Millau Bridge

Bread 
1Timothy 2:5
"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;"

 
Chess: "Bread"

Uva

La Vid
Da Vida
Meaning
Destiny
Psalm 17:15

" As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness."bridge of Oleron isle
Bridge Across Time

Chess: "Meaning" "Uva" "Vid" "Vida" "Destiny" "New York, New York"

Crux

Quest
St.Croix
Veracruz
Psalm 17:1
A Prayer of David.
"Hear the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips."

Bodie Methodist Church in Vintage look
Methodist Church, Bodie, CA

Chess: "Crux" "Santa Cruz" "Quest" "St.Croix" "croissant" "crescent" "Veracruz"

Croissant

A rich, crescent-shaped roll of leavened dough or puff pastry.

[French, from Old French creissant, croissant, crescent. See crescent.]

WORD HISTORY The words croissant and crescent illustrate double borrowings, each coming into English from a different form of the same French word. In Latin the word crēscere, “to grow,” when applied to the moon meant “to wax,” as in the phrase lūna crēscēns, “waxing moon.” Old French croissant, the equivalent of Latin crēscēns, came to mean “the time during which the moon waxes,” “the crescent-shaped figure of the moon in its first and last quarters,” and “a crescent-shaped object.” In Middle English, which adopted croissant in its Anglo-Norman form cressaunt, the first instance of our English word, recorded in a document dated 1399–1400, meant “a crescent-shaped ornament.” Crescent, the Modern English descendant of Middle English cressaunt, owes its second c to Latin crēscere. Croissant is not an English development but rather a borrowing of the Modern French descendant of Old French croissant. It is first recorded in English in 1899. French croissant was used to translate German Hörnchen, the name given by the Viennese to this pastry, which was first baked in 1689 to commemorate the raising of the siege of Vienna by the Turks, whose symbol was the crescent.

Jacques Sagot

Sea: Med-Carib
Brown: Choc.-Coffee

Tal vez, ubicar a Poe dentro de un proceso no estéril de la acción civilisatoria,-desde nuestro punto de vista,- sea equivalente a dilucidar la afirmacíón que nos dice que "si el Mediterráneo y sus "peripecias" son el primer día o primera lectura, entonces el Caribe y sus peripecias es el segundo día o segunda lectura". Es como si la humanidad toda después de un amanecer luminoso en el Mediterráneo pasara a una noche tormentosa en el Caribe, donde la Humanidad es toda ella literatura pura y llena de desvaríos, y a pesar de estos desvaríos un "resto" nunca perdería el rumbo; no obstante las aparentes contradicciones de la esclavitud, el azúcar y las sangrientas rebeliones. Y que esa tiniebla de Poe no es sino el momento que antecede al amanecer del tercer día. Tal vez el relato William Wilson nos provea los mejores indicios para propiciar esta correcta evaluación. No cabe duda que el delicioso "azúcar" de la escritura de Poe es a costa de la luminosa libertad prometida en Cristo. Claro que leer a Poe es una delicia, lo problemático es que esa delicia puede ser parecida a la delicia que experimenta el heroinómano o el glotón. Pero esto no tiene que ser fatalmente así. Acaso no supo leer Borges a Poe? Con una condición "atlética" borgiana se puede leer a Poe, disfrutarlo y superarlo dialécticamente, igual que se puede leer La Biblia y superar una lectura "caribeña"-azucarada y tenebrosa a la vez- de la misma. En blanco y negro!
"Orlando Bloom" (Will Turner)

Edgar Allan Poe

Pompas del mármol, negra anatomía
Que ultrajan los gusanos sepulcrales,
Del triunfo de la muerte los glaciales
Símbolos congregó. No los temía.
Temía la otra sombra, la amorosa,
Las comunes venturas de la gente;
No lo cegó el metal resplandeciente
Ni el mármol sepulcral sino la rosa.
Como del otro lado del espejo
Se entregó solitario a su complejo
Destino de inventor de pesadillas.
Quizá, del otro lado de la muerte,
Siga erigiendo solitario y fuerte
Espléndidas y atroces maravillas.

Jorge Luis Borges: El Otro, el Mismo.

Literatura

La luz de las tinieblas

Arte y delirio El norteamericano Edgar Allan Poe fue un vidente de la literatura y un creador de géneros.

Jacques Sagot | jacsagot@gmail.com

¡Qué actuales y próximas a nuestros corazones son la figura y la obra de Edgar Allan Poe! ¡Qué nuestro sigue siendo este explorador de las oscuras cavernas subconscientes! Crítico literario, periodista, ajedrecista y distinguido jugador de damas españolas, y cuentista, novelista y poeta infinito. Rindámosle un homenaje en el bicentenario de su nacimiento (Boston, 19 de enero de 1809).

¿De dónde viene Poe? De la novela gótica inglesa, americana, alemana y, por supuesto, romántica (pasó un lustro de su infancia en Inglaterra): Walpole, Hawthorne, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Keats, Walter Scott, Mary Shelley (la autora de Frankenstein ), Lord Byron, Glanvill…, y por ahí hasta uno que otro trazo de Bocaccio. Los absorbió, escribió sobre ellos y no ocultó nunca la influencia que sobre él ejercieron.

