conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first five paragraphs for a book with the title 'The Devil's Own Work'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Devil's Own Work
  When word of Greeley's nomination in Cincinnati reached Washington, Fernando Wood shared in the "loud and general guffaw" that "broke out all over the Flouse] floor." It was hard to take Old White Coat seriously—with all his faddish enthusiasms and eccentricities—but even harder for Wood to support the man who had been his archenemy for the past forty years, opposing and harassing him on every issue: slavery, tariffs, the draft riots, the Irish, temperance, and Sabbath laws, among others.[63
  Nonetheless, Wood, like the rest of the northern Democratic party, saw no choice but to endorse him and ally with the Liberal Republicans, for lack of an alternative candidate, and because Greeley supported the working man, advocated a general amnesty for Confederates, and pushed for an end to military intervention in the South with federal troops. Thus developed the astonishing spectacle of Greeley also being nominated by the Democrats at their convention in July, after which the party took up the Liberals' slogan, "Anything to beat Grant." Northern Democrats tried to rally behind Greeley, who had once embodied wartime radical Republicanism and denounced them as treasonous Copperheads.
  Scouting the Democrats' motives, the pioneering abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison condemned the Liberal Republican party as "simply a stool pigeon for the Democracy to capture the Presidency." Making a similar point, a Thomas Nast cartoon depicted Greeley as the captain of a pirate ship, concealing heavily armed Confederates belowdecks, ready to capture another vessel, the American government. The prominent feminist and abolitionist Lydia Maria Child declared she would prefer "the Devil himself " to the Democrats "at the helm of the ship of state."
  Indeed, since Greeley was at odds with Liberal Republicans on free trade, his campaign ended up focusing on the two issues that united the reformers and were also the Democrats' priorities: a general amnesty and home rule in the South. Since very few Confederate officials were still banned from voting and holding office, Republicans in Congress sought to eliminate the largely symbolic issue by immediately passing an amnesty law that embraced all but the most hard-core ex-rebels. However, black congressmen were outraged. Elected in the South after the new state constitutions of 1867-68 gave blacks the vote, they saw the bill as a harbinger of Reconstruction's total demise.*
  Greeley provoked a storm of controversy when he declared his "confident trust that the masses of our countrymen... are eager to clasp hands across the bloody chasm which has too long divided them." The campaign degenerated into one of the most vicious presidential contests in American history. Nast lambasted Greeley with a series of cartoons that showed him shaking hands with rebels over the dead body of a Union soldier, across the Andersonville prison, over a black Klan victim, and even with John Wilkes Booth across Lincoln's grave.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The contradictory Republican platform was deliberately vague, calling for both an end to bloodshed in the South and the enforcement of equal rights. While Hayes did not say so publicly, he intended to pursue a conciliatory policy toward moderate southern Democrats—former Whigs like himself— and bring them into the Republican party. It was the same approach another former Whig, Abraham Lincoln, had taken a dozen years earlier when he first launched the process of Reconstruction in 1863. Given the problems of "bayonet rule," Hayes viewed a coalition with moderates, and thorough reform of the corrupt Reconstruction governments, as the best hope for ending racial violence.
  However, because of continued rioting and murders of blacks during the campaign, particularly in South Carolina, where Democrats and their "Red Shirt" paramilitary groups were pushing hard to topple the carpetbag government, northern outrage was rekindled briefly, and President Grant sent federal troops at the governor's request. Republicans, prompted by party leaders including Hayes, resorted to "waving the bloody shirt," which also served to distract voters from the depressed economy.
  With most of the former slave states firmly in Democratic hands— "redeemed," according to white supremacists—and the remaining three overrun by the party's armed auxiliaries, the Tilden campaign looked forward to carrying the entire South. Tilden would then need only forty-seven electoral votes from the North to reach a total of 185 and win the election. Northern fatigue with "the everlasting Negro question" and the ongoing depression both worked in Tilden's favor. Moreover, despite federal protection and supervision of polling sites, rampant violence and intimidation cost the Republicans roughly a quarter of a million votes across the South. The Republican leadership quietly braced itself for defeat as the returns came in on November 7.
  Tilden won New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Indiana, giving him far more than the forty-seven electoral votes he needed from the North. He almost swept the South, where Hayes won South Carolina by a slim margin, but the Democrats claimed victory there in the race for the governorship and control of the legislature. In the three states with Republican governments— Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina—the returning boards that supervised the elections were controlled by carpetbaggers, and they challenged the grossly lopsided totals from areas where Democrats had evidently driven their opponents from the polls by threats and violence. Tilden, with 184 electoral votes, needed only one of the nineteen votes from the three disputed states to win. Hayes needed all of them.
