Wonderful Things Research Articles

Klossowski, Deleuze, and Orthodoxy

Among the many strange and wonderful things to be found there, Pierre Klossowski's oeuvre is a preeminent illustration of what divides univocity and equivocity and therefore serves as one of the twentieth century's most instructive models for thinking the complexity of the dialectic. Univocity and equivocity are significant both in their roots in Scholastic philosophy, as the idea that Being is expressed in either one or several senses, and as belonging to a longstanding framework that helps demarcate the differences, nuanced yet significant, among members of the extraordinary generation of French intellectuals of which Klossowski was a part. Thus, these terms, apart from their theological and philosophical import, will serve as a heuristic for renarrating points of filiation and divergence among a series of prominent French thinkers, primarily Bataille, Klossowski, and Deleuze, but also extending backward to Sartre and forward to Badiou to frame the series. I will approach this in segmented fashion, first opposing Bataille's dialectic of transgression to Klossowski's more univocal method of disjunctive synthesis. When juxtaposed with Deleuze's Spinozist affirmation of univocity, however, Klossowski would seem to be more on the side of the equivocal. Whereas Deleuze criticizes the realm between the univocal and the equivocal as the lukewarm space of the analogical, my contention is that this middle realm allows for a space of movement and reversal that escapes the pitfalls Deleuze locates in the dialectic, and does so without a strict adherence to Spinozist univocity. Whereas Bataille and Deleuze remain closer to Klossowski in the tenor of their thought, I will nonetheless suggest in conclusion that Sartre and Badiou are actually closer to Klossowski on a formal level, in that each poses a similarly analogical challenge to the thought of the dialectic. For many reasons Bataille and Klossowski can be paired together. They were contemporaries, both born around the turn of the century, both writing in a variety of literary and philosophical genres, including pornographic or semi-pornographic fiction, and working outside the academy. Both wrote studies of Nietzsche, of Sade, and radical economic treatises. They were friends and fellow members in the late 1930s of the College of Sociology, which was modeled after a secret society, the members taking great interest in such topics as sacrifice and headlessness. Bataille and Klossowski wrote about each other. Both were at different points obsessed with Roman Catholicism, both at different points prepared to enter monastic orders, both in different fashions fell away. As might easily be imagined, their fiction is an outrageous mixture of the sacred and the profane, including sexual encounters and other desecrations staged at church alters and the like. Both work in that realm where pornography and theology come together. Yet while the more familiar Bataille uses pornography toward transgressive aims, the lesser-known Klossowski uses a more nuanced and interesting mechanism of boredom to elaborate an intrinsically disjunctive structure. Even boredom, for Bataille, partakes of the transgressive. In his novella The Story of the Eye, the narrator describes offhandedly how he and his companion Simone have just found their friend Marcelle's body. She has hung herself. The narrator and Simone

Letter from the Himalayas

Sonal Singh's description of an elderly woman receiving excellent care at so little expense illustrates one of the wonderful things about living in Kathmandu. The city is truly a different world from the remote valleys on the other side of the mountain ridge that surrounds the Kathmandu Valley. Yet

Mikhail Gromov: Chekhov Scholar and Critic. An Essay in Cultural Difference by Patrick Miles (review)

