Dark Romanticism in "The Minister's Black Veil"

I preferred "The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne much more than "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe. I believe the psychological aspect of the story and the way that it depicts Dark Romanticism is much more affective than the doom and gloom found in "The Pit and the Pendulum."

The main affect felt by "The Minister's Black Veil" was the way that humans are inherently evil by nature. Each one has all kinds of dark secrets and things they are ashamed of, which is what the pastor is trying to prove by wearing the black veil. His veil is used as a symbol of the evil and sins that separate people from one another, which is a characteristic of romanticism, specifically Dark Romanticism in that it talks about the evil tendencies of humans rather than goodness (Hawthorne).

Not only are humans naturally evil, but they are also prone to hiding their evil and closing it off from the rest of the world because they are ashamed. Most people are too afraid to do what the pastor did, which is showcase his sins and sadness to the world in the form of his veil. By doing this he took responsibility for his sins and the way they separate a person from the people around them if they are ignored and never addressed (Hawthorne).

The last thing I saw out of the story was that humans are naturally prone to judging each other rather than looking at their own faults, and they are scared by things that they do not want to address because they hit home way too closely. While yes, the pastor did wear his sins upon his face quite literally, the truth is that every person is just as guilty as he was. The people of the town knew him and his character, and they knew that he was a very good man, yet they chose to shut him out of their lives because he actually took responsibility for his sins and that scared them (Hawthorne).

The truth is we all have our own black veils. Whether they are deep dark secrets of things we have done it our past or simply evil thoughts we have entertained at times, we all possess them. The fact that we all possess them should teach us to be understanding of one another and the fact that we all have our faults. But instead of doing that we all choose to hide our own faults and point fingers at others in order to take t he attention away from ourselves. In this way we all suffer our own form of personal torture as the things that bother us slowly eat us up inside. If only we could all stop acting so high and mighty and admit that none of us are perfect, the world would be a much happier place. The fact that the pastor, one of the most holy men in that town, was the one able to step up and acknowledge that he is a sinner says a lot about our society. All of these dark truths that are revealed about society through this writing is a classic example of Dark Romanticism (Hawthorne).

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Minister's Black Veil." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature. Ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill. 2010. 280-289. Print.

Journal 24

I believe on a certain level every person wears a mask at some point in their lives. As humans we have an inborn desire to fit in and become like other people in order to be accepted. I believe a significant amount of this happens during the middle school years. When people are in middle school their hormones are just starting to act up and they are very confused about life in general. It is easy to become wrapped up, during these vulnerable years, in the things society would have you believe are important. When you are in middle school all you really want is a place where you truly belong.

When all you want is to belong, there is a high probability that you will change yourself in order to achieve that goal. People change themselves in all manners of ways in order to fit in with a particular group. Some change the way they talk, the way they treat others, or the way they dress. Sometimes these changes that people adopt for acceptance are valuable and important changes, but most times I believe they are harmful and destructive changes. Unless the person you are aspiring to become like is a truly good example, usually someone older and wiser than you, most likely you will find that their influence has a negative impact on your character. Because the truth is, if someone cannot accept you for who you are then they are not a good friend anyway.

Generally people begin to develop into the person that they will become as they go through high school. Most habits are formed in these years, which is why it is extremely important for one to create a solid foundation during these crucial years. Occasionally people still try to become something they are not after they have passed these years in order to fit in with a group at work or in one's neighborhood, but generally the time of pretending is grown out of by the time one reaches an age of maturity.

Dark Romanticism in The Pit and the Pendulum

There are just a few main, distinguishing characteristics of dark romanticism that I found repeated over and over when researching the topic. These are as follows: dark romanticists believe people are naturally prone to sin and evil, they believe the world is dark, decaying and mysterious, they believe that nature reveals truth about the world but that when nature reveals things about life they are mysterious and evil, and dark romanticists didn't ignore evil, but they acknowledged it and the horror of it. I also believe an aspect of dark romanticism is exploration of the darker side of the spiritual realm and the way that it clashes with our own in points that we can see on certain occasions. The belief in the evil and supernatural is very evident in some works of dark romanticists.

