THE SUNDAY OKEGONIATT, PORTLAND, SEPTEMBER 7, 1919.
BOOTH TARKINGTON WRITES OF THE MYSTERY OF DEATH
If One Spirit Voice Is Heard Doyle and Lodge Win Their Case, Holds the Novelist
I : : : tell 5'' - W4T' CSC
- - ..V"-V..- 'IB J:-B';'-T--'"-- f..J-i
3 IAN STILL GROPES IN THE DARK, YET FACES DEATH MAG-
.NIFICENTLT.
"TV are dwelling: In the night. To the man of 10,000 years hence,
who will not be able to distinguish, through hia archeologlcal researchers,
whloh of the forgotten tribes fought the great war that left the long
line of bones In the sub-soil from the Channel to th Alps to that en
lightened modern we shall seem to have been formless gropers in the
dusk of ignorance. We do not really believe it. but that man of 10,000
years hence is actually going to live and speculate about us and study
the dust heaps which we shall leave. He will see that we were dwellers
In the night in the unknown. All this horror of death is horror of the
unknown. Men face it magnificently. What would this mean: that they
should face It knowing; definitely what they facer
There Is presented today the fourth article
f the aeries on "Spirttualira and Piychtc
Phenomena." It Is by Booth Tarklngton.
While he predicts hla findlnc on no quaal-
sclentlfle data, no years of patient reiearch,
as Sir Arthur Csnan Doyle and Blr Oliver
IjOdse have done In previous articles, the
(Teat novelist holds that, with a "steady
heart and a cool head," man should so reso
lutely forward In his endeavor to solve the
mystery of death. "It." he aaya. "If in all
this jnass of alleged evidence purporting to
reveal the thoughts of 'disembodied spirits'
tf ha all this there be one veritable menage
from a person whose body Is dead, then the
ease of snrvival is made; this person Is alive
(or was alive after his death) and the pos
sibility of the survival of others Is demon
strate d.
So far as we know this Is Mr. Tarklngton's
first pIungA In the realm of the super.
aatural. It win be noted that he does not
rate himself as one qualified to speak with
authority en the subject, but la scholarly
manner he pays tribute to the pioneers In
the field. ... "those patient men whs
have sought the truth la the dust-heap.
Their task is heavy, but It Is the task that
must be done before civilisation can begin.
The next article In the series Is by Rupert
Hughes. It Is called "The Case Against
Spiritualism." That It la opposed to all that
has gone before, the arguments of Co nan
Doyle, 61r Oliver Ledge and Mr. Tarklngtoa
to the contrary notwithstanding, the title in.
aicatea.
STARS IIS THE DCST HEAP.
BT BOOTH TARKINGTON.
MAN., after a million years of the
straggle to think Is still refus
ing to recognize as a fit subject
for study that subject which most con
cerns him. Here he remains barbaric;
Toe looks upon death as an ultimate
horror which Is "unwholesome to dwell
upon." Man is still tribal in his atti
tude toward war because he is still
tribal in his attitude toward death.
Savages are somewhat more preju
diced in the matter. They will not
mention the dead, fearing to be haunt
ed, and consequently, though they
sometimes have legends, the historian
can trace fragments of their history
only by digging up their burying
grounds an irony sufficiently gro
tesque. Man regards death as so hor- !
rible that when he reaches the utmost 1
pitch of his rage he Inflicts death upon
his enemies. When he feels that life
is unendurable he says the worst thing
about it that he can think of; he says
he prefers death. It is true that in
dividuals, here and there, unbearably
anguished by their lives, do long for
death; and they think of death as
peace, Just as in the torrid days ol
summer we think of January as pleas
ant; and, seeking peace, they seek II
blindly through suicide. But they do
not know what they will find. In their
utter ignorance, they guess; and
usually their guess is that they will
find nothing.
We do not know that death is noth
ing. If death is nothing, then we still
know nothing about nothing. We know
no more about death than prehistoric
man knew. We know more than he did
about how to postpone it, under certain
conditions, and about how to alleviate
the physical . pain of it; and. using
words interchangeably, we can make
more definitions of it than he could;
but our ignorance of death itself is
precisely equal to hia This may be be
cause we have preferred to cling
through the ages to the superstition
that we could know nothing about It.
