About the Influential Henry Hobson Richardson

About the Influential Henry Hobson Richardson Well known for structuring enormous stone structures with half circle Roman curves, Henry Hobson Richardson built up a late Victorian style that got known as Richardsonian Romanesque. A few people have contended that his engineering configuration is the main genuinely American style-that so far in American history, building plans were replicated based on what was being worked in Europe. H.H. Richardsons 1877 Trinity Church in Boston, Massachusetts has been considered one of the 10 Buildings That Changed America. In spite of the fact that Richardson himself planned not many houses and open structures, his style was duplicated all through America. Most likely youve seen these structures the enormous, caramel red, rusticated stone libraries, schools, places of worship, line houses, and single-family homes of the affluent. Foundation: Conceived: September 29, 1838 in Louisiana Kicked the bucket: April 26, 1886 in Brookline, Massachusetts Training: Open and tuition based schools in New Orleans1859: Harvard College1860: Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris Popular Buildings: 1866-1869: Unity Church, Springfield, Massachusetts (Richardsons first commission)1883-1888: Allegheny County Courthouse, Pittsburgh, PA1872-1877: Trinity Church, Boston, MA1885-1887: Glessner House, Chicago, IL1887: Marshall Field Store, Chicago, IL About Henry Hobson Richardson: During his life, cut off by kidney ailment, H.H. Richardson structured places of worship, town halls, train stations, libraries, and other significant urban structures. Including half circle Roman curves set in monstrous stone dividers, Richardsons interesting style got known as Richardsonian Romanesque. Henry Hobson Richardson is known as the First American Architect since he split away from European customs and structured structures that stood apart as genuinely unique. Likewise Richardson was just the subsequent American to get formal preparing in design. The first was Richard Morris Hunt. The planners Charles F. McKim and Stanford White worked under Richardson for some time, and their freestyle Shingle Style became out of Richardsons utilization of rough common materials and stupendous inside spaces. Other significant draftsmen affected by Henry Hobson Richardson incorporate Louis Sullivan, John Wellborn Root, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Richardsons Significance: He had a magnificent feeling of rather stupendous structure, a remarkable sensitivenss to materials, and an inventive creative mind in the best approach to utilize them. His stone enumerating particularly was surprisingly flawless, and it isn't odd that his structures were imitated far and wide. He was an autonomous organizer also, ceaselessly feeling for more noteworthy and more prominent originality....Richardsonian came in the mainstream psyche to mean, not sensitivenss to material, nor independece of plan, but instead the uncertain redundancy of low, wide curves, multifaceted Byzantinelike trimming, or dull and serious hues.- Talbot Hamlin, Architecture through the Ages, Putnam, Revised 1953, p. 609 Find out More: H. H. Richardson: Complete Architectural Works by Jeffrey Karl Ochsner, MIT PressLiving Architecture: A Biography of H.H. Richardson by James F. OGorman, Simon SchusterThe Architecture of H. H. Richardson and His Times by Henry-Russell Hitchcock, MIT PressThree American Architects: Richardson, Sullivan, and Wright, 1865-1915 by James F. OGorman, University Of Chicago PressHenry Hobson Richardson and His Works by Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer, DoverHenry Hobson Richardson. A Genius for Architecture by Margaret H. Floyd, Photographs by Paul Rocheleau, Monacelli PressH. H. Richardson: The Architect, His Peers, and Their Era by Maureen Meister, MIT Press

Infancy

Psychosocial Stages of Development-Infancy and Toddlerhood There are two phases of psychosocial phases of improvement that happen in Infancy and Toddlerhood. In this conversation I will talk about them and the components in each. In Infancy the two phases of psychosocial improvement are trust versus doubt, these two phases are significant for the psychological improvement of a youngster. This stage keeps going from birth to two years of age. During this stage a newborn child learns the phases of confiding in their parental figure to deal with their needs.According to Erik Erikson, this phase in an infant’s improvement is an immediate relationship to the degrees of trust they will have as grown-ups (Newman & Newman, 2102). For instance, as a baby weeps for their guardian to address fundamental issues, for example, taking care of, diaper changes, or if the newborn child just needs love and consideration they are figuring out how to builds up a feeling of trust in their p arental figure and how rapidly, or assuming every one of, their necessities are being met.As a little child, youngsters are shown directly from wrong and figure out how to confide in their own recognitions. These are extremely significant qualities that will shape the kid as they develop into grown-ups. Erikson’s psychosocial hypothesis clarifies the toddler’s self-personality and dread of separateness (Newman & Newman, 2012). As a Toddler, the emergency that exists is that among self-rule and disgrace or blame (Newman & Newman, 2012). This is significant on the grounds that the little child starts to locate their own specific manner separate from their folks coaching.They feel disgrace or blame if something they do turns out badly or it doesn't turn out the manner in which they thought. On the off chance that they accomplish something that they sense as terrible and their parental figure doesn't urge them to attempt once more, the little child may enco unter outrage or disdain toward others as they age. As an emotional wellness guide, my insight into the phases of earliest stages and little children will assist me with serving people, understudies and families all the more adequately. I accept that each grown-up is an immediate impression of their childhood.The mental condition of my customers is vigorously dictated by the manner in which they grew up and the affection and consideration they got. To all the more likely comprehend this hypothesis will give me a diagram and research to pose inquiries in regards to the relationship with their folks and their youth encounters. On the off chance that there is a family that is having issues speaking with one another, it will be an incredible device to use to make a summation of the reasons for the absence of correspondence or other negative behaviors.Erik Erikson’s, hypothesis is a very much idea out hypothesis that all advisors can use to more readily comprehend the thinking of their customers conduct. It will be an incredible hypothesis to examine with my customers to assist them with making an immediate association with their youth encounters as well.References: Newman, B. , & Newman, P. (2012). Advancement through life: A psychosocial approach (eleventh ed. ) (L. Schreiber-Ganster, Ed. ). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. (Unique work distributed 2009)

Cool Classes

