Wish Fulfillment by Sigmund Freud

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Dreams, Freud, Germany, Psychology, Social Science, Subconscious, Unconscious

What follows here is the 14th lecture from Sigmund Freud‘s (b. 1856) A General Introduction to Psycholoanalysis, published in English in 1920. –Gabe Galloway

May I bring to your attention once more the ground we have already covered? How, when we met with dream distortion in the application of our technique, we decided to leave it alone for the time being, and set out to obtain decisive information about the nature of the dream by way of infantile dreams? How, then, armed with the results of this investigation, we attacked dream distortion directly and, I trust, in some measure overcame it? But we must remind ourselves that the results we found along the one way and along the other do not fit together as well as might be. It is now our task to put these two results together and balance them against one another.

Bernice Bobs Her Hair by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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America, Americana, East Coast, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gilded Age, Ivy League, Jazz Age, Midwest

After dark on Saturday night one could stand on the first tee of the golf-course and see the country-club windows as a yellow expanse over a very black and wavy ocean. The waves of this ocean, so to speak, were the heads of many curious caddies, a few of the more ingenious chauffeurs, the golf professional’s deaf sister–and there were usually several stray, diffident waves who might have rolled inside had they so desired. This was the gallery.

The Birthplace Of Herbert Hoover, West Branch, Iowa by Grant Wood

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America, Americana, Grant Wood, Iowa, landscapes, painting, presidents

Grant Wood (b. 1891) was an American painter known for his depictions of the rural American Midwest. Wood taught painting at The University of Iowa in the 1930s. An exemplar of the Regionalism movement in painting, Wood’s work almost exclusively depicts life in his native rural Iowa. Wood’s painting American Gothic is among the most recognizable pieces of art in human history and is famously housed at The Art Institute of Chicago. Wood’s work entered the public domain in 2013. Click through the below image twice for a high resolution image of Wood’s The Birthplace of Herbert Hoover, West Branch, Iowa.  –Gabe Galloway

On A Scotch Bard, Gone To The West Indies by Robert Burns

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Poetry, Robert Burns, Scotland, Scots

A’ ye wha live by sowps o’ drink,
A’ ye wha live by crambo-clink,
A’ ye wha live and never think,
Come, mourn wi’ me!
Our billie ‘s gien us a’ a jink,
An’ owre the sea!

Lament him a’ ye rantin core,
Wha dearly like a random splore;
Nae mair he’ll join the merry roar;
In social key;
For now he’s taen anither shore.
An’ owre the sea!

The bonie lasses weel may wiss him,
And in their dear petitions place him:
The widows, wives, an’ a’ may bless him
Wi’ tearfu’ e’e;
For weel I wat they’ll sairly miss him
That’s owre the sea!

O Fortune, they hae room to grumble!
Hadst thou taen aff some drowsy bummle,
Wha can do nought but fyke an’ fumble,
‘Twad been nae plea;
But he was gleg as ony wumble,
That’s owre the sea!

Auld, cantie Kyle may weepers wear,
An’ stain them wi’ the saut, saut tear;
‘Twill mak her poor auld heart, I fear,
In flinders flee:
He was her Laureat mony a year,
That’s owre the sea!

He saw Misfortune’s cauld nor-west
Lang mustering up a bitter blast;
A jillet brak his heart at last,
Ill may she be!
So, took a berth afore the mast,
An’ owre the sea.

To tremble under Fortune’s cummock,
On a scarce a bellyfu’ o’ drummock,
Wi’ his proud, independent stomach,
Could ill agree;
So, row’t his hurdies in a hammock,
An’ owre the sea.

He ne’er was gien to great misguidin,
Yet coin his pouches wad na bide in;
Wi’ him it ne’er was under hiding;
He dealt it free:
The Muse was a’ that he took pride in,
That’s owre the sea.

Jamaica bodies, use him weel,
An’ hap him in cozie biel:
Ye’ll find him aye a dainty chiel,
An’ fou o’ glee:
He wad na wrang’d the vera deil,
That’s owre the sea.

