Okay, welcome everyone. I'm Matilda McQuaid and I'm acting curatorial director here at Cooper Hewitt and I'm here to welcome you all to behind the design series, which is a lunchtime discussion where you can hear from our conservators and guests which we have today and curators about our collection and exhibitions. I wanted to just briefly kind of say that we our next program is going to be in July, so hopefully you can all tune in then. We are going to be focusing on emojis and celebrating World Emoji Day and we are going to have a guest panelist there too as well as access to a documentary film about emojis. So please register when the link is available. So I want to just thank Phoebe for helping to make this all possible, the behind the design, and also to Emily who's going to be working her magic and directing people from the chat to the Q&A. If you have questions please put them in the Q&A which is at the bottom of your Zoom panel and I will be moderating those questions. So today it's exciting. We're going to hear from Andrea Lips who's the associate curator of contemporary design here at Cooper Hewitt and then objects conservator Jess Walthew and then a guest Eric Rogenback who is the founder and creative director of Stamen Design who created what you see behind Andrea Lips and her background watercolor map tiles which is a web-based open source mapping tool that displays open street maps data with the beautiful texture of watercolor paint not the kind of hard print that we were so used to on our Google Maps and Apple Maps. So and I'm proud to say it's the first website acquired by Cooper Hewitt and maybe the Smithsonian and so we're going to hear more about what goes into digital collecting and which includes this website. So welcome Andrea, Eric and Jess. I'll kick it off to you now. Cool, thanks Matilda. I am going to share my screen with you. Alright, everyone can see that? Cool. So Matilda, thank you again for the introduction. Thanks to everyone for being here today.  I am absolutely tickled to be here with Eric and with Jess. The two of them have both been my co-conspirators and partners in crime on this journey to acquire watercolor map tiles. So we are incredibly excited to share the story behind this exciting new acquisition with you. As Matilda mentioned this is a web-based open source mapping tool that Eric designed with his team at Stamen back in 2012 and this is the first website that Cooper Hewitt has acquired but notably it's the first live website that has been acquired by Smithsonian as well as actually any museum within our sector. And in order to make a live website collectible, what we had to do was gather and archive the code and the assets. We had to bound the work and we then worked closely with Eric and his team and Smithsonian's own IT office to copy the live site to a Smithsonian version where it is hosted and will be maintained. And so this is what you are actually seeing here is a screen recording of Smithsonian's version of the site and this is going to be made publicly available imminently. So I'm going to tell you a little bit more about this but in order to contextualize how we got here, I need to tell you about where we started. So collecting digital design for Cooper Hewitt is nascent. I mean it really is nascent for the museum sector at large but it's something that many of us are pursuing with great vigor and at Cooper Hewitt we've only been doing it for 10 short years. It was actually in 2011 that we acquired our very first digital work which is this digital typeface, the Clearview Highway. The intention behind this work was to allow for greater legibility at increased distances of highway signage and we brought it in as a digital font on a CD as one does in 2011. And we realized that we didn't have curators or conservators who really were overseeing this work and so a couple short years later in 2013 we actually had members from our digital and emerging media team who brought in Planetary which was the first iPad app that was collected at the Smithsonian. So Planetary took your music from your iTunes library and visualized that as stars, planets and moons. And so this is the first time that we had collected source code that we made publicly accessible via GitHub repository.  But what we didn't do was maintain this in any sort of interactive or performative way. So what we found for short years later when we did a conservation assessment was that it had already broken that the source code had deprecated and was incompatible with the contemporary operating system because obviously what ends up happening is with the constant developments in hardware and firmware and web protocols, all of that means that software itself must also be in a continual state of evolution and we anticipated that it would take months of a developer's time to upgrade the app to a functional state. So this was important for us though to, you know, of course, really understand that we needed to begin wrestling with this new medium within the museum's collection and the importance of bringing it into the realm of curators and conservators who are trained to collect and care forward. We just didn't know how to do this. I mean, we're all kind of making it up along the way. So we formed a digital acquisitions working group at the museum, very much sits at the nexus of all of our kind of individual levels of expertise and practice. So we have curatorial representation, conservation, at the time we had some representation from our digital media and AV team, which really helped us explore the embeddedness of any of these works and how we would bring them into the galleries. So at the outset, this is in like 2016, you know, we started kind of building our own expertise, attending conferences, talking to colleagues doing a lot of knowledge sharing, and a lot of reading to really begin to think about what it means to collect digital work. And we found the work of Fernando Dominguez Rubio in particular to be quite helpful to us. And this particular piece that he had published with Glenn Wharton, we found to be very salient. So for them in advancing their model about how digital fragility itself impacts the museum practice, they identified four ways in which digital digital works push against standard museum norms. And one is that digital works are circulating rather than stable, stable objects, they must be in perpetual motion in order to be kept alive.  Digital works are multiplying rather than singular. So these are endlessly proliferating works. Digital works, are we generated or constantly remade, again, as opposed to being authentic objects, and they are distributed, rather than being discrete objects. So they are scattered across different property regimes, spatial and temporal regimes, a perfect example is actually planetary itself. You know, because of course, you have the intellectual property existing with the design studio who had created it. It's built for Apple's operating system. It uses iTunes music, you know, so that of course is spread across this distributed property regime. But at the same time, what are we collecting? So with with these particular types of works, you know, we're collecting with source codes, whether that comes in the form of a GitHub repository, whether we get these nested file structures from designers, all of which end up in our digital asset management system. You know, we really also need to think about like, you know, is that the work? I mean, certainly, this is the medium of the work itself, but it's only when it's assembled and performed as it become the work. So in order to show the work to the public, and in order for us to actually preserve the work and to ensure its functionality, we need to translate the source code into the piece that it is. And so this is where things like interactive visualizations and websites like Eric's work become very unruly and nebulous for us in museum practice. So we started trying our hand at this. This is a work called On the Origin of Species by Ben Frye. And here you see him visualizing the different changes in and excisions and additions to Darwin's six editions of his very seminal text. And shortly after we acquired this, we put it on view in a collection space exhibition. We displayed it on a monitor with a touchpad from the period. We thought this was really great because people were interacting with it and you know, could see it and and play around with it. But once the exhibition closed, the work reverted to code that is otherwise inaccessible until we re-embed it in an environment whether that environment is a web based environment, whether it is on again, another type of monitor display kiosk in the galleries. You know, basically, we actually do not know if this work still functions until we are able to access it. Same thing with visualizing the Cosmic Web. This is another interactive visualization by Kim Albrecht and the Barabasi lab in which they are visualizing the three different network models for the connections of stars and galaxies within the universe. And so with this, before we brought this work into the collection, we had actually displayed it as a video in our last design triennial. And so we maintained the video, we have that as documentation of the site. But of course, what we collected itself was the source code. That's what is in our digital storage systems. And we are very eager to, you know, take it out of this latent state sooner rather than later to have a performative active experience of it, to ensure that we are able to maintain it and to ensure that there is not irrecoverable loss. So all of this, then, has really helped us internally at the museum to realize that while we collect and preserve the source code, and of course, the archival documentation around these works, it really is in the performance of that work that enables us to maintain it. And so we are now always looking at how we can get to that sweet spot to that nexus between these three things. And we're always trying to acquire and preserve works in that space. So a goal is, is not only to preserve the work in its dormant state as the source code, but to preserve it in a way that makes the work accessible in its performative state. Again, thinking back to Rubio and Wharton, you know, digital works exist as circulating, they must be in perpetual motion in order to be kept alive. And so all of that lands us here to watercolor map tiles. And so this is a work that we have spent a couple years untangling in order to acquire and preserve it in a state of perpetual motion with the goal of ensuring future stewardship. And within this process, we found ourselves on the edge of precedent experimenting with a new acquisition and preservation model for the museum sector by not just acquiring an archiving source code and assets, but by treating that source code is living and privileging the active performative state of it in order to keep it alive. So what we collected with this again, we collected the source code, we have made it publicly accessible via GitHub repository, and we actually brought in over 56 million map tiles, which are the individual 256 by 256 pixel JPEG files. So Eric, that I think is has won the record for Smithsonian of the largest group of files, or anything that we have ever collected. And of course, we have lots and lots of archival documentation. And we made this, again, accessible. So you know, we worked very closely with Eric, and his team and with developers at Smithsonian to copy all of the assets onto our servers and to host it on our on our domain again, which is going to be publicly available shortly. And what you are watching here is again, it's another screen recording of a site behind Smithsonian's firewall. And so what you can see is that, you know, the work itself, it's it's zoomable. It's searchable. It is actually downloadable. All of this is built on open street map data, which itself is a collaborative project to create a free oops, sorry, editable map of the world. And, you know, for us, all of this was important because for one, we really saw watercolor map tiles as flattening a user's ability to access and integrate the map in a web project.  