Cool Classes Nicole R. asked: What have been some of your favorite classes at MIT, and in general how have you experiences been with the classes at MIT? Good question! First part first. Some of my favorite classes at MIT, from a variety of departments, have been 9.00 Intro to Psychology (Fall 04, Wolfe) There are a lot of requirement-filling perks to this class. Its a HASS-D, its a CI-H, and if youre Course 9, its required. Even if none of these things were true, I would recommend that everyone at MIT take this class. The textbook is fascinating; its something I would actually read for pleasure as well as work. The material is interesting. And Prof. Wolfe iswow. I miss his lectures. I wish all professors at MIT could lecture as well as Prof. Wolfe. 6.001 Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (Fall 04, Grimson) Youd never know from my grade in the class, or my bitching about all-nighters, that I thought this was a really wonderful class. But seriously, this isnt just for Course 6 people. I have friends in Courses 2 (MechE), 3 (Materials), 6 (EECS), 7 (Biology), 8 (Physics), 9 (BCS), 12 (Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sci), 15 (Management), 18 (Math) and 21 (Humanities), and probably others that I dont realize too, who have taken this class and enjoyed it. Its a huge time committment, but it gets into some pretty high-level, intriguing stuff unlike just about everyone else in the class, I loved the Meta-Circular Evaluator (practically the only project where I beat class average)! And Ben Vandiver, my TA for the class, is terrific. 9.02 Brain Lab (Spring 05, DiCarlo, Moore et al.) One of three lab options for Course 9 majors, with a heavy systems neuroscience focus. You get to play with EE-type equipment like oscilloscopes and piezoelectrics, slice up brains and look at the neurons, study the resonance frequency of whiskers, perform minor neurosurgery on rats, write movies in Matlab code that you then use to test individual fly neurons, and design algorithms for counting action potential spikes. Among other things. 21W.735 Writing and Reading the Essay (Spring 04, Manning) A rarity in that its both HASS-D/CI-H and a small, advanced class. It is not an easy class, and Manning is difficult to please, grades hard, and keeps the class on their toes. When I took it, half the class dropped by the third class meeting. The other half agreed unanimously that it was one of the best classes theyd taken at MIT. It covers all sorts of essays memoirs, opinion pieces, film reviews and more. Note: I think Manning only teaches it in the spring; I cant speak for the fall. 17.40 US Foreign Policy (Fall 03, Van Evera) Admittedly, Im a politics junkie, so this HASS-D/CI-H was right up my alley. But I heartily recommend Van Evera as a professor. The name of the class describes the content pretty well. In general, Ive enjoyed classes at MIT. First term freshman year was less enjoyable because three of my four classes were required. Some professors are better than others, and neither their expertise nor their friendliness is necessarily indicative of their teaching ability. In many big classes, a lot of the learing comes through recitations (or tutorials, in a class that has them). Pretty much any department has a mixture of good and bad professors, or well-run and poorly-run class. Once you get beyond the science core GIRs, the material is usually interesting (and for some, some of the requirements are interesting too). Both science/engineering and HASS classes can be good classes that make you think.

Creation vs. Evolution Essay - 3066 Words

Creation vs. Evolution Since the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859, there has been a continuous debate in the United States regarding evolution and creation. Recently, this debate has intensified throughout America over the issue of whether or not to include creationism in the public school curriculum either in conjunction with evolution or as a replacement for the theory. With such a volatile subject being argued, there are other issues that are brought up at the same time. I find these side issues to the evolution/creation debate to be very perplexing. The many differing viewpoints that my friends, family, and the American public in general believe are incredibly interesting. There are varying strict†¦show more content†¦However, I found the truth of the matter to be that there are extremely different views that people have about the story of evolution and creation. People have not just â€Å"taken a side† and called themselves a strict creationist or an evolut ionist; people have combined the two views into a personal idea that they created to support their beliefs in both science and the Bible. For example, I interviewed my closest friend from Oregon State University, Myron Kutch (real names were changed), about what he thought about evolution and creation. Kutch does not have the typical views that are accepted by the Catholic Church or his family. Instead he believes in an odd combination of science and religion. Kutch thinks that God created the earth within seven days according to the Bible. He believes that plant and animal life was created within these seven days by God, but has evolved since the time God put them on earth billions of years ago in order to survive. Kutch believes that â€Å"God created each kind of animal and that living thing evolved into different species. For example, God created several kinds of birds and those evolved into the kinds of birds we have today, such as sparrows.† [1] He also believes that God created Adam and Eve as the first humans on earth, but that they were primitive forms of humans. He reasons that science has pr oved that humans, includingShow MoreRelatedControvery of Creation vs. Evolution in Inherit the Wind, by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee624 Words   |  3 PagesIn Inherit The Wind, by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, is about a big trial in a small town, and a controversial Creation versus Evolution debate. There are many characters with flamboyant and powerful personalities. Among them are: Matthew Harrison Brady, and Henry Drummond. Although all of these influential people are powerful, not all of them have the same amount of power, not only over other people, but over themselves as well. Matthew Harrison Brady is a very powerful, and revered man atRead MoreCreation Vs. Evolution : Creation Versus Evolution2016 Words   |  9 PagesCreation vs evolution Creation vs. evolution has been a very large debate for a long time. People have been debating whether or not evolution was fact or fiction ever since Charles Darwin published his theory of biological evolution in 1859 in his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, or as it is most commonly known On the Origin of Species. There are several different people in the world, each person having theirRead MoreEvolution Vs Creation Vs Evolution1395 Words   |  6 Pagescame first; the chicken or the egg?† Both evolution and creation make excellent counter-arguments against one another about how Earth came to be, and have also been argued against one another for many years. This paper will contain the topics of comparing evolution and creation; these topics are that they are both based on theories, Earth was one big continent, and natural selection. Along with those topics, there will be contrasts betw een evolution and creation; these topics will include chimpanzeesRead MoreEssay on Creation vs. Evolution1348 Words   |  6 PagesCreation vs. Evolution Ever since the publication of Charles Darwins The Origin of Species was published there has been an ongoing debate between science and religion. Scientists have formulated many theories as to the origins of man and to the creation of the earth, whereas religious groups have one main creation theory, based on the Genesis story of The Bible. These theories, however, are not the cause of the debate because the different theories are simply myths meantRead MoreCreation vs. Evolution Essay1147 Words   |  5 Pagesscientists would have people to believe that evolution is the only reasonable explanation of the universe. Scientists, like Stephen Hawking, claim that they have proved that evolution is the correct answer to the origins of life and the universe, yet evolution is still a theory. This problem occurs because evolution is not the only answer. In fact, the creation theory offers a more feasible answer to the origins of the universe than the evolution theory does. Creation has the backings of the Bible, an extraordinarilyRead MoreThe Creation Vs. Evolution Debate1017 Words   |  5 PagesThe creation vs. evolution debate is a question of origins. How did we get here? Were we created or did we evolve randomly? Are we the product of purposeful intelligence or are we merely the end result of countless cosmic accidents? What does the evidence say? Well in this paper I am writing in re gards to creation and what I learned and what I believe that is true evidence that God was the one that created us in his image, so here we go. In genesis 1:1 its tells us in the Beginning God created theRead MoreCreation vs Evolution Essay754 Words   |  4 Pages nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;There are two different beliefs of how everything came to be. One is creation. Creationalists believe in what the Bible says which is that God created everything. Another is evolution. Evolutionalists believe that there was a quot;big bangquot; which brought forth everything. In this paper, Im going to give the arguments that prove evolution wrong. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;One of the main things that evolutionalists have a problem with is time. They say thatRead MoreEvolution Vs. Creation Essay1654 Words   |  7 PagesEvolution! The theory that every living organism has come from a lesser organism. A theory that claims humans have come from monkeys. This theory, is what’s being taught to our children in school. If a child asks a teacher about the theory of Creation, they are sure to get a response like, I’m not allowed to answer that question, or something along those lines, because schools are not allowed to teach on religious subjects. I guess schools think that evolution is the next best thing. I believeRead MoreThe Creation Vs. Evolution Debate1017 Words   |  5 PagesThe creation vs. evolution debate is a question of origins. How did we get here? Were we created or did we evolve randomly? Are we the product of purposeful intelligence or are we merely the end result of countless cosmic accidents? What does the evidence say? Well in this paper I am writing in regards to creation and what I learned and what I believe that is true evidence that God was the one that created us in his image, so here we go. In genesis 1:1 its tells us in the Beginning God created theRead MoreCreation vs. Evolution Essay2251 Words   |  10 PagesCreation vs. Evolution There has always been a conflict between the religious world and the scientific world. Whether it be when science first challenged that the earth was not the center of the universe as dictated by the Church, or when it was discovered that the earth was round rather than flat. Both these theories today are widely accepted and the rest of society generally ridicules any persons that believe the earth is the center of the universe or that the world

How I Became The Foster Care System - 1182 Words

I was six years old when I entered the foster care system. Perhaps entered is too soft of a term. Makes it sound peaceful, which for the most part it wasn t. It s not something I want to look back on and remember for the rest of my life, but something that significant left an imprint in my memory. To be more precise, it s branded there. I may not remember every moment I had with my biological parents, but I know my dad was always on a short fuse, and one day, he blew up. I actually find it coincidental now how I never liked him to begin with. Even when I was that age, I never let him carry me on his shoulders or toss me in the air like any normal and loving dad would do. Then again, I guess we didn t have a normal†¦show more content†¦Especially on that day, he was dad s shadow. One second I remember looking up at my dad and seeing him laughing. Then I looked down. Then back up. And dad suddenly slapped Gavin across the face. I only stared as my brother fell to the floor, his hand over his cheek. He wasn t crying, which was probably the only reason I stayed calm. When my mom ran to my dad and pulled on his arm to get him away from Gavin, he pushed her against the wall and screamed what sounded to me like bad words. When I ran between them saying, Mommy, daddy, don t fight, dad picked me up and threw me onto Gavin, who d just gotten off the ground from his first strike. Dad kept yelling at us. I didn t know why, and it scared all of us. I knew my mom was scared because she crawled across the floor behind dad, to the coffee table just feet from her, and swiped the little silver bottle she always carried around with her. After she scrambled back to her corner and took a drink from it (the bottle, which I later learned was called a flask) she looked to Gavin and me with big, sorrowful eyes. She couldn t stand up to dad at that point even if she wanted to. The pain began to set in from my fall, so like any normal six year old I started to cry. That s whe n my brother snapped into action and picked me up off the ground, immediately fleeing the scene...right in the middle of dad s tantrum. I remember feeling him catch Gavin s shirt collar and

The Blue Sword CHAPTER NINE Free Essays

She felt caught as she stared at the dark Hill-king astride his red horse, caught by the sky, by the stars winking into the new-fallen darkness, by the sand and encircling Hills; they seized her and held her down. She was a figure in some story other than her own, an embroidered shape in a Hill tapestry, a representation of something that did not exist in her Homeland. Then the crowd gave a roar and surged inward; she closed her eyes. We will write a custom essay sample on The Blue Sword CHAPTER NINE or any similar topic only for you Order Now But they were patting her ankles, her legs, her back, making her human again, with human bewilderment and human luck. She began to distinguish words in the roar: they were shouting, â€Å"Harimad-sol! Laprun minta! Minta – musti! Harimad-sol!† Tsornin and Isfahel were driven together, and they stood patiently while the crowd rose and foamed around them. Isfahel turned his head and Tsornin turned his, till their flared nostrils touched briefly in a salute. Out of the corner of her eye Harry saw Corlath blot the drop of blood at his mouth with the back of his hand. The crowd fell away from its center, breaking into smaller eddies that laughed and swung each other by arms and hands and shoulders. Sungold and Fireheart edged away from each other, their riders silent and motionless. Harry could not look at Corlath. He reached out one hand toward her, perhaps to touch her, but Tsornin sidled just one step farther and Corlath’s hand dropped away. Mathin appeared on Harry’s far side and touched her elbow, and Harry smiled gratefully at his familiar face. Mathin did not speak to her, but turned away, and she slid off Sungold and the two of them followed him, walking slowly, permitted their due of weariness at last. Mathin stopped where two taris were already set up, and knelt down to build a fire, companionably ignoring his two pupils; and Harry was glad to lay aside the glory of laprun-minta. The headache haze and sense of displacement began to ebb as she mechanically stripped off Sungold’s saddle and rubbed him down. The smell of Mathin’s cooking crept to greet her and cheer her, and remind her who she was, or who she had become. She was the Daughter of the Riders. Harry ate too much that night. She ate till her stomach hurt – Mathin had kept them on strict rations during training – but she was only half aware of what she was eating. Many of the lapruni she had faced today came to her, to touch her hand and offer what seemed a sort of fealty; they materialized at the edge of the firelight, as indistinct as they had seemed to her that afternoon: they wore red robes and blue robes and brown robes and black, for none wore a sash, and their swords hung in scabbards by their sides instead of drawn against her. And they called her Harimad-sol, and laprun-minta, and their voices were hushed and reverent. Harry ate too much because it made her feel more real. As the evening progressed other taris were set up nearby: she had noticed that Mathin was using a pot larger than the one for the two of them she had seen every night for six weeks. Soon she found they were sharing their fire and supper with Innath and Faran and Forloy and Dapsim, and others of the king’s Riders. They watched without comment as the lapruni came to show themselves to the Daughter of the Riders, who kept putting more food on her plate as they appeared and vanished. Once when Harry looked up she saw Mathin handing Corlath a plate. The king slouched down, cross-legged, and began to eat. Harry would have liked to ask why the lapruni were saluting her, for it seemed beyond a simple acknowledgment of the loser to the victor, but she did not ask. Mathin had taught her patience, and she had known all her life how to be stubborn. It seemed a bit unfair to complain, she thought, as it – or as I – have turned out; but couldn’t I have been told a little more beforehand? She looked into the eyes of those who sought her and called her Harimad-sol, and tried to think of them as individuals, and not as robes and tunics and fallen sashes. The lapruni all went away without her having to speak to them, for they did not seem to expect her to answer them with anything but her presence. This was both restful and unnerving. One laprun was a woman. For her Harry did have a question. â€Å"What is your name?