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Chapter 7: Local Area Networks: Part I
TRUE/FALSE
1. Perhaps the strongest advantage of a local area network is its capability of allowing users to share
hardware and software resources.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 177
2. The local area network first appeared in the 1950s.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 180
3. By keeping all of the application on the server, the network can control access to the software and can
reduce the amount of disk storage required on each user’s workstation for this application.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 179
4. A local area network cannot interface with other local area networks.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 179
5. Most modern local area networks provide the capabilities of transferring video images and video
streams.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 179
6. One of the biggest advantages of local area networks is their ability to share resources in an
economical and efficient manner.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 179
7. A local area network is only as strong as its strongest link.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 179
8. The bus/tree topology was the first physical design used when local area networks became
commercially available in the late 1970s.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 180
9. Baseband signaling typically uses multiple digital signals to transmit data over the bus.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 181
10. All bus networks share a major disadvantage: In general, it is difficult to add a new workstation if no
tap currently exists.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 182
11. Hubs (and switches) support only twisted pair cable for interhub connection.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 183
12. With the CSMA/CD protocol, only one workstation at a time can transmit.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 184
13. If the network is experiencing a high amount of traffic, the chances for collision are small.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 185
14. The most popular example of a contention-based protocol is the token-passing protocol.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 184
15. The hub, in most applications, has been replaced with the switch.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 186
16. A hub is a simple device that requires virtually no overhead to operate.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 186
17. Most switches are transparent, which means they learn by themselves.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 187
18. Switches can significantly decrease interconnection traffic and increase the throughput of the
interconnected networks or segments.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 188
19. A hub is designed to perform much faster than a switch.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 188
20. A cut-through switch does not store a data frame and then forward it.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 189
21. In a shared segment network, each workstation then has a private or dedicated connection.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 189
22. Switches can be used in combination with routers to further isolate traffic segments in a local area
network.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 190
23. The logical link control sublayer defines the layout or format of the data frame, simply called the
frame.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 197
24. Three of the most popular local area network systems are Ethernet, IBM Token Ring, and Wireless
Ethernet.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 196
25. The term “Base”, such as in 100BaseT, is an abbreviation for baseband signals using a Manchester
encoding.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 196
26. Using coaxial cable to transmit analog signals, 10Broad36 can transmit data at 10 Mbps for a
maximum segment distance of 3600 meters.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 196
27. The Fast Ethernet standards are based on 1000-Mbps transmission speeds, or 1 gigabit (1 billion bits)
per second.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 196
28. 1000BaseSX was the first Gigabit Ethernet standard.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 196
29. 1000BaseT is capable of using only the Category 7 cable specification.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 196
30. The 802.11 specification defined six different types of physical layer connections.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 197-198
31. Link aggregation allows you to combine two or more data paths, or links, into one higher-speed link.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 192
32. The spanning tree algorithm allows you to run cable spans between two or more networks.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 192-193
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Early local area networks transmitted data at only ____ million bits per second.
a. 1 c. 100
b. 10 d. 1000
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 176-180
2. A local area network performs file serving when it’s connected to a workstation with a large storage
disk drive that acts as a central storage repository, or ____ server.
a. file c. database
b. printer d. application
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 177-178
3. The local area network software called a ____ server provides workstations with the authorization to
access a particular printer, accepts and queues prints jobs, prints cover sheets, and allows users access
to the job queue for routine administrative functions.
a. application c. file
b. database d. print
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 177-178
4. The ____ topology consists of a simple cable, or bus, to which all devices attach.
a. bus/tree c. ring star
b. token ring d. star
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 180-181
5. In a bus/tree topology, connecting to the cable requires a simple device called a(n) ____.
a. hub c. tap
b. router d. echo suppressor
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 180-181
6. Two different signaling technologies can be used with a bus network: baseband signaling and ____
signaling.
a. multiband c. uniband
b. broadband d. singleband
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 181
7. More complex bus topologies consisting of multiple interconnected cable segments are termed ____.
a. tokens c. rings
b. stars d. trees
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 182
8. The most popular configuration for a local area network is the ____ topology.
a. ring c. bus
b. star-wired bus d. tree
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 182
9. The ____ design of a network determines how the data moves around the network from workstation to
workstation.
a. electrical c. physical
b. data d. logical
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 182
10. ____ cabling has become the preferred medium for star-wired bus topologies.
a. Twisted pair c. Fiber-optic
b. Coaxial d. FDDI
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 184
11. When two or more hubs are interconnected and a workstation transmits data, all the workstations
connected to all the hubs receive the data. This is an example of a(n) ____.
a. wireless topology c. shared network
b. switched network d. FDDI topology
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 183
12. A(n) ____ protocol is the software that allows a workstation to place data onto a local area network.
a. error control c. medium access control
b. noise control d. flow control
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 184
13. The most popular contention-based protocol is ____.
a. token ring
b. round-robin
c. carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA)
d. carrier sense multiple access with collision detection (CSMA/CD)
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 184-185
14. The interval during which the signals propagate down the bus and back is the ____.
a. exponential backoff c. attenuation
b. collision window d. bounce window
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 185
15. The ____ sublayer contains a header, computer (physical) addresses, error-detection codes, and control
information.
a. logical link control (LLC) c. medium access control (MAC)
b. logical flow control (LFC) d. physical link control (PLC)
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 197
16. The ____ sublayer is primarily responsible for logical addressing and providing error control and flow
control information.
a. medium access control (MAC) c. medium physical control (MPC)
b. physical access control (PAC) d. logical link control (LLC)
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 197
17. ____ was the first commercially available local area network system and remains, without a doubt, the
most popular local area network system today.
a. Ethernet c. FDDI
b. IBM Token Ring d. Wireless Ethernet
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 194
18. The ____ standard was one of the first Ethernet standards approved.
a. 10Broad36 c. 100BaseTX
b. 10Base5 d. 100BaseT4
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 195
19. ____ was a system designed for twisted pair wiring, but with only a 1-Mbps data transfer rate for 500
meters.
a. 10BaseT c. 100BaseTX
b. 10Broad36 d. 1Base5
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 195
20. A ____ system transmits 10-Mbps baseband (digital) signals over twisted pair for a maximum of 100
meters per segment length.
a. 1Base5 c. 10BaseT
b. 10Broad36 d. 100BaseTX
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 195
21. IEEE created the 100-Mbps Ethernet 802.3u protocol also called ____ Ethernet.
a. Fast c. Terabit
b. Gigabit d. FDDI
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 195-196
22. ____ was the standard created for fiber-optic systems.
a. 1Base5 c. 100BaseTX
b. 10BaseTX d. 100BaseFX
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 195-196
23. The IEEE 802.3z standards are also known as ____ Ethernet.
a. Switch c. Gigabit
b. Fast d. Terabit
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 196
24. With ____, you can send electrical power over the Ethernet connection.
a. 1Base5 c. 10GBase-fiber
b. power over Ethernet (PoE) d. FDDI
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 196
25. The ____ is used to connect local area networks to wide area networks.
a. hub c. router
b. repeater d. bridge
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 200
26. A ____ is a device that interconnects two or more workstations in a star-wired bus local area network
and immediately retransmits the data it receives from any workstation out to all other workstations
connected.
a. hub c. router
b. switch d. repeater
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 182-183
27. A ____ is a device that interconnects two segments of local area networks and acts as a filter.
a. hub c. router
b. switch d. satellite
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 186
28. A transparent bridge creates the internal port table by using a form of ____.
a. forward learning c. backward learning
b. backward correction d. forward correction
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 187
29. The switch operates in place of a ____.
a. repeater c. router
b. bridge d. hub
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 186-187
30. In a ____ architecture, the data frame begins to exit the switch almost as soon as it begins to enter the
switch.
a. forward c. cut-through
b. backward d. random-propagation
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 189
31. If a switch has eight 100-Mbps ports, the backplane has to support a total of ____ Mbps.
a. 200 c. 600
b. 400 d. 800
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 188
32. Depending on user requirements, a switch can interconnect two different types of CSMA/CD network
segments: ____ segments and dedicated segments.
a. shared c. local
b. remote d. distributed
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 189
33. In ____ segment networks, a switch may be directly connected to a workstation, and the switch
connects to the hub.
a. shared c. distributed
b. dedicated d. remote
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 189
34. One of the more interesting applications for a dedicated segment network and a switch is creating a
____.
a. virtual LAN c. shared LAN
b. dedicated LAN d. local LAN
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 191
35. A relatively new standard, IEEE ____, was designed to allow multiple devices to intercommunicate
and work together to create a virtual LAN.
a. 802.1a c. 802.1P
b. 802.1g d. 802.1Q
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 191
36. Whether shared or dedicated segments are involved, the primary goal of a(n) ____ is to isolate a
particular pattern of traffic from other patterns of traffic or from the remainder of the network.
a. hub c. repeater
b. switch d. amplifier
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 186-188
37. ________________ allows you to combine two ore more data paths, or links, into one higher-speed
link.
a. The Spanning Tree Algorithm c. A virtual LAN
b. Link aggreation d. Quality of service
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 192
COMPLETION
1. A(n) _________________________ is a communications network that interconnects a variety of data
communications devices within a small geographic area and broadcasts data at high data transfer rates.
ANS:
local area network (LAN)
local area network
LAN
LAN (local area network)
PTS: 1 REF: 176
2. A(n) ____________________ is the physical (hardware) layout used to interconnect the workstations
within a local area network.
ANS: topology
PTS: 1 REF: 176-179
3. The tap is a(n) ____________________, as it does not alter the signal and does not require electricity
to operate.
ANS: passive device
PTS: 1 REF: 180
4. The ______________________________ is an electronic device that performs the necessary signal
conversions and protocol operations that allow the workstation to send and receive data on the
network.
ANS:
network interface card (NIC)
network interface card
NIC
NIC (network interface card)
PTS: 1 REF: 180
5. ____________________ means that when the signal is transmitted from a given workstation, the
signal propagates away from the source in both directions on the cable.
ANS: Bidirectional
PTS: 1 REF: 181
6. The ____________________ design refers to the pattern formed by the locations of the elements of
the network, as it would appear if drawn on a sheet of paper.
ANS: physical
PTS: 1 REF: 182
7. To promote acceptance, the ____________________ suite of protocols was created to support the
many different types of wireless local area networks in existence.
ANS: IEEE 802
PTS: 1 REF: 197
8. A(n) ____________________ protocol is basically a first-come, first-served protocol.
ANS: contention-based
PTS: 1 REF: 184
9. A(n) ____________________ occurs when two or more workstations listen to the medium at the same
moment, hear nothing, and then transmit their data at the same moment.
ANS: collision
PTS: 1 REF: 185
10. A(n) ____________________ protocol is one in which you cannot calculate the time at which a
workstation will transmit.
ANS: nondeterministic
PTS: 1 REF: 186
11. In IEEE 802.3 standard for CSMA/CD, frames shorter than 64 bytes are considered
____________________, or frame fragments.
ANS: runts
PTS: 1 REF: 197-198
12. ____________________ (nicknamed Cheapernet) was designed to allow for a less-expensive network
by using less-expensive components.
ANS: 10Base2
PTS: 1 REF: 195
13. One of the most common standards for broadband (analog) Ethernet was the ____________________
specification.
ANS: 10Broad36
PTS: 1 REF: 195
14. ____________________ was designed to support 100-Mbps baseband signals using two pairs of
Category 5 unshielded twisted pair.
ANS: 100BaseTX
PTS: 1 REF: 195
15. ____________________ was created to support older-category wire. Thus it can operate over
Category 3 or 4 twisted pair wire, as well as Category 5/5e/6 unshielded twisted pair.
ANS: 100BaseT4
PTS: 1 REF: 195
16. The ____________________ Ethernet standard is also known as IEEE 802.3ae.
ANS: 10 Gbps
PTS: 1 REF: 195
17. The ____________________ is a device that connects workstations to local area networks and
retransmits the incoming frame.
ANS: hub
PTS: 1 REF: 182
18. The ____________________ allows workstations to connect to LANs and interconnects multiple
segments of LANs.
ANS: switch
PTS: 1 REF: 186
19. A(n) ____________________ is a device that interconnects two local area networks and can use
processing power to direct a frame out a particular port, thus reducing the amount of traffic on the
network.
ANS: switch
PTS: 1 REF: 186
20. A(n) ____________________ examines the destination address of a frame and either forwards or does
not forward the frame, depending on some address information stored within the bridge.
ANS: filter
PTS: 1 REF: 188
21. Designed for LANs, the ____________________ observes network traffic flow and uses this
information to make future decisions regarding frame forwarding.
ANS: transparent bridge
PTS: 1 REF: 187
22. The main hardware of the switch is called the ____________________.
ANS: backplane
PTS: 1 REF: 188
23. If the circuit cards are ____________________, it is possible to insert and remove cards while the
power to the unit is still on.
ANS: hot swappable
PTS: 1 REF: 188
24. In ____________________ segment networks, a switch may be connected to a hub (or several hubs),
which then connects multiple workstations.
ANS: shared
PTS: 1 REF: 189
25. A(n) ____________________ is a logical subgroup within a local area network that is created via
switches and software rather than by manually moving wiring from one network device to another.
ANS:
virtual LAN
VLAN
PTS: 1 REF: 191
26. The ____________________ allows for a CSMA/CD network to simultaneously transmit and receive
data to and from a workstation.
ANS: full-duplex switch
PTS: 1 REF: 190
27. The ____________________ makes it possible to logically remove cyclic paths within a collection of
multiple LANs.
