Autor: Editor

The average man in the street or man of affairs has no very
clear conception of what manner of man a "scientist" may be. No
especial significance attaches in his mind to the term. No
picture of a personality or his work arises in the imagination
when the word "scientist" is pronounced. More or less
indefinitely, I suppose, it is conceded by all that a scientist
is a man of vast erudition (an impression by the way which is
often strikingly incorrect) who leads a dreary life with his
head buried in a book or his eye glued to telescope or
microscope, or perfumed with those disagreeable odors which, as
everybody knows, are inseparably associated with chemicals. The
purpose of this life is not very clear, but doubtless a vague
feeling exists in the minds of most of us that people who are
willing to pursue such an unattractive career must be worthy of
admiration, for despite all the triumphs of commercialism,
humanity still loves idealism, even idealism which seems
objectless because it is incomprehensible.

From time to time the existence of the scientific man is
recalled to the popular mind by some extravagant headlines in
the daily press, announcing some utterly impossible "discovery"
or some extravagantly nonsensical dictum made by an alleged
"scientist." The "discovery" was never made, the dictum never
uttered, but no matter; to-morrow its place will be taken by
the latest political or matrimonial scandal, and the public,
with excellent good sense, will forget all about it.

From time to time, also, there creeps gradually into the public
consciousness a sense that SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED. Brief
notices appear in the press, at first infrequently and then
more frequently, and an article or two in the popular
monthlies. The public becomes languidly interested in a new
possibility and even discusses it, sceptically. Then of a
sudden we are awakened to the realization of a new power in
being. The X-ray, wireless telegraphy or the aeroplane has
become the latest "marvel of science," only to develop in a
very brief period into a commonplace of existence.

Many indeed are aware that we owe these "marvels" to scientific
research, but very few indeed, to the shame of our schools be
it spoken, have attained to the faintest realization of the
indubitable fact that we owe almost the entirety of our
material environment, and no small proportion of our social and
spiritual environment, to the labors of scientists or of their
spiritual brethren.

Long ago, in ages so remote that no record of them survives
save our heritage of labor well achieved, some pastoral savage,
more reflective and less practical than his brethren, took to
star-gazing and noting in his memory certain strange
coincidences. Doubtless he was chidden by his tribal leaders
who were hard-headed men of affairs, skilled in the
questionable art of imposing conventional behavior upon unruly
tribesmen. But he was an inveterate dreamer, this prehistoric
Newton and the fascination of the thing had gripped his mind.
In due time he was gathered to his fathers, but not before he
had passed on to a few chosen ones the peculiar coincidences he
had observed. And thus, from age to age coincidence was added
to coincidence and the result of all this "unpractical" labor
was, at long last, a calendar. Let who will attempt to estimate
the cash value of this discovery; I will not attempt the
impossible. I will merely ask you to picture to yourselves
humanity in the condition of the Australian Aboriginal or of
the South African Bushman; devoid of any means of estimating
time or season save by the daily passage of the sun, and I ask
you, "supposing that through some vast calamity, a calamity
greater even than the present war, humanity could at a stroke
evolve a calendar, would it be worth while?" I for one think it
would.

The evolution of the calendar is not an inapt illustration of
the methods of science, and of the part which it has played in
shaping the destiny of man. Out of the unregarded labors of
thousands of forgotten men, and a few whom we now remember, has
sprung every detail of that vast complex of machinery, method
and measurement in which to-day we live and move and have our
being. In all ages scientific curiosity guided by the
scientific discipline of thought has forced man into new and
more complex paths of progress. Lacking the spirit of research,
a nation or community is merely parasitic, living upon the
vital achievements of others, as Rome based her civilization
upon the civilization of the Greeks. Only an indefinite and
sterile refinement of the existing environment is possible
under such circumstances, and humanity stays stationary or
sinks back into the semibarbarism of the middle ages.

The few scattered students of nature of that day picked up the
clue to her secrets exactly as it fell from the hands of the
Greeks a thousand years before. The foundations of mathematics
were so well laid by them that our children learn their
geometry from a book written for the schools of Alexandria two
thousand years ago. Modern astronomy is the natural
continuation and development of the work of Hipparchus and of
Ptolemy; modern physics of that of Democritus and of
Archimedes; it was long before biological science outgrew the
knowledge bequeathed to us by Aristotle, by Theophrastus and by
Galen.[1]

[1] T. H. Huxley, "Science and Culture."

If, therefore, we ask ourselves what has been the value of
science to man, the answer is that its value is practically the
value of the whole world in which we find ourselves to-day, or,
at any rate, the difference between the value of our world and
that of a world inhabited by Neolithic savages.

The sweeping nature of this deduction may from its very
comprehensiveness fail to carry conviction to the reader. But
concrete illustrations of the value which scientific research
may add to our environment are not far to seek. They are
afforded in abundance by the dramatic achievements of the past
century of human progress, in which science has begun painfully
and haltingly to creep into its true place and achieve its true
function.

In the year 1813 many important events occurred. The power of
Napoleon was crumbling in that year and countless historians
have written countless pages describing innumerable events,
great and small, which accompanied that colossal downfall. But
one event of that year, of which we do not read in our
historical memoirs and school books was the discovery by Sir
Humphry Davy, in the humble person of a bookbinder's
apprentice, of the man who will probably stand out forever in
the history of science as the ideal scientific man–Michael
Faraday. The manner of this discovery is revealed by the
following conversation between Sir Humphry Davy and his friend
Pepys. "Pepys, what am I to do, here is a letter from a young
man named Faraday; he has been attending my lectures, and wants
me to give him employment at the Royal Institution–what can I
do?" "Do?" replied Pepys, "put him to wash bottles; if he
refuses he is good for nothing." "No, no," replied Davy; "we
must try him with something better than that." The result was,
that Davy engaged him to assist in the laboratory at weekly
wages.[2]

[2] J. Tyndall, "Faraday as a Discoverer."

Davy made many important discoveries, but none of his
discoveries was more important than his discovery of Faraday,
and of all the events which occurred in the year 1813, the
entry of Faraday into the Royal Institution was not the least
significant for humanity.

On the morning of Christmas day, 1821, Faraday called his wife
into his laboratory to witness, for the first time in the
history of man, the revolution of a magnet around an electric
current. The foundations of electromagnetics were laid and the
edifice was built by Faraday upon this foundation in the
fourteen succeeding years. In those years and from those
labors, the electro-motor, the motor generator, the electrical
utilization of water power, the electric car, electric
lighting, the telephone and telegraph, in short all that is
comprised in modern electrical machinery came actually or
potentially into being. The little rotating magnet which
Faraday showed his wife was, in fact, the first electric motor.

What was the cash value to humanity of those fourteen years of
labor in a laboratory?

According to the thirteenth census of the United States, the
value of the electrical machinery, apparatus and supplies
produced in this country alone, in 1909 was $221,000,000. In
1907, the value of the electric light and power stations in the
United States was $1,097,000,000, of the telephones
$820,000,000, and the combined income from these two sources
was $360,000,000. Nor does this represent a tithe of the
values, as yet barely realized, which these researches placed
at our disposal. Thus in its waterfalls, the United States is
estimated to possess 150,000,000 available horse-power, which
can only be realized through the employment of Faraday's
electro-motor. This corresponds, at the conservative figure of
$20 per horse-power per annum to a yearly income of
$3,000,000,000, corresponding at 4 per cent. interest to a
capital value of $75,000,000,0000.[3]

[3] M. T. Bogert, "The Function of Chemistry in the
Conservation of our National Resources," Journal of the
American Chemical Society, February, 1909.

Such was the Christmas gift which Michael Faraday presented to
the world in 1821.

Faraday died a poor man in 1867, neither for lack of
opportunity nor for lack of ability to grasp his opportunities,
but because as his pupil Tyndall tells us, he found it
necessary to choose between the pursuit of wealth and the
pursuit of science, and he deliberately chose the latter. This
is not a bad thing. It is perhaps as it should be, and as it
has been in the vast majority of cases. But another fact which
can not be viewed with like equanimity is that of all the
inexhaustible wealth which Faraday poured into the lap of the
world, not one millionth, not a discernible fraction, has ever
been returned to science for the furtherance of its aims and
its achievements, for the continuance of research.

There is no regular machinery for securing the permanent
endowment of research, and it is always and everywhere a barely
tolerated intruder. In the universities it crouches under the
shadow of pedagogy, and snatches its time and its materials
from the fragments which are left over when the all-important
business of teaching the young what others have accomplished
has been done. In commercial institutions it occasionally
pursues a stunted career, subject to all the caprices of
momentary commercial advantage and the cramped outlook of the
"practical man." The investigator in the employ of a commercial
undertaking is encouraged to be original, it is true, but not
to be too original. He must never transcend the "practical,"
that is to say, the infinitesimal rearrangement of the
preexisting. The institutions existing in the world which are
devoted to research and, research alone can almost be counted
on the fingers. The Solvay Institute in Brussels, the Nobel
Institute in Stockholm, the Pasteur Institute in France, the
Institute for Experimental Therapy at Frankfort, The Kaiser
Wilhelm Institutes at Berlin, The Imperial Institute for
Medical Research at Petrograd, the Biologisches Versuchsanstalt
at Vienna, the Biological Station at Naples, the Royal
Institution in London, the Wellcome Laboratories in England and
at Khartoum, the Smithsonian, Wistar, Carnegie and Rockefeller
Institutes in the United States; the list of research
institutes of important dimensions (excluding astronomical
observatories) is, I believe, practically exhausted by the
above enumeration, and many of them are woefully undermanned
and underequipped. At least two of them, the Solvay Institute
wholly, and the Frankfort Institute for Experimental Therapy in
part, owe their existence and continuance to scientific men,
Solvay and Ehrlich, who have contrived to combine the pursuit
of wealth and of science, and have dedicated the wealth thus
procured to the science that gave it birth.

In 1900 the value of the manufacturing industries in the United
States which had been developed from patented scientific
inventions was no less than $395,663,958 per annum,[4]
corresponding to a capital value of about $10,000,000,000. It
is impossible to arrive at any accurate estimate of the
proportion of this wealth which finds its way back to science
to provide equipment and subsistence for the investigator, who
is creating the wealth of the future. But the capital endowment
of the Rockefeller and Carnegie Institutes, the two wealthiest
institutes of research in the world is, according to the 1914
issue of Minerva, only $29,000,000. The total income (exclusive
of additions to endowments) of all the higher institutions of
learning in the United States in 1913, was only $90,000,000, of
which a minute percentage was expended in research.

[4] 12th census, Vol. 10, Part 4.

If science produces so much wealth, is there no contrivance
whereby we can cause a small fraction of this wealth to return
automatically to science and to furnish munitions of war for
fresh conquests of nature? A very small investment in research
often produces colossal returns. In 1911 the income of the
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry was only
$21,000. In 1913 the income of the Institute for Experimental
Therapy at Frankfort, where "606" was discovered, was only
$20,000; that of the Imperial Institute for Medical Research at
Petrograd was $95,000, and that of the National Physical
Laboratory in England (not exclusively devoted to research) was
$40,000. Yet these are among the most famous research
institutions in the world and have achieved results of
world-wide fame and inestimable value both from a financial
standpoint and from the standpoint of the physical, moral and
spiritual welfare of mankind.

In 1856, Perkin, an English chemist, discovered the coal-tar
(anilin) dyes. The cost of this investigation, which was
carried out in an improvised, private laboratory was
negligible. Yet, in 1905, the United States imported $5,635,164
worth of these dyes from Europe, and Germany exported
$24,065,500 worth to all parts of the world.[5] To-day we read
that great industries in this country are paralyzed because
these dyes temporarily can not be imported from Germany. All of
these vast results sprang from a modest little laboratory, a
meager equipment and the genius and patience of one man.

[5] U. S. Census Bureau Bull. 92.

W. R. Whitney, director of the research laboratory of the
General Electric Company, points out that the collective
improvements in the manufacture of filaments for electric
lamps, from 1901 to 1911, have saved the consumer and producer
no less than $240,000,000 annually. He adds with apparently
unconscious naivete that the expenses of the research
laboratory in his charge aggregate more than $100,000
annually![6] A handsome investment, this, which brings in some
two hundred million for an outlay of one hundred thousand.

[6] "Technology and Industrial Efficiency," McGraw-Hill Book
Co., 1911.

According to Huxley the discovery by Pasteur of the means of
preventing or curing anthrax, silkworm disease and chicken
cholera, a fraction of that great man's life work, added
annually to the wealth of France a sum equivalent to the entire
indemnity paid by France to Germany after the war of 1870.

Humanity has not finished its conquest of nature; on the
contrary, it has barely begun. The discipline of thought which
has carried humanity so far is destined to carry it further
yet. Business enterprise and politics, the all-absorbing
interests of the majority of mankind, work in an endless
circle. Scientific research communicates a thrust to this
rotation which converts the circle into a spiral; the apex of
that spiral lies far beyond our vision. We have, not decades,
not centuries, not thousands of years before us; but, as
astronomy assures us, in all probability, humanity has millions
of years of earthly destiny to realize. Barely three thousand
years of PURPOSEFUL scientific research have brought the
uttermost ends of the earth to our doors; have made
civilization and excluded much of the most brutal and
brutalizing in life. Not more than two hundred years of
research have made us masters where we were slaves; masters of
distance, of the air, of the water, of the bowels of the earth,
of many of the most dreaded aspects of disease and suffering.
Only for forty years have we practiced antisepsis; only for
sixty years have we had anesthetics; yet life to-day is
well-nigh inconceivable without them. And all of this has been
accomplished without any forethought on the part of the
acknowledged rulers and leaders of mankind or any save the most
trumpery and uncertain provision for research. What will the
millions of years which stretch in front of us bring of power
to mankind? We can barely foreshadow things too vast to grasp;
things that will make the imaginings of Jules Verne and H. G.
Wells seem puny by comparison. The future, with the uncanny
control which it will bring over things that seem to us almost
sacred–over life and death and development and thought
itself–might well seem to us a terrifying prospect were it not
for one great saving clause. Through all that may happen to
man, of this we may be sure, that he will remain human; and
because of that we can face the future unafraid and confident
that because it will be greater, it will also be better than
the present.

What can we do to accelerate the coming of this future? Not
very much, it is true, but we can surely do something. We can
not create geniuses, often we can not discern them, but having
discerned, surely we can use them to the best advantage. It is
true that all scientific research has depended and will depend
upon individuals; Simon Newcomb expresses the matter thus:

'It is impressive to think how few men we should have to remove
from the earth during the past three centuries to have stopped
the advance of our civilization. In the seventeenth century
there would only have been Galileo, Newton and a few other
contemporaries, in the eighteenth they could almost have been
counted on the fingers, and they have not crowded the
nineteenth.'[7]

[7] "Inventors at Work," Iles, Doubleday Page, 1906.

The first thing we have to do is to discover such men, to learn
to know them or suspect them when we meet them or their works.
The next is to give them moral and financial recognition, and
the means of doing their work. Our procedure in the past has
been the reverse of this. I quote from a letter of Kepler to
his friend Moestlen:

'I supplicate you, if there is a situation vacant at Tubingen,
do what you can to obtain it for me, and let me know the prices
of bread, wine and other necessaries of life, for my wife is
not accustomed to live on beans.'

The founder of comparative psychology, J. H. Fabre, that
"incomparable observer" as Darwin characterized him, is now
over ninety years of age, and until very recently was actually
suffering from poverty. All his life his work was stunted and
crippled by poverty, and countless researches which he was the
one human being qualified by genius and experience to
undertake, remain to this day unperformed because he never
could command the meager necessary equipment of apparatus.

Once again, what can we do?

No small proportion of the population of a modern community are
alumni of some institution of higher learning, and one thing
that these can do is to see to it by every means in their power
that some measure of the spirit of academic freedom is
preserved in their alma mater. That the spirit of inquiry and
research is not merely tolerated therein but fostered and
substantially supported, morally and financially.

As members of the body politic, we can assist the development
of science in two ways. Firstly, by doing each our individual
part towards ensuring that endowment for the university must
provide not only for "teaching adolescents the rudiments of
Greek and Latin" and erecting imposing buildings, but also for
the furtherance of scientific research. The public readily
appreciates a great educational mill for the manufacture of
mediocre learning, and it always appreciates a showy building,
but it is slow to realize that that which urgently and at all
times needs endowment is experimental research.

Secondly, it is vital that public sentiment should be educated
to the point of providing the legal machinery whereby some
proportion, no matter how small, of the wealth which science
pours into the lap of the community, shall return automatically
to the support and expansion of scientific research. The
collection of a tax upon the profits accruing from inventions
(which are all ultimately if indirectly results of scientific
advances) and the devotion of the proceeds from this tax to the
furtherance of research would not only be a policy of wisdom in
the most material sense, but it would also be a policy of bare
justice.

THE PHYSICAL MICHELANGELO

BY JAMES FREDERICK ROGERS, M.D.

NEW HAVEN, CONN.

You will say that I am old and mad, but I answer that there is
no better way of keeping sane and free from anxiety than by
being mad.

HAD Michelangelo been less poetic and more explicit in his
language, he might have said there is nothing so conducive to
mental and physical wholeness as saturation of body and mind
with work. The great artist was so prone to over-anxiety and
met (whether needlessly or not) with so many rebuffs and
disappointments, that only constant absorption in manual labor
prevented spirit from fretting itself free from flesh. He
toiled "furiously" in all his mighty undertakings and body and
mind remained one and in superior harmony–in abundant
health–for nearly four score and ten years.

This Titan got his start in life in the rugged country three
miles outside Florence: a place of quarries, where stone
cutters and sculptors lived and worked. His mother's health was
failing and it was to the wife of one of these artisans that
her baby was given to nurse. Half in jest, half in earnest,
Michelangelo said one day to Vasari:

'If I have anything good in me, that comes from my birth in the
pure air of your country of Arezzo, and perhaps also from the
feet that with the milk of my nurse, I sucked in the chisels
and hammers wherewith I make my figures.'

He began his serious study of art (and with it his course in
"physical training") at fourteen, when he became apprenticed to
a painter. He was not vigorous as a child, but his bodily
powers unfolded and were intensified through their active
expression of his imagination.

His life was devoted with passion to art. He had from the start
no time for frivolity. Art became his religion–and required of
him the sacrifice of all that might keep him below his highest
level of power for work. His father early warned him to have a
care for his health, "for," said he, "in your profession, if
once you were to fall ill you would be a ruined man." To one so
intent on perfection and so keenly alive to imperfection such
advice must have been nearly superfluous, for the artist could
not but observe the effect upon his work of any depression of
his bodily well-being. He was, besides, too thrifty in all
respects to think of lapsing into bodily neglect or abuse. He
was severely temperate, but not ascetic, save in those times
when devotion to work caused him to sleep with his clothes on,
that he might not lose time in seizing the chisel when he
awoke. He ate to live and to labor, and was pleased with a
present of "fifteen marzolino cheeses and fourteen pounds of
sausage–the latter very welcome, as was also the cheese." Over
a gift of choice wines he is not so enthusiastic and the
bottles found their way mostly to the tables of his friends and
patrons. When intent on some work he usually "confined his diet
to a piece of bread which he ate in the middle of his labors."
Few hours (we have no accurate statement in the matter) were
devoted to sleep. He ate comparatively little because he worked
better: he slept less than many men because he worked better in
consequence. Partly for protection against cold, partly perhaps
for economy of time, he sometimes left his high dog-skin boots
on for so long that when he removed them the scarf skin came
away like the skin of a moulting serpent.

He dressed for comfort and not to mortify the flesh. Upon the
receipt of a present of some shirts from his nephew he writes:

'I am very much surprised ye should have sent them to me, for
they are so coarse that there is not a farm laborer here who
would not be ashamed to wear them.'

He is much pleased with a finer lot selected later by his
nephew's new wife. Perhaps he did not come up to modern notions
of cleanliness (he was early advised by his father never to
bathe but to have his body rubbed instead) but he was clean
inside, which can not be said of all who make much of a
well-washed skin.

His intensity of purpose and fiery energy expressed themselves
in his features and form. "His face was round, his brow square,
ample," and deeply furrowed: "the temples projected much beyond
the ears"; his eyes were "small rather than large," of a dark
(some said horn) color and peered, piercingly, from under heavy
brows. The flattened nose was the result of a blow from a rival
apprentice. He evidently looked the part, though for such
mental powers one of his colossal statues would seem a more
fitting mold.

Michelangelo experienced some illnesses, all but two of them of
minor moment. In 1531 he "became alarmingly ill, and the Pope
ordered him to quit most of his work and to take better care of
his health." That the illness was a storm merely of the surface
is evidenced sufficiently in that his fresco of the "Last
Judgment," probably the most famous single picture in the
world, was begun years later and completed in his sixty-sixth
year. In the work of this epoch there is more than ever the
evidence of a pouring forth of energy amounting almost to what
the critics call violence–to terribleness of action. It was
not until the age of seventy that an illness which seemed to
mark any weakening of his bodily powers came upon him. At
seventy-five, symptoms of calculus (a disease common in that
day at fifty) appeared, but, though naturally pessimistic, he
writes, "In all other respects I am pretty much as I was at
thirty years." He improved under careful medical treatment, but
the illness and his age were sufficient to cause him to "think
of putting his spiritual and temporal affairs in better order
than he had hitherto done."

He wielded the brush and the chisel with consummate skill in
his seventy-fifth year. With the later loss of cunning his
energy found vent more in the planning and supervising of
architectural works, culminating in the building of St.
Peter's, but even in these later years he took up the chisel as
an outlet for superfluous energy and to induce sleep. Though
the product of his hand was not good, his health was the better
for this mutual exercise of mind and body. In his eighty-sixth
year he is said to have sat drawing for three consecutive hours
until pains and cramps in his limbs warned him that he had not
the endurance of youth. For exercise, when manual labor proved
a disappointment, he often took horseback rides. There was no
invalidism about this great spirit, and it was not until the
day before his death that he would consent to go to bed.

In a poem of his last years he burlesques his infirmities in
his usual vigorous manner.

'I live alone and wretched, confined like the pith within the
bark of the tree…. My voice is like a wasp imprisoned within
a sack of skin and bone. … My teeth rattle like the keys of
an old musical instrument…. My face is a scarecrow…. There
is a ceaseless buzzing in my ears–in one a spider spins his
web, in the other a cricket chirps all night…. My catarrh,
which causes a rattle in my throat, will not allow me to
sleep.–Fatigue has quite broken me, and the hostlery which
awaits me is Death.'

Few men at his age have had less reason to find in themselves
other than the changes to be expected with the passing of years
and in prose he acknowledged that he had no more affections of
the flesh than were to be expected at his age. Codiva pictures
him in his last years as "of good complexion; more muscular and
bony than fat or fleshy in his person: healthy above all
things, as well by reason of his natural constitution as of the
exercise he takes, and habitual continence in food and sexual
indulgence." His temperance and manual industry and his
"extraordinary blamelessness in life and in every action" had
been his source of preservation. He was miserly, suspicious,
quarrelsome and pessimistic, but the effects of these faults
were balanced by his better habits of thought and action. That
he, like most great men, felt keenly the value of health, is
evidenced not only by his own practice, but by his oft repeated
warnings to his nephew when choosing a wife to see that
whatever other qualities she might have she be healthy. The
blemish of nearsight he considered a no small defect and
sufficient to render a young woman unworthy of entry into the
proud family of the Buonarroti. To his own father he wrote:
"Look to your life and health, for a man does not come back
again to patch up things ill done."

One of those who look beneath unusual human phenomena for signs
of the pathologic finds Michelangelo "affected by a degree of
neuropathy bordering closely upon hysterical disease." What a
pity that more of us do not suffer from such degrees of
neuropathy–and how much better for most of us if we had such
enthusiasm for perfection, and such mania for work, at least of
that health-bringing sort in which there is absorbing colabor
of brain and hand. True it is that "there is no better way of
keeping sane and free from anxiety than by being mad."

THE CONSERVATION OF TALENT THROUGH UTILIZATION

BY PROFESSOR JOHN M. GILLETTE

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

TO raise the question of how to conserve talent is not an idle
inquiry. We are in no immediate danger of famine. Yet there is
an enormous interest being devoted to what is known as the
conservation of soil. Our forests contain an abundance of
timber for near purposes, and when they are gone we shall
probably find a better substitute in the direction of concrete.
Still agitation and discussion proceed relative to the
conservation of our timber supply. We hear of conservation of
childhood, of conservation of health, of conservation of
natural scenery. It is a period of agitation for conservation
of resources all along the line. This is all good. Real
intelligent foresight is manifesting itself. Civilized man
demonstrates his superiority over uncivilized man most in the
exercise of anticipation and prescience.

As compared with other natural resources, genius and talent are
relatively scarce articles. This is at least the popular
impression as to their quantity. Even scientific men, for the
most part, incline to this opinion. Unless we are able to
demonstrate that they are quite abundant this opinion must be
accepted. I shall seek to show that the estimate of the amount
of talent in existence which is usually accepted is too small.
However, we are in no peril of so inflating the potential
supply of talent and genius in the course of our remarks that
they may be regarded as universal. Nor are we likely to
discover such a rich lode of this commodity that the world may
run riot in its consumption of the visible supply. Talent
promises to remain so scarce that, granting for the moment that
it is a useful agent, its supply must be conserved.

I shall use the term talent so as to include genius. Both
talent and genius are of the same kind. Their essential
difference consists in degree. Increase what is commonly called
talent in the direction of its manifestation and it would
develop into genius. Genius is commonly thought of as something
abnormal, in the sense that it is essentially eccentric. A
genius is generally spoken of as an eccentric, erratic,
unbalanced, person. The eccentricity is then taken as
constituting the substance of the quality of genius. This is
undoubtedly a mistake. Because some geniuses have been erratic,
the popular imagination has formed its picture of all genius as
unbalanced. The majority of the world's men of genius have been
as balanced and normal in their judgments as the average man.
We may think of a genius as like the ordinary man in his
constitution. He has the same mental faculties, the same
emotions, the same kind of determinizing ability. What makes
him a genius is his power of concentration in his given field
of work. The moral quality, or zeal to accomplish, or energy
directed toward intellectual operations stands enormously above
that of the average individual. If we could confer this quality
of moral will on the common normal man possibly we would raise
him to that degree which we term genius.

In order to determine the worth of conserving talent we must
estimate its value as a commodity, as a world asset. I shall,
therefore, turn my attention first to discovering a method of
reckoning the value of eminent men.

One method open to us is what may be called the individualistic
test. Under this method we think of the individual as
individual or of his work as a concrete case of production. One
phase of this is the individual's estimate of his own powers.
We may inquire what is the man's appreciation of his own worth.
This is precarious because of two difficulties. There is an
egotistical element in individuals. It is inherent as a
historical agent of self-preservation. Most of us are like
primitive groups. The ethnologist expects to find every tribe
or horde of savages claiming to be THE PEOPLE. They ascribe
superior qualities to their group. In their names for their
group they call themselves the people, the men, and so on,
indicating their point of view.

Again, an individual, however honestly he might try, could not
estimate his own worth accurately. Let any of us attempt to see
ourselves as others see us and we shall discover the difficulty
of the undertaking. We are not able to get the perspective
because our personal feelings, our necessary selfish
self-appreciation, puts our judgments awry. Others close to us
may do little better. They are likely to either underrate us or
to exaggerate our qualities and powers. In the United States we
are called on to evaluate Mr. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt. Is either
of them a great man? Has either of them been a great president?
Opinions differ. We are too close to them. We do not know. We
give them credit, perhaps, for doing things which the age would
have worked out in spite of them. Or we think things would have
come inevitably which their personal efforts, it will be found,
were responsible for establishing. We have not yet been able to
determine accurately just how great Abraham Lincoln was. It is
almost half a century since he did his work. But we live in the
presence of the personal relative to him yet. Sentiment enters
in and obfuscates judgment.

If we turn to the product itself as mere product we are at a
loss. Unless we ask what is the import of the work we confess
we do not know. A man in Connecticut has made a manikin. It
walks, talks, does many of the things which human beings do.
But it is not alive, it is not serviceable, it can accomplish
nothing. Suppose the maker passes his life in making probably
the most intricate and perfect mechanism which has been made.
Is he a genius? We may admit that the products manifest great
ingenuity on the part of their creator, yet we feel repelled
when we think of calling the maker a genius.

The community method of rating talent is far more satisfactory.
The inventor is related to his time or to human society by
means of the usefulness of his invention. The statesman is
rated by means of the deep-seated influence for improvement he
has had on his age. The educator finds his evaluation in the
constructive spirit and method he displays in bringing useful
spirit and methods to light. The scientist is measured by the
uplift his discovery gives to the sum and substance of human
welfare. If a product which some individual creates can not be
utilized by society, its creator is not regarded as having made
a contribution to human progress. As a consequence he does not
get a rating as genius. To get the appraisal of mankind the
product of the man of talent must get generally accepted, must
fill the want of society generally or of some clientele. If a
man produces something merely ingenious, something which does
not serve a considerable portion of humanity in the way of
satisfying a want, if his creation does not pass into use, he
does not step into the current of the world's history as a
fruitful factor, he fails to attain to the rank of talent.

This objective measure of the value of the producer puts talent
into direct relation to the concept of social evolution and
progress. Society has been an evolution. Collective humanity
has gone through distinctive metamorphoses. Distinct strides in
advance have been made, tendencies have manifested themselves,
conditions have changed so that larger satisfactions have
ensued, democracy in the essential wants of mankind has been
wrought out. Society is more complex in its quantitative
aspect. It is more serviceable by reason of its greater
specialization. Since progress stands for improvement it has
come to be regarded as a desirable thing.

In the sociological conception of things the genius possesses a
specific social function. He is not a passing curiosity. He is
not produced for amusement. He does not stand unrelated. He is
the product of his age, is articulated with its life, performs
an office which is of consequence to it. He is the connecting
link between the past and the future. He takes what was and so
combines it anew as to produce what is to be. He is the
innovator, the initiator, the agent of transformation, the
creator of a new order. Hence he is the exceptional man. The
masses of men are imitators. They make nothing new, add nothing
to the mechanism of social structure, introduce no new
functions, produce no achievements, do nothing which changes
the order of things. The common people are quite as important
for the purposes of society as are the talented. Society must
be conserved most of the time or we should all float down the
stream of change too rapidly for comfort. Hence the function of
the great mass of individuals is to seize and use the
achievements which the creators, the talented have brought into
existence. We may conclude, therefore, that if society is to be
improved and if the lives of the great body of human beings are
to be endowed with more and more blessings, material and
spiritual, we must look to the men of talent, the men of
achievement, and to them 'alone, for the initiation of these
results.

We may say, then, that we have discovered not only the method
of estimating the value of talent, but also in what its value
consists. If progress is desirable, talent by means of which
that progress is secured is likewise valuable. And, like other
things, its value is measured by its scarcity. It is now
incumbent on us to attempt to discover the extent of the supply
of this commodity, both actual and possible.

I shall refer to two estimates of the amount of talent in
existence which have been made because they differ so much in
their conclusions as to the extent of talent, and because they
exhibit quite different view-points and methods.

The great English scientist and benefactor of the race, Sir
Francis Galton, in his work entitled "Hereditary Genius" made a
computation of the number of men of eminence in the British
Isles. This estimate was made nearly a half-century ago and has
generally been accepted as representing actual conditions. One
means of discovering the number was by taking a catalogue of
"Men of The Times" which contained about 2,500 names, one half
of which were Americans and Europeans. He found that most of
the men were past fifty years of age. Relative to this he
states:

'It appears that in the cases of high (but by no means in that
of the highest) merit, a man must outlive the age of fifty to
be sure of being widely appreciated. It takes time for an able
man, born in the humbler ranks of life, to emerge from them and
to take his natural position.'[1]

[1] Cattell's investigations of American men of science
disproves this statement for Americans. He finds that only a
few men enter the ranks of that class of men after the age of
fifty, and that none of that age reach the highest place. The
fecund age is from 35 to 45; ("American Men of Science," p.
575.)

After eliminating the non-British individuals he compared the
number of celebrities above fifty with males of the same age
for the whole British population. He found about 850 who were
above fifty. Of this age there were about 2,000,000 males in
the British Isles. Hence the meritorious were as 425 to
1,000,000, and the more select were as 250 to 1,000,000. He
stated what he considered the qualifications of the more select
as follows:

'The qualifications for belonging to what I call the more
select part are, in my mind, that a man should have
distinguished himself pretty frequently either by purely
original work, or as a leader of opinion. I wholly exclude
notoriety obtained by a single act. This is a fairly well
defined line, because there is not room for many men to become
eminent.'

Mr. Galton made another estimate by studying an obituary list
published in The Times in 1868. This contained 50 men of the
select class. He considered it broader than his former estimate
because it excluded men dying before they attained their
broadest reputation, and more rigorous because it excluded old
men who had previously attained a reputation which they were
not able to sustain. He consequently lowered the age to 45. In
Great Britain there were 210,000 males who died yearly of that
age. This gave a result of 50 men of exceptional merit to
210,000 of the population, or 238 to the million.

His third estimate was made by the study of obituaries of many
years back. This led to similar conclusions, namely, that about
250 to the million is an ample estimate of the number of
eminent men. He says:

'When I speak of an eminent man, I mean one who has achieved a
position that is attained by only 250 persons in each million
of men, or by one person in each 4,000.'

The other estimate of the amount of talent in existence has
been made by one of our most eminent American sociologists, the
late Lester F. Ward. The elaborate treatment of this matter is
found in his "Applied Sociology," and offers an illustration of
a most rigorous and thorough application of the scientific
method to the subject in question. The essential facts for the
study were furnished by Odin in his work on the genesis of the
literary men of France, although Candole, Jacoby and others are
laid under contribution for data. Maps, tables and diagrams are
used whenever they can be made to secure results. Odin's study
covered the period of over five hundred years of France and
French regions, or from 1300 to 1825. Out of over thirteen
thousand literary names he chose some 6,200 as representing men
of genius, talent or merit, the former constituting much the
smaller and the latter much the larger of the total number.

The object of Ward's investigation is to discover the factor or
factors in the situation which are responsible for the
production of genius. In the course of examination it was seen
that certain communities were very much more prolific than
others in producing talent. Paris, for instance, produced 123
per 100,000; Geneva, Switzerland, 196; certain chateaux as many
as 200, and some communities none at all or very few. After
considering the various factors which account for the high rate
in certain localities and the low rate or absence of merit in
others the conclusion is reached that we should expect the
presence of the meritorious class generally in even greater
numbers than it has existed in the most fruitful regions of the
French people.

Mr. Ward's studies have led him to conclude that talent is
latent in society, that it exists in greater abundance than we
have ever dared to expect, that all classes possess it equally
and would manifest it equally if obstacles were removed or
opportunities offered for its development. Education is the key
to the situation in his estimation. It affords the opportunity
which latent talent requires for its promotion, and if this
were intelligently applied to all classes and to both sexes
alike instead of securing one man of talent for each 4,000
persons as Mr. Galton held, we would be able to mature one for
every 500 of our population. This would represent an
eight-hundred-per-cent. increase of the talented class, an
eight-fold multiplication. It is an estimate of not the number
of the talented who are known to be such, but of society's
potential or latent talent.[2]

[2] Investigations made on school children by the Binet test
indicate Ward's estimate is conservative. It has been found
that from two to three out of every hundred children are of
exceptional ability, thus belonging to the talented, or at
least merit class.

Because these estimates are so divergent, it may be worth while
to consider the reason for the difference. And in taking this
up we come to the fundamentally distinct point of view of the
two investigators. Mr. Galton's work is an illustration of the
view which regards talent as a product of the hereditary
factors. Mr. Galton believed that heredity accounts for talent
and that it is so dominant in the lives of the talented that it
is bound to express itself as talent. In his estimation there
is no such thing as latent genius, because it is in the nature
of genius that it surmounts all obstacles. He says:

'By natural ability, I mean those qualities of intellect and
disposition, which urge and qualify a man to perform acts which
lead to reputation. I do not mean capacity without zeal, nor
zeal without capacity, nor even a combination of both of them,
without an adequate power of doing a great deal of very
laborious work. But I mean a nature which, when left to itself,
will, urged by an inherent stimulus, climb the path that leads
to eminence, and has strength to reach the summit–one which,
if hindered or thwarted, will fret and strive until the
hindrance is overcome, and it is again free to follow its
labor-saving instinct.'[2]

[3] "Hereditary Genius," pp. 37-8.

This in reality amounts to saying that the genius is
omnipotent. Nothing can prevent the development of the genius.
He is master of all difficulties by the very fact that he is a
genius. It is also equivalent, by implication, to saying that
obstacles can have no qualifying effect on the course of such
an individual. A great difficulty is no more to him than a
small one. Hence no matter in what circumstances he lives he is
always bound to gain the maximum of his development. He could
not be either greater or less than he is, notwithstanding the
force of circumstances, whether obstructive or propitious. The
energy of a genius is thus differentiated from all other forms
of energy. Other forms of energy are modified in their course
and effects by preventing obstacles. Add to or subtract from
the impediments and the effect of the energy is changed by the
amount of the impediments. But this doctrine completely
emancipates human energy, when manifested in the form of
genius, from the working of the law of cause and effect.

It is especially noteworthy that it is not what we should
expect in view of the place and function of the environment in
the course of evolution. To say the least environment enjoys a
very respectable influence in selecting and directing the
forces of development. Some men have gone so far as to make the
external factors account for everything in society. Discounting
this claim, the minimum biological statement is that the
environment exercises a selective function relative to organic
forms and variations. It opposes itself to the transmission
strain, and if unfavorable to it, may eliminate it entirely. To
be able to accomplish this it must be regarded as having an
influence on all forms. And as there are all grades of
environment from the most unfavorable to the most propitious,
similarly constituted organisms living in those various
environments must perforce fare differently, some being
hindered others being promoted in varying degrees. That is,
should the most able by birth appear in the most unfavorable
environment they could not be expected to make the same gains
in life as similar congenitally able who appear in the most
favorable conditions.

Mr. Ward, on the contrary, holds that genius, like all other
forms of human ability, is the product of circumstances. It is
determined in its raw form by heredity, to be sure. In similar
circumstances it will affect more than the average man. But
like all other forms of energy it is subject to the law of
causality. It is not omnipotent so that it is able to set at
naught the effects of opposing forces. Nor can it develop in
the absence of nourishing circumstances. Deprive it of cultural
opportunities and it is like the sprout of the majestic tree
which is deprived of moisture, or the great river cut off from
the supply of snow and rain. In other words, it is a product of
all the factors at work in its being and environment, and the
internal can not manifest itself or its powers without the
presence of the external. Modify the external factors to a
perceptible degree and the individual is modified to the same
degree.

In seeking to find the factors which are accountable for the
development of talent Mr. Ward takes into consideration those
of the physical environment, the ethnological, the religious,
the local, the economic, the social, and the educational. Each
one of these items is given a searching examination as to its
force. I shall briefly deal with each of these in turn, giving
the import of the findings in each case and as many of the
basic facts as possible in a small space.

By a consideration of French regions by departments, provinces,
and principal sections, as to their yield of talent, the
physical environment was found to have had no perceptible
influence. The mountain-situated Geneva and the lowland Paris
produced alike prolifically talented men. The valley of the
Seine and that of the Loire competed for hegemony in fecundity.
The facts contradicted the highland theory, the lowland theory,
the coast theory, and every other theory of the dominance of
physical environment.