† The girl’s robe was blue, and Harry suddenly recognized her as the rider on the bay mare. â€Å"Senay,† she replied. â€Å"Where is your home?† Senay turned to face northwest. â€Å"Shpardith,† she said. â€Å"It is there,† and she pointed into the blackness. â€Å"Twelve days on a fleet horse.† Harry nodded, and the girl left to return to her own fire, and others came to speak to the laprun-minta who sat with the Riders and the king. When she looked around again she realized that there were eighteen dark figures besides herself and the king; all the Riders, from wherever they had been, had returned. And Narknon reappeared, and Harry hugged her eagerly, for she felt in need of something to hug. She offered her bits of meat, which Narknon graciously accepted, although she attempted to nose through Harry’s plate herself, to make sure Harry wasn’t keeping back any of the best bits for herself. Harry slept dreamlessly, her hand on the hilt of her sword; when she awoke and found this so, she stared at her hand as if it did not belong to her. She crept out of the tari and looked around. The sky was light; yet most of the taris still had bodies in them, and there were more blanket-swathed figures motionless around banked or burned-out fires. Mathin’s lips moved as he rebuilt their fire. She turned to look behind her. Corlath was gone; there was only a small ripple in the sand where he had lain, or it might be only the wind. Mathin handed her a cup of malak. It was reheated from last night, and bitter. Harry shrugged into her stiff grimy surcoat, hoping there would be bathing sometime today, and thinking wistfully of the little valley behind her, and its green pool. Her split sash lay beside her, where she had stuffed it through the tari’s open flap the night before. She picked it up and, after a moment’s thought, wrapped it around her waist again, tucking torn edges underneath till it would stay fixed. She did not do it very well, and she thought of asking Mathin for help, but chose not to. After the wildness of the night before, this morning everyone went quietly about the business of packing up and returning, it seemed, to where they had come from. A few lingered: Harry and several of the Riders, for many of them had vanished with Corlath, and perhaps a dozen riders she did not recognize, and a few of the lapruni. She looked for Senay hopefully, but did not see her. The wind whispered over the bare land. But for the black hollows of dead fires, there was nothing to show that several hundred people had spent the last three days here. Mathin turned Windrider east, east where the City lay just beyond one of the enigmatic rockfaces before them. Tsornin fell into step beside Windrider; Viki came along behind them, still grumbling to himself; and the others, some thirty riders, strung out behind them. Harry peered over her shoulder several times, watching the procession winding behind her, till she caught Mathin’s expression of restrained amusement when he glanced over at her. After that she looked only straight ahead. Narknon padded softly among them all. There was another big hunting-cat with them, a handsome spotted-mahogany male an inch or two taller than Narknon; but she scorned him. Tsornin strode out like a yearling having his first sight of the world beyond his paddock. Harry tried to keep her back straight and her legs quiet. Yesterday she had been glad of her perfectly fitted saddle, for it gave her suppleness and security; today she was glad of it because it told her where her legs were supposed to be even when they felt like blocks of wood. Her shoulder hurt, and her head felt woolly, and her right wrist was as weak as water, and she had a great purple bruise on her left calf. My horse is ignoring me, Harry thought. Or maybe he’s trying to cheer me up. She had gone over him with great care the evening before, and again this morning, and applied salve to the few small scrapes he had collected. He had no suspicious swellings, no lameness, and his eyes were bright and his step buoyant. He made her feel woollier. â€Å"Are you trying to cheer me up?† she said to his mane, and he cocked a merry ear at her and strutted. They had just begun to step upward off the plain into the Hills when they rounded another abrupt shoulder of rock like the one she and Mathin had passed for her first view of the laprun fields; and here was a wide highway mounting steeply to massive gates not far away. There lay the City. They passed through the gates, borne beneath an arch two horse-lengths thick, their horses’ hooves echoing hollowly. There was a cold grey smell, as if of caves, although the gates had stood for a thousand years. They walked down a broad avenue where six horsemen might walk abreast. It was stone-paved, laid out in huge flat cobbles, some grey or white or red-veined black; it had edges of earth where slender grey trees grew. Behind them were stone walkways where children played; and beyond them were stone houses and shops and stables and warehouses; stone flower-pots stood in doorways and on window ledges. The green-and-blue parrots Harry had seen in the traveling camp were perched on many shoulders, and some of them joined, gay and noisy, in the children’s games. Often with a flirt of wings one would carry off the stone counter or mark a group of children was using, while the children shrieked at them, and occasionally threw pebbles at them, but only very small ones. â€Å"Is there no wood?† said Harry. â€Å"Nothing but stone?† She looked up at the roof and walls and gables mounting up the hillside behind the gates, tiers of stone, multi-colored stone, no shingles or slats or carved wooden cornices, or shutters or window frames. â€Å"There is wood here,† said Mathin, â€Å"but there is more stone.† Innath rode up on Harry’s other side. â€Å"Mathin cannot see the strangeness of this place,† he said; â€Å"his village is just as stony as the City, only smaller. Where I come from we cut down trees and plane them smooth and slot them together, our houses and barns are warm and weathered, and do not last forever and haunt you with the ghosts of a thousand years.† â€Å"We use wood,† said Mathin. Innath made a dismissive gesture. â€Å"The grand receiving-rooms here have wooden paneling – you’ll see some of them at the castle – and parlors, where people really live, often have wooden screens as ornaments.† â€Å"There are wooden chairs and tables and cupboards,† said Mathin. â€Å"There are more stone chairs and tables and cupboards,† said Innath. â€Å"They don’t often rearrange the furniture here.† Harry looked around. She saw doors so well hung on their hinges that they were opened and closed by a child’s touch, yet made of stone slabs so heavy she wondered how they had been wrestled into their places to begin with. Free-standing walls, she saw, were often as wide as the reach of her two arms; yet often too the inner wall facing on a courtyard encircled by tall houses was so fine and delicate, cut into filigree work so complex, it looked as though it must tremble in the lightest breeze; as if one might roll it up like a bolt of silk and store it on a shelf. â€Å"To be either a stonemason or a carpenter is to be respected,† Mathin said. â€Å"The best of them are greatly honored.† â€Å"Hear the horse-breaker,† said Innath. Mathin smiled. The children began calling: â€Å"The lapruni are here! And the Riders – and the laprun-minta!† â€Å"Harimad-sol,† Innath called to them, and Harry blushed. â€Å"Harimad-sol,† agreed the children; and people came out from the houses and down the narrower ways off the wide central way to look. Harry tried to look around her without catching anyone’s eye, but many of the onlookers sought hers; and when one succeeded, he – or she – would touch right wrist to forehead and then hold the flat empty palm out toward her. â€Å"Harimad-sol,† she heard, and eagerly they added, â€Å"Damalur-sol.