I was punished for reading Auguste Comte in church. My Bible is one that I have had since my First Communion. It is a slim little volume bound in limp brown leather with pages as thin as dragonfly wings, so it is the perfect size for my duffel bag. My name is scrawled in the frontispiece in round, childish letters, and I have a lock of my baby hair tucked somewhere in the Book if Ruth, so it cannot help but remind me of home. Every individual is absolutely bound to obey the political authority established in one’s country because that authority enjoys by divine decree the powers originally conferred on Adam at the creation over his wife, his children, and their descendants eternally. From the view of the Old Testament, the Bible is of course is patriarchal and display the importance of hierarchy in reference to age, and explains that all humans are naturally—physiologically—related to each other. Society is a family, descended from one single male individual. All people born, and always remain, unfree and unequal, and consent is irrelevant to political association. Political society is also universal, for there are no humans who are not descended from Adam. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8

A prepolitical state of nature makes no sense at all, nor does any idea of a contract to replace such a condition by political society. Property as well as political power is distributed according to God’s patriarchal decrees and belongs absolutely to the person who inherits it or to whom it has been given.  I also brought along my battered copy of Huck Finn, more for comfort than reading, as I could probably recite the whole book verbatim (with the exception of a few words). However, that dog-eared book has been the first thing in my suitcase when packing for anything stressful or upheaving—hospital visits (of which, as you know, there have been more than a few), first ocean voyage, going away to college, moving to the apartment. I take it out, read it straightaway, and it immediately makes me feel that I am back curled in the green armchair in my parents’ library as it is endowed with a remarkable capacity for sympathetic understanding and exemplary brilliance and clarity, as well as the ability to unravel cultural and historical themes and subtlest ramifications to illuminate and reconstruct society. It only stands to reason that I would bring it along here. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8

Perhaps it is superstitious, but I also view the book somewhat as a lucky charm. My mother brought it to read aloud when I was feeling physical unwell. We finished reading the book and then, the next day my fever broke. I have always somehow associated that collective sigh of relief with Hunk Finn. You may rightly wonder, since I am invincible, why do I need a lucky charm? Well, I am afraid. For the first time in my life I am really afraid of something tangible. I was fine on the boat ride over, even eager for what awaited me in France. What I overlooked, though, was what I would find in London. I found something worth coming back for. I found you. The boy who never shied away from any daredevilry, brought to his knees by a woman he only just met. However, a woman she is! When you stepped off the train and that shaft of Sunlight found its way through the glass in the roof to set you aglow, even an atheist would have seen the finger of God in that. You have a phenomenal World Spirit. Even after you stepped into the shadows, you glowed like a yellow diamond in the sky. You spoke, and I heard a chorus of seraphim. You laid your hand on my arm when we were leaving, but I felt the touch of fairy wings. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8

I laid my eyes on you, there was that shaft of Sunlight, and I was suddenly terrified. Terrified you would disappear in a cloud of bubbles, terrified I might be hit by limousine in the next instant, terrified the World would end before our World had even begun. Did you know that human evolution had reached a stage in which the brain alone continues to evolve; ultimately, a level is achieved at which the individual’s brain continues to develop after one’s birth. The process, which necessitated a period of prolonged infancy accompanied by the evolution of strong parental affection, provided the physical setting for the evolution of the resulting family clans into society; for the origin of morality in the altruism demanded by family care; and for cultural progress, through the enhanced receptivity of yet developing minds. Your soul is similar to musical consonance. When I am around you I feel animated. The emotions and thoughts from your beautiful music and singing corresponds with my soul. Although visual impressions are in a way pure, they lack the impressions of motion and move the soul only slightly. Smell, taste, and touch are entirely material, and rather titillate the sense-organs than penetrate the depths of the soul. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8

When I hear you sing and listen to the melodious rhythm, the musical sound by the movement of the air moves the body; by emotion it affects the senses and at the same time the soul: by meaning it works on the mind: finally, by the very movement of subtle air it penetrates strongly: by its contemperation it flows smoothly: by the conformity of its quality it floods us with a wonderful pleasure: by its nature, both spiritual and material, it at once seizes, and claims as its own, a being and one’s entirety. Hearing and seeing one in person, then, both puts us in more direct contact with external reality, since the sound and physical elements consists of aerial movements which can actually occur in our spirit, whereas a picture of letter merely reproduces surface images of things; and it powerfully affects the whole of us—as the musical sound by working on the spirit, which links body and soul, and the lyrics by working on the mind or intellect. When I am near you, my whole moral and emotional life consists of actions of the body and motions of the spirit and soul. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8

Not until we were in the limousine and you tumbled nearly onto my lap as we edged that corner was I truly aware that you were more than just ethereal.  My sink memorized every place you touched, and that feeling did not diminish for the rest of the afternoon. I do not know if that one little incident made as much of an impression on you are it did me, but it reminded me whom I was with. Not an unreachable angel, but a lady I know better than I know the lines in my own palm. I was still terrified, though. I did not want to make a wrong move. The human soul is not merely the end product, but the goal of the great evolutionary process contrived by God. Nature is not morally indifferent, but on the contrary, evolution exists purely for the sake of moral end. Science offers confirmation of the existence of God and immortality. Remember that song is the most powerful imitator of all things. For it imitates the intentions and affections of the soul, and speech, and also reproduces bodily gestures, human movements and moral characters, and imitates and acts everything so powerfully that it immediately provokes both the singer and hearer to imitate and perform the same thing.  #RandolphHarris 6 of 8

There is a spiritual existence in musical and it speaks a truth through its influence, living a whole which transcends the logical laws of thought. Reason loses itself in the antinomies when attempting to fathom this whole; but through direct religious experience, one can perceive the integral truth and can reconcile, superrationally, such contradictions as those between Divine Unity and Trinity, free will and predestination, universal salvation and eternal damnation. Thus, music must never take its departure from spiritual experience. The mystical and personal character of cognition, gives much attention to occult phenomena. Musically moved air is alive, like a disembodied human spirit, and therefore naturally has the most powerful effect possible on the hearer’s spirit, and makes all created beings are consubstantial with one another. In cognition, the knower escapes from one’s isolation and, contravening the logical law of identity, one achieves identity with rhythms and melodies, which are sounds similar to moral character, while flavors, colours and scents are secret sympathies. God put something in you to give you an advantage—His favor, His blessing. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8

There is something about you that makes you stand out, something that draws opportunity, somethings that causes you to overcome obstacles, to accomplish dreams. Stoic in origin, which postulates a cosmic spirit (spiritus mundi) flowing through the whole of the sensible Universe, and thus providing an influence between the Heavenly bodies and the sublunary World. It is like you transmit powers to its body. There is a very subtle body; as it were not body and almost soul. Or again, as it were not soul and almost body. Its power contains very little Earthly nature, but more watery, still more aerial and the maximum of fiery and starry nature…It vivifies everything everywhere and is the immediate cause of all generation and motion. It is not just your talent, your education, or your hard work. This cosmic spirit, which is also that of the alchemist, is like enough to ours for us to be able to nourish and purify our own spirit by attracting and absorbing it. Undoubtedly, the World lives and breathes, and we may also absorb its breath. It is God almighty breathing in your direction. You could call it the favor of God. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8