The Recommended Vault Parallel to the Artistry of Abraham Lincoln: Cult Guide

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Detective Kate Kirby discovers that a ship captain has been sent on a doomed voyage by his rival for the affections of the shipowner's daughter.

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A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Four Feathers perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

The story opens at General Feversham's residence at the annual dinner that he gives to the ones who are left of the Crimea officers. At this dinner, Harry Feversham, the General's only son, a boy of fourteen, is a guest. After the dinner is finished they tell stories of what happened in the Crimea, and Harry listens intently. The story is carried ahead about ten years when Harry is a captain in the army, showing him with his friend, Captain Durrance. They are both in love with the same girl, Ethne Eustace, and Harry and the girl after a time become engaged. Harry gives a dinner to his brother officers, Captain French, Lt. Willoughby and Captain Castleton, to announce his engagement. During the dinner Harry receives a telegram saying the regiment is ordered on regular service. Harry does not show his fellow officers the telegram as he should have done. They see him throw it into the fire. After they have gone, Harry determines to give up his commission, fearing that when put to the test he will be a coward. To preclude such a possibility he sends in his resignation. His fellow officers have, in the meantime, found out that they are ordered on active service, and next day they see that Harry Feversham has resigned his commission. They decide to send him three white feathers. While a ball is going on at Ethne's home a small package comes addressed to Captain Harry Feversham. He opens it in front of the girl and she asks him what he has done and he tells her. When she brands him as a coward, and striking a white feather from her fan, gives it to him. After this Harry Feversham's father will have nothing to do with him, and he consults his mother's old friend, Lieutenant Sutch, and announces to him that he is going to try and retrieve himself. He sails for Egypt in the hope of being able to do something and make the senders take back their feathers. After a long wandering at last he gets his chance and after many trials and tortures by the Arabs and a thrilling rescue he makes his fellow officers take back their feathers. In the meantime Durrance has been with his regiment in the Sudan and has been struck blind by the glare of the sun. Ethne, taking pity on him, has become engaged to him. Harry returns home to find that Ethne is engaged to another man. One day Durrance overhears them talking and decides for the sake of both of them to give up the girl, thus making Ethne and Harry both happy, and go back to the desert he loved so well.

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A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

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A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Next in Command perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Mark Embury sets out to create the perfect wife by adopting Peggy. His work is a success until the girl falls in love with another man. Ultimately, he must give her up and become satisfied with knowing, he did create the perfect wife, albeit for someone else.

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Marta is a beggar child, who is adopted by Sebastien, the wealthy landowner. Sebastien makes Marta his victim. He wishes to marry a wealthy woman, but at the same time retain his influence over Marta. He therefore arranges through Tomas, the hermit, to marry her to Manelich, a simple, untutored shepherd living in the mountains, a rough child of nature who kills wolves with his bare hands and knows naught of guile and deceit. The wedding is performed, Manelich being under the impression that Marta loves him, and being truly in love with her. Later he learns he has been tricked, while Marta, who had at first believed that Manelich had been bought with the master's gold to become her husband, finds her conclusion wrong, the honesty of his love compelling her own. Then come developments which make the drama one of the most passionate, intense, trenchant character studies ever created. Marta is a patient sufferer, a tragic figure indeed, as she bravely endures all the cruelty and indignities that are thrust upon her by the ruthless "master." We witness the poignancy of her grief, the restraint and the anguish of the oppressed woman, and her movements among the treacherous characters of her environment.

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A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Mice and Men perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

In the days of romance when fortune and glory were carved by the sword, Basil Jennico, the descendant of a proud and haughty house, walking among the old ancestral chambers, dreams of his gallant forebears and their daring deeds performed for the smile of a lady fair. Inspired by his lofty heritage and the atmosphere of nobility and bravery in which he has been reared, Basil longs for love and adventure. At this romantic period of Basil's life, his aged uncle, the lineal head of his house, dies, and makes Basil swear by the sword that he will always uphold the pride of Jennico. Basil becomes Lord of Tollendhall and master of the broad acres of the Duchy of Lausitz, but titles, estates and splendor do not compensate for the absence of love. Princess Ottilie, a beautiful, whimsical maiden, is urged by her guardian, the Earl of Dornheim, to marry Prince Eugen, a worthless rogue, whom Ottilie fears and loathes. To avoid marrying Eugen, the Princess affects her escape from the castle in the guise of her maid, Marie, who follows after her mistress. The two are overtaken by a storm and seek the shelter of Jennico Castle. Marie is introduced to Jennico as the Princess, but Jennico falls madly in love with Ottilie, whom he believes to be the maid. Love and pride struggle for supremacy. Jennico is heart-broken, because his sworn duty to maintain the dignity of his house prohibits his marriage to the maid. The willful, fascinating maid intimates to Jennico that the Princess admires him, and, repressing love for duty, he courts the "princess." The marriage is arranged. Princess Ottilie and her maid confer and arrange to change places at the altar. Jennico greets his bride, heavily veiled, but when at last he looks upon her face he sees the piquant, mocking Ottilie and thinks he has married the maid. Love bids him accept his happiness, but his pride asserts itself and he resents the supposed deception. Ottilie, noticing his anger and piqued because he is not content with her, regardless of her apparent low rank, leaves him. Desperate for the love of the absent and tantalizing beauty, he seeks the supposed maid, encounters the bitter enmity and jealousy of the defeated Prince Eugen and his trusted force; but, despite all opposition and against all odds, he wins his way to Ottilie's heart at his sword's point, to find that valor has not only won him a heart of gold, but a title that adds luster to the pride of Jennico.

