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In which the old man launches forth into his favourite theme, and relates a story about a queer client
Aha!' said the old man, a brief description of whose manner and appearance concluded the last chapter, 'aha! who was talking about the inns?'
'I was, Sir,' replied Mr. Pickwick—'I was observing what singular old places they are.'
'You!' said the old man contemptuously. 'What do you know of the time when young men shut themselves up in those lonely rooms, and read and read, hour after hour, and night after night, till their reason wandered beneath their midnight studies; till their mental powers were exhausted; till morning's light brought no freshness or health to them; and they sank beneath the unnatural devotion of their youthful energies to their dry old books? Coming down to a later time, and a very different day, what do you know of the gradual sinking beneath consumption, or the quick wasting of fever—the grand results of "life" and dissipation—which men have undergone in these same rooms? How many vain pleaders for mercy, do you think, have turned away heart–sick from the lawyer's office, to find a resting–place in the Thames, or a refuge in the jail? They are no ordinary houses, those. There is not a panel in the old wainscotting, but what, if it were endowed with the powers of speech and memory, could start from the wall, and tell its tale of horror—the romance of life, Sir, the romance of life! Common–place as they may seem now, I tell you they are strange old places, and I would rather hear many a legend with a terrific–sounding name, than the true history of one old set of chambers.'
There was something so odd in the old man's sudden energy, and the subject which had called it forth, that Mr. Pickwick was prepared with no observation in reply; and the old man checking his impetuosity, and resuming the leer, which had disappeared during his previous excitement, said—
'Look at them in another light—their most common–place and least romantic. What fine places of slow torture they are! Think of the needy man who has spent his all, beggared himself, and pinched his friends, to enter the profession, which is destined never to yield him a morsel of bread. The waiting—the hope—the disappointment—the fear—the misery—the poverty—the blight on his hopes, and end to his career—the suicide perhaps, or the shabby, slipshod drunkard. Am I not right about them?' And the old man rubbed his hands, and leered as if in delight at having found another point of view in which to place his favourite subject.
Mr. Pickwick eyed the old man with great curiosity, and the remainder of the company smiled, and looked on in silence.
'Talk of your German universities,' said the little old man. 'Pooh, pooh! there's romance enough at home without going half a mile for it; only people never think of it.'
'I never thought of the romance of this particular subject before, certainly,' said Mr. Pickwick, laughing. 'To be sure you didn't,' said the little old man; 'of course not. As a friend of mine used to say to me, "What is there in chambers in particular?" "Queer old places," said I. "Not at all," said he. "Lonely," said I. "Not a bit of it," said he. He died one morning of apoplexy, as he was going to open his outer door. Fell with his head in his own letter–box, and there he lay for eighteen months. Everybody thought he'd gone out of town.'
'And how was he found out at last?' inquired Mr. Pickwick.
'The benchers determined to have his door broken open, as he hadn't paid any rent for two years. So they did. Forced the lock; and a very dusty skeleton in a blue coat, black knee–shorts, and silks, fell forward in the arms of the porter who opened the door. Queer, that. Rather, perhaps; rather, eh?'The little old man put his head more on one side, and rubbed his hands with unspeakable glee.
'I know another case,' said the little old man, when his chuckles had in some degree subsided. 'It occurred in Clifford's Inn. Tenant of a top set—bad character—shut himself up in his bedroom closet, and took a dose of arsenic. The steward thought he had run away: opened the door, and put a bill up. Another man came, took the chambers, furnished them, and went to live there. Somehow or other he couldn't sleep—always restless and uncomfortable. "Odd," says he. "I'll make the other room my bedchamber, and this my sitting–room." He made the change, and slept very well at night, but suddenly found that, somehow, he couldn't read in the evening: he got nervous and uncomfortable, and used to be always snuffing his candles and staring about him. "I can't make this out," said he, when he came home from the play one night, and was drinking a glass of cold grog, with his back to the wall, in order that he mightn't be able to fancy there was any one behind him—"I can't make it out," said he; and just then his eyes rested on the little closet that had been always locked up, and a shudder ran through his whole frame from top to toe. "I have felt this strange feeling before," said he, "I cannot help thinking there's something wrong about that closet." He made a strong effort, plucked up his courage, shivered the lock with a blow or two of the poker, opened the door, and there, sure enough, standing bolt upright in the corner, was the last tenant, with a little bottle clasped firmly in his hand, and his face—well!' As the little old man concluded, he looked round on the attentive faces of his wondering auditory with a smile of grim delight.
'What strange things these are you tell us of, Sir,' said Mr. Pickwick, minutely scanning the old man's countenance, by the aid of his glasses.
'Strange!' said the little old man. 'Nonsense; you think them strange, because you know nothing about it. They are funny, but not uncommon.'
'Funny!' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick involuntarily. 'Yes, funny, are they not?' replied the little old man, with a diabolical leer; and then, without pausing for an answer, he continued—
'I knew another man—let me see—forty years ago now—who took an old, damp, rotten set of chambers, in one of the most ancient inns, that had been shut up and empty for years and years before. There were lots of old women's stories about the place, and it certainly was very far from being a cheerful one; but he was poor, and the rooms were cheap, and that would have been quite a sufficient reason for him, if they had been ten times worse than they really were. He was obliged to take some mouldering fixtures that were on the place, and, among the rest, was a great lumbering wooden press for papers, with large glass doors, and a green curtain inside; a pretty useless thing for him, for he had no papers to put in it; and as to his clothes, he carried them about with him, and that wasn't very hard work, either. Well, he had moved in all his furniture—it wasn't quite a truck–full—and had sprinkled it about the room, so as to make the four chairs look as much like a dozen as possible, and was sitting down before the fire at night, drinking the first glass of two gallons of whisky he had ordered on credit, wondering whether it would ever be paid for, and if so, in how many years' time, when his eyes encountered the glass doors of the wooden press. "Ah," says he, "if I hadn't been obliged to take that ugly article at the old broker's valuation, I might have got something comfortable for the money. I'll tell you what it is, old fellow," he said, speaking aloud to the press, having nothing else to speak to, "if it wouldn't cost more to break up your old carcass, than it would ever be worth afterward, I'd have a fire out of you in less than no time." He had hardly spoken the words, when a sound resembling a faint groan, appeared to issue from the interior of the case. It startled him at first, but thinking, on a moment's reflection, that it must be some young fellow in the next chamber, who had been dining out, he put his feet on the fender, and raised the poker to stir the fire. At that moment, the sound was repeated; and one of the glass doors slowly opening, disclosed a pale and emaciated figure in soiled and worn apparel, standing erect in the press. The figure was tall and thin, and the countenance expressive of care and anxiety; but there was something in the hue of the skin, and gaunt and unearthly appearance of the whole form, which no being of this world was ever seen to wear. "Who are you?" said the new tenant, turning very pale; poising the poker in his hand, however, and taking a very decent aim at the countenance of the figure. "Who are you?" "Don't throw that poker at me," replied the form; "if you hurled it with ever so sure an aim, it would pass through me, without resistance, and expend its force on the wood behind. I am a spirit." "And pray, what do you want here?" faltered the tenant. "In this room," replied the apparition, "my worldly ruin was worked, and I and my children beggared. In this press, the papers in a long, long suit, which accumulated for years, were deposited. In this room, when I had died of grief, and long–deferred hope, two wily harpies divided the wealth for which I had contested during a wretched existence, and of which, at last, not one farthing was left for my unhappy descendants. I terrified them from the spot, and since that day have prowled by night—the only period at which I can revisit the earth—about the scenes of my long–protracted misery. This apartment is mine: leave it to me." "If you insist upon making your appearance here," said the tenant, who had had time to collect his presence of mind during this prosy statement of the ghost's, "I shall give up possession with the greatest pleasure; but I should like to ask you one question, if you will allow me." "Say on," said the apparition sternly. "Well," said the tenant, "I don't apply the observation personally to you, because it is equally applicable to most of the ghosts I ever heard of; but it does appear to me somewhat inconsistent, that when you have an opportunity of visiting the fairest spots of earth—for I suppose space is nothing to you—you should always return exactly to the very places where you have been most miserable." "Egad, that's very true; I never thought of that before," said the ghost. "You see, Sir," pursued the tenant, "this is a very uncomfortable room. From the appearance of that press, I should be disposed to say that it is not wholly free from bugs; and I really think you might find much more comfortable quarters: to say nothing of the climate of London, which is extremely disagreeable." "You are very right, Sir," said the ghost politely, "it never struck me till now; I'll try change of air directly"—and, in fact, he began to vanish as he spoke; his legs, indeed, had quite disappeared. "And if, Sir," said the tenant, calling after him, "if you would have the goodness to suggest to the other ladies and gentlemen who are now engaged in haunting old empty houses, that they might be much more comfortable elsewhere, you will confer a very great benefit on society." "I will," replied the ghost; "we must be dull fellows—very dull fellows, indeed; I can't imagine how we can have been so stupid." With these words, the spirit disappeared; and what is rather remarkable,' added the old man, with a shrewd look round the table, 'he never came back again.'
'That ain't bad, if it's true,' said the man in the Mosaic studs, lighting a fresh cigar.
'If!' exclaimed the old man, with a look of excessive contempt. 'I suppose,' he added, turning to Lowten, 'he'll say next, that my story about the queer client we had, when I was in an attorney's office, is not true either—I shouldn't wonder.'
'I shan't venture to say anything at all about it, seeing that I never heard the story,' observed the owner of the Mosaic decorations.
'I wish you would repeat it, Sir,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Ah, do,' said Lowten, 'nobody has heard it but me, and I have nearly forgotten it.'
The old man looked round the table, and leered more horribly than ever, as if in triumph, at the attention which was depicted in every face. Then rubbing his chin with his hand, and looking up to the ceiling as if to recall the circumstances to his memory, he began as follows:—
The Old Man'S Tale About The Queer Client
'It matters little,' said the old man, 'where, or how, I picked up this brief history. If I were to relate it in the order in which it reached me, I should commence in the middle, and when I had arrived at the conclusion, go back for a beginning. It is enough for me to say that some of its circumstances passed before my own eyes; for the remainder I know them to have happened, and there are some persons yet living, who will remember them but too well.
'In the Borough High Street, near St. George's Church, and on the same side of the way, stands, as most people know, the smallest of our debtors' prisons, the Marshalsea. Although in later times it has been a very different place from the sink of filth and dirt it once was, even its improved condition holds out but little temptation to the extravagant, or consolation to the improvident. The condemned felon has as good a yard for air and exercise in Newgate, as the insolvent debtor in the Marshalsea Prison. [Better. But this is past, in a better age, and the prison exists no longer.]
'It may be my fancy, or it may be that I cannot separate the place from the old recollections associated with it, but this part of London I cannot bear. The street is broad, the shops are spacious, the noise of passing vehicles, the footsteps of a perpetual stream of people—all the busy sounds of traffic, resound in it from morn to midnight; but the streets around are mean and close; poverty and debauchery lie festering in the crowded alleys; want and misfortune are pent up in the narrow prison; an air of gloom and dreariness seems, in my eyes at least, to hang about the scene, and to impart to it a squalid and sickly hue.
'Many eyes, that have long since been closed in the grave, have looked round upon that scene lightly enough, when entering the gate of the old Marshalsea Prison for the first time; for despair seldom comes with the first severe shock of misfortune. A man has confidence in untried friends, he remembers the many offers of service so freely made by his boon companions when he wanted them not; he has hope—the hope of happy inexperience—and however he may bend beneath the first shock, it springs up in his bosom, and flourishes there for a brief space, until it droops beneath the blight of disappointment and neglect. How soon have those same eyes, deeply sunken in the head, glared from faces wasted with famine, and sallow from confinement, in days when it was no figure of speech to say that debtors rotted in prison, with no hope of release, and no prospect of liberty! The atrocity in its full extent no longer exists, but there is enough of it left to give rise to occurrences that make the heart bleed.
'Twenty years ago, that pavement was worn with the footsteps of a mother and child, who, day by day, so surely as the morning came, presented themselves at the prison gate; often after a night of restless misery and anxious thoughts, were they there, a full hour too soon, and then the young mother turning meekly away, would lead the child to the old bridge, and raising him in her arms to show him the glistening water, tinted with the light of the morning's sun, and stirring with all the bustling preparations for business and pleasure that the river presented at that early hour, endeavour to interest his thoughts in the objects before him. But she would quickly set him down, and hiding her face in her shawl, give vent to the tears that blinded her; for no expression of interest or amusement lighted up his thin and sickly face. His recollections were few enough, but they were all of one kind—all connected with the poverty and misery of his parents. Hour after hour had he sat on his mother's knee, and with childish sympathy watched the tears that stole down her face, and then crept quietly away into some dark corner, and sobbed himself to sleep. The hard realities of the world, with many of its worst privations—hunger and thirst, and cold and want—had all come home to him, from the first dawnings of reason; and though the form of childhood was there, its light heart, its merry laugh, and sparkling eyes were wanting. 'The father and mother looked on upon this, and upon each other, with thoughts of agony they dared not breathe in words. The healthy, strong–made man, who could have borne almost any fatigue of active exertion, was wasting beneath the close confinement and unhealthy atmosphere of a crowded prison. The slight and delicate woman was sinking beneath the combined effects of bodily and mental illness. The child's young heart was breaking.
'Winter came, and with it weeks of cold and heavy rain. The poor girl had removed to a wretched apartment close to the spot of her husband's imprisonment; and though the change had been rendered necessary by their increasing poverty, she was happier now, for she was nearer him. For two months, she and her little companion watched the opening of the gate as usual. One day she failed to come, for the first time. Another morning arrived, and she came alone. The child was dead.
'They little know, who coldly talk of the poor man's bereavements, as a happy release from pain to the departed, and a merciful relief from expense to the survivor—they little know, I say, what the agony of those bereavements is. A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away—the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us—is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow. The child had sat at his parents' feet for hours together, with his little hands patiently folded in each other, and his thin wan face raised towards them. They had seen him pine away, from day to day; and though his brief existence had been a joyless one, and he was now removed to that peace and rest which, child as he was, he had never known in this world, they were his parents, and his loss sank deep into their souls.
'It was plain to those who looked upon the mother's altered face, that death must soon close the scene of her adversity and trial. Her husband's fellow–prisoners shrank from obtruding on his grief and misery, and left to himself alone, the small room he had previously occupied in common with two companions. She shared it with him; and lingering on without pain, but without hope, her life ebbed slowly away.
'She had fainted one evening in her husband's arms, and he had borne her to the open window, to revive her with the air, when the light of the moon falling full upon her face, showed him a change upon her features, which made him stagger beneath her weight, like a helpless infant.
'"Set me down, George," she said faintly. He did so, and seating himself beside her, covered his face with his hands, and burst into tears.
'"It is very hard to leave you, George," she said; "but it is God's will, and you must bear it for my sake. Oh! how I thank Him for having taken our boy! He is happy, and in heaven now. What would he have done here, without his mother!"
'"You shall not die, Mary, you shall not die;" said the husband, starting up. He paced hurriedly to and fro, striking his head with his clenched fists; then reseating himself beside her, and supporting her in his arms, added more calmly, "Rouse yourself, my dear girl. Pray, pray do. You will revive yet."
'"Never again, George; never again," said the dying woman. "Let them lay me by my poor boy now, but promise me, that if ever you leave this dreadful place, and should grow rich, you will have us removed to some quiet country churchyard, a long, long way off—very far from here—where we can rest in peace. Dear George, promise me you will."
'"I do, I do," said the man, throwing himself passionately on his knees before her. "Speak to me, Mary, another word; one look—but one!"
'He ceased to speak: for the arm that clasped his neck grew stiff and heavy. A deep sigh escaped from the wasted form before him; the lips moved, and a smile played upon the face; but the lips were pallid, and the smile faded into a rigid and ghastly stare. He was alone in the world.
