I thought I had finished reading all Hawthorne’s short stories, and then—out of nowhere—“Alice Doan’s Appeal” turns up. Well, not “out of nowhere,” ex I thought I had finished reading all Hawthorne’s short stories, and then—out of nowhere—“Alice Doan’s Appeal” turns up. Well, not “out of nowhere,” exactly, but out of a selection of stories published after Hawthorne’s death by his son Julian. Nathaniel Hawthorne himself had published the tale years earlier, in The Token in 1835, and had also thought of including it in his never-published collection, Seven Tales of My Native Land. But Seven Tales was never published, and “Alice Doane’s Appeal” remained uncollected at his death.
I think Hawthorne was wise not to included it in his body of tales. The narrator is a young author who has enticed two young ladies to take a walk with him to Gallow’s Hill in Salem—where the witches were hanged—and proceeds to read them a tale from one his own old manuscripts, a dark tale of doppelgangers, wizardry, erotic passion, and hot murder on an icy night. But this tale of Alice Doane and her brother is not in itself interesting, and primarily serves to surround the three young people—the author and the two ladies on Gallow’s Hill—with a gothic atmosphere which evokes the much more powerful memory of the witch trials and the executions themselves.
It is significant that Hawthorne reserves the stories harshest words for the people who brought this sad episode of hysteria into being:
Behind their victims came the afflicted, a guilty and miserable band; villains who had thus avenged themselves on their enemies, and viler wretches, whose cowardice had destroyed their friends; lunatics, whose ravings had chimed in with the madness of the land; and children, who had played a game that the imps of darkness might have envied them, since it disgraced an age, and dipped a people’s hands in blood. In the rear of the procession rode a figure on horseback, so darkly conspicuous, so sternly triumphant, that my hearers mistook him for the visible presence of the fiend himself; but it was only his good friend, Cotton Mather, proud of his well-won dignity, as the representative of all the hateful features of his time: the one blood-thirsty man, in whom were concentrated those vices of spirit and errors of opinion that sufficed to madden the whole surrounding multitude.
“A Vignette” is the last ghost story M.R. James wrote. It was published in the London Mercury (November 1936) five months after his death.
A “vignette “A Vignette” is the last ghost story M.R. James wrote. It was published in the London Mercury (November 1936) five months after his death.
A “vignette” is defined by the OED as “a short piece of writing or acting that clearly shows what a particular person, situation, etc. is like”, and it includes a secondary definition as well: “a small picture or drawing, especially on the first page of a book." The title, though it appears modest and casual, is singularly, ironically appropriate.
M.R. James “clearly shows” the reader what a particular “situation” is like—namely, the ghostly impressions of a young boy exploring a nearby bit of wood—but the boy’s impressions are themselves so vague, so evanescent, so devoid of tangible terrors, of modest manifestations—that the very clarity of his description creates an impression which is vague. Reading this brief piece, I was more than once reminded of that other great James of fiction—Henry James—and of the nebulous menace of his ghostly prose. As brief as it is, this “vignette” reminds me of those Henry James' classics, “The Turn of the Screw” or “The Jolly Corner.”
M.R. of course was also an expert at the subtly sinister, but here he outdoes himself, filling us with dread at the very moment he explains the scary atmosphere which is not there:
Some of the trees, Scotch firs and others, which form a backing and a surrounding, are of considerable size, but there is nothing that diffuses a mysterious gloom or imparts a sinister flavour — nothing of melancholy or funereal associations. The place is well clad, and there are secret nooks and retreats among the bushes, but there is neither offensive bleakness nor oppressive darkness. It is, indeed, a matter for some surprise when one thinks it over, that any cause for misgivings of a nervous sort have attached itself to so normal and cheerful a spot, the more so, since neither our childish mind when we lived there nor the more inquisitive years that came later ever nosed out any legend or reminiscence of old or recent unhappy things.
Yet to me they came, even to me, leading an exceptionally happy wholesome existence, and guarded — not strictly but as carefully as was any way necessary — from uncanny fancies and fear.
I don’t know about you, but we’ve barely begun and I’m scared already.
I have two final things to say about this story. First, tradition has it that the tale is based on a childhood experience of James’ own, involving a small wood near the village of Great Livermere in Sussex. It is called the Oldbroom Plantation, and it is rumored to be haunted.
