My Dog (A Poem)

Buy this Kindle Book on Amazon for Only 99 cents

See a local listing for this by clicking here

My Dog (A Poem)

I HAVE no dog, but it must be
    Somewhere there's one belongs to
     me—-
A little chap with wagging tail,
And dark brown eyes that never quail,
But look you through, and through, and
       through,
With love unspeakable, but true.

Somewhere it must be, I opine,
There is a little dog of mine
With cold black nose that sniffs around
In search of what things may be found
In pocket, or some nook hard by,
Where I have hid them from his eye.

Somewhere my doggie pulls and tugs
The fringes of rebellious rugs,
Or with the mischief of the pup
Chews all my shoes and slippers up,
And, when he's done it to the core,
With eyes all eager, pleads for more.

Somewhere, upon his hinder legs,
My little doggie sits and begs,
And in a wistful minor tone
Pleads for the pleasures of the bone—
I pray it be his owner's whim
To yield and grant the same to him!

Somewhere a little dog doth wait,
It may be by some garden gate,
With eyes alert, and tail attent—
You know the kind of tail that's
      meant—
With stores of yelps of glad delight
To bid me welcome home at night.

Somewhere a little dog is seen,
His nose two shaggy paws between,
Flat on his stomach, one eye shut,
Held fast in dreamy slumber, but
The other opened ready for
His master coming through the door.

              John Kendrick Bangs.

Ten Thousand Angels (and other short poems)

Sometimes a short poem delivers more poetry. After all, brevity is the soul of wit.

TEN THOUSAND ANGELS
 By John Russell Mccarthy

TEN thousand angels dance
    On the point of a needle.

Ten thousand angels, perhaps—
But one moccasin-flower,
Making a valley holy,
Tells more of God.

.................

GLIMPSES
By Harold Vinal

I SAW a star flame in the sky,
         I heard a wild bird sing
And down where all the forest stirred
  Another answering.

All suddenly I felt the gleam,
  That made my faith revive;
Ah God, it takes such simple things
To keep the soul alive.

................


HOW DOTH THE LITTLE CROCODILE
By Lewis Carroll

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!

..................

VITAE SUMMA BREVIS
By Ernest Dowson

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate;
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

....................

WITCHCRAFT HAS NOT A PEDIGREE
By Emily Dickinson

Witchcraft has not a pedigree,
‘Tis early as our breath,
And mourners meet it going out
The moment of our death.

....................

THE DUST OF SNOW
By Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

....................

FIRST FIG
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!

....................

LINES ON AN ANTIQUITY OF MICROBES (also known simply as Fleas)
By Strickland Gillilan

Adam
Had 'em.

On Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Alchemist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa by Lewis Spence 1920

See also Alchemy, the Philosopher's Stone and the Esoteric - 100 Books on DVDrom

For a list of all of my disks and ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here

Agrippa von Nettesheim, Henry Cornelius' (1486-1535): A German soldier and physician, and an adept in alchemy, astrology and magic. He was born at Cologne on the 14th of September, 1486, and educated at the University of Cologne. While still a youth he served under Maximilian I. of Germany. In 1509 he lectured at the University of Dole, but a charge of heresy brought against him by a monk named Catilinet compelled him to leave Dole, and he resumed his former occupation of soldier. In the following year he was sent on a diplomatic mission to England, and on his return followed Maximilian to Italy, where he passed seven years, now serving one noble patron, now another. Thereafter he held a post at Metz, returned to Cologne, practised medicine at Geneva, and was appointed physician to Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I.; but, on being given some task which he found irksome, he left the service of his patroness and denounced her bitterly. He then accepted a post offered him by Margaret, Duchess of Savoy, Regent of the Netherlands. On her death in 1530, he repaired to Cologne and Bonn, and thence to France, where he was arrested for some slighting mention of the Queen-Mother, Louise of Savoy. He was soon released, however, and died at Grenoble in 1535. Agrippa was a man of great talent and varied attainments. He was acquainted with eight languages, and was evidently a physician of no mean ability, as well as a soldier and a theologian. He had, moreover, many noble patrons. Yet, notwithstanding these advantages, he never seemed to be free from misfortune; persecution and financial difficulties dogged his footsteps, and in Brussels he suffered imprisonment for debt. He himself was in a measure responsible for his troubles. He was, in fact, an adept in the gentle art of making enemies, and the persecution of the monks with whom he frequently came into conflict was bitter and increasing. His principal works were a defence of magic, entitled De occulta philosophia, which was not published until 1531, though it was written some twenty years earlier, and a satirical attack on the scientific pretensions of his day, De incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum et Artium atque Excellentia Verbi Dei Declamatio, also published at Antwerp in 1531. His other works included a treatise De Nobilitate et Praecellentia Feminu Sexus, dedicated to Margaret of Burgundy out of gratitude for her patronage.

Join my Facebook Group

His interest in alchemy and magic dated from an early period of his life, and gave rise to many tales of his occult powers. It was said that he was always accompanied by a familiar in the shape of a large black dog. On his death he renounced his magical works and addressed his familiar thus: "Begone, wretched animal, the entire cause of my destruction! The animal fled from the room and straightway plunged into the Saom, where it perished. At the inns where he stayed, Agrippa paid his bills with money that appeared genuine enough at the time, but which afterwards turned to worthless horn or shell, like the fairy money which turned to earth after sunset. He is said to have summoned Tully to pronounce his oration for Roscius, in the presence of John George, elector of Saxony, the Earl of Surrey, Erasmus, and other eminent people. Tully duly appeared, delivered his famous oration, and left his audience deeply moved. Agrippa had a magic glass, wherein it was possible to see objects distant in time or place. On one occasion Surrey saw therein his mistress, the beautiful Geraldine, lamenting the absence of her noble lover.

One other story concerning the magician is worthy of record. Once when about to leave home for a short time, he entrusted to his wife the key of his museum, warning her on no account to permit anyone to enter. But the curiosity of a boarder in their house prompted him to beg for the key, till at length the harrassed hostess gave it to him. The first thing that caught the student's attention was a book of spells, from which he began to read. A knock sounded on the door. The student took no notice, but went on reading, and the knock was repeated. A moment later a demon entered, demanding to know why he had been summoned. The student was too terrified to make reply, and the angry demon seized him by the throat and strangled him. At the same moment Agrippa entered, having returned unexpectedly from his journey. Fearing that he would be charged with the murder of the youth, he persuaded the demon to restore him to life for a little while, and walk him up and down the market place. The demon consented; the people saw the student apparently alive and in good health, and when the demon allowed the semblance of life to leave the body, they thought the young man had died a natural death. However, an examination clearly showed that he had been strangled. The true state of affairs leaked out, and Agrippa was forced to flee for his life.

These fabrications of the popular imagination were probably encouraged rather than suppressed by Agrippa, who loved to surround his comparatively harmless pursuits of alchemy and astrology with an air of mystery calculated to inspire awe and terror in the minds of the ignorant. It is known that he had correspondents in all parts of the world, and that from their letters, which he received in his retirement, he gleaned the knowledge which he was popularly believed to obtain from his familiars.

Buy my published Kindle book on Amazon for only 1.99

Visit A Tribute to my Beloved Dog Teddy

Books and the Lindy Effect

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: "If a book has been in print for forty years, I can expect it to be in print for another forty years. But, and that is the main difference, if it survives another decade, then it will be expected to be in print another fifty years. This, simply, as a rule, tells you why things that have been around for a long time are not "aging" like persons, but "aging" in reverse. Every year that passes without extinction doubles the additional life expectancy. This is an indicator of some robustness. The robustness of an item is proportional to its life!"

In other words, if you only have a limited time for reading, then read a book that has been popular for a very long time rather than reading the latest books on the New York Times bestseller list. Jane Eyre has been in print for 170 years, and there is a reason for that and we can expect, according to the Lindy Effect have it around for another 170 years. In other words, read Orwell's 1984 rather than Comey's A Higher Loyalty. Read Atlas Shrugged instead of The President is Missing. Read The Count of Montecristo instead of The Hate U Give.

