Friday, June 28, 2019

The Terror by Guy de Maupassant


[Guy de Maupassant contracted syphilis which slowly led to madness. One wonders, with stories like the following, how much of that madness made it into his fiction.]

 The Terror by Guy de Maupassant

You say you cannot possibly understand it, and I believe you. You think I am losing my mind? Perhaps I am, but for other reasons than those you imagine, my dear friend.

Yes, I am going to be married, and will tell you what has led me to take that step.

I may add that I know very little of the girl who is going to become my wife to-morrow; I have only seen her four or five times. I know that there is nothing unpleasing about her, and that is enough for my purpose. She is small, fair, and stout; so, of course, the day after to-morrow I shall ardently wish for a tall, dark, thin woman.

She is not rich, and belongs to the middle classes. She is a girl such as you may find by the gross, well adapted for matrimony, without any apparent faults, and with no particularly striking qualities. People say of her:

“Mlle. Lajolle is a very nice girl,” and tomorrow they will say: “What a very nice woman Madame Raymon is.” She belongs, in a word, to that immense number of girls whom one is glad to have for one's wife, till the moment comes when one discovers that one happens to prefer all other women to that particular woman whom one has married.

“Well,” you will say to me, “what on earth did you get married for?”

I hardly like to tell you the strange and seemingly improbable reason that urged me on to this senseless act; the fact, however, is that I am afraid of being alone.

I don't know how to tell you or to make you understand me, but my state of mind is so wretched that you will pity me and despise me.

I do not want to be alone any longer at night. I want to feel that there is some one close to me, touching me, a being who can speak and say something, no matter what it be.

I wish to be able to awaken somebody by my side, so that I may be able to ask some sudden question, a stupid question even, if I feel inclined, so that I may hear a human voice, and feel that there is some waking soul close to me, some one whose reason is at work; so that when I hastily light the candle I may see some human face by my side—because—because—I am ashamed to confess it—because I am afraid of being alone.

Oh, you don't understand me yet.

I am not afraid of any danger; if a man were to come into the room, I should kill him without trembling. I am not afraid of ghosts, nor do I believe in the supernatural. I am not afraid of dead people, for I believe in the total annihilation of every being that disappears from the face of this earth.

Well—yes, well, it must be told: I am afraid of myself, afraid of that horrible sensation of incomprehensible fear.

You may laugh, if you like. It is terrible, and I cannot get over it. I am afraid of the walls, of the furniture, of the familiar objects; which are animated, as far as I am concerned, by a kind of animal life. Above all, I am afraid of my own dreadful thoughts, of my reason, which seems as if it were about to leave me, driven away by a mysterious and invisible agony.

At first I feel a vague uneasiness in my mind, which causes a cold shiver to run all over me. I look round, and of course nothing is to be seen, and I wish that there were something there, no matter what, as long as it were something tangible. I am frightened merely because I cannot understand my own terror.

If I speak, I am afraid of my own voice. If I walk, I am afraid of I know not what, behind the door, behind the curtains, in the cupboard, or under my bed, and yet all the time I know there is nothing anywhere, and I turn round suddenly because I am afraid of what is behind me, although there is nothing there, and I know it.

I become agitated. I feel that my fear increases, and so I shut myself up in my own room, get into bed, and hide under the clothes; and there, cowering down, rolled into a ball, I close my eyes in despair, and remain thus for an indefinite time, remembering that my candle is alight on the table by my bedside, and that I ought to put it out, and yet—I dare not do it.

It is very terrible, is it not, to be like that?

Formerly I felt nothing of all that. I came home quite calm, and went up and down my apartment without anything disturbing my peace of mind. Had any one told me that I should be attacked by a malady—for I can call it nothing else—of most improbable fear, such a stupid and terrible malady as it is, I should have laughed outright. I was certainly never afraid of opening the door in the dark. I went to bed slowly, without locking it, and never got up in the middle of the night to make sure that everything was firmly closed.

It began last year in a very strange manner on a damp autumn evening. When my servant had left the room, after I had dined, I asked myself what I was going to do. I walked up and down my room for some time, feeling tired without any reason for it, unable to work, and even without energy to read. A fine rain was falling, and I felt unhappy, a prey to one of those fits of despondency, without any apparent cause, which make us feel inclined to cry, or to talk, no matter to whom, so as to shake off our depressing thoughts.

I felt that I was alone, and my rooms seemed to me to be more empty than they had ever been before. I was in the midst of infinite and overwhelming solitude. What was I to do? I sat down, but a kind of nervous impatience seemed to affect my legs, so I got up and began to walk about again. I was, perhaps, rather feverish, for my hands, which I had clasped behind me, as one often does when walking slowly, almost seemed to burn one another. Then suddenly a cold shiver ran down my back, and I thought the damp air might have penetrated into my rooms, so I lit the fire for the first time that year, and sat down again and looked at the flames. But soon I felt that I could not possibly remain quiet, and so I got up again and determined to go out, to pull myself together, and to find a friend to bear me company.

I could not find anyone, so I walked to the boulevard to try and meet some acquaintance or other there.

It was wretched everywhere, and the wet pavement glistened in the gaslight, while the oppressive warmth of the almost impalpable rain lay heavily over the streets and seemed to obscure the light of the lamps.

I went on slowly, saying to myself: “I shall not find a soul to talk to.”

I glanced into several cafes, from the Madeleine as far as the Faubourg Poissoniere, and saw many unhappy-looking individuals sitting at the tables who did not seem even to have enough energy left to finish the refreshments they had ordered.

For a long time I wandered aimlessly up and down, and about midnight I started for home. I was very calm and very tired. My janitor opened the door at once, which was quite unusual for him, and I thought that another lodger had probably just come in.

When I go out I always double-lock the door of my room, and I found it merely closed, which surprised me; but I supposed that some letters had been brought up for me in the course of the evening.

I went in, and found my fire still burning so that it lighted up the room a little, and, while in the act of taking up a candle, I noticed somebody sitting in my armchair by the fire, warming his feet, with his back toward me.

I was not in the slightest degree frightened. I thought, very naturally, that some friend or other had come to see me. No doubt the porter, to whom I had said I was going out, had lent him his own key. In a moment I remembered all the circumstances of my return, how the street door had been opened immediately, and that my own door was only latched and not locked.

I could see nothing of my friend but his head, and he had evidently gone to sleep while waiting for me, so I went up to him to rouse him. I saw him quite distinctly; his right arm was hanging down and his legs were crossed; the position of his head, which was somewhat inclined to the left of the armchair, seemed to indicate that he was asleep. “Who can it be?” I asked myself. I could not see clearly, as the room was rather dark, so I put out my hand to touch him on the shoulder, and it came in contact with the back of the chair. There was nobody there; the seat was empty.

I fairly jumped with fright. For a moment I drew back as if confronted by some terrible danger; then I turned round again, impelled by an imperious standing upright, panting with fear, so upset that I could not collect my thoughts, and ready to faint.

But I am a cool man, and soon recovered myself. I thought: “It is a mere hallucination, that is all,” and I immediately began to reflect on this phenomenon. Thoughts fly quickly at such moments.

I had been suffering from an hallucination, that was an incontestable fact. My mind had been perfectly lucid and had acted regularly and logically, so there was nothing the matter with the brain. It was only my eyes that had been deceived; they had had a vision, one of those visions which lead simple folk to believe in miracles. It was a nervous seizure of the optical apparatus, nothing more; the eyes were rather congested, perhaps.

I lit my candle, and when I stooped down to the fire in doing so I noticed that I was trembling, and I raised myself up with a jump, as if somebody had touched me from behind.

I was certainly not by any means calm.

I walked up and down a little, and hummed a tune or two. Then I double-locked the door and felt rather reassured; now, at any rate, nobody could come in.

I sat down again and thought over my adventure for a long time; then I went to bed and blew out my light.

For some minutes all went well; I lay quietly on my back, but presently an irresistible desire seized me to look round the room, and I turned over on my side.

My fire was nearly out, and the few glowing embers threw a faint light on the floor by the chair, where I fancied I saw the man sitting again.

I quickly struck a match, but I had been mistaken; there was nothing there. I got up, however, and hid the chair behind my bed, and tried to get to sleep, as the room was now dark; but I had not forgotten myself for more than five minutes, when in my dream I saw all the scene which I had previously witnessed as clearly as if it were reality. I woke up with a start, and having lit the candle, sat up in bed, without venturing even to try to go to sleep again.

Twice, however, sleep overcame me for a few moments in spite of myself, and twice I saw the same thing again, till I fancied I was going mad. When day broke, however, I thought that I was cured, and slept peacefully till noon.

It was all past and over. I had been feverish, had had the nightmare. I know not what. I had been ill, in fact, but yet thought I was a great fool.

