#19thcentury — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #19thcentury, aggregated by home.social.
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The Portrait of a Lady. Henry James.
You are an orphaned young, late 19th century American woman with a strong vision for yourself, you head to Europe, where you attempt to avoid the matchmaking of various female friends, and the aggressive courtship of various men; you receive an unexpected boon, but the stronger you get, the more misery comes too.
4 of 5 library cats 🐈 🐈 🐈 🐈.
@bookstodon #books #reading #women #marriage #19thcentury #europe #bookstodon
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Thou hast my kith and kin;
My childhood, youth, and manhood brave;
Thou hast that unforgotten grave
Within thy central din.
A sacredness of love and death
Dwells in thy noise and smoky breath.—“Glasgow”, by Alexander Smith (1829–1867)
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/glasgow/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian #Glasgow
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Thou hast my kith and kin;
My childhood, youth, and manhood brave;
Thou hast that unforgotten grave
Within thy central din.
A sacredness of love and death
Dwells in thy noise and smoky breath.—“Glasgow”, by Alexander Smith (1829–1867)
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/glasgow/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian #Glasgow
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Thou hast my kith and kin;
My childhood, youth, and manhood brave;
Thou hast that unforgotten grave
Within thy central din.
A sacredness of love and death
Dwells in thy noise and smoky breath.—“Glasgow”, by Alexander Smith (1829–1867)
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/glasgow/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian #Glasgow
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Thou hast my kith and kin;
My childhood, youth, and manhood brave;
Thou hast that unforgotten grave
Within thy central din.
A sacredness of love and death
Dwells in thy noise and smoky breath.—“Glasgow”, by Alexander Smith (1829–1867)
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/glasgow/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian #Glasgow
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Thou hast my kith and kin;
My childhood, youth, and manhood brave;
Thou hast that unforgotten grave
Within thy central din.
A sacredness of love and death
Dwells in thy noise and smoky breath.—“Glasgow”, by Alexander Smith (1829–1867)
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/glasgow/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian #Glasgow
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A staged reading of Joanna Baillie’s 1798 comedy THE TRYAL. The text has been modified for the stage: it has been shortened but there is also a scene added to clarify the plot. This reading brings to life a text Baillie was unable to produce in her own day.
5/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3ksanlDElU
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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A staged reading of Joanna Baillie’s 1798 comedy THE TRYAL. The text has been modified for the stage: it has been shortened but there is also a scene added to clarify the plot. This reading brings to life a text Baillie was unable to produce in her own day.
5/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3ksanlDElU
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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A staged reading of Joanna Baillie’s 1798 comedy THE TRYAL. The text has been modified for the stage: it has been shortened but there is also a scene added to clarify the plot. This reading brings to life a text Baillie was unable to produce in her own day.
5/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3ksanlDElU
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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A staged reading of Joanna Baillie’s 1798 comedy THE TRYAL. The text has been modified for the stage: it has been shortened but there is also a scene added to clarify the plot. This reading brings to life a text Baillie was unable to produce in her own day.
5/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3ksanlDElU
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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A staged reading of Joanna Baillie’s 1798 comedy THE TRYAL. The text has been modified for the stage: it has been shortened but there is also a scene added to clarify the plot. This reading brings to life a text Baillie was unable to produce in her own day.
5/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3ksanlDElU
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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Joanna Baillie: Gothic Plays & Psychological Horror
Dr Helen Dallas explores the intersections of the Gothic, powerful emotions, psychology, & stage performance, & makes the case for what was innovative about Baillie’s work, & why she’s overdue a comeback
4/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgJGoCMk85A
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism #gothic #horror
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Joanna Baillie: Gothic Plays & Psychological Horror
Dr Helen Dallas explores the intersections of the Gothic, powerful emotions, psychology, & stage performance, & makes the case for what was innovative about Baillie’s work, & why she’s overdue a comeback
4/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgJGoCMk85A
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism #gothic #horror
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Joanna Baillie: Gothic Plays & Psychological Horror
Dr Helen Dallas explores the intersections of the Gothic, powerful emotions, psychology, & stage performance, & makes the case for what was innovative about Baillie’s work, & why she’s overdue a comeback
4/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgJGoCMk85A
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism #gothic #horror
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Joanna Baillie: Gothic Plays & Psychological Horror
Dr Helen Dallas explores the intersections of the Gothic, powerful emotions, psychology, & stage performance, & makes the case for what was innovative about Baillie’s work, & why she’s overdue a comeback
4/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgJGoCMk85A
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism #gothic #horror
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Joanna Baillie: Gothic Plays & Psychological Horror
Dr Helen Dallas explores the intersections of the Gothic, powerful emotions, psychology, & stage performance, & makes the case for what was innovative about Baillie’s work, & why she’s overdue a comeback
4/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgJGoCMk85A
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism #gothic #horror
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“the particular configuration of A Collection of Poems – a gathering of poems from various authors strictly to benefit a needy family, a family whose name was unknown to almost all of the subscribers – was certainly unusual & possibly unique in the Romantic era”
3/5
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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“the particular configuration of A Collection of Poems – a gathering of poems from various authors strictly to benefit a needy family, a family whose name was unknown to almost all of the subscribers – was certainly unusual & possibly unique in the Romantic era”
3/5
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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“the particular configuration of A Collection of Poems – a gathering of poems from various authors strictly to benefit a needy family, a family whose name was unknown to almost all of the subscribers – was certainly unusual & possibly unique in the Romantic era”
3/5
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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“the particular configuration of A Collection of Poems – a gathering of poems from various authors strictly to benefit a needy family, a family whose name was unknown to almost all of the subscribers – was certainly unusual & possibly unique in the Romantic era”
3/5
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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“the particular configuration of A Collection of Poems – a gathering of poems from various authors strictly to benefit a needy family, a family whose name was unknown to almost all of the subscribers – was certainly unusual & possibly unique in the Romantic era”
3/5
