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First Page of The Fortune of War Discussion
From: Don SeltzerSpeaking of time, one of the more intriguing passages of FOW is on page 199.
"If I no longer love Diana, what shall I do?" ... He had known that he would love her forever - to the last syllable of recorded time... Yet now it seemed that perpetuity meant eight years, nine months and some odd days, while last syllable of recorded time was Wednesday, the seventeenth of May...
Counting back 8 years, 9 months from 17 May 1813 brings us to August 1804, when Stephen was off on a spy mission in PC. POB must have been off by a month or so in his arithmetic. Stephen did not return to England until the end of September (Michaelmas). The key day in his life, when he thought that he would love Diana forever, must have been the night at the opera, when he was paralyzed by the sight of her with Canning.
Don Seltzer
Spoilers for Surgeon's Mate, inter alia
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Don brings up an interesting point about Stephen's love of Diana--when he realized he would love her "forever"--when she seemed to be rejecting him for someone else.
When does he think he has stopped loving her? When she is clingy and seems to idolize him.
He starts to love her again when? It's not clear. When she starts to act all gutsy and brave? Not until she gives up her diamonds for him? I don't know.
RA
G'day Don,
Counting back 8 years, 9 months from 17 May 1813 brings us to August 1804, when Stephen was off on a spy mission in PC. POB must have been off by a month or so in his arithmetic. Stephen did not return to England until the end of September (Michaelmas). The key day in his life, when he thought that he would love Diana forever, must have been the night at the opera, when he was paralyzed by the sight of her with Canning.
One of POB's running gags is to do with Stephen's almost complete innumeracy, no? The more important the calculation, the funnier it is that the great natural philosopher can't get it right. And POB would've known he had numerate and hard-core fans by this time - opening up new levels at which he might practise upon his readership. Doncha think?
Cheers,
Rob.
Er, G'day ...
I'd written:
One of POB's running gags is to do with Stephen's almost complete innumeracy, no? The more important the calculation, the funnier it is that the great natural philosopher can't get it right. And POB would've known he had numerate and hard-core fans by this time - opening up new levels at which he might practise upon his readership. Doncha think?
I maybe over cautious here, but am an experienced accidental offender when it comes to e-mail (a medium deceptively like a conversation, but with none of the non-verbal atendants upon which human communication usually depends - and to a very high extent at that - even more so when the going gets intercultural).
The 'doncha think' above definitively means (to the degree intention has the slightest thing to do with meaning) a polite 'might you agree with me, sir?', and definitely does not constitute a rhetorical claim that the formidably erudite and articulately charming Don does not think.
Just being careful ...
Rob.
Said Rob Schaap, "Doncha think?"
Saith I: indeed I do. POB even practises upon his hero. In FSW (Norton, page 66), Mr Allen asks Jack, "Sir, may I ask what a Cadmus might be?" Perhaps mistaking Caesar's parturition for Cadmus's, Jack refers him to Buchan's _Domestic Medicine._ Ha, ha, ha.
Boyce
Mount Pleasant, DC
38.9310° N, 77.0410° W
Major Spoiler for Surgeon's Mate*******
At 11:27 PM -0500 3/25/2, Ruth Abrams wrote:
When does he think he has stopped loving her? When she is clingy and seems to idolize him.
He starts to love her again when? It's not clear. When she starts to act all gutsy and brave? Not until she gives up her diamonds for him? I don't know.
Why does POB have Stephen stop loving Diana? I think that it might be because he had created such a cruel and faithless Diana in PC and HMSS, that it would have strained belief to simply have them pick up where they had left off seven years earlier, as though Diana's heartless treatment of Stephen had been just petty fickleness. And POB had earlier pushed the theme of retribution; that there were consequences to one's actions. So, in order to make possible a new Stephen and Diana relationship, he wanted to create an ending to the old one, by degrading Diana, and freeing Stephen from his previous obsession. In DI, Stephen and discussed a different type of addiction, and how Herapath had been able to first end his dependency upon opium, and then resume its "enjoyment" on a controlled basis.
It is clear enough when Stephen falls out of love with Diana. The moment he first sees her "there was some essential change. He felt the edge of a desparate coldness overcome his first agitation..." p. 189 "grief, disappointment, self-accusation, loss: above all irreparable loss - a cold void within" p. 191
"If I no longer love Diana, what shall I do?" p. 199
He sees Diana in a different light at dinner the next evening. She has picked up some of the crassness of her gentlemen acquaintances, and there is a lack of her special grace. She has clearly sunk to a low point, controlled by Johnson, and about to be supplanted by Louisa Wogan. "He did not love Diana Villiers any more, and it was death to him... the important change was ... Diana's spirit had diminished and her courage had begun to fail, if indeed had not already broken." p. 208
To complete the degradation, Stephen offers to marry her out of pity, and when aboard the Shannon, discovers that she is pregnant. p. 280.
Now with Diana at her lowest point, and Stephen free of his obsession, a new relationship can begin. Capt. Broke notices the change first, "Jack, you never told me Mrs. Villiers was so beautiful ... such grace! And above all, such spirit" p. 315.
And soon Stephen sees the return of her spirit and courage. "Now I need not be afraid, she said, her eyes as fierce and proud as a falcon's. It was the first time since he reached America that he saw the woman he had loved so desperately..." p. 319.
And that I think is when he started loving her again.
Don Seltzer
on 3/28/02 10:05 PM, Don Seltzer at dseltzer@DRAPER.COM wrote:
In DI, Stephen and discussed a different type of addiction, and how Herapath had been able to first end his dependency upon opium, and then resume its "enjoyment" on a controlled basis.
Yes, and...
We've been shown how the Wogan/Herepath affair is a mirror of the Diana/Stephen affair, though in a lower key.
I notice that W/H have a little girl, and that Herepath is the one who cares for her. Wogan is ready to take off.
Charlezzzzz
He felt differently about her after he saw her at the opera in PC, too. She was in the company of her new crowd, and he felt she was cheapening herself.
I think Stephen sees an idealized Diana, who exists on a separate plane, with no need for food, shelter or clothing. But no one has an eye for the main chance more than the real Diana. She does what she thinks she has to do to survive, and by picking the men she lets "keep" her, she thinks she has some control over her own destiny.
Stephen has trouble with the conflict between his "damn the torpedoes!" Diana and the Diana who makes compromises to get by.
