I went down a rabbit hole, reading about Jane Austen's dedication to Prince Nash. The theory is that Jane Austen alluded to Charles Lamb in the Charade because of the words Harriet chooses. Mainly, "Mermaid, Trident, Neptune, Shark" (Sheehan).

I won't discount this theory, but merely add my input. For it to be true, there'd have to be a reference to Neptune and Trident in Charles Lamb's work. The poem "The Triumph of the Whale" has the words "Shark" and "Mermaid" in it, and seems to be about Prince Nash. But it doesn't have the word "Trident" or "Neptune" in it. So, I looked for a possible use of the word "Trident" and "Neptune" together. I found "Triton" and "Neptune" in an essay about witches, (Lamb, 76). Perhaps Jane misspelled the word from memory. Therefore, she might be calling Nash the "Prince of Darkness", and a "Witch".

Though, the connection is vague. There may be an acrostic anagram making the word "Lamb" on both stanzas (Sheehan). The evidence is quite striking. At first I thought it was specious, but there may be a connection.

My intention for writing this is respect. I love when people work to make connections like that. I attempt to add credibility to it.





Lamb, Charles. Essays of Elia. Harvard College Library, From the Family of Charles Eliot Norton, 1927. Text. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Essays_of_Elia/nXgRAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=neptune. Web.

Sheehan, Colleen A.. "Lampooning the Prince: A Second Solution to the Second Charade in Emma." Jane Austen Society of North America, 2006. https://jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol27no1/sheehan2.htm. Web.

Here are my honest thoughts on it. If it offends you, then so be it.

In places like Mumbai or the United Arab Emirates there is a desperate need for feminism. I listen to them, and I applaud them. Using their bodies and autonomy, it is different than a cropped haired, sweaty and pig ringed feminist in America. Where, the only thing they fight for, is to grow body hair and fight a mythological patriarchy.

There are two different kinds of feminists. There were the Flappers. Who, rightly, cropped their hair and later would win the right to vote. Then, there is the piggish feminist who uses sex as a weapon to frustrate her male counterpart.

Women ought to vote. They ought to run heads of state. They ought to run businesses. Where I draw the line is at a pastor---but that is settled in my religion. It is not something I extend to the world around me. Women ought to have sports they can play---specifically for them---they ought to compete with men at chess and cards. 

What women ought not do, is fight a never ending battle to win ground and replace polygamy with misandry. They ought not divorce. They ought to remain at home if they can, and raise the children. But, so must men in my estimation. The point is, stability needs to be at home, in the family, where most of the true love is formed. Where people can grow, connect, and be close to one another.

There are feminists I applaud all around the world. In China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Mongolia... A woman in America has no right to be a feminist. All her battles are won. Anything more is merely pushing to a line that ought not be crossed. As, the gender wage gap is not real. It is, rather, explained through very real facts about being a woman. Facts that need dealt with and thought about, before a woman ever decides to have a career.

There is nothing a woman cannot do---but by personal judgment, there are things a woman ought not do. That is the culture I want. For instance, making women work, and forcing them to obtain an income is counter against the nature of womankind. Simply, there's a lot of problems created by single motherhood, and there are a lot of problems created by two parents working. There isn't enough attention given to the kids. And, they grow up to be little monsters. But, an absent father---always at work---is just as dangerous as an absent mother. In my estimation, parents need to work from home, and take care of their children. School their children. Do the bruntwork of the raising of their children. As schools do not love children like mothers do. And the most severe kind of love, is a mother's love. Separating her from her child is a crime, and forcing her to do wage labor is a crime. It's a crime. Should the woman want to do it---I see no problem with it. But, ought the woman do it, or else suffer consequences? I think that is the crux of the wage gap issue. And no... women ought not receive stipends for leaving work. They and their husbands ought to work from home, or run a family business as I've seen so often done by immigrant families.

That is my thoughts on Feminism, and if you believe it diverges off the course of the topic...  disagree. These fundamental problems are at the root of the feminist movement, and I offer common sense solutions which will work.

What does 2Pac and a Racist White Southern Scholar have in common? A lot, actually. They both believe the Civil War was not fought because of slavery, and they both probably use the slur Uncle Tom.

Let's just go down the line.

First, the Civil War was fought over Slavery. There can be no other reason for the war to be fought. Mark Twain, having joined the Rebel Army, left the army the very same day. Why? Because he was told it was about protecting the South's right to own slaves. Abraham Lincoln couldn't avoid civil war because the die had been cast. Slavery would be abolished soon. The South, forecasting those devices, preemptively started the bloodiest war in American History.

