The Wild Dove by Soren Kierkegaard

The Wild Dove
by Soren Kierkegaard



"There was once a wild dove; in the grim forest, there where wonder also dwells with terror among the straight, solitary trunks, it had its nest. But near by, where the smoke arose from the farmer's chimney, there dwelt some of its more distant relations, some tame doves. It frequently met with a pair of these; that is, it sat on a branch overhanging the farmer's yard; the two tame doves sat on the ridge of the roof; however, the distance between them was not so great but that they could exchange thoughts with each other in conversation.


One day they talked about the chances of the times and about the necessities of life. The wild dove said: "so far I have had my living; I let each day have its own worry and in that way I get through the world" The tame doves had listened carefully...Thereupon one answered: "Now we support ourselves differently; with us, that is to say, with the rich farmer with whom we live, one has his future assured. When harvest time comes, then one of us, I or my mate, sits up on the roof and watches. Then the farmer drives one load of grain after another into the barn, and when he has driven so many in that I can no longer keep count, then I know that there are supplies enough for a long time, I know it from experience..."

The wild dove went home and thought the matter over more closely; it occurred to it at once that it must be very gratifying thus to know that one's subsistence was assured for a long time, while, on the contrary, it was indeed wretched to live thus constantly in uncertainty, so one never dares to say that one knows that one is provided for...

Next morning it awakened earlier than usual, and was now so busy gathering together, that it scarcely got time to eat or to eat its fill. But it was as if there were a fate overhanging it, that it should not be permitted to accumulate wealth, for every time it had a small supply collected and hidden in one or another of the supposedly safe places- when it came to inspect them later, the supply was gone. However, no essential change took place with respect to its living; it found its food every day as before, and in so far as it took a little more sparingly for itself, that was because it wished to accumulate and because it gave itself no time to eat, for otherwise it would have had its living as bounteously as before. Alas, and yet a great change was taking place in it; it was far from suffering actual need, but it had conceived a future need; its peace of mind was lost- it had acquired anxiety for the necessities of life.

From now on the wild dove became concerned, its feathers lost their sheen, its flight its ease;...it was no longer happy;...it found its food each day, was filled, and yet it was as if it were not filled, because in its care for the necessities of life it would go hungry for a long time...

At last it devised a cunning plan. One day it flew over and sat on the ridge of the farmer's roof between the tame doves. When it noticed that there was a place where these flew in, it also flew in, for the storeroom must certainly be there. But when the farmer came in the evening and locked the dove-cote, he at once discovered the strange dove. This he then put in a little box by itself until the next day, when it was killed- and freed from anxiety for the necessities of life.

Had the wild dove been content to be what it was- a bird of the air, then it would have had its living, then would the Heavenly Father have fed it, then in the event of uncertainty, it would have been where it belonged, there where the straight, solitary sombre trunks are in good understanding with the cooing trill of the wild dove; then it would have been the one of which the preacher spoke on Sunday, when he repeated the Gospel words: "Behold the fowls of the air, which neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, yet our Heavenly Father feeds them..."

It is certainly laudable and pleasing to God that a man sows and harvests and gathers into barns, that he works to find food; but if he is willing to forget God and to believe that he supports himself with his labor, then he becomes uneasy about his livelihood. The richest man who ever lived, if he forgets God, and believes that he supports himself by his labor, has financial anxieties...

To be dependent on our own wealth, that is dependence and heavy bondage; to be dependent on God, absolutely dependent, that is independence. The worried wild dove foolishly feared to remain absolutely dependent on God, therefore it ceased to be independent and to be the symbol of independence; ceased to be the poor bird of the air, which is absolutely dependent on God. Dependence on God is the only independence, for God has no heaviness; only the earthly and especially the earthly treasure has that."

Typhoid Mary

In March 1915, the woman known as "Typhoid Mary" was put into quarantine in a cottage in the Bronx. Her name was Mary Mallon, and she was a large and fiery Irish-American woman about 40 years old. She worked as a cook in and around New York City, and every household she worked in seemed to suffer an outbreak of typhoid fever. Typhoid is caused by a form of Salmonella bacteria, and is usually spread by contact with human or animal waste. It was common on battlefields — it may have killed more than 200,000 soldiers during the Civil War — and in poor and unsanitary housing conditions, but it was rarely seen in the wealthy households like the ones where Mallon worked. 