The Eternal Mystery.
There are minds which wrap them
selves with satisfaction about a con
fusion of words. Just as tangled thread
loves to knot itself always the more
inextricably. TDeath is negation, they
urge. "Death is merely not life. How
can you state positives of a negative?
Tou can know only nothing about noth
ing, so how can you know something
about nothing r But if they know that
death is nothing, and if they knew that
death is not life, they would know more
than Moses or Newton or Voltaire knew,
and surely that would be knowing
something. Enamored of their wan
derings with words, they do not even
rise to the scientific height of a guess!
In man there is a profound, physical
distaste for death which extends itself
to become a distaste for the investiga
tion of death; he lets bis mystics and
priests chant of it vaguely on cere
monial days, but be really does not
wish to think about it at all. There
fore, he is naturally inclined to throw
discredit upon investigations and in
vestigators; In a sense it is his instinct
to do so. Moreover, certain thinkers
(In their own distaste of the subject) '
ire claimed that this very distaste Is they say. "Why aren't the spirits more
dlgnlfiedr If they could communicate
with living people, do yon suppose
they'd be talking about tintypes?" The
spirits they believe in, you see, are
already constructed out of fancies, im
aginary spirits finished in contour,
gesture and temperament and any
thing purporting to be a spirit, but not
fulfilling the ready-made portrait, is
dismissed as either fraud or delusion
Thus the credulous immigrant might
decline to take note of Ellis island
because no one met him with platters
of money. ' "This is not America, he
might say. "America is paved with
gold." -
Hosea sua a Table Rapper.
And there are the other credulous
those who have a strange notion that
Nature necessarily works with a kind
of snobbishness or aristocracy of ges
ture. They look for the dramatic and
graceful in her, expecting her to show
forth something Grecian in great mat
ters; they respect a 30-knot battleship
and forget Watts and his teakettle;
they would like to see AJax defying the
lightning, but cannot believe that AJax
might better have understood what he
was about if he had begun by rubbing
a cat s back in the dark of a woodshed.
"What!" they cry. "Look for the high
dead among 'mediums,' 'pyschics.' 'slate
writers, rappers and trance babblers?
Do you expect Moses to be rapping 'I'm
all right' on a four-dollar table in a
back parlor smellinir of fried pota
toes?" The seeker answers, "I do not
expect Moses. .1 do not expect at all
An Inventor explained why the
Wrights made an airplane that would
fly. "They weren't graduates," he said.
'They hadn't been conventionally edu
cated in mechanics. They hadn't learned
that certain things couldn't be done
so they did them!" This explains, inci
dentally, why genius usually comes
from the country and, pertinently, why
it is scientific to keep an open mind.
Noae Se Blind, Etc
Probably there is no mind which
closes itself with gentler self-satisfaction
than that which says, "We weren't
meant to know." For thus we manu
facture our own religion (frequently
upon the spot and to suit the emer
gency of the minute), setting up a god
in our own image and investing it
with a wisdom wholly the fabric of our
Own inclinations and preferred ignor
ances. "We aren't meant to know." . . .
"We can't know." ... "There isnt'
anything to know." . . . Those who
prefer darkness may take their choice
of the three "verdicts" still common
in the twentieth, century. But many
people who say -"We aren't meant to
know" will deny their love of darkness.
"We live by faith," they add. "We be
lieve in the many mansions in His
father's house, and in 'If it were not so
I would have told you.' " Tet they hold
that there is a kind of Impiety in seek
ing to follow this great hint of Christ's
into further understanding of what He
meant. He did not forbid: it is they
who forbid. They say, "We are Judged
by the extent of our faith," which may
easily mean that the harder a thing Is
the only, basis of man's hope of per
sonal survival after death. They wish
to dispose of the matter thus briefly,
defining the theory of "immortality of
the soul" as merely a by-product of
man's instinct of self-preservation. And
there are others who say that man got
the notion that he had a soul through
his savage ancestor's dreams; the sav
age woke from slumber and said, I
have been in strange places, obviously
far away from my sleeping body,
Therefore there must be two of me
the me of my body, and the me that
leaves my body and goes away.
Hence, when my body dies, the me
that dreamed may still be alive." The
civilized man's dream of survival la
only a savage's dream after all. these
rationalists say.
