Tag Archives: Writing

HENCE

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Yahoo has an article today entitled, Professor Leaves Racist Note on Student’s Paper. Part of the text of the student’s paper reads,
…..in every four children attending
…..population will more than double
….. on U.S. schools! Hence, the question
…..growth in the United States of
…..those who professionally work in

The professor or Teaching Assistant circled “Hence,” and complained “This is not your word.”
Who owns the word, hence? Hence is like other conclusionary words, to indicate the next sentence is plenty important. One does not need the exclamation point at the end of the prior sentence. “Hence” along with other words and terms like “thus,” “Are you ready?,” “Dummy up. Here it comes!” are inserted into text because professors and teaching assistants will not otherwise understand the text.
[It is like taking the Bar Exam in any state. Underline all legal points in red. Otherwise they’ll be missed.]
The fact that hence appears in a student’s sociology paper should not surprise anyone. Sociology is one of the social sciences where speculation is prized and errant conclusions are accepted. The larger area may be referred to as Social Superstitions – anthropology, parts of economics, sociology, law, some history, folklore, paranormal studies, and on and on. To sink a foundation for any paper, it is necessary to toss in sundry and various conclusions, all marked by words like hence. Any reader who has studied in the social sciences and has never run across the word, hence, stand up immediately – try to tilt the earth from its orbit so it moves and cracks into the moon.
This student at Suffolk University in Boston complains of the comment on her paper: It is racist! Racism is the least of her worries. This sort of sentence sounds like it came from one of the professor’s lecturers. The insert from the paper above suggests the point of a growing population seeking fewer positions in the professions. Americans have seen fewer job-openings in investment banking. California law schools have cut enrollment because there are fewer jobs.
Tiffany Martinez in Boston should not complain about a clueless, flimsy comment. She should be outraged by a University, a Professor and Teaching Assistants who cannot teach her to write.

MEIN KAMPF – Reading & Art

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Adolph does not think much of persons who read, ponder, think and conclude. After going through all the words of this book, most of which are forgettable and destined for oblivion, the reader must conclude that Adolph had trouble reading; he did not like to read; he had a reading impairment; he had problems putting together the logical bases so German sentences would make sense. He was never able to take a book (and likely never this book) and distill its arguments into words of his own. Adolph was bewildered and frightened by those who could discuss ideas, and use books and facts as frames and as references to support an argument.

People who read “possess a mass of ‘knowledge,’ but their brain is unable to organize and register the material they have taken in. They lack the art of sifting what is valuable for them from that which is without value, or retaining the one forever, and if possible, not even seeing the rest, but in anywise not dragging it around with them as useless ballast.” [A] “ reader now believes himself in all seriousness to be ‘educated’ to understand something of life, to have knowledge, while in reality, with every new acquisition of this kind of education, he is growing more and more removed from the world until, no infrequently, he held up in a sanitarium or in parliament.” (page 35)

This paragraph suggests that Adolph believes all readers are like himself. Give a book dedication and great study, and the text sits in Adolph’s mind clogging it, and interfering with extraneous superficial chattering and false sentimentalities that Adolph wanted to hear, like eating cream topping pastries sprinkled with sugared cinnamon.

Adolph believes that a human being can be retarded and become a moron. But rather than use knowledge to his best benefit, Adolph derives new terms for being intellectual (the first, six pages earlier didn’t take):
[W]hat a difference between the glittering phrases about freedom…beauty, and dignity in the theoretical literature, the delusive welter of words seeming expressing the most profound and laborious wisdom, the loathsome humanitarian morality – all this written with the incredible gall that some with the prophetic certainty – and the brutal daily press, shunning no villainy, employing every means of slander, lying with a virtuosity that would bend iron beams, all in the name of this gospel of a new humanity. The one is addressed to the simpletons of the middle, not to mention the upper, educated, ‘classes,’ the other to the masses.(page 41)

It appears that Adolph is intimidated by “the glittering phrases about freedom…beauty, and dignity in the theoretical literature, the delusive welter of words seeming expressing the most profound and laborious wisdom, the loathsome humanitarian morality…” Adolph was incapable of reaching those levels in speech, and he was incapable of attaining them by other means.
Remove glittering phrases, dignity, beauty, profound wisdom and humanitarian morality from and language, and it becomes dead. There is no communication.

