 A familiar preface by Joseph Conrad, 1857 to 1924. 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 Peter Tomlinson. This glorious expression of the credo of all artists In whatever form of creation, lastingly enriches the English tongue. It is from the preface to a personal record, that fascinating autobiographical volume in which Conrad tells the curious story of a Polish boy who ran away to sea and began to write in English. As a companion piece, those who have the honour of the writer's craft at heart should read Conrad's preface to the nigger of the Narcissus. All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind. Is it permissible to wonder what some newspaper owners say Mr Hurst would reply to that? Mr Conrad's career is too well known to be annotated here. If by any chance the reader is not acquainted with it it will be to his soul's advantage to go to a public library and look it up. As a general rule we do not want much encouragement to talk about ourselves yet this little book is the result of a friendly suggestion and even of a little friendly pressure. I defended myself with some spirit but with characteristic tenacity the friendly voice insisted. You know you really must. It was not an argument but I submitted at once. If one must you perceive the force of a word. He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense. I don't say this by way of disparagement. It is better for mankind to be impressionable than reflective. Nothing humanly great, great I mean as affecting a whole mass of lives has come from reflection. On the other hand you cannot fail to see the power of mere words such words as glory for instance or pity. I won't mention any more they are not far to seek shouted with perseverance, with ardour, with conviction these two by their sound alone have set whole nations in motion and upheaved the dry hard ground on which rests our whole social fabric. There's virtue for you if you like. Of course the accent must be attended to. The right accent. That's very important. The capricious lung, the thundering of the tender vocal cords Don't talk to me of your Archimedes lever. He was an absent minded person with a mathematical imagination. Mathematics commands all my respect but I have no use for engines. Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the world. What a dream for a writer. Because written words have their accent too. Yes, let me only find the right word. Surely it must be lying somewhere among the wreckage of all the plates and all the exultations poured out aloud since the first day when hope the undying came down on earth. It may be there close by disregarded invisible quite at hand but it's no good. I believe there are men who can lay hold of a needle in a pothole of hay at the first try. For myself I've never had such luck. And then there is that accent, another difficulty for who is going to tell whether the accent is right or wrong till the word is shouted and fails to be heard perhaps and goes downwind leaving the world unmoved. Once upon a time there lived an emperor who was a sage and something of a literary man. He jotted down on ivory tablets thoughts, maxims, reflections which chance has preserved for the edification of posterity. Among other sayings, I am quoting from memory I remember this solemn admonition. Let all thy words have the accent of heroic truth. The accent of heroic truth. This is very fine but I'm thinking that it is an easy matter for an austere emperor to jot down grandiose advice. Most of the working truths on this earth are humble, not heroic. And there have been times in the history of mankind when the accents of heroic truth have moved it to nothing but derision. Nobody will expect to find between the covers of this little book words of extraordinary potency or accents of irresistible heroism. However humiliating for my selfish steam I must confess that the councils of Marcus Aurelius are not for me. They are more fit for a moralist than for an artist. Truth of a modest sort I can promise you and also sincerity. That complete praiseworthy sincerity which while it delivers one into the hands of one's enemies is as likely as not to embroil one with one's friends. Embroil is perhaps too strong an expression. I can't imagine among either my enemies or my friends of being so hard up for something to do as to quarrel with me. To disappoint one's friends would be nearer the mark. Most, almost all, friendships of the writing period of my life have come to me through my books and I know that a novelist lives in his work. He stands there the only reality in an invented world among imaginary things, happenings and people. Writing about them is only writing about himself. But the disclosure is not complete. He remains to a certain extent a figure behind a veil, a suspected rather than a seen presence, a movement and a voice behind the draperies of fiction. In these personal notes there is no such veil. And I cannot help thinking of a passage in the imitation of Christ where the ascetic author who knew life so profoundly says that there are persons esteemed on their reputation who by showing themselves destroy the opinion one had of them. This is the danger incurred by an author of fiction who sets out to talk about himself without disguise. While these reminiscent pages were appearing serially I was remonstrated with for bad economy as if such writing were a form of self-indulgence wasting the substance of future volumes. It seems that I'm not sufficiently literary. Indeed a man who never wrote a line for print till he was thirty-six cannot bring himself to look upon his existence and his experience upon the sum of his thoughts, sensations and emotions upon his memories and his regrets and the whole possession of his past as only so much material for his hands. Once before, some three years ago when I published The Mirror of the Sea, a volume of impressions and memories the same remarks were made to me. Practical remarks, but truth to say I have never understood the kind of thrift they recommend. I wanted to pay my tribute to the sea, its ships and its men to whom I remain indebted for so much which has gone to make me what I am. That seemed to me the only shape in which I could offer it to their shades. There could not be a question in my mind of anything else. It is quite possible that I am a bad economist but it is certain that I am incorrigible. Having matured in the surroundings and under the special conditions of sea life I have a special piety towards that form of my past for its impressions were vivid, its appeal direct its demands such as could be responded to with the natural elation of youth and strength equal to the call. There was nothing in them to perplex a young conscience. Having broken away from my origins under a storm of blame from every quarter which had the mirror shadow of right to voice an opinion removed by great distances from such natural affections as were still left to me and even estranged in a measure from them by the totally unintelligible character of the life which had seduced me so mysteriously from my allegiance. I may safely say that through the blind force of circumstances the sea was to be all my world and the merchant service my only home for a long succession of years. No wonder then that in my two exclusively sea books The Nigger of the Narcissus and The Mirror of the Sea and in the few short sea stories like Youth and Typhoon I tried with an almost filial regard to render the vibration of life in the great world of waters in the hearts of the simple men who have for ages traversed its solitudes and also that something sentient which seems to dwell in ships the creatures of their hands and the objects of their care. One's literary life must turn frequently for substance to memories and seek discourse with the shades unless one has made up one's mind to write only in order to reprove mankind for what it is or phrase it for what it is not or, generally, to teach it how to behave. Being neither quarrelsome nor a flatterer nor a sage I've done none of these things and I'm prepared to put up serenely with the insignificance which attaches to persons who are not meddlesome in some way or other but resignation is not indifference I would not like to be left standing as a mere spectator on the bank of the great stream carrying onward so many lives I would feign claim for myself the faculty of so much insight as can be expressed in a voice of sympathy and compassion It seems to me that in one, at least, authoritative quarter of criticism I am suspected of a certain, unemotional, grim acceptance of facts of what the French would call, c'est cher es de coeur Fifteen years of unbroken silence before praise or blame testify sufficiently to my respect for criticism that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters but this is more of a personal matter reaching the man behind the work and therefore it may be alluded to in a volume which is a personal note in the margin of the public page not that I feel hurt in the least the charge, if it amounted to a charge at all was made in the most considerate terms in a tone of regret my answer is that if it be true that every novel contains an element of autobiography and this can hardly be denied since the creator can only express himself in his creation then there are some of us to whom an open display of sentiment is rip-pugnant I would not unduely praise the virtue of restraint it is often merely temperamental but it is not always the sign of coldness it may be pride there can be nothing more humiliating than to see the shaft of one's emotion miss the mark of either laughter or tears nothing more humiliating and this for the reason that should the mark be missed should the open display of emotion fail to move then it must perish unavoidably in disgust or contempt no artist can be reproached for shrinking from a risk which only fools run to me and only genius dare confront with impunity in a task which mainly consists in laying one's soul more or less bare to the world a regard for decency even at the cost of success is but the regard for one's own dignity which is inseparably united with the dignity of one's work and then it is very difficult to be wholly joyous or wholly sad on this earth the comic, when it is human soon takes upon itself a face of pain and some of our griefs some only not all for it is the capacity for suffering which makes man august in the eyes of men have their source in weaknesses which must be recognized with smiling compassion as the common inheritance of us all joy and sorrow in this world pass into each other mingling their forms and their murmurs in the twilight of life as mysterious as an overshadowed ocean while the dazzling brightness of supreme hopes lies far off fascinating and still on the distant edge of the horizon yes, I too would like to hold the magic wand giving that command over laughter and tears which is declared to be the highest achievement of imaginative literature only to be a great magician one must surrender oneself to occult and irresponsible powers either outside or within one's breast we have all heard of simple men selling their souls for love or power to some grotesque devil the most ordinary intelligence can perceive without much reflection that anything of the sort is bound to be a fool's bargain I don't lay claim to particular wisdom because of my dislike and distrust of such transactions it may be my sea training acting upon a natural disposition to keep good hold on the one thing really mine but the fact is that I have a positive horror of losing even for one moving moment that