¿A dónde nos lleva? A todo escritor que lo sucediera: la novela gótica victoriana ( Una vuelta de tuerca , de James); la novela detectivesca de Conan Doyle y Georges Simenon; la ciencia ficción de Julio Verne, Arthur C. Clarke y Ray Bradbury; la narrativa del boom latinoamericano (Poe está presente en todo Cortázar –quien tradujo todos sus cuentos– y en Borges); en Franz Kafka, Dostoievsky, Thomas Mann, Debussy (quien hizo una ópera hoy casi olvidada sobre La caída de la Casa Husher ); Rachmaninoff (autor de una obra coral basada en el poema Las campanas );

Recordemos las mil adaptaciones cinematográficas de sus obras (en particular las películas de Roger Corman; una de ellas, La caída de la Casa Usher , es una pequeña obra maestra), así como de la serie española Historias para no dormir , por mencionar tan solo algunos ejemplos. Dejemos para el final la más grande progenitura de todas: los poetas malditos (Baudelaire, Verlaine y Mallarmé) de la generación simbolista francesa.

Añadamos a Bram Stoker con su Drácula , producto de los cuentos poeianos directamente vinculados con el tema de la vida en la muerte. Influencia profunda sobre nuestra Yolanda Oreamuno, Poe fue el precursor de la hipnosis y el psicoanálisis, y el primer escritor americano que renunció a los mecenazgos e intentó vivir exclusivamente de su obra… ¿Para qué seguir?

El tenebroso hipersensible. Poe nació en Boston en 1809 y murió en Baltimore en 1849 (apenas cuarenta años de edad). Perdió a temprana edada su padre y madre. La madre (cuya inasible reminiscencia subconsciente no logrará nunca reconstruir) lo “dejó” cuando el niño contaba apenas dos años. En esa edad no se recuerda nada –¿o será que los recuerdos habitan el subsuelo de la conciencia?–.

Por ahí anduvo siempre la imagen de la madre, tan cercana, casi al alcance de la mano, y al mismo tiempo tan lejana. Como el Rosebud de Citizen Kane : mundo pequeñito, cerrado, cercano, pero inaccesible.

Fue recogido –porque nunca fue adoptado legalmente– por la familia de John y Frances Allan, de Virginia. Su imaginación se alimenta de los relatos de terror que los negros, en las plantaciones de algodón, improvisan durante las noches de Luna llena. Se malquista con los Allan, que lo desheredan y ponen de patitas en la calle.

Se enamora perdidamente –¿o “encontradamente”?– de Virginia Clemm, su prima, con la cual se casa cuando esta tiene apenas trece años. La esposa de su alma muere de tuberculosis dos años más tarde. La herida no cicatrizará nunca. Ella es la segunda mujer que lo “abandona”.

Desde entonces, la mujer se confundirá para siempre con la muerte en la imaginación de Poe: llanto infinito por la mujer perdida (Annabel Lee, Ulalume, Morella, Berenice, Ligeia, Madeline Usher). Son diversas y, sin embargo, la misma; multiformes apariciones de la madre que pervive aún y siempre entre los resquicios del recuerdo y el olvido.

Se gana la vida escribiendo artículos literarios en revistucas y periodicuchos que no lo merecen. Nunca logra cristalizar su proyecto de fundar un periódico propio ( The Stylus ): el alcohol, el alcohol, el alcohol, ocasionalmente el opio…

En 1829 surge su primer libro: Tamerlán y otros poemas , luego Cuentos de lo arabesco y lo grotesco , Arthur Gordon Pym (relato al que Julio Verne dar

ía continuación en su conmovedora novela La esfinge de los hielos ). La causticidad de la pluma crítica de Poe no contribuye ciertamente a crearle nuevos amigos: soledad y anhelo infinito de ternura.

En octubre de 1849, alguien encuentra, en una sórdida taberna de Baltimore, a un hombre en harapos, sucio, moribundo. En el hospital, después de larga pesquisa, se determina su identidad: Edgar Allan Poe. Agoniza en pleno coma alcohólico durante dos semanas. “Padre, ten piedad de este pobre miserable”, dice en un último intervalo de lucidez.

Presumiblemente, los “pescadores de votos” lo habían embriagado para hacerlo votar por el candidato de su preferencia, práctica no infrecuente durante las elecciones locales de aquellos tiempos.

Todos los años, un desconocido visita su tumba y deja una botella de cognac y un ramo de rosas rojas sobre la lápida.

Poe y Francia. Poe fue siempre un hombre errante, lo propio de los seres descontentos con ellos mismos, para quienes, “en otro lado, la vida será quizás mejor”. Boston, Filadelfia, Nueva York, Baltimore…, pero una cosa es segura: nunca estuvo en Francia. Sin embargo, su más famoso personaje es francés: el detective Auguste Dupin. Sin él, el riguroso método deductivo –y aun la personalidad– de Sherlock Holmes serían inconcebibles.