The Pit and the Pendulum, written by Edgar Allen Poe, a distinguished dark romanticist, is a clear example of many ideas of dark romanticism. The first place in which this is showcased is in the mood as the story opens. The feeling of the story is immediately set with the foreboding words of the first sentence: "I was sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me." So already, as the story opens, the narrator has managed to settle an air of depression and hopelessness upon the scene. Later in the same paragraph the narrator describes his judges as though the very lips on their faces were some great symbol of evil and finality. Through these examples the author has illustrated the characteristic of the horror of evil(Poe).

The way the world is decaying and mysterious is illustrated when the narrator awakens in a dark, disgusting prison. Upon further exploration he deduces that he is in a circular prison with a deep pit in the center which it is intended for him to fall into. At one point rats enter his prison and attempt to eat his food. This disgusting filth and these vile living conditions show the decaying and mysterious nature of the world(Poe).

The prison the narrator is in is very inhuman in the way it punishes him. The pain inflicted upon him is both physical and mental. He is tormented both by the grotesqueness and unhygienic nature of the prison and the prospect of falling to his death or being sliced open by the scythe, physically, and he is tormented mentally by the constant, slow descent of the scythe and eventually the slow progress of the walls of the prison as they push him inwards towards the pit. The combination of these many torments, rather than a slow, quick death, prove that humans are naturally evil and prone to do bad things to one another(Poe).

The tale of the pit and the pendulum is both a horror story for the ages and a lasting example of the era of dark romanticism. As described above, the fundamental ideas of dark romanticism are all represented within the short story. It is truly a classic sample of the genre that is dark romanticism.

Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Pit and the Pendulum." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature. Ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill. 2010. 263-273. Print.

P. Pendleton Cook on "The Raven"

Personally I was just really annoyed by the author of the analysis I chose. I thought he was trying to make himself sound smart by using big, flowery words, and I thought that he was basically just a huge fan of Poe who tried to write this analysis as a form of hero worship towards Poe rather than as an objective and intellectual essay. He backed up his observations with points, but it still came off as annoying.


One particular quote I found annoying:

"Notwithstanding the extended publication of this remarkable poem, I will quote it almost entire—as the last means of justifying the praise I have bestowed upon it(Cooke)."

First of all, I do not think it is necessary to quote virtually the entire poem in order to justify your like of it. It is perfectly acceptable to take out certain excerpts that you think particularly demonstrate your point and end there. Secondly, I think it is kind of irritating when people automatically jump in and give their stunning reviews of something at the beginning of their analysis. Personally I just do not find this a very professional way of going about the matter. I would have been much more willing to accept the author's opinion if he had simply stated his point in his thesis and then went about proving his point. As it was I was basically annoyed from the first minute I started reading and that probably gave me a biased opinion towards his points in that I was more likely to disagree with his ideas.

I think the author read way too much into the poem. He even mentioned at one point that he thought the word napping was a particularly fantastic and life-altering word chosen in the first stanza. Personally I thought that this was a bit much. If Poe were around he would probably tell that guy it really was not that big of a deal, he just wanted to convey the idea that he was taking a nap. Sometimes I think that analyzers tend to get so wrapped up in what they are doing that they tend to see things that are not even really significant or there in the first place(Cooke).

The author goes on to use such words as "exquisite" and "phraseology", leaving you wondering if he really has any idea what he is talking about at all or if he just likes to sound smart to other people. There was a lot of fluff and talk but he did not really end up saying very much(Cooke).

The author even went on to quote such mysterious people as "Mr. Willis" and "Miss Barrett", two people to which he gave no credibility or reason in which to believe them except that they gave him their opinions on the subject and they were positive(Cooke).

I found myself constantly thinking "prove it" to the claims he made about how wonderful certain aspects of the poem were. To put it simply I was thoroughly annoyed.

Selected Bibliography
Cooke, P. Pendleton. "Edgar A. Poe," Southern Literary Messenger (January 1848). Reprinted in The Recognition of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Eric W. Carlson (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966): pp. 21–23. Quoted as "Review of 'The Raven'" in Harold Bloom, ed. Edgar Allan Poe, Bloom's Major Poets. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 1999. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BMPEAP21&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 22, 2010).

