text:
What Would Jesus Do to Nazi War Criminals?
Sometimes we should read about, and ponder, questions that make us uncomfortable.
By John Zmirak Published on January 3, 2017 •
Are you looking for a book that will change your life?
No, neither am I. I'm tempted like everyone else to find instead erudite and witty titles that confirm what I already think. But since (as I've learned) it turns out that such a reading plan was the exact one that Hitler followed, I've had to reconsider it.
Now, I'm not suggesting you start the New Year by running out and buying some radical feminist manifesto — except the really crackpot ones that are good for a laugh, and are fun to read aloud to friends over pints and pretzels. See nun-turned-witch Mary Daly's Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, and Valeria Solanas' Society for Cutting Up Men (SCUM) Manifesto. Those are a lot of fun.
Read Something that Makes You Uncomfortable
No, instead I'd like to suggest you find a book that takes a sane and wholesome, even spiritual view of a deeply uncomfortable subject. So you will look with the eyes of reason and faith, but at something you'd rather not think about. Consider the topics that make you just want to turn away and switch on the television, or spend an hour "evangelizing" on Twitter.
It might be global poverty, aggressive Islam, abortion, the collapse into doctrinal mish-mash of a church you've always loved, or some other ugly subject. Consider whether your aversion might be a sign that you really do need to give this topic (whatever it is) some hours of your attention. Perhaps there is something you really are called to do, in your own small way, to make things better. Maybe it's just important that you be better informed on it as a voter, parent, or general purpose Christian.
Recently I hunkered down to tackle a deeply disquieting subject: The nexus point of cheap grace, repentance and genocide. They all come together in Tim Townsend's fascinating, carefully researched book Mission at Nuremburg. It tells the story of Henry Gerecke, a good-hearted Lutheran pastor who became an army chaplain during the Second World War, and got assigned to pastor some of the worst human beings on earth: the Nazi defendants at the Nuremburg war crimes trials. It wasn't Reinhold Niebuhr or Karl Barth whom the American military authorities chose to interview and counsel these architects of aggressive war, eugenics programs and large scale genocide. It was an ordinary, middlingly-educated Lutheran minister from St. Louis. Most of his previous experience was with small-town Midwestern German-American farmers, and urban missions to the homeless — with some time spent in U.S. prisons ministering to run-of-the-mill criminals.
Alongside equally ordinary Catholic chaplain Rev. Sixtus O'Connor — a humble Franciscan philosophy teacher from upstate New York — Gerecke was the man whom Providence placed in the cells that held Albert Speer, Heinrich Himmler, Julius Streicher, and the top Nazi generals who survived the collapse of the Reich. Their task? From the perspective of the U.S. military which dispatched them, it was to comply with the terms of the Geneva Convention by providing prisoners with access to religious counseling and services. But Gerecke knew that much more was asked of him than that. It was his job to confront men who had risen to the top of the world — gained wealth and fame and the power of life and death over millions — by discarding the Christian vision of human dignity, in favor of a pagan fetish of a single race and nation.
Treading the Tightrope Between Judgmentalism and Cheap Grace
He had to hold them accountable for their crimes, the fruits of which he'd witnessed on visits to the bloodstained cells of Dachau, where countless clergy and political prisoners had been brutalized, starved and shot. He had to be on guard against a cheap, last minute "repentance" on the part of these conquered Nazis, embraced for the sake of leniency in sentencing — or even worse, as a cynical means of evading their guilt before the fearsome judgment seat of Christ (which is, when you think about it, also a ploy for leniency in sentencing).
But Gerecke also knew that he had to minister to these men with all sincerity, to offer them if possible the chance to reclaim the Christian faith of their youth, and accept the Grace of forgiveness that Christ offers to all — even the worst of men, if they will accept it.
Townsend depicts with power and spiritual sensitivity Gerecke's attempts to discern how sincere each war criminal is in his belated approach to the Gospel, in the shadow of the gallows.
Townsend depicts with power and spiritual sensitivity Gerecke's attempts to discern how sincere each war criminal is in his belated approach to the Gospel, pursed under the shadow of the gallows that would claim all but a few of them. The story also highlights how spiritually beneficial capital punishment can be — in that it forces such criminals to confront the inevitability of judgment, and starkly underlines the sanctity of innocent life, by imposing the ultimate earthly penalty for profaning it. How much less likely such habitually arrogant, ideologically self-poisoned men would be to repent if instead of facing the hangman they were sitting comfortably in prison, reading fan letters from neo-Nazis around the world.
Holy Communion for Hermann Goering?
The most powerful scene in the book is Gerecke's last interview with Hermann Goering — the most comprehensibly human among the leading Nazi criminals. Here was a man motivated not by an almost psychotic hatred of Jews — as Streicher, for instance, was.
Instead, he had lived in the grips of deadly sins such as gluttony, vainglory, and greed, stuffing his belly with the finest foods till the end of the war and hoarding stolen works of art. He didn't detest Christianity as a Jewish plot to undermine Aryan vigor, as Baldur von Schirach had. Instead, Goering treated the Gospel with a modern, world-weary shrug, as a fable designed to console women and children.
It's with that blasé, self-serving attitude that Hermann Goering asks Gerecke to administer him Communion. As a registered member of the Lutheran church, he claims that he is entitled to it. And he thinks it couldn't do him any harm. It might even do him some good in case — you know, all that redemption business turns out to be true after all.
Gerecke agonizes over this, but finally sees that he must deny him. Communion given to the unrepentant is not an opportunity of grace, he remembers, but a sin of sacrilege. Rather than heap yet another sin on Goering's impressive record, he gently shakes his head but firmly refuses. He is appalled, but not quite surprised, when Goering's pride drives him to suicide to avoid the shame of the gallows.
At a time when my own Catholic church is agonizing over the question of Communion for those living in sexually active, non-sacramental relationships, I wish that a clear ray of Lutheran light from Nuremburg could shine on certain quarters in Rome.
'Love Your Enemies' Doesn't Mean 'Bless Your Heart!' Or Even 'Thank You Sir, May I Have Another!'


text:
7 Famous Leaders Who Prove Introverts Can Be Wildly Successful
From President Obama to Mark Zuckerberg, some of these industry movers and shakers will surprise you.
By Samantha Cole 5 minute Read
Who says introverts are shrinking violets who lack social skills?
These seven leaders in politics, business, and tech are among some of the most influential people of our time, proving that you don't have to be the loudest voice in the room to be heard.
Being commander-in-chief seems like an introvert's worst nightmare. But even though President Obama has caught criticism for his aloof personality, he's leveraged introvert's natural capacity for thoughtful communication.
Even though it's a different style than many on Capitol Hill, introspection and introversion has its advantages that extroversion can't compete with. As columnist David Brooks puts it, "Being led by Barack Obama is like being trumpeted into battle by Miles Davis. He makes you want to sit down and discern."
"I don't think he doesn't like people. I know he doesn't like people. He's not an extrovert; he's an introvert," said political journalist John Heilemann. "I've known the guy since 1988. He's not someone who has a wide circle of friends. He's not a backslapper and he's not an arm-twister. He's a more or less solitary figure who has extraordinary communicative capacities."
The Yahoo CEO has seen a lot of media attention lately, but she insists that the spotlight is not her style. "Mayer often 'talks about how she is naturally shy and introverted,' and yet modern media ignores it and paints her as an extrovert instead," according to Elle magazine, in their own list of introverted female leaders.
While her introverted personality may make her want to run and hide at parties, she's successful in part because she forces herself to stay in situations that may make her uncomfortable at first. In her interview with Vogue, she reveals how making it look easy is hard work:
She suffers from shyness, she says, and has had to discipline herself to deal with it. For the first 15 minutes she wants to leave any party, including one in her own home. "I will literally look at my watch and say, 'You can't leave until time X,'" she says. "'And if you're still having a terrible time at time X, you can leave.'" She has learned that if she makes herself stay for a fixed period, she often gets over her social awkwardness and ends up having fun.
If there's question of whether introverts can be world-class successes, the business magnate is "a classic example of an introvert taking careful, well-calibrated risks," says Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts. The noise of a trading floor is a thrill for extroverts, but introverts take more calculated risks.
Buffett said in a 2004 Berkshire Hathaway letter to investors:
"Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful."
Stepping in recent years out of the shadow of her presidential, boisterous husband, she's has met criticism for being an overly guarded public figure.
"People assume that everything she does has some core meaning that has implications for her potential presidency or her character," writes Michael Melcher. "But sometimes Hillary is just being an introvert, and that's that."
Like President Obama, Clinton's private nature helps her deal with media and political storms carefully, instead of impulsively. From the New York Times:
Invoking a mantra attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, Mrs. Clinton likes to say that women in politics "need to develop skin as tough as a rhinoceros hide… I joke that I have the scars to show from my experiences," she said in an interview. "But you know, our scars are part of us, and they are a reminder of the experiences we've gone through, and our history. I am constantly making sure that the rhinoceros skin still breathes. And that's a challenge that all of us face. But again, not all of us have to live it out in public."
You might not expect the founder of the social network to be reserved, but Zuckerberg is a classic introvert. "He is shy and introverted and he often does not seem very warm to people who don't know him, but he is warm," Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told the New York Times. She has offered social and political guidance to balance to Zuck's less-charismatic personality. "He really cares about the people who work here."
It's collaborative, genuine connections that make him a persuasive CEO, rather than keeping a wide swath of people under his thumb, are examples of how introverts are valuable employees–and great leaders. From Fast Company's July/August cover story:
The fact that Zuckerberg can more often than not persuade startup founders to join the company and work with him is a vote for the glass-half-full perspective. "What I found compelling was Mark's commitment to spending a lot of time with us," says Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe.
The "Godfather of Silicon Valley" and chief evangelist of Canva, Kawasaki looks the picture of extroversion–even giving talks on enchantment–but he's a self-proclaimed introvert.
Like others on this list, the spotlight role he's in is just part of the job. Kawasaki told Cain: "I look upon many of my activities as a role thrust upon me–not 'me' per se. It's like being an actor–you don't have to be an axe murderer to play an axe murderer. And when the role is over, it's over."
The world's richest man, Microsoft founder, and philanthropist is a little bit of both–he can be at turns "quiet and bookish," or fiercely un-shy, says Cain, who pegs him as an introvert. But he's outspoken and unphased when it comes down to business–typical of introverts, to hold to their passions tenaciously.
"Bill brings to the company the idea that conflict can be a good thing," says Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO in the Time biography . "Bill knows it's important to avoid that gentle civility that keeps you from getting to the heart of an issue quickly. He likes it when anyone, even a junior employee, challenges him, and you know he respects you when he starts shouting back."
The value of solitude and deep focus isn't lost on him. Gates said in a speaking engagement last year:
I think introverts can do quite well. If you're clever you can learn to get the benefits of being an introvert, which might be, say, being willing to go off for a few days and think about a tough problem, read everything you can, push yourself very hard to think out on the edge of that area.
Freelance tech, science and culture writer. Find Sam on the Internet: @samleecole.
Leadership Daily Newsletter

