The Gothic and Evelina

I’ve always been a fan of the gothic to some extent, and I really enjoy the way that the group presented their differences between Terror and Horror. Writing up terror, I think, is something much harder to do than displaying horror. With horror, it’s directly brutal and we all know what that is: war, mutilation, Jason Vorhees… to get terror is to balance the sublime and the threat of falling prey to the sublime. For example, the repeated use of abbeys, castles, or ruins of both, are examples of the sublime that both the reader and the characters face. History, its power and breadth, is plonked into one place by the presence of a castle or abbey, and these buildings themselves are huge. One cannot take in a whole castle at any time – if you’re standing far away, there are insides to examine, and if you’re close up, chances are all you’ll see is a big wall or gate. “Hello?” -silence-

So I think it would have been particularly amusing had Evelina been a gothic novel. Might even have upped the excitement a bit. Imagine, instead of being in London, she could have been in LonHELL! where her mishaps in manners would have landed her in jail for a hundred years. Instead of facing the evil schemes of Willoughby, she could have met her Lord Orville in that prison, that prison of the evil Duke Wilyplot, known as “Willy” to his intimates. Lord Orville and Evelinatina would have dig their way out of prison with a spoon and a bit of string, eating the dirt they dug day after day after day to survive (because they were given food every third year). After 99 years they’d have dug their way out and hobbled into the sunlight of a massive fire! Right in the middle of another bigger castle built over the smaller castle (bigger fire to keep bigger castle warm), and inhabited by a castle-spirit named Bob. But, but! Lord Orville and Evelinatina don’t know who stole them from their bed (I guess this would be Evelinatina’s little messup in manners) and popped them in prison, so Bob goes and gets his ”Willy,” buddy ol’ pal ol’ friends that they are, and presents him to the two. They smile graciously and ask why they were locked up. Willy tells them that he was in love with their daughter, and upon finding out that they never had a daughter, he let them go so that they could go and have a daughter which he could then fall in love with and kidnap them all over again. How’s THAT for a nefarious plot? Sounds like something I’d write and include a wrench, a plastic dog, five toothpicks, and four herons, if it weren’t at the end of the year. Merry ChristHELL!

The Man of Crying

Feeling, feeling! I mean. (He started crying, so I had to give him his proper sobriquent … I found this word at the beginning of the term and I’m still enjoying it. Like saying smock. Smock, smock, sobriquent, smock. Spock!). This story reminds me a tiny bit of… mmm… well, yes, I mentioned it in class: imagine a Greek Hero, let’s take Theseus, shall we? He’s a good man, one of the Older Generation of Heroes. Tuff, and fiesty. And takes care of the world and meets a bunch of new people and kills them. Well, the Man of Feeling reminds me a lot of Theseus. (A “Borat ‘Naaat’” might be appropriate here, but really! He does!)

The Man of Feeling is a bit like a Greek Hero because he puts the world in order. To some extent. Theseus’ travels, indeed the travels of all the Greek Heroes, were times when they smashed the bad guys so that we poor mortal-non-heroes wouldn’t have to face them and die horrible and gooey deaths. Similarly, the Man of Feeling goes through his little trip to London and cries a lot to rid the world of horrible things, such as poor prostitutes forced into their station in life, and poor beggars who are really clever con-men. Wherever the Man of Feeling goes, he does some bit of Good, and although it’s a rather short tale, a lot of Good is accomplished. It even ends nice and happily, with the real adventurer returning and taking his grandchildren back to him with the help of the Man of Cr – Feeling. All of these things build him into a very worthy hero who goes about things in a most interesting way, but I have to say that he is not alone.

Jason! First of the sea-farers, Leader of the Argonauts, might man who was killed, eventually, by his own ship, sat down on the beach and cried his eyes out when he was lost until his navigator said “I can read stars, dude. Get a grip…”

Heracles! The only hero to really get that kind of Immortal thing because Zeus finally reined a very pissed-off Hera in, cried when he was in woman’s clothing. Actually, he cried a lot, but that time when he killed his son it might have been justified.