The first outbreak associated with Typhoid Mary occurred in 1900, in Mamaroneck, New York. She had been cooking for a family for about two weeks when they started to become ill. The same thing happened the following year, when she took a series of jobs in Manhattan and Long Island. She helped take care of the sick, not realizing that her presence was probably making them worse.

In 1906, a doctor named George Soper noticed this strange pattern of outbreaks in wealthy homes. He went to interview each of the families, and found that they had all hired the same cook, but she never left a forwarding address when she moved on to other employment. He finally tracked her down after several cases in a Park Avenue penthouse, so he interviewed her. She didn't take it well, and swore at him, and threatened him with a meat cleaver when he asked her to provide a stool sample. He finally called in the police and had her arrested.

Urine and stool samples were taken from Mallon by force, and doctors discovered that her gall bladder was shedding great numbers of typhoid bacteria. She admitted that she never washed her hands when cooking, but she didn't see the point, as she was healthy. No one had ever heard of a healthy carrier of typhoid before, and she refused to believe that she was in any way sick. They wanted to take out her gall bladder, and she refused. They demanded that she give up cooking, and she refused to do that too. They confined her for a while and put her to work as a laundress for the Riverside Hospital, and in 1910 — after she promised to give up cooking and only work as a laundress — she was released. It wasn't long before she changed her name to Mary Brown and took a job as a cook. For the next five years, she stayed one step ahead of the doctors and the law, spreading disease and death in her wake, until they caught up with her on Long Island. Authorities placed her in quarantine on North Brother Island in the Bronx for the rest of her life, and she died of pneumonia in 1938.   From "the Writer's Almanac"

The Bill of Rights

The Bill of Rights was adopted 220 years ago on this date, in 1791. The bill is made up of the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution, and it was adopted as one unit. It follows the precedent set by the Magna Carta (1215) and the English Bill of Rights (1689), both of which were early attempts at ensuring the rights of citizens against the power of the crown. Much of the credit for the United States Bill of Rights is due to George Mason, who was an admirer of the philosopher John Locke. Locke, in his Two Treatises of Government (1689), argued that government should exist for the protection of individual property, and that all people were equal in the state of nature. Mason had crafted a "Declaration of Rights" for Virginia's constitution in 1776, while serving in that state's legislature. The document impressed James Madison, who showed it to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, in turn, adopted some of its ideas when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

In the summer of 1787, the Constitutional Convention met to craft the United States Constitution. The Anti-Federalists didn't approve of the document as written because it offered no protection to individual rights, and they refused to sign it. George Mason said, "I would sooner chop off [my] right hand than put it to the Constitution as it now stands." Jefferson wrote to Madison, "A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth." Eventually, the Federalists persuaded the Anti-Federalists to sign by promising them they would address the individual rights matter once the Constitution was ratified. James Madison's feelings were mixed, but he took up the task of writing a bill of rights, which he called "a nauseous project," and he introduced it into the first session of Congress in 1789. After some haggling, the 10 amendments were ratified as one unit, which guarantees, among other things, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the right to a fair trial.

From "The Writer's Almanac"

The Gettysburg Address

     On November 19th in 1863, Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was four and a half months after the devastating battle, and it was a foggy, cold morning. Lincoln arrived about 10 a.m. Around noon, the sun came out as the crowds gathered on a hill overlooking the battlefield. A military band played, a local preacher offered a long prayer, and the headlining orator, Edward Everett, spoke for more than two hours. Everett described the Battle of Gettysburg in great detail, and he brought the audience to tears more than once. When Everett finished, Lincoln spoke.