Linda Y.
A while ago, I asked the list whether POB was aware of the opiate effects of lettuce, in particular the latex of lettuce.
FOW provides the answer: he was!
FOW, page 137 (on board the Constitution off Cape Fear), Mr. Evans speaking to Stephen about Jack:
"...as for the agitation, might not we add the inspissated juice of lettuce to our present measures? The pulse is light, quick and irregular; and there is an uncommon degree of nervous excitement and irascibility, in spite of the apparent stoicism."
Greg
42º32'34.5" N
71º20'13.2" W
Maybe that explains why I can't get through the day without my fresh green salad..........fortunately I live in the lettuce capital of the universe............(and I don't mean iceberg!!!)
Robin
Even the Flopsy Bunnies knew that lettuces were soporific.
Jean A.
Page 236, Stephen has told Jack that the French have recognized him and may make trouble.
Jack: 'Dear Lord above, how I do wish I could set you clear of all this dirty, ugly, underhanded mess: how I long for the open sea.'
Stephen is the cause of the dirty, ugly, underhanded mess with his intelligence duties, and the cause of Jack's predicament, but Jack's instinct is protective, to try to take it upon himself, to get Stephen out of it. Sweet Jack.
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How you have him! Protective ... and as maternally generous.
Jack's 'candid affection' shines brightest as he eyes a passing fowl whilst nervously awaiting Stephen's return from some intrigue or other: "How I wish Stephen was here. He does so love a nondescript booby."
A very British and manly pining, methinks.
Cheers,
Rob.
In this vein, in this read-through I have noticed that there are many many times in the canon when we find Jack mourning Stephen's absence. Not just those times when he's beside himself with worry over Stephen ashore. But all the more touching are the times when Jack spies a bird, or a turtle and says "How I wish Stephen were here." How very loving that is.
There are dozens of times this happens. Whereas, while we often see Stephen taking care of Jack's needs; getting him a ship or a lawyer, we never hear Stephen lament Jack's absence in quite the same way.
Just thinking out loud...
Vanessa, frowsty and dissolute.
There's a super spoiler here, and unless you've read The Hundred Days, you shd skip this posting.
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Look at Chapter 6 of FOW: when Stephen sees Diana for the first time as Johnson's mistress, "there was some essential change. He felt the edge of a desperate coldness overcome his first agitation...He walked out of the hotel into the fog, fog that thickened as he wandered down toward the harbor: fog in his mind as he tried to interpret the strong and sometimes contradictory emotions that overlapped and mingled in his unreasoning part -- grief, disappointment, self-accusation, loss: above all irreparable loss -- a cold void within."
The cold void within -- here we are shown it in detail; it runs through the chapter.
His love for her is dead. (Or he thinks it is.)
Later, in THD, when we learn slantwise that she is actually dead, POB only touches Maturin's grief with a few little needle-stabs of references. Because why? Because he has already shown that grief here, a few books earlier. Shown it in great depth and detail.
Charlezzzzz, admiring POB more and more
Well, just from observing people, it seems to me that the "Stephen -type" is by definition relegated to finding some peace in solitude. Because after all, if you are lucky enough to be dealt Stephen's brain, who is there to talk to, really? Not too many folks. A Stephen must find contentment, or try anyway, in his intellectual pursuits, and though he would love it if Jack would one day say, "Let's dissect an albatross together, Stephen," he knows full well that day ain't comin' . He knows that his friendship with Jack is in many ways played out on Jack's terms, and it is only on Stephen's terms when Stephen is acting as Jack's physician, or when an intelligence matter trumps a ship matter. When Jack is in charge, Stephen is left to play out his superior position through that cute paternalistic humor, and I think POB makes Stephen "stupid" about nautical matters and math, just as a way of balancing them.
Robin
Jack never hesitated from physical danger to save Stephen. If Jack Aubrey had fallen overboard the ship, would Stephen have leapt overboard to save Jack (if Stephen could swim and Jack couldn't?
I think Stephen would have calculated that it would be safer to sound the alarm.
Would Stephen have charged into the Frenchmen's prison to rescue a captured Jack? I think Stephen would have calculated a safer, surer rescue.
In fact, I can't think of an instance of Stephen taking physical risk on Jack's behalf. He helped Jack in many ways, spoke up for him, negotiated favorable commands for him, gave him money, doctored him, sewed his ears on from time to time. His whole career in intelligence was a risk, but that was for a principle, not a man. He risked disease to cure his patients, but that again was his principle, something he'd have done for any man, had nothing to do with friendship.
- Susan, thinking, pondering
I think POB gives us enough of Stephen's background to paint a lonely little bastard of a lad. No great looker, the chap is immersed in a world of intrigue and violence as soon as he is old enough to matter. The habit of keeping one's own counsel, if not a default setting of paranoia, is a way of life. He has had one great love by 1800 and it has been the very heart-breaking disaster one might expect. He has the education, formal manners and dry wit to mix amongst the more privileged, but that avenue has been closed to him by perhaps the two most crucial of disqualifications: he is a papist and he has no money. He has become so self-sufficient and practical in his habits, so undemonstrative in his countenance and so unsociable in his demeanour that the appearance of an artlessly enthusiastic young music lover (one whose natural feel for music he is ultimately to confess to himself is greater than his own), unselfconsciously voluptuating at a public recital, fills him with dark envy and sullen resentment. A turmoil of emotions he is neither able to express acceptably nor hide sufficiently. Had Jack not received his glad tidings that very eve, the next meeting between the two would not have begun with a beaming smile and a quite unwarranted apology from Jack. At best they'd not have spoken again; at worst one might have called the other out, and Jack would never have boarded his Sophies.
Jack was Stephen's only hope, really. I don't think Stephen suspected that until he thought Jack had sailed without him. He was lucky because sociable Jack, a product of sound friendships and Queeny's well-rounded tutelage, knew that command would be a lonely business, and that the rigid hierarchy of the RN would keep him lonely. If memory serves, that's the first thought he has after the joy of his new command settles. The answer for Jack is someone who fits into his conservative notion of appropriate shipmate but is not part of the alienating RN chain of authority. Even Stephen will do (perhaps this accounts for many a report, both British and French, of close relationships between captains and doctors/naturalists). After that, Stephen gives Jack his very best, of course, and a life-saving, soul-fulfilling best it is, too. But the Stephen whose best it is remains pretty much the Stephen of Port Mahon, I think.
