaten by an eagle swooping down from the sky. And like a little mouse, I finally run from my hiding place, outside, zigging and zagging, hugging the walls of buildings and houses, not stopping in the little stores where I would normally stop to buy a bit of candy, because those days are over for good, and I feel my chest filling with air, my lungs punching in and out, trying to support my legs running, as I stop and start, springing down the back streets convinced that around the next corner I will find El Farito. Faster, faster, I think. Cut left. Stop. Look around the corner, run more. They will see me. The walls of the city are full of people who will tell them. Is that man selling tacos on the street in cahoots with them? Is he informing them? Who isn't informing them? Everyone in the neighborhood has some relationship with the two gangs. They cooperate or they are punished. The smallest punishment is spray-paint on their stores. People pay up, extortion money, or their windows are broken. Or, the bigger guys, the ones above the gangs, the real crime syndicates might come in, tipped off by the gangs. The city is a web of punishment and obeying. I am only twelve, but even at that age I already know you obey or they do with you what they want.\n\nWhen I am not running, when I lie in my bed at night, trying to sleep but failing, I dream of buying a gun. A gun is what I need to make El Farito and his guys realize they shouldn't fuck with me. A gun is not easy to find, a gun is illegal, is almost impossible to purchase, especially for a boy like me who has no more than a few savings stored in a clay pig that was given to me by an uncle from Guadalajara. There are coins in there, stuffed until they have filled up the pig, and a jar, but the coins are of small denomination and there are no bills; the coins are from my parents, coins they have given to me or coins I have taken out of their bedroom at times when they are not looking.\n\nThe coins I usually use to buy some candy, but I have been saving them up for a long time to buy an instrument, an electric guitar that I have seen in a store in the center of town, far away from my neighborhood where they don't sell items of luxury like electric guitars. I listen to heavy metal music in my room when I am alone, closing the door that my parents tell me to leave open, not to hide, and I have posters on the walls of AC\/DC and KISS and Judas Priest, and I play records because this is the era before CDs and we wouldn't have the money to get a CD player until much later, in any case, long after most kids have CD players, and I throw my hands around in the air, standing with my chubby body in front of the mirror of my room, imagining I am a rock star. The music pulses through me as I run\u2014electric screeches and jams and scales\u2014and this is the first taste I get, as I run and run and run, hoping to come closer to home, that music can be the thread that saves us, that literally comes down from the sky into the brain like a gift from God, even though I am not a believer in God, but at that time the music came in a pulse of a gift to keep my legs running to give me faith that there might be some way through the slim streets and alleyways. I stop. There in front of me is El Farito. He tells me, \"Why do you bother to go running so hard? You know we can find you anytime we want. There's no escape.\"\n\n\"I don't have your watch,\" I say. \"I confess I don't have it. I wish I had it. I didn't steal it. Someone else has stolen it. I told you that. It's the truth.\"\n\n\"But everyone knows the watch was mine. And who would dare to do something so stupid and brave and foolish, but you?\"\n\nHe has called me brave. Maybe there's a chance. Maybe he wants me to join his gang. Maybe he will not try to find me in the hallways anymore.\n\n\"And brave is stupid,\" he says. \"Do you know that? Brave is what gets a little punk beaten up.\"\n\nMaybe I can reverse, run back from where I have come from, but the time it will take me to turn will give him the time to come on my heels and tackle me. So I run forward, thinking that with the music in my ears like a crescendo of harsh, scraping, rising notes I can break through him to the other side, behind him, floating in and around and above and over, back to my home, and I run as fast as I can, straight at him, straight into his stomach with my head down, like a torpedo trying to ram into a ship that I hope will disappear, a move so unexpected I hope he will let me pass through. I am only twelve and foolish and full of hopes, and he steps aside, and with my eyes closed as I run it seems he will let me go because I have not hit him yet, but then a foot comes out and he trips me and I fall flat on my face with my chubby chin hitting the ground.\n\nEl Farito towers above me and I can't see him because I am splayed forth on the ground, lying like a dead man on the pavement. \"Tomorrow you will bring me all of your money. Every peso you have. You will come to me, personally, and give me the money. I'm sick of watching you run, Gordi. This time, I'm letting you lie on the street like a baby. I could run over you and stomp on you. But I prefer to watch you squirm. Bring it all, tomorrow, and don't say anything to your mother or your father about this, or I will truly kill you.\"\n\nAll this he says with his voice much deeper than you might expect for a guy so tall. His words come from the depths of his body like from the depths of a sewer, bubbling slowly up and out. He comes from behind me, where I lay on the pavement feeling the wet of the rain of earlier in the day mixing with the dirt of the street, and he kicks me in the groin until the sight in front of my eyes switches from the grains of sand and dirt and the black of the pavement to a momentary yellow, a flash of pain. One kick and he is gone. I hobble home, dragging my legs, bent forward, feeling the pain in my crotch. When I come into the house, my mother is there. She looks at me and her eyes well up in tears, a glossiness I hate to see, which comes only in the worst of times I have seen on the face of my mother before, and she says, \"Gordi. Tell me now. Tell me, finally. You haven't said a thing for three weeks. You have barely eaten for three weeks. What is going on?