full possession of myself which is the first condition of good service and I've learned my notion of good service from my earlier into my later existence I who have never sought in the written word anything else but a form of the beautiful I have carried over that article of creed from the decks of ships to the more circumscribed space of my desk and by that act I suppose I have become permanently imperfect in the eyes of the ineffable company of pure ascetics as in political so in literary action a man wins friends for himself mostly by the passion of his prejudices and by the consistent narrowness of his outlook but I've never been able to love what was not lovable or hate what was not hateful out of deference for some general principle whether there be any courage in making this admission I know not after the middle turn of life away we consider dangers and joys with a tranquil mind so I proceed in peace to declare that I've always suspected in the effort to bring into play the extremities of emotions the debasing touch of insincerity in order to move others deeply we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carried away beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility instantly enough perhaps and of necessity like an actor who raises his voice on the stage above the pitch of natural conversation but still we have to do that and surely this is no great sin but the danger lies in the writer becoming the victim of his own exaggeration losing the exact notion of sincerity and in the end coming to despise truth itself as something too cold too blunt for his purpose as in fact not good enough for his insistent emotion from laughter and tears the descent is easy to sniveling and giggles these may seem selfish considerations but you can't in sound morals condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity it is his clear duty and least of all you can condemn an artist pursuing however humbly and imperfectly a creative aim in that interior world where his thought and his emotions go seeking for the experience of imagined adventures there are no policemen no law no pressure of circumstance all thread of opinion to keep him within bounds who then is going to say nay to his temptations if not his conscience and besides this remember is the place and the moment of perfectly open talk I think that all ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind all intellectual and artistic ambitions are permissible up to and even beyond the limit of prudent sanity they can hurt no one if they are mad then so much the worst for the artist indeed as virtue is said to be such ambitions are their own reward it is such a very mad presumption to believe in the sovereign power of one's art to try for other means for other ways of affirming this belief in the deeper appeal of one's work to try to go deeper is not to be insensible a historian of hearts is not a historian of emotions yet he penetrates further restrained as he may be since his aim is to reach the writhe fount of laughter and tears the sight of human affairs deserves admiration and pity they are worthy of respect too and he is not insensible who pays them the undemonstrative tribute of a sigh which is not a sob and of a smile which is not a grin resignation not mystic not detached but resignation open-eyed conscious and informed by love is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossible to become a sham not that I think resignation the last word of wisdom I am too much the creature of my time for that but I think that the proper wisdom is to will what the gods will without perhaps being certain what their will is and even if they have a will of their own and in this matter of life and art it is not the why that matters so much to our happiness as the how as the Frenchman said il y a toujours la manière very true yes there is the manner the manner in laughter, in tears, in irony in indignations and enthusiasm in judgments and even in love the manner in which as in the features and character of a human face the inner truth is foreshadowed for those who know how to look at their kind those who read me know my conviction that the world, the temporal world rests on a very few simple ideas so simple that they must be as old as the hills it rests notably among others on the idea of fidelity at a time when nothing which is not revolutionary in some way or other can expect to attract much attention I have not been revolutionary in my writings the revolutionary spirit is mighty convenient in this that it frees one from all scruples as regards ideas its hard absolute optimism is repulsive to my mind by the menace of fanaticism and intolerance it contains no doubt one should smile at these things but imperfect as set I am no better philosopher all claim to special righteousness awakens in me that scorn and anger from which a philosophical mind should be free End of A Familiar Preface by Joseph Conrad Recording by Peter Tomlinson 30. Night Cadosh from Morals and Dogma of the ancient and accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry by Albert Pike 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 Dale Grossman Night Cadosh by Albert Pike We often profit more by our enemies than by our friends We support ourselves only on that which resists and owe our success to opposition The best friend of Masonry in America were the anti-Masons of 1826 and at the same time they were its worst enemies Men are but automata of Providence and it uses the demagogue, the fanatic and the nave, a common trinity in republics as its tools and instruments to affect that which they do not dream and imagine themselves commissioned to prevent The anti-Masons, traitors and perjurers some and some mere political naves purified Masonry by persecution and so proved to be its benefactors for that which is persecuted grows To them its present popularity is due the cheapening of its degrees the invasion of its lodges that are no longer sanctuaries by the multitude of pomp and pageantry and overdone display A hundred years ago it had become known that the Perennes, Hebrew, Cadish and Perennes were the Templars under a veil and therefore the degree was prescribed and ceasing to be worked became a mere brief and formal ceremony under another name Now from the tomb in which after his murders he rotted, Clement V howls against the assassers of his victims in the allocution of Pio Nono against the Freemasons The ghosts of the dead Templars haunt the Vatican and disturb the slumbers of the paralyzed papacy which, dreading the dead, shrieks out its excommunications and impotent anathemas against the living It is a declaration of war and was needed to arouse apathy and inertness into action An enemy of the Templars shall tell us the secret of this papal hostility against an order which has existed for centuries in despite of its anathemas and has its sanctuaries and asela even in Rome It will be easy as we read to separate the false from the true The audacious conjectures from the simple facts A power that ruled without antagonism and without concurrence and without control proved fatal to the serendotal royalties while the republics, on the other hand had perished by the conflict of liberties and franchises which in the absence of all duty hierarchically sanctioned and enforced had soon become mere tyrannies rivals one of the other To find a stable medium between those two abysses the idea of the Christian Hierophants and the abdication of apathy devoted to abnegation by solemn vows protected by severe regulations which should be recruited by initiation and which, sole depository of the great religious and social secrets should make kings and pontiffs without exposing it to the corruptions of power In that was the secret of the kingdom of Jesus Christ which, without being of this world would govern all its grandeurs provided at the foundation of the great religious orders so often at war with the secular authorities ecclesiastical or civil Its realization was also the dream of the dissident sects of Gnostic or Illuminari who pretended to connect their faith with the primitive tradition of the Christianity of St. John It at length became a menace to the church and society when a rich and dissolute order created in the mysterious doctrines of the Kabbalah seemed disposed to turn against legitimate authority and conservative principle of hierarchy and threaten the entire world with an immense revolution The Templars, whose history is so imperfectly known were those terrible conspirators In 1118, nine night's crusaders in the east among whom were Geoffroy de Saint-Omar and Hugh de Payens consecrated themselves to religion and took an oath between the hands of the patriarch of Constantinople a sea always secretly or openly hostile to that of Rome from the time of Phodias The avowed object of the Templars was to protect the Christians who came to visit the holy places Their secret object was to rebuild the temple of Solomon on a model prophesied by Ezekiel This rebuilding, formally predicted by the Judaizing mystics of an earlier age, had become the secret dream of the patriarchs of the Orient The temple of Solomon, rebuilt and consecrated to the Catholic worship, would become in effect the metropolis of the universe The east would prevail over the west and the patriarchs of Constantinople would possess themselves of the papal power The Templars, or poor fellow-soldiery of the holy house of the temple, intended to be rebuilt took as their models in the Bible the warrior masons of Zoro-Babel who worked holding a sword in one hand and the trowel in the other Therefore it was that the sword and the trowel were the insignia of the Templars who subsequently, as will be seen concealed themselves under the name of Brethren-Masons This name, Frérus-Macon in the French adopted by way of a secret reference to the builders of the Second Temple was corrupted in English into Freemasons as Pythagore de Créten was into Peter Gower of Gorton in England Chiarum, or Chiarum the name misrendered into Hyrum from the artisper in brass and other metals became the chief builder of the High Calcadache the holy house of the temple the Hydras-Damas and the words Bonae and Bonaeum yet appear in the Masonic Degrees meaning builder and builders The trowel of the Templars is quadruple and the triangular plates of it are arranged in the form of a cross making the Kabbalistic Panticle known by the name of the Cross of the East The Night of the East and the Night of the East and West have in their titles secret allusions to the Templars of whom they were at first the successors The secret thought of Hugh de Pion in founding his order was not exactly to serve the ambitions of the patriarchs of Constantinople There existed at that period in the East a sect of Johannite Christians who claimed to be the only true initiates into the real mysteries of the religion of the Saviour They pretended to know the real history of Jesu the Anointed and adopting in part the Jewish traditions and the tales of the Talmud they held that the facts recounted in the Evangels were but allegories the key of which St. John gives in saying that the world might be filled with the books that could be written upon the words and deeds of Jesus Christ words which they thought would be only a ridiculous exaggeration they were not speaking of an allegory and a legend that might be varied and prolonged to infinity The Johannites ascribed to St. John the foundation of their secret church and the grand pontiffs of the sect assumed the title of Crisos, Anointed, or Consecrated and claimed to have succeeded one another from