Thus they claim to have demolished
the theory of survival. But, plainly.
they may be (for all they know) ex
actly like the rational argufiers who
may have said, in the year 1491 Anno
Domini: "The earth is flat. Columbus
believes it is round because his grand
father had a passion for round fruit,
such as oranfres and apples; the love
of rotundity is inherent in his blood."
To imagine the origin of a desire or a
conception is not to prove that the
thing desired or conceived has no exist
ence, as any hungry child will demon
strate to a doubter's satisfaction.
The Two Extremes.
The strangest theorist is he who
takes the ground that man is actually
indifferent to death (because, as death
approaches, some men and most dogs
appear to be indifferent to life), and
that therefore, since death amounts to
so little, it really amounts to nothing
and coincides with nothingness.
There are a hundred other kinds of
arKufyine. and the argufiers are cock
sure; and there is no other superstition
so superstitious as cocksureness. And
as the fundamental thing underneath
this superstition was their fear of a
possible life (supposedly strange and
uncomfortable), so the fundamental
thing underneath the superstition of
many "skeptic theorists is the dread
of death as a queer and repellent life.
Often they speak with a fierceness that
betrays them: "Idiot!" they shout
"Don't you know it's been proved that
you can't know anything, because there
is nothing to know?" They love to
make free with the word "proved!"
And with these argufiers march the
literal-minded spiritualists, the great
credulous crowd, profoundly gulled by
their own imaginations. Tnese are the
people who dismiss investigation sum
marily when It reports not in accord
with their preconceived fancies of what
spirits" would do and say. They say
they "don't believe in spirits." but ob
viously they do even to the extent of
having determined that spirits can
never (for instance) be trivial or hu
morous; and with primitive naivete
they have so credulously pictured a
heaven, or hell, of their own, that evi
dence of anything different seems to
them nonsense. why don't the spirits
ever tell us something worth while?"
to believe, the more credit to him who
believes it. That is, the prophets did
not do everything they possibly could
to make their followers understand
their meaning insofar as the followers'
minds were capable, but, on the con
trary, the prophets were deliberately
puzzling in order to test the faith of
the followers and make salvation dif
ficult. Strange, for there are the par
ables to show what pains were taken to
stir the least imaginative toward com
prehending. Mystics always hope that
science will some day overtake them.
The rich woman said to the socialist:
"But it wouldn't be right for the world
to have no poor. Charity is the greatest
of all virtues and there could be no
charity If there were no poor." Her
thought was not far from that which
maintains: "We were not meant to
know, because knowing would leave no
room for faith; hence efforts to know
are irreligious." To live by faith is in
deed not to walk in darkness; but it is
to walk in only the dream of light.
But there are dreamers enough who
think they have found true and actual
light in their quest among the mounte
banks and "mediums." Sleight-of-hand
cunning, euess-work and exhibitions of
perfectly honest - forms of catalepsy
bring their rewards to both the per
former and the bereft searchers for
consolation. It is not strange that
eyes swimming in tears fill themselves
with waterly visions. That is what
they want to do, poor things; and the
frauds have only the task of suggest
ing how the stricken souls may deceive
themselves.
Let Truth Carry on, Sara Tarklngtoa.
The seeker for the truth about sur
vival (whether the truth be consola
tion or not) must know that his way
lies through a maze, which one enters
trying to find a path that will take
him out on the opposite side. There
are 1O00 fraudulent bypaths and he
must learn to recognize at their en
trances the little "marks which show
that the way out does not lie there
and yet the true path may be disguised
by these same little marks. The seeker's
heart must be steady and his head
cool; he will see queer things at which
he must remember to laugh, and his
elbow will be plucked by hands reacti
ng- from many a curious cul-de-sac
If he becomes bewildered be will see
things that do not exist, and he may
begin to babble nonsense. And though
he might never find the true path, he
must not deny (if he would claim to
have remained reasonable) that a true
path may exist. In a maze, if there
are a million patns, ana a man, in nis
lifetime, explore nine ' hundred thou
sand of them, all leading nowhere, he
is entitled to state no more than his
experience. That experience may in
cline him to the opinion that no true
path exists, but all opinions have still
the right to differ, so long as they are
but opinions. And if among the mil
lions of "spirit-messages" received
through "mediums" or "psychics," or
what-not, by means of "slate-writing,"
automatic writing." "ouija-boards," i
clairvoyance," "clair-audience or any I
other generally uncredited and widely
discredited manifestation if In all this
vast mass of alleged evidence purport
ing through the ages to reveal the
thoughts of "disembodied spirits" if
in all this there be ONE veritable
message from a person whose body is
dead, then the case for survival is
made: this dead person is alive (or
was alive after his death) and the pos
sibility of the survival of others is
demonstrated.