† The children danced in front of Tsornin’s feet to make her look at them, and clapped their hands; and she smiled and waved shyly at them, and Tsornin was very careful with his hooves. They rode on. At first the Hills rose up behind the low buildings, but as they went farther in, the buildings grew taller and taller and seemed part of the Hills themselves; and the trees that lined the way grew larger, till the shade of them could be felt as one passed beneath. Then another gate rose up before them, the wall around it running into the flanks of the mountains as if wall and gate had been formed with the mountains at the beginning of time. They went through this gate too, and entered a wide flat courtyard of polished stone. This stone was mirror-white, and it blazed up fiercely in the morning sunlight, and Harry felt as if she had emerged from underground. She blinked. Before her stood Corlath’s castle; no one had to explain to her what this huge stone edifice must be. She tipped her head back to see the sharp points of the turrets, brilliant as diamonds. It was itself a mountain, proudly peaked, seated among its brothers; its faces glittered dangerously. The shadows it threw were abrupt and absolute; one wall reflected white, another black. The central mass was taller than the Hill crests here; the road they had climbed had reached near the summit of the dark Hills, and like an island in the crater lake of an extinct volcano, the castle stood in its stone yard that shone as bright as water in the sun. Harry sighed. Men of the horse were approaching them in the swift but unhurried way she remembered from the days on the desert in the traveling camp; and she felt a sudden sharp stab of memory, as if that were a time many years past, and the present were sad and weary. She slipped down from Tsornin’s back and he suffered himself to be led away when one of the brown men spoke to him gently by name and laid a hand in front of his withers. Narknon sat down neatly at Harry’s feet; Harry could feel her tail twitching at her ankles. Those who had ridden with her began now to go purposefully in their own individual directions. Mathin said to her, ‘†It is here I am to leave you. Perhaps it may be permitted that we ride against each other again and you may practice your skills upon me, Daughter of the Riders.† He smiled. â€Å"We will meet again at the king’s table, here in the City.† Harry looked up toward the castle when Mathin left her, feeling a little forlorn; and it was Corlath himself who walked to meet her. She swallowed rather hard, and blessed the sunburn that would prevent her fierce blush from showing as clearly as it would on an Outlander’s pale skin. â€Å"We meet again, Harimad-sol,† Corlath said. There was a tiny scab at one corner of his mouth; he looked down at her with a cold dignity, she thought; he is the master of this place, and what am I? Even Daughter of the Riders could not comfort her as Corlath stood before her with his castle shining savagely behind him. But then he spoiled the effect – or perhaps the effect was all in Harry’s eyes to begin with – by saying, â€Å"So that’s where the thrice-blasted cat disappeared to. I should have guessed it.† He did not look very majestic while glaring at a cat; so Harry said crossly, â€Å"I wish I knew what was going on.† Corlath looked at her thoughtfully, and Narknon, with customary feline charm, stood up and went to twine herself around Corlath’s legs. Corlath’s face softened and he rubbed her ears. Harry could hear her purr; she could almost feel it through the soles of her boots on the white stone. Narknon was a champion purrer. â€Å"And don’t tell me that no one knows what is going on and that it is for the gods to decide, either.† Corlath’s face wavered and then broke into a smile, although whether at Harry or the big cat, Harry didn’t know. â€Å"Very well,† he said. â€Å"I won’t. I will tell you that you are the First of the laprun trials, laprun-minta, which you already know, and as such the most important of the lapruni, the untried.† Corlath’s hand lay motionless on Narknon’s head. â€Å"The army marches, to do what it can, in less than a fortnight’s time. You and the best of the lapruni will ride with us.† Narknon bumped Corlath’s hand violently and the fingers stirred and began scratching again. In a lighter tone Corlath continued, â€Å"In other years that the laprun trials are held, there is a week’s celebration at their end, and a great many songs are sung, and lies about one’s own prowess told, and all the minta of past years claim that their year was the best, and much wine and beer is drunk, and it is all very cheerful. This year we have not the time, and many of those who would be part of it are far away, and those who are here are busy, and the work they do is melancholy.† He paused as if hoping she would say something, or at least raise her eyes from Narknon’s sleepy face and look at him; but when she did finally look up, he immediately squinted up at the sky. â€Å"But tonight there will be a feast in your honor. You are not the least of those who have been laprun Firsts. There are many who will come tonight merely to look at you.† Harry stopped smiling at the cat. â€Å"Oh,† she said. â€Å"Come. I will show you where you will stay till we leave the City.† She followed him across the smooth courtyard and around one wing of the castle; as they rounded the tip, set back from the edge and guarded by the castle’s great bulk was a wall that at first seemed low; but it was fully ten feet high as they approached. It curved back on itself as if it protected something within that was very precious. In the wall was a door, the height of a tall man. Corlath opened it, and looked around for her. She stepped in first, Narknon crowding at her heels, with the odd feeling that he was watching her anxiously for her reaction. It was very beautiful. Here the courtyard was not stone, but green grass, and a stream ran through it from one end to the other, with a fountain at the center, and a stone horse reared in the midst of the falling spray. On either side of the stream was a path of paving-stones, grey and blue, that went all the way around the fountain. There were curved stone seats on either side of the fountain, with the stream running between them. Beyond all this was what Harry thought of instantly as a palace, for all its diminutive size; it was no bigger than the gateman’s cottage on her father’s – now Richard’s – estate, back Home. But this cottage had slender peaked towers at each of its five corners, and a cupola at the center of the slanting roof, with a delicate fence surrounding it. But for the cupola, it was only one story high, and the windows were tall and thin. The walls and roof were a mosaic of thousands of small flat blue stones, with colors from aq uamarine to turquoise to sapphire, but Harry had no idea what these stones might be, for they were opaque, and yet they gleamed like mother of pearl. She sighed, and then to her horror she felt her eyes filling with tears; so she ran forward. It seemed as though even her leather riding-boots made no sound on the stone here, and she plunged her hands into the water of the fountain, and put her face under the spray. The coldness of it quieted her, and the drops danced around her. Narknon climbed up on one of the benches and lay down. Corlath followed them through the door in the wall and then went on to the little mosaic palace. There was no door in the arched entrance. Harry stepped slowly inside. Here the stream had slipped around behind and entered by some back way, for in the center of the front room was another fountain, and the stream ran in under the rear wall; but here the stone horse stood on all four legs and bowed his head to drink from the pool at his feet. There were tapestries on the walls, and rugs and cushions on the floor, and one low table, and that was all. Corlath opened the stone door beside the place where the stream came under the wall. She looked in. The stream entered over a tiny falls of three stone steps under the far wall, to run under the near wall and out to the fountain in the front room. The water tinkled as it fell. The floor of this room was thick with carpets, and against the wall opposite the stream was the long bolster-like object she had learned to recognize in the traveling camp as the Hill idea of a bed, although she had entertained higher hopes of the furnishings of the City. There were pillow-sized cushions at one end, and body-sized rugs folded up at the other end. She went back into the bigger room and looked around again. There was another door between two long blue-and-green tapestries. She walked over to it and opened it, wondering if she would find a dragon breathing fire from a heap of diamonds, or merely a bottomless chasm lined with blue stones, but instead it was only a bit more of the grassy courtyard, and a few steps away was a door in the wall surrounding this magic place into what she thought vaguely must be the castle itself. She closed the door and turned back; Corlath was dangling his fingers in the pool just in front of the horse’s stone nose. He looked as if he were thinking very hard about something. Harry leaned back against the door behind her and stared at him, wondering what he was looking at, and waited for him to remember her. He looked up finally, and met her eyes. She didn’t think she flinched. â€Å"Do you like it?