Second, I think the secondary definition of vignette carries an irony with it too. A “vignette” may be defined as “a small picture or drawing, especially on the first page of a book.” M.R.’s vignette certainly draws us a picture, but it is a picture that takes its honorable place on the last page—not the first—of the master’s body of work.
This tale is of negligible value, but it is amusing, filled with vivid historical atmophere, and mercifully brief. It involves a trick played upon the This tale is of negligible value, but it is amusing, filled with vivid historical atmophere, and mercifully brief. It involves a trick played upon the besieged Jews by the besieging Romans, who not wanting to technical offend the Hebrew deity by denying him sacrificial animals, yet contrived to send him a victim he could not accept and that his devotees could not use. This is yet another of the early Poe tales first submitted to the Philadelphia Saturday Courier and eventually intended as one of the sixteen tales in the never-published collection, The Folio Club. It is derived from a passage in Horatio’s Smith’s novel Zillah, a Tale of the Holy City (1828); it is more homage than parody, and contains images—sometimes entire passages—appropriated from the original.
The following is an effective descriptive passage, in which the representatives of the beseiged—Simeon and his associates—hurry to the city walls
That part of the city to which our worthy Gizbarim now hastened, and which bore the name of its architect, King David, was esteemed the most strongly fortified district of Jerusalem; being situated upon the steep and lofty hill of Zion. Here a broad, deep, circumvallatory trench, hewn from the solid rock, was defended by a wall of great strength erected upon its inner edge. This wall was adorned, at regular interspaces, by square towers of white marble; the lowest sixty, and the highest one hundred and twenty cubits in height. But, in the vicinity of the gate of Benjamin, the wall arose by no means from the margin of the fosse. On the contrary, between the level of the ditch and the basement of the rampart, sprang up a perpendicular cliff of two hundred and fifty cubits, forming part of the precipitous Mount Moriah. So that when Simeon and his associates arrived on the summit of the tower called Adoni-Bezek--the loftiest of all the turrets around about Jerusalem, and the usual place of conference with the besieging army--they looked down upon the camp of the enemy from an eminence excelling by many feet that of the Pyramid of Cheops, and, by several, that of the temple of Belus.
First published in two installments in The Atlantic Monthly (1871), A Passionate Pilgrim is the earliest production of his imagination which James inc First published in two installments in The Atlantic Monthly (1871), A Passionate Pilgrim is the earliest production of his imagination which James included in his collected works. It is not only a successfully realized tale, but it is thoroughly representative, containing what would later be considered frequent Jamesian themes: the innocence heart of the American, the calculating mind of the European, and how they appreciate—and exploit—the beauties of the European world.
In this story, naive American Clement Searle, middle-aged but already in declining health, is convinced by the narrator—a recent acquaintance—to tour Lackley, the English estate he had once hoped might be his, but whose claim upon it has been rejected as insufficiently strong. Once there he meets his charming cousin, Miss Searle, and a tender friendship arises. But her brother Richard considers Clement nothing but a fortune hunter. To avoid further conflict, Clement and his friend depart for Oxford. But the saga of Clement Searle and Lackley is not yet done,
One of the things I like best about this early work is the enthusiastic, almost touristy descriptions of the English countryside. Some critics have found them superfluous and excessive, but I think they are just right. Not only do they reflect the attitude of young Henry—28 years old at the time this novella was published—but they also embody the passionate attachment the ailing Clement feels for this English world he fears he will never be able to possess.
In this passage, Clement and his companion approach Lackley for the first time:
Within the range of these numerous acres the declining spurs of the hills continued to undulate and subside. A long avenue wound and circled from the outermost gate through an untrimmed woodland, whence you glanced at further slopes and glades and copses and bosky recesses — at everything except the limits of the place … The weather had just become perfect; it was one of the dozen exquisite days of the English year — days stamped with a purity unknown in climates where fine weather is cheap. It was as if the mellow brightness, as tender as that of the primroses which starred the dark waysides like petals wind-scattered over beds of moss, had been meted out to us by the cubic foot — distilled from an alchemist’s crucible. From this pastoral abundance we moved upon the more composed scene, the park proper — passed through a second lodge-gate, with weather-worn gilding on its twisted bars, to the smooth slopes where the great trees stood singly and the tame deer browsed along the bed of a woodland stream. Here before us rose the gabled grey front of the Tudor-time, developed and terraced and gardened to some later loss, as we were afterwards to know, of type.