ANS:
spanning tree algorithm
spanning tree protocol
PTS: 1 REF: 192-193
ESSAY
1. A local area network (LAN) is a communications network that interconnects a variety of data
communications devices within a small geographic area and broadcasts data at high data transfer rates.
Expand on this definition by explaining the various terminology used.
ANS:
Several points in this definition merit a closer look. The phrase “data communications devices” covers
computers such as personal computers, computer workstations, and mainframe computers, as well as
peripheral devices such as disk drives, printers, and modems. Data communications devices could also
include items such as motion, smoke, and heat sensors; fire alarms; ventilation systems; and motor
speed controls. These latter devices are often found in businesses and manufacturing environments
where assembly lines and robots are commonly used.
The next piece of the definition, “within a small geographic area” usually implies that a local area
network can be as small as one room, or can extend over multiple rooms, over multiple floors within a
building, and even over multiple buildings within a single campus-area. The most common geographic
areas, however, are a room or multiple rooms within a single building. Local area networks differ
from many other types of networks in that most broadcast their data to many or all of the
workstations connected to the network. Thus, if one workstation has data to send to a second
workstation, that data is transmitted to other workstations on the network. When data that was not
requested arrives at a workstation, it is simply discarded. As you will see a little later, it is now quite
common to design a local area network so that all data is not transmitted to all workstations—an
enhancement that reduces the amount of traffic on the network.
Lastly, the final phrase of the definition states that local area networks are capable of transmitting data
at “high data transfer rates”. While early local area networks transmitted data at only 10 million bits
per second, the newest local area networks can transmit data at 10 billion bits per second.
PTS: 1 REF: 176-178
2. What are some of the application areas where a LAN can be an effective tool?
ANS:
A local area network can be an effective tool in many application areas. One of the most common
application areas is an office environment. A local area network in an office can provide word
processing, spreadsheet operations, database functions, electronic mail (e-mail) access, Internet access,
electronic appointment scheduling, and graphic image creation capabilities over a wide variety of
platforms and to a large number of workstations. Completed documents can be routed to high-quality
printers to produce letterheads, graphically designed newsletters, and formal documents.
A second common application area for a local area network is an academic environment. In a
laboratory setting, for example, a local area network can provide students with access to the tools
necessary to complete homework assignments, send e-mail, and utilize the Internet. In a classroom
setting, a local area network can enable professors to deliver tutorials and lessons with high-quality
graphics and sound to students. Multiple workstations can be used to provide students with instruction
at their own pace, while the instructor monitors and records each student’s progress at every
workstation.
A third common application area for a local area network is manufacturing. In fact, modern assembly
lines operate exclusively under the control of local area networks. As products move down the
assembly line, sensors control position; robots perform mundane, exacting, or dangerous operations;
and product subassemblies are inventoried and ordered. The modern automobile assembly line is a
technological tour de force, incorporating numerous local area networks and mainframe computers.
PTS: 1 REF: 176-180
3. How does a star-wired bus topology work?
ANS:
In a star-wired bus topology, all workstations connect to a central device such as the hub. The hub is a
nonintelligent device that simply and immediately retransmits the data it receives from any
workstation out to all other workstations (or devices) connected to the hub. All workstations hear the
transmitted data, because there is only a single transmission channel, and all workstations are using
this one channel to send and receive. Sending data to all workstations and devices generates a lot of
traffic but keeps the operation very simple, because there is no routing to any particular workstation.
Thus, with regard to its logical design, the star-wired bus is acting as a bus: when a workstation
transmits, all workstations (or devices) immediately receive the data. The network’s physical design,
however, is a star, because all the devices are connected to the hub and radiate outward in a starlike (as
opposed to linear) pattern.
The hub at the center of star-wired bus topology comes in a variety of designs.They can contain
anywhere from two to hundreds of connections, or ports, as they are called. If, for example, you have a
hub with 24 ports, and more are desired, it is fairly simple to either interconnect two or more hubs, or
purchase a larger hub.
PTS: 1 REF: 182
4. Explain the switch filtering function.
ANS:
As a frame of data moves across the first local area network and enters the switch, the switch examines
the source and destination addresses that are stored within the frame. These frame addresses are
assigned to the network interface card (NIC) when the NIC is manufactured. (All companies that
produce NICs have agreed to use a formula that ensures that every NIC in the world has a unique NIC
address.) The switch, using some form of internal logic, determines if a data frame’s destination
address belongs to a workstation on the current segment. If it does, the switch does nothing more with
the frame, because it is already on the appropriate segment. If the destination address is not an address
on the current segment, the switch passes the frame on to the next segment, assuming that the frame is
intended for a station on that segment. Additionally, the switch can check for transmission errors in the
data by performing a cyclic checksum computation on the frame.
PTS: 1 REF: 187-188
5. Explain the cut-through architecture including its advantages and disadvantages.
ANS:
In a cut-through architecture, the data frame begins to exit the switch almost as soon as it begins to
enter the switch. In other words, a cut-through switch does not store a data frame and then forward it.
In contrast, a store-and-forward device holds the entire frame for a small amount of time while various
fields of the frame are examined, a procedure that diminishes the overall network throughput. The
cut-through capability allows a switch to pass data frames very quickly, thus improving the overall
network throughput. The major disadvantage of cut-through architecture is the potential for the device
to forward faulty frames. For example, if a frame has been corrupted, a store-and-forward device will
input the frame, perform a cyclic checksum, detect the error, and perform some form of error control.
A cut-through device, however, is so fast that it begins forwarding the frame before the cyclic
checksum field can be calculated. If there is a cyclic checksum error, it is too late to do anything about
it. The frame has already been transmitted. If too many corrupted frames are passed around the
network, network integrity suffers.
PTS: 1 REF: 189
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can't conceal from myself the fact that I loved Edward Ashburnham
—and that I love him because he was just myself. If I had had the
courage and the virility and possibly also the physique of Edward
Ashburnham I should, I fancy, have done much what he did."
We read novels like The Good Soldier and Ladies Whose Bright Eyes
for their freshness and honesty of outlook. They follow no
stereotyped form of writing; they lay bare character in an unusual
manner; they demand intelligent reading and an appreciation of the
quietly subtle. They give a picture of life which is devoid of
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Most of all they give the impression of being written by a careful and
highly gifted artist.
Mr Hueffer is a master of English prose style.
X
THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE
Most people have read G. K. Chesterton's prose, many people have
read the drinking songs in The Flying Inn, some people have read
his collected Poems, and a few, only too few, have read the work by
which he will probably be remembered when all the rest of his work
is dead. The Ballad of the White Horse was first published in 1911
and is, as might be expected, a vindication of Christianity. "I say, as
do all Christian men, that it is a divine purpose that rules, and not
Fate," he quotes as his motto. He dedicates the poem to his wife
because of "the sign that hangs about your neck":
"Therefore I bring these rhymes to you,
Who brought the cross to me."
Before we have read five pages we realise that here is at last a
ballad which is not a spurious imitation. It rings clear, clean and true.
We see Alfred beaten to his knees by "a sea-folk blinder than the
sea," almost broken-hearted, beseeching the Virgin Mary for a sign.
"'Mother of God,' the wanderer said,
'I am but a common king,
Nor will I ask what saints may ask,
To see a secret thing....
But for this earth most pitiful,
This little land I know,
If that which is for ever is,
Or if our hearts shall break with bliss,
Seeing the stranger go?
When our last bow is broken, Queen,
And our last javelin cast,
Under some sad, green evening sky,
Holding a ruined cross on high,
Under warm westland grass to lie,
Shall we come home at last?'"
And she answers:
"'I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?'"
Stirred by this message, Alfred sets out yet again to stir zeal in his
chiefs for the causeless cause.
"Up across windy wastes and up
Went Alfred over the shaws,
Shaken of the joy of giants,
The joy without a cause....
The King went gathering Christian men,
As wheat out of the husk;
Eldred, the Franklin by the sea,
And Mark, the man from Italy,
And Colan of the Sacred Tree,
From the old tribe on Usk."
We are first given a picture of Eldred's farm fallen awry, "Like an old
cripple's bones," with its purple thistles bursting up between the
kitchen stones. But Eldred, the red-faced, bulky tun is sick of
fighting.
"'Come not to me, King Alfred,
Save always for the ale....
Your scalds still thunder and prophesy
That crown that never comes;
Friend, I will watch the certain things,
Swine, and slow moons like silver rings,
And the ripening of the plums.'"
Alfred merely repeats the message of the Virgin Mary, tells him
where to meet him and goes away certain of his help. He next goes
to Mark's farm, the low, white house in the southland, inhabited by
the bronzed man with a bird's beak and a bird's bright eye.
"His fruit trees stood like soldiers
Drilled in a straight line,
His strange, stiff olives did not fail,
And all the kings of the earth drank ale,
But he drank wine."
Alfred gives his message and the Roman answers:
"'Guthrum sits strong on either bank
And you must press his lines
Inwards, and eastward drive him down;
I doubt if you shall take the crown
Till you have taken London town.
For me, I have the vines.'"
But Alfred is certain of his help too and goes on to the lost land of
boulders and broken men, where dwells Colan of Caerleon:
"Last of a race in ruin—
He spoke the speech of the Gaels;
His kin were in holy Ireland,
Or up in the crags of Wales....
He made the sign of the cross of God,
He knew the Roman prayer,
But he had unreason in his heart
Because of the gods that were....
Gods of unbearable beauty
That broke the hearts of men."
He ridicules Alfred until he hears the warning:
" ... that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher."
Then he tosses his black mane on high and cries:
"'And if the sea and sky be foes,
We will tame the sea and sky.'"
And so Alfred is sure too of his help.
Alfred is then taken by the Danes as he is playing on his harp to the
camp of Guthrum and there is made to sing and play again:
"And leaving all later hates unsaid,
He sang of some old British raid
On the wild west march of yore.
He sang of war in the warm wet shires,
Where rain nor fruitage fails,
Where England of the motley states
Deepens like a garden to the gates
In the purple walls of Wales."
He sang until Harold, Guthrum's nephew, snatched the harp from
him and began in his turn to sing of ships and the sea and material
delights:
"'Great wine like blood from Burgundy,
Cloaks like the clouds from Tyre,
And marble like solid moonlight,
And gold like frozen fire.'"
Elf the minstrel then took the instrument:
"And as he stirred the strings of the harp
To notes but four or five,
The heart of each man moved in him
Like a babe buried alive."
He sang of Balder beautiful, whom the heavens could not save ...
and finishes with these two peerlessly beautiful verses:
"'There is always a thing forgotten
When all the world goes well;
A thing forgotten, as long ago
When the gods forgot the mistletoe,
And soundless as an arrow of snow
The arrow of anguish fell.
The thing on the blind side of the heart,
On the wrong side of the door,
The green plant groweth, menacing
Almighty lovers in the spring;
There is always a forgotten thing,
And love is not secure.'"
Earl Ogier of the Stone and Sling next took the harp and sang in
praise of "Fury, that does not fail":
"'There lives one moment for a man
When the door at his shoulder shakes,
When the taut rope parts under the pull,
And the barest branch is beautiful
One moment, while it breaks....
And you that sit by the fire are young,
And true loves wait for you;
But the King and I grow old, grow old,
And hate alone is true.'"
Guthrum in his turn takes the great harp wearily and sings of death:
"'For this is a heavy matter,
And the truth is cold to tell;
Do we not know, have we not heard,
The soul is like a lost bird,
The body a broken shell....
Strong are the Roman roses,
Or the free flowers of the heath,
But every flower, like a flower of the sea,
Smelleth with the salt of death.
And the heart of the locked battle
Is the happiest place for men....
Death blazes bright above the cup,
And clear above the crown;
But in that dream of battle
We seem to tread it down.
Wherefore I am a great king,
And waste the world in vain,
Because man hath not other power,
Save that in dealing death for dower,
He may forget it for an hour
To remember it again.'"
And then Alfred seizes it again and triumphantly, scornfully, sings his
pæan in praise of his own creed:
"'But though I lie on the floor of the world,
With the seven sins for rods,
I would rather fall with Adam
Than rise with all your gods.
What have the strong gods given?
Where have the glad gods led?
When Guthrum sits on a hero's throne
And asks if he is dead?...
... Though you hunt the Christian man
Like a hare on the hill-side,
The hare has still more heart to run
Than you have heart to ride....
Our monks go robed in rain and snow,
But the heart of flame therein,
But you go clothed in feasts and flames,
When all is ice within; ...
Ere the sad gods that made your gods
Saw their sad sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale,
That you have left to darken and fail,
Was cut out of the grass.
Therefore your end is on you,
Is on you and your kings,
Not for a fire in Ely fen,
Not that your gods are nine or ten,
But because it is only Christian men
Guard even heathen things.'"
Alfred then goes away and is struck by the woman in the forest for
letting her cakes blacken.
"'He that hath failed in a little thing
Hath a sign upon the brow;
And the Earls of the Great Army
Have no such seal to show....
... I am the first king known of heaven
That has been struck like a slave.'"
He takes the blow as a good omen:
"'For he that is struck for an ill servant
Should be a kind lord.'"
He collects his followers and they go roaring over the Roman wall
and fall upon the Danes at Ethandune. In the first phase we see
Alfred's men waking to the realisation of the high folly of the fight
and despair clawing at their hearts.
"For the Saxon Franklin sorrowed
For the things that had been fair,
For the dear dead women, crimson clad,
And the great feasts and the friends he had;
But the Celtic prince's soul was sad
For the things that never were."
Alfred asks for his people's prayers and the Roman Mark proudly
says:
"'Lift not my head from bloody ground,
Bear not my body home,
For all the earth is Roman earth
And I shall die in Rome.'"