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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Joanna Baillie supported working-class poets & female writers. She inspired Byron & was considered by Harriet Martineau “second only to Shakespeare”. The Royal College of Surgeons of England has volumes of her work in their Research Room
2/5
https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/library-and-publications/library/blog/joanna-baillie/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism #workingclasswriters
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Joanna Baillie supported working-class poets & female writers. She inspired Byron & was considered by Harriet Martineau “second only to Shakespeare”. The Royal College of Surgeons of England has volumes of her work in their Research Room
2/5
https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/library-and-publications/library/blog/joanna-baillie/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism #workingclasswriters
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Joanna Baillie supported working-class poets & female writers. She inspired Byron & was considered by Harriet Martineau “second only to Shakespeare”. The Royal College of Surgeons of England has volumes of her work in their Research Room
2/5
https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/library-and-publications/library/blog/joanna-baillie/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism #workingclasswriters
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Joanna Baillie supported working-class poets & female writers. She inspired Byron & was considered by Harriet Martineau “second only to Shakespeare”. The Royal College of Surgeons of England has volumes of her work in their Research Room
2/5
https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/library-and-publications/library/blog/joanna-baillie/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism #workingclasswriters
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Joanna Baillie supported working-class poets & female writers. She inspired Byron & was considered by Harriet Martineau “second only to Shakespeare”. The Royal College of Surgeons of England has volumes of her work in their Research Room
2/5
https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/library-and-publications/library/blog/joanna-baillie/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism #workingclasswriters
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Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) was born #OTD, 11 Sep. Plays on the Passions, a series of female-led comedies & tragedies, brought Baillie fame during a period when serious drama was in decline. Her 256th birthday was commemorated by a Google doodle in 2018
A 🎂🧵
1/5
https://doodles.google/doodle/joanna-baillies-256th-birthday/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) was born #OTD, 11 Sep. Plays on the Passions, a series of female-led comedies & tragedies, brought Baillie fame during a period when serious drama was in decline. Her 256th birthday was commemorated by a Google doodle in 2018
A 🎂🧵
1/5
https://doodles.google/doodle/joanna-baillies-256th-birthday/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) was born #OTD, 11 Sep. Plays on the Passions, a series of female-led comedies & tragedies, brought Baillie fame during a period when serious drama was in decline. Her 256th birthday was commemorated by a Google doodle in 2018
A 🎂🧵
1/5
https://doodles.google/doodle/joanna-baillies-256th-birthday/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) was born #OTD, 11 Sep. Plays on the Passions, a series of female-led comedies & tragedies, brought Baillie fame during a period when serious drama was in decline. Her 256th birthday was commemorated by a Google doodle in 2018
A 🎂🧵
1/5
https://doodles.google/doodle/joanna-baillies-256th-birthday/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) was born #OTD, 11 Sep. Plays on the Passions, a series of female-led comedies & tragedies, brought Baillie fame during a period when serious drama was in decline. Her 256th birthday was commemorated by a Google doodle in 2018
A 🎂🧵
1/5
https://doodles.google/doodle/joanna-baillies-256th-birthday/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #drama #playwright #theatre #stage #romanticism
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From 2024: Cleo O’Callaghan Yeoman examines the representation of English & Scottish national stereotypes in the novels of Scottish authors Susan Ferrier, Mary Brunton, & Elizabeth Hamilton
From the Reading Scotland project at the University of Mainz
10/10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_OKYRVugZs
#Scottish #literature #Regency #18thcentury #19thCentury #romanticism #WomenWriters #SusanFerrier #MaryBrunton #ElizabethHamilton
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“…the foibles of the Scottish characters are usually much less detestable than those of the English…”
Untrammelled by Theory: Susan Ferrier’s Polyphonic Vision of Scotland & the Union in 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘨𝘦
—Benjamine Toussaint, SLR 8/1, 2016
Available via Open Access on Project MUSE7/10
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/619276
#Scottish #literature #Regency #18thcentury #19thCentury #romanticism #WomenWriters #SusanFerrier #NationalTale
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The shadow is the coldness of time.
The tea shop was plunged into a heavy, suffocating silence. The glowing blue light had vanished, leaving only the warm, ordinary flicker of the desk lamp.
Elio stood frozen, staring at the two books on the oak counter. He looked down at his flour-dusted hands, as if realizing for the first time that his culinary skills were entirely useless against ancient magic.
“I am a chef, Moira,” Elio said, his voice barely a whisper. “I use sous-vide machines. I use liquid nitrogen. I do not know how to cook a meal for a magical shadow that wants to eat a village.”
Moira gently stroked Ashwaganda’s head to calm the large ginger cat. “Magic in Speranza is old, Elio. And old things do not want modern tricks. They want memory. They want tradition.”
She carefully reached out and touched the pristine white leather of the new book. The moment her fingers brushed the cover, the book fell open to the center. The pages were pitch black, but slowly, a silver drawing began to trace itself into the paper. It was an illustration of a heavy cast-iron pot hanging over an open wood fire.
Beneath the drawing, a new riddle appeared in sharp, glowing letters:
The shadow is the coldness of time. It must be warmed by the memory of the hearth. Feed it the marrow of the bone, slow-cooked in the tears of the hills. Bind it with the golden sheet, stretched only by human hands, never by iron teeth.
Elio leaned over the counter, his chef’s mind automatically translating the riddle into a recipe.
“The marrow of the bone,” Elio muttered, his eyes tracing the silver words. “That is ossobuco. Veal shanks, rich with marrow in the center. ‘Slow-cooked in the tears of the hills’… that must be the local red wine and the spring water we just found.”
Moira tapped the final line of the riddle. “‘The golden sheet, stretched only by human hands, never by iron teeth.’ The book is very clear, Elio. No machines.”
Elio swallowed hard. “It wants sfoglia tirata al mattarello. Traditional, hand-rolled egg pasta. Stretched with a wooden rolling pin until it is thin enough to see the light through it.” He looked at Moira, a mix of fear and realization dawning on his face. “You were right. The machine has no soul. And the shadow is hungry for a soul.”
“Exactly,” Moira said, closing the white book. She picked up her heavy iron ring of keys. “We cannot use your modern kitchen. It is full of steel and electricity. The magic will reject it. We have to use the old wood-burning stove in the back room of my shop.”
Elio wiped his hands on his apron, suddenly looking determined. The fear was gone, replaced by the sharp focus of a chef preparing for the most important dinner service of his life.
“We need ingredients, Moira. Immediately. I need veal shanks, fresh eggs, fine flour, and the oldest wine in this village.”
“I have the wine in my cellar,” Moira said, moving quickly toward the back of the shop. “And Marisa’s cousin is the butcher. He lives just behind the chocolate shop. I will go wake him up and get the ossobuco. You stay here. Start the fire in the cast-iron stove.”
“Wait,” Elio said, stopping her. “What about the wild mallow we picked? The botanical element?”
Moira looked back at him, her hand on the doorknob. “Leave it. Tonight, we do not innovate. We honor the past.”
Moira ran out into the village square. The sun had completely set, but the darkness falling over Speranza did not feel normal. The shadows in the alleyways seemed too thick, too dense. They looked as if they were slowly creeping forward, stretching across the cobblestones toward the tea shop. The “old hunger” was already waking up.
