Friday, June 29, 2012
A Car Ride With Roy Campbell
When Roy and Susan were well out of Oxford, she asked:
"I have heard no news since I left the school. Has a girl, supposedly mad and desperate fir her expected child, been caught or not?"
"If you mean Rose Helen Pole, it depends on by whom and how you mean the word 'caught'."
Susan was worried, and it showed.
"No, she has not been caught by school, by psychiatrists, by abortionists, in short neither policemen nor paramedics have laid their hands on her."
Susan breathed easier again: "But?"
"She has been caught, or if you prefer, she has caught a man who is bent on a life with her. And as long as she is wanted, she is not quite free to go home from him. If you call a mother bent on forcing her to abortion a home."
"Is he bad?"
"You are an idiot, if you excuse the word. No, not quite, but you do make a weak point. And I forgot I was talking to a Queen."
She didn't mind.
"You save her from forced abortion, and you worry over whether she is free to refuse a suitor. Of course she is, but that is the end of his hospitality, and as likely as not of her child. Besides, I do not know if she wants to leave him anyway. I count her as pretty lucky."
"How do you know?"
"Don't ask. The less you know about her, the less you can be forced to tell about her - or punished for not telling but remaining silent, by psychiatrists who take that as a mental symptom. They call it mutism."
She smiled and said: "well, I am not suffering from mutism now, am I?"
He laughed out loud. When he had stopped, he said: "No, you are not. OK, I will tell you her suitor, fiancé or by now even husband is not Nobby."
"You know Nobby?"
"I had a gipsy wedding."
"Ah, yes, you do have a wedding ring, that is true. So her admirer is not Nobby, but ..."
"Someone Nobby knows and you do not."
She paused.
"He is not brutal. You asked if he's bad. He's a lad, and I can say nothing worse of him than that. Let that suffice."
For the first time since her last long talk with George the evening before the so called 'abduction' of Rose and the real abduction of herself, she laughed, for pure joy. And Roy laughed with her.
"Suppose the one who got her pregnant was a lad too, but one who was not taking responsibilities."
"Possible." He was quick to change the subject. "I think you are sane, whatever psychiatrists and police believe or pretend to believe. If you want, there are some now and arrows in the car. When Jack and Tollers invited me to Oxford, I had a feeling I might meet you. Stumble on a Susan Pevensie, Queen of a Most Christian Elfland, known as Narnia! Or, a 'lady Marion', to judge from your archery."
"You seem to have read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, then?"
"Who has not read it these days? Zulus? Hottentots? Chinamen? Deers and rabbits, ducks with wet habits? Foxes and owls, whatever prowls in wood or den? Those maybe have thereof no ken!" He paused. "OK, some left wing people, like the ones who volunteered for Azaña* ..."
"I am not supposed to be for Franco, am I?"
"Some atheists would think you were. More important they would be even more against you than against him. They aren't half as much against Stalin, for instance. After all, getting a crown and a throne, getting real power that goes with it, and of course having that served on a plate while still a child, not even a teenager ..."
"Well, it is not a dictatorship is it? I did not keep up school compulsion for young dwarfs and satyrs, did I? How is that fascist?"
"Well, it is very much anti-Azaña, at least. He was meddling with the education of other people's children when he was President. He banned all schools run by Catholic religious and clergy, just as Combes* did in France during the Third Republic."
"And Combes made school compulsory for all? How dreadful! It is like the Butler Act!"
"No, Combes did not, because Jules Ferry* had already been doing that for some time. Now Azaña was a man who admired Jules Ferry and Combes. Admiring a defrocked priest, how disgusting!"
"A defrocked priest?"
"Well, Combes either was defrocked or defrocked himself from the seminary."
"De-frocked as in un-cassocked, right?"
"Precisely. In some cases it is because of lost faith, but in some cases because ... well, because they did some gross things that celibate priests are not supposed to do."
"So that is how Catholic clergy keeps moral? Immoral ones are thrown out!"
"Indeed they are, and I hope it remains that way."**
"So, Azaña made schools compulsory?"
"I am not sure he could, just after forbidding religious to teach. There were too few teachers to do that."
"And Franco, whom so many are detesting for oppression all over England ..."
"Hmm, hmm!" Roy gave a strong cough.
"At least over a certain type of English people. You should hear Vita ..."
"Hmm, hmm" - this time the cough was even stronger.
"He did not make schools compulsory?"
"No. I am thankful, after fighting in Spain, that I was not deceived in all I fought for."
"You fought for Franco?"
"Well, I could hardly fight for Azaña, could I?"
She smiled at that.
"Besides, the Reds were killing Catholic priests. I tried to save some Carmelite fathers." He wiped a tear from the wrinkle of his eye.
*Footnote on pronunciations: Combes has silent -es, and is pronounced somewhere between Caub and Caumb - no clear m, but a nasal twang on the au. Jules, silent -es first, then j is not dj as in English, then u is pronounced between oo and ee: tongue like ee, lips like oo. Ferry is stressed like Ferree. Azaña = Uh-thuh-nyuh or Uh-thun-yuh.
**Foonote on history: Sadly enough, half a century and a decade later than this story, this writer has to admit it did not remain that way. One George Gheoghan abused children, boys, then was not defrocked as previously he would have been, but sent to a psychiatrist or a psychologist, it was back in the seventies, and his bishop wanted to try a newer and gentler approach. He was given another parish and relapsed, he was given councelling again, and another parish again, and relapsed again, he was sent to prison and killed by fellow inmates in the end. Just because that bishop was not traditional enough to defrock him and let that be that. But back in the days when this happened, defrocking was still the standard procedure for such cases, just as it was for loosing faith. However, Teilhard de Chardin was not defrocked (under Pius XII) for teaching Evolution, as he should have been, he was declared mentally unstable and kept in priesthood. That may have been the start of this slippery slope downward. As, of course, abolishing the cassock, in 1962 the cassock could in Paris diocese, even a few months before Vatican II, be exchanged for the clergyman dress, as carried by Anglicans. Back when this story was set, a seminarian or priest wore a cassock, and defrocking was a marking experience. Liberating - as the clergyman was felt to many priests - or not, it was a severe humiliation, and defrocking, uncassocking, tended to mark a man. At least socially, in the esteem of other Catholics. Which was enough for them to keep their distance.
Some Arrows and Some Bullets Whistle Keenly
What would the policemen do? She did not wait to find out, she put her arrow on the bowstring.
Out came two policemen from the car. The muscular one remained silent. A portly man with round face said in a jolly manner: "Put that down, young lady. We are not going to hurt you."
"What about Rose and her baby?"
"Well, she can't have a baby at her age. She's not grown up herself." That was not an extremely common sentiment at the time, but some of the responsible people already shared it. Like this policeman.
"So if teens get pregnant, you find murder alright?"
"Wouldn't put it that way, seems there is a medical problem ..." So the lie about Rose's life being endangered was already being spread.
Susan noted the muscular one was getting his hand back towards his pistol, and also that the one inside was phoning.
Twang. Chuck. The muscular officer let go of his pistol, and shouted out for pain, then groaned. There was an arrow in his flesh and it hurt like jiminy.
The portly and talkative officer got his hand back, turning the left side to Susan. She was not waiting for the pistol to appear, but ducked below the fence while taking out the next arrow.
The policeman turned again, shot too soon and missed her with a whistle near her ear, then she shot. Twang, chuck, he too let go of his pistol, and his arrow was just above the elbow, on the inner side. He simply groaned, as a man used to pain and torture.
Susan wondered where George was waiting, but the car was in fact gliding around the corner. The policemen withdrew towards the car, Susan got out of her gate, pursued with another arrow ready, they stepped into the car which backed, backed, backed, while she went forth, forth forth with her arrow.
From the side of her eyes, she glanced people gathering on both sides, at a safe distance, and she was sweating cold sweat.
"Steady now, Miss!"
Some huge man grabbed her from behind. She was lifted up and could not aim properly, he was pressing her arms to her side, so she dropped the bow and arrow. She could however kick backwards from her knee on her captor's face. That did not help. "Whoa, steady now!"
"She's out of her mind!"
"What is it all about?" She recognised the milkman's voice, he did not try to help, although he sounded awkward.
She heard a car start, and it sounded like her own. She turned her head slightly, glanced and saw, yes, George was driving away, and noone seemed to notice.
"Put her down on the ground," ordered the policeman who had stayed in the car. Which they also did. The other policemen came forth , thanked her captors, said it was well they understood she was not quite herself (and they showed off the arrows), and they continued with some groaning, it was again the portly man speaking: "We've called an ambulance for three. Two places for our arrow-wounds - it hurts like fire, I tell you, and one place for her head. She seems to have taken us for some nightmare monsters of hers."
"I took you for policemen trying to ..." she shut up quickly, she did not want to pull their attention to George and Rose.
"Trying to calm a dangerous lady with arrows who wounded officers of the law doing their duty. Right?"
She said nothing.
"Well, let's wait for the ambulance, if you will hold her, my colleague has handcuffs and fetters."
And she was fettered legs together, and she was cuffed arms behind the back, and she was allowed to sit, but she said nothing.
The ambulance came. The three policemen walked in, after the paramedics had carried Susan in like a package. As the doors closed, the two wounded policemen had their sleeves clipped off oround the arrows. "Sorry about the uniforms, Sirs!" - Susan watched this with some interest - and the shoulder and arm disinfected around the wounds and protruding arrows. The muscular man hissed as the peroxyde touched the flesh, but the portly one just bit his teeth together.
"My lady, what kind of arrows were they?" asked one paramedic.
"Normal sport arrows with field points. An iron coating to protect the sharpened wood, basically."
"No poison?"
"No poison."
"Does that mean," asked the policeman, the muscular one spoke for the first time, "that we can pull them out?"
"It will be better to wait till we arrive. If you wish, we have some analgetics for you. Painkillers."
The ambulance driver said: "Two police cars escorting us have arrived, give Lady Marion a pillow so we can drive."
It was the third policeman, the one who had stayed in the car, a small man, who put the pillow between her neck and the wall between driving space and medical space of the car. A safe place from which she could not run away. As the ambulance started driving, the small policeman spoke to her, silently. "How come you did not try to tell the crowd we were forcing Miss Pole to abort? It's regarded as immoral by many, it is still illegal, you could have stumped us there."
Susan did not answer.
"If it was to help Rose escape, it was no use. We did not forget her. I phoned a description of the car and of her, and took a photo of the driver, some redhead friend of yours. Irish?"
Susan, again, said nothing. She gave him a look with less love for him than the arrows she had fired at the other too. If only she had had an arrow now. She bit her lip in order not to cry.
Out came two policemen from the car. The muscular one remained silent. A portly man with round face said in a jolly manner: "Put that down, young lady. We are not going to hurt you."
"What about Rose and her baby?"
"Well, she can't have a baby at her age. She's not grown up herself." That was not an extremely common sentiment at the time, but some of the responsible people already shared it. Like this policeman.
"So if teens get pregnant, you find murder alright?"
"Wouldn't put it that way, seems there is a medical problem ..." So the lie about Rose's life being endangered was already being spread.
Susan noted the muscular one was getting his hand back towards his pistol, and also that the one inside was phoning.
Twang. Chuck. The muscular officer let go of his pistol, and shouted out for pain, then groaned. There was an arrow in his flesh and it hurt like jiminy.
The portly and talkative officer got his hand back, turning the left side to Susan. She was not waiting for the pistol to appear, but ducked below the fence while taking out the next arrow.
The policeman turned again, shot too soon and missed her with a whistle near her ear, then she shot. Twang, chuck, he too let go of his pistol, and his arrow was just above the elbow, on the inner side. He simply groaned, as a man used to pain and torture.
Susan wondered where George was waiting, but the car was in fact gliding around the corner. The policemen withdrew towards the car, Susan got out of her gate, pursued with another arrow ready, they stepped into the car which backed, backed, backed, while she went forth, forth forth with her arrow.
From the side of her eyes, she glanced people gathering on both sides, at a safe distance, and she was sweating cold sweat.
"Steady now, Miss!"
Some huge man grabbed her from behind. She was lifted up and could not aim properly, he was pressing her arms to her side, so she dropped the bow and arrow. She could however kick backwards from her knee on her captor's face. That did not help. "Whoa, steady now!"
"She's out of her mind!"
"What is it all about?" She recognised the milkman's voice, he did not try to help, although he sounded awkward.
She heard a car start, and it sounded like her own. She turned her head slightly, glanced and saw, yes, George was driving away, and noone seemed to notice.
"Put her down on the ground," ordered the policeman who had stayed in the car. Which they also did. The other policemen came forth , thanked her captors, said it was well they understood she was not quite herself (and they showed off the arrows), and they continued with some groaning, it was again the portly man speaking: "We've called an ambulance for three. Two places for our arrow-wounds - it hurts like fire, I tell you, and one place for her head. She seems to have taken us for some nightmare monsters of hers."
"I took you for policemen trying to ..." she shut up quickly, she did not want to pull their attention to George and Rose.
"Trying to calm a dangerous lady with arrows who wounded officers of the law doing their duty. Right?"
She said nothing.
"Well, let's wait for the ambulance, if you will hold her, my colleague has handcuffs and fetters."
And she was fettered legs together, and she was cuffed arms behind the back, and she was allowed to sit, but she said nothing.
The ambulance came. The three policemen walked in, after the paramedics had carried Susan in like a package. As the doors closed, the two wounded policemen had their sleeves clipped off oround the arrows. "Sorry about the uniforms, Sirs!" - Susan watched this with some interest - and the shoulder and arm disinfected around the wounds and protruding arrows. The muscular man hissed as the peroxyde touched the flesh, but the portly one just bit his teeth together.
"My lady, what kind of arrows were they?" asked one paramedic.
"Normal sport arrows with field points. An iron coating to protect the sharpened wood, basically."
"No poison?"
"No poison."
"Does that mean," asked the policeman, the muscular one spoke for the first time, "that we can pull them out?"
"It will be better to wait till we arrive. If you wish, we have some analgetics for you. Painkillers."
The ambulance driver said: "Two police cars escorting us have arrived, give Lady Marion a pillow so we can drive."