     Now considered one of the greatest speeches in American history, the Gettysburg Address ran for just over two minutes, fewer than 300 words, and only 10 sentences. It was so brief, in fact, that many of the 15,000 people that attended the ceremony didn't even realize that the president had spoken, because a photographer setting up his camera had momentarily distracted them. The next day, Everett told Lincoln, "I wish that I could flatter myself that I had come as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

     There are several versions of the speech, and five different manuscript copies; they're all slightly different, so there's some argument about which is the "authentic" version. Lincoln gave copies to both of his private secretaries, and the other three versions were re-written by the president some time after he made the speech. The Bliss Copy, named for Colonel Alexander Bliss, is the only copy that was signed and dated by Lincoln, and it's generally accepted as the official version for that reason. The Bliss text, below, is inscribed on the Lincoln Memorial:

     "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

     "But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

(From "The Writer's Almanac)

The 3 Best Books by Robert Louis Stevenson

November 13th is the birthday of writer Robert Louis Stevenson, born in Edinburgh (1850). His books include Treasure Island (1883), Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and Kidnapped (1886).

The inspiration for Treasure Island came on a rainy day in the Scottish Highlands when Stevenson's stepson was idling away the time by drawing pictures. He drew a map, and Stevenson saw it and immediately decided that it was a pirate map — he embellished it and named it "Treasure Island." Stevenson told his stepson that there was buried treasure there, and someone had been marooned on the island. His stepson begged to know the rest of the story, so Stevenson started writing it out — within three days he had three chapters. He worked with his stepson's input, including the boy's request that there wouldn't be any girls in the book.

Treasure Island is the story of young Jim Hawkins, whose parents run an inn in a small English town. One of their long-term lodgers is a sailor man named Billy Bones, who admits to Jim that he used to be a crew member for the now-dead pirate Captain Flint. Bones says that his fellow crew members are hunting him down because they want something that is in his sea chest. One of them eventually shows up and presents Bones with the "black spot," the pirate death sentence, and threatens to return that night; Bones falls dead of shock. Jim and his mother open his sea chest to collect their back rent, and instead, find the map for Treasure Island. Jim takes the map to two rich gentlemen, who excitedly recognize it as the map to the treasure of Captain Flint, and organize an expedition to go find the treasure.

Unfortunately for the well-intentioned but naïve gentlemen, they end up hiring all of Captain Flint's pirate crew, plus one trustworthy captain. So Jim, Captain Smollett, and the gang of pirates — headed by Long John Silver, the ship's cook, and his parrot known as Captain Flint — set out for Treasure Island.

Jim overhears the pirates planning a mutiny, and tells Captain Smollett. On the shores of Treasure Island, they meet yet another member of Flint's crew, Ben Gunn, who has been marooned there. Both the pirates and Smollett want to get the treasure and then take hold of the ship; but the pirates are also plotting against Long John Silver. Jim is trying to outmaneuver them all and save the day. They finally make it to the treasure, only to find that it isn't there — Ben Gunn has already found it.

In the end, Jim, Smollett, Ben Gunn, and Long John Silver head home with the treasure — but Silver ends up stealing some and escaping into the sunset. Treasure Island ends with Jim as an old man summing up his adventures: "Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears: 'Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!'"

The plot for Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde came to Stevenson in a dream. He was yelling in his sleep, and so his wife shook him awake, and he immediately informed her that he wished she hadn't — he was dreaming part of a story. He wrote and rewrote it in several weeks while he was in bed with tuberculosis, and when it was published — just a few months after he had first dreamed it up — it was an immediate success.

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde begins: "Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life."

The story begins with Utterson hearing a shocking bit of news: that a man named Edward Hyde has assaulted a young girl, but has paid off her family with a check from a prominent and respected citizen, Henry Jekyll. The reason for Utterson's shock is that Jekyll is his friend and client, and he has recently written Mr. Hyde into his will.

When Utterson mentions Hyde to Jekyll, he makes his friend uncomfortable. For a while, nothing more happens. Then one of Utterson's clients is murdered, and a maid identifies the murderer as Hyde, but Hyde has disappeared. Jekyll produces a note from Hyde saying that he is gone forever. The links between Hyde and Jekyll continue to add up, but Utterson does not understand the connection. A mutual friend dies and leaves Utterson a note that the lawyer is not allowed to read until after Dr. Jekyll's death.

