Matthew Gregory Lewis

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in russia black cats become devils at the end of seven years and in southern europe they are merely serving their apprenticeship as witches norwegian folk-lore is rich in ghastly stories like that of the wealthy miller whose mill has been twice burned down on whitsun night and for whom a traveling tailor offers to keep watch the tailor chalks a circle on the floor writes the lord's prayer around it and waits until midnight when a troop of cats rush in and hang a great pot of pitch over the fireplace again and again they try to overturn this pitch but every time the tailor frightens them away and when their leader endeavors stealthily to draw him outside of his magic circle he cuts off her paw with his knife then they all fly howling into the night and the next morning the miller sees with joy his mill standing whole and unharmed but the miller's wife cowers under the bedclothes offering her left hand to the tailor and hiding as best she can her right arm's bleeding stump finer even than this tale is the well-known story which monk lewis told to shelley of a gentleman who late one night went to visit a friend living on the outskirts of a forest in east germany he lost his path and after wandering aimlessly for some time beheld at last a light streaming from the windows of an old and ruined abbey looking in he saw a procession of cats lowering into the grave a small coffin with a crown upon it the sight filled him with horror and spurring his horse he rode away as fast as he could never stopping until he reached his destination long after midnight his friend was still awaiting him and at once he recounted what had happened whereupon a cat that lay sleeping by the fire sprang to its feet cried out then i am the king of the cats and disappeared like a flash up the chimney for my part i consider this the best cat story in all literature full of suggestiveness and terror yet picturesque withal and leaving ample room in the mind for speculation why was not the heir apparent bidden to the royal funeral was there a disputed succession and how are such points settled in the mysterious domain of catland the notion that these animals gather in ghost-haunted churches and castles for their nocturnal revels is one common to all parts of europe we remember how the little maiden of the mountain idol confides to heine that the innocent-looking cat in the chimney corner is really a witch and that at midnight when the storm is high she steals away to the ruined keep where the spirits of the dead wait spellbound for the word that shall waken them in all scenes of impish revelry cats play a prominent part although occasionally by virtue of their dual natures they serve as barriers against the powers of evil there is the old story of the witch's cat that was grateful to the good girl who gave it some ham to eat i may observe here parenthetically that i have never known a cat that would touch ham and there is the fine bit of italian folk-lore about the servant-maid who with no other protector than a black cat ventures to disturb a procession of ghosts on the dreadful night of the dead it is well for you that the cat lies in your arms the angry spirit says to her otherwise what i am you also would be the last pale reflex of a universal tradition i found three years ago in london where the bad behaviour of the westminster cats proverbially the most dissolute and profligate specimens of their race has given rise to the pleasant legend of a country house whither these rakish animals retire for nights of gay festivity and once they return in the early morning jaded repentant and forlorn of late years there has been a rapid and promising growth of what disaffected and alliterative critics call the cat cult and poets and painters vie with one another in celebrating the charms of this long-neglected pet mr m h spielman's beautiful volume in praise of madame henriette ronner and her pictures is a treasure upon which many an ardent lover of cats will cast wandering and wistful glances it is impossible for even the most disciplined spirit not to yearn over these little furry darlings these gentle mischievous lazy irresistible things as for banjo that dear and sentimental kitten with his head on one side like lydia