MLR, 99.3, 2004 847 in English, which is how Hinrich Siefken quotes Schlink in his introduction. Tom Paulin strikes exactly the right note in his preface: 'Keith Spalding crossed borders, had a narrow escape, and landed in this country as a refugee. He sought and was given asylum, and enriched the culture by his teaching, writing and giftfor friendship.' Attractively produced with a beautiful cover, these 'essays of discovery' include a drawing of Keith Spalding by Siegbert Prawer and photographs ofthe younger Keith Spalding with champagne glass in hand instead of his beloved pipe, celebrating the completion of the Langenscheidt encyclopaedic dictionary. Altogether this is a fitting tribute to a remarkable scholar and much-loved colleague and friend. Institute of Germanic Studies, London J.M. Ritchie Mikhail Gromov: Chekhov Scholar and Critic. An Essay in Cultural Difference By PatrickMiles. Nottingham: Astra Press. 2003. ?16. viii+i2opp. ISBN 0946134 -68-5. Mikhail Gromov was a very decent man and critic, one of those Soviet scholars who in the 1960s to 1980s steered a difficultcourse between conforming to officialideology and saying and writing something of genuine originality and interest. Others in his situation chose to keep their bodies in Moscow and their souls in Tartu, where a concentration on Bakhtinian structural criticism was tolerated since it skirted round, rather than clashed with, the banalities of the Soviet doctrines on the mirror-like relations between literature and reality. British students of Russian literature of this reviewer's and Patrick Miles's generation remember such men as Gromov with some fondness for the risks they took in accepting contact and for their quality?rare in most literarycritics?of concealing farmore knowledge, warmth, and inspiration than they revealed. Nevertheless, Gromov was firstand foremost an editor and biographer of Chekhov, rather than a critic in the sense of someone who give a new reading of a familiar text. Some of his contemporaries, e.g. Vladimir Lakshin, had more original things to say. Certainly, modern Russia, in its apparently brief decade of free speech, has produced surprisingly few critics as thorough and conscientious. Miles's book, at first sight, is an act of piety to the memory of an honest and under-appreciated scholar. He takes Chekhov works set in southern Russia, to which Gromov, as a fellow southerner, responded best?Platonov, Steppe, The Cherry Or? chard?and shows both the limitations and context of Gromov's critiques. In doing so, however, Miles has in fact written his own study of Chekhov, by teasing out of Gromov what a Western critic might have added, and rejecting what a W7esterncritic would have found redundant. He deals gently with Gromov's card-index mentality? a wonderful thing for an editor in the world before computers, but a dangerously deadening quality in a critic determined to find consistency and system in a writer as many-sided as Chekhov. Gromov was convinced by the overlap of images and phrases that Dostoevskii was a key influence on Chekhov, without which The Black Monk is incomprehensible, but as this re-examination shows, Dostoevsky's Adolescent never even spent the night in that orchard. Gromov was not always so easily carried away. His greatest failing in discussing the comedy of The Cherry Orchard was an only too apparent inability to laugh out loud at any point ofthe play. This is excused by Miles as the inevitable consequence of living in a country that 'doesn't like joking'. All in all, this beautifully written and very rich memoir is a stimulating resume of the best and most provocative in Gromov's work, and behind it the author demonstrates that he is a subtle and perceptive Chekhoved himself Queen Mary, University of London Donald Rayfield ...

THE SODOMITIC REPUTATION OF WEIMAR BERLIN

Weimar Berlin became the European city of erotic dreams and moral nightmares. Berlin became the symbol both of the wonderful things that could be achieved if one fought for them and of the terrible things that might happen if one did not fight against them. The openness and proliferation of Berlin's homosexual life was both a promise and a threat. Weimar's legacy was not so much the vengeful righteousness of Nazism as the efficient fervour with which queer Berlin re-established itself and thrived after the war, even at the hostile epicentre of the Cold War.------------------------------------------------------------------------------A reputação sodomita de Weimar BerlinA Berlim da República de Weimar tornou-se a cidade européia, por excelência, dos sonhos eróticos e dos pesadelos morais. Berlim tornou-se o símbolo tanto das coisas maravilhosas que poderiam ser alcançadas se se lutasse por elas, quanto das coisas terríveis que poderiam acontecer se não se lutasse contra elas. A proliferação e a visibilidade da vida homossexual berlinense era tanto uma promessa quanto uma ameaça. O legado de Weimar não foi tanto o moralismo vingativo do Nazismo, quanto o fervor eficaz com o qual a Berlim queer conseguiu se reestabelecer e prosperar depois da guerra, apesar de estar no hostil epicentro da Guerra Fria.---Artigo em inglês

Psychological barriers to labour

One of the wonderful things about The Labour Progress Handbook (Simkin and Ancheta, 2000) is the inclusion of psychological reasons to explain the slowing of labour. The authors' approach is holistic and their solutions are based on empathic, caring responses, supporting physiology and, only as a last resort (at the very bottom of the list), medical interventions like artificial rupture of membranes and syntocinon. Their emphasis on the psychological and emotional when gauging how labour is going increasingly resonates with qualitative research revealing the ‘emotional work’ of labour support. Speaker after speaker at the inspiring 2nd Normal Birth Conference in the Lake District in early June told stories with this focus.

