Literature and Knowledge Publishing

Découvrez les contes légendaires des Mille et Une Nuits revisités par Andrew Lang : des aventures magiques, des génies, des princesses et des voyages extraordinaires qui captivent petits et grands depuis des siècles.

490 av. J.-C., Grèce antique. Sur la plaine de Marathon, une poignée de soldats athéniens et platéens affronte l’immense armée perse.

In view of the vagueness, effectiveness, and vulnerability of the evangelical accounts of Jesus, as far as his historical reality is concerned, the witnesses in non-Christian literature have always occupied a prominent place in the question of his historicity. As early as the first few centuries of the present era pious Christians searched the Jewish and pagan writers for references to Jesus, convinced that such references ought to be found in them; they regarded with great concern the undeniable defects of tradition, and, in the interest of their faith, endeavoured to supply the want by more or less astute "pious frauds," such as the Acts of Pilate, the letter of Jesus to King Abgar Ukkama of Edessa, the letter of Pilate to Tiberius, and similar forgeries. Greater still was the reliance on the few passages in profane literature which seemed to afford some confirmation of the historical truth of the things described in the gospels. As these so-called non-Christian witnesses are again brought forward to rebut the denial of the historicity of Jesus, in the discussion which has followed the appearance of The Christ Myth, and are even pressed upon us as decisive testimony, we must make a comprehensive inquiry into the value of those references in profane writers which seem to support the belief in an historical Jesus.

This book treats of the relation of music to the mental progress.The music of a people may be considered in direct relation to their supersensuous natures. From this point of view alone, strongly marked differences may be noted; for, by comparing modern Italian music with German, it is at once seen that the latter is developed more highly in an intellectual sense. Our modern music is styled a new art, chiefly because it requires advanced mental powers of a special kind on the part of composers and auditors. Instead of being a succession of monotones, it is a complex web of many tones, that the hearer must analyze to understand and enjoy... It is interesting to consider the birth of a new art, and gratifying to note that our modern civilization is marked by so rare an event. We need not, therefore, lament that at the Renaissance no specimens of Greek music were forthcoming; for these might have influenced the early composers, whose special duty it was to strive to express the new thought and feeling of the time, and of the Latin and Germanic races, not of Greeks or Orientals. When the mental sleep of the dark ages passed to the waking dream or semi-consciousness of the middle ages that led to the complete awakening, there was great productive activity in all branches of art...

This book deals with the cause and cure of the nervous ills. As I carry on my work on nervous ills I become more and more convinced that a knowledge of Social Psychology is essential to a clear comprehension of nervous ills. The number of cases given in the volume will, I am sure, be of great help to the reader. For the concrete cases, carefully studied by me, bring out distinctly the mechanism, the factors, and the main principles of nervous ills... In nervous ills we find the same fundamental factors: the fear instinct and the Self-preservation which is the central aim of all life-activities.

History of the Mexican Empire and Mexico after the Empire (with illustrations). "South of the United States, stretching away towards Central America, lies the country of Mexico... It is difficult to choose whether to follow first the history of these most ancient of people, or to commence with those that have filled a more prominent place in more recent times. Let us go up into that vast table-land and seek out the abiding-place of the nation that ruled Mexico when first this country was discovered by Europeans, by white men. We shall find ourselves in the valley of Mexico, enclosed on all sides by spurs of mountains from that mighty chain that strides the whole length of the continent..."

The Conquest and History of Canada. "England and France started in a fair race for the magnificent prize of supremacy in America. The advantages and difficulties of each were much alike, but the systems by which they improved those advantages and met those difficulties were essentially different. New France was colonized by a government, New England by a people. In Canada the men of intellect, influence, and wealth were only the agents of the mother country; they fulfilled, it is true, their colonial duties with zeal and ability, but they ever looked to France for honor and approbation, and longed for a return to her shores as their best reward. They were in the colony, but not of it. They strove vigorously to repel invasion, to improve agriculture, and to encourage commerce, for the sake of France, but not for Canada.The mass of the population of New France were descended from settlers sent out within a short time after the first occupation of the country, and who were not selected for any peculiar qualifications. They were not led to emigrate from the spirit of adventure, disappointed ambition, or political discontent; by far the larger proportion left their native country under the pressure of extreme want or in blind obedience to the will of their superiors. They were then established in points best suited to the interests of France, not those best suited to their own. The physical condition of the humbler emigrant, however, became better than that of his countrymen in the Old World; the fertile soil repaid his labor with competence; independence fostered self-reliance, and the unchecked range of forest and prairie inspired him with thoughts of freedom. But all these elevating tendencies were fatally counteracted by the blighting influence of feudal organization. Restrictions, humiliating as well as injurious, pressed upon the person and property of the Canadian..."