Harold then comes forward in gay colours smoking with oil and
musk, and taunts the ragged Colan with the rusty sword: he takes
his bow and shoots an arrow at Colan, who sprang aside and whirled
his sword round his head and let it sweep out of his hand on to
Harold's head. The Dane fell dead and Alfred gave his own sword to
Colan and himself seized a rude axe from a hind hard by and turned
to the fray.
In Book VI., "The Slaying of the Chiefs," we are first shown Eldred
breaking the sea of spears "As a tall ship breaks the sea."
"But while he moved like a massacre
He murmured as in sleep,
And his words were all of low hedges
And little fields and sheep.
Even as he strode like a pestilence,
That strides from Rhine to Rome,
He thought how tall his beans might be
If ever he went home."
But in the end the sword broke in his hand and he falls to the
seventh "faerie blade" of Elf the minstrel.
"Six spears thrust upon Eldred
Were splintered while he laughed;
One spear thrust into Eldred,
Three feet of blade and shaft."
But he was soon avenged by Mark:
"Right on the Roman shield and sword
Did spear of the Rhine maids run;
But the shield shifted never,
The sword rang down to sever,
The great Rhine sang for ever,
And the songs of Elf were done."
Ogier in his turn avenges Elf:
"But hate in the buried Ogier
Was strong as pain in hell,
With bare brute hand from the inside
He burst the shield of brass and hide,
And a death-stroke to the Roman's side
Sent suddenly and well.
Then the great statue on the shield
Looked his last look around
With level and imperial eye;
And Mark, the man from Italy,
Fell in the sea of agony,
And died without a sound."
The Danes in their triumph sing:
"'No more shall the brown men of the south
Move like the ants in lines,
To quiet men with olives
Or madden men with vines.'
There was that in the wild men back of him [Ogier],
There was that in his own wild song,
A dizzy throbbing, a drunkard smoke,
That dazed to death all Wessex folk,
And swept their spears along.
Vainly the sword of Colan
And the axe of Alfred plied—
The Danes poured in like brainless plague,
And knew not when they died.
Prince Colan slew a score of them,
And was stricken to his knee;
King Alfred slew a score and seven
And was borne back on a tree."
The King was beaten, blind, at bay, and we are taken on to Book
VII., "The Last Change," where Alfred is compared to a small child
building one tower in vain, piling up small stones to make a town,
and evermore the stones fall down and he piles them up again.
"And this was the might of Alfred,
At the ending of the way;
That of such smiters, wise or wild,
He was least distant from the child,
Piling the stones all day.
For Eldred fought like a frank hunter
That killeth and goeth home;
And Mark had fought because all arms
Rang like the name of Rome.
And Colan fought with a double mind,
Moody and madly gay;
But Alfred fought as gravely
As a good child at play.
He saw wheels break and work run back
And all things as they were;
And his heart was orbed like victory
And simple like despair.
Therefore is Mark forgotten,
That was wise with his tongue and brave;
And the cairn over Colan crumbled,
And the cross on Eldred's grave.
Their great souls went on a wind away,
And they have not tale or tomb;
And Alfred born in Wantage
Rules England till the doom.
Because in the forest of all fears
Like a strange fresh gust from sea,
Struck him that ancient innocence
That is more than mastery."
And so Alfred began his life once more and took his ivory horn
unslung and smiled, but not in scorn:
"'Endeth the Battle of Ethandune
With the blowing of a horn.'"
He collects his remnants and incites them to a last desperate effort:
"'To grow old cowed in a conquered land,
With the sun itself discrowned,
To see trees crouch and cattle slink—
Death is a better ale to drink,
And by high Death on the fell brink,
That flagon shall go round.' ...
And the King held up the horn and said:
'See ye my father's horn,
That Egbert blew in his empery,
Once, when he rode out commonly,
Twice when he rode for venery,
And thrice on the battle-morn.'"
So
" ... the last charge went blindly,
And all too lost for fear:
The Danes closed round, a roaring ring,
And twenty clubs rose o'er the King,
Four Danes hewed at him, halloing,
And Ogier of the Stone and Sling
Drove at him with a spear."
But the Danes were careless, and Alfred split Ogier to the spine: the
tide miraculously turned and the Danes gave way and retreated
clamouring, disorderly:
"For dire was Alfred in his hour
The pale scribe witnesseth,
More mighty in defeat was he
Than all men else in victory,
And behind, his men came murderously,
Dry-throated, drinking death."
So at last the sign of the cross was put on Guthrum and
"Far out to the winding river
The blood ran down for days,
When we put the cross on Guthrum
In the parting of the ways."
And in the last book, "The Scouring of the White Horse," we see
Alfred at peace again.
"In the days of the rest of Alfred,
When all these things were done,
And Wessex lay in a patch of peace,
Like a dog in a patch of sun—
The King sat in his orchard,
Among apples green and red,
With the little book in his bosom
And the sunshine on his head."
And he gathered the songs of simple men, and gave alms, and "gat
good laws of the ancient kings like treasure out of the tombs"; and
men came from the ends of the earth and went out to the ends of
the earth because of the word of the King.
"And men, seeing such embassies,
Spake with the King and said:
'The steel that sang so sweet a tune
On Ashdown and on Ethandune,
Why hangs it scabbarded so soon,
All heavily like lead?'"
They asked: "Why dwell the Danes in North England and up to the
river ride?"
"And Alfred in the orchard,
Among apples green and red,
With the little book in his bosom,
Looked at green leaves and said:
'When all philosophies shall fail,
This word alone shall fit;
That a sage feels too small for life,
And a fool too large for it.
Asia and all Imperial plains
Are too little for a fool;
But for one man whose eyes can see,
The little island of Athelney
Is too large a land to rule.
... But I am a common king,
And I will make my fences tough
From Wantage Town to Plymouth Bluff,
Because I am not wise enough
To rule so small a thing.'"
He only commands his men to keep the White Horse white. Rumour
of the Danes to the eastward, Danes wasting the world about the
Thames reaches him, but Alfred only points to the White Horse.
"'Will ye part with the weeds for ever?
Or show daisies to the door?
Or will you b id the bold grass
Go, and return no more?...
And though skies alter and empires melt,
This word shall still be true:
If we would have the horse of old,
Scour ye the horse anew....
But now I wot if ye scour not well
Red rust shall grow on God's great bell
And grass in the streets of God.'"
He has a vision that the heathen will return.
"'They shall not come with warships,
They shall not waste with brands,
But books be all their eating,
And ink be on their hands....
By this sign you shall know them,
The breaking of the sword,
And Man no more a free knight,
That loves or hates his lord....
When is great talk of trend and tide,
And wisdom and destiny,
Hail that undying heathen
That is sadder than the sea.'"
He sees no more, but rides out doubtfully to his last war on a tall
grey horse at dawn.
"And all the while on White Horse Hill
The horse lay long and wan,
The turf crawled and the fungus crept,
And the little sorrel, while all men slept,
Unwrought the work of man....
And clover and silent thistle throve,
And buds burst silently,
With little care for the Thames Valley
Or what things there might be."
And the King took London Town.
I have given enough illustrations to show the masculine strength and
virility of this amazing poem. We read G. K. Chesterton for his wit,
for his brilliance, for his delightful paradoxes, for his sanity and
wholesomeness, but we read him most of all for his brave creed, for
his defence of Christianity and his love for the eternal values of
honour, uprightness, courage, loyalty and devotion, for his steadfast
adherence to whatsoever things are of good report.
XI
E. M. FORSTER
This is really a chapter about one book, not about a man. It is quite
true that Mr Forster has written a number of novels, but he is only
remembered by one and that is a decade old. He is a very skilful and
careful artist and interested in classical myth rather more than he is
in us: he is a scholar with a good deal of the poetic in him; when he
lets his thought dwell on us poor moderns his satiric vein appears
predominant, though he too, like the rest of us, had to let the
autobiographical have its way in two novels: A Room with a View
and the schoolmaster's book, The Longer Journey, give us, if we
want to know them, many facts about himself, but wiser people will
plump for Howard's End and forget the others—only hoping that he
will soon give us something more in that vein.
There was a slight flutter in our dovecotes when we saw the
announcement of a novel by him early in 1920, but The Syren is not
a novel and is not new. It is a delicious trifle, artistically perfect ...
but from a man who can give us real men of the type of Leonard
Bast we want no chatter about blue grottoes, however perfect.
Yes, I fully realise that E. M. Forster published Howard's End in 1910,
but he has not written a novel since, and, as W. L. George says, "He
is still one of the young men, while it is not at all certain that he is
not 'the' young man." "Mystic athleticism" is the phrase that Mr
George uses as his label for him, and so far as labels ever fit, this
will do.
We read Howard's End for its unexpectedness, its elliptic talk, which
so exactly hits off the characters he creates, for its manifestation of
the Comic Spirit, for passages such as the following, which abound:
—
"It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the
most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All
sorts and conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you are like Mrs
Munt ["I do know when I like a thing and when I don't"] and tap
surreptitiously when the tunes come—of course, not so as to disturb
the others—or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the
music's flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like
Tibby, who is profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full
score open on his knee ... or like Fräulein Mosebach's young man,
who can remember nothing but Fräulein Mosebach: in any case, the
passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are bound to admit
that such a noise is cheap at two shillings."
We read Howard's End for the merciless skill which E. M. Forster
shows in laying bare the soul of Leonard Bast, the clerk in the
insurance office, who reads Ruskin and goes to the Queen's Hall in
order to improve himself, who is dragged into the gutter by his
loose-living mistress ("she seemed all strings and bell-pulls, ribbons,
chains, bead necklaces that chinked and caught——").... We read
Howard's End for the equally merciless sketch of the millionaire
husband of the heroine ("a man who ruins a woman for his pleasure,
and casts her off to ruin other men. And gives bad financial advice,
and then says he is not responsible. These men are you. You can't
recognise them, because you cannot connect. I've had enough of
your unweeded kindness. I've spoilt you long enough. All your life
you have been spoiled.... No one has ever told what you are—
muddled, criminally muddled").
Mr E. M. Forster's eyes are pellucidly clear in their vision both of rich
and poor. "Only connect," he says. That is the cause of all the folly
and cruelty in the world, lack of power to connect. Think of this
picture of Leonard Bast. "Hints of robustness survived in him (he
came of Lincolnshire yeoman stock), more than a hint of primitive
good looks, and Margaret, noting the spine that might have been
straight, and the chest that might have broadened, wondered
whether it paid to give up the glory of the animal for a tail coat and
a couple of ideas. Culture had worked in her own case, but during
the last few weeks she had doubted whether it humanised the
majority, so wide and so widening is the gulf that stretches between
the natural and philosophic man, so many the good chaps who are
wrecked in trying to cross it. She knew this type very well—the
vague aspirations, the mental dishonesty, the familiarity with the
outsides of books."
But he should not have permitted an untimely end even to such a
man: it is bad artistry to overweight your dice. When any character
in a book of this sort goes to prison or dies (except in child-birth)
one cannot help feeling that the author has burked the issue or been
too lazy to work out his thesis to a reasonable, logical conclusion.
Like Margaret in Howard's End, who did not see that to break her
husband was her only hope, but did rather what seemed easiest, so
E. M. Forster does what seems easiest, and the result is a certain
falsity all the more reprehensive because in so many ways this book
is head and shoulders above any of its era. Helen's gift of herself to
Leonard Bast is absolutely true to life.
"It never occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the
intensity of their talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity,
the magic of Oniton under darkness and of the whispering river.
Helen loved the absolute. Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and
had appeared to her as a man apart, isolated from the world.... She
and the victim seemed alone in a world of unreality, and she loved
him absolutely, perhaps for half an hour."
Notice the last five words—"perhaps for half an hour": that is the
secret of E. M. Forster's greatness. He plays the game with the
gloves off, he strips bare all the fopperies and artificialities of the
world. All these characters have to learn how entirely different from
the formal codes they are brought up to believe are the real codes of
existence. Listen to Helen:
"'I want never to see him again, though it sounds appalling. I
wanted to give him money and feel finished. Oh, Meg, the little that
is known about these things.'"
Listen to Margaret's attitude when she finds out that her husband
has been unfaithful.
"Now and then he asked her whether she could possibly forgive him,
and she answered: 'I have already forgiven you, Henry.' She chose
her words carefully, and so saved him from panic. She played the
girl, until he could rebuild his fortress and hide his soul from the
world. When the butler came to clear away, Henry was in a very
different mood—asked the fellow what he was in such a hurry for,
complained of the noise last night in the servants' hall. Margaret
looked intently at the butler. He, as a handsome young man, was
faintly attractive to her as a woman—an attraction so faint as
scarcely to be perceptible, yet the skies would have fallen if she had
mentioned it to Henry."
It is into Margaret's mind that E. M. Forster puts the ideas that take
pride of place in Howard's End.
"Margaret greeted her lord with peculiar tenderness on the morrow.
Mature as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building
of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the
passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half
beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With
it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the
grey, sober against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either
aspect the glory of these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie
clear, and he and his friends shall find easy-going."
"It was hard-going in the roads of Mr Wilcox's soul. From boyhood
he had neglected them. 'I am not a fellow who bothers about my
own inside.' Outwardly he was cheerful, reliable, and brave; but
within, all had reverted to chaos, ruled, so far as it was ruled at all,
by an incomplete asceticism. Whether as boy, husband, or widower,
he had always the sneaking belief that bodily passion is bad, a belief
that is desirable only when held passionately. Religion had confirmed
him.... He could not be as the saints and love the Infinite with a
seraphic ardour, but he could be a little ashamed of loving a wife....
