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“This highly accessible book sheds a developmentally attuned, psychoana-
lytic perspective on the phenomena of excess in America and shows how it
has permeated our culture and collective unconscious. It’s wide-ranging cri-
tique; from Eve to Lilith, from Hilary Clinton to Angela Markel, and from
the baby boomers to generation Z allows the reader to consider the darker
aspects of our culture’s relationship to excess from a variety of angles, while
calling upon the contributions of 21st century Feminist Theory as a path to
address the crisis of democracy in America.”
Hattie Myers Ph.D. is a training and supervising analyst at (IPTAR)
and founder/editor of ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action
“Ireland and Quatman explore the hidden recesses of our national psyche,
shedding light on the unconscious forces currently shaping and fragmenting
our country. With passion they urge us to embrace a new feminist perspec-
tive, one they call “warrior work”, to confront the forces that perpetuate
sexism, racism and acquisitiveness. This book is a must read, a rallying cry
for a society urgently in need of healing.”
Kerry Malawista PhD, psychoanalyst, author of
When the Garden isn’t Eden and Meet the Moon,
and co-chair New Directions Writing Program
America’s Psychological Now
This book explores the causes behind Trump’s victory in the 2016 US presi-
dential election and asks how a psychoanalytic understanding of the social
unconscious can help us plot a new direction for the future in US politics and
beyond.
It first describes the social/
psychological threads that are the now of
American culture. Seeds of hope are discovered through an in-depth exam-
ination of the American idea of excess as represented by Trump, its arche-
typal figure. Essential psychoanalytic ideas, such as the fundamental human
condition of living with both individual and social unconscious, the psychic
feminine principle, the notion of psychic valence and more, are illustrated
as psychic integrations necessary for America to move toward a redemptive
positive social change. This book combines feminist exploration with play-
ful illustrative imagery and mythic story—aiming to awaken minds across
generations.
America’s Psychological Now is key reading for psychoanalysts, psycholo-
gists, political theorists, and anyone wishing to understand better how the
social and political systems could be changed for the future.
Lists of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements x
Permissions xi
PART 1
Threads 1
1 In the Beginning 3
6 A Tipping Point? 43
PART 2
Changing the Narrative 51
Index 138
Illustrations
Figures
2.1 The Unconscious 12
11.1 Scarf: 21st century feminism: A Netherlands Project 107
11.2 Tank top with Lilith—I’m with Her 107
11.3 T-shirt with Mind(n)-ing the Gap 107
11.4 T-shirt with Unconscious Matters 108
13.1 Craft that fly both in the air and under water 128
13.2 Center of a Ring of Power 128
Tables
8.1 A comparison in politics and business between female boomers
and millennials at age 24 and 25 69
8.2 Social/educational/economic status of women, 1970–2020 70
Acknowledgements
Permissions
Threads
Chapter 1
In the Beginning
DOI: 10.4324/9781032677309-2
4 Part 1 Threads
So, while various theories have been posited about why Hillary Clinton
lost, most pale in comparison to the sheer impact of sexism. Consider, for
example, the deep concern over Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server versus
the ongoing campaign contact between Trump advisors and Russian opera-
tives; and then, of course, Trump’s absconding with hundreds of top-secret
government files after the 2020 election. Or think about the allegations of
financial gain and conflict of interest concerning the Clinton Foundation
versus Trump’s unwillingness as president to divest from his companies or
ever to reveal his tax returns. Or consider the question of who could have
made us safer—a candidate with the world experience of a former Secretary
of State or the completely inexperienced isolationist Trump? Gender trouble
could not have yelled louder!
Something surprising and especially disturbing was also evident in the pat-
tern of female voters in the post-2016 election analyses. The group of women
most expected to vote wholeheartedly for Clinton—white, college-educated
women—did not! Only 47% voted for Clinton. This is in contrast to 96%
of Black women and 59% of Hispanic women who voted for Clinton. And
then, after four years of a disheveled and chaotic Trump administration, with
a much stronger voter turnout, a higher percentage of white women voted for
Trump in 2020—55% (Igielnik et al., 2021)!
Embedded and intertwined in this voting pattern is the underlying element
of America’s enduring, systemic racism. Trump’s implicit promise to pre-
serve and bolster white privilege had broad appeal. Not unlike the period of
Jim Crow following Reconstruction, Trump’s appeal to many in mainstream
America signaled a turning backward of any “post-racial” impulse reflected
in the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. Any thought of the
Obama presidency as indicative of America’s moving forward into a post-
racial society was unmasked as the fantasy that it was. Additionally, the
intentional recapturing of white privilege was disturbingly reflected in
the increase in racially based hate crimes post the 2016 election, and by
the explicitly racist policies pursued in Trump’s administration (Johnson,
2018).5
Initially metabolizing this set of challenges, we (authors) felt a sense of
despair that as a nation, and as a species, we have still so far to go. And yet,
looking longer and more deliberately, we began to see at least some seeds of
hope for the future—a time when women and the notion of what the fem-
inine truly is might come forward to repair and to grace an ailing nation. We
found ourselves imagining a new horizon in the “necessary warrior work” of
twenty-first century American feminism—specifically, that it’s time to move
forward from the brand of nineteenth-and twentieth-century feminism that
seems to have undervalued the intersectionality of racism and sexism, and
their shared unconscious roots. It’s now much clearer that the twenty-first
century feminist color of change must be polychromatic!
6 Part 1 Threads
The Geode
Trump’s sexism and racism were, and are, parts of the multiple human
excesses his language reflects. He is nothing if not excess! In fact, the word
“excess” itself became like a geode in our minds—looking simple and rough
on the outside, but having a more intricate pattern within. As with any geode,
the concept of excess and the word itself have required a certain force to
break open. In so doing, we found this word to be multi-dimensional, para-
doxical, and freighted with directional signage—all needing to be examined.6
How did this man who rode down a gilded escalator to his entrance into
the race, who decried Mexicans as rapists and Muslims as anti-American,
who flaunted his personal wealth at every turn, who valued women primarily
for their sexual appeal to him, who bent the rules of office to the breaking
point of two impeachments—how did this mere man rise to the pinnacle of
power in the most powerful nation on earth? What about his excesses stirred
the imaginations of the dispossessed among the citizenry as well as the rank-
and-file? What about his politics of grievance inspired followership to the
point of violence on January 6, 2021, and presaged even more violence fol-
lowing the FBI search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago? We wanted to
look specifically at this geode of excess in America and its link to the response
to Trump. We follow this theme in Chapter 3.
A Tipping Point
The choice of Trump over Clinton was really nothing new. Men win. Yet this
particular win was a dramatic display of something hidden beneath this long-
accepted pattern. For some, Trump represents the last desperate hope for sav-
ing and preserving white American privilege and exceptionalism. Yet at the
same time, Trump’s presidency was a four-year demonstration of what fail-
ing to pay attention to unconscious elements in the culture (sexism, racism,
misogyny, xenophobia, avarice) looks and feels like. Given these elements,
we must wonder if what he has really represented is the last desperate gasp
of patriarchy. Further, we are asking if the Trump presidency—followed by
“Trumpism”—is reflecting a final acute unconscious eruption of America’s
own excesses that is demanding attention and accountability.
As psychoanalytic clinicians, we are aware of how very much the uncon-
scious features significantly in human functioning—not only individually, but
at the group and societal level as well. We know from clinical practice and
research that when something has, over a long time, been denied, repressed,
or projected onto others, there can be an eruption from the unconscious
within. This eruption can be more violent—demanding more attention, and
often, can be more destructive in its consequences—than if the earlier clues
and psychic messages had been decoded earlier. Today America’s democracy
is deeply threatened by just such an eruption. It follows upon the long-term
In the Beginning 7
In Closing—T he Opening
For these two white women of privilege—both clinicians, of the baby boomer
generation—the 2016 and 2020 elections magnified the irrepressible and
painful conundrum of gender, race, and political power in the USA. In the
emotionally charged intersection of unconscious sexism and racism (54%
of white women in 2016 and 55% in 2020 voted for Trump), combined
with America’s extended relationship to excess, we ourselves heard a “call to
arms.” This book has been a response to that call.9
It is our belief that twenty-first century feminism can be a leading force in
the necessary “warrior work” ahead—that of bringing the collective/social
unconscious more to life in our American culture. Such a movement has the
potential to bring about a powerful transformation in how the culture under-
stands both our shared humanity and our shared history. As Martin Luther
8 Part 1 Threads
King noted, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward
justice.” It may also be—and this is our hope—that such a transformative
understanding of the role of unconscious elements in America’s history and
its troubled present might bring a hastening of true social justice and further
human understanding.