Dupin, sofisticado, lacónico, razonador impecable, aparece en tres relatos: El misterio de Marie Roget , Los crímenes de la calle Morgue y el mejor de ellos: La carta robada . Son celebraciones del raciocino puro.

A través del analítico Dupin (como a través del ajedrez, las damas españolas, la criptografía, la cosmología y el mesmerismo), Poe intenta proyectar algo de luz sobre un mundo interno que sabe caótico, oscuro, larval. Invocar la razón deductiva tiene en él un origen existencial, y no es una mera innovación temática.

El cuervo. Charles Baudelaire amó tanto a Poe que en algún momento sostuvo ser su reencarnación, su Döppelganger . Poe y Baudelaire escribieron ambos bajo la misma latitud espiritual. El poeta francés es autor de la primera traducción del obsesionante poema El cuervo … y fracasó. Otro tanto le pasó a Mallarmé. Ello nos lleva al viejo tema de la intraducibilidad de la poesía.

El cavernoso, retumbante estribillo de El cuervo (“quoth de Raven Nevermore”) no tiene equivalente posible ni en francés ni en español (a pesar de la espléndida traducción de Pérez Bonalde).

Baudelaire y Mallarmé se devanaron sus poéticos sesos tratando de encontrar un equivalente francés de la palabra Nevermore . Tenía que evocar la misma sonoridad oscura, contundente, ¡y lo mejor que pudieron encontrar fue “jamais plus”! Así como suena: inadecuadamente grácil y casi melifluo. No es culpa de ellos: en rigor, El cuervo es un poema intraducible, escrito antonomásicamente para la lengua inglesa.

Gracias, maestro. Poe es recordado por haber tenido la valentía de decir lo indecible, por haber dado forma literaria –y a ayudarnos así a domeñarlos– a nuestros más terribles fantasmas. Alguien debía hacerlo, y ciertamente nadie antes de él lo había hecho tan plenamente.

El mundo le teme y lo ama al mismo tiempo: no nos gustan los temas que trata… porque son los terrores reprimidos, la angustia de morir. Su obra no es un elogio a la muerte: es un valiente acto de exorcismo. Si hay un sentimiento definitorio del ser humano, es el terror. Gracias, maestro, por habernos ayudado a descubrirlo.

The New York Times

Workers harvested cacao, the raw ingredient for chocolate coveted in Europe and the United States, at a plantation in Choroni, Venezuela.

In Venezuela, Plantations of Cacao Stir Bitterness

Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

Workers harvested cacao, a high-quality bean used to make fine chocolate, at the Monterosa plantation in Choroni, Venezuela in March. More Photos »

Palace

Sweep
Dimples
Psalm 14:5
"There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous."
Psalm 14:6
"Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the LORD is his refuge."

Ok ok I confess that the images are not in order...
Fields of Dover
Chess: “pressure” "screwdriver" "Palace" “dimple” "Hand" "sweep" “camanance” “Caracas : Amsterdam”

"The palace steps descend to a broad gravel sweep" -Anthony Trollope

"impossible--Unless we sweep ' em from the door with cannons" -Shakespeare

"She made another sweeping gesture that...knocked over the coffee pot"- Patrick Dennis

“I loafe and invite my Soul;

I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.”

“Houses and rooms are full of perfumes—the shelves are crowded with perfumes;

I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it;

The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.” W.W. Leaves of Grass 14 Walt whitman

Father Brown

Mary Celeste
Chesterton
Brown
John 8:31
"Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;"

PICT0016
Zion Park

Chess: "María Celeste" "Chesterton" "Brown"

Mary Celeste

The Mary Celeste (sometimes incorrectly spelled Marie Celeste) was a brigantine merchant ship famously discovered in early December 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean unmanned and apparently abandoned, in spite of the fact that the weather was fine and all crew had been experienced and able seamen. The Mary Celeste herself was in perfect condition and still under full sail heading towards the Straits of Gibraltar. The ship had been at sea for only a month and had over six months of food and water on board. Her cargo was virtually untouched and the personal belongings of passengers and crew were still in place, including valuables. The crew was never seen or heard from again, and what happened to them is often cited as the greatest maritime mystery of all time. The fate of the crew is the subject of much speculation. Theories range from alcoholic fumes to underwater earthquakes and waterspouts, along with a large number of fictional accounts such as aliens, sea monsters and the Bermuda Triangle. The Mary Celeste is often described as the archetypal ghost ship in the sense that it was discovered derelict without any evident explanation.