And it was here that Margaret hoped to help him ... only connect!
That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the
passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its
height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect and the beast and
the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die."
If we demand of modern novels that they should portray human
character exactly as it is and that the author should have a definite
standpoint for his philosopher of life, one need quote no further to
prove that in Howard's End these two desirable factors are to be
found in profusion.
Mr E. M. Forster is a conscious artist of a very high order and our
only quarrel with him is that he writes too little.
XII
SHEILA KAYE-SMITH
We read Sheila Kaye-Smith because she alone among the women
writers of to-day writes with the sure touch of a man. This is not to
decry other writers of her sex of the stamp of Clemence Dane
(though there are very few good women novelists): it is that Miss
Sheila Kaye-Smith has a masculine strength; her narrative flows
strongly, she has an uncanny knowledge of and kinship with the
elemental things of the soil.
We read her for her breadth of outlook, her sense of the beauty of
the Sussex that she has made hers as much as Thomas Hardy has
made Wessex his, for the dignity and excellent music of her English
prose style. She has an accurate sense of history and can with equal
ease place her characters at the beginning as at the end of Victoria's
reign.
Her dialect (all her novels are full of dialect) is accurate if at times a
little literary: there are too many "howsumdevers," "dunnamanys,"
"vrotherings," "spannelings" and "tediouses," but this is a very little
blemish.
Her strength is seen fully fledged in Sussex Gorse, in the picture of
Reuben battling with the forces of nature.
"He drank in the scent of the baking awns, the heat of the sun-
cracked earth. It was all dear to him—all ecstasy. And he himself
was dear to himself because the beauty of it fell upon him ... his
body, strong and tired, smelling a little of sweat, his back scorched
by the heat in which he had bent, his hand strong as iron upon his
sickle. Oh, Lord! it was good to be a man, to feel the sap of life and
conquest running in you, to be battling with mighty forces, to be
able to fight seasons, elements, earth, and nature...."
He hates his son's poetic attitude, the boy who saw in nature a kind
of enchanted ground, full of mysteries of sun and moon, full of
secrets that were sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying. "It
seemed to have a soul and a voice ... and its soul was that ... of a
fetch, some country sprite."
But Reuben's hardness becomes his undoing: his hardness kills his
beloved wife through overmuch child-bearing; his hardness sends
one son to prison for stealing; his hardness makes him turn another
son out of the house; his hardness, his strength, his remorseless
nature left him to fight his battles with the land alone. He falls under
the personality of Alice Jury, who was the first to ask him whether it
was worth while fighting so hard to reclaim waste earth, to give up
so much for the sake of a piece of land. "'Life is worth while,'" she
says, "'in itself, not because of what it gives you.'
"'I agree with you there,' said Reuben; 'it's not wot life gives that's
good, it's wot you täake out of it.'"
But in the wrangles which he had with this new type of womanhood
he failed ever to convince her of the "worth-whileness" of his aim.
Meanwhile through his excessive zeal Reuben had driven his
youngest, weakling son to his death and continued to try to "draw
out Leviathan with a hook." The cleverest of his sons regarded his
father as a primordial gorilla, and Tilly, his daughter, despised him
and married his enemy: his ambition drove him to make slaves of his
children, and one by one they break the fetters and leave him. Alice
tries to make him see reason.... "You don't see this hideous thing
that's pursuing you, that's stripping you of all that ought to be yours,
that's making you miss a hundred beautiful things, that's driving you
past all your joys—this Boarzell...." Nearly, very nearly, he married
Alice ... and she would have saved him. "She was utterly unlike
anything there was or had been in his life, the only thing he knew
that did not smell of earth. The pity of it was that he loved that
strong-smelling earth so much."
She tells him that she would fight his schemes to the end, in love
with him as she is: she would never beguile him with the thought
that she could help him in his life's desire ... but she called him, as
no woman had ever called him, with all that of herself which was in
his heart, part of his own being, and she was within an ace of
winning: she was in the act of crossing to where he stood waiting
with outstretched arms when he caught sight of Boarzell lying in a
great hush, a great solitude, a quiet beast of power and mystery. "It
seemed to call him through the twilight like a love forsaken. There it
lay, Boarzell—strong, beautiful, desired, untamed, still his hope, still
his battle." So he turns his back on love and goes back to his lone
fight with Nature. Almost immediately afterwards he meets Rose,
tall, strapping, superbly moulded, animal Rose, free with her kisses,
and experienced and energetic in love: he marries her: she wanted
Reuben's love and she got it. "She was a perpetual source of delight
to him! Her beauty, her astounding mixture of fire and innocence,
her good humour, and her gaiety were even more intoxicating than
before marriage. He felt that he had found the ideal wife. As a
woman she was perfect, so perfect that in her arms he could forget
her shortcomings as a comrade." She smoothed away the wrinkles
of his day with her caresses, gave him love where she could not give
him understanding, heart where she could not give him brain. She
made him forget his heaviness and gave him strength to meet his
difficulties, of which there were many. But she wanted no children,
and Reuben had set his heart on more. She spent much money on
the fastidious care of her person ... so that he "sometimes had
doubts of this beautiful, extravagant, irresponsible creature."
Gradually he came to realise her uselessness, but when one more
grown-up son ran away to sea Rose bore him a child, and her rich
near relative died and he began to think that his luck was in.
Unfortunately this relative of his wife's left all his money to an
illegitimate son of whom no one had ever heard, and the fortune
that Reuben had expected to inherit by marrying Rose fell
elsewhere.
Shortly after this Rose finds the thirty years' difference between
herself and her husband too much for her and she allows herself to
love his foreman. Reuben locked her out of his house late one night
when she had been out with her lover, so she has no alternative but
to go off with him and leave Reuben in the lurch once more. He
turns again to Alice: "'Wot sort o' chap am I to have pride? My
farm's ruined, my wife's run away, my children have left me—wot
right have I to be proud?... She deceived me. I married her
expecting money, and there wur none—I married her fur her body,
and she's given it to another.'" This love of Alice Jury's had nothing
akin to Naomi's poor little fluttering passion, or to Rose's fascination,
half appetite, half game. Someone loved him purely, truly, strongly,
deeply, with a fire that could be extinguished only by death or ... her
own will. He is sorely tempted to give up his ambitious struggle—all
his great plans had crumbled into failure. "Far better give up the
struggle while there was the chance of an honourable retreat. He
realised that he was at the turning-point—a step further along his
old course and he would lose Alice, a step along the road she
pointed and he would lose Boarzell.... His mind painted him a picture
it had never dared paint before ... comfort ... his dear frail wife ...
himself contented, growing stout, wanting nothing he hadn't got, so
having nothing he didn't want...." But he turned his back on this
with a shudder. Boarzell was more to him than any woman in the
world.... Through blood and tears ... he would wade to Boarzell, and
conquer it at last. Alice should go the way of all enemies. "And the
last enemy to be destroyed is Love." So he tore women out of his
life, as he tore up the gorse on Boarzell. Caro, his sole remaining
daughter, then gives herself to a sailor and goes off with him as his
mistress. She felt very few qualms of conscience, even when the
barrier was past which she had thought impassable ... her life was
brimmed with beauty, unimaginable beauty that welled up into the
commonest things and suffused them with light. Also, about it all
was that surprising sense of naturalness which almost always comes
to women when they love for the first time, the feeling of "For this I
was born." Sheila Kaye-Smith has a wonderful gift for depicting the
passion of true love in the most beautiful manner.
"She never asked Dansay to marry her. He had given her pretty
clearly to understand that he was not a marrying man, and she was
terrified of doing or saying anything that might turn him against her.
One of the things about her that charmed him most was the
absence of all demand upon him."
But she is remorseless as Nature herself in her processes. A hundred
pages later we see her own young brothers attempting to "pick her
up" on the Newhaven Parade. She has become a third-rate harlot, a
bundle of rags and bones and paint.
"'I'm not happy, but I'm jolly. I'm not good, but I'm pleasant-like....
Mind you tell father as, no matter the life I lead and the knocks I
get, I've never once, not once, regretted the day I ran off from his
old farm.'"
The Boer War claims his youngest sons and Reuben is left alone at
Odiam, except for his brother Harry, who grows more shrivelled,
more ape-like every day. "Reuben was not ashamed at eighty years
old to lie full length in some sun-hazed field, and stretch his body
over the grass, the better to feel that fertile quietness and moist
freshness which is the comfort of those who make the ground their
bed."
In the end we leave him victorious: out of a small obscure farm of
barely sixty acres he had raised up this splendid dominion, and he
had tamed the roughest, toughest, fiercest, cruellest piece of ground
in Sussex, the beast of Boarzell. His victory was complete. He had
done all that he set out to do. He had done what everyone had told
him he could never do. He had made the wilderness to blossom as
the rose, he had set his foot on Leviathan's neck, and made him his
servant for ever.... He knew that not only the land within these
boundaries was his—his possessions stretched beyond it, and
reached up to the stars. The wind, the rain, dawns, dusks and
darkness were all given him as the crown of his faithfulness. He had
bruised Nature's head—and she had bruised his heel, and given him
the earth as his reward.
"'I've won,' he said softly to himself—'I've won—and it's bin worth
while.... I've fought and I've suffered, and I've gone hard and gone
rough and gone empty—but I haven't gone in vain. It's all bin worth
it. Odiam's great and Boarzell's mine—and when I die ... well, I've
lived so close to the earth all my days that I reckon I shan't be afraid
to lie in it at last.'"
There is a sense of complete unity, of complete mastery in this long
novel that is lacking in nearly all other modern novels. It is a very
high achievement for any author; for a woman it is amazing. Miss
Sheila Kaye-Smith has given us the inside workings of a rough man's
life from his earliest youth to his full four-score years: the secrets of
the soil lie bare before her scrutiny, and both in characterisation and
in descriptive power she shows a power which is nothing short of
genius.
All her books deal with a mighty conflict between a man's tugging
desires. In Tamarisk Town the conflict is between a man's love of a
woman and his ambition to build and develop a seaside town. In
Green Apple Harvest the conflict lies between a man's love for a
woman and his soul's salvation. It is in this last novel of hers that we
get perhaps Sheila Kaye-Smith's most telling descriptions.
Passages of this sort abound:
"The moon was climbing up above the mists, and among them
huddled the still shapes of the sleeping country, dim outlines of
woods and stacks and hedges. Here and there a star winked across
the fields from a farmhouse window, or a pond caught the faint, fog-
thickened light of the moon. There was no wind, only a catch of
frost on the motionless air, and the mist had muffled all the lanes
into silence, so that even the small sounds of the night—the barking
of a dog at Bantony, the trot of hoofs on the highroad, the far-off
scream and groan of a train, the suck of all the Fullers' feet in the
mud—were hushed to something even fainter than the munch of
cows on the other side of the hedge."
Or this: "The mists had sunk into the earth or shredded into the sky,
and the distances that had been blurred since twilight were now
almost frostily keen of outline and colour. The air was thinly sweet-
scented with the sodden earth, with the moist, golden leaves, with
the straw of rick and barn-roof made pungent by dew."
Robert Fuller of Bodingmares falls in love with Hannah Iden, a gipsy,
who is not so easy to conquer as the other girls he had made love
to.... "'I want her, Clem,'" he says to his brother. "'She's lovely ... her
mouth makes my mouth ache ... she smells of grass ... and her eyes
in the shadder—they mäake me want to drownd myself. I wish her
eyes wur water and I could drownd myself in 'em.'"
Eventually she gives in to his importunity.
"'I love her,' said Robert, 'not because she's sweet, but because I
can't help it; surelye ... she'll let me love her—that's all I ask. All I
ask is fur her to täake me and let me love her.... She döan't want a
boy to love her—she wants a man.... Hannah wurn't born to mäake
men happy—she wur born to mäake them men.'"
Clem, the young brother, is unhappy about Robert and confronts
Hannah, who retorts: "'You're afraid of me because I've taught your
Bob how to love, as none of the silly, fat young girls in this place
have taught him.... I could teach you how to love, little hedgehog, if
I hadn't your brother for scholard.'"
"For long afterwards her shadow seemed to lie on the dusk—on the
wet gleam of the road, on the twigs and spines of the thorny
hedges, on the clear sky with its spatter of yellow rain. Yet it was not
her beauty which defiled, but the cruelty in which it was rooted like
a rose-tree in dung.... Her crude physical power would not have
disgusted him if it had had its accustomed growth out of a healthy
instinct.... She was like the bitter kernel of a ripe, sweet fruit—she
was the hard stone of Nature's heart...."
All the same she contributed to Clem's own manhood, for it is not
long after that he holds his own sweetheart Polly, despite her
struggling, and loves her like a man at last with a passion that is not
free from fierceness. So he at any rate achieves his happiness in
marriage and becomes Polly's "dear Clemmy ... his sweetness and
gentleness were fundamental—a deep gratitude stirred in her heart,
making her take his dark, woolly head in her hands and kiss it with
the slow, reverent kisses of a thankful child, and then suddenly find
herself the mother with that head upon her breast."
But Robert finds no such happiness with his gipsy love.
"'Nannie, you're cruel—I can't mäake you out. You let me love you,
and I'm full of heaven, but in between whiles you're no more'n a
lady acquaintance.'"
To which she replies: "'I'm not one of your Gentile rawnees who
loves and kisses all day and half the night.... I love when I feels like
it, and I bet I give you more to remember than any silly fat girl in
these parts....'"
