 The Philosophy of Composition, this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Matthew M. Perry. The Philosophy of Composition by Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1846. Charles Dickens, in a note in our line before me, alluding to an examination I once made of the mechanism of Barnaby Rouge, says, By the way, are you aware that Godwin wrote his Caleb Williams backwards? He first involved his hero in a web of difficulties, forming the second volume, and then, for the first, cast about him for some mode of accounting for what had been done. I cannot think this the precise mode of procedure on the part of Godwin, and indeed, what he himself acknowledges is not altogether in accordance with Mr. Dickens' idea. But the author of Caleb Williams was too good an artist not to perceive the advantage derivable from at least a somewhat similar process. Nothing is more clear than that every plot with the name must be elaborated to its denouement before anything be attempted with the pen. It is only with the denouement, constantly in view, that we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence or causation by making the incidence, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of the intention. There's a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a story. Either history affords a thesis, or one is suggested by an incident of the day, or, at best, the author sets himself to work in the combination of striking events to form merely the basis of his narrative. Designing, generally, to fill in with description, dialogue, or authorial comment, whatever crevices of fact or action may, from page to page, render themselves apparent. I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view, for he is false to himself, who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest, I say to myself, in the first place, of the innumerable effects or impressions of which the heart, the intellect, or, more generally, the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select? Having chosen a novel first, and secondly, a vivid effect, I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or tone, whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident and tone, afterward looking about me, or rather within, for such combinations of event or tone, as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect. I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by any author who would, that is to say, who could, detail, step by step, the process by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point of completion. Why such a paper has never been given to the world, I am much at a loss to say, but perhaps the authorial vanity has more to do with the omission than any one other cause. Most writers, poets in a special, prefer having it understood that they composed by a species of fine frenzy, an aesthetic intuition, and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought, at the true purposes seized only at the last moment, at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view, at the fully matured fancies discarded in despair as unimaginable, at the cautious selections and rejections, at the painful erasures and interpolations, in a word at the wheels and pinions, the tackle for scene shifting, the step ladders and demon traps, the cox feathers, the red paint and the black patches, which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, constitute the properties of the literary hysteria. I am aware, on the other hand, that the case is by no means common in which an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his conclusions have been attained. In general, suggestions having arisen palmel are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner. For my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to nor, at any time, the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive steps of any of my compositions, and, since the interest of an analysis or reconstruction, such as I have considered a disideratum, is quite independent of any real or fancied interest in the thing analyzed, and will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to show the modus operandi by which some of my own works was put together. I select the raven, as most generally known. It is my design to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is referable either to accident or intuition, that the work proceeded step by step to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem. Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem per se, the circumstance, or say the necessity, which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste. We commence, then, with this intention. The initial consideration was that of extent. If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression. For, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere and everything like totality is at once destroyed. But since, ceteris paribus, no poet can afford to dispense with anything that may advance his design, it but remains to be seen whether there is, in extent, any advantage to counterbalance the loss of unity which attends it. Here, I say no at once. What we term a long poem is, in fact, merely a succession of brief ones. That is to say, of brief poetical effects. It is needless to demonstrate that a poem is such only in as much as it intensely excites by elevating the soul. And all intense excitements are, through a psychical necessity, brief. For this reason, at least, one half of the paradise lost is essentially prose, a succession of poetical excitements interspersed inevitably with corresponding depressions. The whole being deprived through the extremities of its length of the vastly important artistic element, totality, or unity of effect. It appears evident then that there is a distinct limit as regards length to all works of literary art, the limit of a single sitting, and that, although in certain classes of prose composition, such as demanding no unity, this limit may be advantageously overpassed. It can never properly be overpassed in a poem. Within this limit, the extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to its merit. In other words, to the excitement or elevation. Again, in other words, to the degree of the true poetical effect which it is capable of inducing. For it is clear that the brevity must be in direct ratio of the intensity of the intended effect, this, with one provisio, that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for the production of any effect at all. Holding in view these considerations, as well as that degree of excitement to which I deemed not above the popular, while not below the critical taste, I reached at once what I conceived the proper length for my intended poem, a length of about a one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred and eight. My next thought concerned the choice of an impression or effect to be conveyed, and here I may as well observe that throughout the construction, I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work universally appreciable. I should be carried too far out of my immediate topic were I to demonstrate a point which I have repeatedly insisted and which, with the poetical, stands not in the slightest need of demonstration. The point, I mean, that beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem. A few words, however, in euclideation of my real meaning, which some of my friends have evinced a dispossession to misrepresent, that pleasure, which is at once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful, and, indeed, men speak of beauty. They mean precisely not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect. They refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of the soul, not of intellect or of heart, upon which I have commented, and which is experienced in the consequence of contemplating the beautiful. Now, I designate beauty as the province of the poem, merely because it is an obvious rule of art that an effect should be made to spring from direct causes, that objects should be attained through means best adapted for their attainment. No one, as yet, having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation alluded to is most readily attained in the poem. Now, the object truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable to a certain extended poetry, far more readily attainable in prose. Truth, in fact, demands a precision and passion, a homeliness. The truly passionate will comprehend me. Which are absolutely antagonistic to that beauty which I maintain is the excitement or pleasurable elevation of the soul. It, by no means follows, from anything he has said, that passion, or even truth, may not be introduced, even profitably introduced, into a poem, for they may serve in euclideation, or aid the general effect, as do discords in music, by contrast. But the true artist will always contrive, first, to tone them into proper subservience to the predominant aim, and secondly, to unveil them, as far as possible, in that beauty which is the atmosphere in essence of the poem. Regarding then, beauty is my province, my next question referred to the tone of its highest manifestation, and all experience has shown that this tone is one of sadness, beauty of whatever kind in its supreme development invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears, melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones. The length, the province, and the tone, being thus determined, I betook myself to ordinary induction, with the view of obtaining some artistic frequency which might serve me as a keynote in the construction of the poem, some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn. In carefully thinking over all the usual artistic effects, or, more properly, points in the theatrical sense, I did not fail to perceive immediately that no one had been so universally employed as that of the refrain. The universality of its employment suffice to assure me of its intrinsic value inspired me the necessity of submitting it to analysis. I consider it, however, with regard to its susceptibility of improvement, and soon sought to be in a primitive condition, as commonly used the refrain, or burden, not only is limited to lyric verse, but depends for its impression upon the force of monotone, both in sound and thought. The pleasure is deduced solely from the sense of identity, of repetition. I resolve to diversify, and so heighten the effect, by adhering in general to the monotone of sound, while I continually varied that of thought, that is to say, I determined to produce continually novel effects by variation of the application of the refrain, the refrain itself remaining, for the most part, unvaried. These points being settled, I next bethought me of the nature of my refrain. Since its application was to be repeatedly varied, it was clear that the refrain itself must be brief, for there would have been an insurmountable difficulty in frequent variations of application in any sense of length. In proportion to the brevity of the sentence would, of course, be the facility of the variation. This led me at once to a single word as the best refrain. The question now arose as to the character of the word. Having made up my mind to a refrain, the division of the poem into stanzas was of course a corollary, the refrain forming the close to each stanza, that such a close, to have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted emphasis, admitted no doubt. And these considerations inevitably led me to the long O as the most sonorous vowel in connection with R as the most producible consonant. The sound of the refrain being thus determined, it became necessary to select a word embodying this sound, and at the same time in its fullest possible keeping with that melancholy which I had predetermined as the tone of the poem. In such a search it would have been absolutely impossible to overlook the word, nevermore. In fact, it was the very first which presented itself. The next aciteratum was a pretext for the continuous use of the one word, nevermore. In observing the difficulty which I had at once found in inventing a sufficiently plausible reason for its continuous repetition, I did not fail to perceive that this difficulty arose solely from the pre-assumption that the word was to be so continuously or monotonously spoken by a human being. I did not fail to perceive, in short, that the difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word. Here, then, immediately arose the idea of a non-reasoning creature capable of speech and very naturally a parrot in the first instance suggested itself, but was superseded forthwith by a raven as equally capable of speech and infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone. I had now gone so far as the conception of a raven, the bird of ill omen, monotonously repeating the one word, nevermore, at the conclusion of each stanza in a poem of melancholy tone and in length of about one hundred lines, now never losing sight of the object, supremeness, or perfection at all points. I asked myself, of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy? Death was the obvious reply, and when, I said, is this most melancholy of topics most poetical? From what I have already explained at some length the answer here also is obvious. When it most closely aligns itself to beauty, the death thin of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such a topic are those of a bereaved lover. I had now to combine the two ideas of a lover lamenting his deceased mistress and a raven continuously repeating the