Aeneus! Well, now, perhaps, I go too far, but it all goes to show that the Man of Feeling is so not along in his sensitivity. In fact, he’s with some of the high-rollers. Perhaps this should be a lesson to us all: when things are going badly, don’t gristle, cry a whistle, and this’ll help clear our your tear-duuuuucctttsss… aaannnddd aaaalways cry on the bright side of life… etc.

I also found that there were a few gender disputes that were risen. Poor Mr. MacKenzie, in the incident where the father is about to run the daughter through with a good ol’ forward-thrust and then finally decides to forgive her, I can see the lines of stereotype just coming down hard. There’s a lot of “alas, how can I ever look at you again” mixed in with “Oh, I have to forgive you because there’s a crying dude beside us and I want him to leave.” It does end, however, with the reconciliation of father and daughter, and this is rather important, because the idea of losing one’s chastity, if said one is a woman, is that all of society shuns her. Even dear ol’ dad. This Man of Feeling, although popular, should most definitely be taken a bit more seriously when he says that one should forgive and help all the time. The world would be nicer, if wetter, place.

Bluestocking Literature

Fascinating stuff, Bluestocking Literature. One of the questions in class was whether or not this was pedagological material, or if Scott lost her audience by making it too philosopihcal. Well, I rather think that Scott was trying to teach the wider world something by pushing her entire manifesto onto folk (116-117), and she ends it with that cousin reading the Bible, the New Testament, which is such a surprise because he starts the novel out as an unreligious little bugger, doesn’t he? Well, it’s hardly surprising, considering the run of novels we’ve had this year, that Scott would want to teach us something. I’m inclined to like what Scott’s trying to teach us a bit more than what some of these other folk are trying to teach us, though. I do think that the cousin’s opinion, that Christianity must be the damned right religion because those folk are so perfect, has some sway in it. Indeed, the society treats its members quite tolerably and gives them something to do and a living to enjoy. Most of it is their own choice. All they need to do is give up everything and live in the society. The Society, in turn, will promise to keep them alive and not quite turn them into Stepford Wives (Dwarves, or otherwise). I stand by that this is a Communist idea before Marx, but then again it’s based on principles which Communism adheres to, although Communism throws the Bible away. On the face, just like Communism, this place works just fine.

Then there is a slight complication in the fact that they can vote members out of the place, members who won’t conform and are irritating. Well, only two or three have been threatened, and what… only one voted out? Not so bad, really. Very idealistic, optimistic view, but we’ll let it swing. Oh, and folk are segregated. Apparently Dwarves will be stared at, therefore they must be hidden in a garden so that they don’t get stared at. This is a slightly ridiculous notion anyway, but nevermind. Oh, but you can have a tour through the Society? Well, that’s not at all like the Iron Curtain. Let’s take a walk through Bedlam, shall we. B… sorry! Belle-place, I meant. B…ed…world… like a fluffy world which has nice fluffly places for its people to live in… But a free tour of endoctrinisation is always a grand thing.

I think that this novel has it’s up-points, but I have to say that I also think there are over-optimistic and, sometimes, completely contradictory views in it. As for lesbianism, I’m not entirely sure that Scott is that creative, but I rest my case because I should have had this post done two weeks ago and now I’m rushing things. As always. Yay for end of year!