I mean, users don't need to sign up, there's no API, you just copy and paste the embed code to put it onto a website. And you would like you have a map, you can screenshot it, you can, you can put it on scarves, you can make posters with it. I mean, it's it's, it's really, really cool. You know, but, but more than that, I also remember seeing this work even before Eric, you and I had started talking about it. You know, I mean, it very much I felt like expanded the visual vocabulary of digital interactive maps. I mean, it played with conventions and assumptions about what was possible with digital art by rendering this very hand wrought and tactile quality to an interactive digital work in many ways, almost reminding us and emphasizing that that these things are still made by people, even if they're generated, you know, by elaborative inch processing algorithms, they're still made by people at underneath all of it. And at the same time, and I would, you know, be curious later on Eric to hear your thoughts about this. I mean, I would also venture to say that maybe it expanded some of the conversations around a digital maps purpose, because, you know, this is arriving at a time in 2012, when the two mapping environments and the aesthetics of those mapping environments open street map and, and Google maps were largely utilitarian. And I felt like with watercolor map tiles that it demonstrated that a digital map could be more than about just getting a user from point A to point B that it could be in paging, it could be beautiful, it could elevate the human need to know where, which I think is really lovely. So we are excited about making all of this publicly available and accessible to everyone. And I do just have to mention this is not something that we arrived at easily, of course, at the outset of our process, we had conceptualized and examined a range of different acquisition and preservation models. And we presented these actually to Eric. And so we talked about early on, we talked about possibly a model of keeping this in the wild, if you will, with, in which the watercolor map tiles would remain under Stamen's ownership and maintenance with a natural lifespan, meaning that the site would work until it didn't. And so I remember very much talking with you, Eric, about that initially. We, you know, propose a possible transfer model in which the live site would be migrated from Stamen to Smithsonian properties. We conceptualized a captive breeding and gardening model in which the live site would be versioned and duplicated and then maintained by Smithsonian, so that you actually then have a site that remains in the wild as well as in captivity simultaneously. We looked at a seed bank model in which a preservation environment is archived for reimplementation at a later date. And then of course, a traditional archive, this is much more of like the space that we understood and felt comfortable in but knew that we needed to push further. So the traditional archive, of course, is one in which you keep the assets and you archive those without necessarily collecting the materials needed to resuscitate the work at a later date. And so in these conversations that Eric and I had probably like two years ago, we ultimately opted for the captive breeding and gardening model again, you know, really for us thinking about like how we could kind of, you know, get it into that sweet spot. And for us, we really felt like this model ensured the instantiation of the work by Smithsonian was even possible rather than abandoning it to an unknown future. We felt like it would create a preservation model in which Smithsonian could maintain a live version of the site over time. And of course, we very much wanted to maintain ethos of the project to maintain the free access and the public usability of the site that was such a central part of it when it was initially designed. You know, and so we very much were thinking about how the site can come to Smithsonian, not to die, but to live. And at the same time, you know, although there are going to be multiples of the site for the foreseeable future, you know, at some point, the natural lifespan of the site in the wild, you know, the site that's hosted by statement will end and Smithsonian's will continue on. And so this could lead to some very interesting future research and scholarship. So I'm going to stop talking for a moment. Jess is going to pick up the thread and tell you a little bit more. And then we're going to just have a conversation with Eric and and hopefully with all of you. I mean, definitely pepper us with some questions that until the books will facilitate for us. So Jess, over to you. Thanks. So understanding how to preserve this work required us to really delve deeper and understand its hidden infrastructure. So when a user comes to this page, as Andrea mentioned, you have this beautifully simple interface and all of the hard work has been hidden from you. And that includes all of the underlying infrastructure of digital assets being moved through space, how the data flows, how all of that works. So the function of the site requires managing large amounts of data through complex network of servers and services. And when statement initially presented us with a site map diagram, it was totally incomprehensible to us as non programmers. So making sense of all of this was a really collaborative effort. And we want to give our thanks again to the teams that could recue it at Stamen and at Smithsonian's OCIO, who are the web developers who helped to make the live site a reality. So as Andrew is mentioning, we were really interested in the performative qualities of this website and being able to have the live version function as an exhibition copy. Can you move forward, please, Andrea? So the the preservation plan, you know, those options that Andrea showed, they weren't mutually exclusive. We have both an archive and a live part of this sort of elaborate strategy. And Stamen had already hosted the original code for making those watercolor tiles and the original designers that had worked with Eric had written wonderful blog posts describing their process. So we knew that those were going to be critical parts of our documentation to put into the archive. And the original code and then this modified code that has been branched off have both been put into the archive. And there's also these map tiles, which are critical to both the archive and the live site. So we actually have those in duplicate all 56 million of those tiles have been put one copy into our digital asset management system, which is like locked down storage to preserve them forever unchanging. And of course, the other copy is in the production environment. So allowing people to actually access and use them. And in archival practice, it's usually not a good idea to have the same copy of things being accessed, because then you can't ensure their fixity over time. So there's really there is a tension within preservation strategy about considering these assets as the work and figuring out how we're going to preserve them and yet maintain access. That's why those sort of like overlapping bend diagram areas of preservation and access in the case of digital works, even though we think of them as being very entwined, they're also there's areas of difference between them. So I wanted to talk a little bit more about how the the sort of underlying dynamics are really non trivial. What we found was managing the transfer of the tiles from cloud server storage locations from place to place actually takes actually weeks. And so it in order to have secure transfer of digital assets from the cloud, you really have this this process that's actually taking a lot of time and needs to be managed and needs to be overseen by people who really understand it. So that's sort of a real I think a real shift from the way that we think of this instant ethereal cloud and things living in the internet is living in some kind of mythical space that doesn't exist and doesn't have any costs or infrastructures behind it. And so I want to move back sort of away from the you know the nitty gritty of this the sort of strategy we would develop to think a little bit more about the philosophy and this is something we've talked about with Eric a lot. So if you can move on to the next slide, Andrea, we we've learned through learning from our colleagues in time based media that for digital works this mantra permanence through change, which at first at first seems like an oxymoron. It's really restructured the conventions of the conservation field to adapt to the 21st century. So conservation of traditional objects in a museum lab like I'm sitting in right now. We usually think of that as backward looking. We think of it as focused on minimizing or preventing changes and focused on maintaining a work in as close a possible state to its creation. So it's original state. This is an approach that's focused on authenticity, but this doesn't really work for for digital works. So conservators of contemporary media have refocused attention on maintaining the identity of the work. So identity as opposed to authenticity, despite substantial changes necessary in order to maintain them as interactive, displayable, performed, functional. So Andrea has invoked this term performative. We rely really heavily on the literature of time based media and performance art in thinking about what we are doing to these works when we collect them into museums. As my friend, time based media conservator Dr. Brian Castriata has termed it the works of all over time and go go through processes of recentering. He argues that the core or essence of the works is defined through their iterative performance. And it's a construction based in the logic of museums and collections. So thinking about a works identity over time rather than its authenticity permits and requires us to understand it as evolving and changing. This asks us to really reconsider how we might embrace the works ability to live on in multiple places at once as versions, duplicates, copies, branches, forks, and all of these with shifting centers. While we've managed a variety of translations and changes from the original project to create the duplicated copy under our control. Some of those are visible. And some of them are really invisible to users. Again, this hidden infrastructure underlying all of the the elegant design work that Eric and his team have put into it. So one way of making literal this recentering of the duplicate at Cooper Hewitt is to have the project open centered now on Cooper Hewitt rather than in San Francisco. So when you go to the live website on Cooper Hewitt's version, you're going to be looking at an area that looks like this, which is New York City. And if you zoom in, you'll see that you're actually centered over us in