St. John by an uninterrupted succession of pontifical powers He who, at the period of the foundation of the Order of the Temple claimed these imaginary prerogatives was named Theoclet He knew Hugh de Pion He initiated him into the mysteries and the hopes of his pretended church He seduced him by the notions of sovereign priesthood and supreme royalty and finally designated him as his successor Thus the Order of the Knights of the Temple was at its very origin devoted to the cause of opposition to the tiara of Rome and the crowns of kings and the apostolate of Kabbalistic Gnosticism was vested in its chiefs for St. John himself was the father of the Gnostics and the current translation of his polemic against the heretical of his sect and the pagans who denied that Christ was the word is throughout a misrepresentation or misunderstanding at least of the whole spirit of the Evangel The tendencies and tenets of the Order were enveloped in profound mystery and it externally professed the most perfect orthodoxy The chiefs alone knew the aim of the Order The subalterns followed them without distrust to acquire influence and wealth then to intrigue and at need to fight to establish the Johannites or Gnostic or Kabbalistic dogma the object and means proposed to the initiated brethren The papacy and the rival monarchies they said to them are sold and bought in these days become corrupt and tomorrow perhaps will destroy each other All that will become the heritage of the Temple The world will soon come to us for its sovereigns and pontiffs We shall constitute the equilibrium of the universe and be rulers over the masters of the world The Templars, like all other secret orders and associations, had two doctrines One concealed and reserved for the masters which was Johannism and the other public which was the Roman Catholic Thus they deceived the adversaries whom they sought to supplant Hence free masonry vulgarly imagined to have begun with the Dionysian architects or the German stone workers adopted Saint John the Evangelist as one of its patrons associating with him in order not to arouse the suspicion of Rome Saint John the Baptist and thus covertly proclaiming itself the child of the Kabbalah and the Ascenism together For the Johannism of the adepts was the Kabbalah of the earlier Gnostics degenerating afterward into those heretical forms which Gnosticism developed so that even Marnes had his followers among them Many adopted his doctrines of the two principles the recollection of which is perpetuated by the handle of the dagger and the tessellated pavement or floor of the lodge stupidly called the indented tessell and represented by great hanging tassels when it really means a tessellated floor from the Latin tessera of white and black lozenges with a necessary dinticulated or indented mortar or edging and wherever in the higher degrees the two colors white and black are in juxtaposition the two principles of Zoriaster and mains are alluded to with others the doctrine became a mystic pantheism descending from that of the Brahmins and even pushed to an idolatry of nature and hatred of every revealed dogma to this the absurd reading of the established church taking literally the figurative allegorical and mystical language of a collection of oriental books of different ages directly and inevitably led the same result long after followed the folly of regarding the Hebrew books as if they had been written by the unimaginative hard practical intellect of the England of James I and the bigoted stolidity of the Scottish Presbyterianism the better to succeed and win partisans the Templars sympathized with regrets for dethroned creeds and encouraged the hopes of new worships promising to all liberty of conscience and a new orthodoxy that should be the synthesis of all the persecuted creeds it is absurd to suppose that men of intellect adored a monstrous idol called Baphomet or recognized Muhammad as an inspired prophet their symbols invented ages before to conceal what was dangerous to avow was of course misunderstood by those who were not adepts and to their enemies seemed to be pantheistic the calf of gold made by Aaron for the Israelites is but one of the oxen under the labor of bronze and the caribim on the propitiatory misunderstood the symbols of the wise always become the idols of the ignorant multitude what the chiefs of the order really believed and taught is indicated to the adepts by the hints contained in the high degrees of Freemasonry and by the symbols that only the adepts understand the blue degrees are but the outer court of the portico of the temple part of the symbols are displayed there to the initiate but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations it is not intended that he shall understand them but it is intended that he shall imagine he understands them their true explanation is reserved for the adepts the princes of Masonry the whole body of the royal and suric-dotal art was hidden so carefully centuries since in the high degrees that it is even yet impossible to solve many of the enigmas which they contain it is well enough for the masses of those called masons to imagine that all is contained in the blue degrees and whose attempt to undeceive them will labor in vain and without any true reward violate his obligations as an adept Masonry is a veritable sphinx buried to the head in the sands heaped round it by the ages the seeds of decay were sown in the order of the temple at its origin hypocrisy is a mortal disease it had conceived a great work which it was incapable of executing because it knew neither humility nor personal abnegation because Rome was then invincible and because the later chiefs of the order did not comprehend its mission moreover the Templars were in general uneducated and capable only of wielding the sword with no qualifications for governing and at need in chaining that queen of the world called Opinion the doctrines of the chiefs would, if expounded to the masses have seemed to them the babblings of folly the symbols of the wise are the idols of the vulgar or else as meaningless as the hieroglyphics of Egypt to the nomadic Arabs there must always be a common place interpretation for the mass of initiates of the symbols that are eloquent to the adepts Hugh de Pion himself was not that keen and farsighted intellect nor that grandeur of purpose which afterward distinguished the military founder of another soldiery that became formidable to kings the Templars were unintellectual and therefore unsuccessful Jesuits their watchword was to become wealthy in order to buy the world they became so and in 1312 they possessed in Europe alone more than 9,000 seniors riches were the shoal on which they were wrecked they became insolent and unwisely showed their contempt for the religion and the social institutions which they aim to overthrow their ambition was fatal to them their projects were divine and prevented Rome, more intolerant of heresy than of vice and crime came to fear the order and fear is always cruel it has always deemed philosophical truth the most dangerous of heresies and has never been at a loss for a false accusation by means of which to crush free thought Pope Clement V and King Philip Labelle gave the signal to Europe the Templars, taken as it were in the immense net were arrested, disarmed and cast into prison never was a coup d'etat accomplished with a more formidable concert of action the whole earth was struck with stupor and eagerly waited for the strange revelations of the process that was to echo through so many ages it was impossible to unfold to the people the conspiracy of the Templars against the thrones and the tiara it was impossible to expose to them the doctrines of the chiefs of the order this would have been to initiate the multitude into the secrets of the masters and to have uplifted the veil of Isis recourse was therefore had to the charge of magic and the denouncers and false witnesses were easily found when the temporal and spiritual tyrannies unite to crush a victim they never want for serviceable instruments the Templars were gravely accused of spitting upon Christ and denying God at their receptions of gross obscenities conversations with female devils and the worship of a monstrous idol the end of the drama is well known and how Jacques de Molay and his fellows perish in the flames but before his execution the chief of the doomed order instituted what afterward came to be called the occult, hermetic, or Scottish masonry in the gloom of his prison the grandmaster created four metropolitan lodges at Naples for the East at Edinburgh for the West at Stockholm for the North and at Paris for the South the initials of his name J. B. M. found in the same order in the first three degrees are but one of the many internal and cogent proofs that such is the origin of modern freemasonry the legend of Osiris was revived and adopted to symbolize the destruction of the order and the resurrection of Khurum slain in the body of the temple of Khurum Abai the master as the martyr of fidelity to obligation of truth and conscience prophesy the restoration to life of the buried association the pope and the king soon after perished in a strange and sudden manner Sikwin de Florian, the chief denouncer of the order died assassinated in breaking the sword of the Templars they made it into a panyard and their prescribed trials hands forth built only tombs the order disappeared at once its estates and wealth were confiscated and it seemed to have ceased to exist nevertheless it lived under other names and governed by unknown chiefs revealing itself only to those who in passing through a series of degrees had proven themselves worthy to be entrusted with the dangerous secret the modern orders that have styled themselves Templars have assumed a name to which they have not a shadow of a title the successors of the ancient adepts Rose Croy abandoning by degrees the austere and hierarchical science of their ancestors in initiation became a mystic sect united with many of the Templars the dogmas of the two intermingling and believing themselves to be the sole depositories of the secrets of the Gospel of Saint John seeing in its recitals an allegorical series of rites proper to complete the initiation the initiates in fact thought in the 18th century that their time had arrived some to found a new hierarchy others to overturn all authority and to press down all the summits of the social order under the level of equality the mystical meanings of the rose as a symbol are to be looked for in the Kabbalistic commentaries on the canticle the rose is for the initiates the living and blooming symbol of a revelation of the harmonies of being it was the emblem of beauty life love and pleasure Flamel or the book of the Jew Abraham made it the hieroglyphical sign of the accomplishment of the great work such was the key of the Roman De La Rosa the conquest of the rose was the problem propounded to science by initiation while religion was laboring to prepare and establish the universal triumph exclusive and definite of the cross to unite the rose to the cross was the problem proposed by the high initiation and in fact the occult philosophy being the universal synthesis ought to explain all the phenomena of being religion considered solely as a philosophical fact is the revelation and satisfaction of a necessity of souls its existence is a scientific fact to deny it would be to deny humanity itself the rosecroy adepts respected the dominant hierarchical and revealed religion consequently they could no more be the enemies of the papacy than of the legitimate