Posts tagged ‘poetics’

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A book in which ‘commonplaces’ or passages important for reference were collected, usually under general heads; hence, a book in which one records passages or matters to be especially remembered or referred to, with or without arrangement.

1578 COOPER: A studious young man..may gather to himselfe good furniture both of words and approved phrases and to make to his use as it were a common place booke.

1642 FULLER: A Common-place-book contains many notions in garrison, whence the owner may draw out an army into the field.

1668 HALE: I have commended the making and using of a Commonplace Book, as the best expedient that I know, for the orderly and profitable study of the Law.

1794 GIBBON: I filled a folio commonplace-book with my collections and remarks on the geography of Italy.

1837-9 HALLAM: They registered all his table-talk in commonplace-books alphabetically arranged.

"A suffering God: an afflicted God: a self-mortifying God: a self-chastizing God: a self-punishing God (i.e., causing defects & pains in a world which is a manifestation of himself).--1901. Feb."

". . . this happy-go-lucky nation, which goes blundering along with its Reconstruction tragedies, its Spanish war interludes and Philippine matinees, just as though God really were dead."

"Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are."

BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Aetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.

All contents © 2009-2012 Mark Richardson (except, of course, texts by others, literary or otherwise, quoted herein). I heartily encourage free and fair online use. But please ask permission before reproducing a post in its entirety, whether on-line or off.

When you think the night has seen your mind, that inside you're twisted and unkind, let me stand to show that you are blind. Please put down your hands 'cause I see you. I find it hard to believe you don't know the beauty you are. But if you don't let me be your eyes, a hand in your darkness, so you wont be afraid.

If you close the door, the night could last forever. Leave the sunshine out and say hello to never. All the people are dancing and they're having such fun. I wish it could happen to me. But if you close the door I'd never have to see the day again. If you close the door, the night could last forever. Leave the wine-glass out, and drink a toast to never. Oh, someday I know someone will look into my eyes, and say, 'Hello, you're my very special one.' But if you close the door I'd never have to see the day again.

Sunday morning brings the dawn in. It's just a restless feeling by my side. Early dawning, Sunday morning, it's just the wasted years so close behind. Watch out, the world's behind you. There's always someone around you who will call. It's nothing at all.

Sunday morning, and I'm falling. I've got a feeling I don't want to know. Early dawning, Sunday morning: it's all the streets you crossed, not so long ago. Watch out, the world's behind you. There's always someone around you who will call. It's nothing at all

The background is hugeness and confusion shading away from where we stand into black and utter chaos; and against the background any small man-made figure of order and concentration. What pleasanter than that this should be so?

"Some people, they like to go out dancing, and other peoples, they have to work, just watch me now! And there's even some evil mothers, well they're gonna tell you that everything is just dirt. You know, that women, never really faint, and that villains always blink their eyes, woo! And that, you know, children are the only ones who blush, and that, life is just to die. But anyone who ever had a heart, they wouldn't turn around and break it. And anyone who ever played a part, oh, wouldn't turn around and hate it! Sweet Jane!"

“Peace upon earth!” was said. We sing it
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We’ve got as far as poison-gas.

Let us for curiosity outline the process. To start with, the Negroes are already considerably mixed (many of them in large proportion, and most of them in some degree) and the white people, as I shall endeavor to show later on, are many of them slightly mixed with the Negro. But we will assume, for the sake of the argument, that the two races are absolutely pure. We will assume, too, that the laws of the whole country were as favorable to this amalgamation as the laws of most Southern States are at present against it; i.e., that it were made a misdemeanor for two white or two colored persons to marry, so long as it was possible to obtain a mate of the other race--this would be even more favorable than the Southern rule, which makes no such exception. Taking the population as one-eighth Negro, this eighth, married to an equal number of whites, would give in the next generation a population of which one-fourth would be mulattoes. Mating these in turn with white persons, the next generation would be composed one-half of quadroons, or persons one-fourth Negro. In the third generation, applying the same rule, the entire population would be composed of octoroons, or persons only one-eighth Negro, who would probably call themselves white, if by this time there remained any particular advantage in being so considered. Thus in three generations the pure whites would be entirely eliminated, and there would be no perceptible trace of the blacks left. The mechanical mixture would be complete; as it would probably be put, the white race would have absorbed the black. There would be no inferior race to domineer over; there would be no superior race to oppress those who differed from them in racial externals. The inevitable social struggle, which in one form or another, seems to be one of the conditions of progress, would proceed along other lines than those of race. If now and then, for a few generations, an occasional trace of the black ancestor should crop out, no one would care, for all would be tarred with the same stick. This is already the case in South America, parts of Mexico and to a large extent in the West Indies. From a Negroid nation, which ours is already, we would have become a composite and homogeneous people, and the elements of racial discord which have troubled our civil life so gravely and still threaten our free institutions, would have been entirely eliminated. From the "Boston Evening Transcript," August 18, 1900.