“Here you can wander all day,” I said to Searle, “like an exiled prince who has come back on tiptoe and hovers about the dominion of the usurper.”
“To think of ‘others’ having hugged this all these years!” he answered. “I know what I am, but what might I have been? What do such places make of a man?”
I have never been quite what to make of this book. Reimaginings of the classic fairy tales by one of the brightest intellects and darkest souls of Ame I have never been quite what to make of this book. Reimaginings of the classic fairy tales by one of the brightest intellects and darkest souls of American poetry would seem like an almost guaranteed classic, a marriage of genius and subject matter made in heaven … hell … or both. But the poems themselves have never quite convinced me. The metaphors, though occasionally illuminating and shocking, are often slapdash and cutesy; the verse line is slack, lacking the grace and force that should shape the narrative. This is far from the formalist classics of To Bedlam and Partway Back (1960) and All My Pretty Ones (1962), or from the looser, daring confessional experiments of Live or Die (1966).
Still, the dark narratives of Transformations (1972) continue to speak to me. Sexton’s voice, though necessarily less confessional here, is still God-ridden and Holocaust-haunted, and—for perhaps the first time—consciously feminist. The old tales retold gain new resonance here, if not quite a new shape—as they do, for example, in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber--and to hear them articulated by a great poet, a woman who perpetually awakened beauty from its spell, who continually released her captive soul from its dark tower (always—alas!—temporarily), is an illuminating and unsettling experience. I shall return to these poems again.
These narratives are a little too long—and frankly, a little too uneven—for me to include a complete tale for a sample. Instead, I’ll pick three excerpts:
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
The dwarfs, those little hot dogs, walked three times around Snow White, the sleeping virgin. They were wise and wattled like small czars. Yes, it’s a good omen, they said, and will bring us luck. They stood on tiptoes to watch Snow White wake up. She told them about the mirror and the killer-queen and they asked her to stay and keep house.
RUMPLESTILTSKIN
Inside many of us Is a small old man who wants to get out. No bigger than a two-year-old whom you’d call lamp chop yet this one is old and malformed. His head is okay but the rest of him wasn’t Sanforized. He is a monster of despair. He is all decay. He speaks up as tiny as an earphone with Truman’s asexual voice: I am your dwarf. I am the enemy within. I am the boss of your dreams. No. I am not the law in your mind, the grandfather of watchfulness. I am the law of your members, the kindred of blackness and impulse. See. Your hand shakes. It is not palsy or booze. It is your Doppelganger trying to get out. Beware … beware
CINDERELLA
At the wedding ceremony the two sisters came to curry favo and the white dove pecked their eyes out. Two hollow spots were left like soup spoons.
Cinderella and the prince lived, they say, happily ever after, like two dolls in a museum case never bothered by diapers or dust, never arguing over the timing of an egg, never telling the same story twice, never getting a middle-aged spread, their darling smiles pasted on for eternity. Regular Bobbsey Twins. That story.
First published in The Token (1832). this little story—in appearance little more than a sketch—gains richness and complexity with each reading. It tel First published in The Token (1832). this little story—in appearance little more than a sketch—gains richness and complexity with each reading. It tells us of two young widows bereaved by the deaths of the two brothers—one a sailor, one a soldier—whom they have married. Each retires to bed, each is awakened by a knock, and each received welcome information. But did both of them—or one of them—sleep through the night? And was it two actual visits—or two dream visits—that filled the widows hearts with joy?
I’ve read this brief piece three times now, yet I am not sure of the answers. Who is sleeping? Who has awakened? What is the nature of these two visitations?
I am puzzled--yet intrigued--by the ambiguity. I think I’ll go read this again....more
Seldom does a writer of natural horror equal in ghastliness the best of supernatural terror, but Jacques Chessex—in this novella about a defiler of yo Seldom does a writer of natural horror equal in ghastliness the best of supernatural terror, but Jacques Chessex—in this novella about a defiler of young girls’ graves active in the Swiss Canton of Vaud in the year 1903—manages to do just that.