Ten minutes later, Moira returned with a heavy paper package wrapped in twine from the butcher. When she stepped into the back room of her shop, the air was already thick with heat and the smell of burning oak.
Elio had taken off his chef’s coat. He was standing at the large wooden table, a mountain of yellow flour piled in the center. He cracked six fresh eggs into a well in the middle of the flour and began to beat them with a wooden fork. His movements were fast, precise, and completely traditional.
“I have the meat,” Moira said, placing the heavy cuts of ossobuco on the counter. The marrow inside the bones was perfect and pale.
“Start searing them in the cast-iron pot,” Elio ordered, not looking up from his dough. He was working the flour and eggs together with his bare hands, feeling the elasticity, feeling the life of the pasta. “Brown them in butter, not oil. Then deglaze with your old wine.”
For the next two hours, the back room of La Pagina che Fa le Fusa turned into a furious, focused kitchen. The smell of the ossobuco simmering in wine, rich broth, and crushed tomatoes filled the air, thick and comforting.
Elio took Moira’s heavy wooden rolling pin—the mattarello—and began to stretch the golden dough. He rolled it back and forth, pressing his weight into the wood, turning the pasta until it was a massive, perfectly thin sheet. He was sweating, his arms aching, but he did not stop.
As the stew bubbled and the pasta was sliced into wide, golden ribbons, Ashwaganda let out a low growl from the doorway.
Moira looked toward the front of the tea shop. The normal darkness of the night had vanished. Under the crack of the front door, a thick, freezing black fog was seeping into the room. The shadows on the walls began to twist and grow taller, reaching out like long, hungry fingers.
The temperature in the shop plummeted. The fire in the stove hissed as the cold air hit it.
“Elio,” Moira said, her breath turning to white mist in the air. “It is here. Is the food ready?”
Elio picked up a heavy wooden bowl. He placed a large, steaming piece of ossobuco inside, the marrow glistening in the center of the bone. He surrounded it with the fresh, hand-rolled pasta, completely coated in the dark, rich sauce.
“It is ready,” Elio said, his voice tight. “But how do we feed it?”
#CozyMysterySperanzaGialloItalianoLaPaginaCheFaLeFusaGattiInvestigatoriMisteroHitchcockianoOmicidioAlTeatroSegretiSvelatiGirlPowerVeleno #19thCentury #art #Ashwaganda #bloganuary #bloganuary202401 #bloganuary202402 #bloganuary202403 #bloganuary202404 #bloganuary202405 #bloganuary202408 #bloganuary202409 #bloganuary202411 #bloganuary202416 #bloganuary202419 #bloganuary202428 #bloganuary202429 #bloganuary202430 #books #castles #cocktail #COMPASS #CozyMysterySperanzaLaPaginaCheFaLeFusaItalianHillsDaysOfTheDreamsAshwagandaToeTheCatHitchcockianSuspensePoirotStyleVillageSecretsSilverInkFelineDetectives #culture #curiosity #dailyprompt #dailyprompt1804 #dailyprompt1805 #dailyprompt1806 #dailyprompt1807 #dailyprompt1808 #dailyprompt1811 #dailyprompt1812 #dailyprompt1814 #dailyprompt1819 #dailyprompt1832 #dailyprompt1839 #dailyprompt1840 #dailyprompt1851 #dailyprompt1859 #dailyprompt1860 #dailyprompt1891 #dailyprompt1975 #dailyprompt1976 #dailyprompt1978 #dailyprompt1982 #dailyprompt1983 #dailyprompt1984 #dailyprompt1985 #dailyprompt1987 #dailyprompt1988 #dailyprompt1990 #dailyprompt1993 #dailyprompt1994 #dailyprompt1995 #dailyprompt1999 #dailyprompt2007 #dailyprompt2008 #dailyprompt2010 #dailyprompt2011 #dailyprompt2012 #dailyprompt2013 #dailyprompt2014 #dailyprompt2017 #dailyprompt2077 #dailyprompt2089 #dailyprompt2099 #dailyprompt2112 #dailyprompt2113 #dailyprompt2115 #dailyprompt2119 #dailyprompt2124 #dailyprompt2125 #dailyprompt2126 #dailyprompt2127 #dailyprompt2129 #dailyprompt2132 #dailyprompt2134 #dailyprompt2137 #dailyprompt2138 #dailyprompt2145 #dailyprompt2146 #dailyprompt2152 #dailyprompt2153 #dailyprompt2159 #dailyprompt2167 #DANCESPIRITCOLOROFPEACE #DOLOMITES #drinks #EmotionsFeelingsSundayPowerOfASmileMyLifeWithYouSOULCHEERFULNESSFEELINGSHOPETearsSometimesAKissIsAllYouNeedTheSilenceLifeSelfWords #Evernote #everyday #Facebook #facts #food #hiking #HISTORY #IFTTT #Instagram #Ireland #Irish #Island #Italy #kitchen #language #learning #LifeAndAGIRLINTERRUPTEDFriendshipAndPoisonBULLIEDKLDONNOneDayAtOfficeESSENTIALFORSURVIVINGTheBreathOfASoulMePastPresentFutureYesUAreIGotItSome #LoveAndAdventureAreIntricatelyConnectedInASummersimoSymphony #magia #mountains #MYCOCKTAILWORLD #noMatterHow #noMatterHowBadIsTogetherWeCanWin #photography #pictures #Pinterest #RECIPES #social #SUMMER #SUMMERBOMB #SUMMERSIMO #summersimoBestTouristGuidesAreYourTasteBuds #SUMMERSIMOTHEUNDERWORLD #SUMMERSIMOCOMPASS #SUMMERSIMOSCOCKTAILS #SUMMERSIMOSCOMPASS #SUMMERSIMOSGLITTERWAR #SUMMERSIMOSRECIPES #technology #TheBestTouristGuidesAreYourTasteBuds #TheCaseOfTheSilentNightingaleAndTheEtruscanDeception #ThePurringPage #TheSoundOfSmile #TOURISM #travel #TRENTINOALTOADIGE #WithASummersimoSmile #wysoki #śmierć #światło -
Mary Shelley’s Gothic Dundee
26 August, online
SWI members free; non-members £6.13Mary Shelley was sent to Dundee as a teenager, & it was here, so she claimed in the 1831 edition of FRANKENSTEIN, that her eerie imagination was first stirred. What was so “gothic” about Dundee in the 1810s? And how did it inspire her? Prof Daniel Cook investigates.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/swi-expert-talk-mary-shelleys-gothic-dundee-tickets-1996447619573
#Scottish #literature #Scotland #Dundee #romanticism #MaryShelley #gothic #horror #19thcentury #Frankenstein
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🗺️ Welcome to The Valdai Romance Universe: A Guide to the Archive 🗺️
My alternative 19th-century bilingual world is vast, exploring intense psychological slow-burn dynamics across the asexual spectrum. To help new readers navigate, here are the three distinct layers of my literary work:
📖 1. The Main Canon
The core timeline. An ongoing multichapter emotional saga following the gravity-defying connection between an alien engineer Virgil Carter and a lonely Valdai herbalist Januar Walday.⏳ 2. Standalone Stories (Canon Companions)