The Good and Terrible Fairies by H. Swift 1881

The Good and Bad Fairies by H. Swift 1881

See also Fairy Legends & Faery Mythology - 75 Books on DVDrom

For a list of all of my disks and ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here

On the wings of memory go we back for a moment to the days of our childhood—that happy dawn of our life when everything around us seemed to us as fresh and bright and sweet as were our own innocent hearts; when we had no bitter regrets for the past, because the past was but a brief one of infantile guilelessness; and no anxious forebodings of the future, because we then lived altogether in the present; when for us there was a joy in every gleam of sunshine; and in the soft springy turf; and in the bird's nest which we found in the hedgerow; and in the butterflies which, cap in hand, we so eagerly chased; and in the wild-flowers which we gathered into nosegays or wove into graceful garlands. It was in those happy days that there was for us such a charm in stories of fairy life and in stories of human life, such as "Cinderella" and "The Sleeping Beauty," in which the fairy element was prominent. Such was then the vividness and impressionability of our imagination, that things fantastic and impossible became to us real and natural. No tale of enchantment, no terrible story of fierce giant or fiery dragon, was too wonderful for our belief. The good fairies, who in our tale-books were exhibited as the friends of the virtuous, the helpless, and the unfortunate; the bad fairies, who were depicted as the busy enemies of everybody, always seeking to sow discord, and destroy peace, and implant misery in human hearts and human homes, all were equally real to us. As we read or heard the stories of fairy doings, we could feel our hearts glow with love and gratitude to the good fairies, who were so compassionate and kind, and we could feel them beat with fear and hatred of the bad fairies, who were so malicious and cruel. We now smile at our vivid imagination of those days, and almost wonder that we ever can have been so simple and credulous. But may it not be that our childish simplicity and credulity was not a thing only worthy of being laughed at? May it not be, indeed, that for our ready belief in fairy guardians and fairy enemies there was a deeper cause than many of us now are disposed to imagine?" Heaven lies about us in our infancy!" wrote the poet; and it is possible that in our childhood's days we believed in supernatural beings and supernatural things so much more easily than we now do, because our perception of the reality and nearness of the inner and higher world was not so dull as it has since become through our immersion in worldly thought and feeling. When, as innocent children, we read or heard of kind fairy guardians, perhaps we could feel somewhat of the influence of those guardian angels of little children of whom our Lord said, "Their angels do always behold the face of My Father who is in heaven." And may be when we read or heard of the wicked fairies, we could perceive their likeness to those evil spirits who, like Satan, who

"Finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do,"

we were taught had so much to do with our occasional fits of naughtiness.

And now, on the wings of imagination, let us for a moment go back to the time when our world itself was young. From the fragmentary legends and traditions which that remote past has bequeathed to us, it would seem that the earth's inhabitants of that age were much more childlike than those of nowadays. The spirit of selfishness, which, more than anything else, has been the destroyer of the spirit of childish simplicity, had not then attained the proportions which it attained in subsequent ages of spiritual declension and increasing alienation from God; and we may suppose, therefore, that to the eyes of God's earthly children of those days the world of nature would be, more than it is to us, an open book, through whose pages they might discern a fuller measure of the light of the inner and spiritual world, manifesting to them the heavenly Father's nearness and love, and the nearness and love of His angelic children also. In such times we may imagine it was that the germs of some of the fairy stories which were our delight when we were children, and are equally the delight of children now, had their birth; for, wonderful though it seem, it is nevertheless true that some of the fairy stories most popular with our children—stories, moreover, which in varying forms are found in almost every European and Asiatic country —have been traced back to the remote past, and to the Eastern lands, in that past, where the sun of religion and science and civilization seems first to have shone. When we, in this practical age, first glance at these old fairy legends, they seem to us but puerile and foolish: but a deeper study of them reveals the fact that underlying them there are great and eternal truths; for when reduced, as they have been by our comparative mythologists, to their primitive form, they are found to have relation to the old old battle between good and evil, truth and falsehood, in the mind of man; the good being represented by the warmth and radiance of the sun, of which the good fairies were the types; and the bad being represented by the darkness and chilliness of the night, of which the evil fairies were the types. Thus does it happen that the idea of good fairies and evil fairies, held by our English ancestors of comparatively recent times, can finally be traced back to the peoples of the ancient world, and to their symbolic personification of the opposing principles of good and evil in the human mind. In ancient Persia, for example, the prototypes of our own good fairies were the Peris-—representative of the sun's rays, or of the morning or evening aurora, and primarily of the rays of the spiritual sun of love and truth; and the prototypes of our own evil fairies were the Divs—representative of the black clouds of night, and primarily of the darkness of evil and falsehood.

From the Eastern lands of their birth, these old myths, in the course of ages, gradually travelled westwards, changing their form in adaptation to the character and idiosyncrasy of the peoples which received them, until at last some of them had taken root in almost every country of the Western world; and in none did they find a more settled home, or give rise to a richer and more poetic fairy-lore, or exercise a more powerful influence on the lives of the people, than in our own dear England.

Join my Facebook Group

In these days of railway-whistles and steam-ploughs, the belief in fairies has wellnigh died out among us, only lingering in a few out-of-the-way corners of our land where the din and sootiness of our civilization have so far not penetrated. But in England of the olden time people were simpler than they now are—perhaps we ought to say more superstitious: but, after all, it may be that, like some of the superstitions still cherished among us, their superstitions were only perversions of genuine truths which had been held in distant times, and perhaps distant lands: it may be, in fact, that their belief in the existence of good and bad fairies had its origin in a much earlier and truer belief in the existence of guardian angels of light and tempting spirits of darkness, and in their active interference in the concerns of human life.

This idea is certainly borne out by a consideration of the offices and functions commonly attributed to the fairies by our English ancestors. For instance, if an honest and industrious man was successful in his undertakings, his success was held to be in great part due to the helping hand of friendly attendant fairies. If the house of a clean and orderly housewife wore an air of homely comfort; the fire blazing cheerfully, without accompaniment of smoky chimney; the floors, dishes, and pans free from dirt and dust; everything clean and in its proper place; it used to be said that the good fairies had taken up their abode in that house. If, in homestead or cottage, cleanliness, temperance, and mutual kindness were the ruling virtues of the inmates, it was supposed to be the good fairies who painted their faces with the flush of health and happiness, and at night blessed them with peaceful sleep and cheerful dreams. The successful labours in the well-ordered dairy; the rich harvests of corn and fruit and vegetables yielded by the well-ploughed and well-tilled fields; the abundant flowers and fruits which responded to the touch of the careful gardener, —all were viewed as rewards administered to their favourites by kind and friendly fairies. And, on the other hand, when the same simple people saw that punishment in one form or another always came in the wake of vice, their credulous minds readily figured to themselves the agents of the punishment as deformed and hideous fairy imps. In the abode of tie slattern, the idler, and the drunkard, dirt, discomfort, and disease were seen to prevail; poverty came in at the door, while love flew out at the window; household and cooking operations were always going wrong; the garments of husband, wife, and children always falling into rags; crockery and window-panes always breaking; furniture and floors becoming day by day more thickly covered with a pall of dust and dirt; and sickness and sour temper continually breaking out, adding misery to misery. At night, too, it was known that the inmates of the unhappy house, instead of enjoying refreshing sleep, were the victims of sleeplessness and horrible dreams. And all these pains and penalties were thought to be the work of tormenting fairies, who had been attracted to the house by its congenial sphere, and were now venting their malicious spite upon its miserable inhabitants.