And who could prove that there has
never, been one such message? Only a
person who had Investigated .and ex
posed ail messages; and he could not
prove that a veritable message might
not come In the future.
Dwellers in the Night.
We are dwelling in the night. To the
man of 10,000 years hence, who will not
be able to distinguish, through his
archeological researchers, which of the
forgotten tribes fought the great war
that left the long line of bones In the
subsoil from the channel to the Alps
to that enlightened modern we shall
seem to have been formless gropers in
the dusk of ignorance. We do not really
believe it, but that man 10.000 years
hence Is actually going to live and
speculate about us and study the dust
heaps a hlch we shall leave. He will see
that we were dwellers in the night in
the unknown. All this horror of death
is horror of the unknown. Men face it
magnificently. What would this mean:
that they should face it knowing def
initely what they face?
We make war, believing that death Is
annihilation. At least, we must believe
that war means annihilation for our
enemies. We (as tribesmen) may "be
lieve" in Valhalla for our own killed
soldiers, but we must be convinced that
our slain enemies are either annihilated
or safely confined in hell. Otherwise we
are indeed mad. Surely it is insane for
me to think I have settled all matters
at issuet between me and my enemy
when I have shoved him out of a door
through which I, too, must pass. Still,
If we "believe" in Valhalla for our own
slain, and in annihilation or hell for
the slain of our foes, obviously we are
on tricky ground, and probably General
Bernhardi himself could not maintain
such a point and simultaneously main
tain his countenance In gravity. No;
war is made in the belief that death Is
personal annihilation.
But if but if it isn't!
Do the Great War's Slain Still Vlvet
How if those thousands and tens of
thousands and hundreds of thousands of
young Britons and Frenchmen and
Hungarians and Italians and Russians
and Germans and Serbians and ail
those dead of Belgium, and ail that
mighty procession of the slain of. Ar
menia how if all these hosts still live?
The expansionists, the imperialists.
the pan-parties who hope for "great
ness" by conquest these are the
fathers of militarism; that is, they are
the fathers of death. Militarism is only
another way of saying wholesale
deathism. If not, why does a soldier
carry a bayonet? And who can be mad
der than a wholesale-deathist, since
he knows nothing of what death is?
The militarist, if he have any vestige
of even a cracked rationalism In him,
must believe that he betters his own
condition by putting certain people to
death. That is, he is like a doctor
who, in order to feel better himself,
compounds an unknown mixture from
unlabeled vials and forces some one else
to swallow it; that is to say, he is a
lunatic. Inevitably he must be dealt
with, and in our own shadows we have
no possible option: we can only fight
lunatics with lunacy, heaping; mid
night upon midnight wildly hoping In
that way to use up such a quantity of
darkness that light must take its
place.
Yes, here Is the whole world of one
mind at last, bent upon one purpose,
united in one thought; all mankind sets
its giant energy to making war that
is to say, making death without hav
ing first learned anything whatever
of the nature of what it makes! And
those began this lunacy who most craz
ily relished it, and hoped most from
it for themselves. If there be sur
vival, what must be the condition of
the spirits of such creatures as these?
What sort of raging ghosts are they
becoming?
But. if death were known, if It were
no longer a mystery, but a condition
familiarly understood, as the ocean is
comprehended, for instance, by the un
traveled midlander, then wouldn't the
horror of war vanish and wars still be
made? Probably the answer Is that
man will often consciously do horrible
things but he will seldom knowingly
do insane things.
Fr Is HelL"
The known is never horrible except
as death or pain may come of it, and we
begin to see that pain Is only a prompt-,
ing to us to educate ourselves In the
law. "Fear Is hell" and we begin to
guess that fear is only Ignorance. All
this horror of an Inevitable condition
this fear of death, a far which Is an
anguish even to little children is
wrong. The child fears the dark, yet
there is nothing in the dark that is not
in the light except the light Itself
and so there may be nothing In death
that Is not in life, if we had the light
to see. If death is life, with "progress
and problems," like those in what we
call life, then we should not fear it.