\"\n\nBut I won't tell her. I don't want her to worry. There is nothing she can do. There is nothing my parents can do. My father is barely present, in any case. He comes home, frequently drunk. My mother is the one who meets me at home with snacks and food made just for me. She teaches kindergarten, and she is home, early, before me. She has a plate of tortillas with cheese and green chili sauce waiting for me, and a freshly blended glass of carrot juice, but I can't begin to imagine having any of this now. I go to my room and shut the door.\n\nMy mother comes to the door and opens it, and I have already thrown myself on the bed with my face down, crying into the bed. There is no escape. None. There is no way out of this trap except to get a gun or to tell El Farito that I will join his gang. Join his gang. Get a gun. Join his gang. Get a gun. I go from one to the other, considering the only two options.\n\nMy mother peers into the doorway and she says, \"Gordi. I am going to come each day to school and pick you up. I will take you home each day. What are you running from? Whatever it is, you can't run forever. Whoever it is, they'll get you, if I don't pick you up. I will come for you every day.\"\n\nI don't respond. They are the sweetest words my mother could say. But nothing can save me, unless I can find a watch that has disappeared. No, I must get a gun.\n\n\u2014\n\nWhen I think of what happened to my mother, later in this story, I wonder what would have happened if I had never made the choice to look for a gun. What if I hadn't been so obsessed with the idea of finding the piece of deadly metal? What if I hadn't thought that a gun could solve all my problems? Certainly, I never would have ended up in the U.S., and certainly I would not have had to see the initial indignity my mother was brought to. But when you are twelve and a life-or-death situation seems to be knocking at your door, you knock back, seeking to protect yourself in any way you can. So I took all my money out of my piggy bank and jar, and, since that wasn't enough, I took money from a can where I knew my mother was storing up money for a rainy day, and I went to try to buy a gun.\n\nMy mother had been picking me up at school for two weeks when I went. She came like clockwork, waiting at the front door a few minutes before the final bell of the day rang. Despite the protestations of my math teacher and his stern warnings, and despite the fact I was failing his class more and more, I would leave early and hurry out to the car, where my mother would meet me where she was waiting with the motor running, and she would receive me like a mother back into the womb, protecting me as if she could be a large umbrella keeping me from the rain. I would tell her, \"Mom, this cannot go on forever. You know that.\"\n\nAnd she would say to me, \"Forever is made up of individual points, one by one, and if you are good today, then things will work out in the end.\"\n\nThose two weeks were, in some ways, the happiest of my life, in that I could see how much my mother truly loved me. Every child wants to believe their mother really loves them, wants to believe their mother loves them even more than their mother loves their father, that they are, deep down inside, the most important thing in the world to their mother, but few get the chance to know so clearly the complete devotion of a mother as I did in those days my mother picked me up from school.\n\nIt was like walking among a graveyard of the dead. El Farito was outside sometimes, or other members of his gang, and once they threw a rotten egg at the windshield after my mother had taken me safe into the car. Another time, one of the tires was punched flat, mysteriously, while my mother waited for me in the car. It would have been too dangerous for us to get out of the car to change the tire, so my mother drove home with only three of the wheels working, the other flapping against the ground, the tire air that was missing letting me know this couldn't continue much longer.\n\nSo I went to el Se\u00f1or L\u00f3pez's house. Se\u00f1or L\u00f3pez had been a police officer in his younger days. It might seem like surely I should have known I should try to buy a gun from someone much more nefarious, and I did know that, but I also knew I didn't really have enough money to buy a gun on the real black market. The cost of a gun was not the price itself, it was the price of the risk the seller was taking in selling a gun to someone. If someone was a professional crook, no one thought twice selling the weapon to them, because they knew that person would never lead the authorities back to them. But who wants to sell a gun to a chubby twelve-year-old who stands out like an innocent baby in a field of violence? The seller knows he will be traced to the boy who buys the gun in no time at all, when the foolish, innocent-looking child fails to use the gun properly. So when I had tried to buy a gun on the black market, at first, speaking to people on the street corners who I knew could sell me a weapon, everyone told me, \"It will never happen, Gordi. You're just a kid. You're just a punk.\"\n\nIn my desperation, I went to el Se\u00f1or L\u00f3pez. He was eighty years old, and I told him El Farito was chasing me. The old man lived above a small bodega where they sold rice and eggs and other staples, and he had nothing to do, now that he was old, except to watch the television with the volume cranked up too loud.\n\n\"Why don't you go to the police?\" he said. \"They can help you.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, Se\u00f1or L\u00f3pez, but you know the police will not believe me if I tell them my life is in danger because someone took El Farito's watch. To them this will seem like nothing. To them, I am just a flea, a tiny story while there are big crimes going on. But for me, I know that if I don't get this gun, El Farito and his gang are going to kill me.