Today French author Dominique Venner, whose writings have been featured prominently at Counter-Currents, entered the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, placed a sealed envelope on the altar, and shot himself in the head.
Read his last post,
where Venner explains
the Islamization of France
& the acceptance of fag marriage
here.
The Richwine IQ affair
Scientific American said…
Clarification: Some readers may wonder what I mean by “ban,” so let me spell it out. I envision a federal prohibition against speech or publications supporting racial theories of intelligence. All papers, books and other documents advocating such theories will be burned, deleted or otherwise destroyed. Those who continue espousing such theories either publicly or privately (as determined by monitoring of email, phone calls or other communications) will be detained indefinitely in Guantanamo until or unless a secret tribunal overseen by me says they have expressed sufficient remorse and can be released.
Dennis Mangan said…
Genuinely, unironically shocked. Cynics like us reactionaries aren’t usually shocked easily, but the Richwine affair has left me aghast. The swiftness with which Richwine and anyone and anything associated with him, including Harvard, have been denounced as beyond the pale of humanity, was stunning. We now have calls demanding that Harvard investigate—or be investigated for, one isn’t really sure—the PhD that it granted Richwine. It’s not terribly surprising that the Heritage Foundation fired Richwine, since we already knew that conservatives, especially those under the Republican brand label, were mostly useless. But will we see Harvard itself make a move toward somehow punishing Richwine’s graduate advisers, or putting an end to all IQ research, or some other action? Stranger things have happened…
The resemblance between what the Church did to Galileo and what society is doing to Richwine has not escaped the notice of some observers…
Things are getting bad out there.
Charles Murray said…
I have a personal interest in this story because Jason Richwine was awarded a fellowship from my employer, the American Enterprise Institute, in 2008-09, and I reviewed the draft of his dissertation. A rereading of the dissertation last weekend confirmed my recollection that Richwine had meticulously assembled and analyzed the test-score data, which showed exactly what he said they showed: mean IQ-score differences between Latinos and non-Latino whites, found consistently across many datasets and across time after taking factors such as language proficiency and cultural bias into account. I had disagreements then and now about his policy recommendations, but not about the empirical accuracy of his research or the scholarly integrity of the interpretations with which I disagreed.
In resigning, Dr. Richwine joins distinguished company. The most famous biologist in the world, James D. Watson, was forced to retire from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2007 because of a factually accurate remark to a British journalist about low IQ scores among African blacks. In 2006, Larry Summers, president of Harvard, had to resign after a series of attacks that began with his empirically well-informed remarks about gender differences. These are just the most visible examples of a corruption that has spread throughout American intellectual discourse: If you take certain positions, you will be cast into outer darkness. Whether your statements are empirically accurate is irrelevant.
Excerpted from an article in Spanish:
In this time of loss, in this interregnum, in this night we suffer it is not prudent or wise, from our ranks, to throw the slightest criticism at the Nazi period (we should not pass ammunition to the enemy). Moreover, it is the only relevant event of our people in the last thousands of years I would say…
The swastika, our standard, not only was raised against liberalism and communism. Only today we are starting to comprehend the greatness and scope of its mission—our mission.
Ancient Roman mosaics of La Olmeda, Spain
You have to know the work related to the hardness and cruelty with which the German people were treated before, during, and after the war. And also all the lies spread by the “victors”, all anti-Nazi (anti-Aryan) propaganda circulating since then. All such History will have to be rewritten at some time, and show it to the entire world. But this will not be before our final victory. Until then we have a lot of work, especially the spiritual unity of the peoples of both Aryan Europe and Magna Europe.
Reclaiming, rehabilitate, and restore honor. The Nazi period, and its previous years, has to be taken up with unction. We must claim their achievements, their figures, their heroes, science, and art, its thought… Lost badges, flags and banners—all the iconography of the period. The first Aryan Reich in history, the first Aryan nation. We shall vindicate the figure of Hitler, his primary role in our early history, our first outing in the world. Hitler was the creator of the first Aryan State. To him we owe the idea and its realization.
The fight, which was a fight of one, is now “our struggle” (unser Kampf). Hitler opens a period that has not yet begun. He was the first. We are in the beginnings of the Aryan nation in its dawn.
Our story has just begun.
The Aryan order had not, nor it has, a universal reach but one purely ethnic. That first experience remains as a perfectible model of racial and cultural community. And even as a model for other ethnic groups, to other peoples; towards a community not of nations, but of peoples: a turnaround, a subversion, a revolution, a return to the particular and what is our own.
That ambition was excessive: that new order which Hitler announced. It came into collision with all universalisms and religious internationalisms or political internationalisms. It was a war against the old religious, economic, political and cultural order in the broad sense. It was a war declared on the dominant culture: the Judeo-Messianic religious world and its secular, political and economic correlates (universal democracy and communist internationalism).