-The Conquest of Canada (Vol.2)-"One of the most momentous political questions that has ever yet moved the human race was decided in the Canadian war. When a few English and French emigrants first landed among the Virginian and Canadian forests, it began; when the British flag was hoisted on the citadel of Quebec, it was decided. From that day the hand of Providence pointed out to the Anglo-Saxon race that to them was henceforth intrusted the destiny of the New World."

This book presents the History of Argentina, from its discovery and Spanish colonization to the development of the country. "The description of the white man's spread over this immense country, the largest (except Brazil) of the South American states, and of all these the most immediately and unquestionably suitable for maintaining a large population of European blood-is tedious when told in detail. But it is a story fraught with significance for the future of the world. On the plains of Argentina the descendants of the Spanish conquerors have fought out among themselves all the perplexing questions arising from the adaptation of Spanish absolutism and ancient burgh law to a new country and to personal freedom. After more than half a century of civil war, constitutional equilibrium has been attained. The country ought to be interesting where there has grown up within a few decades the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere, and the largest Latin city, except Paris, in the world. The growth of Buenos Aires has been as dizzying as that of Chicago, and the world has never seen a more rapid and easy multiplication of wealth than that which took place in Argentina between the years of 1870 and 1890. Interesting, too, is Argentina as the scene of the most extensive experiment in the mixture of races now going on anywhere in the world except in the United States. In forty years more than two millions of immigrants have made their homes in Argentina. The majority are from Southern Europe, but the proportion of British, Germans, French, Belgians, and Swiss is a fifth of the whole. Will the Northerners be assimilated and disappear in the mass of Southerners, or will they succeed in impressing their characteristics on the latter? Will a mixed race be evolved especially suited to success in subtropical America? Will the system of administration painfully evolved out of the old Spanish laws prove permanently suited to the great industrial and commercial state that is growing up on the Argentine pampa?..."

This book presents the History of Brazil, from the discovery to the establishment of the Republic. "On the 9th of March, 1500, Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a Portuguese nobleman of illustrious birth, but not yet distinguished by any notable feats in war or seamanship, sailed from Lisbon for the East Indies. This expedition was sent out to continue the work begun by Vasco da Gama in the first all-sea voyage to India. It was an advance-guard for the larger armament that two years later founded the Portuguese empire on the coasts of India. Vasco da Gama himself wrote Cabral's sailing orders. The latter was instructed, after passing the Cape Verde Islands in 14° North, to sail directly south, as long as the wind was favourable. If forced to change his course, he was ordered to keep on the starboard tack, even though it led him south-west. When he reached the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope - 34° South - he was to bear away to the east.These sailing instructions have been the subject of much discussion. Many believe their sole purpose was to enable Cabral to avoid the Guinea calms, so annoying to sailing ships near the African coast. Others contend that Da Gama had seen signs of land to the west on his own voyage, and that its discovery was a real, though secondary, object of the expedition. In any event the Brazilian coast is too near the natural route around Africa to have escaped encounter, and would infallibly have shortly been seen by someone else.Forty-two days after leaving Lisbon, Cabral's fleet saw unmistakable signs of land, being then in latitude 17 degrees south and longitude 36 degrees west. From the Cape Verde Islands, just off the western point of Africa, he had made 2300 miles, and had come 500 miles to the west. The next day a mountain was sighted, which he called Paschoal, because it was Easter week. This mountain is in the southern part of the state of Bahia, about four hundred miles north-east of Rio, and on a coast that to this day is sparsely inhabited and rarely visited. The following day the whole fleet came to an anchor a mile and a half from the shore, and just north of the dangerous Abrolhos reefs. This was the 23rd of April, Old Style, which corresponds with the 3rd of May in the Gregorian calendar. The date is a national holiday in Brazil, and the anniversary for the annual convening of Congress. Because no quadrupeds or large rivers were seen, Cabral thought he had discovered an island and named it the "Island of the True Cross." The name has not survived except in poetry. He stopped ten days on the coast, took formal possession, and sent expeditions on shore which entered into communication with the Indians, who were seen in considerable numbers. It is characteristic that the first question asked of the Indians was if they knew what gold and silver were. They were peaceable and friendly, and the old chronicle describes them as of a dark reddish complexion with good features, and muscular, well-shaped bodies. They wore no clothes, their lower lips and cheeks were perforated to carry great ornaments of white bone, and their hair was elaborately dressed and adorned with feathers.These were fair specimens of the Tupi-Guaranies, the largest of the four great families into which the Brazilian aborigines have been classified. The others are the Caribs, the Arawaks, and the Botacudos. There are also traces of tribes who inhabited the country remote centuries ago. In caves in Minas Geraes skeletons have been found remarkably like those of the earliest Europeans. The theory is that these Indians came from Europe by land in that remote geological epoch when Scandinavia was joined to Greenland. Later came Mongoloids, probably by way of the Behring Strait, who appear largely to have exterminated their European predecessors, and to have been the ancestors of the modern Indians..."