"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival."

"A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure. The most attractive sentences are, perhaps, not the wisest, but the surest and roundest. They are spoken firmly and conclusively, as if the speaker had a right to know what he says, and if not wise, they have at least been well learned. Sir Walter Raleigh might well be studied if only for the excellence of his style, for he is remarkable in the midst of so many masters. There is a natural emphasis in his style, like a man's tread, and a breathing space between the sentences, which the best of modern writing does not furnish. His chapters are like English parks, or say rather like a Western forest, where the larger growth keeps down the underwood, and one may ride on horseback through the openings. All the distinguished writers of that period possess a greater vigor and naturalness than the more modern,--for it is allowed to slander our own time,--and when we read a quotation from one of them in the midst of a modern author, we seem to have come suddenly upon a greener ground, a greater depth and strength of soil. It is as if a green bough were laid across the page, and we are refreshed as by the sight of fresh grass in midwinter or early spring. You have constantly the warrant of life and experience in what you read. The little that is said is eked out by implication of the much that was done. The sentences are verdurous and blooming as evergreen and flowers, because they are rooted in fact and experience, but our false and florid sentence have only the tints of flowers without their sap or roots."

"If we take two steps backward from the canvas of this mortal life and glance at it impartially, we shall see that these matters of love and marriage pass like a pivot through the lives of almost every individual, and are, sociologically speaking, the 'primum mobile' of the world. The books of any philosopher who slurs them or distorts them will hold up a false mirror to life. If an inhabitant of another planet should visit the earth, he would receive, on the whole, a truer notion of human life by attending an Italian opera than he would by reading Emerson's volumes. He would learn from the Italian opera that there were two sexes; and this, after all, is probably the fact with which the education of such a stranger ought to begin."

“Anus Mundi. The cloaca of the world. A certain German wrote that definition of Poland in 1942. I spent the war years there and afterward, for years, I attempted to understand what it means to bear such an experience inside oneself. Horror is the law of the world of living creatures, and civilization is concerned with masking that truth. Literature and art refine and beautify, and if they were to depict reality naked, just as everyone suspects it is (although we defend ourselves against that knowledge), no one would be able to stand it. It is entirely human and understandable to be stunned by blatant criminality and to cry out, ‘That’s impossible!’ and yet, it was possible. But those who proclaim that God ‘abandoned us in 1941’ are acting like conservators of an anodyne civilization. And what about the history of humankind, with its millennia of mutual murder? To say nothing of natural catastrophes, or of the plague, which depopulated Europe in the fourteenth century. Nor of those aspects of human life which do not need a grand public arena to display their subservience to the laws of earth.”

A long, long time ago,
In the land of idiot boys,
There lived a cat, a phenomenal cat,
Who loved to wallow all day.

No one bothered him
As he sat content in his tree.
He just lived to eat: it kept him fat,
And that's how he wanted to stay.

Though he was big and fat,
All the world was good to him,
And he pointed out on the map
All the places he had been...

Fum, fum, diddle-um da
La la la la, la-la la la

Down on Cyprus Avenue, with a childlike vision leaping into view. Clicking, clacking of the high heeled shoe, Ford & Fitzroy, Madame George. Marching with the soldier boy behind he's much older with hat on drinking wine. And that smell of sweet perfume comes drifting through the cool night air like Shalimar. And outside they're making all the stops, the kids out in the street collecting bottle-tops. Gone for cigarettes and matches in the shops. Happy taken Madame George. That's when you fall. That's when you fall into a trance, sitting on a sofa playing games of chance. With your folded arms and history books you glance into the eyes of Madame George. And you think you found the bag. You're getting weaker and your knees begin to sag. In the corner playing dominoes in drag, the one and only Madame George. And then from outside the frosty window raps, she jumps up and says, "Lord have mercy I think that it's the cops." And immediately drops everything she got down into the street below. And you know you gotta go on that train from Dublin up to Sandy Row, throwing pennies at the bridges down below, and the rain, hail, sleet, and snow. Say goodbye to Madame George. Dry your eye for Madame George. Wonder why for Madame George. Say goodbye in the wind and the rain on the back street. In the backstreet, in the back street, say goodbye to Madame George....

Old boy he ran a little stop sign in the south
And he got in deeper trouble with his mouth
They wouldn't let him phone or make a bail
Just let him sit there in that Delford County jail.

It wudn't me, it wudn't me
I'm so glad it wudn't me
No phone, no bail, no plea
Oh, I'm so glad it wudn't me.

He had to break out of that Delford County jail
They put a Grand Dragon posse on his trail
And seven Alabama bloodhounds in a line
Buckin' and barkin' for a bite of his behind.