Analysis of The Raven

The poem is pretty easy to understand literally. It starts off with a man sitting by himself on a lonely night, reading a story and trying to forget his sadness over his lost wife, Lenore. Soon he hears a rustling in his curtains and convinces himself that it's just a visitor at his door. So he went to check the door and realized that there was nobody there. So he just stood there by the open door for awhile whispering his wife's name and hearing it echoed back to him. Then he went back inside and soon he heard a tapping. He convinced himself it was just the wind hitting the window. Then he opened the shutter and in flew a raven and sat on a statue in his room. He started talking to the raven and it said "Nevermore." Then he was confused because the word made no sense in the context of the conversation but he also doubted that this could be the bird's name. Yet the bird continued to repeat that single word over and over. So he sat and pondered why the bird would possibly be saying this word over and over and while doing so also thought about his lost love. Then the air began to feel thicker in the air and so he thought the bird must have been sent by God or a devil of some kind and he shouted all kinds of accusations at it but it still just said nevermore again and again. He then asked the bird, believing it was a prophet, if he would ever again be able to hold his love, and yet again the bird said nevermore, so he became very angry and told the bird to leave but it just sat on its perch.

There is a set rhyme scheme used that is something like A, B, C, B, B, B. I don't know if it is considered a poetic device but he also uses a lot of repetition in the way the raven is speaking to convey an ominous sort of feeling. There is also an allusion to the time period because he is sitting there reading a book that was actually written during Poe's time period. So in a sense he was adding publicity to whoever wrote the book.

The figurative meaning, I believe, is that the raven is the depression in his life that he can't quite let go of. It is sitting there in the corner of his room watching him all the time, no matter what he tried to do to stop it. When he reasoned with it, when he spoke to it kindly, when he screamed at it,when he yelled at it, despite anything that he did to it it still hung over his head like something he could never be rid of.

Journal 24

There have been several times in my life when I became anxious or scared because I thought I heard something I really did not hear.

One specific time was when I was about ready to go to sleep and I was reading a book. Now my room is in the basement and nobody else is down there so it can be freaky all because of that, let alone when you start to freak yourself out. So anyway there I am reading and it is around 11:30 at night and all the sudden I swear I hear somebody tapping on my window. I have one of those egress windows in my room so I thought maybe somebody was tapping on it from the outside.

I live in Salem Estates and there have been a lot of robberies lately, so I was already kind of paranoid about that. So then when I heard the tapping on the window I thought somebody was trying to get to me through that window. Nevertheless, I told myself that I was just hearing something and went back to reading. About a minute later I swore I heard it again. But once again I went back to reading my book. Then I heard it again and I got really freaked out that time. I started thinking about all those horror movies where people just ignore it when they hear something sketchy and then they end up dead. So I ran upstairs and told my parents what I heard. My stepdad went outside to check it out and came back a few minutes later and said he did not see a single thing out there. Still, I was scared so I decided to spend the rest of the night upstairs in my brother's room. Around 1 in the morning I woke up and decided I had to go back down to my room because otherwise I wouldn't have my alarm to wake me up, but I was too scared to go by myself. So I woke my brother up and made him go with me.

Obviously in the end nothing ended up happening to me and it was all in my head, but nevertheless it was still really scary.

Analysis of Analysis of Walden

The author of the analysis starts out by talking about how Henry David Thoreau showed the true principles of Transcendentalism through his works, specifically his most noted work, Walden.

I agreed with the author's point of view that through the account of his stay at Walden Thoreau set an example for other Transcendentalism believers through his display of self-reliance, frugality, economy, a personal relationship with nature that lives in every human, and environmentalism. The author points out that through his journey to Walden he sought to separate himself from society, because one of his core beliefs was that society was destroying the world because it was taking away people's individuality.

The author makes a good point in the second paragraph when he talks about the way Thoreau worked to eliminate excess in his life and not waste anything. The author points out that he built his cabin for a mere $28.12 1/2, but that the point of this endeavor was not to preach the idea of hard labor, since Thoreau did in fact build the cabin himself. But rather the idea of what Thoreau went through was that if you do not live in excess and spend a lot of money daily, there is no reason why you should even have to work hard on a daily basis. You could simply work a little bit each day and never worry about your money running out or having to work too hard to finish it. I think the fact that the author caught this is very important because many people might think that his purpose was to show that hard labor is important, not to teach that living without excess is key.