It was the third policeman, the one who had stayed in the car, a small man, who put the pillow between her neck and the wall between driving space and medical space of the car. A safe place from which she could not run away. As the ambulance started driving, the small policeman spoke to her, silently. "How come you did not try to tell the crowd we were forcing Miss Pole to abort? It's regarded as immoral by many, it is still illegal, you could have stumped us there."
Susan did not answer.
"If it was to help Rose escape, it was no use. We did not forget her. I phoned a description of the car and of her, and took a photo of the driver, some redhead friend of yours. Irish?"
Susan, again, said nothing. She gave him a look with less love for him than the arrows she had fired at the other too. If only she had had an arrow now. She bit her lip in order not to cry.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
"What are you going to do about it?"
« Well, what are you going to do about it? » The principal repeated his question. « You cannot get at the abortionist legally, until he commits the crime – if you think it is a crime, he can always claim he was in good faith – and then it's too late. »
Susan felt tears rise in her eyelids.
« You can tell her not to go to him, and she can do as you say, and we can shut her up as mentally unstable. You help her run away, she is one really hunted young lady, 'for her own best interest' as we say. And so are you. »
Susan felt grief turn to anger, but she would not show.
« You can tell your dear little friend you are sorry to have raised any hopes, she might just as well get it over and done with, fast. »
If you have read Prince Caspian – it was still just a few months after the previous and first book to appear in the Narnia series, as said – you will know what memory « dear little friend » sparked. She, and even more so Peter, had called the dwarf Trumpkin « dear little friend » so long they started abbreviating it as DLF. And she had started by saving him from Telmarine soldiers by shooting arrows at their armour.
« Or I could do some archery, » she said as she rose to walk out of the principal's office.
« Oh, brilliant, do some archery! » he guffawed and bawled after her.
Back in her own office, Rose was still waiting. « We have to get out of here, quick as possible. I'll take the bow and arrows. » Which she did.
They would have to pass the principal's office walking to the door to the parking place. They walked a little fast but pretending to be calm till they passed it. Then they went a little further, and Rose looked back. Unfortunately, the principal just looked out of his office. He looked at both of them, at the bow and arrows in Susan's hand, at Rose's face. She breathed « he's seen us » to Susan, she looked back and said: « run ! » So did she and took her hand, and the principal shouted fast and loud: « Miss Pevensie's abducting a pupil! She's mad! Keep them! »
They ran fast enough to get to the door, then they were being overtaken by some teachers, Su and Rose used their fingernails on their eyes to make them withdraw, and they used the breathing space to get a last run up to the car. On the front porch of the school there were a few ones gathered, as a car had just come in. As they jumped into the car, Susan started it without waiting for the doors to close, backed as fast as she could, faster than anyone thought possible, and it made the crowd withdraw again. Then she changed the gear forward, and raced to the closing porch. The crowd withdrew without closing it, they went through with a bang. « Rose, now you can close the door. » And as Rose closed the door on her side, Susan closed the one on hers.
Fast she took the shortcut home, even if she drove through some narrow paths, once she had to stop and let people on foot pass behind them on the field. She breathed again as she saw home. George was there, and Susan was glad for that. « George, Rose here is pregnant. They want to kill her baby. Take the car, but when I start shooting arrows at policemen you must get out – there they are by the way. Take her out of London, as fast as possible. »
« Horrid, I will of course. »
Susan and George just had time to change places, George into the car and Susan across the house, to the front porch. And sirens were already howling as she arrived, bow and arrows in hand. The police car came, it was fortunately only one.
Susan felt tears rise in her eyelids.
« You can tell her not to go to him, and she can do as you say, and we can shut her up as mentally unstable. You help her run away, she is one really hunted young lady, 'for her own best interest' as we say. And so are you. »
Susan felt grief turn to anger, but she would not show.
« You can tell your dear little friend you are sorry to have raised any hopes, she might just as well get it over and done with, fast. »
If you have read Prince Caspian – it was still just a few months after the previous and first book to appear in the Narnia series, as said – you will know what memory « dear little friend » sparked. She, and even more so Peter, had called the dwarf Trumpkin « dear little friend » so long they started abbreviating it as DLF. And she had started by saving him from Telmarine soldiers by shooting arrows at their armour.
« Or I could do some archery, » she said as she rose to walk out of the principal's office.
« Oh, brilliant, do some archery! » he guffawed and bawled after her.
Back in her own office, Rose was still waiting. « We have to get out of here, quick as possible. I'll take the bow and arrows. » Which she did.
They would have to pass the principal's office walking to the door to the parking place. They walked a little fast but pretending to be calm till they passed it. Then they went a little further, and Rose looked back. Unfortunately, the principal just looked out of his office. He looked at both of them, at the bow and arrows in Susan's hand, at Rose's face. She breathed « he's seen us » to Susan, she looked back and said: « run ! » So did she and took her hand, and the principal shouted fast and loud: « Miss Pevensie's abducting a pupil! She's mad! Keep them! »
They ran fast enough to get to the door, then they were being overtaken by some teachers, Su and Rose used their fingernails on their eyes to make them withdraw, and they used the breathing space to get a last run up to the car. On the front porch of the school there were a few ones gathered, as a car had just come in. As they jumped into the car, Susan started it without waiting for the doors to close, backed as fast as she could, faster than anyone thought possible, and it made the crowd withdraw again. Then she changed the gear forward, and raced to the closing porch. The crowd withdrew without closing it, they went through with a bang. « Rose, now you can close the door. » And as Rose closed the door on her side, Susan closed the one on hers.
Fast she took the shortcut home, even if she drove through some narrow paths, once she had to stop and let people on foot pass behind them on the field. She breathed again as she saw home. George was there, and Susan was glad for that. « George, Rose here is pregnant. They want to kill her baby. Take the car, but when I start shooting arrows at policemen you must get out – there they are by the way. Take her out of London, as fast as possible. »
« Horrid, I will of course. »
Susan and George just had time to change places, George into the car and Susan across the house, to the front porch. And sirens were already howling as she arrived, bow and arrows in hand. The police car came, it was fortunately only one.
... Who Would Not Eliminate the Possibility Prematurely
"What do you mean 'eliminate'?"
"Eratosthenes eliminated the theory that earth was totally flat, excepting montains. Egypt is as flat ground as you get in the world, but between Assuan and Alexandria there is clearly something bulging, so that up is not the same direction in both places. He proved it."
"How?"
"Well if the sun at noon when it is high shines straight down in Assuan and slightly northwards in Alexandria, that means the direction of sunbeams is perpendicular in one place and not in another. And if their direction is really the same, up must be slightly north of the sun in Alexandria, but not in Assuan. Assuming it is midsummer, of course."
"If the sunbeams are really coming exactly the same direction, but how do we know that?"
"Back then it was an assumption, it has been validated since. Remember how we used to do surveying out on that hike?"
"Yes."
"You survey distance to moon by taking angles from two places on earth at same time. With modern watches that is no problem. Then you know the moon might shine on different places with different angles. Now, if you measure the angle of sunlight on the moon, which is what you do by measuring the phases, you can survey distance to sun. Since it shines on the moon at a slightly different angle than on earth. Very slightly. Actually that may have been how Eratosthenes knew sun was too far away to shine different angles on Alexandria and Assuan."
"But I thought people thought the earth was flat up to the time of Columbus?"
"If you mean people like Spanish and Nordic sailors, sure, some of them or even most of them might have believed that. If you mean scientists, no they did not."
"So Columbus proved nothing that wasn't already known?"
"Columbus and Vasco da Gama proved that the non-flatness of earth amounts to a complete globe. Noone had seriously suggested it might be a half-globe - at least pa knew noone who had - but Columbus and Vasco da Gama gave proof it was not.
"They also disproved - along with James Cook - Saint Augustine's theory that there are no people on the opposite side of the earth."
"How so? I mean they discovered Red and Honest Injuns and Aboriginees with their didgeridoos and boomerangs, but why was Saint Augustine sure there were none?"
"He was maybe the one Church Father back in those times to care about the question, but his take depends on the fact he had never been in the Atlantic. You know the Gulf Stream?"
"Sure, it keeps us warm in winter and starts from the Gulf of Mexico."
"That's it. And where is water floating the other way, back to the Gulf Stream?"
"Wasn't that the stream from the Azores, the one that Columbus used?"
"Exactly. Now, he knew of neither of these streams, so he thought it must be either physically possible to sail and sail back like that, to get West and back East to where you came from or physically impossible to get West across the Ocean at all."
"He didn't count on parting from Azores and getting back to Ireland? Surely scientists have been taught to make no such blunders?"
"He was from the Mediterranean, not the Atlantic. Great if you want good food and people talking nice, but less great for some scientific observations. Do you think Galileo was a real scientist?"
"Wasn't he?"
"He was, like St Augustine, from the Mediterranean. One of his judges, can't recall which process, was from Portugal. He knew, from observation, that Galileo was wrong on tides."
"But the modern theory of tides is a heliocentric theory, right?"
"If you like, but it is not Galileo's. It was in fact very recently that Sir George Darwin (grandson of 'Mr-Man-Descends-From-Apes' Charles Darwin himself) who founded the modern theory of tides."
"Anyway: as Galileo was wrong about tides, St Augustine did not count on parting from Azores and getting back to Ireland?"
"No. In this case, the lacuna ..." she stopped. "Can I have some more tea please?"
When she got it, and her throat was less parched, she continued:
"In his case the lacuna in his enumeration of possibilities was discovered through making the voyages. But he also gave a real alternative, something to disprove, which was not disproven until then. I mean the non-existance of antipodes, of people walking with feet against ours."
"Which was exchanged for the very clear existance of Injuns, Maoris, Aboriginees, and so on. - So you mean, one cannot eliminate a possibility by just ignoring it?"
"Exactly: no one cannot do so properly."
"Not even by discovering the opposite?"
"How can you discover the opposite of a non-real possibility and not eliminate it?"
"Getting back to Ramandu and so, if people thought that Mars was a god because there are not just the movements around us along with the rest of the sky but also retrograde motions and getting through the zodiak, and now we know it is because Mars and Earth turn around the Sun at a different pace, and when Earth goes faster on same side as Mars, it looks like Mars is going backwards."
"How is that a discovery that Mars is neither a god nor any other type of guy?"
"Well, if we now know it is because of gravitation and momentum."
"Well, we would know it is because of that, if we had properly eliminated the theory that Mars is being moved around by some guy."
"But we have seen Mars in telescopes, it is a ball with channels on it, not a guy with a face."
"Even if not, why must all and every kind of people or beings with a conscience have a face?"
"Well, without eyes it would be blind, without mouth and ears it wouldn't communicate with others of its kind..."
"First of all, it might not need either of it to guide Mars, as the rock we see. It might be feeling its way around some gravitational field around the Sun. Of course, Mars as seen by us need not be the actual guy either."
"But who could be strong enough to push all of planet Mars around its orbit, we know how big it is and how heavy, right?"
"It is assumed we know how heavy it is, because if Mars is moved only by mechanic causes, if these are its previous momentum being calculable from speed and mass, and its gravaitation towards the Sun, where the calculation is from distance and from both Sun's mass and its own, then by knowing distance and orbit we can calculate its mass."
"You mean, how heavy it is?"
"Right."
"But the distance, the orbit, the speed are all known and the calculations have been made."
"They have been made by scientists who assumed they knew the precisely two only reasons for its movements, both of which involve masses."
"But scientists aren't supposed to assume, are they? They are supposed to know and prove before they talk as if they knew, right?"
"And how often do you think people failed to do what they were supposed to? I mean the driver of the locomotive in that train was very much doing nearly what he was supposed to. If he had also slowed down a bit earlier, your family and friends like Jill and Polly and Professor Kirke would still be alive."
"OK, that was a slip of his mind."
"Well, as said, scientists have for centuries not been paying attention to the possibility that the movements of stars and planets may be a form of conscious art. That also may be a slip of mind, though in this case it has lasted centuries."
"So you say you believe Lucy is right?"
"I may come to believe that about stars later on, right now I am only trying to not eliminate the possibility prematurely."
"Eratosthenes eliminated the theory that earth was totally flat, excepting montains. Egypt is as flat ground as you get in the world, but between Assuan and Alexandria there is clearly something bulging, so that up is not the same direction in both places. He proved it."
"How?"
"Well if the sun at noon when it is high shines straight down in Assuan and slightly northwards in Alexandria, that means the direction of sunbeams is perpendicular in one place and not in another. And if their direction is really the same, up must be slightly north of the sun in Alexandria, but not in Assuan. Assuming it is midsummer, of course."
"If the sunbeams are really coming exactly the same direction, but how do we know that?"
"Back then it was an assumption, it has been validated since. Remember how we used to do surveying out on that hike?"
"Yes."
"You survey distance to moon by taking angles from two places on earth at same time. With modern watches that is no problem. Then you know the moon might shine on different places with different angles. Now, if you measure the angle of sunlight on the moon, which is what you do by measuring the phases, you can survey distance to sun. Since it shines on the moon at a slightly different angle than on earth. Very slightly. Actually that may have been how Eratosthenes knew sun was too far away to shine different angles on Alexandria and Assuan."
"But I thought people thought the earth was flat up to the time of Columbus?"
"If you mean people like Spanish and Nordic sailors, sure, some of them or even most of them might have believed that. If you mean scientists, no they did not."
"So Columbus proved nothing that wasn't already known?"
"Columbus and Vasco da Gama proved that the non-flatness of earth amounts to a complete globe. Noone had seriously suggested it might be a half-globe - at least pa knew noone who had - but Columbus and Vasco da Gama gave proof it was not.
"They also disproved - along with James Cook - Saint Augustine's theory that there are no people on the opposite side of the earth."
"How so? I mean they discovered Red and Honest Injuns and Aboriginees with their didgeridoos and boomerangs, but why was Saint Augustine sure there were none?"
"He was maybe the one Church Father back in those times to care about the question, but his take depends on the fact he had never been in the Atlantic. You know the Gulf Stream?"
"Sure, it keeps us warm in winter and starts from the Gulf of Mexico."
"That's it. And where is water floating the other way, back to the Gulf Stream?"
"Wasn't that the stream from the Azores, the one that Columbus used?"
