Charles Fort Quotes

Almost all people are hypnotics. The proper authority saw to it that the proper belief should be induced, and the people believed properly.

If there is a true universal mind, must it be sane?

The Earth is a farm. We are someone else's property.

[Wise men] have tried to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.

People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.

One can't learn much and also be comfortable One can't learn much and let anybody else be comfortable

People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.

I conceive of nothing, in religion, science or philosophy, that is more than the proper thing to wear, for a while.

The ideal state is meekness, or humility, or the semi-invalid state of the old. Year after year I am becoming nobler and nobler. If I can live to be decrepit enough, I shall be a saint.

We cannot define. Nothing has ever been finally figured out, because there is nothing final to figure out

We shall pick up an existence by its frogs.

But some of us have been educated by surprises out of much that we were 'absolutely sure' of...

Char me the trunk of a redwood tree. Give me pages of white chalk cliffs to write upon. Magnify me thousands of times, and replace my trifling immodesties with a titanic megalomania — then might I write largely enough for our subjects.

If there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.

The Earth is a farm. We are someone else’s property.

I am God to the cells that compose me.

I noticed that the houses in Fort Smith were numbered but it was no city at all compared to Little Rock. I thought then and still think that Fort Smith ought to be in Oklahoma instead of Arkansas...

It's like looking for a needle that no one ever lost in a haystack that never was—

Is life worth living? Like everybody else, I have many times asked that question, usually deciding negatively, because I am most likely to ask myself whether life is worth living, at times when I am convinced it isn't. One day, in one of my frequent, and probably incurable, scientific moments, it occurred to me to find out. For a month, at the end of each day, I set down a plus sign, or a minus sign, indicating that, in my opinion, life had, or had not, been worth living, that day. At the end of the month, I totted up, and I can't say that I was altogether pleased to learn that the pluses had won the game. It is not dignified to be optimistic.

It is our expression that the flux between that which isn't and that which won't be, or the state that is commonly and absurdly called "existence," is a rhythm of heavens and hells: that the damned won't stay damned; that salvation only precedes perdition. The inference is that some day our accursed tatterdemalions will be sleek angels. Then the sub-inference is that some later day, back they'll go whence they came.

Science is a turtle that says that its own shell encloses all things.

I am a collector of notes upon subjects that have diversity — such as deviations from concentricity in the lunar crater Copernicus, and a sudden appearance of purple Englishmen — stationary meteor-radiants, and a reported growth of hair on the bald head of a mummy — and 'Did the girl swallow the octopus?

what we call existence is a womb of infinitude, and is itself only incubatory—that eventually all attempts are broken down by the falsely excluded.

When, upon the closed system of normal preoccupations, a story of a sea serpent appears, it is inhospitably treated. To us of the wider cordialities, it has recommendations for kinder reception. I think that we shall be noted in recognitions of good works for our bizarre charities.

Ama-a, ama-a, ama-a. Se ela favorecer-te, ama-a. Se ela ferir-te, ama-a. Se ela te despedaçar o coração, que à medida que envelhecer e ficar mais forte, sangrará mais, ama-a, ama-a, ama-a!

I fear me, I fear me: this is one of the profoundly damned. I blurt out something that should, perhaps, be withheld for several hundred pages—but that damned thing was the size of an elephant.

than appreciating the calm voice of Charleston during an evening walk along the Battery with Fort Sumter off in the distance, the great white houses at one’s back, palmettos rattling their leaves in a sea breeze.

I cannot say that truth is stranger than fiction, because I have never had acquaintance with either.

That social organism is embryonic. That firmly to believe is to impede development. That only temporarily to accept is to facilitate.

I think we're all bugs and mice, and are only different expressions of an all-inclusive cheese.

I conceive of the magic of prayers. I conceive of the magic of blasphemies. There is witchcraft in religion: there may be witchcraft in atheism.

Let a god change anything, and there will be reactions of evil as much as good. Only stupidity can be divine.

If good and evil are continuous, any crime can be linked with any virtue. Imposture merges away into self-deception so that only relatively has there ever been impostor.

Que reste-t-il ? C'est affreux, ô mon âme ! Rien qu'un dessin fort pâle, aux trois crayons,

The mind of no man is a unit, but is a community of mental states that influence one another.

Oh, sim! O Tempo está de volta; O Tempo reina como um rei agora; e junto dele aquele velho homem com seu arsenal demoníaco de Memórias, Arrependimentos, Espasmos, Medos, Ansiedades, Pesadelos, Raivas, e Neuroses. Eu lhe asseguro que os segundos são mais fortes agora, solenemente acentuados, e cada um, saltando do relógio, diz assim, Eu sou a Vida, intolerável, implacável!

The executive secretary of the Citizens Congressional Committee was Charles W. Winegarner. A former advertising executive from Fort Wayne, Indiana, he now worked full-time promoting the cause.

I sent letters of enquiry to all persons whose names were given, and received not one reply. There are several ways of explaining. One is that it is probable that persons who have experiences such as those told of in this book, receive so many "crank letters" that they answer none. Dear me — once upon a time, I enjoyed a sense of amusement and superiority toward "cranks". And now here am I, a "crank", myself. Like most writers, I have the moralist somewhere in my composition, and here I warn — take care, oh, reader, with whom you are amused, unless you enjoy laughing at yourself.

There is a continuity of all things that make classifications fictions. But all human knowledge depends upon arrangements. Then all books--scientific, theological, philosophical--are only literary.

Collective hallucination is another of the dismissal-labels by which conventionalists shirk thinking. Here is another illustration of the lack of standards, in phenomenal existence, by which to judge anything. One man's story, if not to the liking of conventionalists, is not accepted, because it is not supported; and then testimony by more than one is not accepted, if undesirable, because that is collective hallucination. In this kind of jurisprudence, there is no hope for any kind of testimony against the beliefs in which conventional scientists agree. Among their amusing disregards is that of overlooking that, quite as truly may their own agreements be collective delusions.

