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 BLURB

He’s half my age, and he’s running away from the biggest
criminal organization in the world. More importantly, he’s
the most gorgeous man I’ve ever had in my bed.

I was living a simple and quiet life before Fiorenzo Rovelia

interrupts it.

His confidence and the way he begs for my body that first night
get the best of me. I blindly follow him headfirst into a perilous
adventure.

By the time I realize the breadth of the inferno he’s dragged us

into, it’s too late—my heart is already his.

Time is against us. We must save our family and make sure we
don’t end up burning alive in the process.

But can our love survive the dangerous firestorm into

which we have been thrust?

*Dangerously Canadian is an age gap/opposite attract,

mystery/adventure MM novel with two strong, yet badly scarred men
who will do anything they can to find love and fix their past
mistakes. This book contains violence and a lot of “OMG” moments.
HFN and no cliffhangers. It is Book 2 of the Dangerously
International series, but it can be read as a standalone novel.*
 Copyright © 2021 by Lula Duval
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or

mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without
written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a
book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the
products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Product names, logos, brands, and other trademarks referred to herein are the
property of their respective trademark holders. All trademarks remain the property
of their respective holders.

All errors are the author’s own.

Cover art by: Cosmic Letterz

Proofreading by: Heidi Ripplinger
DANGEROUSLY CANADIAN
DANGEROUSLY INTERNATIONAL BOOK 2
LULA DUVAL
 CONTENTS

Disclaimer

1. Fiorenzo
2. Derrick
3. Fiorenzo
4. Derrick
5. Fiorenzo
6. Fiorenzo
7. Derrick
8. Fiorenzo
9. Derrick
10. Fiorenzo
11. Fiorenzo
12. Derrick
13. Fiorenzo
14. Fiorenzo
15. Derrick
16. Fiorenzo
17. Derrick
18. Fiorenzo
19. Derrick
20. Fiorenzo
21. Derrick
22. Fiorenzo
Derrick’s Epilogue
Fiorenzo’s Epilogue

Dear Beautiful People

Lula’s World
About the Author
Notes
 DISCLAIMER

This book is a work of fiction. Safe sex practices might not be fully
introduced and/or followed by the characters. The author does not
encourage unprotected sex. Everyone should inform themselves, to
the best of their ability, on the safest sex practices available to
them.

Enjoy!
 1

FIORENZO

O h, fuck. I love being a slut.