To get at the influence of the ethnological factor the Gaulic,
Cimbrian, Iberian, Ligurian and Belgic elements of the
population were examined as to their fecundity in talent. Odin
confesses to being unable to discover "the least connection
between races and fecundity in men of letters." Attention was
paid likewise to races speaking other than French language.
Again there was a conflict of facts. Inside of France
ethnological elements exerted "no appreciable influence upon
literary productivity." In Belgium and Lorraine, where the
German language dominated, it was found that French literature
mastered the situation, thus indicating that a common language
does not necessitate a common literature. The conclusion
ethnologically is that races possess an equality in yielding
talent.

The religious factor was found to have been more influential
formerly in bringing to light talent than at the close of the
five-hundred-year period. From 1300 to 1700 the church
furnished on the average 37.8 per cent. of all literary talent.
Its fecundity dropped to 29 in the period from 1700 to 1750.
Between 1750 and 1825 it produced but 6.5 of the talent. As
Galton has shown, eminent men were killed or driven out during
the period of religious persecution in Spain, France and Italy.
The celibacy of the clergy which gave undisturbed leisure may
have been an element in making the church productive in the
earlier years. On the other hand, the quieting effect of family
life of the protestant ministry seems to have had a propitious
influence in later times, as there appeared a relative increase
among protestant clergy of talent, while the output among the
catholic clergy continued to decline.

In this investigation the local environment appeared to have
the most influence in the production of talent. Odin gave
witness to having a suspicion that somewhere there was a
neglected factor. The facts connected talent with the cities in
an overwhelming manner. The statement that genius is the
product of the rural regions seems to have had no legs to stand
on. The majority of the talented were born in the cities and
practically all of them were connected with city life.

In proportion to population the cities produced 12.77, almost
thirteen times as many men of talent as rural regions. The
whole of France produced 6,382, the number selected by Odin as
the more meritorious of the men of letters. If all France had
been as productive as Paris it would have yielded 53,640; if as
fecund as the other chief cities, it would have produced
22,060; but if only as fertile as the country the number would
have fallen to 1,522.

It would seem that the matter of population has something to do
with the production of talent. Aggregations of population offer
frequent contact of persons, division of labor, competition
between individuals, a better coordination of society for
cooperative results, neutralization of physical qualities, and
the ascendancy of innovation over the conservative attitude. It
is not the mere density of population which is the effective
element. It is rather the dynamic density which is productive,
that is, the manifestation of the common life and spirit. City
life is specialized in structure and function, rendering men
more interdependent and cooperative. Specialization means moral
coalescence

The chateaux of France are very prolific in producing talent.
They yielded 2 per cent. of all the talent of the period,
seemingly out of proportion to their importance.

Why are certain of the cities and the chateaux more fertile
than most cities and the country in producing the talented? We
have a general reply in the statement as to the dynamic density
of cities. A further analysis finds those communities are
possessed of elements which the country does not have. Odin
calls them "properties." They are the location of the
political, administrative and judicial agencies of society;
they are in possession of great wealth and talent; they are
depositories of learning and the tools of information. The
avenues which open upon talent and the tools and agencies by
means of which the passage to it is to be made segregate
themselves in cities and towns

As the result of his investigation into the distribution of men
of science in the United States, Professor Cattell arrives at
nearly the same conclusion. He writes:

'The main factors in producing scientific and other forms of
intellectual performance seem to be density of population,
institutions and social traditions and ideals. All these may be
ultimately due to race, but, given the existing race, the
scientific productivity of the nation can be increased in
quantity, though not in quality, almost to the extent that we
wish to increase it.'[4]

[4] "American Men of Science," Second edition, p. 654.

It is interesting to note that nearly all of the women of
talent have been born in cities and chateaux. This means that
women had to be born where the means of development were to be
had, as they were not free to move about in society, as were
men.

Periods Rich Poor
1300-1500 24 1
1500-1550 39 4
1551-1600 42 —
1601-1650 84 5
1651-1700 73 4
1701-1725 36 3
1726-1750 53 7
1751-1775 86 8
1776-1800 52 12
1801-1825 73 11
—- —-
Total 562 57, or 9 per cent.

The economic factor has been an important one in offering the
leisure which is necessary for the development of talent. Men
who have to use their time and energy wholly in the support of
themselves and families are deprived of the leisure which
productivity and creativeness in work demands. Of the French
men of letters 35 per cent. belonged to the wealthy or noble
class, 42 per cent. to the middle class, and 23 per cent. to
the working class. Odin was able to discover the economic
environment of 619 men of talent. They were distributed by
periods between the rich and poor as shown in the table on page
169.

Of one hundred foreign associates of the French Academy the
membership of the wealthy, middle and working classes were 41,
52 and 7. A combination of two other of Candole's tables yields
for those classes in per cents 35, 42 and 23. In ancient and
medieval times practically all of the talented came from the
wealthy class. On the whole, but about one eleventh of the men
of talent had to fight with economic adversity. But when we
remember that the wealthy class formed but a small portion of
the population in each period, probably not more than one
fourth, this means that as compared with members of the working
class individuals of the wealthy class had forty or fifty times
as good a chance of rising to a position of eminence. The
contrast is so sharp that Odin is led to exclaim, "Genius is in
things, not in man."

The social and the economic factors are so closely intertwined
that the influence of the social environment is already seen in
treating the economic. The social deals with matter of classes
and callings. The upper classes are of course the wealthier
classes so that the social and economic measures largely agree.
In Mr. Galton's inquiry into the callings of English men of
science which he made in 1873, it appears that out of 96
investigated 9 were noblemen or gentlemen, 18 government
officials, 34 professional men, 43 business men, 2 farmers and
1 other. Unless the one other was a working man the workers
produced none of these 96 men of science. Odin's classification
of the French men of letters gives to the nobility 25.5 per
cent., to government officials 20.0, liberal professions 23.0,
bourgeoise 11.6, manual laborers 9.8. Only a little over one
fifth of the talented were produced by the two lower classes.
Yet in numerical weight those classes constituted 90 per cent.
of the population. Data from four other European countries show
very much the same results, except that the workers and
bourgeoise classes make a better showing. It is unquestionable,
therefore, that the opportunities for developing talent or
genius are largely withheld from the working class and bestowed
on the upper classes.

We have yet one other factor to treat in the production of
talent, namely, the educational. The facts relative to the
education of the talented contradicts the assumption usually
made that genius depends on education and opportunity for none
of its success, but rises to its heights in spite of or without
them.

Of 827 men of talent (not merit class) Odin was able to
investigate as to their education he found that only 1.8 per
cent. had no education or a poor education, while 98.2 per
cent. had a good education. This number investigated was 73 per
cent. of all men of that class, and it is fair to assume that
about the same proportion of educated existed in the other 27
per cent. whose education was not known. Of the 16 of poor or
no education 13 were born in Paris, other large cities, or
chateaux, and three in other localities. Thus they had the
opportunities presented by the cities. Facts as to talented men
in Spain, Italy, England and Germany indicate that anywhere
from 92 to 98 per cent. have been highly educated, and probably
the latter per cent. is correct.

These figures can have but one meaning. They indicate that
talent and genius are dependent on educational and conventional
agencies of the cultural kind, as are other human beings for
their evolution. Otherwise we should expect the figures to be
reversed. If education and cultural opportunities count for
naught, then we should expect that, at a time when education
was by no means universal, the 90 or 98 per cent. Of genius
would mount on their eagle wings and soar to the summits of
eminence, clearing completely the conventional educational
devices which society had established.

Our conclusion, therefore, is that social and economic
opportunities afford the leisure as well as cultural advantages
for the improvement of talent; that the local environment is of
vital importance, offering as it does the cultural advantages
of cities of certain kinds and of chateaux, and that of the
local environment the educational facilities are of the
supremest importance. Consequently, it appears that Mr. Ward's
estimate of one person of talent to the 500 instead of Mr.
Galton's estimate of one to the 4,000 does not seem strained.
Produce in society generally the opportunities and advantages
which Geneva, Paris and the chateaux possessed and which gave
them their great fecundity in talent, and all regions and
places will yield up their potential or latent genius to
development and the ratio will be obtained.

This position is likely to be criticized, unless it is
remembered that we admit that there is a hereditary difference
at birth, and that all we seek to establish is that, given
these differences, what conditions are likely to mature and
develop the men of born talent. Thus after the appearance of my
"Vocational Education" I received a letter from Professor
Eugene Davenport in which he makes this statement:

'Ward's arguments as here employed seem to show that
environment is a powerful factor in bringing out talent even to
the exclusion of heredity. I doubt if you would care to be
understood to this limit, and yet where you enumerate on page
61 the reasons why certain cities are fecund in respective
talents, you seem to have overlooked the fact that if these
cities have been for many generations centers of talent to such
an extent as to provide exceptional environmental influences,
the same conditions would also provide exceptional parentage,
so that the birthrate of talent would be much higher in such a
region than the normal. In other words, the very same
conditions which would provide exceptional opportunities for
development also and at the same time provide an exceptional
birth condition. This is the rock on which very many arguments
tending to compare heredity and environment wreck
themselves.'[5]

[5] This is a criticism that needs to be met. Mr. George R.
Davies of this institution has submitted facts in a paper which
appeared in the March number of the Quarterly Journal of the
University of North Dakota, which fills in the gap. He shows
relative to American cities that there has been little or no
segregation of talented parentage.

We have arrived at a point where we are able to consider the
question of the conservation of talent. A position of advantage
has been gained from which to view this question. For we have
seen that talent has a decidedly important and indispensable
social function to perform. It is the creative and contributive
agency, the cause of achievement, and a vital factor in
progress. Its conservation is consequently devoutly to be
desired. We have also discovered the fact that, while a rare
commodity, it is present in society in a larger measure than we
have commonly believed. If progress is desirable in a measure
it is likely to be desirable in a large measure. If talent is
able to carry us forward at a certain rate with the development
of a minimum of the quantity that is in existence we should be
able to greatly accelerate our progress if all that is latent
could be developed and put into active operation. Further, we
have obtained some insight into the conditions which favor the
development of talent and likewise some of the obstacles to its
manifestation. If it abounds where certain conditions are
present in the situation and fails to appear where those
conditions are absent, we have a fertile suggestion as to the
method of social control and direction which will bring the
latent talent to fertility.

We must undoubtedly hold that if a larger supply of talent
exists than is discovered, developed and put to use that,
since, as we have seen, it is so valuable when estimated in
terms of social progress, we are dealing wastefully with
talent. We are allowing great ability to go to waste since we
are leaving it lie in its undeveloped form. Therefore one of
the problems of the proper conservation of talent consists in
finding a method of discovering and releasing this valuable
form of social energy.

When we come to inquire how this may be done, how this
discovery is to take place, we must take for our guide the
facts which were found to bear on the maturing of talent in the
above studies. We discovered that the local environment seemed
to contain the influential element in bringing forth talent.
When that local environment was analyzed it turned out that the
items of opportunity for leisure and the facilities for
education were the most fruitful factors. Leisure is absolutely
essential to afford that opportunity for self-development which
is required even of the most talented. This can only be had
when the income of the individual is sufficient to give him a
considerable part of his active time for carrying out his
intellectual aspirations. We have great numbers of people whom
we have reason to believe are as able on the average, have as
large a proportion of talent as the well-to-do, whose poverty
is so crushing and whose days of toil are so long and so
consuming of energy that the element of leisure is lacking. It
is only an occasional individual of this class of people who is
able to secure the wealth which means a measure of leisure by
which he is able to mount out of obscurity. An improvement in
the physical conditions of life of these people, together with
an increase in their economic possibilities is a necessary
means to the proper conservation of the talent of this group.

The cultural factor is one which must be made more omnipresent
than it is now before we shall be able to awake the latent
talent of the masses of people. There are certain sections of
all nations, and more especially of such nations as the United
States, where the population is widely scattered over vast
areas of farming regions in which the opportunities for
education and stimulative enterprises and institutions are
lacking or meager. The same is true of very large sections of
the populations of the cities. In both cases large
neighborhoods exist in which the lives of the people move in a
humdrum rut, never disturbed by matters which arouse the
creative element in human nature. Especially is this important
in the early years of life where the outlook for the whole
future of the individual is so strongly stamped. To come into
contact with no stimulus and arousing agent in the home, or the
neighborhood in the earliest years is to become settled into a
life-long habit of inert dullness.

When we revert to the schools which so generally abound, we
fail to find the stimulating element in them which might be
regarded as the necessary opportunity to develop talent. The
vast majority of elementary teachers are persons whose
intellectual natures have never been aroused. Their imaginative
and sympathetic capacities lie undeveloped. Their work in the
school is conducted on the basis of memory. It is parrot work
and ends in making parrots of the pupils. The rational and
causal as agencies in education are hardly ever appealed to.
Until our teaching force is itself developed in the directions
and capacities which alone characterize the intellectual we can
not hope for much in the way of recovering the rich field of
latent talent from its infertility.

Something remains to be said about the proper utilization of
talent which has been developed. Did all genius depend on the
hereditary factor and consequently we had developed all
individuals possessing exceptional ability into contributors
and creators, the question of their complete utilization by
society remains. That all able men and women are working at the
exact thing and in the exact place and under the exact methods
which will yield the greatest and most fruitful results for
society only the superficial could believe. Herbert Spencer
used up a very large part of his superb ability during the
larger portion of his life in the drudgery of making a living.
The work of the national eugenics laboratory of England is
carried on by a man of great talent, Professor Carl Pearson, in
cramped quarters and with insufficient equipment and support.
The enterprise is as important as any in England, that of
discovering the conditions and means of improving the human
race. The laboratory was built up in the first instance by the
sacrifice of Sir Francis Galton, and it is maintained by means
of the bequest of his personal fortune.

These are but instances of the many which exist where talented
individuals are working under great handicaps which neither
promote their talent nor secure fecundity of results to
collective man. In nearly every line of human endeavor gifted
individuals are consuming in an unnecessarily wasteful manner,
from the point of view of social improvement, their splendid
abilities. In educational institutions trained experts and
specialists are doing the work which very ordinary ability of a
merely clerical kind could conduct, sacrificing the higher and
more fruitful attainments thereby. I have known a faculty of
some forty members who were compelled to register the term
standings by sitting in a circle and calling off the grades of
several hundred students student by student and class by class
for each student as it came their turn, while a clerk recorded
the grades. The process consumed about ten hours per member
each term, or something over a thousand hours a year for the
whole faculty. Both economically and socially it was expensive
and wasteful because a cheap clerk could have done the whole
far better and have released the talent for productive
purposes.

We shall be wise when we realize the worth of our workable
talent and so establish its working conditions that it may
secure the full measure of its productiveness. If scientific
management for the mass of laborers of a nation is worth while
how much more serviceable would it be to extend its fructifying
influence to the most able members of the community.

But how to proceed in order to make the discovery of the latent
talent is the pressing problem. For a long time our methods
promise to be as empirical as are those we employ for the
advancement of science. Relative to the latter, after
enumerating a large list of conditions for promoting science of
which we are ignorant, Professor Cattell says:

'In the face of endless problems of this character we are as
empirical in our methods as the doctor of physic a hundred
years ago or the agricultural laborer to-day. It is surely time
for scientific men to apply scientific methods to determine the
circumstances that promote or hinder the advancement of
science.'[6]

[6] "American Men of Science," p. 565.

Since the discovery and utilization of genius and talent in
general are so closely related to the problem of the promotion
of science, his statement may be adopted to express the demand
existing in those directions.

WAR, BUSINESS AND INSURANCE[1]

[1] Chairman's address on Peace Day of the Insurance Congress,
Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, October
11, 1915.

BY CHANCELLOR DAVID STARR JORDAN

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

THE complications behind the war in Europe are very many,
ruthless exploitation, heartless and brainless diplomacy,
futile dreams of national expansion (the "Mirage of the Map"),
of national enrichment through the use of force (the "Great
Illusion"), and withal a widespread vulgar belief in
indemnities or highway robberies as a means of enriching a
nation.

All these would represent only the unavoidable collision,
unrest and ambition of human nature, were it not that every
element involved in it was armed to the teeth. "When blood is
their argument" in matters of business or politics, all
rational interests are imperilled. The gray old strategists to
whom the control of armament was assigned saw the nations
moving towards peaceful solution of their real and imaginary
difficulties. The young men of Europe had visions of a broader
world, one cleared of lies and hate and the poison of an
ingrowing patriotism. After a generation of doubt and pessimism
in which world progress seemed to end in a blind sack, there
was rising a vision of continental cooperation, a glimpse of
the time when science, always international, should also
internationalize the art of living.

Clearly the close season for war was near at hand. The old men
found means to bring it on and in so doing to exploit the
patriotism, enthusiasm, devotion and love of adventure of the
young men of the whole world.

The use of fear and force as an argument in politics or in
business–this is war. It is a futile argument because of
itself it settles nothing. Its conclusion bears no certain
relation to its initial aim. It must end where it should begin,
with an agreement among the parties concerned. War is only the
blind negation, the denial of all law, and only the recognition
of the supremacy of some law can bring war to an end. In time
of war all laws are silent as are all efforts for progress, for
justice, for the betterment of human kind. If history were
written truthfully every page in the story of war would be left
blank, or printed black, with only fine white letters in the
darkness to mark the efforts for humanity, which war can never
wholly suppress.

In this paper I propose to consider only economic effects of
this war and with special reference to the great industry which
brings most of this audience together, the business of
insurance.

The great war debts of the nations of Europe began with
representative government. Kings borrowed money when they
could, bankrupting themselves at intervals and sometimes
wrecking their nations. Kings have always been uncertain pay.
Not many loaned money to them willingly and only in small
amounts and at usurious rates of interest. To float a
"patriotic loan," it was often necessary to make use of the
prison or the rack. With the advent of parliaments and chambers
of deputies, the credit of nations improved and it became easy
to borrow money. There was developed a special class of
financiers, the Rothschilds at their head, pawnbrokers rather
than bankers, men able and willing to take a whole nation into
pawn. And with the advent of great loans, as Goldwin Smith
wisely observed, "there was removed the last check on war."

With better social and business adjustments, and especially
with the progress of railways and steam navigation with other
applications of science to personal and national interests, the
process of borrowing became easier, as also the payment of
interest on which borrowing depends. Hence more borrowing,
always the easiest solution of any financial complication or
embarrassment. Through the substitution of regular methods of
taxation for the collection of tribute, the nations became
solidified. Only a solidified nation can borrow money. The
loose and lawless regions called Kingdoms and Empires under
feudalism were not nations at all. A nation is a region in
which the people are normally at peace among themselves. In
civil war, a nation's existence may be dissolved.

In all the ages war costs all that it can. All that can be
extorted or borrowed is cast into the melting pot, for the sake
of self-preservation or for the sake of victory. If the nations
had any more to give war would demand it. The king could
extort, but there are limits to extortion. The nation could
borrow, and to borrowing there is but one limit, that of actual
exhaustion.

Mr. H. Bell, cashier of Lloyd's Bank in London, said in 1913:

'The London bankers are not lending on the continent any more.
We can see already the handwriting on the wall and that spells
REPUDIATION. The people of Europe will say: "We know that we
have had all this money and that we ought to pay interest on
it. But we must live; and we can not live and pay."'

The chief motive for borrowing on the part of every nation has
been war or preparation for war. If it were not for war no
nation on earth need ever have borrowed a dollar. If provinces
and municipalities could use all the taxes their people pay,
for purposes of peace, they could pay off all their debts and
start free. In Europe, for the last hundred years, in time of
so-called peace, nations have paid more for war than for
anything else. It is not strange therefore that this armed
peace has "found its verification in war." It has been the "Dry
War," the "Race for the Abyss," which the gray old strategists
of the general staff have brought to final culmination.

The debt of Great Britain began with the revolution of 1869,
with about $1,250,000. This unpopular move, known as Dutch
finance, was the work of William of Orange. Other loans
followed, based on customs duties with "taxes on bachelors,
widows, marriages and funerals," and the profits on lotteries.
At the end of the war of the revolution the debt reached
$1,250,000,000, and with the gigantic borrowings of Pitt, in
the interest of the overthrow of Napoleon, the debt reached its
highest point, $4,430,000,000. The savings of peace duly
reduced this debt, but the Boer war, for which about
$800,000,000 was borrowed, swept these savings away. When the
present war began the national debt had been reduced to a
little less than $400,000,000 which sum a year of world war has
brought up to $10,000,000,000.

The debt of France dates from the French Revolution. Through
reckless management it soon rose to $700,000,000, which sum was
cut by paper money, confiscation and other repudiations to
$160,000,000. This process of easing the government at the
expense of the people spread consternation and bankruptcy far
and wide. A great program of public expenditure following the
costly war and its soon repaid indemnity raised the debt of
France to over $6,000,000,000. The interest alone amounted to
nearly $1,000,000,000. A year of the present war has brought
this debt to the unheard of figure of about $11,000,000,000.
Thus nearly two million bondholders and their families in and
out of France have become annual pensioners on the public
purse, in addition to all the pensioners produced by war.

Germany is still a very young nation and as an empire more
thrifty than her largest state. The imperial debt was in 1908 a
little over $1,000,000,000. The total debt of the empire and
the states combined was about $4,000,000,000 at the outbreak of
the war. It is now stated at about $9,000,000,000, a large part
of the increase being in the form of "patriotic" loans from
helpless corporations.

The small debt of the United States rose after the Civil War to
$2,773,000,000. It has been reduced to about $915,000,000,
proportionately less than in any other civilized nation. The
local debts of states and municipalities in this and other
countries are, however, very large and are steadily rising. As
Mr. E. S. Martin observes,

'We have long since passed the simple stage of living beyond
our incomes. We are engaged in living beyond the incomes of
generations to come.'

Let me illustrate by a supposititious example. A nation has an
expenditure of $100,000,000 a year. It raises the sum by
taxation of some sort and thus lives within its means. But
$100,000,000 is the interest on a much larger sum, let us say
$2,500,000,000. If instead of paying out a hundred million year
by year for expenses, we capitalize it, we may have immediately
at hand a sum twenty-five times as great. The interest on this
sum is the same as the annual expense account. Let us then
borrow $2,500,000,000 on which the interest charges are
$100,000,000 a year. But while paying these charges the nation
has the principal to live on for a generation. Half of it will
meet current expenses for a dozen years, and the other half is
at once available for public purposes, for dockyards, for
wharves, for fortresses, for public buildings and, above all,
for the ever-growing demands of military conscription and of
naval power. Meanwhile the nation is not standing still. In
these twelve years the progress of invention and of commerce
may have doubled the national income. There is then still
another $100,000,000 yearly to be added to the sum available
for running expenses. This again can be capitalized, another
$2,500,000,000 can be borrowed, not all at once perhaps, but
with due regard to the exigencies of banking and the temper of
the people. With repeated borrowings the rate of taxation
rises. Living on the principal sets a new fashion in
expenditure. The same fashion extends throughout the body
politic. Individuals, corporations, municipalities all live on
their principal.

The purchase of railways and other public utilities by the
government tends further to complicate the problems of national
debt. It is clear that this system of buying without paying can
not go on forever. The growth of wealth and population can not
keep step with borrowing, even though all funds were expended
for the actual needs of society. Of late years, war preparation
has come to take the lion's share of all funds, however
gathered, "consuming the fruits of progress." What the end
shall be, and by what forces it will be brought about, no one
can now say. This is still a very rich world, even though
insolvent and under control of its creditors. There is a
growing unrest among taxpayers. There would be a still greater
unrest if posterity could be heard from, for it can only save
itself by new inventions and new exploitations or by frugality
of administration of which no nation gives an example to-day.

Nevertheless, this burden of past debt, with all its many
ramifications and its interest charges, is not the heaviest the
nations have placed on themselves. The annual cost of army and
navy in the world before the war was about double the sum of
interest paid on the bonded debt. This annual sum represented
preparation for future war, because in the intricacies of
modern warfare "hostilities must be begun" long before the
materialization of any enemy. In estimating the annual cost of
war, to the original interest of upwards of $1,500,000,000 we
must add yearly about $2,500,000,000 of actual expenditure for
fighters, guns and ships. We must further consider the generous
allowance some nations make for pensions. A large and
unestimated sum may also be added to the account from loss of
military conscription, again not counting the losses to society
through those forms of poverty which have their primal cause in
war. For in the words of Bastiat, "War is an ogre that devours
as much when he sleeps as when he is awake." It was Gambetta
who foretold that the final end of armament rivalry must be "a
beggar crouching by a barrack door."

When the great war began, the nations of Europe were thus waist
deep in debt, the total amount of national bonded indebtedness
being about $30,000,000,000, or nearly three times the total
sum of actual gold and silver, coined or not in all the world.
A year of war at the rate of $50,000,000 to $70,000,000 per day
has increased this indebtedness to nearly $50,000,000,000, the
bonds themselves rated at half or less their normal value,
while the actual financial loss through destruction of life and
property has been estimated at upwards of $40,000,000,000.

In "The Unseen Empire," the forceful and prophetic drama of Mr.
Atherton Brownell, the American ambassador, Stephan Channing,
tries to show the chancellor of Germany that war with Great
Britain is not a "good business proposition." He says:

'Our Civil War has cost us to date, if you count pensions for
the wrecks it left–mental and physical–nearly twenty billions
of dollars. And that doesn't include property losses, nor
destruction of trade, nor broken hearts and desolate
homes–that's just cold hard cash that we have actually paid
out. You can't even think it. There have been only about one
billion minutes since Christ was born. Now if there had been
four million slaves and we had bought every one of them at an
average of one thousand dollars apiece, set them free and had
no war, we should have been in pocket to day just sixteen
billion dollars. That one crime cost us in cash just about the
equal of sixteen dollars a minute from the beginning of the
Christian era.'

The war as forecast in the play is now on in fact, and one
certain truth in regard to it is that it is assuredly not "a
good business proposition" for anybody in any nation, excepting
of course, the makers of the instruments of death.

DAILY COST OF GREAT EUROPEAN WAR (Charles Richet, 1912)

Feed of men. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $12,600,000
Feed of horses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000,000
Pay (European rates) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,250,000
Pay of workmen in the arsenals and ports (100 per day)1,000,000
Transportation (60 miles in 10 days) . . . . . . 2,100,000
Transportation for provisions. . . . . . . . . . 4,200,000
Munitions: Infantry 10 cartridges a day. . . . . 4,200,000
Artillery: 10 shots per day. . . . . . . . . . . 1,200,000
Marine: 2 shots per day. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400,000
Equipment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,200,000
Ambulances: 500,000 wounded or ill ($1 per day). . 500,000
War ships. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500,000
Reduction of imports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,000,000
Help to the poor (20 cents per day to 1 in 10) . 6,800,000
Destruction of towns, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000,000
Total per day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$49,950,000

The actual war began, in accord with Professor Richet's
calculation, at a cost of $50,000,000 per day. Previous to this
the "dry war" or "armed peace" cost only $10,000,000 per day.
This is Richet's calculation in 1912, an underestimate as to
expenses on the sea and in the air. These with the growing
scarcity of bread and shrapnel, the equipment of automobiles,
and the unparalleled ruin of cities have raised this cost to
$70,000,000 per day.

This again takes no account of the waste of men and horses,
less costly than the other material of war and not necessarily
replaced. All this is piled on top of "the endless caravan of
ciphers" ($30,000,000,000), which represents the accumulated
and unpaid war debt of the nineteenth century.

War is indeed the sport for kings, but it is no sport for the
people who pay and die, and in the long run the workers of the
world must pay the cost of it. As Benjamin Franklin observed:

'War is not paid for in war time) the bill comes later.'

And what a bill!

Yves Guyot, the French economist, estimates that the first six
months of war cost western Europe in cash $5,400,000,000, to
which should be added further destruction estimated at
$11,600,000,000, making a total of $17,000,000,000. The entire
amount of coin in the world is less than $12,000,000,000. Edgar
Crammond, secretary of the Liverpool Stock Exchange, another
high authority, estimates the cash cost of a year of war, to
August 1, 1915, at $17,000,000,000, while other losses will
mount up to make a grand total of $46,000,000,000. Mr. Crammond
estimates that the cost to Great Britain for a year of war will
reach $3,500,000,000. This sum is about equivalent to the
accumulated war debt of Great Britain for a hundred years
before the war. The war debt of Germany (including Prussia) is
now about the same.

No one can have any conception of what $46,000,000,000 may be.
It is four times all the gold and silver in the world. It
represents, it is stated, about 100,000 tons of gold, and would
probably outweigh the Washington monument. We have no data as
to what monuments weigh, but we may try a few other
calculations. If this sum were measured out in $20 gold pieces
and they were placed side by side on the railway track, on each
rail, they would line with gold every line from New York to the
Pacific Ocean, and there would be enough left to cover each
rail of the Siberian railway from Vladivostock to Petrograd.
There would still be enough left to rehabilitate Belgium and to
buy the whole of Turkey, at her own valuation, wiping her
finally from the map.

Or we may figure in some other fashion. The average working man
in America earns $518 per year. It would take ninety million
years' work to pay the cost of the war; or ninety million
American laborers might pay it off in one year, if all their
living expenses were paid. The working men of Europe receive
from half to a third the wages in America. They are the ones
who have this bill to pay.

The cost of a year of the great war is a little greater than
the estimated value of all the property of the United States
west of Chicago. It is nearly equal to the total value of all
the property in Germany ($48,000,000,000) as figured in 1906.
The whole Russian Empire ($35,000,000,000) could have been
bought for a less sum before the war began. It could be had on
a cash sale for half that now. It would have paid for all the
property in Italy ($13,000,000,000); Japan ($10,000,000,000);
Holland ($5,000,000,000); Belgium ($7,000,000,000); Spain
($6,000,000,000) and Portugal ($2,500,000,000). It is three
times the entire yearly earnings in wages and salaries of the
people of the United States ($15,500,000,000).

We could go on indefinitely with this, playing with figures
which nobody can understand, for the greatest fortune ever
accumulated by man, in whatever fashion, would not pay for
three days of this war.

The cost of this war would pay the national debts of all the
nations in the world at the time the war broke out, and this
aggregate sum of $45,000,000,000 for the world was all
accumulated in the criminal stupidity of the wars of the
nineteenth century. If all the farms, farming lands, and
factories of the United States were wiped out of existence, the
cost of this war would more than replace them. If all the
personal and real property of half our nation were destroyed,
or if an earthquake of incredible dimensions should shake down
every house from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the waste would
be less than that involved in this war. And an elemental
catastrophe leaves behind it no costly legacy of hate; even the
financial troubles are not ended with the treaty of peace. The
credit of Europe is gone for one does not know how long. Before
the war, it is said, there were $200,000,000,000 in bonds and
stocks in circulation in Europe. Much of this has been sold for
whatever it would bring. Some of the rest is worth its face
value Some of it is worth nothing. In the final adjustment who
can know whether he is a banker or a beggar?

The American Ambassador was quite within bounds when he said:
"There isn't so much money in the world; you can't even think
it!"

Or we may calculate (with Dr. Edward T. Devine) in a totally
different way. The cost of this war would have covered every
moral social, economic and sanitary reform ever asked for in
the civilized world, in so far as money properly expended can
compass such results. It could eliminate infectious disease,
feeble-mindedness, the slums and the centers of vice. It could
provide adequate housing, continuity of labor, insurance
against accident; in other words it could abolish almost every
kind of suffering due to outside influences and not inherent in
the character of the person concerned.

A Russian writer, quoted by Dr. John H. Finley, puts this idea
in a different form:

'Our most awful enemies, the elements and germs and insect
destroyers, attack us every minute without cease, yet we murder
one another as if we were out of our senses. Death is ever on
the watch for us, and we think of nothing but to snatch a few
patches of land! About 5,000,000,000 days of work go every year
to the displacement of boundary lines. Think of what humanity
could obtain if that prodigious effort were devoted to fighting
our real enemies, the noxious species and our hostile
environment. We should conquer them in a few years. The entire
globe would turn into a model farm. Every plant would grow for
our use. The savage animals would disappear, and the infinitely
tiny animals would be reduced to impotence by hygiene and
cleanliness. The earth would be conducted according to our
convenience. In short, the day men realize who their worst
enemies are, they will form an alliance against them, they will
cease to murder one another like wild beasts from sheer folly.
Then they will be the true rulers of the planet, the lords of
creation.'

Says Robert L. Duffus:

'Money spent in warfare is not like spending money in other
industries. It will bring far more beastliness, far more
injustice, far more tyranny, far more danger to all that is
honorable, generous and noble in the world, far more grief and
rage than money spent in any other way. Not one per cent. of
the amount devoted to these purposes, is, for the end aimed at,
wasted.'

It is said that the main cause of the war lay in the envy of
German commerce by British rivals. This is assuredly not true.
But if it were, let us look at the business side of it. Taking
the net profits of over-seas trade as stated two years ago by
the Hamburg-American Company, the strongest in the world, and
estimating the rest, we have something like this:

During the "Dry War" the net earnings of the German Mercantile
fleet was about one third the cost of the navy supposed to
protect it. It would take seventy years of trade, on the scale
of the last year before the war, to repay Germany's expenses
for a year of war. To make good all the losses of Europe would
require more than one hundred years of the over-seas trading
profits of all the world. War is therefore death to trade, as
it is to every other agency of civilization.

At the beginning of the war the value of stocks and bonds in
circulation in Europe amounted to about $200,000,000,000. What
is the present value of all these certificates of ownership?
What is the present value of any particular industrial plant or
commercial venture?

A friend in London had inherited through his German wife a
large aniline dye plant on the Rhine. He told me recently that
he had not heard one word from it for six months. What will be
its value when he hears from it? And what certainty has he as
to its ownership?

Is it true that this war is the outcome of commercial jealousy?
Let us look at this for a moment. The two greatest shipping
companies in the world before the war were the Hamburg-American
Company and the Nord-Deutscher Lloyd of Bremen. These companies
had grown strong because they deserved to grow. They had
attended to their affairs both in shipment of freight and
transportation of passengers with that minute attention to
details which is so large an element in German success. The
growth of these companies arose through American trade and
especially through trade with Great Britain and the British
possessions. Did they clamor for war–a war, whatever else
might result, sure to cripple their trade for a generation. It
is said that Ballin, of the Hamburg Company, unable to prevent
Great Britain from rising to the defense of Belgium "went home
broken-hearted." Did Ballin build the great Imperator, costing
nine million–six million of it borrowed money–with a view of
laying her off after a few trips for an indefinite period in
Hamburg? Did the Nord-Deutscher Lloyd contemplate leaving the
Vaterland and the George Washington to lie in Hoboken till they
were sold for harbor dues?

Nor was the jealousy on the other side. The growth of German
commerce concerned mainly Great Britain. Presumably it was
profitable on both sides, for all trade is barter. In any
event, Great Britain has never raised a tariff wall against it,
never protected her traders by a single differential duty. She
has risen above the idea that by tariff exactions the
foreigners can be made to pay the sages. As for envy of German
commerce, who ever heard of an Englishman who envied anybody
anything?

Again, did the Cunard Company build her three great steamships,
the Mauretania, the Lusitania, the Aquitania for the fate which
has come to them? In 1914 I saw the great Aquitania, finest of
all floating palaces, tied by the nose to the wharf at
Liverpool, the most sheepish-looking steamship I ever saw
anywhere. Out of her had been taken $1,250,000 worth of plate
glass and plush velvet, elevators and lounging rooms, the
requirements of the tender rich in their six days upon the sea.
The whole ship was painted black, filled with coal–to be sent
out to help the warships at sea. And for this humble service I
am told she proved unfitted.

No, commercial envy is not a reason, rivalry in business is not
a reason, need of expansion is not a reason. These are excuses
only, not causes of war. There is no money in war. There is no
chance of highway robbery in the byways of history which can
repay anything tangible of the expense of the expedition. The
gray old strategists do not care for this. It is fair to them
to say they are not sordid. They care no more for the financial
exhaustion of a nation than for the slaughter of its young men.
"An old soldier like me," said Napoleon, "does not care a
tinker's damn for the death of a million men." Neither does he
care for the collapse of a million industrial corporations.

Of the many forms of business and financial relation among men,
none is more important than those included under the name of
insurance. Insurance is a form of mutual help. By its influence
the effects of calamity are spread so widely that they cease to
be felt as calamity. The fact of death can not be set aside,
but through insurance it need not appear as economic disaster,
only as personal loss. Its essential nature is that of social
cooperation and it furnishes some of the most effective of
bonds which knit society together. As insurance has become
already an international function, its influence should be felt
continuously on the side of peace. That it is so felt is the
justification of our meeting together to-day, as underwriters
of insurance and as workers for peace. The essence of
insurance, as Professor Royce observes, is that

'it is a principle at once peace-making in its general tendency
and business-like in its practicable special application…. As
a result of insurance, men gradually find themselves involved
in a social network of complicated but beneficent relations of
which individuals are usually very imperfectly aware but by
means of which modern society has been profoundly transformed.'

For life insurance, in general, is not personally selfish in
its motive. It is essentially altruistic, the effort of the
benefit of some person beloved who is designated as the
beneficiary. For the benefit of this surviving person, the
efforts involved in the payment of premiums are put forth, and
the insurance companies and their underwriters constitute the
machinery by which this unification is given to society.

To all the interests of insurance, the lawlessness of war is
wholly adverse and destructive. Insurance involves mutual trust
and trust thrives under security of person and property.
Insurance demands steadiness of purpose and continuity of law.
In war, all laws are silent. War is the brutish, blind, denial
of law, only admissible when all other honorable alternatives
have been withdrawn–the last resort of "murdered, mangled
liberty."

In its direct relation, war destroys those who to the
underwriter represent the "best risks," the men most valuable
to themselves and thus most valuable to the community. Those
whom war leaves behind, to slip along the lines of least
resistance into the city slums, are the people insurance rarely
reaches. War confuses administration of insurance. Policies, in
war time, can be written only on a sliding scale. This greatly
increases the premium by reducing the final payments. Increase
of rate of premium must decrease business. War means financial
anarchy, inflated currency and depreciation of bonds. A
currency which fluctuates demoralizes all business and war
leaves no alternative. The slogan "business as usual" in war
time deceives nobody. If it did, nobody would gain by the
deception. Enforced loans from the reserve fund of insurance
companies to the state mean the depreciation of reserves. The
substitution of unstable government bonds means robbery of the
bond holders. The yielding to the state, by enforced "voluntary
action," of reserves of savings banks and insurance companies
represents a form of state robbery. This is now in practice on
the continent of Europe. Such funds are probably never actually
confiscated but held in abeyance until the close of the war.
This is another form of the everpresent "military necessity,"
which seizes men's property with little more compunction than
it shows in seizing men's bodies. War conditions mean
insecurity of investment. In war, all bonds are liable to
become "scraps of paper," and no fund can be made safe. The
insurance investments in Europe have been enormously depleted
in worth, a reduction in market value estimated at 50 per cent.

Experts in insurance tell me that in war time certain policies
are written so as to be scaled down automatically when the
holder goes under the colors. Some are invalid in time of war,
and some have the clause of free travel greatly abridged. A few
are written to apply to all conditions, but on these the rates
of premiums would naturally increase. Companies generally
refuse to pay under conditions not nominated in the bond, and
in general all policies are automatically reduced to level of
war policies when war begins.

I am told that some American companies issue group policies as
for any or all of a thousand men, these not subject to a
physical examination. The war claims in Great Britain have been
very heavy, because such a large proportion of clerks,
artisans, students and other insurable or well-paid men have
been first to volunteer. Some insurance companies have been
much embarrassed by the general enlistment of their employees.

In fire insurance, conditions are much the same. All contracts
in foreign nations are held in abeyance until the close of war.
Such companies doing business in America are now mostly
incorporated as American.

In every regard, the business of insurance is naturally allied
with the forces that make for peace. War brings ruin, through
increase of loans, through the exhaustion of reserves and the
precarious nature of investment. The same remark applies in
some degree to every honorable or constructive business. If any
other form of danger threatened a great industry, its leaders
would be on the alert. They would spare no money and leave no
stone unturned for their own protection.

