I began many years ago, as so many young men do, in searching for the perfect woman. I believed that if I looked long enough, and hard enough, I would find her and then I would be secure for life. Well, the years and romances came and went, and I eventually ended up settling for someone a lot less than my idea of perfection. But one day, after many years together, I lay there on our bed recovering from a slight illness. My wife was sitting on a chair next to the bed, humming softly and watching the late afternoon sun filtering through the trees. The only sounds to be heard elsewhere were the clock ticking, the kettle downstairs starting to boil, and an occasional schoolchild passing beneath our window. And as I looked up into my wife's now wrinkled face, but still warm and twinkling eyes, I realized something about perfection... It comes only with time. -- James L. Collymore, "Perfect Woman"
Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom." The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!" But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!" And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure. But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to the rocks, making legends of a Saviour. -- Richard Bach
"I cannot: I am tired and sick. I want some water." He heaved a sort of shuddering sigh, and taking me in his arms, carried me downstairs. At first I did not know to what room he had borne me; all was cloudy to my glazed sight: presently I felt the reviving warmth of a fire; for, summer as it was, I had become icy cold in my chamber. He put wine to my lips; I tasted it and revived; then I ate something he offered me, and was soon myself. I was in the library--sitting in his chair--he was quite near. "If I could go out of life now, without too sharp a pang, it would be well for me," I thought; "then I should not have to make the effort of cracking my heart-strings in rending them from among Mr. Rochester's. I must leave him, it appears. I do not want to leave him--I cannot leave him."
We made our way downstairs as quietly as possible, and out into the bright morning sunshine. In the road stood our horse and trap, with the half-clad stable-boy waiting at the head. We both sprang in, and away we dashed down the London Road. A few country carts were stirring, bearing in vegetables to the metropolis, but the lines of villas on either side were as silent and lifeless as some city in a dream.
Such a feeling, we must suppose, overtook Rogojin at this moment, and saved the prince's life. Not knowing that it was a fit, and seeing his victim disappear head foremost into the darkness, hearing his head strike the stone steps below with a crash, Rogojin rushed downstairs, skirting the body, and flung himself headlong out of the hotel, like a raving madman.
"You hear how he slanders me, prince," said Lebedeff, almost beside himself with rage. "I may be a drunkard, an evil-doer, a thief, but at least I can say one thing for myself. He does not know--how should he, mocker that he is?--that when he came into the world it was I who washed him, and dressed him in his swathing-bands, for my sister Anisia had lost her husband, and was in great poverty. I was very little better off than she, but I sat up night after night with her, and nursed both mother and child; I used to go downstairs and steal wood for them from the house-porter. How often did I sing him to sleep when I was half dead with hunger! In short, I was more than a father to him, and now--now he jeers at me! Even if I did cross myself, and pray for the repose of the soul of the Comtesse du Barry, what does it matter? Three days ago, for the first time in my life, I read her biography in an historical dictionary. Do you know who she was? You there!" addressing his nephew. "Speak! do you know?"
The history of Brabant is connected with that of the duchy of Lower Lorraine (q.v.), which became in the course of the 11th century split up into a number of small feudal states. The counts of Hainaut, Namur, Luxemburg and Limburg asserted their independence, and the territory of Liége passed to the bishops of that city. The remnant of the duchy, united since 1100 with the margraviate of Antwerp, was conferred in 1106 by the emperor Henry V., with the title of duke of Lower Lorraine, upon Godfrey (Godefroid) I., "the Bearded," count of Louvain and Brussels. His title was disputed by Count Henry of Limburg, and for three generations the representatives of the rival houses contested the possession of the ducal dignity in Lower Lorraine. The issue was decided in favour of the house of Louvain by Duke Godfrey III. in 1159. His son, Henry I., "the Warrior" (1183-1235), abandoned the title of duke of Lower Lorraine and assumed in 1190 that of duke of Brabant. His successors were Henry II., "the Magnanimous" (1235-1248), Henry III., "le Debonnair" (1248-1261), and John I., "the Victorious" (1261-1294). These were all able rulers. Their usual place of residence was Louvain. John I., in 1283 bought the duchy of Limburg from Adolf of Berg, and secured his acquisition by defeating and slaying his competitor, Henry of Luxemburg, at the battle of Woeringen (June 5, 1288). His own son, John II., "the Pacific" (1294-1312), bestowed liberties upon his subjects by the charter of Cortenberg. This