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Amateur Correspondent, v. 2, issue 2, September-October 1937
Page 7
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SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1937 7 done, if you fans will cooperate by boycotting these magazines; if you will refuse to pay to view the horror-packed, machanically-acted melodramas that pass as "scientifilms", thereby weakening further their already poor box-office appeal; and if you will leave the absurdly childish "scienticartoons" to the juveniles, who are certain to soon tire of them. Are we advocates of scientific fiction? If we are, let's do something to get it out of the rut into which mercenary publishers are dragging it! The Last Scoffer An Odd Little Tale With a Twistful Ending Written and Illustrated by Burton C. Blanchard Clayton Nevins made a visible effort to gather strength. As he inched his head slowly from the pillow, the family, tense, silently moved nearer his death-bed. His lips, tremulously parting, held them motionless as his fragile quavering voice broke the penetrating stillness. "We have gone"---his voice broke as he panted with the exertion---"one by one. We were scientists and we scoffed at superstition, even in that chill tomb, so dimly lit by our lanterns." He lay back, a tremor passing through his wasted form, his eyes two dull sparks in a face the hue of dusty parchment. He lay there, waiting for his body to catch up with his racing memory. "Under that glaring Egyptian sun, superstition seemed silly," he resumed his halting, feeble speech. "Once we were inside the tomb, we forgot all in our feverish excitement. In excavating, we had found excavations which assured us it was a prince's tomb. When we caught sight of the black basalt sarcophagus, with its inscriptions, we went mad with the lust of discovery. Forgotten were the dire words of the curse inscribed at the entrance to the tomb. Myerbach, Carson, and I---three scientists crazed with the thought of fame resulting from such an archaeological discovery. The portrait statues, more than a dozen of them, which were in the vault; the relics, inscriptions---all were food for endless research. Myerbach, Carson and I would be known and envied wherever scientists gathered." The sustained effort of his narrative overpowered him. His eyelids dropped; he lay motionless while his mind projected scenes of the past with the clarity and vividness of a motion picture machine. A big-boned frame of a once rugged man, Nevins lay as placid as a hulk cast high in a quiet cove. Presently he spoke again---so enfeebled now that his eyes remained closed and his words were a low drone. "Ka was the word the Egyptians used. It meant the physical appearance of a person. Their belief that a person was divided into four parts at death caused them to preserve the body as a mummy. Body, soul, mind, and ka, the identity, to be reunited in eternity. The mind wandered all space in luminous form and guarded ka, the identity. To lose the identity meant doom beyond all eternity. The portrait statues were to help preserve ka. The sarcophagus, the mummy case, the hundreds of feet of the finest linen bandage were all meant to preserve ka; to keep a tenement ready for the soul when eternity came. We three scientists were three destroyers; we barred a soul from even eternity. "We shipped the portrait statues to several museums. The furniture and
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SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1937 7 done, if you fans will cooperate by boycotting these magazines; if you will refuse to pay to view the horror-packed, machanically-acted melodramas that pass as "scientifilms", thereby weakening further their already poor box-office appeal; and if you will leave the absurdly childish "scienticartoons" to the juveniles, who are certain to soon tire of them. Are we advocates of scientific fiction? If we are, let's do something to get it out of the rut into which mercenary publishers are dragging it! The Last Scoffer An Odd Little Tale With a Twistful Ending Written and Illustrated by Burton C. Blanchard Clayton Nevins made a visible effort to gather strength. As he inched his head slowly from the pillow, the family, tense, silently moved nearer his death-bed. His lips, tremulously parting, held them motionless as his fragile quavering voice broke the penetrating stillness. "We have gone"---his voice broke as he panted with the exertion---"one by one. We were scientists and we scoffed at superstition, even in that chill tomb, so dimly lit by our lanterns." He lay back, a tremor passing through his wasted form, his eyes two dull sparks in a face the hue of dusty parchment. He lay there, waiting for his body to catch up with his racing memory. "Under that glaring Egyptian sun, superstition seemed silly," he resumed his halting, feeble speech. "Once we were inside the tomb, we forgot all in our feverish excitement. In excavating, we had found excavations which assured us it was a prince's tomb. When we caught sight of the black basalt sarcophagus, with its inscriptions, we went mad with the lust of discovery. Forgotten were the dire words of the curse inscribed at the entrance to the tomb. Myerbach, Carson, and I---three scientists crazed with the thought of fame resulting from such an archaeological discovery. The portrait statues, more than a dozen of them, which were in the vault; the relics, inscriptions---all were food for endless research. Myerbach, Carson and I would be known and envied wherever scientists gathered." The sustained effort of his narrative overpowered him. His eyelids dropped; he lay motionless while his mind projected scenes of the past with the clarity and vividness of a motion picture machine. A big-boned frame of a once rugged man, Nevins lay as placid as a hulk cast high in a quiet cove. Presently he spoke again---so enfeebled now that his eyes remained closed and his words were a low drone. "Ka was the word the Egyptians used. It meant the physical appearance of a person. Their belief that a person was divided into four parts at death caused them to preserve the body as a mummy. Body, soul, mind, and ka, the identity, to be reunited in eternity. The mind wandered all space in luminous form and guarded ka, the identity. To lose the identity meant doom beyond all eternity. The portrait statues were to help preserve ka. The sarcophagus, the mummy case, the hundreds of feet of the finest linen bandage were all meant to preserve ka; to keep a tenement ready for the soul when eternity came. We three scientists were three destroyers; we barred a soul from even eternity. "We shipped the portrait statues to several museums. The furniture and
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