\"\n\n\"How much money do you have?\"\n\nI laid out all of the money from the piggy bank, jar, and my mother's can on his grimy kitchen table. He was turning blind in his old age. He fingered the bags of coins, and then he fingered the bills I had taken from my mother. He seemed to retreat into the cloud of sound coming out of the TV, some cop show, a rerun of _Starsky & Hutch_. I thought of taking all my money back and running to find someone else. This old man was useless to me, and even as a twelve-year-old I felt he was wasting my time, but then he moved around his kitchen, feeling his way in the dim fluorescent light that harshly lit up his house. He went to his back bedroom, and I watched him crouch beneath his bed. He rummaged around, pulling out stacks of old, musty girlie magazines that he kept and must have once masturbated to, and from behind the magazines, wrapped in a piece of worn red velvet, pulled out a gun.\n\n\"This isn't a toy,\" he told me as he unwrapped it. He put the gun on the bed and I wanted to grab it. The gun looked like a miracle machine that would save me. \"Do you know how to use this?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course I do,\" I lied.\n\n\"Of course you don't,\" he said. He took out six bullets and put them into the police revolver. It had a thick, black plastic handle, with harsh texture; it felt like a handle that had been held firmly to lord it over criminals and to make sure Mr. L\u00f3pez received his small bribes when he was a police officer, as almost all the cops took bribes to survive.\n\nHe put the bullets in the gun and spun the barrel of the revolver. He took the bullets out again. Then he had me put them in one by one. I tried to spin the revolver as he had, and the metal in the barrel seemed like lead in my hands compared to in his. The barrel barely moved.\n\n\"Don't get cocky with this gun. You're not a cowboy. Use this only in the worst cases, in the very last instance, if you have to. A gun is only as strong and smart as the person carrying it. If you try to be a show-off with this, I guarantee they will get you in two seconds flat. Hide the gun in your pant leg. And only if you absolutely need it, take it out.\"\n\nHe was telling me much more wisdom than I could know. The only thing I saw was what felt to me like my salvation. I held the gun, and the weight of the machine seemed to me to offer strength and power and definite protection. I would have kissed Se\u00f1or L\u00f3pez if it weren't so inappropriate. So I simply told him I would bring him more money every week for the next four weeks, as we'd agreed, since the money I had was insufficient.\n\n\u2014\n\nThere is a long gash that runs down my right arm. The gash is hidden under my tuxedo when I play the bass in orchestra concerts, but the gash is always there. It is something music cannot hide. Playing music, as I hold my bow, I can only represent the scar of my body in the slow, sad sections when the plaintive sound of the bass overwhelms the audience, in those long, sighing underlying interludes which a great composer like Beethoven gives a bass player to remind the audience that sorrow is the underlying note of a life as it seeks higher ground.\n\nThree days before I escaped from Mexico with my mother, I met El Farito and four other members of his gang out on the soccer field where the watch had first disappeared. One of the shortcuts home from school was to run out back to the soccer field and jump over a fence at the end of the field, behind the goal where I had defended my team when the watch had disappeared. Jumping down the fence, hanging in the air and then jumping down a concrete wall, saved a couple of minutes on the way hurrying home. This was the first day my mother had failed to come get me. She failed because she had to be in her school late that day to meet the parents of her students, and if she didn't stay at work she would lose her job.\n\nSo I was left to run home, on my own, that day. I brought the gun with me. I had the gun with me every day since I had bought it. The gun was heavy and must have made my pant leg look unusual to anyone who saw me, but I tried to hide it completely. I was out on the soccer field hurrying, at first, toward the back chain-link fence to climb up it, when the rush of the game of soccer that I loved, so much, overtook me. For a second, rather than hurrying on my way, I put myself in the goal to feel the thrill of the space that I wanted to defend. I put my hands in the air, pretending I was stopping balls. I felt the urge to jump from side to side, leaping toward the corners, as I had once jumped every afternoon and as I hadn't done since the day El Farito's watch had disappeared. It was impossible to jump with the weight of the gun in my pants. So I took out the gun, after looking around to see if anyone was coming, and I saw no one. I put the gun in the back of the net, where the watches had been the day they had taken the watch from El Farito. The net was still torn. It was a pitiful net, with holes as large as grapefruits, and the orange netting loose in its fibers like an old net that has been used too many years on worn-out ships at sea. But to me, in that moment, I felt like Schumacher, who had captained the German soccer team in the World Cup. I jumped high to the upper left and felt my body fall to the ground, pretending I had snatched the ball. I got up, dusted the dirt off my thighs, slapping my legs, crouching in the pose of a great f\u00fatbol player ready to block a penalty kick in the finals of the World Cup. The crowd chanted my name, \"Gordi, Gordi, Gordi!