I live in a time of fear and the fear is not of war or weather or death or poverty or terror. The fear is of life itself. The fear is of tomorrow, a time when things do not get better but become worse. This is the belief of my time. I do not share it. The numbers of people will rise, the pain of migration will grow, the seas will bark forth storms, the bombs will explode in the markets, and mouths fighting for a place at the table will grow, as will the shouting and shoving. That is a given. Once the given is accepted, fear is pointless. The fear comes from not accepting it, from turning aside one's head, from dreaming in the fort of one's home that such things cannot be. The fear comes from turning inward and seeking personal salvation. The bones must be properly buried, amends must be made. Also, the beasts must be acknowledged. And the weather faced, the winds and rains lashing the face, still, they must be faced. So too, the dry ground screaming for relief. There is an industry peddling solutions, and these solutions insist no one must really change, except perhaps a little, and without pain. This is the source of the fear, this refusal to accept the future that is already here. In the Old Testament, the laws insist we must not drink blood, that the flesh must be properly drained or we will be outcasts from the Lord. They say these rules were necessary for clean living in some earlier time. I swallow the blood, all the bloods. I am that outlaw, the one crossing borders. The earlier time is over.

…ah, Deus, e que tudo venha e caia sobre mim, até a incompreensão de mim mesma em certos momentos brancos porque basta me cumprir e então nada impedirá meu caminho até a morte-sem-medo, de qualquer luta ou descanso me levantarei forte e bela como um cavalo novo.

But what are we going to do with a load of guns?” asks Pete. “I don’t know, Brains, what are we going to do with a half-track full of guns?” Pinky asks. Brains chuckles. “Same thing we do every night, Pinky—” “Fort up and wait for reinforcements,” Pinky says flatly.

No conozco ninguna norma en cuestiones de religión, filosofía, ciencia, ni complicación de las tareas domésticas, que no pueda ser moldeada para que se ajuste a cualquier exigencia. Ajustamos las normas a nuestras opiniones o quebrantamos una ley que nos apetece quebrantar

Call it swoon, or call it hypnosis--but that it is never absolute, and that all of us sometimes have awareness of our condition, and moments of wondering what it's all about and why we do and think the things that sometimes we wake up and find ourselves doing and thinking. Upon

I had used all except peach labels. I pasted the peach labels on peach cans, and then came to apricots. Well, aren't apricots peaches? And there are plums that are virtually apricots. I went on, either mischievously, or scientifically, pasting the peach labels on cans of plums, cherries, string beans, and succotash. I can't quite define my motive, because to this day it has not been decided whether I am a humourist or a scientist. I think that it was mischief, but, as we go along, there will come a more respectful recognition that also it was scientific procedure.

So, then, in general metaphysical terms, our expression is that, like a purgatory, all that is commonly called "existence," which we call Intermediateness, is quasi-existence, neither real nor unreal, but expression of attempt to become real, or to generate for or recruit a real existence.

A quarta-feira amanhecia quando olhei pela janela. Nas pontes, as luzes cintilantes já haviam empalidecido. O sol nascente parecia um pântano de fogo no horizonte. O rio, ainda escuro e misterioso, cortado pelas pontes que tomavam uma coloração cinza e gélida, com um toque cálido do sol que ardia no céu. Ao percorrer com o olhar a multidão de telhados, com as torres e os campanários das igrejas que se elevavam sobre Londres em um céu invulgarmente claro, o sol nasceu e foi como se tivessem retirado um véu do rio, e milhões de fagulhas explodiram na superfície das águas. Também foi como se tivessem tirado o véu que me encobria, e me senti forte e bem-disposto.

Esquecer a senhora? É parte da minha vida, parte de mim mesmo. Estava em cada verso que li, desde que aqui vim pela primeira vez, menino rude e comum, que a senhora, já naquele tempo, magoava tanto. Desde aquele tempo, esteve em todas as minhas esperanças... no rio, nas velas dos navios, no pântano, nos bosques, no mar, nas ruas. A senhora foi a personificação de todas as fantasias bonitas do meu espírito. As pedras que formam os edifícios mais fortes de Londres não são mais reais ou mais impossíveis de ser deslocadas pelas suas mãos, do que sua presença, sua influência, o foram para mim, sempre, aqui e em toda parte. Estella, até a hora em que eu morrer, a senhora vai ser parte do meu caráter, parte do pouco que há de bom em mim, e do que há de mal. Mas, ao nos separarmos, eu sempre irei associá-la com o bem, e é assim, com toda a lealdade, que pensarei na senhora, sempre, pois foi para mim um alento, mais do que um desalento, e agora deixe que eu sinta toda a minha dor. Que Deus a abençoe!

If the basic fallacies, or the absence of base, in every specialization of thought can be seen by the units of its opposition, why then we see that all supposed foundations in our whole existence are myths, and that all discussion and supposed progress are the conflicts of phantoms and the overthrow of old delusions by new delusions. Nevertheless

Cette petite religion possède un caractère unique : les deux membres du couple en incarnent tous les deux l'idéal. Le droit de propriété sur le corps de son partenaire, protégé par une défense rituelle très forte, se place au centre de cette mini-religion. Car n'importe quel type d'écart sexuel hors du couple fait naître chez l'autre un intense sentiment de colère.

I’m afraid that’s all the time I have,” Colonel Charles said. “I’ll update with further information as the situation warrants.” He walked off to more reporters shouting out questions, and Fort muted the television again, not sure why he’d even bothered. Six months later, and they still wouldn’t say who’d done it, or why. Not to mention that all anyone could think about was if and when another attack was coming.

Maj. Charles Abeyawardena, a strategic planning officer with the Army’s Center for Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, arrived in Afghanistan in 2005 to interview U.S. combat advisers and senior Afghan officials about their experiences. As an aside, he decided to ask low-ranking Afghan soldiers why they had enlisted. He said their responses echoed those usually given by American troops: it’s a solid paycheck, I want to serve my country, it’s an opportunity to do something new with my life. But when he followed up by asking whether they would stay in the Afghan army after the United States left, the answers startled him. “The majority, almost everyone I talked to, said, ‘No,’ ” Abeyawardena said in an Army oral-history interview. “They were going to go back and grow opium or marijuana or something like that, because that’s where the money is.

Selon Ibn Arabî, l’intensité dans l’amour de Dieu et la pratique de la religion découle de la force inhérente à la sincérité de la foi et à la conviction inébranlable des croyants exprimée dans le tasawwuf par le terme sidq. Le sidq est défini traditionnellement comme étant l’ « épée d’Allâh » (sayf Allâh) sur la terre. Cette notion est liée à celle de « grande guerre sainte » (al-jihâd al-akbar), la guerre intérieure que l’homme doit mener « contre les ennemis qu’il porte en lui-même ». Cette épée invisible symbolise la force de l’Islâm. Elle est pour le monde moderne, l’ennemi le plus redoutable, car aucune force matérielle, aucune contrainte psychique ne peut prévaloir contre elle. Les musulmans sont dans une situation de guerre par le simple fait qu’ils existent. Ils sont considérés comme des fanatiques parce qu’ils sont musulmans et que leur foi en Allâh est plus forte que toutes les autres croyances, que celles-ci soient véridiques et traditionnelles ou bien mensongères et profanes. Ce qu’on leur reproche en réalité, c’est leur sincérité et leur fidélité à l’alliance divine contre laquelle le modernisme s’est érigé et insurgé.