Alright, Fantomina and Pamela, all mixed up in one sweet ball

Which we shall hurl through the iron gates of something or other… Heh… imagine that. “Let us roll all our sweetness and all our strength into one ball, dearie, and throw it through something. That, by the way, is a sexual pun. Didja like it? Huh? Huh?” Ohh, Marvell, you crack me up… but that’s basically Pamela’s little lover, there: a very unintelligent version of Marvell. I think Richardson got carried away with the oh-so popular Cavalier lyrics, then said “omigosh I couldn’t do that,” and then said “I think I’ll make a man just like myself: reserved, wussy, and probably a latent homosexual.” Because, seriously, I have to agree with everyone who says that Mr. B could use with a good heart-to-heart. “It’s okay, Mr. B, you don’t have to assert your masculine authority to compensate for what you think is wrong. Lots of people do it! Let me introduce you to Walpole and the Libertines of the Black Mass…”

But the reading I like of Pamela the most is the socio-economic one. The fact that she’s so damned obsessed with being a “poor virtuous maid” does grind my gears, but it’s something which Richardson does to really empower her. Now, granted, Richardson is a complete moron in saying “hey, girls, if you’re all this virtuous, you’ll be able to sway men’s hearts and move up in social class!” but he is right in saying that education and writing and being amazingly steadfast can have effects of some sort. Let’s imagine that Pamela had not had the education which her father, theoretically a rather well-versed man because he could open a school (but only theoretically, because his school might have consisted of only singing Psalms), and had neither the education given to her by Mr. B’s generous mummy. Well, there’d be no story. And guess what? Most servants had neither! zomg! Richardson is saying that without education, women really cannot be that virtuous. I bet that the fat keeper in Lincolnshire cannae quote a line of the Metamorphoses, or identify who said “Veni vidi vici.” Disregarding the fact that if anyone really read Ovid closely they might become the most sexual creatures on this planet, knowing and having a solid education about the world and its goings-on  gives a person a much stronger base to work from. There are slight feminist veins running through this, since Pamela is really given a great deal of power which women would simply not have had.
On the other hand, it’s ridiculous. She would likely have been thrown out of the house, or simply raped, and she would likely not have constantly fainted (even though it was obviously the sensible thing to do). Where ideal clashes with reality is always a problem, and Pamela is in no way a reliable guide except for the grounds of “education=power.” After all, the further we move from forms of education, the more like robots we become – hence the extravegently BAD idea of shutting down Universities, or making them into “Universities that are sorta different and not really Universities, but can still have a University name because we can name it, even if it won’t be recognised…!” …
Another issue that springs up in Pamela is that of religion. Obviously Mr. Williams isn’t a very reliable source. He’s as taken with her as any other man, and really jumps at the first opportunity to get into the sack with her. Now, I want to say that Richardson is continuing in his jackass vein, but it’d be a slight cop-out. Richardson is a jackass.
But a rather tenacious jackass; so tenacious that he figures if he writes enough, he’ll come up with something right. … not to be taken in conjunction with my long posts… Mr. Williams is a portrait of a religion that is over-trusting and, really, rather corrupt. In all of his social commentary, Richardson has the backbone of an amoeba, but he is pointing out the weakness that inhabits men and the weakness and vulnerability that an uninformed opionin leaves one to. For example, Haywood’s story, part of it, says that Richardson was leaving out any proper warnings for people who might want to avoid fortune hunters who masqueraded (Masquerade!!!!! Paper faces on Parade!!!!… sorry) as Pamelas. This isn’t actually the case – in his thick, fat novel, he just so happens to have the character of Mrs. Jewkes who is able to seduce the Priest by using Pamela. Now this is a less direct seduction (if she flashed the priest, she would likely fall apart like Swift’s Corinna and kill the priest with fright), but it is a seduction nevertheless which springs from naivite. Richardson is trying, the dear little (gay) man.