\" and I looked out at the wide plain of dirt and imagined the ball coming high and straight at me. And it was in that moment of pure fantasy that I lost sense of time, until in front of me, instead of my fantasy kicker, El Farito and four of his gang members were out on the field. I will never know where they came from, because it seems I should have seen them before they could get so close. By the time I saw them, they were only twenty yards away. I turned and reached for my gun. I didn't have time to think. I turned toward them and fired the gun, but I had no idea what I was doing and the bullet went nowhere near any of them. The loud clap of the gun surprised me. I shot again, and the next bullet went further into nowhere. I saw a ping of dust in the distance. The bullet must have hit the ground. The young men ran up to me. I shot again and hit the arm of one of the boys and he grabbed his arm, but he was in no mortal danger. And the next thing I knew I was on the ground and one of the boys had a machete, and they held the hand I had held the gun in, the gun now in El Farito's hand. And he said to me, \"Where the fuck did you get this gun, you idiot? You don't even know how to fire this weapon. You are going to be in our gang now. But not before we teach you a lesson...Cut his arm,\" he told one of the gang members. \"Let him know he will always be a fucking idiot. From now on, if you can live, you are going to do whatever I tell you. That's your payment for the watch. You are going to be one of the Nacos and you are going to tell your mother you don't belong to her anymore. You're a man now. Tell your mother you're not a baby anymore. Watching her come to pick you up in her car, it's such a pathetic sight to see.\" He raised his hand and held it in the air. The boy with the machete raised his blade in unison with El Farito. El Farito threw his hand down at the ground, where I was pinned by two of the boys. The one who had been shot was barely bleeding, barely grazed. And I saw the blade, as I looked up at the blue sky, which made it seem like the day was as pure as it could be, but was blue in the way of someone who feels they are going to die and be sucked up into the heavens, and out of that blue sky I will never forget seeing, as if in slow motion the black metal blade, thick and wide like a blunt club yet sharp at the edge coming down into my arm, a harsh swack, a smack and slice that caused blood to leap out of my arm, a gash halfway into my arm until it was stopped at the bone. They left me lying on the field, bleeding to death, a future Naco if I could survive, a dead man if I could not.\n\nI still cry when I see that scar, the thick crude stitching up my arm, the long gash that never leaves me. I passed out soon after they cut me, after they looked down at me, laughing, the last image I can remember before I lost consciousness. The dust of the field floated around them, it crept into my wound as blood pulsed out onto the dirt and as I tried to close my hand, reaching for the revolver I no longer had, a phantom reaction, reaching for the weapon I had thought would protect me.\n\nThe door to the embassy loomed like a gaping maw before me, Marisa\u2014Gordi is my son\u2014in downtown Mexico City. I had traveled first by one of the small peseros, which look like small buses, and then by a real bus for two hours to get to the building along the Avenida Reforma. The gang in the neighborhood had spray-painted the car with Gordi's name and had slashed a line over his name. They had punched out all the tires. They had spray-painted the house. Gordi's body had been delivered to me by a nurse from his school, with a lone police officer. I had shouted at them that they should have brought him to a hospital first. What were they thinking? But they told me that if they had taken the time to take him to the hospital he might have died on the way, and the local hospital did not like to get involved with the gang fights. Sometimes they let patients die, intentionally, to avoid having the fighting infiltrate into the building. It was crazy having a hospital that could deny service to its own people. It was certainly illegal to do so. But who was there to check anyone was following the law? The law was what any hospital administrator decided. The choice of whether a gang member who was hurt lived or died could be made by a resident at the hospital in the middle of the night, on a whim. So the nurse had put a tourniquet on his arm and brought my Gordi to me.\n\nThe nurse was a young woman, no older than twenty-five, and she stayed in the house beside Gordi, checking his wound, putting on fresh strips of bedsheets that she wrapped around his arm, as she removed all but the tourniquet. I knew Gordi didn't believe in God\u2014he had told me so, once, such a strange thing for a young boy to claim to know at such a young age\u2014so I went for my own candles with the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe to burn around his bed inside the house. In the first hours he was home, he didn't know who I was. He barely could identify anyone, the nurse, or my husband.\n\n\"We can't keep him here,\" my husband said. \"He'll die and he'll bring the gang into this house.\"\n\nThe nurse said, \"Se\u00f1or, if he goes outside now, he will definitely die. He will not be able to take being transported to a hospital. Let him rest.\"\n\n\"Who knows what kind of criminal activity he has become involved in?\" my husband said. \"He has brought near death for all of us into the house.\"\n\n\"Oh, shut up, Jos\u00e9 Manuel,\" I told him. \"He's just a boy, for crying out loud. He's a boy. They have hurt my boy!\" I kneeled down by the side of Gordi and stroked his head. How could they do this to my boy? My boy. My boy!\n\n\"Then act like his mother and find a way out of this trap. Do something,\" Jos\u00e9 Manuel said. He was nervous and said he was going to look for a gun to protect us.\n\n\"A gun?\" I said. \"The last thing we need is more guns. Can't you see Gordi's gun got him into this trouble to begin with?\"\n\n\"I'm going to get a gun,\" he said, again. And he left the house with me imploring him not to do so.