Or, if it were peace, we should not
fear it. We fear it because we im
agine it is darkness yet that is one
thing which it cannot be. Nothing is
not darkness. (For that matter, of
course, death cannot be nothing, in the
literal sense. When we say "Death is
annihilation" we mean only that "per
sonal consciousness" does not survive
the change called death.)
Pain is a hint for better education,
and dread of death is a form of pain;
it is a revulsion caused by the un
familiar or the unknown. It is nature
kicking us for not knowing. In other
words, horror of death, being in part
our revolt against not knowing what
death is our fear of thinking about
it is what ought to make us think
about it. So a child, locked In a dark
room, will sometimes stretch forth his
hand to explore, because his fear of
what his hand may touch is so great
that he must explore! Fear should be
the ancestor of curiosity, and out of the
hell of fear may come the good thing,
the wlsh-to-know. That is the most
benevolent of all the desires; in obe
dience to it the boy takes a watch
apart, to see what a watch is made of;
and a novelist takes life apart to see
what life Is made of for artists are
only scientists working In intuition in
stead of in - laboratory. But boys and
artists may only suggest things; they
do not prove them.
Now, certain men have said that they
have evidence of survival, and some of
these men are scientists even scien
tists by profession. If they have the
evidence which they say they have,
then It is going to be possible to es
tablish, before very long, the most Im
portant fact that can affect mankind.
There is no doubt that these men be
lieve the evidence; and their critics.
unable to assail their sincerity, attack
them upon the point of gullibility. But
this leads a person of open mind to
suspect the critics of a gullibility of
their own; that is, they may be gulled
by their prejudices. They are. indeed,
thus gulled if they declare Sir Oliver
Lodge to be gullible because Sir Oliver
Lodge claims to receive messages from
a dead person. To show Sir Oliver
gullible, the critics must prove the
messages to be fraud or delusion. They
prove only their own superstition
who say, by Implication: "But spirits
do not do thus-and-so; they do not
speak thus-and-so."
No doubt, serious Investigators have
been gulled: that means nothing of im
portance; secret service men have had
lead quarters passed "on" them. The
uestion Is. whether or not the inves
tigators have ever found true metal
if it were even a centime! Most of
them believe they have; and therein
is a circumstance of such significance
as may give us strangely to think, if
we will take leisure to note it: of all
the men professionally of science who
have seriously and persistently investi
gated and studied the slleged phenom
ena of "spiritualism," the overwhelm
ing majority have drawn the conclu
M'on, as a result of their patient re
searches, that there is personal survival
Of death.
Only levity sneers at them now at
these patient men who have sought
truth in the dust-heap. They have not
yet failed; neither have they shown
the truth If they have found It so
that all men may see it and know that
It Is indeed truth. Their task is heavy,
but It is the greatest one. for it is the
task that must be done before civilisa
tion can begin. To lift the burden
of the unknown from the human soul
to destroy the great darkness; that Is
the work which engages them. Man
cannot be sane In the daylight until
the nitrht becomes knowable.
(Copyright, 1919, by The Metropolitan
Newspaper Service.)
RISE OF AMASIS TO SUPREME
RULE OF EGYPT IS ASTOUNDING
Career of Candido Aguilar From Position of Hostler to That of General of
Mexican Army Also Has Few Counterparts.
THE astounding rise of Candido
Aguilar from the position of hos
tler to that of general of the Mex
ican army and son-in-law of President
Carranza has few counterparts in mod
ern history, but a great many in the
history of ancient times.
Most astounding of all. perhaps, con
sidering the conservatism of the Egyp
tians, was the rise of Amasla to the su
preme rule of Egypt some S70 years be
fore Christ. Amasis began life as
potter.
He was an excellent potter and 'ap
pears also to have been a pastmaater
in the art of sculpturing. One day,
while King Apries was celebrating the
anniversary of his birth, he happened
by the place where Amasis was plying
his trade. The king was struck by the
beauty of the potter's work and asked
him to make a vase while the king
looked on. Not only did Amasis execute
this order with great celerity, but he
also molded out of clay a wonderful
bouquet of flowers and painted them
in their natural huea Placing these in
the vase, he presented the double work
of art to the king as a birthday gift.
