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.