I love the feeling that overwhelms my entire body when
a strong man grabs me with all his strength before he
throws me on the bed. When my body reaches the bed, the
sensation of the sheets on my bare skin drives me wild. I always
undress first. There’s nothing I find sexier than my naked body being
at the mercy of a guy in full control. I don’t just enjoy being
dominated; I delight myself in it. I don’t want them to simply spank
me and deride me a little before they fuck me. No. I want the men I
sleep with to take command of me and my body. I want them to
dictate orders. I need them to control my moves and punish me if I
disobey. They have complete authority over me. All I ask in return is
that they treat me like the little piece of shit I am—a cum-thirsty slut
who’s only here to serve them. I am a complete whore whose sole
purpose is to please them… by any means necessary. They can
spank, scratch, bite, spit, force themselves into me—I have no limits.
As long as they treat me like a filthy slut, like the nymphomaniac
trash that I am, I’m fine. I don’t even do safe words. I have no
physical boundaries. I have yet to meet a man strong or violent
enough in bed for me to have to stop the encounter. More often
than not, I actually have to yell and provoke them to push them out
of their own limits so they can take care of my ass like I need them
to. I offer myself completely to them, and that freaks out a lot of
men. I guess it’s not common to find a bottom with such strong
confidence in his own desires. Well, I am one. I know exactly what I
want, how I want it, and you better give it to me with a side dish of
pure, blissful, uninterrupted pain, or I’m going to be mad. Sex is the
only avenue I have to let myself go. It’s the only place where I can
put down all my defenses and let myself be at the mercy of the
enemy. They might be my lovers for one night, but in my eyes,
they’re just sexual threats. I fight them, I defy them, and I require
them to hit back. They hurt me as much as I hurt them. If I slap
them, I ask them to slap me ten times harder. Don’t stop until my
face is crimson red. If I don’t listen to you, choke me with your hand
and press all your fingers into my throat. Squeeze your hand around
my throat until you see my eyes flutter. Wait for me to be on the
bridge of passing out before you take it away. When you’re done,
rush your dick inside my mouth and forcefully face-fuck me. I don’t
want you to take that cock away until you see tears in the corners of
my eyes, and you feel my gag reflex ready to let go.
That’s the level of intensity I request when I get myself naked for
a man. I don’t want anything less. If you’re not up for the task, then
you can go fuck yourself. If you’re not going to use everything you
can get your hands on to punish me, then don’t bother. If you think
I like it “kinky,” think again. It’s more than that. I don’t just like it
“rough.” I like it “brutal.” I enjoy it “ferocious.” I’m craving ruthless
men who will stop at nothing to get what they want out of me. The
second you get my absolute consent, everything you can think of to
sexually use me for is fair game. I’m gifting you a fresh, warm body,
and you better step up to the task. For a few hours, it’s only you and
me in a dimly lit room. Nobody else exists. The world outside doesn’t
matter anymore. All I care about are your fingernails in my flesh,
your spit in my face, and your cock in my hole. That’s all. I don’t get
to let go as often as I’d like to, so when I do, I make it count.
“Stop right there,” I order the guy standing in front of me in my
hotel room.
It’s a rando I picked up at a bar. I studied him for a while before
I made my move. He was very calm, and his eyes were rigorously
studying me all night long. We stared at each other for hours before
I decided he was worth my attention. Everyone else in the bar was
loud and demonstrative. All the guys were performing to attract each
other. I don’t fuck with those people. They’ll pretend to be all that
on the dancefloor, but when it comes to giving me what I’m eager
for, they’re a waste of time.
No, I have been playing this game long enough to know how to
recognize the real deal. Men that truly measure up to my
expectations are always the more composed people in the room.
They don’t have anything to prove. Everything is effortless for them.
They’re just there, enjoying their drink and their night, watching
other men with neutral eyes. They don’t eat you with their gaze or
lick their lips when you dance. They simply look at you, as if you
were just an object for them. That’s exactly what I am after. I want
somebody that only sees me as a sexual object: nothing else. I
crave a man that will only take what he wants from me—no talk and
no questions asked, just pure, burning passion. I could have anyone
I desire, and they could too, but we only want each other for now.
That’s my type. The confident, assured motherfuckers who know
with just one look at me that I’m going to give them the best
experience of their life.
And this guy I’m getting undressed in front of right now? He fits
the description perfectly.
We’re both drunk enough to make this work, but not too buzzed
that it will turn out to be a fiasco. No, we both have just the right
amount of alcohol in our blood to be able to fully release our inner
sexual fire into each other.
I knew he was the right man for the job when he kept looking at
me with the same unfazed expression. As I danced with strangers in
front of him, he didn’t blink. He simply kept sipping his drink while
he observed me with his shiny, dangerous brown eyes. He didn’t
flinch when I let someone grope my ass and junk me in the middle
of the dancefloor. Hell, he didn’t even react when I led the same guy
to the bathroom to suck him off. He calmly stayed where he was,
patiently waiting for me to come back. The motherfucker knew I was
going to come back to him one way or the other.
 That, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly the kind of guy I’m after.
He didn’t have to sweat one drop to get me. He could already guess
what type of fun I’d be in bed. He was so sure of himself and his
skills in bed, that he calmly waited for me to come to him. Like a
bug-killing light, he sat there, patiently awaiting his prize. And just
like a suicidal bug attracted by the blinding light, I went to him. I
wanted to burn myself—I wanted him to burn me with the scorching
pain of sexual fire.
And here we are the two of us in my hotel room.
Neither of us is talking. The man is watching me undress without
a word. While I slowly take off my clothes, I support his gaze with
mine. There’s no expression on his face. He is merely watching me,
entertaining himself with the view I’m providing for his enjoyment.
The unflappable expression he has is doing nothing if not igniting
the excruciating lust I was already starting to feel at the bar. I can
see he has done this a hundred times before, and that’s the reason
why I chose him and no one else.
You wouldn’t suspect anything from the way he presents himself
to the rest of the world. He looks like a stereotypical Canadian
lumberjack. On the older side, late forties to early fifties, he’s
wearing an unremarkable red flannel shirt and black trousers. He
didn’t even bother taking his ranger boots off when he entered my
room. He’s just what you’d expect to see in the middle of nowhere in
Alberta, Canada. His hair is short, but his beard is not. He’s perfectly
trimmed it, and that tells me this is a man that knows how to take
care of himself. It’s someone who knows what he wants, what he
doesn’t, and how to please himself. He decided I was the perfect
candidate to satisfy him tonight. He’s not going to be disappointed.
Once I’m fully naked, I stand still and wait for his order. The only
request I had to make was for him to let me get naked first. Nothing
is hotter for me than a clothed man taking control over my bare self.
I’m completely vulnerable to him and his touch. I have no defenses
left. I’m completely his for the night. He owns me. He can do
anything he wishes to me. His deeper desires, his buried fantasies,
his insatiable thirst—everything is on the table for him tonight.
That’s how I, Fiorenzo Rovelia, give myself to men.
 “Get on the bed,” he demands in a low voice. “Lay there. Face on
the sheets. I don’t want to see it.”
I execute the order. I lay down in front of him.
“Show me your ass,” he continues.
I push my waist up so he can have a better glimpse of my
smooth butt.
“Show me that hole.”
I use both my hands to pull my cheeks to the sides. I reposition
myself a little bit on the bed to give him the best view possible. This
is not my first rodeo, and I know exactly how to give him what he’s
after.
I sense his warm, strong hands on my ass while he murmurs,
“Good.” He caresses my cheeks hoping to get a shiver out of me.
He doesn’t. I’m keeping still, patiently awaiting his next order.
He spanks me. A firm, steady spank. Nothing too strong, but
nothing too weak either. That tells me his lowest level of spanking
intensity is a bit higher than the average men I sleep with. That’s
good. That’s really, really good.
He hits my ass, harder this time. It stings more than the first, but
it’s still so far from enough to get a quiver out of me.
His breath is stronger now. He spanks me three more times, each
time more vigorous than the last.
I barely wince at all.
From the way his body is hovering over mine, I can feel his
interest is growing stronger and stronger. He uses his palm to give
me another hit on the ass, yet, just like the others that preceded, it
leaves me undaunted. At this point, if I didn’t trust my sexual
instinct, I would turn my head and ask, “Is that all you got?” But it’s
unnecessary here. I know very well that this man has everything it
takes to please me. He’s just getting started, and I have to be
patient.
I hear his belt slowly being taken off. After that, silence. He only
took his belt off, which means…
The leather crashes onto my skin.
This time, I start to feel something. I guess most people would
call it pain, but I call it interest. He’s starting to get my body
interested in what he has to offer. But if he thinks that’s enough,
we’re both going to be very disappointed.
He whips me one more time with the belt. Just like with the
spanking, it’s getting more intense each time. He repeats the action
until I can feel the trace of the leather on my right butt cheek. I
don’t need to look at it to know it’s red. I clear my throat to signal
him he can hit again.
Yet, he doesn’t. He slides the belt along on the rest of my body.
The contact with the leather mixed with the growing soreness of my
ass awakens my dick. It had been pretty soft so far, but the
stranger’s carefully planned punishments are about to fix that.
He hits again.
I’m surprised, yet very pleased, he decided to attack the same
cheek. Most men would change the target to allow me a little break.
That’s not what I want. I don’t need a break. I need his unregulated
strength to push me to the edge. The only way to do that is to keep
pushing where he already has. Just like attempting to break a wall,
he needs to persevere in his strikes if he wants to unleash the dirty
slut inside of me. I can be anything he wants me to be, but first, he
has to show me he deserves it.
He starts flogging my ass with unadulterated violence. The more
I squirm under the strikes of his belt, the more arduous he makes
them. Soon, I must bite the bedsheet to refrain from moaning. I
don’t want to give him this satisfaction just yet. I’m curious to see
what else he’s going to come up with to get the first whine out of
me.
One of his hands pushes my waist up. “Spread your legs,” he
instructs.
I do. As soon as my hole is fully exposed again, his belt falls right
on it. The pain is instantaneous. I miss a breath and ache in agony.
But I don’t make any sound.
At that point, I don’t know whether he’s growing impatient or this
is only exciting him even more. I receive two other hits on my hole.
The energy with which they’re administered informs me my sexy
lumberjack is starting to lose control. He wants me. I can feel it. He’s
craving my body as much as I’m craving his. He longs to unzip his
pants and fuck me raw right on this bed. He yearns to push my head
onto the bed while his cock makes itself comfortable inside of me.
However, before he can do any of that, he needs to break me. He
knows that damn well, and that’s why his blasts are intensifying.
Until he gets a gasp out of me, he won’t stop. He needs to hear that
I’m under his full control before he can allow himself to give me
more. But I’m not an easy slut. If he wants to break the wall and
unleash all of me, he has to work for it first.
The whipping resumes. After each blow, it becomes more difficult
for me to restrain my voice. The incessant lashing of the belt on my
bare skin is bringing me over the edge. I use all the self-control I
have to not make a sound, but my body is betraying how close I am
from surrendering.
Finally, I give up.
The belt, which has become warm through all the friction with
my skin, bashes the entirety of my ass in one go. It’s widespread
and intense. It wouldn’t normally get me to cede, but after the
relentless flogging, it does.
I fucking gasp.
It’s nothing close to how loud I can get in bed, yet it’s enough to
give the stranger the green light he was waiting for. He doesn’t say
anything, but I hear the pace of his breath shift. He succeeded in
getting me to snap, now it’s time for him to unleash the beast.
I hear the enticing sound of his pants dropping to the floor. I stay
quiet and don’t turn, my face still flat on the bed sheet. It only takes
him half a minute to get some lube on my asshole. The cold and
refreshing liquid is gratefully welcomed by my ass. It alleviates the
fire that the belt inflicted upon it and helps me relax. This is not
going to require a lot of prep. I’m ripped, opened, and fucking ready
for his cock.
He doesn’t waste time. He eases himself inside of me, and my
hole gladly takes all his shaft in.