It wudn't me, it wudn't me
I'm so glad it wudn't me
Hound posses ain't my cup of tea
Oh, I'm so glad it wudn't me.

He was streakin' through the Delta double three
But them hungry hounds was gainin'on his lee
His feet was playin' "Louisiana Bound"
Lord, you help me pick 'em up, I'll put 'em down.

It wudn't me, it wudn't me
I'm so glad it wudn't me
Prayin' ain't no sure guarantee
Oh, I'm so glad it wudn't me.

He was streakin' through the Delta, stridin' wide
But that leadin' hound was meters from his hide
Lord, bless my feet, don't let 'em go corrupt
I'll lay 'em down as fast as you can pick 'em up.

It wudn't me, it wudn't me
I'm so glad it wudn't me
Just meters from a canine jubilee
Oh, I'm so glad it wudn't me.

He reached a highway through the ticket on the side
And a trucker came along and let him ride
But as he settled down to thank him for no harm
He saw a swastika-KKK band on his arm.

That's when he knew he had to get on help himself
'Stead of depending on someone else
He hung a left into that thicket 'cross the fence
And ain't nobody ever sawed or seen him since...

What are time and space to Christianity, eighteen hundred years, and a new world?—that the humble life of a Jewish peasant should have force to make a New York bishop so bigoted. Forty-four lamps, the gift of kings, now burning in a place called the Holy Sepulchre;—a church-bell ringing;—some unaffected tears shed by a pilgrim on Mount Calvary within the week.— "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, when I forget thee, may my right hand forget her cunning." "By the waters of Babylon there we sat down, and we wept when we remembered Zion." I trust that some may be as near and dear to Buddha, or Christ, or Swedenborg, who are without the pale of their churches. It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ. I know that some will have hard thoughts of me, when they hear their Christ named beside my Buddha, yet I am sure that I am willing they should love their Christ more than my Buddha, for the love is the main thing, and I like him too. "God is the letter Ku, as well as Khu." Why need Christians be still intolerant and superstitious?

"For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun? For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity."

"I was still busy in pushing forward the repairs to the railroad bridge at Bear Creek, and in patching up the many breaks between it and Tuscumbia, when on the 27th of October [1863], as I sat on the porch of a house, I was approached by a dirty, black-haired individual with mixed dress and strange demeanor, who inquired for me, and, on being assured that I was in fact the man, he handed me a letter from General Blair at Tuscumbia, and another short one, which was a telegraph-message from General Grant at Chattanooga, addressed to me through General George Crook, commanding at Huntsville, Alabama, to this effect: 'Drop all work on Memphis & Charleston Railroad, cross the Tennessee and hurry eastward with all possible dispatch toward Bridgeport, till you meet further orders from me. U. S. GRANT.' The bearer of this message was Corporal Pike, who described to me, in his peculiar way, that General Crook had sent him in a canoe; that he had paddled down the Tennessee River, over Muscle Shoals, was fired at all the way by guerrillas, but on reaching Tuscumbia he had providentially found it in possession of our troops. He had reported to General Blair, who sent him on to me at Iuka. This Pike proved to be a singular character; his manner attracted my notice at once, and I got him a horse, and had him travel with us eastward to about Elkton, whence I sent him back to General Crook at Huntsville; but told him, if I could ever do him a personal service, he might apply to me. The next spring when I was in Chattanooga, preparing for the Atlanta campaign, Corporal Pike made his appearance and asked a fulfillment of my promise. I inquired what he wanted, and he said he wanted to do something bold, something that would make him a hero. I explained to him, that we were getting ready to go for Joe Johnston at Dalton, that I expected to be in the neighborhood of Atlanta about the 4th of July, and wanted the bridge across the Savannah River at Augusta, Georgia, to be burnt about that time, to produce alarm and confusion behind the rebel army. I explained to Pike that the chances were three to one that he would be caught and hanged; but the greater the danger the greater seemed to be his desire to attempt it. I told him to select a companion, to disguise himself as an East Tennessee refugee, work his way over the mountains into North Carolina, and at the time appointed to float down the Savannah River and burn that bridge. In a few days he had made his preparations and took his departure. The bridge was not burnt, and I supposed that Pike had been caught and hanged. When we reached Columbia, South Carolina, in February, 1865, just as we were leaving the town, in passing near the asylum, I heard my name called, and saw a very dirty fellow followed by a file of men running toward me, and as they got near I recognized Pike. He called to me to identify him as one of my men; he was then a prisoner under guard, and I instructed the guard to bring him that night to my camp some fifteen miles up the road, which was done. Pike gave me a graphic narrative of his adventures, which would have filled a volume; told me how he had made two attempts to burn the bridge, and failed; and said that at the time of our entering Columbia he was a prisoner in the hands of the rebels, under trial for his life, but in the confusion of their retreat he made his escape and got into our lines, where he was again made a prisoner by our troops because of his looks. Pike got some clothes, cleaned up, and I used him afterward to communicate with Wilmington, North Carolina. Some time after the war, he was appointed a lieutenant of the Regular Cavalry, and was killed in Oregon, by the accidental discharge of a pistol. Just before his death he wrote me, saying that he was tired of the monotony of garrison-life, and wanted to turn Indian, join the Cheyennes on the Plains, who were then giving us great trouble, and, after he had gained their confidence, he would betray them into our hands. Of course I wrote him that he must try and settle down and become a gentleman as well as an officer, apply himself to his duties, and forget the wild desires of his nature, which were well enough in time of war, but not suited to his new condition as an officer; but, poor fellow! he was killed by an accident, which probably saved him from a slower but harder fate."