languish and a decorous melancholy suffusing his splendid eyes let any obdurate scorner of the race look at his loveliness and be converted mrs graham m thompson's pretty anthology concerning cats is another step in the right direction a dainty volume of selections from french and english verse where we may find old favorites like cowper's retired cat and calverley's sad memories graceful epitaphs on departed pussies some delightful poems from baudelaire and three no less delightful from the pen of mrs thompson herself whose preface or foreword is enough to win for her at once the friendship and sympathy of the elect the book while it contains a good deal that might well have been omitted is necessarily a small one for poets english poets especially have just begun to sing the praises of the cat as they have for generations sung the praises of the horse and dog nevertheless all english literature and all the literatures of every land are full of charming allusions to this friendly animal allusions the brevity of which only enhances their value those two delicious lines of herrick's for example and the brisk mouse may feast herself with crumbs till that green-eyed kitling comes are worth the whole of wordsworth's solemn poem the kitten and the falling leaves what did wordsworth know of the innate vanity the affection and coquetry of kittenhood he saw the little beast gambolling on the wall and he fancied her as innocent as she looked as though any living creature could be as innocent as a kitten looks with touching simplicity he believed her all unconscious of the admiration she was exciting what would little tabby care for the plaudits of the crowd over happy to be proud over wealthy in the treasure of her own exceeding pleasure ah the arrant knavery of that kitten the tiny impostor showing off her best tricks and feigning to be occupied exclusively with her own infantile diversion we can see her now prancing and paddling after the leaves and all the while peeping out of the tail o her e at the serene poet and philosopher and waving her naughty tail in glee over his confidence and condescension heine's pretty lines and close beside me the cat sits purring warming her paws at the cheery gleam the flames keep flitting and flicking and whirring my mind is wrapped in a realm of dream find their english echo in the letter shelley writes to peacock describing half-wistfully the shrines of the penates whose hymns are the purring of kittens the hissing of kettles the long talks over the past and dead the laugh of children the warm wind of summer filling the quiet house and the pelting storm of winter struggling in vain for entrance how incomplete would these pictures be how incomplete is any fireside sketch without the purring kitten or drowsy cat the queen i am of that cosy place as wi ilka paw i dikt my face i sing and purr wi mickle grace this is the sphinx of the hearthstone the little god of domesticity whose presence turns a house into a home even the chilly desolation of a hotel may be rendered endurable by these affable and discriminating creatures for one of them we know once welcomed sir walter scott and softened for him the unfamiliar and unloved surroundings there are no dogs in the hotel where i lodge he writes to abbotsford from london but a tolerably conversable cat who eats a mess of cream with me in the morning of course it did the wise and lynx-eyed beast i make no doubt that day after day and week after week that cat had wandered superbly among the common throng of lodgers showing favor to none and growing cynical and disillusioned by constant contact with a crowd then one morning it spied the noble rugged face which neither man nor beast could look upon without loving and forthwith tendered its allegiance on the spot only tolerably conversable it was this reserved and town-bred animal less urbane because less happy than the much-respected retainer at abbotsford master hintz of hintzfield whom sir walter called his friend ah mon grand ami vous avez toi mon autre grand ami he sighed when the huge hound nimrod ended poor hintz's placid career and if scott sometimes seems to disparage cats as when he unkindly compares oliver le dane to one in quentin durward he atones for such indignity by the use of the little pronoun who when writing of the london puss