He has to take her on her own terms ... but she loves his bulk and
beauty, and on this occasion she yields and her hardness melts into
his passion "as a rock melts into a wave."
But she goes away, and betrays him by marrying one of her own
kind and so drives Robert almost out of his mind.
As a reaction he turns to Mabel, an anæmic, town-bred, artificial
type of girl who imparted to his "flagging taste a savour as of salt
and olives."
"She brought the atmosphere of streets and shops and picture-
houses into the stuffy little parlour of a country cottage.... After his
country loves, it excited him to touch the novelty of a powdered skin
—Mabel's powder and scent were part of a new and very gripping
charm...."
"It was June when Hannah came back. The hay had been cut in the
low fields by the river, but the high grounds were still russet with
sorrel and plantain, and sainfoin waiting for the scythe. The lanes
were dim with the warm dust that hung over them and mixed with
the cloud of chervil and cow-parsley and fennel that filmed the
hedges, making with it a sweet, stale scent of dust and flowers.
Down by the watercourses the hawthorn had faded, and the
meadowsweet sicklied the still air that thickened above the dykes
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  • 5. Chapter 7: Local Area Networks: Part I TRUE/FALSE 1. Perhaps the strongest advantage of a local area network is its capability of allowing users to share hardware and software resources. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 177 2. The local area network first appeared in the 1950s. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 180 3. By keeping all of the application on the server, the network can control access to the software and can reduce the amount of disk storage required on each user’s workstation for this application. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 179 4. A local area network cannot interface with other local area networks. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 179 5. Most modern local area networks provide the capabilities of transferring video images and video streams. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 179 6. One of the biggest advantages of local area networks is their ability to share resources in an economical and efficient manner. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 179 7. A local area network is only as strong as its strongest link. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 179 8. The bus/tree topology was the first physical design used when local area networks became commercially available in the late 1970s. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 180 9. Baseband signaling typically uses multiple digital signals to transmit data over the bus. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 181 10. All bus networks share a major disadvantage: In general, it is difficult to add a new workstation if no tap currently exists. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 182 11. Hubs (and switches) support only twisted pair cable for interhub connection.
  • 6. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 183 12. With the CSMA/CD protocol, only one workstation at a time can transmit. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 184 13. If the network is experiencing a high amount of traffic, the chances for collision are small. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 185 14. The most popular example of a contention-based protocol is the token-passing protocol. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 184 15. The hub, in most applications, has been replaced with the switch. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 186 16. A hub is a simple device that requires virtually no overhead to operate. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 186 17. Most switches are transparent, which means they learn by themselves. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 187 18. Switches can significantly decrease interconnection traffic and increase the throughput of the interconnected networks or segments. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 188 19. A hub is designed to perform much faster than a switch. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 188 20. A cut-through switch does not store a data frame and then forward it. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 189 21. In a shared segment network, each workstation then has a private or dedicated connection. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 189 22. Switches can be used in combination with routers to further isolate traffic segments in a local area network. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 190 23. The logical link control sublayer defines the layout or format of the data frame, simply called the frame. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 197
  • 7. 24. Three of the most popular local area network systems are Ethernet, IBM Token Ring, and Wireless Ethernet. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 196 25. The term “Base”, such as in 100BaseT, is an abbreviation for baseband signals using a Manchester encoding. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 196 26. Using coaxial cable to transmit analog signals, 10Broad36 can transmit data at 10 Mbps for a maximum segment distance of 3600 meters. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 196 27. The Fast Ethernet standards are based on 1000-Mbps transmission speeds, or 1 gigabit (1 billion bits) per second. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 196 28. 1000BaseSX was the first Gigabit Ethernet standard. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 196 29. 1000BaseT is capable of using only the Category 7 cable specification. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 196 30. The 802.11 specification defined six different types of physical layer connections. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 197-198 31. Link aggregation allows you to combine two or more data paths, or links, into one higher-speed link. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 192 32. The spanning tree algorithm allows you to run cable spans between two or more networks. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 192-193 MULTIPLE CHOICE 1. Early local area networks transmitted data at only ____ million bits per second. a. 1 c. 100 b. 10 d. 1000 ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 176-180 2. A local area network performs file serving when it’s connected to a workstation with a large storage disk drive that acts as a central storage repository, or ____ server. a. file c. database b. printer d. application ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 177-178
  • 8. 3. The local area network software called a ____ server provides workstations with the authorization to access a particular printer, accepts and queues prints jobs, prints cover sheets, and allows users access to the job queue for routine administrative functions. a. application c. file b. database d. print ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 177-178 4. The ____ topology consists of a simple cable, or bus, to which all devices attach. a. bus/tree c. ring star b. token ring d. star ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 180-181 5. In a bus/tree topology, connecting to the cable requires a simple device called a(n) ____. a. hub c. tap b. router d. echo suppressor ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 180-181 6. Two different signaling technologies can be used with a bus network: baseband signaling and ____ signaling. a. multiband c. uniband b. broadband d. singleband ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 181 7. More complex bus topologies consisting of multiple interconnected cable segments are termed ____. a. tokens c. rings b. stars d. trees ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 182 8. The most popular configuration for a local area network is the ____ topology. a. ring c. bus b. star-wired bus d. tree ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 182 9. The ____ design of a network determines how the data moves around the network from workstation to workstation. a. electrical c. physical b. data d. logical ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 182 10. ____ cabling has become the preferred medium for star-wired bus topologies. a. Twisted pair c. Fiber-optic b. Coaxial d. FDDI ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 184 11. When two or more hubs are interconnected and a workstation transmits data, all the workstations connected to all the hubs receive the data. This is an example of a(n) ____. a. wireless topology c. shared network
  • 9. b. switched network d. FDDI topology ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 183 12. A(n) ____ protocol is the software that allows a workstation to place data onto a local area network. a. error control c. medium access control b. noise control d. flow control ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 184 13. The most popular contention-based protocol is ____. a. token ring b. round-robin c. carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) d. carrier sense multiple access with collision detection (CSMA/CD) ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 184-185 14. The interval during which the signals propagate down the bus and back is the ____. a. exponential backoff c. attenuation b. collision window d. bounce window ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 185 15. The ____ sublayer contains a header, computer (physical) addresses, error-detection codes, and control information. a. logical link control (LLC) c. medium access control (MAC) b. logical flow control (LFC) d. physical link control (PLC) ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 197 16. The ____ sublayer is primarily responsible for logical addressing and providing error control and flow control information. a. medium access control (MAC) c. medium physical control (MPC) b. physical access control (PAC) d. logical link control (LLC) ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 197 17. ____ was the first commercially available local area network system and remains, without a doubt, the most popular local area network system today. a. Ethernet c. FDDI b. IBM Token Ring d. Wireless Ethernet ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 194 18. The ____ standard was one of the first Ethernet standards approved. a. 10Broad36 c. 100BaseTX b. 10Base5 d. 100BaseT4 ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 195 19. ____ was a system designed for twisted pair wiring, but with only a 1-Mbps data transfer rate for 500 meters. a. 10BaseT c. 100BaseTX b. 10Broad36 d. 1Base5 ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 195
  • 10. 20. A ____ system transmits 10-Mbps baseband (digital) signals over twisted pair for a maximum of 100 meters per segment length. a. 1Base5 c. 10BaseT b. 10Broad36 d. 100BaseTX ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 195 21. IEEE created the 100-Mbps Ethernet 802.3u protocol also called ____ Ethernet. a. Fast c. Terabit b. Gigabit d. FDDI ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 195-196 22. ____ was the standard created for fiber-optic systems. a. 1Base5 c. 100BaseTX b. 10BaseTX d. 100BaseFX ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 195-196 23. The IEEE 802.3z standards are also known as ____ Ethernet. a. Switch c. Gigabit b. Fast d. Terabit ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 196 24. With ____, you can send electrical power over the Ethernet connection. a. 1Base5 c. 10GBase-fiber b. power over Ethernet (PoE) d. FDDI ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 196 25. The ____ is used to connect local area networks to wide area networks. a. hub c. router b. repeater d. bridge ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 200 26. A ____ is a device that interconnects two or more workstations in a star-wired bus local area network and immediately retransmits the data it receives from any workstation out to all other workstations connected. a. hub c. router b. switch d. repeater ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 182-183 27. A ____ is a device that interconnects two segments of local area networks and acts as a filter. a. hub c. router b. switch d. satellite ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 186 28. A transparent bridge creates the internal port table by using a form of ____. a. forward learning c. backward learning b. backward correction d. forward correction ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 187
  • 11. 29. The switch operates in place of a ____. a. repeater c. router b. bridge d. hub ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 186-187 30. In a ____ architecture, the data frame begins to exit the switch almost as soon as it begins to enter the switch. a. forward c. cut-through b. backward d. random-propagation ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 189 31. If a switch has eight 100-Mbps ports, the backplane has to support a total of ____ Mbps. a. 200 c. 600 b. 400 d. 800 ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 188 32. Depending on user requirements, a switch can interconnect two different types of CSMA/CD network segments: ____ segments and dedicated segments. a. shared c. local b. remote d. distributed ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 189 33. In ____ segment networks, a switch may be directly connected to a workstation, and the switch connects to the hub. a. shared c. distributed b. dedicated d. remote ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 189 34. One of the more interesting applications for a dedicated segment network and a switch is creating a ____. a. virtual LAN c. shared LAN b. dedicated LAN d. local LAN ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 191 35. A relatively new standard, IEEE ____, was designed to allow multiple devices to intercommunicate and work together to create a virtual LAN. a. 802.1a c. 802.1P b. 802.1g d. 802.1Q ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 191 36. Whether shared or dedicated segments are involved, the primary goal of a(n) ____ is to isolate a particular pattern of traffic from other patterns of traffic or from the remainder of the network. a. hub c. repeater b. switch d. amplifier ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 186-188
  • 12. 37. ________________ allows you to combine two ore more data paths, or links, into one higher-speed link. a. The Spanning Tree Algorithm c. A virtual LAN b. Link aggreation d. Quality of service ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 192 COMPLETION 1. A(n) _________________________ is a communications network that interconnects a variety of data communications devices within a small geographic area and broadcasts data at high data transfer rates. ANS: local area network (LAN) local area network LAN LAN (local area network) PTS: 1 REF: 176 2. A(n) ____________________ is the physical (hardware) layout used to interconnect the workstations within a local area network. ANS: topology PTS: 1 REF: 176-179 3. The tap is a(n) ____________________, as it does not alter the signal and does not require electricity to operate. ANS: passive device PTS: 1 REF: 180 4. The ______________________________ is an electronic device that performs the necessary signal conversions and protocol operations that allow the workstation to send and receive data on the network. ANS: network interface card (NIC) network interface card NIC NIC (network interface card) PTS: 1 REF: 180 5. ____________________ means that when the signal is transmitted from a given workstation, the signal propagates away from the source in both directions on the cable. ANS: Bidirectional PTS: 1 REF: 181
  • 13. 6. The ____________________ design refers to the pattern formed by the locations of the elements of the network, as it would appear if drawn on a sheet of paper. ANS: physical PTS: 1 REF: 182 7. To promote acceptance, the ____________________ suite of protocols was created to support the many different types of wireless local area networks in existence. ANS: IEEE 802 PTS: 1 REF: 197 8. A(n) ____________________ protocol is basically a first-come, first-served protocol. ANS: contention-based PTS: 1 REF: 184 9. A(n) ____________________ occurs when two or more workstations listen to the medium at the same moment, hear nothing, and then transmit their data at the same moment. ANS: collision PTS: 1 REF: 185 10. A(n) ____________________ protocol is one in which you cannot calculate the time at which a workstation will transmit. ANS: nondeterministic PTS: 1 REF: 186 11. In IEEE 802.3 standard for CSMA/CD, frames shorter than 64 bytes are considered ____________________, or frame fragments. ANS: runts PTS: 1 REF: 197-198 12. ____________________ (nicknamed Cheapernet) was designed to allow for a less-expensive network by using less-expensive components. ANS: 10Base2 PTS: 1 REF: 195 13. One of the most common standards for broadband (analog) Ethernet was the ____________________ specification. ANS: 10Broad36 PTS: 1 REF: 195
  • 14. 14. ____________________ was designed to support 100-Mbps baseband signals using two pairs of Category 5 unshielded twisted pair. ANS: 100BaseTX PTS: 1 REF: 195 15. ____________________ was created to support older-category wire. Thus it can operate over Category 3 or 4 twisted pair wire, as well as Category 5/5e/6 unshielded twisted pair. ANS: 100BaseT4 PTS: 1 REF: 195 16. The ____________________ Ethernet standard is also known as IEEE 802.3ae. ANS: 10 Gbps PTS: 1 REF: 195 17. The ____________________ is a device that connects workstations to local area networks and retransmits the incoming frame. ANS: hub PTS: 1 REF: 182 18. The ____________________ allows workstations to connect to LANs and interconnects multiple segments of LANs. ANS: switch PTS: 1 REF: 186 19. A(n) ____________________ is a device that interconnects two local area networks and can use processing power to direct a frame out a particular port, thus reducing the amount of traffic on the network. ANS: switch PTS: 1 REF: 186 20. A(n) ____________________ examines the destination address of a frame and either forwards or does not forward the frame, depending on some address information stored within the bridge. ANS: filter PTS: 1 REF: 188 21. Designed for LANs, the ____________________ observes network traffic flow and uses this information to make future decisions regarding frame forwarding. ANS: transparent bridge
  • 15. PTS: 1 REF: 187 22. The main hardware of the switch is called the ____________________. ANS: backplane PTS: 1 REF: 188 23. If the circuit cards are ____________________, it is possible to insert and remove cards while the power to the unit is still on. ANS: hot swappable PTS: 1 REF: 188 24. In ____________________ segment networks, a switch may be connected to a hub (or several hubs), which then connects multiple workstations. ANS: shared PTS: 1 REF: 189 25. A(n) ____________________ is a logical subgroup within a local area network that is created via switches and software rather than by manually moving wiring from one network device to another. ANS: virtual LAN VLAN PTS: 1 REF: 191 26. The ____________________ allows for a CSMA/CD network to simultaneously transmit and receive data to and from a workstation. ANS: full-duplex switch PTS: 1 REF: 190 27. The ____________________ makes it possible to logically remove cyclic paths within a collection of multiple LANs. ANS: spanning tree algorithm spanning tree protocol PTS: 1 REF: 192-193 ESSAY 1. A local area network (LAN) is a communications network that interconnects a variety of data communications devices within a small geographic area and broadcasts data at high data transfer rates. Expand on this definition by explaining the various terminology used.
