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ETHER AND MODERNITY
 ETHER AND
MODERNITY
The Recalcitrance of an Epistemic Object in
the Early Twentieth Century

Edited by
JAUME NAVARRO
University of the Basque Country, Spain

1
 1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
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It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
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© Oxford University Press 2018
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2018
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
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above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018935614
ISBN 978–0–19–879725–8
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198797258.001.0001
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CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project began in 2013 when I was awarded the Marconi Fellowship by the Bodleian
Libraries at Oxford University. Alexandra Franklin, from the Department of Special
Collections and Prof. Pietro Corsi encouraged me to organise a workshop on ‘The Lure
of the Ether. Physics and Modernity’, which eventually took place in February 2014 at
the History Faculty, Oxford. Imogen Clarke, Richard Noakes, Richard Staley, Michael
Whitworth and I presented papers that were commented on by Geoffrey Cantor. In
2015, Scott Walter and I organised a special panel on the same topic at the History of
Science Society meeting in San Francisco and we were joined by Connemara Doran,
Linda Henderson and Richard Staley. It was in that meeting that we agreed to work
towards more consistent versions of our papers and to publish this edited volume. The
final papers were presented at a meeting in Donostia/San Sebastian, in March 2017,
attended by all the contributors to this volume. I would like to thank the Donostia
International Physics Center (DIPC) and the Basque Government for funding that meet-
ing, as well as project HAR2015-67831-P MINECO/FEDER, EU, for funding part of the
research for this book.
 CONTENTS

Biographies of Authors ix

1. Introduction: Ether—The Multiple Lives of a Resilient Concept

Massimiliano Badino and Jaume Navarro 1
2. The Ether at the Crossroads of Classical and Modern Physics
Imogen Clarke 14
3. Transformations of Knowledge in Oliver Lodge’s Ether and Reality
Michael H. Whitworth 30
4. Poincaré’s Mathematical Creations in Search of the ‘True
Relations of Things’
Connemara Doran 45
5. Ether and Electrons in Relativity Theory (1900–11)
Scott A. Walter 67
6. Making Space for the Soul: Oliver Lodge, Maxwellian Psychics
and the Etherial Body
Richard Noakes 88
7. Lenard’s Ether and Its Vortex of Emotions: Between
Accommodating and Fighting Modern Physics with Äther and
Uräther in the German Political Context
Arne Schirrmacher 107
8. Ether and Wireless: An Old Medium into New Media
Jaume Navarro 130

9. Hunting for the Luminiferous Ether: The American Revival

of the Michelson–Morley Experiment in the 1920s
Roberto Lalli 155
10. Ether and Aesthetics in the Dialogue between Relativists and
Their Critics in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
Richard Staley 179
viii Contents

11. Umberto Boccioni’s Elasticity, Italian Futurism and the Ether of Space
Linda Dalrymple Henderson 200
12. An Ether by Any Other Name? Paul Dirac’s Æther
Aaron Sidney Wright 225

Index 245
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 BIOGRAPHIES OF AUTHORS

Massimiliano Badino is assistant professor of history and philosophy of science at the

University of Verona. Previously, he was the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
His research focuses on history and philosophy of mathematical physics from the
Enlightenment to the twentieth century.
Imogen Clarke is an independent scholar, working in academic publishing. She com-
pleted her PhD on early twentieth-century physics at the University of Manchester in
2012, and has published articles on the history of physics with a focus on peer review,
publishing practices and the relationship between the classical and the modern.
Connemara Doran (PhD, Harvard University) is a historian of science and technology,
whose research focuses on the history and philosophy of the mathematical and physical
sciences. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University, Department of the
History of Science. Her research encompasses two areas in which the ‘creative virtue’ of
physical and mathematical reasoning has been transformative: (1) the history of modern
cosmology and (2) the history of energy resources. Her chapter in this volume draws
from her book project on the intellectual adventure to empirically determine the size
and shape of the universe—to conceptualise, measure and map the cosmos—during the
long twentieth century. She refocuses discourse onto Henri Poincaré’s odyssey to over-
come the limitations of geometric empiricism by creating an utterly new mathematics of
spatial relations.
Linda Dalrymple Henderson is the David Bruton, Jr., Centennial Professor in Art
History and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Professor Henderson’s research and teaching focus on the interdisciplinary study of
modernism, including the relation of modern art to fields such as geometry, science
and technology, and mystical and occult philosophies. In addition to numerous periodical
articles and catalogue essays, she is the author of The Fourth Dimension and Non-
Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art (Princeton University Press, 1983; new ed., MIT
Press, 2013) and Duchamp in Context: Science and Technology in the Large Glass and
Related Works (Princeton, 1998). She also co-edited with Bruce Clarke the interdisciplinary
anthology From Energy to Information: Representation in Science, and Technology, Art
and Literature (Stanford University Press, 2002). In 2008 Henderson curated and
wrote the catalogue for the exhibition Reimagining Space: The Park Place Gallery in 1960s
New York (Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas, 2008). She is currently
working on two book projects, ‘The Energies of Modernism: Art, Science, and
Occultism in the Early 20th Century’ and ‘The Fourth Dimension in Art and Culture
Decade-by-Decade Through the 20th Century’.
x Biographies of Authors

Roberto Lalli is a Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of
Science and a Visiting Scholar in the Research Program on the History of the Max Planck
Society. After having received an MSc degree in Physics, he earned a PhD in International
History at the University of Milan (2011). From 2011 to 2013, he was a postdoctoral fellow
in the Program on Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. He is a historian of modern physical sciences whose work focuses on the
interconnections between social and epistemic factors in the production and circulation
of novel products in theoretical physics and in the international standardisation of scien-
tific practices. He has published extensively on the history of relativity theories, on the
transfer of quantum theory, and on the evolution of editorial practices. His monograph
analyses the attempts to build an international community of general relativity experts
during the Cold War. His current project concerns the development of new methodolo-
gies based on the concepts and tools of the network theory in order to jointly analyse the
evolution of scientific knowledge in physics, the creation of transnational scientific com-
munities, and the developments of scientific institutions.
Jaume Navarro is an Ikerbasque Research Professor at the University of the Basque
Country. Trained in physics and in philosophy he has developed a career in the history of
physics in institutions such as University of Cambridge, Imperial College and the Max
Planck Institute for the History of Science. He is author of A History of the Electron: J. J.
and G. P. Thomson (Cambridge: 2012) and co-editor of Research and Pedagogy: A History of
Quantum Theory and its Early Textbooks (Berlin: 2015).
Richard Noakes is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Exeter. He has
published widely on the history of physical sciences, psychical research, telecommunica-
tions and the representation of the sciences in nineteenth-century periodicals. He is the
co-editor of From Newton to Hawking: A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors
of Mathematics (2003) and Culture and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Media (2004), and
co-author of Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: Reading the Magazine of Nature
(2004). He is currently finishing a monograph, Physics and Psychics: The Occult and British
Sciences, 1850–1930.
Arne Schirrmacher studied natural sciences and philosophy at the universities of
Hamburg, Oxford and Munich. After a stay at the Max Planck Institute for the History
of Science in Berlin, he became a long-term research scholar at the Deutsches Museum
in Munich with projects on the history of physics, the history of twentieth century sci-
ence communication as well as on the relations between science and war technologies.
He was also an editor of the Hilbert Edition project at the University of Göttingen for
David Hilbert’s physics lectures, and a principal investigator in a research group on the
history of quantum physics at the Max Planck Institute. Since 2010 he has been a senior
research scholar at the Department of History of Humboldt Universität. In 2015 he
won a Heisenberg Fellowship of the German Research Foundation.
Richard Staley wrote his dissertation at the University of Cambridge on the early
work of Max Born in 1992, and then co-curated two museum exhibitions in the Whipple
 Biographies of Authors xi