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
VC Survey 2022
Photo: Qumra Capital
"Now is a great time to invest and even greater time for contrarian investments"
Qumra Capital Managing Partner Erez Shachar has joined CTech to look at the 2023 investment space
Elihay Vidal, James Spiro
"I think that like the crises of 2000 and 2008, it is now a great time to invest and even greater times for contrarian investments," said Qumra Capital Managing Partner Erez Shachar. "In the 2000 crisis, for three years, no one was willing to invest in the internet sector. During the dot com crash, many online shopping and internet companies failed and shut."
He continued: "The post-dot.com bubble cohort of internet companies became the largest winners still today. As growth in the technology sector stabilized, companies consolidated; some, such as Amazon, eBay, and Google gained market share and came to dominate their respective fields."
Qumra Capital has invested in a variety of companies, such as JFrogg, Fiverr, AppsFlyer, and MinuteMedia. "The largest losing sectors of the current bubble burst (mainly in sectors like blockchain, crypto, fintech, digital health, etc) can eventually become the biggest winners of tomorrow."
Read every interview in our ongoing project
Qumra Capital Partners
(Photo: Qumra Capital )
Name of fund/funds: Qumra Capital Total sum of fund: $800M Partners: Erez Shachar (Managing partner), Boaz Dinte (Managing partner), Sivan Shamri Dahan (Managing partner), Sharon Barzik Cohen (Partner and CFO). Notable/select portfolio companies: JFrogg, Fiverr, AppsFlyer, Riskified, Simply, Augury, MinuteMedia, At-Bay, Aquant, Ermetic, Tytocare, ConnecTeam, Datarails
Shachar joined CTech for its 2022 VC Survey to share insights about the industry and predictions for the year ahead.
If 2020 was the year of the pandemic, and 2021 was the year of records, how would you define 2022 in the VC sector?
The year of rationalization. If 2000 was the dot.com bubble, and 2008 saw the subprime crisis, 2021 was the "Unicorn" bubble. Each bubble is different in what drives the valuation inflations, but the burst of bubbles is actually very similar. I call the 2021 bubble the "Unicorn bubble", as the real inflation in company valuations occurred in the private markets. Yes, public market valuations were inflated as well, but the amount of capital that was directed to the private markets was unprecedented, hence the absurd number of Unicorns created in 2020 and 2021.
The rising interest rates, soaring inflation, fear of recession, and geopolitical instability, are the trigger that burst this last bubble. We have seen the two previous market downturns, in 2001 and 2008, and they look very similar to 2022. Initially, there is a shock to the market, little deals are happening, and there is a big valuation gap between public and private companies, but over time, a year to 18 months, this gap closes, expectations of sellers and buyers are reset, and there is a rationalization of expectations and investment discipline. These are the best times to build innovative new companies, which are built on sound unit economics and execution discipline. Capital availability at zero cost is never healthy for building good businesses.
Who are the big winners of 2022 and why?
Funds that managed to raise capital and ensure they have the capital to invest in this very attractive market, companies that closed growth investments after the downturn, and companies that were able to create a path to profitability on their existing cash reserves. The next 2-3 years are going to be challenging, companies with cash reserves and companies who can demonstrate operational leverage that will bring them to profitability will be able to raise capital and will make it through to the other side. Companies that will not be able to do that will have a much harder time raising capital.
Who are the big losers of 2022 and why?
Non-venture investors that joined the venture party only in 2020-2021 as well as Non-traditional venture investors that started to operate in the venture market during 2020-2021.
What do you expect in the VC sector in 2023?
One should challenge the assumption that there is a large amount of dry powder available. Many of the mega funds that announced funding rounds closing in 2022 have allocated most of the funds prior to the announcement. What is left will be used to support existing portfolios.
I expect 2023 to be one of the best venture vintages in recent history. Funds that have dry powder to allocate will be able to assemble a great portfolio with outstanding, strong companies. Founders that have the courage to start new businesses in 2023 will have the opportunity to have access to smart capital, a growing and rational pool of talent, and a much less competitive environment.
New funds will be raised in smaller amounts. Qumra will continue to invest, these times are great for investments. The key to success for growth-stage venture capital firms lies in their ability to select companies with top-class teams, great product-market fit, and a proven go-to-market motion that could scale profitably. In general, a slow economy is a natural accelerator for screening companies, The Darwinian selection process is a very powerful one.
What global processes will affect (positively and negatively) the Israeli market?
Obviously, everything that was mentioned will affect the Israeli market. The local markets are affected by global trends and events. To that, we must add the current changes in local politics which can significantly influence the Israeli ecosystem, if local policies in sensitive areas will change for the worse, it will impact the Israeli market dramatically, and not in a good way.
How should different companies prepare for the coming year?
Large companies must work on strengthening their profitability, continue to generate cash, and optimize their unit economics. Recruitment should be done wisely and efficiently. Companies need to evaluate who and what positions are truly required, this applies to all companies. Medium-size companies should be stable and show a rapid path to profitability. In terms of penetrating new markets and sales, there is no right or wrong, it is very company specific. Early-stage companies are required to grow towards the next funding round while proving Product market fit while showing converging unit economics.
What will be of the dozens of unicorns born last year?
In 2019 in our fund presentations, we focused on companies reaching $100 million ARR as the key KPI to the success of companies rather than their unicorn status. Recently, the term Centaur was coined to describe these companies. Companies that got to a unicorn status while also being centaurs are going to be in pretty good shape going forward and are probably going to "grow into" their valuation. Companies that were crowned as unicorns with revenues in the low double digits will have a much harder time justifying their previous valuations and will have a harder time in their subsequent rounds.
What sectors will experience an acceleration in VC investment and which will suffer a slowdown - and why?
SaaS B2B companies are in a good position as IT spending is continuing to grow through recessionary environments. The consolidation of SaaS sectors is inevitable as the number of vendors selling to organizations will decrease and smaller businesses will be consumed by larger businesses. AI and ML are going to continue to grow and dominate IT spending. Technologies that are transforming the way entire industries operate or consume will flourish during times of recessions. This is the best time to build large companies. Some of these we will see in the food tech, aggrotech, and supply chain-related sectors.
HR: Do the layoffs, those that have already happened and those that are coming, help to fix in any way the distress experienced by companies over the past 2-3 years?
Layoffs helped and will help to fix the distress we witness among almost all companies. Too much fat is not healthy for a startup, and this is the time to go back to what we excel in as an industry – super-efficient operations and cutting-edge technologies. Israel still has a shortage of tech talent, but we are getting back to the days of rational employment, we will see stability and normalization of compensation and incentives. The current economy affects workforce behavior and productivity is improving.
Datarails, ConnecTeam, Qumra Capital's notable portfolio companies
Datarails: Datarails is a financial planning and analysis platform (FP&A) that automates data consolidation, reporting, and planning while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Automating these time-consuming manual processes paves the way for finance teams to spend more time analyzing data and less time gathering it.
Founders: Didi Gurfinkel, Eyal Cohen, Oded Har-Tal Founding year: 2015 Number of employees: 200
Explanation behind investment: DataRails built an automated, cloud-based platform for financial professionals that enables the collection, reporting, analysis, and collaboration of data with ease. With the notion that excel is being used today by practically every finance person worldwide, DataRails has developed unique, proprietary capabilities to transform them into database-like configurations. With this unique set-up, DataRails enables many customers for the first time to upload all financial data to the cloud, providing continuous agility and enabling content sharing and collaboration. DataRails in essence transforms the way financial teams in small to mid-size organizations operate as they can now automate processes to become the company's de facto BI platform. DataRails is selling to SMBs– a huge unserved market. Globally, there are 2.8 million SMB and mid-size organizations, creating a huge addressable market for DataRails to grab. The company grows extremely fast over 250% YOY which indicates the strong product market go-to-market fit. Datarails' founding team is strong and experienced driving the company to be a natural market leader.
ConnecTeam: ConnecTeam is a workforce management app for non-desk employees that allows managers to put their business processes on autopilot and focus on business growth while also freeing up employees to be more productive, flexible, and happy. ConnecTeam develops a mobile business optimization service designed to help businesses create their own mobile apps for managing their staff. The company's system integrates with an online platform to create mobile training manuals, establish communication between management teams and employees, and assist executives with the monitoring and management of their remote employees.
Founders: Amir Nehemia, Daniel Nuriel, Yonatan Nuriel Founding year: 2016 Number of employees: 240
Explanation behind investment: Connecteam developed a mobile-first, SMB-focused SaaS solution for deskless employees. ConnecTeam is an "all-in-one" app that allows users to manage, communicate, engage, operate and train deskless employees easily and effectively through their own mobile devices. Deskless employees comprise 80% of the global workforce today, estimated at 2.7 billion people who do not have access to corporate email or PC. The deskless workforce market is aimed at technological disruption that will create a better way to manage, communicate, engage, train, and oversee operational execution.
ConnecTeam is led by an extremely talented executive team with previous high-tech/startup experience. The company has a very strong execution in a real PLG model growing more than 200% YOY growth. We highly believe in it leading a significant global category.