Chessex accomplishes this in three ways: 1) he relates his detailed descriptions of sexual mutilation in a spare and disciplined prose, never once recoiling in disgust or smacking his lips in delight, 2) he envelops these otherwise sordid crimes with a supernatural aura, with references to monsters, charms, and prayers, and 3) he paints such a convincing portrait of the Swiss mountain people—fierce Calvinists ready to reach for a rosary when the going gets tough—that, although we never quite share their vision, we are affected by it, and experience both the clinical horrors and the spiritual terrors as they do.
This will give you an idea of the terror caused by the “vampire”:
“He didn’t touch her, the bastard, but he was there all the same, just look at the broken pane, and there, where the snow melted on the wood floor. You have to think he was scared off by the cloves of garlic and the crucifix she was sleeping with!”
For everywhere folk have again taken out the Christ they’ve kept hidden since Catholic days. Now, in every village and hamlet, you can see braided garlic and the holy images repugnant to the monster of Ropraz haning from the window frames and catches, from lintels, balconies, railings, even from secret doorways and in cellars. Crosses are erected again in this Protestant countryside where none have been seen for four centuries. The vampire fears the symbol of Christ? “There, that’ll make him think twice. And the dog is loose!”
First published in A Warning to the Curious (1925), and probably written soon before to extend the length the collection, M.R. James’ tries something First published in A Warning to the Curious (1925), and probably written soon before to extend the length the collection, M.R. James’ tries something unique—at least for him—in this particular story. He takes one of his kindly old Dickensian character types—in this case a “Grandmother,” mother to the “Squire,” and grandmother to Charles and Fanny—and, instead of employing her for intermittent comic relief (his customary practice), chooses her for his principle narrator instead. His stated objective: to demonstrate what it was like, in the good old days, when grandmothers spun ghostly folk tales by a winter fire.
Grandmother tells Charles and Fanny a story tale with a simple purpose—to explain to them why it is very important never to pick blackberries in a certain lane—but the story itself meanders a bit, sounding more like a bit of local memory than provincial folklore. It begins with a cottage—now torn down, but then near the blackberry lane—occupied by a Mr. Davis and a male friend. The companion was remembered as “a pale, ugly young fellow” who “hadn’t much to say for himself” and the village folk whispered of “one walk in particular that they’d take regularly once a month” where—it was rumored—the graves of Romans soldiers had more than once been unearthed. Mr. Davis and his companion, though, although familiar with the graves, were convinced they were much older than the Romans.
Davis and the man lived like this for three years, taking their regular walks. And then one morning early, a woodman discovered something strange:
[A]nd just where there were some few big oaks in a sort of clearing deep in the wood he saw at a distance a white thing that looked like a man through the mist, and he was in two minds about going on, but go on he did, and made out as he came near that it was a man, and more than that, it was Mr. Davis’s young man: dressed in a sort of white gown he was, and hanging by his neck to the limb of the biggest oak, quite, quite dead: and near his feet there lay on the ground a hatchet all in a gore of blood…. Well, what a terrible sight that was for anyone to come upon in that lonely place! This poor man was nearly out of his wits: he dropped everything he was carrying and ran as hard as ever he could straight down to the Parsonage, and woke them up and told what he’d seen. And old Mr. White, who was the parson then, sent him off to get two or three of the best men, the blacksmith and the churchwardens and what not, while he dressed himself, and all of them went up to this dreadful place with a horse to lay the poor body on and take it to the house. When they got there, everything was just as the woodman had said: but it was a terrible shock to them all to see how the corpse was dressed, specially to old Mr. White, for it seemed to him to be like a mockery of the church surplice that was on it, only, he told my father, not the same in the fashion of it. And when they came to take down the body from the oak tree they found there was a chain of some metal round the neck and a little ornament like a wheel hanging to it on the front, and it was very old looking, they said.
Things get even stranger after that. And Grandmother shares with Charles and Fanny an odd experience of her own, in the days before she married Grandfather. But I’ll just let the old Grandmother tell you the rest herself....more
Shortly before his death, M.R. James was asked if he believed in ghosts. “We know such things exist,” he said. “But we don’t know the rules.”
Whatever Shortly before his death, M.R. James was asked if he believed in ghosts. “We know such things exist,” he said. “But we don’t know the rules.”
Whatever those rules may be, they are certainly not ours. At least not in the tales of M.R. James. He who offends the spirits, although he may come to realize the gravity of his crime, experience heartfelt remorse, and do his best to make amends, may not necessarily be forgiven. So it is in the case of a man named Paxton.