my own

habit is to say who on similar occasions and i am glad to have so excellent an authority Happy birthday, America!

known to these people at all they have roofs fire food and clothing it is not the ceaseless labor the rough fare the gray skies the muddy barnyards which stand for the trouble in their lives it is the dreadful weariness of living it is the burden of a dull existence clogged at every pore and the hopeless melancholy of which they have sufficient intelligence to understand theirs is the ennui of emptiness and the implied reproach on every page is that a portion and only a portion of mankind is doomed to walk along these shaded paths while happier mortals who abide in new york or perhaps in paris spend their days in a pleasant tumult of intellectual and artistic excitation the clearest denial of this fallacy may be found in that matchless and desolate sketch of mr pater's called sebastian van where we have painted for us with penetrating distinctness man's deliberate rejection of those crowded accessories which to the empty-handed represent the joys of life never has the undying essence of ennui been revealed to our unwilling gaze as in this merciless picture never has it been so portrayed in its awful nakedness amid a plenty which it cannot be persuaded to share we see the rich warm highly colored surroundings the vehement intensity of work and pastime the artistic completeness of every detail the solicitations of love the delicate and alluring touches which give to every day its separate delight its individual value and amid all these things the impatient soul striving vainly to adjust itself to a life which seems so worth the living here indeed is one of fortune's favourites whom she decks with garlands like a sacrificial heifer and at whom unseen she points her mocking finger encompassed from childhood by the thriving genius of the dutch by the restless activity which made dry land and populous towns where nature had willed the sea and by the admirable art which added each year to the heaped-up treasures of holland sebastian van stork has but one vital impulse which shapes itself to an end escape escape from an existence made unendurable by its stifling fullness its vivid and marvelous accomplishment it is an interesting question to determine or to endeavor to determine how far animals share man's melancholy capacity for ennui schopenhauer who like hartmann and all other professional pessimists steadfastly maintains that beasts are happier than men is disposed to believe that in their natural state they never suffer from this malady and that even when domesticated only the most intelligent give any indication of its presence but how does schopenhauer know that which he so confidently affirms the bird impelled by an instinct she is powerless to resist sits patiently on her eggs until they are hatched but who can say she is not weary of the pastime what loneliness and discontent may find expression in the lion's dreadful roar which is said to be as mournful as it is terrible we are naturally tempted in moments of fretfulness and dejection to seek relief