Controversy in Chemistry: What Counts as Evidence?—Two Studies in Molecular Structure

Hindsight is a wonderful thing: Controversies are always difficult to characterize while they are in progress; however, as shown for the cases of stereochemistry and bond‐stretch isomerization, it is much easier once all the evidence has been amassed. These two examples have demonstrated how important it is to consider all the experimental results before coming to a conclusion. The second example shows above all that some evidence is more equal than others—crystal‐structure analysis was considered at all stages to be the most reliable.

Profile of Norman R. Pace

Profile of Norman R. Pace

Begin the Beguines: A Review of Walter Simons' Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200-1565

In the "Prologue" to his Life of Mary of Oignies, James of Vitry (d. 1240) reminds Archbishop Fulk of Toulouse of the wonderful things Fulk had seen on an earlier visit to the diocese of Liège. The centrality of the passage for the early history of the beguine movement warrants its full citation.

Points of View: Should Students Be Encouraged To Publish Their Research in Student-Run Publications?

Points of View: Should Students Be Encouraged To Publish Their Research in Student-Run Publications?

Stop the Technology, I Want to Get Off

Abstract Media selection and acquisition is highly dependent on a number of variables, perhaps the most important of which is changing technologies. New technology is a wonderful and frightening thing, with a high level of impact on media collection development. New technologies can improve sound and visual quality, but can also play havoc with established collections and budgets. Availability of various media formats and titles is a very fluid phenomenon, which poses a unique set of challenges to media librarians and selectors.

Small Is Everlasting

Self-preservation is a wonderful thing, so much so that psychological defenses can operate without our awareness. Gilbert et al. present a trio of studies that lay bare some of these processes. In personal and impersonal behavioral situations, participants were asked to rate the intensity of their dislike for a set of experiences both in the present and the near future, and then asked at that later time to report how they felt. Remarkably, being insulted (via written evaluations) by someone they expected to meet and greet (a partner) was not as distressing as being treated similarly by someone (a nonpartner) they did not expect to see. The explanation of this unusual turn of events relies on the region-β paradox, which posits the activation of a shielding mechanism when a threshold of distress is reached. Thus, the impersonal slight is not sufficiently hurtful, but the personal critique is so devastating as to trigger healing so effective and imperceptible that an event initially thought to be dire is instead shrugged off. The corollary is that the unattended injury persists and can, in time, create a deep and lasting impression. — GJC