The story unfolds in a “chinese box” structure of narrative within narrative, in which one narrator introduces us to another narrator who in turn meets Paxton who tells us most of his story himself. He relates how, during a holiday to East Anglia, he begins to suspect, from hints he has heard, that somewhere near the beach he may find one of the legendary three crowns of the region—each buried in a difference location to dispel foreign invasion. (Since James wrote this story in 1925, not long after the Great War, the thoughts of foreign invasion would not be far from his English readers’ minds.)
Of course Paxton locates the site, acquires the crown, and takes it back to his hotel. But what happens to him after that I’ll let you find out for yourself. Let’s just say the narrative concludes in a bleak but most satisfactory manner.
I’ll end with what Paxton has to say about the “always somebody—a man” who has haunted him ever since he began to dig up the crown:
”I had hours to get through before I could decently come back to the hotel. . . . Sometimes, you know, you see him, and sometimes you don’t, just as he pleases, I think: he’s there, but he has some power over your eyes. Well, I wasn’t off the spot very long before sunrise, and then I had to get to the junction for Seaburgh, and take a train back. And though it was daylight fairly soon, I don’t know if that made it much better. There were always hedges, or gorse-bushes, or park fences along the road — some sort of cover, I mean — and I was never easy for a second. And then when I began to meet people going to work, they always looked behind me very strangely: it might have been that they were surprised at seeing anyone so early; but I didn’t think it was only that, and I don’t now: they didn’t look exactly at me. And the porter at the train was like that too. And the guard held open the door after I’d got into the carriage — just as he would if there was somebody else coming, you know. Oh, you may be very sure it isn’t my fancy,’ he said with a dull sort of laugh. Then he went on: ‘And even if I do get it put back, he won’t forgive me . . . .
Written in 1840, Hawthorne’s tale of “John Inglefield’s Thanksgiving” is little more than a sketch, lacking everything but the rudiments of narrative. Written in 1840, Hawthorne’s tale of “John Inglefield’s Thanksgiving” is little more than a sketch, lacking everything but the rudiments of narrative. Yet its command of mood is so assured, the picture it paints of a celebratory American holiday is so dark, that it now commands a sombre space in my memory. It is filled with classic Hawthorneian themes—sexual sin, remorse, alienation, and the presence of evil—and, in fact, the sense of presence is so palpable, so manifest in this little tale that more than one reader has classified it as a ghost story, even though there is not a ghost within it. That is, Unless we include, in our spectral catalog, the ghost of memory and the ghost of innocence too.
The story it tells—little more than the wraith of a story—concerns four people who have have gathered around the Ingleside fireplace after the holiday dinner: John Inglefield the Blacksmith, his son the minister, his sixteen-year-old daughter Mary, and Robert his former apprentice. Next to Inglefield sits an empty chair where his wife—dead for four months now—once sat.
Into this house comes Prudence, the elder daughter, separated from the family by some unexplained sin. Although the narrator suggests she may have “spent many months in guilt and infamy,” she yet looks fresh in the firelight, and to her father she seems “the very image of his buried wife.” The five of them have a merry holiday, until it is time for “domestic worship.”
While the family were making preparations for this duty, they suddenly perceived that Prudence had put on her cloak and hood, and was lifting the latch of the door. . . As Prudence passed out of the door, she turned towards them, and flung back her hand with a gesture of farewell. But her face was so changed that they hardly recognized it. Sin and evil passions glowed through its comeliness, and wrought a horrible deformity; a smile gleamed in her eyes, as of triumphant mockery, at their surprise and grief.
“Daughter,” cried John Inglefield, between wrath and sorrow, “stay and be your father’s blessing, or take his curse with you!”
For an instant Prudence lingered and looked back into the fire-lighted room, while her countenance wore almost the expression as if she were struggling with a fiend, who had power to seize his victim even within the hallowed precincts of her father’s hearth. The fiend prevailed; and Prudence vanished into the outer darkness. When the family rushed to the door, they could see nothing, but heard the sound of wheels rattling over the frozen ground.
This 22nd entry in the Nameless Detective series is a thoroughly successful “entertainment” (to use Graham Greene’s phrase) which is not surprising, s This 22nd entry in the Nameless Detective series is a thoroughly successful “entertainment” (to use Graham Greene’s phrase) which is not surprising, since Bill Pronzini is a real pro.