What became most amazing was the rush to Richard Wagner and a few other immortals expressing German culture [some of Wagner’s folklore was Celtic (Irish/Welsh) origin, a fact lost on Adolph]. Wagner was definitely mad enough for Adolph to love him without much alteration, although one wonders how many Nazi big-wigs actually made it through 4 1/2 hours of Goetterdammerung. Americans are forewarned by Mark Twain, “I’ve heard the first Act of each Wagner opera with pleasure.”

Adolph has failed to advance logic, reasons and conclusions why the finer points of language and writing ought to be neglected, all the while, wholeheartedly, endorsing the lyrical mediocrity of Richard Wagner.

NEW WRITER, OLD WRITER

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Young and inexperienced, I once started stories and quickly put down 5-10,000 words (17-35 pages). I would next wonder where to go and how to get there.

Starting a story now might take a month or more to produce 5,000 words. The difference?
Production and enthusiasm depend upon the story, whether the setting, story or character may be emphasized, and how the writer (I) feel about any of it. But the primary difference is in the author’s (my) outlook. Enthusiasm and impulse remain the same today as it was, but I am more deliberate: I know it will be a slog, write every damn word about every perceived point covering each conceivable concept. The first draft is the one time the author has the opportunity to take this overall view: think freely and make every expression idiotic, moronic or nonsensical as well as completely, profound and experimental.
All later work pares the manuscript by rewriting within the parameters of the givens of the story; next comes editing and proofreading.
The slower launch today may mean energy is not marshaled; doubts linger about the quality of the plot and confidence might be fleeting. But confidence will build throughout a writing, doing 1,000 or 2,000 words a day, and feeling content having produced 20,000 words, 50,000 words, a first draft, and the next draft. It is that build of confidence, a building of ego, which allows a writer to finish a writing.

YOUTH, END OF THE TETHER

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Joseph Conrad

Not enough kind, superlative and complimentary words can be accumulated to praise and recommend these two short stories. Each takes one side of a sailor’s life, Youth(20 years old) and End of the Tether (Sea captain in his mid-sixties).

The Youth has his whole life before him. His ship becomes wrecked. The master is unlikeable. It is a struggle to get off the wreck and find a life boat. No one knows where they are. They don’t know where land is. They are hungry and thirsty. But he navigates the boat to land and to safety. With the hardship and having no money, does the Youth want to return home [in Europe]? And miss Eastern Asia!

The story is told in narration. The teller is either or knows the Youth. Conversation is a very effective way to tell this story.

End of the Tether is about a Captain who saved, owned his own ship, has a daughter in Australia who needs his financial help and remains well-regarded. The corporation in which his retirement is invested slides into bankruptcy. There is no recovery. He sells his ship.

Although he is frail and his faculties are fading fast, the Captain returns to the sea to earn money to help his daughter, He knows he can be the Captain of a ship if anyone will hire him, and he has a trusted crew. The ship’s owner and chief engineer is a man disliked by all that meet and know him. He does not like the arrangement forced upon him by the Captain. That sea dog seems immune from the many harsh criticisms, empty threats and bad words coming from the shipowner.

The Captain simply does his job. Late in the story the reader learns the Captain is blind. Unaware, the owner plots to send the ship off course; it will be wrecked at sea and sunk. The insurance will be paid. As it happens, if the Captain had his sight, he would have uncovered the plot. But the ship sinks. Everyone including the owner but not the Captain abandons ship. If the Captain is saved he loses his reputation; he was responsible for losing the ship – he was blind!

The jumble of influences, events and circumstances coming at the Captain play out well. For both stories the vim and vigor of youth carrying through to middle age’s vinegar – knowledge, thinking and reflection – drop off in later age to consideration, judgment and wisdom. As an elder the Captain knows what to do, but he has neither the mental nor physical abilities to undertake the effort. He is alone; no one can help.

It has been a while since I’ve read Joseph Conrad. I’ve gone through many of the novels. But this reading – I know I have to find more Conrad to continue reading excellent literature.

HOCHSCHILD’S MISREADING

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On March 18, 2016, Second D, page 5, Adam Hochschild ventured into an area where he lacks expertise, knowledge and imagination. He described why Mark Twain’s Life On the Mississippi need not be read in its entirety. Being familiar with Twain’s work, I am surprised. I’ve read works from historians competing with Hochschild for readers, and I now wonder if I ought to read his books. The world is more multilayered than Mr. Hochschild appreciates. Regarding Life On the Mississippi he has two grand oversights.

