John of Gaunt Describes England

A young boy, probably about eight years old, sat on a high stool in a black and cavernous chamber lit by only two wax candles – one in his left hand and the other nearby his father, who was watching him from a sprawled position on the ground.  In the boys other hand was a thick book.

The father checked his watch and looked up at his son, “… and begin.”

The boy proceeded to read aloud from the book:

“This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle…”

And the boy continued to read from Shakespeare’s Richard II, glancing up at his father every few words.

“You’re slurring, Jack, try to maintain yourself” the father interrupted.

The boy nodded and continued:

“Againsht zhe envy of lesh shappier landsz, this bleshed plot … thish…”

And his voice trailed off.  The book fell from his hand and then the candle as he slumped in half and slid down the stool until he was like a puddle on the floor.  In less than a minute, though, the boy began to blink his eyes.

The father carefully looked into the boy’s bloodshot eyes and began snapping his fingers.

“Are you here?”

“I think so… how far did I get?” the boy asked.

The father laughed and rubbed his son’s head.

“My boy, you didn’t even finish John of Gaunt’s speech!  The next time you have a question about firedamp, we’ll bring one of your Guina Pigs instead, eh?”

The self-experimental work on toxic gases in mines by John Haldane and his son John Haldane led not only to the invention of the gas mask in time for WWI, but to the placing of two canaries in every British coal-mine for seventy-five years until they were officially  replaced by reliable gas detectors on December 30, 1986.

Bem-vinda!

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The Most Popular Name in the World

Silhouetted by the setting sun, a small caravan could be seen watering its camels and erecting tents beneath a cluster of sad-looking palm trees nearby a Nestorian monastery.   Idols of Latha and Uzza, their clan’s gods, were stood up carefully in the middle of the encampment.

It was the first of aylūl (September) in 582, and it had been a devastatingly hot day: the stones paving the Incense Road that led through the Syrian town of Busra burned any flesh that pressed upon it.  A lone monk by the name of Bahira watched from just outside a doorway with supernatural interest, his bare feet sizzling beneath him.

A second monk passed behind him, “Another caravan… shall I invite them in?”

“Yes, for a feast!  I feel it is not just another caravan, Abouna,” he said and disappeared into the cell.

A few minutes later, he was looking deeply into the eyes of each traveler as he blessed them.  After the last man had entered, Bahira asked, “I’ve invited you all, is there no one else?”

The leader of the party answered, “I’m Abu Talib.  Only my son is absent, he’s out gathering kindling.”

“Son?” Bahira asked with noticeable disappointment, “I’m afraid the one I’m expecting has no father…”

“Well, truthfully, he is my nephew… his father died before his birth.”

Bahira insisted that the boy be called in for the feast.  He met him at the door and before saying a word, placed his hand on the boy’s back between his shoulder-blades.  His eyes widened as he felt an oval ridge beneath his fingers and he spun the boy around to face him.

“What is your name, boy?”

“Muhammad…”

“Welcome Muhammad,” the priest said, and turning, whispered to the uncle, “protect your nephew, he wears the seal of a prophet…”

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Obrigado!

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A Star is Born

Rowland was frustrated that initial reports had provided so very little detail, for he pained for the families of the missing men.

When word came at last, the news was very discouraging: “Biggest disaster in the history of American whaling!”  Forty ships had passed into the Chuchki Sea in the newly purchased Alaska Territory, when a freak weather event reversed the winds and pushed the ice pack back towards the east and crushed them in.

Louisa came in with a cup of tea and noticed the worried lines around her husband’s eyes.  “Millions of dollars in oil lost… thirty three ships trapped… only seven ships escaped…” he read out loud.  He continued running his finger down the column reading out the names of the lost.

“Oh, no…”

Louisa spoke up at his sudden silence, “What is it dear?”

Rowland noticed his wife sitting across from him for the first time.

“Emily Morgan,” he announced sadly.

Louisa took her husband’s hand.  “Your old ship...  I’m sorry my dear, but you made the right choice to quit that business.  You’ll always have your little reminder though, won’t you?”

He looked down at the back of his hand and gave a slight smile.

“Providentially though, not a single man was lost.”

Rowland arose, kissed his wife tenderly on the cheek and said goodbye for the day.  He arrived a few minutes later at the front door of the dry goods store he’d opened in New York City exactly thirteen years earlier on October 28, 1858.  As the door closed behind him, he turned over the sign in the window on which was printed, “R H Macy’s: OPEN for Business.”

Below it was a big red star, matching the faded tattoo on the back of his hand he'd gotten as a New Bedford whale-man.