'That night, in the silence and desolation of his miserable room, the wretched man knelt down by the dead body of his wife, and called on God to witness a terrible oath, that from that hour, he devoted himself to revenge her death and that of his child; that thenceforth to the last moment of his life, his whole energies should be directed to this one object; that his revenge should be protracted and terrible; that his hatred should be undying and inextinguishable; and should hunt its object through the world.
'The deepest despair, and passion scarcely human, had made such fierce ravages on his face and form, in that one night, that his companions in misfortune shrank affrighted from him as he passed by. His eyes were bloodshot and heavy, his face a deadly white, and his body bent as if with age. He had bitten his under lip nearly through in the violence of his mental suffering, and the blood which had flowed from the wound had trickled down his chin, and stained his shirt and neckerchief. No tear, or sound of complaint escaped him; but the unsettled look, and disordered haste with which he paced up and down the yard, denoted the fever which was burning within.
'It was necessary that his wife's body should be removed from the prison, without delay. He received the communication with perfect calmness, and acquiesced in its propriety. Nearly all the inmates of the prison had assembled to witness its removal; they fell back on either side when the widower appeared; he walked hurriedly forward, and stationed himself, alone, in a little railed area close to the lodge gate, from whence the crowd, with an instinctive feeling of delicacy, had retired. The rude coffin was borne slowly forward on men's shoulders. A dead silence pervaded the throng, broken only by the audible lamentations of the women, and the shuffling steps of the bearers on the stone pavement. They reached the spot where the bereaved husband stood: and stopped. He laid his hand upon the coffin, and mechanically adjusting the pall with which it was covered, motioned them onward. The turnkeys in the prison lobby took off their hats as it passed through, and in another moment the heavy gate closed behind it. He looked vacantly upon the crowd, and fell heavily to the ground.
'Although for many weeks after this, he was watched, night and day, in the wildest ravings of fever, neither the consciousness of his loss, nor the recollection of the vow he had made, ever left him for a moment. Scenes changed before his eyes, place succeeded place, and event followed event, in all the hurry of delirium; but they were all connected in some way with the great object of his mind. He was sailing over a boundless expanse of sea, with a blood–red sky above, and the angry waters, lashed into fury beneath, boiling and eddying up, on every side. There was another vessel before them, toiling and labouring in the howling storm; her canvas fluttering in ribbons from the mast, and her deck thronged with figures who were lashed to the sides, over which huge waves every instant burst, sweeping away some devoted creatures into the foaming sea. Onward they bore, amidst the roaring mass of water, with a speed and force which nothing could resist; and striking the stem of the foremost vessel, crushed her beneath their keel. From the huge whirlpool which the sinking wreck occasioned, arose a shriek so loud and shrill—the death–cry of a hundred drowning creatures, blended into one fierce yell—that it rung far above the war–cry of the elements, and echoed, and re–echoed till it seemed to pierce air, sky, and ocean. But what was that—that old gray head that rose above the water's surface, and with looks of agony, and screams for aid, buffeted with the waves! One look, and he had sprung from the vessel's side, and with vigorous strokes was swimming towards it. He reached it; he was close upon it. They were his features. The old man saw him coming, and vainly strove to elude his grasp. But he clasped him tight, and dragged him beneath the water. Down, down with him, fifty fathoms down; his struggles grew fainter and fainter, until they wholly ceased. He was dead; he had killed him, and had kept his oath.
'He was traversing the scorching sands of a mighty desert, barefoot and alone. The sand choked and blinded him; its fine thin grains entered the very pores of his skin, and irritated him almost to madness. Gigantic masses of the same material, carried forward by the wind, and shone through by the burning sun, stalked in the distance like pillars of living fire. The bones of men, who had perished in the dreary waste, lay scattered at his feet; a fearful light fell on everything around; so far as the eye could reach, nothing but objects of dread and horror presented themselves. Vainly striving to utter a cry of terror, with his tongue cleaving to his mouth, he rushed madly forward. Armed with supernatural strength, he waded through the sand, until, exhausted with fatigue and thirst, he fell senseless on the earth. What fragrant coolness revived him; what gushing sound was that? Water! It was indeed a well; and the clear fresh stream was running at his feet. He drank deeply of it, and throwing his aching limbs upon the bank, sank into a delicious trance. The sound of approaching footsteps roused him. An old gray–headed man tottered forward to slake his burning thirst. It was he again! Fe wound his arms round the old man's body, and held him back. He struggled, and shrieked for water—for but one drop of water to save his life! But he held the old man firmly, and watched his agonies with greedy eyes; and when his lifeless head fell forward on his bosom, he rolled the corpse from him with his feet.
'When the fever left him, and consciousness returned, he awoke to find himself rich and free, to hear that the parent who would have let him die in jail—would! who had let those who were far dearer to him than his own existence die of want, and sickness of heart that medicine cannot cure—had been found dead in his bed of down. He had had all the heart to leave his son a beggar, but proud even of his health and strength, had put off the act till it was too late, and now might gnash his teeth in the other world, at the thought of the wealth his remissness had left him. He awoke to this, and he awoke to more. To recollect the purpose for which he lived, and to remember that his enemy was his wife's own father—the man who had cast him into prison, and who, when his daughter and her child sued at his feet for mercy, had spurned them from his door. Oh, how he cursed the weakness that prevented him from being up, and active, in his scheme of vengeance! 'He caused himself to be carried from the scene of his loss and misery, and conveyed to a quiet residence on the sea–coast; not in the hope of recovering his peace of mind or happiness, for both were fled for ever; but to restore his prostrate energies, and meditate on his darling object. And here, some evil spirit cast in his way the opportunity for his first, most horrible revenge.
'It was summer–time; and wrapped in his gloomy thoughts, he would issue from his solitary lodgings early in the evening, and wandering along a narrow path beneath the cliffs, to a wild and lonely spot that had struck his fancy in his ramblings, seat himself on some fallen fragment of the rock, and burying his face in his hands, remain there for hours—sometimes until night had completely closed in, and the long shadows of the frowning cliffs above his head cast a thick, black darkness on every object near him.
'He was seated here, one calm evening, in his old position, now and then raising his head to watch the flight of a sea–gull, or carry his eye along the glorious crimson path, which, commencing in the middle of the ocean, seemed to lead to its very verge where the sun was setting, when the profound stillness of the spot was broken by a loud cry for help; he listened, doubtful of his having heard aright, when the cry was repeated with even greater vehemence than before, and, starting to his feet, he hastened in the direction whence it proceeded.
'The tale told itself at once: some scattered garments lay on the beach; a human head was just visible above the waves at a little distance from the shore; and an old man, wringing his hands in agony, was running to and fro, shrieking for assistance. The invalid, whose strength was now sufficiently restored, threw off his coat, and rushed towards the sea, with the intention of plunging in, and dragging the drowning man ashore.
'"Hasten here, Sir, in God's name; help, help, sir, for the love of Heaven. He is my son, Sir, my only son!" said the old man frantically, as he advanced to meet him. "My only son, Sir, and he is dying before his father's eyes!"
'At the first word the old man uttered, the stranger checked himself in his career, and, folding his arms, stood perfectly motionless.
'"Great God!" exclaimed the old man, recoiling, "Heyling!"
'The stranger smiled, and was silent.
'"Heyling!" said the old man wildly; "my boy, Heyling, my dear boy, look, look!" Gasping for breath, the miserable father pointed to the spot where the young man was struggling for life.
'"Hark!" said the old man. "He cries once more. He is alive yet. Heyling, save him, save him!"
'The stranger smiled again, and remained immovable as a statue. '"I have wronged you," shrieked the old man, falling on his knees, and clasping his hands together. "Be revenged; take my all, my life; cast me into the water at your feet, and, if human nature can repress a struggle, I will die, without stirring hand or foot. Do it, Heyling, do it, but save my boy; he is so young, Heyling, so young to die!"
'"Listen," said the stranger, grasping the old man fiercely by the wrist; "I will have life for life, and here is one. My child died, before his father's eyes, a far more agonising and painful death than that young slanderer of his sister's worth is meeting while I speak. You laughed—laughed in your daughter's face, where death had already set his hand—at our sufferings, then. What think you of them now! See there, see there!"
'As the stranger spoke, he pointed to the sea. A faint cry died away upon its surface; the last powerful struggle of the dying man agitated the rippling waves for a few seconds; and the spot where he had gone down into his early grave, was undistinguishable from the surrounding water.
'Three years had elapsed, when a gentleman alighted from a private carriage at the door of a London attorney, then well known as a man of no great nicety in his professional dealings, and requested a private interview on business of importance. Although evidently not past the prime of life, his face was pale, haggard, and dejected; and it did not require the acute perception of the man of business, to discern at a glance, that disease or suffering had done more to work a change in his appearance, than the mere hand of time could have accomplished in twice the period of his whole life.
'"I wish you to undertake some legal business for me," said the stranger.
'The attorney bowed obsequiously, and glanced at a large packet which the gentleman carried in his hand. His visitor observed the look, and proceeded.
'"It is no common business," said he; "nor have these papers reached my hands without long trouble and great expense."
'The attorney cast a still more anxious look at the packet; and his visitor, untying the string that bound it, disclosed a quantity of promissory notes, with copies of deeds, and other documents.
'"Upon these papers," said the client, "the man whose name they bear, has raised, as you will see, large sums of money, for years past. There was a tacit understanding between him and the men into whose hands they originally went—and from whom I have by degrees purchased the whole, for treble and quadruple their nominal value—that these loans should be from time to time renewed, until a given period had elapsed. Such an understanding is nowhere expressed. He has sustained many losses of late; and these obligations accumulating upon him at once, would crush him to the earth."
'"The whole amount is many thousands of pounds," said the attorney, looking over the papers.
'"It is," said the client.
'"What are we to do?" inquired the man of business.
'"Do!" replied the client, with sudden vehemence. "Put every engine of the law in force, every trick that ingenuity can devise and rascality execute; fair means and foul; the open oppression of the law, aided by all the craft of its most ingenious practitioners. I would have him die a harassing and lingering death. Ruin him, seize and sell his lands and goods, drive him from house and home, and drag him forth a beggar in his old age, to die in a common jail."
'"But the costs, my dear Sir, the costs of all this," reasoned the attorney, when he had recovered from his momentary surprise. "If the defendant be a man of straw, who is to pay the costs, Sir?"
'"Name any sum," said the stranger, his hand trembling so violently with excitement, that he could scarcely hold the pen he seized as he spoke—"any sum, and it is yours. Don't be afraid to name it, man. I shall not think it dear, if you gain my object."
'The attorney named a large sum, at hazard, as the advance he should require to secure himself against the possibility of loss; but more with the view of ascertaining how far his client was really disposed to go, than with any idea that he would comply with the demand. The stranger wrote a cheque upon his banker, for the whole amount, and left him.
'The draft was duly honoured, and the attorney, finding that his strange client might be safely relied upon, commenced his work in earnest. For more than two years afterwards, Mr. Heyling would sit whole days together, in the office, poring over the papers as they accumulated, and reading again and again, his eyes gleaming with joy, the letters of remonstrance, the prayers for a little delay, the representations of the certain ruin in which the opposite party must be involved, which poured in, as suit after suit, and process after process, was commenced. To all applications for a brief indulgence, there was but one reply—the money must be paid. Land, house, furniture, each in its turn, was taken under some one of the numerous executions which were issued; and the old man himself would have been immured in prison had he not escaped the vigilance of the officers, and fled.
'The implacable animosity of Heyling, so far from being satiated by the success of his persecution, increased a hundredfold with the ruin he inflicted. On being informed of the old man's flight, his fury was unbounded. He gnashed his teeth with rage, tore the hair from his head, and assailed with horrid imprecations the men who had been intrusted with the writ. He was only restored to comparative calmness by repeated assurances of the certainty of discovering the fugitive. Agents were sent in quest of him, in all directions; every stratagem that could be invented was resorted to, for the purpose of discovering his place of retreat; but it was all in vain. Half a year had passed over, and he was still undiscovered.
'At length late one night, Heyling, of whom nothing had been seen for many weeks before, appeared at his attorney's private residence, and sent up word that a gentleman wished to see him instantly. Before the attorney, who had recognised his voice from above stairs, could order the servant to admit him, he had rushed up the staircase, and entered the drawing–room pale and breathless. Having closed the door, to prevent being overheard, he sank into a chair, and said, in a low voice—
'"Hush! I have found him at last."
'"No!" said the attorney. "Well done, my dear sir, well done."
'"He lies concealed in a wretched lodging in Camden Town," said Heyling. "Perhaps it is as well we did lose sight of him, for he has been living alone there, in the most abject misery, all the time, and he is poor—very poor."
'"Very good," said the attorney. "You will have the caption made to–morrow, of course?"
'"Yes," replied Heyling. "Stay! No! The next day. You are surprised at my wishing to postpone it," he added, with a ghastly smile; "but I had forgotten. The next day is an anniversary in his life: let it be done then."
'"Very good," said the attorney. "Will you write down instructions for the officer?"
'"No; let him meet me here, at eight in the evening, and I will accompany him myself."
'They met on the appointed night, and, hiring a hackney–coach, directed the driver to stop at that corner of the old Pancras Road, at which stands the parish workhouse. By the time they alighted there, it was quite dark; and, proceeding by the dead wall in front of the Veterinary Hospital, they entered a small by–street, which is, or was at that time, called Little College Street, and which, whatever it may be now, was in those days a desolate place enough, surrounded by little else than fields and ditches.
'Having drawn the travelling–cap he had on half over his face, and muffled himself in his cloak, Heyling stopped before the meanest–looking house in the street, and knocked gently at the door. It was at once opened by a woman, who dropped a curtsey of recognition, and Heyling, whispering the officer to remain below, crept gently upstairs, and, opening the door of the front room, entered at once.
'The object of his search and his unrelenting animosity, now a decrepit old man, was seated at a bare deal table, on which stood a miserable candle. He started on the entrance of the stranger, and rose feebly to his feet.
'"What now, what now?" said the old man. "What fresh misery is this? What do you want here?"
'"A word with you," replied Heyling. As he spoke, he seated himself at the other end of the table, and, throwing off his cloak and cap, disclosed his features.
'The old man seemed instantly deprived of speech. He fell backward in his chair, and, clasping his hands together, gazed on the apparition with a mingled look of abhorrence and fear.
'"This day six years," said Heyling, "I claimed the life you owed me for my child's. Beside the lifeless form of your daughter, old man, I swore to live a life of revenge. I have never swerved from my purpose for a moment's space; but if I had, one thought of her uncomplaining, suffering look, as she drooped away, or of the starving face of our innocent child, would have nerved me to my task. My first act of requital you well remember: this is my last."
'The old man shivered, and his hands dropped powerless by his side.
'"I leave England to–morrow," said Heyling, after a moment's pause. "To–night I consign you to the living death to which you devoted her—a hopeless prison—"
'He raised his eyes to the old man's countenance, and paused. He lifted the light to his face, set it gently down, and left the apartment.
'"You had better see to the old man," he said to the woman, as he opened the door, and motioned the officer to follow him into the street. "I think he is ill." The woman closed the door, ran hastily upstairs, and found him lifeless.
'Beneath a plain gravestone, in one of the most peaceful and secluded churchyards in Kent, where wild flowers mingle with the grass, and the soft landscape around forms the fairest spot in the garden of England, lie the bones of the young mother and her gentle child. But the ashes of the father do not mingle with theirs; nor, from that night forward, did the attorney ever gain the remotest clue to the subsequent history of his queer client.' As the old man concluded his tale, he advanced to a peg in one corner, and taking down his hat and coat, put them on with great deliberation; and, without saying another word, walked slowly away. As the gentleman with the Mosaic studs had fallen asleep, and the major part of the company were deeply occupied in the humorous process of dropping melted tallow–grease into his brandy–and–water, Mr. Pickwick departed unnoticed, and having settled his own score, and that of Mr. Weller, issued forth, in company with that gentleman, from beneath the portal of the Magpie and Stump.
21. In which the old man launches forth into his favourite theme, and relates a story about a queer client
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You are here: Home News & media Archive New Kanthal® service offering allows for proving before committing to large cap investments
New Kanthal® service offering allows for proving before committing to large cap investments
Dilip Chandrasekaran, head of Research at Kanthal, examines test equipment.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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\section{Main Quasar Sample and Spectral Decomposition}\label{sec:sample}