Hochschild stumbled upon the fact that Life On is a companion book to Huckleberry Finn. That novel is firmly set in the 1830s. Life On presents contemporary observations which were added to Twain’s previous publication of Old Times on the Mississippi (@1875).

In 1882 books and basic knowledge of the Mississippi River Valley were scare. Twain had written about 25 chapters of the novel but needed a refresher course about locations and the sense and feel of the South, and the river. In 1882 he traveled up the river, noting events and occurrences, present time to 45 years before. Not much had changed.

Life On came from Clemen’s notebooks and scrapbooks. Prior to William Faulkner’s observation about the past in the South, Clemens realized in the South that nothing was ever the past. In 1884 he told the world that in Life On.

The second point is what the South did with its history, this time and subject is described by a prominent American historian who quotes Life On the Mississippi from a late passage. SPOILER ALERT! Hochschild’s fans should stop reading NOW!

…Colonel Marshall graphically described the scene demonstrating Lee’s
posture and his forward wave of the hand as Jackson rode away.The
movement became the subject of a painting completed in 1869…Mark
Twain studied the original in New Orleans and reflected on the importance
of explicitly telling people the retrospectively defined meaning of what they
they see when one offers them a historical representation…Unless the
painting were properly labeled Twain said, it might readily be taken to
portray “Last Interview between Lee and Jackson” or “First Interview
between Lee and Jackson” or “Jackson Reporting a Great Victory” or
“Jackson Apologizing for a Heavy Defeat” or “Jackson Asking Lee for a
Match.” “It tells one story and a sufficient one; for it says quite plainly and
satisfactorily, ‘Here are Lee and Jackson together.’ The artist would have
made it tell that this is Lee and Jackson’s last interview if he could have
done it. But he couldn’t, for there wasn’t any way to do it. A good legible
label is usually worth, for information, a ton of significant attitude and
expression in a historical picture.”
Royster, Charles, The Destructive War, Knopf, NY, 1991, p. 203-204.

 

THE REAL APPLE

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When the Constitution was ratified in 1788 and by each state since, was Apple’s right to possess a chip, a software program, a means of communication in the document? NO. Does Apple have anywhere among statutes or constitutional provisions, a means to prevent the government armed with a warrant to serve and require Apple to hand over information? NO.

Yet, Apple claims it has extra-judicial, extra-legal, over-the-top exemptions from the language of the Constitution, whereas the remainder of Americans are fully bound and must adhere to the document and its interpretation.

Apple claims no court should ever issue warrants to learn communications between terrorists or among criminals; only Apple itself has the discretion and the wisdom to view those notes, as violent as they be. Apple believes it has a right to privacy, so it never has to deliver information in its possession that may keep the United States safe.

In essence Apple makes itself complicit in the actions of the perpetrators; the longer Apple dithers the deeper it sinks into the conspiracy. Should criminal liability attach to Apple for interfering with an investigation, resulting possibly in obstruction of justice charges?

Readers may believe they saw this scenario played out on TV, but the real-time, reality component of daily events reveal a rotten core.

What Apple and all monster American information gathering companies want to protect is their own collections of data. Every company knows when users are on computers, asleep, eating, using the pot, and which appropriate advertisement should be sent for specific activities. The time of day is taken into account because the advertisement for toilet paper does not appear when sitting on the big white phone. That ad comes in the grocery store – hurrying to buy a package and avoiding embarrassment at the check-out counter. (The full mobile experience.) Our lives are controlled by computers and their memories, and no one cares about the privacy of Americans!

It is that administered boatload of personal information breaching the privacy of every American, obtained without consent or warrant, that Apple and corporations of its ilk want to protect and keep absolutely secret, until sprung on the victims, unwitting Americans.

ANSWERED PRAYERS – Truman Capote

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This unfinished novel has three subjects and two styles. The first chapter (the longest, “Unspoiled Monsters”) is mostly chronological and has brilliant, captivating passages and remarks about writing as a career, the mind set of a writer and marketing forces. For a magazine editor/publisher the writer spreads his cheeks, a casting couch into publishing.