Haywood’s Fantomina was a rather good read, but I read it rather cynically after reading some of the “other works” by her. So my post will probably consist mostly of that. But first I should say that Annie, and Dr. Jones in showing us some lovely Nun porn, has given me hope that Fantomina’s little foray to France shall be as wonderfully smutty as any rich Libertine who smutted his way across Europe. Smut’s a fun word…
Indeed, Fantomina is a devilishly clever woman, which I had loved from the very beginning. This, I read as an extremely empowering thing – she can switch through a million costumes and keep the object of her love fascinated in her as long as she doesn’t get pregnant (which she does. WOopeis!). In having the same lady act all the different parts, though, Haywood is, very effectively, subverting the Libertine. To say that a man loves nothing but variety is one thing, but to give him variety in one person is a strategy which really goes to show that it’s nothing more than a cultural illusion. This “love” which the Libertine culture has produced is as succeptible to being captivating as anything. See, the Libertines held their lack of falling in love as a shield to the world, but the truth is this guy is very much in love with the same woman throughout the story, and he is really powerless within her grasp. This is not something that a Libertine, who should ideally be able to take 3 or 4 women into a back room, one at a time, while their husbands are in the front rooms, and distribute china in a most agreeable and satisfactory fashion, would enjoy. Women are objects, damn it! But this woman makes an object of her passion. Haywood leaves little room for power in any other source except for Fantomina, and she would have continued had she not been caught.

Ah, but then the “other works.” Well, the one I found most interesting was “Reflections on the Various Effects of Love.” Of the whole work, ranging over some 50 pages, about a paragraph (127) is devoted to saying that men are just as bad as women. See, much of her argument consists of the fact that the effects of love are so bad, except for the few times when they are good – she gives two lists of historical figures who are either really saintly at love, or really evil in it, and the list of saints turns into a list of evils… But that’s not what bothers me: no matter how clear it is that it’s men who fuck up the worst because they’re abusing their power, she always turns it back on women. It’s like stupid fucking Pamela who says “what sort of creatures must the womenkind be, do you think, to give way to such wickedness? Why, this it is that makes everyone be thought of alike: And, alack-a-day! what a world we live in! for it is grown more a wonder that the men are resisted, than that the women comply” (Richardson 68). Pam, I’ll tell you you why people don’t fucking resist: they’ll DIE OF HUNGER if they fucking resist. Oh, but that’s not such a bad idea, is it? Go ahead ‘n starve yourself, and let the rest of us smut, will you?

Gah… okay… back to Haywood. It’s a very unrealisitic, once again, portrayal of the actual state of facts. If we strip away a lot of the idiocy that she allows herself to become rife with in this work, however, she comes up with some pretty grand things – there’s a story about some paranoid king who locks his son away from women so that he cannot fall in love, then, on his the prince’s 20th birthday when he is let out, he falls in love right away. It’s grand commentary on the whole idea of being over-chaste - many of our human family who have been over-chaste have touched little boys. But, of course, Haywood ruins it by telling a story of Sophiana who wants nothing more than to harrow her soul with passion.

I think, in the end, Haywood was really just writing for two separate audiences to make more money, but when we get down to the bones of it, the fact is not actually virtue. It’s marketability. The long novel by Richardson fails to really present the sheer value of market – it almost separates Mr. B from pretty P, and the sister is in a hissyfit, but virtue overrides it… Hey, Rich, I got news for you: No it fucking doesn’t! Haywood discusses it well in her Anti-Pamela, and also gives it a rather fine face in Fantomina – the fact that Fantomina will have problems marrying a rich dude now and therefore has to go to a Nunnery (Get thee to a nunnery!) is a fair representation of the market ideal. “Reflections on the Various Effects of Love,” though, doesn’t really cut it. It’s just a bunch of old people going over the stereotypes which are made to make the market of marriage stable. Crickey, I could go on, but fuck this is a long post and my excessive cursing shows just how late it is and that I should be sleeping… but I’m caught up now, yay!