"Exactly. Now, he knew of neither of these streams, so he thought it must be either physically possible to sail and sail back like that, to get West and back East to where you came from or physically impossible to get West across the Ocean at all."
"He didn't count on parting from Azores and getting back to Ireland? Surely scientists have been taught to make no such blunders?"
"He was from the Mediterranean, not the Atlantic. Great if you want good food and people talking nice, but less great for some scientific observations. Do you think Galileo was a real scientist?"
"Wasn't he?"
"He was, like St Augustine, from the Mediterranean. One of his judges, can't recall which process, was from Portugal. He knew, from observation, that Galileo was wrong on tides."
"But the modern theory of tides is a heliocentric theory, right?"
"If you like, but it is not Galileo's. It was in fact very recently that Sir George Darwin (grandson of 'Mr-Man-Descends-From-Apes' Charles Darwin himself) who founded the modern theory of tides."
"Anyway: as Galileo was wrong about tides, St Augustine did not count on parting from Azores and getting back to Ireland?"
"No. In this case, the lacuna ..." she stopped. "Can I have some more tea please?"
When she got it, and her throat was less parched, she continued:
"In his case the lacuna in his enumeration of possibilities was discovered through making the voyages. But he also gave a real alternative, something to disprove, which was not disproven until then. I mean the non-existance of antipodes, of people walking with feet against ours."
"Which was exchanged for the very clear existance of Injuns, Maoris, Aboriginees, and so on. - So you mean, one cannot eliminate a possibility by just ignoring it?"
"Exactly: no one cannot do so properly."
"Not even by discovering the opposite?"
"How can you discover the opposite of a non-real possibility and not eliminate it?"
"Getting back to Ramandu and so, if people thought that Mars was a god because there are not just the movements around us along with the rest of the sky but also retrograde motions and getting through the zodiak, and now we know it is because Mars and Earth turn around the Sun at a different pace, and when Earth goes faster on same side as Mars, it looks like Mars is going backwards."
"How is that a discovery that Mars is neither a god nor any other type of guy?"
"Well, if we now know it is because of gravitation and momentum."
"Well, we would know it is because of that, if we had properly eliminated the theory that Mars is being moved around by some guy."
"But we have seen Mars in telescopes, it is a ball with channels on it, not a guy with a face."
"Even if not, why must all and every kind of people or beings with a conscience have a face?"
"Well, without eyes it would be blind, without mouth and ears it wouldn't communicate with others of its kind..."
"First of all, it might not need either of it to guide Mars, as the rock we see. It might be feeling its way around some gravitational field around the Sun. Of course, Mars as seen by us need not be the actual guy either."
"But who could be strong enough to push all of planet Mars around its orbit, we know how big it is and how heavy, right?"
"It is assumed we know how heavy it is, because if Mars is moved only by mechanic causes, if these are its previous momentum being calculable from speed and mass, and its gravaitation towards the Sun, where the calculation is from distance and from both Sun's mass and its own, then by knowing distance and orbit we can calculate its mass."
"You mean, how heavy it is?"
"Right."
"But the distance, the orbit, the speed are all known and the calculations have been made."
"They have been made by scientists who assumed they knew the precisely two only reasons for its movements, both of which involve masses."
"But scientists aren't supposed to assume, are they? They are supposed to know and prove before they talk as if they knew, right?"
"And how often do you think people failed to do what they were supposed to? I mean the driver of the locomotive in that train was very much doing nearly what he was supposed to. If he had also slowed down a bit earlier, your family and friends like Jill and Polly and Professor Kirke would still be alive."
"OK, that was a slip of his mind."
"Well, as said, scientists have for centuries not been paying attention to the possibility that the movements of stars and planets may be a form of conscious art. That also may be a slip of mind, though in this case it has lasted centuries."
"So you say you believe Lucy is right?"
"I may come to believe that about stars later on, right now I am only trying to not eliminate the possibility prematurely."
And Su Called George About It ...
George came for a visit.
"Hi Su, any news? You sounded eager to see me when speaking on the phone."
"Welcome George. I was rather wondering what you would think of something sister wrote."
"Why me? Oh, I know I am your best friend still alive, but you stressed the you. Why me?"
"Well, your father is a scientist, a physicist, right?"
"Yes ... but I thought you said your sister was all into the Middle Ages ... either some fantasy country with castles and no factories and with swords and archery but no guns or, well, praying and never dancing, like some Hildegard or Julianne or something?"
"You know Hildegard of Bingen and Julianne of Norwich? I thought you were very much not into the Middle Ages?"
"Oh, pa looked them up lately."
"But in a way you do not know how right you are. That Tolkien guy, a friend of Jack and Warnie, he even wroter her a letter asking her opinion on a comment he had to do on his edition of Ancrene Riule. It's a rule for people like, not quite Hildegard, she was a nun, but at least Julianne of Norwich."
"OK, where do I and father come in? Even if he lives like a recluse nowadays, whenever ma gets on pilgrimage or monastic retreats, he is not even fully a believer, although he considers it."
Susan bit her lip in order to stop herself from saying: "that's my case too."
She actually answered:
"Got that, but ... you see, she thought it possible - or she listened to a conversation with Edmund who thought it possible that stars are in fact a kind of people and that that is why their movements look funny - like it seems the explanation you give is you-know-the-train-and-how-it-looks-like-the-trees-are-moving-when-you-look-out-from-the-window. Retrograde motion for planets and parallax and things like aberration too for the stars."
"Well, that is not what scientists have been reasoning from lately: to them, at least to most, stars and planets are dead matter and so they either move for reasons of either previous movement or gravitation or both or they seem to move because it's earth that moves in space with us. So, your late brother and sister thought otherwise?"
"Can you read her essay on that conversation in a secret writing she used, if I give you the alphabet, or do you need my rewriting of it in English letters?"
"If you have already rewritten it ..."
"I have!"
"Then I will look at the script later, if you don't mind. I am all for reading the essay, if you need no help with transcription."
"Ah, you know I do not!" Susan was as good as Dick when it came to deciphering scripts, and George knew it.
"Pulling your leg, will you serve me tea while I read?"
"Rather. But first take the essay."
She did. Susan went for a big pot of tea, sat down opposite George reading it, and they both had tea.
And after a while, George too had read Lucy's essay.
"A bit elaborate for just a game if you ask me!"
"How?"
"Well, would people gaming be referring to their game as something real when discussing philosophy, science and Christian confessional history?"
Susan was silent. She nodded.
"Especially if it was the kind of game you say of pretending to be kings and queens for the glamour of it. That is a bit more your line. You have a weakness for dresses and dancing if you ask me."
Oh boy, that blue dress she bought just after leaving off the black.
"Do you think they were mad?"
"Of course not! Madmen are not able to understand each other enough to get something together like that. But what is more, they reasoned with perfect calm except when Lucy got a bit impatient, and with perfect logic."
"Perfect logic? But you said scientists have not believed for centuries that stars are people or anything like that?"
"Well, not to judge from their published writings."
"So, they are saying something scientists have thought was bosh for centuries, but they still say it with very good logic?" Susan raised her eyebrows.
"Well, good logic and what scientists believe are two different concepts. Of course scientists try to use as good logic as they can, but if a thing simply is ignored by them - and stars being guys like Ramandu and Coriakin has been simply ignored, not argued about at all - then it is not a worse logic than that of the scientists to fill in the lacuna."
"Lacuna?"
"Like a piece lacking. You learn a foreign language - I've tried Cornish - and you lack a verb tense like the pluperfect or a word for some object, now that is a lacuna in your knowledge of that language. Here it is a lacuna in attention."
"Word sounds a bit like 'lagoon'?"
"Father uses that as a thumb rule: a lagoon is a lacuna of land within the coastline."
"OK, but even if scientists aren't thinking of everything, that doesn't mean they reason badly, does it?"
"It does, at least if what they leave out is a thing worth considering. If you enumerate all possibilities correctly, if all thinkable thoughts are there, and then you eliminate all except one, you have proven that one to be the truth. But if you leave out a possibility, you jump to conclusions when eliminating all but one of those you thought of, and you may overlook the truth, which may be one of two or three possibilities that you have not eliminated properly."
"Hi Su, any news? You sounded eager to see me when speaking on the phone."
"Welcome George. I was rather wondering what you would think of something sister wrote."
"Why me? Oh, I know I am your best friend still alive, but you stressed the you. Why me?"
"Well, your father is a scientist, a physicist, right?"
"Yes ... but I thought you said your sister was all into the Middle Ages ... either some fantasy country with castles and no factories and with swords and archery but no guns or, well, praying and never dancing, like some Hildegard or Julianne or something?"
"You know Hildegard of Bingen and Julianne of Norwich? I thought you were very much not into the Middle Ages?"
"Oh, pa looked them up lately."
"But in a way you do not know how right you are. That Tolkien guy, a friend of Jack and Warnie, he even wroter her a letter asking her opinion on a comment he had to do on his edition of Ancrene Riule. It's a rule for people like, not quite Hildegard, she was a nun, but at least Julianne of Norwich."
"OK, where do I and father come in? Even if he lives like a recluse nowadays, whenever ma gets on pilgrimage or monastic retreats, he is not even fully a believer, although he considers it."
Susan bit her lip in order to stop herself from saying: "that's my case too."
She actually answered:
"Got that, but ... you see, she thought it possible - or she listened to a conversation with Edmund who thought it possible that stars are in fact a kind of people and that that is why their movements look funny - like it seems the explanation you give is you-know-the-train-and-how-it-looks-like-the-trees-are-moving-when-you-look-out-from-the-window. Retrograde motion for planets and parallax and things like aberration too for the stars."
"Well, that is not what scientists have been reasoning from lately: to them, at least to most, stars and planets are dead matter and so they either move for reasons of either previous movement or gravitation or both or they seem to move because it's earth that moves in space with us. So, your late brother and sister thought otherwise?"
"Can you read her essay on that conversation in a secret writing she used, if I give you the alphabet, or do you need my rewriting of it in English letters?"
"If you have already rewritten it ..."
"I have!"
"Then I will look at the script later, if you don't mind. I am all for reading the essay, if you need no help with transcription."
"Ah, you know I do not!" Susan was as good as Dick when it came to deciphering scripts, and George knew it.
"Pulling your leg, will you serve me tea while I read?"
"Rather. But first take the essay."
She did. Susan went for a big pot of tea, sat down opposite George reading it, and they both had tea.
And after a while, George too had read Lucy's essay.
"A bit elaborate for just a game if you ask me!"
"How?"
"Well, would people gaming be referring to their game as something real when discussing philosophy, science and Christian confessional history?"
Susan was silent. She nodded.
"Especially if it was the kind of game you say of pretending to be kings and queens for the glamour of it. That is a bit more your line. You have a weakness for dresses and dancing if you ask me."
Oh boy, that blue dress she bought just after leaving off the black.
"Do you think they were mad?"
"Of course not! Madmen are not able to understand each other enough to get something together like that. But what is more, they reasoned with perfect calm except when Lucy got a bit impatient, and with perfect logic."
"Perfect logic? But you said scientists have not believed for centuries that stars are people or anything like that?"
"Well, not to judge from their published writings."
"So, they are saying something scientists have thought was bosh for centuries, but they still say it with very good logic?" Susan raised her eyebrows.
"Well, good logic and what scientists believe are two different concepts. Of course scientists try to use as good logic as they can, but if a thing simply is ignored by them - and stars being guys like Ramandu and Coriakin has been simply ignored, not argued about at all - then it is not a worse logic than that of the scientists to fill in the lacuna."
"Lacuna?"
"Like a piece lacking. You learn a foreign language - I've tried Cornish - and you lack a verb tense like the pluperfect or a word for some object, now that is a lacuna in your knowledge of that language. Here it is a lacuna in attention."
"Word sounds a bit like 'lagoon'?"
"Father uses that as a thumb rule: a lagoon is a lacuna of land within the coastline."
"OK, but even if scientists aren't thinking of everything, that doesn't mean they reason badly, does it?"
"It does, at least if what they leave out is a thing worth considering. If you enumerate all possibilities correctly, if all thinkable thoughts are there, and then you eliminate all except one, you have proven that one to be the truth. But if you leave out a possibility, you jump to conclusions when eliminating all but one of those you thought of, and you may overlook the truth, which may be one of two or three possibilities that you have not eliminated properly."
Good Old George (and don't you ever call her Georgina!)
"Tim is dead."
"How awful! Such a dear old dog!"
"I know."
Here George grabbed Susan with both arms around the neck, bent the head and started crying.
Maybe she had already cried around the necks of her cousins also, but wanted to cry again. Or maybe she hadn't really wanted to cry around Anne's, since she did not want to be more girlish than her. Or around those of Dick and Julian since she wanted to be no less boyish than they. Or maybe she had somehow just not had the opportunity. Susan did not know.
One thing is sure: Susan, what with riding and swimming and archery, was a girl of her own mind. Maybe she would have thought that about Lucy too, if she had been around her, but she met Susan in America, just after she had renounced Narnia after the letter from her cousin Eustace.
When she had cried, it was soon Susan's turn.
"How are Pete and Ed and Lu?"
"They died in a train crash last year." And she grabbed George around the neck and started crying.
And after crying, she asked George: "How are your cousins?"
"Oh, no train crashes for them so far! Anne is married. She's expecting. Julian is in training for army officer."
"And Dick?"
"Sit down."
"But ..."
George took a grip on her shoulders and pushed her down on the sofa.
"OK, what is so shocking?"
George nearly started giggling before telling. She laughed out loud for the splendid vision it gave her:
"He's training to be a cook. A real chef. He's even learning French .... hahaha .... so he can go down to France and study there."
Susan laughed too. When she had stopped she said: "It's incredible! He's really made for that!"
"Well, he was on the chubby side, rarely said no to food ever ..."
"Speaking of which, you are not saying no to a cup of tea, are you?"
"What do you think? I am after all Dick's cousin. Even Anne, now she has got her husband is getting a wee bit chubbier than the months would warrant. Or maybe its just a big child. And as for Julian, if he is not chubby, it's for all the running and the pushups and some weightlifting too."
"Tea won't wait long, water is already boiling ..."
To correct Susan: it was. They had been taking turns crying for so long that the kettle had boiled dry and she had trouble getting it quickly off the stowe and under cold water to start a new kettle of tea water.