The main quasar sample of this study is drawn from the SDSS DR7 quasar catalog (6), which contains more than 20,000 quasars at $z<0.9$ for which the H{$\beta$}-[O\,{\sc iii}]\ region is covered in the SDSS spectra. We use the improved redshift estimates (28) for these SDSS quasars. Our SDSS quasar sample probes a redshift range $0.1\le z\le 0.9$ and a luminosity range of $L_{\rm 5100}\approx 10^{44-45.5}\ {\rm erg\,s^{-1}}$, where we adopt a flat $\Lambda$CDM cosmology with $\Omega_0=0.3$ and $H_0=70\,{\rm km\,s^{-1}Mpc^{-1}}$ throughout.

We measure the continuum and emission-line properties for Fe\,{\sc ii}, H{$\beta$}\ and [O\,{\sc iii}]\ using functional fits to the spectra. The details of the spectral fits are described in early work (7, 29). In short, several continuum windows around the spectral region of H{$\beta$}-[O\,{\sc iii}]\ is fit by a power-law continuum plus a Fe\,{\sc ii}\ template (1) to form a pseudo-continuum; this pseudo-continuum is subtracted from the spectrum, leaving an emission-line-only spectrum. A set of Gaussians is then fit to the broad and narrow emission lines. The narrow-line component of H{$\beta$}\ is modelled using constraints from the narrow [O\,{\sc iii}]\ lines; we fix the offset and line width of narrow H{$\beta$}\ to those of the narrow [O{\sevenrm\,III}]\,$\lambda\lambda$4959, 5007\ doublet. In cases where the [O\,{\sc iii}]\ doublet shows a prominent blueshifted wing, we fit [O{\sevenrm\,III}]\,$\lambda$4959\ and [O{\sevenrm\,III}]\,$\lambda$5007\ with double Gaussians, one for the core component and the other for the wing component. Narrow H{$\beta$}\ is then tied to the core [O\,{\sc iii}]\ component. The broad H{$\beta$}\ component is fit with three Gaussians. In addition, we fit two Gaussians to account for the narrow and broad He{\sevenrm II}\, $\lambda$4686. We determine the line FWHM and rest-frame equivalent width (EW) for broad H{$\beta$}\ and [O{\sevenrm\,III}]\,$\lambda$5007, as well as the rest-frame EW of the optical Fe\,{\sc ii}\ emission within 4434-4684\ \AA. As common practice, we use the ratio, $R_{\textrm{Fe\,{\sc ii}}}={\rm EW_{FeII}/EW_{H\beta}}$, to indicate the strength of the optical Fe\,{\sc ii}\ emission. For other emission lines, the term ``strength'' refers to the rest-frame EW (or line luminosity normalized by the continuum luminosity), unless otherwise specified.