A Flower for Behn

I must ask Ms. Woolf one day if she wanted to strew flowers on Behn’s grave because she was one of the first great writers, to her knowledge, or whether or not it was something else. Or both…

But let’s have a small chat about inequality, she we? The financial side of matters. Like all things, from the foolish shutting down of universities to the creation of a great cathedral (which we just don’t do anymore), money plays a role which is even greater than the role salt has played in the world (which is pretty damn big). Those with money tend to get more, those without tend to stay so. Of course, there are some people who have existed – let’s call them “women”, shall we? – who have from time to time been entirely dependant on men to get them their means. This is the case with Philadelphia. Obviously she wins in the end, obviously she gets a handsome fortune and a converted rake to boot, but she is always dependent on men until she actually gets some of this money to become independent. And that money is from a man, too. This is a complication which I have, now, difficulty putting aside. The two instances of such are obvious: her brother has to pay her the 6,000l., and, once the old man dies off, he leaves her 20,000l. Behn is no doubt making a comparison between an honourable man and a dishonourable man, but it is impossible to separate them from their live doll Philadelphia. All of her power comes from the acquiesence and bestowal of some man or another.

Right, now that I’ve pissed off every feminist in the class, I can go on to say that, despite this complication, there is still a very feminist vein which is actually made stronger by it. First off, it makes the segregation of the classes into something which is completely fictional, and second, by putting Philadelphia in a position of power, she subverts the whole idea that power is given to the Sons of Adam.

So, let’s unpack these two a bit. Prostitutes, and those wrestrels who make use of them, are usually considered the dregs of society, oui? So Lady Beldam, our curator of brothels, should be taken as a very low woman. And yet, her house is definitely nothing of the sort – it’s fit for a king. But the people in there are as conniving as outlaws, and according to the Great Chain of Being, which still had some play during this time, outlaws were lower on the rung than animals. And yet there they are, proliferating in a big house and fucking each other on the virtuous pretence that “here are an hundred guineas for you; and I promise you Yearly as much, and Two Hundred with every child that I shall get on thy sweet body” (Behn on that website). If money is the only separating factor between the upper and lower classes, those who can run it like water can do whatever they like, but it really is just a temporary and worthless thing and doesn’t increase virtue one bit.
And what about the separation between man and woman? That is also a class and financial difference. Even the highest woman could have the potential of being lower and the lowest man, especially if there came into light the problem of inheretance or simply education. And it would, of course, be wild imagination for a woman to contend for a seat of Parliament (imagine that! a woman in parliament!). Once power is gained by Philly (I don’t want to type out that whole damn name anymore), though, she becomes the arbitrator of men. With a confidence that comes from having complete power, she plays with Fat-Acres and Thomas, and they, though they’re insulted, take the indignity like the proper subjects they have become: “The Lord and Knight were for going, but the Country Gentleman oppos’d it, and told ‘em, ’twas the greatest Argument of Folly, to be disturb’d at the Caprice of a Woman’s Humour. They sat down again therefore, and she invited ‘em to her Wedding on the Morrow” (same website). Now, isn’t this just like those folk in the world who’ll say “Damn you, government types!” and then do very little about it? Well, to give power like this to a woman rips away at the class difference between men and women, invalidating the whole thing in a fun little short story of romance.

And, of course, the Sons of Adam are left with their thumbs up their asses. That they end up this way is important to the whole subversive idea of a woman gaining power: her brother, if he had wanted to, could have run off to his old ways after he was free, or stolen all of the money that his sister had just married him into, but it’s obvious that he won’t do that. It’s also obvious that the idea of a sister marrying him to someone instead of him marrying her is a complete flip on the tradition. A mother might be plausible, but a sister would be out of the question. But the reason that this subverts the power that men are supposed to have is that it comes from man: women are equally capable of meeting and doling partial laws as men are. So there’s a flower for Behn, and another for good measure.

Moll Flanders, was it?

As a glorified and rather extravagent tale of a Newgate felon, I think Defoe doesn’t do too badly (mayhap because almost all the tales are glorified and extravagent). I was leafing over the Appendixes in the back and didn’t really find anything I wanted to read, except for the part on Academies. I suppose to take this novel in its context, it is rather giving a grandiose argument for women needing much more than they are provided with. This is a trend that is impossible to ignore in most writing of that time, no matter what kind of writing it is, so I’ll probably have to chat about it more than once.