Meanwhile, George had found the red whig, and tried it on - with a grimace, way too girlish for her, long red hair ...
Susan had a laugh.
"Really unlike your black hair, you normally have ..."
"How awful! Such a dear old dog!"
"I know."
Here George grabbed Susan with both arms around the neck, bent the head and started crying.
Maybe she had already cried around the necks of her cousins also, but wanted to cry again. Or maybe she hadn't really wanted to cry around Anne's, since she did not want to be more girlish than her. Or around those of Dick and Julian since she wanted to be no less boyish than they. Or maybe she had somehow just not had the opportunity. Susan did not know.
One thing is sure: Susan, what with riding and swimming and archery, was a girl of her own mind. Maybe she would have thought that about Lucy too, if she had been around her, but she met Susan in America, just after she had renounced Narnia after the letter from her cousin Eustace.
When she had cried, it was soon Susan's turn.
"How are Pete and Ed and Lu?"
"They died in a train crash last year." And she grabbed George around the neck and started crying.
And after crying, she asked George: "How are your cousins?"
"Oh, no train crashes for them so far! Anne is married. She's expecting. Julian is in training for army officer."
"And Dick?"
"Sit down."
"But ..."
George took a grip on her shoulders and pushed her down on the sofa.
"OK, what is so shocking?"
George nearly started giggling before telling. She laughed out loud for the splendid vision it gave her:
"He's training to be a cook. A real chef. He's even learning French .... hahaha .... so he can go down to France and study there."
Susan laughed too. When she had stopped she said: "It's incredible! He's really made for that!"
"Well, he was on the chubby side, rarely said no to food ever ..."
"Speaking of which, you are not saying no to a cup of tea, are you?"
"What do you think? I am after all Dick's cousin. Even Anne, now she has got her husband is getting a wee bit chubbier than the months would warrant. Or maybe its just a big child. And as for Julian, if he is not chubby, it's for all the running and the pushups and some weightlifting too."
"Tea won't wait long, water is already boiling ..."
To correct Susan: it was. They had been taking turns crying for so long that the kettle had boiled dry and she had trouble getting it quickly off the stowe and under cold water to start a new kettle of tea water.
Meanwhile, George had found the red whig, and tried it on - with a grimace, way too girlish for her, long red hair ...
Susan had a laugh.
"Really unlike your black hair, you normally have ..."
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Escape from Merton College
When the car came in to the outer quad of Merton college, Tolkien walked away to his office, inside the inner quad, on the other side of the outer one. Jack and Roy stayed with Susan, they asked her to stay head down hidden in the car. She did and was pretty uncomfortable. « What if the people who saw us coming give me away ? » The men left the car.
They noted how Freeman came in after some talking with the warden in the lodge. Susan heard his voice and it chilled her all over, but he did not look into the car.
« Gentlemen, » he said, « this is all a terrible mistake, the lady who asked for your help is very deranged and needs psychiatric treatment. She believes she has been in another world and that she is its queen, we cannot predict what will happen if she hallucinates again in public. Please tell me where she went, I promise it is for her own good . »
Susan reflected it was funny how different he could talk to people whose help he wanted and to people whom he wanted to « help » as he called it. It made her sweat.
Jack and Roy did neither lie nor tell him the truth. They simply did not answer.
« Very well, I will go and look for her myself. I know your friend who has hidden her here is a Professor Tolkien, and we will see if he sees reason. »
He walked into the building.
When he disappeared Jack and Roy waited 15 seconds, counting, then turned on the guard from the mental hospital, running through the lodge as briskly as Jack's stodginess allowed him to, gave him a few good blows and thus chased him away. You may wonder why the wardens did not help the visitor, but for one thing he was standing outside the lodge, and for another they knew and liked Jack.
That done, Roy came running back to the car and told Susan : « Now you can sit up straight again. »
He started the car, they waved goodbye to Jack who waited.
So, Susan and Roy Campbell left Merton College and she sighed of relief.
« Well, so much for now, we'll see how soon the police get to blow the whistle on us runaways. »
As this made her bite her jaws together, he added : « cheer up – it cannot go worse than wrong, and if it goes wrong, at least the case is a bit better known than most, you won't just be forgotten in the asylum at the pmercy of whatever they want to do with you. »
She sighed again with some less relief. And the car went on.
They noted how Freeman came in after some talking with the warden in the lodge. Susan heard his voice and it chilled her all over, but he did not look into the car.
« Gentlemen, » he said, « this is all a terrible mistake, the lady who asked for your help is very deranged and needs psychiatric treatment. She believes she has been in another world and that she is its queen, we cannot predict what will happen if she hallucinates again in public. Please tell me where she went, I promise it is for her own good . »
Susan reflected it was funny how different he could talk to people whose help he wanted and to people whom he wanted to « help » as he called it. It made her sweat.
Jack and Roy did neither lie nor tell him the truth. They simply did not answer.
« Very well, I will go and look for her myself. I know your friend who has hidden her here is a Professor Tolkien, and we will see if he sees reason. »
He walked into the building.
When he disappeared Jack and Roy waited 15 seconds, counting, then turned on the guard from the mental hospital, running through the lodge as briskly as Jack's stodginess allowed him to, gave him a few good blows and thus chased him away. You may wonder why the wardens did not help the visitor, but for one thing he was standing outside the lodge, and for another they knew and liked Jack.
That done, Roy came running back to the car and told Susan : « Now you can sit up straight again. »
He started the car, they waved goodbye to Jack who waited.
So, Susan and Roy Campbell left Merton College and she sighed of relief.
« Well, so much for now, we'll see how soon the police get to blow the whistle on us runaways. »
As this made her bite her jaws together, he added : « cheer up – it cannot go worse than wrong, and if it goes wrong, at least the case is a bit better known than most, you won't just be forgotten in the asylum at the pmercy of whatever they want to do with you. »
She sighed again with some less relief. And the car went on.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Susan Gets an Inkling About the Inklings
The Inklings had already ceased their regular meetings last year. But the anniversary of Professor Digory Kirke's death in the railway accident was approaching. Tollers, Jack and Roy - mostly known as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis - whom we have already met - and Roy Campbell, famed for The Hobbit, for Screwtape letters and for poems like Flaming Terrapin and Flowering Rifle. At present it is not impossible that Campbell was still the most famous - or to the Reds infamous - of the three. He was also workig on the BBC. Lord of the Rings and Seven Chronicles of Narnia -except just recently the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe - were not yet published and had not yet tipped the balance to the favour of Tollers and Jack. Anyway, they were gathered the three of them in the Eagle and Child. The Rabbit Room, still very private. Today that privacy was going to be disturbed. And they were remembering Professor Digory Kirke appropriately.
"Funny man. You remember how I complained that it was easier to find language instruction in Chinese and Zulu than in Old English or in Welsh?"
"Of course. But as for Zulu, you can hardly complain it is available."
"I spoke with old Digs on that matter on an occasion."
"And he said what?" asked Jack with some eagerness, raising his pint, partly from thirst and partly out of pious affection for Professor Kirke.
" 'Anglo-Saxon?' he exclaimed! 'Anglo-Saxon? If you know English and German and once you get around the typical words used in neither, like searo and such - would you not agree my uncle Andrew was a pretty sarrow man? - you can read pages and pages without getting across a new word you cannot guess. Even Welsh has its aids like those 1000 words of Classic Latin gone Welsh, like Dreic from Dracü' - yes, he pronounced Draco as Dracü, just as would have been the case in Roman Britain - 'plus whatever English has from Welsh and some of what it has from Irish and Scottish Gaelic, but when you get to a language like Abinomn, nothing from any known language helps you around, and when you are on the field, you have little time for guessing wrong, and you can hardly carry a dictionary around, and ... well that is what I call a challenge!' - And then he recited the nine or ten personal pronouns of Abinomn."
"Which are?"
"Mit, mor, awp is first person singular, dual and plural. Second person takes you to ni, por, pi. As for third person I am not sure if in, nn mean he and she or are just phonetic variants, but dual and plural are not marked for gender: nar, kn."
"Sounds lovely!" said Roy. "What a luck the language has no clicks like Hottentot!"
"Ah, Hottentot click sounds ... how would you even note them in writing?" Tollers was nostalgic for South Africa.
"I am sure your tengwar" - this was Jack - "might add an extra row for clicks. But he had another side too. He is the one philosopher to beat me in exposing a page of Plato!"
"Does Plato really say ideas live in another world? I mean, the idea of man common to all men, the idea of justice common to al just acts and all just men, and so on?" - Roy was the only one to be naive about that. Or fake naïve. He had been a Mithraist before his Christian conversion.
"He does," affirmed the other two in unison.
Here their conversation was interrupted. In came Susan, panting from the effort. "Gentlemen," she said, "I don't know you ... oh I do know you Mr Lewis! I am being chased, they want to lock me up. Can you please help me?"
"You knew Professor Kirke, right?"
"Yes, of course!"
"Then it is our duty to help you. Roy has a car parked outside, we will get to Merton College immediately."
They wen't out and they met the persecutors in the door.
"Stop her, she is a dangerous lunatic!"
"Doesn't seem like that to us," said Tollers. Roy opened the door for Susan, who was white with fear, but Friedman and the hospital guard wanted to take her anyway. So Roy punched the guard on the nose, the guard punched back on the mouth, Friedman - caught between Jack an Tollers - exclaimed: "Wait, don't fight, I'll clear this up. Later."
They withdrew, the car went off to Merton College, Susan looked behind to see what Friedman and the guard were doing. They were simply trying to get a cab. They got one soon.
"Don't worry," said Roy. "I will get off a little faster, and we'll be at Merton College in no time."
"And get a speed ticket so they can catch up with us?" said Susan. "The police might even help them while having us there."
"Oh bother," said Jack. "Drive normal. Then we make a diversion before the college."
During the drive Susan explained she was indeed the one surviving Pevensie of the ones Professor Kirke's notes talked of.
"Were you crowned Queen of Narnia?" asked Tollers.
"I am not sure if it happened or not, but if it did, I was."
"Well, then you are a Queen of Elfland, and we should be doing homage, but right now we have some pressing matters. Let us just cheer for the Queen of Narnia, and may she never be known as queen of an asylum or anything like that!"
"Hooorah, hoorah, hoorah!"
She blushed and thanked God she met them in the pub. She could not have gone on with the car chase. Soon they were at college, she went out and went with Tolkien, Roy and Jack stayed back. Two against two. Unless the cab driver was to help the persecutors.
Friedman had a good sense of tactics insofar as he was more into taking on patients one at a time with a few extra hands on his side. He made an attempt at peaceful parleying, it did not help. Jack told the gate keeper of the college not to let them in, they were ruffians and troublemakers. They withdrew inside, where Roy's car was standing in the yard.
It took Friedman a few phone calls to get permission to enter. These were men of university, of science. They would understand his point of view. Well ...
"Funny man. You remember how I complained that it was easier to find language instruction in Chinese and Zulu than in Old English or in Welsh?"
"Of course. But as for Zulu, you can hardly complain it is available."
"I spoke with old Digs on that matter on an occasion."
"And he said what?" asked Jack with some eagerness, raising his pint, partly from thirst and partly out of pious affection for Professor Kirke.
" 'Anglo-Saxon?' he exclaimed! 'Anglo-Saxon? If you know English and German and once you get around the typical words used in neither, like searo and such - would you not agree my uncle Andrew was a pretty sarrow man? - you can read pages and pages without getting across a new word you cannot guess. Even Welsh has its aids like those 1000 words of Classic Latin gone Welsh, like Dreic from Dracü' - yes, he pronounced Draco as Dracü, just as would have been the case in Roman Britain - 'plus whatever English has from Welsh and some of what it has from Irish and Scottish Gaelic, but when you get to a language like Abinomn, nothing from any known language helps you around, and when you are on the field, you have little time for guessing wrong, and you can hardly carry a dictionary around, and ... well that is what I call a challenge!' - And then he recited the nine or ten personal pronouns of Abinomn."
"Which are?"
"Mit, mor, awp is first person singular, dual and plural. Second person takes you to ni, por, pi. As for third person I am not sure if in, nn mean he and she or are just phonetic variants, but dual and plural are not marked for gender: nar, kn."
"Sounds lovely!" said Roy. "What a luck the language has no clicks like Hottentot!"
"Ah, Hottentot click sounds ... how would you even note them in writing?" Tollers was nostalgic for South Africa.
"I am sure your tengwar" - this was Jack - "might add an extra row for clicks. But he had another side too. He is the one philosopher to beat me in exposing a page of Plato!"
"Does Plato really say ideas live in another world? I mean, the idea of man common to all men, the idea of justice common to al just acts and all just men, and so on?" - Roy was the only one to be naive about that. Or fake naïve. He had been a Mithraist before his Christian conversion.
"He does," affirmed the other two in unison.
Here their conversation was interrupted. In came Susan, panting from the effort. "Gentlemen," she said, "I don't know you ... oh I do know you Mr Lewis! I am being chased, they want to lock me up. Can you please help me?"
"You knew Professor Kirke, right?"
"Yes, of course!"
"Then it is our duty to help you. Roy has a car parked outside, we will get to Merton College immediately."
They wen't out and they met the persecutors in the door.
"Stop her, she is a dangerous lunatic!"
"Doesn't seem like that to us," said Tollers. Roy opened the door for Susan, who was white with fear, but Friedman and the hospital guard wanted to take her anyway. So Roy punched the guard on the nose, the guard punched back on the mouth, Friedman - caught between Jack an Tollers - exclaimed: "Wait, don't fight, I'll clear this up. Later."
They withdrew, the car went off to Merton College, Susan looked behind to see what Friedman and the guard were doing. They were simply trying to get a cab. They got one soon.
"Don't worry," said Roy. "I will get off a little faster, and we'll be at Merton College in no time."
"And get a speed ticket so they can catch up with us?" said Susan. "The police might even help them while having us there."
"Oh bother," said Jack. "Drive normal. Then we make a diversion before the college."
During the drive Susan explained she was indeed the one surviving Pevensie of the ones Professor Kirke's notes talked of.
"Were you crowned Queen of Narnia?" asked Tollers.
"I am not sure if it happened or not, but if it did, I was."