charter laid the foundation of Brabantine freedom. By it the imposition of grants (_beden_) and taxes was strictly limited and regulated, and its execution was entrusted to a council appointed by the duke for life (four nobles, ten burghers) whose duty it was to consider all complaints and to see that the conditions laid down by the charter concerning the administration of justice and finance were not infringed. He was succeeded by his son, John III., "the Triumphant" (1312-1355), who succeeded in maintaining his position in spite of formidable risings in Louvain and Brussels, and a league formed against him by his princely neighbours, but he had a hard struggle to face, and many ups and downs of fortune. He it was to whom Brabant owed the great charter of its liberties, called _La joyeuse entrée_, because it was granted on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter Johanna (Jeanne) with Wenzel (Wenceslaus) of Luxemburg, and was proclaimed on their state entry into Brussels (1356). Entry: BRABANT
The Reformation and the religious wars spread havoc among the Benedictines in many parts of northern Europe; and as a consequence, in part of the rule of Joseph II. of Austria, in part of the French Revolution, nearly every Benedictine monastery in Europe was suppressed--it is said that in the early years of the 19th century scarcely thirty in all survived. But the latter half of the century witnessed a series of remarkable revivals, and first in Bavaria, under the influence of Louis I. The French congregation (which does not enjoy continuity with the Maurists) was inaugurated by Dom Guéranger in 1833, and the German congregation of Beuron in 1863. Two vigorous congregations have arisen in the United States. These are all new creations since 1830. In Italy, Spain, Portugal and Brazil only a few monasteries survive the various revolutions, and in a crippled state; but signs are not wanting of renewed life: St Benedict's own monasteries of Subiaco and Monte Cassino are relatively flourishing. In Austria, Hungary and Switzerland there are some thirty great abbeys, most of which have had a continued existence since the middle ages. The English congregation is composed of three large abbeys (Downside, Ampleforth and Woolhampton), a cathedral priory (Hereford) and a nunnery (Stanbrook Abbey, Worcester); there are besides in England three or four abbeys belonging to foreign congregations, and several nunneries subject to the bishops. Each congregation has its president, who is merely a president, with limited powers, and not a general superior like the Provincials of other orders; so that the primitive Benedictine principle of each monastery being self-contained and autonomous is preserved. Similarly each congregation is independent and self-governing, there being no superior-general or central authority, as in other orders. Leo XIII. established an international Benedictine College in Rome for theological studies, and conferred on its abbot the title of "Abbot Primate," with precedence among Black Monk abbots. He is only _primus inter pares_, and exercises no kind of superiority over the other abbots or congregations. Thus the Benedictine polity may be described as a number of autonomous federations of autonomous monasteries. The individual monks, too, belong not to the order or the congregation, but each to the monastery in which he became a monk. The chief external work of the Benedictines at the present day is secondary education; there are 114 secondary schools or _gymnasia_ attached to the abbeys, wherein the monks teach over 12,000 boys; and many of the nunneries have girls' schools. In certain countries (among them England) where there is a dearth of secular priests, Benedictines undertake parochial work. Entry: 4
LAUDERDALE, JOHN MAITLAND, DUKE OF (1616-1682), eldest surviving son of John Maitland, 2nd Lord Maitland of Thirlestane (d. 1645), who was created earl of Lauderdale in 1624, and of Lady Isabel Seton, daughter of Alexander, earl of Dunfermline, and great-grandson of Sir Richard Maitland (q.v.), the poet, a member of an ancient family of Berwickshire, was born on the 24th of May 1616, at Lethington. He began public life as a zealous adherent of the Presbyterian cause, took the covenant, sat as an elder in the assembly at St Andrews in July 1643, and was sent to England as a commissioner for the covenant in August, and to attend the Westminster assembly in November. In February 1644 he was a member of the committee of both kingdoms, and on the 20th of November was one of the commissioners appointed to treat with the king at Uxbridge, when he made efforts to persuade Charles to agree to the establishment of Presbyterianism. In 1645 he advised Charles to reject the proposals of the Independents, and in 1647 approved of the king's surrender to the Scots. At this period Lauderdale veered round completely to the king's cause, had several interviews with him, and engaged in various projects for his restoration, offering the aid of the Scots, on the condition of Charles's consent to the establishment of Presbyterianism, and on the 26th of December he obtained from Charles at Carisbrooke "the engagement" by which Presbyterianism was to be established for three years, schismatics were to be suppressed, and the acts of the Scottish