not

unmixed with envy in contemplating with sir thomas browne the happiness of inferior creatures who in tranquillity possess their constitutions but freedom from care and from the apprehension that is worse than care does not necessarily imply freedom from all disagreeable sensations and the surest claim of the brute to satisfaction its absolute adequacy to the place it is designed to fill is destroyed by our interference in its behalf as a result domestic pets reveal plainly to every close observer how frequently they suffer from ennui they pay in smaller coin the same price that man pays for comfortable living mr ruskin has written with ready sympathy of the house-dog who bears resignedly long hours of dull inaction and only shows by his frantic delight what a relief it is to be taken out for the mild dissipation of a stroll i have myself watched and pitied the too evident ennui of my cat poor little beast of prey deprived in a mouseless home of the supreme pleasures of the hunt fed until dinner ceases to be a coveted enjoyment housed cushioned combed caressed and forced to bear upon her pretty shoulders the burden of a wearisome opulence or what represents opulence to a pussy i have seen agrippina listlessly moving from chair to chair and from sofa to sofa in a vain attempt to nap looking for a few languid minutes out of the window with the air of a great lady sadly bored at the play and then turning dejectedly back into the room whose attractions she had long since exhausted her expressive eyes lifted to mine betrayed her discontent the lassitude of an irksome luxury unnerved her graceful limbs if she could have spoken it would have been to complain with charles lamb of that dumb soporifical good-for-nothingness which clogs the wheels of life it is a pleasant fancy baseless and proofless which makes us imagine the existence of fishes to be peculiarly tranquil and unmolested the element in which they live appears to shelter them from so many evils noises especially and the sharpness of sudden change scorching heats and the inclement skies of winter a delightful mystery wraps them round and the smooth apathy with which they glide through the water suggests content approaching to complacency that old-fashioned poem beginning deep in the wave is a coral grove where the purple mullet and goldfish rove filled my childish heart with a profound envy of these happy creatures which was greatly increased by reading a curious story of father faber's called the melancholy heart in this tale a little shipwrecked girl is carried to the depths of the ocean and sees the green sea swinging to and fro because it is so full of joy and the fishes waving their glistening fins in silent satisfaction and the oysters opening and shutting their shells in lazy raptures of delight afterwards she visits the birds and beasts and insects and finds amongst them intelligence industry patience ingenuity a whole host of admirable qualities but nowhere else the sweet contentment of that dumb watery life so universal is this fallible sentiment that evenly a party while assigning to all creative things their full share of pain reluctantly admits that the passive serenity of the less vivacious creatures of the sea starfish and their numerous brothers and sisters is the nearest possible approach to an utterly impossible happiness and indeed it is difficult to look at a sea-urchin slowly moving its countless spines in the clear shallow water without thinking that here at least is an existence equally free from excitability and from ennui here is a state of being sufficient for itself and embracing all the enjoyment it can hold the other side of the story is presented when we discover the little prickly cup lying empty and dry on the peak of a neighboring rock and know that a crow's sharp beak has relentlessly dug the poor urchin from its comfortable cradle and ended its slumbrous felicity yet the sudden cessation of life has nothing whatever to do with its reasonable contentment the question is not how soon is it over or how does it come to an end but is it worth living while it lasts moreover the chances of death make the sweetness of self-preservation and this is precisely the sentiment which leigh hunt has so admirably embodied in those lines the finest i think he ever wrote where the fish pleads for its own pleasant and satisfactory existence a cold sweet silver life wrapped in round waves quickened with touches of transporting fear here as elsewhere fear is the best antidote for ennui the early settlers of america surrounded by hostile indians and doubtful each morning whether the coming nightfall would not see their rude homes given to the flames probably suffered but little from the dulness which seems so oppressive to the peaceful agriculturist of to-day the medieval women who were content to pass their time in weaving endless tapestries had less chance to complain of the monotony of life than their artistic scientific literary and philanthropic sisters of our day for at any hour breaking in upon their tranquil labors might be heard the trumpets blast at any hour might come the tidings good or bad which meant a few more years of security or the horrors of siege and pillage it is pleasant to turn our consideration from the ennui which is inevitable and consequently tragic to the ennui which is accidental and consequently diverting the first is part of ourselves from which there is no escape the second is as a rule the contribution of our neighbours and may be excluded if fortune and our own wits favour us lord byron for example finding himself hard beset by madame de stal whom he abhorred had the dexterity to entrap poor little monk lewis into their conversation and then slipped away from both leaving them the dismally congenial task of wearying each other without mercy a bore says bishop selwyn is a man who will persist in talking about himself when you want to talk about yourself and this simple explanation offers a satisfactory solution of much of the ennui suffered in society people with theories of life are perhaps the most relentless of their kind for no time or place is sacred from their devastating elucidations a theoretic socialist not the practical working kind like sir walter is adamant to the fatigue of his listeners eloquence says mr lowell feelingly has no bowels for its victims and one of the most pathetic figures in the history of literature is poor heine awakened from his sweet morning nap by ludwig borna who sat relentlessly on the edge of the bed and talked patriotism i hardly think that even this wanton injury justified heine in his cruel attack upon borna when the latter was dead and could offer no defence yet who knows how many drops of concentrated bitterness were stored up in those dreary moments of boredom the only other instance of ennui which seems as grievous and as cruel is the picture of the baron fouquet's brilliant wife condemned to play lotto every evening with the officers of the victorious french army an illustration equally novel and malign of the devastating inhumanity of war In fact, amusements which do not amuse are among the most depressing of earthly evils.

