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Then took they
the bishop [St Alphege,
Archbishop of Canterbury] ... on the eve of the Sunday after
Easter ... They overwhelmed him with bones and horns of oxen; and
one of them smote him with an axe-iron on the head; so that he sunk
downwards with the blow; and his holy blood fell on the earth,
whilst his sacred soul was sent to the realm of God. The idea, as I
understand it, is that fundamental truths are revealed in laboratory
experimentation on lower animals and are then applied to the problems
of the sick patient. Having been myself trained as a physiologist, I
feel in a way competent to assess such a claim. It is plain nonsense. Among the inferior professors of medical
knowledge, is a race of wretches, whose lives are only varied by
varieties of cruelty; whose favourite amusement is to nail dogs to
tables and open them alive; to try how long life may be continued in
various degrees of mutilation, or with the excision or laceration of
the vital parts; to examine whether burning irons are felt more
acutely by the bone or tendon; and whether the more lasting agonies
are produced by poison forced into the mouth, or injected into the
veins. |
Primrose Day, by Ralph Todd, 1885 |
There
are hundreds of paths to scientific knowledge. The cruel ones can
teach us only what we ought not to know.
George Bernard Shaw
Cesario, by the Roses of the Spring
By maidenhead, honour, truth ..& everything.
I love thee so that, mauger all my pride,
Nor wit, nor reason can my passion hide.
William
Shakespeare;
Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene 1; Today is Primrose Day
in England; "the Roses of the Spring" are primroses.
Will you buy my sweet primroses,
Two bunches a-penny?
All a-growing, all a-blowing,
Who will buy my sweet primroses,
Two bunches a-penny.
London flower-seller's rhyme from Cries of London, c.
1790
Source
Upon this primrose hill
Where, if Heav’n would distil
A shower of raine. Each several drop might goe
To his owne primrose, and grow manna so.
John Donne (1572 -
1631)
For some reasons, best known to the English government, in March 1622 the King of England had to remind King Powhatan of the articles of the treaty of peace existing between them, in answer to which King Powhatan said that he would prefer seeing the country turned upside down rather than break a single article of the treaty, but, as will be proved later on, this conduct of the savages was nothing but hypocrisy and deceit, they only awaiting a favorable opportunity to kill out the English.
Several days before this bloodthirsty people put their plan into execution, they led some of our people through very dangerous woods into a place from which they could not extricate themselves without the aid of a guide, others of us who were among them to learn their language were in a friendly way persuaded to return to our colony, while new comers were treated in an exceedingly friendly manner.
On Friday before the day appointed by them for the attack they visited, entirely unarmed, some of our people in their dwellings, offering to exchange skins, fish and other things, while our people entirely ignorant of their plans received them in a friendly manner.
When the day appointed for the massacre had arrived, a number of the savages visited many of our people in their dwellings, and while partaking with them of their meal the savages, at a given signal, drew their weapons and fell upon us murdering and killing everybody they could reach sparing neither women nor children, as well inside as outside the dwellings. In this attack 347 of the English of both sexes and all ages were killed. Simply killing our people did not satisfy their inhuman nature, they dragged the dead bodies all over the country, tearing them limb from limb, and carrying the pieces in triumph around.
Anthony Chester (1707) on the James River massacre of
April 19, 1622 Source
Such
was (God be thanked for it) the good fruit of an Indian converted to
Christianity; for though three hundred more of ours died by many of
these Pagen infidels, yet Thousands of ours were saved by the means of
one of them alone which was made a Christian: blessed be God forever
whose mercy endureth forever; blessed be God whose mercy is above his
justice and farre above All his works; who wrought this deliverance
whereby their soules escaped even as a bird out of the snare of the
Fowler.
Settler
Purchas, writing of the James River massacre
CHAPTER 8. EXPLORATION OF EAST COAST OF AUSTRALIA. [April 1770.]