The poor girl, once her “mother” dies, “for the daughter remov’d all the goods, and I had not so much as a lodging to go to, or a bit of bread to eat” (Defoe 53). The sheer helplessness that she faces on this position is only symptomatic of the trials that she has to face later in her life. A man in this position could have plausible prospects of labour, or used the alliances (let’s say he had similar alliances that Molly had accrued) to combat the daughter’s claim. It is luck that the aristocrat likes Moll so much as to take her on as an almost-daughter. But even this arrangement is fraught with inequalities. Moll could very easily have, again, if she were a man, availed of a great education in this house; instead, she had a lesser education which, although it’s all good and well for the house-ridden gentlewoman, can’t really have any practical use. Had she a real education in which she could have become a teacher or secretary or accountant or anything like that, she wouldn’t have ended up in Newgate.

Of course it’s not to say that things were particularly easy for men who were of a lesser means. Moll, for all that, outdoes Donne, who found himself in a similar boat after marrying Anne Moore, and scrapes herself out of quite terrible positions with a determination and willpower that would put most men to shame. I found myself skipping, almost without exception, the real repetative part of the story: her Goddamned confessions to God. Except for that, the story held some true worth to it – showing what a woman who is really not all that extravagently educated but is smart and capable, can achieve.

All of this, though, leands to the “unrealistic” treatment of children, families, etc. Moll is the kind of woman who, being put on the spot, acts in a way that is going to ensure that she doesn’t get utterly destroyed. I think that Defoe is right in having her leave her children behind for the most part - there were so many prostitutes in London who simply killed their kids that the way she left her kids - providing for them with rather rich folk, or at least good poor families – is merciful. Defoe points out, by the repeated need for emotional death, that Moll couldn’t care for them even if she wanted to, and that, of course, is horrible, but the case of things. The only thing that I think he’s a bit stupid with is his oh-so Christian treatment of Moll marrying her brother – that’s the only relationship that I think was stupidly handled, because is she loved him and was so happy with him there was really no reason to leave him. So he’s her brother… oh well, one generation of inbreeding won’t fuck you like the Royal Family! (God save the Queen).

Of course, if she could have been educated and used that education properly, she could have left her brother without screwing herself over for another few decades, or however long it was…

A Very Ridiculous Newgate Story

Forgive me for this – it was too tempting to start off on a completely mad foot. It might be, in one or two cases, a bit far-fetched, but I figure that if there are people like Captain John Porteus who abuse power, why not just make a story out of someone else who abuses power, only in a much less serious manner? It’s not as great as the last one I wrote (I’m not sure who else has read that one about Oroonoko, but I know Dr. Jones did), but it’s still quite a laugh.

Sept. 9

 

Dear Diary,

 

On September 9 1700 I, William Duell of His Majestie’s Secret Service, was called bi my Superier, the rigt Honerable Sir Marquis Baron Lord Thing Famous, and commited to a case of most henius murder. And… …

Forgiv me, my Wif has just told me of my henius speling. I shal contact a scrib.

 

Later that Day…

 

On Sepember 9 1700 y, Wilam Dul, of His Magesty’s Secet Sevice, ws…

 

Forgiff me, I hav justt sacked the scrib.

 

Later that Day…

 

On September 9, 1701, I, William Duell of his Majesty’s Secret Service, was called by my Superiour the Right Honourable Sir Marquis Baron Lord Thing Famous and committed to a case of most heinous murder. Apparently the Earl of Somerset’s daughter had gone missing, and had been missing for many days; the coachman was chief suspect and was already in custody at Newgate, but protested innocence. Indeed I was sure the man was innocent because I knew his third cousin twice removed on his mother’s side and he was an upstanding gentleman. I was not alone in my opinion however: Sir Famous was suspicious to the farthest extent that something much more sinister and nefarious was underlying the supposed murder of the Earl of Somerset’s daughter.