Towards war, business has always shown a stupid fatalism. War
has been thought "inevitable," coming of itself at intervals
with nobody responsible.

There could not be a greater error. War does not come of
itself, nor without great and persistent preparation. A few
hundred resolute men, bent on war, led by unscrupulous leaders
brought on this war. The military group of one nation plays
into the hands of like groups in other nations. To keep up war
agitation long enough, whether the cause be real or imaginary,
seems to hypnotize the public mind. The horrors of war
fascinate rather than repel, and thousands of men in this land
of peace are ready to fight in Europe to one who dreamed of
such a line of action a year or two ago.

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." The interests
involved should put honest business on its guard. The insurance
men could afford to maintain a thousand observers, men wise in
business as well as in International Law, and in the manners
and customs of the people of the world. A few dozen skilful
politico-military detectives–men like W. J. Burns for example
employed in the interest of finance might save finance a
billion dollars. These should watch the standing incentives to
war. Such men should stand guard against the influences that
work toward conflict. Those who work for peace should be not
"firemen to be called in to put out the fire" already started
through the negligence of business men but agents for
"fireproof building material" in our national edifice, to stand
at all times for the security of business, the sanctity of law,
order and peace. This kind of "preparedness for war" would
involve no risks of conflict, of victory or defeat.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE STARS AND THE FORMATION OF THE EARTH. II

BY WILLIAM WALLACE CAMPBELL

DIRECTOR OF THE LICK OBSERVATORY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF SEQUENCE PROPOSED

THERE are several lines of evidence in support of the order of
evolution which we have outlined.

1. The close relationship of the bright-line nebular spectrum,
the bright-line stellar spectrum and the spectra of the
simplest helium stars; the practically continuous sequence of
spectra from the helium stars to the red stars.

2. In the long run, we must expect the stars to grow colder, at
least as to the surface strata. What the average interior
temperatures are is another question; the highest interior
temperatures are thought to be reached at an intermediate or
quite late stage in the process, in accordance with principles
investigated by Lane and others; but the temperatures existing
in the deep interiors seem to have little direct influence in
defining the spectral characters of the stars, which are
concerned more directly with the surface strata.[1] We should
therefore expect the simpler types of spectra, such as we find
in the helium and hydrogen stars, in the early stages of the
evolutionary process. The complicated spectra of the metals,
and particularly the oxides of the metals, should be in
evidence late in stellar life, when the atmospheres of the
stars have become denser and colder.

[1] This important point seems not to have been realized by all
theorists.

3. The velocities of the Orion nebula, the Trifid nebula, the
Carina nebula, and of several other irregular nebulae, have
been measured with the spectroscope. These bodies seem to be
nearly at rest with reference to the stellar system. The helium
stars have the lowest-known stellar velocities, and the average
velocities of the stars are higher and higher as we pass from
the helium stars, through the hydrogen and solar stars, up to
the red stars. The average velocities of the brighter stars of
the different spectral classes, as determined with the D. O.
Mills spectrographs at Mount Hamilton and in Chile, are as in
the following table:

Spectral No. of Class Stars Average Velocity in Space
B 225 12.9 km. per Sec.
A 177 21.9
F 185 28.7
G 128 29.9
E 382 33.6
M 73 34.3

The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Contents

THE CUSTOM-HOUSE
THE SCARLET LETTER
I. THE PRISON DOOR
II. THE MARKET-PLACE
III. THE RECOGNITION
IV. THE INTERVIEW
V. HESTER AT HER NEEDLE
VI. PEARL
VII. THE GOVERNOR’S HALL
VIII. THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER
IX. THE LEECH
X. THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT
XI. THE INTERIOR OF A HEART
XII. THE MINISTER’S VIGIL
XIII. ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER
XIV. HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN
XV. HESTER AND PEARL
XVI. A FOREST WALK
XVII. THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER
XVIII. A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE
XIX. THE CHILD AT THE BROOKSIDE
XX. THE MINISTER IN A MAZE
XXI. THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY
XXII. THE PROCESSION
XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER
XXIV. CONCLUSION

THE CUSTOM-HOUSE

INTRODUCTORY TO “THE SCARLET LETTER”

It is a little remarkable, that—though disinclined to talk overmuch of
myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends—an
autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession
of me, in addressing the public. The first time was three or four years
since, when I favoured the reader—inexcusably, and for no earthly
reason that either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author could
imagine—with a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an
Old Manse. And now—because, beyond my deserts, I was happy enough to
find a listener or two on the former occasion—I again seize the public
by the button, and talk of my three years’ experience in a
Custom-House. The example of the famous “P. P., Clerk of this Parish,”
was never more faithfully followed. The truth seems to be, however,
that when he casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author
addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take
it up, but the few who will understand him better than most of his
schoolmates or lifemates. Some authors, indeed, do far more than this,
and indulge themselves in such confidential depths of revelation as
could fittingly be addressed only and exclusively to the one heart and
mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large on
the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the
writer’s own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing
him into communion with it. It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak
all, even where we speak impersonally. But, as thoughts are frozen and
utterance benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with
his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and
apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk;
and then, a native reserve being thawed by this genial consciousness,
we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of
ourself, but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil. To this extent,
and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical,
without violating either the reader’s rights or his own.

It will be seen, likewise, that this Custom-House sketch has a certain
propriety, of a kind always recognised in literature, as explaining how
a large portion of the following pages came into my possession, and as
offering proofs of the authenticity of a narrative therein contained.
This, in fact—a desire to put myself in my true position as editor, or
very little more, of the most prolix among the tales that make up my
volume—this, and no other, is my true reason for assuming a personal
relation with the public. In accomplishing the main purpose, it has
appeared allowable, by a few extra touches, to give a faint
representation of a mode of life not heretofore described, together
with some of the characters that move in it, among whom the author
happened to make one.

In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, half a century ago, in
the days of old King Derby, was a bustling wharf—but which is now
burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no
symptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way
down its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, a
Nova Scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood—at the head, I
say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and
along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the
track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty
grass—here, with a view from its front windows adown this not very
enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbour, stands a spacious
edifice of brick. From the loftiest point of its roof, during precisely
three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or
calm, the banner of the republic; but with the thirteen stripes turned
vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil,
and not a military, post of Uncle Sam’s government is here established.
Its front is ornamented with a portico of half-a-dozen wooden pillars,
supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide granite steps
descends towards the street. Over the entrance hovers an enormous
specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before
her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled
thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary
infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears
by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of
her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and
especially to warn all citizens careful of their safety against
intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings.
Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking at this
very moment to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle;
imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness
of an eiderdown pillow. But she has no great tenderness even in her
best of moods, and, sooner or later—oftener soon than late—is apt to
fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak,
or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows.

The pavement round about the above-described edifice—which we may as
well name at once as the Custom-House of the port—has grass enough
growing in its chinks to show that it has not, of late days, been worn
by any multitudinous resort of business. In some months of the year,
however, there often chances a forenoon when affairs move onward with a
livelier tread. Such occasions might remind the elderly citizen of that
period, before the last war with England, when Salem was a port by
itself; not scorned, as she is now, by her own merchants and
ship-owners, who permit her wharves to crumble to ruin while their
ventures go to swell, needlessly and imperceptibly, the mighty flood of
commerce at New York or Boston. On some such morning, when three or
four vessels happen to have arrived at once usually from Africa or
South America—or to be on the verge of their departure thitherward,
there is a sound of frequent feet passing briskly up and down the
granite steps. Here, before his own wife has greeted him, you may greet
the sea-flushed ship-master, just in port, with his vessel’s papers
under his arm in a tarnished tin box. Here, too, comes his owner,
cheerful, sombre, gracious or in the sulks, accordingly as his scheme
of the now accomplished voyage has been realized in merchandise that
will readily be turned to gold, or has buried him under a bulk of
incommodities such as nobody will care to rid him of. Here,
likewise—the germ of the wrinkle-browed, grizzly-bearded, careworn
merchant—we have the smart young clerk, who gets the taste of traffic
as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sends adventures in his
master’s ships, when he had better be sailing mimic boats upon a
mill-pond. Another figure in the scene is the outward-bound sailor, in
quest of a protection; or the recently arrived one, pale and feeble,
seeking a passport to the hospital. Nor must we forget the captains of
the rusty little schooners that bring firewood from the British
provinces; a rough-looking set of tarpaulins, without the alertness of
the Yankee aspect, but contributing an item of no slight importance to
our decaying trade.

Cluster all these individuals together, as they sometimes were, with
other miscellaneous ones to diversify the group, and, for the time
being, it made the Custom-House a stirring scene. More frequently,
however, on ascending the steps, you would discern— in the entry if it
were summer time, or in their appropriate rooms if wintry or inclement
weathers—a row of venerable figures, sitting in old-fashioned chairs,
which were tipped on their hind legs back against the wall. Oftentimes
they were asleep, but occasionally might be heard talking together, in
voices between a speech and a snore, and with that lack of energy that
distinguishes the occupants of alms-houses, and all other human beings
who depend for subsistence on charity, on monopolized labour, or
anything else but their own independent exertions. These old
gentlemen—seated, like Matthew at the receipt of custom, but not very
liable to be summoned thence, like him, for apostolic errands—were
Custom-House officers.

Furthermore, on the left hand as you enter the front door, is a certain
room or office, about fifteen feet square, and of a lofty height, with
two of its arched windows commanding a view of the aforesaid
dilapidated wharf, and the third looking across a narrow lane, and
along a portion of Derby Street. All three give glimpses of the shops
of grocers, block-makers, slop-sellers, and ship-chandlers, around the
doors of which are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping,
clusters of old salts, and such other wharf-rats as haunt the Wapping
of a seaport. The room itself is cobwebbed, and dingy with old paint;
its floor is strewn with grey sand, in a fashion that has elsewhere
fallen into long disuse; and it is easy to conclude, from the general
slovenliness of the place, that this is a sanctuary into which
womankind, with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very
infrequent access. In the way of furniture, there is a stove with a
voluminous funnel; an old pine desk with a three-legged stool beside
it; two or three wooden-bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and infirm;
and—not to forget the library—on some shelves, a score or two of
volumes of the Acts of Congress, and a bulky Digest of the Revenue
laws. A tin pipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a medium of
vocal communication with other parts of the edifice. And here, some six
months ago—pacing from corner to corner, or lounging on the long-legged
stool, with his elbow on the desk, and his eyes wandering up and down
the columns of the morning newspaper—you might have recognised,
honoured reader, the same individual who welcomed you into his cheery
little study, where the sunshine glimmered so pleasantly through the
willow branches on the western side of the Old Manse. But now, should
you go thither to seek him, you would inquire in vain for the Locofoco
Surveyor. The besom of reform hath swept him out of office, and a
worthier successor wears his dignity and pockets his emoluments.

This old town of Salem—my native place, though I have dwelt much away
from it both in boyhood and maturer years—possesses, or did possess, a
hold on my affection, the force of which I have never realized during
my seasons of actual residence here. Indeed, so far as its physical
aspect is concerned, with its flat, unvaried surface, covered chiefly
with wooden houses, few or none of which pretend to architectural
beauty—its irregularity, which is neither picturesque nor quaint, but
only tame—its long and lazy street, lounging wearisomely through the
whole extent of the peninsula, with Gallows Hill and New Guinea at one
end, and a view of the alms-house at the other—such being the features
of my native town, it would be quite as reasonable to form a
sentimental attachment to a disarranged checker-board. And yet, though
invariably happiest elsewhere, there is within me a feeling for Old
Salem, which, in lack of a better phrase, I must be content to call
affection. The sentiment is probably assignable to the deep and aged
roots which my family has stuck into the soil. It is now nearly two
centuries and a quarter since the original Briton, the earliest
emigrant of my name, made his appearance in the wild and
forest-bordered settlement which has since become a city. And here his
descendants have been born and died, and have mingled their earthly
substance with the soil, until no small portion of it must necessarily
be akin to the mortal frame wherewith, for a little while, I walk the
streets. In part, therefore, the attachment which I speak of is the
mere sensuous sympathy of dust for dust. Few of my countrymen can know
what it is; nor, as frequent transplantation is perhaps better for the
stock, need they consider it desirable to know.

But the sentiment has likewise its moral quality. The figure of that
first ancestor, invested by family tradition with a dim and dusky
grandeur, was present to my boyish imagination as far back as I can
remember. It still haunts me, and induces a sort of home-feeling with
the past, which I scarcely claim in reference to the present phase of
the town. I seem to have a stronger claim to a residence here on
account of this grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, and steeple-crowned
progenitor—who came so early, with his Bible and his sword, and trode
the unworn street with such a stately port, and made so large a figure,
as a man of war and peace—a stronger claim than for myself, whose name
is seldom heard and my face hardly known. He was a soldier, legislator,
judge; he was a ruler in the Church; he had all the Puritanic traits,
both good and evil. He was likewise a bitter persecutor; as witness the
Quakers, who have remembered him in their histories, and relate an
incident of his hard severity towards a woman of their sect, which will
last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds,
although these were many. His son, too, inherited the persecuting
spirit, and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the
witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon
him. So deep a stain, indeed, that his dry old bones, in the
Charter-street burial-ground, must still retain it, if they have not
crumbled utterly to dust! I know not whether these ancestors of mine
bethought themselves to repent, and ask pardon of Heaven for their
cruelties; or whether they are now groaning under the heavy
consequences of them in another state of being. At all events, I, the
present writer, as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself
for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them—as I have
heard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition of the race, for
many a long year back, would argue to exist—may be now and henceforth
removed.

Doubtless, however, either of these stern and black-browed Puritans
would have thought it quite a sufficient retribution for his sins that,
after so long a lapse of years, the old trunk of the family tree, with
so much venerable moss upon it, should have borne, as its topmost
bough, an idler like myself. No aim that I have ever cherished would
they recognise as laudable; no success of mine—if my life, beyond its
domestic scope, had ever been brightened by success—would they deem
otherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful. “What is he?”
murmurs one grey shadow of my forefathers to the other. “A writer of
story books! What kind of business in life—what mode of glorifying God,
or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation—may that be?
Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!” Such are
the compliments bandied between my great grandsires and myself, across
the gulf of time! And yet, let them scorn me as they will, strong
traits of their nature have intertwined themselves with mine.

Planted deep, in the town’s earliest infancy and childhood, by these
two earnest and energetic men, the race has ever since subsisted here;
always, too, in respectability; never, so far as I have known,
disgraced by a single unworthy member; but seldom or never, on the
other hand, after the first two generations, performing any memorable
deed, or so much as putting forward a claim to public notice.
Gradually, they have sunk almost out of sight; as old houses, here and
there about the streets, get covered half-way to the eaves by the
accumulation of new soil. From father to son, for above a hundred
years, they followed the sea; a grey-headed shipmaster, in each
generation, retiring from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while a
boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast, confronting
the salt spray and the gale which had blustered against his sire and
grandsire. The boy, also in due time, passed from the forecastle to the
cabin, spent a tempestuous manhood, and returned from his
world-wanderings, to grow old, and die, and mingle his dust with the
natal earth. This long connexion of a family with one spot, as its
place of birth and burial, creates a kindred between the human being
and the locality, quite independent of any charm in the scenery or
moral circumstances that surround him. It is not love but instinct. The
new inhabitant—who came himself from a foreign land, or whose father or
grandfather came—has little claim to be called a Salemite; he has no
conception of the oyster-like tenacity with which an old settler, over
whom his third century is creeping, clings to the spot where his
successive generations have been embedded. It is no matter that the
place is joyless for him; that he is weary of the old wooden houses,
the mud and dust, the dead level of site and sentiment, the chill east
wind, and the chillest of social atmospheres;—all these, and whatever
faults besides he may see or imagine, are nothing to the purpose. The
spell survives, and just as powerfully as if the natal spot were an
earthly paradise. So has it been in my case. I felt it almost as a
destiny to make Salem my home; so that the mould of features and cast
of character which had all along been familiar here—ever, as one
representative of the race lay down in the grave, another assuming, as
it were, his sentry-march along the main street—might still in my
little day be seen and recognised in the old town. Nevertheless, this
very sentiment is an evidence that the connexion, which has become an
unhealthy one, should at last be severed. Human nature will not
flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and re-planted, for
too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My
children have had other birth-places, and, so far as their fortunes may
be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.

On emerging from the Old Manse, it was chiefly this strange, indolent,
unjoyous attachment for my native town that brought me to fill a place
in Uncle Sam’s brick edifice, when I might as well, or better, have
gone somewhere else. My doom was on me. It was not the first time, nor
the second, that I had gone away—as it seemed, permanently—but yet
returned, like the bad halfpenny, or as if Salem were for me the
inevitable centre of the universe. So, one fine morning I ascended the
flight of granite steps, with the President’s commission in my pocket,
and was introduced to the corps of gentlemen who were to aid me in my
weighty responsibility as chief executive officer of the Custom-House.

I doubt greatly—or, rather, I do not doubt at all—whether any public
functionary of the United States, either in the civil or military line,
has ever had such a patriarchal body of veterans under his orders as
myself. The whereabouts of the Oldest Inhabitant was at once settled
when I looked at them. For upwards of twenty years before this epoch,
the independent position of the Collector had kept the Salem
Custom-House out of the whirlpool of political vicissitude, which makes
the tenure of office generally so fragile. A soldier—New England’s most
distinguished soldier—he stood firmly on the pedestal of his gallant
services; and, himself secure in the wise liberality of the successive
administrations through which he had held office, he had been the
safety of his subordinates in many an hour of danger and heart-quake.
General Miller was radically conservative; a man over whose kindly
nature habit had no slight influence; attaching himself strongly to
familiar faces, and with difficulty moved to change, even when change
might have brought unquestionable improvement. Thus, on taking charge
of my department, I found few but aged men. They were ancient
sea-captains, for the most part, who, after being tossed on every sea,
and standing up sturdily against life’s tempestuous blast, had finally
drifted into this quiet nook, where, with little to disturb them,
except the periodical terrors of a Presidential election, they one and
all acquired a new lease of existence. Though by no means less liable
than their fellow-men to age and infirmity, they had evidently some
talisman or other that kept death at bay. Two or three of their number,
as I was assured, being gouty and rheumatic, or perhaps bed-ridden,
never dreamed of making their appearance at the Custom-House during a
large part of the year; but, after a torpid winter, would creep out
into the warm sunshine of May or June, go lazily about what they termed
duty, and, at their own leisure and convenience, betake themselves to
bed again. I must plead guilty to the charge of abbreviating the
official breath of more than one of these venerable servants of the
republic. They were allowed, on my representation, to rest from their
arduous labours, and soon afterwards—as if their sole principle of life
had been zeal for their country’s service—as I verily believe it
was—withdrew to a better world. It is a pious consolation to me that,
through my interference, a sufficient space was allowed them for
repentance of the evil and corrupt practices into which, as a matter of
course, every Custom-House officer must be supposed to fall. Neither
the front nor the back entrance of the Custom-House opens on the road
to Paradise.

The greater part of my officers were Whigs. It was well for their
venerable brotherhood that the new Surveyor was not a politician, and
though a faithful Democrat in principle, neither received nor held his
office with any reference to political services. Had it been
otherwise—had an active politician been put into this influential post,
to assume the easy task of making head against a Whig Collector, whose
infirmities withheld him from the personal administration of his
office—hardly a man of the old corps would have drawn the breath of
official life within a month after the exterminating angel had come up
the Custom-House steps. According to the received code in such matters,
it would have been nothing short of duty, in a politician, to bring
every one of those white heads under the axe of the guillotine. It was
plain enough to discern that the old fellows dreaded some such
discourtesy at my hands. It pained, and at the same time amused me, to
behold the terrors that attended my advent, to see a furrowed cheek,
weather-beaten by half a century of storm, turn ashy pale at the glance
of so harmless an individual as myself; to detect, as one or another
addressed me, the tremor of a voice which, in long-past days, had been
wont to bellow through a speaking-trumpet, hoarsely enough to frighten
Boreas himself to silence. They knew, these excellent old persons,
that, by all established rule—and, as regarded some of them, weighed by
their own lack of efficiency for business—they ought to have given
place to younger men, more orthodox in politics, and altogether fitter
than themselves to serve our common Uncle. I knew it, too, but could
never quite find in my heart to act upon the knowledge. Much and
deservedly to my own discredit, therefore, and considerably to the
detriment of my official conscience, they continued, during my
incumbency, to creep about the wharves, and loiter up and down the
Custom-House steps. They spent a good deal of time, also, asleep in
their accustomed corners, with their chairs tilted back against the
walls; awaking, however, once or twice in the forenoon, to bore one
another with the several thousandth repetition of old sea-stories and
mouldy jokes, that had grown to be passwords and countersigns among
them.

The discovery was soon made, I imagine, that the new Surveyor had no
great harm in him. So, with lightsome hearts and the happy
consciousness of being usefully employed—in their own behalf at least,
if not for our beloved country—these good old gentlemen went through
the various formalities of office. Sagaciously under their spectacles,
did they peep into the holds of vessels. Mighty was their fuss about
little matters, and marvellous, sometimes, the obtuseness that allowed
greater ones to slip between their fingers! Whenever such a mischance
occurred—when a waggon-load of valuable merchandise had been smuggled
ashore, at noonday, perhaps, and directly beneath their unsuspicious
noses—nothing could exceed the vigilance and alacrity with which they
proceeded to lock, and double-lock, and secure with tape and
sealing-wax, all the avenues of the delinquent vessel. Instead of a
reprimand for their previous negligence, the case seemed rather to
require an eulogium on their praiseworthy caution after the mischief
had happened; a grateful recognition of the promptitude of their zeal
the moment that there was no longer any remedy.

Unless people are more than commonly disagreeable, it is my foolish
habit to contract a kindness for them. The better part of my
companion’s character, if it have a better part, is that which usually
comes uppermost in my regard, and forms the type whereby I recognise
the man. As most of these old Custom-House officers had good traits,
and as my position in reference to them, being paternal and protective,
was favourable to the growth of friendly sentiments, I soon grew to
like them all. It was pleasant in the summer forenoons—when the fervent
heat, that almost liquefied the rest of the human family, merely
communicated a genial warmth to their half torpid systems—it was
pleasant to hear them chatting in the back entry, a row of them all
tipped against the wall, as usual; while the frozen witticisms of past
generations were thawed out, and came bubbling with laughter from their
lips. Externally, the jollity of aged men has much in common with the
mirth of children; the intellect, any more than a deep sense of humour,
has little to do with the matter; it is, with both, a gleam that plays
upon the surface, and imparts a sunny and cheery aspect alike to the
green branch and grey, mouldering trunk. In one case, however, it is
real sunshine; in the other, it more resembles the phosphorescent glow
of decaying wood.

It would be sad injustice, the reader must understand, to represent all
my excellent old friends as in their dotage. In the first place, my
coadjutors were not invariably old; there were men among them in their
strength and prime, of marked ability and energy, and altogether
superior to the sluggish and dependent mode of life on which their evil
stars had cast them. Then, moreover, the white locks of age were
sometimes found to be the thatch of an intellectual tenement in good
repair. But, as respects the majority of my corps of veterans, there
will be no wrong done if I characterize them generally as a set of
wearisome old souls, who had gathered nothing worth preservation from
their varied experience of life. They seemed to have flung away all the
golden grain of practical wisdom, which they had enjoyed so many
opportunities of harvesting, and most carefully to have stored their
memory with the husks. They spoke with far more interest and unction of
their morning’s breakfast, or yesterday’s, today’s, or tomorrow’s
dinner, than of the shipwreck of forty or fifty years ago, and all the
world’s wonders which they had witnessed with their youthful eyes.

The father of the Custom-House—the patriarch, not only of this little
squad of officials, but, I am bold to say, of the respectable body of
tide-waiters all over the United States—was a certain permanent
Inspector. He might truly be termed a legitimate son of the revenue
system, dyed in the wool, or rather born in the purple; since his sire,
a Revolutionary colonel, and formerly collector of the port, had
created an office for him, and appointed him to fill it, at a period of
the early ages which few living men can now remember. This Inspector,
when I first knew him, was a man of fourscore years, or thereabouts,
and certainly one of the most wonderful specimens of winter-green that
you would be likely to discover in a lifetime’s search. With his florid
cheek, his compact figure smartly arrayed in a bright-buttoned blue
coat, his brisk and vigorous step, and his hale and hearty aspect,
altogether he seemed—not young, indeed—but a kind of new contrivance of
Mother Nature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no
business to touch. His voice and laugh, which perpetually re-echoed
through the Custom-House, had nothing of the tremulous quaver and
cackle of an old man’s utterance; they came strutting out of his lungs,
like the crow of a cock, or the blast of a clarion. Looking at him
merely as an animal—and there was very little else to look at—he was a
most satisfactory object, from the thorough healthfulness and
wholesomeness of his system, and his capacity, at that extreme age, to
enjoy all, or nearly all, the delights which he had ever aimed at or
conceived of. The careless security of his life in the Custom-House, on
a regular income, and with but slight and infrequent apprehensions of
removal, had no doubt contributed to make time pass lightly over him.
The original and more potent causes, however, lay in the rare
perfection of his animal nature, the moderate proportion of intellect,
and the very trifling admixture of moral and spiritual ingredients;
these latter qualities, indeed, being in barely enough measure to keep
the old gentleman from walking on all-fours. He possessed no power of
thought, no depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities: nothing, in
short, but a few commonplace instincts, which, aided by the cheerful
temper which grew inevitably out of his physical well-being, did duty
very respectably, and to general acceptance, in lieu of a heart. He had
been the husband of three wives, all long since dead; the father of
twenty children, most of whom, at every age of childhood or maturity,
had likewise returned to dust. Here, one would suppose, might have been
sorrow enough to imbue the sunniest disposition through and through
with a sable tinge. Not so with our old Inspector. One brief sigh
sufficed to carry off the entire burden of these dismal reminiscences.
The next moment he was as ready for sport as any unbreeched infant: far
readier than the Collector’s junior clerk, who at nineteen years was
much the elder and graver man of the two.

I used to watch and study this patriarchal personage with, I think,
livelier curiosity than any other form of humanity there presented to
my notice. He was, in truth, a rare phenomenon; so perfect, in one
point of view; so shallow, so delusive, so impalpable such an absolute
nonentity, in every other. My conclusion was that he had no soul, no
heart, no mind; nothing, as I have already said, but instincts; and
yet, withal, so cunningly had the few materials of his character been
put together that there was no painful perception of deficiency, but,
on my part, an entire contentment with what I found in him. It might be
difficult—and it was so—to conceive how he should exist hereafter, so
earthly and sensuous did he seem; but surely his existence here,
admitting that it was to terminate with his last breath, had been not
unkindly given; with no higher moral responsibilities than the beasts
of the field, but with a larger scope of enjoyment than theirs, and
with all their blessed immunity from the dreariness and duskiness of
age.

One point in which he had vastly the advantage over his four-footed
brethren was his ability to recollect the good dinners which it had
made no small portion of the happiness of his life to eat. His
gourmandism was a highly agreeable trait; and to hear him talk of roast
meat was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster. As he possessed no
higher attribute, and neither sacrificed nor vitiated any spiritual
endowment by devoting all his energies and ingenuities to subserve the
delight and profit of his maw, it always pleased and satisfied me to
hear him expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher’s meat, and the most
eligible methods of preparing them for the table. His reminiscences of
good cheer, however ancient the date of the actual banquet, seemed to
bring the savour of pig or turkey under one’s very nostrils. There were
flavours on his palate that had lingered there not less than sixty or
seventy years, and were still apparently as fresh as that of the mutton
chop which he had just devoured for his breakfast. I have heard him
smack his lips over dinners, every guest at which, except himself, had
long been food for worms. It was marvellous to observe how the ghosts
of bygone meals were continually rising up before him—not in anger or
retribution, but as if grateful for his former appreciation, and
seeking to reduplicate an endless series of enjoyment, at once shadowy
and sensual: a tenderloin of beef, a hind-quarter of veal, a spare-rib
of pork, a particular chicken, or a remarkably praiseworthy turkey,
which had perhaps adorned his board in the days of the elder Adams,
would be remembered; while all the subsequent experience of our race,
and all the events that brightened or darkened his individual career,
had gone over him with as little permanent effect as the passing
breeze. The chief tragic event of the old man’s life, so far as I could
judge, was his mishap with a certain goose, which lived and died some
twenty or forty years ago: a goose of most promising figure, but which,
at table, proved so inveterately tough, that the carving-knife would
make no impression on its carcase, and it could only be divided with an
axe and handsaw.

But it is time to quit this sketch; on which, however, I should be glad
to dwell at considerably more length, because of all men whom I have
ever known, this individual was fittest to be a Custom-House officer.
Most persons, owing to causes which I may not have space to hint at,
suffer moral detriment from this peculiar mode of life. The old
Inspector was incapable of it; and, were he to continue in office to
the end of time, would be just as good as he was then, and sit down to
dinner with just as good an appetite.

There is one likeness, without which my gallery of Custom-House
portraits would be strangely incomplete, but which my comparatively few
opportunities for observation enable me to sketch only in the merest
outline. It is that of the Collector, our gallant old General, who,
after his brilliant military service, subsequently to which he had
ruled over a wild Western territory, had come hither, twenty years
before, to spend the decline of his varied and honourable life.

The brave soldier had already numbered, nearly or quite, his
three-score years and ten, and was pursuing the remainder of his
earthly march, burdened with infirmities which even the martial music
of his own spirit-stirring recollections could do little towards
lightening. The step was palsied now, that had been foremost in the
charge. It was only with the assistance of a servant, and by leaning
his hand heavily on the iron balustrade, that he could slowly and
painfully ascend the Custom-House steps, and, with a toilsome progress
across the floor, attain his customary chair beside the fireplace.
There he used to sit, gazing with a somewhat dim serenity of aspect at
the figures that came and went, amid the rustle of papers, the
administering of oaths, the discussion of business, and the casual talk
of the office; all which sounds and circumstances seemed but
indistinctly to impress his senses, and hardly to make their way into
his inner sphere of contemplation. His countenance, in this repose, was
mild and kindly. If his notice was sought, an expression of courtesy
and interest gleamed out upon his features, proving that there was
light within him, and that it was only the outward medium of the
intellectual lamp that obstructed the rays in their passage. The closer
you penetrated to the substance of his mind, the sounder it appeared.
When no longer called upon to speak or listen—either of which
operations cost him an evident effort—his face would briefly subside
into its former not uncheerful quietude. It was not painful to behold
this look; for, though dim, it had not the imbecility of decaying age.
The framework of his nature, originally strong and massive, was not yet
crumpled into ruin.

To observe and define his character, however, under such disadvantages,
was as difficult a task as to trace out and build up anew, in
imagination, an old fortress, like Ticonderoga, from a view of its grey
and broken ruins. Here and there, perchance, the walls may remain
almost complete; but elsewhere may be only a shapeless mound, cumbrous
with its very strength, and overgrown, through long years of peace and
neglect, with grass and alien weeds.

Nevertheless, looking at the old warrior with affection—for, slight as
was the communication between us, my feeling towards him, like that of
all bipeds and quadrupeds who knew him, might not improperly be termed
so,—I could discern the main points of his portrait. It was marked with
the noble and heroic qualities which showed it to be not a mere
accident, but of good right, that he had won a distinguished name. His
spirit could never, I conceive, have been characterized by an uneasy
activity; it must, at any period of his life, have required an impulse
to set him in motion; but once stirred up, with obstacles to overcome,
and an adequate object to be attained, it was not in the man to give
out or fail. The heat that had formerly pervaded his nature, and which
was not yet extinct, was never of the kind that flashes and flickers in
a blaze; but rather a deep red glow, as of iron in a furnace. Weight,
solidity, firmness—this was the expression of his repose, even in such
decay as had crept untimely over him at the period of which I speak.
But I could imagine, even then, that, under some excitement which
should go deeply into his consciousness—roused by a trumpet’s peal,
loud enough to awaken all of his energies that were not dead, but only
slumbering—he was yet capable of flinging off his infirmities like a
sick man’s gown, dropping the staff of age to seize a battle-sword, and
starting up once more a warrior. And, in so intense a moment his
demeanour would have still been calm. Such an exhibition, however, was
but to be pictured in fancy; not to be anticipated, nor desired. What I
saw in him—as evidently as the indestructible ramparts of Old
Ticonderoga, already cited as the most appropriate simile—was the
features of stubborn and ponderous endurance, which might well have
amounted to obstinacy in his earlier days; of integrity, that, like
most of his other endowments, lay in a somewhat heavy mass, and was
just as unmalleable or unmanageable as a ton of iron ore; and of
benevolence which, fiercely as he led the bayonets on at Chippewa or
Fort Erie, I take to be of quite as genuine a stamp as what actuates
any or all the polemical philanthropists of the age. He had slain men
with his own hand, for aught I know—certainly, they had fallen like
blades of grass at the sweep of the scythe before the charge to which
his spirit imparted its triumphant energy—but, be that as it might,
there was never in his heart so much cruelty as would have brushed the
down off a butterfly’s wing. I have not known the man to whose innate
kindliness I would more confidently make an appeal.

Many characteristics—and those, too, which contribute not the least
forcibly to impart resemblance in a sketch—must have vanished, or been
obscured, before I met the General. All merely graceful attributes are
usually the most evanescent; nor does nature adorn the human ruin with
blossoms of new beauty, that have their roots and proper nutriment only
in the chinks and crevices of decay, as she sows wall-flowers over the
ruined fortress of Ticonderoga. Still, even in respect of grace and
beauty, there were points well worth noting. A ray of humour, now and
then, would make its way through the veil of dim obstruction, and
glimmer pleasantly upon our faces. A trait of native elegance, seldom
seen in the masculine character after childhood or early youth, was
shown in the General’s fondness for the sight and fragrance of flowers.
An old soldier might be supposed to prize only the bloody laurel on his
brow; but here was one who seemed to have a young girl’s appreciation
of the floral tribe.

There, beside the fireplace, the brave old General used to sit; while
the Surveyor—though seldom, when it could be avoided, taking upon
himself the difficult task of engaging him in conversation—was fond of
standing at a distance, and watching his quiet and almost slumberous
countenance. He seemed away from us, although we saw him but a few
yards off; remote, though we passed close beside his chair;
unattainable, though we might have stretched forth our hands and
touched his own. It might be that he lived a more real life within his
thoughts than amid the unappropriate environment of the Collector’s
office. The evolutions of the parade; the tumult of the battle; the
flourish of old heroic music, heard thirty years before—such scenes and
sounds, perhaps, were all alive before his intellectual sense.
Meanwhile, the merchants and ship-masters, the spruce clerks and
uncouth sailors, entered and departed; the bustle of his commercial and
Custom-House life kept up its little murmur round about him; and
neither with the men nor their affairs did the General appear to
sustain the most distant relation. He was as much out of place as an
old sword—now rusty, but which had flashed once in the battle’s front,
and showed still a bright gleam along its blade—would have been among
the inkstands, paper-folders, and mahogany rulers on the Deputy
Collector’s desk.

There was one thing that much aided me in renewing and re-creating the
stalwart soldier of the Niagara frontier—the man of true and simple
energy. It was the recollection of those memorable words of his—“I’ll
try, Sir”—spoken on the very verge of a desperate and heroic
enterprise, and breathing the soul and spirit of New England hardihood,
comprehending all perils, and encountering all. If, in our country,
valour were rewarded by heraldic honour, this phrase—which it seems so
easy to speak, but which only he, with such a task of danger and glory
before him, has ever spoken—would be the best and fittest of all
mottoes for the General’s shield of arms.

It contributes greatly towards a man’s moral and intellectual health to
be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike
himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and
abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate. The accidents of my
life have often afforded me this advantage, but never with more fulness
and variety than during my continuance in office. There was one man,
especially, the observation of whose character gave me a new idea of
talent. His gifts were emphatically those of a man of business; prompt,
acute, clear-minded; with an eye that saw through all perplexities, and
a faculty of arrangement that made them vanish as by the waving of an
enchanter’s wand. Bred up from boyhood in the Custom-House, it was his
proper field of activity; and the many intricacies of business, so
harassing to the interloper, presented themselves before him with the
regularity of a perfectly comprehended system. In my contemplation, he
stood as the ideal of his class. He was, indeed, the Custom-House in
himself; or, at all events, the mainspring that kept its variously
revolving wheels in motion; for, in an institution like this, where its
officers are appointed to subserve their own profit and convenience,
and seldom with a leading reference to their fitness for the duty to be
performed, they must perforce seek elsewhere the dexterity which is not
in them. Thus, by an inevitable necessity, as a magnet attracts
steel-filings, so did our man of business draw to himself the
difficulties which everybody met with. With an easy condescension, and
kind forbearance towards our stupidity—which, to his order of mind,
must have seemed little short of crime—would he forth-with, by the
merest touch of his finger, make the incomprehensible as clear as
daylight. The merchants valued him not less than we, his esoteric
friends. His integrity was perfect; it was a law of nature with him,
rather than a choice or a principle; nor can it be otherwise than the
main condition of an intellect so remarkably clear and accurate as his
to be honest and regular in the administration of affairs. A stain on
his conscience, as to anything that came within the range of his
vocation, would trouble such a man very much in the same way, though to
a far greater degree, than an error in the balance of an account, or an
ink-blot on the fair page of a book of record. Here, in a word—and it
is a rare instance in my life—I had met with a person thoroughly
adapted to the situation which he held.

Such were some of the people with whom I now found myself connected. I
took it in good part, at the hands of Providence, that I was thrown
into a position so little akin to my past habits; and set myself
seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. After my
fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with the dreamy brethren
of Brook Farm; after living for three years within the subtle influence
of an intellect like Emerson’s; after those wild, free days on the
Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, beside our fire of fallen
boughs, with Ellery Channing; after talking with Thoreau about
pine-trees and Indian relics in his hermitage at Walden; after growing
fastidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of Hillard’s
culture; after becoming imbued with poetic sentiment at Longfellow’s
hearthstone—it was time, at length, that I should exercise other
faculties of my nature, and nourish myself with food for which I had
hitherto had little appetite. Even the old Inspector was desirable, as
a change of diet, to a man who had known Alcott. I looked upon it as an
evidence, in some measure, of a system naturally well balanced, and
lacking no essential part of a thorough organization, that, with such
associates to remember, I could mingle at once with men of altogether
different qualities, and never murmur at the change.

Literature, its exertions and objects, were now of little moment in my
regard. I cared not at this period for books; they were apart from me.
Nature—except it were human nature—the nature that is developed in
earth and sky, was, in one sense, hidden from me; and all the
imaginative delight wherewith it had been spiritualized passed away out
of my mind. A gift, a faculty, if it had not been departed, was
suspended and inanimate within me. There would have been something sad,
unutterably dreary, in all this, had I not been conscious that it lay
at my own option to recall whatever was valuable in the past. It might
be true, indeed, that this was a life which could not, with impunity,
be lived too long; else, it might make me permanently other than I had
been, without transforming me into any shape which it would be worth my
while to take. But I never considered it as other than a transitory
life. There was always a prophetic instinct, a low whisper in my ear,
that within no long period, and whenever a new change of custom should
be essential to my good, change would come.