Hire Equipment from STEM Reactor so students can have real laboratory experiences in their own classrooms. Schools will have access to equipment without needing to own it yourselves.
Currently only available in NSW, schools that hire equipment will have use for 1 week. Kits and reagents for the experiments are at additional cost. The cost - $110 + gst - includes shipping to the school and the following items.


text:
[This is taken from Leslie Stephens' Hours in a Library.]
The most obvious fact about Hawthorne is that he gave one solution of the problem what elements of romance are discoverable amongst the harsh prose of this prosaic age. How is the novelist who, by the inevitable conditions of his style, is bound to come into the closest possible contact with facts, who has to give us the details of his hero's clothes, to tell us what he had for breakfast, and what is the state of the balance at his banker's—how is he to introduce the ideal element which must, in some degree, be present in all genuine art? What precisely is meant by 'ideal' is a question which for the moment I pretermit. Anyhow a mere photographic reproduction of this muddy, money-making, bread-and-butter-eating world would be intolerable. At the very lowest, some effort must be made at least to select the most promising materials, and to strain out the coarse or the simply prosaic ingredients. Various attempts have been made to solve the problem since De Foe founded the modern school of English novelists, by giving us what is in one sense a servile imitation of genuine narrative, but which is redeemed from prose by the unique force of the situation. De Foe painting mere everyday pots and pans is as dull as a modern blue-book; but when his pots and pans are the resource by which a human being struggles out of the most appalling conceivable 'slough of despond,' they become more poetical than the vessels from which the gods drink nectar in epic poems.
Since he wrote, novelists have made many voyages of discovery, with varying success, though they have seldom had the fortune to touch upon so marvellous an island as that still sacred to the immortal Crusoe. They have ventured far into cloud-land, and, returning to terra firma, they have plunged into the trackless and savage-haunted regions which are girdled by the Metropolitan Railway. They have watched the magic coruscations of some strange 'Aurora Borealis' of dim romance, or been content with the domestic gaslight of London streets. Amongst the most celebrated of all such adventurers were the band which obeyed the impulse of Sir Walter Scott. For a time it seemed that we had reached a genuine Eldorado of novelists, where solid gold was to be had for the asking, and visions of more than earthly beauty rewarded the labours of the explorer. Now, alas! our opinion is a good deal changed; the fairy treasures which Scott brought back from his voyages have turned into dead leaves according to custom; and the curiosities, upon which he set so extravagant a price, savour more of Wardour Street than of the genuine mediæval artists. Nay, there are scoffers, though I am not of them, who think that the tittle-tattle which Miss Austen gathered at the country-houses of our grandfathers is worth more than the showy but rather flimsy eloquence of the 'Ariosto of the North.' Scott endeavoured at least, if with indifferent success, to invest his scenes with something of
The light that never was on sea or land,
The consecration and the poet's dream.
If he too often indulged in mere theatrical devices, and mistook the glare of the footlights for the sacred glow of the imagination, he professed, at least, to introduce us to an ideal world. Later novelists have generally abandoned the attempt, and are content to reflect our work-a-day life with almost servile fidelity. They are not to be blamed; and doubtless the very greatest writers are those who can bring their ideal world into the closest possible contact with our sympathies, and show us heroic figures in modern frock-coats and Parisian fashions. The art of story-telling is manifold, and its charm depends greatly upon the infinite variety of its applications. And yet, for that very reason, there are moods in which one wishes that the modern story-teller would more frequently lead us away from the commonplace region of newspapers and railways to regions where the imagination can have fair play. Hawthorne is one of the few eminent writers to whose guidance we may in such moods most safely entrust ourselves; and it is tempting to ask, what was the secret of his success? The effort, indeed, to investigate the materials from which some rare literary flavour is extracted is seldom satisfactory. We are reminded of the automaton chess-player who excited the wonder of the last generation. The showman, like the critic, laid bare his inside, and displayed all the cunning wheels and cogs and cranks by which his motions were supposed to be regulated. Yet, after all, the true secret was that there was a man inside the machine. Some such impression is often made by the most elaborate demonstrations of literary anatomists. We have been mystified, not really entrusted with any revelation. And yet, with this warning as to the probable success of our examination, let us try to determine some of the peculiarities to which Hawthorne owes this strange power of bringing poetry out of the most unpromising materials.
In the first place, then, he had the good fortune to be born in the most prosaic of all countries—the most prosaic, that is, in external appearance, and even in the superficial character of its inhabitants. Hawthorne himself reckoned this as an advantage, though in a very different sense from that in which we are speaking. It was as a patriot, and not as an artist, that he congratulated himself on his American origin. There is a humorous struggle between his sense of the rawness and ugliness of his native land and the dogged patriotism befitting a descendant of the genuine New England Puritans. Hawthorne the novelist writhes at the discords which torture his delicate sensibilities at every step; but instantly Hawthorne the Yankee protests that the very faults are symptomatic of excellence. He is like a sensitive mother, unable to deny that her awkward hobbledehoy of a son offends against the proprieties, but tacitly resolved to see proofs of virtues present or to come even in his clumsiest tricks. He forces his apologies to sound like boasting. 'No author,' he says, 'can conceive of the difficulty of writing a romance about a country where there is no shadow, no antiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything but a commonplace prosperity, as is happily' (it must and shall be happily!) 'the case with my dear native land. It will be very long, I trust, before romance-writers may find congenial and easily-handled themes either in the annals of our stalwart republic, or in any characteristic and probable events of our individual lives. Romance and poetry, ivy, lichens, and wallflowers need ruins to make them grow.' If, that is, I am forced to confess that poetry and romance are absent, I will resolutely stick to it that poetry and romance are bad things, even though the love of them is the strongest propensity of my nature.
To my thinking, there is something almost pathetic in this loyal self-deception; and therefore I have never been offended by certain passages in 'Our Old Home' which appear to have caused some irritation in touchy Englishmen. There is something, he says by way of apology, which causes an American in England to take up an attitude of antagonism. 'These people think so loftily of themselves, and so contemptuously of everybody else, that it requires more generosity than I possess to keep always in perfectly good humour with them.' That may be true; for, indeed, I believe that all Englishmen, whether ostentatiously cosmopolitan or ostentatiously patriotic, have a peculiar type of national pride at least as offensive as that of Frenchmen, Germans, or Americans; and, to a man of Hawthorne's delicate perceptions, the presence of that sentiment would reveal itself through the most careful disguises. But that which really caused him to cherish his antagonism was, I suspect, something else: he was afraid of loving us too well; he feared to be tempted into a denial of some point of his patriotic creed; he is always clasping it, as it were, to his bosom, and vowing and protesting that he does not surrender a single jot or tittle of it. Hawthorne in England was like a plant suddenly removed to a rich soil from a dry and thirsty land. He drinks in at every pore the delightful influences of which he has had so scanty a supply. An old cottage, an ivy-grown wall, a country churchyard with its quaint epitaphs, things that are commonplace to most Englishmen and which are hateful to the sanitary inspector, are refreshing to every fibre of his soul. He tries in vain to take the sanitary inspector's view. In spite of himself he is always falling into the romantic tone, though a sense that he ought to be sternly philosophical just gives a humorous tinge to his enthusiasm.
Charles Lamb could not have improved his description of the old hospital at Leicester, where the twelve brethren still wear the badge of the Bear and Ragged Staff. He lingers round it, and gossips with the brethren, and peeps into the garden, and sits by the cavernous archway of the kitchen fireplace, where the very atmosphere seems to be redolent with aphorisms first uttered by ancient monks, and jokes derived from Master Slender's note-book, and gossip about the wrecks of the Spanish Armada. No connoisseur could pore more lovingly over an ancient black-letter volume, or the mellow hues of some old painter's masterpiece. He feels the charm of our historical continuity, where the immemorial past blends indistinguishably with the present, to the remotest recesses of his imagination. But then the Yankee nature within him must put in a sharp word or two; he has to jerk the bridle for fear that his enthusiasm should fairly run away with him. 'The trees and other objects of an English landscape,' he remarks, or, perhaps we should say, he complains, 'take hold of one by numberless minute tendrils as it were, which, look as closely as we choose, we never find in an American scene;' but he inserts a qualifying clause, just by way of protest, that an American tree would be more picturesque if it had an equal chance; and the native oak of which we are so proud is summarily condemned for 'John Bullism'—a mysterious offence common to many things in England. Charlecote Hall, he presently admits, 'is a most delightful place.' Even an American is tempted to believe that real homes can only be produced by 'the slow ingenuity and labour of many successive generations,' when he sees the elaborate beauty and perfection of a well-ordered English abode. And yet he persuades himself that even here he is the victim of some delusion. The impression is due to the old man which stills lurks even in the polished American, and forces him to look through his ancestor's spectacles.
The true theory, it appears, is that which Holgrave expresses for him in the 'Seven Gables,' namely, that we should free ourselves of the material slavery imposed upon us by the brick-and-mortar of past generations, and learn to change our houses as easily as our coats. We ought to feel—only we unfortunately can't feel—that a tent or a wigwam is as good as a house. The mode in which Hawthorne regards the Englishman himself is a quaint illustration of the same theory. An Englishwoman, he admits reluctantly and after many protestations, has some few beauties not possessed by her American sisters. A maiden in her teens has 'a certain charm of half-blossom and delicately folded leaves, and tender womanhood shielded by maidenly reserves, with which, somehow or other, our American girls often fail to adorn themselves during an appreciable moment.' But he revenges himself for this concession by an almost savage onslaught upon the full-blown British matron with her 'awful ponderosity of frame ... massive with solid beef and streaky tallow,' and apparently composed 'of steaks and sirloins.' He laments that the English violet should develop into such an overblown peony, and speculates upon the whimsical problem, whether a middle-aged husband should be considered as legally married to all the accretions which have overgrown the slenderness of his bride. Should not the matrimonial bond be held to exclude the three-fourths of the wife that had no existence when the ceremony was performed? A question not to be put without a shudder. The fact is, that Hawthorne had succeeded only too well in misleading himself by a common fallacy. That pestilent personage, John Bull, has assumed so concrete a form in our imaginations, with his top-boots and his broad shoulders and vast circumference, and the emblematic bulldog at his heels, that for most observers he completely hides the Englishman of real life.