when sir george cornwall lewis candidly confessed that life would be tolerable were it not for its pleasures he had a little notion that he was uttering a witticism fated to enjoy a melancholy immortality his protest was purely personal and society prompt to recognize a grievance when it is presented has gone on ever since peevishly and monotonously echoing his lament

not

unmixed with envy in contemplating with sir thomas browne the happiness of inferior creatures who in tranquillity possess their constitutions but freedom from care and from the apprehension that is worse than care does not necessarily imply freedom from all disagreeable sensations and the surest claim of the brute to satisfaction its absolute adequacy to the place it is designed to fill is destroyed by our interference in its behalf as a result domestic pets reveal plainly to every close observer how frequently they suffer from ennui they pay in smaller coin the same price that man pays for comfortable living mr ruskin has written with ready sympathy of the house-dog who bears resignedly long hours of dull inaction and only shows by his frantic delight what a relief it is to be taken out for the mild dissipation of a stroll i have myself watched and pitied the too evident ennui of my cat poor little beast of prey deprived in a mouseless home of the supreme pleasures of the hunt fed until dinner ceases to be a coveted enjoyment housed cushioned combed caressed and forced to bear upon her pretty shoulders the burden of a wearisome opulence or what represents opulence to a pussy i have seen agrippina listlessly moving from chair to chair and from sofa to sofa in a vain attempt to nap looking for a few languid minutes out of the window with the air of a great lady sadly bored at the play and then turning dejectedly back into the room whose attractions she had long since exhausted her expressive eyes lifted to mine betrayed her discontent the lassitude of an irksome luxury unnerved her graceful limbs if she could have spoken it would have been to complain with charles lamb of that dumb soporifical good-for-nothingness which clogs the wheels of life it is a pleasant fancy baseless and proofless which makes us imagine the existence of fishes to be peculiarly tranquil and unmolested the element in which they live appears to shelter them from so many evils noises especially and the sharpness of sudden change scorching heats and the inclement skies of winter a delightful mystery wraps them round and the smooth apathy with which they glide through the water suggests content approaching to complacency that old-fashioned poem beginning deep in the wave is a coral grove where the purple mullet and goldfish rove filled my childish heart with a profound envy of these happy creatures which was greatly increased by reading a curious story of father faber's called the melancholy heart in this tale a little shipwrecked girl is carried to the depths of the ocean and sees the green sea swinging to and fro because it is so full of joy and the fishes waving their glistening fins in silent satisfaction and the oysters opening and shutting their shells in lazy raptures of delight afterwards she visits the birds and beasts and insects and finds amongst them intelligence industry patience ingenuity a whole host of admirable qualities but nowhere else the sweet contentment of that dumb watery life so universal is this fallible sentiment that evenly a party while assigning to all creative things their full share of pain reluctantly admits that the passive serenity of the less vivacious creatures of the sea starfish and their numerous brothers and sisters is the nearest possible approach to an utterly impossible happiness and indeed it is difficult to look at a sea-urchin slowly moving its countless spines in the clear shallow water without thinking that here at least is an existence equally free from excitability and from ennui here is a state of being sufficient for itself and embracing all the enjoyment it can hold the other side of the story is presented when we discover the little prickly cup lying empty and dry on the peak of a neighboring rock and know that a crow's sharp beak has relentlessly dug the poor urchin from its comfortable cradle and ended its slumberous felicity yet the sudden cessation of life has nothing whatever to do with its reasonable contentment the question is not how soon is it over or how does it come to an end but is it worth living while it lasts moreover the chances of death make the sweetness of self-preservation and this is precisely the sentiment which leigh hunt has so admirably embodied in those lines the finest i think he ever wrote where the fish pleads for its own pleasant and satisfactory existence a cold sweet silver life wrapped in round waves quickened with touches of transporting fear here as elsewhere fear is the best antidote for ennui the early settlers of america surrounded by hostile indians and doubtful each morning whether the coming nightfall would not see their rude homes given to the flames probably suffered but little from the dulness which seems so oppressive to the peaceful agriculturist of to-day the medieval women who were content to pass their time in weaving endless tapestries had less chance to complain of the monotony of life than their artistic scientific literary and philanthropic sisters of our day for at any hour breaking in upon their tranquil labors might be heard the trumpets blast at any hour might come the tidings good or bad which meant a few more years of security or the horrors of siege and pillage it is pleasant to turn our consideration from the ennui which is inevitable and consequently tragic to the ennui which is accidental and consequently diverting the first is part of ourselves from which there is no escape the second is as a rule the contribution of our neighbours and may be excluded if fortune and our own wits favour us lord byron for example finding himself hard beset by madame de stal whom he abhorred had the dexterity to entrap poor little monk lewis into their conversation and then slipped away from both leaving them the dismally congenial task of wearying each other without mercy a bore says bishop selwyn is a man who will persist in talking about himself when you want to talk about yourself and this simple explanation offers a satisfactory solution of much of the ennui suffered in society people with theories of life are perhaps the most relentless of their kind for no time or place is sacred from their devastating elucidations a theoretic socialist not the practical working kind like sir walter is adamant to the fatigue of his listeners eloquence says mr lowell feelingly has no bowels for its victims and one of the most pathetic figures in the history of literature is poor heine awakened from his sweet morning nap by ludwig borna who sat relentlessly on the edge of the bed and talked patriotism i hardly think that even this wanton injury justified heine in his cruel attack upon borna when the latter was dead and could offer no defence yet who knows how many drops of concentrated bitterness were stored up in those dreary moments of boredom the only other instance of ennui which seems as grievous and as cruel is the picture of the baron fouquet's brilliant wife condemned to play lotto every evening with the officers of the victorious french army an illustration equally novel and malign of the devastating inhumanity of war In fact, amusements which do not amuse are among the most depressing of earthly evils.

when sir george cornwall lewis candidly confessed that life would be tolerable were it not for its pleasures he had a little notion that he was uttering a witticism fated to enjoy a melancholy immortality his protest was purely personal and society prompt to recognize a grievance when it is presented has gone on ever since peevishly and monotonously echoing his lament

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Hello, I'm Essie Fox, and welcome to this episode of Talking the Gothic, which I'm going to give the title of Religious Bat Shittery, with that description being suggested by Elsie Winter, my podcast guest today, and the author of Spider Spider, a Victorian-era Gothic novel which censors on the themes of extreme religious cults, poison, asylums, and revenge.