He was condemned, he and his project, from the time he reached power. He was the destroyer, the livelier threat that the Jews and their freakish spawn—religious, political, psychological—could hear about their worlds. Someone was openly declaring war to them all!
It was less a territorial than a culture kampf what they feared: an ideological confrontation; that the Aryan message coming from Hitler could spread—his ethnic and cultural revolution; his spirit, his struggle (ihr Kampf).
Hitler and the New Germany embodied a new moral, political, cultural, spiritual order… The way of the peoples. It was the most powerful alternative to the prevailing, almighty universalisms (of Semitic origin). It continues to be. National Socialism was (and is) certainly the “third way” between economic liberalism and communist internationalism. It demonstrated in the years of peace their success against each other. The dignity and prosperity provided to the people ruined the prestige of despicable capitalism (and its consumer society), as well as the proletarian internationalism: whose domain area was plunged into spiritual and material miseries. And it was precisely this social, economic and cultural success which could have won the hearts and minds of white nations, achieving an extension of this “third way” throughout Europe, and around the white world. And this is what had to be prevented at all costs.
He had to be slain and his example (his victories, successes) at any price. They had to destroy and stigmatize him. Make him the embodiment of evil, absolute evil. And they succeeded. They defeated our first Reich, and sullied her memory.
The horrible public image of Hitler (and the Nazi period) developed by the enemy is also our image, the image of the Aryan nation—of each and every one of us. Hitler’s enemy is the enemy of our people: the one who fights him. The one who insults him insults us.
The military defeat suffered has not even weakened our “faith” and our loyalty to our people. Neither has the perverse propaganda taken its toll on us. Our genius is indestructible. Sooner or later we will rewrite History. In the end, whites, the Aryans, shall win.
Until the next time,
Manu
Julian the Apostate was the nephew of the Emperor Constantine the Great. Julian ascended the throne in A.D. 361, at the age of twenty-nine, and was murdered four years later after an unsuccessful attempt to rebuke Christianity and restore the worship to the old gods.
The Memoir of Julian Augustus
From the example of my uncle the Emperor Constantine, called the Great, who died when I was six years old, I learned that it is dangerous to side with any party of the Galileans, for they mean to overthrow and veil those things that are truly holy. I can hardly remember Constantine, though I was once presented to him at the Sacred Palace. I dimly recall a giant, heavily scented, wearing a stiff jeweled robe. My older brother Gallus always said that I tried to pull his wig off. But Gallus had a cruel humor, and I doubt that this story was true. If I had tugged at the Emperor’s wig, I would surely not have endeared myself to him, for he was as vain as a woman about his appearance; even his Galilean admirers admit to that.
From my mother Basilina I inherited my love of learning. I never knew her. She died shortly after my birth, 7 April 331. She was the daughter of the praetorian prefect Julius Julianus. From portraits I resemble her more than I do my father; I share with her a straight nose and rather full lips, unlike the imperial Flavians, who tend to have thin hooked noses and tight pursed mouths. The Emperor Constantius, my cousin and predecessor, was a typical Flavian, resembling his father Constantine, except that he was much shorter. But I did inherit the Flavian thick chest and neck, legacy of our Illyrian ancestors, who were men of the mountains. My mother, though Galilean, was devoted to literature. She was taught by the eunuch Mardonius, who was also my tutor.
From my cousin and predecessor, the Emperor Constantius, I learned to dissemble and disguise my true thoughts. A dreadful lesson, but had I not learned it I would not have lived past my twentieth year.
In the year 337 Constantius murdered my father. His crime? Consanguinity. I was spared because I was six years old; my half-brother Gallus—who was eleven years old—was spared because he was sickly and not expected to live.
Yes, I was trying to imitate the style of Marcus Aurelius to Himself, and I have failed. Not only because I lack his purity and goodness but because while he was able to write of the good things he learned from a good family and good friends, I must write of those bitter things I learned from a family of murderers in an age diseased by the quarrels and intolerance of a sect whose purpose is to overthrow that civilization whose first note was stuck upon blind Homer’s lyre.
The fawn blinked its eyelids. It groaned comfortably and dropped its head. He tiptoed from the shed. No dog, he thought, could be more biddable.
Jody scraped his plate clean and set it aside. He lay down beside the fawn. He put one arm across its neck. It did not seem to him that he could ever be lonely again.