The second chapter (39 pages, “Kate McCloud”) happens in Europe and is chronological. Without much money the character tags along with rich people. Comments about writing disappear, but those overseas New Yorkers and East Coast Establishment mucks are superficial and empty.

The Third Chapter (41 pages, “La Cote Basque) presents a change of style – stream of consciousness, Virginia Woolf foibles come to mind through paragraphs of endurance, nothing to follow, little to comprehend but phrases interspersed here and there and a story of meandering words which come to nothing. It is a form of writing exercise, an experiment. Chapter 3 was published in the mid-1970s and was not well received. There was little effort to conceal or camouflage who the many characters were – although in East Coast fashion they said little of consequence and nothing significant. After its publication in Esquire magazine, Capote’s rich friends ended contact with him.

The changes of style and substance produce varied work in this three chapters. The first chapter is well-written, although it fails to present a story. It is a series of colorful antidotes, adjectives and description adding character to sentences (and not necessarily to human beings written about). There are not many thoughts and ideas transmitted, instantly but not throughout the 90 pages. Hence, any conveyance of theme is absent.

The second chapter also becomes antidotal with adjectives, and overlong sentences. It is fun and funny to read but takes the reader no where. It is like watching TV. The third chapter is the worst from the standpoint of writing, in contribution to the craft and in explaining itself. It seems there are inside jokes and inside knowledge. It was written and published first. The targeted readers apparently discovered themselves. Capote may have chosen the stream of consciousness, or overlong sentences in paragraphs covering a least a page to conceal his intentions. He was mislead by style and substance. He did not define the characters and give them much action. He labeled characters within sentences by describing them – this lumpen mass sits on her couch all days and eats bon-bons. A writer must be much more discrete.

Reference points can be made to another novel, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald refused to include party conversations, or intelligible dialogue which is Capote’s forte. Every party scene in Gatsby could be supplemented by dialogue from Answered Prayers. If it were the purpose to define New York Citiers and the wealthy as they phonies they are, Capote only had to set out their conversations: empty, unconnected and coarse. On page 74-75 the character Aces Nelson is a doubleganger for Nick the Narrator in Gatsby.

In another writing I criticized Fitzgerald for using rioters for roisters at the Yale Club in New York City (Gatsby, page 57) However Fitzgerald may have property used rioters [shorthand for gay, circa. 1925(?)], as Capote describes a gay encounter in the Yale Club. (Answered Prayers, 94)

LOCKE BIOGRAPHY OF EASTWARD

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THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE VERY UGLY
Sondra Locke

Any autobiography suffers from the writer’s inability to tell the truth, fully, moderately or partially. This flaw has been noted among writers. [William L. Shirer, Twentieth Century Journey, vol. 1, Chapter 1] However, Sondra Locke in The Good, the Bad & the Very Ugly (no index) remarkably tells the truth in a well-written autobiography while coming to incomplete and imprecise conclusions.

General impressions. I like Sondra Locke; this book does not endear me to her. But I am happy she has managed to act in and direct additional films. The more films made the better. This autobiography lacks any setting: What was Los Angeles like for an up-and-coming actress in entertainment(1968-1973)? Locke gives the impression that every role she got except the first and those until she met Eastwood, magically came to her. Indeed, it seems her first and only mentor in entertainment was Eastwood.

Locke presents her life as a fairy tale; the writing is consistent. In a deposition the first questions were about the fairy tale life. She is admirably loyal to persons in her life and hometown who have helped her, especially her best friend Gordon. They marry. Gordon declares he is gay; he finds other lovers. They live separately in Los Angeles but talk daily and see each other often.

Sondra Locke had a good start to a film career in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Thereafter her roles diminished, three films that tried to develop the alternative reality of the Sixties: Reflections of Fear was the most establishment.The Seducers, supposedly a true story about teenage girls, gone wild. The Second Coming of Suzanne, hipsters supposedly making a movie. None of these movies added anything to Locke’s career. She mets Eastwood in an audition for Breezy which Locke pejoratively and quickly dismisses: “about a man in his late fifties who choses a young teenage chick with lots of T and A.” (131) Eastwood hires Locke to perform in The Outlaw Josey Wales. It is “love at first sight,” but it was also roles in better movies at first sight.

It might also be better described as physical relations at first sight. Eastwood learns about Gordon. They meet, socialize, chat and laugh. Eastwood produces movies, some of which Locke acts in. For those movies and others Locke says she worked on them when Eastwood viewed them in post production at the ranch.