“Fuck, yes,” I hear myself mutter as his body finds the best
suitable rhythm for mine.
What comes after could be described at length with great
adjectives and sensual metaphors. But I will make it short and
simple for you: he fucks me. He fucks me good.
He fucks me so well, in fact, that it doesn’t take long for me to
completely lose myself and let everything go. I pant and yell every
time he pushes deeper inside of me. He groans and exhales loudly in
my ear each time I arch my body to let him get more of his cock
inwards. His penis is big, thick, heavy, and pleasantly slightly too big
for me. I don’t like to be fucked by finger-length dicks, but bazookas
that can’t fit all of the way in there are not much better. But this
cock—his cock— is the right size. It stings a little as my hole adapts
to this surprising length, yet I relish in the pain that it kindles in me.
The stronger he thrusts himself into me, the sharper my burgeoning
orgasm gets. I don’t even have to touch myself. The rubbing of my
dick against the bed is enough friction to gradually take me to the
fucking edge. I won’t hold it in long if he keeps this pace up.
As if he could read my mind, he stops. I sense his body leaning
away from mine. I raise my head and turn it to look at him. He’s
sweaty, and his strong, hairy body is red with effort. The vision of
this sweaty, manly creature only gets me hornier, and I push myself
back on his cock, unable to wait for more.
He grabs my waist and forces me to stop. “Wait,” he orders. “You
wait for me, slut. Is that understood?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, who?”
I stare right into his eyes when I say, “Yes, sir.”
He nods, satisfied, and resumes what he was doing. He’s
searching for something on the floor, and I’m not sure what. We
didn’t exchange a lot at the bar, but we talked enough to know we
were both on Prep. Plus, he already fucked me bareback, he couldn’t
be looking for a condom. It doesn’t feel like either of us needs more
lube, so I’m not sure what he’s trying to locate.
It’s only when I hear the now very familiar sound of his belt that
I understand. A devilish grin takes control of my mouth while I pinch
my bottom lips in excitement. He peeks in my direction, and the
blatant desire splayed all over my face unlocks a grin on his. He
wraps the belt around my waist. He makes it tight and holds it
together with both his hands. I’m happy to feel the leather back on
my skin. This time, however, it will hurt me in a different manner. He
tightens the belt around me, pressing my bare skin with the leather.
Soon, the makeshift harness is ready to go.
He presses his cock back into me, making me shiver. He uses the
harness to steady himself before he accelerates the pace. He’s riding
me like the animal that I am, fucking me deeper and better each
time. I beg for more, and he gives me more. The speed of his body
accelerates while his cock digs even deeper. It’s touching my
prostate right on, which means I won’t last long.
He pushes himself onto me, still firmly holding the belt in his
hand, and bites the side of my neck. All I hear are the sound of his
grunts against my heart and the powerful flapping of his body on
mine.
“Fuck!” he suddenly roars. His dick explodes inside of me, and his
fresh cum fills me up.
It’s too much for me too. I come a second after, wailing louder
than ever before. My ass throbs on his leaking dick, it makes his
whole body ache with unaltered pleasure.
“Fuck,” he repeats, lower this time. “Oh, fuck.”
He stays inside of me for a beat longer before he lets himself roll
on the bed next to me. I move on my back, completely unbothered
by the stickiness of my own release. We’re both lying next to each
other gasping for air, our bodies still shaking from the orgasmic
rupture.
It doesn’t take him long to fall asleep. Quickly, his constant
snores echo in the whole room. It should disturb me, yet, strangely,
it doesn’t. It’s actually… very soothing. This colossus who just filled
me up like the cumwhore that I am is having some odd effect on
me.
Oh, fuck, indeed.
 Unsurprisingly, I wake up before the sexy stranger the next
morning. The sun is slowly rising, and even though we’re in early
summer, it’s freezing. It’s still Canada after all.
By the way, when I said “hotel room” earlier, I really should have
said motel room. That’s all I could afford. Motels are the best way to
keep it on the low. No need to provide IDs. You simply give them a
fake name, Derek Shepherd in my case, and you’re good to go. Yes,
I’m a massive Grey’s Anatomy fan. I used to watch the show
together with my mother and my two sisters. It was our weekly
family gathering. Even long after she was gone, I kept watching with
my younger sister, Sofia. Our older sister, Rosa, was too busy with
the family business to join us. Well, that’s what she told us in the
beginning at least. As the years went by, it became clear she had no
interest in either Sofia or me. All she lived for was my dad’s
approval. Everything she did was to please him. She was the only
one happy at our mandatory weekly family dinners. Sofia and I
would always try to get out of them. That pushed my dad to impose
personal protection—watchdogs, really—into our lives. Sofia and I
couldn’t get financially independent, and we lived together in what
used to be our family home. We were prisoners in Italy. Our dad
wanted us to follow Rosa’s path and work with them, but we always
refused. He technically couldn’t force us to work with him, but he
could make sure we couldn’t go anywhere. For about two years,
Sofia and I were stuck in that awful house in Naples—where I was
born. Finally, we gave up. Unlike Rosa, we requested to be assigned
to stupid desk jobs. Neither of us wanted to go in the field and join
Rosa and my dad in whichever atrocities in which they were
involved. I was nineteen, Sofia was seventeen. But here we were,
two kids working for the family business, a.k.a. the Neapolitan
mafia: the Giudice Family.
A year later, our dad died. No one ever really explained to us how
it happened exactly, but Sofia and I both knew it was mafia politics.
Even though my dad was not born into the Family, he had become
an honorary child, probably after murdering hundreds of people for
them. Some men in the Family were jealous when he was the one
getting the Naples promotion. They thought Naples should be
governed by a real Giudice, not an imposter. They pushed for my
dad to be fired from the job for years until they finally took the issue
in their own hands and got him killed.
We immediately quit our positions inside the Family. Rosa fought
hard to keep her job in the organization, but she was transferred.
She ended up being assigned to one of the mafia’s biggest clients,
the Di Più Hotels Group. They’re the most luxurious hotels in Italy
behind the Lebottier ones, the worldwide famous French hotels. The
two companies have been in constant competition since their
creation a couple of decades ago. The Giudice Family ruled and
owned all the Di Più Hotels. Despite having the whole city of Naples
in their hand, they were never able to gain the same kind of fame
and international recognition the Lebottier Hotels had. At least, that’s
what I gathered from gossip. Tipsy gay mafiosos talk a lot once
they’ve emptied their cock on your face.
These days, Sofia and I are not involved with the Giudice Family.
Well, at least not directly. Our sister was still an important part of
their organization until her death a month ago. Sofia and I might not
be personally entangled with the crime organization anymore, but
they know us. More importantly, they know where to find us. You
never fully escape the Giudice Family. It doesn’t matter how hard
you try, or how far you run, they will always track you down. The
only way to flee their everlasting hold for good is to either die or
destroy them. There is no in-between.
I’m here, in this shitty motel room in the middle of Canada, with
a guy snoring in my bed, which means I’m still alive for now. If I
want to keep it that way, and if I want to break free from the
Family’s mortal influences, I need to complete the task I came here
for. My safety, as well as my sister’s, resides in one tiny flash drive. It
doesn’t look like much. It’s a cheap, used drive that I’ve had for
years. I finally found a purpose for it when I downloaded hundreds
of files and pictures that could take Di Più Hotels Group down for
good. Without that asset, the Giudice Family will scramble to stay
afloat. It will be chaos: not enough money, too many people to pay
—a bloodbath is bound to happen. I don’t care. As long as it doesn’t
include Sofia or myself, I don’t give a shit. I have no respect and no
love loss for anyone working for those monsters. None. If I could get
a gun and shoot them myself, I’d do it. I’d probably die, but I’d do it.
However, that would go against everything I promised to my mom.
When she was dying in my arms, when her body was emptying all
its blood right in front of me, she made me promise something. She
told me I was supposed to do everything I could to ensure my
sisters and I could one day be free of the Family. I can’t fulfill that
promise if I die, so I won’t die. I couldn’t protect Rosa, but I will
protect Sofia. I will stay alive and save her from this grim destiny
none of us ever asked for. Those monsters took both my parents and
one of my sisters. The death toll for the Rovelia family must stop
now.
I use the few items the motel made available for me to make an
instant coffee. It’s an aberration for my Italian pallet, but it will have
to do. I don’t have time to waste. I can’t just go outside and wander
around this place for a good cup of coffee. Plus, this isn’t Europe.
I’m in North America: there isn’t any decent coffee.
I swallow the bitter drink in one go when I hear a car pulling
over. I rush to the window and lean in. I use two of my fingers to
spread the blind wide enough to have a view of what’s going on
without compromising my position.
A black, beautiful, and brand-new Tesla stops in the middle of the
mud-stained trucks and ‘90s cars that occupy the rest of the parking
lot. I carefully watch as two strongly built men exit the car. They’re
both wearing the official mafia outfit: suit and tie and large
sunglasses. Nothing very original. I already know that the suit,
everything that’s underneath, the shoes, and the glasses are all
Armani. If you think it lacks originality for the Giudice Family
henchmen to be dressed from head to toe in Armani, then you’d be
absolutely right. The Naples mafia is not renowned for its originality
or its taste. If anything, they pride themselves on being
“conservative.” They still deal with business the same way they did
fifty years ago—murder, public execution, torture, and blackmail—
and they avoid women in positions of power. Needless to say, all the
gay men working for them are closeted. It makes identifying them a
bit more complicated, but not impossible.
I’m not one bit surprised to see these two here this morning. I
eye them as they make their way to the motel main office. One of
them knocks on the door. When he doesn’t get the appropriate
answer, he bangs. Less than a minute after, the door opens.
I knew they would find me, I just thought I would have enough
time to take a shower first. Guess I don’t. It’s not the first time since
I’ve arrived in Canada that they’ve been only minutes away from
getting me. Since my plane landed three weeks ago, we’ve all been
playing a cat and mouse game that will either end with my
decapitated head or the demise of the Di Più Hotels Group. You can
already guess which option I’m favoring.
I get away from the window and grab my stuff. It’s not much—it
all fits in just one brown leather handbag—but that’s enough for me.
I’m thankful whoever killed Rosa decided to do so during this time of
year. There’s not a lot of reason why I should be thankful in my life,
but that is one of them. If Rosa’s murder had happened during the
winter, I would have had my epiphany then. That means I would be
confronting the Canadian blizzard right now instead of the nice,
cloudless blue sky. I don’t know if you’ve ever been on the run, but
the process is much easier when you don’t have three layers of
clothes and a puffy jacket to pack every time you have to leave a
place in a hurry.
I put last night’s clothes back on. They smell like sweat and
cheap liquor and could definitely use a wash, but they will have to
do. I’ll take stinky clothes over waterboarding by the mafia.
I notice the red flannel shirt on the floor and my eyes
instinctively pivot to the man asleep in my bed. Last night was so
good. It was everything I had wanted. After three weeks of running
away and hiding in a foreign country I had never visited before, I
was in much need of a proper fuck. I have no idea who this guy is, I
don’t even know his name. However, I know for a fact that he gave
me just that: a proper fuck.
“Thanks,” I murmur to him. Obviously, he doesn’t answer. He
continues snoozing away.
I make sure I’m not forgetting anything before I dart to the
bathroom. I’ve been in this room for only one night, but before I
booked it, I made sure to have an emergency exit I could use if it
came to that. It did come to that, and now it’s time to see how well
my muscly body can fit through that bathroom window. At least, I’m
not built like the hot lumberjack. This guy is next-level massive. I’m
usually pretty sturdy compared to men I sleep with. I guess this man
was the exception to the rule. I’m not going to lie, I’m a bit
disappointed I won’t get to enjoy his dick again. Last night was so
fun, and I have so many dirty ideas of what we could have done
next.
I get out the window and jump on the ground. It wasn’t high,
and I’m well trained for this kind of exercise. I give one last look to
my motel room. Deep down, I had hoped I could have enjoyed
morning sex with that guy before I had to do this. But sex with the
charming lumberjack is not worth the afternoon tea with the
murderous mafiosos.
Life is really unfair that way sometimes.
 2