\n\nThe nurse told me she would look after Gordi, she would protect him, and I went upstairs and put on my best clothes and lipstick and looked for all my money, which was less than there had been in the jar where I normally kept it. I realized Gordi must have taken some of the money to buy the gun. There were no reserves to fall back on. There was nothing except my ability to persuade, I knew, and I made the lipstick shine brighter on my lips and ironed my dress before I went to catch the pesero and bus. It was 4 a.m. and we had been up all night with the nurse and in a vigil with Gordi, and Jos\u00e9 Manuel had just left. I looked into the mirror and asked God to help me and made the sign of the cross. There was only one solution I could think of\u2014to fly away, to go to America, to get the hell out of this neighborhood, to leave El Farito and the gangs and the cancer of Iztapalapa. We should have gone before, I blamed myself. I should have known to get Gordi out of his school, before. My sweet, my love. I went into the room and ran my hand across his face, touching his round cheeks and nose and the soft skin of his forehead and felt his slow breathing in and out, so shallow, I could have no certainty he would still be alive when I came back, but the only chance he would live not only for another few hours, but for days, and weeks and months and years into the future, was to go and flee like any other refugee I had ever seen, or the women of World War II holding their arms up in the air crying over the spilled blood of their husbands, their soldiers, and knowing they had to uproot themselves from their farms and go, go, go.\n\nSo I went in the dark of the early morning, catching a pesero crammed with the people of the neighborhood, the muchachas that had to travel far across the city to get to the private homes where they worked, far away across the metropolis. They said little on the pesero in the morning, too tired to chat in the way they would chat coming home. A thin, tiny wisp of a light burned from the ceiling of the bus, the bodies crowded together, even at that early hour, and I made my way until I stood in front of the security gate of the American embassy, where the guards put me in a line, with others who waited, each like a begging ghost in the dawn as it lifted, against a snaking wall, each with hopes, until after a very long wait, it was finally 9 a.m. and the line began to move toward the large metal detector at the front, and white doors that reflected like a mirror back at all of us the hopes we felt and the barrier of the glass.\n\n\"Do you have an appointment?\" the guard asked.\n\n\"No,\" I had to admit. I was sent to another line and to another waiting room. For four hours I sat in a room with faint blue paint on the walls and fluorescent lights, with no windows to give me any sense of the passage of time and no hope there was any way out of the room. It was a trap, a box with one way in and it felt like no way out. The numbers in red, digital, primitive shapes\u2014yet which looked so new to me then, like another world, outside of the world of analog where I lived\u2014changed slowly. They were a sign of hope that this country, while cold and with barriers, might be something different, completely, from the neighborhood back home where Gordi, I hoped, was healing. This was before the days of cell phones. There was no way to check up on Gordi. I waited with all the papers I could think of that I might need: his birth certificate, my birth certificate and the certificate of Jos\u00e9 Manuel, a deed to the house we owned, which was worth almost nothing, a letter which indicated I was employed as a schoolteacher. I took what I had heard from others was necessary, a list of our single bank account and whatever else I could find that might indicate some money, which would show we were wealthy enough to be trusted to go to America and to come back.\n\nWhen my turn finally came, I could feel my lipstick had worn off. Why didn't I freshen it up before I was called up to the window? From the window I was directed to an office. I followed down the dull lighting of a corridor, with white linoleum tiles that shined in a way I had never seen before, so shiny and yet so cold. I knocked on the door, which was already open.\n\nThe man behind the desk did not look up at me, at first. He looked at a folder, among stacks of other manila folders on his desk.\n\nI sat in front of the man until he finally looked up. He looked bored, and tired, and he had a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses and a blue pinpoint shirt, and he had the look of a man who had never heard of my Gordi and would never care. I placed the envelope with all my documents on his desk.\n\n\"You need to wait until I tell you you can put something on the desk,\" he said.\n\nI pulled the envelope back. How could I change this man's thinking? Should I cry? Should I show him I was a mother? Should I stand as straight and still as a fragile, obedient bird? Should I go straight to the point?\n\nI waited until he was ready. \"You may now place your envelope on the table,\" he said. And I did.\n\nHe spoke in Spanish, but with a strange American accent that made his words twist into unrecognizable forms. I knew very little English, only a few words from when I had studied, years before, to be a teacher. But I thought it would impress him if I could speak some of his language, so I said, \"Mr....Mr., I have come here today because I have a son.\"\n\n\"You should speak in Spanish,\" he told me.\n\nI switched to Spanish, as he commanded. Long ago, I had learned you do whatever a bureaucrat wants, or nothing happens. It was the first rule to facing a bureaucrat in Mexico. And giving him a bribe.\n\n\"Se\u00f1or,\" I said. \"I am requesting a visa for tourism for me and my husband and my precious son, Gordi. He has always wanted to go to Disneyland. He wants to go to Disneyland, and my husband and I, we want to give him an opportunity to see the beautiful place of your country.\"\n\n\"And the reason for why you don't have an appointment?