A Conversation with Lordes Portillo

[Mesilla, New Mexico, April 5lh, 2003] H.T. We're here, celebrating the Border Book Festival, brainchild of Chicana author Denise Chavez. L.P. Right. H.T. We're here to talk a little bit with Lourdes Portillo, filmmaker. What other kinds of works do you do - do you do any other kind of work besides film? L.P. No, I don't actually. I mean, I do video and installations, like museum installations and that sort of thing. But, you mean like writing? No, no, no. H.T. Film is your focus. L.P. Film has been my career since I was twenty-one years old. H.T. Okay, then, why film, how film, from where film? L.P. You know I was an immigrant to Los Angeles with my family when I was a teenager. And Los Angeles is for film like the way Detroit is for cars. So there's a lot of film jobs and there were a lot of film jobs even then when I was twentyone. And some friends of mine asked me if I wanted to work on making an educational film. I did and it was the first time. Up until that moment I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, so 1 worked in this film as a production assistant. I felt like it was the most natural and wonderful thing that I had ever really done up to that point. I just took to it immediately and felt that it probably was the only way that I was going to be able to have a voice in the culture because I felt like I needed to say somethings. But, I didn't even realize that I had that desire until I saw what it was like to be in film production. H.T. So the coming to film production was a real transformation in your sense of self? L.P. I think so. It was like finding my voice. That's what it was, even though it's a very complex undertaking. It's not a simple thing. It's easier to paint and easier, perhaps, to write. I don't know. I mean, I'm not a writer, but I imagine it's cheaper, in any case. Writing doesn't cost as much as filmmaking. H.T. The technical side of film seems overwhelming and daunting and you seem to have mastered the craft. L.P. Well, I don't know if I've mastered the craft; I've mastered mastering the craftsman. You know? I've mastered working with people and trying to have those people have the same vision-share the vision with me, and have the inspiration and the desire to fulfill that vision. I think I've accomplished that because I've been surrounded by wonderful artists. H.T. In your work with the films that you've produced, does the question of origins interest you? Chicano and Chicana literary production is very much concerned with the question of origins, the question of recovering history. How does this question affect you, if it does? L.P. Oh, yes, it does. Totally. I mean I feel like even though I'm not a writer, my best friends are writers, my son is a writer, my niece is a writer. You know literature is a thing that is very close to me. I feel it deeply in my heart. I don't have the skill. You know, I wasn't born in this country. English is not my first language. Spanish is my first language so I always felt insecure about language. But the Question of origins, I think that I've expressed it very much in my work. It definitely is a preoccupation of mine in a visual way. H.T. You talked about you being an immigrant, English being a second language . . . can I ask...? L.P. . . .Sure, ask anything. H.T. What were the tracks you made? Where was the point of origin and how did you end up in L.A.? L.P. Okay. My family comes from Chihuahua, Chihuahua City for many, many generations, as far as I can see. I mean as far as I've investigated from the 170Os, you know. My family has been in Chihuahua, and, my father's family hasn't been. My father's family was an immigrant from Zacatecas. He came into Chihuahua, met my mother, and married her. He decided that he wanted to immigrate into the United States, otherwise we would have remained in Chihuahua, I'm sure. …

The Tested Woman Plot: Women's Choices, Men's Judgments and the Shaping of Stories by Lois E. Bueler (review)

