by Jack Tisdale
Belknap House. The Abner L’Argent Psychic College for Pantisocracy, Aspheterism, Benevolence, and Civil Liberty
DE DESPERATIONE, FORTITUDO
Staff Directive 23, October 5.
From: Director Barringwell
Re: Certain Items.
Certain items have been brought to my attention. I address them here in no particular order. Were you therefore to read this from the bottom up, or start in the middle, or indeed, turn it inside out like a glove, the meaning would be more or less the same, and the narrative equally informative, if not entirely compelling.
Item First. As to Clothing. We’re a youngish outfit here and still feeling our way about. The same as any newborn creature, we must adapt to the environment and the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
Going forward, clothing will be required for anyone wishing to attend a Dancing Party. Those in your care who will not allow themselves to be dressed will please limit their activities to the Billiard Room (Men’s House, hours 8-10 pm) or the Sewing Circle (Ladies’ House, hours 2-4 pm). The (brief) tradition of late-night “raids” will be discontinued.
Some of you have questioned the merits of this restriction, asking in faith, nothing wavering. (For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.)
Why, for example, should those poor persons–formerly kept in chains and stripped of all modesty–now be required to dress for dinner and dancing, solely by reason of a dramatic improvement in their relative situations? And why should staff have to spend time wrestling socks onto the swollen and odiferous feet of those who have consistently and violently objected to wearing socks or anything else? This, when Aspheterism, benevolence, and civil liberty are the very foundations of our charter? Trailing clouds of glory, do we naked come from God, etc.
I offer the following observation: Dancing naked is viewed by some as a symptom of mental disorder (see, e.g., Lear, Lady Hamilton, Bacchus, etc.) and, as we are at the mercy of polite society and the generosity of our sponsors, we’d do well to adopt those artifices convention requires of us. Also, you have during my weekly addresses heard me employ the term “processing facility.” Meaning: We do not offer permanent lodging. At some point or other, our sprats must be allowed to swim back to their ocean. I suspect Mrs. L’Argent and the other gentlefolk of Beacon Hill might resent having husbands and daughters returned to them with a taste for gadding about Louisburg Square in their birthday suits.
Item Second. Pets. Fortuné is not a pet. He is a guard dog born and bred, and you would be wise to give him some distance. He is not hostile by nature, but will become violent if provoked. I believe Nurse Vickers and her pug might attest to that. Pets are no longer allowed on the premises.
Item Third. Budgetary Considerations. The recent publicity and economic turmoil have caused a number of our sponsors to reconsider their annual endowments. Accordingly, a bit of belt tightening will be in order as we fight the challenging seas of salacious newspaper articles and the tempestuous winds of the American economy. The North Building will be closed until further notice. Entry fees will be raised. The old tradition of four-in-a-bath will be re-instituted. The Little Workers’ Sewing Circle will now operate throughout the week.
A Guest Speaker series has been established, to which we will invite interested subscribers ($1/per). A good friend, the poet Sophie B__-B__ (Lady Gordon), has been offered the inaugural slot, and I expect before long we’ll have the pleasure of hearing her read from her wonderful epic, The Staff of Life.
Boarders are contemplated–although members of the general public, as we have seen, may not be sympathetic to Pantisocratic principles. See Item First above and Item Sixth below.
Item Fourth. The New Wing. See Item Third above.
Item Fifth (a). Time and (Brutified) Nature. Time and time intervals have played important roles in all societies. It is not for us to rest in absolute contentment until we have brutified our nature and embraced the spirit of immortality. Staff has been seen smoking in the stairwells and loitering behind the outbuildings. Breaks are limited to one hour in the early afternoon.
Item Fifth (b). Self-destruction; Restraints. Self-destruction is no longer a tenet of our beliefs and indeed it can be no refuge from duty absent cases of extreme exigency, such as those described in Revelations. My uncle took his own life because of laws that forbade a man from marrying his brother’s widow. Claudius and Gertrude felt Hamlet’s wrath for doing the same, when in fact no such prohibition existed under Danish law. The yoke weighs heavily on oxen and donkey alike. Restraints may be applied in appropriate cases.