It starts out, as many mysteries do, with what seems to be a straightforward problem. Melanie Aldrich, going through the family papers after her mother’s death, has just learned that she is adopted, and she wants to know her “real identity”: who her parents were, and if either or both are alive. At first, Nameless gets stonewalled, for the details of Melanie’s conception and birth are sad and shabby, and nobody related the case wishes to dredge up the past the past. But our hero keeps digging, and soon he uncovers, along with the past, a violent vengeful person who threatens not only Melanie, but Nameless and his new wife Kerry too.
Yes, that’s right, I said “wife.” This is one of the reasons why Hardcase is essential reading for Nameless fans: the first chapter recounts the wedding of our detective and his longtime companion Kerry. Short version: everything go wrong (hilariously), but everything turns out alright.
In addition, this book, first published in 1995, gives us an account of Nameless’ tardy entry into the Digital Age. No, he doesn’t learn to operate the computer itself; that would be too much to ask. Instead, he hires a “hacker,” Tamara Corbin, an African American college girl with a chip on her shoulder. (She and Nameless get off to a bad start, but they soon develop a mutual respect. She is an interesting character, a good foil for Namless and I hope she’ll be around for many more books to come....more
Swedish author Helen Tursten is best known for her series of mysteries about Inspector Irene Huss (made into a series of films for Swedish TV), but, w Swedish author Helen Tursten is best known for her series of mysteries about Inspector Irene Huss (made into a series of films for Swedish TV), but, when she was asked to contribute to a Christmas anthology, she decided to write about a serial killer instead, a serial killer who happens to be an “elderly lady,”
Tursten’s heroine Maud is not a blood-thirsty monster, driven by bloodlust or malice. No, she is merely a stone-cold but reasonable sociopath. She believes in live-let-live, but, when somebody interferes with her contentment or self-interest, you can be sure they will be quickly—and efficiently—removed.
Maud encounters, and then disposes of, various irritating types: a spoiled wealthy woman artist who wants Maud’s apartment for her studio (“An Elderly Lady Has Accommodation Problems”), the disagreeable, gold-digging wife of a former beau (“An Elderly Lady on Her Travels”), an alcoholic attorney who beats his wife and disrupts Maud’s peace with his tirades (“An Elderly Lady Seeks Peace at Christmastime”), and a thieving antique dealer who targets her silver and paintings (“The Antique Dealer’s Death” and “An Elderly Lady is Faced with a Difficult Dilemma”).
Of the five stories included here, the first three are superior to the others. In the last two, which tell the same tale from different perspectives, Inspector Huss appears as a superflous guest star, which distracts attraction from the more interesting Maud, Besides, the cover-up of the antique dealer’s murder is much too elaborate, wearying the reader’s attention with Maud’s meticulous plans.
The most fascinating thing about these stories—particularly to an old guy like myself—is the way Maud treats the perceived problems of old age. Although she is a sociopath, unlike the U.S.A.’s current president, she is no preening narcissist. Consequently, no idle vanity prevents her from profiting from the elderly’s supposed weaknesses. She carries an unnecessary cane (as a weapon), uses a walker (to conceal still other weapons), and then feigns deafness and confusion to cover her tracks. Above all, she takes advantage of the elderly’s cultural lack of importance. She thrives on invisibility, exults in not being seen....more
“The Uncommon Prayer-book,” first published in Atlantic Monthly (June 1921) and later reprinted in the collection A Warning to the Curious (1925), tho “The Uncommon Prayer-book,” first published in Atlantic Monthly (June 1921) and later reprinted in the collection A Warning to the Curious (1925), though perhaps not one of the best M.R. James’ tales, is still one of my favorites—probably because it brings out the ardent bibliophile in me. The idea of a unique “bootleg” edition of The Book of Common Prayer, commissioned by a Cromwell-hating old noblewoman, and the possibility that her ghostly Royalist spirit survives to haunt those books, always leaves me with both a chill and a smile.
The story relates the experience of a Mr. Davidson, who in the course of a brief walking tour, visits the old estate of Brockstone Court, uninhabited now except for a caretaker. While touring the building, he is struck by::
. . . one painted ceiling, upon which an artist who had fled from London in the Plague-year had depicted the Triumph of Loyalty and Defeat of Sedition. In this Mr Davidson could show an unfeigned interest. The portraits of Cromwell, Ireton, Bradshaw, Peters, and the rest, writhing in carefully-devised torments, were evidently the part of the design to which most pains had been devoted.