Defender of the Faith

Father Rowland fumbled through the passage to the dimly lit chapel in the Palace of Whitehall.  Inside, a small group was already standing by: a single altar server, several members of the Court, and the King and his betrothed.

“Your majesty,” Father Rowland whispered and bowed.

The King simply nodded his recognition.

The priest saw that all things were prepared for the celebration of the Nuptial Mass and just before he was to begin, he turned deferentially back to the King.

“Sire,” he uttered shakily, “since it touches upon us all, I think it important that the license be read before we proceed… and, since excommunication is no slight matter and since your previous, shall we call it, invalid marriage has not yet been publicly annulled, well… I trust you have the Pontifical Brief?”

The witnesses held their breath and the bride to be glanced sideways at her fiancé as if observing the storm about to erupt from a long calm.  But the King surprised those present with a cool response.

“Father, it aches my soul that you should give such little credit to my character.  I assuredly have the Pope’s signature upon the permission to wed; it’s just that I’ve concealed it in a very secret place.  If I were seen wandering the early hours to go and retrieve it, word might spread among the conspirators that something was afoot.  This must remain a secret for now... I’ll show it to you later…”

In reality, there was no ecclesiastical permission and King Henry VIII had already given up on obtaining it.  His marriage to Anne Boleyn was enacted that day but it wasn’t until five months afterward, May 23, 1533 that his divorce from Catherine, and subsequently the divorce of England from the Church of Rome, was made public.

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Two for One!

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The Surrealism of the Grotesque

On February 24, 1852, the mood in Moscow was one of joyful abandon. It was Maslenitsa, the last week of licentiousness before the sacrificial severity of the Great Lent began. Red-cheeked boys threw snowballs at passing sleighs. Neighbors carried trays of sweet buttery pancakes to the beggars in the alleys. Men and women laughed heartily at the ridiculous costumes of the masqueraders on their way to the countless parties around town. There was dancing and music and drink to be had in surplus.

But inside the Talyzin mansion on Nikitsky Boulevard, an emaciated and pale-faced Nikolai sat in the dark as a sign of contradiction. The deliverance of Russia, his Russia, he saw was beyond his reach. All he could do to assist now in its redemption was to cure his own filthy soul, and he’d gotten a head start. He’d barely eaten a bite since he made confession and received the Eucharist the week before. His stomach, always a problem for him throughout his life, now crowed like a rooster. He rarely slept, waking himself to recite delirious prayers of reparation.

“You are on the right path,” Father Matvey Konstantinovsky, his spiritual advisor had told him, “but it is your ideas, your imagination, your… your writing, Nikolai, that is the source of your gravest offenses. You must renounce everything you’ve ever done.”

Dead Souls was planned to be only the first book of Nikolai Gogol’s version of the Divine Comedy. Book II, his Purgatorio, the product of the last ten years of his life, he incinerated page by page in his fireplace that night.

It was not to be his only act of destruction. Nine days later, his doctors were shocked to feel his backbone through his belly as they unsuccessfully tried to save him from his “holy anorexia.”

A Convenient Indignation

In the late spring of 1915, all of Europe was gripped with fear. In Russia, the Germans had broken the lines and were advancing through Poland. In Belgium, poison gas had been deployed by the Kaiser’s forces for the first time against the French, with horribly devastating effects. And in England, they were calculating the days until they ran out of food, suffering under the third month of a complete submarine blockade of their ports. As the lamps went out across Europe, America remained rigidly neutral, at least officially, but behind the scenes the players continued to make their plays.

Two men stood in the Yellow Drawing Room of Buckingham Palace in whispered conversation. One was the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, and the other was an American envoy with no particular title except “Colonel” House.

“Tell me, Colonel,” Sir Edward spoke through a haze of smoke, “what will the Americans do if the Germans sink an ocean liner with American passengers aboard?”

Colonel House replied slowly, with a hint of East Texas drawl, “A flame of indignation would sweep across America…”

From a window on the East Façade overlooking the Mall, King George turned and addressed Colonel House.

“Suppose it was the Lusitania?”

“I think that would be enough to carry us into the war.”

Just four hours later, the RMS Lusitania was sunk by German submarine U-20, eleven miles from the coast of Ireland. 1,200 persons drowned; 195 of them Americans. One of the largest ships ever built, it went down in only eighteen minutes.

It took almost two more years, but America finally did enter the war on April 4, 1917. Absent in the government findings of the incident was that the “ocean liner” Lusitania was carrying over six million rounds of contraband ammunitions and explosives.

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