Museum of the History of Science, ‘Empires of Physics’ and ‘1900: The New Age’,
before holding postdocs and visiting positions in Melbourne, Berlin and Chicago. From
2000 to 2013, he taught in the History of Science Department at the University of
Wisconsin–Madison, publishing Einstein’s Generation and the Origins of the Relativity
Revolution with University of Chicago Press in 2008. He is now Rausing Lecturer in the
Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University Cambridge, con-
ducting research on the histories of physics and anthropology, the cultural history of
mechanics, and environmental physics and climate change.
Scott A. Walter teaches history and philosophy of science and technology at the
François Viète Center for Epistemology and History of Science and Technology (EA
1161), University of Nantes. He serves as editor of the ‘Henri Poincaré Papers’ website,
and has published two volumes of Henri Poincaré’s scientific correspondence, devoted
to exchanges with physicists, chemists and engineers (2007), and with astronomers and
geodesists (2016). He has published research on the history of relativity theory in Studies
in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, and he contributed a chapter on the his-
torical origins of spacetime to the Springer Handbook of Spacetime (2014).
Michael H. Whitworth is a lecturer in the English Faculty, University of Oxford, and
a tutorial fellow of Merton College, Oxford. He is the author of Einstein’s Wake: Relativity,
Metaphor, and Modernist Literature (OUP, 2001) and other articles and chapters on the rela-
tions of modernist literature and science. He was the co-founder of the British Society
for Literature and Science. He has also written extensively on Virginia Woolf and has
edited her novels Orlando and Night and Day.
Aaron Sidney Wright is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Suppes Center for History and
Philosophy of Science at Stanford University. Previously, he was a Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of History of
Science at Harvard University. He received his PhD from the Institute for the History
and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. His research
is concerned with the practice of physics over time, and what this practice tells us about
science and the natural world. Particularly interested in ‘historical ontology’, he has
made detailed studies of the work of theoretical physicists who studied the vacuum, or
empty space.
 1
Introduction
Ether—The Multiple Lives of a Resilient Concept

Massimiliano Badino and Jaume Navarro

1.1 ETHEREAL NARRATIVES

When did the ether disappear? Did it actually ever exist? Is it not back among some
contemporary physicists? Are you trying to chase a ghost or to resuscitate a zombie?
Questions like these were common in the academic events where the papers compiled in
this volume were presented. Indeed, the ‘Ethereal Aether’, or ‘the nothing that connects
everything’, to quote only two titles of books devoted to the history of the ether,1 has
often attracted the attention of historians of science, philosophers and physicists, and its
epistemic and ontological status been the subject of much discussion and speculation.
While the electron became the favourite probe for theories of scientific realism in times
past, the ether was a frequent case study of theories of scientific change. For quite some
time, the story of its supposed rejection via the experiments of Michelson and Morley in
the late nineteenth century reassured Popperians and was used by many physics teachers.
Later on, the ether became a major symbol of the incommensurability between classical
and modern physics, exemplifying the Kuhnian struggle between a young generation of
relativists and quantum physicists and the stubbornness of conservatives and crackpots.
More recently, social historians of science have moved away from the categories of belief
and unbelief in determining the nuances of the abandonment of the ether in the early
twentieth century, bringing in elements such as technical or pedagogical use.2
In any case, there is a major consensus in thinking that the ether was mostly erased
from any central role in physics and in culture after World War I. The best and most
often quoted work on the history of the ether, the 1981 volume Conceptions of Ether, took
for granted this timeline by limiting the study of the History of Ether Theories to the period
1740–1900.3 The recurrent question ‘what did Einstein really think of the ether’ is only
an exception to this rule, and even then the view is that the ether qua theory disappeared
in spite of (some of ) Einstein’s opinions.4

Badino, M. and Navarro, J., ‘Introduction: Ether—The Multiple Lives of a Resilient Concept’ in Ether and
Modernity, edited by J. Navarro. © Oxford University Press 2018. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198797258.003.0001
2 Introduction

Certainly, in the narratives of the death, rejection or demise of the ether, Einstein and
the theory of relativity play a central role. But, as the chapters in this book show, far from
killing the ether off, special and general relativity (and, to a lesser degree, quantum phys-
ics) caused an explosion of ether narratives into different directions, and only a few of
them can be traced back to a Manichean dichotomy between classical and modern. These
stories cross each other; they share contexts, aims and actors, thus making it difficult to
disentangle them into simple narrative strands. Thus, the absence of a chapter specifically
devoted to ‘Einstein and the ether’ should not be understood in terms of Edmund
Whittaker’s old strategy to diminish Einstein’s role in the development of relativity but as
a way of emphasising the complexities of the ether in the early twentieth century.5
Rather, this book is a snapshot of the multiple lives of the ether in the first decades of
the last century. From developments in pure mathematics to wireless technologies, from
modernist art to spiritualism and from popular to alternative views of physics, the chap-
ters in this book present us with an array of narratives that develop along several lines of
fracture, none of which can give us a single coherent picture. Thus, far from consolidat-
ing the traditional dichotomies between classical and modern, between British and
Continental, between material and spiritual and between ‘true’ and popular physics, this
book challenges the explanatory role of these fissures. Indeed, these dichotomies are as
many ways to tell the story of the ether: however, they fail to capture the whole story
and it is in their failure that one can catch a glimpse at the peculiar features of this con-
cept. Thus, the goal of this introduction is to follow some of these lines of fracture and
to unearth the dynamics underlying the place of the ether in the early twentieth century.

1.2 CLASSICAL AND MODERN

The most obvious way to tell the story of the ether in the twentieth century is perhaps
along the line of fracture that separates classicality and modernity. It is very tempting to
make use of the revolutionary watershed, which includes both relativity and quantum
theory, in order to safely locate the ether within the realm of ‘classical physics’ as opposed
to a newer and advanced ‘modern physics’. The narrative of the ether would thus unfold
as the battle of some diehards for hopelessly old-fashioned scientific practices and values
and against the unstoppable tide of progress. But, as some historians of science have
shown, rather than mere labels, ‘classical’ and ‘modern’ are extremely fluid, largely co-
constructed and continuously renegotiated categories which transcend the boundaries
of physics and belong to the public sphere at large.6 For this reason, the central argument
of this volume concerns the comparison of images of the ether in science and in culture
with the explicit goal of tracking the different dynamics, timescales, and meanings with
which the term ‘ether’ was appropriated by different communities. Only in this way does
it become possible to map out the complex conceptual clusters hidden under the deceiv-
ingly simple notions of classicality and modernity. What is normally used as a sharp
dichotomy reveals so many intersections, entanglements and overlaps that it was not
 Classical and Modern 3