\" He opened the envelope I had placed on the table and looked at the papers, as I replied. He scowled at the papers. I could see he was not going to buy my story about Disneyland.\n\n\"You know,\" he said, \"it is a punishable offense to lie about why you want to go to the United States. I see people like you coming in here, every day, saying they want to go see the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty. The whole family just wants to up and go for a few days to see the Statue of Liberty. And, strangely enough, they come with papers trying to show me how much money they have, when they clearly have very little. You, ma'am, have a house in Iztapalapa. Does that sound like a place where many people, suddenly, have the money to go for tourism to Disneyland?\"\n\n\"Please. I beg you,\" I said. \"I am begging you. My son Gordi has been attacked by a gang. He is lying at home bleeding now, and I must be a bad mother to have left him, and the only reason I have done so is because I believe in your government. I believe that your government stands for the land of the free, as it says in your national anthem. I believe that you will give a chance to me and my husband and Gordi, and so I am requesting a tourist visa for us to go to Disneyland and to Miami.\"\n\n\"I would be fired, in a moment, if I gave you the kind of visa you are asking for because your son is trying to get out of his neighborhood,\" the man said. \"But I will tell you what. If you will agree to meet me for a drink, then we can resolve this matter, and you and your husband and your son can go to Disneyland. A drink. One time, and at this place.\" He wrote an address on a piece of paper and gave it to me. \"Will you do that?\" He paused. He looked at me with the officiousness of a man who had no scruples. Yet what did I think? Why did I expect him to be different from any other animal? Why did I really think that just because the floors shined more brightly that this bureaucratic dog from the United States would be any different from the Mexican bureaucratic dogs who reached out for money every time we needed something\u2014a permit to buy our house, a permit to register the car.\n\nI knew he meant more than a drink. I knew the words, _a drink,_ were a euphemism for sex. I knew he simply wanted to make me bend to his will to see if he could. I knew he was a pig of a man, who could ask to take advantage of a mother, dressed in her finest, obviously just trying to find a way to save her son and her husband and to get out of a hellhole of a circumstance. I felt like spitting in his face, but, as any mother would, I told him I would be there. I told him I would have the drink with him. I went to the address he gave me later that evening, staying in town until he was done with his day of work. I called Gordi a couple of times to see how he was doing, and the nurse said he was recovering, but nothing was certain. I thought of the gangs, like a cancer coming closer and closer around the house, circling like wolves. I thought of my husband doing who-knows-what to get another gun. And I slept with that officer in Polanco, in the hotel at the address he gave me. His breath tasted like cheap spearmint gum as he kissed me, later. His fingers moved like cold keys of a typewriter across my nipples and my chest. I had never done anything so abhorrent as to let a stranger touch my body, but I did it to get the tourist visas, to be able to take Gordi to a new land.\n\nMy father refused to come with us when my mother came home with the news of the tourist visas. He reacted like a caged cat, pacing through the house, faced with what my mother had done. I was only, finally, coming out of the immediate shock of the blow El Farito had given me. I had missed my mother's gift, her gift of her body to another man, which she had never wanted anyone to find out, but which I found out years later, when my father wrote to me in the United States saying he had reason to believe my mother had done such a \"horrible thing,\" as he put it. It was his reason, his excuse, for not making the trip with us. I heard him from my bed yelling at my mother, \"You smell of another man's cologne.\" I had no idea what he was referring to, as I lay in bed, but his letter years later let me know what he was stating. How he had guessed what had happened to my mother, I will never fully know. He used this as the main pretext for not coming with us. At the time, when my mother had given me more than any son could ever hope or expect from his mother, her own sense of self-dignity, he turned on her and accused her of being unfaithful. For that I can never forgive him, but I know that what he was also afraid of was leaving the home of his birth, the country which, for better and worse, had raised him. There is a smell to the country that one comes from that is either necessary, a smell that cannot be left because it gives you your whole identity, the culture which cradles you and gives you your sense of purpose and norm and a sense of daily routine; or a smell which, for me, after El Farito struck me, would always be the smell of blood and fear.\n\nMy mother snatched me out of that fatherland, like the stork which had originally given me life and which now wanted to ensure my continued survival. With no more than a small suitcase, because my mother insisted we look like tourists and not immigrants to a new land, she made the further difficult choice of not only leaving her home country but also of leaving my father, whom she had been married to, at that time, for twenty years. She had met my father at a wedding party of a cousin, with soft mariachi music accompanying them on their first dance, but she gave up even her husband\u2014who certainly had many faults, but for all of his faults had still been her love, once\u2014so that she could bring me to safety.