parliament ratified, the king in addition promising to admit the Scottish nobles into public employment in England and to reside frequently in Scotland. Returning to Scotland, in the spring of 1648, Lauderdale joined the party of Hamilton in alliance with the English royalists. Their defeat at Preston postponed the arrival of the prince of Wales, but Lauderdale had an interview with the prince in the Downs in August, and from this period obtained supreme influence over the future king. He persuaded him later to accept the invitation to Scotland from the Argyll faction, accompanied him thither in 1650 and in the expedition into England, and was taken prisoner at Worcester in 1651, remaining in confinement till March 1660. He joined Charles in May 1660 at Breda, and, in spite of the opposition of Clarendon and Monk, was appointed secretary of state. From this time onwards he kept his hold upon the king, was lodged at Whitehall, was "never from the king's ear nor council,"[1] and maintained his position against his numerous adversaries by a crafty dexterity in dealing with men, a fearless unscrupulousness, and a robust strength of will, which overcame all opposition. Though a man of considerable learning and intellectual attainment, his character was exceptionally and grossly licentious, and his base and ignoble career was henceforward unrelieved by a single redeeming feature. He abandoned Argyll to his fate, permitted, if he did not assist in, the restoration of episcopacy in Scotland, and after triumphing over all his opponents in Scotland drew into his own hands the whole administration of that kingdom, and proceeded to impose upon it the absolute supremacy of the crown in church and state, restoring the nomination of the lords of the articles to the king and initiating severe measures against the Covenanters. In 1669 he was able to boast with truth that "the king is now master here in all causes and over all persons." Entry: LAUDERDALE
MANTELL, GIDEON ALGERNON (1790-1852), English geologist and palaeontologist, was born in 1790 at Lewes, Sussex. Educated for the medical profession, he first practised in his native town, afterwards in 1835 in Brighton, and finally at Clapham, near London. He found time to prosecute researches on the palaeontology of the Secondary rocks, particularly in Sussex--a region which he made classical in the history of discovery. While he was still a country doctor at Lewes his eminence as a geological investigator was fully recognized on the publication of his work on _The Fossils of the South Downs_ (1822). His most remarkable discoveries were made in the Wealden formations. He demonstrated the fresh-water origin of the strata, and from them he brought to light and described the remarkable Dinosaurian reptiles known as _Iguanodon_, _Hylaeosaurus_, _Pelorosaurus_ and _Regnosaurus_. For these researches he was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society and a Royal medal by the Royal Society. He was elected F.R.S. in 1825. Among his other contributions to the literature of palaeontology was his description of the Triassic reptile _Telerpelon elginense_. Towards the end of his life Dr Mantell retired to London, where he died on the 10th of November 1852. His eldest son, WALTER BALDOCK DURRANT MANTELL (1820-1895), settled in New Zealand, and there attained high public positions, eventually being secretary for Crown-lands. He obtained remains of the _Notornis_, a recently extinct bird, and also brought forward evidence to show that the moas were contemporaries of man. Entry: MANTELL
Meyndert Hobbema was married at the age of thirty to Eeltije Vinck of Gorcum, in the Oudekerk or old church at Amsterdam, on the 2nd of November 1668. Witnesses to the marriage were the bride's brother Cornelius Vinck and Jacob Ruysdael. We might suppose from this that Hobbema and Ruysdael, the two great masters of landscape, were united at this time by ties of friendship, and accept the belief that the former was the pupil of the latter. Yet even this is denied to us, since records tell us that there were two Jacob Ruysdaels, cousins and contemporaries, at Amsterdam in the middle of the 17th century--one a framemaker, the son of Solomon, the other a painter, the son of Isaac Ruysdael. Of Hobbema's marriage there came between 1668 and 1673 four children. In 1704 Eeltije died, and was buried in the pauper section of the Leiden cemetery at Amsterdam. Hobbema himself survived till December 1709, receiving burial on the 14th of that month in the pauper section of the Westerkerk cemetery at Amsterdam. Husband and wife had lived during their lifetime in the Rozengracht, at no great distance from Rembrandt, who also dwelt there in his later and impoverished days. Rembrandt, Hals, Jacob Ruysdael, and Hobbema were in one respect alike. They all died in misery, insufficiently rewarded perhaps for their toil, imprudent perhaps in the use of the means derived from their labours. Posterity has recognized that Hobbema and Ruysdael together represent the final development of landscape art in Holland. Their style is so related that we cannot suppose the first to have been unconnected with the second. Still their works differ in certain ways, and their character is generally so marked that we shall find little difficulty in distinguishing