DERRICK

I park my faded yellow pickup truck next to a red Mercedes.

Compared to my old truck, it looks pretty slick. I know, I should
buy a new one. I hear the increasingly loud, strident noise that
starts every time I go over 100 km/h. And, yeah, I’m also tired of
the comments I get from my buddies at night when I take the old
truck on a drive to the only gay bar in a 250-mile radius. But unlike
Daphne, the owner of the shiny red Mercedes, I’m not rich. Well, to
be perfectly honest, she isn’t that loaded either. But she has a
steady income, unlike me. It turns out wealthy people need big shot
lawyers more than they need family-trained woodcutters. Go figure.
It’s only nine, yet I feel like I already missed half of the day. I
usually wake up earlier, four or five, but after the night I had, I
needed some rest. The hangover is not a problem. I hold my alcohol
well—always have—just like my dad used to. No, what really
exhausted me last night was the guy I picked up at the bar. Oh,
God. In my fifty-two years on this planet, I have rarely seen a kid
like that. He was so confident and bossy. The way we stared at each
other for over an hour before he came over to share a drink with me
was so hot. I didn’t think he could get any hotter than that. I was
wrong. As soon as his lips met mine, I knew I was going to have fun
with this one.
I was right about this one though.
 He dragged me to his crappy motel, and damn, he did not
disappoint. He gave himself to me completely, and that shit was
next-level torrid. I spanked him hard and long until he gasped,
signaling me he was ready to get my dick. I usually like my sex a
little rough, yet I have never had a guy like him. Usually, the best
sex I get is when I visit Toronto or Montréal. I know the BDSM
community well there, it’s easy to find a sub with whom I can have
some adult fun. However, the submissives I usually fuck are so…
predictable. There’s no joyful surprise. I know exactly what I’m
going to get. Don’t get me wrong, I like the assurance of having
satisfying sex. But it gets boring pretty quickly. This guy was
anything but boring.
I hadn’t planned on taking my belt out on his perfectly rounded
ass. He was a rando I met in a lousy gay bar in the middle of
Alberta, the most conservative province in the country. I didn’t have
high hopes. When he pressed his tongue into my mouth at the bar, I
knew I was able to spank that slut. How was I to know then that my
hand wouldn’t be enough to satisfy his hunger for pain? I hit him
with the palm of my hand, harder each time, and he didn’t budge.
Even when the belt got involved, I had to give it to him really hard
before he broke down, allowing me entry. I hadn’t planned that shit.
I was lucky enough that an attractive guy was out at the bar that
night, and the odds were definitely in my favor when it turned out
he wanted me as much as I wanted him. But how fucking fortunate
do I have to be to get to spend the night with that guy in particular?
I’m telling you; he was no mediocre one-night stand. Hell, he was
even better than good. He was… I don’t know… mind-blowing?
Astonishing? Magical? I haven’t had sex that awesome since my ex
and I got a divorce three years ago. I didn’t know how much I had
missed it. Now that I do, I’m not sure how I’m going to survive
without it. The cute slut was gone by the moment I woke up. I
vaguely remember two men knocking at the door at some point and
asking me about someone called Fiorenzo, but I went back to sleep
after that. When my body was rested enough for me to get my ass
out of the bed, there was no trace of the guy I had sex with last
night. He had disappeared.
 I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s what kids his age do. They’re young,
wild, and free. He couldn’t be a day over twenty-six. He probably
has no trouble getting someone to his bed, so why would he linger
on an old man like me. I still look pretty fine for someone my age,
and I don’t have trouble seducing men either, but this sexual devil
plays in a different category. I understand. A lot of guys enjoy
sleeping with older dudes. It’s like a daddy fantasy for them or
something. They’re only here for the night, and then, they’re gone.
They want a daddy in their bed, but not next to them on the streets.
I’m used to it by now. Yet, when I realized I would never see this kid
again, my heart tingled a little. Or was it my cock? Maybe it was
both, I don’t know. All I know is that I would have loved to get his
number and do it again sometime. It seems like I was the only one
thinking that.
Oh, well.
“Look who it is,” Daphne exclaims when I push the door open.
She’s acting as if she just noticed me, but I know it’s bullshit. This
whole house is made of only two things: wood and glass.
Everywhere you look, you find windows. She saw me pull over. The
privacy you enjoy while living here is nonexistent, and I’m glad I’m
only here temporarily.
“Morning to you too, Daph’,” I answer while I walk to the kitchen.
I need another coffee. The only thing they had at the motel was
instant coffee. It’s fine, but if I want to successfully battle this
hangover, I’m going to need something stronger. I’m not in my
twenties anymore. Hangovers are more and more merciless these
days.
“Same shirt,” she remarks when she joins me next to the kitchen
island. She sits on a stool and looks at me with attention. “Same
pants too. Someone had a night out.”
“How do you know? Maybe I went home to change,” I say while I
fill the Moka pot with coffee. I place it on the gas stove and turn the
heat on.
She grins with her smile that means “I’m seeing right through
your bullshit, Derrick.” “You love flannel shirts so much that you once
confided in me that you only own one of each color. Remember?”
 How could I not? I had drunkenly confessed to this weird
obsession of mine when we met three years ago in a bar in Toronto.
We were both going through a divorce, and we both decided to
forget our sorrow that night with unbearably sweet cocktails. We
bonded over our shared love of pink and colorful drinks; the rest is
history.
Well, actually, the rest is three years of a growing friendship. Our
exes were harsh when it came to our divorces, and they dragged us
through the mud. Daphne is a strong woman and a kickass lawyer.
She fought back.
I didn’t.
I let Carson, my ex-husband, take everything he requested. After
all, he was the one making most of the money, he deserved it. He
was a famous interior designer, and I had a small wooden sculpture
business in downtown Toronto. The divorce was so rough, I lost
everything. Carson had no mercy. When it was all done, I had no
other choice than to go back home. My dad owned a small wood
business in my childhood town. I decided I should help with the
shop until I figured out what the fuck I was going to do with the rest
of my life. He died not long after I came back. I’ve kept the shop
open, yet it doesn’t really bring me any income. My dad had no
savings either. That’s why when the new owners of this place said
they needed somebody to watch over their house while they went
away, I jumped on the opportunity. I hired a high schooler to look
over the shop. All she has to do is tell me when people need wood. I
cut it and deliver it to them.
I know I said the wood business wasn’t that profitable, but the
money I received for the house-sitting job is allowing me to feel
comfortable for a while. Believe it or not, the guys living in this place
have a lot of money. They paid me a hefty chunk of cash to simply
sleep in their bed and use their shower. That’s the whole job, making
sure I’m the only one in the house. They also have a jacuzzi, a gym,
and a sauna in there. I haven’t stopped myself from enjoying them
too.
I know, it sounds too good to be true, right? I thought that too,
but it’s been three weeks. Nothing fishy happened. It’s been the
most relaxing three weeks of my life. The owners are supposed to
come back next week, and all I’ve had to deal with so far was an
angry raccoon in the trash. Pretty awesome, right?
The only weird request they made before they left me in charge
of their home was to turn away anyone that would be looking for
them. Whoever shows up at the door, I’m supposed to lie and tell
them this isn’t the Zolas’ home. The guy with the strong French
accent, Sky, who’s one of the owners, insisted on this. He gave me a
burner phone to use if anyone shows up and asks for them. He told
me to warn them immediately. Three weeks in, nothing of the sort
has happened. Maybe these two are drug dealers or something—
that would explain the luxurious house in the middle of the Canadian
forest and the exorbitant salary that comes with house sitting in it. I
looked everywhere and couldn’t find anything suspicious. If they’re
drug lords, they’re keeping their dope somewhere else.
After a week in this place by myself, I started to get bored. Yes,
it’s comfy as fuck and super nice, but there is nothing to do. It’s in
the middle of the forest. As much as I enjoy nature, there’s only so
much you can do in a forest.
I called Daphne and begged her to come. She was all like “I have
clients and cases, I can’t just go, blah blah blah,” but when I said
the words “jacuzzi” and “sauna,” she jumped on a plane. She rented
a car for the trip, despite my offer to drive her around in my truck.
She asserted that she didn’t trust the “geriatric vehicle” to drive her
around Alberta safely. I didn’t insist. I was so excited to spend some
time with her. She’s my best friend, but she rarely leaves Toronto.
She’s always working, trying to save horrible, rich people from jail,
and she never has time for me. I’m glad she put her life on pause to
join me. She’s been here two weeks, and it has been the best paid
vacation of my life so far—albeit the only one. Nobody usually hands
you paid leave when you’re a lumberjack.
“Fine,” I concede with a smile. I grab the boiling Moka pot and
pour the hot liquid into my cup. “I went to Dudes and Dicks last
night.”
She shakes her head with exasperation. “I still can’t believe that’s
the actual name of that place. You’d think gay men would be more
creative.”
“Not in Alberta.” I raise my cup to salute her and start sipping the
comforting beverage. “I met a guy there.”
“Of course, you did,” she replies while she examines her long,
