We said all we could to make him live, and gave him new assurances, but he begged we would not think so poorly of him, or of his love to Imoinda, to imagine we could flatter him to life again; but the chirurgeon assured him, he could not live, and therefore he need not fear. We were all (but Caesar) afflicted at this news, and the sight was ghashly. His discourse was sad; and the earthy smell about him was so strong that I was persuaded to leave the place for some time (being myself but sickly, and very apt to fall into fits of dangerous illness upon any extraordinary melancholy). The servants and Trefry and the chirurgeons promised all to take what possible care they could of the life of Caesar, and I, taking boat, went with other company to Colonel Martin’s, about three days’ journey down the river; but I was no sooner gone than the governor taking Trefry about some pretended earnest business a day’s journey up the river, having communicated his design to one Banister, a wild Irishman and one of the council, a fellow of absolute barbarity, and fit to execute any villainy, but was rich. He came up to Parham, and forcibly took Caesar, and had him carried to the same post where he was whipped, and causing him to be tied to it, and a great fire made before him, he told him, he should die like a dog as he was. Caesar replied, this was the first piece of bravery that ever Banister did, and he never spoke sense till he pronounced that word, and, if he would keep it, he would declare, in the other world, that he was the only man, of all the whites, that ever he heard speak truth. And turning to the men that had bound him, he said, My friends, am I to die, or to be whipped? And they cried, Whipped! no, you shall not escape so well. And then he replied, smiling, A blessing on thee, and assured them they need not tie him, for he would stand fixed like a rock, and endure death so as should encourage them to die. But if you whip me, said he, be sure you tie me fast.
He had learned to take tobacco, and when he was assured he should die, he desired they would give him a pipe in his mouth, ready lighted which they did, and the executioner came and first cut off his members and threw them into the fire. After that, with an ill-favoured knife, they cut his ears and his nose, and burned them; he still smoked on, as if nothing had touched him. Then they hacked off one of his arms, and still he bore up, and held his pipe. But at the cutting off the other arm, his head sunk, and his pipe dropped, and he gave up the ghost without a groan or a reproach. My mother and sister were by him all the while but not suffered to save him, so rude and wild were the rabble, and so inhuman were the justices who stood by to see the execution, who after paid dearly enough for their insolence. They cut Caesar in quarters, and sent them to several of the chief plantations. One quarter was sent to Colonel Martin, who refused it, and swore he had rather see the quarters of Banister and the governor himself than those of Caesar, on his plantations; and that he could govern his Negroes without terrifying and grieving them with frightful spectacles of a mangled king.
Thus died this great man, worthy of a better fate and a more sublime wit than mine to write his praise. Yet, I hope, the reputation of my pen is considerable enough to make his glorious name to survive to all ages, with that of the brave, the beautiful and the constant Imoinda.
FINIS.
- BOCCACCIO · Mrs Rosie and the Priest
- GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS · As kingfishers catch fire
- The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue
- THOMAS DE QUINCEY · On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts
- FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE · Aphorisms on Love and Hate
- JOHN RUSKIN · Traffic
- PU SONGLING · Wailing Ghosts
- JONATHAN SWIFT · A Modest Proposal
- Three Tang Dynasty Poets
- WALT WHITMAN · On the Beach at Night Alone
- KENKŌ · A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees
- BALTASAR GRACIÁN · How to Use Your Enemies
- JOHN KEATS · The Eve of St Agnes
- THOMAS HARDY · Woman much missed
- GUY DE MAUPASSANT · Femme Fatale
- MARCO POLO · Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls
- SUETONIUS · Caligula
- APOLLONIUS OF RHODES · Jason and Medea
- ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON · Olalla
- KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS · The Communist Manifesto
- PETRONIUS · Trimalchio’s Feast
- JOHANN PETER HEBEL · How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher’s Dog
- HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN · The Tinder Box
- RUDYARD KIPLING · The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows
- DANTE · Circles of Hell
- HENRY MAYHEW · Of Street Piemen
- HAFEZ · The nightingales are drunk
- GEOFFREY CHAUCER · The Wife of Bath
- MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE · How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing
- THOMAS NASHE · The Terrors of the Night
- EDGAR ALLAN POE · The Tell-Tale Heart
- MARY KINGSLEY · A Hippo Banquet
- JANE AUSTEN · The Beautifull Cassandra
- ANTON CHEKHOV · Gooseberries
- SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE · Well, they are gone, and here must I remain
- JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE · Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings
- CHARLES DICKENS · The Great Winglebury Duel
- HERMAN MELVILLE · The Maldive Shark
- ELIZABETH GASKELL · The Old Nurse’s Story
- NIKOLAY LESKOV · The Steel Flea
- HONORÉ DE BALZAC · The Atheist’s Mass
- CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN · The Yellow Wall-Paper
- C. P. CAVAFY · Remember, Body …
- FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY · The Meek One
- GUSTAVE FLAUBERT · A Simple Heart
- NIKOLAI GOGOL · The Nose
- SAMUEL PEPYS · The Great Fire of London
- EDITH WHARTON · The Reckoning
- HENRY JAMES · The Figure in the Carpet
- WILFRED OWEN · Anthem For Doomed Youth
- WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART · My Dearest Father
- PLATO · Socrates’ Defence
- CHRISTINA ROSSETTI · Goblin Market
- Sindbad the Sailor
- SOPHOCLES · Antigone
- RYŪNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA · The Life of a Stupid Man
- LEO TOLSTOY · How Much Land Does A Man Need?