This book deals with the life and the writings of Blaise Pascal, French inventor, writer and scientist. When we think of the achievements which he crowded into a brief space, and which have made his name famous to all generations, we may well exclaim with Corneille: "à peine a-t-il vecu, quel nom il a laissé!" (Barely lived, what a great name he left!).

This book deals with the history and migrations of Celtic people. In that remote age of which no personal records remain, but whose history may be derived from the known dispersion of men and languages, we find that the Celtics, first of the Indo-European nations, fled from their primitive homes in Central Asia, and, by the succeeding waves of emigration, were forced further and further to the West. It does not necessarily follow that their migrations, in the ante-historical period, were caused by war; although, amongst the races of men, whilst in an imperfect state of development, the tie of country is so strong that nothing but the most positive evils of war, pestilence, and famine will compel them to abandon their native land. But the early migrations of the Celts may have been also caused by the pressure of the new Eastern populations forcing the tribes least willing or able to labor into new and virgin soils, producing a greater return in proportion to the farmer's toil. It has been conclusively established by Pritchard and Donaldson, following in the track of many continental ethnologists and philologists, that the Celtic and German languages, with their derivatives, as well as the ancient Greek and Latin, all belong to the same family with the Sanscrit, and are in fact different modifications of the same language. From this, coupled with the slender traditions of the ante-historical period, it is concluded that the Celtic people of are Eastern origin-a kindred tribe with the nations who have settled on the Indus, as well as on the shores of the Mediterranean and Baltic. In the most ancient times, they possessed the greater part of Europe. In Spain, at the Roman conquest, the population was almost wholly Celtic. To the north of Italy, they gave the name of Cisalpine Gaul. Modern Germany was long the seat of powerful Celtic communities Thrace was in their possession, and, under another Brennus, they plundered Greece. Asia Minor they long possessed, and left there the name of Galatia. It may be observed that the Celtic races have ever been remarkable for sudden migrations. We do not find them well known to the early historians. Herodotus places them in the extreme West of Europe, beyond the pillars of Hercules. In the fourth century before the Christian Era, the Celts of Gaul crossed the Apennines and overran Central and Southern Italy. According to Livy, two hundred years before that period, one multitude of the Gauls crossed the Rhine, and settled in the Hercynian Forest; another crossed the Alps, settled in the valley of the Po, and founded Milan. In the Gaelic invasion of Italy, they defeated the Romans in the battle of the Allia, and were in possession of Rome for six months, with the exception of the Capitol. But, unlike the northern invaders, during the decline of the Roman Empire, they established no states in Central or Southern Italy, and retired loaded with booty...