  • 16. ANS: Several points in this definition merit a closer look. The phrase “data communications devices” covers computers such as personal computers, computer workstations, and mainframe computers, as well as peripheral devices such as disk drives, printers, and modems. Data communications devices could also include items such as motion, smoke, and heat sensors; fire alarms; ventilation systems; and motor speed controls. These latter devices are often found in businesses and manufacturing environments where assembly lines and robots are commonly used. The next piece of the definition, “within a small geographic area” usually implies that a local area network can be as small as one room, or can extend over multiple rooms, over multiple floors within a building, and even over multiple buildings within a single campus-area. The most common geographic areas, however, are a room or multiple rooms within a single building. Local area networks differ from many other types of networks in that most broadcast their data to many or all of the workstations connected to the network. Thus, if one workstation has data to send to a second workstation, that data is transmitted to other workstations on the network. When data that was not requested arrives at a workstation, it is simply discarded. As you will see a little later, it is now quite common to design a local area network so that all data is not transmitted to all workstations—an enhancement that reduces the amount of traffic on the network. Lastly, the final phrase of the definition states that local area networks are capable of transmitting data at “high data transfer rates”. While early local area networks transmitted data at only 10 million bits per second, the newest local area networks can transmit data at 10 billion bits per second. PTS: 1 REF: 176-178 2. What are some of the application areas where a LAN can be an effective tool? ANS: A local area network can be an effective tool in many application areas. One of the most common application areas is an office environment. A local area network in an office can provide word processing, spreadsheet operations, database functions, electronic mail (e-mail) access, Internet access, electronic appointment scheduling, and graphic image creation capabilities over a wide variety of platforms and to a large number of workstations. Completed documents can be routed to high-quality printers to produce letterheads, graphically designed newsletters, and formal documents. A second common application area for a local area network is an academic environment. In a laboratory setting, for example, a local area network can provide students with access to the tools necessary to complete homework assignments, send e-mail, and utilize the Internet. In a classroom setting, a local area network can enable professors to deliver tutorials and lessons with high-quality graphics and sound to students. Multiple workstations can be used to provide students with instruction at their own pace, while the instructor monitors and records each student’s progress at every workstation. A third common application area for a local area network is manufacturing. In fact, modern assembly lines operate exclusively under the control of local area networks. As products move down the assembly line, sensors control position; robots perform mundane, exacting, or dangerous operations; and product subassemblies are inventoried and ordered. The modern automobile assembly line is a technological tour de force, incorporating numerous local area networks and mainframe computers. PTS: 1 REF: 176-180 3. How does a star-wired bus topology work?
  • 17. ANS: In a star-wired bus topology, all workstations connect to a central device such as the hub. The hub is a nonintelligent device that simply and immediately retransmits the data it receives from any workstation out to all other workstations (or devices) connected to the hub. All workstations hear the transmitted data, because there is only a single transmission channel, and all workstations are using this one channel to send and receive. Sending data to all workstations and devices generates a lot of traffic but keeps the operation very simple, because there is no routing to any particular workstation. Thus, with regard to its logical design, the star-wired bus is acting as a bus: when a workstation transmits, all workstations (or devices) immediately receive the data. The network’s physical design, however, is a star, because all the devices are connected to the hub and radiate outward in a starlike (as opposed to linear) pattern. The hub at the center of star-wired bus topology comes in a variety of designs.They can contain anywhere from two to hundreds of connections, or ports, as they are called. If, for example, you have a hub with 24 ports, and more are desired, it is fairly simple to either interconnect two or more hubs, or purchase a larger hub. PTS: 1 REF: 182 4. Explain the switch filtering function. ANS: As a frame of data moves across the first local area network and enters the switch, the switch examines the source and destination addresses that are stored within the frame. These frame addresses are assigned to the network interface card (NIC) when the NIC is manufactured. (All companies that produce NICs have agreed to use a formula that ensures that every NIC in the world has a unique NIC address.) The switch, using some form of internal logic, determines if a data frame’s destination address belongs to a workstation on the current segment. If it does, the switch does nothing more with the frame, because it is already on the appropriate segment. If the destination address is not an address on the current segment, the switch passes the frame on to the next segment, assuming that the frame is intended for a station on that segment. Additionally, the switch can check for transmission errors in the data by performing a cyclic checksum computation on the frame. PTS: 1 REF: 187-188 5. Explain the cut-through architecture including its advantages and disadvantages. ANS: In a cut-through architecture, the data frame begins to exit the switch almost as soon as it begins to enter the switch. In other words, a cut-through switch does not store a data frame and then forward it. In contrast, a store-and-forward device holds the entire frame for a small amount of time while various fields of the frame are examined, a procedure that diminishes the overall network throughput. The cut-through capability allows a switch to pass data frames very quickly, thus improving the overall network throughput. The major disadvantage of cut-through architecture is the potential for the device to forward faulty frames. For example, if a frame has been corrupted, a store-and-forward device will input the frame, perform a cyclic checksum, detect the error, and perform some form of error control. A cut-through device, however, is so fast that it begins forwarding the frame before the cyclic checksum field can be calculated. If there is a cyclic checksum error, it is too late to do anything about it. The frame has already been transmitted. If too many corrupted frames are passed around the network, network integrity suffers. PTS: 1 REF: 189
  • 18. Another Random Scribd Document with Unrelated Content
  • 19. can't conceal from myself the fact that I loved Edward Ashburnham —and that I love him because he was just myself. If I had had the courage and the virility and possibly also the physique of Edward Ashburnham I should, I fancy, have done much what he did." We read novels like The Good Soldier and Ladies Whose Bright Eyes for their freshness and honesty of outlook. They follow no stereotyped form of writing; they lay bare character in an unusual manner; they demand intelligent reading and an appreciation of the quietly subtle. They give a picture of life which is devoid of sentimentality, true to experience and courageously uncoloured. Most of all they give the impression of being written by a careful and highly gifted artist. Mr Hueffer is a master of English prose style.
  • 20. X THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE Most people have read G. K. Chesterton's prose, many people have read the drinking songs in The Flying Inn, some people have read his collected Poems, and a few, only too few, have read the work by which he will probably be remembered when all the rest of his work is dead. The Ballad of the White Horse was first published in 1911 and is, as might be expected, a vindication of Christianity. "I say, as do all Christian men, that it is a divine purpose that rules, and not Fate," he quotes as his motto. He dedicates the poem to his wife because of "the sign that hangs about your neck":
  • 21. "Therefore I bring these rhymes to you, Who brought the cross to me." Before we have read five pages we realise that here is at last a ballad which is not a spurious imitation. It rings clear, clean and true. We see Alfred beaten to his knees by "a sea-folk blinder than the sea," almost broken-hearted, beseeching the Virgin Mary for a sign. "'Mother of God,' the wanderer said, 'I am but a common king, Nor will I ask what saints may ask, To see a secret thing.... But for this earth most pitiful, This little land I know, If that which is for ever is, Or if our hearts shall break with bliss, Seeing the stranger go? When our last bow is broken, Queen, And our last javelin cast, Under some sad, green evening sky, Holding a ruined cross on high, Under warm westland grass to lie, Shall we come home at last?'" And she answers: "'I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher. Night shall be thrice night over you, And heaven an iron cope. Do you have joy without a cause,
  • 22. Yea, faith without a hope?'" Stirred by this message, Alfred sets out yet again to stir zeal in his chiefs for the causeless cause. "Up across windy wastes and up Went Alfred over the shaws, Shaken of the joy of giants, The joy without a cause.... The King went gathering Christian men, As wheat out of the husk; Eldred, the Franklin by the sea, And Mark, the man from Italy, And Colan of the Sacred Tree, From the old tribe on Usk." We are first given a picture of Eldred's farm fallen awry, "Like an old cripple's bones," with its purple thistles bursting up between the kitchen stones. But Eldred, the red-faced, bulky tun is sick of fighting. "'Come not to me, King Alfred, Save always for the ale.... Your scalds still thunder and prophesy That crown that never comes; Friend, I will watch the certain things, Swine, and slow moons like silver rings, And the ripening of the plums.'" Alfred merely repeats the message of the Virgin Mary, tells him where to meet him and goes away certain of his help. He next goes to Mark's farm, the low, white house in the southland, inhabited by the bronzed man with a bird's beak and a bird's bright eye. "His fruit trees stood like soldiers Drilled in a straight line,
  • 23. His strange, stiff olives did not fail, And all the kings of the earth drank ale, But he drank wine." Alfred gives his message and the Roman answers: "'Guthrum sits strong on either bank And you must press his lines Inwards, and eastward drive him down; I doubt if you shall take the crown Till you have taken London town. For me, I have the vines.'" But Alfred is certain of his help too and goes on to the lost land of boulders and broken men, where dwells Colan of Caerleon: "Last of a race in ruin— He spoke the speech of the Gaels; His kin were in holy Ireland, Or up in the crags of Wales.... He made the sign of the cross of God, He knew the Roman prayer, But he had unreason in his heart Because of the gods that were.... Gods of unbearable beauty That broke the hearts of men." He ridicules Alfred until he hears the warning: " ... that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher." Then he tosses his black mane on high and cries: "'And if the sea and sky be foes, We will tame the sea and sky.'"
  • 24. And so Alfred is sure too of his help. Alfred is then taken by the Danes as he is playing on his harp to the camp of Guthrum and there is made to sing and play again: "And leaving all later hates unsaid, He sang of some old British raid On the wild west march of yore. He sang of war in the warm wet shires, Where rain nor fruitage fails, Where England of the motley states Deepens like a garden to the gates In the purple walls of Wales." He sang until Harold, Guthrum's nephew, snatched the harp from him and began in his turn to sing of ships and the sea and material delights: "'Great wine like blood from Burgundy, Cloaks like the clouds from Tyre, And marble like solid moonlight, And gold like frozen fire.'" Elf the minstrel then took the instrument: "And as he stirred the strings of the harp To notes but four or five, The heart of each man moved in him Like a babe buried alive." He sang of Balder beautiful, whom the heavens could not save ... and finishes with these two peerlessly beautiful verses: "'There is always a thing forgotten When all the world goes well; A thing forgotten, as long ago
  • 25. When the gods forgot the mistletoe, And soundless as an arrow of snow The arrow of anguish fell. The thing on the blind side of the heart, On the wrong side of the door, The green plant groweth, menacing Almighty lovers in the spring; There is always a forgotten thing, And love is not secure.'" Earl Ogier of the Stone and Sling next took the harp and sang in praise of "Fury, that does not fail": "'There lives one moment for a man When the door at his shoulder shakes, When the taut rope parts under the pull, And the barest branch is beautiful One moment, while it breaks.... And you that sit by the fire are young, And true loves wait for you; But the King and I grow old, grow old, And hate alone is true.'" Guthrum in his turn takes the great harp wearily and sings of death: "'For this is a heavy matter, And the truth is cold to tell; Do we not know, have we not heard, The soul is like a lost bird, The body a broken shell.... Strong are the Roman roses, Or the free flowers of the heath, But every flower, like a flower of the sea, Smelleth with the salt of death.
  • 26. And the heart of the locked battle Is the happiest place for men.... Death blazes bright above the cup, And clear above the crown; But in that dream of battle We seem to tread it down. Wherefore I am a great king, And waste the world in vain, Because man hath not other power, Save that in dealing death for dower, He may forget it for an hour To remember it again.'" And then Alfred seizes it again and triumphantly, scornfully, sings his pæan in praise of his own creed: "'But though I lie on the floor of the world, With the seven sins for rods, I would rather fall with Adam Than rise with all your gods. What have the strong gods given? Where have the glad gods led? When Guthrum sits on a hero's throne And asks if he is dead?... ... Though you hunt the Christian man Like a hare on the hill-side, The hare has still more heart to run Than you have heart to ride.... Our monks go robed in rain and snow, But the heart of flame therein, But you go clothed in feasts and flames, When all is ice within; ...