I enjoyed myself thoroughly that evening. I dined at a restaurant and afterward went to the theatre, and then started for home. But as I got near the house I was once more seized by a strange feeling of uneasiness. I was afraid of seeing him again. I was not afraid of him, not afraid of his presence, in which I did not believe; but I was afraid of being deceived again. I was afraid of some fresh hallucination, afraid lest fear should take possession of me.

For more than an hour I wandered up and down the pavement; then, feeling that I was really too foolish, I returned home. I breathed so hard that I could hardly get upstairs, and remained standing outside my door for more than ten minutes; then suddenly I had a courageous impulse and my will asserted itself. I inserted my key into the lock, and went into the apartment with a candle in my hand. I kicked open my bedroom door, which was partly open, and cast a frightened glance toward the fireplace. There was nothing there. A-h! What a relief and what a delight! What a deliverance! I walked up and down briskly and boldly, but I was not altogether reassured, and kept turning round with a jump; the very shadows in the corners disquieted me.

I slept badly, and was constantly disturbed by imaginary noises, but did not see him; no, that was all over.

Since that time I have been afraid of being alone at night. I feel that the spectre is there, close to me, around me; but it has not appeared to me again.

And supposing it did, what would it matter, since I do not believe in it, and know that it is nothing?

However, it still worries me, because I am constantly thinking of it. His right arm hanging down and his head inclined to the left like a man who was asleep—I don't want to think about it!

Why, however, am I so persistently possessed with this idea? His feet were close to the fire!

He haunts me; it is very stupid, but who and what is he? I know that he does not exist except in my cowardly imagination, in my fears, and in my agony. There—enough of that!

Yes, it is all very well for me to reason with myself, to stiffen my backbone, so to say; but I cannot remain at home because I know he is there. I know I shall not see him again; he will not show himself again; that is all over. But he is there, all the same, in my thoughts. He remains invisible, but that does not prevent his being there. He is behind the doors, in the closed cupboard, in the wardrobe, under the bed, in every dark corner. If I open the door or the cupboard, if I take the candle to look under the bed and throw a light on the dark places he is there no longer, but I feel that he is behind me. I turn round, certain that I shall not see him, that I shall never see him again; but for all that, he is behind me.

It is very stupid, it is dreadful; but what am I to do? I cannot help it.

But if there were two of us in the place I feel certain that he would not be there any longer, for he is there just because I am alone, simply and solely because I am alone!

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Thursday, June 27, 2019

The Man Who Lived by the Graveyard


The following is a classic tale that has been told for centuries in one form or another:

There was a man dwelt by a churchyard. His house had a lower story of stone and an upper one of timber. The front windows looked out on the street and the back ones on the churchyard. It had once belonged to the parish priest, but (this was in Queen Elizabeth’s days) the priest was a married man and wanted more room; besides, his wife disliked seeing the churchyard at night out of her bedroom window. She said she saw — but never mind what she said; anyhow, she gave her husband no peace till he agreed to move into a larger house in the village street, and the old one was taken by John Poole, who was a widower, and lived there alone. He was an elderly man who kept very much to himself, and people said he was something of a miser.

It was very likely true: he was morbid in other ways, certainly. In those days it was common to bury people at night and by torchlight: and it was noticed that whenever a funeral was toward, John Poole was always at his window, either on the ground floor or upstairs, according as he could get the better view from one or the other.

There came a night when an old woman was to be buried. She was fairly well to do, but she was not liked in the place. The usual thing was said of her, that she was no Christian, and that on such nights as Midsummer Eve and All Hallows, she was not to he found in her house. She was red-eyed and dreadful to look at, and no beggar ever knocked at her door. Yet when she died she left a purse of money to the Church.

There was no storm on the night of her burial; it was fair and calm. But there was some difficulty about getting bearers, and men to carry the torches, in spite of the fact that she had left larger fees than common for such as did that work. She was buried in woollen, without a coffin. No one was there but those who were actually needed — and John Poole, watching from his window. Just before the grave was filled in, the parson stooped down and cast something upon the body — something that clinked — and in a low voice he said words that sounded like ‘Thy money perish with thee.’ Then he walked quickly away, and so did the other men, leaving only one torch-bearer to light the sexton and his boy while they shovelled the earth in. They made no very neat job of it, and next day, which was a Sunday, the churchgoers were rather sharp with the sexton, saying it was the untidiest grave in the yard. And indeed, when he came to look at it himself, he thought it was worse than he had left it.

Meanwhile John Poole went about with a curious air, half exulting, as it were, and half nervous. More than once he spent an evening at the inn, which was clean contrary to his usual habit, and to those who fell into talk with him there he hinted that he had come into a little bit of money and was looking out for a somewhat better house. ‘Well, I don’t wonder,’ said the smith one night, ‘I shouldn’t care for that place of yours. I should be fancying things all night.’ The landlord asked him what sort of things.

‘Well, maybe somebody climbing up to the chamber window, or the like of that,’ said the smith. ‘I don’t know — old mother Wilkins that was buried a week ago today, eh?’

‘Come, I think you might consider of a person’s feelings,’ said the landlord. ‘It ain’t so pleasant for Master Poole, is it now?’

‘Master Poole don’t mind,’ said the smith. ‘He’s been there long enough to know. I only says it wouldn’t be my choice. What with the passing bell, and the torches when there’s a burial, and all them graves laying so quiet when there’s no one about: only they say there’s lights — don’t you never see no lights, Master Poole?’

‘No, I don’t never see no lights,’ said Master Poole sulkily, and called for another drink, and went home late.

That night, as he lay in his bed upstairs, a moaning wind began to play about the house, and he could not go to sleep. He got up and crossed the room to a little cupboard in the wall: he took out of it something that clinked, and put it in the breast of his bedgown. Then he went to the window and looked out into the churchyard.

Have you ever seen an old brass in a church with a figure of a person in a shroud? It is bunched together at the top of the head in a curious way. Something like that was sticking up out of the earth in a spot of the churchyard which John Poole knew very well. He darted into his bed and lay there very still indeed.

Presently something made a very faint rattling at the casement. With a dreadful reluctance John Poole turned his eyes that way. Alas!

Between him and the moonlight was the black outline of the curious bunched head . . . Then there was a figure in the room. Dry earth rattled on the floor. A low cracked voice said ‘Where is it?’ and steps went hither and thither, faltering steps as of one walking with difficulty. It could be seen now and again, peering into corners, stooping to look under chairs; finally it could be heard fumbling at the doors of the cupboard in the wall, throwing them open. There was a scratching of long nails on the empty shelves. The figure whipped round, stood for an instant at the side of the bed, raised its arms, and with a hoarse scream of ‘YOU’VE GOT IT!’

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Tuesday, June 25, 2019

An American is a Religious Voltaire

What is an American? (from What is an American? By Charles Dana Burrage 1920)

An American is a religious Voltaire; and his religion is expressed in Voltaire's words to an opponent: "I disagree absolutely with what you say, but I would die for your right to say it."
Joseph Edgar Chamberlin

A man who,—while born and living in America and intent above all things else upon maintaining America as the best place in the world to live in,—sees that we must be just and generous to all the world, this proving what we showed on our entrance into the war, that America's greatest glory will be its vision of a new and a better world, and who acts accordingly.
Charles R. Lanman.

An American is one who, if need be, would give everything he has, for the sake of ordered liberty as conceived by Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt.
Henry Harmon Chamberlin.

An American is at once the servant and the savior of the World.
W. B. Scofield.

Any man born in United States.
A. Obelitz—A guest, born in Denmark.

One that believes in liberty of Governemnt of the people, with equal rights for all.
C. T. Grinnell.

A citizen of the United States who believes in and is at all times prepared to support the principles and ideals of its government as set forth in the Constitution.
Montgomery Reed.

He who considers the best interests of the U. S. before all else.
Louis N. Wilson.

A man who is friendly, unselfish, democratic, and absolutely just; who is willing to recognize in all men an equal right to think for themselves and to work together for the common good.
Nathan Haskell Dole.

A worshipper of the All Mighty Dollar.
Albert W. Ellis.

An American is one who holds America as his country above everything else.
William E. Story.

An American is anyone whose heart and soul are consecrated in devout allegiance to the welfare and traditions of the United States of America!
H. H. R. Thompson.

A man who lives in America and puts America first.
Eben F. Thompson.

One that is absolutely loyal to our glorious Country.
W. W. Johnson.

One born or adopted in the United States who believes, and who lives the belief that all men are born free and equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Edwin S. Crandon.

An American citizen who loves his country and is obedient to her laws.
Edward Palmer Hatch.