sharp, acrylic nails. They’re painted golden with subtitles traces of
purple. I find them beautiful, even though Daphne told me I didn’t
have a choice. She stated that “for the price I pay for them, you
better think they’re beautiful… or else.” “Are you going to see him
again?” she asks, vaguely interested.
“No… I mean… I want to but…”
“But?”
“He left before I woke up. Didn’t leave his number behind.”
She aims her glittery eyes back at me. “Maybe he will show up
again? After all, how many gay men are there in this place? They
must all frequent that same bar.”
“He wasn’t from here. He had an Italian accent.” I stretch and
realize talking about the fact I will never get to see this guy again is
upsetting me somewhat.
“There are Italian people in Canada, Derrick,” Daphne retorts
without animosity. She’s merely stating facts.
“I know. But his demeanor was… I don’t know… very
unCanadian.” I sense my eyebrow ticking up in arousal when the
images of last night flash again in my head. Canadian men are
usually polite and reserved. Especially the ones I find around here.
This kid was anything but polite and reserved. He was ravenous and
trashy. “He’s probably a European on a student trip or something.”
“We could track him,” offers Daphne. “Or you could use Grindr.”
I shoot her a disapproving look. “I already tried Grindr, and you
said you would stop with the tracking.”
“I’m purely offering.”
When Daphne was going through her divorce, she took it upon
herself to learn to track. She needed to know where her ex was
going and with whom he was sleeping. She kept all the information
to herself until the court day. She exposed him for the liar and
cheater he was. The judge not only sided with her, but she also
ruled that the defamation lawsuit Daphne had to fill because of her
ex-husband’s defamation was valid. Daphne won big. That’s why she
still lives in Toronto, in her own condo, while I had to move back
home. She was never the best tracker, not like the ones you see on
TV or anything, but she was good enough to take her ex-husband
down. During the years after her divorce, she kept insisting she
could track anyone I needed her to track. I’ve always refused. It’s
not who I am. At all.
“It’s fine, Daph’,” I say before I chug the rest of my coffee. “He’s
just a guy.”
I think Daphne can detect when I don’t believe in my own
bullshit because her head tilts a little bit to the right while her eyes
narrow. “What do I have the feeling he wasn’t ‘just’ a guy?”
I wave for her to stop. “The sex was good, okay?” I stand up so I
can turn my back to her as I say the rest of what has been rumbling
through my mind since I opened my eyes this morning. “The sex
was more than good. It was fucking amazing. I hadn’t had an
experience like that since…”
I don’t need to finish my sentence. She finishes it for me.
“Carson.”
I turn back. She’s smiling at me, so I smile back. Daphne’s smile
is contagious, and that’s one of the many reasons why I love her so
much. “Yeah.”
She leans back on her stool. “I understand. I haven’t had
someone touch my body the way I need it since Gabriel. Too bad
that piece of shit broke my heart.”
I wince, which is what I do every time she brings up Gabriel. I
told her the truth about what really happened to Carson and me, but
it took me a while. I needed to fully trust her before I could open
myself up to her. I had to make sure she wouldn’t judge me. All my
friends did, and after the divorce, I lost most of them. Even my dad
had a difficult time bringing Carson up. It became a taboo subject.
Three years later, thinking of what I did to him is still painful for me.
I don’t think I have quite forgiven myself yet. I’m just glad Daphne
did. Telling her was excruciatingly stressful. I thought she would
hate me, just like she had hated her ex-husband. After all, we were
both cheaters. Gabriel slept with a bunch of women behind Daphne’s
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
noun—A case, Of a case, To a case, A case, O case, From a case—they
tell you that the word case is here its own nominative, genitive,
dative, accusative, vocative, and ablative, though the deuce of any
case—that is inflection of the noun—is there in the case.
Nevertheless, many a pedagogue would swear till he was black in the
face that it is so; and would lie awake many a restless night boiling
with rage and vexation that any one should be so lost to shame and
reason as to suspect that there is here also a distinction without a
difference. In strictness, in the Latin word there are only four, casus,
casui, casum, casu; and the rest are conceded out of uniformity with
other cases where the terminations are six times varied:[57] but why
insist on the full complement, where there is no case in the whole
language (but for the arbitrary one already excepted) to bear it out?
Again, it is agreed on all hands, that English nouns have genders.
Except with a few, where the termination is borrowed from another
language, such as Empress, &c., there is no possibility of generally
telling the sex implied from the form of the termination: but men
looking at the point with their Latin eyes, see genders wherever they
have been accustomed to find them in a foreign tongue. The
difference of sex is vernacularly conveyed in English by a different
word—man, woman, stag, deer, king, queen, &c.; and there is no
such thing as conventional gender in neutral things—house, church,
field, and so on. All this might be excusable as a prejudice or
oversight; but then why persist in it in the thirty-eighth edition of a
standard book published by the great firm in Paternoster-row? We
sometimes think mankind have a propensity to lying not more in
matters-of-fact than theory. They maintain what they know to be
without a shadow of foundation, and in the sheer spirit of
contradiction, or because they hate to be convinced. In the same
manner as the cases and genders of nouns, the whole ramification of
the verb is constructed, and hung up for the admiration of the
credulous upon the ideal of the Latin and Greek verb, with all its
tenses, persons, moods, and participles, whether there be anything
more than a mere skeleton of a resemblance to suspend all this
learned patch-work upon or not. ‘I love, thou lovest he loves; we, ye,
they love.’ There is a difference in the three first, so that from
announcing the verb, you know the prefix; but in the three last, what
difference is there, what sign of separation from one another, or from
the first person singular? ‘I loved’ is the past tense doubtless: it is a
difference of inflection denoting time: but ‘I did love, I have loved, I
will, can, shall, would love,’ are not properly tenses or moods of the
verb love, but other verbs with the infinitive or participle of the first
verb appended to them. Thus is our irregular verb professionally
licked into regularity and shape. When the thing is wanting it is
supplied by the name. Empedocles was a cobbler, even when he did
not cobble. A conjunction is held to be a part of speech without any
meaning in itself, but that serves to connect sentences together, such
as that, and, &c. It is proved by Mr. Horne Tooke, that the
conjunction that is no other than the pronoun that (with the words
thing or proposition understood)—as and is the imperative of the old
Saxon verb anandad (to add), upon a similar principle—‘I say this
and (or add) that’—and though it is above fifty years since this
luminous discovery was published to the world, no hint of it has
crept into any Grammar used in schools, and by authority. It seems
to be taken for granted that all sound and useful knowledge is by
rote, and that if it ceased to be so, the Church and State might
crumble to pieces like the conjunctions and and that. There may be
some truth in that.
It is strange that Mr. Horne Tooke, with all his logical and
etymological acuteness, should have been so bad a metaphysician as
to argue that all language was merely a disjointed tissue of names of
objects (with certain abbreviations), and that he should have given or
attempted no definition of the verb. He barely hints at it in one place,
viz.—that the verb is quod loquimur, the noun de quo; that is, the
noun expresses the name of any thing or points out the object; the
verb signifies the opinion or will of the speaker concerning it. What
then becomes of the infinitive mood, which neither affirms, denies,
nor commands any thing, but is left like a log of wood in the high
road of grammar, to be picked up by the first jaunting-car of ‘winged
words’ that comes that way with its moods, persons, and tenses,
flying, and turned to any use that may be wanted? Mr. Tooke was in
the habit of putting off his guests at Wimbledon with promising to
explain some puzzle the following Sunday; and he left the world in
the dark as to the definition of the verb, much in the same spirit of
badinage and mystery. We do not know when the deficiency is likely
to be supplied, unless it has been done by Mr. Fearn in his little work
called Anti-Tooke. We have not seen the publication, but we know
the author to be a most able and ingenious man, and capable of
lighting upon nice distinctions which few but himself would ever
dream of. An excess of modesty, which doubts every thing, is much
more favourable to the discovery of truth than that spirit of
dogmatism which presumptuously takes every thing for granted; but
at the same time it is not equally qualified to place its conclusions in
the most advantageous and imposing light; and we accordingly too
often find our quacks and impostors collecting a crowd with their
drums, trumpets, and placards of themselves at the end of a street,
while the ‘still, small’ pipe of truth and simplicity is drowned in the
loud din and bray, or forced to retire to a distance to solace itself with
its own low tones and fine-drawn distinctions. Having touched upon
this subject, we may be allowed to add that some of our most
eminent writers, as, for instance, Mr. Maculloch with his Principles
of Political Economy, and Mr. Mill with his Elements of Political
Economy, remind us of two barrel-organ grinders in the same street,
playing the same tune and contending for precedence and mastery.
What is Mozart to any of the four?
 MEMORABILIA OF MR. COLERIDGE