word, nevermore. I had to combine these, bearing in mind my design of varying at every turn the application of the word repeated. But the only intelligible mode of such combination is that of imagining the raven employing the word in answer to the queries of the lover. And here it was that I saw at once the opportunity afforded for the effect on which I had been depending, that is to say the effect of the variation of application. I saw that I could make the first query propounded by the lover, to which the raven should reply, nevermore, that I could make this first query a commonplace one, the second less so, the third still less, and so on, until at greater length the lover startled from his original nonchalance by the melancholy character of the word itself by his frequent repetition and a consideration of the ominous reputation of the fowl that uttered it, is at length excited to superstition and proudly propounds queries of a far different character, queries whose solution he has passionately at heart, propounds them half in superstition and half that species of despair which delights in self-torture, propounds them not altogether because he believes in the prophetic or demonic character of the bird. Which reason assures him is merely repeating a lesson learned by a rote, but because he experiences a frenzied pleasure in so modeling his questions as to receive from the expected, nevermore, the most delicious because the most intolerable of sorrows. Perceiving the opportunity thus afforded me, or more strictly thus forced upon me in the progress of the construction, I first enabled in my mind the climax or concluding query, that query to which nevermore should be in the last place and answer, that query in reply to which this word, nevermore, should involve the utmost conceivable amount of sorrow and despair. Here then the poem may be said to have had its beginning at the end where all works of art should begin, for it was here at this point of my pre-considerations that I first put pen to paper in the composition of the stanza. Prophet said I, thing of evil, prophet still if bird or devil, by that heaven that bends above us, by the God we both adore, tell this soul with sorrow laden, if within the distant idon it shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore, clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore. Quote the raven, nevermore. I composed this stanza at this point, first that, by establishing the climax, I might the better vary in graduate as regards seriousness and importance, the preceding queries of the lover, and secondly, that I might definitely settle the rhythm, the meter, and the length and general arrangement of the stanza, as well as graduate the stanzas which were to proceed so that none of them might surpass this in rhythmical effect. Had I been able in the subsequent composition of more vigorous stanzas, I should, without scruple, have purposely enfeebled them so as not to interfere with the climatic effect. And here, I may as well say a few words of the versification. My first object, as usual, was originality. The extent to which this has been neglected in versification is one of the most unaccountable things in the world. Admitting that there is little possibility of variety in mere rhythm, it is still possible that varieties of meter and stanza are absolutely infinite, and yet, for centuries, no man in verse has ever done or ever seemed to think of doing an original thing. The fact is that originality, in less than the minds of very unusual force, is by no means a matter, as some suppose, of impulse or intuition. In general, to be found, it must be elaborately sought, and although a positive merit of the highest class happens in its attainment less of invention than negation. Of course, I pretend to know originality in either the rhythm or meter of the raven. The former is trochaic, the latter is octameter at catalytic. Alternating with heptameter catalytic, repeated in the refrain of the fifth verse and terminating with tetrameter catalytic. Less pedantically, the feet employed throughout, trochies, consist of a long double, followed by a short. The first line of the stanza consists of eight of these feet, the second of seven and a half, it affect two-thirds, the third of eight, the fourth of seven and a half, the fifth of the same, the sixth, three and a half. Now, each of these lines taken individually has been employed before, and what originality the raven has is in their combination into stanza. Having even remotely approaching this has ever been attempted. The effect of this originality of combination is aided by other unusual and some altogether novel effects arising from an extension of the application of the principles of rhyme and alliteration. The next point to be considered was the mode of bringing together the lover and the raven, and the first branch of this consideration was the locale. For this, the most natural suggestion might seem to be a forest or the fields, but it has always appeared to me that a close circumspection of space is absolutely necessary to the effect of insulated incident. It has the force of a frame to a picture, it has an indisputable moral power in keeping concentrated the attention, and, of course, must not be confounded with mere unity of place. I determined then to place the lover in his chamber, and a chamber rendered to him by memories of her who had frequented it. The room is represented as richly furnished. This is in mere pursuance of the ideas I have already explained on the subject of beauty, as the soul true poetical thesis. The locale, being thus determined, I had now to introduce the bird, and the thought of introducing him through the window was inevitable. The idea of making the lover suppose, in the first instance, that the flapping of the wings of the bird against the shutter is a tapping at the door, originated in a wish to increase by prolonging the reader's curiosity, and in a desire to admit the incidental effect arising from the lover's throwing open the door, finding all dark, and thence adopting the half fancy that it was the spirit of his mistress that knocked. I made the night tempestuous, first to account for the raven-seeking admission and secondly for the effect of contrast with the physical serenity within the chamber. I made the bird a light on the bust of palace, also for the effect of contrast between the marble and the plumage. It being understood that the bust was absolutely suggested by the bird, the bust of palace being chosen first, as most in keeping with the scholarship of the lover, and secondly for the seriousness of the word palace itself. About the middle of the poem also, I have availed myself of the force of contrast with the view of deepening the ultimate impression. For example, an air of the fantastic approaching is nearly to the ludicrous as was admissible is given to the raven's entrance. He comes in quote, with many a flirt and flutter. Not the least, obeisance made he, not a moment stopped or stayed he, but with mean of lord or lady perched above my chamber door. In the two stanzas which follow, the design is more obviously carried out. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, by the grave and stern decorum of the countenance at war, though thy crests be shorn and shaven, thou, I said, art sure no craven, ghastly grim and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore, tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's plutonian shore? Quote the raven, nevermore. Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore, for we cannot help agreeing that no living human being ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door, bird a beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, with such a name as nevermore. The effect of the denouement being thus provided for, I immediately dropped the fantastic for a tone of the most profound seriousness. This tone commencing in the stanza directly following the last one quoted with the line, but the raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust spoke only, etc. From this epoch, the lover no longer jests, no longer sees anything even of the fantastic in the ravens demeanor. He speaks of him as a grim, ungainly, ghastly gaunt, an ominous bird of yore, and feels the fiery eyes burning into his bosom's core. This revolution of thought or fancy on the lover's part is intended to induce a similar one on the part of the reader to bring the mind into a proper frame for the denouement, which is now brought about as rapidly and as directly as possible. With the denouement proper, with the ravens reply, nevermore, to the lover's final demand if he shall meet his mistress in another world, the poem, in its obvious phase, that of a simple narrative, may be said to have had its completion. So far, everything is within the limits of the accountable, of the real. A raven, having learned by rote the single word nevermore, and having escaped from the custody of its owner, is driven at midnight through the violence of a storm to seek admission at a window from which a light still gleams, the chamber window of a student, occupied half in pouring over a volume, half in dreaming of a beloved mistress deceased. The casement being thrown open at the fluttering of the bird's wings, the bird itself perches on the most convenient seat out of the immediate reach of the student, who, amused by the incident, and the oddity of the visitor's demeanor, demands of it ingest, and without looking for reply, its name. The raven addressed answers with its customary word, nevermore. A word which finds immediate echo in the melancholy heart of the student, who, giving utterance allowed to certain thoughts suggested by the occasion, is again startled by the fowl's superstition of nevermore. The student now guesses the state of the case, but is impelled, as I have before explained, by the human thirst for self-torture, and in part by superstition, to propound such queries to the bird as will bring him, the lover, the most of the luxury of sorrow through the anticipated answer, nevermore. With the indulgence to the extreme of this self-torture, the narration in what I have teamed its first or obvious phase has a natural termination, and so far there has been no overstepping of the limits of the real. But in subjects so handled, however skillfully, or with however vivid an array of incident, there is always a certain hardness or nakedness which repels the artistical eye. Two things are invariably required. First, some amount of complexity, or more properly adaptation, and secondly some amount of suggestiveness, some undercurrent, however indefinite of meaning. It is this latter, in a special which imparts to a work of art so much of that richness to borrow from colloquially a forcible term, which we are too fond of confusing with the ideal. It is the excess of the suggested meaning. It is the rendering of this upper instead of the undercurrent of the theme which turns into prose and that of the very flattest kind, the so-called poetry of the so-called transcendentalists. Holding these opinions, I added the two concluding stanzas of the poem, their suggestiveness being thus made to pervade all the narrative which has preceded them. The undercurrent of meaning is ridded first apparent in the line take thy beak from out my heart and take thy form from off my door quote the raven never more. It will be observed that the words from out my heart involve the first metaphorical expression in the poem. They, with the answer never more, dispose the mind to seek immoral in all that has been previously narrated. The reader begins now to regard the raven as emblematical but it is not until the very last line of the very last stanza that the intention of making him emblematical of mournful and never-ending remembrance is permitted distinctly to be seen and the raven never flitting still is sitting still is sitting on the pallid bust of palace just above my chamber door and his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming and the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor and my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted never more. End of essay. This recording is in the public domain. Possession by Adam H. Dickey published in the Christian Science Journal, volume 35 number 3, June 1917 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by November 8 Echo Victor Victor Possession by Adam H. Dickey There is a belief among the mortals that they can become the privileged possessors or owners of something. When through the usual process of law a man acquires property he has a strong desire to erect a fence around it and to keep everybody else away. Then follows the belief which is universally acknowledged that he owns a certain amount of the earth's surface and that the law protects and defends him in private possession thereof. He builds a house and occupies it calls it his own and no one is permitted to approach or to enter it contrary to his wishes without being considered a trespasser. In our present degree of development it is generally understood that property is something which should have an owner, that the earth and all that is contained therein may be divided into parts and parcels and that different individuals may claim possession of more or less of it to the exclusion of others. All this however is based on the supposition that matter is substance and that man is the proprietor of it. Through the elusive processes of mortal belief truth is apparently reversed thoughts are externalized into things and these things are