inconsistent to regard something like the ether as classical and modern at the same time,
although for different reasons in different places and by different actors.
Let us begin at the beginning, that is, with physics. In the early years of the past cen-
tury, Einstein’s relativity theory was viewed by many more as an opportunity to rethink
the ether than a reason to reject it. In Chapter 5, Scott Walter argues that the foundations
of electron theory rested on a plexus of dynamical and kinematic problems. On the one
hand, the description of electromagnetic phenomena in different states of motion called
for a redefinition of the terms ‘space’, ‘time’, ‘speed of light’ and ‘reference frame’. On
the other, the bare fact that electric charges were involved required a medium of propa-
gation for electromagnetic waves. For all its cumbersomeness, the ether allowed for a
unification of kinematics and dynamics: it was the supporting medium and the absolute
frame of reference and it was the storage device of energy. The British versions of elec-
tron theory, described by Richard Noakes in Chapter 6, made good use of these features.
In addition, the ether proved useful even when combined with the most advanced math-
ematical tools as shown by Poincaré’s combination of group transformations and
Langevin’s velocity waves to obtain the Lorentz contractions. By contrast, Einstein only
offered ‘a pair of postulates, the logical consistency of which was suspect’ and the
hypothesis of the relativity of time, a suggestion that even a flexible mind like Poincaré’s
looked upon as uninviting.
In this context, it is scarcely surprising that some physicists were reluctant to abandon
the ether completely and tried instead to rethink its role under the kinematic constraints
of Einstein’s relativity. This quest for a novel way to understand the dynamical founda-
tions of the electrodynamics of moving bodies generated what Walter calls the ‘concep-
tual drift of the concept of ether’: a series of attempts at filling up with a renewed ether
the void that Einstein’s epistemological austerity had left behind. Deprived of kinematic
properties, the ether simply became a substratum, the loftiest metaphysical concept a
physicist’s conscience could bear and deal with. It is within this framework that one has
to look at the reception of Minkowski’s work, which, slowly but steadily, became the
veritable vehicle of acceptance of special relativity. Connemara Doran’s novel step-by-
step analysis of the road from Poincaré to Minkowski’s geometrisation tools, provided in
Chapter 4, helps understand this evolution.
Efforts to make relativity and the ether happy together continued during the 1910s and
1920s in Britain. In Chapter 12, Aaron Wright describes this process as a sort of ‘domesti-
cation’ of the ether, an approach towards modern physics which marked Dirac’s physical
education and eventually fed his understanding of the role of the ether. Einstein’s 1905
famous conclusion that the ether was ‘superfluous’ contained a positive message: after
all, relativity had not pronounced the ether non-existent. This alleged compatibility
between the ether and relativity was one of the main weapons on the ether front. If the
ether could be neither observed experimentally nor undermined theoretically, the only
remaining option was to characterise it through its functions. This was the rationale
behind many of the ‘relabelling strategies’ so clearly described by Wright in the opening
sections of the chapter.
4 Introduction

This functional reinterpretation of the ether is key to understanding its vicissitudes.

Fortunately, relativity, particularly general relativity, offered plenty of conceptual space.
Its unprecedentedly complicated mathematical architecture was far from being self-
explanatory. On the contrary, several corners in its symbolic maze had to be interpreted
and many of them were open to alternative interpretations. Einstein himself admitted
this point in 1916, and in 1918 he explicitly stated that, according to general relativity, one
had to ascribe physical properties to the empty space via specific components of the
gravitational potential. As Richard Staley explains in Chapter 10, for Einstein, this math-
ematical prescription created the site for a new role of the concept of ether. This is just
one instance, albeit possibly the most illustrious, of a line of thought that became popu-
lar especially in the British scientific and public discourse: relativity had not declared the
ether dead and, in fact, it might even vindicate it eventually. Thus, for example, Ebenezer
Cunningham drew a very straightforward conclusion from special relativity: if there
are multiple inertial frames, then there should be multiple ethers. On the contrary,
as partly seen in Chapter 2, by Imogen Clarke, and Chapter 8, by Jaume Navarro,
Arthur Eddington was happy to assume only one collection of point events, and he saw
in this symbolic representation of the physical world the same connecting function for-
merly accomplished by the ether. Another interesting instance is Poincaré’s ‘structural’
reinterpretation, discussed by Doran in Chapter 4. According to Poincaré, the existence
of the ether could be reduced to ‘a natural kinship between all the optical phenomena’.
From this point of view, which could safely be defined as ontic structural realism avant la
lettre, the ether hypothesis was no longer true or false—it was simply more or less con-
venient.
These examples illustrate two deeply entwined points. First, the development of
modern physics, relativity as well as the quantum, did not happen as a gestalt jump out
of the classical world. Quite the contrary—new theories, concepts and perspectives were
conceived in constant dialogue with tradition, which never really died out. It is by explor-
ing the consistency of new ideas with regards to classical wisdom that the full extent of
their revolutionary potential can be appreciated.7 Second, and related, modern physics is
not a complete overcoming of the classical one, as the narrative mentioned at the begin-
ning of this section would have it.
The conceptual space for the ether lies at the very heart of the dialectic between clas-
sic and modern: in what modern science does not tell us—in what it does not bother to
specify, determine and interpret. Dirac, as discussed in Chapter 12, represents another
illuminating example of this entanglement between the classic and the modern. For
him, a reasonable relativistic or quantum theory of a system should be based, via analogy,
on a corresponding classical theory of the same system, a point critically reiterated in his
1951 theory of electron.8 Precisely this intuition led him from a new classical theory of
the electron to formulating an ether for quantum electrodynamics as a field of velocities
that a charge sitting in a certain point would pick up. Once again, there is a specific math-
ematical object, the electromagnetic potential, signalling the presence of the ether, but,
as Wright perceptively observes, Dirac did not confine himself to carving out a space for
 Classical and Modern 5

the ether: he showed how a classical concept could still contribute to solve the riddles of
modern science.
For many experts, relativity and the ether could coexist peacefully and even fruitfully
but, for others, they were mutually exclusive. In Chapters 7 and 10, Arne Schirrmacher
and Richard Staley, respectively, explore in different ways the politically tinged support
for this claim in Germany and we shall return to this issue later in this introduction, in
Sections 1.3 and 1.4. For the moment, however, we would like to focus on the interesting
case of Dayton C. Miller, thoroughly discussed by Roberto Lalli in Chapter 9. The con-
ceptual flexibility of the ‘modern ether of relativity’, so to speak, contrasted with stricter
experimental demands, namely a very precise value—a round zero—for the ether-drift
experiments. As Miller promptly noted, no such exact result had ever been attained,
thus leaving some space for the ether. Moreover, the very possibility of performing
Michelson–Morley-like experiments presupposed the existence of the ether. These two
points made a powerful effect on the American physical community, which had built its
fortune especially on physical astronomy and recognised the ether as an indispensable
tool to make sense of their daily practices. This explains why the ether-drift experiments,
promptly if not fully satisfactorily accommodated in classical physics, were paradoxically
resuscitated by relativity.
This experimental branch of the story turned the survival of the ether into an all-or-
nothing affair. But even in this case of head-on confrontation, the actors were not reject-
ing modernity as a whole. Instead, they were denouncing relativity as a wrong track,
both scientifically and culturally. This suggests that the dialectic of modernity should not
be viewed as a clash between blocks, but rather as the result of crafty political and
rhetorical tactics aiming at formulating the most effective alignment of concepts, values
and emotions.
One can find excellent examples of this tactic in the public discourse on the ether. The
first key factor to understanding the dynamics underlying the debate on the ether in the
public sphere is the particular conjuncture of European society and culture in the early
decades on the twentieth century. New social actors and new political ideas shook the
very foundations of the international order patiently put together during the nineteenth
century. The appalling carnage of World War I and the tumultuous upheaval happening
in Russia took the entire continent aback. Behind the lights and the dances of the belle
époque, fear and uncertainty were the dominating feelings among Europeans. In this
period of emotional instability, Oliver Lodge’s plea for the ether could find more than
one interested ear.
As Imogen Clarke and Michael Whitworth duly stress in Chapters 2 and 3, respectively,
Lodge’s communication prowess was almost unmatched. In his capacity as scientific
expert and public figure, he managed to make his points heeded both at physics meetings
and in the social arena. More importantly, he knew how to get at the layman’s heart. In
an age in which the cleavage between the common man and official science was rapidly
increasing, Lodge was able to create a sense of proximity between people and the ether.
The ether was still with us—relativity had never really expunged it and it could still be
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6 Introduction