Hawthorne had decided that an Englishman must and should be a mere mass of transformed beef and beer. No observation could shake his preconceived impression. At Greenwich Hospital he encountered the mighty shade of the concentrated essence of our strongest national qualities; no truer Englishman ever lived than Nelson. But Nelson was certainly not the conventional John Bull, and, therefore, Hawthorne roundly asserts that he was not an Englishman. 'More than any other Englishman he won the love and admiration of his country, but won them through the efficacy of qualities that are not English.' Nelson was of the same breed as Cromwell, though his shoulders were not so broad; but Hawthorne insists that the broad shoulders, and not the fiery soul, are the essence of John Bull. He proceeds with amusing unconsciousness to generalise this ingenious theory, and declares that all extraordinary Englishmen are sick men, and therefore deviations from the type. When he meets another remarkable Englishman in the flesh, he applies the same method. Of Leigh Hunt, whom he describes with warm enthusiasm, he dogmatically declares, 'there was not an English trait in him from head to foot, morally, intellectually, or physically.' And the reason is admirable. 'Beef, ale, or stout, brandy or port-wine, entered not at all into his constitution.' All Englishmen are made of those ingredients, and if not, why, then, they are not Englishmen. By the same method it is easy to show that all Englishmen are drunkards, or that they are all teetotalers; you have only to exclude as irrelevant every case that contradicts your theory. Hawthorne, unluckily, is by no means solitary in his mode of reasoning. The ideal John Bull has hidden us from ourselves as well as from our neighbours, and the race which is distinguished above all others for the magnificent wealth of its imaginative literature is daily told—and, what is more, tells itself—that it is a mere lump of prosaic flesh and blood, with scarcely soul enough to keep it from stagnation. If we were sensible we should burn that ridiculous caricature of ourselves along with Guy Fawkes; but meanwhile we can hardly complain if foreigners are deceived by our own misrepresentations.
Against Hawthorne, as I have said, I feel no grudge, though a certain regret that his sympathy with that deep vein of poetical imagination which underlies all our 'steaks and sirloins' should have been intercepted by this detestable lay-figure. The poetical humorist must be allowed a certain license in dealing with facts; and poor Hawthorne, in the uncongenial atmosphere of the Liverpool Custom-house, had doubtless much to suffer from a thick-skinned generation. His characteristic shyness made it a hard task for him to penetrate through our outer rind—which, to say the truth, is often elephantine enough—to the central core of heat; and we must not complain if he was too apt to deny the existence of what to him was unattainable. But the problem recurs—for everybody likes to ask utterly unanswerable questions—whether Hawthorne would not have developed into a still greater artist if he had been more richly supplied with the diet so dear to his inmost soul? Was it not a thing to weep over, that a man so keenly alive to every picturesque influence, so anxious to invest his work with the enchanted haze of romantic association, should be confined till middle age amongst the bleak granite rocks and the half-baked civilisation of New England? 'Among ourselves,' he laments, 'there is no fairy land for the romancer.' What if he had been brought up in the native home of the fairies—if there had been thrown open to him the gates through which Shakespeare and Spenser caught their visions of ideal beauty? Might we not have had an appendix to the 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' and might not a modern 'Faerie Queen' have brightened the prosaic wilderness of this nineteenth century?
The question, as I have said, is rigidly unanswerable. We have not yet learnt how to breed poets, though we have made some progress in regard to pigs. Nobody can tell, and perhaps, therefore, it is as well that nobody should guess, what would have been the effect of transplanting Shakespeare to modern Stratford, or of exiling him to the United States. And yet—for it is impossible to resist entirely the pleasure of fruitless speculation—we may guess that there are some reasons why there should be a risk in transplanting so delicate a growth as the genius of Hawthorne. There are more ways, so wise men tell us, of killing a cat than choking it with cream; but it is a very good way. Over-feeding produces atrophy of some of the vital functions in higher animals than cats, and the imagination may be enfeebled rather than strengthened by an over-supply of materials. Hawthorne, if his life had passed where the plough may turn up an antiquity in every furrow, and the whole face of the country is enamelled with ancient culture, might have wrought more gorgeous hues into his tissues, but he might have succumbed to the temptation of producing mere upholstery. The fairy land for which he longed is full of dangerous enchantments, and there are many who have lost in it the vigour which comes from breathing the keen air of everyday life.
From that risk Hawthorne was effectually preserved in his New England home. Having to abandon the poetry which is manufactured out of mere external circumstances, he was forced to draw it from deeper sources. With easier means at hand of enriching his pages, he might have left the mine unworked. It is often good for us to have to make bricks without straw. Hawthorne, who was conscious of the extreme difficulty of the problem, and but partially conscious of the success of his solution of it, naturally complained of the severe discipline to which he owed his strength. We who enjoy the results may feel how much he owed to the very sternness of his education and the niggard hand with which his imaginative sustenance was dealt out to him. The observation may sound paradoxical at the first moment, and yet it is supported by analogy. Are not the best cooks produced just where the raw material is the worst, and precisely because it is there worst? Now, cookery is the art by which man is most easily distinguished from beasts, and it requires little ingenuity to transfer its lessons to literature. At the same time it may be admitted that some closer inquiry is necessary in order to make the hypothesis probable, and I will endeavour from this point of view to examine some of Hawthorne's exquisite workmanship.
The story which perhaps generally passes for his masterpiece is 'Transformation,' for most readers assume that a writer's longest book must necessarily be his best. In the present case, I think that this method, which has its conveniences, has not led to a perfectly just conclusion. In 'Transformation,' Hawthorne has for once the advantage of placing his characters in a land where 'a sort of poetic or fairy precinct,' as he calls it, is naturally provided for them. The very stones of the streets are full of romance, and he cannot mention a name that has not a musical ring. Hawthorne, moreover, shows his usual tact in confining his aims to the possible. He does not attempt to paint Italian life and manners; his actors belong by birth, or by a kind of naturalisation, to the colony of the American artists in Rome; and he therefore does not labour under the difficulty of being in imperfect sympathy with his creatures. Rome is a mere background, and surely a most felicitous background, to the little group of persons who are effectually detached from all such vulgarising associations with the mechanism of daily life in less poetical countries. The centre of the group, too, who embodies one of Hawthorne's most delicate fancies, could have breathed no atmosphere less richly perfumed with old romance. In New York he would certainly have been in danger of a Barnum's museum, beside Washington's nurse and the woolly horse.
It is a triumph of art that a being whose nature trembles on the very verge of the grotesque should walk through Hawthorne's pages with such undeviating grace. In the Roman dreamland he is in little danger of such prying curiosity, though even there he can only be kept out of harm's way by the admirable skill of his creator. Perhaps it may be thought by some severe critics that, with all his merits, Donatello stands on the very outside verge of the province permitted to the romancer. But without cavilling at what is indisputably charming, and without dwelling upon certain defects of construction which slightly mar the general beauty of the story, it has another weakness which it is impossible quite to overlook. Hawthorne himself remarks that he was surprised, in re-writing his story, to see the extent to which he had introduced descriptions of various Italian objects. 'Yet these things,' he adds, 'fill the mind everywhere in Italy, and especially in Rome, and cannot be kept from flowing out upon the page when one writes freely and with self-enjoyment.' The associations which they called up in England were so pleasant, that he could not find it in his heart to cancel. Doubtless that is the precise truth, and yet it is equally true that they are artistically out of place. There are passages which recall the guide-book. To take one instance—and, certainly, it is about the worst—the whole party is going to the Coliseum, where a very striking scene takes place. On the way they pass a baker's shop.
'"The baker is drawing his loaves out of the oven," remarked Kenyon. "Do you smell how sour they are? I should fancy that Minerva (in revenge for the desecration of her temples) had slyly poured vinegar into the batch, if I did not know that the modern Romans prefer their bread in the acetous fermentation."'
The instance is trivial, but it is characteristic. Hawthorne had doubtless remarked the smell of the sour bread, and to him it called up a vivid recollection of some stroll in Rome; for, of all our senses, the smell is notoriously the most powerful in awakening associations. But then what do we who read him care about the Roman taste for bread 'in acetous fermentation?' When the high-spirited girl is on the way to meet her tormentor, and to receive the provocation which leads to his murder, why should we be worried by a gratuitous remark about Roman baking? It somehow jars upon our taste, and we are certain that, in describing a New England village, Hawthorne would never have admitted a touch which has no conceivable bearing upon the situation. There is almost a superabundance of minute local colour in his American Romances, as, for example, in the 'House of the Seven Gables;' but still, every touch, however minute, is steeped in the sentiment and contributes to the general effect. In Rome the smell of a loaf is sacred to his imagination, and intrudes itself upon its own merits, and, so far as we can discover, without reference to the central purpose. If a baker's shop impresses him unduly because it is Roman, the influence of ancient ruins and glorious works of art is of course still more distracting. The mysterious Donatello, and the strange psychological problem which he is destined to illustrate, are put aside for an interval, whilst we are called upon to listen to descriptions and meditations, always graceful, and often of great beauty in themselves, but yet, in a strict sense, irrelevant. Hawthorne's want of familiarity with the scenery is of course responsible for part of this failing. Had he been a native Roman, he would not have been so preoccupied with the wonders of Rome. But it seems that for a romance bearing upon a spiritual problem, the scenery, however tempting, is not really so serviceable as the less prepossessing surroundings of America. The objects have too great an intrinsic interest. A counter-attraction distorts the symmetry of the system. In the shadow of the Coliseum and St. Peter's you cannot pay much attention to the troubles of a young lady whose existence is painfully ephemeral. Those mighty objects will not be relegated to the background, and condescend to act as mere scenery. They are, in fact, too romantic for a romance. The fountain of Trevi, with all its allegorical marbles, may be a very picturesque object to describe, but for Hawthorne's purposes it is really not equal to the town-pump at Salem; and Hilda's poetical tower, with the perpetual light before the Virgin's image, and the doves floating up to her from the street, and the column of Antoninus looking at her from the heart of the city, somehow appeals less to our sympathies than the quaint garret in the House of the Seven Gables, from which Phœbe Pyncheon watched the singular idiosyncrasies of the superannuated breed of fowls in the garden. The garret and the pump are designed in strict subordination to the human figures: the tower and the fountain have a distinctive purpose of their own. Hawthorne, at any rate, seems to have been mastered by his too powerful auxiliaries. A human soul, even in America, is more interesting to us than all the churches and picture-galleries in the world; and, therefore, it is as well that Hawthorne should not be tempted to the too easy method of putting fine description in place of sentiment.