Uncle Tom, as it were, was a widely disseminated tract in support of abolishing slavery. Uncle Tom was a Christ Like Figure who died in service to his fellow blacks, dying so they could run free. Then, the war garnered such support for the abolition of slavery, that people actually joined the Union army in droves because they had read Uncle Tom's Cabin, and felt sympathy, as the work humanized black people in the eyes of white Northerners.

Also, the Battle Hymn of the Republic was written for the express intent of freeing blacks. The Northerners had the song, sung the song---as did the South, but they just appropriated the song---and the North sung in the lyrics, "He died to make men holy, LET US LIVE TO MAKE MEN FREE, His truth is marching on."

Also, the reason Uncle Tom is a pejorative, is because racist Southerners created journals which stigmatized Uncle Tom, and they began making satirical plays called "Tom Plays" Throughout the South which made Uncle Tom into a racist figure. It was, for express intentions, the White Southerners who created these Tom Plays, as they were salty for having lost the war due to the enormous recruitment by the sentiment Uncle Tom's Cabin created.

Then, if that weren't bad enough, those same journals created the stigma against sentimentalism in art. Bleeding into our current situation where gaudy and grotesque and bathos and scatological art is patronized. Because beauty, and all sentiments of feelings which are pure and awesome and right have been deemed as "Kitsch" by a group of racist White Southerners looking to do as much damage as they can.

Now, the Black Lives Matter movement is a propagate of these same Racist Southerner's ideas, by calling productive Blacks "Uncle Tom", by scathing beautiful art, by hating intrinsically well formed material. 2Pac couldn't be more wrong about the Civil War. Every drop of blood spilled was in the aim of ending Chattel Slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment was drafted as a direct result of the war. The Emancipation Proclamation was created because of the war.

What's truly racist, is Black Lives Matter because it is the invention of the White Southern Racism, to create a straw man, enemy image to burn down as an effigy of rage in the face of White Nationalism. Do not be fooled.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. 1852. With Introduction, Notes and For Further Reading, by Amanda Claybaugh. Barnes and Noble Books, 2003. Text.

I've encountered this in Jung's philosophy. First, I thought they were foolish, but then I recognized the confusion of the younger generations on Gender Fluidity, and how this is being taught in the schools.

The feminine is the feeling. The masculine is the rational. The feminine is the nurturing. The masculine is the protective instinct. The feminine is the individual. The masculine is the collective. The feminine is the familial; the masculine is the societal.

I thought to myself, "The confusion of the current generation on gender..." That, having the fluidity---described by Jung as the androgynous aspect of the soul---it seems our expressions of Gender Fluidity are actually a reaction to the universal androgyny of the self. That both men and women have rational and emotional capabilities, both men and women have nurturing and protective capabilities. Both men and women have individual and collective instincts. Both men and women have familial and societal instincts. And in this, the confusion of the inner self is expressing itself, now, in the androgyny of sex and sexual identity.

I think it's important that people---all of us---understand there is androgyny in the soul. That we all share aspects of feminine and masculine gender identity within our souls. Rather, the detrimental side of Gender Fluidity is the expression of that androgyny in the persona. Which is not where it belongs. It's taking things deeper than the shadow---more primal and instinctual---and drives them to the consciousness and into the persona. 

The danger of this is simple. One does not want their shadow integrated into the persona. We call this "Toxic Masculinity", yet it's more fundamentally the latent aggression of the psyche becoming conscious in the persona, which is dangerous because it doesn't allow the person to integrate and thereby flow with healthy civilizations. Same thing with the deeper elements, of the Anima and Animus. If we drive those into the persona---into the superficial face we wish to show to the world---we are driving confusing aspects of our nature into the persona. We are, in effect, confusing what is our deepest psychical nature with something we show to the external world.

I think this is dangerous, for obvious reasons. The confusion it creates, telling children that something normal---something observed throughout history, in the form of Atalanta or King David---of the Anima and Animus being expressed in individuals... We understood this, yet we didn't reject that---these characters of the androgyny of the soul,---but rather, we didn't let them be driven into our persona, by manipulating people's perceptions of us to truly accept our darker nature. Rather, our dark nature ought to be hidden, and expressed in things like humor, stories and only be something which influences us from the dark places they reside, which is the deepest layer of the psyche.

It seems like the current mentality is to draw out our deepest latent psychical things, the Shadow and Anima and Animus, into the persona, and to drive our subconscious into the conscious. Now, forgive me if I must say, our subconscious is the same thing that dreams, and dreams seem to me most unconstructive. If anyone were honest, they would tell of dreaming of murder, suicide, promiscuity, and many other deeply evil things. And that's the danger, is driving that dream world into the conscious, into the persona. As, now are we not subduing the aggression, the androgyny---we are expressing it in our very superego. And frankly, being there people will be able to commit just about any crime, if our subconscious is unfiltered by the self and denied access to the ego and persona. As, then the more rational functions of mankind prevail, if one accepts the fact that sex is biological, and gender ought to remain correlated with sex. As, we all have androgyny latent in our subconscious. And that androgyny does not belong in the ego nor persona in healthy civilizations. Rather, reversing the Persona to reveal our darkest nature leads to that darkest of nature spilling out into the areas of life where it doesn't belong. It's bringing the Dream World into the Real World;---and I think that's unconstructive, if not very dangerous.