In our day of enlightenment we should, of course, say that experiences such as those referred to were the natural outcome of causes quite adequate to produce them; that prosperity, health, and happiness might reasonably be expected to result from the practice of such virtues as sobriety, industry, honesty, and mutual kindness; and the contrary evils to result from the practice of the opposite vices. And, of course, we should be quite correct in so saying. But, nevertheless, it may with truth be said that our simple forefathers, who believed that good and evil fairies had to do with the production of such results, were also in a certain sense right; for, putting aside for the moment the evil fairies, have not all of us often heard those who are neat, clean, industrious, good-tempered, and gentle in word and deed, spoken of as "good fairies"? Ay, and we who have known such "good fairies," know that they have power to perform miracles of kindness and blessing quite as great as those recorded of their supernatural predecessors of bygone days. Not alone is it true that they are always cheerful and contented themselves; but, in addition, they are the "good fairies" of the lives of all around them. They come to us when we are weighed down by some heavy anxiety; and, by the enchantment of a few simple words of comfort, they ease us of one-half our burden. Or they come to us when we are in the throes of some great sorrow; and immediately through the cloud of our grief they radiate a cheering and strengthening beam of sympathy. Or they come to us when we are struggling with some labour or difficulty which seems too heavy for us; and by the magic of their genial presence, and hearty words of cheer, they quickly infuse new life into our wearied energies. These are the visible "good fairies" of our time, as they have been of all times: and it is for us to try to enroll ourselves in their happy company; so that, like them, we may carry strength, comfort, blessing, and moral sunshine with us wherever we go.

In order, however, that we may be enabled to do this, we must first make friends of what may fitly be termed the invisible "good fairies;" that is to say, the good suggestions and impulses which, without effort on our part, come to us from within our souls, for our guidance and government in our daily walk of duty. These, though invisible, are of all "good fairies" the most potent; for their work is to make the minds of those who cherish and obey them the beauteous reflex of themselves; and finally, to fit them for a place in the heavenly Father's family in His angelic kingdom. Messengers are they from our God who slumbers not nor sleeps, telling us of His unwearying watchfulness and tender care for His earthly children! With our whole heart, then, let us welcome these invisible "good fairies" when they come to us, and not repel them by acting in opposition to them—by being impatient when they tell us to be patient, violent when they tell us to be gentle, discontented when they tell us to be contented, or idle when they tell us to be industrious. Ever close at hand are hosts of invisible "evil fairies," in the guise of selfish and sinful suggestions and inclinations, whose aim it is to make us, as to our souls, as deformed and hideous as were the fabled hobgoblins that were the terror of our simple forefathers; but, God be thanked! if we make the invisible "good fairies" our protectors, by giving them an abiding-place in our breasts, never shall these "evil fairies" have power to harm us; on the contrary, they shall be more and more banished from the scene, until at last, in so far as depends upon us, the reign of the "good fairies" shall be completely established, and earth shall become as heaven.

Visit A Tribute to my Beloved Dog Teddy

To Flush, My Dog By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Buy this Kindle Book on Amazon for Only 99 cents

See a local listing for this by clicking here

To Flush, My Dog By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

LOVING friend, the gift of one,
Who, her own true faith, hath run,
Through thy lower nature ;
Be my benediction said
With my hand upon thy head,
Gentle fellow-creature !

Like a lady's ringlets brown,
Flow thy silken ears adown
Either side demurely,
Of thy silver-suited breast
Shining out from all the rest
Of thy body purely.

Darkly brown thy body is,
Till the sunshine, striking this,
Alchemize its dulness, —
When the sleek curls manifold
Flash all over into gold,
With a burnished fulness.

Underneath my stroking hand,
Startled eyes of hazel bland
Kindling, growing larger, —
Up thou leapest with a spring,
Full of prank and curvetting,
Leaping like a charger.

Leap ! thy broad tail waves a light ;
Leap ! thy slender feet are bright,
Canopied in fringes.
Leap — those tasselled ears of thine
Flicker strangely, fair and fine,
Down their golden inches

Yet, my pretty sportive friend,
Little is 't to such an end
That I praise thy rareness !
Other dogs may be thy peers
Haply in these drooping ears,
And this glossy fairness.

But of thee it shall be said,
This dog watched beside a bed
Day and night unweary, —
Watched within a curtained room,
Where no sunbeam brake the gloom
Round the sick and dreary.

Roses, gathered for a vase,
In that chamber died apace,
Beam and breeze resigning —
This dog only, waited on,
Knowing that when light is gone,
Love remains for shining.

Other dogs in thymy dew
Tracked the hares and followed through
Sunny moor or meadow —
This dog only, crept and crept
Next a languid cheek that slept,
Sharing in the shadow.

Other dogs of loyal cheer
Bounded at the whistle clear,
Up the woodside hieing —
This dog only, watched in reach
Of a faintly uttered speech,
Or a louder sighing.

And if one or two quick tears
Dropped upon his glossy ears,
Or a sigh came double, —
Up he sprang in eager haste,
Fawning, fondling, breathing fast,
In a tender trouble.

And this dog was satisfied,
If a pale thin hand would glide,
Down his dewlaps sloping, —
Which he pushed his nose within,
After, — platforming his chin
On the palm left open.

This dog, if a friendly voice
Call him now to blyther choice
Than such chamber-keeping,
Come out ! ' praying from the door, —
Presseth backward as before,
Up against me leaping.

Therefore to this dog will I,
Tenderly not scornfully,
Render praise and favour !
With my hand upon his head,
Is my benediction said
Therefore, and for ever.

And because he loves me so,
Better than his kind will do
Often, man or woman,
Give I back more love again
Than dogs often take of men, —
Leaning from my Human.

Blessings on thee, dog of mine,
Pretty collars make thee fine,
Sugared milk make fat thee !
Pleasures wag on in thy tail —
Hands of gentle motion fail
Nevermore, to pat thee !

Downy pillow take thy head,
Silken coverlid bestead,
Sunshine help thy sleeping !
No fly 's buzzing wake thee up —
No man break thy purple cup,
Set for drinking deep in.

Whiskered cats arointed flee —
Sturdy stoppers keep from thee
Cologne distillations ;
Nuts lie in thy path for stones,
And thy feast-day macaroons
Turn to daily rations !

Mock I thee, in wishing weal ? —
Tears are in my eyes to feel
Thou art made so straightly,
Blessing needs must straighten too, —
Little canst thou joy or do,
Thou who lovest greatly.

Yet be blessed to the height
Of all good and all delight
Pervious to thy nature, —
Only loved beyond that line,
With a love that answers thine,
Loving fellow-creature !

The Lake of the Dismal Swamp

The Companion Guide to Death, is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only $1.99

By Thomas Moore

"They made her a grave too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true;
And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
Where all night long, by a firefly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe.

And her firefly lamp I soon shall see,
And her paddle I soon shall hear;
Long and loving our life shall be,
And I'll hide the maid in a cypress-tree,
When the footstep of death is near!"

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds,—
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen where the serpent feeds,
And man never trod before!

And when on the earth he sunk to sleep,
If slumber his eyelids knew,
He lay where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tear, and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!

And near him the she-wolf stirred the brake,
And the copper-snake breathed in his ear,
Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,
"Oh, when shall I see the dusky Lake,
And the white canoe of my dear?"

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright
Quick over its surface played,—
"Welcome," he said, "my dear one's light!"
And the dim shore echoed for many a night,
The name of the death-cold maid!

He hollowed a boat of the birchen bark,
Which carried him off from shore;
Far he followed the meteor spark,
The wind was high and the clouds were dark,
And the boat returned no more.

But oft from the Indian hunter's camp,
This lover and maid so true,
Are seen at the hour of midnight damp,
To cross the lake by a firefly lamp,
And paddle their white canoe!