After describing the lovely interaction of boy and baby fawn right after the new pet arrived to the Baxters’ farm, in the next chapter Marjorie wrote:
The fawn took up much of Jody’s time. It tagged him wherever he went. At the woodpile, it interfered with the swing of his axe. The milking had been assigned to him. He was forced to bar the fawn from the lot and it stood by the gate, peering between the bars, and bleated until he had finished. He stripped Trixie’s teats until she kicked in protest. Each cupful of milk meant more nourishment for the fawn. It seemed to him that he could see it growing. It stood firm on its small legs and leaped and tossed its head and tail. He romped with it until they dropped together in a heap to rest and cool themselves.
Accompanied with the family guest, in the next week Jody went out to steal some honey from the industrious bees:
He started across the yard with Jody beside him. The fawn was close behind.
“You want your blasted baby to git stung to death? Then shut him up. With me gone, you’ll not have no time to nuss that fawn.”
With his health recovered Penny visits the Forresters:
He asked innocently, “How did you-all come out with that sorry dog I traded you?”
Buck drawled, “Why, that dog’s proved out the fastest and the finest and the hardest-huntin’ and the fearlessest of ary dog we’ve ever had on the place. All he needed was men to train him.”
Penny chuckled.
He said, “I’m proud you was smart enough to make somethin’ outen him. Where’s he now?”
“Well, he was so blasted good, he put t’other dogs so to shame, Lem couldn’t abide it, and he hauled off and shot him and buried him in the Baxter cemetery one night.”
Jody asked, “If fellers didn’t say quarrelin’ things, would they put in to fight?”
Penny said, “I’m feered so. I oncet seed a pair o’ deef dummies havin’ it. But they do say they got a sign language, and likely one passed the insult in a sign.”
Buck said, “Hit’s male nature, boy. Wait ’til you git to courtin’ and you’ll git your breeches dusted many a time.”
“But nobody but Lem and Oliver was courtin’, and here all us Baxters and all you Forresters was in to it.”
Penny said, “They’s no end to what a man’ll fight for. I even knowed a preacher takened off his coat and fit ary man wouldn’t agree to infant damnation.”
Anybody who has read the fifth book of my Hojas Susurrantes knows why such a passage can make an impression in my mind. Later in the novel Marjorie says:
Jody waited until a deep rumbling snore sounded. Then he slipped from the house and groped his way to the shed. The fawn stood up at the sound. He felt his way to it and threw his arms around its neck. It nuzzled his cheek. He lay with his head against its side. Its ribs lifted and fell with its breathing.
The fawn lay in the hedge-row in the shade of an elderberry bush. It had been almost a nuisance when he began his work. It had galloped up and down the sweet potato beds, trampling the vines, and knocking down the edges of the beds. It had come and stood in front of him in the direct path of his hoeing, refusing to move, to force him to play with it. The wide-eyed, wondering expression of its first weeks with him had given way to an alert awareness. Jody liked to work with it near.
The boy called Fodder-wing died, the only human friend of Jodie. At the Forresters’ home Jodie did not know that before dying Fodder-wing had envisioned a name for his pet:
“Why,” she said, “he named it. Last time he talked about it, he gave it a name. He said, ‘A fawn carries its flag so merry. A fawn’s tail’s a leetle white merry flag. If I had me a fawn, I’d name him “Flag.” “Flag the fawn,” is what I’d call him.'”
Jody repeated, “Flag.”
He thought he would burst. Fodder-wing had talked of him and had named the fawn. There was happiness tangled with his grief that was both comforting and unbearable.
He said, “I reckon I best go feed him. I best go feed Flag.”
I never, ever read the newspapers or columns written by Body-snatched Pods but yesterday I broke my rule and read a piece, “El asesino en la puerta de al lado” in the grotesquely called “rightist” Mexican paper Reforma.
I was appalled by what the über-Pod Jorge Volpi said about Nazis, Jews, “los indígenas y los ladinos” (the Amerinds and the Iberian whites) and the South African apartheid in the context of the recent falling in disgrace of former anti-leftist dictator Efraín Ríos Montt.
In today’s article that Manu Rodríguez sent me about these people, Manu said:
This is for you; for the vain, ignorant, confused and hypocritical leftists and progressives.
You lack shame and truth. Your language is as insidious as the Muslims’ and the Jews’ talk. Like them you use the wildcard “democracy and freedom” to thrive in our free societies; and also like them, to the people who complain about the “progress” and the “intolerant” and intolerable behavior of our enemies, you accuse of racists. You try so to disarm, conceptually, the only defenders of liberty in our lands. You are a disgrace to the fine concept of liberty, as well as to all those who defended it with their own life. They will shudder with horror before your stupidity, and your dangerous behavior. You have chosen our enemies, you have chosen our evil. You are the shame of our world.
You are blind, hypocrites, vain, yea; ignorant, unconscious, unreflecting; clumsy, ill-fated. You are “useful idiots” in the service of Islamic totalitarianism or the Jewish power in our world; and if you dislike this epithet, will you prefer being considered an accomplice of their threats?