The Atlas.]
[March 22, 1829.

He said of an old cathedral, that it always appeared to him like a

petrified religion.
Hearing some one observe that the religious sentiments
introduced in Sheridan’s Pizarro met with great applause on the
stage, he replied, that he thought this a sure sign of the decay of
religion; for when people began to patronise it as an amiable
theatrical sentiment, they had no longer any real faith in it.
He said of a Mr. H——, a friend of Fox’s, who always put himself
forward to interpret the great orator’s sentiments, and almost took
the words out of his mouth, that it put him in mind of the steeple of
St. Thomas, on Ludgate-hill, which is constantly getting in the way
when you wish to see the dome of St. Paul’s.
Seeing a little soiled copy of Thomson’s Seasons lying in the
window-seat of an obscure inn on the sea-coast of Somersetshire, he
said, ‘That is true fame.’
He observed of some friend, that he had thought himself out of a
handsome face, and into a fine one.
He said of the French, that they received and gave out sensations
too quickly, to be a people of imagination. He thought Moliere’s
father must have been an Englishman.
According to Mr. Coleridge, common rhetoricians argued by
metaphors; Burke reasoned in them.
He considered acuteness as a shop-boy quality compared with
subtlety of mind; and quoted Paine as an example of the first,
Berkeley as the perfection of the last.
He extolled Bishop Butler’s Sermons at the Rolls’ Chapel as full of
thought and sound views of philosophy; and conceived that he had
proved the love of piety and virtue to be as natural to the mind of
man as the delight it receives from the colour of a rose or the smell of
a lily. He spoke of the Analysis as theological special-pleading.
He had no opinion of Hume, and very idly disputed his originality.
He said the whole of his argument on miracles was to be found stated
(as an objection) somewhere in Barrow.
He said Thomson was a true poet, but an indolent one. He seldom
wrote a good line, but he ‘rewarded resolution’ by following it up
with a bad one. Cowper he regarded as the reformer of the Della
Cruscan style in poetry, and the founder of the modern school.
Being asked which he thought the greater man, Milton or
Shakspeare, he replied that he could hardly venture to pronounce an
opinion—that Shakspeare appeared to him to have the strength, the
stature of his rival, with infinitely more agility; but that he could not
bring himself after all to look upon Shakspeare as any thing more
than a beardless stripling, and that if he had ever arrived at man’s
estate, he would not have been a man but a monster of intellect.
Being told that Mrs. Wolstonecraft exerted a very great ascendancy
over the mind of her husband, he said—‘It was always the case:
people of imagination naturally took the lead of people of mere
understanding and acquirement.’ This was scarcely doing justice to
the author of Caleb Williams.
He spoke of Mackintosh as deficient in original resources: he was
neither the great merchant nor manufacturer of intellectual riches;
but the ready warehouseman, who had a large assortment of goods,
not properly his own, and who knew where to lay his hand on
whatever he wanted. An argument which he had sustained for three
hours together with another erudite person on some grand question
of philosophy, being boasted of in Coleridge’s hearing as a mighty
achievement, the latter bluntly answered—‘Had there been a man of
genius among you, he would have settled the point in five minutes.’
Having been introduced to a well-known wit and professed jester,
and his own silence being complained of, he said he should no more
think of speaking where Mr. —— was present, than of interrupting an
actor on the stage.
Mr. Coleridge preferred Salvator Rosa to Claude, therein erring.
He however spoke eloquently and feelingly of pictures, where the
subject-matter was poetical, and where ‘more was meant than met
the eye.’ Thus he described the allegorical picture by Giotto in the
cemetery at Pisa, the Triumph of Death, where the rich, the young,
and the prosperous, are shrinking in horror and dismay from the
grim monster; and the wretched, the cripple, and the beggar, are
invoking his friendly aid, both in words and tones worthy of the
subject. Mr. Coleridge’s was the only conversation we ever heard in
which the ideas seemed set to music—it had the materials of
philosophy and the sound of music; or if the thoughts were
sometimes poor and worthless, the accompaniment was always fine.
He stated of Henderson, the actor, or some person of whom a very
indifferent jest was repeated, that it was the strongest proof of his
ability, and of the good things he must have said to make his bad
ones pass current.
He characterised the Prometheus Bound of Æschylus, as being less
a drama than an Ode to Justice.
He said that formerly men concealed their vices; but now, in the
change of manners and the laxity of theories, they boasted of those
they had not.
He sometimes told a story well, though but rarely. He used to
speak with some drollery and unction of his meeting in his tour in
Germany with a Lutheran clergyman, who expressed a great curiosity
about the fate of Dr. Dodd in a Latin gibberish which he could not at
first understand. ‘Doctorem Tott, Doctorem Tott! Infelix homo, collo
suspensus!‘—he called out in an agony of suspense, fitting the action
to the word, and the idea of the reverend divine just then occurring
to Mr. Coleridge’s imagination. The Germans have a strange
superstition that Dr. Dodd is still wandering in disguise in the Hartz
forest in Germany; and his Prison Thoughts are a favourite book
with the initiated.
If these remarkable sayings are fewer than the reader might
expect, they are all we remember; and we might avail ourselves of the
answer which Quevedo puts into the mouth of the door-keeper of
Hell, when the poet is surprised to find so few kings in his custody
—‘There are all that ever existed!’
 PETER PINDAR

The Atlas.]
[April 5, 1829.

This celebrated wit and character lived to a great age, and retained
his spirit and faculties to the last. In person he did not at all answer
to Mr. Cobbett’s description of authors, as a lean, starveling, puny
race—‘men made after supper of a cheese-paring’—he was large,
robust, portly, and florid; or in Chaucer’s phrase,
‘A manly man to ben an abbot able.’