After discussions with Locke Eastwood divorces his wife in the early 1980s; Locke remains married to Gordon. Eastwood buys a house, and Gordon lives in it. He buys a second house in Los Angeles (Stradella) for himself and Locke, apparently selling a Studio City house about the same time.

What was life with Eastwood like? There is some of that but more about Gordon. The whole book must be consumed before making an impression. Locke and Eastwood spend time in Carmel, Sun Valley Idaho, Lake Shasta and other places. But get to the nitty-gritty – before, during and after dinner talk, the sweet words soothing life to get to sleep.

In the mid-1980s Locke spent a couple of years decorating houses.(175) Gordon is frequently with her during that shopping. If Eastwood is in town, Locke and Eastwood would be together during the evening: What did you do today, darling? Chapter 12 late in the book gives a run down of a Locke and Gordon day. Gordon has spiritual qualities and abilities. Locke enthusiastically writes about days of spirituality but lacks specifics. In talks with Eastwood Locke likely was very verbal about those spiritual events. There was no communication. Eastwood seems like a feet-on-the Earth fellow.

Screaming at the reader is one word: INCOMPATIBLE. It is completely unfathomable why Locke would call Eastwood, a man 14 years her senior: “Daddy.”(152) And when Eastwood left she would “cry like a school girl.”(148)

For Every Which Way But Loose Eastwood wanted Locke to sing songs she had written and composed. She didn’t want to and never wanted to sing again.(157) Eastwood liked Locke, a beautiful woman, to wear no make up.(148) NO: put on the ughs and toss on the paint. Locke wanted to direct. Through Eastwood’s production company the script of Ratboy is bought(mid 1980s).

First-time director Locke and Gordon want to rewrite the Ratboy script. Gordon has no writing credits (that are mentioned)l Locke has none. Eastwood says no. There are schools of practice about producers/directors rewriting scripts. Eastwood may favor, Buy a script, shoot it. Undisciplined, enthusiasts among producers and directors don’t believe writers do anything, but they, themselves, can take years rewriting screenplays. This autobiography does not go into business customs and practices. Eastwood’s point of view is clear. Locke is deeply offended. It should be observed for her next film, Impulse (1989) Locke does not admit doing a director’s rewrite of the script.

While Locke is engaged in the film as a director, someone she likes back home dies. Gordon returns. Over Eastwood’s objections Director Locke returns home (203). The autobiography casts adjectives, one of which is mean which is completely meaningless. Locke’s adjectives are belied later in The Good, The Bad (249): “In a near-hypnotic manner I went back to work. Directing a film requires awesome stamina and with claiming of so much emotional drain on the my life I could hardly stay afloat.” There is no discussion of Locke’s emotional state after her return to directing of Ratboy.

Locke is incredulous about her palimony suit (remember she is married to Gordon throughout), that participants can be petty in a domestic relations litigation. Locke’s description of what happened is run of the mill. It is equally surprising that entertainment closes in trying to keep people out, but think of the earlier incident: Academy Award Winner Cliff Robertson and the $10,000 check. None of those schemes are very sophisticated. It is probable that Sondra Locke has now learned Samuel Goldwyn’s aphorism: “An oral contract is not worth the paper it is printed on.”

There are items every writer ought to know: A baby deer is a fawn.(165) There are no “preliminary hearings” in civil cases.(7) There are Pre-trial conferences, Settlement Conferences and Law and Motion. One “saves” money. One does not go about “saving up” money.(46) And it is inconsistent to call Eastwood a “spoiled child”(236) all the while the author is describing her life as the fairy tale she has lived in since the 1950s.

SAD FATE OF SCIENCE FICTION

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I’m not a buff of science fiction and science fantasy. If people want to dwell on the wonders of the vacuum that extends beyond the earth’s atmosphere and traveling between stars, but dying before they reach them, they can.

However, I’m offended by the TV programs that present Nazi Secret Weapons, designs that came from American comic books of the Twenties and Thirties. There was no viable Nazi secret weapon, either conceived or partially built, that would have changed the outcome of World War Two.

Americans had the ultimate secret weapon program, and with all their practicality, they built it – the atomic bomb. We gained much from European scientists, Jews, whom the Nazis believed knew nothing. The first bombs were destined for Germany – Berlin to take out the subhuman Hitler and his goons.