See Capitalism in America - 100 Books on DVDrom (Captains of Industry)
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Friday, June 21, 2019

Ring Superstitions


Article in, The Current, December 13 1884

Among the ancient Jews, the ring was the symbol of authority. Pharaoh put his ring upon Joseph's hand when he made him governor of Egypt; Ahasuerus, with official orders, gave his ring to Haman upon one occasion, and to Mordecai upon another; the ring of the High Priest possessed celestial virtues. The wedding ring of Joseph and the Virgin Mary (now shown in the cathedral of Perugia as its greatest treasure) is said to have performed so many miracles, that a book was published upon the subject at the beginning of the Seventeenth Century. The power of invisibility was ascribed to a ring worn by Gyges, King of Lydia; also to one described in the old Welsh romance of "Morte d'Arthur"; another ring, worn by Otnet, King of Lombardy, always directed him in the right road when traveling.


In Sweden, young girls place under three separate cups a ring, a coin, and a piece of black ribbon. If the ring is first accidentally exposed -she will be married within the year; if the money, she will get a rich husband; if the ribbon, she will die an old maid. It is a favorite amusement among the young girls in Russia to conceal their finger-rings in small heaps of corn on the floor. A hen is brought in, which at once begins to peck at the tiny heaps of grain. The owner of the first ring exposed to view will, according to popular belief, be married before her companions in the experiment. It used to be a popular belief that a stye upon the eyelid could be cured by rubbing it with a gold wedding ring. Reference is made to this in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Mad Lovers." In France it was the practice to place a gold ring under the feet of the couple during the marriage ceremony.

Medicated rings were in great request, even as far back as the time of Marcus Aurelius. Trallian, a physician, who lived in the Fourth Century, recommended for the colic, a ring with Hercules strangling the Nemean lion engraved upon it. In olden times, much faith was placed in the virtues of rings upon which the names of the three Kings of Cologne were inscribed. Sometimes the words "in—God—is—a—r." were added, "a—r" no doubt standing for "a remedy."


The fourth finger of the left hand has been, from long usage, consecrated to the wedding ring, from an ancient belief that a nerve went directly from the heart to that finger. The physicians called it the medical or healing finger, and stirred their mixtures with it. The popular belief in the great power of intercession and protection possessed by the Magi, as departed saints, was widely spread in the Middle Ages. Not only any article that had touched their skulls was given miraculous power, but the virtue was even vested in rings when their names were engraved upon them. The names given to the Three Wise Men were Melchior, Balthazar and Jasper, and Bishop Patrick (in 1674) questioned the value of their names upon medicated rings, from the fact that one tradition gave their names as Apellius, Amerus and Damascus, and another as Ator, Sator and Peratoras. Rings also owed their virtue to the stones with which they were set. The diamond was believed to be an antidote against poison; the ruby and opal changed their colors if evil were to befall the wearer; the sapphire and bloodstone checked bleeding at the nose; the amethyst was an antidote against drunkenness.

Cramp-rings originated in the Middle Century from a ring presented to Edward the Confessor. It cured epilepsy, and was preserved as a relic in Westminster Abbey. It gave rise to the belief that rings blessed by English sovereigns were efficacious in such diseases, and the custom of blessing for distribution, large numbers of cramprings on Good Friday, was continued down to the time of Queen Mary. During the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, a curious superstition prevailed in England, in connection with what was known as the toad-stone ring. The setting was of silver, and the stone or jewel in it was popularly believed to have formed in the heads of very old toads. It was said to possess the power of indicating to the person who wore it the proximity of poison, by perspiring and changing color. Albertus Magnus and Lupton certified to its virtues in that respect, and allusion to the virtues, or the stone at least, is made in the well known lines in Shakespeare:

Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like a toad, ugly and venomous.
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

A belief that charmed rings will cure epilepsy, etc., exists in many parts of England at the present day. Not many years ago, a young woman, subject to falling fits, wore a broad silver ring upon her wedding finger. She begged thirty pence from thirty young men of her own age; she exchanged the thirty pence for a half-crown, which she had fashioned into a ring. A ring was sometimes medicated by plunging it three times into water, each time solemnly repeating the words "in nomine Patris."

At one time the ladies were in the habit of wearing "In Memoriam" rings; the principal representation upon them being a skull and cross-bones, which explains a sentence in an old sermon by the Bishop of Bangor: "Many carry Death on their fingers, when he is never nigh their hearts." A writer in the Connoisseur, published in those days, says: "I knew a young lady who wore on the same finger, a ring set round with death's heads and cross marrow bones for the loss of her father, and another prettily embellished with burning hearts pierced through with darts, in respect for her lover."

Not a few prophecies were made in connection with rings, the most remarkable of which is found in Aubrey's "Miscellanies." It is connected with the ring of James VI. of Scotland:

"Oh, thou Sixth King to God due honors pay,
   Remember, Prince, soon after thoul't expire
 When thou beholdcst thy carbuncle display,
    Blaze against blaze in the red'ning fire."

The prediction was made by George Buchanan. "The King was taken with an ague at Trinity College, in Cambridge. He removed to Theobald's, where he died sitting by the fire. The carbuncle fell out of his ring into the fire, according to the prediction.
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Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Voltaire on Dogs


It seems as if nature had given the dog to man for his defence and pleasure; it is of all animals the most faithful; it is the best possible friend of man.

It appears that there are several species absolutely different. How can we believe that a greyhound comes originally from a spaniel? It has neither its hair, legs, shape, ears, voice, scent, nor instinct. A man who has never seen any dogs but barbets or spaniels, and who saw a greyhound for the first time, would take it rather for a dwarf horse than for an animal of the spaniel race. It is very likely that each race was always what it now is, with the exception of the mixture of a small number of them.

It is astonishing that, in the Jewish law, the dog was considered unclean, as well as the griffin, the hare, the pig, and the eel; there must have been some moral or physical reason for it, which we have not yet discovered.

That which is related of the sagacity, obedience, friendship, and courage of dogs, is as extraordinary as true. The military philosopher, Ulloa, assures us that in Peru the Spanish dogs recognize the men of the Indian race, pursue them, and tear them to pieces; and that the Peruvian dogs do the same with the Spaniards. This would seem to prove that each species of dogs still retained the hatred which was inspired in it at the time of the discovery, and that each race always fought for its master with the same valor and attachment.

Why, then, has the word "dog" become an injurious term? We say, for tenderness, my sparrow, my dove, my chicken; we even say my kitten, though this animal is famed for treachery; and, when we are angry, we call people dogs! The Turks, when not even angry, speak with horror and contempt of the Christian dogs. The English populace, when they see a man who, by his manner or dress, has the appearance of having been born on the banks of the Seine or of the Loire, commonly call him a French dog—a figure of rhetoric which is neither just to the dog nor polite to the man.

The delicate Homer introduces the divine Achilles telling the divine Agamemnon that he is as impudent as a dog—a classical justification of the English populace.

The most zealous friends of the dog must, however, confess that this animal carries audacity in its eyes; that some are morose; that they often bite strangers whom they take for their master's enemies, as sentinels assail passengers who approach too near the counterscarp. These are probably the reasons which have rendered the epithet "dog" insulting; but we dare not decide.

Why was the dog adored and revered—as has been seen—by the Egyptians? Because the dog protects man. Plutarch tells us that after Cambyses had killed their bull Apis, and had it roasted, no animal except the dog dared to eat the remains of the feast, so profound was the respect for Apis; the dog, not so scrupulous, swallowed the god without hesitation. The Egyptians, as may be imagined, were exceedingly scandalized at this want of reverence, and Anubis lost much of his credit.

The dog, however, still bears the honor of being always in the heavens, under the names of the great and little dog. We regularly record the dog-days.

But of all dogs, Cerberus has had the greatest reputation; he had three heads. We have remarked that, anciently, all went by threes—Isis, Osiris, and Orus, the three first Egyptian divinities; the three brother gods of the Greek world—Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto; the three Fates, the three Furies, the three Graces, the three judges of hell, and the three heads of this infernal dog.

We perceive here with grief that we have omitted the article on "Cats"; but we console ourselves by referring to their history. We will only remark that there are no cats in the heavens, as there are goats, crabs, bulls, rams, eagles, lions, fishes, hares, and dogs; but, in recompense, the cat has been consecrated, or revered, or adored, as partaking of divinity or saintship in several towns, and as altogether divine by no small number of women.

Dedicated to my best furry friend Teddy Schmitz - I miss you buddy
Visit A Tribute my Beloved Dog Teddy
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Sunday, June 16, 2019

You Can't Argue against Socialism's 100 Percent Record of Failure


Socialism is extremely in vogue. Opinion pieces which tell us to stop obsessing over socialism’s past failures, and start to get excited about its future potential, have almost become a genre in its own right.