THURSDAY, 19th. In the P.M. had fresh Gales at South-South-West and
Cloudy Squally weather, with a large Southerly Sea; at 6 took in the
Topsails, and at 1 A.M. brought too and Sounded, but had no ground
with 130 fathoms of line. At 5, set the Topsails close reef'd, and 6,
saw land* (* The south-east coast of Australia. See chart.) extending
from North-East to West, distance 5 or 6 Leagues, having 80 fathoms,
fine sandy bottom. We continued standing to the Westward with the Wind
at South-South-West until 8, at which time we got Topgallant Yards a
Cross, made all sail, and bore away along shore North-East for the
Eastermost land we had in sight, being at this time in the Latitude of
37 degrees 58 minutes South, and Longitude of 210 degrees 39 minutes
West. The Southermost point of land we had in sight, which bore from
us West 1/4 South, I judged to lay in the Latitude of 38 degrees 0
minutes South and in the Longitude of 211 degrees 7 minutes West from
the Meridian of Greenwich. I have named it Point Hicks, because
Lieutenant Hicks was the first who discover'd this Land. To the
Southward of this point we could see no land, and yet it was clear in
that Quarter, and by our Longitude compared with that of Tasman's, the
body of Van Diemen's land ought to have bore due South from us, and
from the soon falling of the Sea after the wind abated I had reason to
think it did; but as we did not see it, and finding the Coast to trend
North-East and South-West, or rather more to the Westward, makes me
Doubtfull whether they are one land or no.* (* Had not the gale on the
day before forced Cook to run to the northward, he would have made the
north end of the Furneaux Group, and probably have discovered Bass
Strait, which would have cleared up the doubt, which he evidently
felt, as to whether Tasmania was an island or not. The fact was not
positively known until Dr. Bass sailed through the Strait in a
whale-boat in 1797. Point Hicks was merely a rise in the coast-line,
where it dipped below the horizon to the westward, and the name of
Point Hicks Hill is now borne by an elevation that seems to agree with
the position.) However, every one who compares this Journal with that
of Tasman's will be as good a judge as I am; but it is necessary to
observe that I do not take the Situation of Vandiemen's from the
Printed Charts, but from the extract of Tasman's Journal, published by
Dirk Rembrantse. At Noon we were in the Latitude of 37 degrees 50
minutes and Longitude of 210 degrees 29 minutes West. The extreams of
the Land extending from North-West to East-North-East, a remarkable
point, bore North 20 degrees East, distant 4 Leagues. This point rises
to a round hillock very much like the Ramhead going into Plymouth
sound, on which account I called it by the same name; Latitude 37
degrees 39 minutes, Longitude 210 degrees 22 minutes West. The
Variation by an Azimuth taken this morning was 8 degrees 7 minutes
East. What we have as yet seen of this land appears rather low, and
not very hilly, the face of the Country green and Woody, but the Sea
shore is all a white Sand.
Captain James
Cook on the discovery of the east coast of Australia; Journal During the First Voyage Round the World,
April
19, 1770
I
have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of
fancying I may be damned.
Lord Byron, British romantic poet,
who died on April 19, 1824
There
is something Pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny
nothing, but doubt everything.
Lord Byron
The
reason that adulation is not displeasing is that, though untrue, it
shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce
people to lie.
Lord Byron
I
am sure of nothing so little as my own intentions.
Lord Byron
I
only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.
Lord Byron
Women
hate everything which strips off the tinsel of sentiment, and they are
right, or it would rob them of their weapons.
Lord Byron
What is
the end of fame? 'Tis but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
Some liken it to climbing up a hill,
Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour;
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,
And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper,"
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.
Lord Byron; from Don Juan,
Canto 1, stanza 217
Now, I shall
go to sleep.
Lord Byron, British romantic poet, who died on April
19, 1824; last words
Poor Greece! – poor town! – My poor
servants! my hour is come! – I do not care for death – but why did I
not go home? – There are things that make the world dear to me: for the
rest I am content to die.
Lord Byron, on his deathbed
I have given [Greece] my time, my means,
my health – and now I give her my life! What could I do more?
Lord Byron
A little space was allowed him to show
at least an heroic purpose, and attest a high design; then, with all
things unfinished before him and behind, he fell asleep after many
troubles and triumphs. Few can have ever gone wearier to the grave: none
with less fear.
Swinburne on Lord Byron; Preface (p. 28) to A Selection from
Byron's Poems, 1865
A death-bed
is a matter of nerves and constitution, not of religion.