What is your stance? Are you afraid of Muslims or Jews if you give the cold shoulder to them? Afraid that you may not to be considered a “democrat” or a “good person”? Are you more concerned about their opinion than the opinion of your own brothers and countrymen? Silly, they only blackmail that morally at you; a trick so old! You are really an idiot.
I don’t know what to think of you, what to say to you about your sad role in the historical circumstances that we live in. Wake up. Stop contributing to our, and your, destruction. You don’t play another role from that of the traitor (conscious or unconscious).
This is the memory that will remain of you.
But of course: once a human turns into a Pod he cannot become human again.
The History of the Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire
Chapter XIX:
Part 4
The Cæsar immediately sent his captives to the court of Constantius, who, accepting them as a valuable present, rejoiced in the opportunity of adding so many heroes to the choicest troops of his domestic guards. The obstinate resistance of this handful of Franks apprised Julian of the difficulties of the expedition which he meditated for the ensuing spring, against the whole body of the nation. His rapid diligence surprised and astonished the active Barbarians.
Ordering his soldiers to provide themselves with biscuit for twenty days, he suddenly pitched his camp near Tongres, while the enemy still supposed him in his winter quarters of Paris, expecting the slow arrival of his convoys from Aquitain. Without allowing the Franks to unite or deliberate, he skilfully spread his legions from Cologne to the ocean; and by the terror, as well as by the success, of his arms, soon reduced the suppliant tribes to implore the clemency, and to obey the commands, of their conqueror.
The Chamavians submissively retired to their former habitations beyond the Rhine; but the Salians were permitted to possess their new establishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxiliaries of the Roman empire. The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths; and perpetual inspectors were appointed to reside among the Franks, with the authority of enforcing the strict observance of the conditions. An incident is related, interesting enough in itself, and by no means repugnant to the character of Julian, who ingeniously contrived both the plot and the catastrophe of the tragedy.
When the Chamavians sued for peace, he required the son of their king, as the only hostage on whom he could rely. A mournful silence, interrupted by tears and groans, declared the sad perplexity of the Barbarians; and their aged chief lamented in pathetic language, that his private loss was now imbittered by a sense of public calamity.
While the Chamavians lay prostrate at the foot of his throne, the royal captive, whom they believed to have been slain, unexpectedly appeared before their eyes; and as soon as the tumult of joy was hushed into attention, the Cæsar addressed the assembly in the following terms: “Behold the son, the prince, whom you wept. You had lost him by your fault. God and the Romans have restored him to you. I shall still preserve and educate the youth, rather as a monument of my own virtue, than as a pledge of your sincerity. Should you presume to violate the faith which you have sworn, the arms of the republic will avenge the perfidy, not on the innocent, but on the guilty.” The Barbarians withdrew from his presence, impressed with the warmest sentiments of gratitude and admiration.
It was not enough for Julian to have delivered the provinces of Gaul from the Barbarians of Germany. He aspired to emulate the glory of the first and most illustrious of the emperors; after whose example, he composed his own commentaries of the Gallic war. Cæsar has related, with conscious pride, the manner in which he twice passed the Rhine. Julian could boast, that before he assumed the title of Augustus, he had carried the Roman eagles beyond that great river in three successful expeditions.
The consternation of the Germans, after the battle of Strasburgh, encouraged him to the first attempt; and the reluctance of the troops soon yielded to the persuasive eloquence of a leader, who shared the fatigues and dangers which he imposed on the meanest of the soldiers. The villages on either side of the Meyn, which were plentifully stored with corn and cattle, felt the ravages of an invading army. The principal houses, constructed with some imitation of Roman elegance, were consumed by the flames; and the Cæsar boldly advanced about ten miles, till his progress was stopped by a dark and impenetrable forest, undermined by subterraneous passages, which threatened with secret snares and ambush every step of the assailants. The ground was already covered with snow; and Julian, after repairing an ancient castle which had been erected by Trajan, granted a truce of ten months to the submissive Barbarians.
At the expiration of the truce, Julian undertook a second expedition beyond the Rhine, to humble the pride of Surmar and Hortaire, two of the kings of the Alemanni, who had been present at the battle of Strasburgh. They promised to restore all the Roman captives who yet remained alive; and as the Cæsar had procured an exact account from the cities and villages of Gaul, of the inhabitants whom they had lost, he detected every attempt to deceive him, with a degree of readiness and accuracy, which almost established the belief of his supernatural knowledge. His third expedition was still more splendid and important than the two former.