All of which is fine, because the complementarity between them is of great practical weight. Jack is ever tainted by an irksome father, a ready lust, a crippling innocence and an undiplomatic tongue. Without Stephen, that'd likely have kept him off a frigate's quarterdeck, never mind a 74's poop, for life. And we'd not have had the saga POB (cocky planner that he was) probably already had in mind for us.
Does any of that convince?
Cheers,
Rob.
I read Rob's, Robin's, Susan's and Vanessa's posts on Stephen.( Have I missed anybody?) with great interest and approval, but I do differ with them on a number of points.
To begin, I think that at Mahon, Stephen was simply annoyed at Jack because he was intruding on the music.
"...dark envy and sullen resentment"?
I don't think that was in Stephen's nature to be rude to anyone merely because of their physical appearance or position in life, and I can't think of anything in the canon that would uphold it.
Would Stephen have defended Jack physically?
Certainly, had POB provided him with an opportunity.
After all, he was quite handy with both sword and pistol, and I don't think that anything in the canon points to him being 'shy!' As for him being a "...lonely little bastard of a lad.....immersed in a world of intrigue and violence as soon as he is old enough to matter....he has the education, formal manners and dry wit to mix amongst the most privileged, but that avenue has been closed to him by perhaps the two most crucial of disqualifications: he is a papist and he has no money."
S P O I L E R S P O I L E R S P O I L E R
It seems that he had a rather happy childhood than otherwise, considering the early loss of both parents, judging by what he says in passing about his fostering in Ireland and by what we observe as outright physical affection from his Catalan godfather in TSM as well as the people who knew him in Spain.
We are told nothing about "Mona", except that she was dead.
He certainly was not shunned by members of his family on either side, and as the books go on, we meet his influential relatives and friends in the most unlikely places!
Early on, he is entrusted to 'ride the bounds' of the Irish estate of his Fitzgerald relative, formerly in the French king's service, whose property has been restored.
His 'cousin', Lord Edward Fitzgerald, son of the Duke of Leinster, the premier nobleman of Ireland, has no qualms about including him in his circle. And we discover early in the canon that he even has a castle in Spain, admittedly a rather ramshackle affair, and even funds that he had been cut off from by the war.
He eventually inherits his godfather's considerable estate.
There are many, many occasions in which he shows his sense of responsibility and concern for others: his behavior towards the Sweetings; his turning away of the impressed young man with family responsibilities; his treatment of animals, as well as the way his animals adore him; the affection for him that the ordinary seamen feel.
Of course, he does say to Diana that one mustn't aim a gun at anyone unless one intends to kill him, and he had been a participant in numerous duels during his student days!
The ends of Pontet Canet in Boston and of Wray and Ledyard in Asia show that he took his profession as seriously as Jack did his.
Jean A.
G'day Jean,
I don't think that was in Stephen's nature to be rude to anyone merely because of their physical appearance or position in life, and I can't think of anything in the canon that would uphold it.
I agree absolutely. I was speculating that, at this lowest of times for the man (although arguably the lustrous and capricious Diana had the power to drop him lower at times, I dunno), he envied the unguardedness, the self-indulgent candour - the carefreeness, if you like. And at Port Mahon, Stephen certainly was completely destitute - he hadn't eaten for some time, and could not afford a coffee at the last.
And I didn't want to give the impression I ever thought Stephen an unattractive character. I love him. Neither is he ever 'shy' - he values his life only insofar as it allows him to mess about with denizens and Diana. Insofar as neither was in the offing at Port Mahon, he cared not whether he lived or died, as POB tells us.
Cheers,
Rob.
HMSS and M. Command spoiler
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I think Jack's attitude toward his family is "sweet." Throughout HMSS, whenever he is thinking about being married to Sophie, his daydreams practically have a white picket fence around a little ivy-covered cottage. He thinks the future with her will be "pure paradise."
But when Stephen comes to see them in M. Command, and the Aubreys' marriage is so obviously unsatisfactory, Jack merely says it is his fault, he had the wrong idea about marriage, thinking it would have more friendship and closeness. He resists the temptation (how great it must have been!) to gripe about his wife to his friend.
I love him with his kids - when he is so horrified at Stephen's instructions against tossing the babies in the air, you KNOW he has been doing it a lot! When he finds out about George from Pullings, he is so thrilled, he doesn't even mind the shabby treatment he gets from the Admiral.
Linda
I was thinking about that just this moment - Jack is showing Stephen the fore crosstrees, with the initials carved upon the cap and waxing philosophic the both of them. Stephen is surprised to learn that a garden is included in a marriage - trim rows of cabbages and never a bug to be seen - and muses in his turn upon the infinity of sea ahead being the future, the ship the present with the bow-wave the very instant, and doubtless the confused wake the sleeping past.
Wow, Peter, great minds and all that!
I was disappointed in Sophie......the idea that she was turning into her mother!!! Poor Jack, who was looking for a partner to offset the loneliness and isolation of his rank. I wondered along with Stephen when Jack told him there was no chance of another child, so I was not surprised when Jack was able to pinpoint George's conception.
Linda
A long hard labor, no drugs and twins to boot would certainly put weaker women than Sophie off of child bearing!
My father in law is an only child for precisely that reason-- after a difficult labor and a ten pound baby there was simply no way Grandma Scott would ever risk having to do that again. I don't think the attitude was that uncommon in the pre-drug era, and is certainly understandable.
Mrs. Williams, for all the horror stories she probably poured into the girl's ears, managed to have three daughters. And didn't one of Sophie's sisters end up marrying quickly-- implying a little test drive? I've always seen Sophie's coolness as twin facets of her natural reserve and Jack's Go straight at 'em policy.
Sarah
A long hard labor, no drugs and twins to boot would certainly put weaker women than Sophie off of child bearing!
Never mind the first three months with the twins.....
Greg
42º32'34.5" N
71º20'13.2" W
Yes, Sophie definitely should have had the birth control chat with Diana long before she did.
I think Jack was looking for someone to talk to and share with as much as to have sex with. He was a very sociable creature who was just plain lonely.
I have to confess to being a total hypocrite about Sophie - I could never put up with she had to.