—from the "Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman"

"The gross lines are legible to the dull: the cabman is phrenologist so far: he looks in your face to see if his shilling is sure. A dome of brow denotes one thing; a pot-belly another; a squint, a pug-nose, mats of hair, the pigment of the epidermis, betray character. People seem sheathed in their tough organization. Ask Spurzheim, ask the doctors, ask Quetelet, if temperaments decide nothing? or if there be any-thing they do not decide? Read the description in medical books of the four temperaments, and you will think you are reading your own thoughts which you had not yet told. Find the part which black eyes, and which blue eyes, play severally in the company. How shall a man escape from his ancestors, or draw off from his veins the black drop which he drew from his father's or his mother's life? It often appears in a family, as if all the qualities of the progenitors were potted in several jars, — some ruling quality in each son or daughter of the house, — and sometimes the unmixed temperament, the rank unmitigated elixir, the family vice, is drawn off in a separate individual, and the others are proportionally relieved. We sometimes see a change of expression in our companion, and say, his father, or his mother, comes to the windows of his eyes, and sometimes a remote relative. In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin,— seven or eight ancestors at least,— and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is. At the corner of the street, you read the possibility of each passenger, in the facial angle, in the complexion, in the depth of his eye. His parentage determines it. Men are what their mothers made them. You may as well ask a loom which weaves huckaback, why it does not make cashmere, as expect poetry from this engineer, or a chemical discovery from that jobber. Ask the digger in the ditch to explain Newton's laws: the fine organs of his brain have been pinched by overwork and squalid poverty from father to son, for a hundred years. When each comes forth from his mother's womb, the gate of gifts closes behind him. Let him value his hands and feet, he has but one pair. So he has but one future, and that is already predetermined in his lobes, and described in that little fatty face, pig-eye, and squat form. All the privilege and all the legislation of the world cannot meddle or help to make a poet or a prince of him." —Emerson, "Fate," The Conduct of Life (1860)

"I stumbled on the movie 'High Velocity' years ago, at a drive-in triple bill, or on late night TV, I don't remember which. What I do remember was thinking, "What the heck!?" Lately I hunted down a VHS copy of this movie on eBay and viewed it again. Perhaps my politics, or the times we live in, have changed sufficiently, because the plot doesn't seem quite so outrageous now as it did when I first saw it. Or maybe it's just that I've seen more films from Hong Kong, China & Japan; I notice now, for example, that High Velocity was produced by Takashi Ohashi. In any case, the cast is excellent, with Ben Gazzara playing a likable and sincere ex-soldier; Paul Winfield as his crazy partner; Keenan Wynn, as the big rich sweaty slob with a high voice; Alejandro Rey, as a greasy bureaucrat; and Britt Ekland as, of course, the babe. I've read elsewhere that the original music was remarkable. This film itself is a bit dark and grainy, as if it was shot under-exposed on 16mm stock and blown up to 35mm, but perhaps that just adds to the cheap look and trashy feeling of the whole sleazy enterprise, which is more appropriate for such tales than the usual gorgeous jungles of the popular war pictures. "As a Vietnam veteran, I found High Velocity, which is set in the Philippines in the early 1970s, to be a better, truer picture about Americans fighting in Southeast Asia than "The Deer Hunter," "Apocalypse Now" or "Air America" (gag!). If you like mercenaries/war movies about spooks killing and carrying on, check this one out. N.B.: A friend of mine found this review posted on the 'Internet Movie Database' and passed it along to me. I thought it had life in it, & so reprint it here in my commonplace book. The reviewer is Denis Wheary. Above is a photo of Britt Ekland (born in Sweden in 1942, & married to Peter Sellers from 1964-1968).

