Just a thin veil, between this world
And that world of beauty and love,
Just a thin veil that hides the view
Of our Spirit loved ones above!
~ Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, “Just a Thin Veil,” 1940s
Category: art
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Just a Thin Veil
The Haunted Mere by Alfred James Munnings (1878-1959); The Munnings Art Museum -
Curses!
A southwest blow on ye
And blister you all o’er!– Caliban, The Tempest, Act I, scene ii
Tempest, act I, scene II, the inchanted [sic] island : before the cell of Prospero — Prospero, Miranda, Caliban, & Ariel … [graphic] / painted by H. Fuseli ; engraved by I.P. Simon. 1797. Folger Shakespeare Library -
The Head of John
“Neither at things, nor at people should one look. Only in mirrors should one look, for mirrors do but show us masks.” – from Salome, Oscar Wilde
L’Apparition, 1876, by Gustave Moreau, Musee d’Orsay -
My Ghost?
My ghost? Do you suppose I’m fool enough to go to the expense of keeping one of my own, when there are so many charming ones in my friends’ closets?
~Edith Wharton, “The Eyes,” Tales of Men and Ghosts, 1910
The Haunted Room by Alfred James Munnings (1878-1959), Painted at a Farmhouse on Exmoor; The Munnings Art Museum -
In a Dark Wood
How They Met Themselves, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, British, 1828-1882 “Rossetti’s drawing How They Met Themselves was a doppelganger image of a young couple meeting their ghostly doubles in a dense wood. Its first version was completed during his honeymoon in 1860 and it was reworked as a coloured version in 1864. Writing of what Dante Rossetti called his ‘bogie picture’, William said: ‘To meet one’s wraith is ominous of death, and to figure Lizzie as meeting her wraith might well have struck her bridegroom as uncanny in a high degree. In less than two years the weird was woefully fulfilled’ (Dante Gabriel Rossetti: his family letters I: 207).”
From The Victorian Web: The Séance Diary of William Michael Rossetti
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You’re F*cked – Happy All Saints’ Day!
Probably one of the most famous martyrs is Saint Peter. Born in Judaea in AD 1, Peter was the first pope and was one of the 12 apostles of Jesus.
Peter was sentenced to death by the Roman emperor Nero, famous for his ruthless and brutal treatment of Christians. In the year 64, the Great Fire of Rome started in the Circus Maximus arena. It burned for nearly a week and by the time it was put out, it had torn through 10 of Rome’s 14 districts. Nero blamed Christians for the fire, and Peter was one of the main scapegoats.
Famously, Peter asked to be crucified upside-down, as he didn’t believe anyone was worthy to be killed the same way as Jesus Christ. According to the apocryphal Acts of Peter, Peter said, ‘I beseech you the executioners, crucify me thus, with the head downward and not otherwise.’
Many believe that Peter is buried in the crypt underneath St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, but this has not been conclusively proven.
Read about more torturous saints’ deaths at www.history.co.uk.