Aprlea was so favorably impressed by
all thla that he bade Amasis dwell at
the royal court where ha could work at
I pottery and sculpturing at his leisure,
and at the same time apply himself
to the learning of the arts that would
qualify him as a courtier and soldier.
So well did the potter learn, these les
sons that the king had no hesitancy in
placing him in exalted positions by
quick strides, both in his household and
in the army.
A Greek colony established in Cyre
nalca, west of Egypt, was causing
Apriea a good deal of trouble. To head
off any possible Scheme the colonists
might have of invading Egypt, he sent
his army there. The Greeks gave this
army a frightful beating and the Egyp
tian soldiers, surprised at the ease with
which this appeared to be accomplished,
believed that Apries had sent them
there for no other purpose than to be
slaughtered.
To quell the mutiny among- the sol
diers, Apries sent Amasis, who had now
risen to the rank of supreme general.
He was a perauaslva speaker and had,
besides, the backing of a large army
to enforce his words.
While Amasis waa addressing the
muttnoua troops, one of them came up
behind him and placed a crown on his
bead, at tha same time shouting, "Be
hold our now king:." . .
. Amaaia acted coyly at f irat and de
clined the honor; but as the troops in
sisted upon his acceptance of the honor
which had been thrust upon him, he
complied with apparent reluctance and
marched his armies against the king
whom he had Intended to defend.
Nobody had any sympathy for Aprlea.
He seems to have been a bad man. In
the Bible he figures as the Pharaoh
Hophra, against whom the anger of the
almighty was kindled on account of his
arrogance, pride and impiety. For Ho
phra (Apries waa the name which the
Greeks gave him and by which he is
known in general history) had declared
that his kingdom was so well estab
lished that even God could not shake
its power.
The mercenaries with whom Apries
had surrounded himself were no match
for the soldiers of Amasis, who were,
fighting for their liberties and their
country. And so Amasis easily van
quished Apries and took him prisoner.
At first Amasis treated Apries with
kindness; but the soldiers had conceived
too deep a grudge against their former
monarch and, with what was probably
sincere grief for his former benefactor,
Amasis was compelled to surrender him.
They put him to death, but gave him
an honorable burial in hia ancestral
tomb at Sals.
Amasis proved to be no less capable
as a ruler than he had been as an artist.
Indeed, he was an artist in kingcraft,
too. He devoted' the mornings to gov
ernmental business, but tha rest of tha
day he devoted to recreation and pleas
ure. He was by no means profligate,
but merely mildly addicted to the pleas
ures of life, and found his chief diver
sion in tha companionship of friends
who could tell good atorlea and afford
him plenty of food for laughter.
Scarcely leas amazing than the rise
of Amasis was that of an entire nest
of Roman emperors, some 800 years
later, These were Diocletian, Maximian,
Constantlus Chlorus, Galerius and Max
iminus. . All of these were born in
provinces which were considered as
mora or less barbarous by the Romans,
and all were originally either shepherds
or common soldiera. m
Diocletian waa born In A. D. 245, at
Salona in Dalmatia, and tended sheep
as a boy. Then he entered the army as
a private and soon distinguished him
self by bravery and his cool, quick,
Judgment in battle and rose to be a cap
tain. As such, during a campaign in Gaul,
he was billeted at the bouse of a Druid
priestess in a place near what is now
Liege, Belgium.
One day this priestess took him to
task for an aot which gave evidenoe
of an avaricious trait. -
"I'll be more generous when I'm em
peror," said Diocletian, laughing.
"Tou regard your words as a Joke,"
said the Druldess, "but they are ab
solutely true. Tou will be emperor after
you have alain a boar."
. In time Diocletian became general,
and, aa suoh, accompanied the emperor,
Probus, and the latter's son, Numer
ianua, on an expedition against the
Persians. At that time, Diocletian was
9 years old.
The chief of the Praetorian guard
waa Arrius Aper. an ambitloua man,
who longed to rule. During a fright
ful storm he slew Probus and set his
tent on fire, saying that it had been
struck by lightning. And shortly after
ward he dispatched the new emperor,
Numerlanus, by poison.