Meanwhile, there I was, a Surveyor of the Revenue and, so far as I have
been able to understand, as good a Surveyor as need be. A man of
thought, fancy, and sensibility (had he ten times the Surveyor’s
proportion of those qualities), may, at any time, be a man of affairs,
if he will only choose to give himself the trouble. My fellow-officers,
and the merchants and sea-captains with whom my official duties brought
me into any manner of connection, viewed me in no other light, and
probably knew me in no other character. None of them, I presume, had
ever read a page of my inditing, or would have cared a fig the more for
me if they had read them all; nor would it have mended the matter, in
the least, had those same unprofitable pages been written with a pen
like that of Burns or of Chaucer, each of whom was a Custom-House
officer in his day, as well as I. It is a good lesson—though it may
often be a hard one—for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of
making for himself a rank among the world’s dignitaries by such means,
to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are
recognized and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that
circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at. I know not that I
especially needed the lesson, either in the way of warning or rebuke;
but at any rate, I learned it thoroughly: nor, it gives me pleasure to
reflect, did the truth, as it came home to my perception, ever cost me
a pang, or require to be thrown off in a sigh. In the way of literary
talk, it is true, the Naval Officer—an excellent fellow, who came into
the office with me, and went out only a little later—would often engage
me in a discussion about one or the other of his favourite topics,
Napoleon or Shakespeare. The Collector’s junior clerk, too a young
gentleman who, it was whispered occasionally covered a sheet of Uncle
Sam’s letter paper with what (at the distance of a few yards) looked
very much like poetry—used now and then to speak to me of books, as
matters with which I might possibly be conversant. This was my all of
lettered intercourse; and it was quite sufficient for my necessities.

No longer seeking nor caring that my name should be blasoned abroad on
title-pages, I smiled to think that it had now another kind of vogue.
The Custom-House marker imprinted it, with a stencil and black paint,
on pepper-bags, and baskets of anatto, and cigar-boxes, and bales of
all kinds of dutiable merchandise, in testimony that these commodities
had paid the impost, and gone regularly through the office. Borne on
such queer vehicle of fame, a knowledge of my existence, so far as a
name conveys it, was carried where it had never been before, and, I
hope, will never go again.

But the past was not dead. Once in a great while, the thoughts that had
seemed so vital and so active, yet had been put to rest so quietly,
revived again. One of the most remarkable occasions, when the habit of
bygone days awoke in me, was that which brings it within the law of
literary propriety to offer the public the sketch which I am now
writing.

In the second storey of the Custom-House there is a large room, in
which the brick-work and naked rafters have never been covered with
panelling and plaster. The edifice—originally projected on a scale
adapted to the old commercial enterprise of the port, and with an idea
of subsequent prosperity destined never to be realized—contains far
more space than its occupants know what to do with. This airy hall,
therefore, over the Collector’s apartments, remains unfinished to this
day, and, in spite of the aged cobwebs that festoon its dusky beams,
appears still to await the labour of the carpenter and mason. At one
end of the room, in a recess, were a number of barrels piled one upon
another, containing bundles of official documents. Large quantities of
similar rubbish lay lumbering the floor. It was sorrowful to think how
many days, and weeks, and months, and years of toil had been wasted on
these musty papers, which were now only an encumbrance on earth, and
were hidden away in this forgotten corner, never more to be glanced at
by human eyes. But then, what reams of other manuscripts—filled, not
with the dulness of official formalities, but with the thought of
inventive brains and the rich effusion of deep hearts—had gone equally
to oblivion; and that, moreover, without serving a purpose in their
day, as these heaped-up papers had, and—saddest of all—without
purchasing for their writers the comfortable livelihood which the
clerks of the Custom-House had gained by these worthless scratchings of
the pen. Yet not altogether worthless, perhaps, as materials of local
history. Here, no doubt, statistics of the former commerce of Salem
might be discovered, and memorials of her princely merchants—old King
Derby—old Billy Gray—old Simon Forrester—and many another magnate in
his day, whose powdered head, however, was scarcely in the tomb before
his mountain pile of wealth began to dwindle. The founders of the
greater part of the families which now compose the aristocracy of Salem
might here be traced, from the petty and obscure beginnings of their
traffic, at periods generally much posterior to the Revolution, upward
to what their children look upon as long-established rank.

Prior to the Revolution there is a dearth of records; the earlier
documents and archives of the Custom-House having, probably, been
carried off to Halifax, when all the king’s officials accompanied the
British army in its flight from Boston. It has often been a matter of
regret with me; for, going back, perhaps, to the days of the
Protectorate, those papers must have contained many references to
forgotten or remembered men, and to antique customs, which would have
affected me with the same pleasure as when I used to pick up Indian
arrow-heads in the field near the Old Manse.

But, one idle and rainy day, it was my fortune to make a discovery of
some little interest. Poking and burrowing into the heaped-up rubbish
in the corner, unfolding one and another document, and reading the
names of vessels that had long ago foundered at sea or rotted at the
wharves, and those of merchants never heard of now on ’Change, nor very
readily decipherable on their mossy tombstones; glancing at such
matters with the saddened, weary, half-reluctant interest which we
bestow on the corpse of dead activity—and exerting my fancy, sluggish
with little use, to raise up from these dry bones an image of the old
town’s brighter aspect, when India was a new region, and only Salem
knew the way thither—I chanced to lay my hand on a small package,
carefully done up in a piece of ancient yellow parchment. This envelope
had the air of an official record of some period long past, when clerks
engrossed their stiff and formal chirography on more substantial
materials than at present. There was something about it that quickened
an instinctive curiosity, and made me undo the faded red tape that tied
up the package, with the sense that a treasure would here be brought to
light. Unbending the rigid folds of the parchment cover, I found it to
be a commission, under the hand and seal of Governor Shirley, in favour
of one Jonathan Pue, as Surveyor of His Majesty’s Customs for the Port
of Salem, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. I remembered to have
read (probably in Felt’s “Annals”) a notice of the decease of Mr.
Surveyor Pue, about fourscore years ago; and likewise, in a newspaper
of recent times, an account of the digging up of his remains in the
little graveyard of St. Peter’s Church, during the renewal of that
edifice. Nothing, if I rightly call to mind, was left of my respected
predecessor, save an imperfect skeleton, and some fragments of apparel,
and a wig of majestic frizzle, which, unlike the head that it once
adorned, was in very satisfactory preservation. But, on examining the
papers which the parchment commission served to envelop, I found more
traces of Mr. Pue’s mental part, and the internal operations of his
head, than the frizzled wig had contained of the venerable skull
itself.

They were documents, in short, not official, but of a private nature,
or, at least, written in his private capacity, and apparently with his
own hand. I could account for their being included in the heap of
Custom-House lumber only by the fact that Mr. Pue’s death had happened
suddenly, and that these papers, which he probably kept in his official
desk, had never come to the knowledge of his heirs, or were supposed to
relate to the business of the revenue. On the transfer of the archives
to Halifax, this package, proving to be of no public concern, was left
behind, and had remained ever since unopened.

The ancient Surveyor—being little molested, I suppose, at that early
day with business pertaining to his office—seems to have devoted some
of his many leisure hours to researches as a local antiquarian, and
other inquisitions of a similar nature. These supplied material for
petty activity to a mind that would otherwise have been eaten up with
rust. A portion of his facts, by the by, did me good service in the
preparation of the article entitled “MAIN STREET,” included in the
present volume. The remainder may perhaps be applied to purposes
equally valuable hereafter, or not impossibly may be worked up, so far
as they go, into a regular history of Salem, should my veneration for
the natal soil ever impel me to so pious a task. Meanwhile, they shall
be at the command of any gentleman, inclined and competent, to take the
unprofitable labour off my hands. As a final disposition I contemplate
depositing them with the Essex Historical Society. But the object that
most drew my attention to the mysterious package was a certain affair
of fine red cloth, much worn and faded, There were traces about it of
gold embroidery, which, however, was greatly frayed and defaced, so
that none, or very little, of the glitter was left. It had been
wrought, as was easy to perceive, with wonderful skill of needlework;
and the stitch (as I am assured by ladies conversant with such
mysteries) gives evidence of a now forgotten art, not to be discovered
even by the process of picking out the threads. This rag of scarlet
cloth—for time, and wear, and a sacrilegious moth had reduced it to
little other than a rag—on careful examination, assumed the shape of a
letter.

It was the capital letter A. By an accurate measurement, each limb
proved to be precisely three inches and a quarter in length. It had
been intended, there could be no doubt, as an ornamental article of
dress; but how it was to be worn, or what rank, honour, and dignity, in
by-past times, were signified by it, was a riddle which (so evanescent
are the fashions of the world in these particulars) I saw little hope
of solving. And yet it strangely interested me. My eyes fastened
themselves upon the old scarlet letter, and would not be turned aside.
Certainly there was some deep meaning in it most worthy of
interpretation, and which, as it were, streamed forth from the mystic
symbol, subtly communicating itself to my sensibilities, but evading
the analysis of my mind.

When thus perplexed—and cogitating, among other hypotheses, whether the
letter might not have been one of those decorations which the white men
used to contrive in order to take the eyes of Indians—I happened to
place it on my breast. It seemed to me—the reader may smile, but must
not doubt my word—it seemed to me, then, that I experienced a sensation
not altogether physical, yet almost so, as of burning heat, and as if
the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron. I shuddered, and
involuntarily let it fall upon the floor.

In the absorbing contemplation of the scarlet letter, I had hitherto
neglected to examine a small roll of dingy paper, around which it had
been twisted. This I now opened, and had the satisfaction to find
recorded by the old Surveyor’s pen, a reasonably complete explanation
of the whole affair. There were several foolscap sheets, containing
many particulars respecting the life and conversation of one Hester
Prynne, who appeared to have been rather a noteworthy personage in the
view of our ancestors. She had flourished during the period between the
early days of Massachusetts and the close of the seventeenth century.
Aged persons, alive in the time of Mr. Surveyor Pue, and from whose
oral testimony he had made up his narrative, remembered her, in their
youth, as a very old, but not decrepit woman, of a stately and solemn
aspect. It had been her habit, from an almost immemorial date, to go
about the country as a kind of voluntary nurse, and doing whatever
miscellaneous good she might; taking upon herself, likewise, to give
advice in all matters, especially those of the heart, by which means—as
a person of such propensities inevitably must—she gained from many
people the reverence due to an angel, but, I should imagine, was looked
upon by others as an intruder and a nuisance. Prying further into the
manuscript, I found the record of other doings and sufferings of this
singular woman, for most of which the reader is referred to the story
entitled “THE SCARLET LETTER”; and it should be borne carefully in mind
that the main facts of that story are authorized and authenticated by
the document of Mr. Surveyor Pue. The original papers, together with
the scarlet letter itself—a most curious relic—are still in my
possession, and shall be freely exhibited to whomsoever, induced by the
great interest of the narrative, may desire a sight of them. I must not
be understood affirming that, in the dressing up of the tale, and
imagining the motives and modes of passion that influenced the
characters who figure in it, I have invariably confined myself within
the limits of the old Surveyor’s half-a-dozen sheets of foolscap. On
the contrary, I have allowed myself, as to such points, nearly, or
altogether, as much license as if the facts had been entirely of my own
invention. What I contend for is the authenticity of the outline.

This incident recalled my mind, in some degree, to its old track. There
seemed to be here the groundwork of a tale. It impressed me as if the
ancient Surveyor, in his garb of a hundred years gone by, and wearing
his immortal wig—which was buried with him, but did not perish in the
grave—had met me in the deserted chamber of the Custom-House. In his
port was the dignity of one who had borne His Majesty’s commission, and
who was therefore illuminated by a ray of the splendour that shone so
dazzlingly about the throne. How unlike alas the hangdog look of a
republican official, who, as the servant of the people, feels himself
less than the least, and below the lowest of his masters. With his own
ghostly hand, the obscurely seen, but majestic, figure had imparted to
me the scarlet symbol and the little roll of explanatory manuscript.
With his own ghostly voice he had exhorted me, on the sacred
consideration of my filial duty and reverence towards him—who might
reasonably regard himself as my official ancestor—to bring his mouldy
and moth-eaten lucubrations before the public. “Do this,” said the
ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue, emphatically nodding the head that looked so
imposing within its memorable wig; “do this, and the profit shall be
all your own. You will shortly need it; for it is not in your days as
it was in mine, when a man’s office was a life-lease, and oftentimes an
heirloom. But I charge you, in this matter of old Mistress Prynne, give
to your predecessor’s memory the credit which will be rightfully due”
And I said to the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue—“I will”.

On Hester Prynne’s story, therefore, I bestowed much thought. It was
the subject of my meditations for many an hour, while pacing to and fro
across my room, or traversing, with a hundredfold repetition, the long
extent from the front door of the Custom-House to the side entrance,
and back again. Great were the weariness and annoyance of the old
Inspector and the Weighers and Gaugers, whose slumbers were disturbed
by the unmercifully lengthened tramp of my passing and returning
footsteps. Remembering their own former habits, they used to say that
the Surveyor was walking the quarter-deck. They probably fancied that
my sole object—and, indeed, the sole object for which a sane man could
ever put himself into voluntary motion—was to get an appetite for
dinner. And, to say the truth, an appetite, sharpened by the east wind
that generally blew along the passage, was the only valuable result of
so much indefatigable exercise. So little adapted is the atmosphere of
a Custom-house to the delicate harvest of fancy and sensibility, that,
had I remained there through ten Presidencies yet to come, I doubt
whether the tale of “The Scarlet Letter” would ever have been brought
before the public eye. My imagination was a tarnished mirror. It would
not reflect, or only with miserable dimness, the figures with which I
did my best to people it. The characters of the narrative would not be
warmed and rendered malleable by any heat that I could kindle at my
intellectual forge. They would take neither the glow of passion nor the
tenderness of sentiment, but retained all the rigidity of dead corpses,
and stared me in the face with a fixed and ghastly grin of contemptuous
defiance. “What have you to do with us?” that expression seemed to say.
“The little power you might have once possessed over the tribe of
unrealities is gone! You have bartered it for a pittance of the public
gold. Go then, and earn your wages!” In short, the almost torpid
creatures of my own fancy twitted me with imbecility, and not without
fair occasion.

It was not merely during the three hours and a half which Uncle Sam
claimed as his share of my daily life that this wretched numbness held
possession of me. It went with me on my sea-shore walks and rambles
into the country, whenever—which was seldom and reluctantly—I bestirred
myself to seek that invigorating charm of Nature which used to give me
such freshness and activity of thought, the moment that I stepped
across the threshold of the Old Manse. The same torpor, as regarded the
capacity for intellectual effort, accompanied me home, and weighed upon
me in the chamber which I most absurdly termed my study. Nor did it
quit me when, late at night, I sat in the deserted parlour, lighted
only by the glimmering coal-fire and the moon, striving to picture
forth imaginary scenes, which, the next day, might flow out on the
brightening page in many-hued description.

If the imaginative faculty refused to act at such an hour, it might
well be deemed a hopeless case. Moonlight, in a familiar room, falling
so white upon the carpet, and showing all its figures so
distinctly—making every object so minutely visible, yet so unlike a
morning or noontide visibility—is a medium the most suitable for a
romance-writer to get acquainted with his illusive guests. There is the
little domestic scenery of the well-known apartment; the chairs, with
each its separate individuality; the centre-table, sustaining a
work-basket, a volume or two, and an extinguished lamp; the sofa; the
book-case; the picture on the wall—all these details, so completely
seen, are so spiritualised by the unusual light, that they seem to lose
their actual substance, and become things of intellect. Nothing is too
small or too trifling to undergo this change, and acquire dignity
thereby. A child’s shoe; the doll, seated in her little wicker
carriage; the hobby-horse—whatever, in a word, has been used or played
with during the day is now invested with a quality of strangeness and
remoteness, though still almost as vividly present as by daylight.
Thus, therefore, the floor of our familiar room has become a neutral
territory, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land, where the
Actual and the Imaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with the
nature of the other. Ghosts might enter here without affrighting us. It
would be too much in keeping with the scene to excite surprise, were we
to look about us and discover a form, beloved, but gone hence, now
sitting quietly in a streak of this magic moonshine, with an aspect
that would make us doubt whether it had returned from afar, or had
never once stirred from our fireside.

The somewhat dim coal fire has an essential Influence in producing the
effect which I would describe. It throws its unobtrusive tinge
throughout the room, with a faint ruddiness upon the walls and ceiling,
and a reflected gleam upon the polish of the furniture. This warmer
light mingles itself with the cold spirituality of the moon-beams, and
communicates, as it were, a heart and sensibilities of human tenderness
to the forms which fancy summons up. It converts them from snow-images
into men and women. Glancing at the looking-glass, we behold—deep
within its haunted verge—the smouldering glow of the half-extinguished
anthracite, the white moon-beams on the floor, and a repetition of all
the gleam and shadow of the picture, with one remove further from the
actual, and nearer to the imaginative. Then, at such an hour, and with
this scene before him, if a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream
strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to
write romances.

But, for myself, during the whole of my Custom-House experience,
moonlight and sunshine, and the glow of firelight, were just alike in
my regard; and neither of them was of one whit more avail than the
twinkle of a tallow-candle. An entire class of susceptibilities, and a
gift connected with them—of no great richness or value, but the best I
had—was gone from me.

It is my belief, however, that had I attempted a different order of
composition, my faculties would not have been found so pointless and
inefficacious. I might, for instance, have contented myself with
writing out the narratives of a veteran shipmaster, one of the
Inspectors, whom I should be most ungrateful not to mention, since
scarcely a day passed that he did not stir me to laughter and
admiration by his marvelous gifts as a story-teller. Could I have
preserved the picturesque force of his style, and the humourous
colouring which nature taught him how to throw over his descriptions,
the result, I honestly believe, would have been something new in
literature. Or I might readily have found a more serious task. It was a
folly, with the materiality of this daily life pressing so intrusively
upon me, to attempt to fling myself back into another age, or to insist
on creating the semblance of a world out of airy matter, when, at every
moment, the impalpable beauty of my soap-bubble was broken by the rude
contact of some actual circumstance. The wiser effort would have been
to diffuse thought and imagination through the opaque substance of
today, and thus to make it a bright transparency; to spiritualise the
burden that began to weigh so heavily; to seek, resolutely, the true
and indestructible value that lay hidden in the petty and wearisome
incidents, and ordinary characters with which I was now conversant. The
fault was mine. The page of life that was spread out before me seemed
dull and commonplace only because I had not fathomed its deeper import.
A better book than I shall ever write was there; leaf after leaf
presenting itself to me, just as it was written out by the reality of
the flitting hour, and vanishing as fast as written, only because my
brain wanted the insight, and my hand the cunning, to transcribe it. At
some future day, it may be, I shall remember a few scattered fragments
and broken paragraphs, and write them down, and find the letters turn
to gold upon the page.

These perceptions had come too late. At the Instant, I was only
conscious that what would have been a pleasure once was now a hopeless
toil. There was no occasion to make much moan about this state of
affairs. I had ceased to be a writer of tolerably poor tales and
essays, and had become a tolerably good Surveyor of the Customs. That
was all. But, nevertheless, it is anything but agreeable to be haunted
by a suspicion that one’s intellect is dwindling away, or exhaling,
without your consciousness, like ether out of a phial; so that, at
every glance, you find a smaller and less volatile residuum. Of the
fact there could be no doubt and, examining myself and others, I was
led to conclusions, in reference to the effect of public office on the
character, not very favourable to the mode of life in question. In some
other form, perhaps, I may hereafter develop these effects. Suffice it
here to say that a Custom-House officer of long continuance can hardly
be a very praiseworthy or respectable personage, for many reasons; one
of them, the tenure by which he holds his situation, and another, the
very nature of his business, which—though, I trust, an honest one—is of
such a sort that he does not share in the united effort of mankind.

An effect—which I believe to be observable, more or less, in every
individual who has occupied the position—is, that while he leans on the
mighty arm of the Republic, his own proper strength departs from him.
He loses, in an extent proportioned to the weakness or force of his
original nature, the capability of self-support. If he possesses an
unusual share of native energy, or the enervating magic of place do not
operate too long upon him, his forfeited powers may be redeemable. The
ejected officer—fortunate in the unkindly shove that sends him forth
betimes, to struggle amid a struggling world—may return to himself, and
become all that he has ever been. But this seldom happens. He usually
keeps his ground just long enough for his own ruin, and is then thrust
out, with sinews all unstrung, to totter along the difficult footpath
of life as he best may. Conscious of his own infirmity—that his
tempered steel and elasticity are lost—he for ever afterwards looks
wistfully about him in quest of support external to himself. His
pervading and continual hope—a hallucination, which, in the face of all
discouragement, and making light of impossibilities, haunts him while
he lives, and, I fancy, like the convulsive throes of the cholera,
torments him for a brief space after death—is, that finally, and in no
long time, by some happy coincidence of circumstances, he shall be
restored to office. This faith, more than anything else, steals the
pith and availability out of whatever enterprise he may dream of
undertaking. Why should he toil and moil, and be at so much trouble to
pick himself up out of the mud, when, in a little while hence, the
strong arm of his Uncle will raise and support him? Why should he work
for his living here, or go to dig gold in California, when he is so
soon to be made happy, at monthly intervals, with a little pile of
glittering coin out of his Uncle’s pocket? It is sadly curious to
observe how slight a taste of office suffices to infect a poor fellow
with this singular disease. Uncle Sam’s gold—meaning no disrespect to
the worthy old gentleman—has, in this respect, a quality of enchantment
like that of the devil’s wages. Whoever touches it should look well to
himself, or he may find the bargain to go hard against him, involving,
if not his soul, yet many of its better attributes; its sturdy force,
its courage and constancy, its truth, its self-reliance, and all that
gives the emphasis to manly character.

Here was a fine prospect in the distance. Not that the Surveyor brought
the lesson home to himself, or admitted that he could be so utterly
undone, either by continuance in office or ejectment. Yet my
reflections were not the most comfortable. I began to grow melancholy
and restless; continually prying into my mind, to discover which of its
poor properties were gone, and what degree of detriment had already
accrued to the remainder. I endeavoured to calculate how much longer I
could stay in the Custom-House, and yet go forth a man. To confess the
truth, it was my greatest apprehension—as it would never be a measure
of policy to turn out so quiet an individual as myself; and it being
hardly in the nature of a public officer to resign—it was my chief
trouble, therefore, that I was likely to grow grey and decrepit in the
Surveyorship, and become much such another animal as the old Inspector.
Might it not, in the tedious lapse of official life that lay before me,
finally be with me as it was with this venerable friend—to make the
dinner-hour the nucleus of the day, and to spend the rest of it, as an
old dog spends it, asleep in the sunshine or in the shade? A dreary
look-forward, this, for a man who felt it to be the best definition of
happiness to live throughout the whole range of his faculties and
sensibilities. But, all this while, I was giving myself very
unnecessary alarm. Providence had meditated better things for me than I
could possibly imagine for myself.

A remarkable event of the third year of my Surveyorship—to adopt the
tone of “P. P.”—was the election of General Taylor to the Presidency.
It is essential, in order to form a complete estimate of the advantages
of official life, to view the incumbent at the incoming of a hostile
administration. His position is then one of the most singularly
irksome, and, in every contingency, disagreeable, that a wretched
mortal can possibly occupy; with seldom an alternative of good on
either hand, although what presents itself to him as the worst event
may very probably be the best. But it is a strange experience, to a man
of pride and sensibility, to know that his interests are within the
control of individuals who neither love nor understand him, and by
whom, since one or the other must needs happen, he would rather be
injured than obliged. Strange, too, for one who has kept his calmness
throughout the contest, to observe the bloodthirstiness that is
developed in the hour of triumph, and to be conscious that he is
himself among its objects! There are few uglier traits of human nature
than this tendency—which I now witnessed in men no worse than their
neighbours—to grow cruel, merely because they possessed the power of
inflicting harm. If the guillotine, as applied to office-holders, were
a literal fact, instead of one of the most apt of metaphors, it is my
sincere belief that the active members of the victorious party were
sufficiently excited to have chopped off all our heads, and have
thanked Heaven for the opportunity! It appears to me—who have been a
calm and curious observer, as well in victory as defeat—that this
fierce and bitter spirit of malice and revenge has never distinguished
the many triumphs of my own party as it now did that of the Whigs. The
Democrats take the offices, as a general rule, because they need them,
and because the practice of many years has made it the law of political
warfare, which unless a different system be proclaimed, it was weakness
and cowardice to murmur at. But the long habit of victory has made them
generous. They know how to spare when they see occasion; and when they
strike, the axe may be sharp indeed, but its edge is seldom poisoned
with ill-will; nor is it their custom ignominiously to kick the head
which they have just struck off.

In short, unpleasant as was my predicament, at best, I saw much reason
to congratulate myself that I was on the losing side rather than the
triumphant one. If, heretofore, I had been none of the warmest of
partisans I began now, at this season of peril and adversity, to be
pretty acutely sensible with which party my predilections lay; nor was
it without something like regret and shame that, according to a
reasonable calculation of chances, I saw my own prospect of retaining
office to be better than those of my democratic brethren. But who can
see an inch into futurity beyond his nose? My own head was the first
that fell.

The moment when a man’s head drops off is seldom or never, I am
inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life.
Nevertheless, like the greater part of our misfortunes, even so serious
a contingency brings its remedy and consolation with it, if the
sufferer will but make the best rather than the worst, of the accident
which has befallen him. In my particular case the consolatory topics
were close at hand, and, indeed, had suggested themselves to my
meditations a considerable time before it was requisite to use them. In
view of my previous weariness of office, and vague thoughts of
resignation, my fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should
entertain an idea of committing suicide, and although beyond his hopes,
meet with the good hap to be murdered. In the Custom-House, as before
in the Old Manse, I had spent three years—a term long enough to rest a
weary brain: long enough to break off old intellectual habits, and make
room for new ones: long enough, and too long, to have lived in an
unnatural state, doing what was really of no advantage nor delight to
any human being, and withholding myself from toil that would, at least,
have stilled an unquiet impulse in me. Then, moreover, as regarded his
unceremonious ejectment, the late Surveyor was not altogether
ill-pleased to be recognised by the Whigs as an enemy; since his
inactivity in political affairs—his tendency to roam, at will, in that
broad and quiet field where all mankind may meet, rather than confine
himself to those narrow paths where brethren of the same household must
diverge from one another—had sometimes made it questionable with his
brother Democrats whether he was a friend. Now, after he had won the
crown of martyrdom (though with no longer a head to wear it on), the
point might be looked upon as settled. Finally, little heroic as he
was, it seemed more decorous to be overthrown in the downfall of the
party with which he had been content to stand than to remain a forlorn
survivor, when so many worthier men were falling: and at last, after
subsisting for four years on the mercy of a hostile administration, to
be compelled then to define his position anew, and claim the yet more
humiliating mercy of a friendly one.

Meanwhile, the press had taken up my affair, and kept me for a week or
two careering through the public prints, in my decapitated state, like
Irving’s Headless Horseman, ghastly and grim, and longing to be buried,
as a political dead man ought. So much for my figurative self. The real
human being all this time, with his head safely on his shoulders, had
brought himself to the comfortable conclusion that everything was for
the best; and making an investment in ink, paper, and steel pens, had
opened his long-disused writing desk, and was again a literary man.

Now it was that the lucubrations of my ancient predecessor, Mr.
Surveyor Pue, came into play. Rusty through long idleness, some little
space was requisite before my intellectual machinery could be brought
to work upon the tale with an effect in any degree satisfactory. Even
yet, though my thoughts were ultimately much absorbed in the task, it
wears, to my eye, a stern and sombre aspect: too much ungladdened by
genial sunshine; too little relieved by the tender and familiar
influences which soften almost every scene of nature and real life, and
undoubtedly should soften every picture of them. This uncaptivating
effect is perhaps due to the period of hardly accomplished revolution,
and still seething turmoil, in which the story shaped itself. It is no
indication, however, of a lack of cheerfulness in the writer’s mind:
for he was happier while straying through the gloom of these sunless
fantasies than at any time since he had quitted the Old Manse. Some of
the briefer articles, which contribute to make up the volume, have
likewise been written since my involuntary withdrawal from the toils
and honours of public life, and the remainder are gleaned from annuals
and magazines, of such antique date, that they have gone round the
circle, and come back to novelty again. Keeping up the metaphor of the
political guillotine, the whole may be considered as the POSTHUMOUS
PAPERS OF A DECAPITATED SURVEYOR: and the sketch which I am now
bringing to a close, if too autobiographical for a modest person to
publish in his lifetime, will readily be excused in a gentleman who
writes from beyond the grave. Peace be with all the world! My blessing
on my friends! My forgiveness to my enemies! For I am in the realm of
quiet!

The life of the Custom-House lies like a dream behind me. The old
Inspector—who, by the by, I regret to say, was overthrown and killed
by a horse some time ago, else he would certainly have lived for
ever—he, and all those other venerable personages who sat with him at
the receipt of custom, are but shadows in my view: white-headed and
wrinkled images, which my fancy used to sport with, and has now flung
aside for ever. The merchants—Pingree, Phillips, Shepard, Upton,
Kimball, Bertram, Hunt—these and many other names, which had such
classic familiarity for my ear six months ago,—these men of traffic,
who seemed to occupy so important a position in the world—how little
time has it required to disconnect me from them all, not merely in act,
but recollection! It is with an effort that I recall the figures and
appellations of these few. Soon, likewise, my old native town will loom
upon me through the haze of memory, a mist brooding over and around it;
as if it were no portion of the real earth, but an overgrown village in
cloud-land, with only imaginary inhabitants to people its wooden houses
and walk its homely lanes, and the unpicturesque prolixity of its main
street. Henceforth it ceases to be a reality of my life; I am a citizen
of somewhere else. My good townspeople will not much regret me,
for—though it has been as dear an object as any, in my literary
efforts, to be of some importance in their eyes, and to win myself a
pleasant memory in this abode and burial-place of so many of my
forefathers—there has never been, for me, the genial atmosphere which a
literary man requires in order to ripen the best harvest of his mind. I
shall do better amongst other faces; and these familiar ones, it need
hardly be said, will do just as well without me.

It may be, however—oh, transporting and triumphant thought—that the
great-grandchildren of the present race may sometimes think kindly of
the scribbler of bygone days, when the antiquary of days to come, among
the sites memorable in the town’s history, shall point out the locality
of THE TOWN PUMP.

THE SCARLET LETTER

I.
THE PRISON DOOR

A throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garments and grey
steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and
others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door
of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and
happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognised it
among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the
virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.
In accordance with this rule it may safely be assumed that the
forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house somewhere in the
vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first
burial-ground, on Isaac Johnson’s lot, and round about his grave, which
subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in
the old churchyard of King’s Chapel. Certain it is that, some fifteen
or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was
already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which
gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The
rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique
than anything else in the New World. Like all that pertains to crime,
it seemed never to have known a youthful era. Before this ugly edifice,
and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot,
much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-pern, and such unsightly
vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that
had so early borne the black flower of civilised society, a prison. But
on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a
wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems,
which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to
the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came
forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity
and be kind to him.

This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history;
but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so
long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally
overshadowed it, or whether, as there is fair authority for believing,
it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson as
she entered the prison-door, we shall not take upon us to determine.
Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now
about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do
otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader.
It may serve, let us hope, to symbolise some sweet moral blossom that
may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale
of human frailty and sorrow.

II.
THE MARKET-PLACE

The grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer
morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty
large number of the inhabitants of Boston, all with their eyes intently
fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. Amongst any other population,
or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim rigidity
that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would
have augured some awful business in hand. It could have betokened
nothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted culprit, on
whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of
public sentiment. But, in that early severity of the Puritan character,
an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. It might
be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his
parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at
the whipping-post. It might be that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other
heterodox religionist, was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle
or vagrant Indian, whom the white man’s firewater had made riotous
about the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the
forest. It might be, too, that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the
bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows.
In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on
the part of the spectators, as befitted a people among whom religion
and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so
thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and severest acts of public
discipline were alike made venerable and awful. Meagre, indeed, and
cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such
bystanders, at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty which, in our
days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then
be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death
itself.

It was a circumstance to be noted on the summer morning when our story
begins its course, that the women, of whom there were several in the
crowd, appeared to take a peculiar interest in whatever penal
infliction might be expected to ensue. The age had not so much
refinement, that any sense of impropriety restrained the wearers of
petticoat and farthingale from stepping forth into the public ways, and
wedging their not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the
throng nearest to the scaffold at an execution. Morally, as well as
materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old
English birth and breeding than in their fair descendants, separated
from them by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout that
chain of ancestry, every successive mother had transmitted to her child
a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty, and a slighter
physical frame, if not character of less force and solidity than her
own. The women who were now standing about the prison-door stood within
less than half a century of the period when the man-like Elizabeth had
been the not altogether unsuitable representative of the sex. They were
her countrywomen: and the beef and ale of their native land, with a
moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely into their
composition. The bright morning sun, therefore, shone on broad
shoulders and well-developed busts, and on round and ruddy cheeks, that
had ripened in the far-off island, and had hardly yet grown paler or
thinner in the atmosphere of New England. There was, moreover, a
boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them
seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day, whether in
respect to its purport or its volume of tone.

“Goodwives,” said a hard-featured dame of fifty, “I’ll tell ye a piece
of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof if we women,
being of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the
handling of such malefactresses as this Hester Prynne. What think ye,
gossips? If the hussy stood up for judgment before us five, that are
now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as
the worshipful magistrates have awarded? Marry, I trow not.”

“People say,” said another, “that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her
godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal
should have come upon his congregation.”

“The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch—that
is a truth,” added a third autumnal matron. “At the very least, they
should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead.
Madame Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she—the
naughty baggage—little will she care what they put upon the bodice of
her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like
heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!”

“Ah, but,” interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by
the hand, “let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be
always in her heart.”

“What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown
or the flesh of her forehead?” cried another female, the ugliest as
well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. “This woman
has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die; is there not law for
it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book. Then
let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if
their own wives and daughters go astray.”

“Mercy on us, goodwife!” exclaimed a man in the crowd, “is there no
virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the
gallows? That is the hardest word yet! Hush now, gossips for the lock
is turning in the prison-door, and here comes Mistress Prynne herself.”

The door of the jail being flung open from within there appeared, in
the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim
and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and
his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and
represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic
code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and
closest application to the offender. Stretching forth the official
staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young
woman, whom he thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of the
prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity
and force of character, and stepped into the open air as if by her own
free will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months
old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid
light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it
acquaintance only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other
darksome apartment of the prison.

When the young woman—the mother of this child—stood fully revealed
before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant
closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection,
as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or
fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one
token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the
baby on her arm, and with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and
a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople
and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth,
surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of
gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and
with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had
all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which
she wore, and which was of a splendour in accordance with the taste of
the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary
regulations of the colony.

The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large
scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the
sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides being beautiful from
regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the
impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was
ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those
days; characterised by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the
delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace which is now recognised
as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike,
in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the
prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her
dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even
startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the
misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. It may be true
that, to a sensitive observer, there was some thing exquisitely painful
in it. Her attire, which indeed, she had wrought for the occasion in
prison, and had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express
the attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by
its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which drew all
eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer—so that both men and
women who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne were now
impressed as if they beheld her for the first time—was that SCARLET
LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It
had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations
with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.

“She hath good skill at her needle, that’s certain,” remarked one of
her female spectators; “but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy,
contrive such a way of showing it? Why, gossips, what is it but to
laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of
what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a punishment?”

“It were well,” muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames, “if we
stripped Madame Hester’s rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and as for
the red letter which she hath stitched so curiously, I’ll bestow a rag
of mine own rheumatic flannel to make a fitter one!”

“Oh, peace, neighbours—peace!” whispered their youngest companion; “do
not let her hear you! Not a stitch in that embroidered letter but she
has felt it in her heart.”

The grim beadle now made a gesture with his staff. “Make way, good
people—make way, in the King’s name!” cried he. “Open a passage; and I
promise ye, Mistress Prynne shall be set where man, woman, and child
may have a fair sight of her brave apparel from this time till an hour
past meridian. A blessing on the righteous colony of the Massachusetts,
where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine! Come along, Madame
Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place!”

A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. Preceded
by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-browed
men and unkindly visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth towards the
place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of eager and curious
schoolboys, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it
gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads
continually to stare into her face and at the winking baby in her arms,
and at the ignominious letter on her breast. It was no great distance,
in those days, from the prison door to the market-place. Measured by
the prisoner’s experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of
some length; for haughty as her demeanour was, she perchance underwent
an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if
her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and
trample upon. In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike
marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the
intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the
pang that rankles after it. With almost a serene deportment, therefore,
Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a
sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place. It
stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston’s earliest church, and
appeared to be a fixture there.

In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which
now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and
traditionary among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as
effectual an agent, in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was
the guillotine among the terrorists of France. It was, in short, the
platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that
instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in
its tight grasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. The very ideal
of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood
and iron. There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common
nature—whatever be the delinquencies of the individual—no outrage more
flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame; as it
was the essence of this punishment to do. In Hester Prynne’s instance,
however, as not unfrequently in other cases, her sentence bore that she
should stand a certain time upon the platform, but without undergoing
that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to
which was the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. Knowing
well her part, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was thus
displayed to the surrounding multitude, at about the height of a man’s
shoulders above the street.

Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen
in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and
with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of
Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one
another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but
only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose
infant was to redeem the world. Here, there was the taint of deepest
sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that
the world was only the darker for this woman’s beauty, and the more
lost for the infant that she had borne.

The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest
the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, before society
shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering at it.
The witnesses of Hester Prynne’s disgrace had not yet passed beyond
their simplicity. They were stern enough to look upon her death, had
that been the sentence, without a murmur at its severity, but had none
of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a
theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even had there been a
disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must have been
repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no less
dignified than the governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, a
general, and the ministers of the town, all of whom sat or stood in a
balcony of the meeting-house, looking down upon the platform. When such
personages could constitute a part of the spectacle, without risking
the majesty, or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be
inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest
and effectual meaning. Accordingly, the crowd was sombre and grave. The
unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the
heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and
concentrated at her bosom. It was almost intolerable to be borne. Of an
impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter
the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in
every variety of insult; but there was a quality so much more terrible
in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longed rather to
behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment,
and herself the object. Had a roar of laughter burst from the
multitude—each man, each woman, each little shrill-voiced child,
contributing their individual parts—Hester Prynne might have repaid
them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under the leaden
infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if
she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast
herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once.

Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was the
most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or, at least,
glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped
and spectral images. Her mind, and especially her memory, was
preternaturally active, and kept bringing up other scenes than this
roughly hewn street of a little town, on the edge of the western
wilderness: other faces than were lowering upon her from beneath the
brims of those steeple-crowned hats. Reminiscences, the most trifling
and immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days, sports, childish
quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maiden years, came
swarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever was
gravest in her subsequent life; one picture precisely as vivid as
another; as if all were of similar importance, or all alike a play.
Possibly, it was an instinctive device of her spirit to relieve itself
by the exhibition of these phantasmagoric forms, from the cruel weight
and hardness of the reality.

Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point of view
that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire track along which she had
been treading, since her happy infancy. Standing on that miserable
eminence, she saw again her native village, in Old England, and her
paternal home: a decayed house of grey stone, with a poverty-stricken
aspect, but retaining a half obliterated shield of arms over the
portal, in token of antique gentility. She saw her father’s face, with
its bold brow, and reverend white beard that flowed over the
old-fashioned Elizabethan ruff; her mother’s, too, with the look of
heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and
which, even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a
gentle remonstrance in her daughter’s pathway. She saw her own face,
glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior of the
dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. There she beheld
another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin,
scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamp-light that
had served them to pore over many ponderous books. Yet those same
bleared optics had a strange, penetrating power, when it was their
owner’s purpose to read the human soul. This figure of the study and
the cloister, as Hester Prynne’s womanly fancy failed not to recall,
was slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the
right. Next rose before her in memory’s picture-gallery, the intricate
and narrow thoroughfares, the tall, grey houses, the huge cathedrals,
and the public edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of
a continental city; where new life had awaited her, still in connexion
with the misshapen scholar: a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn
materials, like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall. Lastly, in
lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the
Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled, and levelling
their stern regards at Hester Prynne—yes, at herself—who stood on the
scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in
scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom.

Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast that
it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet
letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the
infant and the shame were real. Yes these were her realities—all else
had vanished!

The Mayflower Compact

November 11, 1620 [This was November 21, old style calendar]

In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal
Subjects of our dread Sovereigne Lord, King James, by the Grace of God,
of Great Britaine, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith,
&c.

Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the
Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to
plant the first colony in the Northerne Parts of Virginia; doe, by
these Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of
another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civill Body
Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of
the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and
frame, such just and equall Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and
Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and
convenient for the Generall Good of the Colonie; unto which we promise
all due Submission and Obedience.

In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod
the eleventh of November, in the Raigne of our Sovereigne Lord, King
James of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland,
the fiftie-fourth, Anno. Domini, 1620.

Mr. John Carver Mr. Stephen Hopkins
Mr. William Bradford Digery Priest
Mr. Edward Winslow Thomas Williams
Mr. William Brewster Gilbert Winslow
Isaac Allerton Edmund Margesson
Miles Standish Peter Brown
John Alden Richard Bitteridge
John Turner George Soule
Francis Eaton Edward Tilly
James Chilton John Tilly
John Craxton Francis Cooke
John Billington Thomas Rogers
Joses Fletcher Thomas Tinker
John Goodman John Ridgate
Mr. Samuel Fuller Edward Fuller
Mr. Christopher Martin Richard Clark
Mr. William Mullins Richard Gardiner
Mr. William White Mr. John Allerton
Mr. Richard Warren Thomas English
John Howland Edward Doten
Edward Liester

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

by Washington Irving

FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER.

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky.
CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern
shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated
by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always
prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas
when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which
by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly
known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in
former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the
inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village
tavern on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact,
but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic.
Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little
valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of the
quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it,
with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional
whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound
that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in
squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one
side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noontime, when all nature
is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it
broke the Sabbath stillness around and was prolonged and reverberated
by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat whither I might
steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the
remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this
little valley.

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its
inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this
sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and
its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the
neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the
land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place
was bewitched by a High German doctor, during the early days of the
settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of
his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by
Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under
the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of
the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are
given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs, are subject to trances and
visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in
the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots,
and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across
the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare,
with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her
gambols.

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and
seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the
apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some
to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away
by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War,
and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in
the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not
confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and
especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed,
certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been
careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this
spectre, allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the
churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly
quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes
passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being
belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.

Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has
furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and
the spectre is known at all the country firesides, by the name of the
Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.

It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not
confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously
imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. However wide awake
they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are
sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and
begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions.

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud, for it is in such
little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the
great State of New York, that population, manners, and customs remain
fixed, while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is
making such incessant changes in other parts of this restless country,
sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still
water, which border a rapid stream, where we may see the straw and
bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their mimic
harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current. Though many
years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet
I question whether I should not still find the same trees and the same
families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.

In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote period of American
history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the
name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, “tarried,”
in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the
vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut, a State which supplies the
Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends
forth yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters.
The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall,
but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands
that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for
shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was
small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a
long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched upon his
spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along
the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and
fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of
famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a
cornfield.

His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed
of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched with leaves of
old copybooks. It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours, by a
withe twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes set against the
window shutters; so that though a thief might get in with perfect ease,
he would find some embarrassment in getting out,–an idea most probably
borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an
eelpot. The schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation,
just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by, and
a formidable birch-tree growing at one end of it. From hence the low
murmur of his pupils’ voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard
in a drowsy summer’s day, like the hum of a beehive; interrupted now and
then by the authoritative voice of the master, in the tone of menace or
command, or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, as he
urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to
say, he was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim,
“Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Ichabod Crane’s scholars certainly
were not spoiled.

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel
potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their subjects; on
the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than
severity; taking the burden off the backs of the weak, and laying it on
those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the least
flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the claims of
justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little
tough wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled
and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he called “doing
his duty by their parents;” and he never inflicted a chastisement
without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting
urchin, that “he would remember it and thank him for it the longest day
he had to live.”

When school hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate
of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of
the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good
housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed,
it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue
arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely
sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder,
and, though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help
out his maintenance, he was, according to country custom in those
parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children
he instructed. With these he lived successively a week at a time, thus
going the rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied
up in a cotton handkerchief.

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic
patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous
burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of
rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers
occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms, helped to make
hay, mended the fences, took the horses to water, drove the cows from
pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the
dominant dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little
empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating.
He found favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting the children,
particularly the youngest; and like the lion bold, which whilom so
magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee,
and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together.

In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master of the
neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the
young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him on
Sundays, to take his station in front of the church gallery, with a band
of chosen singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried away
the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above
all the rest of the congregation; and there are peculiar quavers still
to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off,
quite to the opposite side of the millpond, on a still Sunday morning,
which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod
Crane. Thus, by divers little makeshifts, in that ingenious way which is
commonly denominated “by hook and by crook,” the worthy pedagogue got on
tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing of the
labor of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it.

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female
circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a kind of idle,
gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to
the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the
parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir
at the tea-table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary
dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver
teapot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the
smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the
churchyard, between services on Sundays; gathering grapes for them from
the wild vines that overran the surrounding trees; reciting for their
amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering, with a
whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent millpond; while the
more bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior
elegance and address.

From his half-itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travelling gazette,
carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house, so that
his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, moreover,
esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read
several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather’s
“History of New England Witchcraft,” in which, by the way, he most
firmly and potently believed.

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple
credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his powers of digesting
it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his
residence in this spell-bound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous
for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school
was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of
clover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse, and
there con over old Mather’s direful tales, until the gathering dusk of
evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he
wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farmhouse
where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that
witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination,–the moan of the
whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that
harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, or the
sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The
fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now
and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across
his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging
his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up
the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch’s token. His
only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive away
evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes and the good people of Sleepy
Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with
awe at hearing his nasal melody, “in linked sweetness long drawn out,”
floating from the distant hill, or along the dusky road.

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter
evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire,
with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and
listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted
fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses,
and particularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the
Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by
his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous
sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of
Connecticut; and would frighten them woefully with speculations upon
comets and shooting stars; and with the alarming fact that the world did
absolutely turn round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy!

But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in
the chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the
crackling wood fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to show
its face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk
homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the
dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! With what wistful look did he
eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from
some distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered
with snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path! How often
did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the
frosty crust beneath his feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest
he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! And how
often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling
among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of
his nightly scourings!

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind
that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in his time,
and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely
perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would
have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his
works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more
perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of
witches put together, and that was–a woman.

Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each week,
to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel,
the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a
blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting
and rosy-cheeked as one of her father’s peaches, and universally famed,
not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a
little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which was
a mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most suited to set off
her charms. She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her
great-great-grandmother had brought over from Saardam; the tempting
stomacher of the olden time, and withal a provokingly short petticoat,
to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round.

Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex; and it is
not to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his
eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion.
Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented,
liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or
his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within those
everything was snug, happy and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with
his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty
abundance, rather than the style in which he lived. His stronghold was
situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered,
fertile nooks in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A
great elm tree spread its broad branches over it, at the foot of which
bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well
formed of a barrel; and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to
a neighboring brook, that babbled along among alders and dwarf willows.
Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn, that might have served for a
church; every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the
treasures of the farm; the flail was busily resounding within it from
morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the
eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching
the weather, some with their heads under their wings or buried in their
bosoms, and others swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames,
were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek unwieldy porkers were
grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens, from whence sallied
forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air.
A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond,
convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling
through the farmyard, and Guinea fowls fretting about it, like
ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. Before
the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a
warrior and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings and crowing
in the pride and gladness of his heart,–sometimes tearing up the earth
with his feet, and then generously calling his ever-hungry family of
wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered.

The pedagogue’s mouth watered as he looked upon this sumptuous promise
of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind’s eye, he pictured to
himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly,
and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a
comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were
swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes,
like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce. In
the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy
relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with
its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory
sausages; and even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back,
in a side dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which
his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living.

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great
green eyes over the fat meadow lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye,
of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burdened with ruddy
fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart
yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his
imagination expanded with the idea, how they might be readily turned
into cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of wild land, and
shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized
his hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole
family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household
trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld himself
bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for
Kentucky, Tennessee,–or the Lord knows where!

When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was complete. It
was one of those spacious farmhouses, with high-ridged but lowly sloping
roofs, built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers; the
low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the front, capable of being
closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various
utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighboring
river. Benches were built along the sides for summer use; and a great
spinning-wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed the various
uses to which this important porch might be devoted. From this piazza
the wondering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the centre of the
mansion, and the place of usual residence. Here rows of resplendent
pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner
stood a huge bag of wool, ready to be spun; in another, a quantity of
linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of
dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled
with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into
the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables
shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and
tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and
conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various-colored birds
eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from
the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open,
displayed immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china.

From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight, the
peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the
affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise,
however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of
a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters,
fiery dragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend
with and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass,
and walls of adamant to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was
confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way
to the centre of a Christmas pie; and then the lady gave him her hand as
a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to
the heart of a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims
and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and
impediments; and he had to encounter a host of fearful adversaries of
real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic admirers, who beset every
portal to her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other,
but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new competitor.

Among these, the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roystering blade,
of the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom
Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang with his feats of
strength and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed,
with short curly black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant countenance,
having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his Herculean frame
and great powers of limb he had received the nickname of BROM BONES,
by which he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and
skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar.
He was foremost at all races and cock fights; and, with the ascendancy
which bodily strength always acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in
all disputes, setting his hat on one side, and giving his decisions with
an air and tone that admitted of no gainsay or appeal. He was always
ready for either a fight or a frolic; but had more mischief than
ill-will in his composition; and with all his overbearing roughness,
there was a strong dash of waggish good humor at bottom. He had three or
four boon companions, who regarded him as their model, and at the
head of whom he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or
merriment for miles round. In cold weather he was distinguished by a
fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox’s tail; and when the folks at a
country gathering descried this well-known crest at a distance, whisking
about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall.
Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the farmhouses at
midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks; and the
old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till
the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, “Ay, there goes
Brom Bones and his gang!” The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture
of awe, admiration, and good-will; and, when any madcap prank or rustic
brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted
Brom Bones was at the bottom of it.

This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming Katrina
for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and though his amorous
toyings were something like the gentle caresses and endearments of a
bear, yet it was whispered that she did not altogether discourage his
hopes. Certain it is, his advances were signals for rival candidates to
retire, who felt no inclination to cross a lion in his amours; insomuch,
that when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel’s paling, on a Sunday
night, a sure sign that his master was courting, or, as it is termed,
“sparking,” within, all other suitors passed by in despair, and carried
the war into other quarters.

Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend,
and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk
from the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had,
however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature;
he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack–yielding, but tough;
though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the
slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away–jerk!–he was as erect,
and carried his head as high as ever.

To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been
madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any more
than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his advances
in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. Under cover of his character
of singing-master, he made frequent visits at the farmhouse; not that he
had anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents,
which is so often a stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Balt Van
Tassel was an easy indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even
than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let
her have her way in everything. His notable little wife, too, had enough
to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry; for, as she
sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked
after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus, while the busy dame
bustled about the house, or plied her spinning-wheel at one end of the
piazza, honest Balt would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other,
watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a
sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle
of the barn. In the mean time, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the
daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering
along in the twilight, that hour so favorable to the lover’s eloquence.

I profess not to know how women’s hearts are wooed and won. To me they
have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but
one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand
avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a
great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of
generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for man must battle
for his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a thousand common
hearts is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed
sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this
was not the case with the redoubtable Brom Bones; and from the moment
Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of the former evidently
declined: his horse was no longer seen tied to the palings on Sunday
nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor
of Sleepy Hollow.

Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would fain have
carried matters to open warfare and have settled their pretensions
to the lady, according to the mode of those most concise and simple
reasoners, the knights-errant of yore,–by single combat; but Ichabod
was too conscious of the superior might of his adversary to enter the
lists against him; he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would
“double the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own
schoolhouse;” and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was
something extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it
left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in
his disposition, and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival.
Ichabod became the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang
of rough riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked
out his singing school by stopping up the chimney; broke into the
schoolhouse at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe
and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy, so that the poor
schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held
their meetings there. But what was still more annoying, Brom took all
opportunities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his mistress,
and had a scoundrel dog whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous
manner, and introduced as a rival of Ichabod’s, to instruct her in
psalmody.

In this way matters went on for some time, without producing any
material effect on the relative situations of the contending powers. On
a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on
the lofty stool from whence he usually watched all the concerns of his
little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of
despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the
throne, a constant terror to evil doers, while on the desk before
him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons,
detected upon the persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples,
popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little
paper gamecocks. Apparently there had been some appalling act of justice
recently inflicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon their
books, or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the
master; and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the
schoolroom. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in
tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned fragment of a hat,
like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild,
half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came
clattering up to the school door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend
a merry-making or “quilting frolic,” to be held that evening at
Mynheer Van Tassel’s; and having delivered his message with that air of
importance, and effort at fine language, which a negro is apt to display
on petty embassies of the kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen
scampering away up the hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his
mission.

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet schoolroom. The scholars
were hurried through their lessons without stopping at trifles; those
who were nimble skipped over half with impunity, and those who were
tardy had a smart application now and then in the rear, to quicken their
speed or help them over a tall word. Books were flung aside without
being put away on the shelves, inkstands were overturned, benches thrown
down, and the whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual
time, bursting forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing
about the green in joy at their early emancipation.

The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his toilet,
brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only suit of rusty
black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken looking-glass that
hung up in the schoolhouse. That he might make his appearance before his
mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the
farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman of the
name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like
a knight-errant in quest of adventures. But it is meet I should, in
the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks
and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was
a broken-down plow-horse, that had outlived almost everything but its
viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck, and a head like
a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burs;
one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral, but the other
had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire and
mettle in his day, if we may judge from the name he bore of Gunpowder.
He had, in fact, been a favorite steed of his master’s, the choleric Van
Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of
his own spirit into the animal; for, old and broken-down as he looked,
there was more of the lurking devil in him than in any young filly in
the country.

Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short
stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle;
his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers’; he carried his whip
perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and as his horse jogged on,
the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A
small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of
forehead might be called, and the skirts of his black coat fluttered out
almost to the horses tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his
steed as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it was
altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad
daylight.

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and
serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always
associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober
brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped
by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet.
Streaming files of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the
air; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of beech
and hickory-nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail at intervals from
the neighboring stubble field.

The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fullness
of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicking from bush to
bush, and tree to tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety
around them. There was the honest cock robin, the favorite game of
stripling sportsmen, with its loud querulous note; and the twittering
blackbirds flying in sable clouds; and the golden-winged woodpecker with
his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid plumage; and the
cedar bird, with its red-tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail and its little
monteiro cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his
gay light blue coat and white underclothes, screaming and chattering,
nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with
every songster of the grove.

As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every symptom
of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly
autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples; some hanging in
oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered into baskets and barrels
for the market; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press.
Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears
peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes
and hasty-pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning
up their fair round bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of
the most luxurious of pies; and anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat
fields breathing the odor of the beehive, and as he beheld them, soft
anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slapjacks, well buttered,
and garnished with honey or treacle, by the delicate little dimpled hand
of Katrina Van Tassel.

Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and “sugared
suppositions,” he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills which
look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun
gradually wheeled his broad disk down in the west. The wide bosom of the
Tappan Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here and there a
gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shadow of the distant
mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air
to move them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually
into a pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the
mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the
precipices that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth
to the dark gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering
in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging
uselessly against the mast; and as the reflection of the sky gleamed
along the still water, it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the
air.

It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Heer
Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the
adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in homespun
coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter
buckles. Their brisk, withered little dames, in close-crimped caps,
long-waisted short gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and
pincushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. Buxom
lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, excepting where a straw
hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock, gave symptoms of city
innovation. The sons, in short square-skirted coats, with rows of
stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion
of the times, especially if they could procure an eel-skin for the
purpose, it being esteemed throughout the country as a potent nourisher
and strengthener of the hair.

Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come to the
gathering on his favorite steed Daredevil, a creature, like himself,
full of mettle and mischief, and which no one but himself could manage.
He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, given to all
kinds of tricks which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, for
he held a tractable, well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit.

Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon
the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van
Tassel’s mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, with their
luxurious display of red and white; but the ample charms of a genuine
Dutch country tea-table, in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped up
platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only
to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the doughty doughnut, the
tender oly koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and
short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of
cakes. And then there were apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies;
besides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover delectable dishes
of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and quinces; not to mention
broiled shad and roasted chickens; together with bowls of milk and
cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated
them, with the motherly teapot sending up its clouds of vapor from the
midst–Heaven bless the mark! I want breath and time to discuss this
banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story.
Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but
did ample justice to every dainty.

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion
as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose spirits rose with
eating, as some men’s do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his
large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that
he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury
and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he’d turn his back upon the old
schoolhouse; snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper, and every
other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors
that should dare to call him comrade!

Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face dilated
with content and good humor, round and jolly as the harvest moon. His
hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being confined to a
shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh, and a pressing
invitation to “fall to, and help themselves.”

And now the sound of the music from the common room, or hall, summoned
to the dance. The musician was an old gray-headed negro, who had
been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a
century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater
part of the time he scraped on two or three strings, accompanying every
movement of the bow with a motion of the head; bowing almost to the
ground, and stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple were to
start.

Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his vocal
powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about him was idle; and to have seen his
loosely hung frame in full motion, and clattering about the room, you
would have thought St. Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the dance,
was figuring before you in person. He was the admiration of all the
negroes; who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm
and the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black faces at
every door and window, gazing with delight at the scene, rolling their
white eyeballs, and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. How
could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous? The
lady of his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously
in reply to all his amorous oglings; while Brom Bones, sorely smitten
with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one corner.

When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a knot of the
sager folks, who, with Old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the
piazza, gossiping over former times, and drawing out long stories about
the war.

This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one of those
highly favored places which abound with chronicle and great men. The
British and American line had run near it during the war; it had,
therefore, been the scene of marauding and infested with refugees,
cowboys, and all kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient time had
elapsed to enable each storyteller to dress up his tale with a little
becoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his recollection, to
make himself the hero of every exploit.

There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded Dutchman,
who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron nine-pounder
from a mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth discharge.
And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich
a mynheer to be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of White Plains,
being an excellent master of defence, parried a musket-ball with a small
sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz round the blade, and
glance off at the hilt; in proof of which he was ready at any time to
show the sword, with the hilt a little bent. There were several more
that had been equally great in the field, not one of whom but was
persuaded that he had a considerable hand in bringing the war to a happy
termination.

But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions that
succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures of the
kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered,
long-settled retreats; but are trampled under foot by the shifting
throng that forms the population of most of our country places. Besides,
there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they
have scarcely had time to finish their first nap and turn themselves in
their graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from
the neighborhood; so that when they turn out at night to walk their
rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the
reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts except in our long-established
Dutch communities.

The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of supernatural stories
in these parts, was doubtless owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow.
There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted
region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting
all the land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at
Van Tassel’s, and, as usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful
legends. Many dismal tales were told about funeral trains, and mourning
cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the
unfortunate Major André was taken, and which stood in the neighborhood.
Some mention was made also of the woman in white, that haunted the
dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights
before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the
stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the
Headless Horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patrolling
the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the
graves in the churchyard.

The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made it a
favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by
locust-trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent, whitewashed
walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the
shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet
of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at
the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where
the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at
least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a
wide woody dell, along which raves a large brook among broken rocks and
trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not far
from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge; the road that led
to it, and the bridge itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging trees,
which cast a gloom about it, even in the daytime; but occasioned a
fearful darkness at night. Such was one of the favorite haunts of
the Headless Horseman, and the place where he was most frequently
encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical
disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the Horseman returning from his foray
into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him; how they
galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached
the bridge; when the Horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old
Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap
of thunder.

This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvellous adventure of
Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey.
He affirmed that on returning one night from the neighboring village of
Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he had
offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it
too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as they
came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and vanished in a flash
of fire.

All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk in
the dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and then receiving
a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of
Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts from his invaluable
author, Cotton Mather, and added many marvellous events that had taken
place in his native State of Connecticut, and fearful sights which he
had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow.

The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together
their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling
along the hollow roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the
damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and their
light-hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along
the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter, until they gradually
died away,–and the late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and
deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the custom of
country lovers, to have a tête-à-tête with the heiress; fully convinced
that he was now on the high road to success. What passed at this
interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not know.
Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he certainly
sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate
and chapfallen. Oh, these women! these women! Could that girl have been
playing off any of her coquettish tricks? Was her encouragement of the
poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival?
Heaven only knows, not I! Let it suffice to say, Ichabod stole forth
with the air of one who had been sacking a henroost, rather than a fair
lady’s heart. Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene
of rural wealth, on which he had so often gloated, he went straight to
the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks roused his steed
most uncourteously from the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly
sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of
timothy and clover.

It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy-hearted and
crestfallen, pursued his travels homewards, along the sides of the
lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so
cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far below
him the Tappan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with
here and there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor under
the land. In the dead hush of midnight, he could even hear the barking
of the watchdog from the opposite shore of the Hudson; but it was
so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his distance from this
faithful companion of man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing
of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some
farmhouse away among the hills–but it was like a dreaming sound in his
ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy
chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bullfrog from a
neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and turning suddenly in
his bed.

All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon
now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and
darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds
occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and
dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the
scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the centre of the road
stood an enormous tulip-tree, which towered like a giant above all the
other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its
limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for
ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into
the air. It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate
André, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and was universally known
by the name of Major André’s tree. The common people regarded it with a
mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the
fate of its ill-starred namesake, and partly from the tales of strange
sights, and doleful lamentations, told concerning it.

As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle; he thought
his whistle was answered; it was but a blast sweeping sharply through
the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw
something white, hanging in the midst of the tree: he paused and ceased
whistling but, on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place
where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid
bare. Suddenly he heard a groan–his teeth chattered, and his knees
smote against the saddle: it was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon
another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in
safety, but new perils lay before him.

About two hundred yards from the tree, a small brook crossed the road,
and ran into a marshy and thickly-wooded glen, known by the name of
Wiley’s Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge
over this stream. On that side of the road where the brook entered the
wood, a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape-vines,
threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the severest
trial. It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate André was
captured, and under the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the
sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised him. This has ever since been
considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of the
schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark.

As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump; he summoned up,
however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of kicks in the
ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge; but instead of
starting forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral movement, and
ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the
delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily with the
contrary foot: it was all in vain; his steed started, it is true, but
it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road into a thicket of
brambles and alder bushes. The schoolmaster now bestowed both whip and
heel upon the starveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forward,
snuffling and snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with a
suddenness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his head.
Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge caught the
sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin
of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen and towering. It
stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic
monster ready to spring upon the traveller.

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror.
What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and besides,
what chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was, which
could ride upon the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a
show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents, “Who are you?”
He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated
voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides
of the inflexible Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with
involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of
alarm put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound stood at
once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal,
yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He
appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a black
horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability,
but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side
of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and waywardness.

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and
bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping
Hessian, now quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind. The
stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled
up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind,–the other did the
same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume his
psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and
he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and
dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and
appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising
ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief
against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was
horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless!–but his horror was
still more increased on observing that the head, which should have
rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of his
saddle! His terror rose to desperation; he rained a shower of kicks and
blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give his companion
the slip; but the spectre started full jump with him. Away, then, they
dashed through thick and thin; stones flying and sparks flashing at
every bound. Ichabod’s flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as
he stretched his long lank body away over his horse’s head, in the
eagerness of his flight.

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but
Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it,
made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong downhill to the left. This
road leads through a sandy hollow shaded by trees for about a quarter
of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story; and just
beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church.

As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful rider an apparent
advantage in the chase, but just as he had got half way through the
hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping from
under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm,
but in vain; and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder
round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it
trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van
Ripper’s wrath passed across his mind,–for it was his Sunday saddle;
but this was no time for petty fears; the goblin was hard on his
haunches; and (unskilful rider that he was!) he had much ado to maintain
his seat; sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and
sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse’s backbone, with a
violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder.

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church
bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in the
bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls
of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the
place where Brom Bones’s ghostly competitor had disappeared. “If I can
but reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Just then he heard
the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied
that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and
old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding
planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind
to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of
fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups,
and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to
dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium
with a tremendous crash,–he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and
Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a
whirlwind.

The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle, and with
the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master’s
gate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast; dinner-hour
came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the schoolhouse, and
strolled idly about the banks of the brook; but no schoolmaster. Hans
Van Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor
Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent
investigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road leading
to the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks of
horses’ hoofs deeply dented in the road, and evidently at furious speed,
were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of
the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the
unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin.

The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to
be discovered. Hans Van Ripper as executor of his estate, examined the
bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two
shirts and a half; two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of worsted
stockings; an old pair of corduroy small-clothes; a rusty razor; a book
of psalm tunes full of dog’s-ears; and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the
books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they belonged to the community,
excepting Cotton Mather’s “History of Witchcraft,” a “New England
Almanac,” and a book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was
a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several fruitless
attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel.
These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the
flames by Hans Van Ripper; who, from that time forward, determined to
send his children no more to school, observing that he never knew
any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever money the
schoolmaster possessed, and he had received his quarter’s pay but a
day or two before, he must have had about his person at the time of his
disappearance.

The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on the
following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in the
churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin
had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of
others were called to mind; and when they had diligently considered them
all, and compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shook
their heads, and came to the conclusion that Ichabod had been carried
off by the Galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody’s
debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him; the school was
removed to a different quarter of the hollow, and another pedagogue
reigned in his stead.

It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit
several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure
was received, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was still
alive; that he had left the neighborhood partly through fear of the
goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been
suddenly dismissed by the heiress; that he had changed his quarters to a
distant part of the country; had kept school and studied law at the same
time; had been admitted to the bar; turned politician; electioneered;
written for the newspapers; and finally had been made a justice of
the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival’s
disappearance conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar,
was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod
was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the
pumpkin; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter
than he chose to tell.

The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these
matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by
supernatural means; and it is a favorite story often told about the
neighborhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge became more than
ever an object of superstitious awe; and that may be the reason why the
road has been altered of late years, so as to approach the church by
the border of the millpond. The schoolhouse being deserted soon fell to
decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate
pedagogue and the plowboy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening,
has often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm
tune among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow.

POSTSCRIPT.

FOUND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKER.

The preceding tale is given almost in the precise words in which I
heard it related at a Corporation meeting at the ancient city of
Manhattoes, at which were present many of its sagest and most
illustrious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly
old fellow, in pepper-and-salt clothes, with a sadly humourous face,
and one whom I strongly suspected of being poor–he made such efforts
to be entertaining. When his story was concluded, there was much
laughter and approbation, particularly from two or three deputy
aldermen, who had been asleep the greater part of the time. There was,
however, one tall, dry-looking old gentleman, with beetling eyebrows,
who maintained a grave and rather severe face throughout, now and then
folding his arms, inclining his head, and looking down upon the floor,
as if turning a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your wary men,
who never laugh but upon good grounds–when they have reason and law on
their side. When the mirth of the rest of the company had subsided, and
silence was restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, and
sticking the other akimbo, demanded, with a slight, but exceedingly
sage motion of the head, and contraction of the brow, what was the
moral of the story, and what it went to prove?

The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips, as
a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, looked at his
inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and, lowering the glass
slowly to the table, observed that the story was intended most
logically to prove–

“That there is no situation in life but has its advantages and
pleasures–provided we will but take a joke as we find it:

“That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers is likely to
have rough riding of it.

“Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of a Dutch
heiress is a certain step to high preferment in the state.”

The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after this
explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocination of the
syllogism, while, methought, the one in pepper-and-salt eyed him with
something of a triumphant leer. At length he observed that all this was
very well, but still he thought the story a little on the
extravagant–there were one or two points on which he had his doubts.

“Faith, sir,” replied the story-teller, “as to that matter, I don’t
believe one-half of it myself.” D. K.

THE END.

The Old Testament of the King James Version of the Bible
The First Book of Moses: Called Genesis
The Second Book of Moses: Called Exodus
The Third Book of Moses: Called Leviticus
The Fourth Book of Moses: Called Numbers
The Fifth Book of Moses: Called Deuteronomy
The Book of Joshua
The Book of Judges
The Book of Ruth
The First Book of Samuel
The Second Book of Samuel
The First Book of the Kings
The Second Book of the Kings
The First Book of the Chronicles
The Second Book of the Chronicles
Ezra
The Book of Nehemiah
The Book of Esther
The Book of Job
The Book of Psalms
The Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
The Song of Solomon
The Book of the Prophet Isaiah
The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah
The Lamentations of Jeremiah
The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel
The Book of Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi

The New Testament of the King James Bible
The Gospel According to Saint Matthew
The Gospel According to Saint Mark
The Gospel According to Saint Luke
The Gospel According to Saint John
The Acts of the Apostles
The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans
The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians
The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians
The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians
The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Ephesians
The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians
The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Colossians
The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Thessalonians
The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Thessalonians
The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy
The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy
The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Titus
The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Philemon
The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews
The General Epistle of James
The First Epistle General of Peter
The Second General Epistle of Peter
The First Epistle General of John
The Second Epistle General of John
The Third Epistle General of John
The General Epistle of Jude
The Revelation of Saint John the Divine

The Old Testament of the King James Version of the Bible

The First Book of Moses: Called Genesis

1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon
the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters.

1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light
from the darkness.

1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
And the evening and the morning were the first day.

1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters,
and let it divide the waters from the waters.

1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament:
and it was so.

1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the
morning were the second day.

1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together
unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of
the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding
seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is
in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after
his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after
his kind: and God saw that it was good.

1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven
to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for
seasons, and for days, and years: 1:15 And let them be for lights in
the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was
so.

1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day,
and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light
upon the earth, 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and
to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving
creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the
open firmament of heaven.

1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that
moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind,
and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill
the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after
his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his
kind: and it was so.

1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle
after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after
his kind: and God saw that it was good.

1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created
he him; male and female created he them.

1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every
living thing that moveth upon the earth.

1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed,
which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which
is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air,
and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is
life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was
very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of
them.

2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and
he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

2:3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that
in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when
they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the
heavens, 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth,
and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not
caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the
ground.

2:6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole
face of the ground.

2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living
soul.

2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he
put the man whom he had formed.

2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is
pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the
midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

2:10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence
it was parted, and became into four heads.

2:11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the
whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 2:12 And the gold of that
land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

2:13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that
compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

2:14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which
goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of
Eden to dress it and to keep it.

2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the
garden thou mayest freely eat: 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be
alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the
field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see
what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living
creature, that was the name thereof.

2:20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air,
and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an
help meet for him.

2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he
slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead
thereof; 2:22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made
he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my
flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall
cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not
ashamed.

3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which
the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said,
Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 3:2 And the woman said
unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden,
God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest
ye die.

3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 3:5
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall
be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that
it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one
wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto
her husband with her; and he did eat.

3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they
were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves
aprons.

3:8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in
the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the
presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

3:9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art
thou? 3:10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was
afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

3:11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten
of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
3:12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she
gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

3:13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast
done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

3:14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done
this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the
field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the
days of thy life: 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the
woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head,
and thou shalt bruise his heel.

3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and
thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy
desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice
of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee,
saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake;
in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 3:18 Thorns
also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the
herb of the field; 3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,
till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for
dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

3:20 And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother
of all living.

3:21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of
skins, and clothed them.

3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to
know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also
of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: 3:23 Therefore the
LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground
from whence he was taken.

3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden
of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep
the way of the tree of life.

4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and
said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

4:2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of
sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

4:3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the
fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.

4:4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of
the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his
offering: 4:5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.
And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

4:6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy
countenance fallen? 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be
accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto
thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

4:8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when
they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother,
and slew him.

4:9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he
said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? 4:10 And he said, What
hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from
the ground.

4:11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her
mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; 4:12 When thou
tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her
strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

4:13 And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can
bear.

4:14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the
earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and
a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one
that findeth me shall slay me.

4:15 And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain,
vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark
upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

4:16 And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the
land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

4:17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he
builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his
son, Enoch.

4:18 And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and
Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.

4:19 And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah,
and the name of the other Zillah.

4:20 And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents,
and of such as have cattle.

4:21 And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such
as handle the harp and organ.

4:22 And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every
artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.

4:23 And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice;
ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to
my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.

4:24 If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and
sevenfold.

4:25 And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his
name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead
of Abel, whom Cain slew.

4:26 And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his
name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.

5:1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God
created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 5:2 Male and female
created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the
day when they were created.

5:3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his
own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth: 5:4 And
the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years:
and he begat sons and daughters: 5:5 And all the days that Adam lived
were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

5:6 And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos: 5:7 And
Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and
begat sons and daughters: 5:8 And all the days of Seth were nine
hundred and twelve years: and he died.

5:9 And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan: 5:10 And Enos lived
after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons
and daughters: 5:11 And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and
five years: and he died.

5:12 And Cainan lived seventy years and begat Mahalaleel: 5:13 And
Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years,
and begat sons and daughters: 5:14 And all the days of Cainan were
nine hundred and ten years: and he died.

5:15 And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared: 5:16
And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty
years, and begat sons and daughters: 5:17 And all the days of
Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died.

5:18 And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat
Enoch: 5:19 And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years,
and begat sons and daughters: 5:20 And all the days of Jared were nine
hundred sixty and two years: and he died.

5:21 And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: 5:22
And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred
years, and begat sons and daughters: 5:23 And all the days of Enoch
were three hundred sixty and five years: 5:24 And Enoch walked with
God: and he was not; for God took him.

5:25 And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat
Lamech.

5:26 And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty
and two years, and begat sons and daughters: 5:27 And all the days of
Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.

5:28 And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a
son: 5:29 And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort
us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground
which the LORD hath cursed.

5:30 And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five
years, and begat sons and daughters: 5:31 And all the days of Lamech
were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died.

5:32 And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham,
and Japheth.

6:1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the
earth, and daughters were born unto them, 6:2 That the sons of God saw
the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of
all which they chose.

6:3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for
that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty
years.

6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that,
when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare
children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of
renown.

6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually.

6:6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it
grieved him at his heart.

6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the
face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and
the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

6:8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

6:9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect
in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

6:10 And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled
with violence.

6:12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for
all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

6:13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me;
for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I
will destroy them with the earth.

6:14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the
ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

6:15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length
of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty
cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.

6:16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou
finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side
thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.

6:17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the
earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under
heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

6:18 But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come
into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives
with thee.

6:19 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt
thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be
male and female.

6:20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of
every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort
shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.

6:21 And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt
gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.

6:22 Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did
he.

7:1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the
ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

7:2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male
and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and
his female.

7:3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to
keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

7:4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth
forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have
made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

7:5 And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.

7:6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was
upon the earth.

7:7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives
with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.

7:8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls,
and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, 7:9 There went in two
and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had
commanded Noah.

7:10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the
flood were upon the earth.

7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month,
the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains
of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

7:12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

7:13 In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth,
the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons
with them, into the ark; 7:14 They, and every beast after his kind,
and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind,
every bird of every sort.

7:15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all
flesh, wherein is the breath of life.

7:16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as
God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.

7:17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters
increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

7:18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the
earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.

7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the
high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

7:20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains
were covered.

7:21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and
of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth, and every man: 7:22 All in whose nostrils was the
breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.

7:23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face
of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the
fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah
only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

7:24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty
days.

8:1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the
cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over
the earth, and the waters asswaged; 8:2 The fountains also of the deep
and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was
restrained; 8:3 And the waters returned from off the earth
continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the
waters were abated.

8:4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of
the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.

8:5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the
tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the
mountains seen.

8:6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the
window of the ark which he had made: 8:7 And he sent forth a raven,
which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off
the earth.

8:8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were
abated from off the face of the ground; 8:9 But the dove found no rest
for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for
the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his
hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.

8:10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the
dove out of the ark; 8:11 And the dove came in to him in the evening;
and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that
the waters were abated from off the earth.

8:12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove;
which returned not again unto him any more.

8:13 And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the
first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from
off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked,
and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.

8:14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the
month, was the earth dried.

8:15 And God spake unto Noah, saying, 8:16 Go forth of the ark, thou,
and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee.

8:17 Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of
all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing
that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the
earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

8:18 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’
wives with him: 8:19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every
fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went
forth out of the ark.

8:20 And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean
beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the
altar.

8:21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his
heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for
the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I
again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and
heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be
fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

9:2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast
of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth
upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are
they delivered.

9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the
green herb have I given you all things.

9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall
ye not eat.

9:5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of
every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of
every man’s brother will I require the life of man.

9:6 Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in
the image of God made he man.

9:7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in
the earth, and multiply therein.

9:8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, 9:9 And
I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after
you; 9:10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the
fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from
all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.

9:11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all
flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall
there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

9:12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make
between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for
perpetual generations: 9:13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall
be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

9:14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth,
that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: 9:15 And I will remember my
covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all
flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all
flesh.

9:16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that
I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living
creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

9:17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which
I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

9:18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and
Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.

9:19 These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth
overspread.

9:20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
9:21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered
within his tent.

9:22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father,
and told his two brethren without.

9:23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their
shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their
father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s
nakedness.

9:24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had
done unto him.

9:25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be
unto his brethren.

9:26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be
his servant.

9:27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of
Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

9:28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.

9:29 And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and
he died.

10:1 Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and
Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.

10:2 The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and
Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.

10:3 And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.

10:4 And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and
Dodanim.

10:5 By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands;
every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.

10:6 And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.

10:7 And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah,
and Sabtechah: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.

10:8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.

10:9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said,
Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.

10:10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and
Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

10:11 Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the
city Rehoboth, and Calah, 10:12 And Resen between Nineveh and Calah:
the same is a great city.

10:13 And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim,
10:14 And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and
Caphtorim.

10:15 And Canaan begat Sidon his first born, and Heth, 10:16 And the
Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, 10:17 And the Hivite,
and the Arkite, and the Sinite, 10:18 And the Arvadite, and the
Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the
Canaanites spread abroad.

10:19 And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest
to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and
Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.

10:20 These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their
tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.

10:21 Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the
brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.

10:22 The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud,
and Aram.

10:23 And the children of Aram; Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash.

10:24 And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber.

10:25 And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for
in his days was the earth divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan.

10:26 And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and
Jerah, 10:27 And Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah, 10:28 And Obal, and
Abimael, and Sheba, 10:29 And Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab: all these
were the sons of Joktan.

10:30 And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar a
mount of the east.

10:31 These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their
tongues, in their lands, after their nations.

10:32 These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their
generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided
in the earth after the flood.

11:1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

11:2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they
found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

11:3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn
them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for
morter.

11:4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose
top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be
scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

11:5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the
children of men builded.

11:6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all
one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be
restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that
they may not understand one another’s speech.