From testimony taken by the United States House of Representatives, inquiring into irregularities in the months leading up to the elections of 1876 in South Carolina: RECENT ELECTION IN SOUTH CAROLINA (1876). THE HAMBURGH SLAUGHTER. It appears that the purpose was formed on the part of the democracy of South Carolina, notably in Aiken, Edgefield, and Barnwell Counties first, in the early summer of 1876, to use intimidation, force, and violence as means of carrying the election. In May and June threats were freely made by the democrats in these counties, and circulated among the republicans, to the effect that all those who voted the republican ticket would be driven off the lands of the democrats, and be refused employment, and that all leading republicans would be killed. These threat's were at first rather quietly and covertly made, but as time passed on they were more openly and boldly uttered, care being taken to express them to those who would circulate them, and that they should reach those most desired to be affected. These threats, at first, had little or no effect to frighten or to change the political sentiments of the colored republicans of those counties, and it therefore became necessary for the democracy to enter actively upon the program of violence. This was inaugurated at Hamburgh, a small town in Aiken County, on the bank of the Savannah River, opposite the city of Augusta, Ga., on the 8th day of July, 1876.There was a colored militia company in that town, organized under the laws of the State, containing about eighty-four men with guns furnished by the State, among the officers and men of which were intelligent and leading colored men. The destruction of this company was manifestly of the first importance, as its existence gave a sense of security to the colored republicans of that vicinity, and counteracted the effect of the democratic threats of violence. This company paraded on the 4th day of July, 1876, under the command of its officers, and went through various military maneuvers in the streets of Hamburgh. Among the observers of this parade were two white democrats, (as yet unknown to fame, but forever after to be,) by the names of HenryGetsen and Thomas Butler. They for a while sat in their buggy on one side of the street, observed the maneuvers of the company, and then, when the company was marching in open order down the street, and near the center of it, started their course up the street with the view to drive through the midst of the company. Capt. D. L. Adams, colored, commanding the company, baited his men and expostulated with Getsen and Butler against their attempt to drive through the ranks of his company. They, Getsen and Butler, persisted in their purpose, although there was sufficient room to pass on one side, and Captain Adams, to prevent trouble, opened a passage through the company for them, and they passed through. The detention was but for a few moments, and was not, save perhaps in the matter of feeling, of the slightest consequence to Getsen and Butler, or to the militia company. But, as the destruction of the militia company was desired by democrats, it was determined to take advantage of the occurrence for that purpose. Accordingly, two or three days afterward a verbal complaint was made, not by said Getsen or Butler, but by R. J. Butler, father of Thomas Butler, and father-in-law of Getsen, to Prince Rivers, colored, trial justice at Hamburgh , against the officers of the militia company for obstructing the street on the above occasion. The trial justice issued a summons, not a warrant calling the officers before him to answer the charge. On the day of the proposed trial and final hearing, (the case having been on a former day partially inquired into and postponed,) appeared in Hamburgh, General M. O. Butler, of Edgefield County. At or about the same time there came into the village about one hundred white men, thoroughly armed with guns and pistols. This body of white men immediately gathered about General M. C.Butler, and submitted to his direction and control. General Butler first assumed to appear as the attorney of R. J. Butler, to prosecute the inquiry before Trial-Justice Rivers against the officers of the militia company. But the officers of the militia company, hearing of the threats against their lives, made by the white armed men surrounding General Butler, refused to appear before Trial-Justice Rivers for the purpose of further examination. At this stage of the proceedings, the farce begun before the trial-justice was abandoned, and Gen. M. O. Butler sent a demand to Capt. D. L. Adams to surrender to him the arms of his company. This demand was refused by Captain Adams, as General M. C. Butler had not in law a shadow of right to make the demand, and not a shadow of right to receive the guns if they bad been surrendered. Finally General Butler notified Captain Adams "that he was going to have the arms in fifteen minutes.'' Captain Adams replied, ''Then he (Butler) would have to take them by force." Thereupon General M. C. Butler commenced posting his men, now increased to several hundred, so as to command the brick building used as a drill-room and an armory by Captain Adams's company. Captain Adams and twenty-five members of his company had retired to this building. After General Butler had stationed his men he again sent word to Captain Adams that the time was up, and inquired if he was going to give the guns up: to which Captain Adams replied that he could not give them up; that he did not desire any fuss, and that he and his men bad gone out of the streets and into their hall for safety, and there they could remain." After this answer had been returned to General Butler, and sufficient time for its reception by him had transpired, his men, who were stationed behind the abutment of the South Carolina Railroad bridge, near by, opened fire on the building occupied by Captain Adams and his company. They fired rapidly for about half an hour, and broke out nearly all the glass in the four windows in the front of the building. In the meantime Captain Adams's men kept under cover, were not injured, and did not return the fire. About this time General Butler's men began apparently to close in about the brick armory, and Captain Adams gave orders to his men to fire on them. The firing on the part of Captain Adams was kept up irregularly for a short time, and till about dark. About midnight Captain Adams quietly withdrew his men from the brick building, with the intention of getting out of town and escaping. He succeeded in getting his men out of the building, and a part of them out of town, but part of them scattered off and hid themselves in various places in and about their houses. The escape from the brick building of Captain Adams's men was soon discovered by General Butler, and then a vigorous search was made for them, and for colored men generally. Some one or two were killed as they were found, but most that were captured were brought in and put under a strong guard. About two o'clock in the morning some twenty-five or thirty colored men, some of whom were members of the militia company and some not, had been found and brought in, and so placed under guard. The search being over, now came the slaughter. One by one they were taken out and deliberately shot to death. First, A.T. Attaway, lieutenant in Captain Adams's company, was so taken out and murdered. Then Dave Phillips was taken out and murdered. Next followed Pompey Curry, who, on being let loose, precipitately fled, was fired upon, and badly wounded, but escaped with his life. Next Hamp Stevens was taken out and murdered; and, following him, Alfred Minyard, or Minyon was killed. No more were killed out of these prisoners, though some were badly wounded. During the night two others were killed, namely, James Cook, town-marshal, and Moses Parkes . These brutal and causeless murders were clearly committed, as the testimony shows, to effect political ends, and as a part of the plan of the political campaign adopted by the democrats. The relation which General M.C. Butler, one of the most distinguished political leaders of the democratic party, sustained to these was made the subject of much evidence, and a reference to that is all that is deemed necessary now. Comment is unnecessary. THE ELLENTON MASSACRE. Silverton, in which is Ellenton, is a township in Aiken County, South Carolina, being about twenty-five miles from Hamburgh and about twenty-four miles from Aiken Court-House, and near the Savannah River. It is a fertile region and quite densely populated, the colored population being largely in the majority. During the spring and summer of 1876 nearly all the white democrats in the county were thoroughly armed and organized into bodies known commonly as "rifle-clubs." There were in this portion of the county a considerable number of quite intelligent colored republicans, and several republican clubs formed. The policy of intimidation, force, and violence to control the political action of republicans was announced by the white democrats in all this section in June, July, and August, and in substantially the same manner as was done prior to theHamburgh massacre. About the middle of September " the rifle-clubs'' from different portions of the county of Aiken, and also from the adjoining counties ofEdgefield and Barnwell, suddenly and evidently by concerted action, began to march toward and assemble at Silverton. The number of white democrats armed and mounted thus assembled during September 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 was probably about eight or nine hundred. Colonel A. P. Butler, ofHamburgh , S. C, appears to have been in general command. Under him, and commanding "rifle-clubs'' and irregular bodies, were Angus P. Brown, Geo. W. Croft, Wallace Miller, Augustus White, Frank