June 26 “Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” James 5:8 THE last word in the Canticle of love is, “Make haste, my beloved,” and among the last words of the Apocalypse we read, “The Spirit and the Bride say, Come;” to which the heavenly Bridegroom answers, “Surely I come quickly.” Love longs for the glorious appearing of the Lord, and enjoys this sweet promise – “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” This stays our minds as to the future. We look out with hope through this window. This sacred “window of agate” lets in a flood of light upon the present, and puts us into fine condition for immediate work or suffering. Are we tried? Then the nearness of our joy whispers patience. Are we growing weary because we do not see the harvest of our seed-sowing? Again this glorious truth cries to us, “Be patient.” Do our multiplied temptations cause us in the least to waver? Then the assurance, that before long the Lord will be here, preaches to us from this text, “Stablish your hearts.” Be firm, be stable, be constant, “steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” Soon will you hear the silver trumpets which announce the coming of your King. Be not in the least afraid. Hold the fort, for he is coming; yea, he may appear this very day.

O tempo desapareceu; é a Eternidade que reina, uma eternidade de delícias! Mas uma batida terrível, pesada, fez estremecer a porta e, como em um pesadelo infernal, senti ter levado uma agulhada na boca do estômago. E em seguida um Espectro entrou. Um funcionário que vem me torturar em nome da lei; uma concubina infame que vem chorar misérias e acrescentar as trivialidades da sua vida às dores da minha; ou ainda o faz-tudo enviado pelo diretor do jornal a exigir a entrega do manuscrito. O quarto paradisíaco, o ídolo, a soberana dos sonhos, a Sílfide, como dizia o grande René, toda essa magia desapareceu com a batida brutal do Espectro. Que horror! Agora lembro, lembro! Sim! Esse pardieiro, residência do tédio eterno, é bem o meu. Aí está a mobília vulgar, coberta de pó, lascada; a lareira sem chama e sem brasa, imunda de escarros: as melancólicas janelas em que a chuva cavou sulcos na poeira; os manuscritos, riscados ou incompletos; o calendário onde o lápis ressaltou as datas fatídicas! E esse perfume de outro mundo, no qual eu me embriagava com uma refinada sensibilidade, ai de mim! Foi substituído pelo cheiro fedorento de tabaco misturado a sabe-se lá que tipo de mofo. Respira-se já aqui o ranço da desolação. Nesse mundinho pequeno, mas farto de desgosto, só um objeto conhecido me sorri: a garrafinha de láudano; velha e espantosa amiga; como todas as amigas, aliás! Fértil em carícias e traições. Ah, sim! O Tempo está de volta, o Tempo reina agora soberano; e junto com o velho repugnante retornou o seu cortejo demoníaco de Lembranças, de Arrependimentos, de Espasmos, de Medos, de Angústias, de Pesadelos, de Cóleras, de Neuroses. Eu lhes asseguro que todos os segundos são agora forte e solenemente acentuados, e cada um deles, brotando do pêndulo, diz: – Sou a Vida, insuportável, implacável!

AU LECTEUR La sottise, l’erreur, le péché, la lésine, Occupent nos esprits et travaillent nos corps, Et nous alimentons nos aimables remords, Comme les mendiants nourrissent leur vermine. Nos péchés sont têtus, nos repentirs sont lâches ; Nous nous faisons payer grassement nos aveux, Et nous rentrons gaiement dans le chemin bourbeux, Croyant par de vils pleurs laver toutes nos taches. Sur l’oreiller du mal c’est Satan Trismégiste Qui berce longuement notre esprit enchanté, Et le riche métal de notre volonté Est tout vaporisé par ce savant chimiste. C’est le Diable qui tient les fils qui nous remuent ! Aux objets répugnants nous trouvons des appas ; Chaque jour vers l’Enfer nous descendons d’un pas, Sans horreur, à travers des ténèbres qui puent. Ainsi qu’un débauché pauvre qui baise et mange Le sein martyrisé d’une antique catin, Nous volons au passage un plaisir clandestin Que nous pressons bien fort comme une vieille orange. Serré, fourmillant, comme un million d’helminthes, Dans nos cerveaux ribote un peuple de Démons, Et, quand nous respirons, la Mort dans nos poumons Descend, fleuve invisible, avec de sourdes plaintes. Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l’incendie, N’ont pas encor brodé de leurs plaisants dessins Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins, C’est que notre âme, hélas ! n’est pas assez hardie. Mais parmi les chacals, les panthères, les lices, Les singes, les scorpions, les vautours, les serpents, Les monstres glapissants, hurlants, grognants, rampants, Dans la ménagerie infâme de nos vices, II en est un plus laid, plus méchant, plus immonde ! Quoiqu’il ne pousse ni grands gestes ni grands cris, Il ferait volontiers de la terre un débris Et dans un bâillement avalerait le monde ; C’est l’Ennui ! L’œil chargé d’un pleur involontaire, II rêve d’échafauds en fumant son houka. Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat, - Hypocrite lecteur, - mon semblable, - mon frère !

was lost and the other fortress was likewise lost. These two forts were besieged by seventy-five thousand Turkish regulars and more than four hundred thousand Moors and Arabs from all parts of Africa and, accompanying this vast force, was an abundance of munitions and engines of war and so many sappers that, with their bare hands, they could have covered the Goleta and the half-built fortress with just a handful of earth each. The Goleta, until then accounted to be impregnable, was the first to be lost, and it was not taken through any default of valor of its defenders who, in its defense did all they could do or ought to have done, but because experience had shown with what ease entrenchments might be dug in that desert sand. Though water had, at one time, been found sixteen inches below the surface, the Turks did not find any at a depth of two yards. And, therefore, filling many sacks full of sand, they raised their earthworks so high that they did surmount the walls of the fort and, thus, they could fire at the defenders from a superior height, so that it was impossible to mount a defense. “It was the general opinion that our troops should not have shut themselves up inside the Goleta, but should have waited in the open field to meet the adversary at the place of their disembarkation. But those who say this speak from a comfortable remove and with little experience in matters of this kind. For, if in the Goleta and the other fort there were scarce seven thousand soldiers, how could so few in number, be they ever so resolute, have sallied forth into the field and, at the same time, remained inside the fortifications against so great a number of enemies? And how is it possible not to lose a fort when it is not reinforced and resupplied, especially when it is besieged by so many determined enemies fighting on their own soil? But many were of the opinion, and so it seemed to me as well, that Heaven granted Spain a special favor by permitting the destruction of that source of iniquity, that monster of insatiable appetite, that devourer of innumerable sums of money spent there unprofitably without serving any end, other than to preserve the memory of its capture by the invincible Charles V, as if those stones of the Goleta were necessary to sustain his eternal fame, as it is and forever shall be. “The other fort was also lost, but the Turks were constrained to win it inch by inch, for the soldiers who defended it fought so manfully and so resolutely that they killed more than five and twenty thousand of the enemy over the course of two and twenty general assaults. Of the three hundred of our men who were taken prisoner, not one was left without a wound, a clear and manifest sign of their valor and strength,