The spectral decomposition generates the emission-line-only spectra (i.e., with the pseudo-continuum removed) and the narrow-line-only spectra (i.e., with both the pseudo-continuum and the broad H{$\beta$}\ component removed), with which we create stacked spectra binned in quasar properties.

\section{Summary of Quasar Properties Along Eigenvector 1 (EV1)}\label{sec:eve}

Here we summarize all the quasar properties that correlate with the EV1, using our large SDSS quasar sample, combined with other multi-wavelength datasets and additional quasar samples. This exercise updates the known EV1 correlations with improved samples and adds new quantities to the EV1 sequence. \\

\noindent \textbf{[O\,{\sc iii}]\ as an EV1 correlator}

The strong anti-correlation between the [O\,{\sc iii}]\ strength and the optical Fe\,{\sc ii}\ strength in the original EV1 correlation is shown in Figure\ 1. The dots are individual objects, color-coded by the average strength of the [O{\sevenrm\,III}]\,$\lambda$5007\ line (i.e., EW$_{\rm [OIII]}$); for each object, we compute an average EW$_{\rm [OIII]}$ by taking the median value of all the points within a smoothing box of $\Delta R_{\textrm{\FeII}}=0.2$ and $\Delta {\rm FWHM_{H\beta}}=1000\ {\rm km\,s^{-1}}$ centered on that object. We plot the object only if there are more than 50 objects in the smoothing box. This is similar to measuring the average value from the composite spectrum of all the objects in that bin. This way we can better visualize the smooth trend in the average properties. Given the large number of objects in each smoothing box, the statistical uncertainty in the average value is negligible, with a median error of $\sim 0.016$ dex and $99.6\%$ of the time below $0.06$ dex.

The dominant trend in the colormap of Figure\ 1 is the decrease of the [O\,{\sc iii}]\ strength when $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ increases, well known as the EV1 correlation (1). However, there is little vertical trend in the [O\,{\sc iii}]\ strength when FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ changes. We have broken down the distribution in individual luminosity bins, and found similar results; quasars with different luminosities occupy similar space in this plane, and follow the same trend with $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ in terms of [O\,{\sc iii}]\ strength (although the average [O\,{\sc iii}]\ strength depends on luminosity, as described below).

To investigate the behavior of the [O\,{\sc iii}]\ line in the $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$-FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ plane, we generate composite spectra in bins of $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ and FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$, and as a function of $L_{5100}$. The $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$-FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ bins are shown in the gray grid in Figure\ 1. In each bin, we divide the objects into 6 different luminosity bins, and generate the median composite spectra using the individual narrow-line-only (i.e., pseudo-continuum and broad H{$\beta$}\ removed) spectra following our spectral decomposition. In detail, we take each narrow-line-only flux density spectrum, shift it to rest-frame, rebin onto a common wavelength grid (with a 1\,\AA\ dispersion) and then convert to a luminosity density spectrum using the luminosity distance of the quasar. The composite spectrum is generated by taking the median luminosity density at each wavelength pixel for all quasars in that $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$-FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$-luminosity bin. An error spectrum is generated by dividing the 68\% semi-interquantile range of the luminosity densities by the square root of the number of objects contributing to each pixel. A composite spectrum is shown only if there are more than 60 objects in the stack for that bin. Typically there are more than 100 objects in each bin, and the statistical uncertainty (i.e., the error spectrum) of the resulting composite spectrum is by all means negligible compared to the observed trends (for example, median S/N$>5$ or much higher per 1\AA\ pixel within $\pm 1000\,{\rm km\,s^{-1}}$ of [O\,{\sc iii}]), and hence is suppressed in Fig.\ 2 and Extended Data Fig.\ E3 for clarity. Finally we scale each line luminosity density by the median continuum luminosity $L_{5100}$ of each $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$-FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$-luminosity bin, such that the relative flux between different composites reflects the [O\,{\sc iii}]\ strength. In the last step we also corrected the average host contamination at 5100\,\AA, using the empirical relation derived using the same SDSS quasar sample (7), which only affects the lowest-luminosity bins with $\log (L_{\rm 5100,total}/{\rm erg\,s^{-1}})< 45.053$:
\begin{equation}
L_{\rm 5100,host}/ L_{\rm 5100,AGN} = 0.8052 - 1.5502x + 0.9121x^2 - 0.1577x^3
\end{equation}
where $x + 44 \equiv \log(L_{\rm 5100,total} /{\rm erg\,s^{-1}} ) < 45.053$.

Figure\ 2 shows that [O\,{\sc iii}]\ is weaker in larger $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ bins but similar in different FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ bins when $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ is fixed, as indicated in Figure\ 1. In addition, [O\,{\sc iii}]\ is weaker for higher quasar luminosities, known as the [O\,{\sc iii}]\ Baldwin effect (8-10). However, as already mentioned above, at fixed luminosity, the trend of [O\,{\sc iii}]\ strength with $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ still holds from the left to the right columns in Figure\ 2. This means that the change (i.e., the EV1 anti-correlation between Fe\,{\sc ii}\ and [O\,{\sc iii}]\ strength) is either due to a systematic change in BH mass (hence Eddington ratio), or, less likely, changes in the narrow-line region properties as $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ increases.