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A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

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A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Marta of the Lowlands perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Four-year-old Dorothy, the daughter of rich lawyer Winfred North, is inconsolable over her mother's recent death. Her father, too absorbed with business to pay attention to his daughter and her problems, marries Helen Stillwell, a widow with her own two children. Helen ignores Dorothy while taking care of her own children, treating Dorothy as if she's always "in the way". Finally Dorothy can take no more and runs away. She is found by the Goodwins, a married missionary couple, but when they bring her home, Helen Stillwell denies knowing Dorothy at all, seeing a chance for her own children to inherit Winfred's wealth and cut Dorothy out of the picture altogether. The Goodwins take Dorothy to Africa with them to bring Christianity to the natives, but matters don't work out quite as well as they expected.

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While waiting for the detained Lord Traverse, the guest of honor at an English society party, the guests play a game wherein each must tell a complete story before a cigarette burns out. Heléne Dearing relates that her proud father John left England after being exposed as a card cheat and became a whiskey runner near a Canadian lumber camp. John and his partner Pierre escape jail, and with Heléne, are pursued by Ralph Connell, a young Canadian Mounted Policeman, whom Heléne loves. John, wounded before they can reach the border, gives Pierre permission to marry Heléne, but a sympathetic curate reads the ceremony in Latin and has Ralph, as the witness, take the groom's marriage vows. After Pierre is captured and Heléne learns the truth about the marriage, Ralph leaves on a secret government mission. Heléne, who has since inherited a fortune, confides to the guests that she never saw Ralph again. After Lord Traverse arrives and turns out to be Ralph, he and Heléne leave the party to begin their belated honeymoon.

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News is received by Sir Jeoffrey, a dissolute roué, whose contempt for the other sex extends even to his own daughters, of the arrival of another female child in the family. The mother dies shortly after, and the child, Clorinda, is brought up among the servants without a guiding hand. True to his vow to ignore his offspring, Sir Jeoffrey does not come in contact with Clo, until her sixth year, when he finds her playing with his powder horn in the great hall of his castle, Wildair, and sternly upbraids her. The child, who has inherited her father's courage and strength of will, shows no fear, and grasping a riding crop beats Sir Jeoffrey with all the fury of her tiny wrath. Her spirit and daring attract Sir Jeoffrey's attention, and he is delighted to find the child his own. From that moment, he keeps her in his own company, dressed in boy's clothing to obscure her sex, a member of his wanton circle. She grows up in this atmosphere of debauchery, and learns to swear, smoke and drink. Years later, at a hunting lodge, she meets the Duke of Osmonde and other great gentlemen, who are shocked at her male attire and masculine manners. In a spirit of pious benevolence, Lord Twenlow sends his chaplain to Wildair Hall to censure Sir Jeoffrey for permitting his daughter to grow up in this wild style. Clo overhears the Chaplain's remonstrances and realizes the true significance of her reckless habits. Meantime, her notoriety has reached London, and Sir John Oxon, the beau ideal of the town, lays a wager that he will win the heart of Clo, not as a hoyden, but as a woman. He arrives at Wildair Hall on Clo's birthday-night, and banters her on her claims to masculine prowess. Stung by his derision to prove she has all the attributes of a man, she challenges him to a duel, in which Sir John Oxon is badly worsted. However, his sarcasm has had definite effect and at the striking of the midnight hour, she gives the toast to the assembled noblemen: "Behold me for the last time clad in trousers." Later she appears in the Hall dressed in all the finery of a lady of quality, and from that moment bends every effort to attain that title legitimately. Sir John Oxon piles all his wiles to win her untutored heart, and she finally falls a victim to his flattery. Secretly she meets him in the rose garden, but publicly she slights him in the great halls. Nevertheless, Oxon wins her confidence, and she bestows her first kiss upon his lips, but not without a price, for at that moment he steals one of her raven curls, the proof of his wager. He hastens back to London to boast of his conquest, but in an intoxicated moment he hides the curl for safe-keeping, forgetting where. Clo waits for his return and is shocked when she receives news from London that he is to wed a wealthy lady of title. At this critical moment in her life the old Earl of Dunstanwolde asks her hand in marriage, and piqued at having thrown her affections so idly away, she accepts. A half hour later, she meets the Duke of Osmonde, and recognizes in him the man she loves. Faithful to her promise, she marries the Earl of Dunstanwolde, and becomes his devoted wife until he dies two years later. Sir John Oxon, having failed to make his match, and aware that Clo now possesses wealth, influence and position, tries to win back the heart he had so ruthlessly cast aside. But Osmonde has triumphed over her affections, causing jealousy and hatred to creep into the heart of Oxon. Chance places again in his hand the lost curl, which he holds over her head as a silken sword. Stunned by the fear that she will lose the love of Osmonde through the accusing evidence of the curl in an intensely dramatic scene in which Oxon attempts to force his embraces upon her, she strikes him across the temple with her riding crop. He falls to the floor. She lashes him, the pale still body lies there, dead. At that moment guests arrive, she conceals the body under the couch, and in the dead of night she drags it down into the deep cellar. For years afterwards, she atones for her sin by paying Oxon's debts, consoling the women had he wronged, and in other ways undoing the evil he had wrought.