THE PURPLE
SAPPHIRE
AND
OTHER POSTHUMOUS PAPERS
SELECTED
FROM THE UNOFFICIAL RECORDS
OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF COSMOPOLI BY
CHRISTOPHER
BLAYRE
Sometime Registrar of the University.
First published in April, 1921
Three of the papers in this volume were prematurely published in
the “Anglo. French Review” “—now some thirty years ago—and I
obtained the permission of the Editors to reprint them in the event of
this selection being ultimately published.
C.B.
ANTESCRIPT
The position to which I was appointed in the early years of the
twentieth century—that of Registrar in a great University—is in many
respects a peculiar one. The Registrar finds himself not only on terms
of friendship and equality with the Professorial Staff, but also to a
great extent occupying a fiduciary position which brings him into what
is very often intimate touch with his Colleagues. It was in virtue of
this relationship that from time to time manuscripts were confided to my
care, which by reason of their intimate personal nature, were not
destined for publication during the life-time of their Authors, but were
confided to me as records of events which appeared at the time to be of
too striking and inexplicable a nature to be published by the Recorders.
Many years have passed by since I resigned the Registrarship on
attaining the age-limit, and I think the time has arrived when I may,
without breach of confidence, give a selection of these papers to the
public.
CHRISTOPHER BLAYRE.
COSMOPOLI,
JANUARY, 1952.
LIST
OF SELECTED PAPERS.
THE PURPLE SAPPHIRE.
(Deposited by the Smithsonian Professor of Mineralogy)
AALILA.
(Deposited by the Professor of Psychology)
PURPURA LAPILLUS.
(Deposited by the Regius Professor of History)
THE THING THAT SMELT.
(Deposited by the Professor of Zoology)
THE BLUE COCKROACH.
(Deposited by the Professor of Applied Chemistry)
THE DEMON.
(Deposited by myself)
THE BOOK.
(Deposited by the Librarian)
THE COSMIC DUST.
(Deposited by the Clarkian Professor of Chemistry)
THE CHEETAH-GIRL.
(Deposited by the Professor of Biology)
“Our
thoughts are free to soar, as far as any legitimate analogy may seem to guide
them rightly, in the boundless ocean of unknown Truth.”
Sir Richard Owen, 1848.
“Physical investigation, more than anything besides, helps to
teach us the actual value and right use of the Imagination.”
Sir
Benjamin Brodie, 1859.
“I should like to illustrate, by a few simple instances, the use
that scientific men have made of this power of Imagination, and to indicate
some of the further uses that they are likely to make of it.”
Sir
John Tyndall, 1870.
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