Henry David Thoreau was the last male descendant of a French ancestor who came to this country from the Isle of Guernsey. His character exhibited occasional traits drawn from this blood in singular combination with a very strong Saxon genius. He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on the 12th of July, 1817. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1837, but without any literary distinction. An iconoclast in literature, he seldom thanked colleges for their service to him, holding them in small esteem, whilst yet his debt to them was important. After leaving the University, he joined his brother in teaching a private school, which he soon renounced. His father was a manufacturer of lead-pencils, and Henry applied himself for a time to this craft, believing he could make a better pencil than was then in use. After completing his experiments, he exhibited his work to chemists and artists in Boston, and having obtained their certificates to its excellence and to its equality with the best London manufacture, he returned home contented. His friends congratulated him that he had now opened his way to fortune. But he replied, that he should never make another pencil. "Why should I? I would not do again what I have done once." He resumed his endless walks and miscellaneous studies, making every day some new acquaintance with Nature, though as yet never speaking of zology or botany, since, though very studious of natural facts, he was incurious of technical and textual science...

This book deals with the life and works of Victor Hugo, one of the great and best-known french writer. His romances occupy an important position in the history of literature. "Men like Victor Hugo can be killed or they may be banished, but they cannot be bought; neither can they be intimidated into silence. He resigned his pension and boldly expressed himself in his own way.He knew history by heart and toyed with it; politics was his delight. But it is a mistake to call him a statesman. He was bold to rashness, impulsive, impatient and vehement. Because a man is great is no reason why he should be proclaimed perfect. Such men as Victor Hugo need no veneer-the truth will answer: he would explode a keg of powder to kill a fly. He was an agitator. But these zealous souls are needed-not to govern or to be blindly followed, but rather to make other men think for themselves. Yet to do this in a monarchy is not safe.The years passed, and the time came for either Hugo or Royalty to go; France was not large enough for both. It proved to be Hugo; a bounty of twenty-five thousand francs was offered for his body, dead or alive. Through a woman's devotion he escaped to Brussels. He was driven from there to Jersey, then to Guernsey.It was nineteen years before he returned to Paris-years of banishment, but years of glory. Exiled by Fate that he might do his work!..."

Inde, époque du Bouddha. Une mère, prête à braver la jungle et ses dangers, se lance dans une quête désespérée pour sauver son enfant d’une morsure mortelle.

This book deals with the steps in the evolution of religion and the Influence of the Environment on Religion. The most remarkable thing yet discovered about this planet is the fact that human beings exist upon it in large numbers, scattered almost everywhere over its surface, that pay homage to superterrestrial powers. But this fact, remarkable as it is, is only a portion of the truth. For the most searching and unprejudiced investigation has failed to reveal any time in human history when it was otherwise. However ignorant and forlorn man may have been in the past, we have no evidence that he has ever been so low down in the scale of being that he did not look upward with some degree of reverence and awe to higher powers. Not many years ago this fact of the universal prevalence of religion among men was seriously called in question by no less weighty writers than Sir John Lubbock and Herbert Spencer. They quoted at length from the reports of certain travelers and missionaries among the Eskimos of North Greenland, the Hottentots of South Africa and the Indians of Lower California in support of their position; and they stoutly contended that in these documents we have proof positive that there are communities now in existence that have no religion at all...

I hold in my hand here a key to one of the greatest mysteries of life: the perennial mystery of birth and reproduction. It is only a pea that I hold here before me, an ordinary small, round, yellow marrowfat, the seed of the commonest of garden annuals. Nevertheless, that familiar little object, which all of us have known all the days of our life, incloses in itself the entire solution of the riddle of birth. If we understand the pea clearly, we understand the whole science of biology. Let us ask ourselves first, exactly what it is, and then see how it helps us to comprehend the coming into existence of all the higher plants and animals. We have here the solution for one of the deepest and most fundamental problems of all life, animal or vegetable: the problem of reproduction, heredity, and individual variation.

Et si la beauté n’était pas une invention humaine, mais le fruit d’une longue évolution partagée avec le monde animal ?

1860, Oxford : quand Darwin bouscule les certitudes et que la science affronte la religion. From Creation to Evolution plonge au cœur du débat qui a divisé l’Angleterre victorienne, entre foi et raison, tradition et modernité.

Et si les peuples amérindiens et les tribus perdues d’Israël partageaient bien plus qu’on ne l’imagine ?

Et si la science et la philosophie se rejoignaient pour éclairer l’origine de la vie et la place de l’homme dans la nature ?

Et si notre vision du monde était encore prisonnière d’un géocentrisme insoupçonné ? The Theory of Relativity and its Influence on Scientific Thought révèle comment Einstein a achevé la révolution copernicienne en libérant la physique de ses.

