Stewart Francis Quotes

The sparkling smile became enormous. ‘Do you think she has a dagger there? Do you? Ask her, M. Francis? For,’ said the most noble and most powerful Princess Mary Stewart, Queen of Scotland, delving furiously under all the stiff red velvet, showing shift, hose and garters, shoes, knees and a long ribboned end of something recently torn loose, and emerging therefrom with a fist closed tight on an object short and hard and glittering, ‘for I have!’ And breathlessly, flinging back her head, with the little knife offered like a quill, ‘Try to stab me!’ she encouraged her visitor. There was a queer silence, during which the eyes of Oonagh O’Dwyer and her love of one night met and locked like magnet and iron. The child, waiting a moment, offered again, the ringing, joyful defiance still in her voice. ‘Try to stab me! … Go on, and I’ll kill you all dead!’ Her throat dry, Oonagh spoke. ‘Save your steel for those you trust. They are the ones who will carry your bier; the men who cannot hate, nor can they know love. Send away the cold servants.’ The red mouth had opened a little; the knife hung forgotten in her hand. ‘I would,’ said Mary, surprised. ‘But I do not know any.’ And, anxiously demonstrating her point, she caught Lymond by the hand.

Chemotherapy, the third main prong in cancer treatment after surgery and radiation, came about by similarly unlikely means. Although chemical weapons had been outlawed by international treaty after World War I, several nations still produced them, if only as a precaution in the event that others did likewise. The United States was among the transgressors. For obvious reasons, this was kept secret, but in 1943 a U.S. Navy supply ship, the SS John Harvey, carrying mustard gas bombs as part of its cargo, was caught in a German bombing raid on the Italian port of Bari. The Harvey was blown up, releasing a cloud of mustard gas over a wide area, killing an unknown number of people. Realizing that this was an excellent, if accidental, test of the mustard gas’s efficacy as a killing agent, the navy dispatched a chemical expert, Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Francis Alexander, to study the effects of the mustard gas on the ship’s crew and others nearby. Luckily for posterity, Alexander was an astute and diligent investigator, for he noticed something that might have been overlooked: mustard gas dramatically slowed the creation of white blood cells in those exposed to it. From this, it was realized that some derivative of mustard gas might be useful in treating some cancers. Thus was born chemotherapy.

Now his response was merely to detach himself from personal contact. Looking back, she could not remember a conversation veering on the intimate from which he had not withdrawn immediately. He had had of course, in the past, more than enough of being devoured alive by the consuming interest of his admirers. A boy called Will Scott, back in Scotland. An Archer, they said, called Robin Stewart. Jerott, perhaps, long ago. Small wonder that Francis Crawford today took routine precautions to repel invaders. And of course, that was it. Standing there, her eyes blank in the fog, Philippa saw plainly so much which had escaped her. The dismissals she had suffered; the exchanges he had broken off; the measures he took, when he remembered, to dampen the ardour of any impressionable fool who might dream of clinging to him. Such as herself. She remembered the ringed, picturesque hands on which she had fixed her eyes, and their abrupt withdrawal. It was not only in the eyes of the world that her pursuit of Lymond was being put down to a blossoming schoolgirl devotion. Warily, Lymond himself had considered it time to start taking precautions.

The Scottish royal council saw witches as a national problem to be dealt with on a national scale,32 and only the prosecution of treason was more tightly managed by central government. This meant that witch-hunting was one of the ways in which central government could impose its authority on local magnates, allowing Scotland to emerge as a modern nation state.33 Witch-hunting served to legitimise the Scottish state and may have been one of the ways in which the state sought stability at times of anxiety and turmoil.34 In other words, the one thing the state could be relied upon to do was hunt witches. Witch-hunting lay at the foundation of the ‘theocratic government’ of early modern Scotland, legitimating the Stewarts’ ‘godly’ rule as divinely ordained kings.35 Furthermore, the propaganda of Scottish reformers managed to create the impression of a much closer connection between witchcraft and Catholicism than English Protestants ever managed. Even Queen Mary herself was not immune from suspicion. The clergyman William Harrison was convinced that Mary practised sorcery and that she married Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley in 1566 on the advice of witches, who promised Queen Elizabeth’s death and Mary’s succession to the English throne.36 When Mary gave birth to the future James VI in June 1566, it was widely reported that the countess of Atholl attempted to use sympathetic magic to transfer Mary’s labour pains to another person, perhaps with Mary’s connivance.37

Athenaeum, or Jonathan Edwards at thirteen entering Yale College, and while yet of a tender age shining in the horizon of American literature; while the same age finds H. W. Longfellow writing for the Portland Gazette. At fourteen John Quincy Adams was private secretary to Francis H. Dana, American Minister to Russia; at fifteen Benjamin Franklin was writing for the New England Courant, and at an early age became a noted journalist. Benjamin West at sixteen had painted "The Death of Socrates," at seventeen George Bancroft had won a degree in history, Washington Irving had gained

For Your Consideration by Stewart Stafford Stellar Scrutiny is required, Taffeta blindfolds though, Ordinarily obscure. Three and fifty miles hence, Wander those in denial, Of the untrustworthy father in the palace. Belated guests to the conflagration, Are served up as fodder, Consistently denied peerages and proper burial. Venerated with daggers, Erstwhile companions stoned, Ruled And Martyred. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.

Pope Francis reminds us in his papal encyclical Laudato Si’, “When people become self-centered and self-enclosed, their greed increases. The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume” (LS 204).

What I didn't say to Francis was that when Lucy grabbed me on the street in Paterson that day, I couldn't understand how anyone would take hold of a stranger and pour out their troubles. But now I realized that people did it all the time. They called for help. And some people would answer[.]