  Calling them "visiting statesmen," northern Democrats rushed delegations to the contested states to spread money around and prevent the Republican election officials from tampering with the ballots. Violence and intimidation by both sides during the campaign left Democrats and Republicans alike feeling justified in the extreme measures they were taking, particularly the Republicans, who denounced the Mississippi Plan used by the Democrats to keep blacks from voting. Florida's Republican governor received four companies of federal troops to maintain order.46
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last two paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Lyons, Maritcha Remond. "Memories of Yesterdays: All of Which I Saw and Part of Which I Was." Unpublished typescript, 1928. Henry Albro Williamson Collection. Schomburg Center, NYPL.
  Pasternak, Martin B. "Risk Now and Fly to Arms: The Life of Henry Highland Garnet." Ph. D. diss. University of Massachusetts, 1981.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Devil's Own Work
  Appearances helped, as nearly always. He was on the short side, well proportioned and with wavy blond hair that marked him out from one end of a street to the other. He had the regular good looks of the sort of male model who does summer casuals in open-top cars, usually by the sea or mountain lochs. There was a suggestion of ruggedness about him, almost of something soldier-like, but it was kept from crudity by the hint of contrivance. He had the posed nonchalance of the war correspondent rather than the matter-of-factness of the soldier. This self-­consciousness added to his charm because you had the feeling that what was on offer was something he had made himself, especially for you. It was his mouth and eyes, however, that really captivated. His feminine lips were beautifully shaped, his smile small and almost shy, and his eyes startlingly blue. They spoke of seas and skies, of friendship, of layers and depths, while all the time giving the appearance of being fascinated by whoever engaged him. Such eyes are a great advantage because dark eyes are less suggestive of shades of meaning. A dark gaze always seems to have a more inward intensity, self-focused or sometimes simply dazzling, rather than one that steps out to meet you and makes you feel special. When I first knew Edward I used to practise before a mirror, trying to get my own brown eyes to step out and respond as his did. But whereas his seemed to project his whole being upon you, mine showed only a baffled striving.
  I always thought Edward would become one of them, despite his seeming unwillingness to push himself. He was an incisive, quotable reviewer, personable, not short of ideas and looked right. Why he kept in touch with me while other university friends went adrift in his wake, I don't know. We had never been particularly close. Perhaps it was out of habit formed through our proximity in Kennington; perhaps he liked now and again to talk to someone from outside his new world, or perhaps he wanted a disciple.
  Because I was certainly that. I was convinced he was on the threshold of great things and I felt privileged to know him. I dare say there was in the back of my mind some idea of myself as one of those who in later life are sought out by biographers and television interviewers. It didn't matter to me that it was a pretty one-sided friendship; that was just the way of it. Every three weeks or so I would ring him. He rarely rang me and only once, I think, came to my flat, which was when he wanted to borrow my car. I would go round to his place for coffee, whisky and talk. Occasionally we would go out for a curry or a pizza. Edward was a careless eater, indifferent to what he ate, a scavenger who didn't bother if he wasn't hungry and when he was would eat anything, anywhere, at any time. The fridge in his flat was almost always empty apart from a carton of milk for his tea and coffee, a few pieces of sliced bread still in their wrapper and a scrap of New Zealand butter that stayed exactly as it was, I believe, throughout his years alone. He scavenged for his food. I remember his saying once that he was a scavenger of ideas, too, but I don't recall whether that was before it all started.
  It was in that room that it started, at least as far as I was concerned, although the origins were far away. I have tried to remember whether Edward gave any sign of having an inkling, whether he was, in fact, waiting; but I can recall nothing except one remark he made and that may have been coincidental. It was after he had turned down the television script and I had taxed him with neglect of his career. He swivelled in his typist's chair to face me and smiled his small smile. The light was behind him and half his face was in shadow.
  That remained in my mind but it was only much later that I discovered I had remembered it. Edward had the reputation of being a brilliant talker yet he was far from voluble and I remember little of what he actually said. Others, I know, have found the same and it contributes to the increasingly unreal impression left by his career and reputation, an impression that affects even me. Conversely, I can always recall the exact timbre of his voice, the quiet and precise enunciation that lent such gravity to what he said that even when he used the same words as someone else they seemed to mean more. I don't know that he really was wittier than other people but the way he spoke made it seem so. It was as if he put his words in inverted commas and so detached himself from them, reserving his position. I would tell others of Edward's humour, yet I rarely laughed in his company, and he almost never in mine.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide three more paragraphs.. End with the sentence ' It was because of her, Edward thought, that he had had the impression that Tyrrel was looking at him but seeing something else; and it was because of her, he became convinced, that Tyrrel's eyes filled with horror.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: It was hard to imagine Eudoxie upset but I didn't say anything. There were questions I wanted to ask – how had he come by her, where was she when Tyrrel died, where was she from, had she really embraced someone (Edward?) in that upstairs room – but I could see he didn't want to answer. Yet neither did he seem to want to part and we lingered a few more minutes. I think we talked about Lambeth Council.