AUTHOR’S NOTE The First Assassin is a work of fiction, and specifically a work of historical fiction—meaning that much of it is based on real people, places, and events. My goal never has been to tell a tale about what really happened but to tell what might have happened by blending known facts with my imagination. Characters such as Abraham Lincoln, Winfield Scott, and John Hay were, of course, actual people. When they speak on these pages, their words are occasionally drawn from things they are reported to have said. At other times, I literally put words in their mouths. Historical events and circumstances such as Lincoln’s inauguration, the fall of Fort Sumter, and the military crisis in Washington, D.C., provide both a factual backdrop and a narrative skeleton. Throughout, I have tried to maximize the authenticity and also to tell a good story. Thomas Mallon, an experienced historical novelist, has described writing about the past: “The attempt to reconstruct the surface texture of that world was a homely pleasure, like quilting, done with items close to hand.” For me, the items close to hand were books and articles. Naming all of my sources is impossible. I’ve drawn from a lifetime of reading about the Civil War, starting as a boy who gazed for hours at the battlefield pictures in The Golden Book of the Civil War, which is an adaptation for young readers of The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War by Bruce Catton. Yet several works stand out as especially important references. The first chapter owes much to an account that appeared in the New York Tribune on February 26, 1861 (and is cited in A House Dividing, by William E. Baringer). It is also informed by Lincoln and the Baltimore Plot, 1861, edited by Norma B. Cuthbert. For details about Washington in 1861: Reveille in Washington, by Margaret Leech; The Civil War Day by Day, by E. B. Long with Barbara Long; Freedom Rising, by Ernest B. Ferguson; The Regiment That Saved the Capitol, by William J. Roehrenbeck; The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell, by Thomas P. Lowry; and “Washington City,” in The Atlantic Monthly, January 1861. For information about certain characters: With Malice Toward None, by Stephen B. Oates; Lincoln, by David Herbert Donald; Abe Lincoln Laughing, edited by P. M. Zall; Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries of John Hay, edited by Tyler Dennett; Lincoln Day by Day, Vol. III: 1861–1865, by C. Percy Powell; Agent of Destiny, by John S. D. Eisenhower; Rebel Rose, by Isabel Ross; Wild Rose, by Ann Blackman; and several magazine articles by Charles Pomeroy Stone. For life in the South: Roll, Jordan, Roll, by Eugene D. Genovese; Runaway Slaves, by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger; Bound for Canaan, by Fergus M. Bordewich; Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, written by himself; The Fire-Eaters, by Eric H. Walther; and The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire, by Robert E. May. For background on Mazorca: Argentine Dictator, by John Lynch. This is the second edition of The First Assassin. Except for a few minor edits, it is no different from the first edition.

three years longer at home or till the age of sixteen, when I struck out for myself, pretty much on my own hook, resolved to hunt for furs with some company, or hunt Indians, or do any thing else that would pay. While working on my father’s plantation I had become familiar with the rifle and shot gun, and indeed had to provide nearly all the meat for the family; but game was plenty and that was an easy task, much easier than pleasing the mistress who took no pains to give me any educational advantages. Though young, I was nearly full grown when I found an excellent chance to join a fur company that had just started out from St. Louis, under the lead of Charles Bent, and were going out to a fort and trading-post called Bent’s Fort, some three hundred miles south of Pike’s Peak on Big Arkansas river. The party consisted of about sixty men. The more prominent hunters were Charles Bent, Guesso Chauteau, William Savery, and two noted Indian trappers named Shawnee Spiebuck, and Shawnee Jake. Some of the party were agents of, and interested in, the Hudson’s Bay fur company, having their head-quarters at St. Louis. This was in 1835. As I shall have considerable to say of some of this party, a brief description of them may be of interest to the reader. Charles Bent, the leader of the party, and a manager of the fur business at Bent’s Fort, was a native of St. Louis, Mo., and a brother of the famous Captain Bent who originated the theory called the “Thermal Gateways to the Pole.” |At the time I joined his party, he was about thirty-five years of age, light complexioned, heavily built, tending to corpulency. In all my acquaintance with him I always found

As a result, during the Middle English period, two very different systems of stress placement co-existed. One consequence, as Dresher and Lahiri (2005: 78) note, were “doublets,” words with two different patterns of stress: one Germanic, the other Latinate or French. Commenting on the list of words below, Dresher and Lahiri (2005) remark that while Chaucer would have employed the French system of stress, the Germanic system would have existed in English as well: French Stress Germanic Stress Modern English Gloss ci.'tee 'ci.tee ‘city’ com.'fort 'com.fort ‘comfort’ di.'vers 'di.vers ‘diverse’ ge.'aunt 'ge.aunt ‘giant’ Pla.'to 'Pla.to ‘Plato’ pre.'sent 'pre.sent ‘present

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European maps proudly depicted Africa’s Atlantic coast as bristling with Danish, Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish forts, garrisons, and trading posts. But most of the stars on the maps had fewer than ten expatriate residents and many had fewer than five. The principality of Whydah, in today’s Benin, exported 400,000 people in the first quarter of the eighteenth century—it was the most important depot in the Atlantic slave trade in that time. Not one hundred Europeans lived there permanently. The largest groups of foreigners were the slavers who camped on the beach as they waited to fill their ships with human cargo.

That this is the quest; but that it has never been attained; but that Science has acted, ruled, pronounced, and condemned as if it had been attained.