- GIORGIO VASARI · Leonardo da Vinci
- OSCAR WILDE · Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime
- SHEN FU · The Old Man of the Moon
- AESOP · The Dolphins, the Whales and the Gudgeon
- MATSUO BASHŌ · Lips too Chilled
- EMILY BRONTË · The Night is Darkening Round Me
- JOSEPH CONRAD · To-morrow
- RICHARD HAKLUYT · The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe
- KATE CHOPIN · A Pair of Silk Stockings
- CHARLES DARWIN · It was snowing butterflies
- BROTHERS GRIMM · The Robber Bridegroom
- CATULLUS · I Hate and I Love
- HOMER · Circe and the Cyclops
- D. H. LAWRENCE · Il Duro
- KATHERINE MANSFIELD · Miss Brill
- OVID · The Fall of Icarus
- SAPPHO · Come Close
- IVAN TURGENEV · Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands
- VIRGIL · O Cruel Alexis
- H. G. WELLS · A Slip under the Microscope
- HERODOTUS · The Madness of Cambyses
- Speaking of Siva
- The Dhammapada
- JANE AUSTEN · Lady Susan
- JEAN-JACQUES ROSSEAU · The Body Politic
- JEAN DE LA FONTAINE · The World is Full of Foolish Men
- H. G. WELLS · The Sea Raiders
- LIVY · Hannibal
- CHARLES DICKENS · To Be Read at Dusk
- LEO TOLSTOY · The Death of Ivan Ilyich
- MARK TWAIN · The Stolen White Elephant
- WILLIAM BLAKE · Tyger, Tyger
- SHERIDAN LE FANU · Green Tea
- The Yellow Book
- OLAUDAH EQUIANO · Kidnapped
- EDGAR ALLAN POE · A Modern Detective
- The Suffragettes
- MARGERY KEMPE · How To Be a Medieval Woman
- JOSEPH CONRAD · Typhoon
- GIACOMO CASANOVA · The Nun of Murano
- W. B. YEATS · A terrible beauty is born
- THOMAS HARDY · The Withered Arm
- EDWARD LEAR · Nonsense
- ARISTOPHANES · The Frogs
- FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE · Why I Am so Clever
- RAINER MARIA RILKE · Letters to a Young Poet
- LEONID ANDREYEV · Seven Hanged
- APHRA BEHN · Oroonoko
- LEWIS CARROLL · O frabjous day!
- JOHN GAY · Trivia: or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London
- E. T. A. HOFFMANN · The Sandman
- DANTE · Love that moves the sun and other stars
- ALEXANDER PUSHKIN · The Queen of Spades
- ANTON CHEKHOV · A Nervous Breakdown
- KAKUZO OKAKURA · The Book of Tea
- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE · Is this a dagger which I see before me?
- EMILY DICKINSON · My life had stood a loaded gun
- LONGUS · Daphnis and Chloe
- MARY SHELLEY · Matilda
- GEORGE ELIOT · The Lifted Veil
- FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY · White Nights
- OSCAR WILDE · Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast
- VIRGINIA WOOLF · Flush
- ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE · Lot No. 249
- The Rule of Benedict
- WASHINGTON IRVING · Rip Van Winkle
- Anecdotes of the Cynics
- VICTOR HUGO · Waterloo
- CHARLOTTE BRONTË · Stancliffe’s Hotel
littleblackclassics.com
THE BEGINNING
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This selection first published in Penguin Classics 2016
ISBN: 978-0-241-25163-8
* ell: The English ell measured 45 inches.
* bating: Except for.
* despites: Insults.
* a rest of: A remainder.
* maugre: In spite of.
* constitute: Appoint.
* parole: Word or pledge.
* raced: Incised.
* jealousies: Suspicions.
* blowing: Flowering.
* stuff: Woven woollen material.
* mess: Portion of a meal.
* ill used and baffled with: Abused and deceived.
* basket-hilts: Swords with rounded protective hilts.
* abounded his own wit: Was secure in his own opinion.
* In fine: To conclude.
* chirurgeon: Surgeon.
* nemine contradicente: Unanimously (Latin).
* mobile: The mob, rabble (Latin).
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