Canon historical layers and side-stories exploring the characters' lives across different eras. This includes deep dives into their youth and past memories, as well as standalone emotional snapshots set in the present and even the future of the main timeline.🌌 3. Alternative Universes (AU / Spin-offs)
The timelines where the year 1838 remains the absolute, unchangeable anchor of fate. Virgil and Januar are destined to meet in 1838 no matter what, but the circumstances of their crossroads shift dramatically - from a desperate rescue at a lonely estate to a fateful encounter at an old tavern. Deep psychological snapshots exploring intense tactile hunger across the asexual spectrum.🔗 All stories are original fiction and completely FREE to read. Choose your doorway into the universe via the link:
🖤 🩶 🤍 💜
#thevaldairomance #januarandvirgil #indiewriters #alternateuniverse #bookseries #queerfiction #AsexualRomance #Asexuality #homoromance #androromance #scifibooks #historicalfiction #slowburnromance #mlmbooks #bilingualbooks #acespectrum #acespectrumpride #bookaesthetic #19thcentury #russianqueerpride #russianqueer #russianenglish #lgbtqfiction #lgbtq
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Top ten posts in July 2026 https://library.hrmtc.com/2026/08/01/top-ten-posts-in-july-2026/ #19thCentury #Agape #aleisterCrowley #AncientEgypt #annihilation #antonSzandorLavey #art #artisticCreation #bestPosts #bestTen #bodies #body #brain #BrianAlt #buddhism #Cause #Cleopatra #CoffinSpell #consciousness #contemporary #dailyLife #devotee #Diabolion #esotericEroticism #esotericism #Evidence #FraternitasSaturni #function #gematria #god #godless #GreekMagicalPapyri #heart #heaven #holyGhost #humanism #Ibis #illusions #India #InfiniteSpace #intertwined #JohnWilliamWaterhouse #journey #July2026 #Leviathan #love #magicalPhenomena #magickWithoutTears #makom #makomKadosh #MassimoIntrovigne #materialist #michaelAquino #MichaelMcGhee #modernAsia #mysticism #nuit #OlliPitkänen #ordoTempliOrientis #painting #people #PGM #phallicists #philosophicalPerspectives #philosophy #physicalAspect #place #politics #Power #real #reality #religion #religiousInstinct #sacrament #sacredEroticism #satanism #sex #sexInstinct #simple #Society #SoumenMukherjee #space #spiritualMovements #Spirituality #summary #summaryOfTheMonth #temples #TheBookOfTheLaw #thelema #ThelemicProject #thoth #topPosts #topTen #ToshioAkai #transcendence #unquestionedFacts #Valhalla #whiteSchoolLeftHandPath #will #wished -
Spirituality & Religious Studies @spiritualityreligiousstudies.wordpress.com@spiritualityreligiousstudies.wordpress.com ·Ashkenazi Jews
Author’s Note: This post has mentions of Nazis, the Holocaust, & Nazi Germany. We completely understand if you wish to skip over this post. We’ll catch you in the next one!
Also known as Ashkenazic Jews, Ashkenazis, or Ashkenazim.
This is a form of distinct ethnic subdivision of the Jewish Diaspora. Emerging from the Jewish communities that consolidated during the 10th century in the Rhineland (Western Germany) & northern France. They migrated there from centers such as the Italian peninsula & the Southern Levant. This includes present-day Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, & Jordan.
After numerous massacres of Jews during the Crusades (11th-13th centuries), they began a gradual eastward migration due to mounting restrictions within the Holy Roman Empire & the favorable policies of Casimir the Great & others.
This diaspora ramped up after the persecution during the Black Death of the 14th century. The bulk of the Ashkenazi Jews had migrated to the Kingdom of Poland (which includes modern-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, & parts of Russia). This area became the main center of Ashkenazi Jewry until the Holocaust.
Ashkenazim adapted their traditions, rites, & customs to Europe. They traditionally followed the German rite synagogue ritual & until the Holocaust primarily spoke Yiddish, an offshoot of Middle High German written in a variety of the Hebrew script, with significant Hebrew, Aramaic, & Slavic influences.
The Yiddish language progressively declined in prestige, in favor of national languages & Hebrew, being stigmatized by assimilationists & later also Zionists. Though it was spoken by over 11 million people worldwide before the Holocaust. The Yiddishist movement, which sought to preserve & revive the language, faded through the 20th century. Including Duolingo adding Yiddish as a language.
As a proportion of the world Jewish population, Ashkenazim were estimated to be 3% in the 11th century, rising to 92% in 1930, near the population’s peak. The Ashkenazi population was significantly diminished by the Holocaust carried out by Nazi Germany during WWII, which killed around 6 million Jews. Before WWII, the estimated worldwide Jewish population was 15.3-16.7 million, with 92% being Ashkenazi. As of 2023, the population of Ashkenazim was estimated to be around 10-13 million out of 15.8 million total Jews.
The name Ashkenazi comes from the biblical figure of Ashkenaz. He’s the 1st son of Gomer, grandson of Japhet, great-grandson of Noah, & a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations. The name for Gomer has often been linked to the Cimmerians.
The Biblical Ashkenazis are usually derived from Assyrian Askuza, a people who expelled the Cimmerians from the Armenian area of the Upper Euphrates. The name Askuza is identified with the Scythians.
In Jeremiah 51:27, Ashkenaz figures as 1 of 3 kingdoms in the far north, the others being Minni (or Mannaea), an ancient kingdom that flourished in northwestern Iran, & Arrat (corresponding to Urartu), called on by God to resist Babylon.
Ashkenaz is linked to Scandza/Scanzia (usually identified with Scandinavia), viewed as the cradle of Germanic tribes, in the 6th-century gloss to the Historia Ecclesiastica of Eusebius. In the 10th century, in the History of Armenia of Yovhannes Drasxanakertci, Ashkenaz was associated with Armenia.
As it was occasionally in Jewish usage, where its denotation extended at times to Adiabene, Khazaria, Chimea, & areas to the east. They’re also identified with the Slavim or Slavs. In keeping with the custom of designating areas of Jewish settlement with biblical names, Spain was called Sefarad (Obadiah 20), France was called Tsarefat (I Kings 17:9), & Bohemia was called the Land of Canaan.