For example, Bhaskhar Sunkara, the founder of Jacobin magazine, recently wrote a New York Times article, in which he claimed that the next attempt to build a socialist society will be completely different:
This time, people get to vote. Well, debate and deliberate and then vote—and have faith that people can organize together to chart new destinations for humanity. Stripped down to its essence, and returned to its roots, socialism is an ideology of radical democracy. […] [I]t seeks to empower civil society to allow participation in the decisions that affect our lives.
Nathan Robinson, the editor of Current Affairs, wrote in that magazine that socialism has not “failed." It has just never been done properly:
It’s incredibly easy to be both in favor of socialism and against the crimes committed by 20th-century communist regimes."
When anyone points me to the Soviet Union or Castro’s Cuba and says “Well, there’s your socialism,” my answer […] [is] that these regimes bear absolutely no relationship to the principle for which I am fighting. […] The history of the Soviet Union doesn’t really tell us much about “communism” […]
I can draw distinctions between the positive and negative aspects of a political program. I like the bit about allowing workers to reap greater benefits from their labor. I don’t like the bit about putting dissidents in front of firing squads.”
Closer to home, Owen Jones wrote that Cuba’s current version of socialism was not “real” socialism—but that it could yet become the real thing:
“Socialism without democracy […] isn’t socialism. […] Socialism means socializing wealth and power. […]
Cuba could democratize and grant political freedoms currently denied as well as defending […] the gains of the revolution. […] The only future for socialism […] is through democracy. That […] means organizing a movement rooted in people’s communities and workplaces. It means arguing for a system that extends democracy to the workplace and the economy.
And Washington Post columnist Elizabeth Bruenig wrote an article with the self-explanatory title It’s time to give socialism a try:
Not to be confused for a totalitarian nostalgist, I would support a kind of socialism that would be democratic and aimed primarily at decommodifying labor, reducing the vast inequality brought about by capitalism, and breaking capital’s stranglehold over politics and culture.
Despite differences in style and emphasis, articles in this genre share a number of common flaws.
Socialists insist that previous examples of socialism were not “really” socialist, but none of them can tell us what exactly they would do differently.

First, as much as the authors insist that previous examples of socialism were not “really” socialist, none of them can tell us what exactly they would do differently. Rather than providing at least a rough outline of how “their” version of socialism would work in practice, the authors escape into abstraction, and talk about lofty aspirations rather than tangible institutional characteristics.
“Charting new destinations for humanity” and “democratizing the economy” are nice buzzphrases, but what does this mean, in practice? How would “the people” manage “their” economy jointly? Would we all gather in Hyde Park, and debate how many toothbrushes and how many screwdrivers we should produce? How would we decide who gets what? How would we decide who does what? What if it turns out that we don’t actually agree on very much?

These are not some trivial technical details that we can just leave until after the revolution. These are the most basic, fundamental questions that a proponent of any economic system has to be able to answer. Almost three decades have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall—enough time, one should think, for “modern” socialists to come up with some ideas for a different kind of socialism. Yet here we are. After all those years, they have still not moved beyond the buzzword stage.

Secondly, the authors do not seem to realize that there is nothing remotely new about the lofty aspirations they talk about, and the buzzphrases they use. Giving “the people” democratic control over economic life has always been the aspiration, and the promise, of socialism. It is not that this has never occurred to the people who were involved in earlier socialist projects. On the contrary: that was always the idea. There was never a time when socialists started out with the express intention of creating stratified societies led by a technocratic elite. Socialism always turned out that way, but not because it was intended to be that way.

Contemporary socialists completely fail to address the deficiencies of socialism in the economic sphere.


Socialists usually react with genuine irritation when a political opponent mentions an earlier, failed socialist project. They cannot see this as anything other than a straw man, and a cheap shot. As a result, they refuse to address the question why those attempts have turned out the way they did. According to contemporary socialists, previous socialist leaders simply did not really try, and that is all there is to know.

They are wrong. The Austro-British economist Friedrich Hayek already showed in 1944 why socialism must always lead to an extreme concentration of power in the hands of the state, and why the idea that this concentrated power could be democratically controlled was an illusion. Were Hayek to come back from the dead today, he would probably struggle a bit with the iPhone, Deliveroo and social media—but he would instantly grasp the situation in Venezuela.

Thirdly, contemporary socialists completely fail to address the deficiencies of socialism in the economic sphere. They talk a lot about how their version of socialism would be democratic, participatory, non-authoritarian, and nice and cuddly. Suppose they could prove Hayek wrong and magically make that work. What then?
They would then be able to avoid the Gulags, the show trials and the secret police next time, which would obviously be an immeasurable improvement over the versions of socialism that existed in the past. But we would still be left with a dysfunctional economy.

Ultimately, the contemporary argument for socialism boils down to: “next time will be different because we say so.”


Contemporary socialists seem to assume that a democratized version of socialism would not just be more humane, but also economically more productive and efficient: reform the political system, and the rest will somehow follow. There is no reason why it should. Democracy, civil liberties, and human rights are all desirable in their own right, but they do not, in and of themselves, make countries any richer.

A version of East Germany without the Stasi, the Berlin Wall, and the police brutality would have been a much better country than the one that actually existed. But even then: East Germany’s economic output per capita was only one third of the West German level. Democracy, on its own, would have done nothing to close that gap.

A version of North Korea without the secret police and the labor camps would be a much better country than the one that actually exists. But even then: the North-South gap in living standards is so vast that the average South Korean is 3–8cm taller than the average North Korean, and lives more than ten years longer. Democracy would not make North Koreans any taller, or likelier to reach old age.

Ultimately, the contemporary argument for socialism boils down to: “next time will be different because we say so.”

After more than two dozen failed attempts, that is just not good enough.
Reprinted from Capx.
Kristian Niemietz
Kristian Niemietz
Dr. Kristian Niemietz is the Institute for Economic Affairs' Head of Health and Welfare.
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

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Saturday, June 15, 2019

To Be Taken With a Grain of Salt: A Ghost Story by Charles Dickens


To Be Taken With a Grain of Salt: A Ghost Story by Charles Dickens

I have always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting their own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a listener’s internal life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveller who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it; but the same traveller having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of thought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental impression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it. To this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which such subjects are involved. We do not habitually communicate our experiences of these subjective things, as we do our experiences of objective creation. The consequence is, that the general stock of experience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in respect of being miserably imperfect.

In what I am going to relate I have no intention of setting up, opposing, or supporting, any theory whatever. I know the history of the Bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the case of the wife of a late Astronomer Royal as related by Sir David Brewster, and I have followed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case of Spectral Illusion occurring within my private circle of friends. It may be necessary to state as to this last that the sufferer (a lady) was in no degree, however distant, related to me. A mistaken assumption on that head, might suggest an explanation of a part of my own case – but only a part – which would be wholly without foundation. It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any developed peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar experience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience since.

It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain Murder was committed in England, which attracted great attention. We hear more than enough of Murderers as they rise in succession to their atrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this particular brute, if I could, as his body was buried, in Newgate Jail. I purposely abstain from giving any direct clue to the criminal’s individuality.

When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell – or I ought rather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell – on the man who was afterwards brought to trial. As no reference was at that time made to him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any description of him can at that time have been given in the newspapers. It is essential that this fact be remembered.

Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the account of that first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I read it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times. The discovery had been made in a bedroom, and, when I laid down the paper, I was aware of a flash – rush – flow – I do not know what to call it – no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive – in which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like a picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though almost instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear; so clear that I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of the dead body from the bed.

It was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation, but in chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner of Saint James’s Street. It was entirely new to me. I was in my easy-chair at the moment, and the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver which started the chair from its position. (But it is to be noted that the chair ran easily on castors.) I went to one of the windows (there are two in the room, and the room is on the second floor) to refresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly. It was a bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling and cheerful. The wind was high. As I looked out, it brought down from the Park a quantity of fallen leaves, which a gust took, and whirled into a spiral pillar. As the pillar fell and the leaves dispersed, I saw two men on the opposite side of the way, going from West to East. They were one behind the other. The foremost man often looked back over his shoulder. The second man followed him, at a distance of some thirty paces, with his right hand menacingly raised. First, the singularity and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so public a thoroughfare, attracted my attention; and next, the more remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it. Both men threaded their way among the other passengers, with a smoothness hardly consistent even with the action of walking on a pavement, and no single creature that I could see, gave them place, touched them, or looked after them. In passing before my windows, they both stared up at me. I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew that I could recognize them anywhere. Not that I had consciously noticed anything very remarkable in either face, except that the man who went first had an unusually lowering appearance, and that the face of the man who followed him was of the colour of impure wax.

I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment. My occupation is in a certain Branch Bank, and I wish that my duties as head of a Department were as light as they are popularly supposed to be. They kept me in town that autumn, when I stood in need of a change. I was not ill, but I was not well. My reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of my feeling jaded, having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous life, and being ‘slightly dyspeptic’. I am assured by my renowned doctor that my real state of health at that time justifies no stronger description, and I quote his own from his written answer to my request for it.

As the circumstances of the Murder, gradually unravelling, took stronger and stronger possession of the public mind, I kept them away from mine, by knowing as little about them as was possible in the midst of the universal excitement. But I knew that a verdict of Wilful Murder had been found against the suspected Murderer, and that he had been committed to Newgate for trial. I also knew that his trial had been postponed over one Sessions of the Central Criminal Court, on the ground of general prejudice and want of time for the preparation of the defence. I may further have known, but I believe I did not, when, or about when, the Sessions to which his trial stood postponed would come on.

My sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room, are all on one floor. With the last, there is no communication but through the bedroom. True, there is a door in it, once communicating with the staircase; but a part of the fitting of my bath has been – and had then been for some years – fixed across it. At the same period, and as a part of the same arrangement, the door had been nailed up and canvassed over.

I was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some directions to my servant before he went to bed. My face was towards the only available door of communication with the dressing-room, and it was closed. My servant’s back was towards that door. While I was speaking to him I saw it open, and a man look in, who very earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the man who had gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and whose face was of the colour of impure wax.

The figure, having beckoned, drew back and closed the door. With no longer pause than was made by my crossing the bedroom, I opened the dressing-room door, and looked in. I had a lighted candle already in my hand. I felt no inward expectation of seeing the figure in the dressing-room, and I did not see it there.

Conscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round to him, and said: ‘Derrick, could you believe that in my cool senses I fancied I saw a—-‘ As I there laid my hand upon his breast, with a sudden start he trembled violently, and said, ‘O Lord yes sir! A dead man beckoning!’

Now, I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and attached servant for more than twenty years, had any impression whatever of having seen any such figure, until I touched him. The change in him was so startling when I touched him, that I fully believe he derived his impression in some occult manner from me at that instant.

I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him a dram, and was glad to take one myself. Of what had proceeded that night’s phenomenon, I told him not a single word. Reflecting on it, I was absolutely certain that I had never seen that face before, except on the one occasion in Piccadilly. Comparing its expression when beckoning at the door, with its expression when it had stared up at me as I stood at my window, I came to the conclusion that on the first occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory, and that on the second occasion it had made sure of being immediately remembered.

I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty, difficult to explain, that the figure would not return. At daylight, I fell into a heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John Derrick’s coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand.

This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation at the door between its bearer and my servant. It was a summons to me to serve upon a Jury at the forthcoming Sessions of the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey. I had never before been summoned on such a Jury, as John Derrick well knew. He believed – I am not certain at this hour whether with reason or otherwise – that that class of Jurors were customarily chosen on a lower qualification than mine, and he had at first refused to accept the summons. The man who served it had taken the matter very coolly. He had said that my attendance or nonattendance was nothing to him; there the summons was; and I should deal with it at my own peril, and not at his.

For a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this call, or take no notice of it. I was not conscious of the slightest mysterious bias, influence, or attraction, one way or other. Of that I am as strictly sure as of every other statement that I make here. Ultimately I decided, as a break in the monotony of my life, that I would go.

The appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of November. There was a dense brown fog in Piccadilly, and it became positively black and in the last degree oppressive East of Temple Bar. I found the passages and staircases of the Court House flaringly lighted with gas, and the Court itself similarly illuminated. I think that until I was conducted by officers into the Old Court and saw its crowded state, I did not know that the Murderer was to be tried that day. I think that until I was so helped into the Old Court with considerable difficulty, I did not know into which of the two Courts sitting, my summons would take me. But this must not be received as a positive assertion, for I am not completely satisfied in my mind on either point.

I took my seat in the place appropriated to Jurors in waiting, and I looked about the Court as well as I could through the cloud of fog and breath that was heavy in it. I noticed the black vapour hanging like a murky curtain outside the great windows, and I noticed the stifled sound of wheels on the straw or tan that was littered in the street; also, the hum of the people gathered there, which a shrill whistle, or a louder song or hail than the rest, occasionally pierced. Soon afterwards the Judges, two in number, entered and took their seats. The buzz in the Court was awfully hushed. The direction was given to put the Murderer to the bar. He appeared there. And in that same instant I recognized in him, the first of the two men who had gone down Piccadilly.

If my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have answered to it audibly. But it was called about sixth or eighth in the panel, and I was by that time able to say ‘Here!’ Now, observe. As I stepped into the box, the prisoner, who had been looking on attentively but with no sign of concern, became violently agitated, and beckoned to his attorney. The prisoner’s wish to challenge me was so manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during which the attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client, and shook his head. I afterwards had it from that gentleman, that the prisoner’s first affrighted words to him were, ‘At all hazards challenge that man!’ But, that as he would give no reason for it, and admitted that he had not even known my name until he heard it called and I appeared, it was not done.

Both on the ground already explained, that I wish to avoid reviving the unwholesome memory of that Murderer, and also because a detailed account of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my narrative, I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the ten days and nights during which we, the Jury, were kept together, as directly bear on my own curious personal experience. It is in that, and not in the Murderer, that I seek to interest my reader. It is to that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, that I beg attention.

I was chosen Foreman of the Jury. On the second morning of the trial, after evidence had been taken for two hours (I heard the church clocks strike), happening to cast my eyes over my brother-jurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I counted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. In short, I made them one too many.

I touched the brother-juryman whose place was next to me, and I whispered to him, ‘Oblige me by counting us.’ He looked surprised by the request, but turned his head and counted. ‘Why,’ says he, suddenly, ‘We are Thirt—-; but no, it’s not possible. No. We are twelve.’

According to my counting that day, we were always right in detail, but in the gross we were always one too many. There was no appearance – no figure – to account for it; but I had now an inward foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming.

The Jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept in one large room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the charge and under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safe-keeping. I see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer. He was intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and (I was glad to hear) much respected in the City. He had an agreeable presence, good eyes, enviable black whiskers, and a fine sonorous voice. His name was Mr Harker.

When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr Harker’s bed was drawn across the door. On the night of the second day, not being disposed to lie down, and seeing Mr Harker sitting on his bed, I went and sat beside him, and offered him a pinch of snuff. As Mr Harker’s hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a peculiar shiver crossed him, and he said: ‘Who is this!’

Following Mr Harker’s eyes and looking along the room, I saw again the figure I expected – the second of the two men who had gone down Piccadilly. I rose, and advanced a few steps; then stopped, and looked round at Mr Harker. He was quite unconcerned, laughed, and said in a pleasant way, ‘I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth juryman, without a bed. But I see it is the moonlight.’

Making no revelation to Mr Harker, but inviting him to take a walk with me to the end of the room, I watched what the figure did. It stood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my eleven brother-jurymen, close to the pillow. It always went to the right-hand side of the bed, and always passed out crossing the foot of the next bed. It seemed from the action of the head, merely to look down pensively at each recumbent figure. It took no notice of me, or of my bed, which was that nearest to Mr Harker’s. It seemed to go out where the moonlight came in, through a high window, as by an aërial flight of stairs.

Next morning at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present had dreamed of the murdered man last night, except myself and Mr Harker.

I now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone down Piccadilly was the murdered man (so to speak), as if it had been borne into my comprehension by his immediate testimony. But even this took place, and in a manner for which I was not at all prepared.

On the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prosecution was drawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing from his bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in a hiding-place where the Murderer had been seen digging, was put in evidence. Having been identified by the witness under examination, it was handed up to the Bench, and thence handed down to be inspected by the Jury. As an officer in a black gown was making his way with it across to me, the figure of the second man who had gone down Piccadilly, impetuously started from the crowd, caught the miniature from the officer, and gave it to me with its own hands, at the same time saying in a low and hollow tone – before I saw the miniature, which was in a locket – ‘I was younger then, and my face was not then drained of blood.’ It also came between me and the brother-juryman to whom I would have given the miniature, and between him and the brother-juryman to whom he would have given it, and so passed it on through the whole of our number, and back into my possession. Not one of them, however, detected this.

At table, and generally when we were shut up together in Mr Harker’s custody, we had from the first naturally discussed the day’s proceedings a good deal. On that fifth day, the case for the prosecution being closed, and we having that side of the question in a completed shape before us, our discussion was more animated and serious. Among our number was a vestryman – the densest idiot I have ever seen at large – who met the plainest evidence with the most preposterous objections, and who was sided with by two flabby parochial parasites; all the three empanelled from a district so delivered over to Fever that they ought to have been upon their own trial, for five hundred Murders. When these mischievous blockheads were at their loudest, which was towards midnight while some of us were already preparing for bed, I again saw the murdered man. He stood grimly behind them, beckoning to me. On my going towards them and striking into the conversation, he immediately retired. This was the beginning of a separate series of appearances, confined to that long room in which we were confined. Whenever a knot of my brother jurymen laid their heads together, I saw the head of the murdered man among theirs. Whenever their comparison of notes was going against him, he would solemnly and irresistibly beckon to me.