Linda
Two girls raise no hell, I was told once. Maybe so, but the one I had raised quite enough as a toddler!
I often ask mothers of twins why they aren't wearing their medals. Sure, they look cute in their identical clothing and side by side strollers, but think of the effort involved! I couldn't do it - it was hard enough going through it twice over with three years in between - imagine doing everything twice over. Sure, there'd be certain economies of scale, in that you could bath them both at once, but you still have to change twice as many nappies and make twice as many bottles and wash twice as many clothes.
Just a little spoiler, not really a major plot development, but a subtle revelation of character that took me by surprise.
I very much agree with Rob for the most part about Jack & Stephen's complementarity, which is the main reason their friendship is so deep and lasting. I had maintained, for the first 17 volumes, an impression of Jack as a bluff, hearty, sometimes buffoonish extrovert, and Stephen as calculating and reserved, not as comfortable with human relationships.
Until I came upon a scene early in The Commodore, when Stephen is staying with Jack at Ashcroft, and late at night hears Jack playing something melancholy on his violin. He realizes that Jack is a much better musician than he had appreciated before, and must have been playing at his level out of tactfulness or reluctance to show off. He makes a comment something like, "Jack is the secret man of the world, but I wish his songs were happier." So here is the secretive intelligence agent becoming aware that his friend is much more solitary and has a more complicated inner life than he had been aware of. It's just a little moment that reveals something about both Stephen and Jack.
Was anybody bothered by Stephen's activities in Diana's hotel room in "Fortune of War?"
He escaped the French pursuers by climbing into Diana's room. She went off on an errand for him, and he rifled Johnson's office. This could have put Diana into an extremely uncomfortable position. He didn't know if or how he'd get Diana out of this. I could understand him going through Johnson's papers if he'd snuck into Johnson's room on his own, but in this case, Diana let him in, and his actions seem to me to be a betrayal of her trust.
- Susan
Katherine, that is my favorite scene in the whole Canon. I get choked up whenever I read it. It's so complex, revealing Jack and Stephen both, where do you start?
Linda
And this comes after 16 volumes, when you're maybe starting to take them for granted a little bit. Here comes the dog watch story again, ho-hum, and it looks like Stephen has fallen overboard once more. Then you get slapped upside the head with an epiphany.
Katherine T.
30x90
As you say, it must have been getting tough to be original. We only had glimpses before of the deep waters running thru Jack. Then suddenly both Jack and Stephen get rearranged.
But for all you musicians out there: would it make sense for Jack's musical abilities to grow along with his mathematical abilities?
Linda
After thinking about this for a week, I realized that the tour thru the Aubrey land was a metaphor for the Aubrey home life. [This has probably been discussed a lot, hasn't it?] Jack finally has his dream - his cottage and his Sophie. He tries to run things like a ship, with ruler straight rows of plantings that don't thrive. The cow refuses the bull, no matter how game he is - sound like anyone we know? The roses, part of his idle dreaming, are spindly. The cabbage patch looks good, but underneath the cabbages are being eaten away.
But at the beginning of DI, everything seems rosy again. Finally they have some security. Was it perhaps poverty that was creating so much stress between them?
I did smile at Stephen's musing regarding Sophie and no more children: her labor with the twins had been unusually long and difficult, yet there had been no essential lesion. Easy enough for him to say, eh?
Linda
It didn't strike me that way. First, Johnson is a spy, so he rifles other people's desks, so it is only fair if his desk get rifled. Remember when the Americans, Johnson or his minions, read not only Stephen's notebook, but someone's personal letter? Second, Stephen is aware that hates Johnson 'as a man and as an enemy.' Third, Diana is already in an extrememly uncomfortable position, although she does not know how very, very uncomfortable her position is until Stephen does rifle the desk, and finds that Johnson has her letter to him. Fourth, Johnson has been treating Diana abominably, which is not a way to endear onesself to Stephen, or cause him to treat one with kindness and consideration. Fifth, Johnson has insulted Stephen by assuming he could be tricked and trapped into becoming a spy for America. And sixth, Stephen has suffered a terrible concussion, and can't think clearly, so he's not responsible anyway.
Edmund
Edmund Burton replied:
And sixth, Stephen has suffered a terrible concussion, and can't think clearly, so he's not responsible anyway.
I wonder is this a ruse used by o'Brian when his 'heroes' do something which could be construed as flawed or out of character? Wasn't Jack also suffering from severe concussion when the Leopard struck ice? My reading of that episode was that O'Brian was implying that if Jack had been 100%, the collision would not have occured.
I think Edmund is right here too-if we feel a little squeamish about Stephens's actions we can comfort ourselves in the knowledge that it's not the 'real' Stephen.
alec
There must have been something wrong with old Robby Lee that day, eh?
Even the best make mistakes, and my recollection of Stephen's actions in Boston was that he was at the pinnacle of his career as an intelligence agent.
Which day was that?
Edmund
32º 33'N
94º 22'W
3/7/63 The theory is that he must have been sick or had a migraine or something because it was such a disaster. Like Napoleon at Waterloo. Both were unused to defeat so the legend springs up looking for a different explanation so as to preserve the image.
This may well have been the case, but I prefer to think that people make mistakes every now and then, and without Jackson to pull off one of his famous "Be where they ain't expectin' you." tricks, he had less to work with and fewer options.
Might I differ on two counts; first, in that Jack is not concussed at that point and second (on topic!) that this is the real Stephen. He has been comic relief for so long that this is POB's way of reminding us how very seriously he takes his "unofficial" role. And again, you may say he behaves monstrously in his "abuse" of Diana's hospitality. But he is fighting with monsters. Johnson and the French with whom he has allied are perhaps the worst villains to appear in the canon. They have none of the redeeming foolishness of Wray and Ledward, nor the guerrilla wars in the Peninsula to excuse Stephen's torturers. Into a decent and prosperous society (for its time) they bring dishonour, oppression and random death. Titus Andronicus the scene in Johnson's suite may be, but does anyone doubt that its end is just?
Mike French
Friend of Polychrest
Unfortunately I dont have my copy of DI to hand to check dates etc but didn't Stephen say it was a 'Nelson' type wound (to the forhead?)nor to I wish to argue about a minor point.