Portland, Maine was the site of one of the northernmost skirmishes of the Civil War! Called the Battle of Portland Harbor, it happened in the waters off Portland harbor involving two ships flying the Confederate flag. On June 24, 1863, having been attacked by these ships, the Union Revenue Cutter Cushing was abandoned by her twenty-four crewmen. Captain Charles Reed a Confederate Navy Lieutenant Reed and the Captain of the Confederate raider, the CSS Tacony, ordered the Cushing torched, causing its munitions to explode. Late on June 26, 1863, Reed and an armed party came ashore dressed as fishermen and raided the city. Knowing that there was no chance of escaping, Captain Reed and his raiding party surrendered to Mayor McLellan and were held as prisoners of war at Fort Preble in South Portland. Because public sentiments were hostile against Reed and his men, they were taken to Boston and held at Fort Warren for the remainder of the Civil War.

To be frank, I think the elegant, long sentence is a thing of beauty, a self-contained entity worthy of study all by itself. Consider this sentence by Dylan Thomas from Quite Early One Morning: I was born in a large Welsh town at the beginning of the Great War—an ugly, lovely town (or so it was and is to me), crawling, sprawling by a long and splendid curving shore where truant boys and sandfield boys and old men from nowhere, beachcombed, idled and paddled, watched the dock-bound ships or the ships streaming away into wonder and India, magic and China, countries bright with oranges and loud with lions; threw stones into the sea for the barking outcast dogs; made castles and forts and harbours and race tracks in the sand; and on Saturday afternoons listened to the brass band, watched the Punch and Judy, or hung about on the fringes of the crowd to hear the fierce religious speakers who shouted at the sea, as though it were wicked and wrong to roll in and out like that, white-horsed and full of fishes.

Para explicar o êxito de seus negócios, John Rockefeller costumava dizer que a natureza recompensa os mais aptos e castiga os inúteis. Mais de um século depois, muitos donos do mundo continuam acreditando que Charles Darwin escreveu seus livros para lhes prenunciar a glória. Sobrevivência dos mais aptos? A aptidão mais útil para abrir caminho e sobreviver, o killing instinct, o instinto assassino, é uma virtude humana quando serve para que as grandes empresas façam a digestão das pequenas empresas e para que os países fortes devorem os países fracos, mas é prova de bestialidade quando um pobre-diabo sem trabalho sai a buscar comida com uma faca na mão. Os enfermos da patologia antissocial, loucura e perigo de que cada pobre é portador, inspiram-se nos modelos de boa saúde do êxito social. O ladrão de pátio aprende o que sabe elevando o olhar rasteiro aos cumes: estuda o exemplo dos vitoriosos e, mal ou bem, faz o que pode para lhes copiar os méritos. Mas “os fodidos sempre serão fodidos”, como costumava dizer Dom Emílio Azcárraga, que foi amo e senhor da televisão mexicana. As possibilidades de que um banqueiro que depena um banco desfrute em paz o produto de seus golpes são diretamente proporcionais às possibilidades de que um ladrão que rouba um banco vá para a prisão ou para o cemitério. Quando um delinquente mata por dívida não paga, a execução se chama ajuste de contas; e se chama plano de ajuste a execução de um país endividado, quando a tecnocracia internacional resolve liquidá-lo. A corja financeira sequestra os países e os arrasa se não pagam o resgate. Comparado com ela, qualquer bandidão é mais inofensivo do que Drácula à luz do sol. A economia mundial é a mais eficiente expressão do crime organizado. Os organismos internacionais que controlam a moeda, o comércio e o crédito praticam o terrorismo contra os países pobres e contra os pobres de todos os países, com uma frieza profissional e uma impunidade que humilham o melhor dos lança-bombas.

He said he commenced it on the deck of their vessel, in the fervor of the moment when he saw the enemy hastily retreating to their ships, and looked at the flag he had watched for so anxiously as the morning opened: that he had written some lines or brief notes that would aid him in calling them to mind upon the back of a letter which he happened to have in his pocket, and for some of the lines as he proceeded he was obliged to rely altogether on his memory, and that he finished it in the boat on his way to the shore and wrote it out as it now stands at the hotel on the night he reached Baltimore, and immediately after he arrived; he said that on the next day he immediately sent it to a printer, and directed copies to be struck off in hand-bill form, and that he — Mr. Key — believed it to have been favorably received by the Baltimore public.” In fact, Key composed the song on the back of a letter he was carrying in his pocket, and he completed it during a stay at the Indian Queen Hotel following his release. He titled his work, “Defence of Fort M’Henry.

The problem, at least for the British, was that by this time more than 13,000 American soldiers were in place and ready to defend Fort McHenry with 100 cannons.  With the forces on land unable to continue the advance, the British turned to their naval superiority in an attempt to reduce the fort, and in his work, Pezzola described for his readers what kind of shells the British were using, making a reference to Francis Scott Key’s poem to drive the point home: “Just one of these cast-iron spheres contained a bursting powder charge of 9-lbs, touched off by a wooden fuse packed into the ball with finely ground powder, which was then launched from the ship by an 8000-lb mortar firing at an angle of 45-degrees. If the bomb ‘burst in air’ (to quote Francis Scott Key's later poem), the fragments showered down on the roofless forts, killing, wounding and maiming the unlucky defender-victims. If the ball struck the forts before detonation, it would smash what it hit to bits - and then explode.

By May 1864, the Fort Pillow affair became a matter of Congressional investigations, with many leaders from both Union and Confederate camps anxious to condemn Forrest simply on principle alone. Certainly those who had personally experienced his temper and knew of his volatile reputation could easily imagine him capable of a massacre. Somewhat surprisingly, one of the men who believed Forrest was not guilty of an intentional massacre was General Sherman, who by 1864 begrudgingly admired his troublesome adversary. Based on statements taken from many of his own men who had been taken prisoner by Forrest and attested that “he was usually very kind to them,

At some point in time before the battle, Key and Skinner were transferred back to the Minden, “and they thought themselves fortunate in being anchored in a position which enabled them to see distinctly the flag of Fort McHenry from the deck of the vessel.” Key recalled, “They paced the deck for the residue of the night in painful suspense, watching with intense anxiety for the return of day, and looking every few minutes at their watches, to see how long they must wait for it; and as soon as it dawned, and before it was light enough to see objects at a distance.  Their glasses were turned to the fort, uncertain whether they should see there the stars and stripes, or the flag of the enemy. At length the light came, and they saw that ‘our flag was still there.

undistorted interpretation of external sounds in the mind of a dreamer could not continue to exist in a dreaming mind, because that touch of relative realness would be of awakening and not of dreaming.

Laundromat

and Scotland is a very long way away.” “Not as far as France.