MLRy 99.1, 2004 151 poetry was a form of knowledge. Nevertheless, Peter Robinson has done wonderful things with Searle's narrow categories. University of Plymouth Alan Munton The Tested Woman Plot: Women's Choices, Men's Judgmentsand theShapingof Stories. By Lois E. Bueler. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. 2001. viii + 312 pp. $50. ISBN 0-8142-0872-x. In this study Lois Bueler argues for the existence and importance of a plot type: the tested-woman story. This concerns not just any woman or any test; it is an archetype that begins in the ancient world and lasts until the twentieth century,when, Bueler argues, the weakening of patriarchy reduces it to a cultural echo, albeit still a resonant one. Tracking this archetype through differenteras and genres, she uses narratology, loosely inflected by structuralism, to identify the functions of this plot and the characters who are its vehicle. Historicism explains differences between eras: so Bueler argues that sensibility in the late eighteenth century requires characters to develop their own moral agency in response to a declining patriarchal authority; hence women's choices are less dependent on men's judgements, which is why Fanny Price's struggles to maintain her integrity are lonely, silent, and interior ones, and manifested in free indirect style. Bueler's premiss poses methodological problems for everyone?what is the relationship between culture and literary form? Can you write a book about what you see as a transhistorical literary phenomenon without oversimplifying the twin history of ideas and forms which that literary phenomenon expresses? There are few models for this, as the author observes: we do not know in much depth how literary plots work across periods and genres, and perhaps one has to start with breadth, which this book certainly supplies. Bueler offersa balancing act in which she combines attention to context with read? ings of texts meant to exemplify cultural tendencies and changes. Whether you think this works depends on your predilection for lucid summaries of orthodox ideas and your approval ofthe texts selected. Some less obvious choices, like Charles Johnson's play Caelia (1732), contrast imaginatively with the largely canonical field. Bueler is more specific about patriarchy as ideology than practice?Filmer's Patriarcha does its usual star turn as a repository of ideas about male authority in overlapping domestic and political institutions?yet in her readings of texts she shows a sensitivity to genre that helps explain the functions and nuances of tested-women plots as they differ between classical, biblical, medieval, Renaissance, neo-classical, Enlightenment, and nineteenth-century stories. Against that generic diversity, she puts an insistence that tested-women plots are actually as much about men as women. Women's choices, especially their sexual choices, appear to be the substance ofthe tested-woman plot, but Bueler sees the point as being much more to dramatize competition between men. She is alert to the functions of fathers and brothers, tempters and seducers, and how they are consonant with patriarchal ideas of hierarchy and authority available to the authors discussed. Her range of texts offerssomething to everyone: from Euripides' Iphigenia inAulis to William Trevor's Felicia }sJourney,with special attention given to works by John Ford and Samuel Richardson. How farwomen writers adopted rather than adapted the tested-woman plot is discussed with reference to novels by Austen, Eliot, and Gaskell, though were iiterary' to be defined more widely, there would be plenty of other and earlier comparisons to make. One misses a sense of ideological contestation through literature, and given how important these stories make trial set? tings, evidence, judgement, and punishment, a nod to juridical thought would have been helpful. Yet the continuities are thought-provoking?echoes of Milton's take on 152 Reviews the tested woman, Eve, turn up in Adam Bede?and Bueler's readings refresh one's sense of how archetypes operate in historical moments. More importantly, she wants to explain why. The challenges of such a project make this book as interesting as its success in meeting them. King's College London Clare Brant The Heege Manuscript: A Facsimile of National Library of Scotland MS Advocates ig.j.i. Intro. by Phillipa Hardman. (Leeds Texts and...

Obituary

Joseph F. Russo In early August, 2003, at the age of 56, our friend, Joseph F. Russo, left us. The illness that took him was indeed difficult and painful, but as I visited with him towards the end, I must tell you that he was managing brilliantly. He was a man of many unknowns, wonderful qualities. Those of us at NASPAG who knew him noted that he was a sensitive and caring individual. I suppose it would be in order for me to discuss all the wonderful things he did in medicine—and he did do wonderful things. When it wasn't considered appropriate to be interested in adolescent obstetrics and gynecology in the early 1970's, you look at the presentations he made. They all concerned the problems of the adolescent. He was prescient, in that he noted that the adolescent of the mid-70's was not the same adolescent that grew up prior to World War II. These adolescents had problems that related to their own sexuality. In 1978, Joe wrote an article entitled, “Adolescent Contraception,” and in 1979 he wrote a chapter entitled “Teenage Pregnancy, New Techniques and Concepts in Maternal and Fetal Medicine,”—he really was one of the pioneers in the practice of pediatric and adolescent gynecology—and he noted, in the publications that he produced, that this area of special interest was not necessarily a surgical specialty, but rather a medical specialty. Joe was a wonderful administrator, which gave him the opportunity to become active in developing programs with the many institutions he was affiliated with during his career. In addition to his most recent position, as Director of the Division of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the UCLA School of Medicine, he also took on the responsibility of the Director of Medical Student Education, Director of Resident Education, and was the Director of Women's Health Care Services at Armstrong County Memorial Hospital. Prior to moving to California, he had been chairman of the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Western Pennsylvania Hospital in Pittsburgh. He held that position for more than a decade. However, these positions are not the sum of the whole man—he was also a caring father and a loving husband. As he became ill in the last few years, he had a wonderful companion who shared in his care. Joe leaves behind a legacy of love and devotion to the care of the adolescent patient. For the past decade he had served as treasurer of NASPAG. In this capacity he kept the organization fiscally sound and on the path to growth. Although he was often quiet at Board Meetings, when he had something meaningful to say his voice came through loud and clear. I found Joe to be a warm and good friend not to me alone, but to all NASPAG members. Joe, have a great journey–may it be restful and full of peace.