But how was the task to be performed? How was the imaginative glow to be shed over the American scenery, so provokingly raw and deficient in harmony? A similar problem was successfully solved by a writer whose development, in proportion to her means of cultivation, is about the most remarkable of recent literary phenomena. Miss Brontë's bleak Yorkshire moors, with their uncompromising stone walls, and the valleys invaded by factories, are at first sight as little suited to romance as New England itself, to which, indeed, both the inhabitants and the country have a decided family resemblance. Now that she has discovered for us the fountains of poetic interest, we can all see that the region is not a mere stony wilderness; but it is well worth while to make a pilgrimage to Haworth, if only to discover how little the country corresponds to our preconceived impressions, or, in other words, how much depends upon the eye which sees it, and how little upon its intrinsic merits. Miss Brontë's marvellous effects are obtained by the process which enables an 'intense and glowing mind' to see everything through its own atmosphere. The ugliest and most trivial objects seem, like objects heated by the sun, to radiate back the glow of passion with which she has regarded them. Perhaps this singular power is still more conspicuous in 'Villette,' where she had even less of the raw material of poetry. An odd parallel may be found between one of the most striking passages in 'Villette' and one in 'Transformation.' Lucy Snowe in one novel, and Hilda in the other, are left to pass a summer vacation, the one in Brussels and the other in pestiferous Rome. Miss Snowe has no external cause of suffering but the natural effect of solitude upon a homeless and helpless governess. Hilda has to bear about with her the weight of a terrible secret, affecting, it may be, even the life of her dearest friend. Each of them wanders into a Roman Catholic church, and each, though they have both been brought up in a Protestant home, seeks relief at the confessional. So far the cases are alike, though Hilda, one might have fancied, has by far the strongest cause for emotion. And yet, after reading the two descriptions—both excellent in their way—one might fancy that the two young ladies had exchanged burdens. Lucy Snowe is as tragic as the innocent confidante of a murderess; Hilda's feelings never seem to rise above that weary sense of melancholy isolation which besieges us in a deserted city. It is needless to ask which is the best bit of work artistically considered. Hawthorne's style is more graceful and flexible; his descriptions of the Roman Catholic ceremonial and its influence upon an imaginative mind in distress are far more sympathetic, and imply a wider range of intellect.
But Hilda scarcely moves us like Lucy. There is too much delicate artistic description of picture-galleries and of the glories of St. Peter's to allow the poor little American girl to come prominently to the surface. We have been indulging with her in some sad but charming speculations, and not witnessing the tragedy of a deserted soul. Lucy Snowe has very inferior materials at her command; but somehow we are moved by a sympathetic thrill: we taste the bitterness of the awful cup of despair which, as she tells us, is forced to her lips in the night-watches; and are not startled when so prosaic an object as the row of beds in the dormitory of a French school suggests to her images worthy rather of stately tombs in the aisles of a vast cathedral, and recall dead dreams of an elder world and a mightier race long frozen in death. Comparisons of this kind are almost inevitably unfair; but the difference between the two illustrates one characteristic—we need not regard it as a defect—of Hawthorne. His idealism does not consist in conferring grandeur upon vulgar objects by tinging them with the reflection of deep emotion. He rather shrinks than otherwise from describing the strongest passions, or shows their working by indirect touches and under a side-light. An excellent example of his peculiar method occurs in what is in some respects the most perfect of his works, the 'Scarlet Letter.' There, again, we have the spectacle of a man tortured by a life-long repentance. The Puritan Clergyman, reverenced as a saint by all his flock, conscious of a sin which, once revealed, will crush him to the earth, watched with a malignant purpose by the husband whom he has injured, unable to summon up the moral courage to tear off the veil, and make the only atonement in his power, is a singularly striking figure, powerfully conceived and most delicately described. He yields under terrible pressure to the temptation of escaping from the scene of his prolonged torture with the partner of his guilt.
And then, as he is returning homewards after yielding a reluctant consent to the flight, we are invited to contemplate the agony of his soul. The form which it takes is curiously characteristic. No vehement pangs of remorse, or desperate hopes of escape, overpower his faculties in any simple and straightforward fashion. The poor minister is seized with a strange hallucination. He meets a venerable deacon, and can scarcely restrain himself from uttering blasphemies about the Communion-supper. Next appears an aged widow, and he longs to assail her with what appears to him to be an unanswerable argument against the immortality of the soul. Then follows an impulse to whisper impure suggestions to a fair young maiden, whom he has recently converted. And, finally, he longs to greet a rough sailor with a 'volley of good, round, solid, satisfactory, and heaven-defying oaths.' The minister, in short, is in that state of mind which gives birth in its victim to a belief in diabolical possession; and the meaning is pointed by an encounter with an old lady, who, in the popular belief, was one of Satan's miserable slaves and dupes, the witches, and is said—for Hawthorne never introduces the supernatural without toning it down by a supposed legendary transmission—to have invited him to meet her at the blasphemous Sabbath in the forest. The sin of endeavouring to escape from the punishment of his sins had brought him into sympathy with wicked mortals and perverted spirits.
This mode of setting forth the agony of a pure mind, tainted by one irremovable blot, is undoubtedly impressive to the imagination in a high degree; far more impressive, we may safely say, than any quantity of such rant as very inferior writers could have poured out with the utmost facility on such an occasion. Yet it might possibly be mentioned that a poet of the highest order would have produced the effect by more direct means. Remorse overpowering and absorbing does not embody itself in these recondite and, one may almost say, over-ingenious fancies. Hawthorne does not give us so much the pure passion as some of its collateral effects. He is still more interested in the curious psychological problem than moved by sympathy with the torture of the soul. We pity poor Mr. Dimmesdale profoundly, but we are also interested in him as the subject of an experiment in analytical psychology. We do not care so much for his emotions as for the strange phantoms which are raised in his intellect by the disturbance of his natural functions. The man is placed upon the rack, but our compassion is aroused, not by feeling our own nerves and sinews twitching in sympathy, but by remarking the strange confusion of ideas produced in his mind, the singularly distorted aspect of things in general introduced by such an experience, and hence, if we please, inferring the keenness of the pangs which have produced them. This turn of thought explains the real meaning of Hawthorne's antipathy to poor John Bull. That worthy gentleman, we will admit, is in a sense more gross and beefy than his American cousin. His nerves are stronger, for we need not decide whether they should be called coarser or less morbid. He is not, in the proper sense of the word, less imaginative, for a vigorous grasp of realities is rather a proof of a powerful than a defective imagination. But he is less accessible to those delicate impulses which are to the ordinary passions as electricity to heat. His imagination is more intense and less mobile.
The devils which haunt the two races partake of the national characteristics. John Bunyan, Dimmesdale's contemporary, suffered under the pangs of a remorse equally acute, though with apparently far less cause. The devils who tormented him whispered blasphemies in his ears; they pulled at his clothes; they persuaded him that he had committed the unpardonable sin. They caused the very stones in the streets and tiles on the houses, as he says, to band themselves together against him. But they had not the refined and humorous ingenuity of the American fiends. They tempted him, as their fellows tempted Dimmesdale, to sell his soul; but they were too much in earnest to insist upon queer breaches of decorum. They did not indulge in that quaint play of fancy which tempts us to believe that the devils in New England had seduced the 'tricksy spirit,' Ariel, to indulge in practical jokes at the expense of a nobler victim than Stephano or Caliban. They were too terribly diabolical to care whether Bunyan blasphemed in solitude or in the presence of human respectabilities. Bunyan's sufferings were as poetical, but less conducive to refined speculation. His were the fiends that haunt the valley of the shadow of death; whereas Hawthorne's are to be encountered in the dim regions of twilight, where realities blend inextricably with mere phantoms, and the mind confers only a kind of provisional existence upon the 'airy nothings' of its creation. Apollyon does not appear armed to the teeth and throwing fiery darts, but comes as an unsubstantial shadow threatening vague and undefined dangers, and only half-detaching himself from the background of darkness. He is as intangible as Milton's Death, not the vivid reality which presented itself to mediæval imaginations.
This special attitude of mind is probably easier to the American than to the English imagination. The craving for something substantial, whether in cookery or in poetry, was that which induced Hawthorne to keep John Bull rather at arm's length. We may trace the working of similar tendencies in other American peculiarities. Spiritualism and its attendant superstitions are the gross and vulgar form of the same phase of thought as it occurs in men of highly-strung nerves but defective cultivation. Hawthorne always speaks of these modern goblins with the contempt they deserve, for they shocked his imagination as much as his reason; but he likes to play with fancies which are not altogether dissimilar, though his refined taste warns him that they become disgusting when grossly translated into tangible symbols. Mesmerism, for example, plays an important part in the 'Blithedale Romance' and the 'House of the Seven Gables,' though judiciously softened and kept in the background. An example of the danger of such tendencies may be found in those works of Edgar Poe, in which he seems to have had recourse to strong stimulants to rouse a flagging imagination. What is exquisitely fanciful and airy in Hawthorne is too often replaced in his rival by an attempt to overpower us by dabblings in the charnel-house and prurient appeals to our fears of the horribly revolting. After reading some of Poe's stories one feels a kind of shock to one's modesty. We require some kind of spiritual ablution to cleanse our minds of his disgusting images; whereas Hawthorne's pure and delightful fancies, though at times they may have led us too far from the healthy contact of everyday interests, never leave a stain upon the imagination, and generally succeed in throwing a harmonious colouring upon some objects in which we had previously failed to recognise the beautiful. To perform that duty effectually is perhaps the highest of artistic merits; and though we may complain of Hawthorne's colouring as too evanescent, its charm grows upon us the more we study it.
Hawthorne seems to have been slow in discovering the secret of his own power. The 'Twice-Told Tales,' he tells us, are only a fragmentary selection from a great number which had an ephemeral existence in long-forgotten magazines, and were sentenced to extinction by their author. Though many of the survivors are very striking, no wise reader will regret that sentence. It could be wished that other authors were as ready to bury their innocents, and that injudicious admirers might always abstain from acting as resurrection-men. The fragments which remain, with all their merits, are chiefly interesting as illustrating the intellectual development of their author. Hawthorne, in his preface to the collected edition (all Hawthorne's prefaces are remarkably instructive) tells us what to think of them. The book, he says, 'requires to be read in the clear brown twilight atmosphere in which it was written; if opened in the sunshine it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages.' The remark, with deductions on the score of modesty, is more or less applicable to all his writings. But he explains, and with perfect truth, that though written in solitude, the book has not the abstruse tone which marks the written communications of a solitary mind with itself. The reason is that the sketches 'are not the talk of a secluded man with his own mind and heart, but his attempts ... to open an intercourse with the world.' They may, in fact, be compared to Brummel's failures; and, though they do not display the perfect grace and fitness which would justify him in presenting himself to society, they were well worth taking up to illustrate the skill of the master's manipulation. We see him trying various experiments to hit off that delicate mean between the fanciful and the prosaic, which shall satisfy his taste and be intelligible to the outside world. Sometimes he gives us a fragment of historical romance, as in the story of the stern old regicide who suddenly appears from the woods to head the colonists of Massachusetts in a critical emergency; then he tries his hand at a bit of allegory, and describes the search for the mythical carbuncle which blazes by its inherent splendour on the face of a mysterious cliff in the depths of the untrodden wilderness, and lures old and young, the worldly and the romantic, to waste their lives in the vain effort to discover it—for the carbuncle is the ideal which mocks our pursuit, and may be our curse or our blessing. Then perhaps we have a domestic piece—a quiet description of a New England country scene touched with a grace which reminds us of the creators of Sir Roger de Coverley or the Vicar of Wakefield.