seen at work as he was broadcasting his speeches on the BBC. The ether embodied all
those cognitive values of intelligibility, visualisability and intuitiveness that the math-
ematical abstruseness of modern physics wanted to obliterate. It rested on a perfectly
logical analogy: in the same way that water waves need water, so electromagnetic waves
need an electromagnetic medium to propagate. Furthermore, the ether was indispens-
able for the good face of modernity: as Chapter 8 shows, the association of the ether with
wireless technologies gave the former a clear seal of modernity and the latter a reassur-
ing sense of stability and continuity. While relativity and quantum physics were useless
for understanding technology, let alone improving it, the ether, by contrast, played a
central role. The magic of the wireless, which allowed people from the opposite ends of
the earth to speak as if together in the same room, made perfect sense once the electro-
magnetic waves were pictured as perturbation of an all-pervasive medium. As the output
of a type of physics now in jeopardy, the wireless technology literally embodied scien-
tific as well as cultural values, both modern and traditional. It is unsurprising, therefore,
that the wireless community became instrumental in sustaining the concept of the ether
well beyond its survival in official science.
In Lodge’s capable hands and with the cooperation of the wireless practitioners, the
ether became a highly symbolic notion. It obviously related to electromagnetic theory, a
chapter of science in which Britons had been unquestioned masters, from Faraday to
Maxwell, William Thomson, Joseph J. Thomson and, why not, Lodge himself. And
it also related to the wireless technology and Britain’s imperial supremacy in electrifying
and communicating the world. The ether, in sum, symbolised the cherished values of
the classical British civilisation: stability, intelligibility and common sense. And, while it
opposed all the uncomfortable novelties of the new century—moral uncertainties, social
changes, Bolshevik revolutions, Freudian abysses and cerebral mathematical theories—it
was modern in a good way: it expressed sensible progress and dynamism; it had a future
in science as well as in society. The public image of the ether was neither classical nor
modern but a cunning combination of both.

1.3 KNOWLEDGE, ETHOS AND AUTHORITY

One of the most serious flaws of the standard narrative on the ether is that it sets the entire
issue in terms of a choice between scientific theories. By making the question depend on
the intrinsic cognitive qualities of the two options, relativity theory and the ether hypoth-
esis, it regroups all the nuances of the debate into two broad categories: the former were
necessarily right, and the latter, wrong. By contrast, this book shifts the focus from the
theories to the actors of this debate, to retrieve their distinctive voices, backgrounds and
agendas. In this way, we can now appreciate elements previously neglected by historians.
One major example is the theme of authority, which permeates several articles.
In order to be an influential contributor to a debate, one needs to gain sufficient
authority; but—and this is the particularly intriguing aspect—in the ether debate, authority
 Knowledge, Ethos and Authority 7

is a peculiar mixture of knowledge and ethos. Dirac, a Nobel laureate, was wittingly
provoking the scientific community in 1951 by connecting his well-respected work with
the anachronistic notion of the ‘æther’, in his battle for a new formulation of quantum
electrodynamics. Although the attempt did not meet with great acceptance, Dirac not
only used his authority and knowledge to bring back some form of ether but also used
the authority of the ether, so to speak, to create a debate on the foundations of quantum
electrodynamics.
Oliver Lodge and Arthur Eddington are two major examples of this entanglement
between ethos, knowledge and authority. In Chapter 3, Whitworth describes with com-
mendable precision Lodge’s techniques to approach his public in order to foster not only
a sense of expertise but also moral trust. By showing wisdom rather than just knowledge
and by helping the reader (or the listener) to co-create the space for the ether, Lodge
becomes the personification of those ideals of stability, reasonableness and Christian
patience which were associated with the Victorian culture and of which the ether was an
expression. And as Clarke argues in Chapter 2, Lodge and Eddington were very effective
in convincing the general public that there was a genuine scientific discussion on the ether
and that his was an active voice in this discussion. Although different on most points,
Lodge’s and Eddington’s argumentative strategy included using their scientific authority
to promote a critical attitude towards the infallibility of science. By claiming that, on the
ether problem, the jury was still out, they achieved multiple results: they presented them-
selves as humble men with no pretension to know everything, they challenged some
mainstream interpretations of relativity and they sympathetically nodded to their privileged
audiences—the wireless community in the case of Lodge, mathematical idealists in the
case of Eddington, and a broad array of liberal Christians in both.
This interplay of ethos and knowledge is key to understanding the complex dynamics
of scientific and popular culture in the early decades of the twentieth century, but it also
helps clarify the tectonic shifts within the scientific culture itself, particularly along both
the geographical and the disciplinary fracture lines. During the nineteenth century, these
differences were increasingly painted in critical terms and, often, related to specific men-
talities, spirits, cultures and ethos. The criticism levelled by William Thomson and Peter
Guthrie Tait against the Continental abuse of mathematics, for instance, and Pierre
Duhem’s famous distinction between the French and the British ‘minds’ are examples of
this train of thought. The debate on the ether was not immune from these geographical
undertones. As Noakes argues in Chapter 6, Lodge blamed Germany’s materialist, deca-
dent and ultimately dangerous morals on a philosophy that neglected, among other
things, the ether. After all, the infection of modern science had started in Germany, the
fatherland of both relativity and quantum theory. Given the peculiarities of the German
thought and ethos, this genesis was not surprising, and the result had to be properly
domesticated before any British attempt of appropriation.
But, on the other side of the Channel, they thought it differently. Notoriously, Philip
Lenard exposed relativity as contrary to the German—to wit, Aryan—spirit, using his
authority as a Nobel laureate to challenge Einstein’s views and even to accuse him of
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 "Well, Mary, is Master Fred in?" his face grew suddenly glad, and,
sitting up on the sofa, he turned his head eagerly towards the door.

Mary's reply was inaudible to him, as she said,—

"Oh, Miss Carter, I'm so glad you've come. Master Fred's all alone out
in the back parlor, and he's sad enough, poor boy!"

Then he heard Bess speak again: "Please take my cloak, Mary, it is so

wet; and ask him if I may go right in there."

"Oh, do come quick, Miss Bessie!" he called out. "I'm so glad you have
come." And as he heard the door open, and the light, quick steps advancing
towards him, he stood up and put out both hands to greet his guest, with no
trace of his old fretful look.

With a hasty glance Bess noted the helplessness that prevented his
meeting her at the door, but she only said, as she kissed him,—

"Well, Fred, I am so glad to have you back within reach once more."

"You have missed me, then?" asked the child anxiously, as she drew him
to the sofa and seated herself by his side.

"Missed you, you silly boy! What a question! Of course I have. 'We
boys,' as Rob says, have been longing for you to be back again. I have felt
quite lost without you."

"How is Rob,—and all the other boys?" inquired Fred, relieved that
Bess seemed so unconscious of his condition.

"Well, all of them. Rob is coming down as soon as you feel like seeing
him. I see more of him than I do of any of the others. Phil runs in once in a
while, but he is so busy all the time. Teddy was at the house one day last
week, the same dear, slangy boy as ever. But tell me, am I not crazy to
come down such a day?"