The Bloody History of Duelling

History of Duelling, article in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5 1913

See also Notorious Criminals, Crimes & Criminology - 100 Books on DVDrom

For a list of all of my disks and downloads click here

Duelling was unknown to the civilized nations of antiquity. The contests of the Roman gladiators were not, like the duels of to-day, a means of self-defence, but bloody spectacles to satisfy the curiosity and cruelty of an effeminate and degenerate people. On the other hand the custom of duelling existed among the Gauls and Germans from the earliest era, as Diodorus Siculus (Biblioth. histor., Lib. V, ch. xxviii), Velleius Paterculus (Histor. rom., II, cxviii), and others relate. The duel is, therefore, undoubtedly of heathen origin, and was so firmly rooted in the customs of the Gauls and Germans that it persisted among them even after their conversion. The oldest known law of Christian times that permitted the judicial duel is that of the Burgundian King Gundobald (d. 516). With few exceptions the judicial duel is mentioned in all old German laws as a legal ordeal. It rested on a twofold conviction. It was believed, first, that God could not allow the innocent to be defeated in a duel; hence it was held that the guilty party would not dare primarily to appeal to the judgment of God in proof of his innocence and then enter upon the fight under the weight of perjury; the fear of Divine wrath would discourage him and make victory impossible.

The Church soon raised her voice against duelling. St. Avitus (d. 518) made an earnest protest against the law of the above-mentioned Gundobald, as is related by Agobard (d. 840), who in a special work on the subject points out the opposition between the law of Gundobald and the clemency of the Gospel; God might very easily permit the defeat of the innocent. The popes also at an early date took a stand against duelling. In a letter to Charles the Bald, Nicolas I (858-67) condemned the duel (monomachia) as a tempting of God. In the same century his example was followed by Stephen VI, later by Alexander II and Alexander III, Celestino III, Innocent III and Innocent IV, Julius II, and many others. In addition to the judicial, nonjudicial combats also occurred, in which men arbitrarily settled private grudges or sought to revenge themselves. The tournaments, especially, were often used to satisfy revenge; on account of this misuse the Church early issued ordinances against the excesses committed at tournaments, although these were not always obeyed. The more the judicial combat fell into disuse, the more the old instinct of the Germanic and Gallic peoples, by which each man sought to gain his rights with weapon in hand, showed itself in personal contests and at tournaments. From the middle of the fifteenth century duelling over questions of honour increased so greatly, especially in the Romance countries, that the Council of Trent was obliged to enact the severest penalties against it. It decreed that "the detestable custom of duelling which the Devil had originated, in order to bring about at the same time the ruin of the soul and the violent death of the body, shall be entirely uprooted from Christian soil" (Sess. XXIV, Dc reform., c. xix). It pronounced the severest ecclesiastical penalties against those princes who should permit duelling between Christians in their territories. According to the council those who take part in a duel are ipso facto excommunicated, and if they are killed in the duel they are to be deprived of Christian burial. The seconds and all those who advised the duel or were present at it are also excommunicated. These ecclesiastical penalties were at a later date repeatedly renewed and even in parts made more severe. Benedict XIV decreed that duellists should also be denied burial by the Church, even if they did not die on the duelling ground and had received absolution before death. All these penalties are substantially in force to-day. Pius IX in the "Constitutio Apostólicae Sedis" of 12 October, 1869, decreed the penalty of excommunication against "all who fight duels, or challenge to a duel or accept such challenge; as well as against all who are accessory to the duel or who in any way abet or encourage the same; and finally against those who are present at a duel as spectators [de industria spectantes], or those who permit the same, or do not prevent it, whatever their rank, even if they are kings or emperors".

Like the Church, the State also took steps against the evil of duelling. In 1608 an edict against the practice was issued by Henry IV of France. Whoever killed his opponent in a duel was to be punished with death; severe penalties were also enacted against the sending of a challenge and the acceptance of the same. Unfortunately transgressors against this law were generally pardoned. In 1626, during the reign of Henry's successor, Louis XIII, the laws against duelling were made more stringent and were strictly carried out. Notwithstanding these measures the custom of duelling increased alarmingly in France. The great number of French noblemen who fell in duels about the middle of the seventeenth century, is shown by the statement of the contemporary writer Théophile Raynaud that within thirty years more men of rank had been killed in duels than would have been needed to make up an entire army. Olier, the founder of the Congregation of Saint-Sulpice, with the aid of St. Vincent de Paul, formed an association of distinguished noblemen, the members of which signed the following obligation: "The undersigned publicly and solemnly make known by this declaration that they will refuse every form of challenge, will for no cause whatever enter upon a duel, and will in every way be willing to give proof that they detest duelling as contrary to reason, the public good, and the laws of the State, and as incompatible with salvation and the Christian religion, without, however, relinquishing the right to avenge in every legal way any insult offered them as far as position and birth make such action obligatory. Louis XIV aided these efforts at reform by the severe enactment against duelling which he issued early in his reign. For a long time after this duelling was infrequent in France.

In other countries too severe measures were taken against the constantly spreading evil. In 1681 the Emperor Leopold I forbade the fighting of duels under the severest penalties; Maria Theresa ordered not only the challenger and the challenged but also all who had any share in a duel to be beheaded, and in the reign of the Emperor Joseph II duellists received the punishment of murderers. Frederick the Great of Prussia tolerated no duellists in his army. The present penal code of Austria makes imprisonment the punishment of duelling; the penal code of the German Empire commands confinement in a fortress. The penalty is, without doubt, entirely insufficient and constitutes a form of privilege for the person who kills his adversary in a duel. Theoretically these penal laws are also applicable to the respective armies, but unfortunately in the case of officers they are not carried out; indeed, up to the present time, an officer who refuses to fight a duel in Germany and Austria is in danger of being dismissed from the army. In 1896 when, in consequence of the fatal issue of a duel, the Reichstag by a large majority called upon the Government to proceed by all the means in its power against the practice of duelling, as opposed to the criminal code, the emperor issued a cabinet order on 1 January, 1897, which established courts of honour to deal with disputes in the army concerning questions of honour. Unfortunately the decree leaves it open to the court of honour to permit or even to command a duel to take place. Furthermore, on 15 January, 1906, General von Einem, Prussian Minister of War, stated that the principle of the duel was still in force, and Chancellor von Billow added to this: "... .the corps of army officers can tolerate no member in its ranks who is not ready, should necessity arise, to defend his honour by force of arms". In the army, as a result of this principle, a conscientious opponent of duelling is constantly exposed to the danger of being expelled for refusing to fight. In England duelling is almost unknown, and no duel has occurred, it is said, in the British army for the last eighty years. English jurisprudence contains no special ordinances against duelling; the wounding or killing of another in a duel is punishable according to common law. On the Continent also public opinion on the subject of duelling seems to be gradually changing. The demand for the abolition, even in the army, of this abuse is growing louder and louder. Some years ago, at the instance of the Infante Alfonso of Bourbon and Austria-Este, an anti-duelling league was formed in order to carry on systematically the opposition to duelling. A preliminary convention, held at Frankfort-on-the-Main in the spring of 1901, issued an appeal for support in its struggle against this evil. In a few weeks a thousand signatures were received, mostly those of men of influence from the most varied ranks of society. A convention to draw up a constitution met at Cassel 11 January, 1902, and Prince Carl zu Lowenstein was elected president. A committee was also appointed to direct affairs and to conduct the agitation. The league has made most satisfactory progress; in 1908 it established a permanent bureau at Leipzig. Concerning the aims of the league the declaration subscribed by the members states the following: "The undersigned herewith declare their rejection, on principle, of duelling as a custom repugnant to reason, conscience, the demands of civilization, existing laws, and the common good of society and the State."

Visit A Tribute to my Beloved Dog Teddy

The Phantom Woman

Buy this book with a whopping 50 chapters for only 99 cents on Amazon.

See a local listing for this book here

See also The Paranormal and Supernatural - 400 Books on DVDrom

The Phantom Woman

He took an all-possessing, burning fancy to her from the first. She was neither young nor pretty, so far as he could see—but she was wrapped round with mystery. That was the key of it all; she was noticeable in spite of herself. Her face at the window, sunset after sunset; her eyes, gazing out mournfully through the dusty panes, hypnotized the lawyer. He saw her through the twilight night after night, and he grew at length to wait through the days in a feverish waiting for dusk, and that one look at an unknown woman.