Green, O. N. Butler of Augusta, Ga., Alonzo Ashley, Warren Keenan, and many others. The absurd pretext for this assemblage of armed men, as put forth by parties interested, was the reported assault on Mrs. Harley by one or two colored men, who are said to have entered the house of Alonzo Harley for the purpose of stealing. It was charged by Mrs. Harley that she was knocked down by one of these men, who fled on her rising and seizing a gun. The two colored men charged with this assault and attempt to steal were not recognized by Mrs. Harley or any one else at the time, although it occurred in broad daylight, in the forenoon of Friday, September 15, 1876. Suspicion fell upon a young colored man by the name of Peter Williams and another man named Frederick Pope. Three white men immediately started in search of Williams, found him in the house of Addison Hollywonger , (colored,) where he had been confined by sickness for several days with chills and fever, and, although so informed, they arrested him without warrant, and started for Alonzo Harley's house. On the way, and near there, they were met by Alonzo Harley, who commenced to curse and beat Williams, who, finding himself free and unprotected by his captors, started to run. Thereupon he was fired upon and badly wounded, from which wound he subsequently died. While yet alive he was taken in a cart to Harley's house to ascertain whether Mrs. Harley identified him as the man who had assaulted her. She, on seeing him, at once said he was not the man. The shooting of Peter Williams occurred about noon, or a little before, on Friday, September 15, 1876. On the evening of the same day a warrant was sworn out ''on information and belief by one Taville, before Trial-Justice Griffin, for the arrest of the said Peter Williams and Pope for the said assault on Mrs. Harley." The "rifle-clubs" assembled in considerable force that afternoon at Matlock Church, near said Alonzo Harley's house, and were largely increased in numbers during the following day. Toward evening of Saturday, three of the companies of "rifle-clubs," thoroughly armed and mounted, moved down to Chevis's store, some three-fourths of a mile distant, where a republican colored club had, as usual on that day of the week, assembled, and for the purpose of breaking it up. The members of this club, hearing of the purpose of the rifle-clubs to attack and break them up, hastily adjourned before their arrival, though a few of them were still at Chevis's store when the rifle-clubs arrived. Those that still remained there were, with curses, notified to meet no more by Captain Angus Brown, who commanded the rifle-club in the advance. There was much cursing, and many threats of violence were made on the part of members of the "rifle-clubs " toward the republicans in case they should meet again, and it was promised on the part of the members present that they would not meet again. Some effort was made by members of the rifle-club to then and there attack the few colored men found, but it was finally said by the whites. There were not enough of them for a riot. These three companies passed down the road by the store, and during the evening returned and went into camp at Matlock Church. On the following (Sunday) morning the rifle-clubs, under the command of A. P. Butler, marched to Rouse's Bridge, a point some four miles distant from Matlock Church. Here they found a considerable number of colored people assembled, some to attend church, and others for mutual consultation on account of the rumored purpose of the "rifle-clubs" to attack them. The "rifle-clubs'' halted on the high ground, about half a mile from the bridge, and sent messengers to the colored people at the bridge, under the pretense of desiring a "compromise" with them. While the parley was being held several members of the rifle-clubs fired upon colored men who happened near them, mortally wounding one, Henry Campbell, and severely wounding several others.The colored men thus shot were all republicans. After much delay there, and upon the repeated assurance of the colored people that they desired no disturbance, and that they were seeking only safety in the swamp near the bridge, the "rifle-clubs," toward evening, fell back and marched toward Union Bridge, a point some six miles distant. Here a detachment of some twenty or twenty-five men, under the command of Capt. Robert Dunbar, fired upon a small party of colored men, killing one, Basil Bryant, alias Basil Bush, and wounding several others. On the following morning, one of those wounded, Wilkins Hamilton, was found in his cabin and deliberately shot to death by some of the members of the rifle-clubs. Early on Monday morning, and during the day, the "rifle-clubs” were moving in various directions, murdering colored republicans. Kit Finnissee was shot in the morning and killed by a company or detachment under Capt. Angelo P. Brown, near the Station, on the Port Royal Railroad. Col. A. P. Butler was at the time present with this detachment, and ordered him shot. The colored men were there fired upon but escaped. Another detachment came upon five colored men in the cabin of Judah Kelsey, who had come in out of the swamp for their dinners, and murdered three of them, and tried to kill all of them, but the other two escaped by running. Here were killed David Bush, Sam Brown, and Warren Kelsey. Another detachment, numbering several hundred, with which at the time, near evening, was Col. A. P. Butler, near Ellenton Station, on the Port Royal Railroad, shot and killed John Kelsey. Many other colored men were here seen and fired upon, but escaped with their lives, also several colored men were taken prisoners and threatened with death, but were not murdered on their promising not to vote the republican ticket. During Monday night, September 18, Col. A. P. Butler with a large portion of his command, about five hundred men, suddenly turned back from Ellenton Station upon Rouse's Bridge, some seven miles distant, and was there ready to attack the republicans on the morning of Tuesday, September 19, 1876. In consequence of the movement of the rifle-clubs, about seventy-five or one hundred colored republicans had been driven into this part of the swamp, where they were practically surrounded. In the councils of the rifle-clubs it had been determined that all these colored men in the swamp should be killed. For this purpose Colonel Butler's forces were put in line of battle, with a skirmish-line thrown out, and the order to advance into the swamp had been given, and his command was in motion, and firing by the skirmishers on the republicans had commenced, when a detachment of United States troops, under command of Captain Lloyd and Lieutenant Hinton, arrived on the scene from Aiken Court-House and prevented the massacre. These colored men in the swamp and thus surrounded were nearly all without any weapons of defense at all, though a few, fifteen or twenty, had shotguns, but were without ammunition, and hence were wholly at the mercy of the rifle-clubs. The members of the rifle-clubs openly declared in the presence of the United States troops that it was their intention to have killed the last one of them, and they expressed the greatest disgust at the interference of the United States troops. There is no doubt that a fearful slaughter would have taken place but for the timely interference of the troops. Upon a parley held between Captain Lloyd and Col. A.P. Butler and his officers it was agreed that the rifle-clubs should disperse and return quietly to their homes, and that the colored men would go peaceably to theirs. This arrangement was most thankfully received by the colored people, who were wild with joy at their unexpected deliverance. Pursuant to the arrangement made by Captain Lloyd, the rifle-clubs began to disperse, but continued their murderous work upon the colored men on their way home. One party, after it left House's Bridge, shot and killed Abram Hammond, alias Abram Blake, an old colored man past eighty years of age, who was quietly and innocently standing near the road when they passed. His body was riddled with bullets. Another party, consisting of two or three hundred, at Ellenton Station, having captured Simon Coker, a leading republican and member of the State legislature, deliberately took him out and shot him to death. Capt. O. N. Butler, (so-called,) of Augusta, Ga., commanded the firing-party, and he himself shot him with his revolver. Subsequently, on the same day, the rifle-clubs, about two miles below Ellenton Station, captured two other colored republicans, William Gooden and George Turner, and deliberately shot them to death. In the day following (Wednesday) Alonzo Ashley's company, under his command, in the edge of Barnwell County, captured a leading colored republican named Edward W. Bush, finding him in his own house, and took him out a few rods from his door, and there, in full view of his family and friends, shot him to death. Many other colored republicans were killed in Barnwell, Edgefield, and Laurens Counties about this time by the rifle-clubs, or members of those organizations, and under similar circumstances to those above narrated. The whole number killed in Aiken and Barnwell Counties alone, at this time, is estimated at between thirty and forty, and about the same number were wounded. There is no evidence that a single white man was injured by a colored man throughout the whole affair. Two white men were killed; one in a quarrel with his fellow, the other shot and killed in the dark near his own home by an unknown person. The bare statement of the foregoing facts is sufficient. They shock every sentiment of humanity and justice, and call for the interposition of the strong arm of the Government to protect the rights and lives of our recently enfranchised fellow citizens.