"It's a kind of crazy I like," said Fred. "You were awfully good to come,
and I've been alone here ever so long."
 "So much the better," said Bess, mentally abusing the mother who could
leave her boy under such circumstances; "we can have a real good, old-
fashioned visit, and when you get tired of me, you may send me off."

Fred's hand moved about in search of hers, as he asked,—

"How did you know I'd come?"

"Rob told me last night."

"Did he tell you"—

Fred could go no farther. Bess pulled the appealing little face over
against her shoulder, and gently smoothed his hair, as she answered, using
all her self-control to speak quietly,—

"Yes, dear, he did. I can't tell you how sorry we all felt for our boy. That
doesn't make it any easier to bear, I know; but perhaps in time we can help
you a little."

For the first time since his learning the sad truth, the boy broke down.
He had listened to the words of the oculist without a tear, too much stunned
even to speak, and he had met his father and mother with perfect quiet. But
the few gentle, loving words had broken his firm resolve not to be a baby;
and the tears gathered fast and fell, as he sat with his head on Bessie's
shoulder, her arm about his quivering little body.

"Oh, don't tell the boys!" he sobbed at last. "Don't tell them I cried. I
didn't mean to; but it's all so dreadful, here in the dark."

The tears stood in the girl's eyes as she answered,—

"My dear little boy, we all know how terrible it must be; but I won't tell
the boys if you say so. Just cry it all out; you have tried to be too brave. Rob
almost cried for you last night."

The sobs came less often, but the look of sadness on the boyish face
made Bessie's heart ache for the child, but she said cheerfully,—
 "Now, my son, I am going to take my old place as nurse to-day. You
aren't very strong yet, and I want you to lie down again here on the sofa,
and if you can spare a little of this lunch—I don't approve of candy between
meals, you know—I'll move the table away, pull up this low chair, and tell
you all the news."

Suiting the action to the word, Bess tucked the afghan round Fred's feet,
drew a willow chair up to the place of the despised table, and sat down
close to the child, who once more reached out for her hand.

For an hour she sat there chatting to the boy, telling him of the scrapes
his friends had been in, of the pranks they had played, until she began to see
traces of the old merry Fred, as the look of sorrow gave place to a smile,
and then to a hearty laugh, while she described Rob's recent attempts to
climb a picket fence too hastily, and his being caught by his shoe and hung
head downward, from which position he was ignominiously rescued by a
passing Irishman.

In the mean time, Bess was glad that her little friend could not see her
expression, as she sat looking at the worn, sad face, and the great vacant
eyes, that used to have such bright mischief dancing in them. But she forced
herself to talk on, as easily as she could, more than rewarded by the
pleasure in Fred's face, and his tight grip of her hand.

At length a step was heard on the stairs, and Mrs. Allen, daintily dressed
and looking provokingly fresh and unruffled, Bess thought, came into the
room.

"Why, Bessie, when did you come? How stupid of Mary not to tell me
you were here!"

"I told her I came to see Fred, and not to disturb you," said Bess, as Mrs.
Allen swept to the sofa and bent over her son.

"I am quite jealous of Fred, for you have hardly been here all the time
he was away," she said. "But he needs you now badly enough, poor boy!"
putting a delicately embroidered handkerchief to her eyes. "Isn't it hard to
see him in this condition?"
 Again the burning flush rolled up to Fred's hair, and the hand that was
tightly clasping Bessie's grew suddenly cold. Bess gently kissed him before
she answered,—

"You ought to know of my sympathy for Fred, Mrs. Allen. No words

can express it. But I am glad to have him here again. We were having such a
good talk, just like old times."

With an air of relief, Mrs. Allen took the hint, and left them alone again.
When she was gone, the boy settled back on his pillow, saying gratefully,—

"It is awfully nice to have you here. Tell some more about the fellows."

So Bess talked on, racking her brains for any bright, funny bit of gossip
that could rouse the lad from his depression, and give him something to
think of during the many sad, lonely hours that she saw were in store for
him. But the dreamy chime of the cathedral clock on the mantel, as it struck
four, reminded her of her promise to see Rob after school, and she rose to
go, saying brightly,—

"Now, my boy, I have worn you all out with such a long visit, for a first
one. I must go now, for Rob is coming up after school, and I must be at
home in time to see him. I hope I sha'n't drown on the way," she added, as a
fresh gust of wind brought a flurry of rain against the windows.

"I wish you needn't go," said the child. "It has been so jolly to see you
again. You haven't been here but a few minutes."

"An hour and a half, exactly," answered Bess, "but I'm coming again
real soon."

In the early twilight of the stormy day, the room was growing dark. As
Bess stooped to say good-by to the boy, she was surprised to feel the hot
tears on his cheeks. Sitting down on the edge of the sofa, she drew his head
over into her lap, and stroked his face in silence, for she felt no words could
comfort the little lad.
 "If you only needn't go," he said. "It all seems so much easier when you
are here. Miss Bessie, I can't stand it! What shall I do?"

"Fred, I know it is hard, so very hard. I wish I could stay with you
always, if you want me. But I will truly come again in a day or two. We are
all so sorry for you, and long to help you." Then she asked, "May Rob come
some day to see you? He is such a good little nurse."

Fred shook his head.

"Not yet," said he. "I'd rather not have the boys round just yet. But I
mustn't keep you. Good-by." And, getting up, he moved a few steps towards
the door.

"Don't be in too much of a hurry, my dear," said Bess. "I must ring for
Mary to bring my cloak. Don't try to come to the door, you will only tire
yourself for nothing." And, putting him back on the sofa with a gentle force,
she kissed him and was gone.

Later, when Bess, her parents, and Rob, who had been prevailed upon to
stay, sat at their dinner-table, the young lady, after silently pondering some
question in her own mind, suddenly announced with considerable energy,—

"I think Mrs. Allen is the most selfish woman I ever saw!"

Mrs. Carter, in her surprise at the outburst, dropped the biscuit that she
was feeding to Fuzz, under cover of the tablecloth; for it was the rule of the
family, agreed to by each, and broken by all, that Fuzz should not be fed at
meal-times. The biscuit was at once appropriated by the dog, who trotted
off to a corner with it in his mouth, and there proceeded to devour it, with
sundry growls at the shaggy collie who gazed with longing eyes on the
tempting morsel.

"Bess, my daughter," began Mrs. Carter, "don't be too severe. She may
not be very strong."

"Strong, mother! How much strength does it take to entertain one's son
who is ill? She'd better give up a few dinners and theatres. The idea of her
leaving Fred alone all the afternoon. Rob, the next time you come up here,
when you are tired and cross and headache-y, I am going to take a nap, so
there!"

CHAPTER III.

THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT.

True to her promise, Bess did go often to see her boy. For several weeks
it was her habit to spend a part of every afternoon with him; and the lad's
evident pleasure at her coming made her feel richly rewarded for the time
she gave up to him. He at once recognized her step in the hall, and she
always found him sitting up on the sofa, eagerly waiting for her to come to
him.

Mrs. Allen rarely appeared, and the two had the room to themselves,
while Bess either read aloud, or talked to Fred as she sewed on some bit of
work she had brought with her. To her mother she confessed that after her
usual call her mind was a blank, for she tried so hard to think of some
bright, interesting conversation for the lonely, sad boy. Her patient was not
an easy one to manage, for though Fred rarely complained, during the long
hours he was alone he brooded over his trouble until it seemed even harder
than before, and the old days of school and games were like dreams of
another and a happier world. His father was at his office all day, and his
mother, absorbed in her social life, had little time to give to her son; and
both of them regarded the boy as well cared for if he were only supplied
with all sorts of dainties, and had the most comfortable sofa and chair given
up to him.