Occasionally there is a fragment of pure diablerie, as in the story of the lady who consults the witch in the hollow of the three hills; and more frequently he tries to work out one of those strange psychological problems which he afterwards treated with more fulness of power. The minister who, for an unexplained reason, puts on a black veil one morning in his youth, and wears it until he is laid with it in his grave—a kind of symbolical prophecy of Dimmesdale; the eccentric Wakefield (whose original, if I remember rightly, is to be found in 'King's Anecdotes'), who leaves his house one morning for no particular reason, and though living in the next street, does not reveal his existence to his wife for twenty years; and the hero of the 'Wedding Knell,' the elderly bridegroom whose early love has jilted him, but agrees to marry him when she is an elderly widow and he an old bachelor, and who appals the marriage party by coming to the church in his shroud, with the bell tolling as for a funeral—all these bear the unmistakable stamp of Hawthorne's mint, and each is a study of his favourite subject, the border-land between reason and insanity. In many of these stories appears the element of interest, to which Hawthorne clung the more closely both from early associations and because it is the one undeniably poetical element in the American character. Shallow-minded people fancy Puritanism to be prosaic, because the laces and ruffles of the Cavaliers are a more picturesque costume at a masked ball than the dress of the Roundheads. The Puritan has become a grim and ugly scarecrow, on whom every buffoon may break his jest. But the genuine old Puritan spirit ceases to be picturesque only because of its sublimity: its poetry is sublimed into religion. The great poet of the Puritans fails, as far as he fails, when he tries to transcend the limits of mortal imagination—
The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
Where angels tremble as they gaze,
He saw: but blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.
To represent the Puritan from within was not, indeed, a task suitable to Hawthorne's powers. Carlyle has done that for us with more congenial sentiment than could have been well felt by the gentle romancer. Hawthorne fancies the grey shadow of a stern old forefather wondering at his degenerate son. 'A writer of story-books! What kind of business in life, what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation, may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!' And yet the old strain remains, though strangely modified by time and circumstance. In Hawthorne it would seem that the peddling element of the old Puritans had been reduced to its lowest point; the more spiritual element had been refined till it is probable enough that the ancestral shadow would have refused to recognise the connection. The old dogmatical framework to which he attached such vast importance had dropped out of his descendant's mind, and had been replaced by dreamy speculation, obeying no laws save those imposed by its own sense of artistic propriety. But we may often recognise, even where we cannot express in words, the strange family likeness which exists in characteristics which are superficially antagonistic. The man of action may be bound by subtle ties to the speculative metaphysician; and Hawthorne's mind, amidst the most obvious differences, had still an affinity to his remote forefathers. Their bugbears had become his playthings; but the witches, though they have no reality, have still a fascination for him. The interest which he feels in them, even in their now shadowy state, is a proof that he would have believed in them in good earnest a century and a half earlier. The imagination, working in a different intellectual atmosphere, is unable to project its images upon the external world; but it still forms them in the old shape.
His solitary musings necessarily employ a modern dialect, but they often turn on the same topics which occurred to Jonathan Edwards in the woods of Connecticut. Instead of the old Puritan speculations about predestination and free-will, he dwells upon the transmission by natural laws of an hereditary curse, and upon the strange blending of good and evil, which may cause sin to be an awakening impulse in a human soul. The change which takes place in Donatello in consequence of his crime is a modern symbol of the fall of man and the eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. As an artist he gives concrete images instead of abstract theories; but his thoughts evidently delight to dwell in the same regions where the daring speculations of his theological ancestors took their origin. Septimius, the rather disagreeable hero of his last romance, is a peculiar example of a similar change. Brought up under the strict discipline of New England, he has retained the love of musing upon insoluble mysteries, though he has abandoned the old dogmatic guide-posts. When such a man finds that the orthodox scheme of the universe provided by his official pastors has somehow broken down with him, he forms some audacious theory of his own, and is perhaps plunged into an unhallowed revolt against the Divine order. Septimius, under such circumstances, develops into a kind of morbid and sullen Hawthorne. He considers—as other people have done—that death is a disagreeable fact, but refuses to admit that it is inevitable.
The romance tends to show that such a state of mind is unhealthy and dangerous, and Septimius is contrasted unfavourably with the vigorous natures who preserve their moral balance by plunging into the stream of practical life. Yet Hawthorne necessarily sympathises with the abnormal being whom he creates. Septimius illustrates the dangers of the musing temperament, but the dangers are produced by a combination of an essentially selfish nature with the meditative tendency. Hawthorne, like his hero, sought refuge from the hard facts of commonplace life by retiring into a visionary world. He delights in propounding much the same questions as those which tormented poor Septimius, though, for obvious reasons, he did not try to compound an elixir of life by means of a recipe handed down from Indian ancestors. The strange mysteries in which the world and our nature are shrouded are always present to his imagination; he catches dim glimpses of the laws which bring out strange harmonies, but, on the whole, tend rather to deepen than to clear the mysteries. He loves the marvellous, not in the vulgar sense of the word, but as a symbol of perplexity which encounters every thoughtful man in his journey through life. Similar tenants at an earlier period might, with almost equal probability, have led him to the stake as a dabbler in forbidden sciences, or have caused him to be revered as one to whom a deep spiritual instinct had been granted.
Meanwhile, as it was his calling to tell stories to readers of the English language in the nineteenth century, his power is exercised in a different sphere. No modern writer has the same skill in so using the marvellous as to interest without unduly exciting our incredulity. He makes, indeed, no positive demands on our credulity. The strange influences which are suggested rather than obtruded upon us are kept in the background, so as not to invite, nor indeed to render possible, the application of scientific tests. We may compare him once more to Miss Brontë, who introduces, in 'Villette,' a haunted garden. She shows us a ghost who is for a moment a very terrible spectre indeed, and then, very much to our annoyance, rationalises him into a flesh-and-blood lover. Hawthorne would neither have allowed the ghost to intrude so forcibly, nor have expelled him so decisively. The garden in his hands would have been haunted by a shadowy terror of which we could render no precise account to ourselves. It would have refrained from actual contact with professors and governesses; and as it would never have taken bodily form, it would never have been quite dispelled. His ghosts are confined to their proper sphere, the twilight of the mind, and never venture into the broad glare of daylight. We can see them so long as we do not gaze directly at them; when we turn to examine them they are gone, and we are left in doubt whether they were realities or an ocular delusion generated in our fancy by some accidental collocation of half-seen objects. So in the 'House of the Seven Gables' we may hold what opinion we please as to the reality of the curse which hangs over the Pyncheons and the strange connection between them and their hereditary antagonists; in the 'Scarlet Letter' we may, if we like, hold that there was really more truth in the witch legends which colour the imaginations of the actors than we are apt to dream of in our philosophy; and in 'Transformation' we are left finally in doubt as to the great question of Donatello's ears, and the mysterious influence which he retains over the animal world so long as he is unstained by bloodshed. In 'Septimius' alone, it seems to me that the supernatural is left in rather too obtrusive a shape in spite of the final explanations; though it might possibly have been toned down had the story received the last touches of the author. The artifice, if so it may be called, by which this is effected—and the romance is just sufficiently dipped in the shadow of the marvellous to be heightened without becoming offensive—sounds, like other things, tolerably easy when it is explained; and yet the difficulty is enormous, as may appear on reflection as well as from the extreme rarity of any satisfactory work in the same style by other artists. With the exception of a touch or two in Scott's stories, such as the impressive Bodach Glas, in 'Waverley,' and the apparition in the exquisite 'Bride of Lammermoor,' it would be difficult to discover any parallel.
In fact Hawthorne was able to tread in that magic circle only by an exquisite refinement of taste, and by a delicate sense of humour, which is the best preservative against all extravagance. Both qualities combine in that tender delineation of character which is, after all, one of his greatest charms. His Puritan blood shows itself in sympathy, not with the stern side of the ancestral creed, but with the feebler characters upon whom it weighed as an oppressive terror. He resembles, in some degree, poor Clifford Pyncheon, whose love of the beautiful makes him suffer under the stronger will of his relatives and the prim stiffness of their home. He exhibits the suffering of such a character all the more effectively because, with his kindly compassion there is mixed a delicate flavour of irony. The more tragic scenes affect us, perhaps, with less sense of power; the playful, though melancholy, fancy seems to be less at home when the more powerful emotions are to be excited; and yet once, at least, he draws one of those pictures which engrave themselves instantaneously on the memory. The grimmest or most passionate of writers could hardly have improved the scene where the body of the magnificent Zenobia is discovered in the river. Every touch goes straight to the mark. The narrator of the story, accompanied by the man whose coolness has caused the suicide, and the shrewd, unimaginative Yankee farmer, who interprets into coarse, downright language the suspicions which they fear to confess to themselves, are sounding the depths of the river by night in a leaky punt with a long pole. Silas Foster represents the brutal, commonplace comments of the outside world, which jar so terribly on the more sensitive and closely interested actors in the tragedy. 'Heigho!' he soliloquises, with offensive loudness, 'life and death together make sad work for us all. Then I was a boy, bobbing for fish; and now I'm getting to be an old fellow, and here I be, groping for a dead body! I tell you what, lads, if I thought anything had really happened to Zenobia, I should feel kind o' sorrowful.' That is the discordant chorus of the gravediggers in 'Hamlet.' At length the body is found, and poor Zenobia is brought to the shore with her knees still bent in the attitude of prayer, and her hands clenched in immitigable defiance. Foster tries in vain to straighten the dead limbs. As the teller of the story gazes at her, the grimly ludicrous reflection occurs to him that if Zenobia had foreseen all 'the ugly circumstances of death—how ill it would become her, the altogether unseemly aspect which she must put on, and especially old Silas Foster's efforts to improve the matter—she would no more have committed the dreadful act than have exhibited herself to a public assembly in a badly-fitting garment.'
Home | Book Collecting | Folklore / Myth | Philately | Playing Cards | Literature | Contents