Farewell, my rhyme-composing billie!
Your native soil was right ill-willie;
But may ye flourish like a lily,
Now bonilie!
I’ll toast you in my hindmost gillie,
Tho’ owre the sea! ◊

Preface to The Picture Of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde

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Art, England, Ethics, Literature, Oscar Wilde

Typical of the tone used by Oscar Wilde (b. 1854), this preface to his greatest novel uses both humor and the etiquette and expectations of polite society to advance Wilde’s personal tastes in art and the creative process. This vignette is one of the most celebrated defenses in all of literary history of what we call “art for art’s sake.” It appears to have been written by Wilde in response to the vociferous criticism he received for the supposedly decadent behavior depicted in, and the homosexual allusions included in, Dorian Grey.  –Gabe Galloway

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless. ◊

William Blackstone on Habeas Corpus and Other Ancient Writs

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Ancient Writs, Common Law, Criminal Law, England, Habeas Corpus, Law, William Blackstone

William Blackstone (b. 1723) was an English lawyer and jurist now mainly known for his Commentaries on the Laws of England, a seminal work about the common law system that was widely influential throughout the subsequent history of law practice and legal scholarship in England and in the United States.  Here is what Blackstone has to say about the “ancient writs,” including the writ of habeas corpus.  –Gabe Galloway

… 3. The writ de homine replegiando lies to replevy a man out of prison, or out of the custody of any private person, (in the same manner that chattels taken in distress may be replevied, of which in the next chapter) upon giving security to the sheriff that the man shall be forthcoming to answer any charge against him. And, if the person be conveyed out of the sheriff’s jurisdiction, the sheriff may return that he is eloigned, elongatus; upon which a process issues (called a capias in withernam) to imprison the defendant himself, without bail or mainprize, till he produces the party. But this writ is guarded with so many exceptions, that it is not an effectual remedy in numerous instances, especially where the crown is concerned. The incapacity therefore of these three remedies to give complete relief in every case hath almost intirely antiquated them, and hath caused a general recourse to be had, in behalf of persons aggrieved by illegal imprisonment, to

“Legal Brief On Freeing A Negro Slave” by Samuel Johnson

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Black History, Discrimination, England, Law, Legal Briefs, Natural Law, Samuel Johnson, Scotland

In 1777, Samuel Johnson, the English writer and moralist, dictated this argument to his companion James Boswell so that the argument could be used by the lawyer representing Joseph Knight, a man of color who had been kidnapped as a child and sold to a Scottish gentleman.  Knight had fled captivity and been brought up on charges.  The Court of Session heard Knight’s case and decided to grant him his freedom.  –Gabe Galloway

It must be agreed that in most ages many countries have had part of their inhabitants in a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man.  It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another but by violent compulsion.  An individual may, indeed, forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit the liberty of his children.  What is true of a criminal seems likewise true of a captive.  A man may accept life from a conquering enemy on condition of perpetual servitude; but it is very doubtful whether he can entail that servitude on his descendants; for no man may stipulate without commission for another.  The condition which he himself accepts, his son or grandson perhaps would have rejected.  If we should admit, what perhaps may with more reason be denied, that there are certain relations between man and man which may make slavery necessary and just, yet it can never be proved that he who is now suing for his freedom ever stood in any of those relations.  He is certainly subject by no law, but that of violence, but that he bought him from a merchant of slaves, whose right to sell him never was examined.  It is said that, according to the constitutions of Jamaica, he was legally enslaved; these constitutions are merely positive; and apparently injurious to the rights of mankind, because whoever is exposed to sale is condemned to slavery without appeal; by whatever fraud or violence he might have been originally brought into the merchant’s power.  In our own time Princes have been sold, by wretches to whose care they were entrusted, that they might have an European education; but when once they were brought to a market in the plantations, little would either avail either their dignity or their wrongs.  The laws of Jamaica afford a Negro no redress.  His colour is considered as a sufficient testimony against him.  It is to be lamented that moral right should ever give way to political convenience.  But if temptations of interest are sometimes too strong for human virtue, let us at least retain a virtue where there is no temptation to quit it.  In the present case there is apparent right on one side, and no convenience on the other.  Inhabitants of this island can neither gain riches nor power by taking away the liberty of any part of the human species.  The sum of the argument is this:–No man is by nature the property of another: The defendant is, therefore, by nature free: The rights of nature must be some way forfeited before they can be justly taken away: That the defendant has by any act forfeited the rights of nature we require to be proved; and if no proof of such forfeiture can be given, we doubt not but the justice of the court will declare him free.  ◊