In his latter years he was blind, and had his head close shaved; and
as he sat bare-headed, presented the appearance of a fine old monk—
a Luther or a Friar John, with the gravity of the one and the wit and
fiery turbulence of the other. Peter had something clerical in his
aspect: he looked like a venerable father of poetry, or an unworthy
son of the church, equally fitted to indict a homily and preach a
crusade, or to point an epigram, and was evidently one of those
children of Momus in whom the good things of the body had laid the
foundation of and given birth to the good things of the mind. He was
one of the few authors who did not disappoint the expectations
raised of them on a nearer acquaintance; and the reason probably
was what has been above hinted at, namely, that he did not take to
this calling from nervous despondency and constitutional poverty of
spirit, but from the fulness and exuberance of his intellectual
resources and animal spirits. Our satirist was not a mere wit, but a
man of strong sense and observation, critical, argumentative, a good
declaimer, and with a number of acquirements of various kinds. His
poetry, instead of having absorbed all the little wit he had (which is
so often the case), was but ‘the sweepings of his mind.’ He said just
as good things every hour in the day. He was the life and soul of the
company where he was—told a story admirably, gave his opinion
freely, spoke equally well, and with thorough knowledge of poetry,
painting, or music, could ‘haloo an anthem’ with stentorian lungs in
imitation of the whole chorus of children at St. Paul’s, or bring the
black population of the West Indies before you like a swarm of flies
in a sugar-basin, by his manner of describing their antics and odd
noises. Dr. Wolcot’s conversation was rich and powerful (not to say
overpowering)—there was an extreme unction about it, but a certain
tincture of grossness. His criticism was his best. We remember in
particular his making an excellent analysis of Dryden’s Alexander’s
Feast in a controversy on its merits with Mr. Curran; and as a
specimen of his parallelisms between the sister-arts, he used to say
of Viotti (the celebrated violin-player), that ‘he was the Michael
Angelo of the fiddle.’ He had a heresy in painting, which was, that
Claude Lorraine was inferior to Wilson; but the orthodox believers
were obliged to be silent before him. A short time before his death he
had a private lodging at Somers’ Town, where he received a few
friends. He sat and talked familiarly and cheerfully, asking you
whether you thought his head would not make a fine bust? He had a
decanter of rum placed on the table before him, from which he
poured out a glass-full as he wanted it and drank it pure, taking no
other beverage, but not exceeding in this. His infirmities had made
no alteration in his conversation, except perhaps a little more
timidity and hesitation; for blindness is the lameness of the mind. He
could not see the effect of what he said lighting up the countenances
of others; and in this case, the tongue may run on the faster, but
hardly so well. After coffee, which he accompanied with the due
quantity of merum sal, he would ask to be led down into a little
parlour below, which was hung round with some early efforts of his
own in landscape-painting, and with some of Wilson’s unfinished
sketches. Though he could see them no longer, otherwise than in his
mind’s eye, he was evidently pleased to be in the room with them, as
they brought back former associations. Youth and age seem glad to
meet as it were on the last hill-top of life, to shake hands once more
and part for ever! He spoke slightingly of his own performances
(though they were by no means contemptible), but launched out with
great fervour in praise of his favourite Wilson, and in disparagement
of Claude, enlarging on the fine broad manner and bold effects of the
one, and on the finical littleness of the other, and ‘making the worse
appear the better reason.’ It was here we last parted with this fine old
man, and it is with mixed pleasure and regret we turn to the subject.
Peter Pindar, besides his vein of comic humour, excelled when he
chose in the serious and pathetic; and his ‘Lines to a Fly drowned in
Treacle,’ and ‘To an Expiring Taper,’ are among his best pieces.
 LOGIC

The Atlas.]
[April 12, 1829.

Much has been said and written of the importance of logic to the
advancement of truth and learning, but not altogether convincingly.
Its use is chiefly confined by some to being a guide to the mind when
first feeling its way out of the night of ignorance and barbarism, or a
curb to the wilful and restive spirit that is a rebel to reason and
common sense. But the extent of the benefit in either case may be
doubted; since the rude and uninstructed will not submit to artificial
trammels, or get up into this go-cart of the understanding, and the
perverse and obstinate will jump out of it whenever their prejudices
or passions are wound up to a height to make its restraints necessary.
The wilful man will have his way in spite of the dictates of his reason
or the evidence of his senses either. The study of logic has been
compared to the getting ready and sharpening the tools with which
the mind works out the truth; but all that is of value in it is more like
the natural use of our hands, or resembles the mould in which truth
must be cast, and which is born with us, rather than an external
instrument with which it must be fashioned; for all syllogisms reduce
themselves either to identical propositions, or to certain forms and
relations of ideas in the understanding, which are antecedent to, and
absolutely govern, our conclusions with the rules for drawing them.
The mind cannot make an instrument to make truth, as it contrives
an instrument to make a certain object; for in the latter case, the
object depends upon the act and will of the mind; but in the former,
the mind is passive to the impression of given objects upon it, and
this depends on certain laws over which it has itself no control. Logic
at best only lays down the rules and laws by which our reason
operates; but it must operate according to those rules and laws
equally whether they are adverted to or not, or they could not be laid
down as infallible. Truth is, in a word, the shape which our ideas take
in the moulds of the understanding, just as the potter’s clay derives
its figure (whether round or square) from the mould in which it is
cast. Thus, if we are told that one wine-glass is less than another, and
that the larger wine-glass is less than a third, we know that the third
wine-glass is larger than the first, without either comparing them or
having any general rule to prove it by. We can no more conceive it
otherwise, or do away that regular gradation and proportion between
the objects so defined and characterised, than we can imagine the
same thing to grow bigger and become less at the same time.
Reasoning is allowed (at least by the schoolmen and the Universities
of Oxford and Cambridge, though not by our wise sceptical moderns)
to be the linking of one judgment on to two others: this and that
being given, why then something else follows. Thus, suppose two
roads to take a diverging direction, you are sure, without measuring,
that the farther you go in the one, the farther you get from the other.
You know that you advance: you infer that you recede. Now the
difficulty lies here—if the premises are the same with the conclusion,
it amounts only to an identical proposition: if they are different, what
is the connection between them? But in the example just given, there
are two circumstances, or properties, stated at the outset of the
question, viz.—not merely the existence, but the direction, of the
road; and to sustain the inference, all that seems necessary is, that
both these circumstances should be borne in mind. For if the road do
not continue to diverge, the conclusion will not hold good; and if it
still continue to diverge, what is this but saying, not only that it
advances, but that it advances in a direction which, by the
supposition, carries it farther at every step from the former road?
That is, two things are affirmed of a given object; the mind sets out
with a complex proposition, and what it has to do is not to forget one
half of it by the way. It would be long enough before the abstract idea
of a road would imply its distance from another; but it would also be
hard if a diverging road—that is, a road that recedes while it
advances—did not recede. A mathematical line and its direction are
not two things, like the feet of a pair of compasses—that while the
line is moving one way, the direction may be going astray in another
—but mutually implied and inseparably connected together in nature
or the understanding—let the realists or idealists determine which
they please. Or, as the wise man said to the daughter of King
Cophetua, ‘That which is, is; for what is that but that, and is but
is?’[58] The worst of the matter is, that the most important
conclusions are not to be so easily enclosed in pews and forms of
words and definitions; and that to catch the truth as it flies, is as nice
a point as hedging the cuckoo: though they say that its wings have
been lately clipped and a pound built for it somewhere in
Westminster. Not to proceed farther in this subject, and get ‘over
shoes, over boots’ in the mire of metaphysics, we shall conclude this
article with what we meant to state at the commencement of it, to wit
—that the commonest form of the syllogism is the worst of all, being
a downright fallacy and petitio principii. It consists in including the
individual in the species, and runs thus: ‘All men are mortal; John is
a man; therefore John is mortal.’ Let any one deny this at his peril;
but what is, or can be gained by such parroting? The first branch of
the premises takes for granted and supposes that you already know
all that you want to prove in the conclusion. For before you are
entitled to assert roundly that all men are mortal, you must know
this of John in particular, who is a man, which is the point you are
labouring to establish; or, if you do not know this of every individual
man, and of John among the rest, then you have no right to make
such a sweeping general assertion, which falls to the ground of itself.
Either the premises are hasty or false, and the conclusion rotten that
way; or if they be sound, and proved as matter-of-fact to the extent
which is pretended, then you have anticipated your conclusion, and
your syllogism is pedantic and superfluous. In fact, this form of the
syllogism is an unmeaning play upon words, or resolves itself into
the merely probable or analogical argument, that because all other
men have died, John, who is one of of them, will die also. The
inference relating to historical truth, and founded on the customary
connection between cause and effect, is very different from logical
proof, or the impossibility of conceiving of certain things otherwise
than as inseparable. Suppose I see a row of pillars before me, and
that I chuse to affirm—‘Those hundred pillars are all of white marble;
the pillar directly facing me is one of the hundred; therefore that
pillar is also of white marble’—would not this be arrant trifling both
with my own understanding and with that of any one who had
patience to hear me? But if I were to see a number of pillars
resembling each other in outward appearance, and on examining all
of them but one, found them of white marble and concluded that that
one was of white marble too, there would be some common sense in
this, but no logic. The mind, however, has a natural bias to wrap up
its conclusions (of whatever kind or degree) in regular forms of
words, and to deposit them in an imposing framework of
demonstration; it prefers the shadow of certainty to the substance of
truth and candour; and will not, if it can help it, leave a single loop-
hole for doubt to creep in at. Hence the tribe of logicians, dogmatists,
and verbal pretenders of all sorts.
 THE LATE MR. CURRAN

The Atlas.]
[April 26, 1829.