Origins

The Mary Celeste was a 282-ton brigantine. She was built by Joshua Dewis in 1861 as the Amazon at the village of Spencer's Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, and was the first of many large vessels built in this small community. Amazon was owned by a group of eight investors from Cumberland County and Kings County, Nova Scotia led by the builder Joshua Dewis and William Henry Bigalow, a local merchant.^[2] She was registered at the near-by town of Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, the closest local port of registry.
Her first captain, Robert McLellan, son of one of the owners^[6] contracted pneumonia nine days after taking command and died at the very beginning of her maiden voyage, the first of three captains to die aboard.^[7] John Nutting Parker, the next captain of the Amazon, struck a fishing boat and had to return to the shipyard for repairs. At the shipyard a fire broke out in the middle of the ship. Because of this incident, Captain Parker lost command of the Amazon.^{[citation needed]} The first trans-Atlantic crossing was also disastrous for her new captain, after it collided with another vessel in the English Channel near Dover. The incident resulted in the dismissal of the new captain.
The ship was thought by some to have had bad luck due to these misadventures^{[citation needed]}, but after this rough beginning, the brigantine had several profitable and uneventful years under her Nova Scotian owners, captained by Flinders Croston,^{[citation needed]} during which time she travelled far further afield to the West Indies, Central America and South America, and began to transport a wide variety of goods. In 1867, the ship ran aground during a storm in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia and, after it was salvaged, it was resold to Richard Haines, of New York, for $1750 and repaired at a cost of $8,825.03. In 1868 she was transferred to the American registry and renamed the Mary Celeste in 1869.^[8] Winchester's intention was to take her beyond the Americas across the Atlantic and make a profit trading with the Adriatic ports.
Ownership was finally divided into 24 shares as follows^[9]

• James H Winchester (12)
• Benjamin Spooner Briggs of Marion, Maine(sic) (8)
• Sylvester Goodwin (2)
• Daniel T Sampson (2)

SOBRE CHESTERTON
Because He does not take away
The terror from the tree...
CHESTERTON: A Second Childhood
Edgar Alian Poe escribió cuentos de puro horror fantástico o de
pura bizarrerie; Edgar Alian Poe fue inventor del cuento policial.
Ello no es menos indudable que el hecho de que no combinó los
dos géneros. No impuso al caballero Auguste Dupin la tarea de
fijar el antiguo crimen del Hombre de las Multitudes o de explicar
el simulacro que fulminó, en la cámara negra y escarlata, al
enmascarado principe Próspero. En cambio, Chesterton prodigó
con pasión y felicidad esos tours de forcé. Cada una de las piezas
deTa Saga del Padre Brown presenta un misterio, propone explicaciones
de tipo demoníaco o mágico y las reemplaza, al fin, con
otras que son de este mundo. La maestría no agota la virtud de
esas breves ficciones; en ellas creo percibir una cifra de la historia
de Chesterton, un símbolo o espejo de Chesterton. La repetición
de su esquema a través de los años y de los libros (The Man Who
Knew Too Much, The Poet and the Lunatics, The Paradoxes of
Mr. Pond) parece confirmar que se trata de una forma esencial,
no de un artificio retórico. Estos apuntes quieren interpretar esa
forma.
Antes, conviene reconsiderar unos hechos de excesiva notoriedad.
Chesterton fue católico, Chesterton creyó en la Edad Media de
los prerrafaeHstas (Of London, small and white, and clean), Chesterton
pensó, como Whitman, que el mero hecho de ser es tan
prodigioso que ninguna desventura debe eximirnos de una suerte
de cósmica j>Tatiñid. Tales creencias pueden ser justas, pero el
interés que promueven es limitado; suponer que agotan a Chesterton
es olvidar que un credo es el último término de una serie
de procesos mentales y emocionales y que un hombre es toda la
serie. En este país, los católicos exaltan a 'Chesterton, los librepensadores
lo niegan. Como todo escritor que profesa un credo,
Chesterton es juzgado por él, es reprobado o aclamado por él.
Su caso es parecido al de Kipling a quien siempre lo juzgan en
función del Imperio Británico.
Poe y Baudelaire se propusieron, como el atormentado Urizen
de Blake, la creación de un mundo de espanto; es natural que
su obra sea pródiga de formas del horror. Chesterton, me parece,
OTRAS INQUISICIONES 695
no hubiera tolerado la imputación de ser un tejedor de pesadillas,
un rnonstrorum artifex (Plinio, XXVIII, 2), pero invenciblemente
suele incurrir en atisbos atroces. Pregunta si acaso un hombre
tiene tres ojos, o un pájaro tres alas; habla, contra los panteístas,
de un muerto que.descubre en el paraíso; que los espíritus de los
coros angélicos tienen sin fin su misma cara a: habla de una cárcel
de espejos; habla de un laberinto sin centro; habla de un hombre
devorado por autómatas de metal; habla de Un árbol que devora
a los pájaros y que en lugar de hojas da plumas; imagina (The
Man Who Was Thursday, VI) que en los confines orientales del
mundo acaso existe un árbol que ya es más, y menos, que un
árbol, y en los occidentales, algo, una torre, cuya sola arquitectura
es malvada. Define lo cercano por lo lejano, y aun por lo
atroz; si habla de sus ojos, los llama con palabras de Ezequiel
(1:22) un terrible cristal, si de la noche, perfecciona un antiguo
horror (Apocalipsis, 4:6) y la llama un monstruo hecho de ojos.
No menos ilustrativa es la narración How I found the Superman.
Chesterton habla con los padres del Superhombre; interrogados
sobre la hermosura del hijo, que no sale de un cuarto oscuro,
éstos le recuerdan que el Superhombre crea su propio canon y
debe ser medido por él ("En ese plano es más bello que Apolo.
Desde nuestro plano inferior, por supuesto..."); después admiten
que no es fácil estrecharle la mano ("Usted comprende; la estructura
es muy otra"); después, son incapaces de precisar si tiene pelo
o plumas. Una corriente de aire lo mata y unos hombres retiran
un ataúd que no es de forma humana. Chesterton refiere en tono
de burla esa fantasía teratológica.
Tales ejemplos, que sería fácil multiplicar, prueban que Chesterton
se defendió de ser Edgar Alian Poe o Franz Kafka, pero
que algo en el barro de su yo propendía a la pesadilla, algo
secreto, y ciego y central. No en vano dedicó su primeras obras
a la justificación de dos grandes artífices góticos, Browning y Dickens:
no en vano repitió que el mejor libro salido de Alemania
era el de los cuentos de Grimm. Denigró a Ibsen y defendió
(acaso indefendiblemente) a Rostand, pero los Trolls y el Fundidor
de Peer Gynt eran de la madera de sus sueños, the stuff
his drearns tvere made of. Esa discordia, esa precaria sujeción
de una voluntad demoníaca, definen la naturaleza de Chesterton.
Emblemas de esa guerra son para mí las aventuras del Padre
1 Amplificando un pensamiento de Attar ("En todas partes sólo vemos
Tu cara"), Jalal-uddin Rumi compuso^ unos versos que ha traducido Rückert
{Werke, IV, 222), donde se dice que en los cielos, en el mar y en los
sueños hay Uno Solo y donde se alaba a ese Ünico por haber reducido a
unidad los cuatro briosos animales que tiran del carro de los mundos: la
tierra, el fuego, el aire y el agua.
6 9 6 JORGE LUIS BORGES—OBRAS COMPLETAS
Brown, cada una de las cuales quiere explicar, mediante la sola
razón, un hecho inexplicable.1 Por eso dije, en el párrafo, inicial
de esta nota, que esas ficciones eran cifras de la historia de Chesterton,
símbolos y espejos de Chesterton. Eso es todo, salvo que
la "razón" a la que Chesterton supeditó sus imaginaciones no era
precisamente la razón sino la fe católica o sea un conjunto de
imaginaciones hebreas supeditadas a Platón y a Aristóteles.
Recuerdo dos parábolas que se oponen. La primera consta en
el primer tomo de las obras de Kafka. Es la.historia del hombre
que pide ser admitido a la ley. El guardián de la primera puerta
le dice, que adentro hay muchas otras 2 y que no hay sala que no
esté custodiada por un guardián, cada uno más fuerte que el
anterior. El hombre se sienta a esperar. Pasan los días y los años,
y el hombre muere. En la agonía pregunta: "¿Será posible que en
los años que espero nadie haya querido entrar sino yo?". El guardián
le responde: "Nadie ha querido entrar porque a ti sólo
estaba destinada esta puerta. Ahora voy a cerrarla." (Kafka comenta
esta parábola, complicándola aun más, en el noveno capítulo
de El proceso.) La otra parábola está en el Pilgrim's Progress,
de Bunyan. La gente mira codiciosa un castillo que custodian
muchos guerreros; en la puerta hay un guardián con un libro
para escribir el nombre de aquel que sea digno de entrar. Un
hombre intrépido se allega a ese guardián y le dice: "Anote mi
nombre, señor." Luego saca la espada y se arroja sobre los guerreros
y recibe y devuelve heridas sangrientas, hasta abrirse camino
entre el fragor y entrar en el castillo.
Chesterton dedicó su vida a escribir la segunda de las parábolas,
pero algo en él propendió siempre a escribir la primera.
1 No la explicación de lo inexplicable sino de lo confuso es la tarea que
se imponen, por lo común, los novelistas policiales.
2 La noción de puertas detrás de puertas, que se interponen entre el pecador
y la gloria, está en el Zohar. Véase Glatzer: In Time and Eternity, 30;
también Martin Buber: Tales of the Hasidim, 92.