Given the close links between the Jewish communities of France & Germany following the Carolingian unification, the term Ashkenazi came to refer to the Jews of both medieval Germany & France.
In later times, the word Ashkenaz is used to designate southern & western Germany, the ritual of which sections differs somewhat from that of eastern Germany & Poland. Thus, the prayer book of Isaiah Horowitz (a prominent rabbi & mystic), & many others, give the piyyutim (a Jewish liturgical poem), according to the Minhag of Ashkenaz & Poland. A Minhag is an accepted tradition or group of traditions in Judaism.
In a religious sense, an Ashkenazi Jew is any Jew whose family tradition & synagogue ritual follow Ashkenazi practices (German rite). Until the Ashkenazi community 1st began to develop in the Early Middle Ages, the centers of Jewish religious authority were in the Islamic world, at Baghdad & Islamic Spain. German Ashkenaz was so geographically distant that it developed a minhag of its own.
The counterpart of Ashkenazi is Sephardic. Since most non-Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews follow Sephardic rabbinical authorities, whether or not they’re ethnically Sephardic. By tradition, a Sephardic or Mizrahi (a.k.a. Oriental Jews; Jews who lived in the Muslim world) who married into an Orthodox or Haredi (a.k.a. ultra-Orthodox) Ashkenazi Jewish family raises her kids to be Ashkenazi Jews.
On the other hand, an Ashkenazi woman who married a Sephardi or Mizrahi is expected to take on Sephardic practices & the kids will “inherit” a Sephardic identity. Though in practice, many families do compromise. A “convert” usually follows the practice of the rabbinical court (beth din) that converted them.
Culturally, an Ashkenazi Jew can be identified by the concept of Yiddishkeit, which means “Jewishness” in the Yiddish language. Before the Haskalah (a.k.a. the Jewish Enlightenment) & the emancipation of Jews in Europe, this meant the study of the Torah & the Talmud for men, & communal life governed by the observance of Jewish Law for men & women.
From the Rhineland to Riga (the largest city in Latvia) to Romania, most Jews prayed in liturgical Ashkenazi Hebrew, & spoke Yiddish in their secular (worldly) lives. But with modernization, Yiddishkeit now includes not just Orthodoxy & Hasidism, but a broader range of movements, ideologies, practices, & traditions in which Ashkenazi have participated & somehow kept a sense of Jewishness. Although pockets of Jews still speak Yiddish, Yiddishkeit can be identified in manners of speech, styles of humor, & in patterns of association.
As Ashkenazi Jews moved away from Europe, mostly in the form of aliyah to Israel. Or immigration to North America, South Africa, Europe (particularly France), & Latin America, the geographic isolation has given way to mixing with other cultures, & with non-Ashkenazi Jews who, similarly, are no longer isolated in distinct geographic locales.
Hebrew has replaced Yiddish as the primary Jewish language for many Ashkenazi Jews. Although many Hasidic & Hareidi groups still use Yiddish in daily life. Aliyah is the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to, historically, the geographic Land of Israel or the Palestine region, where the State of Israel was established.
France’s blended Jewish community is typical of the cultural recombination that’s going on among Jews throughout the world. Although France expelled its original Jewish population in the Middle Ages, by the time of the French Revolution, there were 2 distinct Jewish populations.
One consisted of Sephardic Jews, originally refugees from the Inquisition (which no one expects! Sorry, we’re Monty Python fans here.) & concentrated in the southwest. While the other community was Ashkenazi, concentrated in formerly German Alsace, & mainly speaking a German dialect similar to Yiddish.
The 3rd community of Provencal Jews living in Comtat Venaissin was technically outside France, & was later absorbed into the Sephardim. Comtat Venaissin (called Comtat, for short) was a part of the Papal States from 1274 to 1791.
But after emancipation, a sense of a unified French Jewry emerged, especially when France was wracked by the Dreyfus Affair in the 1890s. (We’ll be doing a post about the Dreyfus Affair.) In the 1920s & 30s, Ashkenazi Jews from Europe arrived in large numbers as refugees from antisemitism, the Russian Revolution, & the economic turmoil of the Great Depression.
By the 1930s, Paris had a vibrant Yiddish culture, & many Jews were involved in diverse political movements. After the Vichy years & the Holocaust, the French Jewish population was augmented once again, 1st by Ashkenazi refugees from Central Europe, & later by Sephardi immigrants & refugees from North Africa, many of them francophone. Francophone refers to people/organizations who use French (language) regularly.
Ashkenazi Jews didn’t transmit their traditions or achievements by text. Instead, these traditions were passed down orally from one generation to the next. The desire to maintain pre-Holocaust traditions relating to Ashkenazi culture has often been met with criticism by Jews in Eastern Europe.
In an ethnic sense, an Ashkenazi Jew is a descendant of the Jews who settled in the Central European region of “Ashkenaz.” For roughly 1,000 years, the Ashkenazim were a reproductively isolated population in Europe.
Despite living in many countries, with little inflow or outflow of countries from migration, conversion, or intermarriage with other groups, including other Jews. Since the mid-20th century, many Ashkenazi Jews have intermarried, both with members of other Jewish communities & non-Jews.
Religious persecution of the Jews in Western & Central Europe led to a significant migration of the Ashkenazi Jews into Eastern Europe. This resulted in a major cultural divide between Western/Central & Eastern Ashkenazi communities. In particular, this was reflected in the division of Yiddish into Western & Eastern Yiddish dialects. As well as in other cultural distinctions: traditions, food, dress, etc.
Initially, the Jews of Eastern Europe enjoyed relative freedom in terms of movement, being invited by the kings of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Over time, the situation was reversed. By the 19th century, the Jews in the West had gradually been integrated into the general society.
While the Eastern Ashkenazi maintained their strict Jewish traditions & were mostly confined to ghettos, especially in the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire, which incorporated a considerable amount of land where the Eastern Ashkenazi lived: Poland & Lithuania.
Well-known differences in practices include:
- Observance of Passover (Pesach)
- Ashkenazi Jews traditionally refrain from eating legumes, grain, millet, & rice. Quinoa has become accepted as a food grain in North American communities. Sephardi Jews typically don’t prohibit these foods.
- Notwithstanding stricter requirements for the ACTUAL slaughter, Sephardi Jews permit the rear portions of an animal after proper Halakhic removal of the sciatic nerve. While many Ashkenazi Jews don’t.
- Ashkenazi Jews often name newborns after deceased family members, not after living relatives. Sephardi Jews often name their kids after their grandparents, even if those grandparents are still living. An exception to this is among Dutch Jews, where Ashkenazi for centuries used naming conventions otherwise attributed exclusively to Sephardim, such as Chuts. Chuts is the name given to Jews who immigrated to London from the Netherlands in the 1850s-1860s.