' 'He9nelson) was badly wounded in the right elbow while attacking the Spanish island of Tenerife in the Canaries in 1797 and the arm had to be cut off without anaesthetic. And, finally, he was hit in the head at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 and suffered from concussion for many months afterwards'(colin white)
alec
on 4/6/02 6:22 PM, Mike French at mikefrench@EUROBELL.CO.UK wrote:
this is the real Stephen. He has been comic relief for so long that this is POB's way of reminding us how very seriously he takes his "unofficial" role. And again, you may say he behaves monstrously in his "abuse" of Diana's hospitality. But he is fighting with monsters. Johnson and the French...
Mike's point is absolutely well taken.
Maturin "abuses" Diana's hospitality? Sure he does. But that's a tiny, niggling point. Suppose we move Maturin ahead 130 years and instead of two Frenchmen we make them two Germans: Hitler's agents.
Go to that room down the hall, and you'll find information about the Gestapo's people and the plans they have for North America, and the names of the people already in place. Wd you hesitate? Or wd you think, "Dear me. Hitler's people? And the location of their submarine bases in Greenland? And their saboteurs heading for the Grumman aircraft plant in Long Island? Oh dear, oh dear, why doesn't Diana come back so I can ask her if I can abuse her hospitality (wch is really Johnson's hospitality and not hers at all) and peek into that room."
What wd she say to such a quibble. "Bah!" That's what she'd say.
Charlezzzzz
G'day Charles,
Ugly buzzword-loaded sentence alert (if politically flammable, please coldly ignore)
I can not argue from within Stephen's head (indeed, suspect he'd strongly disagree with me) - and certainly agree that the French agents in question are particularly nasty brutes - but suggest that the difference between King George (and the failing British aristocracy and the nascent British bourgeois imperialists) and Napolean (and his corporate-mercantilist imperialists) is rather smaller than that between the nascent social democracies of WW2 (if still typically imperialist, and not quite yet beyond the odd Amritsrar massacre, bombing campaign over Kurdish villages, Coniston massacre of Aboriginees, or Duluth lynching) and the military-expansionistic Fascist Nazi bigots (for whom Auschwitzes were programatically integral).
Were I not a century and a half from my coats, I suspect I'd have tended to the pro-Yank side myself in 1812 (wars having a way of forcing peaceful folk to the less offensive side; and of engendering alliances that might not stand up to abstract moralising).
As for the 1942 scenario, we are at one.
Cheers,
Rob.
Jack was still suffering from his head wound at that point. He was down below, while Grant was on deck getting ice from the iceberg. When Babbington got Jack up, he changed their orders to pick up the boats and get away from the ice - but too late. He did not come to himself until much later, after endless attempts at repair, pumping and sleepless nights. He was writing letters to Sophie and the Admiralty for Grant to take when he abandoned ship. At that point, "the shift between him and the present broke down, vanished entirely."
Mike:
...He has been comic relief for so long that this is POB's way of reminding us how very seriously he takes his "unofficial" role. And again, you may say he behaves monstrously in his "abuse"of Diana's hospitality. But he is fighting with monsters. Johnson and the French with whom he has allied are perhaps the worst villains....
Point well made and agreed!
alec(who didn't feel squeamish )
I can not argue from within Stephen's head (indeed, suspect he'd strongly disagree with me) - and certainly agree that the French agents in question are particularly nasty brutes
But we can argue from what we are told in the canon. Stephan loathes Boneparte, _loathes_ his regime. Indeed the agents are nasty brutes, and would have been responsible for more nasty brutishness. (not that that alone condones killing them, in my opinion.)
- but suggest that the difference between King George (and the failing British aristocracy and the nascent British bourgeois imperialists) and Napolean (and his corporate-mercantilist imperialists) is rather smaller than that between the nascent social democracies of WW2 (if still typically imperialist, and not quite yet beyond the odd Amritsrar massacre, bombing campaign over Kurdish villages, Coniston massacre of Aboriginees, or Duluth lynching) and the military-expansionistic Fascist Nazi bigots (for whom Auschwitzes were programatically integral).
Indeed, the differences are not so great compared to WWII, but both were fought (at the time) over the protection of liberty (in no revolutionary sense) and to stop the spread of a single power dominating Europe.Although I am not aware of the specific events you mention, would it be fair to say that the British Empire became more imperialist and less tolerent after American War of Independance and the French Revolution? Obviously this falls around Jack and Stephen's time, and became gradually more stringent in response to the horrors that freedom brought across the channel, and cost across the Atlantic. I think of Victoria's reign as the most Impirialist, but I am not well read in this area. My point is that at that time in Britain there was not secret police and (hopefully) no torturers. For Stephen, Boneparte menced the learned world. He made the choice that Britian was the lesser evil of the two. And he was right. Besides, isn't one invasion force on the other side of the channel very like another?
Were I not a century and a half from my coats, I suspect I'd have tended to the pro-Yank side myself in 1812 (wars having a way of forcing peaceful folk to the less offensive side; and of engendering alliances that might not stand up to abstract moralising).
It was a silly war, sure, and the British were wrong the provoke it, the Americans wrong to start it, I feel. Pride on both sides. Stephen too, would have been with the Americans, but they allied with France, which Stephen knew would divide the British power to combat Napoleon.
I agree with Peter. At that point in the canon, Stephen is at his peak as an intelligence agent. His poisoned translations for Clarissa were masterful, but that chance fell into his lap. Now he has to take the consequences of that action. He is hunted through the streets of Boston, but keeps his head admirably, and does away with two snakes. Jack, like Susan, would no doubt have been somewhat distirbed by Stephen's actions that night, the same was he is distirbed by Stephen's 'reptillian' (PC) stare down the sight of a pistol, and the decided killing Stephen does that night. He is worth a line-of-battle ship, and it is his finest hour.
Tchuss,
Sam Bostock
From: Charles Munoz
On re-reading this passage, I dont think she has to come back-(point about
Johnson is taken)
Page 244 Harper
Diana to Stephen-'but if you like you could go into his(Johnson's)
rooms.They do not open onto the corridor,and we have the only keys.There,on
the table.'
alec
PS Has anyone read any significance into the use of an 'obsidian
phallus'paperweight to hit/stun Pontet-Canet?