Sometimes Bess found the child so disconsolate that she knew not how
to comfort him; sometimes he was moody, and slow to respond to her
efforts to be entertaining, but before she left him, her womanly tact had
smoothed away the frown, and forced him to laugh in spite of himself. And
in the worst of his moods he was never cross to her, but always seemed
grateful to her for her coming.

"If you only needn't go home at all!" he said to her one day. "It's lots
more fun when you are here, Miss Bess. The rest of the time I just lie here
and think till I get cross, and everything seems awful."

"Why do you 'just lie here and think,' then?" asked Bess, feeling that
here was a chance to make a good suggestion. "You are strong enough now
to go to drive every pleasant day. Why don't you?"

"I don't know; I don't want to," said Fred, as the quick color came to his
cheeks, that were beginning to have a more healthy look.

Bess was expecting that reply, for several times before now she had
tried to coax the boy into going out. But he had been ill and by himself for
so long, and had dwelt so continually on himself, that he had become very
sensitive about his blindness, a state of mind not at all improved by his
mother's tactless attempts at consolation. With Bess he could and did talk
freely, but with no one else, and he shrank from meeting any one who
called, and obstinately refused to see his boy friends, although Bess urged
him to let them come.

It was such an unnatural life for the boy, who, save in the one respect,
was rapidly returning to his old strength. Once let him break over this
sensitive reserve, and persuade himself to go out and enjoy the boys, and
Bess was sure that his life would be easier to bear.

To-day they were in their usual place by the fire. Bess was sewing, and
Fred was by her side, playing with the long loops of ribbon that hung from
her belt. Suddenly the girl rose and went to the window.

"Where are you going, Miss Bess?"

"I am going to run away from you, you obstinate boy. I want to see your
mother a minute. I'll come back, so don't you worry."
 For Bess had determined on a bold stroke. The air inside the room was
warm and heavy with the fragrance of roses. Outside, all was bright and
bracing, for an inch or two of snow had fallen the night before, and the air
after the storm was clear and sweet. Across the street, two rosy-cheeked
urchins were having a grand snowball fight, and Bess only wished that she
and Fred could join them. She heard their shouts of laughter as a
particularly large snowball struck one of them, just as he was stooping for
more ammunition, and half the snow was scattered down his neck.

The next moment she had tapped at Mrs. Allen's door.

"Come in," said a languid voice, and in she went.

Mrs. Allen, in a light wrapper, lay on a sofa, while Mary was kneeling
by her side, industriously polishing the nails of her mistress.

"Mrs. Allen," said Bess abruptly, "may Fred and I have the coupé this
afternoon?"

"Does he want to go out for a drive at last?" asked his mother.

"No, he doesn't," replied Bess, "but I want to have him go, and I think
that if the carriage were all at the door, I could get him started. May I try?"

"Of course you can have the carriage, Bessie; (a little more on the
thumb, Mary) but why do you tease him, if he doesn't want to go? It won't
be any pleasure to him, and if he is more comfortable at home, why not let
him do as he likes?"

Bess dropped into a chair, and wrinkled her brows with exasperation.

"Why, don't you see, Mrs. Allen," she said, "the boy can't spend all his
life in that one room. He must go out of it sometime, and the longer he
waits the harder it will be for him. He ought to have been out weeks ago,
for he needs the fresh air, and he is getting just blue and morbid from
staying alone in the house all this time."
 "Perhaps you are right (now the other hand, Mary). Of course you can
have James and the coupé, if you will order what you want. It will be
pleasanter for you, if not for Fred."

Bess felt her color come. She had not expected much from Mrs. Allen,
but this was too unkind,—to think that she was speaking two words for
herself and one for Fred! But Mrs. Allen was not fine enough to see how
her remark had cut, and Bess resolved to bear anything for the sake of her
boy; so she thanked his mother, a little coldly, perhaps, and then departed to
the kitchen, where she asked the coachman to bring the coupé to the door as
soon as he could, and requested the plump, ruddy cook, the family tyrant, to
get her Fred's coat and hat.

The good woman's face brightened perceptibly.

"An' is it goin' out he is? Bless the poor dear b'y; it's a long, long time
since he's had a hat on his head, and it's I as am glad to be gettin' it for you.
The air'll do him good, sure!"

Bess thanked the woman warmly as she took the wraps, for she noted
the difference in tone between the mother and the servant. Then she
returned to the parlor, where she dropped Fred's heavy coat and hat on a
chair, and went back to her old place by the fire.

"Seems to me you've been gone a good while," said the boy, as Bess sat
down on the sofa, and pulled his head, pillow and all, into her lap.

"I just wanted you to find out how charming my society is," she said
playfully, as she twisted his scalp-lock till it stood wildly erect.

"As if I didn't know anyway," responded Fred. "But what are you trying
to do to me?"

"Only beautifying you a little, sonny," said Bess, with one eye on the
window.

In a few moments she saw the carriage drive up to the door and stop.
She took the boy's hand firmly in her own, and said very quietly, from her
position of vantage,—

"Now, Fred, I have a favor to ask of you; it is something I want so very

much. Will you do it for me?"

"What is it?" asked the boy suspiciously.

"The coupé is all ready at the door, and I have brought in your coat and
hat. It is such a lovely day, I want you to come for a drive. Will you?"

"No, I won't," said the boy, turning his face away from her, and putting
his hand over his eyes.

"Listen, Fred," said Bess firmly; "I know just how you feel about this,
but is it quite right to give up to it? You have all your life before you, and
you can't lie on this sofa all your days. I have waited until you were
stronger, hoping you would feel like starting out; but the longer you are
here, the harder it will be! You will have to go sometime; why not to-day?"

"What's the use?" asked the boy sadly. "I sha'n't get any good of going. I
don't see why I'm not as well off here."

"It is a beautiful day after the snow, and the air is so fresh it will do you
good. You need some kind of a change. We will only go a little way, if you
say so. Come, Fred." And she waited.

She saw the boy shut his lips tight together, and two great tears rolled
out from under his hand. Then he said slowly,—

"I'll go, Miss Bessie."

"That's my dear, brave boy," said Bess, as she went to get their wraps.
She helped Fred into his hat and coat, quickly put on her own, and, drawing
his hand through her arm, led him to the door, talking easily all the time to
keep up the lad's courage.

Just as they came out of the house, Rob and Phil chanced to be passing.
Turning, as they heard the door open and close, they saw Bess helping their
friend to the carriage, waved their hats to her, and started to run back to
greet Fred. But Bess motioned to them to keep away, for she felt that her
charge was in no condition now to meet these strong, lively friends, just as
he was forced to realize anew his own helplessness. So the lads stood sadly
by, looking on while their unconscious friend slowly and awkwardly
climbed into the carriage. Bess followed, and, with a wave of her hand to
the watching boys, they drove away.

"That isn't much like Fred," said Phil, as he turned away with a serious
look on his jolly, freckled face. "Just think of the way he used to skate, and
play baseball and hare and hounds! It must be awful for him. But isn't it
funny he won't let us go to see him?"

"I don't know," replied Rob, meditatively patting a snowball into shape;
"I guess if I were like what Fred is, I shouldn't want the boys round, for
'twould just make me think all the time of the things I couldn't do. Cousin
Bess is awfully good to him; she's down here ever so much."

"I know it. Wonder if anything happened to me, she'd take me up," said
Phil, half enviously. "I just wish she was my cousin, Bob. Why, she's as
good as a boy, any day!"