them, nor indeed shall we hesitate in separating those of Hobbema from the feebler productions of his imitators and predecessors--Isaac Ruysdael, Rontbouts, de Vries, Dekker, Looten, Verboom, du Bois, van Kessel, van der Hagen, even Philip de Koningk. In the exercise of his craft Hobbema was patient beyond all conception. It is doubtful whether any one ever so completely mastered as he did the still life of woods and hedges, or mills and pools. Nor can we believe that he obtained this mastery otherwise than by constantly dwelling in the same neighbourhood, say in Guelders or on the Dutch Westphalian border, where day after day he might study the branching and foliage of trees and underwood embowering cottages and mills, under every variety of light, in every shade of transparency, in all changes produced by the seasons. Though his landscapes are severely and moderately toned, generally in an olive key, and often attuned to a puritanical grey or russet, they surprise us, not only by the variety of their leafage, but by the finish of their detail as well as the boldness of their touch. With astonishing subtlety light is shown penetrating cloud, and illuminating, sometimes transiently, sometimes steadily, different portions of the ground, shining through leaves upon other leaves, and multiplying in an endless way the transparency of the picture. If the chance be given him he mirrors all these things in the still pool near a cottage, the reaches of a sluggish river, or the swirl of the stream that feeds a busy mill. The same spot will furnish him with several pictures. One mill gives him repeated opportunities of charming our eye; and this wonderful artist, who is only second to Ruysdael because he had not Ruysdael's versatility and did not extend his study equally to downs and rocky eminences, or torrents and estuaries--this is the man who lived penuriously, died poor, and left no trace in the artistic annals of his country! It has been said that Hobbema did not paint his own figures, but transferred that duty to Adrian van de Velde, Lingelbach, Barendt Gael, and Abraham Storck. As to this much is conjecture. Entry: HOBBEMA
In 1699 he was sent out by the English admiralty in command of the "Roebuck," especially designed for discovery in and around Australia. He sailed from the Downs, the 14th of January, with twenty months' provisions, touched at the Canaries, Cape Verdes and Bahia, and ran from Brazil round the Cape of Good Hope direct to Australia, whose west coast he reached on the 26th of July, in about 26° S. lat. Anchoring in Shark's Bay, he began a careful exploration of the neighbouring shore-lands, but found no good harbour or estuary, no fresh water or provisions. In September, accordingly, he left Australia, recruited and refitted at Timor, and thence made for New Guinea, where he arrived on the 3rd of December. By sailing along to its easternmost extremity, he discovered that it was terminated by an island, which he named New Britain (now Neu Pommern), whose north, south and east coasts he surveyed. That St George's Bay was really St George's Channel, dividing the island into two, was not perceived by Dampier; it was the discovery of his successor, Philip Carteret. Nor did Dampier visit the west coast of New Britain or realize its small extent on that side. He was prevented from prosecuting his discoveries by the discontent of his men and the state of his ship. In May 1700 he was again at Timor, and thence he proceeded homeward by Batavia (4th July-17th October) and the Cape of Good Hope. In February 1701 he arrived off Ascension Island, when the vessel foundered (21st-24th February), the crew reaching land and staying in the island till the 3rd of April, when they were conveyed to England by some East Indiamen and warships bound for home. In 1703-1707 Dampier commanded two government privateers on an expedition to the South Seas with grievous unsuccess; better fortune attended him on his last voyage, as pilot to Woodes Rogers in the circumnavigation of 1708-1711. On the former venture Alexander Selkirk, the master of one of the vessels, was marooned at Juan Fernandez; on the latter Selkirk was rescued and a profit of nearly £200,000 was made. But four years before the prize-money was paid Dampier died (March 1715) in St Stephen's parish, Coleman Street, London. Dampier's accounts of his voyages are famous. He had a genius for observation, especially of the scientific phenomena affecting a seaman's life; his style is usually admirable--easy, clear and manly. His knowledge of natural history, though not scientific, appears surprisingly accurate and trustworthy. Entry: DAMPIER