- Ashkenazi tefillins are wound toward the body, not away from it. Ashkenazim put on the tefillin while standing up. Other Jews generally do so while sitting down. A tefillin(s) is/are sets of small black leather boxes with leather straps having scrolls of parchment written with verses of the Torah inside.
- The prayer shawl (tallit/tallis) is worn by all Ashkenazi men AFTER marriage. Except for Western European Ashkenazi men who wear it from the bar mitzvah. In Sephardi or Mizrahi Judaism, the prayer shawl is commonly worn from early childhood.
The term Ashkenazi also refers to the Nusach Ashkenaz, the liturgical tradition used by Ashkenazi Jews in their siddur (prayer book). A nusach is defined by a liturgical tradition’s choice of prayers, the text of prayers & melodies used in the singing of prayers. 2 other major forms of nusach among Ashkenazi Jews are Nusach Sefard (not to be confused with the Sephardic ritual), which is the general Polish Hasidic nusach, and Nusach Ari, used by those in Chabad.
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Spirituality & Religious Studies @spiritualityreligiousstudies.wordpress.com@spiritualityreligiousstudies.wordpress.com ·
Immaculate Conception
This is the doctrine that the Virgin Mary was/is free from original sin from the moment of her conception. It’s 1 of the 4 Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. The feast day of the Immaculate Conception is December 8.
It wasn’t defined as a dogma until 1854, by Pope Pius IX in the papal bull Ineffabilis Deus. While the Immaculate Conception asserts Mary’s freedom from original sin, the Council of Trent (1545-1563) had previously affirmed her freedom from personal sin non-dogmatically.
Many Protestant churches reject this doctrine as unscriptural. Some Anglicans accept this as a pious devotion. The teaching of the Immaculate Conception among Oriental Orthodoxy varies. The Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church & the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church accept it.
Anne (who eventually becomes a saint), the mom of the Virgin Mary & Jesus’ maternal grandma, shows up for the 1st time in the 2nd-century apocryphal Gospel of James. Anne & her husband Joachim (who also became a saint) were infertile. But God heard their prayers. Mary was then conceived.
Within the Gospel of James, Mary’s conception happens without physical sexual intercourse between Anne & Joachim. This is to demonstrate Mary’s purity. The Eastern Orthodox Church believes that Mary was conceived by her parents like we all were.
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, & Cyrus of Jerusalem came up with the idea of Mary as the new Eve. While yet immaculate & incorrupt, she wasn’t subject to original sin. Ephraim the Syrian said she was as innocent as Eve before the Fall.
Ambrose asserted Mary’s incorruptibility, attributing her virginity to grace & immunity from sin. Severus, the Bishop of Antioch, agreed to affirm Mary’s purity & immaculateness. John of Damascus extended the supernatural influence of God to Mary’s parents. This suggests they were purified by the Holy Spirit during her generation. According to John of Damascus, even the material of Mary’s origin was deemed pure & holy.
By the 4th century, the idea of Mary being free from sin was more widespread. But her being free from original sin, passed down from the OGs Adam & Eve, raised questions. The question became more acute when the feast of Mary’s conception brought the objection that, as adult spicy time is sinful, & to celebrate Mary’s conception was to celebrate a sinful act. (Let’s get 1 thing straight: God doesn’t make married adult spicy time between 2 consenting MARRIED adults a sin! He (God) in fact encourages a healthy marital sex life. “Be fruitful & multiply,” ring any bells! And how exactly do we multiply? This is the conclusion of our TED talk.)
The feast of Mary’s conception came from the Eastern Church in the 7th century. It reached England in the 11th century. From there, it spread out to Europe. It was given official approval in 1477 & extended to the whole church in 1693. The word “immaculate” wasn’t used until 1854.
This doctrine caused a “civil war” between the Franciscans & the Dominicans during the Middle Ages. The Franciscan “Scotists” were in favor & the Dominican “Thomists” against it.
The English ecclesiastic & scholar Eadmer (circa 1060-circa 1126) reasoned that Mary might have been conceived without original sin because of God’s omnipotence. It was also appropriate for her role as Mother of God. Potuit, decuit, fecit: “it was possible, it was fitting, therefore it was done.”
Others, like St. Bernard of Clairvaux (of the St. Bernard dog breed fame, 1090-1153) & Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) objected because if Mary were free of original sin at her superfluous conception. Then she would have no need of redemption. Thus making Christ’s saving redemption unneeded.
In 1439, the Council of Basel, in schism with Pope Eugene IV (who lived at the Council of Florence), declared the Immaculate Conception a “pious opinion” consistent with faith & Scripture. The Council of Trent made no explicit declaration on the topic. But did exempt her from the universality of original sin.
They also affirmed that she remained free from all stains of sin during her life, even the venial ones. By 1571, the revised Roman Breviary set out an elaborate celebration of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8.
Some devotees go so far as to hold that Anne had conceived Mary just by kissing her husband. They also believe that (St.) Anne’s dad & grandma had likewise been conceived without spicy adult time. However, (St.) Bridget of Sweden (circa 1303-1373) told how Mary herself had revealed to her that Anne & Joachim conceived their daughter through a spicy adult time, which was sinless because it was pure & free of sexual lust.
In the 16th & 17th centuries, Spain exploded with Immaculatist devotion. This led the Habsburg monarchs to demand the Holy See elevate this belief to the status of dogma.
In France in 1830, Catherine Laboure (May 2, 1806-December 31, 1876) saw a vision of Mary standing on a globe while a voice commanded her to have a medal made in imitation of what she saw. The medal said, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee,” which was a confirmation from Mary herself that she was conceived without sin. Laboure’s vision marked the beginning of a great 19th-century Marian revival.
In 1849, Pope Pius IX issued the encyclical Ubi primum, soliciting the bishops of the church for their views on whether the doctrine should be defined as dogma. 90% of those who responded were supportive. Although the Archbishop of Paris, Marie-Dominique-Auguste Sibour, warned that the Immaculate Conception “could be proved neither from the Scriptures nor from tradition.”
In 1854, the Immaculate Conception dogma was proclaimed with the bull Ineffabilis Deus. Ineffabilis Deus found the Immaculate Conception in the Ark of Salvation (Noah’s Ark), Jacob’s Ladder, the Burning Bush at Sinai, the Enclosed Garden from the Song of Song/Song of Solomon, & many more passages.