Another notable feature in Figure\ 2 is that the [O\,{\sc iii}]\ line profile can be decomposed into a core component, centered nearly at the systemic velocity, and a wing component, blueshifted from the systemic velocity by a few hundred ${\rm km\,s^{-1}}$, similar to those seen in individual objects. For the individual composite spectra shown in Figure\ 2, we fit the two components with double Gaussians for the [O{\sevenrm\,III}]\,$\lambda\lambda$4959, 5007\ doublet and obtain the total flux, FWHM, and velocity shift of each component. We show the resulting [O{\sevenrm\,III}]\,$\lambda$5007\ luminosity, normalized by $L_{5100}$, as a function of $L_{5100}$ in Extended Data Figure E1, for both the core and the wing components. Here again $L_{5100}$ is corrected for host contamination following the above empirical recipe, and different colors show different $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ bins. The measurement uncertainties of [O\,{\sc iii}]\ properties are estimated using Monte Carlo trials of mock spectra, generated using the estimated error arrays in the coadded spectra. These measurement uncertainties are generally negligible compared to the observed trends. The weakening in the total [O\,{\sc iii}]\ emission as luminosity increases is primarily due to the weakening of the core component -- the wing component remains more or less constant. On the other hand, when $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ increases, both [O\,{\sc iii}]\ components are weakened, with the wing component again weakening at a slower pace.

{Extended Data Figure\ E2} shows the detailed kinematic properties of [O\,{\sc iii}].  The most significant trends are the slight correlation with luminosity of the FWHM of the core component and the velocity offset from systemic velocity of the wing component.  In addition, there is a slight correlation between the velocity offset of the wing component and Fe\,{\sc ii}\ strength.

The qualitative and quantitative differences between the core and wing [O\,{\sc iii}]\ components suggest that the two may have different origins. While the core component may be dominantly excited by photoionization, the blueshifted wing component may be more related to shocks associated with outflows (11). As luminosity or Eddington ratio increases, the underlying spectral energy distribution (SED) from the accreting BH changes shape (30,31), which leads to changes in the core [O\,{\sc iii}]\ strength (see more discussions in \S\ref{sec:main}). Of course, these are simply speculations and detailed follow-up studies are needed to test various possibilities.

A point worth noting here is that the peak of the core [O\,{\sc iii}]\ component is generally consistent with the systemic velocity (28) to within $\sim 50\,{\rm km\,s^{-1}}$, and is also consistent with the peak from low-ionization narrow lines such as [O\,{\sc ii}]\ (see Extended Data Fig.\ E3). However, a single Gaussian fit to the overall [O\,{\sc iii}]\ profile may yield a blueshift relative to systemic, due to the contamination from the wing component. \\

\noindent \textbf{Other Emission Lines}

We find that all the high-ionization (e.g., with an ionization potential equal to or higher than that of [O\,{\sc iii}], $\sim 35$ eV) lines covered in the SDSS spectrum have similar behaviors as [O\,{\sc iii}]\ in terms of the change of line strength as $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ and luminosity change. Low-ionization lines (such as Mg\,{\sc ii}, [O\,{\sc ii}], [S{\sevenrm\,II}]), on the other hand, have similar but slightly weaker trends as $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ or luminosity changes. We show in {Extended Data Figure\ E3} several examples of H{$\beta$}, Mg\,{\sc ii}, [O\,{\sc ii}]\ and [Ne\,{\sc v}], in the same bins defined in the $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}-$FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ plane. As a high-ionization line, [Ne\,{\sc v}]\ also shows a blueshifted wing component similar to [O\,{\sc iii}]. Therefore, the original EV1 relation between [O\,{\sc iii}]\ and optical Fe\,{\sc ii}\ strengths applies to all high-ionization lines.

There are two additional results from {Extended Data Figure\ E3}: (a) the UV Fe\,{\sc ii}\ strength near the Mg\,{\sc ii}\ line does not correlate with the optical Fe\,{\sc ii}\ strength; (b) the broad Mg\,{\sc ii}\ FWHM is correlated with FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$, as confirmed in individual quasars (29, 32).

We augment these optical measurements with C{\sevenrm IV}\ properties, using an additional sample of $\sim 130$ low-redshift quasars with both optical spectra covering H{$\beta$}\ (24) and UV spectra covering C{\sevenrm IV}\ from various data archives of space-based satellites (FUSE, HST, IUE). We measure the properties of C{\sevenrm IV}, H{$\beta$}\ and Fe\,{\sc ii}\ in the same way as described above. {Extended Data Figure\ E4} shows the distribution of this additional sample in the EV1 plane, color-coded by the C{\sevenrm IV}\ EW. A clear trend of decreasing C{\sevenrm IV}\ strength with $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ is observed, similar to other high-ionization lines. This trend is real, since the typical measurement uncertainty in C{\sevenrm IV}\ EW is only $\sim 7\%$ (relative). Although we do not have enough statistics to divide this low-redshift sample by luminosity, C{\sevenrm IV}\ strength is well known to decrease with luminosity based on studies of high-redshift quasars, discovered as the original Baldwin effect (10). These trends also seem to correlate with the kinematic properties of C{\sevenrm IV}\ such as the blueshift and line asymmetry (2, 33). However, we note that the geometry of the C{\sevenrm IV}\ broad-line region (BLR) may be different from that for the H{$\beta$}\ BLR --- the main focus of this work --- as inferred from the different properties of these broad lines (22, 32, 34, 35). \\

\noindent \textbf{Mid-Infrared Properties}

{Extended Data Figure\ E5} examines trends with optical-infrared color.  We have matched our SDSS quasar sample to the WISE all-sky survey source catalog (12). More than 80\% of our quasars have a WISE counterpart detected within 0.5'' of the optical position, the typical astrometric precision for sources brighter than 16 mag in the WISE $W1$ band ($3.4\,\mu{\rm m}$). In the following we only use the $W1$ band, but we emphasize that similar results are found for the other WISE bands at longer wavelengths as well. The top panel shows the distribution of quasars in the EV1 plane, colored-coded by the $r-W1$ color, where the optical SDSS $r$-band magnitudes have been corrected for Galactic extinction. To limit the effect of band shifting due to redshift, we restrict our sample to $0.4<z<0.8$. To first order, there is a trend of redder optical-WISE color toward higher $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$, indicating higher relative flux in the mid-infrared than in the optical when $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ increases. The mid-infrared emission in WISE bands mostly comes from hot dust (here we use ``hot dust'' to refer to quasar-heated torus dust, as opposed to the hottest dust at the inner edge of the torus) in the torus region, while the optical continuum comes from the accretion disk (AD). Therefore this trend suggests more efficient torus emission in high-$R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ objects, where the Eddington ratio is higher as argued in this work. Of course, the actual structure and emission of the torus may be substantially more complicated, which may explain the clumpy features in Extended Data Fig.\ E5 for the optical-IR colors. Our analysis is not intended to fit realistic torus models, but simply to show that, to first order, there is a clear enhancement of torus emission along the EV1 sequence.

We can also study the distribution of the excess $r-W1$ color, $\Delta(r-W1)$, the deviation from the median color at each redshift. This color excess removes the effect of band shifting with redshift and can be used to indicate the relative strength of torus to AD emission. Such a colormap is shown in the right panel of {Extended Data Figure\ E5}, using all SDSS quasars with the relevant measurements. A similar global trend is observed along the EV1 sequence, with higher $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ quasars having more torus emission relative to the disk emission.

It might be tempting to connect the anti-correlation between the [O\,{\sc iii}]\ strength and $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ to the correlation between the torus emission and $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$. If the increasing (relative) infrared emission along EV1 is caused by an increasing torus covering factor, the resulting solid angle of the [O\,{\sc iii}]\ ionization cone will decrease along EV1, which will lead to a decreasing [O\,{\sc iii}]\ strength. However, the relative torus emission only increases by $\sim 40\%$ from $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}=0$ to $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}=2$, while the average [O\,{\sc iii}]\ strength decreases by at least a factor of 5 over the same $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ range (Figure\ 1). Therefore, a pure geometric effect (enhanced torus covering factor along EV1) cannot explain the observed EV1 correlation in terms of the [O\,{\sc iii}]\ strength --- the change in the underlying quasar SED along EV1 is a more plausible explanation (see \S\ref{sec:main}).

In a similar spirit to our investigations on the emission lines, we study the average optical-infrared color in bins of FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ and $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$, and as a function of luminosity. {Extended Data Figure\ E6} shows the results, in terms of the average color excess $\Delta(r-W1)$ in each bin. We see increased relative torus emission when $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ increases, as in {Extended Data Figure\ E5}. In fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ bins, we see increasing relative torus emission when FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ increases. This effect is subtle, only $\sim 20-30\%$ in the relative sense, which may explain why this was not detected in small samples with substantial object-by-object variations (36). While alternative explanations may exist, this is consistent with the orientation scenario, wherein larger FWHMs indicate more edge-on systems, where the optical luminosity is reduced by a $\cos I$ factor (where $I$ is the inclination angle with $I=90^\circ$ corresponding to edge-on), and/or suffer more from dust extinction than the infrared luminosity. To test the latter possibility, we have checked the optical $g-i$ colors in the same bins as in Extended Data Fig.\ E6, but did not find strong evidence that more edge-on systems suffer more extinction in the optical (after accounting for the apparent reddening in the optical due to host contamination in low-luminosity bins). We therefore conclude, under the orientation scenario, that the geometrical reduction in the optical luminosity from an inclined AD is the main reason for the increasing relative torus emission when FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ increases (see more discussion in \S\ref{sec:main}). Finally, there is a mild trend of decreasing relative torus emission when luminosity increases (especially at the highest luminosities), in accord with earlier studies (37).