claimed held and dominated by individuals. Some people have a large amount of property others a little while great many have none at all this apparently unequal distribution of material possessions fosters envy, jealousy and strife often provoking the one who finds himself deprived of his heart's desire into the use of questionable means if not of physical force to gain his object. It would be safe to say that nine-tenths of all the war and contention in the world has been inaugurated and carried on because of the invasion of so-called property rights or because of a desire to extend material possessions. Just as soon as a man finds himself in possession of a certain amount of matter of houses or lands, of stocks or bonds, he is besieged by a sense of personal responsibility for his wealth and a fear that he may at some time be dispossessed of it. The whole system of property rights and of the division of property is based upon the supposed substantiality of matter, an illusion which someday must be dispelled by the law of God which declares that mind is the only substance. This change may not be brought about all at once, but through right thinking and conduct there will in due time be established the true concept, namely that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Rightfully speaking everything in this world belongs to God through reflection to man who is the image and likeness of God. When therefore we have reached the point in our demonstration where we can resolve things into thoughts, the multiplication of these thoughts will be possible so that every individual may reflect and possess all that belongs to his maker. In some lines of thought this ideal condition already prevails, for example, in mathematics. Let us suppose however that the figures used in making calculations instead of being accepted as thoughts were regarded as material objects. In such a case every mathematician or accountant would have to provide himself with a supply of figures which would perhaps be made of some durable material like wood or iron and which he would keep on a shelf or locked in a drawer. When the mathematician wished to use the figures he would take them out, arrange them in their proper order and so be enabled to work out his problems. If in a busy season the accountant's supply of figures should become exhausted he would have to purchase more or perhaps borrow them from his neighbor. He might approach a fellow worker and say, I wish you would lend me two or three fives and a few sevens this morning. I am out of these figures. His friend might reply, but I have been using so many fives and sevens lately in my work that I need all I have and cannot accommodate you. There might even be a shortage of figures which would affect the whole population and there would be a scramble for a supply. The price of figures would advance and if people really believed that these objects were a necessity there would be such brisk competition that the price of enough figures to do business with would be out of all proportion to the cost of their production and many people would have to get along without them. This condition of affairs, however, is made impossible by the fact that figures, instead of being things or thoughts, and as such are everywhere present without limit or restriction. No contrivance of mortal mind nor any scheme of manipulators can take away from us one single figure or deprive us of instantaneous access to all that we can possibly have use for. No war has ever been declared because one nation appropriated more than its share of the multiplication table nor has any man been found guilty of using figures which he has surreptitiously taken from his neighbor. Figures are mental concepts and as such they are available to everybody. It can be realized that not only is this true with regard to figures but that every material object in the universe is but the counterfeit of some divine idea and not what mortal mind represents it to be. The time will come when mortal mind will abandon its belief that ideas are represented by material objects and when this time arrives there will be no fear of loss or damage. I will carry out the instruction given by Jesus when he said lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal but lay up for yourselves treasures, right ideas in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal. You may ask what all this has to do with our present a great deal Christian scientists may add to their peace of mind and freedom from responsibility by thinking along right lines and endeavoring to put into immediate practice the teachings of Christian science. If a man is engaged in a business which he believes to be his own of which he thinks he is the creator and proprietor and for the success of which he deems himself personally responsible to be a great sense of burden attaching to his position he may suffer from poor business loss of trade or any of the beliefs which go with his particular occupation or profession so long indeed as he feels that the business belongs exclusively to him he will never be free from some of the countless beliefs that are supposed to affect trade in general and his occupation in particular. The key for this condition is for the man to begin to declare and to know that all is mind and mind's ideas that there is nothing whatever about his business that is limited or material. If God is the creator of all and if everything in this universe belongs to him then this business which the man calls his own is really God's and the man becomes the master of it only to the degree that he conforms his thoughts and his daily transactions to the law of God. If he recognizes this and applies his understanding of the principle of Christian science to his work his fear and uncertainty will vanish. He will find himself conducting and carrying on business in the manner God requires it to be done and he will exercise dominion and control over it just to the extent that he places himself under the unerring direction of divine mind. If a woman considers herself the owner of a home and that everything in it is hers if she believes she has furniture and fixtures which are her personal property, if she feels that she has servants to manage and that she must assume personal control over them as well as over every other household accessory she may become so confused and distracted as to find herself utterly inadequate to control the situation. But if she is willing to accept God as the ruler of her household to convert things into thoughts and to understand that all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made if she can realize that divine intelligence governs and controls her servants her house and everything that is contained therein she will immediately lose all sense of