This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The moral improvement of the nations and their individual components has not kept pace with the march of intellect and the advance of industry. Before the assaults of criticism many ancient strongholds of faith have given way, and doubt is fast spreading even into circles where its expression is forbidden. Morality, long accustomed to the watchful tutelage of faith, finds this connection loosened or severed, while no new protector has arisen to champion her rights, no new instruments been created to enforce her lessons among the people. As a consequence we behold a general laxness in regard to obligations the most sacred and dear. An anxious unrest, a fierce craving desire for gain has taken possession of the commercial world, and in instances no longer rare the most precious and permanent goods of human life have been madly sacrificed in the interests of momentary enrichment.
The artist must manage to make posterity believe that he never existed.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to.