Because one thing I notice in Homosexuals, and Non-binary genders is the driving of their subconscious into the conscious, thereby trying to create a persona developed around the psychologically dangerous parts of our mind. Which, exist possibly for the purpose of giving men and women ways to relate to one another, and also to help us share in one another's burdens. But, driven into the conscious, we are no longer sharing one another's burdens, but becoming one another's burdens by tyrannizing one another with our aggression and androgyny.

Jung, Carl. Figure 5: Jung's Model of the Psyche. Licensure Exams, Inc.. Image.

I was reading some comments on YouTube, in a Howard Zinn post. It was on American Exceptionalism. In the comments, someone posted, "I hope someday the world can read a true history of America." I have studied America. There was a quirp in Howard Zinn's statement, saying something to the effect, "The residents of Massachusetts, where the mayor at that time called it a city on a hill, went out and massacred the Pequot Indians." I've studied the major Indian wars. All of them. There was no colonists going out and massacring Indians. There were, for all intents and purposes, territorial disputes between tribes and colonists and Europeans, where all the factions would war among one another. There were probably Indian allies in the Massachusetts ranks. There were probably casualties on both sides. There were probably equally massacres committed by the Pequot Indians which led to the Colonists going out and attacking them.

As, every Indian War went through this sequence of events. The Colonists would impede on Indian Territory, or have some economic sanction. The Indians would get pissed, and start killing Europeans. Then, the Europeans with their superior firepower would destroy the Indians. And, for all intents and purposes, war would happen, which in every war in history there is collateral damage. One would have to be against war in totality---even to ridiculous degrees---to censure the Indian Wars. Or, to believe they were somehow innocent. As, often, their response to theft was murder. And that is not justice. Rather, that is a felony being committed over a misdemeanor.

With that being said, Howard Zinn was wrong. America is exceptional. But, there is one thing I will agree with him on. We have to be critical of our government. Otherwise, we will never know where we're failing, and never be able to build a better nation for the future. As what he said happened; a catastrophe, man made through the mismanagement of human resources, has occurred, where America lost her exceptionalism because she lost her freedom.

However, if one wants a true history of America, I will work on it. I will tell the truth, to the best of my ability. And it will be obvious that Americans were in the right throughout most of history, up until about the era of Vietnam. Which, will not be surprising to me, because at about that era was the inducement of Free Love, Drug Abuse and Disobedience to Parents. And, it started the cycle of generational decline found in the Proverbs. To which, Gen Z are the generation that oppresses the poor, which in their unguided attempt to fix the problem, has only turned many to poverty and brought war to the streets of America. America is failing.



Neifert, B. K.. The American Mythology, Book I. Kindle Direct Publishing, 2021. Text.

Various Translators. King James Authorized Bible. Proverbs 30: 11 - 14. Bible Gateway. https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?qs_version=KJV&quicksearch=generation&begin=24&end=24. Web.

Zinn, Howard. "The Myth of American Exceptionalism." MIT, 2005. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6ym9B6I3UM. 2/17/22. Web.

It's easy to read this poem, and get a completely different viewpoint. It's almost entirely inescapable for me, living by the Susquehanna, to see something entirely wrong in the poem. Though, a neat little interpolation I drew from it... it wasn't correct.

The fact remains, that I put question marks by the word "Tattoo". I didn't like it in the poem, and thought Heaney was just pandering to a sort of strange ethos. It seemed strangely placed, and it should have been my first clue to slow down, and look at the poem more carefully. As, the "Tattoo" was taking another denotation, that of a "drumming" and it was describing the rain.

Many things I got correct. Such as the description of the Tillage, the time of year---because I'm from a rural area too, these sorts of questions come to my mind. Yet, many things I got wrong, such as "rig" which didn't mean boat, but meant the tillage. And also "Tattoo", which dubiously I thought was placed in the poem, and I had begun to think I was reading an amateur. I followed through with my investigation, not knowing that "docken" wasn't "dock" as that's Scottish, but was "docken" as in dandelion, thistle, stinkweed, milkweed and the such. I had interpreted half the poem, yet why didn't I use my literary pretension, to assume that "Tattoo" in this instance wasn't being used to represent what I commonly think, and then the rest of the poem as well. It's a trap, of course, Seamus placed in the poem. Probably one to pleasantly drive a reader like myself to this other interpolation. Not dubiously, would a skilled reader place question marks next to "Tattoo", yet a more skilled reader might try to find sense three or four of the word in Webster.