This was too much for Diocletian.
He harangued the soldiers, and, ac
cusing Aper of the two-fold murder,
plunged hia sword into his heart.
"You've slain a boar!" said one of
Diocletian's friends significantly. For
"Aper" is the Latin word for boar. En
couraged by this omen, Diocletian did
not hesitate to proclaim himself em
peror and was Joyously acclaimed as
such by the soldiera
To share the burdens of empire with
him Diocletian in 286 appointed, as his
coequal, Maximinian, who had served
with him aa a private In the army.
Maximinian had started life as a shep
herd in his native village in Pannonia.
The Roman world was thus ruled by
two August!, and each of them ap
pointed a Caesar to assist In the ad
ministration of affairs. Diocletian's
Caesar was Constantlus Chlorus, while
Maximinian chose Galerius.
Constantlus, who was the father of
Constantino the Great, had been en
gaged in a humble occupation In his
home town in Illyrla and his wife Hel
ena, the mother of Constantine, had
been an Innkeeper there. In raising
him to the exalted position of Caesar.
Diocletian suggested that a spouse of
greater dignity than Helena might not
be amies. Constantlus thereupon di
vorced Helena and married Flavia, the
stepdaughter of Constantlus.
Qalerius, who was a native of Thrace,
had been a herdsman, and served aa
soldier succesivaly under Aurelian,
Probus and Diocletian. He married Dio
cletian's daughter Valeria.
Masiminius was a Thraclan shepherd.
He was of giant stature and as brutal
and cruel as he was strong. He rose
to be chief of the Praetorian guard un
der the noble-hearted Emperor Alex
ander Severus, whose, mother, . Mam- i
maea. was a devout Christian, although 1
Alexander himself never embraced
Christianity. Through his mother's in
fluence, however, persecutions against
Christians were strictly forbidden.
Maximlnius murdered Alexander and
Mammaea in their tent in Gaul and had
himself proclaimed emperor. His cruel
ty, rapaciousness, gluttony and other
monstrous vices gained him the hatred
of the whole Roman world. In the
theater at Rome a comedian once said,
as if part of his role:
"Some monstrously big fellows can't
be licked by any one ordinary man; but
when many, acting in concert, get after
him they can get him down in the same
way as they do with elephanta"
The entire audience of 30,000 or so
looked at Maximlnius, whom everybody
knew to be intended. But this bar
barian, having but a poor smattering
of Latin, aid not understand and, think
ing the comedian had cracked a good
Joke, as his actions seemed to indicate,
laughed uproariously.
The actor's advice was soon after
ward followed by the Praetorian sol
diera They fell upon Maximlnius and
his son, whom he had appointed co
emperor as Caesar, and slew both of
them.
Salvaging to Be Attempted.
JUNEAU, Alaska. Attempt is to be
made by a salvage company to raise
the treasure ship Islander, wrecked
August 15, 1901, between Dougrlas and
Admiralty islands, southeast Alaska.
The Islander, which struck an iceberg
and was sunk with the loss of 19 lives,
waa value dat 8175,00 Oand carried a
cargo estimated to be .worth nearly
ll,000,000y
Omar's Rise to Fame Due to
English Poets.
First Edition by Qaaritch Sold la
"Two Penny Box.
THE appearance in the auction room
of one of the most remarkable col
lections of editions of Omar Khayyam
naturally recalls the early history of
the famous Rubalyat,' that might so
easily have missed finding its remark
able position In the world of books.
When Fitzgerald translated the Per
sian poet, Bernard Quarltch probably
had deep regrets that he had elected
to publish it.
One may believe that it was with no
feeling of pride as a publisher that he
marked down the first edition and left
It for somebody to discover in his "two
penny box" where economical book
buyers hunted for bargains. If, coming
out cf the "twopenny box." It had
missed attracting the notice of such
connoisseurs of the written word as
Rossettl and Swinburne,; the Rubalyat
would very likely have continued plac
idly on Its way to oblivion.
No other book ever started from a
"twopenny box" on a Journey in the
world of letters that eventually In
cluded so many of such varied editions:
yet it may bo questioned whether it
was not the phraseology of the trans
lator rather than the thought of the
poet that really started it and kept it
goincy