The author points out a lot of symbolism that he found in Thoreau's writings in the third paragraph. He discusses the way that some of his writings in which he described journeys that he took were not only acccounts of journeys through areas and guides to where beautiful things are, but rather they were also guides through his own spiritual journeys to find enlightenment by being in the midst of natural, beautiful things.

Thoreau also uses the seasons and times of year that pass by at Walden as symbols of journeys taken by the individual throughout his or her life. They go through the journey of spring and new birth and life all the way to winter when everything dies, and then back to spring where everything is alive anew. The author does a good job of proving how much Thoreau really reflected Transcendentalism and the beauty of nature through his works.

The author also discusses the difference between Thoreau and other Transcendentalists by showing that Thoreau truly wanted to commune and live within nature in order to better understand it. Other Transcendentalists, however, such as Emerson, were interested in exploring the subject but not by physically placing themselves wholly within nature itself.

I thought it was a very good analysis with many valid points that proved that Thoreau was a true Transcendentalist and also explored many of his theories and ideas about life.

Works Cited
Wayne, Tiffany K. "Walden." Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=1&iPin=ETRA402&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 15, 2010).

Journal 23

I would love to be able to spend a one week camping trip where I really lose all contact with technology. I mean honestly I would kinda hate it a lot but at the same time I think it would be really good for me. I have tried to spend time doing things without my phone at all a few times but I have never tried to limit myself to no technology at all. I think it would be extremely difficult for me to lose my music and my phone at the same time, because if I am not involved in one at a particular time I am involved with the other.

I think I would spend all of my time writing. I would probably end up writing a lot of poems and thoughts down in a special book that I write everything down in. I think that would be incredibly good for me to spend a weekend where I have nothing else to do and therefore I focus my attention on writing.

I would also got on a lot of hikes I think. If I had my bike I'd bike some trails and also hike them on foot. This happened to me at one point because my family went on a vacation to Branson and we found this huge nature place full of trails that you could explore. When we got inside we figured out that there was no cell phone service there. So this is the place where I wandered around, rode the bike trails, hiked the other trails by foot, and wrote my summer blogs. It was very peaceful and wonderful and I would love to be able to do it for a week.

I think it would also be very nice because I would spend a lot of time with my family. It would be more like their generation growing up and the generation before theirs where people would sit around and talk to each other and tell stories in order to entertain themselves rather than being solitary and amusing themselves with their individual gadgets.

Thoreau vs. Gandhi

Thoreau and Gandhi's two pieces, "Civil Disobedience" and "On the Eve of the Historic Dandi March" are both very influential pieces based upon acts of protest. They are very different in some ways but also much alike in others.

Clearly the most fundamental similarity is the act of protest happening in both of the works. Thoreau's cause is a protest against poll taxes that Thoreau protests against by simply refusing to pay it. He then spends a night in jail for his protest and refusal and tells the tale of his stay in the local jail.

Gandhi's protest is against the tax on salt that is being imposed upon the people of India. His cause is also a protest against this tax, but his speech is a plan for protest rather than an account that is written down after the protest. The speech takes place the night before the protest, hence its title "On the Eve of the Historic Dandi March." In his speech he discusses three different ways in which the people can protest the tax peacefully without using any form of violence.

The writing styles of the two men are very different however. Thoreau almost makes it seem as though everything is about him in his works. He talks about how the government is wronging people and it all comes off as almost a way he is complaining about he himself is being wronged specifically. His work was not so much a call to arms for a chance to occur as it was a dissection of the very problems he saw in the government as a whole. Because of this he does not seem to touch the readers on quite as much of a personal level I do not believe.

Gandhi, on the other hand, was very good at touching people on a personal level. The whole point of his speech was to rally together troops and call them to action in order to get something done peacefully and efficiently. His cause was not personal, but rather it was to benefit the entire nation and stop the wrongful occurrences he felt were being imposed upon his people. His main concern was to make life better for the people not just for himself. For this reason I felt as though he touched the audience on much more of a personal level.

I believe the important thing to take away from these speeches is the point that protest and change do not always have to come at the price of blood. Sometimes people can be mature adults and handle things in an adult matter, which means talking about them or even protesting them but in a peaceful and non-violent way. These works stand as examples of that. In Gandhi's case these works went on to become actions that eventually led to change. In the case of Thoreau, although he might have influenced many people with his works, I do not believe there is an immediate source of action that can be verified. However both men have provided us with one thing and that is the inspiration to affect change with our words rather than our weapons, and that is an invaluable lesson.