It will be borne in mind that down to the production of the miniature on the fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the Appearance in Court. Three changes occurred, now that we entered on the case for the defence. Two of them I will mention together, first. The figure was now in Court continually, and it never there addressed itself to me, but always to the person who was speaking at the time. For instance. The throat of the murdered man had been cut straight across. In the opening speech for the defence, it was suggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat. At that very moment, the figure with its throat in the dreadful condition referred to (this it had concealed before) stood at the speaker’s elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now with the right hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker himself, the impossibility of such a wound having been self-inflicted by either hand. For another instance. A witness to character, a woman, deposed to the prisoner’s being the most amiable of mankind. The figure at that instant stood on the floor before her, looking her full in the face, and pointing out the prisoner’s evil countenance with an extended arm and an outstretched finger.

The third change now to be added, impressed me strongly, as the most marked and striking of all. I do not theorize upon it; I accurately state it, and there leave it. Although the Appearance was not itself perceived by those whom it addressed, its coming close to such persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or disturbance on their part. It seemed to me as if it were prevented by laws to which I was not amenable, from fully revealing itself to others, and yet as if it could, invisibly, dumbly and darkly, overshadow their minds. When the leading counsel for the defence suggested that hypothesis of suicide and the figure stood at the learned gentleman’s elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat, it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech, lost for a few seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale. When the witness to character was confronted by the Appearance, her eyes most certainly did follow the direction of its pointed finger, and rest in great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner’s face. Two additional illustrations will suffice. On the eighth day of the trial, after the pause which was every day made early in the afternoon for a few minutes’ rest and refreshment, I came back into Court with the rest of the Jury, some little time before the return of the Judges. Standing up in the box and looking about me, I thought the figure was not there, until, chancing to raise my eyes to the gallery, I saw it bending forward and leaning over a very decent woman, as if to assure itself whether the Judges had resumed their seats or not. Immediately afterwards, that woman screamed, fainted, and was carried out. So with the venerable, sagacious, and patient Judge who conducted the trial. When the case was over, and he settled himself and his papers to sum up, the murdered man entering by the Judges’ door, advanced to his Lordship’s desk, and looked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which he was turning. A change came over his Lordship’s face; his hand stopped; the peculiar shiver that I knew so well, passed over him; he faltered, ‘Excuse me gentlemen, for a few moments. I am somewhat oppressed by the vitiated air;’ and did not recover until he had drunk a glass of water.

Through all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days – the same Judges and others on the bench, the same Murderer in the dock, the same lawyers at the table, the same tones of question and answer rising to the roof of the court, the same scratching of the Judge’s pen, the same ushers going in and out, the same lights kindled at the same hour when there had been any natural light of day, the same foggy curtain outside the great windows when it was foggy, the same rain pattering and dripping when it was rainy, the same footmarks of turnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same sawdust, the same keys locking and unlocking the same heavy doors – through all the wearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had been Foreman of the Jury for a vast period of time, and Piccadilly had flourished coevally with Babylon, the murdered man never lost one trace of his distinctness in my eyes, nor was he at any moment less distinct than anybody else. I must not omit, as a matter of fact, that I never once saw the Appearance which I call by the name of the murdered man, look at the Murderer. Again and again I wondered, ‘Why does he not?’ But he never did.

Nor did he look at me, after the production of the miniature, until the last closing minutes of the trial arrived. We retired to consider, at seven minutes before ten at night. The idiotic vestry-man and his two parochial parasites gave us so much trouble, that we twice returned into Court, to beg to have certain extracts from the Judge’s notes reread. Nine of us had not the smallest doubt about those passages, neither, I believe, had any one in Court; the dunder-headed triumvirate however, having no idea but obstruction, disputed them for that very reason. At length we prevailed, and finally the Jury returned into Court at ten minutes past twelve.

The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the Jury-box, on the other side of the Court. As I took my place, his eyes rested on me, with great attention; he seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a great grey veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time, over his head and whole form. As I gave in our verdict ‘Guilty’, the veil collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty.

The Murderer being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed upon him, indistinctly muttered something which was described in the leading newspapers of the following day as ‘a few rambling, incoherent, and half-audible words, in which he was understood to complain that he had not had a fair trial because the Foreman of the Jury was prepossessed against him’. The remarkable declaration that he really made, was this: ‘My Lord, I knew I was a doomed man when the Foreman of my Jury came into the box. My Lord, I knew he would never let me off because, before I was taken, he somehow got to my bedside in the night, woke me, and put a rope round my neck.’

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Tuesday, June 11, 2019

The Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches) in a Nutshell


From: The History of Magic By Joseph Ennemoser 1854
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Malleus Maleficarum, in German the Hexenhammer, in plain English the Witch-hammer, expresses admirably in each language the nature of the instrument. A hammer is made for striking; it crushes what it strikes. Here was the hammer for the heretics, who were held to be synonymous with evil-doers; and indeed, as the book expressed, maleficarum. Thus the witches were the wicked, heretical women (haereticae pravitatis) whom the hammer was to demolish, and which we must examine more closely.

This ominous book appeared first, probably, in 1489, and consisted of 625 pages in quarto. This was the original edition as quoted by Hauber. There were subsequent editions, but they were never translated into German.

The Hexenhammer was, in fact, the codex, in which everything was clearly and fully set forth which belonged to witchcraft. Jacobus Sprenger and his assistants have reduced witchcraft into a regular system, which raised on the foundation of the papal command, and placed under the legal protection of the secular magistracy, must be carried into execution by a few cunning witch-judges, against whom neither reason nor innocence, neither honour nor rank, may utter a syllable of disapprobation; nay, was not allowed any appeal to the keys of St. Peter at Rome, so that all rescue should be utterly impossible, and no bounds be set to the career of destruction.

In the Hexenhammer, the idea of witchcraft is systematically determined. Witches, sorcerers, and sorceresses, are people who deny God, and renounce him and his grace; who have made a league with the devil; have given themselves up to him body and soul: who attend his assemblies and sabbaths, and receive from him poison-powder, and, as his subjects, receive command from him to injure and to destroy men and animals; who, through devilish arts, stir up storms, damage the corn, the meadows, and the fields, and confound the powers of nature. The sorcerers were called Malefici, according to Isidorus, on account of their malignity, because they, with the help of the devil, bring even the elements into confusion. As the witches are more especially the objects of his attention, and as they carry on more feminine avocations, such as milking the neighbours' cows, making witch-butter, fortune-telling, etc., they are the more numerous offenders; yet are the wizards not to be overlooked in the Hexenhammer; for these have it in their nature to be more engaged in maiming, stabbing, striking and shooting dead.

The Hexenhammer is, according to the prefixed apology, divided into three principal parts, containing various chapters and episodes, but very confused and full of contradictions. I can here only give a cursory view of it, referring for a more extended one to Horst's "Daemonomagie."

The first division contains eighteen queries on all that presents itself under the head of sorcery; namely, 1st. the devil; 2nd. the sorcerer or witch; and 3rd. the divine permission. The devil is the chief person, through whose aid sorcery takes place by the divine permission. The belief in this is orthodox; the assertion of the contrary is heresy. This is the great principle, which is fortified by a multitude of quotations: to show the power of the devil in natural and bodily things, yet with the profound addition, that it is heresy to believe that God is not the stronger, and that nature is his own proper work. The devil has only power through God's permission; and he works either directly or by delusion. Sprenger admits, too, in his way, deceptions ofthe imagination, but asserts that they are more frequently the devil's work, though heresy is often to be attributed rather to the imagination than to the devil. If the witches believe that they are making their excursions through the air with Diana or Herodias, it is properly with the devil that they do it, who operates on the imagination, and then the witch, when she is in her trance, believes in the devil and in the excursion.

The second division contains the query respecting the essential characteristics of witchcraft over station and knowledge. Ignorance is not wholly excusable, because people should conquer their ignorance.

On the question, how the devil acts in witches, it is answered: "The devil operates, in fact, alone, as in the case of Job; but the witches are necessary instruments for his corporal actions, because the devil being a spiritual being, needs a vehicle through which to exercise his power. Many have greenish eyes, the glance of which injures. Natural things have all sorts of secret properties, which the witches know, and therewith perform various wonders; for instance, they lay something under the door-sills and bewitch men and beasts—nay, even destroy them, the devil being actually present on the occasions. The witches bewitch; and sometimes by their bleared eyes. These bleared eyes are inflamed eyes; these inflame the air, and even sound eyes, but especially when these bleared eyes fix themselves in a direct line with the healthy ones."

The third most beautiful and highly important question is, whether in the connections with the devil real children are begotten? This question is often asked in the witchtrials. The question is answered succinctly in the affirmative; to doubt it were heresy.

The fifth question treats of the influence of stars on plants, animals, and men, of course by the help of the devil, whose names, as Diabolus, Belial, Beelzebub, the god of flies, are etymologically thence derived.