† he said. She nodded, not quite sure of her voice. â€Å"It has been a long time since this place sheltered anyone,† he said; she wanted to ask how it came to be here at all, who had built it so lovingly and why; but she didn’t. Corlath left her there. He walked out past the fountain of the rearing horse, and at the door where they had first entered he paused and turned back toward her. She had followed him from the small jeweled cottage, and stood next to the low bench where Narknon lay at her ease. But he said nothing, and turned away again, and closed the door behind him. She went to the little back room with the bolster and took off her surcoat. Her hands met her torn sash; her fingers curled around it and then she pulled it off in her two hands and tossed the pieces away from her. They fluttered to the floor. She lay down by degrees, leaving the lower half of her left leg hanging over the edge of the bolster, where the bruise need not come in contact with anything, and carefully arranged her sore shoulder. A young woman woke her, but she was dressed as the men of the household were dressed, in a long sashless white robe, and had the same mark they did on her forehead. â€Å"The banquet will begin soon,† said the girl, and bowed; and Harry nodded and sat up stiffly, and yawned, and contemplated her bruises, which seemed to be spreading. She unfolded herself, and weaved to her feet. She put on her blue robe but left the sash lying, and followed the girl out of the mosaic palace and through the castle door into an antechamber. She looked to the left and saw a room with tables, high tables, and real chairs: not chairs like the ones she had known at Home, but still chairs, with legs and backs, and some with armrests. The girl guided her to the right and into an immense bathroom, with the bath itself sunk into the floor, the size of a m illpond, and steaming. The girl helped her out of her clothes, and Harry sat for a moment at the edge of the lake and dabbled her tired feet in it. Her attendant hissed with sympathy over the bruises. Once she was fairly in and wet all over, two more young women appeared, and one of them presented her with a cake of white soap. The third young woman unbound her wet hair – now that it was wet, it smelled terribly of horse – and started rubbing shampoo into it. The shampoo smelled like flowers. She thought, I bet Corlath’s shampoo doesn’t smell like flowers. She would rather have climbed out of her own clothes – in spite of the aches and pains – and washed her own hair. The young woman who had given her the soap washed her back with a scratchy sponge, and Harry repressed the urge to giggle; she hadn’t had anyone wash her back for her since she was five years old. She was clean at last and wrapped in towels, and sat quite patiently while the young woman who had washed her hair now tried to work the tangles out of it. It was long and thick and hadn’t been combed properly smooth for weeks. Better her than me, Harry thought cheerfully; there are advantages to servants, perhaps; and this girl is very gentle †¦ Harry caught herself dozing. I’m going to be less than a success at my own banquet if I can’t even stay awake, she thought. I suppose the last six weeks are all catching up with me now, and Mathin’s grey dust. She tumbled off her stool at last, the towels removed, and a heavy white shift dropped over her head. They put velvet slippers on her feet and a red robe around her shoulders, and twisted a gold cord around her hair but let it hang down behind her so she had to flick the end of it aside when she sat down. At Home, one never wore one’s hair loose when one was no longer a child; at night it was braided, during the day it was tied up. Harry shook her hair; it felt funny. These last weeks she had tied and pinned it fiercely under her helmet, where it couldn’t get caught in anything, like the branch of a tree, or Mathin’s sword, or under her own saddle. The young woman who had awakened her had rubbed salve into her shoulder and leg before they dressed her, and Harry found that she could move more freely, and the weight of the robe didn’t bow her down, nor the sleek surface of the shift rub her like sandpaper. The three girls ushered her across the anteroom to the room with the chairs, and they all three bowed, and looked shyly at her with smiles hovering in their eyes, so she grinned at them and flapped the edges of her clean scarlet robe at them, and they smiled happily and left. Harry sat down tentatively in one of the queer crook-legged chairs, and leaned back luxuriously. Rugs and cushions and stools can be very comfortable, but they are inevitably backless, and it was apparently not done to lean against a tent wall; no one else did it, at least, so she hadn’t tried. The shift billowed around her as she shrugged farther into the chair: No sash, she thought. There was a long hall she could see through an open door; and after a few minutes Mathin appeared through another door at the far end of it and came toward her. In his hand was a bit of maroon cloth; and when he came through the door, the air that swept in with him smelled of flowers. Harry smiled. â€Å"Well met, Daughter of the Riders,† said Mathin, and unrolled what he had in his hand. It was her old sash, washed clean. The smile left Harry’s face, and when Mathin held the sash out to her, still in its two pieces, as if he would tuck it around her waist, she backed up a step. He stopped, surprised, and looked at her face, white under the tan. â€Å"I think,† he said slowly, â€Å"that you do not understand.† He held his arms out to his sides, and the hand indicated a line on his own dark green sash. â€Å"Look here.† Harry looked and saw a similar tear, but carefully mended, with tiny exact stitches of yellow thread. â€Å"All the Riders wear them so. Many of us won the slash at the hand of the king after being First at the laprun trials – as I did, many years ago. It was Corlath’s father gave me this cut. Two or three of us have won them at other times. Any one lucky enough to have a sash cut off by a sol or sola will wear the mended sash ever after.† Harry, faintly in the back of her mind, heard Beth saying: â€Å"They come in those long robes they always wear – over their faces too, so you can’t see if they’re smiling or frowning; and some of them with those funny patched sashes around their waists.† Mathin said: â€Å"I will teach you to mend yours; you must do it yourself, as you clean your own sword and pay your own homage.† He looked at her slyly and added: â€Å"All those sashes you lopped off their owners you may be sure will be saved and mended; and the cuts will be bragged of, given by the damalur-sol whose prowess was first seen when she was First at the laprun trials.† Harry suffered Mathin to put the maroon sash around her waist again. He did not tuck it together, as she had, so that the slash did not show; instead it went in front, proudly – Harry gritted her teeth – and was fixed by a long golden pin. Then she silently followed him down the corridor. There were pillars reaching up three stories to meet the arched ceilings; the floors were laid out in great squares, two strides’ length, but within each black-and-white border were scenes drawn in tiny mosaic tiles. Harry tried to look at them as she walked over them, and saw a great many horses, and some swords, and some sunrises and sunsets over Hills and deserts. She had her eyes so busily on the floor that when Mathin stopped she ran into him. They stood under one of the three-story arches the pillars made, but on either side of them the spaces between the tall columns were filled in, and tapestries hung on these walls, and they stood in the doorway to an immense room. It too was three stories high, and a chandelier was let down from the ceiling on a chain that seemed hundreds of feet long. Mathin and she went down six steps, across a dozen strides of floor, and up nine steps to a vast square dais; around three sides of the square was a white-laid table. At the one edge of this dais where there was no table were three more steps up to a long rectangular table on a smaller dais; and around this table sat Corlath and seventeen Riders. There were two empty seats at Corlath’s right. Chairs, Harry thought happily. Chairs seem quite commonplace in the City, even if they don’t understand beds. They sat, and the men and women of the household brought food, and they ate. Harry cast a sharp eye over those bearing the dishes; it seemed that those of the household here in the City were about equally divided, men and women. Harry turned impulsively to Mathin and said, quietly so that Corlath would not hear, â€Å"Why were there no women of the household with us in the traveling camp?