The “call to arms” as we have heard it is to hold, to carry, and to defend
two interwoven ideas of this century: (1) the inviolate dignity of, and justice
for, each and every human being regardless of gender, race, or any other
claimed identity; and (2) the necessity for an absolute and ongoing recog-
nition of the unconscious elements of the human mind within groups and
nations, for better and for worse, that must be factored into conscious social/
governmental policy-making as a means to help safeguard human equality
and dignity.10 Achieving these goals would represent an “American excep-
tionalism” worth celebrating, and worth exporting, exercising America’s
world leadership to encourage others to do the same. America clearly has a
complex story of unconscious elements to own and examine, but this task
is certainly not solely (or soul-y) an American story, but an awaiting global
project as well.
In the next chapters, we will develop the threads of twenty-first century war-
rior work—presenting this weaving as both aspirational and inspirational—
combining both our thoughts and musings of serious intent with a playfulness
in imagery and story, in an effort to reach younger generations as well.
In Chapter 2 we begin this weaving through words and also a figure draw-
ing of the multi-dimensional notion of the unconscious mind—so neces-
sary to any imagining as to how we might re-knit a fractured and fractious
American culture, a culture still in deep struggle with the castes of gender and
race, personified in whom we choose to represent us in this struggle.
Notes
1 See Wilfred Bion (1989). In a similar manner, Obama carried the valence and
voice of America’s hope of a non-racist future that is not yet realized—nor can it
be—without a national working-through process concerning its dark foundation
of slavery and subsequent systemic racism.
2 See Corbett et al. (2022).
3 This according to the UN Women report: Facts and figures: Women’s leadership
and political participation (2023, March 7); and underlining that gender parity in
the realm of politics remains yet to be realized.
4 This according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics 2023—there were 44 female chief
executives spearheading America’s Fortune 500 companies, with women leading
only 8.8% of businesses on the 2022 list.
5 Hate crimes also increased by 20% in 2021 as hateful rhetoric also increased
post-January 6 insurrection. Also, The Year in Hate & Extremism Report 2021
(2022, March 3), Southern Poverty Law Center.
6 Again, the analyst Wilfred Bion (1962) noted that in an analyst, frequent experi-
ences build over time to an accumulated “saturation” point within the analyst,
In the Beginning 9
wherein the analyst then becomes able to put together thoughts and words in
an interpretation that moves the work forward. This reflected the process the
authors experienced precipitating the word and geode of excess.
7 Atul Gawande (July 22, 2013) coined the term “slow idea” during his explor-
ation of the role of bacteria in human healing, where more than two centuries
were needed to make the link between bacteria and illness. History is replete with
examples of ideas whose roots germinate for decades, even centuries, before their
bloom comes forth into broad acceptance.
8 Is the bulging mental health crisis wherein there are simply not enough clinicians
to meet the current national needs yet another indication that it is time for a cul-
tural shift concerning mental health? One where the small sub-set of psychoana-
lysts and therapists who attend specifically to unconscious elements in a people’s
sufferings no longer remain the sole shepherds of the unconscious of the nation?
To pursue this idea, see Bion, Experiences in Groups, and Other Papers.
9 This was another part of that process where Wilford Bion talks about how in
an analysis, the analyst can be overwhelmed and confused and at times needs
to sit with these feelings until they reach a certain “saturation” point, at which
time words to say precipitate out of those saturated, formerly unspeakable,
experiences.
10 In this respect our effort here is one of moving the “psychoanalytic sensibility”
from the clinical office to society at large—something the French analyst Lacan
referred to as “psychoanalysis in extension.”
References
Bion, W. R. (1962). Learning From Experience. Karnac.
Bion, W. R. (1969). Experiences in Groups, and Other Papers. Tavistock/Routledge.
Corbett, C., et al. (2022). Pragmatic bias impedes women’s access to political lead-
ership, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119: 6, February 1,
e2112616119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2112616119
Gawande, A. (2013). Sharing slow ideas. The New Yorker, July 22. https://www.
newyorker.com/magazine/2013/07/29/slow-ideas
Igielnik, R., Keeter, S., & Hartig, H. (2021). Behind Biden’s 2020 victory: An examin-
ation of the 2020 electorate, based on validated voters. Pew Research Center, June
30. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/.
Johnson, D. (2018). Report: Rise in hate violence tied to 2016 presidential election.
Southern Poverty Law Center, March 1. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/
2018/03/01/report-rise-hate-violence-tied-2016-presidential-election
O’Neill, A. (2023). Number of countries where the de facto highest position of execu-
tive power was held by a woman from 1960 to 2023. Statista, January 2. https://
www.statista.com/statistics/1058345/countries-with-women-highest-position-
executive-power-since-1960/
The Year in Hate & Extremism Report 2021 (2022). Southern Poverty Law Center,
March 3. https://www.splcenter.org/20220309/year-hate-extremism-report-2021
UN Women. Facts and figures: Women’s leadership and political participation (2023).
March 7. https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/leadership-and-political-par-
ticipation/facts-and-figures#_ednref2
US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2023). Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex,
race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, January 25. https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaa
t11.htm#:~:text=1%2C669-
10 Part 1 Threads
Living in Denial
Our Multi-D imensional Unconscious
DOI: 10.4324/9781032677309-3
12 Part 1 Threads
This level of the sea starting at the ocean floor corresponds to the deepest
part of the unconscious in our minds, or our “psyches.” It is formed in us as
babies, coming into being before we have of a real sense of any individual
self-ness or any language with which to make sense of our experiences. The
process of how we are cared for by parents or primary others installs certain
emotional fundamentals within us. Is life safe or unsafe? Do my cries
elicit love or resentment? Additionally, those responses to us are invariably
influenced by the cultural context (that is, how babies are to be cared for and
children raised, etc.) within which both caretaker and baby live.
Our earliest times set the parameters for how we will take in and make
sense of others and ourselves in the future. This time (before the age of
around two years) is a world full of bits of sensations, emotions and sounds,
bits of meanings not yet understood, in which we are submerged. In fact, at
first, we only experience language as emotionally-felt sounds coming from
mother and primary others that land on our ears and our bodies as pleas-
urable or not. These are all building elements of our human psyches. We
don’t remember this time, but it is nonetheless formative of who we will later
become.
At this level, we are closest to being instinctual animals, but we are already
on our way to becoming a hybrid creature—instinctual at root, but soon to
Living in Denial: Our Multi-Dimensional Unconscious 13
have our sense of self organized via certain images and (later) words and
language.
The developmental achievements of these early months and first years will
become the realm of what has been termed by neurobiologists as “implicit
memory”—emotions, behaviors, sensations that just are inside us and are a
part of our unconscious minds. We do not have to think about these things,
and don’t experience them as memories—we just feel them, we just know
them, we just do them.4
This level of the unconscious informs our felt self. Do we feel secure and
safe? Do we feel received? Do we feel insignificant? Are we recognized in a
way we can feel? Do we feel embodied? Do we feel embattled? Can we expect
goodness? This level of the unconscious may govern some of what shrewd
political candidates appeal to (for example, that George W. Bush was the can-
didate people felt they could “have a beer with”).
more correctly, don’t think about it at all! The first few years of childhood
live inside us with significant unconscious effects on our lives. But, in fact,
we live with this permeable membrane between unconscious and conscious
parts of the mind—making it unclear who’s on first some of the time, or who
is pitching in any particular inning in our game of life! It is simply easier, but
not accurate, for everyone to pretend that only the conscious mind matters—
and that matters of the unconscious mind don’t.