The pope’s advisors singled out 2 Bible passages: Genesis 3:15 – “I’ll put enmity between you & the woman.” This is a prophecy which reached fulfillment in the figure of the Woman in Revelation, crowned with stars & trampling the Dragon underfoot. Luke 1:28 – Specifically the phrase “full of grace” by which Gabriel greeted Mary was another reference to her Immaculate Conception: “she was never subject to the curse & was, together with her Son, the only partaker of perpetual benediction.”
Four years after the proclamation of the dogma, in 1858, the young Bernadette Soubirous (of the Lourdes grotto fame) said that Mary appeared to her at Lourdes in southern France, to announce that she was the Immaculate Conception. The Catholic Church later endorsed the apparition as authentic. There are other “approved” Marian apparitions in which Mary identified herself as the Immaculate Conception. For example, Our Lady of Gietrzwald in 1877, Poland.
The feast day of the Immaculate Conception is December 8. The Roman Missal (which contains texts & rubrics (a set of rules)) & the Roman Rite Liturgy of the Hours (a set of Catholic prayers) include references to Mary’s Immaculate Conception in the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
Its celebration seems to have begun in the Eastern church in the 7th century & may have spread to Ireland by the 8th century. The earliest well-attested record in the Western Church is from England early in the 11th century. It was suppressed there after the Norman Conquest (1066). The 1st thorough exposition of the doctrine was a response to this suppression. It continued to spread through the 15th century despite accusations of heresy from the Thomists & strong objections from several prominent theologians.
Beginning around 1140, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Yes, like the dog breed. That’s where the dog breed got its name.), a Cistercian monk (This is a religious order of monks & nuns that branched off from the Benedictines.), wrote to Lyons Cathedral to express his surprise & dissatisfaction that it had recently begun to be observed there.
But in 1477, Pope Lixtus IV, who was a devoted Immaculist, put it on the Roman calendar via the papal bull called Cum praexcelsa. In 1481 & 1483, Pope Sixtus IV published 2 more bulls which prohibited anyone from preaching or teaching against the Immaculate Conception, or for either side to accuse the other of heresy, under threats of excommunication.
Pope Pius V kept the Feast on the Tridentine calendar. But suppressed the word “Immaculate.” Pope Gregory XV, in 1622, prohibited any public or private assertion that Mary was conceived in sin. In 1624, Pope Urban VIII allowed the Franciscans to establish a military order dedicated to the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo & Eritrean Orthodox Tewahed Churches believe in the Immaculate Conception of the Theotokos. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church celebrates the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on August 13 (Nehasie 7).
Eastern Orthodoxy does not exempt Mary from original sin. But they do affirm Mary’s purity & preservation from personal sin.
In the mid-1800s, some Catholics who were unable to accept the doctrine of papal infallibility left the Roman Church & formed the Old Catholic Church. They reject the Immaculate Conception.
Protestants overwhelmingly condemned the announcement of Ineffabilis Deus. Protestants teach that Mary was a sinner, saved through grace, like everyone else.
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Mint Chocolate and Shadows
Chapter 5: The Alchemy of Shadows
The hidden drawer in the hearth of the Mint Chocolate House did not contain a simple map. That would have been too pedestrian for a mind as labyrinthine as Sir Alistair Finch’s. Instead, we found a collection of translucent vellum sheets, brittle with age, covered in what appeared to be nonsense: botanical sketches of deadly nightshade overlaying architectural diagrams of Speranza’s sewer system, and chemical formulas for synthetic diamonds written in the margins of a recipe for ganache.
“It is chaos,” Anna whispered, the steam from her earlier espresso seeming to have evaporated into the cold tension of the room. “Just scrawls and madness.”
“No,” I corrected, adjusting my glasses as Toe, my black cat, jumped onto the table and placed a paw precisely on a sketch of a Datura flower. “It is not madness. It is a transparency cipher. Marisa, bring the light.”
Marisa, pale but steady, brought a heavy kerosene lamp from the counter. When we held the vellum sheets up against the flame, layering them one over the other, the chaotic lines merged. The botanical sketches faded, and the architectural lines aligned to form a perfect, three-dimensional geometry of a specific object.
It was not a building. It was a humidifier. specifically, the grand, walk-in humidor at Altea’s Cigars House.
“The gear,” I murmured, pulling the brass cog we had found in the poisoned snuff box from my pocket. “It wasn’t a piece of the Raven’s Kiss dagger. It is a key for a different lock entirely.”
Suddenly, the scent of almonds—the cyanide trace from the box—hit me with a new, terrifying realization. I grabbed the snuff box and scraped a tiny amount of the crystalline powder onto the table. “Altea, do you have any lemon juice? Or vinegar?”
“I have a lime for the cocktails,” Altea replied, confused but handing me the fruit.
I squeezed a drop onto the white powder. It hissed violently, turning a vibrant, shocking violet.
“It’s not cyanide,” I breathed, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. “It’s a reactants-based dye, used in the 19th century to mark fools’ gold. The poison was a bluff. A distraction to keep us looking for a killer while the thief walked right past us.”
“The thief?” Anna asked.
“The man in the gray coat,” I said, the realization dawning like a cold sunrise. “He didn’t have a limp because he was injured. He walked with a heavy step because he was carrying something incredibly dense in his lining. He didn’t bring the box to threaten us. He brought it to trigger us. He needed us to find the notes. He needed us to solve the puzzle he couldn’t.”
A crash echoed from the street outside—the sound of breaking glass. It came from the direction of the Cigars House.
“He’s already there,” I said, blowing out the lamp. “And he’s waiting for us to bring him the gear.”
Chapter 6: The Smoke and the Mirrors
We moved through the back alleys of Speranza, avoiding the main cobblestone streets bathed in moonlight. Ashwaganda, usually a creature of kinetic chaos, moved low to the ground, a silent orange streak leading the way. The air grew heavier as we approached Altea’s shop, thick with the scent of unlit tobacco and aged cedar.
The front door of the Cigars House was ajar, the glass pane shattered. Inside, the shop was a cavern of shadows. The moonlight caught the drifting smoke—not from cigars, but from a small canister rolling on the floor, releasing a disorienting, white fog.
“Stay close,” I whispered to my friends. “He wants the gear. He won’t strike until he sees it.”
We pushed through the fog into the back room, where the massive walk-in humidor stood. It was a masterpiece of engineering, lined with Spanish cedar and temperature-controlled dials. Standing before it, silhouetted against the faint light of the streetlamps outside, was the figure in the gray coat.
He turned. The limp was gone. In his hand, he held a heavy, silenced pistol. But it wasn’t the courier we had interrogated at the Coffee Taverna. It was Inspector Salomone.
The shock was physical, a punch to the gut. The weary, cynical policeman who had dismissed my theories for years stood there with a cold, calculating smile.