The following from:

Chesterton and Friends

Monday, May 28, 2007

Others on Chesterton - Borges

As I have suggested before - and hinted many times since - the Argentine master, Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), is worth noting. Among many other things, he died - June 14, 1986 - fifty years to the day after the passage of Chesterton, the man he loved so well.

In particular, his opinion is worth considering for its relative novelty. We often hear excellent authors praising Chesterton (justly, of course), but there is often more than a little sympathy of worldview between those doing the praising and he that is being praised. His cult (I do not use the term disdainfully) is alive and well among those of a Catholic persuasion, but outside of that broad circle things become more dicey. Many Christians of widely-varying persuasions have discovered how delightful he is, as well, but in the secular world he is not nearly so well-established. The schools, as we know, generally do not teach him; the writer-in-residence at my school this year (one Joan Barfoot, apparently an author of some note to someone) actually sneered with disdain when I mentioned his name.

To Borges, Chesterton was, as I've said, his "master;" a steady and unflagging influence on Borges' writing style, writing subjects, and general thought processes. The remarkable thing about all of this is that Borges was an esoteric Kabbalist, among many other frequently incompatible things. He saucily "refuted" both time and reality (or at least claimed to have done so), finding such vain constructs unsuitable to the maintenance of the world he desired to live in. On the few occasions he quotes from Aquinas it is usually to disagree with him. C'est la vie.