Is it all about choice?

Choice, colleagues, choice; the future health agenda according to Health Secretary Dr John Reid is all about choice. Choice can be a wonderful thing, particularly if you are eating in a splendid restaurant or buying a new dress, but we need to discuss the merits and the difficulties regarding choice in the provision of health services. Some people have suggested that the choice agenda smacks of pandering to a group of highly articulate people who are quite capable of using the system well and looking after themselves (and yes, I am one of them). Those who are more on the side of improved public health and reduced health inequalities fear that these critical issues may conveniently get forgotten when it is full speed ahead towards more choice for relatively healthy people, who occasionally require fixing.

What Use is a Policy Cycle? Plenty, if the Aim is Clear

What use is a policy cycle? Plenty, if the aim is to help public servants make sense of the policy task. Setting out a sequence of steps to turn ideas into Cabinet recommendations can provide structure in the otherwise dizzying world of policy‐making. It would be a mistake, though, to see a policy cycle as other than a first step, a guide amid complexity. To read the policy cycle as rationalism revived is to misjudge both form and intent.Debate is a wonderful thing, and we are pleased the policy cycle described in The Australian Policy Handbook (Bridgman and Davis 2000) has stimulated a response. Although we believe a critique in the June issue of the Australian Journal of Public Administration (Everett 2003) is misguided, it invites reflection on the purpose ‐ and limitations ‐ of a policy cycle approach.

Australian stories of tax and fairness: a feminist reading of Peter Carey's The Tax Inspector

It was Alistair who said, on national television, that being a Tax Officer was the most pleasant work imaginable, like turning on a tap to bring water to parched country. It felt wonderful to bring money flowing out of multi-national reservoirs into child-care centres and hospitals and social services. He grinned when he said it and his creased-up handsome face creased up some more and he cupped his hands as if cool river water were flowing over his big, farmer's fingers and it was hard to watch him and not smile yourself.… He sold taxation as a public good.It can be seen as a rather perverse notion but I happen to think it's an attractive one: the idea of redistributing wealth. So I'm a writer, and I should be able to make it attractive to the reader. OK, so none of us like paying taxes, but I thought I could at least make readers consider the idea that tax might be a wonderful thing. That's a challenge, of course, an amusing one, so I enjoyed trying. Did I fail or succeed? My opinion varies every time I think about it.

:Piracy, Slavery, and Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England

List of IllustrationsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsNote on Editorial MethodIntroduction: England and Mediterranean Captivity, 1577--17041. John Fox, Worthy Enterprise of John Fox, in Delivering 266 Christians Out of the Captivity of the Turks, in Richard Hakluyt, AeMDUL Principal NavigationsAeMDNM (1589)2. Richard Hasleton, Strange and Wonderful Things Happened to Richard Hasleton... in His Ten Years' Travails in Many Foreign Countries (1595)3. John Rawlins, The Famous and Wonderful Recovery of a Ship of Bristol, Called the Exchange, from the Pirates of Argier (1622)4. News from Sally of a Strange Delivery of Four English Captives from the Slavery of the Turks(1642)5. William Okeley, Ebenezer or, A Small Monument of Great Mercy, Appearing in the Miraculous Deliverance of William Okeley (1675)6. Thomas Phelps, True Account of the Captivity of Thomas Phelps(1685)7. Joseph Pitts, True and Faithful Account of the Religion and Manners of the Mohammetans, with an Account of the Author's Being Taken Captive (1704)AppendixesAppendix 1. Two BalladsThe Algerian Slave's Releasement or, The Unchangeable BoatswainThe Lamentable Cries of at Least 1,500 Christians (Now Prisoners in Algiers Under the Turks)Appendix 2. Letters from Captives to Their Families in EnglandSamuel Harres to His Father (1610)Robert Adams to Captain Robert Adams (1625)Thomas Sweet and Richard Robinson (1647)Appendix 3. Letter and Depositions Describing Turkish Corsair Raids on the West Country Sent by Thomas Ceely to the Privy Council (1625)Letter to the Privy CouncilDeposition of William KnightDeposition of William DraperDeposition of William CourtAppendix 4. Petition Sent by English Captives in Morocco to King Charles I (1632)Appendix 5. Laudian Rite for Returned Renegades (1637)Appendix 6. Parliamentary Ordinance for Collections to Be Made for the Relief of Captives in Algiers (Issued April 25, 1643)Appendix 7. Letter from Philip Lloyd, the English Factor in Tunis, to King Charles II (1680)Bibliography of English Captivity Narratives from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