Cooper Hewitt in New York. So what's really interesting to us as museum professionals is the fact that our version will have all of these changes that we can't anticipate right now. We're going to maintain our version to the best of our ability updating it to keep it current. We can't expect statements version to necessarily remain static either, but we won't be involved in their decision making and they won't be involved in ours necessarily. The products are going to diverge like two branches of a tree. And so it's going to become even more important for us to have been very clear and transparent about what we did and why. So this approach is still a little bit of an experiment. It may not be the perfect solution to all the challenges that we posed about how digital works really don't fit neatly into the box of museum collections, but we hope that it's opening up a really interesting conversation and one that gets at the heart of what these digital projects are now and what they'll be to people in the future. So I think I would just close by saying the processes of acquisition and conservation opened up these works to a level of scrutiny that asks those of us involved the designers curators, conservators, registrars and all our other collaborators within and outside the museum to really take part in collaboratively defining the work. So I'm going to bring me and Eric at this point into the conversation and ask, you know, first, like how crazy did we seem proposing this elaborate strategy to you? And can you speak a little bit about going through this process with us, which was really a long process. It wasn't like buying a single object. You negotiated all of these questions with us. And we again, will thank you so much for your generosity and going on this journey with us. Amazing. It has been a long conversation. It took some time, it took some doing. I guess what I maybe I'd start by saying that the thing that was very easy about all this is that the project was in intended and always has been pointed at, you know, the broadest possible audience. And so the idea that you might make some changes to it or show it in a different way than we were showing it was never really something to be worried about. Or, you know, we didn't we the whole point of this work is that is that anybody can do anything they they want with it. And many people have people have made products out of it. It's on lots of different websites. So it wasn't really an issue for us that it would be shown in some way or or that it would be we were sort of the opposite of precious about how it was displayed sort of by by design, like, okay, you want to point it at Cooper Hewitt? That's, you know, we didn't, we're not we're not trying to curate that part of the experience. The other thing I'd say is, is, you know, working with museums is kind of inherently it's wonderful to see the Smithsonian come around into this place of being cognizant of the differences between, you know, what this acquisition means and acquiring a chair or a printout. The work is very much of a moment, which is to say it was it was rendered off of OpenStreetMap and some other tools that we had built around it. And then and then we stopped, right? So it's the sort of it's another sort of thing that speaks to the malleable nature of this is that, you know, we could fire up the software and generate some new tiles, or we could regress to old versions of OpenStreetMap. There's so much fluidity in the whole process that that it doesn't really make a lot of sense for us to think about this as a kind of as the iconic version of it. It's just kind of where we stopped. And I think that's that's also reflected in some of the edges of the work like without getting too technical, the each one of these tiles gets rendered when someone requests them. Otherwise, you'd have to sort of render the whole world in advance. And that doesn't make a lot of sense, because it's just too big. So at a certain point, you see tiles that are broken and you see places where while the software was up and running, people just never, never looked what you're looking now. And that's something I'm quite fond of in terms of this conversation. And the acquisition is that it's, it's a way to think about a digital work that is, you know, growing and transforming and changing. But it's sort of it has its edges, it has a natural place where it where it stops. And so the acquisition becomes about that as well. Yeah, we were super intrigued to learn about that, that and to go in and to actually like search for some of these edges. Certainly found some, I think we found some in like in Cuba and in Chasa, and some other places, you know, that that really that the work's own use is baked into it. Yeah, it's so fascinating. I'm going to stop sharing my screen so that we can actually have like a conversation and I can see you guys.  You know, do you find biological language appropriate for digital works for one outside of, you know, even museum processes? Is that something that you had ever considered? Yeah, well, I mean, the company's called Stamen, right? The whole thing is a is a biological metaphor. Not always the easiest to talk about. But yeah, I mean, this is this is the most intriguing part of this conversation to me, you know, from from the outside is this idea that that you would, I think we've talked about you using instead of using traditional conservatorship models for this, you've you've asked the National Botanical Garden for their or the or the National Zoo. And so this idea that you would that watercolor is being treated like you would acquire a magnolia tree or a tiger is, you know, a dream come true. And I do think it makes sense to I do think it makes sense to think of digital conversations as having a biological component, I think, especially in terms of this idea of a garden that that these things require tending, they are they require care, they're not they're not monuments. And so this idea that like I think the fun part about the biological metaphors is that we are familiar with them, right?  They have children, you know, there's a there's a whole way of thinking about acquisitions and care that I think using biological metaphors for can really help the conversation. I think it's really great to be able to have this conversation also to to come back to this jumping off point that, you know, seeing the fragility of planetary something that had been acquired with explicitly this idea of code is living. That was sort of the precedent setter about how an app could be a living object. And I want to credit Seb and Aaron, who are working in our digital and emerging department, I believe Aaron is also a stamen alum. But I'm just going to drop in the chat there one post that they wrote about that work. But I think one of the things that that caretaking gets at is a little bit of fragility and this sort of like balance between thinking of things as needing a lot of investment and fragility versus like having a life of their own. And I was very intrigued by the way I think at initial discussions, you would talk about how this idea, which is very creative and outside the box came to all your opportunity leave with your the birth of your son. And and now we're looking, you know, pretty far down the line, like nine years later, you must have a third grader now. So I'm just wondering if you know, I also became a parent during the pandemic and it's been really interesting to think about this idea of fragility and control and letting something live its own life. I think that's been transformative to my own thinking as a conservator is thinking about how things that you create kind of have a life of their own. So maybe you could just could you just talk a little bit about that, how it might relate. Sure. The project had its start out of idleness and boredom.  But also I was getting bored with just one more map style where you adjust the line weights and you make the fonts a little bigger and you know, everything seemed very clinical at a certain point, like I mean, you could put in patterns and things, but there wasn't anything out there that that expressed. I think that I wanted to try to get to something that would express the nature of the place more than just a sort of simple application of line weights and fonts and colors. So I wanted to blur the lines, so to speak, and to get to a place where different places look different from one another. It wasn't just the same kind of, you know, the thing with all these mapping technologies is that the way it seems is that it's sort of the hand of God just kind of stamping out these kind of, you know, identical, super crisp, super clean, you know, there's this sort of sense of them that there's this one to one relationship between the map and the territory. And of course, we know that that's not the case that mapping is an expression of aesthetics and the expression of power, that there's a there's a there's a politics to what goes on and what goes off the map. And so really the idea was to to get at a conversation that was about how these things get made, why they get made, who makes them those kinds of things and making that evident in the in the in the map making.  You you do your best and you try to make it as good as it can be. And then people do what they what they will. And so I mean, my my trouble with this project was that for the first six months, it was hard for me to get any work done, because I would just constantly come into work and scroll around and look at, you know, the Forbidden City and look at Epcot and look at, you know, just look at look at Amsterdam, look at Beijing, and there's sort of this pride. There's a there's a there's a pride in it in the sense that, you know, oh, look, look what the algorithms did. Look how they treated that. Look at how those freeways mash up together. There's this kind of there's a playful playful aspect to it that hopefully comes across. Discovery aspect, but you know, but at the same time, too, so like that's the initial six months. I mean, did you have any idea nine years ago that, you know, you would be here with it and having conversations around the preservation of this work?  There is a level of complexity that is extracted away from us so often.  What is that, you know, done for your own process even, you know, and thinking about your work? You know, I think you made mention of it in the talk earlier, the most stable medium that I know about on the internet is Vimeo. Like everything, everything dies. Flash died.  