  • 27. Ere the sad gods that made your gods Saw their sad sunrise pass, The White Horse of the White Horse Vale, That you have left to darken and fail, Was cut out of the grass. Therefore your end is on you, Is on you and your kings, Not for a fire in Ely fen, Not that your gods are nine or ten, But because it is only Christian men Guard even heathen things.'" Alfred then goes away and is struck by the woman in the forest for letting her cakes blacken. "'He that hath failed in a little thing Hath a sign upon the brow; And the Earls of the Great Army Have no such seal to show.... ... I am the first king known of heaven That has been struck like a slave.'" He takes the blow as a good omen: "'For he that is struck for an ill servant Should be a kind lord.'" He collects his followers and they go roaring over the Roman wall and fall upon the Danes at Ethandune. In the first phase we see Alfred's men waking to the realisation of the high folly of the fight and despair clawing at their hearts. "For the Saxon Franklin sorrowed For the things that had been fair, For the dear dead women, crimson clad,
  • 28. And the great feasts and the friends he had; But the Celtic prince's soul was sad For the things that never were." Alfred asks for his people's prayers and the Roman Mark proudly says: "'Lift not my head from bloody ground, Bear not my body home, For all the earth is Roman earth And I shall die in Rome.'" Harold then comes forward in gay colours smoking with oil and musk, and taunts the ragged Colan with the rusty sword: he takes his bow and shoots an arrow at Colan, who sprang aside and whirled his sword round his head and let it sweep out of his hand on to Harold's head. The Dane fell dead and Alfred gave his own sword to Colan and himself seized a rude axe from a hind hard by and turned to the fray. In Book VI., "The Slaying of the Chiefs," we are first shown Eldred breaking the sea of spears "As a tall ship breaks the sea." "But while he moved like a massacre He murmured as in sleep, And his words were all of low hedges And little fields and sheep. Even as he strode like a pestilence, That strides from Rhine to Rome, He thought how tall his beans might be If ever he went home." But in the end the sword broke in his hand and he falls to the seventh "faerie blade" of Elf the minstrel. "Six spears thrust upon Eldred Were splintered while he laughed;
  • 29. One spear thrust into Eldred, Three feet of blade and shaft." But he was soon avenged by Mark: "Right on the Roman shield and sword Did spear of the Rhine maids run; But the shield shifted never, The sword rang down to sever, The great Rhine sang for ever, And the songs of Elf were done." Ogier in his turn avenges Elf: "But hate in the buried Ogier Was strong as pain in hell, With bare brute hand from the inside He burst the shield of brass and hide, And a death-stroke to the Roman's side Sent suddenly and well. Then the great statue on the shield Looked his last look around With level and imperial eye; And Mark, the man from Italy, Fell in the sea of agony, And died without a sound." The Danes in their triumph sing: "'No more shall the brown men of the south Move like the ants in lines, To quiet men with olives Or madden men with vines.' There was that in the wild men back of him [Ogier], There was that in his own wild song,
  • 30. A dizzy throbbing, a drunkard smoke, That dazed to death all Wessex folk, And swept their spears along. Vainly the sword of Colan And the axe of Alfred plied— The Danes poured in like brainless plague, And knew not when they died. Prince Colan slew a score of them, And was stricken to his knee; King Alfred slew a score and seven And was borne back on a tree." The King was beaten, blind, at bay, and we are taken on to Book VII., "The Last Change," where Alfred is compared to a small child building one tower in vain, piling up small stones to make a town, and evermore the stones fall down and he piles them up again. "And this was the might of Alfred, At the ending of the way; That of such smiters, wise or wild, He was least distant from the child, Piling the stones all day. For Eldred fought like a frank hunter That killeth and goeth home; And Mark had fought because all arms Rang like the name of Rome. And Colan fought with a double mind, Moody and madly gay; But Alfred fought as gravely As a good child at play. He saw wheels break and work run back And all things as they were;
  • 31. And his heart was orbed like victory And simple like despair. Therefore is Mark forgotten, That was wise with his tongue and brave; And the cairn over Colan crumbled, And the cross on Eldred's grave. Their great souls went on a wind away, And they have not tale or tomb; And Alfred born in Wantage Rules England till the doom. Because in the forest of all fears Like a strange fresh gust from sea, Struck him that ancient innocence That is more than mastery." And so Alfred began his life once more and took his ivory horn unslung and smiled, but not in scorn: "'Endeth the Battle of Ethandune With the blowing of a horn.'" He collects his remnants and incites them to a last desperate effort: "'To grow old cowed in a conquered land, With the sun itself discrowned, To see trees crouch and cattle slink— Death is a better ale to drink, And by high Death on the fell brink, That flagon shall go round.' ... And the King held up the horn and said: 'See ye my father's horn, That Egbert blew in his empery, Once, when he rode out commonly,
  • 32. Twice when he rode for venery, And thrice on the battle-morn.'" So " ... the last charge went blindly, And all too lost for fear: The Danes closed round, a roaring ring, And twenty clubs rose o'er the King, Four Danes hewed at him, halloing, And Ogier of the Stone and Sling Drove at him with a spear." But the Danes were careless, and Alfred split Ogier to the spine: the tide miraculously turned and the Danes gave way and retreated clamouring, disorderly: "For dire was Alfred in his hour The pale scribe witnesseth, More mighty in defeat was he Than all men else in victory, And behind, his men came murderously, Dry-throated, drinking death." So at last the sign of the cross was put on Guthrum and "Far out to the winding river The blood ran down for days, When we put the cross on Guthrum In the parting of the ways." And in the last book, "The Scouring of the White Horse," we see Alfred at peace again. "In the days of the rest of Alfred, When all these things were done, And Wessex lay in a patch of peace,
  • 33. Like a dog in a patch of sun— The King sat in his orchard, Among apples green and red, With the little book in his bosom And the sunshine on his head." And he gathered the songs of simple men, and gave alms, and "gat good laws of the ancient kings like treasure out of the tombs"; and men came from the ends of the earth and went out to the ends of the earth because of the word of the King. "And men, seeing such embassies, Spake with the King and said: 'The steel that sang so sweet a tune On Ashdown and on Ethandune, Why hangs it scabbarded so soon, All heavily like lead?'" They asked: "Why dwell the Danes in North England and up to the river ride?" "And Alfred in the orchard, Among apples green and red, With the little book in his bosom, Looked at green leaves and said: 'When all philosophies shall fail, This word alone shall fit; That a sage feels too small for life, And a fool too large for it. Asia and all Imperial plains Are too little for a fool; But for one man whose eyes can see, The little island of Athelney Is too large a land to rule.
  • 34. ... But I am a common king, And I will make my fences tough From Wantage Town to Plymouth Bluff, Because I am not wise enough To rule so small a thing.'" He only commands his men to keep the White Horse white. Rumour of the Danes to the eastward, Danes wasting the world about the Thames reaches him, but Alfred only points to the White Horse. "'Will ye part with the weeds for ever? Or show daisies to the door? Or will you b id the bold grass Go, and return no more?... And though skies alter and empires melt, This word shall still be true: If we would have the horse of old, Scour ye the horse anew.... But now I wot if ye scour not well Red rust shall grow on God's great bell And grass in the streets of God.'" He has a vision that the heathen will return. "'They shall not come with warships, They shall not waste with brands, But books be all their eating, And ink be on their hands.... By this sign you shall know them, The breaking of the sword, And Man no more a free knight, That loves or hates his lord.... When is great talk of trend and tide, And wisdom and destiny,
  • 35. Hail that undying heathen That is sadder than the sea.'" He sees no more, but rides out doubtfully to his last war on a tall grey horse at dawn. "And all the while on White Horse Hill The horse lay long and wan, The turf crawled and the fungus crept, And the little sorrel, while all men slept, Unwrought the work of man.... And clover and silent thistle throve, And buds burst silently, With little care for the Thames Valley Or what things there might be." And the King took London Town. I have given enough illustrations to show the masculine strength and virility of this amazing poem. We read G. K. Chesterton for his wit, for his brilliance, for his delightful paradoxes, for his sanity and wholesomeness, but we read him most of all for his brave creed, for his defence of Christianity and his love for the eternal values of honour, uprightness, courage, loyalty and devotion, for his steadfast adherence to whatsoever things are of good report.
  • 36. XI E. M. FORSTER This is really a chapter about one book, not about a man. It is quite true that Mr Forster has written a number of novels, but he is only remembered by one and that is a decade old. He is a very skilful and careful artist and interested in classical myth rather more than he is in us: he is a scholar with a good deal of the poetic in him; when he lets his thought dwell on us poor moderns his satiric vein appears predominant, though he too, like the rest of us, had to let the autobiographical have its way in two novels: A Room with a View and the schoolmaster's book, The Longer Journey, give us, if we want to know them, many facts about himself, but wiser people will plump for Howard's End and forget the others—only hoping that he will soon give us something more in that vein. There was a slight flutter in our dovecotes when we saw the announcement of a novel by him early in 1920, but The Syren is not a novel and is not new. It is a delicious trifle, artistically perfect ... but from a man who can give us real men of the type of Leonard Bast we want no chatter about blue grottoes, however perfect. Yes, I fully realise that E. M. Forster published Howard's End in 1910, but he has not written a novel since, and, as W. L. George says, "He is still one of the young men, while it is not at all certain that he is not 'the' young man." "Mystic athleticism" is the phrase that Mr George uses as his label for him, and so far as labels ever fit, this will do. We read Howard's End for its unexpectedness, its elliptic talk, which so exactly hits off the characters he creates, for its manifestation of the Comic Spirit, for passages such as the following, which abound: —
  • 37. "It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All sorts and conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you are like Mrs Munt ["I do know when I like a thing and when I don't"] and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come—of course, not so as to disturb the others—or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music's flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like Tibby, who is profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score open on his knee ... or like Fräulein Mosebach's young man, who can remember nothing but Fräulein Mosebach: in any case, the passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are bound to admit that such a noise is cheap at two shillings." We read Howard's End for the merciless skill which E. M. Forster shows in laying bare the soul of Leonard Bast, the clerk in the insurance office, who reads Ruskin and goes to the Queen's Hall in order to improve himself, who is dragged into the gutter by his loose-living mistress ("she seemed all strings and bell-pulls, ribbons, chains, bead necklaces that chinked and caught——").... We read Howard's End for the equally merciless sketch of the millionaire husband of the heroine ("a man who ruins a woman for his pleasure, and casts her off to ruin other men. And gives bad financial advice, and then says he is not responsible. These men are you. You can't recognise them, because you cannot connect. I've had enough of your unweeded kindness. I've spoilt you long enough. All your life you have been spoiled.... No one has ever told what you are— muddled, criminally muddled"). Mr E. M. Forster's eyes are pellucidly clear in their vision both of rich and poor. "Only connect," he says. That is the cause of all the folly and cruelty in the world, lack of power to connect. Think of this picture of Leonard Bast. "Hints of robustness survived in him (he came of Lincolnshire yeoman stock), more than a hint of primitive good looks, and Margaret, noting the spine that might have been straight, and the chest that might have broadened, wondered whether it paid to give up the glory of the animal for a tail coat and a couple of ideas. Culture had worked in her own case, but during
  • 38. the last few weeks she had doubted whether it humanised the majority, so wide and so widening is the gulf that stretches between the natural and philosophic man, so many the good chaps who are wrecked in trying to cross it. She knew this type very well—the vague aspirations, the mental dishonesty, the familiarity with the outsides of books." But he should not have permitted an untimely end even to such a man: it is bad artistry to overweight your dice. When any character in a book of this sort goes to prison or dies (except in child-birth) one cannot help feeling that the author has burked the issue or been too lazy to work out his thesis to a reasonable, logical conclusion. Like Margaret in Howard's End, who did not see that to break her husband was her only hope, but did rather what seemed easiest, so E. M. Forster does what seems easiest, and the result is a certain falsity all the more reprehensive because in so many ways this book is head and shoulders above any of its era. Helen's gift of herself to Leonard Bast is absolutely true to life. "It never occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the intensity of their talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity, the magic of Oniton under darkness and of the whispering river. Helen loved the absolute. Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and had appeared to her as a man apart, isolated from the world.... She and the victim seemed alone in a world of unreality, and she loved him absolutely, perhaps for half an hour." Notice the last five words—"perhaps for half an hour": that is the secret of E. M. Forster's greatness. He plays the game with the gloves off, he strips bare all the fopperies and artificialities of the world. All these characters have to learn how entirely different from the formal codes they are brought up to believe are the real codes of existence. Listen to Helen: "'I want never to see him again, though it sounds appalling. I wanted to give him money and feel finished. Oh, Meg, the little that is known about these things.'"
  • 39. Listen to Margaret's attitude when she finds out that her husband has been unfaithful. "Now and then he asked her whether she could possibly forgive him, and she answered: 'I have already forgiven you, Henry.' She chose her words carefully, and so saved him from panic. She played the girl, until he could rebuild his fortress and hide his soul from the world. When the butler came to clear away, Henry was in a very different mood—asked the fellow what he was in such a hurry for, complained of the noise last night in the servants' hall. Margaret looked intently at the butler. He, as a handsome young man, was faintly attractive to her as a woman—an attraction so faint as scarcely to be perceptible, yet the skies would have fallen if she had mentioned it to Henry." It is into Margaret's mind that E. M. Forster puts the ideas that take pride of place in Howard's End. "Margaret greeted her lord with peculiar tenderness on the morrow. Mature as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his friends shall find easy-going." "It was hard-going in the roads of Mr Wilcox's soul. From boyhood he had neglected them. 'I am not a fellow who bothers about my own inside.' Outwardly he was cheerful, reliable, and brave; but within, all had reverted to chaos, ruled, so far as it was ruled at all, by an incomplete asceticism. Whether as boy, husband, or widower, he had always the sneaking belief that bodily passion is bad, a belief that is desirable only when held passionately. Religion had confirmed him.... He could not be as the saints and love the Infinite with a seraphic ardour, but he could be a little ashamed of loving a wife.... And it was here that Margaret hoped to help him ... only connect!
  • 40. That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die." If we demand of modern novels that they should portray human character exactly as it is and that the author should have a definite standpoint for his philosopher of life, one need quote no further to prove that in Howard's End these two desirable factors are to be found in profusion. Mr E. M. Forster is a conscious artist of a very high order and our only quarrel with him is that he writes too little.