Later, while visiting the chapel, Davidson hears the caretaker exclaim, in frustration, that the eight old prayer books—though securely locked up—have all been opened to the same page again:
Mr Davidson walked along the stalls and looked at the open books. Sure enough, they all stood at the same page: Psalm cix, and at the head of it, just between the number and the Dens Iaudem, was a rubric, ‘For the 25th day of April’. Without pretending to minute knowledge of the history of the Book of Common Prayer, he knew enough to be sure that this was a very odd and wholly unauthorized addition to its text; and though he remembered that April is St Mark’s Day, he could not imagine what appropriateness this very savage psalm could have to that festival.
(Oh, if that Psalm sounds familiar, it may because: 1) it is notorious for containing more heartfelt curses than any other passage in the Bible, and 2) it was cited in 2016 by Republican Senator David Purdue as an appropriate prayer to pray for President Obama. “We should pray for Barack Obama. But I think we need to be very specific about how we pray. We should pray like Psalms 109:8 says. It says, 'Let his days be few, and let another have his office.”)
Later, Davidson discovers that April 25th is the birthday of Oliver Cromwell.
You can read the rest of the story yourself, including the scary part: how an unscrupulous book dealer, having stolen those eight prayer books, subsequently encounters a creature with eyes that are described by a witness as “dry-like” with “two big spiders’ bodies in the holes.”...more
First published in Imaginative Tales (November 1955), “Psi-Man Heal My Child!” is yet another Dickian treatment of human mutations, the limits of thei First published in Imaginative Tales (November 1955), “Psi-Man Heal My Child!” is yet another Dickian treatment of human mutations, the limits of their talents and the extent of their responsibilities, this time in the familiar context of the aftermath of global war.
The mutants in our story are “The Talents,” a guild of people with special abilities who operate outside the control of military communes, out in the ruins of the surrounding city: precog Porter, telekinetic Doris, mind-reader Stephen, psychic healer Thelma, and—the rarest and perhaps most important of all—time-traveler Jack, who is traveling into the past to reason with a general, attempting to stop the last devastating war before it has a chance to begin.
The two strains of the plot work to complement each other. On the one hand, this is a story of the Garby family, and whether they will leave their military commune forever to seek cancer treatment for one of their child, but on the other hand, this is a story about the mutants themselves and the decisions they must make—not only themselves but for the “normal” human beings too, and for the future of the planet....more
This lesser Hawthorne tale has nothing at all to do with Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury referred to in its title is the Shaker community of Canterbu This lesser Hawthorne tale has nothing at all to do with Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury referred to in its title is the Shaker community of Canterbury, New Hampshire.
The Shakers—originally known as “The Shaking Quakers” because of their practice of ecstatic dancing—was a prophetic celibate Christian community which flourished in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Although marriage was forbidden to the Quakers, they strove to increase their numbers through adoption and conversion, and their doors were always open to those who wished to join.
The Canterbury pilgrims mentioned here are six prospective converts, who meet at a spring not far from Canterbury, New Hampshire, plus a young Shaker couple in love. They wish to marry, and therefore are determined to go forth into the world, leaving the community the others have decided to join.
The six would-be converts are destitute seekers of refuge, failures of one kind or another: an unsuccessful poet, a wealthy merchant (now bankrupt), and an out-of-work laborer with his wife and two children. While the two lovers speak of their hopes for the future, the others of their disappointments:
They had but stepped across the threshold of their homes, when lo! the dark array of cares and sorrows that rose up to warn them back. The varied narratives of the strangers had arranged themselves into a parable; they seemed not merely instances of woeful fate that had befallen others, but shadowy omens of disappointed hope, and unavailing toil, domestic grief, and estranged affection, that would cloud the onward path . . .
Will their life stories affect the two lovers’ resolve? Who will win out? The Shaker community or the world?
Speaking of the Shaker community: how did celibacy (coupled with adoption and conversion) work out as a survival strategy? Edith Hudson, the last Shaker living at Canterbury, died in 1992, As of 2017, there were two remaining Shakers in toto: Brother Arnold Hadd, 60, and Sister June Carpenter, 78, living at Sabbathday Lake, Maine....more
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