So I guess what it's done is just part of it is that this idea that this work might actually last. I mean, I think I think being involved in digital work for the last 20 years, it's been such a flurry. And so many things have come and gone that this idea that that we might try to preserve any of it in a form that's not, you know, the internet way back machine is a is a is a wild thing to think about. But I also feel like the best way to approach this work is to not not hold on to too tightly and to kind of make something that can be viewed in as many ways as possible so that you're not stuck to one slice of it. And that's been kind of a core of all of our of all of our projects. It's like don't don't hold on too tightly like let let these things go pollinate them. I wanted to just kind of jump in because there's been some questions in the in the Q&A and I just wanted to make sure that maybe other people might have the same question. There's one that's unanswered from Yoni Nakmani and a slide. I saw that the Cooper Hewitt forked statements open source code base. How does the Cooper Hewitt think about stewarding a GitHub repository? I'm thinking about providing instructions to run the code responding to new uses pull requests and engaging with developers who fork the repository to rip off the watercolor style. I would love to recreate other artistic styles building on top of this work. Eric, you want to answer that one? Sure. Yeah, go go go please. I mean that would be that would be amazing. We'd love to see that. You know, again the anyway, there's so many conversations to have around free and and and support and develop acquisition and and or development and who has that kind of things. But but certainly from our perspective, I mean, so many people have made so many different things with this that I'd love to see it. I'd love to see it bloom further. And the other thing is that I wouldn't be able to stop you if I wanted to. So I think this this gets at one of the the really interesting questions that's been that we've been working on as we learn how to become stewards for digital works as the museum grows into this capability. And one of the things gets sort of a little bit at the question. Andrew had just asked Eric, which is, you know, how are you preserving your projects? So some of them are based on outdated technologies, but many designers today use version control collaboration software. A lot of people use GitHub. GitHub is a really great hub for all of this repository management. And yet there's a level of interpretation that people coming to it still need to to be guided a little bit. Like what are all the parts? And so I think the museum sees that GitHub is only one thread in this sort of like much larger approach of preserving the works and that, you know, the work, the assets that we hold separately from the repository, the assets that are, you know, freely accessible for people in the excess copy of the site. Like these are all just like little extra parts of it. It's like it's been exploded out into a million different different little sub parts that all contribute back to creating the whole. So a really, you know, an important question is right, who's going to manage the repository going forward? Will it be maintained? Will people be contributing to it? So at the moment we are waiting for our wonderful colleagues who have been modifying the live site to finalize their changes and fork over their version of the live site so that it'll be totally transparent what was changed from Stamen's live version of the site, which is up right now, to create our site. So there's a way in which the relationships are baked into the way that the software manages repositories. But that's not really like the interpretive level. And that's not really the museum discourse. And that's not really this like larger philosophical questions that we're getting to. So there's, I would say there's like different registers that the GitHub repository is one home, but we hope that Cooper Hewitt is going to create, you know, by re-displaying the work and displaying it in our galleries when the museum reopens and being able to, you know, give it a longer life. I think we're hoping that we're going to be providing maybe even a richer understanding of the work, a place where people can go to learn more to find video recordings with Eric describing his work, probably this recording will also be linked, you know, becoming a place where everything can sort of coalesce around this museum object in this sort of like eternal future that museums are promising, which of course, I think digital works really push us, they challenge us a little bit on this promise of the eternal future. And certainly most digital designers are not necessarily worried about future-proofing their work because they put themselves out of business and they did that. So there's also a business incentive for designers to constantly be chasing new, more interesting technologies that keep them feeling like they're working in things that are creative and pushing, you know, pushing forward their work. Eric, can you talk a little bit about the code underlying some of these transformations? So there's like the structure of mapping using map tiles, which has largely stayed the same, but then there are sort of the algorithmic transformations that you guys put together to go from a base map to this beautiful watercolor tile. Can you talk a little bit about now with like a historic perspective or were those novel types of implementing code or were you working with, would you use the same tools today, same tools and techniques? Yeah, when we, there was a legitimate question when we first put the project out of, you know, do you have an army of people in a room hand drawing these things based on server requests? You know, the whole, the whole thing was very, very custom, all credit to Zach Watson, our friend who's, whose memory this is a gift in the name of, and Geraldine Sarmiento, Nate Kelso, Mike Murgursky for working with me closely on a on a process that was very intentionally designed to be this kind of blend of the the hand and what the machine was doing. I can remember having conversations in the early days with, with, with the team where they were striving mightily to avoid any kind of overlap between the roads and the, and the parks. And I very gently encourage them to, to make it overlap. Like the whole point of it was that we were going to try and do some things here that were going to press the boundaries of, of what we normally think of as, as legibility for these maps. The code is very I don't want to say labor intensive, but it makes the machines when, when you do it and the developers get nervous when their machines are humming. So that was part of the conversation also was to come up with something that was practical enough to actually get into the world and render 50 million tiles or 60 or whatever it is. But also, but also stitch together and feel, feel coherent. Great. I think we have time for any other last questions. We have time for one more. Here's one. Can you speak to the different areas that you document for this and other digital work? Is there any effort to make this work discoverable on the web? I'm imagining this is for the museum side. We speak to the different areas that you document for this and other digital works during efforts to make it discoverable on the web. Well, so once this particular project is available and publicly accessible, we certainly are going to be linking to it from our own website. We are putting out a press release on it. You know, I don't know what other, you know, built in SEO or anything will happen. I don't know what's going to happen if you search for watercolor, you know, stamen watercolor matte tiles. You may get stamen and you may also get ours. And so one of the things that that we also did with this was on our version of the site when you actually first access that we did put pop up window explaining where you were that you were on Smithsonian's version of the site and we very intentionally wanted to do that so that there was a clear delineation and no confusion if you were if you were looking for statements and you really wanted that one versus ours or whatnot.  So we do want to, you know, try to make it as as publicly accessible and to push it out there as much as we as we possibly can. And the other thing I will say about other types of digital work. So obviously what we're talking about here are specifically interactive based works. We do also acquire file based works, which are much more straightforward for us. They don't the file types are a bit more stable and they don't tend to deprecate quite as quickly. So we call those our long hanging fruit because we understand what to do with them. Whereas projects like this, you know, take like, you know, much more research and intensive investigation. And so we, you know, continue to just explore and experiment and and push the boundaries a bit with it. So great. Well, thank you, Jess, Eric and Andrea and thank you all for joining us today and stay tuned for the next behind the design which Andrea will also be leading. So you can get more you know, more digital kind of collection information in July too. So really appreciate it. This is great conversation. Thank you all. So much, Eric. Thanks. Bye. Thanks, Jessica. Thanks, Miss Rosa. Thanks.


CHAPTER XI Far different was Leonard's development. The months after Onneton, whatever minor troubles they might bring him, were all overshadowed by remorse. When Helen looked back she could philosophize, or she could look into the future and plan for her child. But the father saw nothing beyond his own sin. Weeks afterwards, in the midst of other occupations, he would suddenly cry out, Brute! You brute! I couldn't have!—and be rent into two people who held dialogues. Or brown rain would descend, blotting out faces in the sky. Even Jackie noticed the change in him. Most terrible were his sufferings when he awoke from sleep. Sometimes he was happy at first, but grew conscious of a burden hanging to him and weighing down his thoughts when they would move. Or little iron scorched his body, or a sword stabbed him. He would sit at the edge of his bed, holding his heart and moaning, Oh, what shall I do? What ever shall I do?—nothing brought ease. He could put distance between him and the trespass, but it grew in his soul. Remorse is not among the eternal verities. The Greeks were right to dethrone her. Her action is too capricious, as though the Aaronese selected for punishment only certain men and certain sins. And of all means to regeneration, remorse is surely the most wasteful. It cuts away healthy tissues with the poisoned. It is a knife that probes far deeper than the evil. Leonard was driven straight through its torments, and emerged pure but enfeebled—a better man who would never lose control of himself again, but also a smaller who had less to control. Nor did purity mean peace. The use of the knife can become a habit as hard to shake off his passion itself, and Leonard continued to start with a cry out of dreams. He built up a situation that was far enough from the truth. It never occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the intensity of their talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity, the magic of Onneton under darkness, and of the whispering river. Helen loved the absolute. Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and had appeared to her as a man apart, isolated from the world—a real man who cared for adventure and beauty, who desired to live decently and pay his way, who could have travelled more gloriously through life than the juggernaut car that was crushing him. Memories of Evie's wedding had warped her—the starched servants, the yards of uneaten food, the rustle of overdressed women, motor-cars oozing grease on the gravel, rubbish on a pretentious band. She had tasted the leaves of this on her arrival. In the darkness, after failure, they intoxicated her. She and the victim seemed alone in a world of unreality, and she loved him absolutely—perhaps for half an hour. In the morning she was gone. The note that she left, tender and hysterical in tone, and intended to be most kind, hurt her lover terribly. It was as if some work of art had been broken by him, some picture in the national gallery slashed out of its frame. When he recalled her talent since her social position, he felt that the first passerby had a right to shoot him down. He was afraid of the waitress and the porters at the railway station. He was afraid at first of his wife, though later he was to regard her with a strange new tenderness and to think—there is nothing to choose between us, after all. The expedition to Shropshire crippled the bests permanently. Helen in her flight forgot to settle the hotel-bill, and took their return tickets away with her. They had to pawn Jackie's bangles to get home, and the smash came a few days afterwards. It is true that Helen offered him five thousand pounds, but such a sum meant nothing to him. He could not see that the girl was desperately writing herself and trying to save something out of the disaster, if it was only five thousand pounds. But he had to live somehow. He turned to his family, and degraded himself to a professional beggar. There was nothing else for him to do. A letter from Leonard, thought Blanche, his sister, and after all this time. She hid it, so that her husband should not see, and when he had gone to his work read it with some emotion, and sent the prodigal a little money out of her dress allowance. A letter from Leonard, said the other sister, Laura, a few days later. She showed it to her husband. He wrote a cruel, insolent reply, but sent more money than Blanche, so Leonard soon wrote to him again. And during the winter the system was developed. Leonard realized that they need never starve, because it would be too painful for his relatives. Society is based on the family, and the clever wastrel can exploit this indefinitely. Without a generous thought on either side, pounds and pounds passed. The donors disliked Leonard, and he grew to hate them intensely. When Laura censured his immoral marriage, he thought bitterly, she minds that. What would she say if she knew the truth? When Blanche's husband offered him work, he found some pretext for avoiding it. He had wanted work keenly at Onneton, but too much anxiety had shattered him. He was joining the unemployable. When his brother, the lay-reader, did not reply to a letter, he wrote again, saying that he and Jackie would come down to his village on foot. He did not intend this as blackmail. Still the brother sent a postal order, and it became part of the system. And so passed his winter and his spring. In the horror there are two bright spots. He never confused the past. He remained alive, and blessed are those who live, if it is only to a sense of sinfulness. The anodyne of muddled them, by which most men blur and blend their mistakes, never passed Leonard's lips. And if I drink oblivion of a day, so shorten I the stature of my soul. It is a hard saying, and a hard man wrote it, but it lies at the foot of all character. And the other bright spot was his tenderness for Jackie. He pitied her with nobility now, not the contemptuous pity of a man who sticks to a woman through thick and thin. He tried to be less irritable. He wondered what her hungry eyes desired. Nothing that she could express, or that he or any man could give her. Would she ever receive the justice that is mercy, the justice for by-products that the world is too busy to bestow? She was fond of flowers, generous with money, and not revengeful. If she had borne him a child he might have cared for her. When married Leonard would never have begged, he would have flickered out and died. But the whole of life is mixed. He had to provide for Jackie, and went down dirty paths that she might have a few feathers and dishes of food that suited her. One day he caught sight of Margaret and her brother. He was in St. Paul's. He had entered the cathedral partly to avoid the rain, and partly to see a picture that had educated him in former years. But the light was bad, the picture ill-placed, and time and judgment were inside him now. Death alone still charmed him with her lap of poppies on which all men shall sleep. He took one glance, and turned aimlessly away towards a chair. Then down the nave he saw Miss Schlegel and her brother. They stood in the fairway of passengers, and their faces were extremely grave. He was perfectly certain that they were in trouble about their sister. Just outside, and he fled immediately, he wished that he had spoken to them. What was his life? What were a few angry words, or even imprisonment? He had done wrong. That was the true terror. Whatever they might know, he would tell them everything he knew. He re-entered St. Paul's. But they had moved in his absence, and had gone to lay their difficulties before Mr. Wilcox and Charles. The sight of Margaret turned remorse into new channels. He desired to confess, and though the desire is proof of a weakened nature, which is about to lose the essence of human intercourse, it did not take an ignoble form. He did not suppose that confession would bring him happiness. It was rather that he yearned to get clear of the tangle. So does the suicide yearn. The impulses are akin, and the crime of suicide lies rather in its disregard for the feelings of those whom we leave behind. Confession need harm no one. It can satisfy that test. And though it was un-English, and ignored by our Anglican cathedral, Leonard had a right to decide upon it. Moreover he trusted Margaret. He wanted her hardness now. That cold intellectual nature of hers would be just, if unkind. He would do whatever she told him, even if he had to see Helen. That was the supreme punishment she would exact. And perhaps she would tell him how Helen was. That was the supreme reward. He knew nothing about Margaret, not even whether she was married to Mr. Wilcox, and tracking her out took several days. That evening he toiled through the wet to Wickham Place, where the new flats were now appearing. Was he also the cause of their move? Were they expelled from society on his account? Thence to a public library, but could find no satisfactory schlegel in the directory. On the morrow he searched again. He hung about outside Mr. Wilcox's office at lunchtime, and as the clerks came out said, "'Excuse me, sir, but is your boss married?' Most of them stared. Some said, "'What's that to you?' But one, who had not yet acquired reticence, told him what he wished. Leonard could not learn the private address. That necessitated more trouble with directories and tubes. Ducey Street was not discovered till the Monday, the day that Margaret and her husband went down on their hunting expedition to Howard's End. He called at about four o'clock. The weather had changed, and the sun shone gaily on the ornamental steps, black and white marble in triangles. Leonard lowered his eyes to them after ringing the bell. He felt in curious health.  When the parlor maid came, he could not see her face. The brown rain had descended suddenly. "'Does Mrs. Wilcox live here?' he asked. "'She's out,' was the answer. "'When will she be back?' "'I'll ask,' said the parlor maid. Margaret had given instructions that no one who mentioned her name should ever be rebuffed. Putting the door on the chain, for Leonard's appearance demanded this, she went through to the smoking-room, which was occupied by Tibby. Tibby was asleep. He had had a good lunch. Charles Wilcox had not yet wrung him up for the distracting interview. He said drowsily, "'I don't know. Hilton, Howard's End. Who is it?' "'I'll ask, sir.' "'No, don't bother.' "'They have taken the car to Howard's End,' said the parlor maid to Leonard. He thanked her, and asked whereabouts that place was. "'You appear to want to know a good deal,' she remarked. But Margaret had forbidden her to be mysterious. She told him against her better judgment that Howard's End was in Hartfordshire. "'Is it a village, please?' "'Village? It's Mr. Wilcox's private house. At least it's one of them. Mrs. Wilcox keeps a furniture there. Hilton is the village.' "'Yes. And when will they be back?' "'Mrs. Schlegel doesn't know. We can't know everything, can we?' He shut him out, and went to attend to the telephone, which was ringing furiously. He loitered away another night of agony. Confession grew more difficult. As soon as possible he went to bed. He watched a patch of moonlight cross the floor of their lodging. And as sometimes happens when the mind is overtaxed, he fell asleep for the rest of the room, but kept awake for the patch of moonlight. Horrible. Then began one of those disintegrating dialogues. One of them said, "'Why horrible? It's ordinary light from the room.' But it moves. So does the moon. But it is a clenched fist. Why not? But it is going to touch me. Let it!' And, seeming to gather motion, the patch ran up his blanket. Presently a blue snake appeared, then another parallel to it. Is there life in the moon? Of course. But I thought it was uninhabited. Not by time, death, judgment, and the smallest snakes. "'Smallest snakes,' said Leonard indignantly and allowed. What a notion!' By a rending effort of the will he woke the rest of the room up. Jackie, the bed, their food, their clothes on the chair, gradually entered his consciousness, and the horror vanished outwards, like a ring that is spreading through water. "'I say, Jackie, I'm going out for a bit.' She was breathing regularly. The patch of light fell clear of the striped blanket, and began to cover the shawl that lay over her feet. Why had he been afraid? He went to the window, and saw that the moon was descending through a clear sky. He saw her volcanoes, and the bright expanses that a gracious error has named seize. They paled, for the sun, who had lit them up, was coming to light the earth. Sea of serenity, sea of tranquility, ocean of the lunar storms, merged into one lucent drop, itself to slip into the sempiternal dawn. And he had been afraid of the moon. He dressed among the contending lights, and went through his money. It was running low again, but enough for a return ticket to Hilton. As it clinked, Jackie opened her eyes.  She turned over and slept. The house was unlocked, their landlord being a salesman at Covent Garden. Leonard passed out and made his way down to the station. The train, though it did not start for an hour, was already drawn up at the end of the platform, and he lay down in it and slept. With the first jolt he was in daylight, they had left the gateways of King's Cross and were under blue sky. The tables followed, and after each the sky grew bluer, and from the embankment at Finsbury Park he had his first sight of the sun. It rolled along behind the eastern smokes, a wheel, whose fellow was the descending moon, and as yet it seemed the servant of the blue sky, not its lord. He dozed again. Over toon water it was day. To the left fell the shadow of the embankment and its arches. To the right Leonard saw up into the twoon woods and towards the church, with its wild legend of immortality. Six forest trees, that is a fact, grow out of one of the graves in twoon churchyard. The grave's occupant, that is the legend, is an atheist, who declared that if God existed six forest trees would grow out of her grave. These things, in Hartfordshire, and farther afield lay the house of Hermit, Mrs. Wilcox had known him, who barred himself up, and wrote prophecies, and gave all he had to the poor. While powdered in between were the villas of businessmen, who saw life more steadily, though with the steadiness of the half-closed eye. Overall the sun was streaming, to all the birds were singing, to all the primroses were yellow and the speedwell blue, and the country, however they interpreted her, was uttering her cry of, now. She did not free Leonard yet, and the knife plunged deeper into his heart as the train drew up at Hilton, but remorse had become beautiful. Hilton was asleep, or at the earliest, breakfasting. Leonard noticed the contrast when he stepped out of it into the country. Here men had been up since dawn. Their hours were ruled not by a London office, but by the movements of the crops and the sun. That they were men of the finest type only the sentimentalist can declare. But they kept to the life of daylight. They are England's hope. Clumsily they carry forward the torch of the sun, until such time as the nation sees fit to take it up. Half-clod-hopper, half-schoolboard-prig, they can still throw back to a nobler stock, and breed yeoman. At the chalk-pit a motor passed him, in it was another type whom nature favors, the imperial. See ever in motion it hopes to inherit the earth. It breeds as quickly as the yeoman, and as soundly. Strong is the temptation to acclaim it as a super-yeoman, who carries his country's virtue overseas. But the imperialist is not what he thinks or seems. He is a destroyer. He prepares the way for cosmopolitanism, and though his ambitions may be fulfilled, the earth that he inherits will be gray. To Leonard, intent on his private sin, there came the conviction of innate goodness elsewhere. It was not the optimism which he had been taught at school. Again and again must the drums tap, and the goblins stalk over the universe, before joy can be purged of the superficial. It was rather paradoxical, and arose from his sorrow. Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him. That is the best account of it that has yet been given. Death and tragedy can beckon to all that is great in us, and strengthen the wings of love. They can beckon. It is not certain that they will, for they are not love's servants. But they can beckon, and the knowledge of this incredible truth comforted him. As he approached the house, all thought stopped. Contradictory notions stood side by side in his mind. He was terrified, but happy, ashamed, but had done no sin. He knew the confession. Mrs. Wilcox, I have done wrong. But sunrise had robbed its meaning, and he felt rather on a supreme adventure. He entered a garden, steadied himself against a motor-car that he found in it, found a door open and entered a house. Yes, it would be very easy. From a room to the left he heard voices, margrits amongst them. His own name was called aloud, and a man whom he had never seen said, "'Oh, is he there? I am not surprised. I now thrash him within an inch of his life.'" Mrs. Wilcox said, Leonard, I have done wrong. The man took him by the collar and cried, "'Bring me a stick!' Women were screaming. A stick, very bright, descended. It hurt him. Not where it descended, but in the heart. Wilcox fell over him in a shower. Nothing had sense." "'Get some water,' commanded Charles, who had all through kept very calm. He's shamming. Of course, I only use the blade. Here, carry him out into the air." Thinking that he understood these things, Margaret obeyed him. They laid Leonard, who was dead, on the gravel. Helen poured water over him. "'That's enough,' said Charles. Yes, mud is enough,' said Miss Avery, coming out of the house with the sword. CHAPTER 42 When Charles left Ducey Street, he had caught the first train home, but had no inkling of the newest development until late at night. Then his father, who had dined alone, sent for him, and in very grave tones inquired for Margaret. "'I don't know where she is, Pater,' said Charles. Dolly kept back dinner nearly an hour for her. Tell me when she comes in.' Another hour passed. The servants went to bed, and Charles visited his father again, to receive further instructions. Mrs. Wilcox had still not returned. "'I'll set up for her as late as you like, but she can hardly be coming. Isn't she stopping with her sister at the hotel?' "'Perhaps,' said Mr. Wilcox thoughtfully. "'Perhaps.' "'Can I do anything for you, sir?' "'Not to-night, my boy.'" Mr. Wilcox liked being called sir. He raised his eyes and gave his son more open a look of tenderness than he usually ventured. He saw Charles as little boy and strong man in one. Though his wife had proved unstable, his children were left to him. After midnight he tapped on Charles's door. "'I can't sleep,' he said. "'I had better have a talk with you and get it over.'" He complained of the heat. Charles took him out into the garden, and they paced up and down in their dressing-gowns. Charles became very quiet as the story unrolled. He had known all along that Margaret was as bad as her sister. "'She will feel differently in the morning,' said Mr. Wilcox, who had, of course, said nothing about Mrs. Bast. "'But I cannot let this kind of thing continue without comment. I am morally certain that she is with her sister at Howard's End. The house is mine, and Charles, it will be yours. And when I say that no one is to live there, I mean that no one is to live there. I won't have it.'" He looked angrily at the moon. "'To my mind, this question is connected with something far greater—the rights of property itself.'" "'Undoubtedly,' said Charles. Mr. Wilcox linked his arm and his sons, but somehow liked him less, as he told him more. "'I don't want you to conclude that my wife and I had anything of the nature of a quarrel. She was only overwrought, as who would not be. I shall do all that I can for Helen, but on the understanding that they clear out of the house at once. Do you see? That is a siniquanol.' "'Then at eight to-morrow I may go up in the car.'" "'Eight or earlier. Say that you are acting as my representative. And, of course, use no violence, Charles.' On the morrow, as Charles returned, leaving Leonard dead upon the gravel, it did not seem to him that he had used violence. Death was due to heart disease. His stepmother herself had said so, and even Miss Avery had acknowledged that he had only used the flat of the sword. On his way through the village he informed the police, who thanked him, and said there must be an inquest. He found his father in the garden, shading his eyes from the sun. "'It has been pretty horrible,' said Charles gravely. They were there, and they had the man up there with them, too. "'What?  Is it possible,' said Mr. Wilcox, "'in your mother's house? Charles, in your mother's house?' "'I know, Peter. That was what I felt. As a matter of fact, there is no need to trouble about the man. He was in the last stages of heart disease. And just before I could show him what I thought of him, he went off. The police are seeing about it at this moment. Mr. Wilcox lessened attentively. I got up there—oh, it couldn't have been more than half past seven. The Avery woman's lighting a fire for them. They were still upstairs. I waited in the drawing-room. We were all moderately civil and collected, though I had my suspicions. I gave them your message, and Mrs. Wilcox said, "'Oh, yes, I see—yes—in that way of hers.'" Nothing else. "'I promised to tell you, with her love, that she was going to Germany with her sister this evening. That was all we had time for.'" Mr. Wilcox seemed relieved. "'Because by then I suppose the man got tired of hiding, for suddenly Mrs. Wilcox screamed out his name. I recognized it, and I went for him in the hall. Was I right, Peter? I thought things were going a little too far.'" "'Right, my dear boy. I don't know. But he would have been no son of mine, if you hadn't. Then he did just—just—crumple up, as you said." He shrunk from the simple word. He caught hold of the bookcase, which came down over him. So I merely put the sword down and carried him into the garden. We all thought he was shamming. But he's dead right enough. Awful business." "'Sword?' cried his father, with anxiety in his voice. What sword? Whose sword? A sword of theirs. What were you doing with it? Well, didn't you see, Peter, I had to snatch up the first thing handy. I hadn't riding whip or stick. I caught him once or twice over the shoulders with the flat of their old German sword. Then what? He pulled over the bookcase, as I said, and fell—said Charles with a sigh. It was no fun doing errands for his father, who was never quite satisfied. But the real cause was heart disease. Of that you're sure?" That or fit. However, we shall hear more than enough at the inquest on such unsavory topics. They went into breakfast. Charles had a racking headache, consequent on motoring before food. He was also anxious about the future, reflecting that the police must detain Helen and Margaret for the inquest and fair at the whole thing out. He saw himself obliged to leave Hilton. One could not afford to live near the scene of a scandal. It was not fair on one's wife. His comfort was that the patre's eyes were opened at last. There would be a horrible smash-up, and probably a separation from Margaret. Then they would all start again, more as they had been in his mother's time. I think I'll go round to the police station," said his father, when breakfast was over. "'What for?' cried Dolly, who had still not been told. "'Very well, sir. Which car will you have?' "'I think I'll walk.' "'It's a good half-mile,' said Charles, stepping into the garden. The sun's very hot for April. Shant I take you up, and then perhaps a little spin round by Tewan? "'You go on, as if I didn't know my own mind,' said Mr. Wilcox, spreadfully. Charles hardened his mouth. "'You young fellows want ideas to get into a motor.  I'm very fond of walking.' "'Oh, all right. I'm about the house, if you want me for anything. I thought of not going up to the office today, if that is your wish.' "'It is indeed, my boy,' said Mr. Wilcox, and laid a hand on his sleeve. Charles did not like it. He was uneasy about his father, who did not seem himself this morning. There was a petulant touch about him, more like a woman. Could it be that he was growing old? The Wilcox's were not lacking in affection. They had it royally, but they did not know how to use it. It was the talent in the napkin. And for a warm-hearted man, Charles had conveyed very little joy. As he watched his father shuffling up the road, he had a vague regret—a wish that something had been different somewhere—a wish, though he did not express it thus, that he had been taught to say, I, in his youth. He meant to make up for Margaret's defection, but knew that his father had been very happy with her until yesterday. How had she done it? By some dishonest trick, no doubt. But how? Mr. Wilcox reappeared at eleven, looking very tired. There was to be an inquest on Leonard's body to-morrow, and the police required his son to attend. I expected that," said Charles. I shall naturally be the most important witness there." End of Chapter 42 Chapter 43 of Howard's End. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Elizabeth Clett. Howard's End by E. M. Forster. Chapter 43 Out of the turmoil and horror that had begun with Aunt Julie's illness, and was not even to end with Leonard's death, it seemed impossible to Margaret that healthy life should re-emerge. Events succeeded in a logical, yet senseless, train. People lost their humanity, and took values as arbitrary as those in a pack of playing-cards. It was natural that Henry should do this, and cause Helen to do that, and then think her wrong for doing it. Natural that she herself should think him wrong. Natural that Leonard should want to know how Helen was, and come, and Charles be angry with him for coming. Natural, but unreal. In this jangle of causes and effects, what had become of their true selves? Here Leonard lay dead in the garden, from natural causes.  