What I hope and desire to do in writing this little book is to be helpful to persons who, while feeling the necessity of religion, are perplexed by the shape in which it comes before them. I am not thinking about historical criticism. I have in mind more fundamental things. We may be disappointed - I will at once make this suggestion, which is indeed the main substance of what I have to say - we may be disappointed in an experience which we have been taught to regard as all-important, not because it offers us too little, but because it offers not just what we were prepared for. Everything depends on the expectation and the hope with which we approach it. Religion is the knot, the centre, of all human difficulties; it is a many-sided thing, and if we ask it the wrong questions it will give us misleading responses. To take the simplest of all examples: Will religion guarantee me my private and personal happiness?...

Man possesses language, and makes large use of it, while, on the other hand, not even the most intelligent animals have the power of designating objects, or of translating sensations into articulate speech. In this respect the distinction between man and beast is very marked. It has at all times been cited as an evidence of man's exceptional place in Nature. The physiologist, however, discovers an articulate voice in many animals. Some mammals give utterance to vowels and consonants, but the result is only one syllable repeated without variation. Birds, better gifted than the mammals, can sing, and also possess a brief vocabulary: the goldfinch pronounces several words, which it repeats again and again in moments of pleasure. It has a word to express its ill-humor, as also a word for calling attention. In all this we see faint traces of language, notable witnesses of the unity of a phenomenon the gradations of which are wanting ... Sound has three dimensions: pitch, loudness and timbre. Pitch depends upon the frequency of vibrations. The more rapid the vibrations, the higher the pitch. Loudness is determined by the amplitude of the vibrations. As their length or "excursion" increases, so does the sound gain in loudness. Conversely, the diminution in the size of vibrations causes corresponding decrease of loudness. Differences in the shapes of vibrations cause differences in quality or timbre. After voice has originated within the restricted limits of the larynx, its power, its carrying quality is much augmented by the sympathetic vibrations within the resonance cavities above the larynx. These include the pharynx, nasal passages, mouth, bone cavities of the face-in fact pretty much every hollow space in the head, every space that will resound in response to vibration and assist in multiplying it. Moreover, the cavities of resonance by their differences in shape in different individuals determine the timbre or quality of individual voices. The chest, although situated below the larynx, is a resonance cavity of voice. In fact, in a certain register its vibration is felt so distinctly that we speak of these notes as being sung in the "chest register," which, so far as it implies that the tones are produced in the chest, is a misnomer. The same is true of "head register," in which vibration is felt in the head where, however, it is needless to say, the "head tones" do not originate.

"There are two grand stages of philosophy the mythologic-and the scientific. In the first, all phenomena are explained by analogies derived from subjective human experiences; in the latter, phenomena are explained as orderly successions of events. In sublime egotism man first interprets the cosmos as an extension of himself; he classifies the phenomena of the outer world by their analogies with subjective phenomena; his measure of distance is his own pace, his measure of time his own sleep, for he says, "It is a thousand paces to the great rock," or, "It is a hundred sleeps to the great feast." Noises are voices, powers are hands, movements are made afoot. By subjective examination discovering in himself will and design, and by inductive reason discovering will and design in his fellow men and in animals, he extends the induction to all the cosmos, and there discovers in all things will and design. All phenomena are supposed to be the acts of someone, and that someone having will and purpose. In mythologic philosophy the phenomena of the outer physical world are supposed to be the acts of living, willing, designing personages. The simple are compared with and explained by the complex. In scientific philosophy, phenomena are supposed to be children of antecedent phenomena, and so far as science goes with its explanation they are thus interpreted. Man with the subjective phenomena gathered about him is studied from an objective point of view, and the phenomena of subjective life are relegated to the categories established in the classification of the phenomena of the outer world; thus the complex is studied by resolving it into its simple constituents..."

Reversions in Modern Industrial Life. If the law of reversion holds true of physical life, it holds equally true of industrial life. Under its operation is revived the career of institutions as indicative of conditions long passed away as any deformity that may once have saved from extinction a race of brutes. However useful in the elevation of man from degradation and savagery, they contributed, after the completion of their purpose, no further service than one of evil. To many social reformers, the legislation in revival of the old trade and professional corporations, whose noble achievements fill one of the lighter pages of history, seems important and beneficent. But an error more alluring and dangerous was never current. Such legislation will not, as Herbert Spencer has often shown, further human welfare. On the contrary, it will undo the work of civilization, and renew the ravages of barbarism...