\n\nWe landed in the middle of the night, at the darkest hour just before the dawn in Miami, me with a teddy bear and my small suitcase, and my mother with an old, beat-up red nylon suitcase that was so old the back zipper was coming undone and the red had turned to a bruised reddish-black. And with no more than that in our hands we arrived in America, two tourists supposedly going to Disneyland, two members of a family now broken, my arm wrapped in gauze which my mother kept as fresh and as clean as possible.\n\n\"What's wrong with him?\" the guard at the border said in the airport in Miami, pointing to my arm, looking at our passports, yet barely showing any real interest in us. Others were waiting. We had the proper visas. My mother merely said, \"His name is Gordi. He is twelve years old, and he has always wanted to come play in this country.\"\n\nThat was enough to have the gentleman stamp our passports and, though he was clearly unconvinced, he was on to the next persons to stamp their passports.\n\nSoon after we arrived in Miami, my mother enrolled herself in night classes so she could say she was a student, worthy of a student visa. She enrolled me in school for the fall, so I could get a student visa as well. Our long climb with the immigration service of the government began, and we stayed in the United States, and I grew up in the country, first as a rebellious kid who, once my arm healed, began to play American football, and then, oddly, I received a minor football scholarship to Southern Methodist University, but the year I arrived at the university their football program was shut down and all of their money was put, temporarily, for a few years, into promoting music instead. In high school, because I had wanted to play the bass guitar in a band, I had started taking stand-up bass lessons in the public school orchestra. I was late to begin the instrument, but the bass is not like the violin, which you have to begin as a child to play well. I played the anchoring notes, and traveled with the orchestra, and became interested in the deep, underlying sounds that seemed to resonate with some inner pain I had kept from my days in Mexico, even though I had grown into a boy who talked a lot and who joked a lot with others in the hallways of my American school.\n\n\u2014\n\nToday, thirty years have passed since my mother took me, bravely, to the United States. Thirty years to the day, and the United States is finally giving my mother her U.S. citizenship. Had we come completely illegally, we might have been able to become U.S. citizens much earlier, but ironically, by coming with official visas, by working through the legal system as you are supposed to, my mother had signed papers with fine print that said when we came as tourists we never intended to stay as immigrants. It has taken this long to work her through the legal system.\n\nI live most of the time in New York, where I eventually attended Julliard for a master's degree, but I have bought a house with my wife down in Florida. She is a composer, and she finds the escape from New York a source of calming, a place where it is easier for her to compose. I follow my wife, who is far more famous than me, around the world. She is the star. I am her supporter, her biggest fan, just as my mother was once my biggest fan, saving me. I pull my wife's suitcases through the airports. I check her in to hotels, as she is brought to compose music for some of the biggest orchestras and quartets in the world. I am a nobody, but I know my wife loves that I am so supportive of her. I live for my wife, as my mother has lived her life for me.\n\nTo celebrate my mother's thirtieth year in the United States, and the envelope that came in the mail this morning, announcing that she is now, formally, a citizen of this country, I take her to the mineral springs that I love so much, near our house just outside the town of Englewood, Florida. The place has the feeling of a spa. When you walk in the door there are lawn chairs spread out on the wide-open, manicured grass. Palm trees sway in the air.\n\nAs is my habit when I am down in Florida with my wife who is composing, she works in the house, locked away from me in her room, while I go to the mineral springs. I like to wear a thick, white, plush bathrobe, which I stole from a hotel in Germany when we were on tour for one of her musical compositions. I have a second, equally plush robe that I give to my mother. We have lunch first, and I order plate after plate of sandwiches, fresh orange juice, beer, borscht soup, since the local Russians like to come to this artesian spring, and then I order a plate of caviar and black bread, which is the most expensive item on the menu. I like to celebrate everything in life. I like to take in every opportunity to have fun, to taste, to play music with friends, to feel just how good life can be.\n\nMy mother, looking at all of the food I have ordered for us, as we sit under a large sun umbrella at the caf\u00e9 of the mineral springs, says, \"You eat like you are always running away from something, Gordi. You eat too much.\"\n\nShe is right, of course, in some ways. But I tell her, \"It is not running away. It is taking in everything, sucking the marrow of the bone.\" I feel my scar under the plush cotton cloth of my robe and pull the sleeve of the arm up, involuntarily, until I can see the scar. My eyes get watery looking at the scar, the deep gash where El Farito almost killed me. I think of my father, who only came once to the United States to see me, six years ago, when I was married to my wife. It is the only time he has ever come to see me. He came on the day of the wedding, though he hid from standing in most of the pictures because he was uncomfortable that my wife is Jewish. There is odd, lingering anti-Semitism there, another story for another time.\n\nMe, I have never been back to Mexico. I can never return. I have no desire to go back to the place where I was almost killed, and to those times of running away from the gangs of Iztapalapa. I order another orange juice and down it in three gulps. My belly is round, but it is a happy belly, not a slothful belly. I take in life. I play in the back of the orchestra, letting my arm sway widely to and fro. \"You look wonderful today, Mam\u00e1,\" I tell her. And she does look happy. \"I can never thank you enough.