Life and death were anything and everything, except this ordered insanity, where the king takes the queen, and the ace the king. Ah, no! There was beauty and adventure behind, such as the man at her feet had yearned for. There was hope this side of the grave, there were truer relationships beyond the limits that fetter us now. As a prisoner looks up and sees stars beckoning, so she, from the turmoil and horror of those days, caught glimpses of the diviner wheels. And Helen, dumb with fright, but trying to keep calm for the child's sake, and Miss Avery, calm but murmuring tenderly. No one ever told the lad a love of a child. They also reminded her that horror is not the end. To what ultimate harmony we tend, she did not know. But there seemed great chance that a child would be born into the world, to take the great chances of beauty and adventure that the world offers. She moved through the sunlit garden, gathering Narcissae, crimson-eyed and white. There was nothing else to be done. The time for telegrams and anger was over. And it seemed wisest that the hands of Leonard should be folded on his breast, and be filled with flowers. Here was the father, leave it at that.  And even the influx of officials, even the return of the doctor, vulgar and acute, could not shake her belief in the eternity of beauty. Doctors explained people, but could not understand them. After long centuries among the bones and muscles, it might be advancing to knowledge of the nerves, but this would never give understanding. One could open the heart to Mr. Mansbridge and his sort without discovering its secrets to them, for they wanted everything down and black and white, and black and white was exactly what they were left with. They questioned her closely about Charles. She never suspected why. Death had come, and the doctor agreed that it was due to heart disease. They asked to see her father's sword. She explained that Charles's anger was natural, but mistaken. Miserable questions about Leonard followed, all of which she answered unfalteringly. Then back to Charles again. No doubt Mr. Wilcox may have induced death, she said, but if it wasn't one thing it would have been another, as you yourselves know. At last they thanked her, and took the sword and the body down to Hilton. She began to pick up the books from the floor. Helen had gone to the farm. It was the best place for her, since she had to wait for the inquest. Though as if things were not hard enough, Madge and her husband had raised trouble. They did not see why they should receive the off-scourings of Howard's end. And of course they were right. The whole world was going to be right, and simply avenge any brave talk against the conventions. Nothing matters, the Schlegel said in the past, except one's self-respect and that of one's friends. When the time came, other things mattered terribly. However, Madge had yielded, and Helen was assured of peace for one day and night, and to-morrow she would return to Germany. As for herself, she determined to go to. No message came from Henry. Perhaps he expected her to apologize. Now that she had time to think over her own tragedy, she was unrepentant. She neither forgave him for his behaviour, nor wished to forgive him. Her speech to him seemed perfect. She would not have altered a word. It had to be uttered once in a life, to adjust the lopsidedness of the world. It was spoken not only to her husband, but to thousands of men like him—a protest against the inner darkness in high places that comes with a commercial age. Though he would build up his life without hers, she could not apologize. He had refused to connect on the clearest issue that can be laid before a man, and their love must take the consequences. No, there was nothing more to be done. They had tried not to go over the precipice, but perhaps the fall was inevitable. And it comforted her to think that the future was certainly inevitable, cause and effect would go jangling forward to some goal doubtless, but to none that she could imagine. At such moments the soul retires within to float upon the bosom of a deeper stream, and has communion with the dead, and sees the world's glory not diminished, but different and kind to what she has supposed. She alters her focus until trivial things are blurred. Margaret had been tending this way all the winter. Leonard's death brought her to the goal. Alas, that Henry should fade away as reality emerged, and only her love for him should remain clear, stamped with his image like the cameos we rescue out of dreams. With unfaltering eyes she traced his future. He would soon present a healthy mind to the world again, and what did he or the world care if he was rotten at the core? He would grow into a rich, jolly old man, at times a little sentimental about women, but emptying his glass with any one. Tenacious of power, he would keep Charles and the rest dependent, and retire from business reluctantly and at an advanced age. He would settle down, though she could not realize this. In her eyes Henry was always moving, and causing others to move, until the ends of the earth met. But in time he must get too tired to move, and settle down. What next? The inevitable word. The release of the soul to its appropriate heaven. Would they meet in it? Henry believed in immortality for herself, and eternal future had always seemed natural to her, and Henry believed in it for himself. Yet would they meet again? Are there not rather endless levels beyond the grave, as the theory that he had censured teaches? And his level, whether higher or lower, could it possibly be the same as hers? Thus gravely meditating she was summoned by him. He sent up Crane in the motor. Other servants passed like water, but the chauffeur remained, though impertinent and disloyal. Margaret disliked Crane, and he knew it. Is it the keys that Mr. Wilcox wants? she asked. He didn't say, madam. You haven't any note for me? He didn't say, madam. After a moment's thought she locked up Howard's end. It was pitiable to see in it the stirrings of warmth that would be quenched for ever. She raked out the fire that was blazing in the kitchen, and spread the coals in the graveled yard. She closed the windows and drew the curtains. Henry would probably sell the place now. She was determined not to spare him, for nothing new had happened as far as they were concerned. Her mood might never have altered from yesterday evening. He was standing a little outside Charles's gate, and motioned the car to stop. When his wife got out, he said hoarsely, I prefer to discuss things with you outside. It will be more appropriate in the road, I am afraid, said Margaret. Did you get my message? What about? I am going to Germany with my sister. I must tell you now that I shall make it my permanent home. Our talk last night was more important than you have realized. I am unable to forgive you, and am leaving you. I am extremely tired," said Henry, in injured tones. I have been walking about all the morning, and wish to sit down. Certainly, if you will consent to sit on the grass. The Great North Road should have been bordered all its length with gleebe. Henry's kind had filched most of it. She moved to the scrap opposite, wherein were the six hills. They sat down on the farther side, so that they could not be seen by Charles or Dolly. Here are your keys," said Margaret. She tossed them towards him. They fell on the sunlit slope of grass, and he did not pick them up. I have something to tell you," he said gently. She knew this superficial gentleness, this confession of hastiness, that was only intended to enhance her admiration of the male. I don't want to hear it," she replied. My sister is going to be ill. My life is going to be with her now.  Where are you going? Munich. We start after the inquest, if she is not too ill. After the inquest? Yes. Have you realized what the verdict at the inquest will be? Yes. Heart disease. No, my dear. Manslaughter. Margaret drove her fingers through the grass. The hill beneath her moved as if it was alive. Manslaughter. Repeated Mr. Wilcox. Charles may go to prison. I dare not tell him. I don't know what to do. What to do? I'm broken. I'm ended. No sudden warmth arose in her. She did not see that to break him was her only hope. She did not enfold the sufferer in her arms. But all through that day and the next a new life began to move. The verdict was brought in. Charles was committed for trial. It was against all reason that he should be punished. But the law, being made in his image, sentenced him to three years imprisonment. Then Henry's fortress gave way. He could bear no one but his wife. He shambled up to Margaret afterwards and asked her to do what she could with him. She did what seemed easiest. She took him down to recruit at Howard's End. He passed again and again amid whirring blades and sweet odours of grass, encompassing with narrowing circles the sacred centre of the field. Tom was negotiating with Helen. I haven't any idea, she replied. Do you suppose baby may make? Margaret put down her work and regarded them absently. What was that? she asked. Tom wants to know whether baby is old enough to play with hay. I haven't the least notion," answered Margaret, and took her pro-work again. Now Tom, baby is not to stand. He is not to lie on his face. He is not to lie so that his head wags. He is not to be teased or tickled. And he is not to be cut into two or more pieces by the cutter. Will you be as careful as all that?" Tom held out his arms. That child is a wonderful nursemaid," remarked Margaret. He is fond of baby. That's why he does it. Was Helen's answer. They're going to be lifelong friends. Starting at the ages of six and one. Of course, it will be a great thing for Tom. It may be a greater thing for baby. Fourteen months had passed. But Margaret still stopped at Howard's End. No better plan had occurred to her. The meta was being recut. The great red poppies were reopening in the garden. July would follow with the little red poppies among the wheat, August with the cutting of the wheat. These little events would become part of her, year after year. Every summer she would fear lest the well should give out. Every winter lest the pipes should freeze. Every westerly gale might blow the witch-elm down and bring the end of all things. And so she could not read or talk during a westerly gale. The air was tranquil now. She and her sister were sitting on the remains of Evie's rockery, where the lawn merged into the field. What a time they all are, said Helen. What can they be doing inside? Margaret, who was growing less talkative, made no answer. The noise of the cutter came intermittently, like the breaking of waves. This by them a man was preparing to scythe out one of the dell-holes. "'I wish Henry was out to enjoy this,' said Helen, "'this lovely weather, and to be shut up in the house. It's very hard.' "'It has to be,' said Margaret. The hay-fever is his chief objection against living here, but he thinks it worth while. "'Meg, is or isn't he ill? I can't make out.' "'Not ill. Eternally tired. He has worked very hard all his life, and noticed nothing. Those are the people who collapse when they do notice a thing.' I suppose he worries dreadfully about his part of the tangle. "'Dreadfully. That is why I wish Dolly had not come to to-day. Still he wanted them all to come. It has to be.' "'Why does he want them?' Margaret did not answer. "'Meg, may I tell you something? I like Henry.' "'You'd be odd if you didn't,' said Margaret. I usant, too.' "'Usant!' she lowered her eyes a moment to the black abyss of the past. They had crossed it, always accepting Leonard and Charles. They were building up a new life, obscure, yet gilded with tranquility. Leonard was dead. Charles had two more years in prison. One usant always to see clearly before that time. It was different now.' "'I like Henry, because he does worry.  