Item Sixth. Visitors. I entertain very few visitors. This discourages the spread of unflattering rumors. Kitty tells me we are thought by some in town to be engaging in Bacchanalian rituals and Dark Masses! Religion and Pantisocracy overlap, certainly, but only to the extent of certain finer points relating to psychic forces (e.g., spirit manifestations), necromancy (e.g., raising the dead), and music (e.g., Pan flute, light tambour, cymbals).
Gossip paints in the broadest strokes, and it portrays charlatans and saints in very much the same light. Be sure of your audience before speaking. The local press (Mr. Stoker in particular), is fond of distorting the nature of our methods and practices.
Item Seventh. Reading Materials. Our residents have been known to gain pleasure by merely touching certain cherished volumes. Accordingly, I have authorized a small expenditure to have the shelves filled with a single lot of one thousand leather-bound books appropriately sized. Forty works on religion, forty dramatic works, forty volumes of epic and sixty of other poetry, one hundred novels and sixty volumes of history, the remainder being historical memoirs of every period.
Item Eighth. Noise. Sounds in the lower register, Galileo observed, travel further and are more readily apprehended by the human ear. In town, the residents complain of our drums. Their dogs howl at our flutes!
Item Ninth. Hot water usage. The main house was designed by an architect unschooled in the laws of gravity. We do not, all of us, need to “bathe in fiery floods.” Some of us, especially those residing on the upper floor, should expect on occasion to “lie in cold obstruction.”
Item Tenth. Herring, Herring! I am aware we are near the ocean, but mutton, too, is readily available. Thursday is meat, and Sunday is stew from Thursday’s meat (see Item Third above).
Item Eleventh. My Health. As you know, I suffer from a profound inability to recognize names and faces. Should I ignore your greeting, or walk past you without speaking, or duck into a room during a conversation, please understand these are not volitional acts. A drunken man, incoherent and babbling, once addressed me on the streets of London, and I swatted him away with my glove, damning him at the same time for his insolent familiarity. Mr. Stevenson, had he remembered the encounter, might well have been offended!
Item Twelfth. England, and Why I Do Not Return. A number of the staff have asked this question, and so I address it here. England, in its current climate, is unamicable to the development of poetical skills. As I’ve explained in my weekly address, here I’m bathed anew each day in the untamed and salubrious stream of life and nature. I do not literally bathe each day. Sunday is for baths. And stew. See Item Third and Item Ninth above.
Item Thirteenth. Poetry. Here is a ripper:
We naked danced in such a way
As caused the roof to pitch and sway.
On Beacon Hill, they heard our games,
And beat us out with staves and flames.
They hung our scalps from nearby trees,
And draped our skin across their knees.
But on we danced! The Pan flute played,
And ushered in a host of days.
And when at last the sun went down
We brought the light and torched the town.
Item Fourteenth. Odors. Windows in the Dining Hall MUST be kept open AT ALL TIMES, regardless of the weather.
Item Fifteenth. Queries (as to the True Meaning of a Free and Open Society). I have a servant, yes, but I am much more in his service than the other way around! Fortuné should not be petted or fed. Some of you know this already.
Item Sixteenth. Words Not to be Used. Crazy, Loony, Obdurate, Incurable.
Item Seventeenth. Basement Off Limits. Mrs. L’Argent stores her furniture and sculptures down there and asks that we respect her property. I will speak with her about the smells and noises.
Contine constant!
AB.
Jack Tisdale attended graduate school in Boston and now lives on an island in Maine. His short stories have appeared in a number of literary journals, including Portland Review, Indiana Review, The Journal, River Styx, and Pleiades.
January House Literary Journal 
Leave a comment