text:
Ein Knoten (ahd chnodo, mhd knode 'knotige Verdickung') ist in der Knotenkunde eine Verwicklung oder Verschlingung von Faden, Schnur, Band, Seil, Tauwerk, Tuch oder ähnlich biegsamen Textil, mitunter auch einer Kette, die in bestimmter Form gewickelt, geschlungen, geknüpft oder geknotet wird. Die Windungen des verknoteten Materials bekneifen sich unter Zug, erhöhen so die Reibung und vermindern oder verhindern dadurch ein Gleiten. Nach der Weise des Windungsverlaufs lassen sich Knotenarten voneinander unterscheiden.

Dabei ist zu beachten, dass etwa ein verknotetes Seil nicht mehr seiner ursprünglichen Zugfestigkeit entsprechend belastet werden kann, denn der Knoten wird zu einer schwächeren Stelle im Seilverlauf. Die hier verbleibende herabgesetzte Zugfestigkeit wird Knotenfestigkeit genannt. Zusätzlich kann die Seilreibung an einem festen Gegenstand die Belastbarkeit reduzieren.

Knoten werden zu unterschiedlichen Zwecken und in recht verschiedenen Anwendungsbereichen gebraucht, weshalb es oft mehrere Namen gibt für die gleiche Knotenart. Will man die mit dem Ausdruck Knoten benannten Verwicklungsformen begrifflich näher bestimmen, lassen sich drei Bedeutungen abgrenzen:
 im weitesten Sinn jegliche Art von Verwicklung, auch Formen der Verbindung von mehreren Enden, Stücken und Gegenständen, so
 Knoten beim Nähen, Weben, Flechten, für Makramee, Plattings u. a.
 Verbindungsknoten, um zwei Leinen miteinander zu verknüpfen
 Festmacherknoten (Stek oder Stich), um eine Leine an Gegenstände zu knüpfen
 Klemmknoten, um eine Leine an einer anderen festzumachen
 Spleiß, um Fasern einer Leine umzuknüpfen
 im engeren Sinn eine lokale Verschlingung, die einem kurzen Stück der Leine eingebunden wird
 Schlaufe, eine feste Ringform
 Schlinge, eine lose Ringform, die sich zuziehen kann
 im engsten Sinn die Form einer lokalen Verdickung
 Stopperknoten, verhindert ein Durchlaufen
 Knoten für eine bessere Griffigkeit

Die Knotenkunde kennt eine lange Liste der Knoten mit Kletterknoten, Schifferknoten, Anglerknoten, Feuerwehrknoten, Krawattenknoten und beschreibt auch das Knüpfen von Knoten.

Geschichte

Steinzeit und Altertum

Menschen nutzen Knoten schon seit einer halben Million Jahre. Sogar Gorillas und andere Affen verknoten Grashalme, wenn sie Nester bauen.

Schon in der Steinzeit gab es Menschen, die sich als Sammler und Jäger, später als Siedler und Fischer, Schlingen und Netze knüpften, um damit Tiere und Fische zu fangen. Die Äxte der Steinzeit wurden ebenso von verknoteten Därmen zusammengehalten wie die Pfahlbauten mit Sehnen und Seilen. Der einfache Überhandknoten diente zum Zusammenbinden von Gebrauchsgegenständen. Aus ihm entwickelte sich der Filetknoten (ein um einen Leitfaden geknüpfter Überhandknoten) zum Knüpfen der Netze. Zur Jagd mit dem Bogen (Altsteinzeit, 30.000 bis 10.000 v. Chr.) musste die Bogensehne sicher befestigt werden. Der Gletscherfund Ötzi (etwa 3340 v. Chr. in der Jungsteinzeit) lässt einfache Schläge, Überhandknoten und Kreuzknoten an seiner Ausrüstung erkennen.

Antike
Die älteste Überlieferung von Zierknoten stammt von den Assyrern aus der Antike (900 bis 609 v. Chr.). In Stein gemeißelte Reliefs zeigten tunikaähnliche Gewänder, Waffenröcke und Pferdedecken. Sie sind mit dicht verknüpften Fransen sowie dicken Quasten verziert.

Im ersten Jahrhundert beschrieb der griechische Arzt Heraklas sechzehn chirurgische Knoten.

In der Antike wurden bestimmten Knoten sogar magische Kräfte zugesprochen. Homer erwähnte im achten Gesang der Odyssee, dass Odysseus "wertvolle Geschenke des Alkinoos und der Königin mit einem Seil zusammenschnürte, das er mit einem zaubermächtigen Knoten nach Kirkes kunstvoller Art sicherte."

Der römische Gelehrte Plinius der Ältere (ca. 23–79 n. Chr.) behauptete, dass der Herkulesknoten Wunden schneller heile, die mit ihm geschlossen werden.

Nach 756 kamen durch die Mauren arabische Einflüsse in der Knüpftechnik nach Europa (Córdoba / Spanien).

Mit den Kreuzzügen (1096 bis 1270) bis zum späten Mittelalter entwickelten sich aus den relativ einfachen Fransen der Ägypter und Assyrer kunstvolle Knüpfkanten. Das alte Inka-Reich (1250 bis 1781) kannte mit "Quipu" eine Knotenschrift, welche im Dezimalsystem statistische Aufzeichnungen übermittelte.

Seefahrt

Der dritte wesentliche Einfluss ging von der christlichen Seefahrt aus. Eine Vielzahl von "Schifferknoten" waren für die unterschiedlichsten Zwecke gebräuchlich. In ihren oft monatelangen Fahrten begannen die Seeleute neben ihren bekannten Gebrauchsknoten in ihrer Freizeit mit Garn und Tauwerk nach Mustern zu knüpfen, welche sie im Orient gesehen hatten. Sie dekorierten ihre Schiffe mit kunstvoll geknüpften Glockenzügen, umknüpften Flaschen und vielem mehr. Oft waren diese Arbeiten ohne praktischen Wert, sie dienten mehr der Zierde. Diese "Knotenknüpfkunst" wird als Fancywork, Platting und Makramee gepflegt.

Neuzeit
Für heutige Anforderungen werden immer wieder neue Knoten erfunden, beispielsweise der Zeppelinstek oder der Karabinerklemmknoten. In den 1980er Jahren wurde Scoubidou bekannt, das 2004 weite Verbreitung unter Jugendlichen fand.

Der Zeppelinstek oder auch Zeppelinknoten ist einer der "jüngsten" Knoten, welcher in der Fachwelt anerkannt wurde.

Mit Rainbow Looms werden verschiedene Gegenstände wie Bänder, Armreife oder auch großflächige Verknüpfungen bzw. Verflechtungen mittels Gummiringen hergestellt.

Anwendungen

Schrift
Knoten wurden früher auch als Schrift verwendet. Die Inkas benutzten die Knotenschrift Quipu. Bauern und Müller nutzten Knoten als Hilfsmittel zum Zählen (Müllerknoten).

Rechtsprechung
Der Henkersknoten am Galgen diente zur Hinrichtung eines Verurteilten. Im Mittelalter wurde beim Abschluss eines Vertrages ein Urkundenknoten in die Riemen der Urkunde geknüpft. Die Anzahl der Knoten bewiesen, wie viele Männer am Vertragsabschluss beteiligt und mit dem Inhalt des Vertrages einverstanden waren. Der "Knotenknüpfer" galt deshalb auf dem Gericht als Gewährsmann oder Zeuge.

Heraldik
In Wappen diente der "Liebesknoten" als Wappenfigur in Liebesschnüren oder Liebesseilen, welche im 17. Jahrhundert (Frankreich) als modische Kreationen bzw. Verzierung diente. Der Liebesknoten ist auch als "Witwenstrick" bekannt.

Auch heute finden sie sich noch in den Abzeichen schottischer Clans.

Beruf und Sport

Knoten werden von vielen Berufsgruppen und in vielen Sportarten eingesetzt:
 Segler und Seeleute, Taucher,
 Pfadfinder, Hilfs- und Rettungsorganisationen, Feuerwehr,
 Chirurgen,
 Bergsteiger und Kletterer,
 Angler,
 Japanische Samurai entwickelten im Mittelalter eine eigene Fesselkunst (Hojōjutsu), um Gefangene bewegungsunfähig und abtransportfähig zu machen. Heute werden die komplizierten Knotentechniken aus dem Hojōjutsu noch in der japanischen Polizei gelehrt. Knoten sind bei den verschiedenen Gruppen unter abweichenden Bezeichnungen bekannt.

Alltag
 Schnüre und Knoten werden in zunehmendem Maße durch Schnellverschlüsse ersetzt, Reißverschluss, Klettverschluss, Kabelbinder, Paketklebeband.
 Im Alltag werden Knoten verwendet für das Zubinden von Schürzen, Gürteln, Schuhen (mittels Schleife und teils mit Doppelknoten), für Pakete und zum Bündeln von Waren für den Transport.

Versteckte Knoten
 Fast unscheinbar befinden sich spezielle Knoten als "Wickel- und Ursusknoten" auch in dem Knotengeflecht von Wildzäunen.
 Die Griffe (Tsuka) der japanischen Samuraischwerter werden mit Spezialknüpfungen griffiger und auch künstlerisch gestaltet. Den Abschluss bildet ein Ura- oder Omoteknoten.

Kunst und Mode

 In der Mode werden Knoten zu dekorativen Zwecken eingesetzt.
 Am bekanntesten sind wohl die Krawattenknoten.
 Auf Hüten ist die Hutschnur bekannt.
 Bei Frisuren gibt es Haarknoten. Bei antikem und modernem Schmuck ist der Heraklesknoten beliebt.
 In der Handwerkskunst werden Knoten verwendet zum Knüpfen von Teppichen und zum Weben von Stoffen. Ein Teppich besteht aus bis zu über 1.000.000 Knoten pro Quadratmeter, die Qualität steigt mit der Anzahl der Knoten pro Quadratmeter.

 Makramee, Platting, Klöppeln, Stricken, Weben, Häkeln sind weitere Techniken im Kunsthandwerk, bei denen Knoten eine wichtige Rolle spielen.
 Beim Militär gibt es kunstvolle Verzierungen an Uniformen, wie die Schützenschnur, Achselschnur oder Fangschnur.

Sex
In der Bondage-Szene werden fixierende oder dekorative Knoten für Fesselspiele und andere sexuellen Praktiken verwendet.

Magie

Mit Knoten können auch Tricks zur Unterhaltung vorgeführt werden. Besonders in Zauberkunststücken werden solche Knotentricks angewendet. Eine sinnvolle, praktische Anwendung ist im Alltag meistens ausgeschlossen.

Wissenschaft
Knoten sind u. a. für die Analyse von Makromolekülen wie zum Beispiel Proteinen und DNA von Belang. Die Wissenschaft hat sich seit Jahrhunderten mit der Mathematik und Physik von Knoten befasst. Die Knotentheorie behandelt die Topologie von Knoten und dient der Beantwortung von Fragen wie der, welche Knoten mathematisch äquivalent sind, d. h. sich ineinander überführen lassen, ohne zerschnitten werden zu müssen. Die Knotenkunde hingegen befasst sich mit der Herstellung, Unterscheidung und Anwendung von Knoten.

Angesichts des komplexen Zusammenspiels von Topologie und Mechanik sind die Eigenschaften elastischer Knoten schwer zu bestimmen. Forscher am Massachusetts Institute of Technology entwickelten 2019 ein Modell, um die Stabilität von Knoten vorherzusagen. Dabei betrachten sie die Anzahl der Kreuzungen, der Verdrehungen und der entgegengesetzten Strangverläufe. Zur Überprüfung ihrer Theorie stellten die Forscher Versuche mit photonischen Fasern an, die bei Zug ihre Farbe verändern.