The thing is, though, you can frequently see the Chesterton coming through whether Borges likes it or not - and I suspect that he did indeed like it. Borges delighted in effect and image rather than any particular internal consistency. He derided Dostoevsky's novels - his favourites, in youth - as being overburdened with psychology by which any character could be made to do any foolish thing with enough elaborate sophistry, all of which is just as effective in the end as just having the character do things that you want him to do, whether you provide some elaborate rationale for it or not. It was because of such an outlook that Borges had no qualms whatever with supporting and venerating the work of a man so tidily opposed to his worldview. Within his fiction (Borges', that is) there can be found an almost lurid use of colour - learned, Borges says, from Chesterton. There are enigmatic professors and tragic detectives and impossibly mystic mysteries, and, as in Chesterton, relatively few women. There are ideas and possibilities brought forth in parable rather than the sort of conventional things one would expect from a popular work of fiction (ladies falling in love and marrying, great enemies destroying one another, etc.).

All of which brings me to the following passage, "Chesterton, Writer," which was a part of the larger article, "Modes of G.K. Chesterton," which appeared at the time of Chesterton's death ("he has suffered the impure process called dying," says Borges) in 1936. Other sections include "Chesterton, Church Father" and "Chesterton, Poet," and I may address them some other day, but for now we will stick to the passage at hand:

I am certain that it is improper to suspect or concede merits of a literary nature in a man of letters. Truly informed critics never cease to point out that the most forgettable thing about a man of letters is his literature and that he can only be of interest as a human being - is art inhuman, therefore? - as an example of this country, of that date, or of such-and-such illnesses. Uncomfortable enough for me, I cannot share those concerns. I feel that Chesterton is one of the finest writers of our time, not just for his fortunate invention, visual imagination, and the childlike or divine happiness that pervades his works, but for his rhetorical virtues, for the pure merits of his skill.

Those who have thumbed through Chesterton's work have no need of my demonstration; those who are ignorant of it can look over the following titles and perceive his fine verbal economy: "The Moderate Murderer," "The Oracle of the Dog," "The Salad of Colonel Clay," "The Blast of the Book," "The Vengeance of the Statue," "The God of the Gongs," "The Man with Two Beards," "The Man Who Was Thursday," "The Garden of Smoke." In that famous work Degeneration, which turned out to be such a fine anthology of the writers it tried to defame, Dr. Max Nordau ponders the titles of the French Symbolists: Quand les violons sont partis, Les palaise nomades, les illuminations. Granted that few of them, if any, are provocative. Few people judge their acquaintance with Les palais nomades as necessary or interesting, yet many do with "The Oracle of the Dog." Of course, with the peculiar stimulus of Chesterton's titles, our conscience tells us that these names have not been invoked in vain. We know that in Les palais nomades there are no nomadic palaces; we know that "The Oracle of the Dog" will not lack a dog and an oracle, or a concrete, oracular dog. In like manner, "The Mirror of the Magistrate," which was popular in England around 1560, was nothing more than an allegorical mirror; Chesterton's "Mirror of the Magistrate" refers to a real mirror.... The foregoing does not insinuate that these somewhat parodistic titles indicate the level of Chesterton's style. It means that this style is omnipresent.

At one time (and in Spain) there existed the inattentive custom of comparing the names and works of Gomez de la Serna and Chesterton. Such an approximation is totally fruitless. They both intensely perceive (or register) the peculiar hue of a house, of a light, of an hour of the day, but Gomez de la Serna is chaotic. Inversely, limpidity and order are constant throughout Chesterton's writings. I dare to sense (according to M. Taine's geographical formula) the heaviness and disorder of British fog in Gomez de la Serna and Latin clarity in G. K.

I will say without hesitation that, were it not for Chesterton, Borges would be the light of my literary life, if not philosophically. I have read lines in his prose that have made me cry out to Heaven in gratitude, in a literal and unabashed sense, and this reaction is all too rare from literature nowadays. To borrow the delighted rhetorical exclamation of Eliot Weinberger, "where else can one find Lana Turner, David Hume, and the heresiarchs of Alexandria in a single sentence?" (The sentence itself is found in a frustrated review of a film adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which begins with the scandalized declaration, "Holywood has defamed, for the third time, Robert Louis Stevenson;" the film is described as having been "perpetrated" rather than produced.)

There is to be a talk about Borges and Chesterton at this year's Chesterton conference (coming up fast!). I will not be able to be there to see it, alas, but some of you might be. Be sure to give it a shot; hopefully you'll like what you find.

And, should you decide to pursue the shimmering monster that is Borges, there are plenty of good places to start. Labyrinths is an excellent and perpetually-reprinted edition of his short stories, essays and poems, and is certainly worth going to first. Thereafter such offerings as The Aleph or A Universal History of Infamy stand ready.

That's all until tomorrow, which is, as most of you are well aware, a Very Special Day.