No one can empty out the unconscious into consciousness and thereby
make everything whole in their conscious self. It is simply the human con-
dition that we are bicameral creatures, where aspects of both regions of our
minds participate at every level in our day-to-day life, and color our experi-
ences. This is true whether we engage intentionally with this reality or not.
Recognizing, however, and having an appreciation of—having a workable
relationship with—the flow between the unconscious and conscious parts of
one’s mind makes a crucial difference in terms of becoming one’s fullest and
most aware self in that unfolding process of one’s particular life. Socrates’
reflection that “… an unexamined life is not worth living” was very likely
pointing to this fact. When someone enters psychological treatment, they
often want something to be “fixed.” But often their suffering is attached in
part to a past “something” that in itself cannot be undone. Most clinicians
focus on symptom-relief directly—dealing with things purely, or primarily,
on a conscious level. This may be sufficient for some, or even desired. But it
will not be sufficient or solely desired by others. Some clinicians committed
to working in the intersectional territory between unconscious and conscious
minds will more likely be aware that they cannot fix or undo the past as such,
but can help reshape how a person experiences their current situation/suffer-
ing and their psychological stance in their life more generally, and thus will
come to experience their past, their present, and their future quite differently
in the course of their therapeutic work.7
Notes
1 In the vein of both (Hillary) Clinton and Trump being individuals who psychic-
ally carry certain elements/themes for the nation/group, a relatively small group
of psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, writers, and theorists have
also carried the unconscious aspects of mind, not only for self-selecting individ-
uals seeking treatment, as well as themselves, but also, for the nation at large.
Thus the weaving that begins with this thread hopefully promotes greater aware-
ness within a larger group of citizens concerning the power and reach of uncon-
scious influences in their lives and in the in nation in which we live.
2 Freud (1912) brought the unconscious into greater public view through his devel-
opment of the clinical treatment of psychoanalysis. He described it differently
across time. LaPlanche and Pontalis (1973) offer a good and brief summary of
this evolving concept. Jacques Lacan brought language into play at the differ-
ent levels of the unconscious as noted in Figure 2.1—but it is not an accurate
interpretation, sometimes ascribed to Lacan, that his words “the unconscious is
structured like a language” ever meant the unconscious is only composed of lan-
guage. Also, the concept of “dissociation” and its relationship to the concept of
“repression” is beyond the scope of this presentation. It is complex and compli-
cated territory, that traumatic experiences wrought by war, catastrophic societal
events, sexual, physical, and emotional abuse have required additional ways of
thinking. Terms like fluid and fluctuating self-states, splitting of the ego, and trau-
matic kernels/states all refer to more, or less, encapsulated states of mind. This is
to say that, in the extreme, we see a loss of linkage among our fluid self-states and
to our own central organized and organizing self, resulting in multiple personality
Living in Denial: Our Multi-Dimensional Unconscious 17
disorders, a loss of one’s sense of self, or even a repeated sense of falling into a
prior trauma experience (or as a defense against anticipated trauma).
Where there is a vertical division between conscious and unconscious, dissocia-
tive states are horizontal splits/divisions. A trigger, consciously experienced, will
throw the individual into another painful state of mind that includes both con-
scious and unconscious elements—i.e., primitive emotions of terror, images and
fragments thereof, or sounds, as in pieces of words and/or just voices. Imagine if,
in the illustration in Figure 2.1, there were string coming from the figure’s head
attached to a big helium balloon, or various smaller sized balloons; a balloon
filled with scary bits of experience or nothingness itself that live separately from
the figure’s regular thinking-feeling self; where along the slip line of that string,
they could slip into a separate reality in certain moment; you are getting the
idea of it.
In the realm of neuroscience there is an entirely different vocabulary for
describing “implicit” versus “explicit” feeling, thinking, and behavior. For
example, Decety and Cacioppo (2011).
3 The power of sound as music in, and surrounding, language elements that pre-
cedes its meanings begins us. And it is said that sound is the last sensory dimen-
sion we lose in our process of dying. The Lacanian analyst, Serge LeClaire, has
said at this deepest level of the unconscious that if someone could say/sing the
particular series of letters unique to that person’s history, you could induce in
them a state of ecstacy—be that euphoria or excruciating pain, or both!>
4 See Daniel Siegal’s very accessible (2012) book.
5 See Freud’s writings on The Unconscious (1912), Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
and Repression (1915) in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological
Works of Sigmund Freud.
6 For a more, albeit brief, description on “return of the repressed”, see LaPlanche
and Pontalis (1973).
7 This is a shorthand explanation of the difference between a psychoanalyst or psy-
choanalytically oriented psychotherapist and that of many other kinds of trained
mental health workers and psychotherapists—be they psychologists, social work-
ers, psychiatrists, or counselors.
8 Carl Jung (1936) was the analyst to bring the notion of a “collective unconscious”
into consideration and development in psychoanalysis beyond Freud’s notion of
inherited patterns. It was a place of theoretical conflict and elemental to their
going their separate ways in the evolution of psychoanalysis. Jung thought the
collective unconscious was structural to the notion of the unconscious. Here, we
are focusing on the unconscious aspect of organized groups—including nations/
societies—that reflect a particular socio-cultural context and history.
9 The ever-insolvable human puzzle: Does identity begin externally, as brought to
us by others, or internally, that we extend to become ourselves and others reflect
or mirror this back to us? Or perhaps some schema involving both, as in M. C.
Escher’s hands, drawing each other?
10 Making things even more layered, particular sub-groups within larger groups can
have both shared and differing social unconscious elements. For example, racial
identity in America carries both. Layton (2020) speaks to our own sub-group of
white psychoanalysts focuses on normative unconscious processes within privi-
leged whites. In contrast, the work of Stoute and Slevin (2023) speaks to the
unconscious affective defense of rage in Black people as a necessary element for
18 Part 1 Threads
survival, and to even thrive, after the trauma of enslavement in America and the
continued persecution and disenfranchisement that has followed.
11 Within sub-groups we can also see the “return of the repressed.” Carl Jung and
the American analyst, Trigant Burrow, who brought forward notions of collective
or social unconscious, were both expunged from psychoanalysis. Dijani (2022)
has nicely summarized signs in the last decades of a return of this theme of group
unconscious—proposing an umbrella term of “social unconscious.”
References
Burrow, T. (1927). The Social Basis of Consciousness. Andesite Press.
Decety, J., & Cacioppo, J. (eds) (2011). The Oxford Handbook of Social Neuroscience.
Oxford University Press. See also Baars, B., & Cage, N. (2010) (2e). Cognition,
Brain and Consciousness: Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience. Academic Press.
Dijani, K. G. (2022). The social unconscious: Then and now. International Journal of
Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 19, 179–186.
Freud, S. (1912). A note on the unconscious in psycho-analysis. The Standard Edition
of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 12, 255–266. Also in
Standard Edition, Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and Repression (1915).
Jung, C. (1936). The Concept of the Collective Unconscious. Collected Works, 9, 1.
Princeton University Press.
LaPlanche, J., & Pontalis, J. (1973). The Language of Psychoanalysis. W. W. Norton
& Company.
Layton, L. (2020). Toward a Social Psychoanalysis: Culture, Character, and Normative
Unconscious Processes. Routledge.
LeClaire, S. (1998). Psychoanalyzing: On the Order of the Unconscious and the
Practice of the Letter. Stanford University Press.
Siegel, D. J. (2012) (2e). The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain
Interact to Shape Who We Are. Guilford Press.
Stoute, B., & Slevin, M. (eds) (2023). Black Rage: The psychic adaption to the trauma
of oppression, Chapter 10 in The Trauma of Racism: Lessons From the Therapeutic
Encounter. Routledge.