11:8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of
all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

11:9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did
there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the
LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

11:10 These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years
old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood: 11:11 And Shem
lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and
daughters.

11:12 And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah: 11:13
And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years,
and begat sons and daughters.

11:14 And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber: 11:15 And Salah
lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons
and daughters.

11:16 And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg: 11:17 And
Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and
begat sons and daughters.

11:18 And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu: 11:19 And Peleg
lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons
and daughters.

11:20 And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug: 11:21 And
Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat
sons and daughters.

11:22 And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor: 11:23 And Serug
lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and
daughters.

11:24 And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah: 11:25
And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years,
and begat sons and daughters.

11:26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and
Haran.

11:27 Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram,
Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.

11:28 And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his
nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

11:29 And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife
was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of
Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.

11:30 But Sarai was barren; she had no child.

11:31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s
son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they
went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of
Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.

11:32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah
died in Haran.

12:1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country,
and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I
will shew thee: 12:2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I
will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a
blessing: 12:3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him
that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be
blessed.

12:4 So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went
with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed
out of Haran.

12:5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all
their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had
gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan;
and into the land of Canaan they came.

12:6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto
the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.

12:7 And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I
give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who
appeared unto him.

12:8 And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel,
and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east:
and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name
of the LORD.

12:9 And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south.

12:10 And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into
Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.

12:11 And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt,
that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a
fair woman to look upon: 12:12 Therefore it shall come to pass, when
the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife:
and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.

12:13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with
me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.

12:14 And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the
Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.

12:15 The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before
Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.

12:16 And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and
oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses,
and camels.

12:17 And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues
because of Sarai Abram’s wife.

12:18 And Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this that thou hast
done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? 12:19
Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to
wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.

12:20 And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him
away, and his wife, and all that he had.

13:1 And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he
had, and Lot with him, into the south.

13:2 And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.

13:3 And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel, unto
the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and
Hai; 13:4 Unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the
first: and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.

13:5 And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and
tents.

13:6 And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell
together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell
together.

13:7 And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and
the herdmen of Lot’s cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite
dwelled then in the land.

13:8 And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee,
between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be
brethren.

13:9 Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee,
from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right;
or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.

13:10 And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan,
that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom
and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt,
as thou comest unto Zoar.

13:11 Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed
east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.

13:12 Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the
cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.

13:13 But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD
exceedingly.

13:14 And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from
him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art
northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: 13:15 For all
the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for
ever.

13:16 And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a
man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be
numbered.

13:17 Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the
breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.

13:18 Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of
Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the LORD.

14:1 And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar,
Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of
nations; 14:2 That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with
Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of
Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar.

14:3 All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is
the salt sea.

14:4 Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year
they rebelled.

14:5 And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that
were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the
Zuzims in Ham, and the Emins in Shaveh Kiriathaim, 14:6 And the
Horites in their mount Seir, unto Elparan, which is by the wilderness.

14:7 And they returned, and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and
smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that
dwelt in Hazezontamar.

14:8 And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah,
and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela
(the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of
Siddim; 14:9 With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king
of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar;
four kings with five.

14:10 And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of
Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled
to the mountain.

14:11 And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their
victuals, and went their way.

14:12 And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom,
and his goods, and departed.

14:13 And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew;
for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and
brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram.

14:14 And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he
armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and
eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.

14:15 And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by
night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the
left hand of Damascus.

14:16 And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his
brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.

14:17 And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from
the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at
the valley of Shaveh, which is the king’s dale.

14:18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and
he was the priest of the most high God.

14:19 And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high
God, possessor of heaven and earth: 14:20 And blessed be the most high
God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him
tithes of all.

14:21 And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and
take the goods to thyself.

14:22 And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand
unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth,
14:23 That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and
that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say,
I have made Abram rich: 14:24 Save only that which the young men have
eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol,
and Mamre; let them take their portion.

15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a
vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding
great reward.

15:2 And Abram said, LORD God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go
childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?
15:3 And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo,
one born in my house is mine heir.

15:4 And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This
shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own
bowels shall be thine heir.

15:5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward
heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he
said unto him, So shall thy seed be.

15:6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for
righteousness.

15:7 And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur
of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.

15:8 And he said, LORD God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit
it? 15:9 And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old,
and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a
turtledove, and a young pigeon.

15:10 And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst,
and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.

15:11 And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them
away.

15:12 And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram;
and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.

15:13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be
a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and
they shall afflict them four hundred years; 15:14 And also that
nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they
come out with great substance.

15:15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried
in a good old age.

15:16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for
the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

15:17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was
dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between
those pieces.

15:18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying,
Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the
great river, the river Euphrates: 15:19 The Kenites, and the
Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, 15:20 And the Hittites, and the
Perizzites, and the Rephaims, 15:21 And the Amorites, and the
Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.

16:1 Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children: and she had an
handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.

16:2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained
me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may
obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.

16:3 And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after
Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her
husband Abram to be his wife.

16:4 And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw
that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.

16:5 And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my
maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was
despised in her eyes: the LORD judge between me and thee.

16:6 But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thine hand; do
to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she
fled from her face.

16:7 And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the
wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.

16:8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid, whence camest thou? and whither
wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.

16:9 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress,
and submit thyself under her hands.

16:10 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, I will multiply thy
seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.

16:11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with
child and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because
the LORD hath heard thy affliction.

16:12 And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man,
and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence
of all his brethren.

16:13 And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou
God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that
seeth me? 16:14 Wherefore the well was called Beerlahairoi; behold,
it is between Kadesh and Bered.

16:15 And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son’s name,
which Hagar bare, Ishmael.

16:16 And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare
Ishmael to Abram.

17:1 And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared
to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me,
and be thou perfect.

17:2 And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will
multiply thee exceedingly.

17:3 And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, 17:4
As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a
father of many nations.

17:5 Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name
shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.

17:6 And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations
of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.

17:7 And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed
after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a
God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.

17:8 And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land
wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an
everlasting possession; and I will be their God.

17:9 And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore,
thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.

17:10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and
thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.

17:11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall
be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.

17:12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you,
every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or
bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.

17:13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy
money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your
flesh for an everlasting covenant.

17:14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is
not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath
broken my covenant.

17:15 And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not
call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.

17:16 And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I
will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people
shall be of her.

17:17 Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his
heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old?
and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? 17:18 And Abraham
said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! 17:19 And God
said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call
his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an
everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.

17:20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed
him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly;
twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.

17:21 But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall
bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.

17:22 And he left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.

17:23 And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his
house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the
men of Abraham’s house; and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in
the selfsame day, as God had said unto him.

17:24 And Abraham was ninety years old and nine, when he was
circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.

17:25 And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old, when he was
circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.

17:26 In the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his
son.

17:27 And all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with
money of the stranger, were circumcised with him.

18:1 And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat
in the tent door in the heat of the day; 18:2 And he lift up his eyes
and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he
ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the
ground, 18:3 And said, My LORD, if now I have found favour in thy
sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: 18:4 Let a little
water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves
under the tree: 18:5 And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort
ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come
to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said.

18:6 And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make
ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes
upon the hearth.

18:7 And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good,
and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it.

18:8 And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed,
and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they
did eat.

18:9 And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said,
Behold, in the tent.

18:10 And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the
time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah
heard it in the tent door, which was behind him.

18:11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it
ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.

18:12 Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed
old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? 18:13 And the LORD
said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a
surety bear a child, which am old? 18:14 Is any thing too hard for
the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to
the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.

18:15 Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid.
And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh.

18:16 And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and
Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.

18:17 And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I
do; 18:18 Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty
nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
18:19 For I know him, that he will command his children and his
household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do
justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which
he hath spoken of him.

18:20 And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is
great, and because their sin is very grievous; 18:21 I will go down
now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of
it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.

18:22 And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward
Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD.

18:23 And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the
righteous with the wicked? 18:24 Peradventure there be fifty
righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the
place for the fifty righteous that are therein? 18:25 That be far
from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the
wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far
from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? 18:26 And
the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city,
then I will spare all the place for their sakes.

18:27 And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me
to speak unto the LORD, which am but dust and ashes: 18:28
Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou
destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there
forty and five, I will not destroy it.

18:29 And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there
shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty’s
sake.

18:30 And he said unto him, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will
speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I
will not do it, if I find thirty there.

18:31 And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the
LORD: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I
will not destroy it for twenty’s sake.

18:32 And he said, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak yet
but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I
will not destroy it for ten’s sake.

18:33 And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with
Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.

19:1 And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the
gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed
himself with his face toward the ground; 19:2 And he said, Behold now,
my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry
all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on
your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all
night.

19:3 And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him,
and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake
unleavened bread, and they did eat.

19:4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of
Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people
from every quarter: 19:5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him,
Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out
unto us, that we may know them.

19:6 And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after
him, 19:7 And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.

19:8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let
me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good
in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they
under the shadow of my roof.

19:9 And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow
came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal
worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man,
even Lot, and came near to break the door.

19:10 But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house
to them, and shut to the door.

19:11 And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with
blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to
find the door.

19:12 And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in
law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the
city, bring them out of this place: 19:13 For we will destroy this
place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the
LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.

19:14 And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married
his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD
will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons
in law.

19:15 And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot,
saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here;
lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.

19:16 And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon
the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the LORD
being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him
without the city.

19:17 And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad,
that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay
thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

19:18 And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my LORD: 19:19 Behold now,
thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy
mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot
escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die: 19:20
Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one:
Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall
live.

19:21 And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this
thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou
hast spoken.

19:22 Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou
be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

19:23 The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.

19:24 Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and
fire from the LORD out of heaven; 19:25 And he overthrew those cities,
and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that
which grew upon the ground.

19:26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a
pillar of salt.

19:27 And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he
stood before the LORD: 19:28 And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah,
and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke
of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.

19:29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain,
that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the
overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.

19:30 And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his
two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt
in a cave, he and his two daughters.

19:31 And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and
there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of
all the earth: 19:32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we
will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

19:33 And they made their father drink wine that night: and the
firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when
she lay down, nor when she arose.

19:34 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto
the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him
drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we
may preserve seed of our father.

19:35 And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the
younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay
down, nor when she arose.

19:36 Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.

19:37 And the first born bare a son, and called his name Moab: the
same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.

19:38 And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name
Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this
day.

20:1 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and
dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.

20:2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and
Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.

20:3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him,
Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken;
for she is a man’s wife.

20:4 But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, LORD, wilt thou
slay also a righteous nation? 20:5 Said he not unto me, She is my
sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the
integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.

20:6 And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst
this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from
sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.

20:7 Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and
he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her
not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are
thine.

20:8 Therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his
servants, and told all these things in their ears: and the men were
sore afraid.

20:9 Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto him, What hast thou
done unto us? and what have I offended thee, that thou hast brought on
me and on my kingdom a great sin? thou hast done deeds unto me that
ought not to be done.

20:10 And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What sawest thou, that thou
hast done this thing? 20:11 And Abraham said, Because I thought,
Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for
my wife’s sake.

20:12 And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my
father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.

20:13 And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my
father’s house, that I said unto her, This is thy kindness which thou
shalt shew unto me; at every place whither we shall come, say of me,
He is my brother.

20:14 And Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and
womenservants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his
wife.

20:15 And Abimelech said, Behold, my land is before thee: dwell where
it pleaseth thee.

20:16 And unto Sarah he said, Behold, I have given thy brother a
thousand pieces of silver: behold, he is to thee a covering of the
eyes, unto all that are with thee, and with all other: thus she was
reproved.

20:17 So Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his
wife, and his maidservants; and they bare children.

20:18 For the LORD had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of
Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wife.

21:1 And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto
Sarah as he had spoken.

21:2 For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at
the set time of which God had spoken to him.

21:3 And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him,
whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.

21:4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old, as
God had commanded him.

21:5 And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born
unto him.

21:6 And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear
will laugh with me.

21:7 And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should
have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age.

21:8 And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great
feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.

21:9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had born
unto Abraham, mocking.

21:10 Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her
son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even
with Isaac.

21:11 And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of
his son.

21:12 And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight
because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah
hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy
seed be called.

21:13 And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation,
because he is thy seed.

21:14 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a
bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder,
and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in
the wilderness of Beersheba.

21:15 And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child
under one of the shrubs.

21:16 And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off,
as it were a bow shot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the
child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept.

21:17 And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called
to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar?
fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.

21:18 Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will
make him a great nation.

21:19 And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she
went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.

21:20 And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the
wilderness, and became an archer.

21:21 And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him
a wife out of the land of Egypt.

21:22 And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech and Phichol the
chief captain of his host spake unto Abraham, saying, God is with thee
in all that thou doest: 21:23 Now therefore swear unto me here by God
that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my
son’s son: but according to the kindness that I have done unto thee,
thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned.

21:24 And Abraham said, I will swear.

21:25 And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which
Abimelech’s servants had violently taken away.

21:26 And Abimelech said, I wot not who hath done this thing; neither
didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of it, but to day.

21:27 And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech;
and both of them made a covenant.

21:28 And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves.

21:29 And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs
which thou hast set by themselves? 21:30 And he said, For these seven
ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto
me, that I have digged this well.

21:31 Wherefore he called that place Beersheba; because there they
sware both of them.

21:32 Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba: then Abimelech rose up,
and Phichol the chief captain of his host, and they returned into the
land of the Philistines.

21:33 And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on
the name of the LORD, the everlasting God.

21:34 And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines’ land many days.

22:1 And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt
Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.

22:2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou
lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for
a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

22:3 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass,
and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave
the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place
of which God had told him.

22:4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the
place afar off.

22:5 And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass;
and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.

22:6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon
Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they
went both of them together.

22:7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and
he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood:
but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? 22:8 And Abraham said, My
son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they
went both of them together.

22:9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham
built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his
son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

22:10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay
his son.

22:11 And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and
said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

22:12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou
any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou
hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

22:13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind
him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took
the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his
son.

22:14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is
said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.

22:15 And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the
second time, 22:16 And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD,
for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son,
thine only son: 22:17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in
multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and
as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess
the gate of his enemies; 22:18 And in thy seed shall all the nations
of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

22:19 So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and
went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.

22:20 And it came to pass after these things, that it was told
Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she hath also born children unto thy
brother Nahor; 22:21 Huz his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and
Kemuel the father of Aram, 22:22 And Chesed, and Hazo, and Pildash,
and Jidlaph, and Bethuel.

22:23 And Bethuel begat Rebekah: these eight Milcah did bear to Nahor,
Abraham’s brother.

22:24 And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, she bare also Tebah,
and Gaham, and Thahash, and Maachah.

23:1 And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these
were the years of the life of Sarah.

23:2 And Sarah died in Kirjatharba; the same is Hebron in the land of
Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.

23:3 And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the
sons of Heth, saying, 23:4 I am a stranger and a sojourner with you:
give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my
dead out of my sight.

23:5 And the children of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him, 23:6
Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince among us: in the choice of
our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from thee his
sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead.

23:7 And Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the
land, even to the children of Heth.

23:8 And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind that I
should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and intreat for me to
Ephron the son of Zohar, 23:9 That he may give me the cave of
Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for as
much money as it is worth he shall give it me for a possession of a
buryingplace amongst you.

23:10 And Ephron dwelt among the children of Heth: and Ephron the
Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of Heth, even
of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying, 23:11 Nay, my
lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I
give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee:
bury thy dead.

23:12 And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land.

23:13 And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the
land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me: I will
give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead
there.

23:14 And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, 23:15 My lord,
hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver;
what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead.

23:16 And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron
the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth,
four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.

23:17 And the field of Ephron which was in Machpelah, which was before
Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees
that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were
made sure 23:18 Unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the
children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city.

23:19 And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the
field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of
Canaan.

23:20 And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto
Abraham for a possession of a buryingplace by the sons of Heth.

24:1 And Abraham was old, and well stricken in age: and the LORD had
blessed Abraham in all things.

24:2 And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled
over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: 24:3
And I will make thee swear by the LORD, the God of heaven, and the God
of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the
daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell: 24:4 But thou shalt
go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son
Isaac.

24:5 And the servant said unto him, Peradventure the woman will not be
willing to follow me unto this land: must I needs bring thy son again
unto the land from whence thou camest? 24:6 And Abraham said unto
him, Beware thou that thou bring not my son thither again.

24:7 The LORD God of heaven, which took me from my father’s house, and
from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that sware
unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land; he shall send
his angel before thee, and thou shalt take a wife unto my son from
thence.

24:8 And if the woman will not be willing to follow thee, then thou
shalt be clear from this my oath: only bring not my son thither again.

24:9 And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his
master, and sware to him concerning that matter.

24:10 And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and
departed; for all the goods of his master were in his hand: and he
arose, and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor.

24:11 And he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well
of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out
to draw water.

24:12 And he said O LORD God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send
me good speed this day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham.

24:13 Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of
the men of the city come out to draw water: 24:14 And let it come to
pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I
pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give
thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed
for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed
kindness unto my master.

24:15 And it came to pass, before he had done speaking, that, behold,
Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of
Nahor, Abraham’s brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder.

24:16 And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had
any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her
pitcher, and came up.

24:17 And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee,
drink a little water of thy pitcher.

24:18 And she said, Drink, my lord: and she hasted, and let down her
pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink.

24:19 And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw
water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking.

24:20 And she hasted, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran
again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels.

24:21 And the man wondering at her held his peace, to wit whether the
LORD had made his journey prosperous or not.

24:22 And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the
man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets
for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold; 24:23 And said, Whose
daughter art thou? tell me, I pray thee: is there room in thy father’s
house for us to lodge in? 24:24 And she said unto him, I am the
daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor.

24:25 She said moreover unto him, We have both straw and provender
enough, and room to lodge in.

24:26 And the man bowed down his head, and worshipped the LORD.

24:27 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of my master Abraham, who
hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being
in the way, the LORD led me to the house of my master’s brethren.

24:28 And the damsel ran, and told them of her mother’s house these
things.

24:29 And Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban: and Laban ran
out unto the man, unto the well.

24:30 And it came to pass, when he saw the earring and bracelets upon
his sister’s hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister,
saying, Thus spake the man unto me; that he came unto the man; and,
behold, he stood by the camels at the well.

24:31 And he said, Come in, thou blessed of the LORD; wherefore
standest thou without? for I have prepared the house, and room for the
camels.

24:32 And the man came into the house: and he ungirded his camels, and
gave straw and provender for the camels, and water to wash his feet,
and the men’s feet that were with him.

24:33 And there was set meat before him to eat: but he said, I will
not eat, until I have told mine errand. And he said, Speak on.

24:34 And he said, I am Abraham’s servant.

24:35 And the LORD hath blessed my master greatly; and he is become
great: and he hath given him flocks, and herds, and silver, and gold,
and menservants, and maidservants, and camels, and asses.

24:36 And Sarah my master’s wife bare a son to my master when she was
old: and unto him hath he given all that he hath.

24:37 And my master made me swear, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife
to my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I dwell:
24:38 But thou shalt go unto my father’s house, and to my kindred, and
take a wife unto my son.

24:39 And I said unto my master, Peradventure the woman will not
follow me.

24:40 And he said unto me, The LORD, before whom I walk, will send his
angel with thee, and prosper thy way; and thou shalt take a wife for
my son of my kindred, and of my father’s house: 24:41 Then shalt thou
be clear from this my oath, when thou comest to my kindred; and if
they give not thee one, thou shalt be clear from my oath.

24:42 And I came this day unto the well, and said, O LORD God of my
master Abraham, if now thou do prosper my way which I go: 24:43
Behold, I stand by the well of water; and it shall come to pass, that
when the virgin cometh forth to draw water, and I say to her, Give me,
I pray thee, a little water of thy pitcher to drink; 24:44 And she say
to me, Both drink thou, and I will also draw for thy camels: let the
same be the woman whom the LORD hath appointed out for my master’s
son.

24:45 And before I had done speaking in mine heart, behold, Rebekah
came forth with her pitcher on her shoulder; and she went down unto
the well, and drew water: and I said unto her, Let me drink, I pray
thee.

24:46 And she made haste, and let down her pitcher from her shoulder,
and said, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: so I drank,
and she made the camels drink also.

24:47 And I asked her, and said, Whose daughter art thou? And she
said, the daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bare unto him:
and I put the earring upon her face, and the bracelets upon her hands.

24:48 And I bowed down my head, and worshipped the LORD, and blessed
the LORD God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way
to take my master’s brother’s daughter unto his son.

24:49 And now if ye will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell
me: and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand, or to the
left.

24:50 Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, The thing proceedeth
from the LORD: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good.

24:51 Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her be
thy master’s son’s wife, as the LORD hath spoken.

24:52 And it came to pass, that, when Abraham’s servant heard their
words, he worshipped the LORD, bowing himself to the earth.

24:53 And the servant brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of
gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah: he gave also to her
brother and to her mother precious things.

24:54 And they did eat and drink, he and the men that were with him,
and tarried all night; and they rose up in the morning, and he said,
Send me away unto my master.

24:55 And her brother and her mother said, Let the damsel abide with
us a few days, at the least ten; after that she shall go.

24:56 And he said unto them, Hinder me not, seeing the LORD hath
prospered my way; send me away that I may go to my master.

24:57 And they said, We will call the damsel, and enquire at her
mouth.

24:58 And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with
this man? And she said, I will go.

24:59 And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse, and
Abraham’s servant, and his men.

24:60 And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our
sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed
possess the gate of those which hate them.

24:61 And Rebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the
camels, and followed the man: and the servant took Rebekah, and went
his way.

24:62 And Isaac came from the way of the well Lahairoi; for he dwelt
in the south country.

24:63 And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide: and
he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming.

24:64 And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she
lighted off the camel.

24:65 For she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh
in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, It is my master:
therefore she took a vail, and covered herself.

24:66 And the servant told Isaac all things that he had done.

24:67 And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took
Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was
comforted after his mother’s death.

25:1 Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah.

25:2 And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and
Ishbak, and Shuah.

25:3 And Jokshan begat Sheba, and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were
Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim.

25:4 And the sons of Midian; Ephah, and Epher, and Hanoch, and Abidah,
and Eldaah. All these were the children of Keturah.

25:5 And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac.

25:6 But unto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham had, Abraham
gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived,
eastward, unto the east country.

25:7 And these are the days of the years of Abraham’s life which he
lived, an hundred threescore and fifteen years.

25:8 Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an
old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people.

25:9 And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of
Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which
is before Mamre; 25:10 The field which Abraham purchased of the sons
of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.

25:11 And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed
his son Isaac; and Isaac dwelt by the well Lahairoi.

25:12 Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom
Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s handmaid, bare unto Abraham: 25:13 And
these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, according
to their generations: the firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth; and Kedar,
and Adbeel, and Mibsam, 25:14 And Mishma, and Dumah, and Massa, 25:15
Hadar, and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah: 25:16 These are the sons
of Ishmael, and these are their names, by their towns, and by their
castles; twelve princes according to their nations.

25:17 And these are the years of the life of Ishmael, an hundred and
thirty and seven years: and he gave up the ghost and died; and was
gathered unto his people.

25:18 And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as
thou goest toward Assyria: and he died in the presence of all his
brethren.

25:19 And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham
begat Isaac: 25:20 And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah
to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padanaram, the sister
to Laban the Syrian.

25:21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was
barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife
conceived.

25:22 And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If
it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.

25:23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two
manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one
people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall
serve the younger.

25:24 And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there
were twins in her womb.

25:25 And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and
they called his name Esau.

25:26 And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on
Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore
years old when she bare them.

25:27 And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the
field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.

25:28 And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but
Rebekah loved Jacob.

25:29 And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was
faint: 25:30 And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that
same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.

25:31 And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.

25:32 And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit
shall this birthright do to me? 25:33 And Jacob said, Swear to me
this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto
Jacob.

25:34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did
eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his
birthright.

26:1 And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that
was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the
Philistines unto Gerar.

26:2 And the LORD appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt;
dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of: 26:3 Sojourn in this
land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and
unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the
oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father; 26:4 And I will make thy
seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed
all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the
earth be blessed; 26:5 Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept
my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

26:6 And Isaac dwelt in Gerar: 26:7 And the men of the place asked him
of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, She
is my wife; lest, said he, the men of the place should kill me for
Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon.

26:8 And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that
Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw,
and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife.

26:9 And Abimelech called Isaac, and said, Behold, of a surety she is
thy wife; and how saidst thou, She is my sister? And Isaac said unto
him, Because I said, Lest I die for her.

26:10 And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done unto us? one of
the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldest
have brought guiltiness upon us.

26:11 And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, He that toucheth
this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.

26:12 Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an
hundredfold: and the LORD blessed him.

26:13 And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he
became very great: 26:14 For he had possession of flocks, and
possession of herds, and great store of servants: and the Philistines
envied him.

26:15 For all the wells which his father’s servants had digged in the
days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and
filled them with earth.

26:16 And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us; for thou art much
mightier than we.

26:17 And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of
Gerar, and dwelt there.

26:18 And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged
in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped
them after the death of Abraham: and he called their names after the
names by which his father had called them.

26:19 And Isaac’s servants digged in the valley, and found there a
well of springing water.

26:20 And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac’s herdmen,
saying, The water is ours: and he called the name of the well Esek;
because they strove with him.

26:21 And they digged another well, and strove for that also: and he
called the name of it Sitnah.

26:22 And he removed from thence, and digged another well; and for
that they strove not: and he called the name of it Rehoboth; and he
said, For now the LORD hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful
in the land.

26:23 And he went up from thence to Beersheba.

26:24 And the LORD appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am
the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will
bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham’s sake.

26:25 And he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of the
LORD, and pitched his tent there: and there Isaac’s servants digged a
well.

26:26 Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath one of his
friends, and Phichol the chief captain of his army.

26:27 And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye
hate me, and have sent me away from you? 26:28 And they said, We saw
certainly that the LORD was with thee: and we said, Let there be now
an oath betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, and let us make a
covenant with thee; 26:29 That thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not
touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have
sent thee away in peace: thou art now the blessed of the LORD.

26:30 And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink.

26:31 And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to
another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in
peace.

26:32 And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac’s servants came,
and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto
him, We have found water.

26:33 And he called it Shebah: therefore the name of the city is
Beersheba unto this day.

26:34 And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the
daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the
Hittite: 26:35 Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.

27:1 And it came to pass, that when Isaac was old, and his eyes were
dim, so that he could not see, he called Esau his eldest son, and said
unto him, My son: and he said unto him, Behold, here am I.

27:2 And he said, Behold now, I am old, I know not the day of my
death: 27:3 Now therefore take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver
and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me some venison; 27:4
And make me savoury meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I
may eat; that my soul may bless thee before I die.

27:5 And Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son. And Esau went
to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring it.

27:6 And Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son, saying, Behold, I heard thy
father speak unto Esau thy brother, saying, 27:7 Bring me venison, and
make me savoury meat, that I may eat, and bless thee before the LORD
before my death.

27:8 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to that which I
command thee.

27:9 Go now to the flock, and fetch me from thence two good kids of
the goats; and I will make them savoury meat for thy father, such as
he loveth: 27:10 And thou shalt bring it to thy father, that he may
eat, and that he may bless thee before his death.

27:11 And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is
a hairy man, and I am a smooth man: 27:12 My father peradventure will
feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a
curse upon me, and not a blessing.

27:13 And his mother said unto him, Upon me be thy curse, my son: only
obey my voice, and go fetch me them.

27:14 And he went, and fetched, and brought them to his mother: and
his mother made savoury meat, such as his father loved.

27:15 And Rebekah took goodly raiment of her eldest son Esau, which
were with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob her younger son:
27:16 And she put the skins of the kids of the goats upon his hands,
and upon the smooth of his neck: 27:17 And she gave the savoury meat
and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob.

27:18 And he came unto his father, and said, My father: and he said,
Here am I; who art thou, my son? 27:19 And Jacob said unto his
father, I am Esau thy first born; I have done according as thou badest
me: arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may
bless me.

27:20 And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that thou hast found it
so quickly, my son? And he said, Because the LORD thy God brought it
to me.

27:21 And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may
feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not.

27:22 And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father; and he felt him, and
said, The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.

27:23 And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy, as his
brother Esau’s hands: so he blessed him.

27:24 And he said, Art thou my very son Esau? And he said, I am.

27:25 And he said, Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son’s
venison, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near to him,
and he did eat: and he brought him wine and he drank.

27:26 And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near now, and kiss me,
my son.

27:27 And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of
his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as
the smell of a field which the LORD hath blessed: 27:28 Therefore God
give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and
plenty of corn and wine: 27:29 Let people serve thee, and nations bow
down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow
down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he
that blesseth thee.

27:30 And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of
blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of
Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting.

27:31 And he also had made savoury meat, and brought it unto his
father, and said unto his father, Let my father arise, and eat of his
son’s venison, that thy soul may bless me.

27:32 And Isaac his father said unto him, Who art thou? And he said, I
am thy son, thy firstborn Esau.

27:33 And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, Who? where is he
that hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all
before thou camest, and have blessed him? yea, and he shall be
blessed.

27:34 And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a
great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me,
even me also, O my father.

27:35 And he said, Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away
thy blessing.

27:36 And he said, Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath
supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and,
behold, now he hath taken away my blessing. And he said, Hast thou not
reserved a blessing for me? 27:37 And Isaac answered and said unto
Esau, Behold, I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren have I
given to him for servants; and with corn and wine have I sustained
him: and what shall I do now unto thee, my son? 27:38 And Esau said
unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even
me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept.

27:39 And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold, thy
dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven
from above; 27:40 And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve
thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the
dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.

27:41 And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his
father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning
for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob.

27:42 And these words of Esau her elder son were told to Rebekah: and
she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said unto him, Behold,
thy brother Esau, as touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing to
kill thee.

27:43 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; arise, flee thou to Laban
my brother to Haran; 27:44 And tarry with him a few days, until thy
brother’s fury turn away; 27:45 Until thy brother’s anger turn away
from thee, and he forget that which thou hast done to him: then I will
send, and fetch thee from thence: why should I be deprived also of you
both in one day? 27:46 And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my
life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the
daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the
land, what good shall my life do me? 28:1 And Isaac called Jacob, and
blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a
wife of the daughters of Canaan.

28:2 Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother’s
father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy
mother’s brother.

28:3 And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply
thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people; 28:4 And give thee
the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou
mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave
unto Abraham.

28:5 And Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went to Padanaram unto Laban,
son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s
mother.

28:6 When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to
Padanaram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him
he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the
daughters of Canaan; 28:7 And that Jacob obeyed his father and his
mother, and was gone to Padanaram; 28:8 And Esau seeing that the
daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father; 28:9 Then went Esau
unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the
daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his
wife.

28:10 And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran.

28:11 And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all
night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that
place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to
sleep.

28:12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the
top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending
and descending on it.

28:13 And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD
God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou
liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; 28:14 And thy seed
shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the
west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee
and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

28:15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places
whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I
will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to
thee of.

28:16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD
is in this place; and I knew it not.

28:17 And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is
none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

28:18 And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that
he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil
upon the top of it.

28:19 And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of
that city was called Luz at the first.

28:20 And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will
keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and
raiment to put on, 28:21 So that I come again to my father’s house in
peace; then shall the LORD be my God: 28:22 And this stone, which I
have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou
shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.

29:1 Then Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the
people of the east.

29:2 And he looked, and behold a well in the field, and, lo, there
were three flocks of sheep lying by it; for out of that well they
watered the flocks: and a great stone was upon the well’s mouth.

29:3 And thither were all the flocks gathered: and they rolled the
stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the sheep, and put the stone
again upon the well’s mouth in his place.

29:4 And Jacob said unto them, My brethren, whence be ye? And they
said, Of Haran are we.

29:5 And he said unto them, Know ye Laban the son of Nahor? And they
said, We know him.

29:6 And he said unto them, Is he well? And they said, He is well:
and, behold, Rachel his daughter cometh with the sheep.

This is the Jargon File, a comprehensive compendium of hacker slang
illuminating many aspects of hackish tradition, folklore, and humor.

This document (the Jargon File) is in the public domain, to be freely
used, shared, and modified. There are (by intention) no legal
restraints on what you can do with it, but there are traditions about
its proper use to which many hackers are quite strongly attached.
Please extend the courtesy of proper citation when you quote the File,
ideally with a version number, as it will change and grow over time.
(Examples of appropriate citation form: "Jargon File 2.9.10" or
"The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 2.9.10, 01 JUL 1992".)

The Jargon File is a common heritage of the hacker culture.
Over the years a number of individuals have volunteered considerable
time to maintaining the File and been recognized by the net at large
as editors of it. Editorial responsibilities include: to collate
contributions and suggestions from others; to seek out corroborating
information; to cross-reference related entries; to keep the file in a
consistent format; and to announce and distribute updated versions
periodically. Current volunteer editors include:

Eric Raymond eric@snark.thyrsus.com (215)-296-5718

Although there is no requirement that you do so, it is considered good
form to check with an editor before quoting the File in a published work
or commercial product. We may have additional information that would be
helpful to you and can assist you in framing your quote to reflect
not only the letter of the File but its spirit as well.

All contributions and suggestions about this file sent to a volunteer
editor are gratefully received and will be regarded, unless otherwise
labelled, as freely given donations for possible use as part of this
public-domain file.

From time to time a snapshot of this file has been polished, edited,
and formatted for commercial publication with the cooperation of the
volunteer editors and the hacker community at large. If you wish to
have a bound paper copy of this file, you may find it convenient to
purchase one of these. They often contain additional material not
found in on-line versions. The two `authorized' editions so far are
described in the Revision History section; there may be more in the
future.

:Introduction:
**************

:About This File:
=================

This document is a collection of slang terms used by various subcultures
of computer hackers. Though some technical material is included for
background and flavor, it is not a technical dictionary; what we
describe here is the language hackers use among themselves for fun,
social communication, and technical debate.

The `hacker culture' is actually a loosely networked collection of
subcultures that is nevertheless conscious of some important shared
experiences, shared roots, and shared values. It has its own myths,
heroes, villains, folk epics, in-jokes, taboos, and dreams. Because
hackers as a group are particularly creative people who define
themselves partly by rejection of `normal' values and working habits, it
has unusually rich and conscious traditions for an intentional culture
less than 35 years old.

As usual with slang, the special vocabulary of hackers helps hold their
culture together — it helps hackers recognize each other's places in
the community and expresses shared values and experiences. Also as
usual, *not* knowing the slang (or using it inappropriately) defines one
as an outsider, a mundane, or (worst of all in hackish vocabulary)
possibly even a {suit}. All human cultures use slang in this threefold
way — as a tool of communication, and of inclusion, and of exclusion.

Among hackers, though, slang has a subtler aspect, paralleled perhaps in
the slang of jazz musicians and some kinds of fine artists but hard to
detect in most technical or scientific cultures; parts of it are code
for shared states of *consciousness*. There is a whole range of altered
states and problem-solving mental stances basic to high-level hacking
which don't fit into conventional linguistic reality any better than a
Coltrane solo or one of Maurits Escher's `trompe l'oeil' compositions
(Escher is a favorite of hackers), and hacker slang encodes these
subtleties in many unobvious ways. As a simple example, take the
distinction between a {kluge} and an {elegant} solution, and the
differing connotations attached to each. The distinction is not only of
engineering significance; it reaches right back into the nature of the
generative processes in program design and asserts something important
about two different kinds of relationship between the hacker and the
hack. Hacker slang is unusually rich in implications of this kind, of
overtones and undertones that illuminate the hackish psyche.

But there is more. Hackers, as a rule, love wordplay and are very
conscious and inventive in their use of language. These traits seem to
be common in young children, but the conformity-enforcing machine we are
pleased to call an educational system bludgeons them out of most of us
before adolescence. Thus, linguistic invention in most subcultures of
the modern West is a halting and largely unconscious process. Hackers,
by contrast, regard slang formation and use as a game to be played for
conscious pleasure. Their inventions thus display an almost unique
combination of the neotenous enjoyment of language-play with the
discrimination of educated and powerful intelligence. Further, the
electronic media which knit them together are fluid, `hot' connections,
well adapted to both the dissemination of new slang and the ruthless
culling of weak and superannuated specimens. The results of this
process give us perhaps a uniquely intense and accelerated view of
linguistic evolution in action.

Hackish slang also challenges some common linguistic and
anthropological assumptions. For example, it has recently become
fashionable to speak of `low-context' versus `high-context'
communication, and to classify cultures by the preferred context level
of their languages and art forms. It is usually claimed that
low-context communication (characterized by precision, clarity, and
completeness of self-contained utterances) is typical in cultures
which value logic, objectivity, individualism, and competition; by
contrast, high-context communication (elliptical, emotive,
nuance-filled, multi-modal, heavily coded) is associated with cultures
which value subjectivity, consensus, cooperation, and tradition. What
then are we to make of hackerdom, which is themed around extremely
low-context interaction with computers and exhibits primarily
"low-context" values, but cultivates an almost absurdly high-context
slang style?

The intensity and consciousness of hackish invention make a compilation
of hacker slang a particularly effective window into the surrounding
culture — and, in fact, this one is the latest version of an evolving
compilation called the `Jargon File', maintained by hackers themselves
for over 15 years. This one (like its ancestors) is primarily a
lexicon, but also includes `topic entries' which collect background or
sidelight information on hacker culture that would be awkward to try to
subsume under individual entries.

Though the format is that of a reference volume, it is intended that the
material be enjoyable to browse. Even a complete outsider should find
at least a chuckle on nearly every page, and much that is amusingly
thought-provoking. But it is also true that hackers use humorous
wordplay to make strong, sometimes combative statements about what they
feel. Some of these entries reflect the views of opposing sides in
disputes that have been genuinely passionate; this is deliberate. We
have not tried to moderate or pretty up these disputes; rather we have
attempted to ensure that *everyone's* sacred cows get gored,
impartially. Compromise is not particularly a hackish virtue, but the
honest presentation of divergent viewpoints is.

The reader with minimal computer background who finds some references
incomprehensibly technical can safely ignore them. We have not felt it
either necessary or desirable to eliminate all such; they, too,
contribute flavor, and one of this document's major intended audiences
— fledgling hackers already partway inside the culture — will
benefit from them.

A selection of longer items of hacker folklore and humor is included in
{appendix A}. The `outside' reader's attention is particularly directed
to {appendix B}, "A Portrait of J. Random Hacker". {Appendix C} is a
bibliography of non-technical works which have either influenced or
described the hacker culture.

Because hackerdom is an intentional culture (one each individual must
choose by action to join), one should not be surprised that the line
between description and influence can become more than a little blurred.
Earlier versions of the Jargon File have played a central role in
spreading hacker language and the culture that goes with it to
successively larger populations, and we hope and expect that this one
will do likewise.

:Of Slang, Jargon, and Techspeak:
=================================

Linguists usually refer to informal language as `slang' and reserve the
term `jargon' for the technical vocabularies of various occupations.
However, the ancestor of this collection was called the `Jargon File',
and hackish slang is traditionally `the jargon'. When talking about the
jargon there is therefore no convenient way to distinguish what a
*linguist* would call hackers' jargon — the formal vocabulary they
learn from textbooks, technical papers, and manuals.

To make a confused situation worse, the line between hackish slang and
the vocabulary of technical programming and computer science is fuzzy,
and shifts over time. Further, this vocabulary is shared with a wider
technical culture of programmers, many of whom are not hackers and do
not speak or recognize hackish slang.