monarchy and if they conspired against the popes and kings it was because they considered them personally as apostates from duty supreme favorers of anarchy what in fact is a despot spiritual or temporal but a crowned anarchist one of the magnificent panicles that expresses the esoteric and unutterable part of science is the rose of light in the center of which a human form extends its arms in the form of a cross commentaries and studies have been multiplied upon the divine comedy the work of Dante and yet no one as far as we know has pointed out it's a special character the work of the great gibbalini is a declaration of war against the papacy by bold revelations of the mysteries the epic of Dante is Johannite and Gnostic an audacious application like that of the apocalypse of the figures and numbers of the cabala to the Christian dogmas and a secret negation of everything absolute in these dogmas his journeys through the supernatural worlds is accomplished like the initiation into the mysteries of Elysius and Thebes he escapes from that gulf of hell over the gate of which the sentence of despair is written by reversing the position of his head and feet that is to say by accepting the direct opposite of the Catholic dogma and then he reassents to the light by using the devil himself as a monstrous ladder Faust ascends to heaven by stepping on the head of the vanquished Mephistopheles hell is impassable for those who only know how to turn back from it we free ourselves from its bondage by audacity his hell is but a negative purgatory his heaven is composed of a series of cabalistic circles divided by a cross like the panicle of Ezekiel in the center of this cross there comes a rose and we see the symbol of the adepts of the rosecroy for the first time publicly expounded and almost categorically explained for the first time because Gileama del Loras who died in 1260 five years before the birth of allegary had not completed his Roman de la Rosa which was continued by Chopinel a half-century afterward one is astonished to discover that the Roman de la Rosa comedia are two opposite forms of one and the same work initiation into independence of spirit a satire on all contemporary institutions and the allegory formula of the great secrets of the society of the rosescroy the important manifestation of occultism concluded with the period of the fall of the Templars since John de la Ming or Chopinel, contemporary of the old age of Dante was established during the best years of his life at the court of Philip de Bell the Roman de la Rosa is an epic of old France it is a profound book under the form of levity a revelation as learned as that of Apulias of the mysteries of occultism the rose of Flamel and that of Jean de Mung and that of Dante grew on the same stem Swedenborg's system is nothing else minus the principle of hierarchy it is the temple without the keystone and the foundation Callistero was an agent of the Templars and therefore wrote to the Freemasons of London that the time had come to begin the work of rebuilding the temple of the Eternal he had introduced into Masonry a new rite called the Egyptian and endeavored to resuscitate the mysterious worship of Isis the three letters LPD on his seal were the initials of the words lilia pedibus distruae tread underfoot the lilies of France and the Masonic medal of the 16th and 17th century was upon it a sword cutting off the stock of a lily and the words talum deput ultiomessum such harvest revenge will give a lodge inaugurated under the osmosis of Rousseau the fanatic of Geneva became the center of the revolutionary movement in France and a prince of the blood royal went thither to swear the destruction of the successors of Philip Lebel on the tomb of Jacques de Molay the registers of the order of the Templars attest that the regent the Duke d'Orliens was the grand master of that formidable secret society and that his successors were the Duke Domain the Prince of Bourbon Condé and the Duke de Croix-Bressac the Templars co-promitted the king they saved him from the rage of the people to exasperate that rage and bring on the catastrophe prepared for centuries it was a scaffold that the revenge of the Templars demanded the secret movers of the French revolution had sworn to overturn the throne and the altar upon the tomb of Jacques de Molay when Louis XVI was executed half the work was done and thenceforth the army of the temple was to direct all its efforts against the Pope Jacques de Molay and his companions were perhaps martyrs but their avengers dishonored their memory royalty was regenerated on the scaffold of Louis XVI the church triumphed in the captivity of Pius VI carried a prisoner to Valence and dying of fatigue and sorrow but the successors of the ancient knights of the temple perished overwhelmed in their fatal victory the end of 30 Knight Cadache by Albert Pike on the knocking of the gate in Macbeth by Thomas de Quincey 1785-1859 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 Peter Tomlinson from my boyish days I had always felt a great perplexity on one point in Macbeth it was this the knocking at the gate which succeeds to the murder of Duncan produced to my feelings an effect for which I never could account the effect was that it reflected back upon the murder of aculia awfulness and a depth of solemnity yet however obstinately I endeavored with my understanding to comprehend this for many years I could never see why it should produce such an effect here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to pay any attention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to any other faculty of his mind the mere understanding however useful and indispensable is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the most to be distrusted and yet the great majority of people trust to nothing else which may do for ordinary life but not for philosophical purposes of this out of the present instances that I might produce I will cite one ask of any person whatsoever who is not previously prepared for the demand by knowledge of perspective to draw in the rudest way the communist appearance which depends upon the laws of that science as for instance to represent the effect of two walls standing at right angles to each other or the appearance of the houses on each side of the street as seen by a person looking down the street from one extremity now in all cases unless the person has happened to observe in pictures how it is that artists produce these effects he will be utterly unable to make the smallest approximation to it yet why for he has actually seen the effect every day of his life the reason is that he allows his understanding to overrule his eyes his understanding which includes no intuitive knowledge of the laws of vision can furnish him with no reason why a line which is known and can be proved to be a horizontal line should not appear a horizontal line a line that made any angle with a perpendicular less than a right angle would seem to him to indicate that his houses were all tumbling down together accordingly he makes the line of his houses a horizontal line and fails of course to produce the effect demanded here then is one instance out of many in which not only the understanding is allowed to overrule the eyes but where the understanding is positively allowed to obliterate the eyes as it were for not only does the man believe the evidence of his understanding in opposition to that of his eyes what is monstrous the idiot is not aware that his eyes ever gave such evidence he does not know that he has seen and therefore his consciousness has not seen that which he has seen every day of his life but to return from this digression my understanding could furnish no reason why the knocking at the gate in Macbeth should produce any effect or reflected in fact my understanding said positively that it could not produce any effect but I knew better I felt that it did and I waited and clung to the problem until further knowledge should enable me to solve it at length in 1812 Mr Williams made his debut on the stage of Ratcliffe Highway and executed those unparalleled murders which have procured for him brilliant and undying reputation on which murders by the way I must observe that in one respect they have had an ill effect by making the connoisseur in murder very fastidious in his taste and dissatisfied by anything that has been since done in that line all other murders look pale by the deep crimson of his and as an amateur once said to me in a quarrelous tone there has been absolutely nothing doing since his time or nothing that's worse speaking of but this is wrong for it is unreasonable to expect all men to be great artists and born with the genius of Mr Williams now it will be remembered that in the first of these murders that of the Mars the same incident of a knocking at the door soon after the work of extermination was complete did actually occur which the genius of Shakespeare has invented and all good judges and the most eminent dilettante acknowledged the felicity of Shakespeare's suggestion as soon as it was actually realised here then was a fresh proof that I was right in relying on my own feeling in opposition to my understanding and I again set myself to study the problem at length I solved it to my own satisfaction and my solution is this murder in ordinary cases where the sympathy is wholly directed to the case of the murdered person it's an incident of course and vulgar horror and for this reason that it flings the interest exclusively upon the natural but ignoble instinct by which we cleave to life which as being indispensable to the primal law of self-preservation is the same in kind though different in degree amongst all living creatures this instinct therefore because it annihilates all distinctions and degrades the greatest of men to the level of the poor beetle that we tread on exhibits human nature in its most abject and humiliating attitude such an attitude would little suit the purposes of the poet what then must he do he must throw the interest on the murderer our sympathy must be with him of course I mean a sympathy of comprehension a sympathy by which we enter into his feelings and are made to understand them not a sympathy of pity or approbation in the murdered person the flux and reflux of passion and of purpose are crushed by one overwhelming panic the fear of instant death smites him with its petrific masts but in the murderer such a murderer as the poet will condescend to there must be raging some great storm of passion jealousy, ambition, vengeance, hatred which will create a hell within him and into this hell look footnote 1 it seems almost ludicrous to guard and explain my use of a word in a situation where it would naturally explain itself but it has become necessary to do so in consequence of the unscolar like use of the word sympathy at present so general by which instead of taking it in its proper sense as the act of reproducing the feelings of another whether for hatred indignation, love pity or approbation it is made a mere synonym of the word pity and hence instead of saying sympathy with another many writers adopt the monstrous barbarism of sympathy for another end of footnote in Macbeth for the sake of gratifying his own enormous faculty of creation Shakespeare has introduced two murderers and as usual in his hands they are remarkably discriminated but though in Macbeth the strife of mind is greater than in his wife the tiger spirit not so awake and his feelings caught chiefly by contagion from her yet as both were finally involved in the guilt of murder the murderous mind of necessity