But before I talk to Elsie, I've been thinking of examples of other stories that fit today's Gothic themes, and What Better Than the Monk, written by Matthew Lewis and published way back in 1796, because when it comes to religious bachelorette, there's nothing quite as deranged.

The monk of the title is called Ambrosio, and as the novel develops, he's increasingly consumed by overwhelming lustful urges.

And as a sort of counterpoint to that, there's a nun in a nearby convent called Agnes who is also violating her own vows of restraint and chastity.

The explanation is that, in order to sort out some boring accounts with a producer I'd gotten mixed up with, it became essential to make a film that was accepted for distribution in advance.

The script was written in two weeks." The script is, of course, inspired by Carmilla, but there are also elements of another Gothic work, a novel called The Monk, which was written by Matthew Gregory Lewis and published in 1796.

These elements include the spectral, veiled appearance of the character of Myrkala, or Carmilla, her association with a dagger, and her backstory about the murder of her husband.

He also changed the central protagonist from a lonely young girl living with her father to a newly married young woman, whose sexual relationship with her husband provides the catalyst for the emergence of the vampire.

One of the visitors, whose name I forget, would single out a particular monkey and play to it on the fiddle with such fury and perseverance that the poor animal, half distracted, would at last take refuge in the arms of Lord Aldenly.

Monk Lewis was a great favorite at Oatlands.

One day after dinner, as the Duchess was leaving the room, she whispered something into Lewis's ear.

He was much affected, his eyes filling with tears.

Section 12 of Reminiscences and Table Talk of Samuel Rogers.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

In Monk Lewis's writings, there is a deal of bad taste, but still he was a man of genius.

I'll tell you two stories which he was very fond of repeating and which Wyndham used to like.

Word Portraits of Famous Writers, edited by Mabel E. Wathen.

Matthew Gregory Lewis, seventeen seventy-five to eighteen eighteen.

From The Southern Literary Messenger, eighteen forty-nine.

In person, Matt Lewis, as his intimate friends at first termed him, was quite ordinary.

When he talked, he had an insufferable habit of drawing the forefinger of his right hand across his eyelid, and in conversation he was guilty of that absurd affectation of a drawling tone such as was popular with dandies.

From New Monthly Magazine, eighteen forty-eight.

Matthew Gregory Lewis.

Of this gentleman I knew but little, not having encountered him half a dozen times after my introduction to him at the house of Nat Middleton, the banker.

And one of the most spiteful and ill-natured satires that had ever disgraced the literary world, and one which no talent or classic lore could ever redeem.

Certain it is that Matthias fell foul of poor monk Lewis for his romance.

Obscenity and blasphemy were the charges laid at his door.

He was acknowledged to be a man of genius and fancy, but this added only to his crime, to which was superadded that of being a very young man.

The young ladies were forbidden to speak to him, matrons even feared him, and from being one of the idols of the world he became one of the objects of its disdain.

Even his father was led to believe that his son had abandoned the paths of virtue and was on the high road to ruin.

Monk Lewis, unable to stand again against the outcry thus raised against him, determined to try the effects of absence, and took his departure for the island in which his property was.

But unfortunately for those who dissented from the ferocious judgment that was passed upon him, and for those who had discrimination enough to know that after all there was nothing very objectionable in his romance, and felt assured that posterity would do him justice, this amiable and kind-hearted man died on his passage out.

Does the fear of death that drives us mean that horror has always been our dark companion? A universal human experience in which cave paintings and movie screens are simply different media for the same spooky message? Not exactly.

The idea of death and ruin as entertainment, even something one could build a lifestyle around, appears first in the 18th century in novels like Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto and Matthew Lewis's The Monk .

Commentators called this taste Gothic because the interest in ruins and castles called to mind the Gothic architecture of the Middle Ages.

Our contemporary term, goth, used to describe everything from a style of music to black fingernail polish, of course comes from those 18th century goths.