The finding of an EV1 sequence in terms of mid-infrared emission is new, and motivates more realistic torus models to constrain quantitatively the structure of the torus along the quasar EV1 sequence. \\

\noindent \textbf{X-ray Properties}

Finally, it is known that the soft X-ray photon index $\Gamma_{\rm X}$ ($f_E\propto E^{-\Gamma_{\rm X}}$) increases along the EV1 sequence (3, 5). We matched our SDSS quasars with the Chandra Source Catalog (CSC, 38) and the XMM-Newton Serendipitous Catalog (39) with a matching radius of 1'', and found $\sim 120$ matches. We show the distribution of these matched quasars in the EV1 plane in {Extended Data Figure\ E7}, color-coded by $\Gamma_{\rm X}$, which for Chandra sources were taken directly from the CSC master table (which are consistent with those measured in [40]) and for XMM-Newton sources were taken from [41]. The measurement uncertainties in $\Gamma_{\rm X}$ are typically $\sim 10\%$ (relative uncertainty; 1$\sigma$) for the Chandra sources, and $\sim 20\%$ for the XMM sources. We find that $\Gamma_{\rm X}$ increases systematically with $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$,  consistent with early results (3, 5) and with the known tendency for $\Gamma_{\rm X}$ to steepen with increasing Eddington ratio (5, 42). \

\section{Orientation-Induced Dispersion in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$}\label{sec:orient}

It is known from observations of radio-loud quasars that FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ can be affected by orientation (21, 22), such that high-inclination (more edge-on) systems have, on average, larger FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$.  The H{$\beta$}-emitting portion of the BLR presumably has a flattened geometry aligned with the AD, whose inclination can be estimated from the radio morphology of the jet. Although most ($\sim 90\%$) quasars are radio-quiet, it is generally expected that orientation should play some role in determining the measured line-of-sight line widths of the general quasar population.

Motivated by the lack of variation of [O\,{\sc iii}]\ properties on FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$, as well as observations of radio-loud quasars, we have suggested that most of the dispersion in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ seen at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ is actually due to the orientation effect of a flattened BLR geometry. We now examine this possibility in detail. \\

\noindent\textbf{Dispersion in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$}

We show in {Extended Data Figure\ E8} the dispersion of the logarithmic FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ as a function of $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ and in different luminosity bins. The dispersion in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ is roughly $0.15-0.25$ dex at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$. There is a slight trend of increasing dispersion in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ when luminosity decreases, possibly caused by the possibility that the Eddington ratio distribution (hence BH mass distribution) at fixed luminosity is broader at faint quasar luminosities. This additional dispersion in BH mass is translated into FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$, and broadens the total dispersion in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed luminosity. This additional broadening is nevertheless small, $\sim 0.1$ dex in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ comparing the distributions at the lowest and highest luminosity bins. This is in line with the idea that most of the dispersion in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ is due to orientation.

The average FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ decreases with $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$, which could be due to real changes in the virial velocity of the BLR gas, in which case the average FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ can be used to estimate the BH mass along the $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ sequence.  On the other hand, the dispersion in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ is due largely to an orientation effect as argued in this work, implying a flattened geometry for the BLR. In the latter case, the variation in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ does not reflect changes in the BH mass. \\

\noindent\textbf{Dependence on Radio Morphology}

As mentioned earlier, a small subset ($\sim 10\%$) of quasars are radio-loud, and the radio jet morphology can be used to estimate the orientation of the AD. Studies of resolved radio morphology of small (of order $50$) samples of low-redshift radio quasars have shown an anti-correlation between the radio core dominance and FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ (21, 22). Here we perform a similar test using our SDSS quasar sample. A small fraction of quasars in our sample are detected in the FIRST radio survey (43). For simplicity we define the FIRST-detected quasars as the ``radio-loud'' sample and the undetected quasars as the ``radio-quiet'' sample, which is different from the traditional definition of radio-loudness. As FIRST is a shallow radio survey, $\sim 90\%$ of the FIRST-detected quasars satisfy the traditional definition of being radio-loud (7). We can determine a rough radio morphology based on the number of FIRST sources detected around the quasar (44): for quasars that have only one FIRST source within 30'' we match them again to the FIRST catalog with a matching radius 5'' and classify the matched ones as core-dominant radio quasars. Those that have multiple FIRST source matches within 30'' are classified as lobe-dominated. There are $\sim 1600$ core-dominant and $\sim 400$ lobe-dominated quasars in our sample for which we also have Fe\,{\sc ii}\ and H{$\beta$}\ measurements. Although this morphological classification of the radio-detected quasars is by no means perfect and introduces significant mixture of true radio morphologies between the two subsets, on average we expect the core-dominant objects are more pole-on than the lobe-dominant objects. There is no significant difference in the mean quasar luminosity between the two radio subsets.

{Extended Data Figure\ E9} shows the contours in the $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ and FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ plane for both the radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars in our SDSS sample. We also show the median FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$, for both core-dominant and lobe-dominant quasars, in this EV1 plane. At fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$, core-dominant objects have systematically lower FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ than lobe-dominant objects, consistent with the orientation hypothesis. In addition, the radio-detected population shifts to lower $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ and larger FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ compared with the radio-quiet population. This is a well known result (2, 16, 33), consistent with the notion that radio-loud quasars preferentially reside in more massive and lower Eddington ratio systems (16, 45). \\

\noindent\textbf{Tests with Independent BH Mass Estimates}

The orientation scenario posits that most of the dispersion in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ does not reflect the changes in the virial velocity of the BLR. Therefore the traditional virial BH mass estimates based on FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ will lead to a FWHM-dependent bias. Below we test this idea using additional quasar samples for which the BH masses can be estimated using independent methods.

The first sample are the 29 local AGNs with reverberation mapping (RM) data, for which stellar velocity dispersion measurements are available (23, 46-52). We have measured the H{$\beta$}\ and Fe\,{\sc ii}\ properties using single-epoch spectra (24) for these objects, with the same fitting procedure as for the SDSS quasars. We estimate the BH masses using the observed relation between stellar velocity dispersion and the BH mass for local inactive galaxies (25). The virial coefficient, which determines the relation between FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ and the underlying virial velocity, can be defined as:
\begin{equation}
f=\frac{GM_{\rm BH,\sigma_*}}{R_{\rm BLR}{\rm FWHM^2_{\textrm{H{$\beta$}}}}}\ ,
\end{equation}
where $M_{\rm BH,\sigma_*}$ is the BH mass estimated from the $M_{\rm BH}-\sigma_*$ relation (25), and $R_{\rm BLR}$ is the BLR size measured from RM for these objects (15, 46, 53-55). We neglect the time variability between the single-epoch spectroscopy and the RM measurements of the BLR size. If FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ traces the virial velocity well, then at fixed BH mass there should be little trend of $f$ with FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$. The dominant uncertainty in the estimation of $f$ comes from the intrinsic scatter in the $M_{\rm BH}-\sigma_*$ relation (25) rather than measurement errors (i.e., $\sigma_{\log f}\sim 0.3$ dex). This systematic uncertainty in $f$ is substantial, which may be responsible for most of the vertical scatter in Figure\ 4, but cannot drive a correlation with FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$.

Figure\ 4 shows the results, where we divide the $\sigma_*$-based BH masses into three bins. There is a clear segregation among objects with different BH masses: more massive BHs tend to have larger FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ on average, indicating that FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ does play some role in determining the BH mass. This statement is also supported by the fact that when FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ is used in the single-epoch virial mass estimates, the correlation between these virial masses with $\sigma_*$-based BH masses is closer to a linear relation than that without using FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ (i.e., assuming a constant FWHM for all objects). However, in each mass bin, there is an apparent trend of the virial coefficient with FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$, suggesting that most of the variance in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed BH mass is uncorrelated with the virial velocity (hence the BH mass). Naturally, orientation-induced variations in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ explain the observed trend of $f$ with FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at given BH mass. The dispersion in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed true BH mass (based on $\sigma_*$) is about 0.2 dex, introducing a factor of $\sim 2.5$ scatter in the virial BH mass estimates based on FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ (from single-epoch spectroscopy) at fixed true BH mass.

To improve the small-number statistics based on the RM sample, we use the stellar velocity dispersion measurements for a sample of $\sim 600$ low-redshift SDSS AGNs obtained from spectral decompositions of the AGN spectrum and the host spectrum (26). These SDSS AGNs typically have lower luminosity than our SDSS quasar sample in this study, such that the host galaxy spectrum can be decomposed from the AGN spectrum. We estimate the BLR sizes for this sample using the observed tight $R_{\rm BLR}-L$ relation based on RM (27), and the BH masses using the same $M_{\rm BH}-\sigma_*$ relation. The results are shown as colored dots in Figure\ 4. Although there are different systematics with the two samples, it is reassuring that both produce similar trends. \\

\noindent\textbf{Dependence on Broad Line Shape}

If the H{$\beta$}-emitting portion of the BLR has a flattened, disklike geometry, as we suggest, then FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ is sensitive to orientation, as it measures the core of the line profile. The BLR gas motion should also include a turbulent component, whose velocity distribution is more isotropic. The second moment of the line (i.e., line dispersion, $\sigma$) is more sensitive to this isotropic component than FWHM, as its measurement includes the extended wings of the line profile. Therefore, the shape of the broad line as measured by the ratio FWHM/$\sigma$ should be an indicator of the orientation of the disk component of the BLR (56, 57).

{Extended Data Figure\ E10} shows the EV1 plane in which the objects are color-coded by FWHM$/\sigma$. We measure $\sigma$ of broad H{$\beta$}\ from our multiple-Gaussian model fits. This approach allows us to measure $\sigma$ without the need to truncate the spectrum at some wavelength in order to avoid noisy wings. A pattern of FWHM$/\sigma$ is apparent, such that at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ FWHM$/\sigma$ increases toward larger FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$. This is expected in our orientation scenario: at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$, FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ increases when the BLR disk is viewed more edge-on, but $\sigma$ is less affected by orientation, leading to a larger FWHM$/\sigma$ ratio when the inclination increases. It is remarkable that the color transition in {Extended Data Figure\ E10} is not purely vertical, but more or less parallel to the average FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at each $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$. This reinforces the idea that orientation governs the distribution of FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$, and the average FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ corresponds to the average inclination angle of the BLR disk.