Chapter 3
DOI: 10.4324/9781032677309-4
20 Part 1 Threads
The excess associated with both candidates provoked more than the usual
questions of “What is behind this?” as in “What are these candidates really
saying?” or “What motivates their pursuit of the presidency?” In so many
ways, there was the emanation of questions underneath it all, such as, “What
is ‘unconsciously’ motivating their conscious talk?” And perhaps because of
this, more than any presidential contest in our boomer lifetimes, journalists’
comments such as, “I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist but …” or “We
need a psychoanalyst to …” were strewn across the 2016 election coverage.
In other words, we were all left wondering what was beyond both Trump’s
and Clinton’s “excesses” and their consciously worded intentions about
becoming president.
Thus it was that the collective unconscious insistently pulled the word
“excess” into our view, or at least into our consciousness, during the 2016
election and in the administration that followed. “Excess” and its links to
the unconscious held its place in our minds ever more firmly as we lived
through the years of words and actions of the Trump administration, with
Trump playing his “trump card” again and again within the hallowed frame-
work of our democratic institutions. Perhaps even more disturbing (if that
were possible) was his evolution into “Bully in Chief,” as he has continued
to insinuate himself into the workings of, and continued influence upon, the
Republican party after his 2020 loss.
There was much to understand about the decades of accumulated excess
that we simply did not yet comprehend in 2016. Why would Donald Trump,
Mr Excess par excellence, be elected in 2016? What is it that we did not “get”
about America’s state of “not well-being” from our decades-long experience
of excesses, such that we needed four intense years of excess to function as a
psychological flashpoint of distress? And what are we to make of the accen-
tuation of Trump’s excesses in “Trumpism’s” arising? How do we make sense
of the fact that even though Biden/Harris won the election by over 7 mil-
lion votes, Trump, nonetheless, received approximately 73 million votes, and
more votes from both white women and at least one racial minority group in
2020 than in 2016? How do we make sense of the millions of American vot-
ers who are now willing, in a potential second Trump presidency, to follow
Trump’s lead into a new America—one led by an autocrat-in-waiting who
is already making plans to radically concentrate power in his presidency in
himself. As we write this book, he is actively forging plans to “dismantle”
the administrative state, bringing such agencies as the Department of Justice
(DoJ), FBI, and the Internal Revenue Service under his direct control. (The
DoJ could then be used to pursue his political enemies.) If he were unchecked
in his power, we could also anticipate that he would change other structures
of government and perhaps even alter the constitution itself. Why not? So,
what do we make of the millions of voters seemingly willing follow such a
figure, such an omnipotent, aggressive “other” who promises to right the
Cracking the Geode of Excess 21
economic and social ills they have suffered in current-day America? How do
we make sense of it?
We made of it the following. That Donald Trump is a kind of icon of
excess, and that excess speaks to the deeper and darker aspects of America’s
collective/social unconscious. When the body spikes a fever, it signals that
there is an underlying problem. Likewise, when the psyche has a fever, we see
intra-and inter-personal dysfunction at the surface. When a culture spikes
a fever—when it devolves, in essence—it also sends a message. What is that
message? It is certainly multifaceted, but at least in part it may relate to
undeciphered messages of our culture’s unconscious relationship to its own
excesses.
And, if this is the case, then we see Trump as personifying—and yes, even
celebrating—all the varied aspects of excess. We see in him the representa-
tion of the dark side of capitalism—the side that is solipsistic—that cares
for nothing beyond its own wealth, its own prominence, its own glori-
fication. We also see in him a representation of the last desperate gasp of
misogyny, xenophobia, and patriarchy in American culture, straining to re-
capture its hold on a culture clearly in transition. It may be the last gasp of
an element that is desiccating—but a gasp which has nonetheless accrued
power and momentum toward subverting American democratic principles
and structures!
In saying both these things, the suggestion here is that Trump is a “paral-
lactic” figure. Parallax refers to seeing an object as somehow different simply
as a result of looking at that object from different positions. With Donald
Trump, it is impossible to be on a straight line viewing him—or to even get
a straight word out of him! He has been differentially described as a messiah
or dangerous destroyer, depending upon one’s vantage point. But, if there is
any one thing that bridges this difference in viewing angles, it is the Excess,
and the multifaceted meanings of Excess, beyond even Trump himself, that
has insistently called for attention, explication, and examination.
Why did Excess so capture our attention in 2016 and seems still to do so in
the phenomenon of “Trumpism”? Why did we tolerate it, and—for a third of
the country—celebrate it in Trump? What does it tell us about ourselves and
about the culture we have built?
necklace. Such is the case with the word “excess.” Words like excess have
staying power; they force themselves into our ways of talking and thinking
over time—and they become more complex in their meanings through time,
reflecting the complicated nature of human development.
So, come along with us as we examine this word “excess”—so important in
our effort to understand where we are in American culture today—tracing it
from its first Western recorded etymological beginnings to help us understand
where we find ourselves now, and how we can think about going forward
from here.
He also clearly meant these potent words: “I alone can fix it,” professing
a belief in his own narcissistic omniscience and omnipotence. This hubris
in essence declares, “I name it and it will happen.” It is, of course, patently
false, but imbues him with a god-like mien that perverts the truth of his
human limitations, and causes some to assert faith in this hubris. Another
statement from 2016 was more threatening, telling, and ultimately mani-
fested in a manner on January 6, 2021: his statement on January 23, 2016
that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and
I wouldn’t lose any voters, ok.”
Sometimes Trump also says things that he means, which violate material
truth, but which he attempts to make true through “magical thinking”—as
in, “I can only lose the election if it is rigged”—even when many of his
own administration and allies told him after the 2020 election that he
had actually lost. In this perversion of truth, he has dragged many, many
people into a delusional fantasy with him. (And in this sense, we can all be
vulnerable to fantasies that promise to fill in something lost or missing in
us rather than accepting a loss and reorganizing ourselves to incorporate
this reality.)
Notes
1 Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2020). G. & C. Merriam Co.
2 Just one prominent example of Trump excess: using the DC Trump hotel for
government events with proceeds going to the Trump business entity, as well as
overcharging the secret service for hotel rooms.
3 See Jung (1969) Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Collected Works of
C. G. Jung, Vol. 9 (Part 1) (G. Adler, & R. F. C. Hull, eds), Princeton University
Press; and Polly Young-Eisendrath’s (2004) Subject to Change: Jung, Gender, and
Subjectivity in Psychoanalysis. Brunner-Routledge; as well as her contextual work
with Dawson (2010) The Cambridge companion to Jung. Cambridge University
Press, putting Jungian notions in play with object relations and relational theory
use of these terms. See also relational school theorists Adrienne Harris, Ken
Corbett, Jessica Benjamin, Dianne Elise for their interesting work in this realm.
4 There have been different feminist critiques of essentialist cast definitions of both
masculine and feminine principles which inform our framing here of emphasizing
the psychological—but without throwing out contributing biological elements
and also not making biology determinative nor prescriptive.
5 Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2020). G. & C. Merriam Co.
6 Actual US hate crimes were up again in 2022, into a fourth straight year, accord-
ing to new data from the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism (CSHE)
(Farivar, 2022).
7 See the 2019 article “Hate Groups Reach Record High” by the Southern Poverty
Law Center; hate groups increased during three years of Trump’s term, going
down then in 2020.
8 Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2020). G. & C. Merriam Co.
9 Fox news persisted in lying about voting machine irregularities, resulting in a
$1.6bn suit by Dominion brought against Fox Corp. Words do matter!
10 In a comparative analysis of 15 US Presidents using the Flesch-Kincaid linguistic
scale for level of language usage, Trump came last—the most primitive speaker.
See Osnos (2020) “Pulling our politics back from the brink” in The New Yorker.