The Germans had collected their military powers, and moved along the opposite banks of the river, with a design of destroying the bridge, and of preventing the passage of the Romans. But this judicious plan of defence was disconcerted by a skilful diversion. Three hundred light-armed and active soldiers were detached in forty small boats, to fall down the stream in silence, and to land at some distance from the posts of the enemy.
They executed their orders with so much boldness and celerity, that they had almost surprised the Barbarian chiefs, who returned in the fearless confidence of intoxication from one of their nocturnal festivals. Without repeating the uniform and disgusting tale of slaughter and devastation, it is sufficient to observe, that Julian dictated his own conditions of peace to six of the haughtiest kings of the Alemanni, three of whom were permitted to view the severe discipline and martial pomp of a Roman camp. Followed by twenty thousand captives, whom he had rescued from the chains of the Barbarians, the Cæsar repassed the Rhine, after terminating a war, the success of which has been compared to the ancient glories of the Punic and Cimbric victories.
As soon as the valor and conduct of Julian had secured an interval of peace, he applied himself to a work more congenial to his humane and philosophic temper. The cities of Gaul, which had suffered from the inroads of the Barbarians, he diligently repaired; and seven important posts, between Mentz and the mouth of the Rhine, are particularly mentioned, as having been rebuilt and fortified by the order of Julian.
The vanquished Germans had submitted to the just but humiliating condition of preparing and conveying the necessary materials. The active zeal of Julian urged the prosecution of the work; and such was the spirit which he had diffused among the troops, that the auxiliaries themselves, waiving their exemption from any duties of fatigue, contended in the most servile labors with the diligence of the Roman soldiers. It was incumbent on the Cæsar to provide for the subsistence, as well as for the safety, of the inhabitants and of the garrisons.
The desertion of the former, and the mutiny of the latter, must have been the fatal and inevitable consequences of famine. The tillage of the provinces of Gaul had been interrupted by the calamities of war; but the scanty harvests of the continent were supplied, by his paternal care, from the plenty of the adjacent island. Six hundred large barks, framed in the forest of the Ardennes, made several voyages to the coast of Britain; and returning from thence, laden with corn, sailed up the Rhine, and distributed their cargoes to the several towns and fortresses along the banks of the river.
The arms of Julian had restored a free and secure navigation, which Constantius had offered to purchase at the expense of his dignity, and of a tributary present of two thousand pounds of silver. The emperor parsimoniously refused to his soldiers the sums which he granted with a lavish and trembling hand to the Barbarians. The dexterity, as well as the firmness, of Julian was put to a severe trial, when he took the field with a discontented army, which had already served two campaigns, without receiving any regular pay or any extraordinary donative.
A tender regard for the peace and happiness of his subjects was the ruling principle which directed, or seemed to direct, the administration of Julian. He devoted the leisure of his winter quarters to the offices of civil government; and affected to assume, with more pleasure, the character of a magistrate than that of a general. Before he took the field, he devolved on the provincial governors most of the public and private causes which had been referred to his tribunal; but, on his return, he carefully revised their proceedings, mitigated the rigor of the law, and pronounced a second judgment on the judges themselves.
Superior to the last temptation of virtuous minds, an indiscreet and intemperate zeal for justice, he restrained, with calmness and dignity, the warmth of an advocate, who prosecuted, for extortion, the president of the Narbonnese province. “Who will ever be found guilty,” exclaimed the vehement Delphidius, “if it be enough to deny?” “And who,” replied Julian, “will ever be innocent, if it be sufficient to affirm?” In the general administration of peace and war, the interest of the sovereignis commonly the same as that of his people; but Constantius would have thought himself deeply injured, if the virtues of Julian had defrauded him of any part of the tribute which he extorted from an oppressed and exhausted country.
The prince who was invested with the ensigns of royalty, might sometimes presume to correct the rapacious insolence of his inferior agents, to expose their corrupt arts, and to introduce an equal and easier mode of collection. But the management of the finances was more safely intrusted to Florentius, prætorian præfect of Gaul, an effeminate tyrant, incapable of pity or remorse: and the haughty minister complained of the most decent and gentle opposition, while Julian himself was rather inclined to censure the weakness of his own behavior. The Cæsar had rejected, with abhorrence, a mandate for the levy of an extraordinary tax; a new superindiction, which the præfect had offered for his signature; and the faithful picture of the public misery, by which he had been obliged to justify his refusal, offended the court of Constantius. We may enjoy the pleasure of reading the sentiments of Julian, as he expresses them with warmth and freedom in a letter to one of his most intimate friends.