And if Rob had been living in my colony instead of his own in 1812, would he
have been so keen on supporting marauding Yankee invaders visiting fire and
looting, if not rape, on the peaceful towns of Upper Canada? Those Yankees
were pretty offensive in these parts. Especially it was offensive when they
said they came to liberate the people when a good proportion of the people
had already been expelled from their homes and their property expropriated
without compensation by the same Yankees for merely supporting their lawful
monarch against the rebels.
Adam Quinan
PS Has anyone read any significance into the use of an 'obsidian phallus'paperweight
to hit/stun Pontet-Canet?
You mean Johnson's Johnson?
Linda
Alec O'Flaherty PS Has anyone read any significance into the use of an 'obsidian phallus'paperweight
to hit/stun Pontet-Canet?
Alec:
I have been thinking and thinking on that one, trying
to figure out if there is any meaning I am missing. Has
anyone else extracted anything from this passage?
I am most startled by the whole watch stealing incident
that occurred shortly after. I understand that 'they' took
Stephen's Breuget from him, I was surprised that Stephen
would steal a basically identical watch from 'them' when
the opportunity presented itself. I suppose it's passion
of the moment, sweet revenge, or something very like.
Karen von Bargen
I can not argue from within Stephen's head (indeed, suspect he'd strongly
disagree with me) - and certainly agree that the French agents in question are
particularly nasty brutes - but suggest that the difference between King George
(and the failing British aristocracy and the nascent British bourgeois imperialists)
and Napolean (and his corporate-mercantilist imperialists) is rather smaller
than that between the nascent social democracies of WW2 (if still typically
imperialist, and not quite yet beyond the odd Amritsrar massacre, bombing campaign
over Kurdish villages, Coniston massacre of Aboriginees, or Duluth lynching)
and the military-expansionistic Fascist Nazi bigots (for whom Auschwitzes were
programatically integral).
The point is moot. Stephen's objective is to scuttle the French. Moral considerations
don't enter into it. Jack often admires his enemies, but doesn't hesitate from
giving them a broadside or two.
A couple of days ago I found a poisonous little book in my possession,
detailing the plight of a British officer with an excellent war record,
confidential advisor to the Prime Minister, Member of Parliament,
well-respected in the community, who was arrested without charge and
held without trial for four years. The morning after being released he
took his seat in Parliament.
His crime? Supporting the Nazis in WW2. He exemplified a sizable
percentage of the British (mostly upper class) who hated Jews and
Communists and believed in the same global conspiracy that Hitler did.
Reckoned they should all be fighting on the same side.
I think the British were quite justified in locking this bastard up.
Stop to debate the merits and the morals and your enemy is aboard you.
Argue the rights and wrongs when your opponent is a smouldering heap of
ruins or beached and done for.
That's war.
Undoubtedly many of those leaving the former colonies took past-due library
books with them or had committed similar breaches of good behavior.
In 1975 when the United States was gearing up for the patriotic bicentennial
celebration of the American Revolution, I had the odd experience of spending
a couple days in St John, New Brunswick, when the locals were celebrating an
anniversary of the arrival of American tories, er, loyalists relocating from
the rebellious south.
Bruce Trinque, which his paternal ancestors in a proper display of pique at
all these British loyalist emigrants took themselves south to New England
41°37'52"N 72°22'29"W
The Real Stephen?
His note to Jack after the murders.
........Choate might find Diana a refuge or Fr Costello,who is to marry me.
I am not myself ,Jack,do what you can.....
Stephen recognises that he is not himself- I don't think he means
physically. I would say that he is worried that his mind is not functioning
in its normal fashion.
I would agree with an view expressed earlier(by whom I have forgotton) that
the stealing of the Breuguet watch (even though similar to one stolen from
him) is unStephen-like even though it is easy for us to justify it at a
certain level.
alec
I've been mulling this over and I can't remember the particulars well enough
to decide, so I thought I'd throw it out to see if others can help.
I agree that it would be unStephen-like for him to care enough about a
_material_ possession to commit theft to recover it. I'm thinking, though,
that he would readily commit theft to recover non-material items - i.e.
those things that hold a different type of value for him.
Would the Breuguet watch fit into this second category, at all? Didn't
it hold more than just a material value to him? I guess my overall
sense is that this theft was not out of character for Stephen (at least
I didn't recognize it as so when I read it).
Nathan
G'day Sam,
Quoth you:
He made the choice that Britian was the lesser evil of the two. And he
was right. Besides, isn't one invasion force on the other side of the channel
very like another?
I accept the lesser evilism argument entirely, Sam - indeed, I thought I was
putting one myself. War forces those who live in its sway to one side or the
other, and history rarely affords these unfortunates an unambiguous 'good versus
bad' scenario (regardless of each war-making elite's protestations to the
contrary).
I do remind you that we speak of a Britain where the likes of Pitt and
Castlereagh were always suspending habeas corpus; where freedom of association
was illegal after the Combination Acts; where secret police stalked the midlands
and north for the purpose of hanging 'United Irishmen', 'Jacobins', 'Painites'
and 'Luddites' (not a man among 'em a traitor, neither, especially after Boney's
auto-coronation of 1804); where prisoners starved; where peaceful dissentors
were slaughtered (Peterloo), executed (Despard and Friends) and transported (the
Tolpuddle Martyrs); where the enclosures (as per Canon) proceeded apace to rob
the people of their dignity, independence and (very often) lives ... and it was
not much fun being an Irish Catholic, either ...
And all the while, the US were being singularly nasty to innocent Canadians
(sorry, Adam; of course it was a tragic outrage), to innocent 'negroes', and to
poor Tecumsah (sp.) and Friends.
Yet what was a person, in the place and the moment, to do?
Stephen too, would have been with the Americans, but they allied with France,
which Stephen knew would divide the British power to combat Napoleon.
Which I chanced this very argument here but a week ago.
I agree with Peter. At that point in the canon, Stephen is at his peak
as an intelligence agent. ... He is worth a line-of-battle ship, and it is his
finest hour.
There we agree, Sir.
Yours affectionately disagreeable, Would the Breuguet watch fit into this second category, at all? Didn't
it hold more than just a material value to him? I guess my overall sense is
that this theft was not out of character for Stephen (at least I didn't recognize
it as so when I read it).
I agree. There is a little bit of POB's own interests showing in Stephen. POB
was a collector of old clocks and watches, and I would bet that he had a Breguet
timepiece. To both Stephen and POB, it would have been a moral outrage when
Stephen's watch was taken from him as a POW, fully justifying his "repatriation"
of a similar timepiece.