care, fear and responsibility and find that the divine law of peace and harmony has taken possession of her household and manages it if she realizes that the servants are working for God and not for her that everything about the house is designed to bring out and express the law of perfection things will run much more smoothly for all connected with this establishment and peace and joy will come to all who enter therein. There is another phase of possession which is perhaps one of the strongest of mortal beliefs. Parents believe they are the privileged creators of something that they can usurp the creative power of divine mind and have children of their own for whose bringing up education and future welfare they are entirely responsible this feeling on the part of parents opens the door wide to the suggestion of failure and to the trials and tribulations which are supposed to go with the ownership and control of children assail them from every side they must learn that God is the only father and the only mother that man is the offspring of God that he is not physical and material but spiritual reflecting and expressing the wisdom, love and intelligence of infinite being as soon as this line of thought is touched upon the false sense of responsibility which mortal mind has placed upon parents is taken away and they can then in the right way trust God to take care of their children knowing that nothing can interfere with the harmonious results which accompany divine protection all belongs to God everything belongs to us man is neither a creator nor an owner as Christian scientists we can begin the realization of this at once and the results will be speedy and satisfactory but when we relinquish all thought of personal possession this does not mean that we must sacrifice everything we hold dear or that we shall really be deprived of anything on the contrary it means that understanding that all is mind and the ideas of mind we shall gradually come into possession of all that is worthwhile this is surely a more gratifying way to bring God into our experience than to cling to the old material illusions the mere act of surrendering something is not in itself a virtue nor is there anything to be gained by assuming a false sense of humility it is true that much is given up but it is the old unsatisfactory beliefs which we are really parting with and these are supplanted by right ideas giving to us a greater sense of freedom power and possession than we ever had before what did Jesus mean by the statement quote to him shall be given and he that hath not shall be taken away that which he hath why this that the one who has the right idea is really the one that hath and his possessions are bound to increase while the one who has the wrong thought is the one that hath not and he must of necessity lose even that which he seems to have what we need to do then is to change our method of thinking saying quote seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you is made possible only through Christian science on page 62 of miscellaneous writings our leader says quote holding the right idea of man in my mind I can improve my own and other people's individuality health and morals end quote all things are accomplished through the right idea which asserts itself in human consciousness and dispossesses us of our false beliefs a knowledge of the right idea in Christian science adds constantly to our store of wisdom and understanding it is a law of metaphysics that thought externalizes itself therefore when we attain the standpoint from which we can see all material things as beliefs only and that these things can be transformed and improved through holding the right idea we shall then begin to bring into our experience the things referred to by Paul when he said quote I hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him end quote another line of thought which suggests itself at this juncture is that human beings believe they are in possession of a mind of their own and that they can think and will as they please with respect to this mind this belief leads to another erroneous conclusion namely that we are in possession of a body of our own that we have personal eyes ears lungs and a private stomach all of which believe to be material and for the well-being of which we are responsible when this error takes possession of us the next thing that mortal mind claims is an ability to deprive us of a sight hearing etc and that our stomach can become disordered or diseased this is all the result of believing in another creator besides God another intelligence and power to which we yield obedience no ye not Paul says that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey the only remedy for the ills of the flesh is to correct these false beliefs by introducing the right idea on page four hundred fifteen of science and health our leader says quote note how thought makes the face pallid it either retards the circulation or quickens it causing a pale or flushed cheek in the same way thought increases or diminishes the secretions the action of the lungs of the bowels and of the heart the muscles moving quickly or slowly and impaled or pulsed by thought represent the action of all the organs of the human system including brain and viscera to remove the error producing disorder to calm and instruct mortal mind with immortal truth end quote in mortal mind's method of thinking thoughts are externalized as matter and are called the body when we understand this and grasp what mrs. eddie teaches in regard to the externalization of thought we shall see that our bodies are nothing more or less than the outward expression of our thought therefore to heal what seems to be the diseased condition of the body we must drop all thought of it as material and recognize it as a purely mental product an objectified condition of material sense the correction of which by replacing the false belief with the spiritual idea will according to the law of god produce health and harmony god is the only creator and all that he creates must be like himself man is the individualized aggregation of right ideas the compound idea of god which includes these right ideas for god to know is to be mrs. eddie says know and yes page 16 knowing is being therefore what man knows of god constitutes his being and the consciousness of man consists only of the knowing of those right ideas that already exist in the mind of god it is scientifically impossible to put a wrong thought into consciousness and there can be no imperfection in mind since whatever god knows is perfect and inviolable and can never be changed or altered in any way nothing exists but god and what god creates consequently there is only one right idea of anything the divine mind maintains all identities from a blade of grass