Qual magnifico esempio della potenza dell'abito era il giovane Oliver Twist! Avvolto nella coperta che era stata fin allora il suo unico indumento, avrebbe potuto essere il figlio di un nobile come quello di un pezzente; sarebbe stato difficile anche per l'osservatore più acuto assegnargli un gradino nella scala sociale. Ma ora che era stato infagottato in vecchi cenci ingialliti, si trovò senz'altro classificato ed etichettato, e cadde subito al posto che gli spettava: un figlio di parrocchia, l'orfano di un ospizio di mendicità, il piccolo schiavo denutrito fatto per essere bastonato dal mondo, disprezzato da tutti e non commiserato da alcuno. Oliver piangeva gagliardamente. Se avesse saputo di essere un orfano, affidato alle cure di una parrocchia e di un soprintendente, forse avrebbe pianto anche più forte.

Key Apache Adversaries—U.S. Military Figures and Civilian Apache Agents Clum, John P.—born 1851. Civilian Apache agent at the San Carlos and Fort Apache reservations. Nicknamed “Turkey Gobbler” by the Apache for his strutting nature. Later became mayor of Tombstone, Arizona. His claim to fame was being the only person to successfully “capture” Geronimo. Died in 1932. Crook, General George—born 1828. Called America’s “greatest Indian fighter.” He was the first to use Indian scouts and was crucial in ending the Apache Wars. Called Nantan Lupan (“the Tan Wolf”) by the Apache, he advocated for Apache rights while at the same time becoming one of Geronimo’s greatest adversaries. Crook negotiated Geronimo’s “surrender” at the Cañon de los Embudos. He died in 1890. Gatewood, Lieutenant Charles B.—born 1853. A latecomer to the Apache Wars, Gatewood used scouts but failed to bring in Victorio. However, Gatewood would ultimately negotiate the terms of Geronimo’s final surrender to General Nelson A. Miles in 1886. He died in 1896. Miles, General Nelson A.—born in 1839. Civil War veteran best known for accepting Geronimo’s final surrender. Fought Sioux and Cheyenne Indians after the Battle of Little Big Horn. He died at the age of eighty-five in 1925 and was buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Sieber, Al—born 1843. A German-American, he served as the army’s chief of scouts during the Apache Wars. Died in 1907.

There are other worlds beyond this world. There is other life beyond this life.” Attributed to Charles Fort Preface :: The Leviathan Tower The heat shimmered beyond the car window and the vehicles that surrounded Morishita Anri’s Toyota Yaris wavered in the heat.

Fort said. And he’d never seen anything like it. He compared it to a government’s ability, through the nebulous powers of patriotism, to condition soldiers to kill on its behalf.

In both colonies the communistic experiments were failures. Angry at the lazy men in Jamestown who idled their time away and yet expected regular meals, Captain John Smith issued a manifesto: "Everyone that gathereth not every day as much as I do, the next day shall be set beyond the river and forever banished from the fort and live there or starve." Even this terrible threat did not bring a change in production. Not until each man was given a plot of his own to till, not until each gathered the fruits of his own labor, did the colony prosper. In

Israël est l’essence de la spiritualité proprement judaïque et le patriarche éponyme du peuple juif. Étymologiquement, ce Nom est lié à une idée de puissance et de victoire, car il signifie : ≪ que Dieu règne ! Qu’Il se montre fort ! ≫. Et c’est ce Nom sacré qui va être porte par un Etat moderne, subversif dans sa constitution même puisqu’il prétend mettre fin par des moyens profanes a une sanction divine ! Il faut toute l’indifférence et l’inconscience du monde occidentale pour ne pas réaliser l’énormité d’une telle usurpation. Imagine-t-on une ≪ République d’Allah ≫, un ≪ Royaume du Christ-Roi ≫ ou ≪ du Voyage Nocturne ≫ s’installant en Palestine ? En l’occurrence, l’acte profanateur est d’autant plus dangereux qu’il comporte une astuce tactique. La préoccupation majeure d’un Etat illégitime, pour ne pas dire sa hantise, est naturellement d’être reconnu. Or, dans le cas présent cette reconnaissance ne porte pas seulement sur l’existence de cet Etat, mais aussi sur le droit à porter le nom qu’il s’est attribué. Reconnaître l’ ≪ Etat d’Israël ≫ implique que l’on valide la profanation dont il s’est rendu coupable, que l’on devienne son complice, et surtout qu’on le déclare, à tort, favorisé par une bénédiction divine et investi de la charge d’instaurer le règne de Dieu et d’assurer Sa puissance. Combattre un tel Etat, c’est le renforcer ; le reconnaître, c’est le renforcer davantage : tel est le dilemme infernal. Pour tout esprit traditionnel, la seule attitude légitime, fondée à la fois sur la vérité et le droit, est de refuser cette reconnaissance, quel que soit le prix à payer pour ce déni. Le premier devoir d’un juif orthodoxe, d’un chrétien ou d’un musulman est de ne pas reconnaître l’Etat juif. Ceci dit, il va de soi que la duplicité et la faiblesse des hommes n’ont pas le pouvoir de modifier le Droit divin ou de le rendre caduc. En vertu de sa mission propre et grâce à sa position cyclique, l’islam est mieux à même que toute autre religion de veiller au respect de ce Droit et au maintien de l’orthodoxie traditionnelle. On peut tenir pour assuré qu’il n’acceptera jamais le fais accompli.

Marie est la « servante du Seigneur », la servante par excellence, ce qui indique une similitude annonciatrice de la fonction du Prophète de l’islâm. Ce caractère servitorial est lié au symbolisme du voile. Selon Michel Vâlsan : « La Réalité muhammadienne constitue le mystère du Verbe suprême et universel, car elle est en même temps la Théophanie intégrale (de l’Essence, des Attributs et des Actes) et son occultation sous le voile de la Servitude absolue et totale ». C’est parce qu’elle est la servante parfaite que Marie est toujours voilée, aussi bien dans ses apparitions que dans les représentations de l’Art sacré, notamment celui des icônes. Comme elle est, par ailleurs, le modèle de toutes les vertus, l’Eglise aurait été bien inspirée de reconnaître que l’attachement islamique au port du voile pouvait constituer un exemple pour les femmes catholiques. Les querelles et les résistances modernes sur ce point sont révélatrices d’un état d’esprit antitraditionnel. Ibn Arabî enseigne que le statut subordonné de la femme exprime, non pas un abaissement, mais au contraire sa supériorité spirituelle sur l’homme qui, créé directement à l’image de Dieu, a tendance à oublier sa servitude et à se poser en rival de son Créateur . Toute forme traditionnelle est fondée sur une alliance impliquant une soumission à la volonté divine ; c’est ce qu’indique parfaitement le terme « islam » qui apparaît, par là même, comme une désignation de la Tradition universelle. Au lieu de reconnaître cette signification traditionnelle du voile de Marie, l’Église, sur cette question comme sur beaucoup d’autres, donne l’impression de suivre l’air du temps et, sans doute pour mieux se démarquer de l’islâm, d’encourager les femmes catholiques, en particulier les souveraines, à se montrer tête nue ailleurs qu’au Vatican. L’enseignement de saint Paul est cependant fort clair, et semblable à celui de l’islam : « Femmes, soyez soumises à vos maris, comme il se doit dans le Seigneur » (Col, 3, 18) ; « Je ne permets pas à la femme d’enseigner ni de faire la loi à l’homme. Qu’elle se tienne tranquille. C’est Adam en effet qui fut formé le premier, Eve ensuite. Et ce n’est pas Adam qui se laissa séduire » (I Tim, 2, 12-13).