A military station having been fixed by the British government at Port Victoria, on the coast of Arnheim Land, for the protection of shipwrecked mariners on the north coast, it was thought desirable to find an overland route between this settlement and Moreton Bay, in what then was the northern portion of New South Wales, now called Queensland. This was the object of Dr Leichhardt's expedition in 1844, which proceeded first along the banks of the Dawson and the Mackenzie, tributaries of the Fitzroy river, in Queensland. It thence passed farther north to the Burdekin, ascending to the source of that river, and turned westward across a table-land, from which there was an easy descent to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Skirting the low shores of this gulf, all the way round its upper half to the Roper, Leichhardt crossed Arnheim Land to the Alligator river, which he descended to the western shore of the peninsula, and arrived at Port Victoria, otherwise Port Essington, after a journey of 3000 m., performed within a year and three months. In 1847 Leichhardt undertook a much more formidable task, that of crossing the entire continent from east to west. His starting-point was on the Fitzroy Downs, north of the river Condamine, in Queensland, between the 26th and 27th degrees of S. latitude. But this eminent explorer had not proceeded far into the interior before he met his death, his last despatch dating from the Cogoon, 3rd of April 1848. In the same region, from 1845 to 1847, Sir Thomas Mitchell and Mr E.B. Kennedy explored the northern tributaries of the Darling, and a river in S. lat. 24°, named the Barcoo or Victoria, which flows to the south-west. This river was more thoroughly examined by Mr A.C. Gregory in 1858. Mr Kennedy lost his life in 1848, being killed by the natives while attempting to explore the peninsula of Cape York, from Rockingham Bay to Weymouth Bay. Entry: A
HUNT, WILLIAM HOLMAN (1827-1910), English artist, was born in London on the 2nd of April 1827. An ancestor on his father's side bore arms against Charles I., and went over to Holland, where he fought in the Protestant cause. He returned with William III., but the family failed to recover their property. Holman Hunt's father was the manager of a city warehouse, with tastes superior to his position in life. He loved books and pictures, and encouraged his son to pursue art as an amusement, though not as a profession. At the age of twelve and a half Holman Hunt was placed in a city office, but he employed his leisure in reading, drawing and painting, and at sixteen began an independent career as an artist. When he was between seventeen and eighteen he entered the Royal Academy schools, where he soon made acquaintance with his lifelong friend John Everett Millais, then a boy of fifteen. In 1846 Holman Hunt sent to the Royal Academy his first picture ("Hark!"), which was followed by "Dr Rochecliffe performing Divine Service in the Cottage of Joceline Joliffe at Woodstock," in 1847, and "The Flight of Madeline and Porphyrio" (from Keats's _Eve of St Agnes_) in 1848. In this year he and Millais, with the co-operation of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and others, initiated the famous Pre-Raphaelite movement in art. Typical examples of the new creed were furnished in the next year's Academy by Millais's "Isabella" and Holman Hunt's "Rienzi vowing to obtain Justice for the Death of his Young Brother." This last pathetic picture, which was sold to Mr Gibbons for £105, was followed in 1850 by "A Converted British Family sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids" (bought by Mr Combe, of the Clarendon Press, Oxford, for £150), and in 1851 by "Valentine protecting Sylvia from Proteus." This scene from _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_ was very warmly praised by Ruskin (in letters to _The Times_), who declared that as studies both of drapery and of every minor detail there had been nothing in art so earnest and complete since the days of Albert Dürer. It gained a prize at Liverpool, and is reckoned as the finest of Holman Hunt's earlier works. In 1852 he exhibited "A Hireling Shepherd." "Claudio and Isabella," from _Measure for Measure_, and a brilliant study of the Downs near Hastings, called in the catalogue "Our English Coasts, 1852" (since generally known as "Strayed Sheep"), were exhibited in 1853. For three of his works Holman Hunt was awarded prizes of £50 and £60 at Liverpool and Birmingham, but in 1851 he had become so discouraged by the difficulty of selling his pictures, that he had resolved to give up art and learn farming, with a view to emigration. In 1854 he achieved his first great success by the famous picture of "The Light of the World," an allegorical representation of Christ knocking at the door of the human soul. This work produced perhaps the greatest effect of any religious painting of the century. "For the first time in England," wrote William Bell Scott, "a picture became a subject of conversation and general interest from one end of the island to the other, and indeed continued so for many years." "The Awakening Conscience," exhibited at the same time, depicted a tragic moment in a life of sin, when a girl, stricken with memories of her innocent childhood, rises suddenly from the knees of her paramour. The inner meaning of both these pictures was explained by Ruskin in letters to _The Times_ in May 1854. "The Light of the World" was purchased by Mr Combe, and was given by his wife to Keble College. In 1904 Holman Hunt completed a second "Light of the World," slightly altered from the original, the execution of which was due to his dissatisfaction with the way in which the Keble picture was shown there; and he intended the second edition of it for as wide public exhibition as possible. It was acquired by Mr Charles Booth, who arranged for the exhibition of the new "Light of the World" in all the large cities of the colonies. Entry: HUNT