to a star as distinct and eternal end quote science and health page 70 mortal belief creates the human eye and declares it to be the organ of sight while in reality sight is a quality of mind entirely independent of iris pupil lens or other parts comprising the visual organism when jesus said that the light of the body is the eye he was not referring to a material eye but to a mental condition hence what mind knows about the thing we call eye is all there is to it this is also true in regard to what mortal mind calls heart liver lungs and all else that goes to make up the so called material body mortal mind claims that man is an organized matter but mortal mind's beliefs are not substantive and the fact remains that the only organization there is or ever can be is that compound spiritual idea of which this material organism is the counterfeit in as much as there is only one right idea of everything there is only one right concept of stomach it is a mental concept and as such has its rightful place in the divine mind any other concept of stomach is false and misleading it is time for christian scientists to stop trying to doctor sick organs and devote themselves to exchanging their imperfect models for better and more improved beliefs which is the only true method of healing god is the law of health and harmony to all his own ideas and not only is this true but the law of god which governs the perfect spiritual idea is also the law of perfection to the human belief of things and this extends to every organ of the human system whatever god knows about hand, eye, foot is all there is to know about them he knows that they are not material but that they are perfect, harmonious and useful ideas and that their identity is distinct and eternal if a man has the wrong concept of hand, eye, foot his only salvation is to get the right idea concerning these useful members if his body should be injured it would be his concept of body that is affected, not gods and the remedy is for him quickly to give up his erroneous belief of body to himself with god's idea in the words of a life is a quaint now thyself with him, god and be at peace on page 218 of miscellany mrs. eddie writes quote, neither the old nor the new testament furnishes reasons or examples for the destruction of the human body but for its restoration to life and health is the scientific proof of god with us the power and prerogative of truth are to destroy all disease and to raise the dead even the self same Lazarus the spiritual body the incorporeal idea came with the ascension end quote we can have no other body than the one perfect incorporeal idea man being the compound idea of god naturally follows that everything which is included in the consciousness of man must be spiritual and perfect or it is not the consciousness that god knows and which man should have matter can never be spiritualized but our mistaken belief which presents itself as matter can be corrected and thus spiritualized to heal an imperfect heart which is simply a wrong belief of heart one must repudiate the testimony of material sense and claim the presence of god's idea in order to improve his false concept it is not necessary that he should know just what the divine idea back of the human belief of heart is all he needs to know is that his mistaken sense of heart which appears to be material is not the right one and that god's idea is present now and here and there is no other if a man has an unhealthy belief of stomach the only remedy is to admit the falsity of all that mortal mind says about stomach and claim possession of god's idea which is the only perfect reality all sickness is due to a wrong belief of things and the only remedy is to get the right idea because there is a right idea of heart and a right idea of stomach we can understand what our leader means when she says quote divine science excludes matter resolves things into thoughts and replaces the objects of material sense with spiritual ideas end quote science and health page 123 if there were no spiritual ideas with which to replace objects of material sense our diseased beliefs could never be corrected and our bodies could not be scientifically healed god is not separate from his ideas the right idea of anything carries with it the power and activity of infinite mind and when brought to bear upon the false belief it produces a harmonious result if it is true the belief concerning body manifests itself as a disordered material condition then the right idea which corrects the false belief must produce an improved physical manifestation we can never heal by attempting to exercise the power of truth on a sick body it is the exercise of the power of truth on a belief of sickness that produces the healing results Christian science is an exact science and as such it will permit of no deviation from its principle and rule it demands that the student in order to demonstrate its truth must be able to meet its requirements jesus said ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free then a knowledge of the truth of what Christian science teaches is absolutely necessary we are all laboring more or less under the belief that man is a human being separated from his creator with a mind and an intelligence all his own this belief must be destroyed and the only way to accomplish its destruction is by constantly holding in thought the right idea and by declaring the presence and activity of all the ideas of god as these ideas become more real to us we shall find our human sense of things disappearing and ourselves growing more like him more like infinite wisdom more like truth and love then shall it come to pass as Isaiah prophesied that the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the lord as the waters cover the sea end of possession by Adam H. Dickie recorded by November 8 echo Victor Victor in the Christian science reading room Centerville, Ohio the three kinds of men by G. K. Chesterton this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org read by Jerome Lawson the three kinds of men by G. K. Chesterton speaking there are three kinds of people in this world the first kind of people are people they're the largest and probably the most valuable class we owe to this class the chairs we sit down on the clothes we wear the houses we live in and indeed when we come to think of it we probably belong to this class ourselves the second class may be called for convenience the poets they're often a nuisance to their families but generally speaking a blessing to mankind the third class is that of the professors or intellectuals sometimes described as the thoughtful people and these are a blight and a desolation both to their families and also to mankind of course the classification sometimes overlaps like all classification some