She was always at the same window on the ground floor, sitting doing nothing. She looked beyond, so the infatuated solicitor fancied, at him. Once he even thought that he detected the ghost of a friendly smile on her lips. Their eyes always met with a mute desire to make acquaintance. This romance went on for a couple of months.

Gilbert Dent assured himself that nothing in this life can possibly remain stationary, and he cudgeled his brain for a respectable manner of introducing himself to his idol.

He had hardly arrived at this point when he received a shock. There came an evening when she was not at the window.

Next morning he walked down Wood Lane on his way to the office. He always went by train, but he felt a strong disinclination to go through another day without a sight of her. His heart began to beat like a schoolgirl’s as he drew near the house. If she should be at the window. He was almost disposed to take his courage in his hand and call on her, and—yes, even—tell her in a quick burst that she had mysteriously become all the world to him. He could see nothing ridiculous in this course; the possibility of her being married, or having family ties of any sort, had simply never occurred to him.

However, she was not at the window; what was more, there was a sinister silence, a sort of breathlessness about the whole place.

It was a very hot morning in late August. He looked a long time, but no face came, and no movement stirred the house.

He went his way, walking like a man who has been heavily knocked on the brow and sees stars still. That afternoon he left the office early, and in less than an hour stood at the gate again. The window was blank. He pushed the gate back—it hung on one hinge—and walked up the drive to the door. There were five steps—five steps leading up to it. At the foot he wheeled aside sharply to the window; he had a sick dread of looking through the small panes—why he could not have told.

When at last he found courage to look he saw that there was a small round table set just under the window—a work-table to all appearance; one of those things with lots of little compartments all round and a lid in the middle which shut over a well-like cavity for holding pieces of needlework. He remembered that his mother had one—thirty years before.

Round the edge of the table was gripped a small, delicate hand. Gilbert Dent’s eyes ran from this bloodless hand and slim wrist to a shoulder under a coarse stuff bodice—to a rather wasted throat, which was bare and flung back.

So this was the end—before the beginning. He saw her. She was dead; twisted on the floor with a ghastly face turned up toward the ceiling, and stiff fingers caught in desperation round the work table.

He stumbled away along the path and into the lane.

For a long time he could not realize the horror of this thing. The influence of the decayed house hung over him—nothing seemed real. It was quite dark when he moved away from the gate, and went in the direction of the nearest police station. That she was dead—this woman whose very name he did not know although she influenced him so powerfully—he was certain; one look at the face would have told anyone that. That she was murdered he more than suspected. He had seen no blood about; there had been no mark on the long, bare throat, and yet the word rushed in his ears, “Murder.”

Later on he went back with a police officer.

They broke into the house and entered the room. It was in utter darkness, of course, by now. Dent, his fingers trembling, struck a match. It flared round the walls and lighted them for a moment before he let it fall on the dusty floor.

The policeman began to light his lantern and turned it stolidly on the window. He had no reason for delay; he was eager to get to the bottom of the business. His professional zeal was whetted; this promised to be a mystery with a spice in it.

He turned the light full on the window; he gave a strange, choked cry, half of rage, half of apprehension. Then he went up to Gilbert Dent, who stood in the middle of the room with his hands before his eyes, and took his shoulder and shook it none too gently.

“There ain’t nobody,” he said.

Dent looked wildly at the window—the recess was empty except for the work-table. The woman was gone.

They searched the house; they minutely inspected the garden. Everything was normal; everything told the same mournful tale—of desertion, of death, of long empty years. But they found no woman, nor trace of one.

“This house,” said the policeman, looking suspiciously into the lawyer’s face, “has been empty for longer than I can remember. Nobody’ll live in it. They do say something about foul play a good many years ago. I don’t know about that. All I do know is that the landlord can’t get it off his hands.”

It was doubtful if Gilbert Dent heard one word of what the man was saying. He was too stunned to do anything but creep home—when he was allowed to go—and let himself stealthily into his own house with a latch key; he was afraid even of himself. He did not go to bed that night.

As for the mystery of the woman, the matter was allowed to drop; it ended—officially. There was a shrug and a grin at the police station. The impression there was that the lawyer had been drinking—that the dead woman in the empty room was a gruesome freak of his tipsy brain.

* * * * *

A week or so later Dent called on his brother Ned—the one near relation he had. Ned was a doctor; perhaps he was a shade more matter-of-fact than Gilbert; at all events, when the latter told his story of the house and the woman, he attributed the affair solely to liver.

“You are overworked”—the elder brother looked at the younger’s yellow face. “An experience of this nature is by no means uncommon. Haven’t you heard of people having their pet ‘spooks’?”

“But this was a real woman,” he declared. “I—I, well, I was in love with her. I had made up my mind to marry her—if I could.”

Ned gave him a keen, swift glance.

“We’ll go to Brighton to-morrow,” he said, with quiet decision. “As for your work, everything must be put aside. You’ve run completely down. You ought to have been taken in hand before.”

They went to Brighton, and it really seemed as if Ned was right, and that the woman at the window had been merely a nervous creation. It seemed so, that is, for nearly three weeks, and then the climax came.

It was in the twilight—she had always been part of it—that Gilbert Dent saw her again; the woman that he had found lying dead.

They were walking, the two brothers, along the cliffs.

The wind was blowing in their faces, the sea was booming beneath the cliff. Ned had just said it was about time they turned back to the hotel and had some dinner, when Gilbert with a cry leapt forward to the very edge of the flat grass path on which they were strolling. The movement was so sudden that his brother barely caught him in time. They struggled and swayed on the very edge of the cliff for a second; Gilbert, possessed by some sudden frenzy, seemed resolved to go over, but the other at last dragged him backward, and they rolled together on the close, thick turf.

At this point Gilbert opened his eyes and tried to get on his feet.

“Better?” asked his brother, cheerfully, holding out a helping hand. “Strange! The sea has that effect on some people. Didn’t think that you were one of them.”

“What effect?”

“Vertigo, my dear fellow.”

“Ned,” said the other solemnly, “I saw her. It is not worth your while to try to account for anything. I have been inclined to think that you were right—that she, the woman at the window, was a fancy, that I had fallen in love with a creation of my own brain; but I saw her again to-night. You must have seen her yourself—she was within a couple of feet of you. Why did you not try and save her? It was nothing short of murder to let her go over like that. I did my best.”

“You certainly did—to kill us both,” said Ned, grimly.

Gilbert gave him a wild look.

After luncheon Ned persuaded him to rest—watched him fall asleep, and then went out.

In the porch of the hotel he was met by a waiter on his return who told him that Gilbert had left about a quarter of an hour after he had himself gone out.

Directly he heard this he feared the worst; having, as is usual in such cases, a very hazy idea of what the worst might be. Of course he must follow without a moment’s delay; but a reference to the time-table told him that there was not another train for an hour, and that was slow.

It was already getting dusk when he arrived there. He felt certain that Gilbert would go there. He got to the end of the lane and walked up it slowly, examining every house. There would be no difficulty in recognizing the one he wanted; Gilbert had described it in detail more than once.

He stood outside the loosely hanging gate at last, and stared through the darkness at the shabby stucco front and rank garden.

He went down a flight of steps to the back door, and finding it unfastened, stepped into a stone passage. It was one of the problems of the place that he should have avoided the main entrance door with a half-admitted dread, and that, only half admitting still, he was afraid to mount the long flight of stone stairs leading from the servants’ quarters. However, he pulled himself together and went up to the room.

It was quite dark inside. He heard something scuttle across the floor; he felt the grit and dust of years under his feet. He struck a match—just as Gilbert had done—and looked first at the recess in which the window was built. The match flared round the room for a moment and gave him a flash picture of his surroundings. He saw the stripes of gaudy paper moving almost imperceptibly, like tentacles of some sea monster, from the wall; he saw a creature—it looked like a rat—scurry across the floor from the window to the great mantelpiece of hard white marble.