Dauphine

Cape Horn
Liberia
Cahuita
Mat 8:11

"And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven."Bottlenose dolphins, tuimelaars
Jump for Joy

Chess: "Liberia" "Dauphine" "Cahuita" "Horn"

Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary

History of Liberia

The history of Liberia is unique in Africa as it started neither as a native state nor as a European colony, but began in 1821 when private societies began founding colonies for free blacks from the United States on the coast of West Africa.

Indigenous peoples of West Africa

It is believed that many of the indigenous peoples of Liberia migrated there from the north and east between the 12th and 16th centuries AD. The area of West Africa which later became Liberia was invaded in the sixteenth century by Mane, Malian Soldiers tribes from what is now the interior of Ivory Coast and Ghana. The Manes partitioned the conquered territories and their peoples among Mane leaders with one chieftain over all. The supreme chief resided in the Grand Cape Mount region.

Shortly after the Manes conquered the region there was a migration of the Vai people into the region of Grand Cape Mount. The Vai were part of the Mali Empire that were forced to migrate when the empire collapsed in the fourteenth century. The Vai chose to migrate to the coastal region.

The Kru opposed the migration of the Vai into their region. An alliance of the Manes and Kru were able to stop the further migration of the Vai but the Vai remained in the Grand Cape Mount region (where the city of Robertsport is now located).

The Kru became involved with trading with Europeans. Initially the Kru traded in non-slave commodities but later became active participants in the slave trade. Kru traders also engaged in a surprising form of trade. Kru traders and their canoes would be taken on board European ships and would engage in trade along the coast. At some agreed upon point the Kru traders and their canoes would be put off the ship and the traders would paddle back to their home territory.

Kru laborers left their territory to work on plantations and in construction as paid laborers, some even worked building the Suez and Panama Canals.

Another tribal group in the area was the Glebo. The Glebo were driven, as a result of the Manes invasion, to migrate to the coast of what later became Liberia.

Contact with European explorers and traders

Portuguese explorers established contacts with the land later known as "Liberia" as early as 1461 and named the area the Grain Coast because of the abundance of grains of malegueta pepper. In 1602 the Dutch established a trading port at Grand Cape Mount but destroyed the posts a year later. In 1663 the British installed trading posts on the Grain Coast. No further known settlements by non-African colonists occurred along the Grain Coast until the arrival of freed American slaves starting in 1817.

Settlement by the American Colonization Society

Modern Liberia was founded in 1822 by freed slaves from the United States. They were sent to Africa under the auspices of the American Colonization Society, a private organization whose purpose was "to promote and execute a plan for colonizing in Africa, with their own consent, the free people of color residing in the US."

Motives of the ACS

The American Colonization Society was a group of white Americans — including some slaveholders — that had a variety of motives. Free blacks, freedmen and their descendants, encountered widespread discrimination in the United States of the early 19th century. They were generally perceived as a burden on society, and a threat to white workers because they undercut wages. Some abolitionists believed that blacks could not achieve equality in the United States and would be better off in Africa. Many slaveholders were worried that the presence of free blacks would encourage slaves to rebel. Other supporters of removal to Africa wanted to prevent racial mixing, to promote the spread of Christianity in Africa, or to develop trade with Africa.^{[1] [2]}

First colony - Cape Mesurado

In 1818 the Society sent two representatives to West Africa to find a suitable location but they were unable to persuade local tribal leaders to sell territory. In 1820, 88 free black settlers and 3 society members sailed for Sierra Leone on the Elizabeth. Before departing they had signed a constitution requiring that an agent of the Society administer the settlement according to U.S. laws. They found shelter on Scherbo Island off the west coast of Africa.

The new immigrants immediately began to construct their new settlement. But after three weeks, twenty-two of the African-Americans and all three white officials died of yellow fever. The second ship, the Nautilus, soon arrived with new passengers and fresh supplies ^[3].

In 1821, Captain Richard Field Stockton of the USS Alligator skimmed the coastline of West Africa, resuming the search for a suitable site. Accounts differ, but it is quite possible that the threat of force caused the indigenous leaders to agree to sell a 36-mile long strip of coastline to the Society in exchange for $300 worth of rum, weapons and other goods. The Scherbo Island group moved to this new location and other blacks from the United States joined them.

The first settlement was on Providence Island near where the present capital city, Monrovia, is located. Although the Society had arranged with local chiefs for a settlement, the colonists were attacked by indigenous peoples, disease, and barely maintained their foothold. In 1824, the settlers built fortifications for protection. In that same year, the settlement was named Liberia, with its capital at Monrovia, named for President James Monroe.

In 1824 the Cape Mesurado Colony expanded and became the Liberia Colony, and the United States government settled New Georgia with "Congo" recaptives (slaves rescued by Americans in mid-ocean). Other colonies soon followed.

Criticism of the ACS

When the first settlers were relocated to Liberia in 1822, the plan drew immediate criticism on several fronts. Many leaders in the black community publicly attacked it, asking why free blacks should have to emigrate from the country where they, their parents, and even their grandparents were born. Meanwhile, slave owners in the South vigorously denounced the plan as an assault on their slave economy. However, other prominent leaders in the black community supported the plan, believing that discrimination would prevent African-Americans from prospering in the United States.