He is said to have been the last Red Man
In Acton. And the Miller is said to have laughed—
If you like to call such a sound a laugh.
But he gave no one else a laugher’s license.
For he turned suddenly grave as if to say,
“Whose business,—if I take it on myself,
Whose business—but why talk round the barn?—
When it’s just that I hold with getting a thing done with.”
You can’t get back and see it as he saw it.
It’s too long a story to go into now.
You’d have to have been there and lived it.
Then you wouldn’t have looked on it as just a matter
Of who began it between the two races.
Some guttural exclamation of surprise
The Red Man gave in poking about the mill
Over the great big thumping shuffling mill-stone
Disgusted the Miller physically as coming
From one who had no right to be heard from.
“Come, John,” he said, “you want to see the wheel pit?”
He took him down below a cramping rafter,
And showed him, through a manhole in the floor,
The water in desperate straits like frantic fish,
Salmon and sturgeon, lashing with their tails.
Then he shut down the trap door with a ring in it
That jangled even above the general noise,
And came up stairs alone—and gave that laugh,
And said something to a man with a meal-sack
That the man with the meal-sack didn’t catch—then.
Oh, yes, he showed John the wheel pit all right.

In Havenpool Harbour the ebb was strong,
And a man with a dog drew near and hung,
And taxpaying day was coming along,
So the mongrel had to be drowned.
The man threw a stick from the paved wharf-side
Into the midst of the ebbing tide,
And the dog jumped after with ardent pride
To bring the stick aground.