After stating his own conduct, he proceeds in the following terms: “Was it possible for the disciple of Plato and Aristotle to act otherwise than I have done? Could I abandon the unhappy subjects intrusted to my care? Was I not called upon to defend them from the repeated injuries of these unfeeling robbers? A tribune who deserts his post is punished with death, and deprived of the honors of burial. With what justice could I pronounce his sentence, if, in the hour of danger, I myself neglected a duty far more sacred and far more important? God has placed me in this elevated post; his providence will guard and support me. Should I be condemned to suffer, I shall derive comfort from the testimony of a pure and upright conscience. Would to Heaven that I still possessed a counsellor like Sallust! If they think proper to send me a successor, I shall submit without reluctance; and had much rather improve the short opportunity of doing good, than enjoy a long and lasting impunity of evil.”
The precarious and dependent situation of Julian displayed his virtues and concealed his defects. The young hero who supported, in Gaul, the throne of Constantius, was not permitted to reform the vices of the government; but he had courage to alleviate or to pity the distress of the people. Unless he had been able to revive the martial spirit of the Romans, or to introduce the arts of industry and refinement among their savage enemies, he could not entertain any rational hopes of securing the public tranquility, either by the peace or conquest of Germany. Yet the victories of Julian suspended, for a short time, the inroads of the Barbarians, and delayed the ruin of the Western Empire.
His salutary influence restored the cities of Gaul, which had been so long exposed to the evils of civil discord, Barbarian war, and domestic tyranny; and the spirit of industry was revived with the hopes of enjoyment. Agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, again flourished under the protection of the laws; and the curi, or civil corporations, were again filled with useful and respectable members: the youth were no longer apprehensive of marriage; and married persons were no longer apprehensive of posterity: the public and private festivals were celebrated with customary pomp; and the frequent and secure intercourse of the provinces displayed the image of national prosperity.
A mind like that of Julian must have felt the general happiness of which he was the author; but he viewed, with particular satisfaction and complacency, the city of Paris; the seat of his winter residence, and the object even of his partial affection. That splendid capital, which now embraces an ample territory on either side of the Seine, was originally confined to the small island in the midst of the river, from whence the inhabitants derived a supply of pure and salubrious water. The river bathed the foot of the walls; and the town was accessible only by two wooden bridges. A forest overspread the northern side of the Seine, but on the south, the ground, which now bears the name of the University, was insensibly covered with houses, and adorned with a palace and amphitheatre, baths, an aqueduct, and a field of Mars for the exercise of the Roman troops.
The severity of the climate was tempered by the neighborhood of the ocean; and with some precautions, which experience had taught, the vine and fig-tree were successfully cultivated. But in remarkable winters, the Seine was deeply frozen; and the huge pieces of ice that floated down the stream, might be compared, by an Asiatic, to the blocks of white marble which were extracted from the quarries of Phrygia.
The licentiousness and corruption of Antioch recalled to the memory of Julian the severe and simple manners of his beloved Lutetia; where the amusements of the theatre were unknown or despised. He indignantly contrasted the effeminate Syrians with the brave and honest simplicity of the Gauls, and almost forgave the intemperance, which was the only stain of the Celtic character. If Julian could now revisit the capital of France, he might converse with men of science and genius, capable of understanding and of instructing a disciple of the Greeks; he might excuse the lively and graceful follies of a nation, whose martial spirit has never been enervated by the indulgence of luxury; and he must applaud the perfection of that inestimable art, which softens and refines and embellishes the intercourse of social life.
Severus Niflson discusses with William Finck the absolute importance of patriarchy after minute 55 of a radio show last year. I may not know shorthand but below are a few excerpts of the exchange:
Niflson: If you are a reasonable white nationalist you have to believe in patriarchy. Patriarchy defined as the male… being the central authority figure and the core of the society. I believe that every white nationalist would have to agree with it. [Animals] have it.
Finck: It’s the male who is the political creature and never the woman.
Guest: Egalitarianism, this idea between man and woman must be squashed…
Niflson: Patriarchy is also part of our history… Patriarchy is efficient. Patriarchy allows and promotes ideals, masculine ideals of… defensive measures, certain levels of belligerency that are required in a masculine, powerful society… If you do not believe in these things you are not [a nationalist].
Finck: Patriarchy has to exist in white nationalism or you are not a white nationalist… because [otherwise] you shun thousands of years of white tradition and you basically agree with the Jew who has destroyed patriarchy in our society.
Niflson (discussing patriarchy in mammals): She [the lioness] can go hinting for food but the lion is the lion. The male is the male. Patriarchy is not only a traditional structure: it is an effective structure for our survival… If you don’t agree with patriarchy, then your political system will be a horrible system.
Finck: Even Nationalist Socialist Germany recognized the importance of patriarchy.
Niflson: The pater familias is the core value of the European social structure. (Niflson then proceed to explain the etymology of pater, patria, patriot, etc.)