One of the most entertaining chapters is the answer to the sixth query, why women are more given to sorcery than men. Here there is no lack of merry monkish wit. "The holy fathers of the church," it says, "always assert that three things, whether for good or for evil, know no bounds; namely, the tongue, a priest, and a woman. As to the tongue, it is quite clear that the Holy Ghost conferred fiery tongues on the apostles: amongst preachers the tongue is like the tongues of the dogs which licked the sores of Lazarus. So there are amongst all men, amongst the clergy as well as others, wicked and unwholesome tongues; for as the holy Bernard says:—'Nostri praelati facti sunt Pilati, nostri pastores facti sunt tonsores.' (Our shepherds are become sheep-shearers.) As to women, it is also very clear; for the wise Solomon gives his experience of them, and what St. Chrysostom says does not sound very flattering:— 'Marriage is a very doubtful thing; for what is a woman but an enemy to friendship, an unavoidable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable misfortune, a domestic danger, a perpetual fountain of tears, a mischief of nature overlaid with a glittering varnish?' Seneca says: 'A woman loves or hates; there is no third course. If she weeps there is deceit afloat, for two sorts of tears bedew the eyes of women: the one kind are evidences of their pain, the other of their deceit and their cunning.' But of good wives the fame also is unbounded; and men, and indeed whole countries, have been saved by them." But the Witch-hammer turns quickly from this subject, and draws this immediate conclusion—that women are more addicted to sorcery than men—from these causes: 1st. from their easiness of faith; 2nd. from the weakness of their constitutions, by which they become more susceptible to revelations (thus, a weakness and yet a higher endowment from God are attributed to them); 3rd. on account of their slippery tongues, and their inquisitive wits, by which they tempt the devil, i. e., put questions to him,—get too far with him to get back again. A whole host of crimes are then enumerated against the female sex, as squabbling, envy, stiffneckedness (because they were made out of Adam's crooked rib). Already in Paradise Eve practised deceit, and showed a want of faith, for femina comes from fe— faith, and minus—less.

The eighth and ninth queries are a sort of continuation; the tenth query is, whether it be deception or reality when men appear to be turned into beasts by the witches? Here truth precedes falsehood in order to make the apparent more imposing. "An actual metamorphosis," it says, "appears impossible, for two creatures of different natures cannot exist in the same subject, as St. Augustin says. But the devil can so dispose the imagination, that a man may seem, both to himself and others, to be a beast. In this case a bodily change does take place, namely, that of the countenance; which the pagan Circe accomplished on the comrades of Ulysses, which, was, however, only a change to the eye. A brave girl rejected the advances of a dissipated young man steadfastly; and he went away, highly excited, to a Jew, and had her bewitched, and the poor thing was turned into a horse; but it was no real change, but only a jugglery of the devil, who so blinded the eyes of the maiden and of others that she seemed to be a horse. They took her to St. Macarius, over whose eyes the devil had no power. He immediately knew her for a real maiden, and not a horse, and relieved her happily from the witchcraft." (How naive and pious!)

When wolves sometimes fall on men and carry children away out of their cradles (wehrwolf, lykanthropy, kynanthropy—possession and metamorphosis into the nature of dogs and wolves), they sometimes are real wolves, but in others they are only delusions of the devil. The Lord God formerly menaced the people with wild beasts, through Moses. The devil also disposes the imagination to a wolfmania; and in the first case the devil can enter into real wolves as into real swine; in the other case it is only appearance. (The Witch-hammer becomes philosophical too!)


The twelfth question treats of witch-midwives, who injure the fruits, produce untimely births, and carry children under the chimneys or into the open air, and dedicate them to the devil. The twelfth and thirteenth questions treat of the permission of God—an edifying argument! The fourteenth question is, "What must we think of witches, and what shall we preach about them?" The witches are fallen from God, are heretics and apostates, and thus deserve condign punishment more than all other criminals whatever. As heretics, they are deserving the ban of the church, confiscation of goods, and death. Is the heretic a layman, and declines to abjure his error, he must be burnt. If a coiner is punishable with death, how much more a coiner of false faith! Ecclesiastics were either condemned to death, or cast for life into prison. But the witches, as apostates, were not to escape with life, even if they confessed their sins, and repented of them. (Very full of Christian love!)

The fifteenth query or chapter: Innocent, and otherwise not dangerous people, were sometimes bewitched, partly through their own sins, and partly through the sins of the sorcerer. The sixteenth chapter: Explanation and comparison of the preceding with other kinds of crimes and superstition.

Seventeenth chapter: Comparison of the devil's works with witches' works. The witches are worse than the devil himself. Eighteenth chapter: How you are to preach against the five proofs that God does not allow the devil so great power to bewitch men. Here the fifth objection gave the inquisitors a good deal to do; namely, why the judges, who prosecuted and burnt witches, were not bewitched by them before all other men ?—a question which the second part of the Witch-hammer answered, in which there are only two cardinal questions: 1st. How people are to defend themselves against sorcery,—treated in six chapters; and 2nd. How sorcery is again to be removed,—treated in eight chapters.

There are three kinds of men whom witchcraft cannot touch: magistrates, clergymen exercising the pious rites of the church, and saints who are under the immediate protection of the angels. Of course, inquisitors and judges stand first under the protection of God. Especial injuries done by the devil to the innocent, bodily and spiritual. The devil seduces pious young women through witches. Two were burnt by the authors at Eavensburg. One of them was of bad character; and she confessed that she had suffered much from having endeavoured to seduce a young maiden of the city to the devil's will. Once she had invited her on a festival day, when the devil, in the shape of a fine young gentleman, spoke with her. But the pious maiden constantly defended herself by making the sign of the cross whenever he approached her, till at length he was compelled to abandon his attempt, for which she, the witch, had to undergo much torment. Many such edifying stories the authors of the Witch-hammer give from their own experience.

The second chapter treats of the manner in which witchcraft is expelled; one of the most important and interesting chapters. It contains also a description of the belief in witches at the end of the fifteenth century. There are three kinds of witches, it states: the mischievous—maleficae, who cannot again disenchant you; those who hurt no one; and hurtful ones, who can, however, release their victims from their spells. Amongst the first kind, the most mischievous are the devourers of children. These are the most powerful of all, who occasion hail, thunder, and tempests, who fly through the air, and make themselves devoid of feeling on the rack; nay, they even sometimes bewitch the judges, and seek to confuse them with compassion. They rob both animals and men of their power of reproduction, and through help of the devil have revelations of future things, which they foretell distinctly. If they do not devour children, they yet persecute them in all manner of ways; plunge them into water, if they are playing by brooks; and make horses shy and start. The form of compact with the devil is minutely described, which either took place solemnly on a witch-sabbath, or in private. In the first, the devil takes the place of honour, as the grand master, though in the witch-trials he is usually styled the little master; and the old witches present the female candidates to the prince of hell. There then takes place an examination as to faith and abilities; and the novice swears truth and obedience. The devil, on the other hand, teaches them how to make magic ointment, and drinks, and powders, for the damage or destruction of men and cattle, from the bones and members of new-born infants, and still more efficacious ones from those of baptised children. All this the authors of the Witch-hammer have themselves experienced.

A child-eater related the following ceremonial before the tribunal of justice, which is important for a true estimate of the witch-trials. "We lie in wait," she said, "for children. These are often found dead by their parents; and the simple people believe that they have themselves overlain them, or that they died from natural causes; but it is we who have destroyed them. For that purpose we steal them out of the grave and boil them with lime, till all the flesh is loosed from the bones, and is reduced to one mass. We make out of the firm part an ointment, and fill a bottle with the fluid; and whoever drinks with due ceremonies of this, belongs to our league, and is already capable of bewitching."

A similar relation of the ceremonies of abjuration was made by a young man who was accused with his wife, and who was forced to this confession by the authors of the Witch-hammer themselves; but, spite of this confession, the two were delivered up to death by fire. The young man declared before his execution that his wife would rather suffer herself to be torn to pieces on the rack—nay, even burnt alive, than confess any such thing; and this she actually did; but the husband himself made the confession, and yet was put to death. "A woman in Basle," continues the Witch-hammer, "had for seven years intercourse with the devil; but God took pity on her poor soul, for very shortly before the completion of this time she was happily discovered by us, seized, and burned. She confessed her sins very penitently."

The third chapter treats of the manner in which they made their flights through the air. If people ascribe these flights merely to the imagination, that is directly contrary to the Word of God, "for the devil took the Lord Christ himself, and set him upon the pinnacle of the Temple, and showed him all the glory of the world." A good angel also took the pious Habakuk by the hair of the head, and bore him through the air. Before the flight, the witches smear a broom-stick, an oven-fork, or a piece of linen, with their ointment, and they are at once borne away; it may be by day, but much oftener by night. There are very edifying stories told of the way in which these women produce rain when it is wanted. From the fourth to the seventh chapters, the amorous affairs of the witches and the devil are treated of; in the eighth again the change of men into beasts. To doubt of that is heresy. "Was not Nebuchadnezzar changed into an ox and ate grass?" In the ninth chapter it says, "The devil in such metamorphoses secretes himself in the head or the body of the man. He causes a blinding of the outer and inner senses; and the seats of the various faculties are very phrenologically given, as, for instance, memory in the hinder part of the head up towards the middle above, where imagination has her organ. Sensus communis has its cell in the front part of the head, where the imagination presents, with lightning speed, the figure of a horse, so that the man swears that he sees such an one. The devil does this with such skill, that not even a head-ache occurs from it, such miracles does he work; but they are no real miracles; those only are wrought by God."