† Mathin smiled at his leg of fowl. â€Å"Because there were so few women riding with us.† Corlath said, â€Å"There will be some to go with us in ten days’ time, if you wish it; for even an army on its way to war needs some tending.† Harry said stiffly, â€Å"If this wish of mine is not a foolish one, it would please me to see women of the household come with us.† Corlath nodded gravely; and Harry thought of that first banquet she had attended, still dizzy and frightened from her ride across the desert, bumping on Corlath’s saddlebow. She was still dizzy and frightened, she thought sadly, and touched the gold pin in her sash; it was cold to her fingers.. There was talk over the food of the laprun trials just past and of how so-and-so’s son had ridden well or poorly; all the Riders had been watching the trials with an attention made more acute by the nearness of the Northerners. Mathin mentioned that a young woman named Senay had done well; a place should be offered to her when the army was ready to march. The kysin had ranked her high, and so she was still in the City, hoping for such a summons. â€Å"Where is her home?† Corlath asked. Mathin frowned, trying to remember. â€Å"Shpardith,† Harry said. â€Å"Shpardith?† Mathin said, surprised. â€Å"She must be old Nandam’s daughter. He always said she’d grow into a soldier. Good for her.† â€Å"Mathin’s growing into a billitu, do you think?† said Innath, and a ripple of laughter went around the table. Harry turned to look at Mathin, and thought he was looking even more stolid than usual. â€Å"I choose only the best,† said Mathin firmly, and everyone laughed again. A billitu is a lady-lover. Harry smiled involuntarily. No one mentioned the brilliant performance of the youngster on the big chestnut Tsornin who had had the luck to carry off the honors, and Harry began to relax as the meal progressed, although, she thought, staring into her goblet, the wine was probably helping. All was cleared away at last, and then came a pause so measured and expectant that Harry knew before she saw the man bearing the leather sack that they would bring out the Water of Seeing. This time she could understand when the Riders spoke of what they saw: war was in almost everyone’s eyes, war with the Northerners, who were led by someone who was more than a man, whose sword flickered with a light that was the color of madness, and terror filled the heart of anyone who rode against him. Faran laughed shortly and without mirth and said that what he saw was no use to anybody; Hantil saw his own folk riding grimly toward the City bearing a message he did not know. Hantil came from a village in the mountains that were the northern border of Damar. â€Å"I do not like it,† said Hantil; â€Å"I have never seen my father look so stern.† Innath sighed over his Sight. â€Å"I see the Lake of Dreams,† he said, â€Å"as if it is early spring, for the trees are in bud. The Riders ride along its edge, but our number is only fifteen.† Mathin tipped a swallow of the Water into his mouth, and stared into the distance; and it was as though he were turned to stone, a statue in the stone City; but his face broke into a sweat, and the drops rolled from his forehead. Then he moved, became human again, but the sweat still ran. His voice was rough when he spoke: â€Å"I am on fire. I know no more.† As soon as Harry’s hands closed around the neck of the flask, a picture swam before her; in the brown leather of the bag, among the fine tooling, there was another image placed there by no leather worker. She saw Tsornin standing on the desert, and his rider carried a white flag, or a bit of white cloth tied to the end of a stick. â€Å"What do you see?† asked Corlath gently, and she told him. She could not see the rider’s face, for there was a white cloth pulled over nose and chin; but she shivered at the thought of seeing her own face so eerily: and worse yet, what if it were not her face? Tsornin broke into a canter and then a gallop, and Harry saw what he approached: the eastern gate of the General Mundy. Then the picture faded, and she was looking at the curiously tooled leather of the Water bag again. She raised it to her lips. Something like an explosion occurred in her head as she tasted the Water. She shuddered with the shock. Her right arm was numb to the shoulder, and it was her left hand’s grasp on the neck of the bag that prevented her from dropping it. Then she felt another shock like the first, and realized that Tsornin was between her legs, and he screamed with rage and fear. The sky seemed to be black, and there were shouts and shrieks all around her, and they echoed as in a high-walled valley. One more of those shocks and she would be out of the saddle. She felt it poised to fall on her – and her vision cleared, and there was the table again. She looked at her right hand; it was still there. She looked up. â€Å"I don’t – I don’t know exactly what I saw. I think I was in a battle and – I seemed to be losing.† She smiled weakly. Her right arm was still not working properly, and Corlath lifted the bag out of her left hand. He took a sip in his turn; and Harry, watching, saw his eyes change color till they were as yellow as they had been the first time she had seen him in the Residency’s courtyard. Then he closed them, and she saw the muscles in his face and neck and the backs of his hands tense till she thought they would burst through the skin; and then it was all over, and he opened his eyes, and they were brown. They moved to meet hers, and she thought she saw something of his vision still lingering there, and it was something like her own. â€Å"I have seen our enemy’s face,† Corlath said calmly. â€Å"It is not pretty.† Then the man came to carry the Water away, and the wine was brought back, and the shadows were chased away for a little. The Riders began looking expectantly toward Corlath, but this was a happier expectancy than that which had predicted the Meeldtar, and Harry caught the eagerness herself, though she knew not what it was for, and looked around for clues. They had eaten their meal alone in the vast hall, and their few voices ran up into the ceiling like live things with wills of their own. But after the Water bag had been taken away, people had begun to appear around the small dais where the king and his Riders sat; they entered from all directions and settled on cushions or chairs. Some of them mounted the lower dais and sat around the great table that surrounded the Riders. More of the folk of the household appeared, some bearing trays and some low tables, and set out more food, or passed it among the increasing audience. There was a murmur of talk, low but excited. Harry rubbed her fingers up and down the length of the gold pin in her sash till it was no longer cold. One of the men brought Corlath his sword, and he stood up and slung the belt of it around him. Harry wondered sourly how many years it took to learn to sling oneself into a sword as easily as yawn; and then wondered if she wanted to spend so many years that way. Or if she would have the choice. She had not liked waking up to find herself clutching her sword hilt as a child might clutch a favorite toy. Perhaps it was as well to have to think of shoulder and waist, belt and buckle. Another man came in, carrying another sword. Corlath took this one too, and held the scabbard in his left hand, letting the belt dangle; and he pulled it free and waved it, gleaming, under the light of the candles in the great chandelier. There was a blue stone set in its hilt, and it glared defiantly in the light. This was a shorter lighter sword than Corlath’s, but the suppleness of it, and the way it hung, waiting, in the air, gave it a look of infinite age, and sentience, as if it looked out at th ose who looked at it. â€Å"This is Gonturan,† said Corlath, and a murmur of assent and of recognition went around the hall; the Riders were silent. â€Å"She is the greatest treasure of my family. For a few years in his youth each son has carried her; but she was not meant for a man’s hands, and legend has it that she will betray the man who dares bear her after his twentieth year. This is the Lady Aerin’s sword; and it has been many a long year since there has been a woman to carry it.