In the Libyan desert, fused glass and radioactive tektites were discovered and analyzed by Dr R V Dolphin. His discoveries are discussed by Colin Wilson and Rand Flem-Ath: After studying the Libyan desert glass, Dolphin suggested that for the ancient Phoenicians to have worked with temperatures equivalent to 6,000 degrees Celsius, they may have known the secret of atomic power – (The Atlantis Blueprint) Six thousand degrees Celsius is only two thousand degrees less than the temperature of the sun. At the same location jars and vases were found that fashioned in the same manner as earthenware. However, these artifacts were not made from clay, but the hardest substances known, such as basalt, quartz and diorite. Necks of vases were so narrow no hand could possibly have fashioned their interiors. High temperatures must have been employed, but experts are mystified as to how that was accomplished. Exceptionally high temperatures are required to remove impurities from gold. So scientists found themselves perplexed after necklaces, found in Libya, turned out to be one hundred percent pure gold. Doctor Dolphin accepted the truth and openly admitted what most of his academic colleagues could not, namely, that the secrets of atomic energy were known in prehistoric times. Charles Berlitz collated information on similar cases in Mesopotamia and Scotland. He wrote: After finding layers of Babylonian and Sumerian artifacts, the archaeologists had passed through 14 feet of clay which indicated a prolonged flood. Below this strata was a level of fused glass, the same kind found at Alamogordo in Texas after the A-bomb blasts – (Atlantis: The Eighth Continent) In west Scotland there is a fort that has one of its sides completely fused into glass, in the same manner. It had received some intense heat, but not lightening – ibid

It seems to me that, very strikingly here, is borne out the general acceptance that ours is only an intermediate existence, in which there is nothing fundamental, or nothing final to take as a positive standard to judge by. Peasants believed in meteorites. Scientists excluded meteorites. Peasants believe in "thunderstones." Scientists exclude "thunderstones." It is useless to argue that peasants are out in the fields, and that scientists are shut up in laboratories and lecture rooms. We cannot take for a real base that, as to phenomena with which they are more familiar, peasants are more likely to be right than are scientists: a host of biologic and meteorologic fallacies of peasants rises against us.

I might refer here to Jeff’s concept of the Human as Two, and mention that these may be glimpses, as it were, through the fence that surrounds Charles Fort’s famous comment in Book of the Damned, “I think we’re property.” We are little, curious animals, as it were, peering through the slats of the fence that surrounds our barnyard, and seeing beyond the edge not another world, but a more real vision of ourselves reflected as noumena and wondering, “What is that?

Even Jesus, three days, died. Who is strong doesn't make the strong. (Même Jésus, trois jours, est mort. Qui est fort ne fait le fort)

Their era was ending when Jim Clyman got to Independence in ’44 and found Bill Sublette, who had first taken wagons up the Platte Valley in 1830, now taking invalids to Brown’s Hole for a summer’s outing. It was twenty-one years since Jim had first gone up the Missouri, forty years since Lewis and Clark wintered at the Mandan villages, thirty-three years since Wilson Hunt led the Astorians westward, twenty years since Clyman with Smith and Fitzpatrick crossed South Pass, eighteen years since Ashley, in the Wasatch Mountains, sold his fur company to Smith, Sublette, and Jackson. Thirty-two years ago Robert McKnight had been imprisoned by the Spanish for taking goods to Santa Fe. Twenty-three years ago William Becknell had defied the prohibition and returned from Santa Fe in triumph. Eighteen years ago the Patties had got to San Diego by the Gila route and Jed Smith had blazed the desert trail to San Bernardino Valley; fourteen years ago Ewing Young, with Kit Carson, had come over the San Bernardino Mountains, making for the San Joaquin. There had been a trading post at the mouth of Laramie Creek for just ten years. Bent’s Fort was fifteen years old. Now the streams were trapped out, and even if beaver should come back, the price of plews would never rise again. There were two or three thousand Americans in Oregon, a couple of hundred in California, and in Independence hundreds of wagons were yoking up. Bill Sublette and Black Harris were guiding movers. Carson and Fitzpatrick were completing the education of John Charles Frémont. Forty years since Lewis and Clark. Think back to that blank paper with some names sketched in, the Wind River peaks, the Tetons, the Picketwire River, the Siskidee, names which, mostly, the mountain men sketched in — something under a million square miles, the fundamental watershed, a thousand mountain men scalped in this wilderness, the deserts crossed, the trails blazed and packed down, the mountains made known, the caravans carrying freight to Santa Fe, Bill Bowen selling his place to go to Oregon, half a dozen wagonwrights setting up at Independence … and, far off, like a fly buzzing against a screen, Joe Meek’s cousin, Mr. Polk, preparing war. Whose country was it? III Pillar of Cloud ALL through February Congress debated the resolution to terminate the joint occupancy of Oregon, and by its deliberation, Polk thought, informed the British that we were irresolute.

Gates, after dealing with the Indians, left for England. De La Warr, who continued to live aboard ship for a time, called a Council, reorganized the colonists, and directed operations to promote the welfare of the Colony, including the construction of two forts near Point Comfort. He fell sick, however, and, after a long illness, was forced to leave Jamestown and Virginia in March 1611. The now veteran administrator, George Percy, was made governor in charge. With De La Warr went Dr. Lawrence Bohun, who had experimented extensively with the curative powers of plants and herbs at Jamestown.

Before the fort was completed the wheat had come up and was growing nicely, as George Percy wrote in what was probably the first essay on farming along the James River.