is finally to be presumed in both this was to be expressed and on its own account as well as to make it a more proportional antagonist to the unoffending nature of their victim the gracious Duncan and adequately to expound the deep damnation of his taking off this was to be expressed with peculiar energy we were to be made to feel that the human nature i.e. the divine nature of love and mercy spread through the hearts of all creatures and seldom utterly withdrawn from man was gone, vanished, extinct and that the fiendish nature had taken its place and as this effect is marvelously accomplished in the dialogues and solidiquies themselves so it is finally consummated by the expedient under consideration and it is to this that I now solicit the reader's attention if the reader has ever witnessed a wife, daughter or sister in a fainting fit he may chance to observe that the most affecting moment in such a spectacle is that in which a sigh and a stirring announce the recommencement of suspended life or if the reader has ever been present in a vast metropolis on the day when some great national idol was carried in funeral pump to his grave and chanceing to walk near the course through which it passed has felt powerfully in the silence and desertion of the streets and in the stagnation of ordinary business the deep interest which at that moment was possessing the heart of man if all at once he should hear the desolate stillness broken up by the sound of wheels rustling away from the scene and making known that the transitory moment was dissolved he will be aware that at no moment was his sense of the complete suspension and pause in ordinary human concerns so full in effecting as at that moment when the suspension ceases and the goings on a human life are suddenly resumed all action in any direction is best expounded measured and made apprehensible by reaction now apply this to the case in Macbeth here as I said the retiring of the human heart and the entrance of the fiendish heart was to be expressed and made sensible another world has stepped in and the murderers are taken out of the region of human things human purposes human desires they are transfigured Lady Macbeth is unsexed Macbeth has forgot that he was born of woman both are conformed to the image of devils and the world of devils is suddenly revealed but how shall this be conveyed and made palpable in order that this new world may step in this world must for a time disappear the murderers and the murder must be insulated cut off by an immeasurable gulf from the ordinary tide and succession of human affairs locked up and sequestered in some deep recess we must be made sensible that the world of ordinary life is suddenly arrested laid asleep, tranced wracked into a dread armistice time must be annihilated relation to things without abolished and all must pass self withdrawn into a deep sinecote and suspension of earthly passion hence it is done when the work of darkness is perfect then the world of darkness passes away like a pageantry in the clouds the knocking at the gate is heard and it makes known audibly that the reaction has commenced the human has made its reflux upon the fiendish the pulses of life are beginning to beat again and the re-establishment of the goings on of the world in which we live first makes us profoundly sensible of the awful parenthesis that had suspended them O mighty poet thy works are not those of other men simply and merely great works of art but are also like the phenomena of nature like the sun and the sea the stars and the flowers like frost and snow rain and dew, hail storm and thunder which are to be studied with entire submission of our own faculties and in the perfect faith that in them there can be no too much or too little nothing useless or inert but that the further we press in our discoveries the more we shall see proofs of design and self supporting arrangement where the careless eye has seen nothing but accident end of the knocking at the gate in Macbeth by Thomas De Quincey recording by Peter Tomlinson Letter on Corpulence addressed to the public by William Banting this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Letter on Corpulence by William Banting of all the parasites that affect humanity I do not know of nor can I imagine any more distressing than that of obesity and having just emerged from a very long probation in this affliction I am desirous of circulating my humble knowledge and experience for the benefit of my fellow man with an earnest hope it may lead to the same comfort and happiness I now feel under the extraordinary change which might almost be termed miraculous had it not been accomplished by the most simple common sense means obesity seems to me very little understood or properly appreciated by the faculty and the public generally or the former would long air this have hit upon the cause for so lamentable a disease and applied effective remedies whilst the latter would have spared their injudicious indulgence in remarks and sneers it would be painful in society and which even on the strongest mind have an unhappy tendency but I sincerely trust this humble effort at exposition may lead to a more perfect ventilation of the subject and a better feeling for the afflicted it would afford me infinite pleasure and satisfaction to name the author of my redemption from the calamity as he is the only one that I have been able to find that my research has not been sparing who seems thoroughly up in the question but such publicity might be construed improperly and I have therefore only to offer my personal experience as the stepping stone to public investigation and to proceed with my narrative of facts earnestly hoping the reader will patiently peruse and thoughtfully consider it with forbearance for any fault of style or diction and for presumption in publishing it I have felt some difficulty in deciding on the proper and best course of action at one time I thought the editor of the Lancet would kindly publish a letter from me on the subject but further reflection led me to doubt whether an insignificant individual would be noticed without some special introduction in the April number of the Corn Hill magazine I read with much interest an article on the subject defining tolerably well the effects but offering no tangible remedy or even positive solution of the problem what is the cause of obesity I was pleased with the article as a whole but objected to some portions and had prepared a letter to the editor of that magazine offering my experience on the subject but again it struck me that an unknown individual like myself would have but little prospect notice so I finally resolved to publish and circulate this pamphlet with no other reason motive or expectation than an earnest desire to help those who happen to be afflicted as I was for that corpulence is remediable I am well convinced and shall be delighted if I can induce others to think so the object I have in view impels me to enter into minute particulars as well as general observations and to revert to bygone years in order to show that I have spared no pains nor expense to accomplish the great end of stopping and curing obesity I am now nearly 66 years of age about 5 feet 5 inches in stature and in August last 1862 weighed 202 pounds which I think it right to name because the article in the Corn Hill magazine presumes that a certain stature and age should bear ordinarily a certain weight and I am quite of that opinion I now weigh 167 pounds showing a diminution of something like one pound per week since August and having now very nearly attained the happy medium I have perfect confidence that a few more weeks will fully accomplish the object for which I have labored for the last 30 years in vain until it pleased my mighty providence to direct me into the right and proper channel the tramway so to speak of happy comfortable existence few men have let a more active life bodily or mentally from a constitutional anxiety for regularity precision and order during 50 years business career from which I have now retired so that my corpulence and subsequent obesity was not through of necessary bodily activity nor from excessive eating drinking or self-indulgence of any kind except that I partook of the simple elements of bread milk, butter, beer, sugar and potatoes more freely than my aged nature required and hence as I believe the generation of the parasite detrimental to comfort if not really to health I will not presume to descant on the bodily structural tissues so fully canvassed in the Corn Hill magazine nor how they are supported and renovated having no mind or power to enter into these questions which properly belong to the wise heads of the faculty none of my family on the side of either parent had any tendency to corpulence and from my earliest years I had an inexpressible dread of such a calamity so when I was between 30 and 40 years of age finding a tendency to it creeping upon me I consulted an eminent surgeon now long deceased a kind personal friend who recommended increased bodily exertion before my ordinary daily labors began and thought rowing an excellent plan I had the command of a good heavy safe boat lived near the river and adopted it for a couple of hours in the early morning through I gained muscular vigor but with it a prodigious appetite which I was compelled to indulge and consequently increased in weight until my kind old friend advised me to forsake the exercise he soon afterwards died and as the tendency to corpulence remained I consulted other high orthodox authorities never any inferior advisor but all in vain I have tried sea air and bathing in various localities with much walking exercise taken gallons of physic and liquor potassie advisedly and abundantly riding on horseback the waters and climate of Leemington many times as well as those of Cheltenham and Harrowgate frequently I have lived upon six pence a day so to speak and earned it if bodily labor may be so construed and have spared no trouble nor expense in consultations with the best authorities in the land giving each and all a fair time for experiment without any permanent remedy as the evil still gradually increased I am under obligations to most of those advisors for the pains and interest they took in my case but only to one for an effectual remedy when a corpulent man eats drinks and sleeps well has no pain to complain of and no particular organic disease the judgment of able men seems paralyzed for I have been generally informed that corpulence is one of the natural results of increasing years indeed one of the ableist authorities as a physician in the land told me he had gained one pound in weight every year since he attained manhood and was not surprised at my condition but advised more bodily exercise vapor baths and shampooing in addition to the medicine given yet the evil still increased and like the parasite of barnacles on a ship if it did not destroy the structure it obstructed its fair comfortable progress in the path of life I have been in dock perhaps twenty times in as many years for the reduction of this disease and with little good effect none lasting anyone so afflicted is often subject to public remark and though in conscience he may care little about it I am confident no man laboring under obesity can be quite insensible to the sneers and remarks of the cruel and injudicious in public assemblies public vehicles or the ordinary street traffic nor to the annoyance of finding no adequate space in a public assembly if he should seek amusement or need refreshment and therefore he naturally keeps away as much as possible