\"\n\nShe smiles at me, gets up from the table for a second, leaning forward with her relatively small body next to me, her little bear cub, who is now not so little, with some gray around my temples, and gives me a kiss around the back of my ear. When we are done, and she is sitting in the chair with her eyes closed, leaning back, looking calm, I leave her and I walk out into the deep pond of the mineral spring. I walk into the water that others might think is full of muck, burbling up from the origins of a swamp, which is so deep the bottom cannot be seen. It is said the hole of the mineral spring goes down hundreds of feet to another place, to other origins, to a place so deep the bones of dinosaurs can be found there. The explorer Ponce de Le\u00f3n passed near the place in 1513 when he came looking for seven fountains of youth and gold, which he never found, but which I lay floating in comfortably in the deepest part of the water, looking up at the sky as it breezes by. Floating in this water is my favorite activity when I am down in Florida. I like it even more than floating in the ocean. I feel the power of the healing minerals as they swish and move around my body, into my ears and over my scar, and the waters soften the scar, as time does\u2014I should never have bought the gun, my mom and I will always be refugees, I think\u2014and I feel my mother nearby, right next to me even though she is fifty yards away, the calm of another beautiful day in Florida, the calm of a mother's love for her child.\n\n# ACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nTHANKS TO Tessa Hadley, Jaime Manrique, Edie Meidav, Susan Burmeister-Brown, Linda Swanson-Davies, Albert Goldbarth, Tom Perrotta, Nathan Roberson, Philip Spitzer, Lukas Ortiz, Christopher Merrill, Jennifer Clement, David Lida, Peter Nazareth, Chris Walsh, Mary Sullivan Walsh, John Matthias, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Patricia Caswell, Martin J. Sherwin, Marc Nieson, Sherrie Flick, Peter Trachtenberg, James Alan McPherson, Frank Conroy, David Hamilton, Steve Almond, Thorpe Moeckel, Margaret Dawe, Levente Sulyok, Bradley Narduzzi, Roberto Espinosa, Jessica Poore, Rafael Moreno Arn\u00e1iz, Du\u0161an Sekulovi\u0107, Dena Wetzel, Maria Elena Barron, Sandy and Bronwyn Barkan. In memory of my father, Joel Barkan.\nABOUT THE AUTHOR\n\nJOSH BARKAN has won the Lightship International Short Story Prize and has been a finalist for the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, the Paterson Fiction Prize, and the Juniper Prize for Fiction. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his writing has appeared in _Esquire._ He earned his MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has taught writing at Harvard, Boston University, and New York University. With his wife, a painter from Mexico, he divides his time between Mexico City and Roanoke, Virginia.\n\n# _What's next on  \nyour reading list?_\n\n[Discover your next  \ngreat read!](http:\/\/links.penguinrandomhouse.com\/type\/prhebooklanding\/isbn\/9781101906309\/display\/1)\n\n* * *\n\nGet personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.\n\nSign up now.\n  1. Cover\n  2. Other Titles\n  3. Title Page\n  4. Copyright\n  5. Dedication\n  6. Contents\n  7. The Chef and El Chapo\n  8. The God of Common Names\n  9. I Want to Live\n  10. Acapulco\n  11. The Kidnapping\n  12. The Plastic Surgeon\n  13. The Sharpshooter\n  14. The Painting Professor\n  15. The American Journalist\n  16. Everything Else Is Going to Be Fine\n  17. The Prison Breakout\n  18. The Escape from Mexico\n  19. Acknowledgments\n  20. About the Author\n\n  1. Cover\n  2. Cover\n  3. Title Page\n  4. Contents\n  5. Start\n\n  1. iv\n  2. v\n  3. vi\n  4. vii\n  5. \n  6. \n  7. \n  8. \n  9. \n  10. \n  11. \n  12. \n  13. \n  14. \n  15. \n  16. \n  17. \n  18. \n  19. \n  20. \n  21. \n  22. \n  23. \n  24. \n  25. \n  26. \n  27. \n  28. \n  29. \n  30. \n  31. \n  32. \n  33. \n  34. \n  35. \n  36. \n  37. \n  38. \n  39. \n  40. \n  41. \n  42. \n  43. \n  44. \n  45. \n  46. \n  47. \n  48. \n  49. \n  50. \n  51. \n  52. \n  53. \n  54. \n  55. \n  56. \n  57. \n  58. \n  59. \n  60. \n  61. \n  62. \n  63. \n  64. \n  65. \n  66. \n  67. \n  68. \n  69. \n  70. \n  71. \n  72. \n  73. \n  74. \n  75. \n  76. \n  77. \n  78. \n  79. \n  80. \n  81. \n  82. \n  83. \n  84. \n  85. \n  86. \n  87. \n  88. \n  89. \n  90. \n  91. \n  92. \n  93. \n  94. \n  95. \n  96. \n  97. \n  98. \n  99. \n  100. \n  101. \n  102. \n  103. \n  104. \n  105. \n  106. \n  107. \n  108. \n  109. \n  110. \n  111. \n  112. \n  113. \n  114. \n  115. \n  116. \n  117. \n  118. \n  119. \n  120. \n  121. \n  122. \n  123. \n  124. \n  125. \n  126. \n  127. \n  128. \n  129. \n  130. \n  131. \n  132. \n  133. \n  134. \n  135. \n  136. \n  137. \n  138. \n  139. \n  140. \n  141. \n  142. \n  143. \n  144. \n  145. \n  146. \n  147. \n  148. \n  149. \n  150. \n  151. \n  152. \n  153. \n  154. \n  155. \n  156. \n  157. \n  158. \n  159. \n  160. \n  161. \n  162. \n  163. \n  164. \n  165. \n  166. \n  167. \n  168. \n  169. \n  170. \n  171. \n  172. \n  173. \n  174. \n  175. \n  176. \n  177. \n  178. \n  179. \n  180. \n  181. \n  182. \n  183. \n  184. \n  185. \n  186. \n  187. \n  188. \n  189. \n  190. \n  191. \n  192. \n  193. \n  194. \n  195. \n  196. \n  197. \n  198. \n  199. \n  200. \n  201. \n  202. \n  203. \n  204. \n  205. \n  206. \n  207. \n  208. \n  209. \n  210. \n  211. \n  212. \n  213. \n  214. \n  215. \n  216. \n  217. \n  218. \n  219. \n  220. \n  221. \n  222. \n  223. \n  224. \n  225. \n  226. \n  227. \n  228. \n  229. \n  230. \n  231. \n  232. \n  233. \n  234. \n  235. \n  236. \n  237. \n  238. \n  239. \n  240. \n  241. \n  242. \n  243. \n  244. \n  245. \n  246.\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}