Don Seltzer
Wish I had my book with me, but didn't Diana in some subtle way indicate to
Stephen the whereabouts of the papers, if not actually invite him to rifle them?
I remember thinking (as I read this passage) that Diana actually did know
something of Stephen's intelligence activities.
Matt Cranor
There has been much discussion and discovery of animal parallels in POB. In Fortune of War a hen cried out that she had laid an egg, an egg, an egg!
Is this a parallel with anything else?
Was she waving, waving, waving?
Gary
The brash new American navy?
Im not eggsactly cock sure about this I'm afried,cos my brain is a bit scrambled-so
Im treading on shells(& in fowl humour) but I think Maturin was that chicken's
Step-hen.
alec(on a wing and a prayer)
As the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher would say.
The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher But, yes, Jan, I echo your sediments. Step-hen is a paltry play on words indeed.
I reply that ever since this was asked, I've been under the conviction that
POB's American editors had told him that his last book published over here had
laid an egg, and it was preying on his mind so badly that it got into his prose
- and repetitively, at that.
If this is a joke, sir, a God-damned pleasantry, I am not amused. [HMSS 377]
Mary S
This morning, as is my habit, I finished HMSS and immediately turned to
TMC, and straight into perhaps the funniest two chapters of the canon.
Poor Jack!! At the end of HMSS he has Sophie in his arms and dreams of
paradise with a white picket fence.
Yet when he achieves it, how sad is the marriage state. Everything is
gone wrong and he doesn't have a penny to pay the postman, quite apart
from the cow refusing the bull.
There are other good bits in the book, as I recall, and it's been about
four years since last I read it (or rather heard it as an audio book),
but it seems to me that PO'B was rather too confined by the historical
campaign, and unable to arrange things as he wished. Fortune of War is
of a similar vein - there are too many historical occurrences impinging
on the narrative for it to be as free-flowing as we might wish. After
FOW he pretty much enters the realm of plausible fantasy, rather than
recounting any identifiable campaign or action.
But I've also got out The Surgeon's Mate so I can read two books at once
and attempt to close the gap.
The Real Stephen
Sorry to labour this point but its because I find this episode intriguing.
That is Stephen¡¯s actions and reactions to them of the morning of the
double murder.
If we put things in sequence
He ¡®hit¡¯ his head in his bid to escape a definite kidnap and most likely
murder attempt.
He reacts quickly and finds his way to the hotel and into Diana's/Johnson¡¯s
rooms.
His mind works efficiently as he advises Diana of the necessary courses of
action.
He examines himself-broken ribs-¡®but no concussion¡¯.
Then he ¡®splits¡¯ P-C¡¯s head with that obsidian phallus-and then cuts his
throat.
Does the combination of his earlier blow to the head and the cutting of an
unconscious man¡¯s throat with a medical instrument (by one who has taken
the Hippocratic oath) now start to affect Stephen¡¯s conscience/thinking?
He searches the clothes of his victim body an removes a watch similar to one
that was taken from him when he was a prisoner of war(badly treated).
He has no option with the second murder..(Dubrieul)
Pob-
¡®But he was, he found seriously disturbed, and he wondered why. He had not
even searched Dubrieuil. Why not¡¯
(He had a few minutes earlier searched /stolen from P-C.)
¡®Corpses he had seen by the score, even by the hundred in open and
clandestine battle, yet this killing sickened him. It was unreasonable: he
had to kill or be killed and D was the man who had misused Carrington and
Vargos so inhumanely until they died¡¡ The extreme violence of the
morning, the physical and perhaps moral exhaustion were obvious causes of
his state, yet it was strange that he could not master his thinking and
compel it to answer the question-What was he to do next?¡¯
Then his note to Jack as referred to earlier¡. ¡®Choate might find a
refuge for Diana or Fr Costello who is to marry me. I am not myself¡¡¯.
My instinct is that O Brian worked really hard on these passages (maybe some
input from Mary??) because this was a new Maturin. Ruthless. Killer.
Thief.
But troubled .
He(POB) wants us to justify the actions, while Stephen is ¡®sickened¡¯ and
suffering from ¡®moral exhaustion¡¯ and ¡®not himself¡¯.
Later on board the Shannon
¡®he was his own master for immediate purposes, he no longer had to struggle
with a vascilating, uncertain exhausted mind, incapable of decision; and
although he could not see clearly as far as Diana was concerned, he was able
to thrust his grief and sense of bereavement to one side.¡¯(for her)
Those who are taken aback by the earlier unfolding events, and Stephen¡¯s
actions/thoughts during them have at least equal status with those who take
the scenes in their stride as matter of fact ¡®justifiable homicides¡¯ and
¡®legitimate¡¯ theft.
alec
As for Stephen's appropriation of the Breguet, I believe that he assumed,
and probably correctly, that the loathesome duo in Boston had appropriated it
from one of their victims.
From all my recollections of the canon, Stephen takes the Hippocratic oath,
particularly the injunction 'to do no harm', very seriously indeed.
I cannot believe that he intentionally caused the illness of the officer
Rowen referred to in a recent post to obtain a position for Jack.
I think that the most telling incident in this respect is his refusal to
participate in the abortion of Diana's child by Johnson.
Modern 'moral relativism' would be abhorrent to Stephen, who, from all
indications, was on the side of 'moral absolutism!'
Jean A.
At 02:09 PM 4/9/02 -0400, you wrote:
From all my recollections of the canon, Stephen takes the Hippocratic oath,
particularly the injunction 'to do no harm', very seriously indeed.
And likewise he takes his spy duties equally seriously.
Conflicting moral duties makes for a much more exciting novel than one
sided "moral absolutism"
B
I
G
T
I
M
E
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
Is it Thirteen Gun Salute when Ledward and Wray meet their demise? This
occurs offstage, but Stephen's cavalier wit just following that led me to
strongly believe that Stephen himself killed them both by surprise with his
fowling piece. Then paid off a couple of kids to wheelbarrow their bodies
back to Van Buren's lab. BTW...........isn't "Van Buren" a real
historical figure......a naturalist?
. I think that the most telling incident in this respect is his refusal
to participate in the abortion of Diana's child by Johnson. Modern 'moral relativism'
would be abhorrent to Stephen, who, from all indications, was on the side of
'moral absolutism!'