"Well, then you are a Queen of Elfland, and we should be doing homage, but right now we have some pressing matters. Let us just cheer for the Queen of Narnia, and may she never be known as queen of an asylum or anything like that!"
"Hooorah, hoorah, hoorah!"
She blushed and thanked God she met them in the pub. She could not have gone on with the car chase. Soon they were at college, she went out and went with Tolkien, Roy and Jack stayed back. Two against two. Unless the cab driver was to help the persecutors.
Friedman had a good sense of tactics insofar as he was more into taking on patients one at a time with a few extra hands on his side. He made an attempt at peaceful parleying, it did not help. Jack told the gate keeper of the college not to let them in, they were ruffians and troublemakers. They withdrew inside, where Roy's car was standing in the yard.
It took Friedman a few phone calls to get permission to enter. These were men of university, of science. They would understand his point of view. Well ...
Getting On with the Burial
Since they had decided to bury all Seven Friends of Narnia there, but Paul and Helen in London straight afterwards, they were relieved to find things being arranged for them in Sevenoaks. Since they were only two, Susan and Alberta stranded with seven corpses were quite an exceptional emergency.
The policeman made Susan sign an affidavit that the deceased were really Lucy, Edmund and Peter, Eustace and Jill, and so on. It also involved an admission of having taken the rosary out of her sister's hand. She had no problem signing that, she said "I really think she wanted me to have it" and it was accepted.
The mayor of Sevenoaks invited them to stay at the hotel up till the first funeral - which was to be pretty soon.
Susan was suddenly well aware of the fact she was not in black. Her gaudy blue dress from the party yesterday was not quite what one expected mourners to wear, and she had actually been too stricken by the news to change it between 9 and 11. So she want shopping for black. A black skirt reaching down well below the knees? Black nylon? A black top? A white blouse, the only non black item visible? A black handbag? Changing the white shoes for black? And of course a black hat with a wide rim?
Getting that shopping done really gave her some breath from mere heart ache and misery. And though Alberta had at first said she would not wear black, that was so conventional, she joined Susan in the shopping and wore black in the end too. Only she took a black blouse.
Reverend Jenkins felt he was not the man to take on the funeral, since Peter had left and Lucy and Edmund were leaving the Church of England "because of him" - although it was really more a question of the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin. So he gave a call to the retired vicar of All Hallows on the Wall, Reverend Pewsey. And just before dinner that same evening, he told Susan and Alberta he would get back to London and prepare the funeral for the parents, but reverend Pewsey would be doing it here.
Susan felt a certain cringe about that. Since she had decided Narnia was a play verging on illusion, and since she had started therapy, she had been quite distant with Reverend Pewsey, quite preferring the younger and more modern Jenkins, and she had felt it was a relief when Pewsey retired and Jenkins became the new vicar. But now it was the funeral of her brothers and her sister, and she quite well knew they would have felt otherwise.
She accepted. And then she sat down with Aunt Alberta for a dinner. Believe me, she ate, she had hardly eaten anything all day and that and crying your eyes off, which she had been doing now and then does eventually give you some appetite.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Utrum quod apud Christianos creditum est sit reiciendum propter similitatem paganorum historiarum?
Ad quartum sic proceditur: videtur quod sit reiciendum, quia longius a falsitate quadam stamus reiciendo et que vera videbantur propter similitudinem huius erroris. Set historia pagana falsis permixta est, ergo quodcumque suspectum videtur reiciendum est, et si eadem sententia et apud Christianos inveniatur. Exempli gratia, credere stellas vivas vel vivis entibus motas pertinere videtur ad errorem astrologie, ad falsitatem superstitiones, etiam si aput Christianos, utputa aput Sanctum Thomam Aquinatem vel - non condemnando id - aput Stephanum Tempier Parisiensem Episcopum inveniatur.
Set contra est quod in libro prophete Baruch inveniantur et gigantes et vive stelle secundum literam.
Respondeo esse dicendum, non a falsitate quadam esse oriendum ut postea semper longissime ab ea stet mens, set interdum longior stat error oppositus a falsitate quadam quam stat veritas. De gigantibus et de stellis aut vivis, aut vivis entibus motis due falsitates sunt: eas non esse et eas esse deos et fatorum nostrorum dominos. Veritas autem est quod nec sunt dei nec sunt nichil, set sunt male et bone creature, ut habetur in libro Baruch, capite 3:
Ex quo patet responsum ad obiectum.
Set contra est quod in libro prophete Baruch inveniantur et gigantes et vive stelle secundum literam.
Respondeo esse dicendum, non a falsitate quadam esse oriendum ut postea semper longissime ab ea stet mens, set interdum longior stat error oppositus a falsitate quadam quam stat veritas. De gigantibus et de stellis aut vivis, aut vivis entibus motis due falsitates sunt: eas non esse et eas esse deos et fatorum nostrorum dominos. Veritas autem est quod nec sunt dei nec sunt nichil, set sunt male et bone creature, ut habetur in libro Baruch, capite 3:
[9] audi Israhel mandata vitae auribus percipite ut scias prudentiam [10] quid est Israhel quid est quod in terra es inimicorum
[11] inveterasti in terra aliena coinquinatus es cum mortuis deputatus es cum descendentibus in infernum [12] dereliquisti fontem sapientiae [13] si in via Dei ambulasses habitasses in pace sempiterna [14] disce ubi sit prudentia ubi sit virtus ubi sit intellectus ut scias simul ubi sit longiturnitas vitae et victus ubi sit lumen oculorum et pax [15] quis invenit locum eius et quis intravit in thesauros eius
[16] ubi sunt principes gentium et qui dominantur super bestias quae sunt super terram [17] qui in avibus caeli inludunt [18] qui argentum thesaurizant et aurum in quo confidebant homines et non est finis adquisitionis eorum qui argentum fabricant et solliciti sunt nec est inventio operum illorum [19] exterminati sunt et ad inferos descenderunt et alii loco eorum exsurrexerunt [20] iuvenes viderunt lumen et habitaverunt super terram viam autem disciplinae ignoraverunt
[21] neque intellexerunt semitas eius neque filii eorum susceperunt eam a facie ipsorum longe facta est [22] non est audita in terra Chanaan neque visa est in Theman [23] filii quoque Agar qui exquirunt prudentiam quae de terra est negotiatores Merrae et Theman et fabulatores et exquisitores intellegentiae viam autem sapientiae nescierunt neque commemorati sunt semitas eius [24] o Israhel quam magna est domus Dei et ingens locus possessionis eius [25] magnus et non habet finem excelsus et inmensus
[26] ibi fuerunt gigantes nominati illi qui ab initio fuerunt statura magna scientes bellum [27] non hos elegit Deus neque viam disciplinae dedit illis et perierunt [28] eo quod non haberent sapientiam et perierunt propter insipientiam suam [29] quis ascendit in caelum et accepit eam et deduxit eam de nubibus [30] quis transfretavit mare et invenit illam et adtulit illam super aurum electum
[31] non est qui possit scire viam eius neque qui exquirat semitas eius [32] sed qui scit universa novit eam et invenit eam prudentia sua qui praeparavit terram in aeterno tempore et replevit eam pecudibus et quadrupedibus [33] qui emittit lumen et vadit et vocavit illud et obaudit illi in tremore [34] stellae autem lumen dederunt in custodiis suis et laetatae sunt [35] vocatae sunt et dixerunt adsumus et luxerunt ei cum iucunditate qui fecit illas.
Ex quo patet responsum ad obiectum.
Utrum nomina et mythi paganorum divorum publice tacendi sint?
Ad tertium sic proceditur: videtur quod tacendi sint et nomina deorum paganorum, quamvis sint veri homines mortui, et non modo falsi dei et eorum historie. Scriptum est enim propheta autem qui arrogantia depravatus voluerit loqui in nomine meo quae ego non praecepi illi ut diceret aut ex nomine alienorum deorum interficietur - set qui loquit de quendam divum paganorum nisi sit condempnando videtur aliqualiter prophetizare ex nomine alienorum deorum. Ergo omnino tacendi sunt.
Set contra est exemplum Sancti Augustini et Sancti Luce.
Respondeo esse dicendum quod apud Hebreos quedam fuit horror nominum alienorum deorum, immo maior post sacrilegium Antiochi Epiphani. Est et apud Lucam etnicum, non apud Mattheum Hebreum quod dicitur de precepto Cesaris Augusti. Set revera quid dicit Cesarem Augustum esse hominem vel edidisse edictum non prophetizat ex nomine Divi Augusti, et qui dicit deos paganorum plus fecisse ad ostentationem quam ad utilitatem cultorum (ut Sanctus Augustinus commentando historiam apud Livium) non prophetizat ex nomine deorum in Capitolio cultorum. Immo, apud perfectos, sicut episcopi et monachi sunt, divina nomina et pagane historie non sunt prendende in conversationem quotidianam, sicut patet ex epistula quedam Sancti Gregorii Pape. Sicut patet ex responso episcopi, puto Burdigalensis, licitum est laicis legere Eneida in eruditionem et immo episcopis docere eam si laici non adsunt sufficienter docti ut id facerent. Per quod patet responsum ad obiectum.
Set contra est exemplum Sancti Augustini et Sancti Luce.
Respondeo esse dicendum quod apud Hebreos quedam fuit horror nominum alienorum deorum, immo maior post sacrilegium Antiochi Epiphani. Est et apud Lucam etnicum, non apud Mattheum Hebreum quod dicitur de precepto Cesaris Augusti. Set revera quid dicit Cesarem Augustum esse hominem vel edidisse edictum non prophetizat ex nomine Divi Augusti, et qui dicit deos paganorum plus fecisse ad ostentationem quam ad utilitatem cultorum (ut Sanctus Augustinus commentando historiam apud Livium) non prophetizat ex nomine deorum in Capitolio cultorum. Immo, apud perfectos, sicut episcopi et monachi sunt, divina nomina et pagane historie non sunt prendende in conversationem quotidianam, sicut patet ex epistula quedam Sancti Gregorii Pape. Sicut patet ex responso episcopi, puto Burdigalensis, licitum est laicis legere Eneida in eruditionem et immo episcopis docere eam si laici non adsunt sufficienter docti ut id facerent. Per quod patet responsum ad obiectum.
Utrum sit curandum de mythis et historiis paganorum
Ad secundum sic proceditur: Videtur quod sit maxime curandum de mythis et historiis paganorum. Nam antiqui et Iudei et Greci appelati fuerant in unum populum Christianum. Si ergo de mythis et historiis Hebreorum curamus que invenimus in Genesi vel in libris Regum, pari ratione de mythis et historiis paganorum, que invenimus in Hesiodi Theogonia vel in Homeri Iliade et Odyssea.
E contra, nil est curandum de mythis et historiis paganorum: quia idolatre erant et idolatrie vel paganismi errores obnoxii et non sine admixtione errorum scriberunt mythos et historias, exempli gratia plena est Theogonia Hesiodi erroribus attribuentibus cuidam filio Saturni et nepoti Celi et Telluris regnum supra celum et terram, et Odyssea etiam errat quia dicit filiam quedam Iovis esse que consilio et opere iuvat Ulixem.
Insuper nil est curandum de historiis paganorum quia in eis dicitur Apollo predixisse examussim fata Oedipodis: set non est licitum credere oraculis demonum, vel curare de eis.
Set contra est quod multi autores Christiani per secula curaverunt aliquid de historiis paganorum, exempli gratia scribendo Herculem fuisse, sicut ille pater ecclesie qui eum dixit esse fortem veri Dei dono et a paganis divum propterea factum et filium Iovis. Quos non condempnavit ecclesia.
Respondeo esse dicendum libros paganorum non esse liberos ab errore sicut sunt libri veterum Hebreorum. Set non est quia liber non est immunis ab errore quod statim sit acervus errorum. Quedam autem paganorum omnino erronea videntur, sicut falsa revelatio de Chao, Tellure, Celo, de Saturno et Titanibus, de Iove et Diis quam fecerunt Muse Hesiodi. Quedam non erronea, vel non statim necesse erronea, sicut Hesiodem recipisse hanc revelationem a novem puellis que se dicebant esse Musas et immortales. Quedam autem permixta ex vera historia et falsa interpretatione, sicut credibile est Troianum fuisse Bellum, set non credibile in monte Olympo deos idolos tenuisse consilia de favore huic mortali faciendo vel denegando. Quoad pestem aput Grecos in alpha Iliados, credibile est eam esse allatam a demone, qui rectius Apollyon (quod Grece interpretatur Destructor) quam Apollo dicitur.
Ad primum dicendum quod, sicut in corpore dictum est, historie paganorum non sunt ab errore immunes. Cautius est eis utendum - si quidem utendum quia nulla est obligatio - quam historiis Hebreorum que in Sacra Scriptura inveniuntur. Nec est sacrilegium, sicut in Scriptura, quuidam historie non credere.
Ad secundum quod ex presentia errorum certissimorum non concluditur ad absentiam certam credibiliorum. Historia neque est enim una propositio ut sit aut totaliter falsa aut totaliter vera, set composita ex plurimis.
Ad tertium dicendum quod historia Oedipodis non incitat Christianos bene catechizatos ad credendum oraculum Delphicum, set potius ad exsecrandum, inquantum monstrat per que falsa demon suadebat in interitum que videbatur prophetiam adimplere. Que autem non credita non fuisset adimpleta nec immo adimpleri visa set solum ex credulitate adimplebantur hec et hoc in interitum ipsorum credentium.
E contra, nil est curandum de mythis et historiis paganorum: quia idolatre erant et idolatrie vel paganismi errores obnoxii et non sine admixtione errorum scriberunt mythos et historias, exempli gratia plena est Theogonia Hesiodi erroribus attribuentibus cuidam filio Saturni et nepoti Celi et Telluris regnum supra celum et terram, et Odyssea etiam errat quia dicit filiam quedam Iovis esse que consilio et opere iuvat Ulixem.
Insuper nil est curandum de historiis paganorum quia in eis dicitur Apollo predixisse examussim fata Oedipodis: set non est licitum credere oraculis demonum, vel curare de eis.