from places where he is likely to be made the object of the taunts and remarks of others I am as regardless of public remark as most men but I have felt these difficulties and therefore avoided such circumscribed accommodation and notice and by that means have been deprived of many advantages to health and comfort although no very great size or weight still I could not stoop to tie my shoe so to speak nor attend to the little offices humanity requires without considerable pain and difficulty which only the corpulent can understand I have been compelled to go downstairs slowly backwards to save the jar of increased weight upon the ankle and knee joints and have been obliged to puff and blow with every person particularly that of going upstairs I have spared no pains to remedy this by low living moderation and light food was generally prescribed but I had no direct bill of fare to know what was really intended and that consequently brought the system into a low impoverished state without decreasing corpulence caused many obnoxious boils to appear and two rather formidable carb for which I was ably operated upon and fed into increased obesity at this juncture about three years back Turkish baths became the fashion and I was advised to adopt them as a remedy with the first few I found immense benefit in power and elasticity for walking exercise so believing I had found the philosopher's stone pursued them three times a week until I had taken fifty then less frequently as I began to fancy with some reason that so many weakened my constitution till I had taken ninety but never succeeded in losing more than six pounds weight during the whole course and I gave up the plan as worthless though I have full belief in their cleansing properties and their value in colds rheumatism and many other fancied increasing obesity materially affected a slight umbilical rupture if it did not cause it and that another bodily ailment to which I had been subject was also augmented this led me to other medical advisers to whom I am also indebted for much kind consideration though unfortunately they failed in relieving me at last finding my sight failing and my hearing greatly impaired I consulted in August last an eminent oral surgeon who made light of the case looked into my ears sponged them internally and blistered the outside without the slightest benefit neither inquiring into any of my bodily ailments which he probably thought unnecessary nor affording me even time to name them I was not at all satisfied but on the contrary was in a worse plight than when I went to him however he soon after left town for his annual holiday which proved the greatest possible blessing to me because it compelled me to seek other assistance and happily I found the right man who unhesitatingly said he believed my ailments were caused principally by corpulence and prescribed a certain diet no medicine beyond a morning cordial as a corrective with immense effect and advantage both to my hearing and the decrease of my corpulency for the sake of argument and illustration I will presume that certain articles of ordinary diet however beneficial in youth are prejudicial in advanced life like beans to a horse whose common ordinary food is hay and corn it may be useful food occasionally under peculiar circumstances but detrimental as a constancy I will therefore adapt the analogy and call such food human beings the items from which I was advised to abstain as much as possible were bread butter milk sugar beer and potatoes which had been the main and I thought innocent elements of my existence or at all events they had for many years been adopted freely these said my excellent adviser contains starch and saccharin matter tending to create fat and should be avoided all together at the first blush it seemed to me that I had little left to live upon but my kind friend soon showed me there was ample and I was only too happy to give the plan a fair trial and within a very few days found immense benefit from it it may better elucidate the plan if I described generally what I have sanctioned to take and that man must be an extraordinary person who would desire a better table for breakfast I take four or five ounces of beef mutton kidneys broiled fish bacon or cold meat of any kind except pork a large cup of tea without milk or sugar a little biscuit or one ounce of dry toast dinner five or six ounces of any fish except salmon any meat except pork any vegetable except potato one ounce of dry toast fruit out of a pudding any kind of poultry or game and two or three glasses of good claret, sherry or madera champagne port and beer forbidden for tea two or three ounces of fruit a rusk or two and a cup of tea without milk or sugar for supper three or four ounces of meat or fish similar to dinner with a glass or two of claret for a nightcap if required a tumbler of grog gin whiskey or brandy without sugar or a glass or two of claret or sherry this plan leads to an excellent night's rest with from six to eight hours sound sleep dry toast or a rusk may have a table spoonful of spirit to soften it which will prove acceptable perhaps I did not wholly escape starchy or saccharine matter but scrupulously avoided those beans such as milk sugar, beer, butter, etc which were known to contain them on rising in the morning I take a table spoonful of a special corrective cordial which may be called the balm of life in a wine glass of water a most grateful draft as it seems to carry away all the dregs left in the stomach after digestion but is not a period then I take about five or six ounces solid and eight of liquid for breakfast eight ounces of solid and eight of liquid for dinner three ounces of solid and eight of liquid for tea four ounces of solid and six of liquid for supper and the grog afterwards if I please I am not however strictly limited to any quantity at either meal so that the nature of the food is rigidly adhered to experience has taught me to believe that these human beings are the most insidious enemies man with a tendency to corpulence in advanced life can possess though eminently friendly to youth he may very prudently mount guard against such an enemy if he is not a fool to himself and I fervently hope this truthful unvarnished tale may lead him to make a trial of my plan which I sincerely recommend to public notice not with any ambitious motive but in sincere good faith to help my fellow creatures to obtain the marvelous blessings I have found within the short period of a few months I do not recommend every corpulent man to rush headlong into such a change diet certainly not but to act advisedly and after full consultation with a physician my former dietary table was bread and milk for breakfast or a pint of tea with plenty of milk and sugar and buttered toast meat, beer, much bread of which I was always very fond and pastry for dinner the meal of tea similar to that of breakfast and generally a fruit tart or bread and milk for supper I had little comfort and far less sound sleep it certainly appears to me that my present dietary table is far superior to the former more luxurious and liberal independent of its blessed effect but when it is proved to be more healthful comparisons are simply ridiculous and I can hardly imagine any man even in sound health would choose the former even if it were not an enemy but when it is shown to be as in my case inimical both to health and comfort I can hardly conceive there is any man who would not willingly avoid it I can conscientiously assert I never lived so well as under the new plan of dietary which I should have formerly thought a dangerous extravagant trespass upon health much better bodily and mentally and pleased to believe that I hold the reins of health and comfort in my own hands and though at sixty-five years of age I cannot expect to remain free from some coming natural infirmity that all flesh is heir to I cannot at the present time complain of one it is simply miraculous and I am so thankful to Almighty Providence for directing me through an extraordinary chance to the care of a man who could work such a change in so short a time oh that the faculty would look deeper into and make themselves better acquainted with the crying evil of obesity that dreadful tormenting parasite on health and comfort their fellow men might not descend into early premature graves as I believe many do from what is termed apoplexy and certainly would not during their sojourn on earth endure so much bodily and consequently mental infirmity corpulence though giving no actual pain as it appears to me must naturally press with undue violence upon the bodily viscera driving one part upon another and stopping the free action of all I am sure it did in my particular case and the result of my experience is briefly as follows I have not felt so well as now for the last 20 years I have suffered no inconvenience whatever in the probational remedy and reduced many inches in bulk and 35 pounds in weight in 38 weeks come downstairs forward naturally with perfect ease go upstairs and take ordinary exercise freely without the slightest inconvenience can perform every necessary office for myself the umbilical rupture is greatly ameliorated and gives me no anxiety my sight is restored my hearing improved my other bodily ailments are ameliorated indeed almost passed into matter of history I have placed a thank offering of 50 pounds in the hands of my kind medical advisor a distribution amongst his favorite hospitals after gladly paying his usual fees and still remain under overwhelming obligations for his care and attention which I can never hope to repay most thankful to almighty providence for mercies received and determined to press the case into public notice as a token of gratitude I have the pleasure to afford in conclusion a satisfactory confirmation of my report in stating that a corpulent friend of mine who, like myself, is possessed of a generally sound constitution was laboring under frequent palpitations of the heart and sensations of fainting was, at my instigation, induced to place himself in the hands of my medical advisor with the same gradual beneficial results he is at present under the same ordeal for the past eight weeks has profited even more largely than I did in that short period he has lost the palpitations and is becoming, so to speak, a new-made man thankful to me for advising and grateful to the eminent counselor to whom I referred him and he looks forward with good hope to a perfect cure I am fully persuaded that hundreds, if not thousands of our fellow men are treated equally by a similar course but, constitutions not being all alike a different course of treatment may be advisable for the removal of so tormenting and affliction my kind and valued medical advisor is not a doctor for obesity but stands on the pinnacle of fame in the treatment of another malady which, as he well knows is frequently induced by the disease of which I am speaking and I most sincerely trust most of my corpulent friends and there are thousands of corpulent people whom I dare not so rank may be led into my tram road to any such I am prepared to offer the further key of knowledge by naming the man it might seem invidious to do so now but I shall only be too happy if applied to by letter and good faith or if any doubt should exist as to the correctness of this statement William Banting Senator late of number 27 St. James's Street, Piccadilly now of number 4 the Terrace Kensington May 1863 Addenda having exhausted the first edition one thousand copies of the foregoing pamphlet and a period of one year having elapsed since commencing the