\section{Details on the Clustering Analysis}\label{sec:clustering}

Our investigation so far strongly supports the idea that the vertical dispersion (in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$) in the EV1 sequence is largely an orientation effect. A corollary is that samples divided using the FWHM-based virial BH masses will have large overlap in their true masses. On the other hand, the optical Fe\,{\sc ii}\ strength $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ is most likely correlated with the Eddington ratio, and hence for our main SDSS sample the average BH mass should decrease from left to right in the EV1 plane. Most of the quasars in our main SDSS sample are too luminous to decompose the spectrum to estimate the host galaxy stellar velocity dispersion to yield a BH mass estimate independently without using FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$.

To circumvent this problem, we turn to quasar clustering to infer the sample-averaged BH mass. More massive BHs are associated with more massive galaxies, which are in turn more strongly clustered (18). This exercise has been challenging previously, because detecting a clustering difference between low-mass and high-mass quasars requires good sample statistics, and the largest quasar samples to date still do not have enough statistics to measure a potential clustering difference among different quasar subsamples using auto-correlation functions (58).

The recent large spectroscopic surveys of SDSS-III (59) provide the largest spectroscopic sample of massive galaxies (19) at $0.3<z<0.9$, making it possible to cross-correlate quasars with galaxies (20) in the same redshift range for which we have the relevant quasar EV1 spectral measurements. The usage of a much larger galaxy sample to cross-correlate with the quasar sample can greatly improve quasar clustering measurements by reducing shot noise from low pair counts in quasar auto-correlation function measurements. The clustering difference we look for is subtle and requires superior measurement quality. Cross-correlation boosts the signal-to-noise ratio in the clustering measurements by a factor of $\sim\sqrt{N_{G}/N_{Q}}$ over the auto-correlation of quasars, where $N_G$ and $N_Q$ are the number of galaxies and quasars in our cross-correlation samples, respectively. The cross-correlation function (CCF) is determined by the auto-correlation functions of both sets of tracers; for the same galaxy sample, a stronger cross-correlation signal with a quasar subset will indicate a stronger intrinsic clustering of this quasar subset.
Our cross-correlation analysis represents the best measurement of quasar clustering in this redshift range, where our current SDSS quasar sample lies. We follow the same approach as Shen et al.\ (20) to measure the CCF between different quasar subsets and the galaxy sample, to see if a difference can be detected. The details regarding the galaxy sample, the cross-correlation technique and error estimation can be found in that paper. Here we only give a brief overview of the technical details regarding the clustering (cross-correlation) measurements.

We select the SDSS DR7 quasars (6) and the SDSS-III DR10 CMASS galaxies (19) that are in the same overlapping area ($\sim 4100\,{\rm deg}^2$). We remove a relatively small number of quasars that were not targeted by the final quasar target selection algorithm (60) in SDSS DR7 to construct a flux-limited ($i<19.1$) quasar sample. Both the CMASS galaxy and the quasar samples are restricted to $0.3<z<0.9$, where most of the CMASS galaxies lie. Most quasars in our clustering sample then have the proper spectral measurements in the H{$\beta$}-[O\,{\sc iii}]\ region. Our final clustering samples include $\sim 350,000$ galaxies and $\sim 7,800$ quasars. Random catalogs were generated using the same angular geometry and redshift distributions of the CMASS galaxy sample used.

Following the general practice of clustering measurements, we estimate the 1D and 2D redshift space correlation functions $\xi_s(s)$ and
$\xi_s(r_p,\pi)$ using the Davis \& Peebles estimator (61):
$QG/QR -1$, where $QG$ and $QR$ are the normalized numbers of quasar-galaxy
and quasar-random pairs in each scale bin, $s$ is the pair separation in
redshift space, and $r_p$ ($\pi$) is the transverse (radial) separation in
redshift space.  To reduce the effects of redshift distortions, we use the projected correlation function
 (61)
\begin{equation}\label{eqn:DP}
  w_p(r_p) = 2\int_0^\infty d\pi\ \xi_s(r_p,\pi)\ .
\end{equation}
In practice we integrate $\xi_s(r_p,\pi)$ to $\pi_{\rm max}=70\,h^{-1}$Mpc,
and this cutoff is taken into account when fitting a model correlation function to the data.

To estimate errors in the projected correlation function $w_p(r_p)$, we use jackknife resampling by dividing the clustering samples into
$N_{\rm jack}$ spatially contiguous and roughly rectangular regions with equal area, and creating
$N_{\rm jack}$ jackknife samples by excluding each of these regions in turn. We measure the
correlation function for each of these jackknife samples, and the covariance
error matrix is estimated as:
\begin{equation}
{\rm Cov}(i,j)=\frac{N_{\rm jack}-1}{N_{\rm jack}}\sum_{l=1}^{N_{\rm jack}}(\xi_i^l-\bar{\xi}_i)(\xi_j^l-\bar{\xi}_j)\ ,
\end{equation}
where indices $i$ and $j$ run over all bins in the correlation function, and
$\bar{\xi}$ is the mean value of the statistic $\xi$ over the jackknife
samples. The full covariance matrices will be used in our model fitting to the data.

We consider two divisions of our main quasar sample, aiming at separating high-mass quasars from low-mass ones. The first division is based on the FWHM-based virial BH masses (7, 17); we divide the quasar sample by the median virial BH mass. The second division is based on $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$, whereby we divide the sample by the median $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ value. We then measure the CCF between the two subsamples and the galaxy sample, and compare the measurements for both divisions. In both cases the redshift evolution of clustering is negligible given the narrow redshift range of our samples and the similar redshift distributions among different quasar subsamples.

The resulting CCFs are shown in Figure\ 3 for the two sample divisions. To compare the clustering strength among different samples, we fit simple power-law models, $\xi(r)=(r/r_0)^{-\gamma}$, to the CCFs. We fit to the range $r_p=0.2-50\ h^{-1}$ Mpc and use the full covariance matrix in the $\chi^2$ fit (20). We fix $\gamma=1.7$, the best-fit slope for the whole sample, and use the best-fit correlation length $r_0$ to indicate the clustering strength. For the division based on virial BH masses, we do not detect a significant difference ($1.64\sigma$) in the clustering strength, with $r_0=6.31\pm0.25\ h^{-1}$ Mpc and $6.95\pm0.30\ h^{-1}$ Mpc for the two quasar subsamples. This is expected: as we argued before, orientation leads to a large dispersion in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ (and hence virial BH masses) and dilutes the intrinsic difference in BH masses between the two subsamples. On the other hand, we detect a significant ($3.48\sigma$) difference in the clustering strength when the quasar sample is divided by $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$, with $r_0=5.80\pm0.29\ h^{-1}$ Mpc and $7.11\pm0.24\ h^{-1}$ Mpc for the two quasar subsamples. This result strengthens our earlier point that the sequence from left to right in the EV1 plane is increasing in Eddington ratio, and hence on average decreasing in BH mass for our main quasar sample. This is by far the only significant detection to date of the dependence of quasar clustering on a physical property.

\section{The Quasar Main Sequence}\label{sec:main}

The observed systematic trends of multi-wavelength quasar properties in the EV1 plane ($R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ versus FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$) lead to a simple, coherent picture of broad-line quasars: (a) $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ is primarily correlated with Eddington ratio, although there might be a significant scatter around this correlation, such that at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ there is still a dispersion of Eddington ratios; (b) the range of FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ includes a substantial component due to orientation effects such that more edge-on systems have on average larger FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$, indicating a flattened BLR geometry, although the current analysis does not constrain the detailed structure of the postulated BLR disk, such as its thickness and radial extent.

Under this framework, all observed correlations between physical properties and $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ can be interpreted as due primarily to changes in the Eddington ratio. These physical properties include: strength of narrow emission lines (in particular the high-ionization lines), relative amount of torus emission, and X-ray spectral slope. All these properties are relevant to processes in the proximity of the accreting BH, and thus are likely tied to the accretion process itself. Changes in the Eddington ratio will lead to changes in the underlying SED from optical to X-rays (30, 31), which in turn modulates photoionization processes. In particular, this change in SED preferentially changes the relative strength between the ionizing (EUV/X-ray) continuum and optical/UV continuum, and therefore more greatly affects high-ionization lines than low-ionization lines. The idea of SED variations has been applied to explain the Baldwin effect of C{\sevenrm IV}\ (62), and the same mechanism may apply to all emission lines that are powered by photoionization. In addition, there may be accompanying changes in the structure of the accretion flow and other physical processes such as accretion disk wind driving and X-ray gas shielding (33, 62, 63). One possibility is that the AD thickness as well as flaring towards the BH may change with Eddington ratio, which may lead to changes in the illumination configuration of the NLR. Another possibility is that changes in the accretion flow modify the structure of a possible optically thick gas component in the inner AD (64), which blocks some fraction of the emission from the inner accretion region and modifies the incident ionizing continuum as seen by the photoionized gas.

This simple framework can be extended to include BH mass as a third parameter to unify both high-luminosity quasars and low-mass broad-line AGNs with substantially lower luminosities than the quasar sample considered here. When such low-mass systems are included in the EV1 plane (Fig.\ 1), they will follow similar trends, with their [OIII] strength increased following the Baldwin effect. The nature of the Baldwin effect is unknown, but could be related to BH mass (or luminosity) that also plays a role in determining the accretion flow in addition to the Eddington ratio.

Orientation plays an important role in broadening the distribution of FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$, as expected from a flattened geometry for the BLR. The dispersion in FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ is largely dominated by the orientation effect; it does not reflect real changes in the underlying virial velocity of the BLR and therefore changes in the BH mass. Although the average FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ does correlate with the BH mass (as confirmed by clustering analysis), individual FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ measurements introduce substantial scatter in the virial BH mass estimates and dilute the intrinsic distinction in BH masses. The observed dependence of FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}$ on radio morphologies, the distribution of line shape in the EV1 plane, and the relative prominence of torus emission to disk emission at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ are all consistent with this orientation interpretation.