Set contra est quod multi autores Christiani per secula curaverunt aliquid de historiis paganorum, exempli gratia scribendo Herculem fuisse, sicut ille pater ecclesie qui eum dixit esse fortem veri Dei dono et a paganis divum propterea factum et filium Iovis. Quos non condempnavit ecclesia.
Respondeo esse dicendum libros paganorum non esse liberos ab errore sicut sunt libri veterum Hebreorum. Set non est quia liber non est immunis ab errore quod statim sit acervus errorum. Quedam autem paganorum omnino erronea videntur, sicut falsa revelatio de Chao, Tellure, Celo, de Saturno et Titanibus, de Iove et Diis quam fecerunt Muse Hesiodi. Quedam non erronea, vel non statim necesse erronea, sicut Hesiodem recipisse hanc revelationem a novem puellis que se dicebant esse Musas et immortales. Quedam autem permixta ex vera historia et falsa interpretatione, sicut credibile est Troianum fuisse Bellum, set non credibile in monte Olympo deos idolos tenuisse consilia de favore huic mortali faciendo vel denegando. Quoad pestem aput Grecos in alpha Iliados, credibile est eam esse allatam a demone, qui rectius Apollyon (quod Grece interpretatur Destructor) quam Apollo dicitur.
Ad primum dicendum quod, sicut in corpore dictum est, historie paganorum non sunt ab errore immunes. Cautius est eis utendum - si quidem utendum quia nulla est obligatio - quam historiis Hebreorum que in Sacra Scriptura inveniuntur. Nec est sacrilegium, sicut in Scriptura, quuidam historie non credere.
Ad secundum quod ex presentia errorum certissimorum non concluditur ad absentiam certam credibiliorum. Historia neque est enim una propositio ut sit aut totaliter falsa aut totaliter vera, set composita ex plurimis.
Ad tertium dicendum quod historia Oedipodis non incitat Christianos bene catechizatos ad credendum oraculum Delphicum, set potius ad exsecrandum, inquantum monstrat per que falsa demon suadebat in interitum que videbatur prophetiam adimplere. Que autem non credita non fuisset adimpleta nec immo adimpleri visa set solum ex credulitate adimplebantur hec et hoc in interitum ipsorum credentium.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Another Kind of Necklace of Beads
Reverend Jenkins stopped the car right in front of the site of the accident, as close as he could. People were helping to sort out the corpses, to identify, to help any survivors, to search wallets for identities of so far not identified (that was the police doing it) and a few more things. Some corpses were also being carried away.
Susan ran as fast as she could through the the little crowd, bustling through everyone, and after some three times she bumped into bystanders, she saw Lucy. OK, the other ones were there too, but she only had eyes for her younger sister. In her hands there was a kind of necklace ... wait, was she not into nagging about something called a Rosary, lately? Peter had taken it up when leaving the Anglican Church (she and Peter were the only ones old enough to do so without parental permission, at least she thought the limit was 21 years), even before deciding whether to become Catholic or Orthodox. Now that was a deception to Mr Jenkins ... so, there was the peaceful face of Lu, quiet and cold. And there in her hands, no it was not just any necklace. She was able to get it out of her sister's fingers and look at it. Not pearls, but wooden beads.
Beads, beads, beads all over it. Groups of, would it be ten? yes, separated by larger ones. All of wood, five groups of them. Under it there was a medallion with the Blessed Virgin Mary. Under that another three small beads and a large one, and then a crucifix.
She was sure her sister would have liked her to have it, so she took it on, as a necklace. Never mind if she believed in it or not, she had to find out later, but for now that was Lucy's gift to her.
She wished she had had the cordial, to heal some of the accident victims before it was too late, but Lucy had not taken that Christmas gift with her from Narnia.
But somehow, she did not worry. Not that she did not worry about herself as if she was sure to be forgiven: she did not worry about her sister. And that was a feeling she had not known since that awful day seven years ago in America when Eustace wrote her that letter.
Oh, Eustace!
"Ma'am?"
"Yes?" she turned to the police officer. He was a bit dubious about the procedure, but was not judging prematurely. Just being cautious and a bit suspicious.
"You seem to look alike the young dead lady here, are you related?"
"My name is Susan Pevensie, this was in her life Lucy Pevensie, my sister."
"Then I presume Alberta Scrubb would mean something to you?"
"Our aunt."
"We will see her in a minute, can you identify yourself?"
"Well ..."
"Driving licence?"
"Only in driving school as yet, sir."
"Do you mind?" Reverend Jenkins stepped in.
"Yes?" said the policeman.
"I have my drivers' licence here. It says I am Jonathan Jenkins, I am vicar of the All Hallows on the Wall parish of London, and I had the griveous duty to inform Miss Pevensie, Susan, of the demise of Lucy and her other siblings."
"I take it this means this is - or was Lucy Pevensie then?"
"Indeed" said both Susan and Reverend Jenkins.
"There are six more although Alberta Scrubb identified one of them as Eustace."
"Shall we ....?" suggested Susan.
And Alberta was just about quitting her sobbing, she had arrived only a little earlier.
"I had such hopes for Eustace Clarence ..."
"As she said, here is Eustace Clarence Scrubb, her son. And there beside him is his school friend Jill Pole, whom I taught archery." She noted with not little joy in her heart that both of them had that funny sort of necklace which she was wearing from out of her sister's hands. "And the elderly people beside them are Professor Digory Kirke and Miss Polly Plumber."
"Elderly? They look old!"
"They are only about sixty years, though first time I saw Digory I took him for at least seventy - nearly ten years ago. I later found out his hairs had gone white rapidly during what seemed to become his last cannibal's feast - and first and only one too. I mean, there are times when Professors from our lands do not quite survive such occasions. He was a good explorer. But he did not survive the railway crash ..." she added with a wimper. That made her cry again. And her eyes were already red.
"So he is really around sixty?" added the policeman when she was no longer crying.
"I take that to be rather correct," she said.
"Professor?"
"Doctor Artium Honoris Causa, Oxford, Professor of Anthropology and Comparative Religion in Leeds University, lecturer of Archeology on spot, several digouts - staying away from cannibals mostly"
"Anyone who might confirm that?"
"He said he had a splendid student called Jones. Indiana Jones funny enough. But where he is now ...? I suppose he shared the professor's taste for adventurous digouts, so ..." And Susan broke off again, because she really thought that Digory Kirke was an old dear. She would never more hear him on surviving among Papuan cannibals of New Guinea.
"It won't be necessary to contact Mr. Jones," went Reverend Jenkins. "I can confirm, since I attended one of his lectures at Leeds a few years ago."
"And there" - she pointed at two young men - "are Peter and Edmund, also brothers of mine and of Lucy." As she said it, she glanced at her brother Edmund especially. More wounded and white than when she saw him at Beruna (would she ever escape Narnia? was the memory even false?), and a smile which she could not quite place. She had seen it somewhere, but could not recall when. Narnia, that too? And Peter looked like after saving her from Maugrim, except this time it was his own blood, and the cuts were not made with his sword.
"I think that will do for now, I will leave you to your grief and your prayers. Sorry to have disturbed you at such a moment, but identification of corpses tends to be an important routine."
"Oh, no problem, sir!" said Susan through her tears.
"Thank God he's leaving!" sighed aunt Alberta.
What about the train to Bristol?
If you have read the Last Battle, you know that the Seven Friends of Narnia and Mr and Mrs Pevensie were on the train to Bristol.
Yes, at least they were when going to undig the rings that Digory and Polly had used.
But the things that happened between that train journey and the real train crash were not quite suitable to put into a children's story. I am afraid C. S. Lewis shortened the story a bit so as to leave it out. And adapted Jill's words to Tirian to this shorter story - it is actually not all the words in the stories that were exactly recorded. Remember how Aravis retold the words of Whin a bit grander than Whin recalled them? Well, C. S. Lewis also knew how to put words into the proper occasions - and leave some out too. The Narnia books are not the Holy Writ, you know.
When Lucy came home from Bristol, Susan got a visit from her.
"Su, the rings were not there, although we digged."
"What rings?"
"Of course, you were not there when Digory told us about their journey to Narnia ..."
"Will you excuse me for a minute?"
"Of course. I'll read a book and make some tea."
"Do. I'll be back in a quarter of an hour or so."
And that is when Susan got to her therapist, told him "Lucy is getting worse", got a calming comment about his just needing to see her, "probably" no need to lock her up at all. She put her hopes on that probability. Now she knew bitterly she should not have.
And after Lucy came out after a week, she did not look quite herself, she did not have quite the same smile, the Seven Friends of Narnia took another train - and their parents were on it too. But Reverend Jenkins was approaching the place where it crashed: Sevenoaks.
Friday, June 15, 2012
A un Marcelo, editor registrado de la Wikipedia Española
Como hé decho: la precesión de Mercurio fue un punto del heliocentrismo quien daba ocasión a dos teorías, la falsa de la planeta Vulcano y la controversiada de la relatividad. Eso no es una información controversiada de todo, lo encontré en el artículo. Y por eso, la conclusión immediada es que geocentrismo puede explicar la precesión de Mercurio sin el uno como el otro.
También, el obstaculo al geocentrismo es, lo que se dice en misma la sección y tampoco es controversiado, la teoria que los movimientos de los cuerpos celestos depienden de la gravitación universal y de nada otro regularmente o de importancia. De eso la conclusión immediada es que el geocentrismo es al menos posible si los movimientos de los cuerpos celestos pueden depender de otra cosa.
Movimiento directamente por voluntad de Diós es otra cosa. Movimiento por voluntad de un ángel es otra cosa. Eso tampoco es información controversiada. De cuyo la conclusión immediada es: el geocentrismo es posible y la precesión de Mercurio explicable otramente que por Vulcano (non-existente) o Relatividad General (teoría controversiada) en caso que Mercurio sea modo (no) - mudo (no) - movido (?) - (si:) movido por un ángel. Eso es una condicional que mismo un ateo no pueda controversar, solo el ateo controversara ciertamente precisamente la condición, es a decir que un ángel pueda mover Mercurio.
Y no es información controversada tampoco que un cristiano no es un ateo, que un cristiano creye en un Diós todopoderoso, y que un cristiano creye que haya creado ángeles mucho más fuertes que hombres y que la creadura espiritual - es a decir los angeles por ejemplo - es más grande que la creación material - es a decir por ejemplo los cuerpos celestes.
Entonces hé destillado algunos informaciones no controversiadas de todo en una conclusión que parecía - peró sin razón - a otro utilizador "información controversiada":
Con geocentrismo la precesión de Mercurio es plausible a la vez sin Vulcano y sin Relatividad. Lo que necesita quizás es no tener la gravitación como causa universal de movimientos planetarios, si los ángeles pueden mover a una planeta, el geocentrismo es posible. Y ese un cristiano no puede negar.
Que por favor Marcelo haya la bondad de deshacer su edición que suprime esas claridades logicas que no son de todo "informaciones controversiadas"!
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Beauvais
Día del Corazón Sagrado
Viernes 15-VI-2012
Todo eso hé escrito en Discusión:Teoría geocéntrica, a propuesto de un pasaje del articulo donde hé añadido y Marcelo abolido:
Con geocentrismo la precesión de Mercurio es plausible a la vez sin Vulcano y sin Relatividad. Lo que necesita quizás es no tener la gravitación como causa universal de movimientos planetarios, si los ángeles pueden mover a una planeta, el geocentrismo es posible. Y ese un cristiano no puede negar.
También, el obstaculo al geocentrismo es, lo que se dice en misma la sección y tampoco es controversiado, la teoria que los movimientos de los cuerpos celestos depienden de la gravitación universal y de nada otro regularmente o de importancia. De eso la conclusión immediada es que el geocentrismo es al menos posible si los movimientos de los cuerpos celestos pueden depender de otra cosa.
Movimiento directamente por voluntad de Diós es otra cosa. Movimiento por voluntad de un ángel es otra cosa. Eso tampoco es información controversiada. De cuyo la conclusión immediada es: el geocentrismo es posible y la precesión de Mercurio explicable otramente que por Vulcano (non-existente) o Relatividad General (teoría controversiada) en caso que Mercurio sea modo (no) - mudo (no) - movido (?) - (si:) movido por un ángel. Eso es una condicional que mismo un ateo no pueda controversar, solo el ateo controversara ciertamente precisamente la condición, es a decir que un ángel pueda mover Mercurio.
Y no es información controversada tampoco que un cristiano no es un ateo, que un cristiano creye en un Diós todopoderoso, y que un cristiano creye que haya creado ángeles mucho más fuertes que hombres y que la creadura espiritual - es a decir los angeles por ejemplo - es más grande que la creación material - es a decir por ejemplo los cuerpos celestes.
Entonces hé destillado algunos informaciones no controversiadas de todo en una conclusión que parecía - peró sin razón - a otro utilizador "información controversiada":
Con geocentrismo la precesión de Mercurio es plausible a la vez sin Vulcano y sin Relatividad. Lo que necesita quizás es no tener la gravitación como causa universal de movimientos planetarios, si los ángeles pueden mover a una planeta, el geocentrismo es posible. Y ese un cristiano no puede negar.
Que por favor Marcelo haya la bondad de deshacer su edición que suprime esas claridades logicas que no son de todo "informaciones controversiadas"!
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Beauvais
Día del Corazón Sagrado
Viernes 15-VI-2012
Todo eso hé escrito en Discusión:Teoría geocéntrica, a propuesto de un pasaje del articulo donde hé añadido y Marcelo abolido:
Con geocentrismo la precesión de Mercurio es plausible a la vez sin Vulcano y sin Relatividad. Lo que necesita quizás es no tener la gravitación como causa universal de movimientos planetarios, si los ángeles pueden mover a una planeta, el geocentrismo es posible. Y ese un cristiano no puede negar.
Cristianismo - la verdad necesaria entre mentiras probables
Cito una filosofía panteista, cuasi espinozana - que "sinembargo" tenía culto sacrificador de hombres y mujeres:
El cristiano concede lo de artistico. No concede lo de disfraz, como si Dios fuese la única realidad. Por la religión nahua, Téotl es a vez el qué y el como del cosmo. Por la cristiana Dios es "el como" en tanto decide como, en tanto que hace el como. Peró no es el qué, es el productor del qué. Algunos aspectos:
Falso, hay substancias creadas, hay entes. Son ellos que son subjetos de los procesos - y Dios mismo es sujeto del proceso de gobernarles.