This celebrated wit and orator in his latter days was a little in the
back-ground. He had lodgings at Brompton; and riding into town
one day, and hearing two gentlemen in the Park disputing about
Mathews’s Curran, he said—‘In faith, it’s the only Mr. Curran, that is
ever talked of now-a-days.’ He had some qualms about certain
peccadillos of his past life, and wanted to make confessors of his
friends. Certainly, a monastery is no unfit retreat for those who have
been led away by the thoughtless vivacity of youth, and wish to keep
up the excitement by turning the tables on themselves in age. The
crime and the remorse are merely the alternations of the same
passionate temperament. Mr. Curran had a flash of the eye, a
musical intonation of voice, such as we have never known excelled.
Mr. Mathews’s imitation of him, though it had been much admired,
does not come up to the original. Some of his bursts of forensic
eloquence deserve to be immortal, such as that appalling expression
applied to a hired spy and informer, that he ‘had been buried as a
man, and was dug up a witness.’ A person like this might find
language to describe the late shots at Edinburgh. Mr. Curran did not
shine so much in Parliament; but he sometimes succeeded admirably
in turning the laugh against his opponents. He compared the
situation of government after they had brought over a member of
Opposition to their side, and found the renegado of no use to them,
to the story of the country-gentleman who bought Punch and
complained of his turning out dull company. Some of Mr. Curran’s
bon-mots and sallies of humour were first-rate. He sometimes
indulged in poetry, in which he did not excel. His taste in it was but
indifferent. He neither liked Paradise Lost nor Romeo and Juliet. He
had an ear for music, and both played and sung his native ballads
delightfully. He contended that the English had no national music.
He was an enthusiastic admirer of Mrs. Siddons. He said of John
Kemble, that, ‘he had an eye rather to look at than to look with.’ His
great passion was a love of English literature and the society of
literary men. He occasionally found his account in it. Being one day
in a group of philosophers, and the invention of fire being spoken of,
one of the party suggested that it was from seeing a horse’s shoe
strike fire; ‘and I suppose,’ said Curran triumphantly, ‘the horse-shoe
was afterwards made with that fire.’
 THE COURT JOURNAL—A DIALOGUE

The Atlas.]
[June 7, 1829.

M.—Have you seen the Court Journal?

G.—No: I only read some ‘Maxims on Love,’ which I seemed to
have met with in some pre-existent work.
M.—Then you may tell C— from me it will not last three months.
People of fashion do not want to read accounts of themselves, written
by those who know nothing of the matter. This eternal babble about
high life is an affront to every one else, and an impertinence with
respect to those whom it is stupidly meant to flatter. What do those
care about tiresome descriptions of satin ottomans and ormolu
carvings, who are sick of seeing them from morning till night? No!
they would rather read an account of Donald Bean Lean’s Highland
cave, strewed with rushes, or a relation of a row in a night-cellar in
St. Giles’s. What they and all mankind want, is to vary the
monotonous round of their existence; to go out of themselves as
much as possible; and not to have their own oppressive and idle
pretensions served up to them again in a hash of mawkish
affectation. They read Cobbett—it is like an electrical shock to them,
or a plunge in a cold-bath: it braces while it jars their enervated
fibres. He is a sturdy, blunt yeoman: the other is a foppish footman,
dressed up in cast-off finery. Or if Lord L—— is delighted with a
description (not well-done) of his own house and furniture, do you
suppose that Lord H——, who is his rival in gewgaws and upholstery,
will not be equally uneasy at it? As to the vulgar, what they like is to
see fine sights and not to hear of them. They like to get inside a fine
house, to see fine things and touch them if they dare, and not to be
tantalized with a vapid inventory, which does not gratify their senses,
and mortifies their pride and sense of privation. The exaggerated
admiration only makes the exclusion more painful: it is like a staring
sign to a show which one has not money in one’s pocket to pay for
seeing. Mere furniture or private property can never be a subject to
interest the public: the possessor is entitled to the sole benefit of it. If
there were an account in the newspaper that all this finery was burnt
to ashes, then all the world would be eager to read it, saying all the
time how sorry they were, and what a shocking thing it was.
G.—Servants and country people always turn to the accidents and
offences in a newspaper.
M.—And their masters and mistresses too. Did you never read the
Newgate Calendar?
G.—Yes.
M.—Well, that is not genteel. This is what renders the Beggar’s
Opera so delightful; you despise the actors in the scene, and yet the
wit galls and brings down their betters from their airy flight with all
their borrowed plumage, so that we are put absolutely at our ease for
the time with respect to our own darling pretensions. G—— was here
the other evening; he said he thought the Beggar’s Opera came after
Shakspeare. I wonder who put that in his head; it was hardly his own
discovery.
G.—It seems neither Lord Byron nor Burke liked the Beggar’s
Opera.
M.—They were the losers by that opinion: but how do you account
for it?
G.—Lord Byron was a radical peer, Burke an upstart plebeian;
neither of them felt quite secure in the niche where they had
stationed themselves from the random-shots that were flying on the
stage. They could not say with Hamlet, ‘Our withers are unwrung.’ As
to Lord Byron, he might not relish the point of Mrs. Peachum’s
speech, ‘Married a highwayman! Why, hussey, you will be as ill-
treated and as much neglected as if you had married a lord!’ Did you
ever hear the story of Miss ——, when she was quite a girl, going to
see Mrs. Siddons in the Fatal Marriage, and being taken out fainting
into the lobby, and calling out, ‘Oh Biron, Biron!’—‘Egad!’ said the
cool narrator of the story, ‘she has had enough of Byron since!’ With
regard to Burke, there was a rotten core, a Serbonian bog in his
understanding, in which not only Gay’s masterpiece but the whole of
what modern literature, wit, and reason had done for the world, sunk
and was swallowed up in a fetid abyss for ever! But I am sorry you
think no better of the Court Journal. I was in hopes it might succeed,
as a very old friend of mine has something to do with it.
M.—Oh! but mischief must be put a stop to. This is the most
nauseous toad-eating, and it is as awkwardly done as it is ill-meant.
There is a fulsome pretence set up in one paper that rank consists in
birth and blood. It is at once to neutralise all the present race of
fashion. The civil wars of York and Lancaster put an end to almost all
the old nobility—there are none of the Plantagenets left now. Those
who go to court think themselves lucky if they can trace as far back as
the Nell Gwynns and Duchess of Clevelands in Charles the Second’s
days. Besides, all this prejudice about nobility and ancestry should be
understood and worshipped in silence and at a distance, not thrown
in the teeth of such people, as if they had nothing else to boast of.
They should be told of perfections which they have not, as you praise
a wit for her beauty and a fool for her wit. Your friend should read
Count Grammont to learn how to flatter and cajole. Does not Mr. C
—— know enough from experience of the desire of lords and ladies to
turn authors, and shine, not in a ballroom, but on his counter?
G.—He expects the K—— to write; nay, it was with difficulty he was
dissuaded from offering a round sum.
M.—How much, pray?
G.—Five thousand guineas for half a page.
M.—It would not sell a single copy. People would think it was a
hoax and would not buy it. Those who believed it would not read it.
Oh! there is a letter of Louis XVIII. in a late number, on the death of
some lady he was attached to: it is prettily done, but it is such good
English, that I suspect it can hardly be a translation or an original. If
they could procure curious documents of this kind, and had a
magazine of the secrets, anecdotes, and correspondence of people of
high rank, undoubtedly it would answer; but this would be another
edition of the Jockey Club, and very different from its present
insipidity. Even children will not be crammed with honey.
 G.—I understand there is to be no scandal. All the great are to be
supposed to be elegantly good, and to wear virtue with a grace
peculiar to people of fashion.
M.—That will at any rate be new. And then I see there are
criticisms on pictures: the writer is thrown into raptures with the
portraits of Lord and Lady Castlereagh. And this is followed by a
drawling, pitiable account of two little Corregios, as if they were
miracles and had descended from heaven—the ‘Madonna’ and
‘Mercury teaching Cupid to read.’ They are well enough, though Sir
Joshua has done the same thing better. But higher praise could not
be lavished on the ‘St. Jerome’ or the ‘Night at Dresden,’ or the
‘Ceiling at Parma,’ which is his best, though it has fallen into decay.
G.—Collectors think one Corregio just as good as another; and it is
to meet this feeling, probably, that the article is written.