If he had seen nothing more than this.

He saw in detail all that the first match had flashed at him. He saw his brother lying on the floor; a ghastly coincidence, his hand was caught round the edge of the work-table as hers had been. The other hand was clenched across his breast; there was a look of great agony on his face.

A dead face, of course. This was the end of the affair. He was lying dead by the window where the woman had sat every night at dusk and smiled at him.

The second match went out; the brother of the dead man struck a third. He looked again and closely. Then he staggered to his feet and gave a cry. It rang through the empty rooms and echoed without wearying down the long, stone passages in the basement.

Gilbert’s head was thrown back; his chin peaked to the ceiling. On his throat were livid marks. The doctor saw them distinctly; he saw the grip of small fingers; the distinct impression of a woman’s little hand.

* * * * *

The curious thing about the whole story—the most curious thing, perhaps—is that no other eye ever saw those murderous marks. So there was no scandal, no chase after the murderer, no undiscovered crime. They faded; when the doctor saw his brother again in the full light and in the presence of others his throat was clear. And the post mortem proved that death was due to natural causes.

So the matter stands, and will.

But where the house and its overgrown garden stood runs a new road with neat red and white villas.

Whatever secret it knew—if any—it kept discreetly.

Ned Dent is morbid enough to go down the smart new road in the twilight sometimes and wonder.

This Kindle book, 70 Forgotten Ghost Stories is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only 99 cents

See a local listing for this book here

Great Quotes by Nietzsche

For more see The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche - 100 Books on CDrom and 350 Books on German Philosophy on DVDrom

“Men need play & danger. Civilization gives them work and safety.”
...............................

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
...............................

"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering."
...............................

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
...............................

Socialism itself can hope to exist only for brief periods here and there, and then only through the exercise of the extremest terrorism. For this reason it is secretly preparing itself for rule through fear and is driving the word “justice” into the heads of the half-educated masses like a nail so as to rob them of their reason… and to create in them a good conscience for the evil game they are to play.
...............................

"Without music, life would be a mistake."
...............................

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
...............................

"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."
...............................

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?"
..............................

"There are no facts, only interpretations."
..............................

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.
..............................

All I need is a sheet of paper and something to write with, and then I can turn the world upside down.
..............................

"Mystical explanations are considered deep. The truth is that they are not even superficial."
..............................

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.
..............................

Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.
..............................

The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.
..............................

For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.
.............................

There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.
.............................

Idleness is the parent of psychology.
.............................

Stupidity in a woman is unfeminine.
.............................

Insanity in individuals is something rare -- but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.
.............................

In revenge and in love woman is more barbaric than man is.
.............................

It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night.
.............................

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
.............................

Love is a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not.
.............................

Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory is too good.
.............................

One may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it tells the truth.
.............................

One must learn to love oneself with a wholesome and healthy love, so that one can bear to be with oneself and need not roam.
.............................

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.
.............................

The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously.
.............................

We have art in order not to die of the truth.
.............................

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
.............................

Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.
.............................

When one has not had a good father, one must create one.
.............................

Woman was God's second mistake.
.............................

All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.
.............................

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
.............................

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.
.............................

The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.
.............................

When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.
.............................

There are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
.............................

A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.
.............................

Invisible threads are the strongest ties.
.............................

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.
.............................

One must give value to their existence by behaving as if ones very existence were a work of art.
.............................

One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.
.............................

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
.............................

One pays dearly for being immortal: one has to die several times while alive.
.............................

What is the seal of liberation? — No longer being ashamed in front of oneself.
.............................

Behind a remarkable scholar we not infrequently find an average human being, and behind an average artist we often find a very remarkable human being.
.............................

Close beside my knowledge lies my black ignorance.
.............................

The doctrine of equality! … But there is no more venomous poison in existence: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, when it is actually the end of justice … “Equality to the equal; inequality to the unequal” — that would be true justice speaking: and its corollary, ‘never make the unequal equal’

For more see The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche - 100 Books on CDrom and 350 Books on German Philosophy on DVDrom

The Economic Philosophy of John Stuart Mill

HIS WORK IN POLITICAL ECONOMY BY PROF. J. E. CAIRNES 1873

See also The History & Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom and 500 Books on 2 DVDROMs for Libertarians and Objectivists

For a list of all of my digital books on disks and ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here

Visit my Econ blog at http://fredericbastiat1850.blogspot.com/

The task of fairly estimating the value of Mr. Mill's achievements in political economy—and indeed the same remark applies to what he has done in every department of philosophy—is rendered particularly difficult by a circumstance which constitutes their principal merit. The character of his intellectual, no less than of his moral nature, led him to strive to connect his thoughts, whatever was the branch of knowledge at which he labored, with the previously existing body of speculation, to fit them into the same framework, and exhibit them as parts of the same scheme; so that it might be truly said of him that he was at more pains to conceal the originality and independent value of his contributions to the stock of knowledge than most writers are to set forth those qualities in their compositions. As a consequence of this, hasty readers of his works, while recognizing the comprehensiveness of his mind, have sometimes denied its originality; and in political economy in particular he has been frequently represented as little more than an expositor and popularizer of Ricardo. It cannot be denied that there is a show of truth in this representation; about as much as there would be in asserting that Laplace and Herschel were the expositors and popularizers of Newton, or that Faraday performed a like office for Sir Humphrey Davy. In truth, this is an incident of all progressive science. The cultivators in each age may, in a sense, be said to be the interpreters and popularizers of those who have preceded them; and it is in this sense, and in this sense only, that this part can be attributed to Mill. In this respect he is to be strongly contrasted with the great majority of writers on political economy, who, on the strength, perhaps, of a verbal correction, or an unimportant qualification, of a received doctrine, if not on the score of a pure fallacy, would fain persuade us that they have achieved a revolution in economic doctrine, and that the entire science must be rebuilt from its foundation in conformity with their scheme. This sort of thing has done infinite mischief to the progress of economic science; and one of Mill's great merits is that both by example and by precept he steadily discountenanced it. His anxiety to affiliate his own speculations to those of his predecessors is a marked feature in all his philosophical works, and illustrates at once the modesty and comprehensiveness of his mind.

On some points, however, and these points of supreme importance, the contributions of Mill to economic science are very much more than developments—even though we understand that term in its largest sense—of any previous writer. No one can have studied political economy in the works of its earlier cultivators without being struck with the dreariness of the outlook which, in the main, it discloses for the human race. It seems to have been Ricardo's deliberate opinion that a substantial improvement in the condition of the mass of mankind was impossible. He considered it as the normal state of things that wages should be at the minimum requisite to support the laborer in physical health and strength, and to enable him to bring up a family large enough to supply the wants of the labor-market. A temporary improvement, indeed, as the consequence of expanding commerce and growing capital, he saw that there might be; but he held that the force of the principle of population was always powerful enough so to augment the supply of labor as to bring wages ever again down to the minimum point. So completely had this belief become a fixed idea in Ricardo's mind, that he confidently drew from it the consequence that in no case could taxation fall on the laborer, since—living, as a normal state of things, on the lowest possible stipend adequate to maintain him and his family—he would inevitably, he argued, transfer the burden to his employer, and a tax, nominally on wages, would, in the result, become invariably a tax upon profits. On this point Mill's doctrine leads to conclusions directly opposed to Ricardo's, and to those of most preceding economists. And it will illustrate his position, as a thinker, in relation to them, if we note how this result was obtained. Mill neither denied the premises nor disputed the logic of Ricardo's argument: he accepted both; and in particular he recognized fully the force of the principle of population; but he took account of a further premiss which Ricardo had overlooked, and which, duly weighed, led to a reversal of Ricardo's conclusion. The minimum of wages, even such as it exists in the case of the worst-paid laborer, is not the very least sum that human nature can subsist upon; it is something more than this: in the case of all above the worst-paid class it is decidedly more. The minimum is, in truth, not a physical, but a moral minimum, and, as such, is capable of being altered with the changes in the moral character of those whom it affects. In a word, each class has a certain standard of comfort below which it will not consent to live, or, at least to multiply—a standard, however, not fixed, but liable to modification with the changing circumstances of society, and which in the case of a progressive community is, in point of fact, constantly rising, as moral and intellectual influences are brought more and more effectually to bear on the masses of the people. This was the new premiss brought by Mill to the elucidation of the wages question, and it sufficed to change the entire aspect of human life regarded from the point of view of Political Economy. The practical deductions made from it were set forth in the celebrated chapter on "The Future of the Industrial Classes"—a chapter which, it is no exaggeration to say, places a gulf between Mill and all who preceded him, and opens an entirely new vista to economic speculation.

