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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 16h

#AScareADay
Rhoda Broughton, "The Truth..."
Without a description or a naming of the horror that the housemaid & Ralph Gordon saw in that accursed room, we the readers can only experience the horror of the results of encountering such a horror.
For me that is more than enough horror for one day.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 1d

#AScareADay
Mulock, "Last House in C___ Street"

In this sad story, the ghost's appearance heralded the arrival of a new life & bid farewell to another's life well loved & lived.

For a brief moment the physical distance between husband & wife was bridged. But that path could only be walked by one.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 1d

I took some of the words in Bronte's poem as indicating a supernatural or other-worldly, even demonic, presence. It seemed possible that the stranger could even be Death - which I thought plausible because of the phrase "his basilisk charm".

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 2d

Fascinating. I appreciate this info. Good luck.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 2d

I opted for a terrifying interpretation guided by the hope that the inevitable could be delayed.
Death walks among them but is swayed by the generosity of the family that welcomes a stranger into their cheery home on a cold, dismal day.
Admittedly, I was influenced by my literal reading of the poem.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 2d

2/2 #AScareADay Bronte

The family members are terrified, not the least because
"lightning all unearthly shone / Deep in that dark eye's circling zone".
But the stranger hides his face & turns his withering gaze from them.
Why? Bronte doesn't say.
Perhaps Death decides to spare the family that day.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 2d

#AScareADay
The cheer of home & the warmth of hearth sets the tone for Emily Bronte's poem, "And now the house-dog". The family welcomes an unexpected stranger whose full face is cloaked. Once the visitor uncovers his head, the family confronts a ghastly visage, pale, with hair stringy & long.
1/2

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

Some find the flickering images cast on a sooty cave wall more enchanting, more compelling than what the often glaring rays of reason can disclose.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

#AScareADay
Tennyson, "The Kraken"
Mythical creatures should remain undisturbed, sleeping in the darkness of their lairs and in the depths of human imagination - else, once roused, they cannot endure the light of devastating reason.
[Influencing me: Poe, "Sonnet--To Science"; Yeats, "The Realists"]

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 4d

You're right.
Fate works in unfathomable ways, it seems.
We humans are but Fate's playthings, alas.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 4d

#AScareADay
Galt's "Buried Alive" is not ghostly, but is a frightening story of the protagonist's experiences of inadequate medical knowledge & technology.
Where would he be w/out grave robbers & the unintentional CPR of the anatomy professor's galvanic shocks & chest-pounding actions?
Where indeed.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 5d

3/3 #AScareADay
Hoffman varies the story's epistemic POV by changing its epistolary narrators. This highlights the story's scopic focus on eyes & sight, all initially deriving from the child's bogeyman, the Sandman.
Nate never develops deeper understanding, never seeing critically beyond appearance.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 5d

2/3 #AScareADay Hoffman
Nathanael's POV becomes embodied in the Coppelius/Coppola antagonist who, Nate believes, returns to bedevil him across his life. His perspective also becomes fixated from afar & romantically on the prototagonist(?!) Olimpia whose interactions with Nate are - no spoilers here!

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 5d

#AScareADay
ETA Hoffman, "The Sandman"
Where's the scare?
For me, it's in the inescapability of one's childhood terrors, even in adulthood.
Nathanael the protagonist carries w/ him both an internal monologue & interpersonal dialogues focusing on the deterministic influences on life & the cosmos.
1/3

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 6d

#AScareADay
Re: Johan Musaus, "The Elopement"
Can love conquer all, or at least alter a mother's goal to marry her daughter to a noble?
Is it true love when it persists over distance and time?
What's the role of the ghostly nuns? Plot tools, maybe twists, to test the lovers' resolve & ingenuity?

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 7d

Thank you.
I enjoyed composing my response.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 7d

"The flames in my circle of hell are a little warm. So red. But the gold accents are so golden. People say they've never seen gold accents like these before. Except maybe in the Big Beautiful Ballroom I built. Gold's everywhere. And marble. Can't get marble here. Brimstone's cornered the market."

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 7d

Herrick, "The Hag"
#AScareADay

Nightly mischief, the poet did claim,

Is linked to evil, to devilish aim.

But Satan at a presser did say, "Don't be quick.

Don't confuse mere correlates w/ deeper cause.

Against that, eternally, there should be laws.

Wouldn't you attest & agree, Robert Herrick?"

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 8d

Indeed, I am enjoying the readings.
I appreciate the opportunity to read outside of my field of political theory.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 8d

I've already started reading for #AScareADay
If that's wrong, I don't wanna be right.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 15d

During a brief interview the key said, "I guess my vacay - I mean my holiday - is over. Has much happened while I was gone?"

Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 16d

Oh my, oh my. Is it almost October again?
With Fall 2025 officially starting, I'm ready to be chlled to the bone. And I don't mean by the weather.
Looks like a great lineup of stories!
Every October I realize how little of this literature I've been exposed to.
Thank you for providing a solution!

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 17d

Sounds interesting. Hopefully your talk and others' talks will be uploaded to the very vast virtual vorld (Opps. The 'v' went vogue - I mean rogue - on me.)

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 18d

"Humorists? Really?" The highly placed White House official smiled. "Comedians are more like 'harmerists'. They're trying to destroy that great American governing principle of checks and account balances. Uhh... Don't print that. Okay?" He smiled again; this time a little feebly. He walked away.

Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 18d

Speech is supposedly free, but as our current predicumstances highlight, it certainly is high maintenance.