† Harry was staring at the blade, and barely heard Corlath’s words; she was watching a flame-haired woman riding in a forest that seemed to grow against the flat of the shining sword; in her hand was another sword, and the hilt sparkled blue. All the other Riders were standing up, and Corlath reached down and seized her wrist. â€Å"Stand up, disi,† he said. â€Å"I’m about to make you a Rider.† She stood, dazed. A disi was a silly child. There was another who rode with the woman who carried the Blue Sword; he rode a few paces behind her. â€Å"A Rider?† Harry said. â€Å"A Rider,† Corlath replied firmly. She dragged her eyes away from the winking sword edge and looked at him. Another man of the household set a small flat pot of yellow salve at Corlath’s right hand. The king dipped the fingers of that hand in it, then drew them to smear the ointment across his palm. He had shifted Gonturan to his left hand; now he seized the blade near the tip with his right, and gave it a quick twist. â€Å"Damn,† he said, as the blood welled between his fingers and dripped to the floor. He picked up a napkin and squeezed it. â€Å"Take my sword, Harimad-sol,† he said, â€Å"and do the same – but not so enthusiastically. I think, though, that Katuchim has not the sense of humor that Gonturan does, so do not fear him.† She dipped her fingers in the salve, and touched them gently to her palm; reached out and, as awkwardly as if she had never learned one lesson from Mathin, dragged Corlath’s sword from its scabbard. It was so long she had to brace the hilt against the table to get a reasonable angle on the edge. She closed her fingers around it, thought about something else, and felt the skin of her palm just part. She opened her hand, and three drops of blood only sprang from the thinnest of red lines across her skin. â€Å"Well done!† said Mathin over her shoulder, and the Riders cheered; and the whole hall picked it up, shouting. Corlath grinned down at her, and she could not help smiling back. â€Å"There have been more graceful kings and Riders since the world began, but we’ll do,† said Corlath to her, quietly, below the roar around them. â€Å"Take your sword, and mind you treat her well. You will have Aerin’s shade to answer to, else.† Harry’s fingers closed round the blue hilt and she knew at once that she would handle this sword very well indeed – or it would handle her. For a moment she found herself wishing that she had been carrying Gonturan the day of the trials, and at this a slow sly smile spread across her face. She raised her eyes to Corlath’s face – he had taken his own sword back and sheathed it, and one of the Riders was tying the napkin around the wounded hand and saying something sardonic; but Corlath only laughed, and turned back to watch her. Such was the slow sly smile he offered her in return that she rather thought he knew just what she was thinking. â€Å"Damalur-sol!† the people cried. â€Å"Damalur-sol!† How to cite The Blue Sword CHAPTER NINE, Essay examples

Privatization Of Telstra Essays - Telstra, , Term Papers

Privatization Of Telstra What are the advantages of privatizing Telstra and how does this impact it's ethical conduct while striving to satisfy community expectations? I believe that putting important public assets into select private hands is not in Australia's long-term interests, and oppose the partial/full sale of Telstra for the reasons that the Government has given. The argument the Government has given for the privatization and corporatisation of Telstra has been a budget conscious one where the proceeds of Telstra will provide a "one-off" opportunity to: 1) abolish Telstra's pastoral call rate and provide untimed local calls in extended zones in remote Australia; 2) increase funding for Networking the nation; and 3) pay off foreign debt left over by the previous government However, this is not true as the Minister, Senator Alston already has the power to direct Telstra to provide services and upgrade infrastructure (points 1 and 2). If the USO (Universal Service Obligations Act) or performance standards under the CSG need changing, then the Minister should invoke his power to direct, and these changes should be made distinct from any attempts to sell Telstra. Statistics also show that the sale of the first third netted a total of $0.37 billion loss to the Commonwealth. By the year 2000, it is estimated that Telstra earnings will exceed $2 billion annually. The Howard Government estimats an interest saving of about $2.4 billion per year. This doesn't take into account the income that will be lost to the government every year in revenue earnings from Telstra. By 2007, the sale of Telstra is expected to create a budget black hole of $4 billion. The government cites that the "Mums and Dads" of Australia will benefit by purchasing shares in the float, which is true. But eventually the real beneficiaries will be the multinational companies who will have the controlling majority, not the Australian public. This can have detrimental effects on society, especially to the rural regions of Australia. The Democrats and the Labor Party also disapprove of the privatization of Telstra for the above reasons. Privatization is when a Government Business Entity (Statutory Body) is sold to the general public and becomes a public company. There is a belief that Government run businesses are inefficient because their motive isn't necessarily money, although there is no consistent evidence that privatization increases efficiency. However in the case of Telstra, there have been clear signs of deterioration in services since it's partial privatization. Delays are longer on connection and service times. Recent changes to the charging regime for community calls will impact on costs, particularly for small business, in rural and regional areas. (One in three rural customers were denied connections to new services ~ SMH 5/2/99) Rural and regional customers also suffered the biggest fall in standards for repairing faults. The Telstra Communications Network is also set to suffer shutdowns along the lines of the power cuts in Queensland and Auckland. All these factors can contribute to the downward spiralling of the essential qualities of life for country families. This deterioration in services has been a direct consequence of privatization, where the focus of the company has shifted to profits rather than providing a cheap and efficient service. Another example of this can be seen when according to the Media (ABC), Telstra reaches an excess of funds of up to $1.5 billion as a result of staff/service cuts. The Board of Directors are urging for a special dividend to shareholders or a share buyback (to increase share prices). No one is suggesting the obvious, strategic investment. Privatization has also made an impact on the working conditions of employees. One of the first stages of structural reform that Telstra implemented was downsizing and the cutting of working conditions of over 60 000 workers (formerly) employed by Telstra, after experts claimed that there is an excessive labour load of about 27000 strong. As Telstra was previously a GBE, it's structure was "suboptimal" in a business sense ie: Telstra's activities exceed what it would have undertaken in a free market. This has given it one of the worst staff to phone line ratios in the advanced world. After 15 months of negotiations with the Communications Electrical and Plumbers Union (CEPU), the standardisation of ordinary hours for full time employees, introduction of 3 main work streams and the extension of shift arrangements to all sections was agreed upon. Many workers suffered pay losses when they were re-graded. The Financial review (17/2/99) records that in 1998, Telstra's labour costs dropped 7.7% (the number of it's employees fell by 20000), despite a