Helen sighed.  After a time she said, "'Above love,' a transition less abrupt than it appeared. It never stopped working. I mean a woman's love for a man. I supposed I should hang my life on to that once, and was driven up and down and about as if something was worrying through me. But everything is peaceful now. I seem cured. That hair-forced meister, whom Frieder keeps writing about, must be a noble character, but he doesn't see that I shall never marry him or any one. It isn't shame or mistrust of myself. I simply couldn't. I'm ended. I used to be so dreamy about a man's love as a girl, and think that for good or evil love must be the great thing. But it hasn't been. It has been itself a dream.' "'Do you agree?' "'I do not agree. I do not.' "'I ought to remember Leonard as my lover,' said Helen, stepping down into the field. I tempted him, and killed him, and it is surely the least I can do. I would like to throw out all my heart to Leonard on such an afternoon as this. But I cannot. It is no good pretending. I am forgetting him.'  "'How nothing seems to match! How my darling! My precious!' She broke off. "'Tommy!' "'Yes, please. Baby's not to try and stand. There's something wanting in me. I see you loving Henry, and understanding him better daily, and I know that death wouldn't part you in the least. But I—' "'Is it some awful, appalling criminal defect?' Margaret silenced her. She said—' "'It is only that people are far more different than is pretended. All over the world men and women are worrying, because they cannot develop as they are supposed to develop. Here and there they have the matter out, and it comforts them. Don't fret yourself, Helen. Develop what you have. Love your child.' "'I do not love children. I am thankful to have none. I can play with their beauty and charm. But that is all. Nothing real—not one scrap of what there ought to be. And others—others go farther still, and move outside humanity altogether. A place, as well as a person, may catch the glow. Don't you see that all this leads to comfort in the end? It is part of the battle against sameness. Differences—eternal differences—planted by God in a single family, so that there may always be colour—sorrow, perhaps, but colour in the daily grey. Then I can't have you worrying about Leonard. Don't drag in the personal when it will not come. Forget him. Yes. Yes, but what has Leonard got out of life? Perhaps an adventure. Is that enough? Not for us. But for him.  She looked at the sorrel, and the red and white and yellow clover, and the quaker-grass, and the daisies, and the bents that composed it. She raised it to her face. "'Is it sweetening yet?' asked Margaret. No. Only with it. It will sweeten to-morrow." Helen smiled.  But now I couldn't stop unhappy if I tried.' What a change! And all through you." Oh! We merely settled down. You and Henry learnt to understand one another, and to forgive, all through the autumn in the winter. Yes, but who settled us down? Margaret did not reply. The scything had begun, and she took off her pants-nay to watch it.  Living here was your plan.  Just think of our lives without you, Meg. I and baby with Monica, revolting by theory, he handed about from Dolly to Evie. But you picked up the pieces, and made us a home." "'Can't it strike you, even for a moment, that your life has been heroic? Can't you remember the two months after Charles's arrest, when you began to act, and did all?' "'You were both ill at the time,' said Margaret. "'I did the obvious things. I had two invalids to nurse. Here was a house, ready furnished and empty. It was obvious. I didn't know myself it would turn into a permanent home. No doubt I have done a little toward straightening the tangle, but things that I can't phrase have helped me." "'I hope it will be permanent,' said Helen, drifting away to other thoughts. I think so. There are moments when I feel Howard's end peculiarly our own. All the same, London's creeping.' She pointed over the meadow, over eight or nine meadows, but at the end of them was a red rust. "'You see that, and sorry, and even hams here now,' she continued. "'I can see it from the perbec downs. At London is only part of something else, I'm afraid. Life's going to be melted down all over the world.'" Margaret knew that her sister spoke truly. Howard's end, Onerton, the perbec downs, the odor-berge, were all survivals, and the melting pot was being prepared for them. Logically they had no right to be alive. One's hope was in the weakness of logic. Were they possibly the earth beating time? "'Because the thing is going strong now, it need not go strong forever,' she said. "'This craze for motion is only set in during the last hundred years. It may be followed by a civilisation that won't be a movement, because it will rest on the earth. All the signs are against it now, but I can't help hoping, and very early in the morning in the garden, I feel that our house is the future as well as the past.'" They turned and looked at it. Their own memories coloured it now, for Helen's child had been born in the central room of the nine. Then Margaret said, "'Oh, take care!' for something moved behind the window of the hall, and the door opened. The conclaves breaking at last. I'll go." It was Paul. Helen retreated with the children far into the field. Friendly voices greeted her. Margaret rose to encounter a man with a heavy black moustache. "'My father is asked for you,' he said with hostility. She took her work and followed him. "'We have been talking business,' he continued, "'but I dare say you knew all about it beforehand.'" Yes, I did. Clumsy of movement, for he had spent all his life in the saddle, Paul drove his foot against the paint of the front door. Mrs. Wilcox gave a little cry of annoyance. She did not like anything scratched. She stopped in the hall to take Dolly's boa and gloves out of a vase. Her husband was lying in a great leather armchair in the dining room, and by his side, holding his hand rather ostentatiously, was Evie. Dolly, dressed in purple, sat near the window. The room was a little dark and airless. They were obliged to keep it like this until the carting of the hay. Margaret joined the family without speaking. The five of them had met already at tea, and she knew quite well what was going to be said. Averse to wasting her time, she went on sewing. The clock struck six. "'Is this going to suit every one?' said Henry, in a weary voice. He used the old phrases, but their effect was unexpected and shadowy. "'Because I don't want you all coming here later on and complaining that I have been unfair.' "'It's apparently got to suit us,' said Paul. "'I beg your pardon, my boy. You have only to speak, and I will leave the house to you instead.' Paul frowned ill temperately, and began scratching at his arm. "'As I have given up the outdoor life that suited me, and I have come home to look after the business, it's no good my settling down here,' he said at last. "'It's not really the country, and it's not the town.' "'Very well.  They raised her faded little face, which sorrow could wither, but not steady. "'Perfectly splendidly,' she said. "'I thought Charles wanted it for the boys, but last time I saw him he said no, because we cannot possibly live in this part of England again. "'Charles says we ought to change our name, but I cannot think what, too, for Wilcox just suits Charles and me, and I can't think of any other name.'" There is a general silence. They looked nervously round, fearing that she had been inappropriate. Paul continued to scratch his arm. "'Then I leave Howard's End to my wife, absolutely,' said Henry, and let everyone understand that. And after I am dead, let there be no jealousy, and no surprise.' Margaret did not answer. There was something uncanny in her triumph. She, who had never expected to conquer any one, had charged straight through these Wilcox's and broken up their lives. "'In consequence, I leave my wife no money,' said Henry, that is her own wish. All that she would have had will be divided among you. I am also giving you a great deal in my lifetime, so that you may be independent of me. That is her wish, too. She also is giving away a great deal of money. She intends to diminish her income by half during the next ten years. She intends, when she dies, to leave the house to her—to her nephew, down in the field. Is that all clear? Does everyone understand?' Paul rose to his feet. He was accustomed to natives, and very little shook him out of the Englishmen. Feeling manly and cynical, he said, "'Down in the field? Oh, come! I think we might have had the whole establishment, Piccaninni's included.'" Mrs. Carhill whispered, "'Don't, Paul. You promised you'd take care.' Feeling a woman of the world, she rose and prepared to take her leave. Her father kissed her. "'Goodbye, old girl,' he said, "'don't you worry about me?' "'Goodbye, dad.' Then it was Dali's turn. Anxious to contribute, she laughed nervously, and said, "'Goodbye, Mr. Wilcox! It does seem curious that Mrs. Wilcox should have left Margaret Howard's end, and yet she gets it, after all.'" From Evie came a sharply drawn breath. "'Goodbye,' she said to Margaret, and kissed her.  "'Goodbye.'" "'Goodbye, Dali.' "'So long, father.' "'Goodbye, my boy. Always take care of yourself.' "'Goodbye, Mrs. Wilcox.' "'Goodbye.'" Margaret saw their visitors to the gate. Then she returned to her husband, and laid her head in his hands. He was pitiably tired. But Dali's remark had interested her. At last she said, "'Could you tell me, Henry? What was that about Mrs. Wilcox having left me Howard's end?' "'Tranquily,' he replied. "'Yes, she did. But that is a very old story. When she was ill, and you were so kind to her, she wanted to make you some return. And not being herself at the time, scribbled Howard's end on a piece of paper. I went into it thoroughly, and as it was clearly fanciful, I set it aside, little knowing what my Margaret would be to me in the future." Margaret was silent. Something shook her life in its inmost recesses. And she shivered. "'I didn't do wrong, did I?' He asked, bending down. "'You didn't, darling. Nothing has been done wrong.' From the garden came laughter. "'Here they are at last,' exclaimed Henry, disengaging himself with a smile. Helen rushed into the gloom, holding Tom by one hand, and carrying her baby on the other. There were shouts of infectious joy. "'The field's cut,' Helen cried excitedly. "'The big meadow, we've seen to the very end, and it'll be such a crop of hay as never.'" Weybridge, 1908-1910. End of Howard's End by E. M. Forster


The Sentinel-2 mission, developed by the European Space Agency as part of the Copernicus program, is acquiring high spatial resolution optical imagery and has undergone calibration and validation activities after one year in orbit, with measured performances covering both top of atmosphere and bottom of atmosphere products, demonstrating good quality in terms of radiometry and geometry, while providing an overview on next mission steps related to data quality aspects. This article was authored by Farron Gaskin, Catherine Buznak, Olivier Thiepot, and others.