The tenth chapter treats of the bodily possession of the devil; and contains a demonology in the spirit of the Witchhammer. The eleventh and twelfth are repetitions of the midwives, children-eaters, and child-offerings which were made to the devil. The thirteenth contains the conversation of a father with his eight-years'-old daughter on the drought which then prevailed; and the daughter declared that she was able to produce rain, on which the mother, witha threatening countenance, commanded her to keep quiet. Yes, she could produce thunder and hail. The inquisitors heard of this; the godless mother was arrested and burnt, but the maiden was saved.

The fourteenth chapter explains how the witches bewitch the cows. According to Sprenger, the witch-milking proceeds thus: The witch sticks a knife into a wall, takes a milk-pail between the knees, and cries to the devil to send them the milk of the cow that belongs to this or that person. The devil immediately milks the cow, and brings the milk to the witch, when it appears to run out of the knife-handle, by which the devil only deceives the witch, for he has brought the milk through the air. In a similar manner the witches supplied themselves with butter out of water that flowed by, and especially good May-butter; and the devil steals for them the wine of pious people, from their cellars. Cattle are bewitched by the touch, and even by looking at them. They make for such purposes all kinds of magical instruments, pictures, especially of toads, lizards, and snakes, etc., and lay them under the door-sills, and thereby they spoil milk, and produce diseases in the cattle.

The fifteenth chapter treats of witch thunder-storms, and damages to cattle and corn. As on one occasion terrible tempests laid waste the country from Eavensburg to Salzburg, the people cried loudly against the witches who occasioned it. "We caused,therefore," says Sprenger, "a few notorious old women to be arrested and tortured; and the event showed that we had hit on the chief offenders, for they all confessed." They were burnt as a matter of course. Sixteenth chapter: The witchery of men consists of three principal kinds:— Shooting with bows, the devil directing the arrows, so that they are sure to hit; the enchanting of swords, so as to sharpen those of friends and dull those of enemies, for which purpose they use magic songs, spells, and witch-knots. To the great trouble, however, of the wizards, such men were very frequently taken under the protection of the powerful nobles.

The second part consists of two chief questions, how witchcraft is to be done away with. The means are physical and spiritual. Of the first, smoke is a means; of the last, prayers and making the sign of the cross. This is followed by a diffuse inquiry of nearly a hundred pages, with learned treatment of bewitchings and freeing from witchery.

The third part contains the criminal code, which was to be used against the witches and heretics, in five-and-thirty questions, or items, in which the whole process of trial, from the arrest to the judgment, is fully detailed. It is necessary to the understanding of the whole spirit of the Witchhammer, that we should make ourselves acquainted with the penal laws, of which I give the following brief notice:—

The first chapter or query is, how a witch-prosecution is to be conducted. The arrest may take place on the simple rumour that a witch is to be found here or there, without any previous denunciation, since the duty of the judge is here to afford help. The second chapter is concerning the witnesses. Two or three are sufficient; and the judge may summon them, administer the oath, and frequently examine them. The witnesses, according to the chapters three and four, must have no high qualities. Excommunicated, infamous, runaway, and lewd scoundrels were fitting witnesses. Accomplices are admitted, in matters of faith of each kind, as evidence. Nay, in the absence of better witnesses, heretics and witches are taken as unexceptionable evidence against their fellows; the wife may witness against the husband, and vice versa, and the children against their parents. According to the fifth chapter, enemies, when they are not mortal enemies, that is, through attempts upon life, are admitted as half witnesses; and if they agree in their evidence wholly with another they two make a whole witness. For instance, Michael's Eliza says that Peter's Barbara has quarrelled with her, and bewitched her child— a half witness. Another man bears testimony that Peter's Barbara seven years before took away the milk of his cow —a whole witness. Barbara is convicted of witchcraft, and burnt.

The sixth chapter teaches how the prosecution was to be conducted. Here come all sorts of interesting and most important questions which are addressed to the accused. As, whether she confessed that she was a witch? Why she let herself be seen in the field or the stall? Why she touched the cow, which thereupon became ill? Why her cow gave more milk than three or four of other people's?

Seventh chapter:—Whether the accused was to be regarded as a witch? Eighth chapter:—How the witches were to be arrested? And in this particular it is most important to take care that the prisoner does not touch the ground, or she might, by her witchcraft, liberate herself. On this account witches at a later day, according to Horst, were suspended in the witch-tower at Lindheim, and there burnt. Ninth and tenth chapters:— Detail further proceedings with the prisoner. Whether a defence was to be allowed? What may happen under the circumstances — but the affair is delicate. If an advocate defended his client beyond what was requisite, whether it was not reasonable that he too should be considered guilty; for he is a patron of witches and heretics. (No wonder that there was no great zeal shown in defending those accused.) Eleventh and twelfth chapters:— Proceedings with unknown names, and by enemies. Here all sorts of cunning and juridical artifices were allowed. Thirteenth chapter: — What the judge has to notice in the audience of the torture-chamber. Witches who have given themselves up for years, body and soul, to the devil (who, in fact, have been afflicted with cramps and convulsions), are made by him so insensible to pain on the rack, that they rather allow themselves to be torn to pieces than confess. Others, who were not so true, he ceased to torture. Such were easy to bring to confession. (The unhappy sensitive ones preferred death to the rack.) Fourteenth chapter:— "Upon torture and the mode of racking; — very instructive! For instance: In order to bring the accused to voluntary confession, you may promise her her life; which promise, however, may afterwards be withdrawn. If the witch does not confess the first day, the torture to be continued the second and third days. But here the difference between continuing and repeating is important. The torture may not be continued without fresh evidence; but it may be repeated according to judgment. For instance, the judge announces after the first torture: "We condemn thee to be again tortured tomorrow." Fifteenth chapter:— Continuance of the discovery of a witch by her marks. Here, amongst other signs, weeping is one. It is a damning thing if an accused, on being brought up, cannot at once shed tears. The clergy and judges lay their hands on the head of the accused, and adjure her by the hot tears of the most glorified Virgin, that in case of her innocence she shed abundant tears in the name of God the Father. (Who now will only believe on God, and not on the devil too?) It was found by experience that the more a witch was adjured, the less she could weep. Further, the judge must be careful in touching the witch that he carry upon his person consecrated herbs and salt; and he must not look directly at her; for after looking at the accused, the judges lost all power of condemning them, and set them at liberty! The witches were, therefore, carried backwards into the room. The witches must also have all their hair shorn off; for without this foresight many cannot be brought to confession. In Germany this shaving was denounced as disgraceful, as the Witch-hammer complains. In other countries less resistance was made. When even pity was reduced to silence, indignation against the breach of morals and decency aroused the German breast, and became loud.

Sixteenth chapter:— Continuation. Seventeenth chapter:— Means of purification on the part of the witches, and the fire-proof. The fire-proof is opposed, because there are herbs which defend against the fire, which the witches knew; and the devil can make them insensible to the effect of hot iron. Eighteenth chapter:— On how many kinds of suspicion the judgment of death may be awarded. Twentieth chapter to the three-and-twentieth:— On questioning and judging notorious witches, of which sufficient has already been seen in the preceding chapters. Five-and-twentieth:— Here the grey witch-cloaks present themselves, in which the witches must, in all cases, do penance before the doors of the church. It was a wide, grey cloak, like a monk's cloak, only without a cape, with saffron-coloured crosses of three hands long and two broad. Six- and Seven-and-twentieth chapters:— The mode of proceeding with a heretic who has confessed, but afterwards has returned to the church. Twenty-eighth:— But how, when a repentant heretic again apostatises, he shall be dealt with. Twenty-ninth to the thirty-third chapter:— Similar questions as to confession, and the then denying of confession: of avoiding temptation. Of caution in the proceedings against persons who have been accused by witches already tried and burnt, because the devil often spoke out in them. (Nearly the only trace of humanity in the whole work.) Thirty-fourth chapter:— How to proceed with a witch who has actually employed magic means,—as midwives and shooters, finally, thirty-fifth chapter:— How sorcerers and witches are to be dealt with who appeal to a higher tribunal. This appeal must be opposed; and if it sometimes please the judge to allow of it, he is under no necessity to hasten the proceedings.

These brief indications of the contents of the Witchhammer are all of an essential character, and may serve us as a little abridgment of the history of the faith and legal practice of that time, and especially as it regards the witch-prosecutions, on which, therefore, we may be more concise.

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