Which, this brings one to a question, of the reader's aptitude. Had I gone with my better instincts, in being skeptical of the word "Tattoo" and not been tainted by instagram poetry where such things would unapologetically be thrown around... I may have gotten the right answer on a first draw through.

The poem is using idiomatic expression from the locale of Broagh; its dialect. So, pad, rig, docken and tattoo are not portmanteau or expressions of boats. It should be obvious to anyone, knowing the river is too small, the Moyola river is too small to have boats or docks in it. Yet, none are clued into that, unless they take great offense at the word "tattoo" and are thereby questioning the very deceptive nature of the wording of the poem. Seamus is aware of this, too, as there is a pleasant little side trek one can go on without first knowing the true meaning of the word. Yet, it would assume that Seamus would use the word "Tattoo" and refer it to a footprint. Such a thing is of an inferior quality for a poet of such high caliber, and ought to be condescended to the local dialect, over one's own prejudices and word associations. (Unless, of course, Seamus was superbly skilled enough to dual wield a metaphor, and thereby allow negative capability so a lay reader can also enjoy the poem. To which, if the poem has negative capability, Seamus' mastery is all to forward to make the use of Second Person Figure, to say that this significant character's footprint is now tattooed into the soil of Broagh. But, one would have to interpret the rhubarb is what ends like the "gh" and not the rain; to which, I received a pleasant meditation on man's impact on the environment with farming, getting a sort of sense of how we, through this, are a part of the land and nature, too.)

The poem was beautiful, and the tradition is called Dinnseanchas, or more appropriately simplified to, "Place-lore." It's creating a mythology for the place---the very specific locale. And all of that is fine, yet how do we get to the true interpretation of the poem? Obviously Seamus gets us there by placing a gaudy word like "tattoo" into the poem, to help us be skeptical of some of the word choice. To make us tread more carefully through the poem's use of seemingly obvious words. Because, after using the internet to search the river, it should be clear the river is not wide like the Susquehanna, but is rather what we would call around my parts a creek. There can't be docks and  boats on it. Which, is why "tattoo", the specious word choice, becomes the most critical word in the poem, to help the reader doubt their first impressions on the poem's meaning. 

As the poem is not about the narrator's childhood, where he would place shoeprints in the tillage. As there's another carefully chosen word, an innocuous one, "You". The poem uses Second Person Figure. Therefore, the narrator is talking to someone other than himself. Which, the word "tattoo" ought to bring one to this subtle doubt of their own first impressions. The rabbit hole is quite pleasant, but it's not the true interpretation of the poem, which can only be rendered in such a way that "tattoo" is the word which brings us to doubt our first impressions. And if one places question marks next to the word, to question why Seamus would use such a base word, it is meant to bring one to that question, and to be answered by a rarer, and more beautiful and poetic denotation.


Heaney, Seamus. Selected Poems 1966 - 1987. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990. Twelfth Printing, 1999. Text.
mrdgEnglish. 05 Broagh. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aykv6QCWaEc. 2/14/22. Web.

Another writer forced into the dubious nature of making a publisher rich. A slave to future publishers who made a fortune off of his writing, while he remained penniless.

And what's worse, Bukowski celebrated this. If I thought he was a fool before, I now think him doubly the fool. If writing is like making love to a beautiful woman, and then getting paid, I call that same thing marriage. Which, he scorned.

A song is playing, "A Little Bit of Sympathy." I will give him sympathy. The same censorship which left him destitute is the same idiocy that keeps me. I do not want a publisher making millions off of my work, while I lived scrounging for the bare minimum. I enjoy writing, I find wisdom in it... But I do not wish to make someone else rich. Unless, of course, I had already had my fair salary. Then I do not care what happens to my writing, if I got to eat from its fruits.

How many writers does this happen to? Austen, Chatterton, Bukowski. The greatest insult is the generations later, who consume the books like a product, making publishers rich while the genius behind it hadn't made all but five hundred dollars. It's ridiculous.

The most noble author is the one who gets paid for his genius. The most unfortunate author is the one who pays his publisher for his genius. It's better not to get published at all.

Bukowski---I don't despise your writing. Only that you needed to be paid for your work. Not like a slave. Though, it's the wisdom of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes. A man compiles a whole lifetime for wisdom, and gives it to another man more righteous than himself. I hope to purify myself through Christ, so I can eat. But, you wrote wisely on the vanity of life, and had we been switched in time and space, we'd probably both have enjoyed our bounty.

Your wisdom was that life is vanity. However, I have hope.