admirable course of diet which has led to such inestimably beneficial results and as I expected and desired having quite succeeded in attaining the happy medium of weight and bulk I had so long ineffectually sought which appears necessary to health at my age and stature I feel impelled by a sense of public duty to offer the result of my experience in a second edition it has been suggested that I should have sold the pamphlet devoting any profit to charity as more agreeable and useful and I had intended to adopt such a course but on reflection feared my motives might be mistaken I therefore respectfully present this like the first edition to the public gratuitously earnestly hoping the subject may be taken up by medical men and thoroughly ventilated it may and I hope will be as satisfactory to the public to hear as it is for me to state that the first edition has been attended with very comforting results to other sufferers from corpulence as the remedial system therein described was to me under that terrible disease which was my main object in publishing my convictions on the subject it has moreover attained a success produced flattering compliments an amount of attention I could hardly have imagined possible the pleasure and satisfaction this has afforded me is ample compensation for the trouble and expense I have incurred and I most sincerely trust as I verily believe this second edition will be accompanied by similar satisfactory results from a more extensive circulation if so it will in spirit me to cultivate further editions whilst a corpulent person exists requiring as I think this form of diet or so long as my motives cannot be mistaken and are thankfully appreciated my weight is reduced 46 pounds and as the very gradual reductions which I am able to show may be interesting to many I have great pleasure in stating them believing they serve to demonstrate further the merit of the system pursued my weight on 26th August 1862 was 202 pounds on 7th September it was 200 having lost 2 27th September 197 pounds having lost 3 more 19th October it was 193 pounds having lost 4 more 9th of November it was 190 pounds having lost 4 more 3rd December it was 187 pounds having lost 3 more 24th December 184 pounds having lost 3 more 14th January 1863 182 pounds having lost 2 4th February 180 pounds having lost 2 25th February 178 pounds having lost 2 18th April 173 pounds having lost 3 29th April 170 pounds having lost 3 20th May 167 pounds having lost 3 10th June 164 pounds having lost 3 1st July 22nd July 159 pounds having lost 2 12th August 157 pounds having lost 2 26th August 156 pounds having lost 1 12th September 156 pounds having lost 0 total loss of weight 46 pounds 11 forgive 115 pounds 10th November 156 pounds 118 pounds have lost 315 pounds 10 Wild Turkey 10.4 12.8 167 pounds 12 Side Y 14.8 Wind Ham 14.4 14.4 it, that formerly I should have thought dangerously generous. I am told by all who know me that my personal appearance is greatly improved and that I seem to bear the stamp of good health. This may be a matter of opinion or friendly remark, but I can honestly assert that I feel restored in health bodily and mentally, appear to have more muscular power and vigor, eat and drink with a good appetite and sleep well. All symptoms of acidity, indigestion and heartburn, with which I was frequently tormented, have vanished. I have left off using boot hooks and other such aids which were indispensable, but being now able to stoop with ease and freedom are unnecessary. I have lost the feeling of occasional faintness, and what I think a remarkable blessing and comfort is that I have been able safely to leave off knee bandages, which I had worn necessarily for twenty past years, and given up a truss almost entirely. Indeed, I believe I might wholly discard it with safety, but I am advised to wear it at least occasionally for the present. Since publishing my pamphlet, I have felt constrained to send a copy of it to my former medical advisers, and to ascertain their opinions on the subject. They did not dispute or question the propriety of the system, but either dared not venture its practice upon a man of my age, or thought it too great a sacrifice of personal comfort to be generally advised or adopted, and I fancy neither of them appeared to feel the fact of the misery of corpulence. One eminent physician, as I before stated, assured me that increasing weight was a necessary result of advancing years. Another equally eminent, to whom I had been directed by a friendly third, who had most kindly but ineffectually failed in a remedy, added to my weight in a few weeks instead of abating the evil. These facts lead me to believe the question is not sufficiently observed or even regarded. The great charm and comfort of the system is that its effects are palpable within a week of trial, which creates a natural stimulus to persevere for a few weeks more, when the fact becomes established beyond question. I only entreat all persons suffering from corpulence to make a fair trial of just one clear month, as I am well convinced they will afterwards pursue a course which yields such extraordinary benefit, till entirely and effectually relieved, and it may be remembered by the sacrifice merely of simple for the advantage of more generous and comforting food. The simple dietary evidently adds fuel to fire, whereas the superior and liberal seems to extinguish it. I am delighted to be able to assert that I have proved the great merit and advantage of the system by its result in several other cases similar to my own, and have full confidence that within the next twelve months I shall know of many more cases restored from the disease of corpulence, for I have received the kindest possible letters from many afflicted strangers and friends, as well as similar personal observations from others whom I have conversed with, and assurances from most of them that they will kindly inform me the result for my own private satisfaction. Many are practicing the diet after consultation with their own medical advisers. Some few have gone to mine, and others are practicing upon their own conviction of the advantages detailed in the pamphlet, though I recommend all to act advisedly in case their constitutions should differ. I am, however, so perfectly satisfied of the great unerring benefits of this system of diet that I shall spare no trouble to circulate my humble experience. The amount and character of my correspondence on the subject has been strange and singular, but most satisfactory to my mind and feelings. I am now in that happy comfortable state that I should not hesitate to indulge in any fancy in regard to diet, but if I did so should watch the consequences and not continue any course which might add to weight or bulk and consequent discomfort. Is not the system suggestive to artists and men of sedentary employment, who cannot spare time for exercise, consequently become corpulent, and clog the little muscular action with a superabundance of fat thus easily avoided? Pure, genuine bread may be the staff of life as it is termed. It is so, particularly in youth, but I feel certain it is more wholesome in advanced life if thoroughly toasted as I take it. My impression is that any starchy or saccharine matter tends to the disease of corpulence in advanced life, and whether it be swallowed in that form or generated in the stomach, that all things tending to these elements should be avoided, of course always under sound medical authority. CONCLUDING ADDENDA It is very satisfactory to me to be able to state that I have remained at the same standard of bulk and weight for several weeks after the 26th August, when I attained the happy natural medium, since which time I have varied in weight from two to three pounds more or less. I have seldom taken the morning draft since that time, and have frequently indulged my fancy, experimentally, in using milk, sugar, butter, and potatoes. Indeed, I may say all the forbidden articles except beer, in moderation, with impunity, but always as an exception, not as a rule. This deviation, however, convinces me that I hold the power of maintaining the happy medium in my own hands. A kind friend has lately furnished me with a tabular statement in regard to weight as proportioned to stature, which, under present circumstances and the new movement, may be interesting and useful to corpulent readers. Stature five feet one should be weight eight stone eight or one hundred twenty pounds. Five foot two should be nine stone zero or one hundred twenty six pounds. Five foot three should be nine stone seven or one hundred thirty three pounds. Five foot four should be nine stone ten or one hundred thirty six pounds. Five foot five should be ten stone two or one hundred forty two pounds. Five foot six should be ten stone five or one hundred forty five pounds. Five foot seven should be ten stone eight or one hundred forty eight pounds. 5'8 should be 11 stone 1 or 155 pounds, 5'9 should be 11 stone 8 or 162 pounds, 5'10 should be 12 stone 1 or 169 pounds, 5'11 should be 12 stone 6 or 174 pounds, 6 foot 0 should be 12 stone 10 or 178 pounds. This tabular statement, taken from a mean average of 2648 healthy men, was formed and arranged for an insurance company by the late Dr. John Hutchinson. It answered as a pretty good standard, and insurances were regulated upon it. His calculations were made upon the volume of air passing in and out of the lungs, and this was his guide as to how far the various organs of the body were in health, and the lungs in particular. It may be viewed as some sort of probable rule, yet only as an average, some in health weighing more by many pounds than others. It must not be looked upon as infallible, but only as a sort of general reasonable guide to nature's great and mighty work. On a general view of the question, I think it may be conceited that a frame of low stature was hardly intended to bear very heavy weight. Starting from this tabular statement, I ought to be considerably lighter than I am at present. I shall not, however, covet or aim at such a result, nor, on the other hand, feel alarmed if I decrease a little more in weight and bulk. I am certainly more sensitive to cold, since I have lost the superabundant fat, but this is remediable by another garment, far more agreeable and satisfactory. Many of my friends have said, Oh, you have done well so far, but take care you don't go too far. I fancy such a circumstance, with such a dietary, very unlikely, if not impossible, but feeling that I have now nearly attained the right standard of bulk and weight proportional to my stature and age, between ten and eleven stone, I should not hesitate to partake of a fattening dietary occasionally to preserve that happy standard, if necessary. Indeed, I am allowed to do so by my medical advisor, but I shall always observe a careful watch upon myself to discover the effect and act accordingly, so that, if I choose to spend a day or two with divies, so to speak, I must not forget to devote the next to Lazarus. The remedy may be as old as the hills, as I have since been told, but its application is a very recent date, and it astonishes me that such a light could have remained so long unnoticed and hidden as not to afford a glimmer to my anxious mind in search for it during the last twenty years, even in directions where it might have been expected to be known. I would rather presume it is a new light than that it was purposely hidden merely because the disease of obesity was not immediately dangerous to existence, nor thought to be worthy of serious consideration. Little do the faculty imagine the