I began with clearing the coachman. A thorough questioning as to where he had been what he had been doing and why he had been doing what he had been doing which was then corroborated by the rest of the staff at the Earl’s mansion placed the coachman in the bathtub (a rare occurrence, no doubt, considering his smell) with the Earl of Somerset’s wife and the family dog there munching on the family cat. Soon the coachman, wife, and dog will be executed for treason, and I have dispatched letters to investigate the coachman’s third cousin twice removed on his mother’s side who might not be a very upstanding citizen at all.

The coachman cleared, I had to start from scratch.

 

Later that Day…

 

My scribe and I have just returned from examining Somerset’s palace gardens and I believe my superiour Sir Famous was right in suspecting that something was very alarmingly wrong. Having spent merely a few minutes in the gardens where the daughter was last seen I noticed a sight of sheer terror: someone had dropped a massive statue of Hades right in the center of it. I questioned the Earl about this and he told me that he had no clue whatsoever what was in his garden but was sure that a statue of Hades was indeed very suspicious. Necromancy was afoot.

 

Sept. 10

 

Dear Diary,

 

I have only hired my scribe from 10 in the morning until 7 at night, so I shall have to relate now the clue I struck upon last night. I was on my way home when I was called aside by a strange-looking man dressed in a black robe and told me that he was an Anglican monk (so God Save the Church of England) who was himself searching for a pack of resurrectionists who had been stealing corpses from his church grounds. We came to a small country house which I opened in the name of his Majesty and upon searching it we did find various books on midwifery and herbology. We had but searched for a few minutes when we were rudely interrupted in our rummaging by the lady of the house called Elizabeth Chivers who we proceeded to question. She told us that she was a midwife. Clearly, she was a ressurectionist.

One of the band of necromancers in jail, I wrote my superiour Sir Famous and he wrote the Mayor and the Mayor told the Church and before we knew it the people of England were roused in a massively righteous riot against Elizabeth Chivers for the art of necromancy and ressurectionism, but there was still a murderer out there and a body to be found! So today, I go to search for the body.

There was something about the peculiar disappearance of the daughter by the statue of Hades so I decided to go and search the rest of the gardens in the surrounding area for a statue of similar mythical proportions. I found two hundred such statues so I decided to narrow it down to statues that pertained only to Pluto and his underworld ilk and found myself staring at a very mythical description in stone of the Furies which belonged to the Countess of County Kent. I charged into her house on suspicions of murder and flew right through to her personal chambers where I found her arched like a Vampire over the body of her own daughter who was quite clearly dead and had on a very nice dress for being so dead. It was clear that the Countess was drawing the soul of her very own daughter for the uses of most detestable necromancy and that she would not stop unless I dragged her most highness-…ness in! Her daughter had apparently died of consumption. Likely story.

 

Sept. 11

 

All of England was awash in scandal as they watched a Countess tell us of her wide network of necromancers. There were people from all rungs of life and I spent most of the day dragging in the sum of his Majesty’s subjects but in the end the court trial was swift and England’s good people wrested the necromancers from the clutches of authority and did bludgeon them to death themselves and this day was made into a public feast day because such a great evil had been overcome by the unimpeachable system of English law.

This evening, after dark, while I was taking a little victory walk down the side of the dock I ran into the Earl of Somerset’s daughter walking arm in arm with some Italian fop and I said to myself, I said, “My, why ruin a good day for England?” and I popped them both on the back of their heads and threw their bodies in the ocean. The lighting of the area was so bad that the city watch that stood not twenty paces off couldn’t see what had happened and he was neither capable of seeing for I knew the man and he was, forgive the colloquialism, blind as a bat as most of our blesséd watch are. In that way, I not only solved the mysteries, but made England’s glorious day remain unblemished.