In the mean-time, Fred's first care had been to draw down the curtains
on his side of the carriage, and then he shrank into the corner, answering as
briefly as possible to Bessie's careful suggestions for his comfort. But her
endless good-humor and fun were never to be long resisted, and he was
soon talking away as rapidly as ever, while the change and the motion and
the cool crisp air brought a glow to his cheeks that made him look like the
Fred of former days. After driving for nearly an hour, the carriage stopped.

"Are we home?" asked Fred, starting to rise.

"At mine, not yours. Mother was going out to tea, to-night, and you
have been such a good boy that, as a reward of merit, I am going back to
dinner with you; only I must stop and tell mother, and send word to Rob to
come down after me. Shall I come?" And Bess paused with a smile, waiting
to see the effect of her new plan.
 "Oh, yes, do come!" said Fred eagerly. "And tell Bob not to come for
you too early."

"What fun we'll have," he continued, when Bess had come back from
the house and they were driving away, regardless of the wails of Fuzz, who
surveyed them from a front window. "We'll play—how I wish I ever could
play games any more!" And his face grew dark again.

"You can, ever so many. But will you go home, or shall we drive a little
longer?"

"Home, please: that is, if you are willing, Miss Bessie."

"Fred, do you think me a dragon?" asked Bess, soberly. "Now tell me

truly, are you sorry you came out to-day? Even if you are a little tired, won't
the old sofa feel all the better for the change?" And while she waited for his
reply, she looked with pleasure at the clear, bright color that the wind had
brought into his cheeks.

"No, I don't know as I'm sorry, as long as you came too. But it's no fun
driving alone, and mother's too busy to go with me."

There was a pause, and then he suddenly asked,—

"Miss Bess, what makes you so good to me?"

"Good, to have a pleasant drive with my boy. I didn't suppose that

showed any great virtue. But," added Bess more seriously, "I want to teach
my boy to make the very best of his life. You have one hard, hard sorrow to
bear, dear; but you have ever so many pleasant things to enjoy, if you only
think of it: your home," here Bessie caught her breath, as a vision of Mrs.
Allen crossed her mind, then went on calmly, "all your friends, who care so
much for you; and then there are so many things you can do, as you get a
little more used to yourself. But this is enough sermon now, for here you are
at home. Just take my arm." And she led the boy into the house and up to
the fire.
 Mr. and Mrs. Allen dined out that night, and Fred and Bess had the
house to themselves. Fred was so roused by the little change, and Bess so
pleased at her own success, that their dinner was a merry one. Fred insisted
that it should be served on a small table by their favorite fire, instead of in
the imposing dining-room, and Mary, rejoiced at anything that could bring
Master Fred out of his languid indifference, was only too glad to make the
change, however much work it might involve for herself.

The boy was in fine spirits, in his delight at having Bess stay to dinner,
all to himself, and the two told stories and asked conundrums till the room
fairly rang with their mirth. At dinner, Bess sent Mary away and waited on
the boy herself, giving him the needed help in such a matter-of-course
fashion that he forgot to feel sensitive about it until long after his guest had
gone.

After dinner, when the table was cleared away, and Fred's sofa moved
again to the fire, they both settled themselves on it for a quiet chat. The fire
shone out on a pretty picture. Bess, in her dark red gown, sat leaning
luxuriously against the dull blue cushions of the oak sofa, while Fred was
close by her side, with his hand through her arm, his head on her shoulder,
listening with a laughing face to his friend's account of some college frolics.
There was no light in the room but the steady glow from the grate, that
plainly showed their faces, but for the moment kindly hid the sad, blank
look in Fred's once beautiful eyes, and only gave them a dreamy, thoughtful
expression, as from time to time he turned his face up to Bess.

In the midst of their conversation, the bell rang, and the next moment
Mary, privately instructed by Bess, without word of warning ushered Rob
into the room. For a minute he stood, hesitating whether to speak to Fred or
not, but Bess quickly came to the rescue.

"Why, Rob, here so soon? Come up to the fire; there's ever so much
room here on the sofa."

And Fred's voice added,—

"Hullo, Bob!" as he hospitably made room for his guest.

 There was another pause as Rob seated himself, for neither boy knew
just what to say. Fred had straightened himself up, and was twirling his
thumbs, while Rob crossed his feet and uncrossed them again, as he
methodically folded up his soft felt hat into a neat bundle.

As both boys declined to break the silence, Bess again took the lead.

"Is it cold to-night?" she asked Rob.

"Yes it's freezing fast, and 'twill be fine skating to-morrow. All us boys
are planning to go"—And Rob came to a sudden halt, as the idea dawned
on him that such subjects were not interesting to Fred, who asked abruptly,
—

"How's Phil?"

"He's well," replied Rob laconically, determined to make no mistake this

time.

"What's Bert Walsh doing with himself?"

"Football, of course." And both the boys laughed, for Bert's chronic
devotion to the game was the joke of all his friends.

But the next moment Bess felt Fred's head come over against her
shoulder. Rob watched him pityingly, not daring to speak his sympathy,
though he read his friend's thought.

"We've been reading 'Story of a Bad Boy,' this afternoon," said Bess,
trying once more to start the boys. Rob caught eagerly at the bait.

"Isn't it fine! That Fourth of July scrape just suits me."

And the boys were all animated as they discussed the details of the
story. Bess sat and watched them, occasionally putting in a word or two,
and soon all constraint had vanished, as the talk ran on from subject to
subject, and the long year of separation was a thing of the past.
 Rob, mindful of what Bess had told him about Fred's sensitive reserve,
tried to seem perfectly unconscious of the change in his boy friend, but he
looked anxious and troubled, between his sympathy for Fred, and his desire
to say just the right thing. But when Bess rose to go, and Fred was slowly
following her to the door, Rob could stand it no longer,

"Say, Fred, I'm awfully sorry for you!" he blurted out.

Contrary to his expectations, the simple, boyish pity went right to Fred's
heart, and did it a world of good, but he only said,—

"It isn't much fun, Bob, I tell you. But won't you come down again some
day? I wish you would."

And Bess went home, well pleased with her day's work.

CHAPTER IV.

THE OTHER BOYS.

Bess was in her element.

"Cousin Bess," Rob had said that morning, "may some of us boys come
up to-night, or will we be in the way?"

"Not a bit of it!" replied Bess heartily; "I wish you would. Who are
coming?"

"Oh, just the regular crowd, Ted and Phil and Bert and Sam. The boys
wanted me to ask if we might, for fear you'd be out, or busy, or something."

That afternoon the first flakes of a snowstorm were falling, as Bess

started to make her usual pilgrimage to Fred, and by evening it lay over all
things soft and white.

"I am afraid your boys won't come," said Mrs. Carter, as they sat
lingering over their dinner. "It is too bad, when you are all ready for your
candy-pull."

"Don't you worry," predicted Bess, as she slyly dropped a morsel in

front of the nose of Fuzz, who for once lay asleep. "It will take more than
this snow to keep those boys away, unless Teddy has one of his colds and
can't come. I wish Fred could have been here."

"Why didn't you have him?" asked her mother.

"Have him!" echoed Bess. "It is easy to say 'have him,' but except for
half a dozen drives, he has refused to go out at all; and he won't see any of
the boys but Rob. Poor Rob tries to be very devoted, but I dimly suspect
Fred is occasionally rather cross."

"Who could blame him?" said Mrs. Carter.

"Rob takes it very meekly," Bess went on, as she slowly peeled an
orange. "Fred never shows that side to me, but I think it is there. But it is
really scandalous the way Mrs. Allen goes on. Fred is left to himself the
whole time, just when he needs so much help physically, mentally, and
morally."