‘The calotype’

There are some two or three slight advantages which real merit has, that fictitious merit has not; among the rest, an especial advantage, which, we think, should recommend it to at least the quieter members of society — the advantage of being unobtrusive and modest. It presses itself much less on public notice than its vagabond antagonist, and makes much less noise; it walks, for a time at least, as if slippered in felt, and leaves the lieges quite at freedom to take notice of it or no, as they may feel inclined. It is content, in its infancy, to thrive in silence. It does not squall in the nursery, to the disturbance of the whole house, like ‘the major roaring for his porridge’. What, for instance, could be quieter or more modest, in its first stages, than the invention of James Watt? What more obtrusive and noisy, on the contrary, than the invention of Mr Henson? And we have illustrations of the same truth in our Scottish metropolis at the present moment that seem in no degree less striking. Phrenomesmerism and the calotype have been introduced to the Edinburgh public at much the same time; but how differently have they fared hitherto! A real invention, which bids fair to produce some of the greatest revolutions in the fine arts of which they have ever been the subject, has as yet attracted comparatively little notice; an invention which serves but to demonstrate that the present age, with all its boasted enlightenment, may yet not be very unfitted for the reception of superstitions the most irrational and gross, is largely occupying the attention of the community and filling column after column in our public prints. We shall venture to take up the quieter invention of the two as the genuine one — as the invention that will occupy the most space a century hence — and direct the attention of our readers to some of the more striking phenomena which it illustrates and some of the purposes which it may be yet made to subserve. There are few lovers of art who have looked on the figures or landscapes of a camera obscura without forming the wish that, among the hidden secrets of matter, some means might be discovered for fixing and rendering them permanent. If nature could be made her own limner, if by some magic art the reflection could be fixed upon the mirror, could the picture be other than true? But the wish must have seemed an idle one — a wish of nearly the same cast as those which all remember to have formed at one happy period of life, in connection with the famous cap and purse of the fairy tale. Could aught seem less probable than that the forms of the external world should be made to convert the pencils of light which they emit into real bona fide pencils, and commence taking their own likenesses? Improbable as the thing may have seemed, however, there were powers in nature of potency enough to effect it, and the newly discovered art of the photographer is simply the art of employing these. The figures and landscapes of the camera obscura can now be fixed and rendered permanent — not yet in all their various shades of colour, but in a style scarcely less striking, and to which the limner, as if by anticipation, has already had recourse. The connoisseur unacquainted with the results of the recent discovery would decide, if shown a set of photographic impressions, that he had before him the carefully finished drawings in sepia of some great master. The stronger lights, as in sketches done in this colour, present merely the white ground of the paper; a tinge of soft warm brown indicates the lights of lower tone; a deeper and still deeper tinge succeeds, shading by scarce perceptible degrees through all the various gradations, until the darker shades concentrate into an opaque and dingy umber that almost rivals black in its intensity. We have at the present moment before us — and very wonderful things they certainly are — drawings on which a human pencil was never employed. They are strangely suggestive of the capabilities of the art.

‘Wonderful Things From 400 Years of Collecting: The Bodleian Library 1602-2002’, Bodleian Exhibition Room,July-December 2002

‘Wonderful Things From 400 Years of Collecting: The Bodleian Library 1602-2002’, Bodleian Exhibition Room,July-December 2002