The doctrine of the science with which Mill's name has been most prominently associated, within the last few years, is that which relates to the economic nature of land, and the consequences to which this should lead in practical legislation. It is very commonly believed that on this point Mill has started aside from the beaten highway of economic thought, and propounded views wholly at variance with those generally entertained by orthodox economists. No economist need be told that this is an entire mistake. In truth there is no portion of the economic field in which Mill's originality is less conspicuous than in that which deals with the land. His assertion of the peculiar nature of landed property, and again his doctrine as to the "unearned increment" of value arising from land with the growth of society, are simply direct deductions from Ricardo's theory of rent, and cannot be consistently denied by any one who accepts that theory. All that Mill has done here has been to point the application of principles, all but universally accepted, to the practical affairs of life. This is not the place to consider how far the plan proposed by him for this purpose is susceptible of practical realization; but it may at least be confidently stated that the scientific basis on which his proposal rests is no strange novelty invented by him, but simply a principle as fundamental and widely recognized as any within the range of the science of which it forms a part.

There is one more point which ought not to be omitted from even the most meagre summary. Mill was not the first to treat political economy as a science, but he was the first, if not to perceive, at least to enforce the lesson, that, just because it is a science, its conclusions carried with them no obligatory force with reference to human conduct. As a science it tells us that certain modes of action lead to certain results; but it remains for each man to judge of the value of the results thus brought about, and to decide whether or not it is worth while to adopt the means necessary for their attainment. In the writings of the economists who preceded Mill it is very generally assumed that to prove that a certain course of conduct tends to the most rapid increase of wealth suffices to entail upon all who accept the argument the obligation of adopting the course which leads to this result. Mill absolutely repudiated this inference, and, while accepting the theoretic conclusion, held himself perfectly free to adopt in practice whatever course he preferred. It was not for political economy or for any science to say what are the ends most worthy of being pursued by human beings: the task of science is complete when it shows us the means by which the ends may be attained; but it is for each individual man to decide how far the end is desirable at the cost which its attainment involves. In a word, the sciences should be our servants, and not our masters. This was a lesson which Mill was the first to enforce, and by enforcing which he may be said to have emancipated economists from the thraldom of their own teaching. It is in no slight degree, through the constant recognition of its truth, that he has been enabled to divest of repulsiveness even the most abstract speculations, and to impart a glow of human interest to all that he has touched.

Visit A Tribute to my Beloved Dog Teddy

The Haunted House by Thomas Hood 1896

Buy this book with a whopping 50 chapters for only 99 cents on Amazon.

See a local listing for this book here

The Haunted House by Thomas Hood 1896

PART I.


Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams,
Unnatural, and full of contradictions;
Yet others of our most romantic schemes
Are something more than fictions.

It might be only on enchanted ground;
It might be merely by a thought's expansion;
But, in the spirit or the flesh, I found
An old deserted Mansion.

A residence for woman, child, and man,
A dwelling place,—and yet no habitation;
A House,—but under some prodigious ban
Of excommunication.

Unhinged the iron gates half open hung,
Jarr'd by the gusty gales of many winters,
That from its crumbled pedestal had flung
One marble globe in splinters.

No dog was at the threshold, great or small;
No pigeon on the roof—no household creature—
No cat demurely dozing on the wall—
Not one domestic feature.

No human figure stirr'd, to go or come,
No face look'd forth from shut or open casement;
No chimney smoked—there was no sign of Home
From parapet to basement.

With shatter'd panes the grassy court was starr'd;
The time-worn coping-stone had tumbled after;
And thro' the ragged roof the sky shone, barr'd
With naked beam and rafter.

O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear;
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted!

The flow'r grew wild and rankly as the weed,
Roses with thistles struggled for espial,
And vagrant plants of parasitic breed
Had overgrown the Dial.

But gay or gloomy, steadfast or infirm,
No heart was there to heed the hour's duration;
All times and tides were lost in one long term
Of stagnant desolation.

The wren had built within the Porch, she found
Its quiet loneliness so sure and thorough;
And on the lawn,—within its turfy mound,—
The rabbit made his burrow.

The rabbit wild and gray, that flitted thro'
The shrubby clumps, and frisk'd, and sat, and
        vanish'd,
But leisurely and bold, as if he knew
His enemy was banish'd.

The wary crow,—the pheasant from the woods—
Lull'd by the still and everlasting sameness,
Close to the mansion, like domestic broods,
Fed with a "shocking tameness."

The coot was swimming in the reedy pond,
Beside the water-hen, so soon affrighted;
And in the weedy moat the heron, fond
Of solitude, alighted.

The moping heron, motionless and stiff,
That on a stone, as silently and stilly,
Stood, an apparent sentinel, as if
To guard the water-lily.

No sound was heard except, from far away,
The ringing of the witwall's shrilly laughter,
Or, now and then, the chatter of the jay,
That Echo murmur'd after.

But Echo never mock'd the human tongue;
Some weighty crime, that Heaven could not pardon,
A secret curse on that old Building hung,
And its deserted Garden.

The beds were all untouch'd by hand or tool;
No footstep marked the damp and mossy gravel,
Each walk as green as is the mantled pool,
For want of human travel.

The vine unpruned, and the neglected peach,
Droop'd from the wall with which they used to
        grapple;
And on the canker'd tree, in easy reach,
Rotted the golden apple.

But awfully the truant shunn'd the ground,
The vagrant kept aloof, and daring Poacher;
In spite of gaps that thro' the fences round
Invited the encroacher.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted!

The pear and quince lay squander'd on the grass;
The mould was purple with unheeded showers
Of bloomy plums—a Wilderness it was
Of fruits, and weeds, and flowers!

The marigold amidst the nettles blew,
The gourd embraced the rose bush in its ramble,
The thistle and the stock together grew,
The holly-hock and bramble.

The bear-bine with the lilac interlaced,
The sturdy bur-dock choked its slender neighbour,
The spicy pink. All tokens were effaced
Of human care and labour.

The very yew Formality had train'd
To such a rigid pyramidal stature,
For want of trimming had almost regain'd
The raggedness of nature.

The Fountain was a-dry—neglect and time
Had marr'd the work of artisan and mason,
And efts and croaking frogs, begot of slime,
Sprawl'd in the ruin'd bason.

The Statue, fallen from its marble base,
Amidst the refuse leaves, and herbage rotten,
Lay like the Idol of some bygone race,
Its name and rites forgotten.

On ev'ry side the aspect was the same,
All ruin'd, desolate, forlorn, and savage:
No hand or foot within the precinct came
To rectify or ravage.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted!


PART II.


O, very gloomy is the House of Woe,
Where tears are falling while the bell is knelling,
With all the dark solemnities which show
That Death is in the dwelling!

O very, very dreary is the room
Where Love, domestic Love, no longer nestles,
But, smitten by the common stroke of doom,
The Corpse lies on the trestles!

