Thursday, March 04, 2021
Wednesday, March 03, 2021
Journal of the Plague Year
Our noble and virtuous Prime Miniſter hath pledged upon his Honour as a Gentleman, and his univerſal Repute as a publick Servant of the moſt ſupreme Competence, Diſcretion and Foreſight, that the Pluckineſs of our Britiſhneſs will enſure and guarantee, that by Midſummer Day the Woo Han Peſtilence ſhall ſuffer its final and ultimate Vanquiſhment. Theſe Tidings have occaſioned much Rejoycing at the lateſt Meeting of the Claſsical Liberal Society of Maſqueleſs Defiants, whereof from the Bloater and Blueſtocking Coffee-Houſe yeſter Night iſsued much good-humoured Banter and harmleſs Kicking of Beggars. Indeed this conſtituted the firſt Occaſion theſe many Months gone, when the Vagabonds condeſcended for the moſte Part to forſake their cuſtomary Indolence and beſtir themſelves beneath the reſpectable Brogues and Boots of their Betters. At which Circumſtance the acknowledged Miſtreſs of the Surgeon General and ſundry Gentlemen of ſimilar Credentials, my Lady ffryghtenynge-Dymwytte, was taken with the Screeching Vapours and would not be calmed until the verie laft of theſe Vagrants and Gypſies ſhould be ſummarily hanged or in other Wiſe ejected from the Realm. Accordingly within the paſt few Houres I have, with ſome good quality American Cotton at my Eares, compiled ſeverall dozen Petitions for cleaner Streets and a Final Solution to the Homeleſsneſs Problem, which I hope may receive due and prompt Attention. For in the approaching Abſence of the Woo Han Peſtilence there will be a renewed Neceſsitie of tough Deciſions concerning the Queſtion of the Breeding Poore and how to reſtore the proper Balance of Demiſes to their pullulant Numeroſity, particularly if the preſent Spate of temperate Winters ſhould perſiſt in its inconſiderate Continuation.
Tuesday, March 02, 2021
Queen of Hearts
Monday, March 01, 2021
Decent Chaps Doing Jolly Things
Sunday, February 28, 2021
The Father of Teeth
At a considerably earlier date, therefore, the Father of Teeth spent a gap year as a minor village deity, scaring off those spiritual enemies which were most conveniently dispatched by virtue of their nonexistence. It was only when a swarm of locusts descended, and devoured not only the year's entire crop but the sacrifices around the fertility totem at the centre of the village, that certain doubters began to call the arrangement into question.
Prominent among these was the fertility god's high priest, a venerable gentleman whose pious sensibilities were so deeply shocked by the vanishing of the sacrificial meat and cakes that his stomach had not stopped growling for three days after the débâcle. While his parishioners cowered at their hearths and did obeisance to the fertility god by breeding more mouths for the non-existent crop to feed, the high priest tottered indignantly to the residence of the Father of Teeth in order to demand an explanation, an expiation or, failing both, a compensatory lunch.
He found the Father of Teeth at home, squatting in horrid complaisance before the fire, on which rested a hissing cauldron full of locust parts.
"Knave," fulminated the high priest, "knowest thou not that the gods are displeased and that we languish and starve through thine exceeding negligence? Why squattest thou thus idly in thine indigent indigence and slothly slothfulness, while thy chosen people face a hungry demise amid a most demising hunger? And why didst thou not perform thy divine duty of protecting thy chosen village from these pestilential arthropods?"
"The locusts are no concern of mine," said the Father of Teeth; "there is a reason for everything, or very nearly, and certainly there is a reason for the fact that nobody calls me Father of Mandibles."
"It was thy sworn and contracted purpose," reprimanded the high priest, "to protect our village and all its gods, against all perils and dangers that might threaten us with the threatening of their threatening."
The Father of Teeth snatched a locust from the air, bit off its legs with six cracks and half a dozen crunches, and tossed it in the cauldron. "The locusts, whatever one may say of their table manners, have not burned your houses to the ground," he said. "Your village is still standing and the fertility god is as rampant as ever."
"But what of thy chosen people?" demanded the high priest. "Deprived of their worship and propitiation, the gods will grow angry and the entire world may be imperilled with peril by the wrath of their wrath. Wilt thou take that upon thy carnassial conscience, even in the squatting of thy squatting and the impudence of thine impudence?"
So the Father of Teeth seized the high priest and bit through his Achilles tendons with a snap and a twang, and hung him head down over the fire until he was considerably kippered and even more morally indignant. "The wrath of the gods is harder to arouse than is generally thought," the Father of Teeth reasssured him. "There are many in the world who eat their gods, and who believe that a change of diet is enough to warrant divine punishment; but happy are those who can adapt their appetites to the whims of fate."
The shrieks brought the villagers from their houses to the house of the Father of Teeth, where he served them nauseating rations of locust pulp which kept them alive until next planting season. By the time the crops began to sprout again, the locusts were practically domesticated and would not touch a vegetarian diet. Meanwhile the villagers revered them as protectors of the fields, devastators of enemy mealtimes, and punishers of absconding high priests; for theirs was never seen again.
Saturday, February 27, 2021
We Sovereignly Bask in our Plucky Little Shrewdness
Friday, February 26, 2021
Journal of the Plague Year
We heare much loud and traytorous Complayning, that Her Majesty's Government doth prize the Lives of its fiſcal Inferiors according to the Seniority of their Age, rather than by whether each Subject of the Realm be a School-maſter or a Governeſs. Alack, that the Day ſhould have dawned, when the Stoick Britiſhneſs of our Britiſhneſs would be ſullied by Sentiments of ſuch unpatriotick Puſillanimity! For it ſhould be cleare even unto the Underſtanding of the ſimpleſt Chylde, ſuch as the ſeventeen pin-headed Daughters of my Lord Splyce-Chyldebryde, that we muſt preſerve the Bleſsings of long accumulated Experience and Tradition, above all groſs materialiſtick Conſiderations of mere commercial Competence at procuring a Wage. I will wager, that there is to be found within the entyre Realm, ſcarecely a Governeſs who hath led a Troop of Horſe into Battel againſt the beaſtlie French; yet were one to take a Survey or Cenſus of the Quantity of purple-viſaged jowl-quivering Martyrs to the Gout which have achieved the ſame, there would be ſuch a Sufficiency of Sword-arms, as to reſtore forthwith to our American Colonies and all their uppity Niggers the ſweet uncompromiſing Truncheon of Statue-reſurrecting Amity.