"I wish you could have him all the time, Bess," said her mother. "You
are good for him, and he enjoys you."

"Let's adopt him, mother! He's splendid material to work on, and I
would take him in a minute if I could. Think of me with an adopted son!"
And Bess drew herself up with an air of majesty as she began to devour her
orange. Suddenly she laughed.

"I was so amused the other day, Saturday it was, when I went down to
Fred's in the afternoon. I was later than usual, and Rob happened to be there
ahead of me. You know I always go right in without stopping to ring, and
that day, as I went, I heard loud voices in the back parlor. I went in there,
and found that the boys had evidently been having a quarrel, for Fred had
turned his back to Rob, and was decidedly red in the face; while Rob sat
there, the picture of discomfort, his face pale, but his eyes fairly snapping.
He departed as soon as I went in, and neither boy would tell me what was
the trouble. Fred said he didn't feel well, and didn't want to see Rob,
anyway. I offered to go away too, but he wouldn't allow that."

"What did Rob say for himself?" asked Mrs. Carter.

"He said he supposed Fred was angry at something he had said in fun.
He was quite distressed over it, and offered to apologize, but I advised him
to just wait a few days till Fred recovered from his tempers."

"Much the best way," assented Mrs. Carter. "Fred mustn't grow
tyrannical. Here come the boys."

It was a needless remark, for at that moment there was heard a sudden
chattering of young voices, the sound of ten feet leaping up the steps, and
the laughter and stamping as the boys shook off the snow. Fuzz darted to
the door, barking madly, while an echo from without took up his voice and
multiplied it fivefold. Bess picked up the wriggling little creature, who was
carried off by Mrs. Carter; then she admitted her young guests, who came in
all talking at once.

"Such a deep snow!"

"Five or six inches, at least!"

"I tell you, that fire looks dandy!"

"Phil fell down just below Bob's gate."

"Good evening, Miss Bessie. So jolly of you to let us come!"

"I am ever so glad to have you care to come, boys. But come right in to
the fire and dry those wet feet. Phil, I am glad to see you wore rubber
boots."
 "They're all full of snow where I fell down," answered Phil, as he
struggled to pull them off. "Here, Bob, help a fellow, will you?"

And the boots came off with a jerk, while a shower of half-melted snow
proved the truth of his statement.

As the lads drew their chairs to the fire and prepared to toast their toes,
a moment must be given up to glancing at them, as they sit recounting to
their hostess their varied experiences in the storm.

At her left hand sat Phil Cameron, a short, slight, delicate-looking boy
of thirteen, whose gray eyes, large mouth, pug nose, and freckled face
laughed from morning till night. Everybody liked Phil, and Phil liked
everybody in return. His invariable good temper, and a certain headlong
fashion he had of going into the interest of the moment, made him a favorite
with the boys; while his elders admired him for his charming manners and
his wonderful soprano voice, for he and Rob had the best voices in the little
village choir. Though not overwhelmed with too much conscience, Phil was
a thoroughly good boy, and one that his teachers and older friends petted
without knowing exactly why they did so.

Beyond him sat his great friend and boon companion in all their athletic
games, Bert Walsh, the doctor's son, a lad whose poet's face, with its great,
liquid brown eyes, and whose slow, deliberate speech, gave no indication of
the force of character that lay below. Like Phil, he was fond of all out-of-
door sports, but, unlike him, he was fond of books as well. A strong
character, emphatic in its likes and dislikes, Bert's finest trait was his high
sense of honor, that was evident in his every act.

On the other side of Bess was the minister's son, Teddy Preston, the
oldest of eight children, a frank, healthy, happy boy, good and bad by turns,
but irresistible even in his naughtiness. Brought up in a home where books
and magazines were always at hand, though knees and toes might be a little
shabby, Ted had contrived to pick up a vast amount of information about the
world at large; and, added to that, he had the happy faculty of telling all he
knew. With an easy assurance he slipped along through life, never
embarrassed, and taking occasional well-merited snubs so good-naturedly
that his friends might have regretted giving them had they not known only
too well that they slid off from his mind like the fabled water from a duck's
back. A year younger than Phil, his yellow head towered far above him, and
he outgrew his coats and trousers in a manner entirely incompatible with
the relative sizes of the family circle to be clothed, and of the paternal
salary. But Ted never minded that. He carried off his shabby clothes as
easily as Bert did his perfectly fitting suits, and seemed in no way
concerned about the difference.

A year older than any of the other lads was Sam Boeminghausen, a
short, sturdy boy, a real German, blond, phlegmatic, and good-humored.
But his light blue eyes had a look of determination that suggested that the
day might come when Sam would be something or somebody. His father
had recently made a large fortune in Western cattle-ranching, and, as yet,
the family had not entirely adapted themselves to their new surroundings.
Sam's grammar was erratic, and his expensive garments had the look of
being made for another and a larger boy. But time would change that, and
under the careless speech and rough manners Bess could see the
possibilities of a glorious manhood.

On the floor at Bessie's feet sat our old friend Rob, poking the fire with
the tongs. The light fell on his fine, soft, brown hair, delicate skin, and
great, laughing dark eyes. Rob was the descendant of a long line of refined
ancestors, a real little gentleman, and he showed it from the perfect nails on
his small slim hands, brown as berries though they were, to the easy
position in which he now sat, with one foot curled under him. A gentle, shy
boy, affectionate and easily managed, he was an inveterate tease, and full of
a quiet fun that sparkled in his eyes and laughed in his dimples.

But while we have been gazing at the five lads, all so different from one
another, there was a sudden burst of applause as Bess rose, saying,—

"Now, boys, if you are all dry, I am going to invite my company out into
the kitchen. What do you say to making molasses candy and popcorn balls?
It is just the night for it."

"That's just dandy!" exclaimed Ted, springing up with a force that sent
his chair rolling back some inches.
 "Ted, if you talk slang I sha'n't give you any to eat," said Bess
laughingly. "But come, boys." And she led the way into the large kitchen,
where her mother soon followed them with five large gingham aprons in
which she proceeded to envelop the lads, in spite of their derisive
comments.

"I am not going to have you spoil your clothes, children, for then your
mothers will scold us. Now, if I can't help you, Bess, I am going to stay
with Fuzz; and I leave you to do your worst."

"Don't go, Mrs. Carter," implored Ted, and the others echoed him; but
Mrs. Carter was not to be bribed, even by Phil's noble offer to let her do his
share of the work.

"I will eat your share of the candy, Phil, but I am going to stay with Mr.
Carter and Fuzz. I'll come and look at you by and by." And, drawing her
white shawl around her, she was gone.

Bess quickly divided her forces. Rob and Ted were set to shelling the
corn, while Phil and Bert scorched it and their faces at the same time. The
impressive duty of stirring the molasses she reserved for herself, assisted at
times by Sam.

For a short time all went well. But just as the bright new pan was nearly
full of the white kernels, and the molasses was beginning to show its
threads, a sudden determined bark was heard at the door, and the scratching
of two active little paws. Then followed the sound of Mrs. Carter's voice in
warning tones,—

"Fuzzy mustn't scratch the doors! No, no! Grandma 'pank."

An instant's pause was succeeded by a fresh onslaught on the door by

the small delinquent who scorned "grandma's" threats, having learned from
past experiences that patience would carry the day.

"It's Fuzz," said Rob. "Can't I let him in, Cousin Bess?"

"I wouldn't, Rob; he will be so in the way."