Accordingly, this lexicon will try to be as precise as the facts of
usage permit about the distinctions among three categories:
*`slang': informal language from mainstream English or non-technicalsubcultures (bikers, rock fans, surfers, etc).
*`jargon': without qualifier, denotes informal `slangy' languagepeculiar to hackers — the subject of this lexicon.
*`techspeak': the formal technical vocabulary of programming, computerscience, electronics, and other fields connected to hacking.

This terminology will be consistently used throughout the remainder of
this lexicon.

The jargon/techspeak distinction is the delicate one. A lot of
techspeak originated as jargon, and there is a steady continuing uptake
of jargon into techspeak. On the other hand, a lot of jargon arises
from overgeneralization of techspeak terms (there is more about this in
the "Jargon Construction" section below).

In general, we have considered techspeak any term that communicates
primarily by a denotation well established in textbooks, technical
dictionaries, or standards documents.

A few obviously techspeak terms (names of operating systems, languages,
or documents) are listed when they are tied to hacker folklore that
isn't covered in formal sources, or sometimes to convey critical
historical background necessary to understand other entries to which
they are cross-referenced. Some other techspeak senses of jargon words
are listed in order to make the jargon senses clear; where the text does
not specify that a straight technical sense is under discussion, these
are marked with `[techspeak]' as an etymology. Some entries have a
primary sense marked this way, with subsequent jargon meanings explained
in terms of it.

We have also tried to indicate (where known) the apparent origins of
terms. The results are probably the least reliable information in the
lexicon, for several reasons. For one thing, it is well known that many
hackish usages have been independently reinvented multiple times, even
among the more obscure and intricate neologisms. It often seems that
the generative processes underlying hackish jargon formation have an
internal logic so powerful as to create substantial parallelism across
separate cultures and even in different languages! For another, the
networks tend to propagate innovations so quickly that `first use' is
often impossible to pin down. And, finally, compendia like this one
alter what they observe by implicitly stamping cultural approval on
terms and widening their use.

:Revision History:
==================

The original Jargon File was a collection of hacker jargon from
technical cultures including the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI lab (SAIL),
and others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities including Bolt,
Beranek and Newman (BBN), Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU), and
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).

The Jargon File (hereafter referred to as `jargon-1' or `the File') was
begun by Raphael Finkel at Stanford in 1975. From this time until the
plug was finally pulled on the SAIL computer in 1991, the File was named
AIWORD.RF[UP,DOC] there. Some terms in it date back considerably
earlier ({frob} and some senses of {moby}, for instance, go back to the
Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT and are believed to date at least back
to the early 1960s). The revisions of jargon-1 were all unnumbered and
may be collectively considered `Version 1'.

In 1976, Mark Crispin, having seen an announcement about the File on the
SAIL computer, {FTP}ed a copy of the File to MIT. He noticed that it
was hardly restricted to `AI words' and so stored the file on his
directory as AI:MRC;SAIL JARGON.

The file was quickly renamed JARGON > (the `>' means numbered with a
version number) as a flurry of enhancements were made by Mark Crispin
and Guy L. Steele Jr. Unfortunately, amidst all this activity, nobody
thought of correcting the term `jargon' to `slang' until the compendium
had already become widely known as the Jargon File.

Raphael Finkel dropped out of active participation shortly thereafter
and Don Woods became the SAIL contact for the File (which was
subsequently kept in duplicate at SAIL and MIT, with periodic
resynchronizations).

The File expanded by fits and starts until about 1983; Richard Stallman
was prominent among the contributors, adding many MIT and ITS-related
coinages.

In Spring 1981, a hacker named Charles Spurgeon got a large chunk of the
File published in Russell Brand's `CoEvolution Quarterly' (pages 26-35)
with illustrations by Phil Wadler and Guy Steele (including a couple of
the Crunchly cartoons). This appears to have been the File's first
paper publication.

A late version of jargon-1, expanded with commentary for the mass
market, was edited by Guy Steele into a book published in 1983 as `The
Hacker's Dictionary' (Harper & Row CN 1082, ISBN 0-06-091082-8). The
other jargon-1 editors (Raphael Finkel, Don Woods, and Mark Crispin)
contributed to this revision, as did Richard M. Stallman and Geoff
Goodfellow. This book (now out of print) is hereafter referred to as
`Steele-1983' and those six as the Steele-1983 coauthors.

Shortly after the publication of Steele-1983, the File effectively
stopped growing and changing. Originally, this was due to a desire to
freeze the file temporarily to facilitate the production of Steele-1983,
but external conditions caused the `temporary' freeze to become
permanent.

The AI Lab culture had been hit hard in the late 1970s by funding cuts
and the resulting administrative decision to use vendor-supported
hardware and software instead of homebrew whenever possible. At MIT,
most AI work had turned to dedicated LISP Machines. At the same time,
the commercialization of AI technology lured some of the AI Lab's best
and brightest away to startups along the Route 128 strip in
Massachusetts and out West in Silicon Valley. The startups built LISP
machines for MIT; the central MIT-AI computer became a {TWENEX} system
rather than a host for the AI hackers' beloved {ITS}.

The Stanford AI Lab had effectively ceased to exist by 1980, although
the SAIL computer continued as a Computer Science Department resource
until 1991. Stanford became a major {TWENEX} site, at one point
operating more than a dozen TOPS-20 systems; but by the mid-1980s most
of the interesting software work was being done on the emerging BSD UNIX
standard.

In April 1983, the PDP-10-centered cultures that had nourished the File
were dealt a death-blow by the cancellation of the Jupiter project at
Digital Equipment Corporation. The File's compilers, already dispersed,
moved on to other things. Steele-1983 was partly a monument to what its
authors thought was a dying tradition; no one involved realized at the
time just how wide its influence was to be.

By the mid-1980s the File's content was dated, but the legend that had
grown up around it never quite died out. The book, and softcopies
obtained off the ARPANET, circulated even in cultures far removed from
MIT and Stanford; the content exerted a strong and continuing influence
on hackish language and humor. Even as the advent of the microcomputer
and other trends fueled a tremendous expansion of hackerdom, the File
(and related materials such as the AI Koans in Appendix A) came to be
seen as a sort of sacred epic, a hacker-culture Matter of Britain
chronicling the heroic exploits of the Knights of the Lab. The pace of
change in hackerdom at large accelerated tremendously — but the Jargon
File, having passed from living document to icon, remained essentially
untouched for seven years.

This revision contains nearly the entire text of a late version of
jargon-1 (a few obsolete PDP-10-related entries were dropped after
careful consultation with the editors of Steele-1983). It merges in
about 80% of the Steele-1983 text, omitting some framing material and a
very few entries introduced in Steele-1983 that are now also obsolete.

This new version casts a wider net than the old Jargon File; its aim is
to cover not just AI or PDP-10 hacker culture but all the technical
computing cultures wherein the true hacker-nature is manifested. More
than half of the entries now derive from {USENET} and represent jargon
now current in the C and UNIX communities, but special efforts have been
made to collect jargon from other cultures including IBM PC programmers,
Amiga fans, Mac enthusiasts, and even the IBM mainframe world.

Eric S. Raymond <eric@snark.thyrsus.com> maintains the new File with
assistance from Guy L. Steele Jr. <gls@think.com>; these are the persons
primarily reflected in the File's editorial `we', though we take
pleasure in acknowledging the special contribution of the other
coauthors of Steele-1983. Please email all additions, corrections, and
correspondence relating to the Jargon File to jargon@thyrsus.com
(UUCP-only sites without connections to an autorouting smart site can
use …!uunet!snark!jargon).

(Warning: other email addresses appear in this file *but are not
guaranteed to be correct* later than the revision date on the first
line. *Don't* email us if an attempt to reach your idol bounces — we
have no magic way of checking addresses or looking up people.)

The 2.9.6 version became the main text of `The New Hacker's Dictionary',
by Eric Raymond (ed.), MIT Press 1991, ISBN 0-262-68069-6. The
maintainers are committed to updating the on-line version of the Jargon
File through and beyond paper publication, and will continue to make it
available to archives and public-access sites as a trust of the hacker
community.

Here is a chronology of the high points in the recent on-line revisions:

Version 2.1.1, Jun 12 1990: the Jargon File comes alive again after a
seven-year hiatus. Reorganization and massive additions were by Eric S.
Raymond, approved by Guy Steele. Many items of UNIX, C, USENET, and
microcomputer-based jargon were added at that time (as well as The
Untimely Demise of Mabel The Monkey).

Version 2.9.6, Aug 16 1991: corresponds to reproduction copy for book.
This version had 18952 lines, 148629 words, 975551 characters, and 1702
entries.

Version 2.9.8, Jan 01 1992: first public release since the book,
including over fifty new entries and numerous corrections/additions to
old ones. Packaged with version 1.1 of vh(1) hypertext reader. This
version had 19509 lines, 153108 words, 1006023 characters, and 1760
entries.

Version 2.9.9, Apr 01 1992: folded in XEROX PARC lexicon. This version
had 20298 lines, 159651 words, 1048909 characters, and 1821 entries.

Version 2.9.10, Jul 01 1992: lots of new historical material. This
version had 21349 lines, 168330 words, 1106991 characters, and 1891
entries.

Version numbering: Version numbers should be read as
major.minor.revision. Major version 1 is reserved for the `old' (ITS)
Jargon File, jargon-1. Major version 2 encompasses revisions by ESR
(Eric S. Raymond) with assistance from GLS (Guy L. Steele, Jr.).
Someday, the next maintainer will take over and spawn `version 3'.
Usually later versions will either completely supersede or incorporate
earlier versions, so there is generally no point in keeping old versions
around.

Our thanks to the coauthors of Steele-1983 for oversight and assistance,
and to the hundreds of USENETters (too many to name here) who
contributed entries and encouragement. More thanks go to several of the
old-timers on the USENET group alt.folklore.computers, who contributed
much useful commentary and many corrections and valuable historical
perspective: Joseph M. Newcomer <jn11+@andrew.cmu.edu>, Bernie Cosell
<cosell@bbn.com>, Earl Boebert <boebert@SCTC.com>, and Joe Morris
<jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org>.

We were fortunate enough to have the aid of some accomplished linguists.
David Stampe <stampe@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu> and Charles Hoequist
<hoequist@bnr.ca> contributed valuable criticism; Joe Keane
<jgk@osc.osc.com> helped us improve the pronunciation guides.

A few bits of this text quote previous works. We are indebted to Brian
A. LaMacchia <bal@zurich.ai.mit.edu> for obtaining permission for us to
use material from the `TMRC Dictionary'; also, Don Libes
<libes@cme.nist.gov> contributed some appropriate material from his
excellent book `Life With UNIX'. We thank Per Lindberg <per@front.se>,
author of the remarkable Swedish-language 'zine `Hackerbladet', for
bringing `FOO!' comics to our attention and smuggling one of the IBM
hacker underground's own baby jargon files out to us. Thanks also to
Maarten Litmaath for generously allowing the inclusion of the ASCII
pronunciation guide he formerly maintained. And our gratitude to Marc
Weiser of XEROX PARC <Marc_Weiser.PARC@xerox.com> for securing us
permission to quote from PARC's own jargon lexicon and shipping us a
copy.

It is a particular pleasure to acknowledge the major contributions of
Mark Brader <msb@sq.com> to the final manuscript; he read and reread
many drafts, checked facts, caught typos, submitted an amazing number of
thoughtful comments, and did yeoman service in catching typos and minor
usage bobbles. Mr. Brader's rare combination of enthusiasm,
persistence, wide-ranging technical knowledge, and precisionism in
matters of language made his help invaluable, and the sustained volume
and quality of his input over many months only allowed him to escape
co-editor credit by the slimmest of margins.

Finally, George V. Reilly <gvr@cs.brown.edu> helped with TeX arcana and
painstakingly proofread some 2.7 and 2.8 versions; Steve Summit
<scs@adam.mit.edu> contributed a number of excellent new entries and
many small improvements to 2.9.10; and Eric Tiedemann <est@thyrsus.com>
contributed sage advice throughout on rhetoric, amphigory, and
philosophunculism.

:How Jargon Works:
******************

:Jargon Construction:
=====================

There are some standard methods of jargonification that became
established quite early (i.e., before 1970), spreading from such sources
as the Tech Model Railroad Club, the PDP-1 SPACEWAR hackers, and John
McCarthy's original crew of LISPers. These include the following:

:Verb Doubling: ————— A standard construction in English is to
double a verb and use it as an exclamation, such as "Bang, bang!" or
"Quack, quack!". Most of these are names for noises. Hackers also
double verbs as a concise, sometimes sarcastic comment on what the
implied subject does. Also, a doubled verb is often used to terminate a
conversation, in the process remarking on the current state of affairs
or what the speaker intends to do next. Typical examples involve {win},
{lose}, {hack}, {flame}, {barf}, {chomp}:

"The disk heads just crashed." "Lose, lose."
"Mostly he talked about his latest crock. Flame, flame."
"Boy, what a bagbiter! Chomp, chomp!"

Some verb-doubled constructions have special meanings not immediately
obvious from the verb. These have their own listings in the lexicon.

The USENET culture has one *tripling* convention unrelated to this; the
names of `joke' topic groups often have a tripled last element. The
first and paradigmatic example was alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork (a
"Muppet Show" reference); other classics include
alt.french.captain.borg.borg.borg, alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die,
comp.unix.internals.system.calls.brk.brk.brk,
sci.physics.edward.teller.boom.boom.boom, and
alt.sadistic.dentists.drill.drill.drill.

:Soundalike slang: —————— Hackers will often make rhymes or
puns in order to convert an ordinary word or phrase into something more
interesting. It is considered particularly {flavorful} if the phrase is
bent so as to include some other jargon word; thus the computer hobbyist
magazine `Dr. Dobb's Journal' is almost always referred to among hackers
as `Dr. Frob's Journal' or simply `Dr. Frob's'. Terms of this kind that
have been in fairly wide use include names for newspapers:

Boston Herald => Horrid (or Harried)
Boston Globe => Boston Glob
Houston (or San Francisco) Chronicle
=> the Crocknicle (or the Comical)
New York Times => New York Slime

However, terms like these are often made up on the spur of the moment.
Standard examples include:

Data General => Dirty Genitals
IBM 360 => IBM Three-Sickly
Government Property — Do Not Duplicate (on keys)
=> Government Duplicity — Do Not Propagate
for historical reasons => for hysterical raisins
Margaret Jacks Hall (the CS building at Stanford)
=> Marginal Hacks Hall

This is not really similar to the Cockney rhyming slang it has been
compared to in the past, because Cockney substitutions are opaque
whereas hacker punning jargon is intentionally transparent.

:The `-P' convention: ——————— Turning a word into a
question by appending the syllable `P'; from the LISP convention of
appending the letter `P' to denote a predicate (a boolean-valued
function). The question should expect a yes/no answer, though it
needn't. (See {T} and {NIL}.)

At dinnertime:
Q: "Foodp?"
A: "Yeah, I'm pretty hungry." or "T!"

At any time:
Q: "State-of-the-world-P?"
A: (Straight) "I'm about to go home."
A: (Humorous) "Yes, the world has a state."

On the phone to Florida:
Q: "State-p Florida?"
A: "Been reading JARGON.TXT again, eh?"

[One of the best of these is a {Gosperism}. Once, when we were at a
Chinese restaurant, Bill Gosper wanted to know whether someone would
like to share with him a two-person-sized bowl of soup. His inquiry
was: "Split-p soup?" — GLS]

:Overgeneralization: ——————– A very conspicuous feature of
jargon is the frequency with which techspeak items such as names of
program tools, command language primitives, and even assembler opcodes
are applied to contexts outside of computing wherever hackers find
amusing analogies to them. Thus (to cite one of the best-known
examples) UNIX hackers often {grep} for things rather than searching for
them. Many of the lexicon entries are generalizations of exactly this
kind.

Hackers enjoy overgeneralization on the grammatical level as well. Many
hackers love to take various words and add the wrong endings to them to
make nouns and verbs, often by extending a standard rule to nonuniform
cases (or vice versa). For example, because

porous => porosity
generous => generosity

hackers happily generalize:

mysterious => mysteriosity
ferrous => ferrosity
obvious => obviosity
dubious => dubiosity

Also, note that all nouns can be verbed. E.g.: "All nouns can be
verbed", "I'll mouse it up", "Hang on while I clipboard it over", "I'm
grepping the files". English as a whole is already heading in this
direction (towards pure-positional grammar like Chinese); hackers are
simply a bit ahead of the curve.

However, note that hackers avoid the unimaginative verb-making
techniques characteristic of marketroids, bean-counters, and the
Pentagon; a hacker would never, for example, `productize', `prioritize',
or `securitize' things. Hackers have a strong aversion to bureaucratic
bafflegab and regard those who use it with contempt.

Similarly, all verbs can be nouned. This is only a slight
overgeneralization in modern English; in hackish, however, it is good
form to mark them in some standard nonstandard way. Thus:

win => winnitude, winnage
disgust => disgustitude
hack => hackification

Further, note the prevalence of certain kinds of nonstandard plural
forms. Some of these go back quite a ways; the TMRC Dictionary noted
that the defined plural of `caboose' is `cabeese', and includes an entry
which implies that the plural of `mouse' is {meeces}. On a similarly
Anglo-Saxon note, almost anything ending in `x' may form plurals in
`-xen' (see {VAXen} and {boxen} in the main text). Even words ending in
phonetic /k/ alone are sometimes treated this way; e.g., `soxen' for a
bunch of socks. Other funny plurals are `frobbotzim' for the plural of
`frobbozz' (see {frobnitz}) and `Unices' and `Twenices' (rather than
`Unixes' and `Twenexes'; see {UNIX}, {TWENEX} in main text). But note
that `Unixen' and `Twenexen' are never used; it has been suggested that
this is because `-ix' and `-ex' are Latin singular endings that attract
a Latinate plural. Finally, it has been suggested to general approval
that the plural of `mongoose' ought to be `polygoose'.

The pattern here, as with other hackish grammatical quirks, is
generalization of an inflectional rule that in English is either an
import or a fossil (such as the Hebrew plural ending `-im', or the
Anglo-Saxon plural suffix `-en') to cases where it isn't normally
considered to apply.

This is not `poor grammar', as hackers are generally quite well aware of
what they are doing when they distort the language. It is grammatical
creativity, a form of playfulness. It is done not to impress but to
amuse, and never at the expense of clarity.

:Spoken inarticulations: ———————— Words such as
`mumble', `sigh', and `groan' are spoken in places where their referent
might more naturally be used. It has been suggested that this usage
derives from the impossibility of representing such noises on a comm
link or in electronic mail (interestingly, the same sorts of
constructions have been showing up with increasing frequency in comic
strips). Another expression sometimes heard is "Complain!", meaning "I
have a complaint!"

:Anthromorphization: ——————– Semantically, one rich source
of jargon constructions is the hackish tendency to anthropomorphize
hardware and software. This isn't done in a na"ive way; hackers don't
personalize their stuff in the sense of feeling empathy with it, nor do
they mystically believe that the things they work on every day are
`alive'. What *is* common is to hear hardware or software talked about
as though it has homunculi talking to each other inside it, with
intentions and desires. Thus, one hears "The protocol handler got
confused", or that programs "are trying" to do things, or one may say of
a routine that "its goal in life is to X". One even hears explanations
like "… and its poor little brain couldn't understand X, and it
died." Sometimes modelling things this way actually seems to make them
easier to understand, perhaps because it's instinctively natural to
think of anything with a really complex behavioral repertoire as `like a
person' rather than `like a thing'.

Of the six listed constructions, verb doubling, peculiar noun
formations, anthromorphization, and (especially) spoken inarticulations
have become quite general; but punning jargon is still largely confined
to MIT and other large universities, and the `-P' convention is found
only where LISPers flourish.

Finally, note that many words in hacker jargon have to be understood as
members of sets of comparatives. This is especially true of the
adjectives and nouns used to describe the beauty and functional quality
of code. Here is an approximately correct spectrum:

monstrosity brain-damage screw bug lose misfeature
crock kluge hack win feature elegance perfection

The last is spoken of as a mythical absolute, approximated but never
actually attained. Another similar scale is used for describing the
reliability of software:

broken flaky dodgy fragile brittle
solid robust bulletproof armor-plated

Note, however, that `dodgy' is primarily Commonwealth hackish (it is
rare in the U.S.) and may change places with `flaky' for some speakers.

Coinages for describing {lossage} seem to call forth the very finest in
hackish linguistic inventiveness; it has been truly said that hackers
have even more words for equipment failures than Yiddish has for
obnoxious people.

:Hacker Writing Style:
======================

We've already seen that hackers often coin jargon by overgeneralizing
grammatical rules. This is one aspect of a more general fondness for
form-versus-content language jokes that shows up particularly in hackish
writing. One correspondent reports that he consistently misspells
`wrong' as `worng'. Others have been known to criticize glitches in
Jargon File drafts by observing (in the mode of Douglas Hofstadter)
"This sentence no verb", or "Bad speling", or "Incorrectspa cing."
Similarly, intentional spoonerisms are often made of phrases relating to
confusion or things that are confusing; `dain bramage' for `brain
damage' is perhaps the most common (similarly, a hacker would be likely
to write "Excuse me, I'm cixelsyd today", rather than "I'm dyslexic
today"). This sort of thing is quite common and is enjoyed by all
concerned.

Hackers tend to use quotes as balanced delimiters like parentheses, much
to the dismay of American editors. Thus, if "Jim is going" is a phrase,
and so are "Bill runs" and "Spock groks", then hackers generally prefer
to write: "Jim is going", "Bill runs", and "Spock groks". This is
incorrect according to standard American usage (which would put the
continuation commas and the final period inside the string quotes);
however, it is counter-intuitive to hackers to mutilate literal strings
with characters that don't belong in them. Given the sorts of examples
that can come up in discussions of programming, American-style quoting
can even be grossly misleading. When communicating command lines or
small pieces of code, extra characters can be a real pain in the neck.

Consider, for example, a sentence in a {vi} tutorial that looks like this:

Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd".

Standard usage would make this

Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd."

but that would be very bad — because the reader would be prone to type
the string d-d-dot, and it happens that in `vi(1)' dot repeats the last
command accepted. The net result would be to delete *two* lines!

The Jargon File follows hackish usage throughout.

Interestingly, a similar style is now preferred practice in Great
Britain, though the older style (which became established for
typographical reasons having to do with the aesthetics of comma and
quotes in typeset text) is still accepted there. `Hart's Rules' and the
`Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors' call the hacker-like style
`new' or `logical' quoting.

Another hacker quirk is a tendency to distinguish between `scare' quotes
and `speech' quotes; that is, to use British-style single quotes for
marking and reserve American-style double quotes for actual reports of
speech or text included from elsewhere. Interestingly, some authorities
describe this as correct general usage, but mainstream American English
has gone to using double-quotes indiscriminately enough that hacker
usage appears marked [and, in fact, I thought this was a personal quirk
of mine until I checked with USENET — ESR]. One further permutation
that is definitely *not* standard is a hackish tendency to do marking
quotes by using apostrophes (single quotes) in pairs; that is, 'like
this'. This is modelled on string and character literal syntax in some
programming languages (reinforced by the fact that many character-only
terminals display the apostrophe in typewriter style, as a vertical
single quote).

One quirk that shows up frequently in the {email} style of UNIX hackers
in particular is a tendency for some things that are normally
all-lowercase (including usernames and the names of commands and C
routines) to remain uncapitalized even when they occur at the beginning
of sentences. It is clear that, for many hackers, the case of such
identifiers becomes a part of their internal representation (the
`spelling') and cannot be overridden without mental effort (an
appropriate reflex because UNIX and C both distinguish cases and
confusing them can lead to {lossage}). A way of escaping this dilemma
is simply to avoid using these constructions at the beginning of
sentences.

There seems to be a meta-rule behind these nonstandard hackerisms to the
effect that precision of expression is more important than conformance
to traditional rules; where the latter create ambiguity or lose
information they can be discarded without a second thought. It is
notable in this respect that other hackish inventions (for example, in
vocabulary) also tend to carry very precise shades of meaning even when
constructed to appear slangy and loose. In fact, to a hacker, the
contrast between `loose' form and `tight' content in jargon is a
substantial part of its humor!

Hackers have also developed a number of punctuation and emphasis
conventions adapted to single-font all-ASCII communications links, and
these are occasionally carried over into written documents even when
normal means of font changes, underlining, and the like are available.

One of these is that TEXT IN ALL CAPS IS INTERPRETED AS `LOUD', and this
becomes such an ingrained synesthetic reflex that a person who goes to
caps-lock while in {talk mode} may be asked to "stop shouting, please,
you're hurting my ears!".

Also, it is common to use bracketing with unusual characters to signify
emphasis. The asterisk is most common, as in "What the *hell*?" even
though this interferes with the common use of the asterisk suffix as a
footnote mark. The underscore is also common, suggesting underlining
(this is particularly common with book titles; for example, "It is often
alleged that Joe Haldeman wrote _The_Forever_War_ as a rebuttal to
Robert Heinlein's earlier novel of the future military,
_Starship_Troopers_."). Other forms exemplified by "=hell=", "hell/",
or "/hell/" are occasionally seen (it's claimed that in the last example
the first slash pushes the letters over to the right to make them
italic, and the second keeps them from falling over). Finally, words
may also be emphasized L I K E T H I S, or by a series of carets (^)
under them on the next line of the text.

There is a semantic difference between *emphasis like this* (which
emphasizes the phrase as a whole), and *emphasis* *like* *this* (which
suggests the writer speaking very slowly and distinctly, as if to a
very young child or a mentally impaired person). Bracketing a word with
the `*' character may also indicate that the writer wishes readers to
consider that an action is taking place or that a sound is being made.
Examples: *bang*, *hic*, *ring*, *grin*, *kick*, *stomp*, *mumble*.

There is also an accepted convention for `writing under erasure'; the
text

Be nice to this fool^H^H^H^Hgentleman, he's in from corporate HQ.

would be read as "Be nice to this fool, I mean this gentleman…". This
comes from the fact that the digraph ^H is often used as a print
representation for a backspace. It parallels (and may have been
influenced by) the ironic use of `slashouts' in science-fiction
fanzines.

In a formula, `*' signifies multiplication but two asterisks in a row
are a shorthand for exponentiation (this derives from FORTRAN). Thus,
one might write 2 ** 8 = 256.

Another notation for exponentiation one sees more frequently uses the
caret (^, ASCII 1011110); one might write instead `2^8 = 256'. This
goes all the way back to Algol-60, which used the archaic ASCII
`up-arrow' that later became the caret; this was picked up by Kemeny and
Kurtz's original BASIC, which in turn influenced the design of the
`bc(1)' and `dc(1)' UNIX tools, which have probably done most to
reinforce the convention on USENET. The notation is mildly confusing to
C programmers, because `^' means bitwise {XOR} in C. Despite this, it
was favored 3:1 over ** in a late-1990 snapshot of USENET. It is used
consistently in this text.

In on-line exchanges, hackers tend to use decimal forms or improper
fractions (`3.5' or `7/2') rather than `typewriter style' mixed
fractions (`3-1/2'). The major motive here is probably that the former
are more readable in a monospaced font, together with a desire to avoid
the risk that the latter might be read as `three minus one-half'. The
decimal form is definitely preferred for fractions with a terminating
decimal representation; there may be some cultural influence here from
the high status of scientific notation.

Another on-line convention, used especially for very large or very small
numbers, is taken from C (which derived it from FORTRAN). This is a
form of `scientific notation' using `e' to replace `*10^'; for example,
one year is about 3e7 seconds long.

The tilde (~) is commonly used in a quantifying sense of
`approximately'; that is, `~50' means `about fifty'.

On USENET and in the {MUD} world, common C boolean, logical, and
relational operators such as `|', `&', `||', `&&', `!', `==', `!=', `>',
and `<', `>=', and `=<' are often combined with English. The Pascal
not-equals, `<>', is also recognized, and occasionally one sees `/=' for
not-equals (from Ada, Common Lisp, and Fortran 90). The use of prefix
`!' as a loose synonym for `not-' or `no-' is particularly common; thus,
`!clue' is read `no-clue' or `clueless'.

A related practice borrows syntax from preferred programming languages
to express ideas in a natural-language text. For example, one might
see the following:

I resently had occasion to field-test the Snafu
Systems 2300E adaptive gonkulator. The price was
right, and the racing stripe on the case looked kind
of neat, but its performance left something to be
desired.

#ifdef FLAME
Hasn't anyone told those idiots that you can't get
decent bogon suppression with AFJ filters at today's
net speeds?
#endif /* FLAME */

I guess they figured the price premium for true
frame-based semantic analysis was too high.
Unfortunately, it's also the only workable approach.
I wouldn't recommend purchase of this product unless
you're on a *very* tight budget.

#include <disclaimer.h>
—
== Frank Foonly (Fubarco Systems)

In the above, the `#ifdef'/`#endif' pair is a conditional
compilation syntax from C; here, it implies that the text between
(which is a {flame}) should be evaluated only if you have turned on
(or defined on) the switch FLAME. The `#include' at the end is C
for "include standard disclaimer here"; the `standard disclaimer' is
understood to read, roughly, "These are my personal opinions and not
to be construed as the official position of my employer."

Another habit is that of using angle-bracket enclosure to genericize a
term; this derives from conventions used in {BNF}. Uses like the
following are common:

So this <ethnic> walks into a bar one day, and…

Hackers also mix letters and numbers more freely than in mainstream
usage. In particular, it is good hackish style to write a digit
sequence where you intend the reader to understand the text string that
names that number in English. So, hackers prefer to write `1970s'
rather than `nineteen-seventies' or `1970's' (the latter looks like a
possessive).

It should also be noted that hackers exhibit much less reluctance to use
multiply nested parentheses than is normal in English. Part of this is
almost certainly due to influence from LISP (which uses deeply nested
parentheses (like this (see?)) in its syntax a lot), but it has also
been suggested that a more basic hacker trait of enjoying playing with
complexity and pushing systems to their limits is in operation.

One area where hackish conventions for on-line writing are still in some
flux is the marking of included material from earlier messages — what
would be called `block quotations' in ordinary English. From the usual
typographic convention employed for these (smaller font at an extra
indent), there derived the notation of included text being indented by
one ASCII TAB (0001001) character, which under UNIX and many other
environments gives the appearance of an 8-space indent.

Early mail and netnews readers had no facility for including messages
this way, so people had to paste in copy manually. BSD `Mail(1)' was
the first message agent to support inclusion, and early USENETters
emulated its style. But the TAB character tended to push included text
too far to the right (especially in multiply nested inclusions), leading
to ugly wraparounds. After a brief period of confusion (during which an
inclusion leader consisting of three or four spaces became established
in EMACS and a few mailers), the use of leading `>' or `> ' became
standard, perhaps owing to its use in `ed(1)' to display tabs
(alternatively, it may derive from the `>' that some early UNIX mailers
used to quote lines starting with "From" in text, so they wouldn't look
like the beginnings of new message headers). Inclusions within
inclusions keep their `>' leaders, so the `nesting level' of a quotation
is visually apparent.

A few other idiosyncratic quoting styles survive because they are
automatically generated. One particularly ugly one looks like this:

/* Written hh:mm pm Mmm dd, yyyy by user@site in <group> */
/* ———- "Article subject, chopped to 35 ch" ———- */
<quoted text>
/* End of text from local:group */

It is generated by an elderly, variant news-reading system called
`notesfiles'. The overall trend, however, is definitely away from such
verbosity.

The practice of including text from the parent article when posting a
followup helped solve what had been a major nuisance on USENET: the fact
that articles do not arrive at different sites in the same order.
Careless posters used to post articles that would begin with, or even
consist entirely of, "No, that's wrong" or "I agree" or the like. It
was hard to see who was responding to what. Consequently, around 1984,
new news-posting software evolved a facility to automatically include
the text of a previous article, marked with "> " or whatever the poster
chose. The poster was expected to delete all but the relevant lines.
The result has been that, now, careless posters post articles containing
the *entire* text of a preceding article, *followed* only by "No, that's
wrong" or "I agree".

Many people feel that this cure is worse than the original disease, and
there soon appeared newsreader software designed to let the reader skip
over included text if desired. Today, some posting software rejects
articles containing too high a proportion of lines beginning with `>' —
but this too has led to undesirable workarounds, such as the deliberate
inclusion of zero-content filler lines which aren't quoted and thus pull
the message below the rejection threshold.

Because the default mailers supplied with UNIX and other operating
systems haven't evolved as quickly as human usage, the older conventions
using a leading TAB or three or four spaces are still alive; however,
>-inclusion is now clearly the prevalent form in both netnews and mail.

In 1991 practice is still evolving, and disputes over the `correct'
inclusion style occasionally lead to {holy wars}. One variant style
reported uses the citation character `|' in place of `>' for extended
quotations where original variations in indentation are being retained.
One also sees different styles of quoting a number of authors in the
same message: one (deprecated because it loses information) uses a
leader of `> ' for everyone, another (the most common) is `> > > > ', `>
> > ', etc. (or `>>>> ', `>>> ', etc., depending on line length and
nesting depth) reflecting the original order of messages, and yet
another is to use a different citation leader for each author, say `> ',
`: ', `| ', `} ' (preserving nesting so that the inclusion order of
messages is still apparent, or tagging the inclusions with authors'
names). Yet *another* style is to use each poster's initials (or login
name) as a citation leader for that poster. Occasionally one sees a `#
' leader used for quotations from authoritative sources such as
standards documents; the intended allusion is to the root prompt (the
special UNIX command prompt issued when one is running as the privileged
super-user).

Finally, it is worth mentioning that many studies of on-line
communication have shown that electronic links have a de-inhibiting
effect on people. Deprived of the body-language cues through which
emotional state is expressed, people tend to forget everything about
other parties except what is presented over that ASCII link. This has
both good and bad effects. The good one is that it encourages honesty
and tends to break down hierarchical authority relationships; the bad is
that it may encourage depersonalization and gratuitous rudeness.
Perhaps in response to this, experienced netters often display a sort of
conscious formal politesse in their writing that has passed out of
fashion in other spoken and written media (for example, the phrase "Well
said, sir!" is not uncommon).

Many introverted hackers who are next to inarticulate in person
communicate with considerable fluency over the net, perhaps precisely
because they can forget on an unconscious level that they are dealing
with people and thus don't feel stressed and anxious as they would face
to face.

Though it is considered gauche to publicly criticize posters for poor
spelling or grammar, the network places a premium on literacy and
clarity of expression. It may well be that future historians of
literature will see in it a revival of the great tradition of personal
letters as art.

:Hacker Speech Style:
=====================

Hackish speech generally features extremely precise diction, careful
word choice, a relatively large working vocabulary, and relatively
little use of contractions or street slang. Dry humor, irony, puns, and
a mildly flippant attitude are highly valued — but an underlying
seriousness and intelligence are essential. One should use just enough
jargon to communicate precisely and identify oneself as a member of the
culture; overuse of jargon or a breathless, excessively gung-ho attitude
is considered tacky and the mark of a loser.

This speech style is a variety of the precisionist English normally
spoken by scientists, design engineers, and academics in technical
fields. In contrast with the methods of jargon construction, it is
fairly constant throughout hackerdom.

It has been observed that many hackers are confused by negative
questions — or, at least, that the people to whom they are talking are
often confused by the sense of their answers. The problem is that they
have done so much programming that distinguishes between

if (going) {

and

if (!going) {

that when they parse the question "Aren't you going?" it seems to be
asking the opposite question from "Are you going?", and so merits an
answer in the opposite sense. This confuses English-speaking
non-hackers because they were taught to answer as though the negative
part weren't there. In some other languages (including Russian,
Chinese, and Japanese) the hackish interpretation is standard and the
problem wouldn't arise. Hackers often find themselves wishing for a
word like French `si' or German `doch' with which one could
unambiguously answer `yes' to a negative question.

For similar reasons, English-speaking hackers almost never use double
negatives, even if they live in a region where colloquial usage allows
them. The thought of uttering something that logically ought to be an
affirmative knowing it will be misparsed as a negative tends to disturb
them.

Here's a related quirk. A non-hacker who is indelicate enough to ask
a question like "So, are you working on finding that bug *now*
or leaving it until later?" is likely to get the perfectly correct
answer "Yes!" (that is, "Yes, I'm doing it either now or later, and
you didn't ask which!").

:International Style:
=====================

Although the Jargon File remains primarily a lexicon of hacker usage in
American English, we have made some effort to get input from abroad.
Though the hacker-speak of other languages often uses translations of
jargon from English (often as transmitted to them by earlier Jargon File
versions!), the local variations are interesting, and knowledge of them
may be of some use to travelling hackers.

There are some references herein to `Commonwealth English'. These are
intended to describe some variations in hacker usage as reported in the
English spoken in Great Britain and the Commonwealth (Canada, Australia,
India, etc. — though Canada is heavily influenced by American usage).
There is also an entry on {{Commonwealth Hackish}} reporting some
general phonetic and vocabulary differences from U.S. hackish.

Hackers in Western Europe and (especially) Scandinavia are reported to
often use a mixture of English and their native languages for technical
conversation. Occasionally they develop idioms in their English usage
that are influenced by their native-language styles. Some of these are
reported here.

A few notes on hackish usages in Russian have been added where they are
parallel with English idioms and thus comprehensible to
English-speakers.

:How to Use the Lexicon:
************************

:Pronunciation Guide:
=====================

Pronunciation keys are provided in the jargon listings for all entries
that are neither dictionary words pronounced as in standard English nor
obvious compounds thereof. Slashes bracket phonetic pronunciations,
which are to be interpreted using the following conventions:

1. Syllables are hyphen-separated, except that an accent or back-accent
follows each accented syllable (the back-accent marks a secondary
accent in some words of four or more syllables).

2. Consonants are pronounced as in American English. The letter `g' is
always hard (as in "got" rather than "giant"); `ch' is soft
("church" rather than "chemist"). The letter `j' is the sound
that occurs twice in "judge". The letter `s' is always as in
"pass", never a z sound. The digraph `kh' is the guttural of
"loch" or "l'chaim".

3. Uppercase letters are pronounced as their English letter names; thus
(for example) /H-L-L/ is equivalent to /aitch el el/. /Z/ may
be pronounced /zee/ or /zed/ depending on your local dialect.

4. Vowels are represented as follows:

a
back, that
ar
far, mark
aw
flaw, caught
ay
bake, rain
e
less, men
ee
easy, ski
eir
their, software
i
trip, hit
i:
life, sky
o
father, palm
oh
flow, sew
oo
loot, through
or
more, door
ow
out, how
oy
boy, coin
uh
but, some
u
put, foot
y
yet, young
yoo
few, chew
[y]oo
/oo/ with optional fronting as in `news' (/nooz/ or /nyooz/)

A /*/ is used for the `schwa' sound of unstressed or occluded vowels
(the one that is often written with an upside-down `e'). The schwa
vowel is omitted in syllables containing vocalic r, l, m or n; that is,
`kitten' and `color' would be rendered /kit'n/ and /kuhl'r/, not
/kit'*n/ and /kuhl'*r/.

Entries with a pronunciation of `//' are written-only usages. (No, UNIX
weenies, this does *not* mean `pronounce like previous pronunciation'!)

:Other Lexicon Conventions:
===========================

Entries are sorted in case-blind ASCII collation order (rather than the
letter-by-letter order ignoring interword spacing common in mainstream
dictionaries), except that all entries beginning with nonalphabetic
characters are sorted after Z. The case-blindness is a feature, not a
bug.

The beginning of each entry is marked by a colon (`:') at the
left margin. This convention helps out tools like hypertext browsers
that benefit from knowing where entry boundaries are, but aren't as
context-sensitive as humans.

In pure ASCII renderings of the Jargon File, you will see {} used to
bracket words which themselves have entries in the File. This isn't
done all the time for every such word, but it is done everywhere that a
reminder seems useful that the term has a jargon meaning and one might
wish to refer to its entry.