References
Farivar, M. (2022). US hate crimes rise during first half of 2022. VOA News, August
23. https://www.voanews.com/a/us-hate-crimes-rise-during-first-half-of-2022-/
6713791.html
Government Accountability Office (GAO) (2019). Presidential travel: Secret Service
and DOD need to ensure that expenditure reports are prepared and submitted to
Congress. GAO-19-178. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
House of Representatives, Congress. (2022). Final report of the Select Committee to
investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. GovInfo, December
21. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-J6-REPORT/context
Cracking the Geode of Excess 29
Indispensable Invisible
Foundations
Our Feminine Roots
There is yet another aspect of the word “excess” that we need to examine
together, one that points to “negative” excess—the absence of something
essential or crucial. In these next few pages, we investigate the psychological
and foundational aspects of becoming human, which are rooted in the min-
istrations of maternal/feminine care and guardianship over the smallest and
most powerless among us—our children. Without this thread, Trump, the
man, and Trump, as symbol, remain inscrutable.
Much goes into the formation of an adult person. We have highlighted that
there are deep layers of the unconscious psyche that are formed very early on
in identity development. We’ve also pointed out how much our first few years
of life—always still alive within the unconscious parts of our mind—are cru-
cial to later versions of the self. As in all civilized societies, America puts its
money where its mouth is—and where its values are. It is notable, then, that
as a culture, America has largely financially discounted the crucial import-
ance of care for early childhood. America lives with a checkered relationship
to early childhood, perhaps reflecting a willful blindness—to the importance
of the feminine function in terms of seeding and nurturing the human uncon-
scious. This is unassailably evident in its structures and glaring funding gaps.
America is the only country, for instance, of 41 OECD countries, without a
national statutory paid maternity, paternity or parental leave plan.1 Further,
there has been no ongoing government or business investment in a viable
infrastructure for day-to-day childcare for parent workers. (This, according
to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data from
the 41 OECD countries and European Union.)
DOI: 10.4324/9781032677309-5
Indispensable Invisible Foundations: Our Feminine Roots 31
few years. When these things are in place, the self can take root and develop
in health. Elemental to that rooting is the empathic receiving of a baby’s
instinctual needs and emotional passions and the help to temper and trans-
form them to become a civilized person in that society. As a child moves
from infancy to toddlerhood to becoming a talking child, language itself
becomes instrumental in emotional expression. “Use your words,” we say.
Language, in addition to helping to modify feelings, thoughts, and behavior,
also erects and holds the barrier (we call it the repressive barrier) against
deeply instinctual and unmodulated animalistic impulses—especially very
destructive impulses. Remember that bottom ocean layer of the unconscious?
So, how do any of us develop human empathy and personal restraint?
Here’s how. Initially, the baby perceives the mother (or maternal caretaker)
to be an omnipotent and benign other, someone who absorbs and trans-
forms all and anything that the child sends her way. And hopefully, at first,
this is true enough. In “good enough” circumstances, a baby in face-to-face
encounters sees another who welcomes them, is invested in them, and tends
to their aliveness—while that other all the while mirrors in their own face
and being something of that baby’s own particular aliveness back to them. It
is reasonable to think that at the level of the first foundations of the human
psyche, a trace is laid—in the baby’s evolving psychic structure—of a funda-
mental sense of human responsibility for another. So, begin the first fragile
tendrils of an ethic of love.3
In time, with “good enough” parenting, the maturing baby comes to
realize that mother too has her limits, can in fact be hurt, and that the baby
has, within themselves, their own capacity to be destructive as well as loving.
Here’s an example: the birth of a sibling can elicit intense feelings of “like
me!” but also rivalrous feelings to “get rid of the intruder!” Degrees of attrac-
tion and love are accompanied by rivalry and quasi-murderous wishes. The
child’s psychic task becomes one of leaning into the empathy based in simi-
larity—“they are like me, but different”—while pulling back the aggression
and murderous fantasies that threaten the sibling. For all this to evolve into
a working internal structure in the child, the mother or caregiver must offer
loving support and the threat of withdrawal of love in the face of emergent
aggression toward the sibling. This “law of the mother”4 establishes both
a mark of difference from and similarity to others, and the fact that more
than one can be loved (starting with mother). This serial experience becomes
foundational to the development of the evolving self, in which responsibility
toward others moves a child forward in an ethic of love.
So, there is within most of us a deep psychic structure consisting of a well
of empathy and recognition of a similar “other”—where difference can be
held and valued and destructive impulses held in check. This process takes
place primarily in the time before we can speak or fully understand—when
language is experienced as an emotionally felt, sensorially based experience
(see Chapter 2).
32 Part 1 Threads
Later versions of this deep structure take their place in language—in our
ethical codes and written societal laws. There is also a vertical axis of gener-
ational difference establishing separate and different privileges and responsi-
bilities by generation (for example, the taboo of incest, and murder). This is
what culture emphasizes as most important, reflected in our written codes of
law. And yet, the first level of individual difference and limit on aggression
toward an other actually begins in the “law of the mother”—the unwritten
space of the maternal feminine—operating on the horizontal axis between
individuals of the same generation. The first trace of the development of psy-
chic structure is there. Even though the patriarchal order of most cultures
inscribes the “rule of law” as the privileged currency of the masculine—and
asserts claims to civilization as if it exists only in the terms of “the law of
the father,” it could be said that it is the deeper structure of “the law of the
mother” that precedes and undergirds this law. In fact, that is part of what
has enabled the international community of democratic nations to support
their sibling, Ukraine, against a bigger neighboring bully!5
So, what happens when a receptive, holding, transformative caretaking
other fails, is missing, or is too inconsistently present in those early years?
In other words, what happens when there is absence—a kind of “negative
excess,” perhaps? The answer is this: there will be compromises within the
self of that person and compromises in relation to others. The compromises
of the self will include instability, insecurity, and immaturity. And, when
the self is unstable, there can be chronic use of the primitive defenses of an
immature self—defenses such as infantile narcissism, grandiosity, retaliatory
persistent bullying, projection, reversal, negation. There can also be chronic
fragility and brittleness.
In relation to others, where the good-enough maternal support is missing
in this process, deficits in empathy can occur. Rivalry and defensive inde-
pendence can lose their balance—often becoming overlain in later devel-
opment with unbridled aggression. Distortions and breakthroughs of our
crucial repressive barrier—which keeps the more animalistic impulses within
at bay—can occur to a much greater extent and with greater frequency.
Often, the center of the rule of language does not hold, so those words inside
our heads we usually say to ourselves that help suppress or manage the most
destructive forces within us don’t work or are simply not there. Recall, for
instance, Trump’s motoric imitation of a disabled person in his campaign for
the presidency.
One more important thing is this: one of the basic tenets in the field of
psychology is that “being” must precede “doing.” The “being” time is
when a mother absorbs and transforms what comes her way.6 So, when the
ongoing conditions for good-enough “continuity of being” are lacking very
early on in life, there can develop instead an over-reliance on “doing” to
compensate—if a child has the inherent intellectual capacity to do so. For
those locked within this compensatory “doing” mode, any sense of loss or
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married the Widow Wright during his wife’s lifetime, robbed the
dupe and fled back to England in time to play the hypocrite at Lady
Mary’s deathbed, and act chief mourner at her funeral; then, under
pretense that he could not bear the house where he missed her every
hour, hastened back to America, but, giving his dupe a wide berth,
went to the North instead of the South, and honored with his
presence Niagara Falls, where we——”
“‘Foregathered wi’ the de’il,’” put in Wynnette.
“True, my dear! We did! And we all suffered in consequence.”
Then turning to the young midshipman, who sat buried in his bitter
thoughts, he said: “Le, my dear boy, do not be so utterly cast down.
There must be some way out of this trouble, and we will try to find it.
Let us do our best and trust in Providence.”
The young man shrugged his shoulders impatiently at this well-
meant piece of commonplace philosophy, as he replied:
“Yes, uncle, there is a way out of it, if you would only take it.”
“What way, Le?”
“The divorce court.”
“Le! The very word, divorce, is an offense to decent ears.”
“Uncle! the most straitlaced of all the Christian sects permit
divorce under certain circumstances. The Westminster Catechism,
that strictest of all moral and religious codes, provides for it.”
“If all the world’s church and state were to meet in convention and
provide for it I would have none of it—except—except—as the very
last resort; and then, Le, I should feel it as the very greatest
humiliation of my life.”
“Oh, uncle!”