Lord Byron; letter to John Murray, June
7, 1820
… at 2 a.m. on the 19th,
accompanied by a detail of twenty men of my company and Lt. Keley, with
Jose Chico as guide, I left camp, and at dawn surrounded the camp ten
miles from Keysville, upon the right bank of the Kern River, I had the
bucks collected together, and informed Jose Chico and the citizens who had
arrived that they might choose out those whom they knew to have been
friendly. This was soon done. The boys and old men I sent back to their
camps, and the others, to the number of 35, for whom no one could vouch,
were either shot or sabered. Their only chance for life being their
fleetness, but none escaped, thought many of them fought well with knives,
sticks, stones, and clubs. This extreme punishment, though I regret it,
was necessary, and I feel certain that a few such examples will soon crush
the Indians and finish the war in this and adjacent valleys. It is now a
well-established fact that no treaty can be entered into with these
Indians. They care northing for pledges given, and have imagined that they
could live better by war than peace.
Capt. MA McLaughlin, Second Cav. California Volunteers, Comdg, Camp
Independence, on the Keysville Massacre, April 19, 1863; The War of the
Rebellion, Series 1, Volume 50, Part 2, p. 3?6, part 1, pp. 208-210
Source
I am not in the least afraid to die.
Last words of Charles
Darwin, who
died on April 19, 1882
No, she will only ask me to take a message to
Albert.
British Prime Minister Benjamin
Disraeli, on his
deathbed on April 19, 1881, declining a visit by Queen Victoria
Nagging is the repetition of unpalatable truths.
Edith Clara Summerskill, English politician, physician, author, born on April 19, 1901
Prize-fighting is still accepted as a display worthy of a civilized people despite the fact that all those connected with it are fully aware it caters to the latent sadistic instincts.
Edith Clara Summerskill
I can't imagine
not having music in my life, playing for myself or for other people.
If I was asked, "Which would you give up", I'd have to say acting.
Dudley Moore, born on
April 19, 1935, in an
interview with The Associated Press in 1988
For as
long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I too abide
To dispel the misery of the world.
Eighth century
Buddhist saint Shantideva; favourite text
of the 14th
Dalai
Lama, who received sanctuary in India on April 19, 1959,
after fleeing the communist invasion of Tibet
April
19 is
the 109th
day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (110th in leap years),
with 256 days remaining.
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Mounichia, ancient Greece (honouring Artemis and Iphegenia)
Many of the characteristics of Greek goddess Artemis were transferred to the Virgin Mary. Both Artemis and Iphegenia enjoyed major sanctuaries at Ephesus (in modern-day Turkey) where the Temple of Artemis was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Artemis was the rather androgynous daughter of Zeus and Leto. An Asiatic goddess, she was portrayed winged between wild animals.
By Homeric times, Artemis (known to the Romans as Diana) was less of a huntress and more of a young girl, timid. Homer, however, has her a virgin goddess chasing wild boars, in a company of nymphs. She presides over Nature and over initiation ceremonies of young girls. Artemis is also a goddess of blood sacrifice and has a cruel element: she threatened any maiden who became a wife. Paradoxically, she is also the goddess of birth.
Cerealia, for the goddess Ceres, ancient Rome (Apr 12 - 19), final day
Ceres, in Roman Mythology, is equivalent to the Greek Demeter,
daughter of Saturn and Rhea, wife-sister of Jupiter,
mother of Proserpina (Persephone), and patron of Sicily.
According to Virgil, her name was derived from the word
creare, 'to create'. She is the goddess of growing plants
(particularly grain)
and of motherly love. She was personified and celebrated by women in secret
rituals at the festival of Ambarvalia,
held during May.
There was a temple
to Ceres on the Aventine Hill. She was depicted in art with a sceptre, a
basket of flowers
and fruit,
and a garland
made of wheat
ears. The
Romans had a common expression, 'fit for Ceres', which meant
splendid. The asteroid
1 Ceres
is named after this goddess.
It
was a festival celebrated at Rome in honour of the goddess whose
wanderings in search of her lost daughter Proserpine (Persephone) were
represented by women clothed in white, running about with lighted torches
(Ovid, Fasti.
IV. 494). Games were celebrated in the Circus Maximus (Tacitus
Ann. xv.53), the spectators of which appeared in white (Ovid, Fasti. IV. 620);
but on any occasion of public mourning the games and festivals were not
celebrated at all, as the matrons could not appear at them except in white
(Liv. XXII.
56; XXXIV.
6).
On this, the last day of the week-long festival, people visited friends, and foxes with firebrands tied to their tails were let loose in the Circus Maximus in the Vallis Murcia, where the Romans also worshipped other ancient agrarian deities.