I took his refusal as an exhibition of his religion.
Peter, noting that the barky is sailng fairly close to some well-charted
rocks.
In a message dated 4/9/02 1:10:06 PM, Sherkin@AOL.COM writes:
Modern 'moral relativism' would be abhorrent to Stephen, who, from all
indications, was on the side of 'moral absolutism!'
So how do _you_ explain lying about the not-broken bone in NOC? That
certainly was not 'moral absolutism'. He kept the boy in splints, applied
bad-colored ointment to make it look worse, and deliberately mislead everyone
into believing the bone was broken in order to get passage off the island.
In addition, he had no compunction at all in recommending that Jack 'lose'
all the records in order to avoid having to account for missing items, nor
did he even understand the sense of fair play and the brand of morality which
led Jack to be so upset when he learned that Stephen had deviously arranged
for the French ship to have no powder.
Like many people who think they have high moral standards and look with scorn
on others whom they perceive as inferior or wanting in their values, Stephen
_thinks_ a good game and that's what we often 'overhear' as we read his
letters or diary entries, but the truth is he is often as pragmatic and
'relative' as he needs to be. He often deludes himself about his own
transgressions such as stoutly maintaining that the use of coca-leaves is not
addicting and not harmful, even as POB shows us the effects on the rats.
Consider his gross hypocracy in regard to his various adictions as compared
to his harangues at Jack about over-eating and drinking.
Stephen would like to believe that he wouldn't do something discreditable,
but when push comes to shove many times in the canon, Stephen does what's
needed.
Rowen
Listening to the tapelast night (and trying madly to keep up with the
Group Read), we noticed the name Pontet-Canet. Is this an unusual name?
Would there be an unusual translation?
My only idea is latin; Ponte = bridge? and Cane is dog? Any better ideas?
Back to the crosstrees.
bru h, GG
=====
It's partly a joke by POB (though it reads to me more as a
mistake .. but one I find it difficult to think that he could
have made). The character Pontet-Canet is said to come from
Dijon, in the heart of the great wine region of Burgundy (and,
btw, one of my favorite French cities); however Chateau
Pontet-Canet is one of the very greatest French Bordeaux wines,
from the other side of France, a Pauillac Premier Cru from the
Medoc. The name itself is an amalgam of the names of
Jean-Francois Pontet, who founded the Chateau in 1750 and the
nearby vineyards of the Canet family that he later bought.
Both names - as personal and place names - are not uncommon in
France. In French a 'pontet' is a 'trigger-guard; a 'canet'
isn't a meaning-word at all, so far as I know: a 'canette' is a
small female duck, with 'caneton' being the male one.
Gary Ruthless. Killer. Thief. But troubled .
Exactly.
I think that Stephen's behavior is the cause of his not feeling "like
himself" rather than a result of the blow to his head. Out of
necessity, he does something that his conscience can't accept, and
experiences a kind of disassociation. As far as the watch was concerned,
I do think he felt he was taking back the one that had been stolen from
him, and from a practical point of view, a doctor needs a reliable watch.
It must have been a good watch, to survive its repeated dunkings.
Katherine T
A "good" watch? Oh my.
(See especially the section called "Share our tradition")
Marian
From: Adam Quinan
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2002 1:57 PM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:FOW:Stephen's behaviour
From: brumby6
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2002 2:03 PM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:FOW:Stephen's behaviour
From: Karen von Bargen
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2002 2:08 PM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:FOW:Stephen's behaviour
From: Peter Mackay
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2002 2:33 PM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:FOW:Stephen's behaviour
From: Batrinque@AOL.COM
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2002 4:01 PM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:FOW:Stephen's behaviour
From: Alec O'Flaherty
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 5:02 AM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:FOW:Stephen's behaviour_Real Stephen
From: Nathan Varnum
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 7:21 AM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:FOW:Stephen's behaviour_Real Stephen
From: Rob Schaap
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 5:57 PM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:FOW:Stephen's behaviour
Rob.
From: Don Seltzer
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 8:10 AM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:FOW:Stephen's behaviour_Real Stephen
From: Matt Cranor
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:FOW:Stephen's behaviour
From: Bambi Dextrous
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 3:44 PM
Subject: GR:FOW hen
From: Gary Brown
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 3:47 PM
Subject: Re: GR:FOW hen
looking forward to tandoori hen tonight
From: Susan Wenger
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 4:22 PM
Subject: Re: GR:FOW hen
From: Alec O'Flaherty
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 11:51 AM
Subject: Re: GR:FOW hen
From: Peter Mackay
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 1:49 PM
Subject: Re: GR:FOW hen
Called his hen a most elegant creature.
The hen, pleased with that,
Laid two eggs in his hat,
And thus did the hen reward Beecher.
From: Mary S
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: GR:FOW hen
35° 58' 11" N
86° 48' 57" W
From: Peter Mackay
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 4:50 PM
Subject: Catching up to the Groupread.
From: Alec O'Flaherty
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 5:36 AM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:FOW:Stephen's behaviour_Real Stephen
From: Jean A
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 11:09 AM
Subject: Re: Groupread: FOW. Stephen....
From: Robin Welch
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 12:30 PM
Subject: Re: Groupread: FOW. Stephen....
From: Peter Mackay
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 1:22 PM
Subject: Re: Groupread: FOW. Stephen....
From: Rowen 84
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 3:13 PM
Subject: Re: Groupread: FOW. Stephen.... NOC spoilers
From: Bru Helmboldt
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 11:27 AM
Subject: Group Read FOW - Name question
.
. 0> Bruce Helmboldt "tHe cold bumBler"
. _/_)_ bruhelmboldt@yahoo.com
. / Redmond, Washington, USA
. 47° 40' 14" N, 122° 01' 14" W
. "Funny, I don't remember being absentminded!"
. http://www.geocities.com/bruhelmboldt
From: Gary Brown
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 11:54 AM
Subject: Re: Group Read FOW - Name question
burgundy fan in Dallas
From: Katherine T
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 1:31 PM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:FOW:Stephen's behaviour_Real Stephen
30Nx90W
From: Marian Van Til
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 2:02 PM
Subject: Stephen's watch (was: RE: [POB] GroupRead:FOW:Stephen's behaviour_Real Stephen)
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