Despite the growing resistance to colonization, in 1832, as the ACS began to send agents to England to raise funds for what they touted as a benevolent plan, William Lloyd Garrison helped instigate opposition to the plan with a 236-page book on the evils of colonization and sent abolitionists to England to track down and counter ACS supporters.

Life in the new colonies

The settlers recreated American society, building churches and homes that resembled Southern plantations. And they continued to speak English. They also entered into a complex relationship with the indigenous people -- marrying them in some cases, discriminating against them in others, (and enslaving them in the worst of cases) but all the time attempting to "civilize" them and impose Western values on the traditional communities.

The new colonies adopted other American styles of life, including southern plantation-style houses with deep verandahs, and established thriving trade links with other West Africans. The Americo-Liberians distinguished themselves from the local people, characterized as 'natives,' by the universal appellation of "Mr."

The struggle to survive

The formation of the colony did not occur altogether without difficulty. The severe conditions (which included harsh climate and deadly diseases) took a high toll on both settlers and missionaries. Census records indicate that only about half of the 4,571 persons who emigrated under the aegis of the ACS survived during the first 23 years after the first colony was established.^[4]

In addition, the land occupied by the American Colonization Society in Liberia was not void of native inhabitants when the emigrants arrived. Much of the area was under the control of the Malinké tribes who resented the incursion of these settlers upon their lands. In addition to disease, poor housing conditions and lack of food and medicine, these new emigrants found themselves engaged in sporadic armed combat with the natives.

At the same time, colonial expansionists from Europe encroached on the newly-independent Liberia and took over much of the original territory of independent Liberia by force.

Creation of other colonies

The Maryland State Colonization Society withdrew her support from the American Colonization Society and resolved to establish a colony in Liberia to send free people of color, of that State, that wished to emigrate. Soon after, the Young Men's Colonization Society of Pennsylvania, were induced to establish a separate colony at Port Cresson.

The New York City Colonization Society united with the latter, under the active agency of Dr. Proudfit, the funds of the State were brought to their aid. In 1834, the Mississippi State Colonization Society established a colony independent of the American Colonization Society.

In 1832, the Edina and Port Cresson colonies were formed by the New York and Pennsylvania Colonization Societies. In 1834, the Maryland in Liberia colony was created by the Maryland State Colonization Society. The Mississippi-in-Africa colony was created by the Mississippi and Louisiana State Colonization Societies in 1835. In 1835, the Port Cresson Colony was destroyed by natives of the area. The Bassa Cove Colony was founded on the ruins of the Port Cresson Colony a month later.^[5][6]

A period of consolidation followed. The Bassa Cove Colony absorbed the Edina Colony in 1837. Bassa Cove in turn was incorporated into Liberia in 1839, as was New Georgia. Maryland in Africa became the State of Maryland in Liberia in 1841. Mississippi-in-Africa was incorporated into Liberia as Sinoe County in 1842. Maryland in Liberia declared independence from Liberia in 1854 and had a brief life as the independent state of Maryland in Liberia. It was annexed into Liberia as Maryland County in 1857.^[5][6]

Bankruptcy of the ACS

The American Colonization Society closely controlled the development of Liberia until 1847. However, by the 1840s, Liberia had become a financial burden on the American Colonization Society which was effectively bankrupt. The transported Liberians were demoralized by hostile local tribes, bad management, and deadly diseases. In addition, Liberia faced political threats, chiefly from Britain, because it was neither a sovereign power nor a bona fide colony of any sovereign nation.

Because the United States refused to claim sovereignty over Liberia, in 1846 the ACS directed the Liberians to proclaim their independence. In 1847, the colony became the independent nation of Liberia. By 1867, the society had sent more than 13,000 emigrants.

Independence

During the formative years of the colony, white administrators from the American Colonization Society ran the Liberian colony. But as the colony expanded and became more self-sufficient, colonists were given more and more control in running the colony. The colony was renamed the Commonwealth of Liberia in 1839. In 1841, Joseph Jenkins Roberts became the first black governor of the colony. With the encouragement of the American Colonization Society which was almost bankrupt, he proclaimed Liberia a free republic in 1847. A Constitution was drawn up along the lines of the United States'. The state seal shows a ship at anchor in a tropical harbor, and bears the inscription, "The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here."

The country was recognized by the United Kingdom in 1848 and by France in 1852. The United States delayed its recognition of Liberia until 1862 over concerns by southern states of a black ambassador from Liberia residing in Washington. The boundaries of the country were not officially established until after 1892.^[5]

However, attempts to found a state based upon some 3000 settlers proved difficult. Some coastal tribes became Protestants and learned English, but most of the indigenous Africans retained their traditional religion and language. Even the slave trade continued illicitly from Liberian ports, but this was ended by the British Navy in the 1850s.

The Americo-Liberians have never constituted above five percent of the population of Liberia; however, for over one hundred years, the Americo-Liberians reserved within the group all political and economic leadership. Under the name of the True Whig Party (TWP), the Americo-Liberians subdued indigenous tribes in Liberia and permitted no organized political opposition thus making Liberia a one-party state.