“Listen, Le: Now that we know that Anglesea’s wife was living at
the time of his marriage with the Widow Wright, we also know that
marriage was unlawful; and now that we furthermore know that his
wife was dead at the time of his marriage with Odalite Force we also
know that this last marriage was lawful.”
“Uncle! uncle! I cannot bear——”
“One moment, Le. Do not be so impetuous. I said lawful—however
wicked and immoral. And because it was lawful, Le, my dear
daughter is bound by it, to a certain extent, and cannot form any
matrimonial engagement while this bond exists.”
“But, good Heaven, sir——”
“Patience, Le. Hear me out. But, because that marriage was wicked
and immoral, it shall never go a step further—it shall never be
completed. That villain shall never see or speak to my daughter
again. I swear it before high heaven! I shall keep Odalite at home
under my own immediate protection. If the scoundrel is not hanged
or sent to the devil in some other way before many years, I suppose I
shall be compelled to advise my daughter to seek relief from the law.
She could get it without the slightest difficulty.”
“But why not now?” pleaded the young man.
“Because of the humiliation. It will seem a less matter years
hence.”
“And in the meantime,” said Le, bitterly, “I am to cherish murder
in my heart day and night by wishing that man dead!”
“Hush, Le, hush! Such thought is sin and leads to crime.”
Le said no more, but fell into a gloomy silence that lasted until the
train ran into Lancaster station.
They went to dine at the Royal Oak, and from that point Mr. Force
telegraphed to Enderby Castle for a carriage to meet the party in the
evening at Nethermost.
Then they took the afternoon train and started on their homeward
journey.
The sun was setting when they ran into the little wayside station.
A handsome open carriage, driven by the earl’s old coachman,
awaited them.
They entered it at once, and the coachman turned the horses’
heads and began to ascend the graded and winding road that led up
to the top of the cliff, and then drove all along the edge of the
precipice in the direction of the castle.
It was a magnificent prospect, with the moors rolling off in hill and
vale, but always rising toward the range of mountains on the east;
and the ocean rolling away toward the western horizon, where the
sky was still aflame with the afterglow of the sunset; while straight
before them, though many miles distant up the coast, stretched out
into the sea the mighty promontory of Enderby Cliff, with the ruined
border castle standing on its crest, and the ocean beating at its base,
while a few yards nearer inland stood the latter building, which was
the dwelling of the earl and his household.
Wynnette had never been accused of artistic, poetic or romantic
tendencies, yet, gazing on that scene, she fell into thought, thence
into dream, finally into vision; and she saw passing before her, in a
long procession, tall and brawny, yellow-haired savages, clad in the
skins of wild beasts, and armed with heavy clubs, which they carried
over their shoulders; then barbarians in leathern jerkins, armed with
bows and arrows; rude soldiers with battle-axes and shields of tough
hide; then a splendid procession of mounted knights in helmets,
shining armor and gorgeous accouterments; ladies in long gowns of
richest stuffs and high headgear, that looked like long veils hoisted
above the head on a clothes prop; then trains of courtiers in plumed
hats, full ruffs, rich doublets and trunk hose; and ladies in close
velvet caps and cupid’s bow borders, large ruffs, long waists and
enormous fardingales; next a train of cavaliers, with flapping
bonnets, flowing locks, velvet coats and—
“Wynnette!”
It was the voice of her father that broke the spell and dispersed the
visionary train.
“Are you asleep, my dear?”
“N-n-no, papa; only dreaming dreams and seeing visions,” replied
the girl, rousing herself.
“Well, my dear, we are entering the castle courtyard.”
Wynnette looked out and saw that they were crossing the
drawbridge that had been down for centuries over a moat that had
been dry for nearly as long a period, and which was now thickly
grown up in brushwood, and were entering under the arch of the
great portcullis, which had been up for as many years as the
drawbridge had been down and the moat had been dry.
They were in the middle of the hollow square that formed the
courtyard of the castle. They had entered on the north side. On the
same side were the stables, the kennels and the quarters for the
outdoor servants. Opposite to them, on the south side, were the
conservatories and forcing beds, protected by high walls. On the east
side was the modern Enderby Castle, where the earl and his
household lived in modest comfort. But on the west side,
overhanging the terrible cliff, was the ancient Castle of Enderby, not
quite a ruin, but deserted and desolate, abandoned to wind and
wave, given over to bats and owls. At the foot of the awful rock the
thunder of the sea was heard day and night. Those who lived
habitually at the castle grew accustomed to it, but to temporary
sojourners at Enderby there was something weird and terrible in the
unceasing thunder of the sea against the rock. There was said to be a
whirlpool through an enormous cavern at the foot of the cliff, having
many inlets and outlets, and that the sea was drawn in and thrown
out as by the sunken head of a many-mouthed monster. However
that might be, it is certain that even in the finest weather, when the
sea was calm everywhere else, the tempest raged against Enderby
Cliff.
“The very, very first thing that I do to-morrow shall be to explore
that old castle from top to bottom,” said Wynnette to herself, as the
turning of the carriage hid it from her view.
CHAPTER XLI
THE EARL’S PERPLEXITY
A footman was lighting the lamps in the hall when the party
entered.
“Are all well in the house, Prout?” inquired Mr. Force.
“All well, sir. My lord is taking his afternoon nap. The ladies are
not down yet. The first dinner bell has just rung,” replied the man.
“Mamma and the girls are dressing for dinner, papa. I will just run
up and see,” said Wynnette, flying up the stairs.
“Then we had better go to our rooms at once, Le, and get some of
the dust of travel off us before we go to dinner,” said Mr. Force, as he
followed Wynnette upstairs, though in a more leisurely fashion.
Perhaps he was willing to put off, even for a few minutes, the painful
task of communicating his discouraging news to Odalite.
When Mr. Force reached his apartment he found Wynnette
standing in the middle of the room, under the hands of her mother’s
ebony maid, Gipsy, who was helping her off with her duster.
“Where is your mother, my dear?” he inquired.
“Oh, they are all gone down to the drawing room. Prout was
mistaken in thinking that they were not there. But, papa, I am not
sorry! Bad news will keep; because being already spoiled, it cannot
spoil any more. And now we must hurry and dress, or the porridge
will be cold—I mean dinner will be kept waiting,” and saying this,
Wynnette caught up her hat and duster, and, followed by Gipsy,
passed into her own room, which she occupied jointly with Odalite.
Mr. Force used such dispatch in dressing that he was the first one
of the three returning travelers who entered the drawing room.
He found no one present but Mrs. Force, Odalite, Elva and
Rosemary.
Mrs. Force hurried to meet him, while Odalite stood pale and
waiting, and the two younger girls looked eagerly expectant.
“What news? What news?” anxiously inquired the lady. “Prout has
just told us of your return! What news? Oh, why don’t you answer,
Abel?”
“My dear, because I have no good news to tell you,” he gravely
replied.
Mrs. Force let go the hand she had seized and sank down upon the
nearest sofa.
Odalite turned away and bowed her head upon her hands.
Rosemary and Elva were both too much awed by the grief of their
elders even to come forward and greet the returned father and
friend.
Nor did Mr. Force even observe the omission. His mind was
absorbed by thoughts of his daughter’s distress.
Mrs. Force was the first one to break the painful silence.
“Then it was all true as to the date of Anglesea’s first wife’s death?”
she inquired, in a faint voice.
“The date on Lady Mary’s tombstone is August 25, 18—,” gloomily
replied Mr. Force.
“Then the man’s marriage with Mrs. Wright on the first of the
same August is invalid?”
“As a matter of course.”
“And the ceremony begun, but not completed, with our daughter
in the following December gives Anglesea a shadow of a claim on
Odalite?”
“A shadow of a claim only; yet a sufficiently dark and heavy and
oppressive shadow. And now, dear Elfrida, let us talk of something
else,” said Mr. Force, gravely.
“First, tell me about that fraudulent obituary notice in the
Angleton Advertiser. Did you find out how it was effected?” inquired
the lady.