  The next year or so resembled its predecessor so closely that it is hard to distinguish them. Chantal and I lived as we had and Edward lived as he had, so far as I could tell. Eudoxie seemed to make no difference to the outward form of his life although I called less often. I felt inhibited by her presence, even in the background, as if I were intruding, yet nothing in Edward's demeanour or hers suggested I was. We had them to dinner once, and they us. On neither occasion was anyone else present.
  I know now that he often heard it. It did not begin with his possession of the manuscript although that was the essential preliminary. I learned all this when he gave me his third account of Tyrrel's death, near the end. In his first two accounts he did not mention Eudoxie but in fact she was there when Tyrrel died. During those moments while Tyrrel and Edward were facing each other beside the desk, each holding the manuscript, Eudoxie appeared at Edward's side. He felt her before he saw her. She stood just behind his left shoulder, very close, and she neither moved nor spoke. It was because of her, Edward thought, that he had had the impression that Tyrrel was looking at him but seeing something else; and it was because of her, he became convinced, that Tyrrel's eyes filled with horror.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The answer came from an unexpected quarter. I had met Graham Greene for the first and only time over dinner in his flat in Antibes on 6 December 1988, three years before he died. He was helpful, friendly, hospitable, generous and courteous, and the limpid simplicity of his writing has powerfully influenced my own (never enough, though). But I didn't take to him.
  We met because Greene had known Ford in the 1930s and later wrote a gracious Spectator obituary, memorably concluding that Ford "had the kind of enemies a man ought to have." I wrote to Greene, asking if I might talk to him and promising that I wasn't a journalist seeking an interview. He sent me his telephone number and I took the train to Antibes, leaving a note with his concierge explaining that, since Judd was my pen-name, if he rang my hotel he should ask for me in my real name. When I got back to the hotel they told me a M. Brun had called.
  Yet there was something I didn't like, a coldness, a self-­referential reserve. He was happy to entertain, to charm, to perform, but he gave nothing of himself. I normally admire reserve but with Greene it didn't feel like self-­discipline or privacy or diffidence; more a deep-seated detachment from others, a lack of sympathy or interest.
  Greene and I kept in touch by postcard or brief letter. I was going to send him a copy but he died the day it came off the press. A coincidence he would have appreciated, given its theme, and slightly sinister, too.
  Alan Judd is a novelist and biographer who has previously served in the army and the Foreign Office. Chosen as one of the original twenty Best Young British Novelists, he subsequently won the Royal Society of Literature's Winifred Holtby Award, the Heinemann Award and the Guardian Fiction Award; he was also shortlisted for the Westminster Prize. He was in his spare time the Spectator's motoring correspondent and is currently a comment writer for the Daily Telegraph. He lives in Sussex with his wife and daughter.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The answer came from an unexpected quarter. I had met Graham Greene for the first and only time over dinner in his flat in Antibes on 6 December 1988, three years before he died. He was helpful, friendly, hospitable, generous and courteous, and the limpid simplicity of his writing has powerfully influenced my own (never enough, though). But I didn't take to him.
  We met because Greene had known Ford in the 1930s and later wrote a gracious Spectator obituary, memorably concluding that Ford "had the kind of enemies a man ought to have." I wrote to Greene, asking if I might talk to him and promising that I wasn't a journalist seeking an interview. He sent me his telephone number and I took the train to Antibes, leaving a note with his concierge explaining that, since Judd was my pen-name, if he rang my hotel he should ask for me in my real name. When I got back to the hotel they told me a M. Brun had called.
  Yet there was something I didn't like, a coldness, a self-­referential reserve. He was happy to entertain, to charm, to perform, but he gave nothing of himself. I normally admire reserve but with Greene it didn't feel like self-­discipline or privacy or diffidence; more a deep-seated detachment from others, a lack of sympathy or interest.
  Greene and I kept in touch by postcard or brief letter. I was going to send him a copy but he died the day it came off the press. A coincidence he would have appreciated, given its theme, and slightly sinister, too.
  Alan Judd is a novelist and biographer who has previously served in the army and the Foreign Office. Chosen as one of the original twenty Best Young British Novelists, he subsequently won the Royal Society of Literature's Winifred Holtby Award, the Heinemann Award and the Guardian Fiction Award; he was also shortlisted for the Westminster Prize. He was in his spare time the Spectator's motoring correspondent and is currently a comment writer for the Daily Telegraph.