Falso también, hay no solo una substancia creada, peró muchas. En el primer día creó Dios a la luz, hubiendo ya creado al cielo y a la tierra: tres primeras cosas visibles distantas de Dios (creando el cielo creó también a los ángeles, cada uno distinto de los otros y del cielo en general y de la luz y de la tierra). Y entre se mutualmente. Los días dos a seis Dios añade otras cosas distintas entre se y las primeras. Y dando la fertilidad a plantas, a animales de los aires y del agua y de la tierra y hasta al hombre, dio la posibilidad de augmentar realmente al número de las cosas distantas también a entes creados.
Falso también. Dios creó la vida, el pecado hizo la muerte. Dios creó la luz, peró la oscuridad fue solo condición primitiva y non graciada de la tierra. Sin embargo, Diós creó realmente hombre y mujer. Es vero que Dios hace vida y muerte, luz y oscuridad, bueno y malo: en cuanto es vero que el artista dibujador hace no solo las lineas negras, peró también las areas de papiel blanco, dejadas tales que ante. El dibujador es algo invertido para Dios, visto que Él cuando deja algo tal que ante deja un nada, algo negro, es Él que da la luz y el blanco. Mismo en haciendo el bien y el mal no hace el mal como el bien, peró es solo el bien que hace por hacerlo. Es también falso y pithagoréico y misógino de pretender que la polaridad masculino feminino sea de misma natura que las oposiciones como el ser y el nada, como son las otras.
Ultima mentira. La verdad de un Diós que creó el cielo y la tierra es muy accesible, es la tradición primitiva de los primeros parentes, es la tradición también de Noé. Es confirmada claramente por la observación. Y, si hubiero aún dudos, porla revelación bíblica. No hay necesidad de comprender algo más profundo. No hay algo más profundo y contrario. Misma la concepción popular, no hermética de los mismos méjicas fué más buena:
Y la mentira opuesta, también definida por un articulo de la wikipedia:
Un Diós que ya haya creado, peró quién queda fuera su creación? Es casi hasta dar nostalgía de la metafísica nahua ... Si el sol no es una máscara de Diós, cierto no es su movimiento una consecuencia mecánica de lo que un divino constructor haya pensado en un pasado inacesible: peró son algo que Diós decide cada día. Uno será el último, como el cuarto ha sido la creación del sol, el último será cuando va quedarse finalmente. Ni es automato, ni mascara, peró más una cosa creada por Diós y manipulado por Él mismo o por un ángel quién obedece a Él.
Peró para que Diós sea moralmente libre, o para que lo parece a nosotros, es necesario que sea no una persona, peró diversas personas quienes se quieren. Para que lo sea realmente, es necesario que existe, y no hay otro Diós quien existe que el Padre, el Hijo y el Espíritu Santo. Al lados de Allah, él del Coran (los cristianos del Oriente dicen Allah como nosotros Diós, no es porque creen al Coran), al lados de él, Téotl tiene casi un favor, como imaginación: es expresivista. Es un favor, no es a decir que Islam no sea mejor que religión nahua. Peró las dos son inadecuadas, es la verdad cristiana que es adecuada.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
La Biblicoteca Universitaria
de Beauvais en Picardia
El día festivo del
Corazón Sagrado de Jesús
Viernes el 15-VI-2012
PS: no es tan difícil comprender porqué una metafísica panteista como la nahua inspire al sacrificio humano, peró por hoy, es mejor dar el contraste entre dioses cuyo sacerdotes les juzgaban tener hambre de corazones humanos y el verdadero Diós quién dio Su Corazón a nosotros, en Calvaria, sacrificado como hombre por se mismo una vez para todas. Un sacrificio que no es remplazado por otros, peró representado en cada santa misa. Y cuando el Corazón de todos corazones se disfraza, lo dice claramente (Luca 22:16-20).
El proceso de creación, mantenimiento y transformación del cosmos es visto en la metafísica náhuatl como un proceso esencialmente artístico. Toda la creación no es otra cosa que el disfraz o la máscara de Téotl, su nahual. El término nahual proviene de nahualli, un chamán con la capacidad de cambiar de forma. Téotl posee el mágico poder de ocultarse de los humanos. En sentido estricto, Téotl no creó el cosmos; éste consiste de Téotl y todo su contenido es simplemente parte de Téotl. El cosmos y todo lo que él alberga no son otra cosa que meras manifestaciones mágicas y momentáneas de Téotl: una gran máscara que al mismo tiempo cubre y revela el misterio (es decir, lo epistemológicamente trascendente y en última instancia no cognoscible) de la fuerza sagrada y la energía vital.
Téotl se disfraza artísticamente (nahualli) en muchas formas para ocultarse de la vista de los humanos. En primer lugar, el disfraz consiste en la apariencia material de la existencia, es decir, la apariencia de entes estáticos como los humanos, los árboles, los insectos. Pero esta apariencia es ilusoria, porque la realidad es dinámica y conformada por procesos en lugar de entes. En segundo lugar, el disfraz consiste en la aparente multiplicidad de lo existente, es decir, la existencia de entes distintos e independientes tales como humanos, árboles, insectos singulares. Esto es también ilusión, porque sólo hay una cosa: Téotl. Las aparentes entidades no solo están interrelacionadas, sino que también son uno entre sí, porque son receptáculos o "vasos" de lo sagrado (ixiptla); en última instancia, son uno con Téotl. Finalmente, el disfraz de Téotl consiste en la aparente distinción, independencia, exclusión mutua e irreconciliable oposición entre los pares vida/muerte, masculino/femenino, luz/oscuridad, etc. Lo que también es ilusión y engaño, porque todas y cada una son manifestaciones de Téotl. Cuando los humanos observan el mundo, ven a Téotl como humano, árbol, día, muerte, etc., esto es, a Téotl detrás de una máscara, pero no a Téotl mismo. Entenderlo permite a los humanos penetrar la máscara y al hacerlo, aprehender la sagrada y única presencia del propio Téotl.
El cristiano concede lo de artistico. No concede lo de disfraz, como si Dios fuese la única realidad. Por la religión nahua, Téotl es a vez el qué y el como del cosmo. Por la cristiana Dios es "el como" en tanto decide como, en tanto que hace el como. Peró no es el qué, es el productor del qué. Algunos aspectos:
En primer lugar, el disfraz consiste en la apariencia material de la existencia, es decir, la apariencia de entes estáticos como los humanos, los árboles, los insectos. Pero esta apariencia es ilusoria, porque la realidad es dinámica y conformada por procesos en lugar de entes.
Falso, hay substancias creadas, hay entes. Son ellos que son subjetos de los procesos - y Dios mismo es sujeto del proceso de gobernarles.
En segundo lugar, el disfraz consiste en la aparente multiplicidad de lo existente, es decir, la existencia de entes distintos e independientes tales como humanos, árboles, insectos singulares. Esto es también ilusión, porque sólo hay una cosa: Téotl.
Falso también, hay no solo una substancia creada, peró muchas. En el primer día creó Dios a la luz, hubiendo ya creado al cielo y a la tierra: tres primeras cosas visibles distantas de Dios (creando el cielo creó también a los ángeles, cada uno distinto de los otros y del cielo en general y de la luz y de la tierra). Y entre se mutualmente. Los días dos a seis Dios añade otras cosas distintas entre se y las primeras. Y dando la fertilidad a plantas, a animales de los aires y del agua y de la tierra y hasta al hombre, dio la posibilidad de augmentar realmente al número de las cosas distantas también a entes creados.
Finalmente, el disfraz de Téotl consiste en la aparente distinción, independencia, exclusión mutua e irreconciliable oposición entre los pares vida/muerte, masculino/femenino, luz/oscuridad, etc. Lo que también es ilusión y engaño, porque todas y cada una son manifestaciones de Téotl.
Falso también. Dios creó la vida, el pecado hizo la muerte. Dios creó la luz, peró la oscuridad fue solo condición primitiva y non graciada de la tierra. Sin embargo, Diós creó realmente hombre y mujer. Es vero que Dios hace vida y muerte, luz y oscuridad, bueno y malo: en cuanto es vero que el artista dibujador hace no solo las lineas negras, peró también las areas de papiel blanco, dejadas tales que ante. El dibujador es algo invertido para Dios, visto que Él cuando deja algo tal que ante deja un nada, algo negro, es Él que da la luz y el blanco. Mismo en haciendo el bien y el mal no hace el mal como el bien, peró es solo el bien que hace por hacerlo. Es también falso y pithagoréico y misógino de pretender que la polaridad masculino feminino sea de misma natura que las oposiciones como el ser y el nada, como son las otras.
Cuando los humanos observan el mundo, ven a Téotl como humano, árbol, día, muerte, etc., esto es, a Téotl detrás de una máscara, pero no a Téotl mismo. Entenderlo permite a los humanos penetrar la máscara y al hacerlo, aprehender la sagrada y única presencia del propio Téotl.
Ultima mentira. La verdad de un Diós que creó el cielo y la tierra es muy accesible, es la tradición primitiva de los primeros parentes, es la tradición también de Noé. Es confirmada claramente por la observación. Y, si hubiero aún dudos, porla revelación bíblica. No hay necesidad de comprender algo más profundo. No hay algo más profundo y contrario. Misma la concepción popular, no hermética de los mismos méjicas fué más buena:
En la mitología popular Téotl era considerado como eterno e invisible, creador y sustentador del mundo. Se le aplicaban por sobrenombre Tloque-Nahuaque (creador de todas las cosas) y también Ipalneomani (ser por quien se vive). No fue representado en imagen.Fuente: Wikipedia, Téotl
Y la mentira opuesta, también definida por un articulo de la wikipedia:
Los deístas, en general, rechazan la religión organizada y los dioses personales "revelados" argumentando que Dios es el creador del mundo, pero que no interviene de forma alguna en los quehaceres del mundo, aunque esta posición no es estrictamente parte de la filosofía deísta. Para ellos, Dios se revela a sí mismo indirectamente a través de las leyes de la naturaleza descritas por las ciencias naturales.
Un Diós que ya haya creado, peró quién queda fuera su creación? Es casi hasta dar nostalgía de la metafísica nahua ... Si el sol no es una máscara de Diós, cierto no es su movimiento una consecuencia mecánica de lo que un divino constructor haya pensado en un pasado inacesible: peró son algo que Diós decide cada día. Uno será el último, como el cuarto ha sido la creación del sol, el último será cuando va quedarse finalmente. Ni es automato, ni mascara, peró más una cosa creada por Diós y manipulado por Él mismo o por un ángel quién obedece a Él.
Peró para que Diós sea moralmente libre, o para que lo parece a nosotros, es necesario que sea no una persona, peró diversas personas quienes se quieren. Para que lo sea realmente, es necesario que existe, y no hay otro Diós quien existe que el Padre, el Hijo y el Espíritu Santo. Al lados de Allah, él del Coran (los cristianos del Oriente dicen Allah como nosotros Diós, no es porque creen al Coran), al lados de él, Téotl tiene casi un favor, como imaginación: es expresivista. Es un favor, no es a decir que Islam no sea mejor que religión nahua. Peró las dos son inadecuadas, es la verdad cristiana que es adecuada.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
La Biblicoteca Universitaria
de Beauvais en Picardia
El día festivo del
Corazón Sagrado de Jesús
Viernes el 15-VI-2012
PS: no es tan difícil comprender porqué una metafísica panteista como la nahua inspire al sacrificio humano, peró por hoy, es mejor dar el contraste entre dioses cuyo sacerdotes les juzgaban tener hambre de corazones humanos y el verdadero Diós quién dio Su Corazón a nosotros, en Calvaria, sacrificado como hombre por se mismo una vez para todas. Un sacrificio que no es remplazado por otros, peró representado en cada santa misa. Y cuando el Corazón de todos corazones se disfraza, lo dice claramente (Luca 22:16-20).
Monday, June 11, 2012
Utrum omnia nomina divina paganorum sint nomina demonum
Videtur nullum esse deum paganorum quin nomen eius sit nomen demonis.
Primo quia inter duo opposita, si de uno dicitur omnes, de altero intelligitur nullus: set dicitur in psalmo omnes dii ethnicorum demonia sunt, ergo nullus est deus paganorum quin sit demon et nullum nomen divinum paganorum quin sit nomen demonicum.
Secundo quia demon est qui pulsat ad malum, principaliter, set eciam hi dei paganorum qui dicuntur fuisse mortales pulsant ad malum per malum exemplum, utpote Hercules ad iracundiam, Antinous ad lascivitatem, ambo ad vicium contra naturam, ergo sunt demonici et nomen utriusque et aliorum nomen est demonicum.
Set contra est: in secundo beati Luce scriptum est "exiit edictum a Caesare Augusto ut describeretur universus orbis" cui edicto optemperavit sanctus Ioseph. Set obedire edicta demonum peccatum est, ergo Cesar Augustus suo tempore et in historia, sacra et alia, principalius est nomen hominis quam nomen demonis. Quamvis certe iam fuit demonicus cultus eum in templis suis adorare.
Respondeo esse dicendum quod in quocumque cultu pagano adest demon recipiens honorem deo vero debito, set non quodcumque nomen quod invocatur est per se nomen demonis, set quiddam modo occasionaliter fit per indebitam invocationem. Sic nonnulli fuerunt mortales qui suo tempore vel post mortem facti sunt idoli, et interdum eodem nomine usi sunt falsam invocationem facientes et verum deum invocantes, quod in Arabica et Greca linguis presertim videtur. Nam Allah dicitur et a Christianis Terra Sancta vel Egypti vel et Melite viventibus, de Deo Uno et Trino, de Deo vero: et ante plenitudinem veritatis a poëtis dictum est nomen Zeus a poëtis ita ut Christianus legens quedam excerpta non potest Deum Verum non intelligere.
Ad primum dicendum est quod quamvis nullus sit deus cultus erronei quin sit demon, interdum nomen habet communem cum aliquo non demonico, utputa fratre nostro sole, qui creatura est Dei veri.