The thought of the fawn returned to him. A leaden feeling came over him again. It would be desperate with hunger this morning. He wondered if it would try to nurse the cold teats of the doe. The open flesh of the dead deer would attract the wolves. Perhaps they had found the fawn and had torn its soft body to ribbons. His joy in the morning, in his father’s living, was darkened and tainted. His mind followed the fawn and would not be comforted.
That very day, with the neighbors taking care of Penny:
Jody was proud of the table. There were not as many different dishes as the Forresters served, but there was enough of everything. The men ate greedily. At last they pushed away their plates and lit their pipes.
Mill-wheel said, “Seems like Sunday, don’t it?”
Ma Baxter said, “Sickness allus do seem like Sunday, someway. Folks settin’ around, and the men not goin’ to the field.”
Jody had never seen her so amiable. She had waited to eat until the men were done, for fear of their not having plenty. She sat now eating with relish. The men chatted idly. Jody allowed his thoughts to drift back to the fawn. He could not keep it out of his mind.
The way the good doctor refused payment from the poor family cannot contrast more with our culture dedicated to the glory of Mammon:
She said, “Well. What do we owe you, Doc? We cain’t pay right now, but time the crops is made—”
“Pay for what? I’ve done nothing. He was safe before I got here. I’ve had a night’s lodging and a good breakfast. Send me some syrup when your cane’s ground.”
“You’re mighty good, Doc. We been scramblin’ so, I didn’t know folks could be so good.”
“Hush, woman. You got a good man there. Why wouldn’t folks be good to him?”
Buck said, “You reckon that ol’ horse o’ Penny’s kin keep ahead o’ me at the plow? I’m like to run him down.”
Doc said, “Get as much milk down Penny as he’ll take. Then give him greens and fresh meat, if you can get it.”
Buck said, “Me and Jody’ll tend to that.”
Mill-wheel said, “Come on, boy. We got to git ridin’.”
Ma Baxter asked anxiously, “You’ll not be gone long?”
Jody said, “I’ll be back shore, before dinner.”
“Reckon you’d not git home a-tall,” she said, “if ’twasn’t for dinner-time.”
Doc said, “That’s man-nature, Ma’am. Three things bring a man home again—his bed, his woman, and his dinner.”
Buck and Mill-wheel guffawed. Doc’s eye caught the cream-colored ‘coonskin knapsack.
“Now ain’t that a pretty something? Wouldn’t I like such as that to tote my medicines?”
Jody had never before possessed a thing that was worth giving away. He took it from its nail, and put it in Doc’s hands.
“Hit’s mine,” he said. “Take it.”
When the boy and Mill-wheel Forrester left the home looking for the fawn:
Suddenly Jody was unwilling to have Mill-wheel with him. If the fawn was dead, or could not be found, he could not have his disappointment seen. And if the fawn was there, the meeting would be so lovely and so secret that he could not endure to share it.
But Jody alone found it:
Movement directly in front of him startled him so that he tumbled backward. The fawn lifted its face to his. It turned its head with a wide, wondering motion and shook him through with the stare of its liquid eyes. It was quivering. It made no effort to rise or run. Jody could not trust himself to move.
He whispered, “It’s me.”
The fawn lifted its nose, scenting him. He reached out one hand and laid it on the soft neck. The touch made him delirious. He moved forward on all fours until he was close beside it. He put his arms around its body. A light convulsion passed over it but it did not stir. He stroked its sides as gently as though the fawn were a china deer and he might break it. Its skin was softer than the white ‘coonskin knapsack. It was sleek and clean and had a sweet scent of grass. He rose slowly and lifted the fawn from the ground. It was no heavier than old Julia. Its legs hung limply. They were surprisingly long and he had to hoist the fawn as high as possible under his arm.
He was afraid that it might kick and bleat at sight and smell of its mother. He skirted the clearing and pushed his way into the thicket. It was difficult to fight through with his burden. The fawn’s legs caught in the bushes and he could not lift his own with freedom. He tried to shield its face from prickling vines. Its head bobbed with his stride. His heart thumped with the marvel of its acceptance of him. He reached the trail and walked as fast as he could until he came to the intersection with the road home. He stopped to rest and set the fawn down on its dangling legs. It wavered on them. It looked at him and bleated.
He said, enchanted, “I’ll tote you time I git my breath.”
He remembered his father’s saying that a fawn would follow that had been first carried. He started away slowly. The fawn stared after him. He came back to it and stroked it and walked away again. It took a few wobbling steps toward him and cried piteously. It was willing to follow him. It belonged to him. It was his own. He was light-headed with his joy. He wanted to fondle it, to run and romp with it, to call to it to come to him. He dared not alarm it. He picked it up and carried it in front of him over his two arms. It seemed to him that he walked without effort. He had the strength of a Forrester.