“Dr. Hopes,” Salomone said, his voice stripped of its usual fatigue. “I knew you couldn’t resist a puzzle. You and your wretched cats are better than any hound.”
“The courier…” I started.
“A hired actor,” Salomone scoffed. “Paid to tremble and deliver a prop. I needed you to find the location. Sir Alistair’s notes were too encoded for a simple policeman, but for a doctor with a penchant for history? Child’s play.” He extended his hand. “The gear, Moira. Now.”
Altea stepped forward, her eyes blazing. “You monitored us? You betrayed the village?”
“I protected this village from boredom for twenty years,” Salomone snapped. “Do you know what is inside this humidor? It is not just cigars. Sir Alistair didn’t trust banks. He trusted climate control. The ‘Star of Speranza’ isn’t a diamond, Altea. It is a seed. The last viable seed of the Silphium plant, thought extinct since Roman times. Worth more than any diamond. A botanical miracle that could rewrite history—and make its owner a billionaire.”
He raised the gun. “The gear.”
I held up the small brass cog. My mind raced, flipping through the pages of Days of your Dreams. ‘When the enemy seeks the time, give him the bell, not the clapper.’
“Catch,” I said, and tossed the gear high into the air, towards the open door of the humidor.
Salomone’s greed was a reflex. He lunged for it, his eyes tracking the glint of brass. In that split second, Toe dropped from the top of the humidor shelves. He didn’t aim for the man. He aimed for the open canister of fog Salomone had kicked aside.
With a precise swat, the black cat sent the canister spinning between Salomone’s legs. The Inspector stumbled, his shot going wild, shattering a jar of Cuban Leafs.
Chapter 7: The Sweetest Trap
“Now!” I screamed.
Marisa, fueled by adrenaline, grabbed a heavy jar of rock candy from a display shelf and hurled it. It wasn’t a precise throw, but it was effective. The jar smashed against the humidity controls, releasing a pressurized blast of water vapor designed to keep the cigars moist.
The room instantly turned into a blinding white cloud. Salomone roared, firing blindly into the mist.
“The floor!” Anna shouted, pulling a lever near the counter. It was the trapdoor to the cellar, usually used for coal deliveries.
Salomone, disoriented and blinded by the steam and fog, took a step back to steady his aim. His heel caught on the edge of the open trapdoor. There was no scream, just a surprised grunt and the heavy thud of a body hitting the coal pile twelve feet below.
Altea slammed the trapdoor shut and threw the iron bolt.
Silence returned to the Cigars House, save for the hissing of the broken humidifier.
I leaned against the counter, shaking. Ashwaganda trotted over to the brass gear, which had landed safely on a velvet chair, and sat on it, purring loudly.
“Silphium,” Altea whispered, looking at the locked humidor. “He was willing to kill for a plant?”
“For the history,” I corrected, picking up the gear. “And for the power of being the one to bring it back.”
I walked to the humidor. The brass gear didn’t fit into the keyhole. It fit into a small, decorative ventilation grate near the floor—a cat-sized opening. I placed the gear onto a hidden spindle and turned it.
The floor of the humidor didn’t open. Instead, a small panel inside the wall slid back. There was no seed. There was no diamond.
Inside sat a single, dust-covered bottle of wine, labelled simply: Speranza, Year Zero.
Next to it was a final note from Sir Alistair:
“The Silphium was a myth I invented to test the greedy. The true treasure is the soil of this village, which grows friendship deeper than any root. Enjoy the vintage, ladies. It is the only one in existence.”
I looked at my friends—Altea, Anna, Marisa—covered in soot, steam, and chocolate dust.
“A myth?” Salomone’s muffled voice shouted from the cellar. “You mean I broke my leg for a metaphor?!”
I smiled, picking up the bottle. “It seems,” I said, channeling the finality of Hitchcock’s closing shots, “that the Inspector fell for the oldest trick in the book. Never trust a treasure map written by a man who loved stories more than gold.”
We left Salomone in the cellar for the real police to find. The night air was crisp, and as we walked back towards the Coffee Taverna to finally open the bottle, the stars above Speranza seemed to wink. Or perhaps it was just the reflection in the golden eyes of the cats, who knew all along that the best twists are the ones you never see coming.
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PS: There are several free ebooks of selected works by Robert Louis Stevenson (& by other Scottish writers too!) available to download from our website
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #Samoa #Tusitala
-
PS: There are several free ebooks of selected works by Robert Louis Stevenson (& by other Scottish writers too!) available to download from our website
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #Samoa #Tusitala
-
PS: There are several free ebooks of selected works by Robert Louis Stevenson (& by other Scottish writers too!) available to download from our website
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #Samoa #Tusitala
-
PS: There are several free ebooks of selected works by Robert Louis Stevenson (& by other Scottish writers too!) available to download from our website
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #Samoa #Tusitala
-
PS: There are several free ebooks of selected works by Robert Louis Stevenson (& by other Scottish writers too!) available to download from our website
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #Samoa #Tusitala
-
“The sickness that once detached him from life had now made him greedy for experience… he accumulated several lifetimes worth of adventures”
—Trenton B. Olsen on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Art of Living (& Dying), via the Literary Hub
6/6
https://lithub.com/robert-louis-stevensons-art-of-living-and-dying/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #Samoa #Tusitala #chronicillness
-
“The sickness that once detached him from life had now made him greedy for experience… he accumulated several lifetimes worth of adventures”
—Trenton B. Olsen on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Art of Living (& Dying), via the Literary Hub
6/6
https://lithub.com/robert-louis-stevensons-art-of-living-and-dying/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #Samoa #Tusitala #chronicillness
-
“The sickness that once detached him from life had now made him greedy for experience… he accumulated several lifetimes worth of adventures”
—Trenton B. Olsen on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Art of Living (& Dying), via the Literary Hub
6/6
https://lithub.com/robert-louis-stevensons-art-of-living-and-dying/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #Samoa #Tusitala #chronicillness
-
“The sickness that once detached him from life had now made him greedy for experience… he accumulated several lifetimes worth of adventures”
—Trenton B. Olsen on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Art of Living (& Dying), via the Literary Hub
6/6
https://lithub.com/robert-louis-stevensons-art-of-living-and-dying/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #Samoa #Tusitala #chronicillness
-
“The sickness that once detached him from life had now made him greedy for experience… he accumulated several lifetimes worth of adventures”
—Trenton B. Olsen on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Art of Living (& Dying), via the Literary Hub
6/6
https://lithub.com/robert-louis-stevensons-art-of-living-and-dying/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #Samoa #Tusitala #chronicillness