misery and bitterness to life through the parasite of corpulence or obesity. I can now confidently say that quantity of diet may be safely left to the natural appetite, and that it is the quality only which is essential to abate and cure corpulence. I stated the quantities of my own dietary because it was part of a truthful report, but some correspondents have doubted whether it should be more or less in their own cases, a doubt which would be better solved by their own appetite or medical adviser. I have heard a graphic remark by a corpulent man, which may not be inappropriately stated here, that big houses were not formed with scanty materials. This, however, is a poor excuse for self-indulgence in improper food, or for not consulting medical authority. The approach of corpulence is so gradual that, until it is far advanced, persons rarely become objects of attention. Many may have even congratulated themselves on their comely appearance, and have not sought advice or a remedy for what they did not consider an evil. For an evil I can say most truly it is, when in much excess, to which point it must, in my opinion, arrive, unless obviated by proper means. Many have wished to know, as future readers may, the nature of the morning draft, or where it could be obtained, but believing it would have been highly imprudent on my part to have presumed that what was proper for my constitution was applicable to all indiscriminately, I could only refer them to a medical adviser for any aid beyond the dietary, assuring them, however, it was not a dram but of an alkaline character. Some, I believe, would willingly submit to even a violent remedy, so that an immediate benefit could be produced. This is not the object of the treatment, as it cannot but be dangerous, in my humble opinion, to reduce a disease of this nature suddenly. They are probably then too prone to despair of success and consider it as unalterably connected with their constitution. Many under this feeling, doubtless return to their former habits, encouraged so to act by the ill-judged advice of friends, who, I am persuaded, from the correspondence I have had on this most interesting subject, become unthinking accomplices in the destruction of those whom they regard and esteem. The question of four meals a day and the night cap has been abundantly and amusingly criticized. I ought perhaps to have stated as an excuse for such liberality of diet, that I breakfast between eight and nine o'clock, dine between one and two, take my slight tea-meal between five and six, sup at nine, and only take the night cap when inclination directs. My object in naming it at all was, that, as a part of a whole system, it should be known, and to show it is not forbidden to those who are advised that they need such a luxury, nor was it injurious in my case. Some have inquired whether smoking was prohibited, it was not. It has also been remarked that such a dietary as mine was too good and expensive for a poor man, and that I had wholly lost sight of that class, but a very poor corpulent man is not so frequently met with in as much as the poor cannot afford the simple inexpensive means for creating fat. But when the tendency does exist in that class, I have no doubt that it can be remedied by abstinence from the forbidden articles, and a moderate indulgence in such cheap stimulants as may be recommended by a medical adviser, whom they have ample chances of consulting gratuitously. I have a very strong feeling that gout, another terrible parasite upon humanity, might be greatly relieved, if not cured entirely, by this proper natural dietary, and sincerely hope some person so afflicted may be induced to practice the harmless plan for three months, as I certainly would if the case were my own, to prove it, but not without advice. My impression from the experiments I have tried on myself of late is that saccharin matter is the great moving cause of fatty corpulence. I know that it produces, in my individual case, increased weight and a large amount of flatulence, and believe that not only sugar, but all elements tending to create saccharin matter in the process of digestion should be avoided. I apprehend it will be found in bread, butter, milk, beer, port wine, and champagne. I have not found starchy matter so troublesome as the saccharin, which I think largely increases acidity as well as fat. But, with ordinary care and observation, people will soon find what food rests easiest on the stomach, and avoid that, which does not, during the probationary trial of the proposed dietary. Vegetables and ripe or stewed fruit I have found ample appearance. Failing this, medical advice should be sought. The word parasite has been much commented upon as inappropriate to any but a living, creeping thing. Of course I use the word in a figurative sense as a burden to the flesh, but if fat is not an insidious creeping enemy I do not know what is. I should have equally applied the word to gout, rheumatism, dropsy, and many other diseases. Whereas hitherto the appeals to me to know the name of my medical adviser have been very numerous, I may say hundreds, which I have gladly answered, though forming no small item of the expense incurred, and whereas the very extensive circulation expected of the third edition is likely to lead to some thousands of similar applications, I feel bound in self-defense to state that the medical gentleman to whom I am so deeply indebted is Mr. Harvey, Soho Square, London, whom I consulted for deafness. In the first and second editions I thought that to give his name would appear like a puff which I know he abhors. Indeed, I should prefer not to do so now, but cannot injustice to myself incur further probable expense, which I fancy inevitable, besides the personal trouble for which I cannot afford time, and therefore feel no hesitation to refer to him as my guarantee for the truth of the pamphlet. One material point I should be glad to impress on my corpulent readers, it is to get accurately weighed at starting upon the fresh system, and continue to do so weekly or monthly, for the change will be so truly palpable by this course of examination, that it will arm them with perfect confidence in the merit and ultimate success of the plan. I deeply regret not having secured a photographic portrait of my original figure in 1862 to place in juxtaposition with one of my present form. It might have amused some, but certainly would have been very convincing to others, and astonishing to all that such an effect should have been so readily and speedily produced by the simple natural cause of exchanging a meagre for a generous dietary under proper advice. I shall ever esteem it a great favor if persons relieved and cured as I have been will kindly let me know of it. The information will be truly gratifying to my mind, that the system is a great success I have not a shadow of doubt from the numerous reports sent with thanks by strangers as well as friends from all parts of the kingdom, and I am truly thankful to have been the humble instrument of disseminating the blessing and experience I have attained through able counsel and natural causes by proper perseverance. I have now finished my task and trust my humble efforts may prove to be good seed well sown, that will fructify and produce a large harvest of benefit to my fellow creatures. I also hope the faculty generally may be led more extensively to ventilate this question of corpulence or obesity, so that instead of one, two, or three able practitioners there may be as many hundreds distributed in the various parts of the United Kingdom. In such case I am persuaded that these diseases, like reverence and golden pippins, will be very rare. Since publishing the third edition of my pamphlet I have earnestly pressed my medical advisor to explain the reasons for so remarkable a result as I and others have experienced from the dietary system he prescribed, and I hope he may find time to do so shortly, as I believe it would be highly interesting to the faculty and the public generally. He has promised this at his leisure. Numerous applications having been made to me on points to which I had not alluded, in which my correspondence felt some doubt and interest, I take this opportunity of making some few corrections in my published dietary. I ought, it seems, to have accepted veal, owing to its indigestible quality, as well as pork for its fattening character, also herrings and eels, owing to their oily nature being as injurious as salmon. In respect to vegetables not only should potatoes be prohibited, but parsnips, beetroot, parsnips, and carrots. The truth is I seldom or ever partook of these objectionable articles myself and did not reflect that others might do so or that they were forbidden. Green vegetables are considered very beneficial, and I believe should be adopted at all times. I am indebted to the Corn Hill Magazine and other journals for drawing my attention to these dietetic points. I can now also state that eggs, if not hard-boiled, are unexceptionable, that cheese, if sparingly used, and plain-boiled rice, seem harmless. Some doubts have been expressed in regard to the vanishing point of such a descending scale, but it is a remarkable fact that the great and most palpable diminution in weight and bulk occurs within the first forty-eight hours, the descent is then more gradual. My own experience and that of others assures me, if medical authority be first consulted as to the complaint, that with such slight extraneous aid as medicine can afford, nature will do her duty and only her duty. Firstly, by relieving herself of immediate pressure, she will be enabled to move more freely in her own beautiful way, and secondly, by pursuing the same course to work speedy amelioration and final cure. The vanishing point is only when the disease is stopped and the parasite annihilated. It may interest my readers to know that I have now apparently attained the standard natural at my age, ten stone ten or one hundred fifty pounds, as my weight now varies only to the extent of one pound more or less in the course of a month. According to Dr. Hutchinson's tables, I ought to lose still more, but cannot do so without resorting to medicine, and, feeling in sound vigorous health, I am perfectly content to wait upon nature for any further change. In my humble judgment the dietary is the principal point in the treatment of corpulence, and it appears to me moreover that if properly regulated it becomes in a certain sense a medicine. The system seems to me to attack only the superfluous deposit of fat, and, as my medical friend informs me, purges the blood, rendering it more pure and healthy, strengthens the muscles and bodily viscera, and I feel quite convinced sweetens life if it does not prolong it. It is truly gratifying to me to be able now to add that many other of the most exalted members of the faculty have honored my movement in the question with their approbation. I consider it a public duty further to state that Mr. Harvey, whom I have named in the forty-third page as my kind medical advisor in the cure of corpulence, is not Dr. John Harvey, who has published a pamphlet on corpulence assimilating with some of the features and the general aspect of mine and which has been considered, as I learned from correspondents who have obtained it, the work of my medical friend. It is not. I am glad therefore to repeat that my medical advisor was, and is still, Mr. William Harvey, F. R. C. S., No. 2, Soho Square, London, West, William Banting, April 1864, and of Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public by William Banting.