Ad secundum dicendum est quod non unus est tantum inimicus anime, set tres: caro, mundus et demon. Si post mortem "Hercules" et "Antinous" pulsaverunt ad malum inquantum demones erant cultum indebitum recipientes, in vita interdum id fecerunt inquantum mala exempla, quod autem pertinet ad mundum, non ita ad demonem. Set aliqui in vita et ad bona pulsaverunt, bonis exemplis, sicut patet de Enea.
Friday, June 1, 2012
[An Author's Aside]
Since I started this fan fiction novel, troubles have been coming but also apparently not from readers or anyone in particular, council, advice. Or what seems to suggest itself as such by the things I read. It irritates me.
Like this thing about Planet Narnia: if Narnia books are astrologically set to Seven Classical Planets*, to what tune goes this? Uranus, Neptunus and, is Pluto a planet? One obvious answer is: to none. This is not a Narnia book. It is set in England and the only ground which hails to the name of Narnia is Narnese rather than Narnian. It is in Umbria in Italy, as author of original series well knew. It is set on earth, and if earth being central to universe and still without motion has no tune, some of its centuries do. Or one could say it is in tune with the fixed stars: a detail being that if geocentrism is true and yet sun is not center of all stars spread through space as thought by astronomers today, but fixed stars are more or less in a sphere, according to Bessel and others, they waggle a bit. But also in the sense that apart from waggling they are fixed and so is the moral law.
Susan Pevensie has naturally, without grace, a bit more courage than Ismene, or gives the impression. Yet she knows well there are laws that do not bend. Since the book is no tragedy I will not bring her to martyrdom as Antigone, but she will testify to "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour" and "thou shalt not kill" and "for anyone who scandalises one of these little ones, it would have been better if a millstone had been tied around his neck" - as a teacher in compulsory school in England, she does risk the millstone test. And, for passing it in the eyes of heaven, she pays.
But in a sense it is also another old favourite of mine apart from Narnia: Ivan Nazaroff. He knew he could not go to Chrustev and say "comrade Nikita, Christ died for my sins and yours, won't you read about it in the Bible with me"? And Susan Pevensie knew she could not stand up to England and say: "I am Queen of Narnia" - she would have aroused more panic than Jadis in London, as likely. The novels of Myrna Grant show the situation of Christians under Communism: Komsomol, Young Pioneers, Laws decreed unjustly by the party ... and teachers functioning under such laws.
Now, Psychiatry in the West has long functioned as such a Communist party. Children are materially supported even from non-wed mothers, but they are also taken away from parents more often than previous centuries and millennia. Back to days when adults were killed and children taken as slaves or for adoption by warriors whose names are known in the West. Was Attila the Hun in that branch? Genghis Khan I think was. Teachers are regularly concerned with both of these - as well as with Abortion, unless schools are Christian: not meaning every teacher gets involved personally, and when I taught for "6 months" (I was dismissed after expiration of contract) I was not approached by any teenage girl in such a situation, but if I had continued and been sufficiently respected, I am not sure how I could avoided situations in which either I would have tried to save a life by sabotaging policies about "it's her decision" (when she is approached by a pro-lifer) and "it's all for her own good" (when she is being pushed by the anti-lifers) - or earned a millstone around my neck.
Nobby was taken away from his parents in a novel by Enid Blyton: because his father goes to jail, obviously, but also because he beat him.** Now, in the novel this is seen as a humane decision, for Nobby's own good. In my fan fic, I give another side to the story. George, the daugter of Quentin and Fanny, may still have problems admitting her name is Georgina, but she is not a lesbian. Together they help Susan do what I would not think quite possible for me if I went back to non-Christian schools: so this is a cross-over of fan fictions, one in which also Father Brown and Doctor Watson (or at least a younger assistant of his) are real people whom Susan Pevensie will meet (Sherlock Holmes being already dead). Without the help of these guys, I am not sure Susan would not have continued to earn the reproach of Polly Plummer. Without the help of guys such as these, I am not sure Ivan Nazaroff could have continued to live a Christian life.
Since Ivan Nazaroff stories by Myrna Grant are considerably less well known than Narnia books by C S Lewis, known as Jack to his friends and family, I will give you some clues about him. His father once tells him his own grandfather was a property owner in Czar Russia. Oh, there were such who exploited the peasants horribly (admission to what was at least being taught in Communist schools and was perhaps true in places too), but not our ancestor back before the revolution. He tells him this in order to prepare him for his visit to exactly the same property - now a Kolkhos - and to tell him not to miss the opportunity to bring home his ancestor's family Bible. He does not miss the opportunity.
But in some ways the England of Susan Pevensie was as closed as the Soviet Union of Ivan Nazaroff - or if not, I am projecting back to English fifties what was going on in Swedish Seventies, Eighties, Nineties. You might as well know that about my novel. I am adressing that to give her an excuse to abandon Narnia in the first place, and also to give her an adventure.
If Ivan novels are novels in which Sovietic Atheism is the crook, then this is one in which Psychiatry takes that part. And indeed American and Swedish psychiatry collaborated with Chrustev's early on in the fifties. New criteria were added to what could stamp one as liable to be forced into their treatment, and I am far from sure claiming to have been to Narnia would not have been one of them. If she does not claim so, how can she avoid continuing the lie by which she placed her siblings in danger - or continue to be lied for and therefore placed in a very uncomfortable position?
If I had written this book chapter after chapter, I would obviously have placed this one after the previous and before the following. In reality I put it in the middle of extant chapters, of which I here give you the series in a table:
* This does not preclude thematics from the Seven Sacraments! If Jupiter could serve - obviously not dominate even according to such a Christian as would accept astrology - the Eucharist and Sun being lifegiving the Font, LWW would be the Eucharist novel and VDT the Baptism novel: in reality both sacraments are closer to VDT, and LWW is about the Calvary from which they flow - or about the Sacrifice of the Mass, if the Stone Table there, like the Mass in Our World is where the the Sacrifice of Calvary is renewed, made present. Mars and Confirmation go together, since in Confirmation we are clad in the armour of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit: PC is in a very key moment about Lucy first lacking then having the grace to stand up for her faith and for truth. Funny that Prince Caspian also alludes to political correctness which is an enemy of confirmation graces - and both abbreviate as PC. Moon goes well with the Sacrament that testifies of our fickleness, and at the end Aslan tells Jill "I will not always be scolding you". HHB gets people married (like Cor and Aravis), and that reminds of Venus (unless you think very hard about the Wedding of Mercury and Philology), MN gets Frank crowned, and that is as good a reminder of priesthood as Narnia across-the-wood-between-the-worlds gives us - the Umbrian one having of course Catholic clergy - and there you have Mercury since priests are preachers. Also the Magician Uncle serves Mercury as Hermes Trismegistos, which is a bad thing, but the criteria for King Frank are those Timothy had to apply to a "bishop". And Last Battle is about people not getting extreme unction, but dying in battle: and yet Narnia is by then sick, and calling for some kind of such. A bit like Oscar Wilde on his death bed in Paris (was the bar in Magdalen College Oxford already called Oscar Wilde bar in CSL's time there?). And obviously the seven fountainheads of sin are also seven. Jadis and Edmund start off as jealous. Miraz as angry. Eustace and Pug and Gumpas are all greedy. And so on? I mean, sevenfold underthemes for a seven book series need not be about just one of these underthemes./HGL
**Read up on it, Nobby's parents were dead, he left an uncle, and as he was fourteen he got to work immediately: with farmer Mackie. Sorry, Enid, bad memory of mine!
Like this thing about Planet Narnia: if Narnia books are astrologically set to Seven Classical Planets*, to what tune goes this? Uranus, Neptunus and, is Pluto a planet? One obvious answer is: to none. This is not a Narnia book. It is set in England and the only ground which hails to the name of Narnia is Narnese rather than Narnian. It is in Umbria in Italy, as author of original series well knew. It is set on earth, and if earth being central to universe and still without motion has no tune, some of its centuries do. Or one could say it is in tune with the fixed stars: a detail being that if geocentrism is true and yet sun is not center of all stars spread through space as thought by astronomers today, but fixed stars are more or less in a sphere, according to Bessel and others, they waggle a bit. But also in the sense that apart from waggling they are fixed and so is the moral law.
Susan Pevensie has naturally, without grace, a bit more courage than Ismene, or gives the impression. Yet she knows well there are laws that do not bend. Since the book is no tragedy I will not bring her to martyrdom as Antigone, but she will testify to "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour" and "thou shalt not kill" and "for anyone who scandalises one of these little ones, it would have been better if a millstone had been tied around his neck" - as a teacher in compulsory school in England, she does risk the millstone test. And, for passing it in the eyes of heaven, she pays.
But in a sense it is also another old favourite of mine apart from Narnia: Ivan Nazaroff. He knew he could not go to Chrustev and say "comrade Nikita, Christ died for my sins and yours, won't you read about it in the Bible with me"? And Susan Pevensie knew she could not stand up to England and say: "I am Queen of Narnia" - she would have aroused more panic than Jadis in London, as likely. The novels of Myrna Grant show the situation of Christians under Communism: Komsomol, Young Pioneers, Laws decreed unjustly by the party ... and teachers functioning under such laws.
Now, Psychiatry in the West has long functioned as such a Communist party. Children are materially supported even from non-wed mothers, but they are also taken away from parents more often than previous centuries and millennia. Back to days when adults were killed and children taken as slaves or for adoption by warriors whose names are known in the West. Was Attila the Hun in that branch? Genghis Khan I think was. Teachers are regularly concerned with both of these - as well as with Abortion, unless schools are Christian: not meaning every teacher gets involved personally, and when I taught for "6 months" (I was dismissed after expiration of contract) I was not approached by any teenage girl in such a situation, but if I had continued and been sufficiently respected, I am not sure how I could avoided situations in which either I would have tried to save a life by sabotaging policies about "it's her decision" (when she is approached by a pro-lifer) and "it's all for her own good" (when she is being pushed by the anti-lifers) - or earned a millstone around my neck.
Since Ivan Nazaroff stories by Myrna Grant are considerably less well known than Narnia books by C S Lewis, known as Jack to his friends and family, I will give you some clues about him. His father once tells him his own grandfather was a property owner in Czar Russia. Oh, there were such who exploited the peasants horribly (admission to what was at least being taught in Communist schools and was perhaps true in places too), but not our ancestor back before the revolution. He tells him this in order to prepare him for his visit to exactly the same property - now a Kolkhos - and to tell him not to miss the opportunity to bring home his ancestor's family Bible. He does not miss the opportunity.
But in some ways the England of Susan Pevensie was as closed as the Soviet Union of Ivan Nazaroff - or if not, I am projecting back to English fifties what was going on in Swedish Seventies, Eighties, Nineties. You might as well know that about my novel. I am adressing that to give her an excuse to abandon Narnia in the first place, and also to give her an adventure.
If Ivan novels are novels in which Sovietic Atheism is the crook, then this is one in which Psychiatry takes that part. And indeed American and Swedish psychiatry collaborated with Chrustev's early on in the fifties. New criteria were added to what could stamp one as liable to be forced into their treatment, and I am far from sure claiming to have been to Narnia would not have been one of them. If she does not claim so, how can she avoid continuing the lie by which she placed her siblings in danger - or continue to be lied for and therefore placed in a very uncomfortable position?
If I had written this book chapter after chapter, I would obviously have placed this one after the previous and before the following. In reality I put it in the middle of extant chapters, of which I here give you the series in a table:
| chapters "previous" to this | chapters "posterior" to this |
|---|---|
| previous and posterior refer to reading order only, they are previous to this in the writing order original four chapters in bold underlined | |
| Susan has a bad fright. Who told Susan: introducing Revd. Jinx Splendour Hyaline - again Off to Sevenoaks. The Car Ride to Sevenoaks was a Flashback Reverend Pewsey's Last Sermon Explanations of a Practical Nature St John's Feast in Narnia Helpers of the Holy Souls Nobby Susan reads her story again | Susan reads Lucy's essay on Astronomy Ramandu and Galileo, part 1 Ramandu and Galileo, part 2 Susan's Teacher Talk And Friedman looked for Su in the wrong office ... Jack and Tollers discuss pipeweed Where Aslan was a Lion Cub. [expanded since] A Glass of Cremisan with the Priest Father Brown's Last Bow, part 1 Father Brown's Last Bow, Part 2 Susan's dreams become a book |
* This does not preclude thematics from the Seven Sacraments! If Jupiter could serve - obviously not dominate even according to such a Christian as would accept astrology - the Eucharist and Sun being lifegiving the Font, LWW would be the Eucharist novel and VDT the Baptism novel: in reality both sacraments are closer to VDT, and LWW is about the Calvary from which they flow - or about the Sacrifice of the Mass, if the Stone Table there, like the Mass in Our World is where the the Sacrifice of Calvary is renewed, made present. Mars and Confirmation go together, since in Confirmation we are clad in the armour of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit: PC is in a very key moment about Lucy first lacking then having the grace to stand up for her faith and for truth. Funny that Prince Caspian also alludes to political correctness which is an enemy of confirmation graces - and both abbreviate as PC. Moon goes well with the Sacrament that testifies of our fickleness, and at the end Aslan tells Jill "I will not always be scolding you". HHB gets people married (like Cor and Aravis), and that reminds of Venus (unless you think very hard about the Wedding of Mercury and Philology), MN gets Frank crowned, and that is as good a reminder of priesthood as Narnia across-the-wood-between-the-worlds gives us - the Umbrian one having of course Catholic clergy - and there you have Mercury since priests are preachers. Also the Magician Uncle serves Mercury as Hermes Trismegistos, which is a bad thing, but the criteria for King Frank are those Timothy had to apply to a "bishop". And Last Battle is about people not getting extreme unction, but dying in battle: and yet Narnia is by then sick, and calling for some kind of such. A bit like Oscar Wilde on his death bed in Paris (was the bar in Magdalen College Oxford already called Oscar Wilde bar in CSL's time there?). And obviously the seven fountainheads of sin are also seven. Jadis and Edmund start off as jealous. Miraz as angry. Eustace and Pug and Gumpas are all greedy. And so on? I mean, sevenfold underthemes for a seven book series need not be about just one of these underthemes./HGL
**Read up on it, Nobby's parents were dead, he left an uncle, and as he was fourteen he got to work immediately: with farmer Mackie. Sorry, Enid, bad memory of mine!
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