The postulated BLR disk should be coplanar with the AD (or the BLR itself could be an extension of the AD). Assuming the optical luminosity $L_{5100}$ comes from an optically-thick, geometrically-thin standard AD, the observed $L_{5100}$ should also have an orientation bias. This is hinted by the excess optical-IR color shown in Extended Data Fig.\ E6. In our scenario, at fixed $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$, the vertical bins in Fig.\ 1 represent a change in orientation of the BLR disk (and the AD). The change in the relative optical luminosity to IR luminosity along vertical bins is best explained by the orientation bias in optical AD luminosity (see Extended Data Fig.\ E6), assuming that the IR luminosity is isotropic. Denoting $I$ as the inclination angle between the normal of the disk and line-of-sight (LOS), the orientation bias reduces the AD luminosity by a factor of $\cos I$ from face-on. Since the reduction in the relative optical-IR luminosity is roughly 20-30\% ($\sim 0.2$ mag) across the vertical direction in Extended Data Fig.\ E6, this orientation bias in AD luminosity translates to $I_{\rm max}\approx 45^\circ$, where $I_{\rm max}$ is the maximum inclination for the quasar to be a broad-line object. This $I_{\rm max}$ corresponds to an average inclination angle of $\langle I\rangle=30^\circ$ (assuming random orientation of the disk normal to the LOS). All these are quite reasonable numbers for type 1 quasars. We also emphasize that because SDSS is a shallow flux-limited survey, most of the quasars in our sample are likely seen close to face-on, and the distribution of inclination may be quantitatively different from that of other samples with heterogeneous selection. In particular, an average inclination of $\langle I\rangle=30^\circ$ for the AD (and by extension, the postulated BLR disk) indicates a virial coefficient of $f_{\sigma}=8$ for the average conversion between LOS broad-line width (second moment, $\sigma$) and virial velocity $V$ (i.e., $\sigma^2=\frac{1}{2}V^2\sin^2 I=V^2/f_{\sigma}$, neglecting turbulent broadening). This virial coefficient is fully consistent with the empirically derived values of $f_\sigma\sim 6$ based on the BH mass-bulge scaling relations (50, 65), considering the fudge factors in the average inclination angle and the unknown turbulent broadening $s$ (e.g., in practice $\sigma^2=\frac{1}{2}V^2\sin^2I+s^2$, hence the actual virial coefficient $f_{\sigma}=V^2/\sigma^2<\frac{2}{\sin^2I}$). Therefore, the orientation bias from a thin standard AD only introduces $<30\%$ variation in $L_{5100}$ in the vertical bins in Fig.\ 1, which is consistent with no apparent trend in the [OIII] strength.

On the other hand, while the AD luminosity change due to orientation is small, the change in the line width will be substantial. The line width scales as $\sin I$. Hence from $I_{\rm max}=45^\circ$ to $\langle I\rangle=30^\circ$ there is a factor of $\sim 1.5$ change; changing from $\langle I\rangle$ to nearly face-on can yield an even larger reduction factor, but at very small inclinations, the isotropic velocity component (such as turbulence) in the BLR will start to dominate the line width. These estimates are consistent with the distribution in the 2D EV1 plane (Fig.\ 1). Although the exact values of $I_{\rm max}$ and $\langle I\rangle$ will be different, the approximate agreement between these simple estimates and observations is reassuring that our scenario is correct.

Higher-Eddington ratio quasars (with higher $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$) may drive stronger outflows in both the broad-line region and the narrow-line region. This is in line with the following observations: (a) the velocity offset of the wing component of [O\,{\sc iii}]\ is larger in quasars with higher $R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$; (b) the fraction of quasars with broad absorption lines, which likely arise from a disk wind (66, 67), seems to increase at the high-$R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ end of EV1 (4), and broad absorption-line quasars usually have weak [O\,{\sc iii}]\ lines; (c) the enhancement of torus emission relative to AD emission at the high-$R_{\textrm{\FeII}}$ end of EV1 may be caused by more efficient disk winds that facilitate the formation of a dusty torus (68). In addition, we point out that FWHM$_\textrm{H{$\beta$}}<2000\,{\rm km\,s^{-1}}$ should not be the sole criterion to define a distinct narrow-line Seyfert 1 population, as done in some studies. If the narrow-line Seyfert 1 phenomenon (69) is associated with one extreme end of EV1 (4), then the classification criteria must also include strong optical Fe\,{\sc ii}\ lines as well as weak [O\,{\sc iii}]\ emission.

Finally we comment on the implication of our framework on the frequency of quasars with double-peaked broad-line profiles, dubbed ``disk emitters'', which are characteristic of line emission from a Keplerian disk (70). The frequency of disk emitters is much higher in radio-loud quasars (71) ($\sim 10-15\%$) than in radio-quiet quasars (7, 72) ($\sim 3\%$). Our framework suggests a flattened geometry for the BLR in general, but only compact BLRs will show an apparent double-peaked profile in disk models (70, 73), suggesting that the BLR in the majority of quasars has a large extent in disk radii. Radio-loud quasars are preferentially low-Eddington ratio systems compared to the general quasar population (45), and hence their BLR size on average should be relatively smaller (in units of the gravitational radius of the BH) given the observed empirical relation between BLR size and luminosity (27). This may explain why radio-loud quasars are more often to show double-peaked broad-line profiles indicative of compact BLR disks.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


➡ "Getting Into Medicine" Free Information Session!
➡ Dr Lorraine Pinnington from the School of Medicine will be running an information session on University of Nottingham and our Medicine course.
➡ This is an excellent opportunity to learn more about the School, the course and the application journey as a medical student. Details of the information session as below, parents are welcome to attend as well!


As part of staff reports during Monday's regular city council meeting, the mayor read a statement from Todd Stoffa, a captain with the fire department who is also president of the DeKalb Firefighters Historical Foundation.
On behalf of DeKalb Firefighters Historical Foundation, I would like to express my sincere apologies for the mishap that led to the email and Facebook questions that were raised this past week regarding our 501(c)3 status. We were unaware of the issue until it was brought to our attention. We have been advised by our accountant that we were one of 22,000 small groups that were inadvertently and mistakenly dropped by the IRS due to a paperwork issue. We've already met with our accountant, and submitted all of the necessary documentation, to be reinstated as a valid 501(c)3 organization.
Yeah, the Facebook stuff was me. I made the issue public two Sundays ago when I discovered that the foundation is continuing to fundraise despite revocation of tax-exempt status.
They did so last year, too, and I did not want to see it repeated. In fact, the publicity for the Fall 2016 pancake breakfast advertised pricey tax-deductible sponsorships.
5. APPROVAL OF A STAFF REQUEST TO WAIVE COMPETITIVE BIDDING AND AWARD A CONTRACT TO IRVING CONSTRUCTION FOR THE FIRE STATION 2 REMODEL IN THE AMOUNT OF $254,750.
In March, the Council authorized the Fire Department to seek bids to accomplish the necessary repairs and improvements needed at Fire Station #2, 1154 S. 7th Street. A local architect, Sharp Architects, completed the necessary drawings and bid specs for the project. The bids have been received for this project and staff is seeking Council approval to reject all bids, waive competitive bidding, and award a contract to Irving Construction, using the fund balance from the Public Safety Building Fund to pay for this project.
Below is the DeKalb Fire Department Wage Schedule for the current fiscal year.
Click on either page for a larger version, and once more to really zoom in.


text:
More Stories Like Thispeace
On The Difference Between Us and Them as Opposed to Us vs Them
The insights in the Nudges and Bridges series aim to help everyone, including business people, understand how they can contribute to peace. The words "us" and "them" typically are used to characterize problematic opposition. This video looks at these issues and also offers ways in which creating an "us" can be a good thing. Maybe it is terms of finding a common enemy – that seems very true these days – but it also looks at more constructive possibilities of "us and them" while warning of the very real dangers of "us vs them."
Timothy L. Fort, PhD, JD, Eveleigh Professor of Business Ethics, Kelley School of Business at Indiana University
Nudges & Bridges: making better decisions & finding common ground LINK
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The importance of Nudges and Bridges in an increasingly conflicte … LINK
Conflict and Peace
Wednesday September 7 2022
The words "us" and "them" typically are used to characterize problematic opposition. There is a good reason for that. But we all need an "us." If you have an "us," there is going to be a "them." That's not a bad thing. But when the meaning of our "us" depends on the demonizing of the "them," then things are much different. It is possible, even healthy to have "us" and "them" your head, but in many cases, one can still have very constructive relationships with the "them" in question. Do you play in an after work softball team? Your team is an us, but I doubt you really hate the other team. The members of that team may be other colleagues at work and then, you comprise a different kind of "us."
This video looks at these issues and also offers ways in which creating an "us" can be a good thing. Maybe it is terms of finding a common enemy – that seems very true these days – but it also looks at more constructive possibilities of "us and them" while warning of the very real dangers of "us vs them."
Click here to watch further episodes in the Nudges and Bridges series
Why might business contribute to peace?
This video podcast series with Tim Fort aims to help us build bridges with others in the pursuit of peace. The insights are applicable to all of us, including businesses. During past discussions held on Business and Peace in the Business Fights Poverty Forum, three main reasons were offered for why businesses might contribute to peace.
The first is that it is simply a morally good thing to do. Business people are, after all, just that: people. Human beings generally do fare better during times of peace and stability and, regardless of what the motivations are, there is a shared desire of businesses, people, and business people to live in an environment of peace and stability.
The second reason pertains to instrumental reasons. Companies will fare better if bombs are not dropping on office buildings and a company's brand and reputation will likely be better off if associated with peace rather than violence.
Another insight in the discussion was that of timeline. A long term approach to business success might lend itself to an incremental, but strong contribution to peace. This might even occur without a business being aware of the impact of the actions it takes. If, for example, it is true as some have argued, that strong ethical conduct correlates with peace, then long-term, responsible conduct of a business may also influence peacebuilding.
As a result of these conversations, another insight offered was that the biggest impact business can make to peace is in those areas that are neither the most stable nor the least stable. There may be little a business can do in the midst of the chaos of war and, in a stable country, any given contribution is likely to be small and incremental. Yet is in the "in-between" kinds of societies that businesses may make the biggest contributions and this is particularly true in regional and intra-state conflicts rather than in conflagrations occurring across borders.
The insights in the Nudges and Bridges series aim to help everyone, including business people, understand how they can contribute to peace.