In the interval from about February to May 1609, there was considerable material progress in and about Jamestown. Perhaps forty acres were cleared and prepared for planting in Indian corn, the new grain that fast became a staple commodity. A "deep well" was dug in the fort. The church was re-covered and twenty cabins built. A second trial was made at glass manufacture in the furnaces built late in 1608. A blockhouse was built at the isthmus which connected the Island to the mainland for better control of the Indians, and a new fort was erected on a tidal creek across the river from Jamestown.

Fire swept through "James Fort," consuming habitations, provisions, ammunition, some of the palisades and even Reverend Robert Hunt's books.

September 1608 that Smith became president in fact and inaugurated a program of physical improvement at Jamestown. The area about the fort was enlarged and the standing structures repaired. At this point, in October, the second supply arrived, including seventy settlers, who, when added to the survivors in Virginia, raised the over-all population to about 120.

De La Warr reached "James Citty" and made his landing. He entered the fort through the south gate, and, with his colors flying, went on to the church where Reverend Richard Buck delivered an impressive sermon. Then his ensign, Anthony Scott, read his commission, and Gates formally delivered to him his own authority as governor.

At Jamestown an area was cleared of trees and the fort begun. The soil was readied and the English wheat brought over for the purpose was planted. At this point Newport, in one of the small boats, led an exploring party as far as the falls of the James. He was absent from Jamestown about a week and returned to find that the Indians had launched a fierce attack on the new settlement which had been saved, perhaps, by the fact that the ships were near at hand. These afforded safe quarters and carried cannon on their decks that had a frightening effect on the natives.

At Jamestown an area was cleared of trees and the fort begun. The soil was readied and the English wheat brought over for the purpose was planted. At this point Newport, in one of the small boats, led an exploring party as far as the falls of the James. He was absent from Jamestown about a week and returned to find that the Indians had launched a fierce attack on the new settlement which had been saved, perhaps, by the fact that the ships were near at hand.

We have only faith to guide us, say the theologians. Which faith? It is my acceptance that what we call evidence, and whatever we think we mean by intuition and faith are the phenomena of eras, and that the best of minds, or minds best in rapport with the dominant motif of an era, have intuition and faith and belief that depend upon what is called evidence, relatively to pagan gods, then to the god of the christians, and then to godlessness—and then to whatever is coming next. . . . . If now, affairs upon this earth be fluttering upon the edge of a new era, and I give expression to coming thoughts of that era, thousands of other minds are changing, and all of us will take on new thoughts concordantly, and see, as important evidence, piffle of the past. CHARLES FORT, LO!

One of President Wingfield's first acts in May, 1607, after the construction of James Fort was underway, was the dispatch of a party to explore the river above Jamestown. Twenty-two men under Capt. Christopher Newport left on May 21 and proceeded inland to the falls of the James. in six dayes they arrived at a [Indian] Towne called Powhatan, consisting of some twelve houses, pleasantly seated on a hill; before it three fertile Iles, about it many of their cornefields, the place is very pleasant, and strong by nature ... To this place the river is navigable: but higher within a mile, by reason of the rockes and isles, there is not passage for a small boat, this they call the Falles.

The aggregate appearance is of dignity and dissoluteness. The aggregate voice is a defiant prayer. But the spirit of the whole is processional. The power, that has said to all these things that they are damned, is dogmatic science. But they'll march! The little harlots will caper and the freaks will distract the attention and the clowns will break the rhythm of the whole with their buffooneries. But the solidity of the procession as a whole, the solidity of things which pass and pass and pass, and keep on and keep on coming, the irresistibleness of things that neither threaten, nor jeer, nor defy, but arrange themselves in mass formations that pass and pass and keep on passing. So, by the damned, I mean the excluded.

A procession of the damned: By the damned I mean the excluded. We shall have a procession of data that science has excluded. Battalions of the accursed, captained by pallid data that I have exhumed will march. You'll read them, or they'll march. Some of them livid and some of them fiery and some of them rotten. Some of them are corpses, skeletons, mummies, twitching, tottering, animated by companions that have been damned alive. There are giants that will walk by, though sound asleep. There are things that are theorems and things that are rags. They'll go by, like you could, arm-in-arm with the spirit of anarchy. Here and there will foot little harlots. Many are clowns, but many are of the highest respectability. Some are assassins. There are pale stenches and gaunt superstitions and mere shadows and lively malices, whims and amiabilities, the naive and the pedantic and the bizarre and the grotesque and the sincere and the insincere, the profound, and the puerile. A stab and a laugh and the patiently folded hands of hopeless propriety. The ultra-respectable! But the condemned, anyway.

If there is a universal mind, must it be sane?

But Charles Fort argued, at length, that such data is not uncommon at all; it is merely repressed by the same mechanisms of avoidance that Freud analyzed, the mechanisms that allow e.g. Roman Catholics and Marxists to "forget" things inconvenient to their emic realities.

This saying of Nietzsche is well known: "Nicht fort sollst du dich pflanzen, sondern hinauf. Dazu helfe dir der Garten der Ehe." (Do not plant for the future but for the heights. May the garden of marriage help you in that.) It refers to the idea that today’s man is a mere form of transition whose only purpose is to prepare the birth of the "superman," being ready to sacrifice himself for him, and to withdraw at his arising. We have already done justice to the craze of the superman and this finalism that postpones the possession of an absolute meaning of existence to a hypothetical future humanity. But from the wordplay of Nietzsche’s saying, one can deduce the endorsement of a concept that marriage should serve to reproduce not "horizontally" (such is the meaning of fortpflanzen), simply breeding, but rather "vertically," toward the summit (hinauf pflanzen), elevating one’s own line. In fact, this would be the only higher justification of marriage and family. Today it is nonexistent, because of the objective existential situation of which we have spoken, and because of the processes of dissolution that have severed the profound ties that can spiritually unite the generations. Even a Catholic, Charles Peguy, had spoken of being a father as the "great adventure of modem man," given the utter uncertainty of what his own offspring may be, given the improbability that in our day the child might receive anything more than mere "life" from the father. I have already emphasized that it is not about having or not having that paternal quality, not only physical, that existed in the ancient family and that grounded his authority. Even if this quality were still present—and, in principle, one should assume that it could still be present in the differentiated man—it would be paralyzed by the presence of a refractory and dissociated material in the younger generation. As we have said, the state of the modem masses is by now such that, even if figures having the stature of true leaders were to appear, they would be the last to be followed. Thus one should not deceive oneself about the formation and education still possible for an offspring born in an environment like that of present society, even if the father were such in a more than legal sense.