In this all-ASCII version, headwords for topic entries are distinguished
from those for ordinary entries by being followed by "::" rather than
":"; similarly, references are surrounded by "{{" and "}}" rather than
"{" and "}".

Defining instances of terms and phrases appear in `slanted type'. A
defining instance is one which occurs near to or as part of an
explanation of it.

Prefix * is used as linguists do; to mark examples of incorrect usage.

We follow the `logical' quoting convention described in the Writing
Style section above. In addition, we reserve double quotes for actual
excerpts of text or (sometimes invented) speech. Scare quotes (which
mark a word being used in a nonstandard way), and philosopher's quotes
(which turn an utterance into the string of letters or words that name
it) are both rendered with single quotes.

References such as `malloc(3)' and `patch(1)' are to UNIX facilities
(some of which, such as `patch(1)', are actually freeware distributed
over USENET). The UNIX manuals use `foo(n)' to refer to item foo in
section (n) of the manual, where n=1 is utilities, n=2 is system calls,
n=3 is C library routines, n=6 is games, and n=8 (where present) is
system administration utilities. Sections 4, 5, and 7 of the manuals
have changed roles frequently and in any case are not referred to in any
of the entries.

Various abbreviations used frequently in the lexicon are summarized here:

abbrev.
abbreviation
adj.
adjective
adv.
adverb
alt.
alternate
cav.
caveat
esp.
especially
excl.
exclamation
imp.
imperative
interj.
interjection
n.
noun
obs.
obsolete
pl.
plural
poss.
possibly
pref.
prefix
prob.
probably
prov.
proverbial
quant.
quantifier
suff.
suffix
syn.
synonym (or synonymous with)
v.
verb (may be transitive or intransitive)
var.
variant
vi.
intransitive verb
vt.
transitive verb

Where alternate spellings or pronunciations are given, alt.
separates two possibilities with nearly equal distribution, while
var. prefixes one that is markedly less common than the primary.

Where a term can be attributed to a particular subculture or is known
to have originated there, we have tried to so indicate. Here is a
list of abbreviations used in etymologies:

Berkeley
University of California at Berkeley
Cambridge
the university in England (*not* the city in Massachusetts where
MIT happens to be located!)
BBN
Bolt, Beranek & Newman
CMU
Carnegie-Mellon University
Commodore
Commodore Business Machines
DEC
The Digital Equipment Corporation
Fairchild
The Fairchild Instruments Palo Alto development group
Fidonet
See the {Fidonet} entry
IBM
International Business Machines
MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology; esp. the legendary MIT AI Lab
culture of roughly 1971 to 1983 and its feeder groups, including the
Tech Model Railroad Club
NRL
Naval Research Laboratories
NYU
New York University
OED
The Oxford English Dictionary
Purdue
Purdue University
SAIL
Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (at Stanford
University)
SI
From Syst`eme International, the name for the standard
conventions of metric nomenclature used in the sciences
Stanford
Stanford University
Sun
Sun Microsystems
TMRC
Some MITisms go back as far as the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) at
MIT c. 1960. Material marked TMRC is from `An Abridged Dictionary
of the TMRC Language', originally compiled by Pete Samson in 1959
UCLA
University of California at Los Angeles
UK
the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland)
USENET
See the {USENET} entry
WPI
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, site of a very active community of
PDP-10 hackers during the 1970s
XEROX PARC
XEROX's Palo Alto Research Center, site of much pioneering research in
user interface design and networking
Yale
Yale University

Some other etymology abbreviations such as {UNIX} and {PDP-10}
refer to technical cultures surrounding specific operating systems,
processors, or other environments. The fact that a term is labelled
with any one of these abbreviations does not necessarily mean its use
is confined to that culture. In particular, many terms labelled `MIT'
and `Stanford' are in quite general use. We have tried to give some
indication of the distribution of speakers in the usage notes;
however, a number of factors mentioned in the introduction conspire to
make these indications less definite than might be desirable.

A few new definitions attached to entries are marked [proposed].
These are usually generalizations suggested by editors or USENET
respondents in the process of commenting on previous definitions of
those entries. These are *not* represented as established
jargon.

:Format For New Entries:
========================

All contributions and suggestions about the Jargon File will be
considered donations to be placed in the public domain as part of this
File, and may be used in subsequent paper editions. Submissions may
be edited for accuracy, clarity and concision.

Try to conform to the format already being used — head-words
separated from text by a colon (double colon for topic entries),
cross-references in curly brackets (doubled for topic entries),
pronunciations in slashes, etymologies in square brackets,
single-space after definition numbers and word classes, etc. Stick to
the standard ASCII character set (7-bit printable, no high-half
characters or [nt]roff/TeX/Scribe escapes), as one of the versions
generated from the master file is an info document that has to be
viewable on a character tty.

We are looking to expand the file's range of technical specialties covered.
There are doubtless rich veins of jargon yet untapped in the scientific
computing, graphics, and networking hacker communities; also in numerical
analysis, computer architectures and VLSI design, language design, and many
other related fields. Send us your jargon!

We are *not* interested in straight technical terms explained by
textbooks or technical dictionaries unless an entry illuminates
`underground' meanings or aspects not covered by official histories.
We are also not interested in `joke' entries — there is a lot of
humor in the file but it must flow naturally out of the explanations
of what hackers do and how they think.

It is OK to submit items of jargon you have originated if they have spread
to the point of being used by people who are not personally acquainted with
you. We prefer items to be attested by independent submission from two
different sites.

The Jargon File will be regularly maintained and re-posted from now on
and will include a version number. Read it, pass it around,
contribute — this is *your* monument!

The Jargon Lexicon
******************

= A =
=====

:abbrev: /*-breev'/, /*-brev'/ n. Common abbreviation for
`abbreviation'.

:ABEND: [ABnormal END] /ah'bend/, /*-bend'/ n. Abnormal
termination (of software); {crash}; {lossage}. Derives from an
error message on the IBM 360; used jokingly by hackers but
seriously mainly by {code grinder}s. Usually capitalized, but may
appear as `abend'. Hackers will try to persuade you that ABEND is
called `abend' because it is what system operators do to the
machine late on Friday when they want to call it a day, and hence
is from the German `Abend' = `Evening'.

:accumulator: n. 1. Archaic term for a register. On-line use of it
as a synonym for `register' is a fairly reliable indication that
the user has been around for quite a while and/or that the
architecture under discussion is quite old. The term in full is
almost never used of microprocessor registers, for example, though
symbolic names for arithmetic registers beginning in `A' derive
from historical use of the term `accumulator' (and not, actually,
from `arithmetic'). Confusingly, though, an `A' register name
prefix may also stand for `address', as for example on the
Motorola 680×0 family. 2. A register being used for arithmetic or
logic (as opposed to addressing or a loop index), especially one
being used to accumulate a sum or count of many items. This use is
in context of a particular routine or stretch of code. "The
FOOBAZ routine uses A3 as an accumulator." 3. One's in-basket
(esp. among old-timers who might use sense 1). "You want this
reviewed? Sure, just put it in the accumulator." (See {stack}.)

:ACK: /ak/ interj. 1. [from the ASCII mnemonic for 0000110]
Acknowledge. Used to register one's presence (compare mainstream
*Yo!*). An appropriate response to {ping} or {ENQ}.
2. [from the comic strip "Bloom County"] An exclamation of
surprised disgust, esp. in "Ack pffft!" Semi-humorous.
Generally this sense is not spelled in caps (ACK) and is
distinguished by a following exclamation point. 3. Used to
politely interrupt someone to tell them you understand their point
(see {NAK}). Thus, for example, you might cut off an overly
long explanation with "Ack. Ack. Ack. I get it now".

There is also a usage "ACK?" (from sense 1) meaning "Are you
there?", often used in email when earlier mail has produced no
reply, or during a lull in {talk mode} to see if the person has
gone away (the standard humorous response is of course {NAK}
(sense 2), i.e., "I'm not here").

:ad-hockery: /ad-hok'*r-ee/ [Purdue] n. 1. Gratuitous assumptions
made inside certain programs, esp. expert systems, which lead to
the appearance of semi-intelligent behavior but are in fact
entirely arbitrary. For example, fuzzy-matching input tokens that
might be typing errors against a symbol table can make it look as
though a program knows how to spell. 2. Special-case code to cope
with some awkward input that would otherwise cause a program to
{choke}, presuming normal inputs are dealt with in some cleaner
and more regular way. Also called `ad-hackery', `ad-hocity'
(/ad-hos'*-tee/), `ad-crockery'. See also {ELIZA effect}.

:Ada:: n. A {{Pascal}}-descended language that has been made
mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the
Pentagon. Hackers are nearly unanimous in observing that,
technically, it is precisely what one might expect given that kind
of endorsement by fiat; designed by committee, crockish, difficult
to use, and overall a disastrous, multi-billion-dollar boondoggle
(one common description is "The PL/I of the 1980s"). Hackers
find Ada's exception-handling and inter-process communication
features particularly hilarious. Ada Lovelace (the daughter of
Lord Byron who became the world's first programmer while
cooperating with Charles Babbage on the design of his mechanical
computing engines in the mid-1800s) would almost certainly blanch
at the use to which her name has latterly been put; the kindest
thing that has been said about it is that there is probably a good
small language screaming to get out from inside its vast,
{elephantine} bulk.

:adger: /aj'r/ [UCLA] vt. To make a bonehead move with consequences
that could have been foreseen with a slight amount of mental
effort. E.g., "He started removing files and promptly adgered the
whole project". Compare {dumbass attack}.

:admin: /ad-min'/ n. Short for `administrator'; very commonly
used in speech or on-line to refer to the systems person in charge
on a computer. Common constructions on this include `sysadmin'
and `site admin' (emphasizing the administrator's role as a site
contact for email and news) or `newsadmin' (focusing specifically
on news). Compare {postmaster}, {sysop}, {system
mangler}.

:ADVENT: /ad'vent/ n. The prototypical computer adventure game, first
implemented on the {PDP-10} by Will Crowther as an attempt at
computer-refereed fantasy gaming, and expanded into a
puzzle-oriented game by Don Woods. Now better known as Adventure,
but the {{TOPS-10}} operating system permitted only 6-letter
filenames. See also {vadding}.

This game defined the terse, dryly humorous style now expected in
text adventure games, and popularized several tag lines that have
become fixtures of hacker-speak: "A huge green fierce snake bars
the way!" "I see no X here" (for some noun X). "You are in a
maze of twisty little passages, all alike." "You are in a little
maze of twisty passages, all different." The `magic words'
{xyzzy} and {plugh} also derive from this game.

Crowther, by the way, participated in the exploration of the
Mammoth & Flint Ridge cave system; it actually *has* a
`Colossal Cave' and a `Bedquilt' as in the game, and the `Y2' that
also turns up is cavers' jargon for a map reference to a secondary
entrance.

:AFJ: n. Written-only abbreviation for "April Fool's Joke".
Elaborate April Fool's hoaxes are a hallowed tradition on USENET
and Internet; see {kremvax} for an example. In fact, April
Fool's Day is the *only* seasonal holiday marked by customary
observances on the hacker networks.

:AI-complete: /A-I k*m-pleet'/ [MIT, Stanford: by analogy with
`NP-complete' (see {NP-})] adj. Used to describe problems or
subproblems in AI, to indicate that the solution presupposes a
solution to the `strong AI problem' (that is, the synthesis of a
human-level intelligence). A problem that is AI-complete is, in
other words, just too hard.

Examples of AI-complete problems are `The Vision Problem'
(building a system that can see as well as a human) and `The
Natural Language Problem' (building a system that can understand
and speak a natural language as well as a human). These may appear
to be modular, but all attempts so far (1991) to solve them have
foundered on the amount of context information and `intelligence'
they seem to require. See also {gedanken}.

:AI koans: /A-I koh'anz/ pl.n. A series of pastiches of Zen
teaching riddles created by Danny Hillis at the MIT AI Lab around
various major figures of the Lab's culture (several are included
under "{A Selection of AI Koans}" in {appendix
A}). See also {ha ha only serious}, {mu}, and {{Humor,
Hacker}}.

:AIDS: /aydz/ n. Short for A* Infected Disk Syndrome (`A*' is a
{glob} pattern that matches, but is not limited to, Apple),
this condition is quite often the result of practicing unsafe
{SEX}. See {virus}, {worm}, {Trojan horse},
{virgin}.

:AIDX: n. /aydkz/ n. Derogatory term for IBM's perverted version
of UNIX, AIX, especially for the AIX 3.? used in the IBM RS/6000
series. A victim of the dreaded "hybridism" disease, this
attempt to combine the two main currents of the UNIX stream
({BSD} and {USG UNIX}) became a {monstrosity} to haunt
system administrators' dreams. For example, if new accounts are
created while many users are logged on, the load average jumps
quickly over 20 due to silly implementation of the user databases.
For a quite similar disease, compare {HP-SUX}. Also, compare
{terminak}, {Macintrash} {Nominal Semidestructor},
{Open DeathTrap}, {ScumOS}, {sun-stools}.

:airplane rule: n. "Complexity increases the possibility of
failure; a twin-engine airplane has twice as many engine problems
as a single-engine airplane." By analogy, in both software and
electronics, the rule that simplicity increases robustness (see
also {KISS Principle}). It is correspondingly argued that the
right way to build reliable systems is to put all your eggs in one
basket, after making sure that you've built a really *good*
basket.

:aliasing bug: n. A class of subtle programming errors that can
arise in code that does dynamic allocation, esp. via
`malloc(3)' or equivalent. If more than one pointer addresses
(`aliases for') a given hunk of storage, it may happen that the
storage is freed or reallocated (and thus moved) through one alias
and then referenced through another, which may lead to subtle (and
possibly intermittent) lossage depending on the state and the
allocation history of the malloc {arena}. Avoidable by use of
allocation strategies that never alias allocated core. Also
avoidable by use of higher-level languages, such as {LISP},
which employ a garbage collector (see {GC}). Also called a
{stale pointer bug}. See also {precedence lossage},
{smash the stack}, {fandango on core}, {memory leak},
{memory smash}, {overrun screw}, {spam}.

Historical note: Though this term is nowadays associated with
C programming, it was already in use in a very similar sense in the
Algol-60 and FORTRAN communities in the 1960s.

:all-elbows: adj. Of a TSR (terminate-and-stay-resident) IBM PC
program, such as the N pop-up calendar and calculator utilities
that circulate on {BBS} systems: unsociable. Used to describe a
program that rudely steals the resources that it needs without
considering that other TSRs may also be resident. One particularly
common form of rudeness is lock-up due to programs fighting over
the keyboard interrupt. See {rude}, also {mess-dos}.

:alpha particles: n. See {bit rot}.

:alt: /awlt/ 1. n. The alt shift key on an IBM PC or {clone}.
2. n. The `clover' or `Command' key on a Macintosh; use of this
term usually reveals that the speaker hacked PCs before coming to
the Mac (see also {feature key}). Some Mac hackers,
confusingly, reserve `alt' for the Option key. 3. n.obs. [PDP-10;
often capitalized to ALT] Alternate name for the ASCII
ESC character (ASCII 0011011), after the keycap labeling on some
older terminals. Also `altmode' (/awlt'mohd/). This character
was almost never pronounced `escape' on an ITS system, in
{TECO}, or under TOPS-10 — always alt, as in "Type alt alt to
end a TECO command" or "alt-U onto the system" (for "log onto
the [ITS] system"). This was probably because alt is more
convenient to say than `escape', especially when followed by
another alt or a character (or another alt *and* a character,
for that matter).

:alt bit: /awlt bit/ [from alternate] adj. See {meta bit}.

:altmode: n. Syn. {alt} sense 3.

:Aluminum Book: [MIT] n. `Common LISP: The Language', by
Guy L. Steele Jr. (Digital Press, first edition 1984, second
edition 1990). Note that due to a technical screwup some printings
of the second edition are actually of a color the author describes
succinctly as "yucky green". See also {{book titles}}.

:amoeba: n. Humorous term for the Commodore Amiga personal computer.

:amp off: [Purdue] vt. To run in {background}. From the UNIX shell `&'
operator.

:amper: n. Common abbreviation for the name of the ampersand (`&',
ASCII 0100110) character. See {{ASCII}} for other synonyms.

:angle brackets: n. Either of the characters `<' (ASCII
0111100) and `>' (ASCII 0111110) (ASCII less-than or
greater-than signs). The {Real World} angle brackets used by
typographers are actually taller than a less-than or greater-than
sign.
See {broket}, {{ASCII}}.

:angry fruit salad: n. A bad visual-interface design that uses too
many colors. This derives, of course, from the bizarre day-glo
colors found in canned fruit salad. Too often one sees similar
effects from interface designers using color window systems such as
{X}; there is a tendency to create displays that are flashy and
attention-getting but uncomfortable for long-term use.

:annoybot: /*-noy-bot/ [IRC] n. See {robot}.

:AOS: 1. /aws/ (East Coast), /ay-os/ (West Coast) [based on a
PDP-10 increment instruction] vt.,obs. To increase the amount of
something. "AOS the campfire." Usage: considered silly, and now
obsolete. Now largely supplanted by {bump}. See {SOS}. 2. A
{{Multics}}-derived OS supported at one time by Data General. This
was pronounced /A-O-S/ or /A-os/. A spoof of the standard
AOS system administrator's manual (`How to Load and Generate
your AOS System') was created, issued a part number, and circulated
as photocopy folklore. It was called `How to Goad and
Levitate your CHAOS System'. 3. Algebraic Operating System, in
reference to those calculators which use infix instead of postfix
(reverse Polish) notation.

Historical note: AOS in sense 1 was the name of a {PDP-10}
instruction that took any memory location in the computer and added
1 to it; AOS meant `Add One and do not Skip'. Why, you may ask,
does the `S' stand for `do not Skip' rather than for `Skip'? Ah,
here was a beloved piece of PDP-10 folklore. There were eight such
instructions: AOSE added 1 and then skipped the next instruction
if the result was Equal to zero; AOSG added 1 and then skipped if
the result was Greater than 0; AOSN added 1 and then skipped
if the result was Not 0; AOSA added 1 and then skipped Always;
and so on. Just plain AOS didn't say when to skip, so it never
skipped.

For similar reasons, AOJ meant `Add One and do not Jump'. Even
more bizarre, SKIP meant `do not SKIP'! If you wanted to skip the
next instruction, you had to say `SKIPA'. Likewise, JUMP meant
`do not JUMP'; the unconditional form was JUMPA. However, hackers
never did this. By some quirk of the 10's design, the {JRST}
(Jump and ReSTore flag with no flag specified) was actually faster
and so was invariably used. Such were the perverse mysteries of
assembler programming.

:app: /ap/ n. Short for `application program', as opposed to a
systems program. What systems vendors are forever chasing
developers to create for their environments so they can sell more
boxes. Hackers tend not to think of the things they themselves run
as apps; thus, in hacker parlance the term excludes compilers,
program editors, games, and messaging systems, though a user would
consider all those to be apps. Oppose {tool}, {operating
system}.

:arc: [primarily MSDOS] vt. To create a compressed {archive} from a
group of files using SEA ARC, PKWare PKARC, or a compatible
program. Rapidly becoming obsolete as the ARC compression method
is falling into disuse, having been replaced by newer compression
techniques. See {tar and feather}, {zip}.

:arc wars: [primarily MSDOS] n. {holy wars} over which archiving
program one should use. The first arc war was sparked when System
Enhancement Associates (SEA) sued PKWare for copyright and
trademark infringement on its ARC program. PKWare's PKARC
outperformed ARC on both compression and speed while largely
retaining compatibility (it introduced a new compression type that
could be disabled for backward-compatibility). PKWare settled out
of court to avoid enormous legal costs (both SEA and PKWare are
small companies); as part of the settlement, the name of PKARC was
changed to PKPAK. The public backlash against SEA for bringing
suit helped to hasten the demise of ARC as a standard when PKWare
and others introduced new, incompatible archivers with better
compression algorithms.

:archive: n. 1. A collection of several files bundled into one file
by a program such as `ar(1)', `tar(1)', `cpio(1)',
or {arc} for shipment or archiving (sense 2). See also {tar
and feather}. 2. A collection of files or archives (sense 1) made
available from an `archive site' via {FTP} or an email server.

:arena: [UNIX] n. The area of memory attached to a process by
`brk(2)' and `sbrk(2)' and used by `malloc(3)' as
dynamic storage. So named from a semi-mythical `malloc:
corrupt arena' message supposedly emitted when some early versions
became terminally confused. See {overrun screw}, {aliasing
bug}, {memory leak}, {memory smash}, {smash the stack}.

:arg: /arg/ n. Abbreviation for `argument' (to a function),
used so often as to have become a new word (like `piano' from
`pianoforte'). "The sine function takes 1 arg, but the
arc-tangent function can take either 1 or 2 args." Compare
{param}, {parm}, {var}.

:armor-plated: n. Syn. for {bulletproof}.

:asbestos: adj. Used as a modifier to anything intended to protect
one from {flame}s. Important cases of this include {asbestos
longjohns} and {asbestos cork award}, but it is used more
generally.

:asbestos cork award: n. Once, long ago at MIT, there was a {flamer}
so consistently obnoxious that another hacker designed, had made,
and distributed posters announcing that said flamer had been
nominated for the `asbestos cork award'. Persons in any doubt as
to the intended application of the cork should consult the
etymology under {flame}. Since then, it is agreed that only a
select few have risen to the heights of bombast required to earn
this dubious dignity — but there is no agreement on *which*
few.

:asbestos longjohns: n. Notional garments often donned by {USENET}
posters just before emitting a remark they expect will elicit
{flamage}. This is the most common of the {asbestos} coinages.
Also `asbestos underwear', `asbestos overcoat', etc.

:ASCII:: [American Standard Code for Information Interchange]
/as'kee/ n. The predominant character set encoding of present-day
computers. Uses 7 bits for each character, whereas most earlier
codes (including an early version of ASCII) used fewer. This
change allowed the inclusion of lowercase letters — a major
{win} — but it did not provide for accented letters or any
other letterforms not used in English (such as the German sharp-S
and the ae-ligature
which is a letter in, for example, Norwegian). It could be worse,
though. It could be much worse. See {{EBCDIC}} to understand how.

Computers are much pickier and less flexible about spelling than
humans; thus, hackers need to be very precise when talking about
characters, and have developed a considerable amount of verbal
shorthand for them. Every character has one or more names — some
formal, some concise, some silly. Common jargon names for ASCII
characters are collected here. See also individual entries for
{bang}, {excl}, {open}, {ques}, {semi}, {shriek},
{splat}, {twiddle}, and {Yu-Shiang Whole Fish}.

This list derives from revision 2.3 of the USENET ASCII
pronunciation guide. Single characters are listed in ASCII order;
character pairs are sorted in by first member. For each character,
common names are given in rough order of popularity, followed by
names that are reported but rarely seen; official ANSI/CCITT names
are surrounded by brokets: <>. Square brackets mark the
particularly silly names introduced by {INTERCAL}. Ordinary
parentheticals provide some usage information.

!
Common: {bang}; pling; excl; shriek; <exclamation mark>.
Rare: factorial; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow; hey;
wham; eureka; [spark-spot]; soldier.

"
Common: double quote; quote. Rare: literal mark;
double-glitch; <quotation marks>; <dieresis>; dirk;
[rabbit-ears]; double prime.

#
Common: <number sign>; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp;
{crunch}; hex; [mesh]; octothorpe. Rare: flash; crosshatch;
grid; pig-pen; tictactoe; scratchmark; thud; thump; {splat}.

$
Common: dollar; <dollar sign>. Rare: currency symbol; buck;
cash; string (from BASIC); escape (when used as the echo of
ASCII ESC); ding; cache; [big money].

%
Common: percent; <percent sign>; mod; grapes. Rare:
[double-oh-seven].

&
Common: <ampersand>; amper; and. Rare: address (from C);
reference (from C++); andpersand; bitand; background (from
`sh(1)'); pretzel; amp. [INTERCAL called this `ampersand';
what could be sillier?]

'
Common: single quote; quote; <apostrophe>. Rare: prime;
glitch; tick; irk; pop; [spark]; <closing single quotation
mark>; <acute accent>.

()
Common: left/right paren; left/right parenthesis; left/right;
paren/thesis; open/close paren; open/close; open/close
parenthesis; left/right banana. Rare: so/al-ready;
lparen/rparen; <opening/closing parenthesis>; open/close round
bracket, parenthisey/unparenthisey; [wax/wane]; left/right
ear.

*
Common: star; [{splat}]; <asterisk>. Rare: wildcard; gear;
dingle; mult; spider; aster; times; twinkle; glob (see
{glob}); {Nathan Hale}.

+
Common: <plus>; add. Rare: cross; [intersection].

,
Common: <comma>. Rare: <cedilla>; [tail].

–
Common: dash; <hyphen>; <minus>. Rare: [worm]; option; dak;
bithorpe.

.
Common: dot; point; <period>; <decimal point>. Rare: radix
point; full stop; [spot].

/
Common: slash; stroke; <slant>; forward slash. Rare:
diagonal; solidus; over; slak; virgule; [slat].

:
Common: <colon>. Rare: dots; [two-spot].

;
Common: <semicolon>; semi. Rare: weenie; [hybrid],
pit-thwong.

<>
Common: <less/greater than>; left/right angle bracket;
bra/ket; left/right broket. Rare: from/{into, towards}; read
from/write to; suck/blow; comes-from/gozinta; in/out;
crunch/zap (all from UNIX); [angle/right angle].

=
Common: <equals>; gets; takes. Rare: quadrathorpe;
[half-mesh].

?
Common: query; <question mark>; {ques}. Rare: whatmark;
[what]; wildchar; huh; hook; buttonhook; hunchback.

@
Common: at sign; at; strudel. Rare: each; vortex; whorl;
[whirlpool]; cyclone; snail; ape; cat; rose; cabbage;
<commercial at>.

V
Rare: [book].

[]
Common: left/right square bracket; <opening/closing bracket>;
bracket/unbracket; left/right bracket. Rare: square/unsquare;
[U turn/U turn back].

Common: backslash; escape (from C/UNIX); reverse slash; slosh;
backslant; backwhack. Rare: bash; <reverse slant>; reversed
virgule; [backslat].

^
Common: hat; control; uparrow; caret; <circumflex>. Rare:
chevron; [shark (or shark-fin)]; to the (`to the power of');
fang; pointer (in Pascal).

_
Common: <underline>; underscore; underbar; under. Rare:
score; backarrow; skid; [flatworm].

`
Common: backquote; left quote; left single quote; open quote;
<grave accent>; grave. Rare: backprime; [backspark];
unapostrophe; birk; blugle; back tick; back glitch; push;
<opening single quotation mark>; quasiquote.

{}
Common: open/close brace; left/right brace; left/right
squiggly; left/right squiggly bracket/brace; left/right curly
bracket/brace; <opening/closing brace>. Rare: brace/unbrace;
curly/uncurly; leftit/rytit; left/right squirrelly;
[embrace/bracelet].

|
Common: bar; or; or-bar; v-bar; pipe; vertical bar. Rare:
<vertical line>; gozinta; thru; pipesinta (last three from
UNIX); [spike].

~
Common: <tilde>; squiggle; {twiddle}; not. Rare: approx;
wiggle; swung dash; enyay; [sqiggle (sic)].

The pronunciation of `#' as `pound' is common in the U.S.
but a bad idea; {{Commonwealth Hackish}} has its own, rather more
apposite use of `pound sign' (confusingly, on British keyboards
the pound graphic
happens to replace `#'; thus Britishers sometimes
call `#' on a U.S.-ASCII keyboard `pound', compounding the
American error). The U.S. usage derives from an old-fashioned
commercial practice of using a `#' suffix to tag pound weights
on bills of lading. The character is usually pronounced `hash'
outside the U.S.

The `uparrow' name for circumflex and `leftarrow' name for
underline are historical relics from archaic ASCII (the 1963
version), which had these graphics in those character positions
rather than the modern punctuation characters.

The `swung dash' or `approximation' sign is not quite the same
as tilde in typeset material
but the ASCII tilde serves for both (compare {angle
brackets}).

Some other common usages cause odd overlaps. The `#',
`$', `>', and `&' characters, for example, are all
pronounced "hex" in different communities because various
assemblers use them as a prefix tag for hexadecimal constants (in
particular, `#' in many assembler-programming cultures,
`$' in the 6502 world, `>' at Texas Instruments, and
`&' on the BBC Micro, Sinclair, and some Z80 machines). See
also {splat}.

The inability of ASCII text to correctly represent any of the
world's other major languages makes the designers' choice of 7 bits
look more and more like a serious {misfeature} as the use of
international networks continues to increase (see {software
rot}). Hardware and software from the U.S. still tends to embody
the assumption that ASCII is the universal character set; this is a
a major irritant to people who want to use a character set suited
to their own languages. Perversely, though, efforts to solve this
problem by proliferating `national' character sets produce an
evolutionary pressure to use a *smaller* subset common to all
those in use.

:ASCII art: n. The fine art of drawing diagrams using the ASCII
character set (mainly `|', `-', `/', `', and
`+'). Also known as `character graphics' or `ASCII
graphics'; see also {boxology}. Here is a serious example:

o—-)||(–+–|<—-+ +———o + D O
L )||( | | | C U
A I )||( +–>|-+ | +-//-+–o – T
C N )||( | | | | P
E )||( +–>|-+–)—+–)|–+-o U
)||( | | | GND T
o—-)||(–+–|<—-+———-+

A power supply consisting of a full
wave rectifier circuit feeding a
capacitor input filter circuit

Figure 1.

And here are some very silly examples:

|///| ____/| ___ |_/| ___
| | o.O| ACK! / _ |` '| _/
| | =(_)= THPHTH! / / /
| (o)(o) U /
C _) (__) /// _____ ////
| ,___| (oo) / /
| / /——- U (__)
/____ || | /—V `v'- oo )
/ ||—W|| * * |–| || |`. |_/

Figure 2.

There is an important subgenre of humorous ASCII art that takes
advantage of the names of the various characters to tell a
pun-based joke.

+——————————————————–+
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^ B ^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
+——————————————————–+
" A Bee in the Carrot Patch "

Figure 3.

Within humorous ASCII art, there is for some reason an entire
flourishing subgenre of pictures of silly cows. Four of these are
reproduced in Figure 2; here are three more:

(__) (__) (__)
(/) ($$) (**)
/——-/ /——-/ /——-/
/ | 666 || / |=====|| / | ||
* ||—-|| * ||—-|| * ||—-||
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
Satanic cow This cow is a Yuppie Cow in love

Figure 4.

:attoparsec: n. `atto-' is the standard SI prefix for
multiplication by 10^(-18). A parsec (parallax-second) is
3.26 light-years; an attoparsec is thus 3.26 * 10^(-18) light
years, or about 3.1 cm (thus, 1 attoparsec/{microfortnight}
equals about 1 inch/sec). This unit is reported to be in use
(though probably not very seriously) among hackers in the U.K. See
{micro-}.

:autobogotiphobia: /aw'to-boh-got`*-foh'bee-*/ n. See {bogotify}.

:automagically: /aw-toh-maj'i-klee/ or /aw-toh-maj'i-k*l-ee/ adv.
Automatically, but in a way that, for some reason (typically
because it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too
trivial), the speaker doesn't feel like explaining to you. See
{magic}. "The C-INTERCAL compiler generates C, then automagically
invokes `cc(1)' to produce an executable."

:avatar: [CMU, Tektronix] n. Syn. {root}, {superuser}. There
are quite a few UNIX machines on which the name of the superuser
account is `avatar' rather than `root'. This quirk was
originated by a CMU hacker who disliked the term `superuser',
and was propagated through an ex-CMU hacker at Tektronix.

:awk: 1. n. [UNIX techspeak] An interpreted language for massaging
text data developed by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian
Kernighan (the name is from their initials). It is characterized
by C-like syntax, a declaration-free approach to variable typing
and declarations, associative arrays, and field-oriented text
processing. See also {Perl}. 2. n. Editing term for an
expression awkward to manipulate through normal {regexp}
facilities (for example, one containing a {newline}). 3. vt. To
process data using `awk(1)'.

= B =
=====

:back door: n. A hole in the security of a system deliberately left
in place by designers or maintainers. The motivation for this is
not always sinister; some operating systems, for example, come out
of the box with privileged accounts intended for use by field
service technicians or the vendor's maintenance programmers.

Historically, back doors have often lurked in systems longer than
anyone expected or planned, and a few have become widely known.
The infamous {RTM} worm of late 1988, for example, used a back door
in the {BSD} UNIX `sendmail(8)' utility.

Ken Thompson's 1983 Turing Award lecture to the ACM revealed the
existence of a back door in early UNIX versions that may have
qualified as the most fiendishly clever security hack of all time.
The C compiler contained code that would recognize when the
`login' command was being recompiled and insert some code
recognizing a password chosen by Thompson, giving him entry to the
system whether or not an account had been created for him.

Normally such a back door could be removed by removing it from the
source code for the compiler and recompiling the compiler. But to
recompile the compiler, you have to *use* the compiler — so
Thompson also arranged that the compiler would *recognize when
it was compiling a version of itself*, and insert into the
recompiled compiler the code to insert into the recompiled `login'
the code to allow Thompson entry — and, of course, the code to
recognize itself and do the whole thing again the next time around!
And having done this once, he was then able to recompile the
compiler from the original sources, leaving his back door in place
and active but with no trace in the sources.

The talk that revealed this truly moby hack was published as
"Reflections on Trusting Trust", `Communications of the
ACM 27', 8 (August 1984), pp. 761–763.

Syn. {trap door}; may also be called a `wormhole'. See also
{iron box}, {cracker}, {worm}, {logic bomb}.

:backbone cabal: n. A group of large-site administrators who pushed
through the {Great Renaming} and reined in the chaos of {USENET}
during most of the 1980s. The cabal {mailing list} disbanded in
late 1988 after a bitter internal catfight, but the net hardly
noticed.

:backbone site: n. A key USENET and email site; one that processes
a large amount of third-party traffic, especially if it is the home
site of any of the regional coordinators for the USENET maps.
Notable backbone sites as of early 1991 include uunet and the
mail machines at Rutgers University, UC Berkeley, DEC's Western
Research Laboratories, Ohio State University, and the University of
Texas. Compare {rib site}, {leaf site}.

:backgammon:: See {bignum}, {moby}, and {pseudoprime}.

:background: n.,adj.,vt. To do a task `in background' is to do
it whenever {foreground} matters are not claiming your undivided
attention, and `to background' something means to relegate it to
a lower priority. "For now, we'll just print a list of nodes and
links; I'm working on the graph-printing problem in background."
Note that this implies ongoing activity but at a reduced level or
in spare time, in contrast to mainstream `back burner' (which
connotes benign neglect until some future resumption of activity).
Some people prefer to use the term for processing that they have
queued up for their unconscious minds (a tack that one can often
fruitfully take upon encountering an obstacle in creative work).
Compare {amp off}, {slopsucker}.

Technically, a task running in background is detached from the
terminal where it was started (and often running at a lower
priority); oppose {foreground}. Nowadays this term is primarily
associated with {{UNIX}}, but it appears to have been first used
in this sense on OS/360.

:backspace and overstrike: interj. Whoa! Back up. Used to suggest
that someone just said or did something wrong. Common among
APL programmers.

:backward combatability: /bak'w*rd k*m-bat'*-bil'*-tee/ [from
`backward compatibility'] n. A property of hardware or software
revisions in which previous protocols, formats, and layouts are
discarded in favor of `new and improved' protocols, formats, and
layouts. Occurs usually when making the transition between major
releases. When the change is so drastic that the old formats are
not retained in the new version, it is said to be `backward
combatable'. See {flag day}.

:BAD: /B-A-D/ [IBM: acronym, `Broken As Designed'] adj. Said
of a program that is {bogus} because of bad design and misfeatures
rather than because of bugginess. See {working as designed}.

:Bad Thing: [from the 1930 Sellar & Yeatman parody `1066 And
All That'] n. Something that can't possibly result in improvement
of the subject. This term is always capitalized, as in "Replacing
all of the 9600-baud modems with bicycle couriers would be a Bad
Thing". Oppose {Good Thing}. British correspondents confirm
that {Bad Thing} and {Good Thing} (and prob. therefore {Right
Thing} and {Wrong Thing}) come from the book referenced in the
etymology, which discusses rulers who were Good Kings but Bad
Things. This has apparently created a mainstream idiom on the
British side of the pond.

:bag on the side: n. An extension to an established hack that is
supposed to add some functionality to the original. Usually
derogatory, implying that the original was being overextended and
should have been thrown away, and the new product is ugly,
inelegant, or bloated. Also v. phrase, `to hang a bag on the side
[of]'. "C++? That's just a bag on the side of C …."
"They want me to hang a bag on the side of the accounting
system."

:bagbiter: /bag'bi:t-*r/ n. 1. Something, such as a program or a
computer, that fails to work, or works in a remarkably clumsy
manner. "This text editor won't let me make a file with a line
longer than 80 characters! What a bagbiter!" 2. A person who has
caused you some trouble, inadvertently or otherwise, typically by
failing to program the computer properly. Synonyms: {loser},
{cretin}, {chomper}. 3. adj. `bagbiting' Having the
quality of a bagbiter. "This bagbiting system won't let me
compute the factorial of a negative number." Compare {losing},
{cretinous}, {bletcherous}, `barfucious' (under
{barfulous}) and `chomping' (under {chomp}). 4. `bite
the bag' vi. To fail in some manner. "The computer keeps crashing
every 5 minutes." "Yes, the disk controller is really biting the
bag." The original loading of these terms was almost undoubtedly
obscene, possibly referring to the scrotum, but in their current
usage they have become almost completely sanitized.

A program called Lexiphage on the old MIT AI PDP-10 would draw on
a selected victim's bitmapped terminal the words "THE BAG" in
ornate letters, and then a pair of jaws biting pieces of it off.
This is the first and to date only known example of a program
*intended* to be a bagbiter.

:bamf: /bamf/ 1. [from old X-Men comics] interj. Notional sound
made by a person or object teleporting in or out of the hearer's
vicinity. Often used in {virtual reality} (esp. {MUD})
electronic {fora} when a character wishes to make a dramatic
entrance or exit. 2. The sound of magical transformation, used in
virtual reality {fora} like sense 1. 3. [from `Don
Washington's Survival Guide'] n. Acronym for `Bad-Ass Mother
Fucker', used to refer to one of the handful of nastiest monsters
on an LPMUD or other similar MUD.

:banana label: n. The labels often used on the sides of {macrotape}
reels, so called because they are shaped roughly like blunt-ended
bananas. This term, like macrotapes themselves, is still current
but visibly headed for obsolescence.

:banana problem: n. [from the story of the little girl who said "I
know how to spell `banana', but I don't know when to stop"]. Not
knowing where or when to bring a production to a close (compare
{fencepost error}). One may say `there is a banana problem' of an
algorithm with poorly defined or incorrect termination conditions,
or in discussing the evolution of a design that may be succumbing
to featuritis (see also {creeping elegance}, {creeping
featuritis}). See item 176 under {HAKMEM}, which describes a
banana problem in a {Dissociated Press} implementation. Also,
see {one-banana problem} for a superficially similar but
unrelated usage.

:bandwidth: n. 1. Used by hackers in a generalization of its
technical meaning as the volume of information per unit time that a
computer, person, or transmission medium can handle. "Those are
amazing graphics, but I missed some of the detail — not enough
bandwidth, I guess." Compare {low-bandwidth}. 2. Attention
span. 3. On {USENET}, a measure of network capacity that is
often wasted by people complaining about how items posted by others
are a waste of bandwidth.