good people are almost poets and some bad poets are almost professors but the division follows lines of real psychological cleavage I do not offer it lightly it has been the fruit of more than 18 minutes of earnest reflection and research the class called people to which you and I with no little pride attach ourselves has certain casual yet profound assumptions which are called common places as the children are charming or the twilight is sad and sentimental or the one man fighting three is a fine sight now these feelings are not crude they're not even simple the charm of children is very subtle it is even complex to the extent of being almost contradictory it is at its very plainest mingled of a regard for hilarity and regard for helplessness the sentiment of twilight in the vulgarest drawing room song or the coarsest pair of sweethearts is so far as it goes a subtle sentiment it is strangely balanced between pain and pleasure it might also be called pleasure tempting pain the plunge of impatient chivalry by which we all admire a man fighting odds is not at all easy to define separately it means many things pity, traumatic surprise a desire for justice a delight in experiment and the indeterminate the ideas of the mob are really very subtle ideas but the mob does not express them subtly in fact it does not express them at all except on those rare occasions now only too rare when it indulges in insurrection and massacre now this accounts for the otherwise unreasonable fact of the existence of poets poets are those who share these popular sentiments but can so express them that they prove themselves the strange and delicate things that they really are poets draw out the shy refinements of the rabble where the common man covers the queerest emotions by saying ron little kid victor hugo will write where the stockbroker will only say abruptly evening's closing in now mr. yates will write into the twilight where the navi can only mutter something about pluck and being the greatest game homer will show you the hero in rags in his own hall defying the princes at their banquet the poets carry the popular sentiments to a keener and more splendid pitch but let it always be remembered that it is the popular sentiments that they are carrying no man ever wrote any good poetry to show that childhood was shocking or that twilight was gay and farcical or that a man was contemptible because he had crossed a single sword with three the people who maintain this are the professors or prigs the poets are those who rise above the people by understanding them of course most of the poets write in prose ravele for instance and dickens the prigs rise above the people by refusing to understand them by saying that all their dim, strange preferences are prejudices and superstitions the prigs make the people feel stupid the poets make the people feel wiser than they could have imagined that they were there are many weird elements in this situation the oddest of all perhaps is the fate of the two factors in practical politics the poets who embrace and admire the people are often pelted with stones and crucified the prigs who despise the people are often loaded with lance and crown in the house of commons for instance there are quite a number of prigs but comparatively few poets there are no people there at all by poets as I have said I do not mean people who write poetry or indeed people who write anything I mean such people as having culture and imagination use them to understand and share the feelings of their fellows as against those who use them to rise to what they call a higher plane crudely the poet differs from the mob by his sensibility the professor differs from the mob by his insensibility he has not sufficient finesse and sensitiveness to sympathize with the mob his only notion is coarsely to contradict it to cut across it the egotistical plan of his own to tell himself that whatever the ignorant say they are probably wrong he forgets that ignorance often has the exquisite intuitions of innocence let me take one example which may mark out the outline of the contention open the nearest comic paper and let your eye rest lovingly upon a joke about a mother-in-law now the joke, as presented for the populace will probably be a simple joke the old lady will be tall and stout her husband will be small and cowering but for all that, a mother-in-law is not a simple idea she is a very subtle idea the problem is not that she is big and arrogant she is frequently little and quite extraordinarily nice the problem of the mother-in-law is that she is like the twilight half one thing and half another now this twilight truth this fine and even tender embarrassment might be rendered as it really is by a poet I am very penetrating and sincere novelist like George Meredith or Mr. H.G. Wells whose Anne Veronica I have just been reading with delight I would trust the fine poets and novelists because they would follow the very clue given them in comic cuts but suppose the professor appears and suppose he says as he almost certainly will a mother-in-law is merely a fellow citizen considerations of sex should not interfere with comradeship regard for age should not influence the intellect a mother-in-law is merely another mind we should free ourselves from these tribal hierarchies and degrees now when the professor says this as he always does I say to him sir you are coarser than comic cuts you are more vulgar and blundering than the most elephantine musical artiste you are blinder and grosser than the mob these vulgar knockabouts have at least got hold of a social shade and real mental distinction though they can only express it clumsily you are so clumsy that you cannot get hold of it at all if you really cannot see that the bridegroom's mother and the bride have any reason for constraint or diffidence then you are neither polite nor humane you have no sympathy in you for the deep and doubtful hearts of human folk it is better even to put the difficulty as the vulgar put it than to be partly unconscious of the difficulty altogether the same question might be considered well enough in the old proverb that Tugu's company and three is none this proverb is the truth but popularly that is it is the truth put wrong certainly it is untrue that three is no company three is splendid company three is the ideal number for pure comradeship as in the three musketeers but if you reject the proverb altogether if you say that two and three are the same sort of company if you cannot see that there is a wider abyss between two and three than between three and three million it is better to inform you that you belong to the third class of human beings that you shall have no company either of two or three but shall be alone in a howling desert till you die end of the three kinds of men