Verein der Knotenspezialisten
Unter der International Guild of Knot Tyers wurde 1982 in London eine Vereinigung von Gleichgesinnten aus allen Schichten und Berufsgruppen gegründet. Vom Anfänger bis zum Spezialisten mit dem Interesse rund um Knoten erfolgt der Austausch in Foren und Mitgliederzeitschriften. Durch die stete Entwicklung von Kunstfasern wird der Einsatzbereich von Knoten ständig erweitert und aktualisiert.

Begriffe

Festes Ende
Das feste Ende ist der lange Teil einer Leine, an dem die Last hängt oder zieht, beispielsweise ein Kranseil oder ein Lasso, oder an Schiffen eine Festmacherleine, eine Ankerleine, eine Schot, ein Fall. In der klassischen Seemannssprache spricht man auch von der "festen" oder "stehenden Part".

Loses Ende
Das lose Ende ist der kurze Teil einer Leine, mit dem der Knoten geknüpft oder gesteckt wird, und der am fertigen Knoten unbelastet heraushängt. Das lose Ende am fertigen Knoten soll immer mindestens 3 bis 5 mal so lang sein wie der Durchmesser der Leine. In der klassischen Seemannssprache spricht man auch von der "losen Part"; dort hat das "Ende" die Bedeutung eines ganzen Stück Seils.

Redewendungen

 Ein Gordischer Knoten ist ein schwieriges Problem
 "Einen Knoten im Hals haben" = Mir ist nicht wohl dabei.
 "Einen Knoten ins Taschentuch/ins Ohr machen" = eine Gedächtnisstütze
 "Einen Knoten finden" = Hier stimmt etwas nicht.
 "Einen Knoten durchhauen" = etwas gewaltsam/ohne zu zögern trennen, statt es mühsam zu lösen
 "Der Knoten ist aufgegangen/geplatzt" = eine Lösung wurde gefunden, eine Blockade hat sich gelöst, die Sache wurde verstanden
 "Kabelsalat" = ein Durcheinander oder schwer zu lösende Knoten in Kabeln
 "Einen Knäuel entwirren" = ein verwickeltes oder mehrfach verknotenes Seil oder Garn entwirren (Im übertragenen Sinn: verwirrte Gedanken auflösen).

Siehe auch
 Occhi
 Zwölfknotenschnur
 Aktenknoten

Literatur

 Clifford Ashley: Ashley-Buch der Knoten. Über 3800 Knoten. Wie sie aussehen. Wozu sie gebraucht werden. Wie sie gemacht werden. Sonderausgabe. Edition Maritim, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-89225-527-X.
 Raoul Graumont und John Hensel: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF KNOTS AND FANCY ROPE WORK. Cornell Maritime Press, Inc. Cambridge, Maryland. (1933-) 1977 (4. Auflage) Mehr als 3668 Knoten in S/W Bildern, ISBN 0-87033-021-7.
 Geoffrey Budworth: Knoten – das Praxishandbuch. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2009, ISBN 978-3-7688-2538-2.
 J. Tom Burgess: Die praktische Knotenfibel. Knoten, Schlingen, Spleissen. 7. Aufl. BLV, München und Wien 1996, ISBN 3-405-12969-9.
 Kai Lund: BÄNDSEL LEINEN TROSSEN,und wie man damit umgeht. Delius Klasing, 1972, ISBN 3-7688-0140-3; (Titel der dänischen Originalausgabe: KNOB OB SPEJS von Borgens Forlag A-S, Kopenhagen.)
 Erich Sondheim: Knoten Spleissen Takeln, Klasing + Co, 1975, ISBN 3-87412-009-0.
 Arved und Conrad H. v. Sengbusch: Arbeiten mit TAUWERK, kunstgewerblich, praktisch, seemännisch, Topp Frech-Verlag Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-7724-0212-7.
 Clemens Creynfeld: Knoten von A-Z, Edition moses Verlag, 1999, ISBN 3-929130-57-2
 J.C Turner, Peter van de Griend ′′ History and Science of Knots ′′World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. Singapore, New Jersey, London, Hongkong 1996, ISBN 981-02-2469-9.

Weblinks

 für eine Übersicht mit deutschen Namen für die Kategorienkategorien, siehe Commons: Unterkategorien von Knoten

 Knotenlexikon "Gordischer Knoten" – Knoten lernen leicht gemacht.
 Scoutwiki: Knoten und Bünde in der Pioniertechnik
 Gute Anleitungen verschiedenster Knoten (engl.)

Einzelnachweise

Knotenkunde
Verfahren (Textiltechnik)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: Run nginx in static IP of server Sorry for my bad English, I can't explain it well.
I have a VPS with Windows Server 2012 with Nginx and run a Node server at port 4000 and React client at port 3000.
In remote desktop website run at localhost address but when I use static IP of server in other device, I get any response from server.

This site can't be reached XXX.XXX.192.176 took too long to respond.

I setup IIS and connected to the server, but when IIS is started, nginx can't start.
nginx is configured as follows:
worker_processes  1;

events {
  worker_connections  1024;
}

http {
  include       mime.types;
  default_type  application/octet-stream;

  sendfile        on;

  keepalive_timeout  65;

  server {
    listen 80;
    server_name  _;

    location /api {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:4000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
    }
    location /socket.io {
            proxy_pass http://localhost:4000;
            proxy_http_version 1.1;
            proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
            proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
    }
    location / {
            proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
            proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
            proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
    }

    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
      root   html;
    }
  }
}

A: Finally I solved the problem:
I just add IP of server as server_name and checked the windows firewall for port 80.
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name  XXX.XXX.192.176; // IP of server

    location /api {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:4000;
    }
    location /socket.io {
            proxy_pass http://localhost:4000;
    }
    location / {
            proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
    }

    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
      root   html;
    }
  }

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Briefcase in leather and fabric.
Light practical briefcase with clean, contemporary lines. Made in black technical fabric with inserts in black embossed leather and front logo detail. Convenient zip closure and double handle. Dimensions: 42X32X14cm. Made in Italy.


text:
Q: How to add values to several Sets I have currently trying to extract from database to be able to put values to various sets. e.g.

*

*If the word is only a single word and has the boolean set to True ->
Add to SINGLE_POSITIVE

*If the word is only a single word and has the boolean set to False ->
Add to SINGLE_POSITIVE

*If the word is more than one word and has the boolean set to True ->
Add to MULTIPLE_POSITIVE

*If the word is more than one word and has the boolean set to False ->
Add to MULTIPLE_NEGATIVE
So I have created something like this:
from typing import Tuple, Set

MOCK_DATABASE = [
    {"python": True},
    {"no": True},
    {"hello world": True},
    {"java": False},
    {"ruby js": False},
    {"c#": False}
]

SINGLE_POSITIVE: Set[str] = {}
MULTI_POSITIVE: Tuple[Set[str], ...] = ()
SINGLE_NEGATIVE: Set[str] = {}
MULTI_NEGATIVE: Tuple[Set[str], ...] = ()

for database_value in MOCK_DATABASE:
    for att, value in database_value.items():
        if value and ' ' in att:
            MULTI_POSITIVE.add(att)
        elif value:
            SINGLE_POSITIVE.add(att)
        elif not value and ' ' in att:
            MULTI_NEGATIVE.add(att)
        else:
            SINGLE_NEGATIVE.add(att)

print(f"Single positive: {SINGLE_POSITIVE}")
print(f"Multi positive: {MULTI_POSITIVE}")
print(f"Single negative: {SINGLE_NEGATIVE}")
print(f"Multi negative: {MULTI_NEGATIVE}")

Wanted output:
SINGLE_POSITIVE: Set[str] = {
    "python",
    "no",
}
MULTI_POSITIVE: Tuple[Set[str], ...] = (
    {"hello", "world"},
)

SINGLE_NEGATIVE: Set[str] = {
    "java",
    "c#",
}
MULTI_NEGATIVE: Tuple[Set[str], ...] = (
    {"ruby", "js"},
)

However when I execute the script, I get an error saying:
SINGLE_POSITIVE.add(att)
AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'add'

My question is, how can I set it so I have the wanted output?
EDIT:
Thanks for the small fix from the answers below:
I have now changed to SINGLE_POSITIVE: Set[str] = set()
but that returns now
    MULTI_POSITIVE.add(att)
AttributeError: 'tuple' object has no attribute 'add'

A: The problem is that you have type hints that say SINGLE_POSITIVE and SINGLE_NEGATIVE are Sets but your code is initializing them to a dict
SINGLE_POSITIVE: Set[str] = {}

# should become

SINGLE_POSITIVE: Set[str] = set()

A: There's a few issues in the code:

*

*Per codebreach's answer, you have to initialize the set using set().

*You can't add elements to tuples; they're immutable. Your best bet is to initialize the MULTI variables as lists, then convert them at the end.

*You need to split the keys to get them as multiple separated elements in the set.

from typing import List, Tuple, Set

MOCK_DATABASE = [
    {"python": True},
    {"no": True},
    {"hello world": True},
    {"java": False},
    {"ruby js": False},
    {"c#": False},
]

SINGLE_POSITIVE: Set[str] = set()
MULTI_POSITIVE: List[Set[str]] = []
SINGLE_NEGATIVE: Set[str] = set()
MULTI_NEGATIVE: List[Set[str]] = []

for database_value in MOCK_DATABASE:
    for att, value in database_value.items():
        if value and " " in att:
            MULTI_POSITIVE.append(set(att.split()))
        elif value:
            SINGLE_POSITIVE.add(att)
        elif not value and " " in att:
            MULTI_NEGATIVE.append(set(att.split()))
        else:
            SINGLE_NEGATIVE.add(att)

MULTI_POSITIVE_TUP = tuple(MULTI_POSITIVE)
MULTI_NEGATIVE_TUP = tuple(MULTI_NEGATIVE)

print(f"Single positive: {SINGLE_POSITIVE}")
print(f"Multi positive: {MULTI_POSITIVE_TUP}")
print(f"Single negative: {SINGLE_NEGATIVE}")
print(f"Multi negative: {MULTI_NEGATIVE_TUP}")

Gives:
Single positive: {'python', 'no'}
Multi positive: ({'hello', 'world'},)
Single negative: {'c#', 'java'}
Multi negative: ({'js', 'ruby'},)

Just another point, on reflection, there's another issue that's more design-wise than programmatical. There's no reason for your MOCK_DATABASE to be a list of dictionaries, rather than a single dictionary. A dictionary can have several key: value pairs and I can't think of a single example (off the top of my head) where it's useful to define a dictionary with one entry. If this MOCK_DATABASE is more complex than the one in your example, you might consider using the pandas library.