  • 41. XII SHEILA KAYE-SMITH We read Sheila Kaye-Smith because she alone among the women writers of to-day writes with the sure touch of a man. This is not to decry other writers of her sex of the stamp of Clemence Dane (though there are very few good women novelists): it is that Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith has a masculine strength; her narrative flows strongly, she has an uncanny knowledge of and kinship with the elemental things of the soil. We read her for her breadth of outlook, her sense of the beauty of the Sussex that she has made hers as much as Thomas Hardy has made Wessex his, for the dignity and excellent music of her English prose style. She has an accurate sense of history and can with equal ease place her characters at the beginning as at the end of Victoria's reign. Her dialect (all her novels are full of dialect) is accurate if at times a little literary: there are too many "howsumdevers," "dunnamanys," "vrotherings," "spannelings" and "tediouses," but this is a very little blemish. Her strength is seen fully fledged in Sussex Gorse, in the picture of Reuben battling with the forces of nature. "He drank in the scent of the baking awns, the heat of the sun- cracked earth. It was all dear to him—all ecstasy. And he himself was dear to himself because the beauty of it fell upon him ... his body, strong and tired, smelling a little of sweat, his back scorched by the heat in which he had bent, his hand strong as iron upon his sickle. Oh, Lord! it was good to be a man, to feel the sap of life and conquest running in you, to be battling with mighty forces, to be able to fight seasons, elements, earth, and nature...."
  • 42. He hates his son's poetic attitude, the boy who saw in nature a kind of enchanted ground, full of mysteries of sun and moon, full of secrets that were sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying. "It seemed to have a soul and a voice ... and its soul was that ... of a fetch, some country sprite." But Reuben's hardness becomes his undoing: his hardness kills his beloved wife through overmuch child-bearing; his hardness sends one son to prison for stealing; his hardness makes him turn another son out of the house; his hardness, his strength, his remorseless nature left him to fight his battles with the land alone. He falls under the personality of Alice Jury, who was the first to ask him whether it was worth while fighting so hard to reclaim waste earth, to give up so much for the sake of a piece of land. "'Life is worth while,'" she says, "'in itself, not because of what it gives you.' "'I agree with you there,' said Reuben; 'it's not wot life gives that's good, it's wot you täake out of it.'" But in the wrangles which he had with this new type of womanhood he failed ever to convince her of the "worth-whileness" of his aim. Meanwhile through his excessive zeal Reuben had driven his youngest, weakling son to his death and continued to try to "draw out Leviathan with a hook." The cleverest of his sons regarded his father as a primordial gorilla, and Tilly, his daughter, despised him and married his enemy: his ambition drove him to make slaves of his children, and one by one they break the fetters and leave him. Alice tries to make him see reason.... "You don't see this hideous thing that's pursuing you, that's stripping you of all that ought to be yours, that's making you miss a hundred beautiful things, that's driving you past all your joys—this Boarzell...." Nearly, very nearly, he married Alice ... and she would have saved him. "She was utterly unlike anything there was or had been in his life, the only thing he knew that did not smell of earth. The pity of it was that he loved that strong-smelling earth so much." She tells him that she would fight his schemes to the end, in love with him as she is: she would never beguile him with the thought
  • 43. that she could help him in his life's desire ... but she called him, as no woman had ever called him, with all that of herself which was in his heart, part of his own being, and she was within an ace of winning: she was in the act of crossing to where he stood waiting with outstretched arms when he caught sight of Boarzell lying in a great hush, a great solitude, a quiet beast of power and mystery. "It seemed to call him through the twilight like a love forsaken. There it lay, Boarzell—strong, beautiful, desired, untamed, still his hope, still his battle." So he turns his back on love and goes back to his lone fight with Nature. Almost immediately afterwards he meets Rose, tall, strapping, superbly moulded, animal Rose, free with her kisses, and experienced and energetic in love: he marries her: she wanted Reuben's love and she got it. "She was a perpetual source of delight to him! Her beauty, her astounding mixture of fire and innocence, her good humour, and her gaiety were even more intoxicating than before marriage. He felt that he had found the ideal wife. As a woman she was perfect, so perfect that in her arms he could forget her shortcomings as a comrade." She smoothed away the wrinkles of his day with her caresses, gave him love where she could not give him understanding, heart where she could not give him brain. She made him forget his heaviness and gave him strength to meet his difficulties, of which there were many. But she wanted no children, and Reuben had set his heart on more. She spent much money on the fastidious care of her person ... so that he "sometimes had doubts of this beautiful, extravagant, irresponsible creature." Gradually he came to realise her uselessness, but when one more grown-up son ran away to sea Rose bore him a child, and her rich near relative died and he began to think that his luck was in. Unfortunately this relative of his wife's left all his money to an illegitimate son of whom no one had ever heard, and the fortune that Reuben had expected to inherit by marrying Rose fell elsewhere. Shortly after this Rose finds the thirty years' difference between herself and her husband too much for her and she allows herself to love his foreman. Reuben locked her out of his house late one night
  • 44. when she had been out with her lover, so she has no alternative but to go off with him and leave Reuben in the lurch once more. He turns again to Alice: "'Wot sort o' chap am I to have pride? My farm's ruined, my wife's run away, my children have left me—wot right have I to be proud?... She deceived me. I married her expecting money, and there wur none—I married her fur her body, and she's given it to another.'" This love of Alice Jury's had nothing akin to Naomi's poor little fluttering passion, or to Rose's fascination, half appetite, half game. Someone loved him purely, truly, strongly, deeply, with a fire that could be extinguished only by death or ... her own will. He is sorely tempted to give up his ambitious struggle—all his great plans had crumbled into failure. "Far better give up the struggle while there was the chance of an honourable retreat. He realised that he was at the turning-point—a step further along his old course and he would lose Alice, a step along the road she pointed and he would lose Boarzell.... His mind painted him a picture it had never dared paint before ... comfort ... his dear frail wife ... himself contented, growing stout, wanting nothing he hadn't got, so having nothing he didn't want...." But he turned his back on this with a shudder. Boarzell was more to him than any woman in the world.... Through blood and tears ... he would wade to Boarzell, and conquer it at last. Alice should go the way of all enemies. "And the last enemy to be destroyed is Love." So he tore women out of his life, as he tore up the gorse on Boarzell. Caro, his sole remaining daughter, then gives herself to a sailor and goes off with him as his mistress. She felt very few qualms of conscience, even when the barrier was past which she had thought impassable ... her life was brimmed with beauty, unimaginable beauty that welled up into the commonest things and suffused them with light. Also, about it all was that surprising sense of naturalness which almost always comes to women when they love for the first time, the feeling of "For this I was born." Sheila Kaye-Smith has a wonderful gift for depicting the passion of true love in the most beautiful manner. "She never asked Dansay to marry her. He had given her pretty clearly to understand that he was not a marrying man, and she was
  • 45. terrified of doing or saying anything that might turn him against her. One of the things about her that charmed him most was the absence of all demand upon him." But she is remorseless as Nature herself in her processes. A hundred pages later we see her own young brothers attempting to "pick her up" on the Newhaven Parade. She has become a third-rate harlot, a bundle of rags and bones and paint. "'I'm not happy, but I'm jolly. I'm not good, but I'm pleasant-like.... Mind you tell father as, no matter the life I lead and the knocks I get, I've never once, not once, regretted the day I ran off from his old farm.'" The Boer War claims his youngest sons and Reuben is left alone at Odiam, except for his brother Harry, who grows more shrivelled, more ape-like every day. "Reuben was not ashamed at eighty years old to lie full length in some sun-hazed field, and stretch his body over the grass, the better to feel that fertile quietness and moist freshness which is the comfort of those who make the ground their bed." In the end we leave him victorious: out of a small obscure farm of barely sixty acres he had raised up this splendid dominion, and he had tamed the roughest, toughest, fiercest, cruellest piece of ground in Sussex, the beast of Boarzell. His victory was complete. He had done all that he set out to do. He had done what everyone had told him he could never do. He had made the wilderness to blossom as the rose, he had set his foot on Leviathan's neck, and made him his servant for ever.... He knew that not only the land within these boundaries was his—his possessions stretched beyond it, and reached up to the stars. The wind, the rain, dawns, dusks and darkness were all given him as the crown of his faithfulness. He had bruised Nature's head—and she had bruised his heel, and given him the earth as his reward. "'I've won,' he said softly to himself—'I've won—and it's bin worth while.... I've fought and I've suffered, and I've gone hard and gone
  • 46. rough and gone empty—but I haven't gone in vain. It's all bin worth it. Odiam's great and Boarzell's mine—and when I die ... well, I've lived so close to the earth all my days that I reckon I shan't be afraid to lie in it at last.'" There is a sense of complete unity, of complete mastery in this long novel that is lacking in nearly all other modern novels. It is a very high achievement for any author; for a woman it is amazing. Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith has given us the inside workings of a rough man's life from his earliest youth to his full four-score years: the secrets of the soil lie bare before her scrutiny, and both in characterisation and in descriptive power she shows a power which is nothing short of genius. All her books deal with a mighty conflict between a man's tugging desires. In Tamarisk Town the conflict is between a man's love of a woman and his ambition to build and develop a seaside town. In Green Apple Harvest the conflict lies between a man's love for a woman and his soul's salvation. It is in this last novel of hers that we get perhaps Sheila Kaye-Smith's most telling descriptions. Passages of this sort abound: "The moon was climbing up above the mists, and among them huddled the still shapes of the sleeping country, dim outlines of woods and stacks and hedges. Here and there a star winked across the fields from a farmhouse window, or a pond caught the faint, fog- thickened light of the moon. There was no wind, only a catch of frost on the motionless air, and the mist had muffled all the lanes into silence, so that even the small sounds of the night—the barking of a dog at Bantony, the trot of hoofs on the highroad, the far-off scream and groan of a train, the suck of all the Fullers' feet in the mud—were hushed to something even fainter than the munch of cows on the other side of the hedge." Or this: "The mists had sunk into the earth or shredded into the sky, and the distances that had been blurred since twilight were now almost frostily keen of outline and colour. The air was thinly sweet-
  • 47. scented with the sodden earth, with the moist, golden leaves, with the straw of rick and barn-roof made pungent by dew." Robert Fuller of Bodingmares falls in love with Hannah Iden, a gipsy, who is not so easy to conquer as the other girls he had made love to.... "'I want her, Clem,'" he says to his brother. "'She's lovely ... her mouth makes my mouth ache ... she smells of grass ... and her eyes in the shadder—they mäake me want to drownd myself. I wish her eyes wur water and I could drownd myself in 'em.'" Eventually she gives in to his importunity. "'I love her,' said Robert, 'not because she's sweet, but because I can't help it; surelye ... she'll let me love her—that's all I ask. All I ask is fur her to täake me and let me love her.... She döan't want a boy to love her—she wants a man.... Hannah wurn't born to mäake men happy—she wur born to mäake them men.'" Clem, the young brother, is unhappy about Robert and confronts Hannah, who retorts: "'You're afraid of me because I've taught your Bob how to love, as none of the silly, fat young girls in this place have taught him.... I could teach you how to love, little hedgehog, if I hadn't your brother for scholard.'" "For long afterwards her shadow seemed to lie on the dusk—on the wet gleam of the road, on the twigs and spines of the thorny hedges, on the clear sky with its spatter of yellow rain. Yet it was not her beauty which defiled, but the cruelty in which it was rooted like a rose-tree in dung.... Her crude physical power would not have disgusted him if it had had its accustomed growth out of a healthy instinct.... She was like the bitter kernel of a ripe, sweet fruit—she was the hard stone of Nature's heart...." All the same she contributed to Clem's own manhood, for it is not long after that he holds his own sweetheart Polly, despite her struggling, and loves her like a man at last with a passion that is not free from fierceness. So he at any rate achieves his happiness in marriage and becomes Polly's "dear Clemmy ... his sweetness and gentleness were fundamental—a deep gratitude stirred in her heart,
  • 48. making her take his dark, woolly head in her hands and kiss it with the slow, reverent kisses of a thankful child, and then suddenly find herself the mother with that head upon her breast." But Robert finds no such happiness with his gipsy love. "'Nannie, you're cruel—I can't mäake you out. You let me love you, and I'm full of heaven, but in between whiles you're no more'n a lady acquaintance.'" To which she replies: "'I'm not one of your Gentile rawnees who loves and kisses all day and half the night.... I love when I feels like it, and I bet I give you more to remember than any silly fat girl in these parts....'" He has to take her on her own terms ... but she loves his bulk and beauty, and on this occasion she yields and her hardness melts into his passion "as a rock melts into a wave." But she goes away, and betrays him by marrying one of her own kind and so drives Robert almost out of his mind. As a reaction he turns to Mabel, an anæmic, town-bred, artificial type of girl who imparted to his "flagging taste a savour as of salt and olives." "She brought the atmosphere of streets and shops and picture- houses into the stuffy little parlour of a country cottage.... After his country loves, it excited him to touch the novelty of a powdered skin —Mabel's powder and scent were part of a new and very gripping charm...." "It was June when Hannah came back. The hay had been cut in the low fields by the river, but the high grounds were still russet with sorrel and plantain, and sainfoin waiting for the scythe. The lanes were dim with the warm dust that hung over them and mixed with the cloud of chervil and cow-parsley and fennel that filmed the hedges, making with it a sweet, stale scent of dust and flowers. Down by the watercourses the hawthorn had faded, and the meadowsweet sicklied the still air that thickened above the dykes
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