So there is not much the Germans taught us about science after World War Two. And remember the Germans learned most of their rocket technology from an American, Robert Goddard.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN, VOL. 3

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University of California Press, Berkeley, 2015.

Read this volume not for the spectacularly funny, poignant passages found in volumes one and two. Instead, the author knows this manuscript will be the last major work. There are outrageously funny, humorous passages in this volume, but there’s a lot of day-to-day stuff.

The text presents some cleaning up, making words and life straight, suggesting half-cocked philosophies, responding to misimpressions and asserting what this author perceives of life. Throughout those efforts the reader can gleem the foibles and imperfections in the profession which should be an artist’s life.

There are personal touches. Fans send him small checks, $1.50 so he will endorse them and he will give out his autograph. His house was burgled so Clemens wrote a note for the next burglars saying there wasn’t much of value in the house, but directing attention to items of interest. One of the burglars, not convicted, wrote a letter. Clemens read it – familiar words and sentences. He finally realized he wrote the first draft himself in Life on the Mississippi. Twain set out the whole thing not accepting the flattery, but the whole episode is impertinent and rude!

Twain was a celebrated banquet speaker, but as years passed he could no longer start at the beginning: cocktails, dinner (multiple courses), speeches. For the last six years of life, he arrived after dinner for his slot to speak. Twain gave an example of the errors of scheduling, a banquet for Carnegie, 9:00 p.m. speeches began. Twain arrived at 9:15 p.m. Dinner did not finish until 10:45. Twain did not speak until 11:15. At least ten speakers followed him.

Summer 1907 Twain traveled to Britain to accept a Doctor of Letters award from Oxford University. The entries are repetitive and lengthy. He mentions the persons, the halls and houses, the grand food; speeches by himself and others. It is six weeks of tiresomely meeting Lord That, Lady This, Professor So-and-So, Rector etc. The British are exceeding polite and receptive, yet Twain is caged and on review. The moral of the story seems, if a writer accepts awards, placards or that-a-boys, have an escape route.

A sense of sadness and mortality comes into the Autobiography. Not much of life intrigues him. He writes of President Theodore Roosevelt, not a fan. Note though that his fast friend, benefactor and financial savior is Henry Rogers, second in command at Standard Oil, a Roosevelt target. Criticisms of Roosevelt don’t last; without the notes of this critical edition, no one would know what the issues were. Most of the diary was dictated. In earlier volumes, Twain edited the typewritten drafts, more vigorously it seems. The sentences in this volume are longer, exceedingly long. The text seems less cared for.

The end of the Autobiography ends in tragedy. Clemens’ third daughter, Jean, is a epileptic; she drowns in her bath on Christmas Eve. She had planned a whole wonderful Christmas – presents, visitors, festivities. Twain saw all the preparation, and now he is alone. He handwrites, not dictating. He admits, I am writing to keep my heart from breaking. Twain simply puts powerful sentiments, one about a man looking back on friends and family, who have predeceased him. He wants to see them again. It won’t happen. Like the woman in the coffin, downstairs, his daughter, there no more life. There is a sense that Mark Twain died that day. In four months Samuel Clemens was dead.

This volume also presents about 50,000 words about two assistants in the Clemens’ household. The woman (Lyons) was Twain’s private secretary and became the housekeeper. She was foremost a drinker. “She had hysterics, not just occasionally but frequently, not merely frequently, but very frequently. Hysterics – that was Ashcroft’s name for it. But the truth is, she was drunk. Drunk daily…”(337-338) The man (Ashcroft) was Clemens’ business manager and employee in the Mark Twain Company. Ashcroft and Lyon stole money, booze and tried getting everything else from Twain. Everyone in the Clemens’ household and outsiders (visitors) knew this pair was no good. This manuscript tells of Clemens’ realizations and actions, learning what had happened, firing, lawsuits, settlement.

Lyons and Ashcroft got married. Twain was invited. It was before their thievery was discovered by him. The writing is afterward revelation: “The church was cold and & clammy, which was quite proper. Miss Lyon’s mother was there, some Ashcrofts were there, the two Freemans were there, I was there. Also Mrs. Martin W. Littleton, and God. If God, He, was there, Reverend Percy Grant intimated that He was, even said He was. Nine in all.” (p.354)