But House of Woe, and hearse, and sable pall,
The narrow home of the departed mortal,
Ne'er look'd so gloomy as that Ghostly Hall,
With its deserted portal!

The centipede along the threshold crept,
The cobweb hung across in mazy tangle,
And in its winding-sheet the maggot slept,
At every nook and angle.

The keyhole lodged the earwig and her brood,
The emmets of the steps had old possession,
And march'd in search of their diurnal food
In undisturb'd procession.

As undisturb'd as the prehensile cell
Of moth or maggot, or the spider's tissue,
For never foot upon that threshold fell,
To enter or to issue.

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted!

Howbeit, the door I push'd—or so I dream'd—
Which slowly, slowly gaped,—the hinges creaking
With such a rusty eloquence, it seem'd
That Time himself was speaking.

But Time was dumb within that Mansion old,
Or left his tale to the heraldic banners,
That hung from the corroded walls, and told
Of former men and manners:—

Those tatter'd flags, that with the open'd door,
Seem'd the old wave of battle to remember,
While fallen fragments danced upon the floor,
Like dead leaves in December.

The startled bats flew out,—bird after bird,—
The screech-owl overhead began to flutter,
And seem'd to mock the cry that she had heard
Some dying victim utter!

A shriek that echoed from the joisted roof,
And up the stair, and further still and further,
Till in some ringing chamber far aloof
It ceased its tale of murther!

Meanwhile the rusty armour rattled round,
The banner shudder'd, and the ragged streamer;
All things the horrid tenor of the sound
Acknowledged with a tremor.

The antlers, where the helmet hung, and belt,
Stirr'd as the tempest stirs the forest branches,
Or as the stag had trembled when he felt
The blood-hound at his haunches.

The window jingled in its crumbled frame,
And thro' its many gaps of destitution
Dolorous moans and hollow sighings came,
Like those of dissolution.

The wood-louse dropped, and rolled into a ball,
Touch'd by some impulse occult or mechanic;
And nameless beetles ran along the wall
In universal panic.

The subtle spider, that from overhead
Hung like a spy on human guilt and error,
Suddenly turn'd, and up its slender thread
Ran with a nimble terror.

The very stains and fractures on the wall,
Assuming features solemn and terrific,
Hinted some Tragedy of that old Hall,
Lock'd up in hieroglyphic.

Some tale that might, perchance, have solved the
        doubt,
Wherefore amongst those flags so dull and livid,
The banner of the Bloody Hand shone out
So ominously vivid.

Some key to that inscrutable appeal,
Which made the very frame of Nature quiver;
And ev'ry thrilling nerve and fibre feel
So ague-like a shiver.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted!

If but a rat had lingered in the house,
To lure the thought into a social channel!
But not a rat remain'd, or tiny mouse,
To squeak behind the panel.

Huge drops roll'd down the walls, as if they wept;
And where the cricket used to chirp so shrilly
The toad was squatting, and the lizard crept
On that damp hearth and chilly.

For years no cheerful blaze had sparkled there,
Or glanced on coat of buff or knightly metal;
The slug was crawling on the vacant chair,—
The snail upon the settle.

The floor was redolent of mould and must,
The fungus in the rotten seams had quicken'd;
While on the oaken table coats of dust
Perennially had thicken'd.

No mark of leathern jack or metal can,
No cup—no horn—no hospitable token,—
All social ties between that board and Man
Had long ago been broken.

There was so foul a rumour in the air,
The shadow of a Presence so atrocious;
No human creature could have feasted there,
Even the most ferocious.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted!


PART III.


'Tis hard for human actions to account,
Whether from reason or from impulse only—
But some internal prompting bade me mount
The gloomy stairs and lonely.

Those gloomy stairs, so dark, and damp, and cold,
With odours as from bones and relics carnal,
Deprived of rite, and consecrated mould,
The chapel vault, or charnel.

Those dreary stairs, where with the sounding stress
Of ev'ry step so many echoes blended,
The mind, with dark misgivings, fear'd to guess
How many feet ascended.

The tempest with its spoils had drifted in,
Till each unwholesome stone was darkly spotted,
As thickly as the leopard's dappled skin,
With leaves that rankly rotted.

The air was thick—and in the upper gloom
The bat—or something in its shape—was winging;
And on the wall, as chilly as a tomb,
The Death's-Head moth was clinging.

That mystic moth, which, with a sense profound
Of all unholy presence, augurs truly;
And with a grim significance flits round
The taper burning bluely.

Such omens in the place there seem'd to be,
At ev'ry crooked turn, or on the landing,
The straining eyeball was prepared to see
Some Apparition standing.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted!

Yet no portentous Shape the sight amazed;
Each object plain, and tangible, and valid;
But from their tarnish'd frames dark Figures gazed,
And Faces spectre-pallid.

Not merely with the mimic life that lies
Within the compass of Art's simulation;
Their souls were looking thro' their painted eyes
With awful speculation.

On ev'ry lip a speechless horror dwelt;
On ev'ry brow the burthen of affliction;
The old Ancestral Spirits knew and felt
The House's malediction.

Such earnest woe their features overcast,
They might have stirr'd, or sigh'd, or wept, or
        spoken;
But, save the hollow moaning of the blast,
The stillness was unbroken.

No other sound or stir of life was there,
Except my steps in solitary clamber,
From flight to flight, from humid stair to stair,
From chamber into chamber.

Deserted rooms of luxury and state,
That old magnificence had richly furnish'd
With pictures, cabinets of ancient date,
And carvings gilt and burnish'd.

Rich hangings, storied by the needle's art
With scripture history, or classic fable;
But all had faded, save one ragged part,
Where Cain was slaying Abel.

The silent waste of mildew and the moth
Had marr'd the tissue with a partial ravage;
But undecaying frown'd upon the cloth
Each feature stern and savage.

The sky was pale; the cloud a thing of doubt;
Some hues were fresh, and some decay'd and duller;
But still the Bloody Hand shone strangely out
With vehemence of colour!

The Bloody Hand that with a lurid stain
Shone on the dusty floor, a dismal token,
Projected from the casement's painted pane,
Where all beside was broken.

The Bloody Hand significant of crime,
That glaring on the old heraldic banner,
Had kept its crimson unimpair'd by time,
In such a wondrous manner!

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted!

The Death Watch tick'd behind the panel'd oak,
Inexplicable tremors shook the arras,
And echoes strange and mystical awoke,
The fancy to embarrass.

Prophetic hints that filled the soul with dread,
But thro' one gloomy entrance pointing mostly,
The while some secret inspiration said,
That Chamber is the Ghostly!

Across the door no gossamer festoon
Swung pendulous—no web—no dusty fringes,
No silky chrysalis or white cocoon
About its nooks and hinges.

The spider shunn'd the interdicted room,
The moth, the beetle, and the fly were banish'd,
And where the sunbeam fell athwart the gloom
The very midge had vanish'd.

One lonely ray that glanced upon a Bed,
As if with awful aim direct and certain
To show the Bloody Hand in burning red
Embroider'd on the curtain.

And yet no gory stain was on the quilt—
The pillow in its place had slowly rotted;
The floor alone retain'd the trace of guilt,
Those boards obscurely spotted.

Obscurely spotted to the door, and thence
With mazy doubles to the grated casement—
Oh what a tale they told of fear intense,
Of horror and amazement!

What human creature in the dead of night
Had coursed like hunted hare that cruel distance?
Had sought the door, the window in his flight,
Striving for dear existence?

What shrieking Spirit in that bloody room
Its mortal frame had violently quitted?—
Across the sunbeam, with a sudden gloom,
A ghostly Shadow flitted.

Across the sunbeam, and along the wall,
But painted on the air so very dimly,
It hardly veil'd the tapestry at all,
Or portrait frowning grimly.

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted!

This Kindle book, 70 Forgotten Ghost Stories is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only 99 cents

See a local listing for this book here

Visit A Tribute to my Beloved Dog Teddy