This book treats of the Influence of Inventions upon Civilization.

This book treats of the Evolution and the Distribution of Animals "No one with good eyes and brains behind them has ever looked forth on the varied life of the world-on forest or field or brook or sea-without at least once asking himself this question: "What is the cause of nature's endless variety?" We see many kinds of beasts and birds and trees and flowers and insects and blades of grass, yet when we look closely we find not one grass-blade in the meadow quite like another blade. Not one worm is like its fellow-worm, and not one organism in body or soul is the measure of its neighbor. You may search all day to match one clover-leaf, and, should you succeed, even then you have failed; for, if the two leaves agree in all physical respects, they may still be unlike in that which we cannot see, their ancestries, their potentialities. Again, with each change of conditions, of temperature, of moisture, of space, of time, with each shifting of environment, the range in variety increases. "Dauer in Wechsel" (persistence in change); "this phrase of Goethe," says Amiel, "is a summing up of nature." And the naturalist will tell you that the real variety is far greater than that which appears. He will tell you that, where commonness seems to prevail, it is the cover of variety..."

"Psychological science has reached a sort of understanding in these recent years of the individual and of the social setting in which he customarily disports himself; and the duty now devolves upon it of dealing with the exceptions to the rule. No one will be disposed to deny certainly that the genius is in some way exceptional; and if any instance can, by showing what society is not, cast light on what it is, the genius is the man to question. So it is my purpose in this paper to endeavor to understand him, as far as may be, without putting ourselves in his shoes; for apart from the inherent difficulty of assuming his exceptional role, it may for another reason be more comfortable not to do so, for under the exceptions to our social rule we are forced to include also these other extremes found in the weak-minded and the insane..."

It must be owned that man, in most of his struggles with the world around him, has fought blindly for his own ultimate interests. His contest, successful for the moment, has too often led to sure and sad disaster. Stripping forests from hill and mountain, he has gained his immediate object in the possession of their abundant stores of timber; but he has laid open the slopes to be parched by drought, or to be swept bare by rain. Countries once rich in beauty, and plenteous in all that was needful for his support, are now burned and barren, or almost denuded of their soil. Gradually he has been taught by his own bitter experience, that while his aim still is to subdue the earth, he can attain it, not by setting Nature and her laws at defiance, but by enlisting them in his service. He has learned at last to be the minister and interpreter of Nature, and he finds in her a ready and unrepining slave. In fine, looking back across the long cycles of change through which the land has been shaped into its present form, let us realize that these geographical revolutions are not events wholly of the dim past, but that they are still in progress. So slow and measured has been their march, that even from the earliest times of human history they seem hardly to have advanced at all. But none the less are they surely and steadily transpiring around us. In the fall of rain and the flow of rivers, in the bubble of springs and the silence of frost, in the quiet creep of glaciers and the tumultuous rush of ocean-waves, in the tremor of the earthquake and the outburst of the volcano, we may recognize the same play of terrestrial forces by which the framework of the continents has been step by step evolved.

Comment naissent les grands changements sociaux ? Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment explore l’influence des individus exceptionnels et de leur environnement sur l’évolution des sociétés.

This book deals with how the Standard or Universal time is obtained; and What is the Accurate Measurement of Time. " Almost everybody knows that observatories are the places from which standard time is sent out and corrected daily or hourly. But comparatively few have more than the vaguest idea of the means used at the observatories for obtaining it. Probably the majority of people suppose that the observatories obtain the correct time from the sun. When the average man wishes to give his watch the highest praise he says, "It regulates the sun," not being aware that a watch which would keep with the sun around the year would have to be nearly as bad as Sam Weller's. The farmer may safely decide when to go in to dinner by the sun, but if the mariner was as confident that the sun marked always the correct time as the farmer is he would be sure to be at times two or three hundred miles from where he thought he was. In other words, the sun-that is, a sundial-is only correct on a few days in each year, and during the intervening times gets as far as a whole quarter hour fast or slow. These variations of the sun from uniform time caused no end of trouble between the astronomers and the fine clockmakers before it was discovered that sun time is subject to such irregularities. The better the clock, the worse it often seemed to go..."