But no: the steady suck of the flood
To seaward needed, to be withstood,
More than the strength of mongrelhood
To fight its treacherous trend.
So, swimming for life with desperate will,
The struggler with all his natant skill
Kept bouyant in front of his master still
There standing to wait the end.

The loving eyes of the dog inclined
To the man he held as a god enshrined,
With no suspicion in his mind
That this had all been meant.
Till the effort not to drift from shore
Of his little legs grew slower and slower,
And, the tide still outing with brookless power,
Outward the dog, too, went.

Just ere his sinking what does one see
Break on the face of that devotee?
A wakening to the treachery
He had loved with love so blind?
The faith that had shone in that mongrel's eye
That his owner would save him by and by
Turned to much like a curse as he sank to die,
And a loathing of mankind.

“Waiting Both”

A star looks down at me,
And says: “Here I and you
Stand, each in our degree:
What do you mean to do,––
Mean to do?”

I say: “For all I know,
Wait, and let Time go by,
Till my change come.” –– “Just so,”
The star says, “So mean I,
So mean I.”

Cf. Job 14:10-14 But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

N.B.: “Waiting Both” was first published in The London Mercury for November 1924. Collected in Human Shows: Far Phantasies, Songs & Trifles (1925), where it appears as the first poem in the volume. Written in the early 1920s, according to Samuel Hynes in his edition of the complete poems.

Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present, ushered us into a little room, and seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to us and said - "Clam or Cod?"

"What's that about Cods, ma'am?" said I, with much politeness.

"Clam or Cod?" she repeated.

"A clam for supper? a cold clam; is that what you mean, Mrs. Hussey?" says I; "but that's a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter time, ain't it, Mrs Hussey?"

But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple shirt, who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing but the word "clam," Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an open door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out "clam for two," disappeared.

"Queequeg," said I, "do you think that we can make out a supper for us both on one clam?"

However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh, sweet friends! hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favorite fishing food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched it with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey's clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word "cod" with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the savory steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and in good time a fine cod- chowder was placed before us.

We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl, thinks I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head? What's that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? "But look, Queequeg, ain't that a live eel in your bowl? Where's your harpoon?"

Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved its name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes.

--Melville, "Moby-Dick"