“Yes. On the evening of the twentieth of August, after the last copy
of the paper had been printed, and the whole edition sent off to its
various subscribers, the editor and proprietor, one Purdy, went
home, leaving the type undistributed on the press, and his pressman,
one Norton, in charge of the office. There was, besides, the editor’s
young son, whom Norton sent away. Later in the evening this Norton
distributed the type on the first two columns of the first page, and
then was joined by Angus Anglesea, who had furnished the
manuscript for the false obituary notice, and had bribed the printer
to set it up and print it off. So then several copies of the paper were
thrown off, in all respects like unto the regular edition of the day,
with the exception of the first two columns, in which the false
obituary notice and memoir were substituted for the report of an
agricultural fair, or something of the sort. And these last fraudulent
copies were mailed at different times to me. You see the motive! It
was to entrap and humiliate us. The same night, or the next morning,
Norton absconded with the bribe he had taken from Anglesea.”
“You know this to be true?”
“As well as I can know anything that I have not been an eye and
ear witness to. I will tell you how I unraveled the mystery when we
have more time. I wish to speak to Odalite now, my dear,” said Abel
Force.
And he crossed to where his daughter stood, put his arm around
her waist, drew her to his heart, and said:
“Cheer up, my darling girl. You shall be as safe from all future
persecution by that scoundrel as if he were in the convict settlement
of Norfolk Island—where he ought to be. Try to forget all about him,
my dear, and remember only how much we all love you, and how
much we are anxious to do for your happiness.”
Odalite put her arms around her father’s neck, and kissed him in
silence, and smiled through her tears.
Rosemary and Elva now came up, and put out their hands to
welcome the travelers home.
Le came in, and almost in silence shook hands with his aunt and
the two younger girls, and then took the hand of Odalite, pressed it,
dropped it, and turned away to conceal his emotion.
Lastly entered the earl, leaning on the arm of his secretary.
He smilingly greeted the returning travelers, and hoped that they
had had a pleasant journey.
Fortunately the announcement of dinner prevented the necessity
of a reply. The earl gave his arm to his sister, smiling warmly, as he
said:
“But it is you who must support me, my dear.”
And they led the way to the dining room.
Almost immediately after dinner, when the party returned to the
drawing room, Lord Enderby excused himself, and retired to his own
apartments, attended by his secretary and his valet.
Mr. and Mrs. Force, and the young people, remained in the
drawing room, where Mr. Force gave a more detailed account of his
journey into Lancashire, his researches at Anglewood, and all the
circumstances that led to the detection of the perpetrators of the
obituary fraud.
“That is the way—or, rather, one way—in which false evidence can
be manufactured,” he said, in conclusion.
It was late before the excited family party retired to rest.
It was not until after breakfast the next morning, when the young
people had gone to take a walk on the edge of the cliff, and the three
elders were seated together in the library of the castle, that Mr. Force
told Lord Enderby the story of his journey into Lancashire, and its
results.
The poor earl looked the image of distress and perplexity; his face,
that was always pale, grew paler; his frame, that was always infirm,
grew shaky; and his voice, always weak, became tremulous, as he
said:
“I am amazed beyond all measure. I am grieved to the very soul.
And—I am all but incredulous. Angus Anglesea, my comrade in
India! My ‘brother-in-arms,’ as I used fondly to call him. Angus
Anglesea, the very soul of truth and honor. Not overwise or prudent,
but brave and good to his heart’s core. I have not seen him for years,
it is true; but I had lost no faith in or affection for him.
Circumstances have separated us; but neither coldness nor distrust
had estranged us. And now you tell me, Force, that this man has
radically, fundamentally changed his very nature—his very self—that
the man of pure truth, honor and heroism has turned into an utter
villain—a thief, a forger, a bigamist, an unequaled scoundrel!”
The earl paused and groaned as in pain.
“I am sorry to grieve you, my lord, but I have brought
unquestionable proofs of the charges that I have made,” said Mr.
Force.
“I admit the proofs; but, great heavens, that a man could so change
in so few years! My comrade in India! My friend, whom I loved as a
brother! Who could have thought it of him? Elfrida, you knew him in
your youth. Could you have believed this of him?”
“Not when I first met him in your company, my brother; but then I
was a very young girl, scarcely fifteen years of age, and the judgment
of such a girl on the merits of a young man, especially when he is a
young officer in a brilliant uniform, and with a more brilliant
military record, is not infallible, you know,” replied Mrs. Force,
evasively.
“Yet you could not have believed this infamy of him.”
“No, certainly not,” replied the lady, more to soothe the nervous
invalid than to express her own convictions.
“Believe me, I am deeply grieved to have been the instrument of
giving you so much pain. I would not have told you had I not deemed
it my duty to do so; nor even under that impression had I supposed it
would have distressed you so much.”
“My dear Force, you were right to tell me, though the hearing gives
me sorrow—sorrow and perplexity, for I cannot reconcile the story
you have told and proved with all my previous knowledge of
Anglesea. I wonder, has he become insane? I did hear that he had
been terribly affected by the death of his wife, whom he adored. I was
in Switzerland at the time, and when I returned to England, in the
autumn, I heard that he had gone abroad. I think, perhaps, he may
have become insane.”
“Perhaps so,” said Mr. Force, but he mentally added: “As much
insane as, and no more, than every criminal is insane—morally
insane, but not, therefore, irresponsible.”
“Force,” said the earl, “whatever may have been the cause of
Anglesea’s fall, your daughter Odalite must be released from her
bonds.”
CHAPTER XLII
ENDERBY CASTLE
While their elders consulted together in the library the four young
girls, Odalite, Wynnette, Elva and Rosemary, accompanied by Le and
escorted by Joshua, walked across the courtyard, and entered the old
castle to explore its interior.
Le had in his hands a little guidebook to the castle and town of
Enderby, to which he referred from time to time.
Climbing over piles of rubbish, of fallen stones, covered with moss
and lichen, and half buried in rank growth of thistles and briers, they
entered an arched doorway, and found themselves upon the stone
floor of the great feudal castle hall, which had once re-echoed to the
orgies of the feudal baron and his rude retainers after a hunt, a foray,
or a battle, but now silent and abandoned to the birds of night and
prey.
At one end of this hall was a great chimney—a chimney so vast that
within its walls, from foundation stone to roof, a modern New York
apartment house of seven floors might have been built, with full suits
of family rooms on every floor.
“And this is only the hall fireplace,” said Le. “The kitchen fireplace
is immediately below this, and still broader and deeper than this, but
we cannot get to it because it is buried in fallen stones and mortar. At
least, I mean, all entrance to that part of the castle is.”
They now noticed that the cavity of the deep chimney place was
furnished on each side with stone benches, built in with the masonry.
“Here,” said Le, “the wandering minstrel or the holy pilgrim, of the
olden time found warm seats in winter to thaw out their frozen
limbs.”
Next they noticed that the hearth of the fireplace, raised about a
foot above the level of the floor, extended about a quarter of the
length of the hall itself.
“This,” said Le, “must be the dais for the upper portion of the table,
at which sat my lord baron, his family, his knights, and his guests,
while on each side of the lower part sat the retainers. But say! Here is
a trapdoor. Immediately under here must have stood my lord baron’s
chair. Let us look at that.”
Le referred to the guidebook, and read:
“‘Immediately before the hall fireplace and on the elevated dais is a trapdoor
connected with a walled-in shaft, descending through the castle kitchen under the
hall, and into the ‘Dungeon of the Dark Death,’ under the foundations of the castle.
In the rude days of the feudal system prisoners taken in war, or criminals convicted
of high crime, were let down through that trapdoor into the Dungeon of the Dark
Death, and never heard of more. And the lord of the castle held high festival above
while his crushed victims perished below.’”
“Ur-r-r-r-r-r-r!” cried Wynnette, with a shudder. “That accounts
for my murderous instincts against Anglesea and other culprits. I
inherit it through my mother—from all these vindictive old
vampires.”
“Oh, Le! let us go away. I don’t like it. I don’t like it!” pleaded little
Elva.