Then one day, a servant of Dr. Jekyll's comes to find Utterson and tells him that his master has disappeared into his laboratory, and keeps sending the servant on bizarre errands for a drug. The servant thinks that someone has murdered Jekyll and is hiding in his laboratory. He and Utterson break in. They find Hyde's dead body, but no trace of Jekyll.

They do find a note left behind, and Utterson opens it, along with the one from his friend. He learns the whole story: that, of course, the respected Dr. Jekyll and the monstrous Mr. Hyde are the same person. As a young man, Jekyll was fascinated by the thought that both good and evil exist in every person, and he went to work in his laboratory to figure out a way to isolate his evil self. At first, the transformation from Jekyll to Hyde came about with the use of a drug. Eventually, it started to happen spontaneously, and he could not control it; finally Jekyll could not stand it any longer and committed suicide. He wasn't sure what would happen to Hyde, but Hyde had died along with him.

Kidnapped is set in 1751, the era of the Jacobite uprisings in Scotland. In general, Jacobitism was the attempt to secure the Stuart kings to the British throne. In the case of the Scottish highlands, it was mostly an attempt to keep English influence out and let the clans stay in control, and the Stuarts were more sympathetic to the clans than King George, from the House of Hanover.

Kidnapped is the story of the orphaned boy Davie Balfour, who sets off to find his uncle. His uncle is a sinister drunk ruling over a decrepit estate, the House of Shaws. Davie realizes that his father was older than his uncle, and that Davie himself is actually the rightful heir of the estate. He asks his uncle about it, who tries and fails to have him killed, but succeeds in having him kidnapped. Davie is put on a ship bound for America, where he will be an indentured servant. The ship turns around in bad weather, and off the coast of Scotland, it hits another boat. Everyone on board this second boat is killed except for one man, a Jacobite rebel named Alan Breck. Davie overhears the crew plotting to kill Alan, so he and Alan turn on the rest of the crew and fight them off; but the two are separated trying to get to shore, and Davie ends up in the Scottish Highlands.

Eventually, Davie reunites with Alan, but it's at the scene of a crime — one of King George's tax collectors is assassinated, a man who is also a member of the enemy Campbell clan. Alan is accused, and he and Davie flee together through the Highlands. They end up in the secret den of an outlaw Jacobite leader, Cluny Macpherson, one of the many historical figures sprinkled throughout the novel. They have many more adventures — a duel between Alan and his arch-nemesis turns into a bagpipe contest; Alan forces Davie to pretend that he is a dying nobleman to convince a pretty girl to give them a ride across a river; and in the end, they manage to get Davie's inheritance back from his uncle, and Alan heads to France to seek refuge from the English.

(From "The Writer's Almanac")

The Charge of the Light Brigade

The Charge of the Light Brigade

by Alfred Tennyson

Half a league half a league,
    Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
    Rode the six hundred:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
    Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
    Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die:
Into the valley of Death
    Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
    Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
    Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
    All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter'd & sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
    Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
    Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
    All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
    Noble six hundred!

"The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Tennyson

The Pledge of Allegiance

 On October 12, 1892 that the Pledge of Allegiance was recited en masse for the first time, by more than 2 million students. It had been written just a month earlier by a Baptist minister named Francis Bellamy, who published it in Youth's Companion and distributed it across the country. It was recited on this day to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the Americas. It was slightly shorter in its 1892 version: "I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands — one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

After that, it got revised twice, and both revisions made the Pledge wordier. The first was in 1923, when it was changed from "my flag" to "the flag of the United States of America." This change was made to ensure that immigrants were pledging to the American flag and not the flags of their home countries. The second change was to add the words "under God." A few determined preachers worked for years to get it changed, but it wasn't until 1954 that it was amended. President Eisenhower attended a sermon by the Reverend George Docherty, who said: "Apart from the mention of the phrase, 'the United States of America,' this could be a pledge of any republic. In fact, I could hear little Muscovites repeat a similar pledge to their hammer-and-sickle flag in Moscow with equal solemnity." Eisenhower was convinced and within a few months the Pledge was amended to include "under God" as a way to distinguish this country from the Soviet Union.  (from "The Writer's Almanac)