His arms began to ache and he was forced to stop again. When he walked on, the fawn followed him at once. He allowed it to walk a little distance, then picked it up again. The distance home was nothing. He could have walked all day and into the night, carrying it and watching it follow. He was wet with sweat but a light breeze blew through the June morning, cooling him. The sky was as clear as spring water in a blue china cup. He came to the clearing. It was fresh and green after the night’s rain. He could see Buck Forrester following old Cæsar at the plow in the cornfield. He thought he heard him curse the horse’s slowness. He fumbled with the gate latch and was finally obliged to set down the fawn to manage it. It came to him that he would walk into the house, into Penny’s bedroom, with the fawn walking behind him. But at the steps, the fawn balked and refused to climb them. He picked it up and went to his father. Penny lay with closed eyes.
Jody called, “Pa! Lookit!”
Penny turned his head. Jody stood beside him, the fawn clutched hard against him. It seemed to Penny that the boy’s eyes were as bright as the fawn’s. His face lightened, seeing them together.
He said, “I’m proud you found him.”
“Pa, he wa’n’t skeert o’ me. He were layin’ up right where his mammy had made his bed.”
“The does learns ’em that, time they’re borned. You kin step on a fawn, times, they lay so still.”
“Pa, I toted him, and when I set him down, right off he follered me. Like a dog, Pa.”
“Ain’t that fine? Let’s see him better.”
Jody lifted the fawn high. Penny reached out a hand and touched its nose. It bleated and reached hopefully for his fingers.
He said, “Well, leetle feller. I’m sorry I had to take away your mammy.”
“You reckon he misses her?”
“No. He misses his rations and he knows that. He misses somethin’ else but he don’t know jest what.”
Ma Baxter came into the room.
“Look, Ma, I found him.”
“I see.”
“Ain’t he purty, Ma? Lookit them spots all in rows. Lookit them big eyes. Ain’t he purty?”
“He’s powerful young. Hit’ll take milk for him a long whiles. I don’t know as I’d of give my consent, if I’d knowed he was so young.”
Penny said, “Ory, I got one thing to say, and I’m sayin’ it now, and then I’ll have no more talk of it. The leetle fawn’s as welcome in this house as Jody. It’s hissen. We’ll raise it without grudgment o’ milk or meal. You got me to answer to, do I ever hear you quarrelin’ about it. This is Jody’s fawn jest like Julia’s my dog.”
Jody had never heard his father speak to her so sternly. The tone must hold familiarity for his mother, however, for she opened and shut her mouth and blinked her eyes.
She said, “I only said it was young.”
“All right. So it is.”
He closed his eyes.
“Why were you so ungrateful to our gods
as to desert them for the Jews?”
—Julian, addressing the Christians
Priscus to Libanius
Athens, June 380
I send you by my pupil Glaucon something less than half of the Emperor Julian’s memoir. It cost me exactly 30 solidi to have this much copied. On receipt of the remaining fifty solidi I shall send you the rest of the book.
We can hardly hope to have another Julian in our lifetime. I have studied the edict since I wrote you last, and though it is somewhat sterner in tone than Constantine’s, I suspect the only immediate victims will be those Christians who follow Arius. But I may be mistaken…
I never go to evening parties. The quarter I referred to in my letter was not the elegant street of Sardes but the quarter of the prostitutes near the agora. I don’t go to parties because I detest talking-women, especially our Athenian ladies who see themselves as heiress to the age of Pericles. Their conversation is hopelessly pretentious and artificial.
Hippia and I get along rather better than we used to. Much of her charm for me has been her lifelong dislike of literature. She talks about servants and food and relatives, and I find her restful. Also, I have in the house a Gothic girl, bought when she was eleven. She is now a beautiful woman, tall and well made, with eyes grey as Athena’s. She never talks. Eventually I shall buy her a husband and free them both as a reward for her serene acceptance of my attentions, which delight her far less than they do me.
But then Plato disliked sexual intercourse between men and women. We tend of course to think of Plato as divine, but I am afraid he was rather like our old friend Iphicles, whose passion for youths has become so outrageous that he now lives day and night in the baths, where the boys call him the queen of philosophy.
Hippia joins me in wishing for your good—or should I say better?—health.
The memoir. It will disturb and sadden you. I shall be curious to see how you use this material.
You will note in the memoir that Julian invariably refers to the Christians as “Galileans” and to their churches as “charnel houses,” this last a dig at their somewhat necrophile passion for the relics of dead men. I think it might be a good idea to alter the text, and reconvert those charnel houses into churches and those Galileans into Christians. Never offend an enemy in a small way.
Here and there in the text, I have made marginal notes. I hope you won’t find them too irrelevant.