“No more do I,” said Rosemary.
“Stay,” said Le. “Here is something more about the place.” And he
read:
“‘This trapdoor has not been opened for more than fifty years. Tradition says
that early in the last century a groom in the service of the lords of Enderby secretly
married my lady’s maid, and as secretly murdered her and threw her body,
together with that of her infant, down the shaft, for which crimes he was tried,
condemned, and executed, and afterward hung in chains outside the wall of
Carlisle Castle. The trapdoor was ordered to be riveted down by the then ruling
Lord of Enderby, and has never since been raised.’”
“Ur-r-r-r-r-r-r!” again muttered Wynnette. “That’s worse than the
other.”
“Let us go away. Oh, I want to go away!” wailed Elva, trembling.
“Oh, please, please come away, Le,” pleaded Rosemary.
“Now just wait one moment, dears. You will not mind looking out
of these windows, loopholes, or whatever they are, that open through
the twelve-foot thickness of the outer wall. Great pyramids of Egypt,
what mighty builders were these men of old!” exclaimed Wynnette,
walking off toward the east side of the hall, where there were a row of
windows six feet high and four feet wide on the inner side, but
diminishing into mere slits on the outer side.
“Here the baron’s retainers could safely draw their bows and speed
their arrows through these loopholes at the besiegers without,” said
Wynnette, curiously examining the embrasures. “But, ah me, in
times of peace what a dark hall for the dame and her maidens.”
“Well, let us go on now,” said Le. “There is no means of entering
the lower portions of the building from the outside, but I suppose
there must be from the inside.”
So they left the hall by the side door and entered a corridor of solid
masonry, so dark that Le had to take a match and a coil of taper from
his pocket and strike a light.
This led them at last into a large circular room, with lofty but
narrow windows, through which the morning sun streamed, leaving
oblong patches of sunshine on the stone floor. A door on the side of
the room, between two of the windows, had fallen from its strong
hinges, and the opening was dark.
Le approached it, and discovered the top of a narrow flight of
stairs built in the thickness of the wall.
Le referred to his guidebook, and read:
“‘Strong chamber in the round tower west of the great hall, ancient guardroom
for men-at-arms. A secret staircase in the wall whose door was in former times
concealed by the leathern hangings of the room, leads down to the torture chamber
below.’
“Who will go down with me?” inquired Le.
“I will,” promptly answered Wynnette.
“And I,” added Odalite.
Elva and Rosemary would have shrunk from the adventure, but
partly driven by the fear of being left alone, and partly drawn by
curiosity, they consented to descend into the depths.
Le preceded the party with his lighted taper, and they followed him
down the steep and narrow stairs, and found themselves last in a
dark, circular room, with strong, iron-bound doors around its walls.
Some of these had fallen from their hinges, showing openings into
still darker recesses.
Le, with his taper, crept along the wall exploring these, and found
them to be dark cells, scarcely with space enough to hold a well-
grown human being. Many of them had rusting staples in the walls,
with fragments of broken iron chains attached.
Even the young midshipman shuddered and refrained from calling
the attention of his companions to the horror.
But he made more discoveries than these. Groping about the
gloomy place with his wax taper, he came upon various rusted and
broken instruments of torture, the thumbscrew, the iron boot, the
rack, all of which he recognized from the descriptions he had read of
these articles elsewhere; and there were other instruments that he
had read of, yet knew at sight to be of the same sort; so that at last,
when he came upon the grim headsman’s block, it was with a feeling
of relief.
“What are those things, Le?” inquired Odalite, following him.
“Oh, rubbish, dear. Be careful where you step, you might fall over
them,” he replied. “And I think we had better leave this place and go
to the upper air now,” he added, groping along the walls to find the
door at the foot of the stairs down which they had come.
He found the place, but found also something that had escaped his
notice. It was a niche in the wall beside the door. The niche was
about six feet high and two feet broad; the opening was rough and
ragged at the sides, and there was a pile of rubbish at the foot, which
on examination proved to be fallen stones and mortar.
Le trimmed his taper until it gave a brighter light, and then
referred to his guidebook and unadvisedly read aloud from it:
“‘In the Torture Chamber. Cunigunda. At the foot of the stairs leading down to
this dreadful theater of mediæval punishment stands, in the right side of the wall, a
curious niche, high and narrow, which was once the living grave of a lovely woman.
About fifty years ago the closing front wall of this sepulcher fell and revealed a
secret of centuries. A tradition of the castle tells of the sudden disappearance of the
Lady Cunigunda of Enderby, the eldest daughter of the baron and the most
beautiful woman of her time, for whose hand princes and nobles had sued in vain,
because her affections had become fixed on a yeoman of my lord’s guard. In the
spring of her youth and beauty she was mysteriously lost to the world. Her fate
would never have been discovered had not the closing wall of the niche at the foot
of the stairs in the torture chamber fallen and disclosed the upright skeleton and
the stone tablet, upon which was cut, in old English letters, the following
inscription:
CUNIGUNDA,
Requiescat in Pace.
The poor bones, after six centuries, were coffined and consigned, with Christian
rites, to the family vault at Enderby Church.’”
“I say, Le, what a perfectly devilish lot those old nobles were! I
proud of my ancestry! I would much rather know myself to be
descended in a direct line from Darwin’s monkeys,” said Wynnette.
“But, my dear, these men lived in a rude and barbarous age. Their
descendants in every generation have become more civilized and
enlightened, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. And I like the monkeys a great deal better as
forefathers!”
“Shall we try to find our way to the ‘Dungeon of the Dark Death’?
You know, it is under the kitchen which is under the great hall. But
stop a minute,” said Le: and he referred again to the guidebook, and
then added: “No, we cannot go there. There is no reaching it. The
only entrance into that deep perdition is by the trapdoor, on my lord
baron’s dais, and down the hollow, brick-walled shaft that runs
through the middle of the kitchen into the abyss below.”
“I am glad of it. Let us go to the upper light. Look at Elva!” said
Odalite, in an anxious tone.
Le turned the light of the taper on the little girl, and saw her
leaning, pale and faint and dumb, on the bosom of her sister.
“My poor, little frightened dove. Why, Elva, darling, what is the
matter?” tenderly inquired the midshipman.
The kind sympathy broke down the last remnant of the child’s self-
possession, and she broke into a gush of sobs and tears.
Le handed his taper to Wynnette and took Elva up in his arms, laid
her head over his shoulder, and carried her upstairs, followed by
Odalite, Wynnette and Rosemary.
In the sun and air Elva recovered herself, and the little party left
the ruins to return to the new castle.
“I wonder my Uncle Enderby does not have that dreadful old thing
pulled down,” piped Elva, in a pleading tone.
“Pulled down!” exclaimed Wynnette. “Why, that ancient castle is
the pride of his life. The modern one is nothing to be compared with
it in value. The oldest part of the ruin is said to be eight hundred
years old, while the modern castle is only a poor hundred and fifty.
Why, he would just as soon destroy his own pedigree and have it
wiped out of the royal and noble stud-book—I mean, omitted from
‘Burke’s Peerage’—as pull down that ancient fortress. Why, child, you
do not dream of its value. You have not seen a quarter part of its
historical attractions. If you hadn’t flunked—I mean fainted, you
poor, little soul—we should have gone up the broad staircase leading
from the hall to the staterooms above—many of them in good
preservation—and seen the chamber where King Edward the First
and Queen Eleanor slept, when resting on their journey to Scotland.
Also the other chamber where William Wallace was confined under a
strong guard when he was brought a prisoner to England. Well, I
don’t believe a word of it myself. I suppose all these old battle-ax
heroes that ever crossed the border are reported to have slept in
every border castle, from Solway Firth to the North Sea. Still, the old
ruin is very interesting indeed. And if the makers of the guidebooks
like to tell these stories, why, I like to look at the historical rooms.”
Wynnette’s last words brought them to the new castle, which they
entered just in time for luncheon, in the morning room.
CHAPTER XLIII
WYNNETTE’S STRANGE ADVENTURE