Works Cited

Gandhi, Mahatma. "On the Eve of the Historic Dandi March." American Literature. Comp. Jeffory Willhelm. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 229-30. Print.


Thoreau, Henry D. "Civil Disobedience." American Literature. Comp. Jeffory Willhelm. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 222-27. Print.

Journal 22

I know you might not agree with this, but in Romanticism they put value on true love and all of that and the romantic heroes and everything. So one time I helped a friend break a rule in order to be with the person that she loves. It was not a law that I broke, but it was a rule of this girl's parents. We'll call her Ashley and we'll call her boyfriend Steve.

So Steve is a freshman in college and Ashley is a junior in high school. However, Ashley and Steve have known each other since Steve was a junior in high school and Ashley was a freshman in high school. They have been friends since then, and her grandparents were okay with that. Then they began liking each other towards the end of last year, which was Steve's senior year and Ashley's sophomore year. Her grandparents were okay with their relationship then, but as soon as Steve got into college her grandparents said that they could not date anymore. By this time they had been friends for over two years and dating for about three months and they cared about each other a lot. So, naturally, both Ashley and I thought that it was unfair of her grandparents to say they could no longer date simply because he was now a college student. He was the same boy he had been for three years.

So one day Ashley's car broke down and she did not have it for the following two weeks. On a Sunday of one of these weeks Ashley really wanted to spend the day with Steve but she had no way to see him without her grandparents finding out. Getting there was no problem because she had her grandparents drop her off at the mall. However the getting home part was tricky. So she called me and she asked me if I would take her home if Steve dropped her off at my house. So that is what we did. I felt bad because I helped her deceive her grandparents, but I felt as though it were for a noble cause and so I went through with it anyway.

Mark Edmundson's Analysis of the Works of Melancholia

In the literary analysis done by Mark Edmundson, he points out that one way that Ralph Waldo Emerson, he points out specifically the way Emerson handled the death of his wife and the brother that he was very close to. Rather than mourning and becoming depressed over their deaths, he had a positive energy flowing through him during that difficult time. He did not believe in the common mourning process. Rather, he believed that “The object of life, as Emerson would see it, is to redeem our grief over what we are not and have not.” He believed that mourning over people was a waste because it was putting all of our spiritual energy into something that we would never get anything out of. This shows transcendentalism, which is the group that Emerson belonged to, because with these ideas he is blazing a trail that leads to spiritual independence rather than keeping with the constraints and bonds of the social norm. Many thought he was strange for not mourning the deaths of his loved ones, as we find it strange now, but in a way he is right in that the spiritual energy does not do us any good wrapped up in death.
The author discusses the way that Emerson talks about how as humans we are constantly being proactive within our souls and growing to new levels. One example that the author of the article uses from Emerson’s works is the way that in one of his texts Emerson likens us, as humans, to shellfish as we slowly but surely outgrow our homes and then leave them to find others that will suit us and we will be able to build up around us as we grow. Unfortunately, Emerson says that when this happens and we experience a moment of spiritual growth, we tend to attach it to some form in the physical world, such as a religious rite or some sort of literary text.
Unfortunately, then our souls, aching for stability, take those ways in which we are only meant to get out the evidence of our spiritual growth and turn them into “ultimate truths.” We then use these outlets for our spiritual growth and turn them into constraints for our spiritual growth. Emerson’s belief in the complete and total wrongness in this behavior once again shows us how Transcendentalism affected his work. This lack of belief in the common ideas of religion and the idea that each person individually is responsible for their own spirituality is a core principle of transcendentalism. Although the author of the article does not specifically talk about the way that Transcendentalism is shown through the works of Emerson, if one knows anything about transcendentalism it becomes very evident in the way Emerson writes, and I found it very important to understand his beliefs in order to understand where he was coming from in his essays. The author did a great job of illustrating Transcendentalism without even mentioning the word itself a single time.

Journal 21

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Benjamin Franklin, both great minds of their day, agreed on some topics of human nature and disagreed on others.

They seemed to agree that men are given a certain amount of talents and gifts and it is their job to make of them what they will. Some are better at things than others but regardless it is still their job to make the best of what they have.

However they do not agree in terms of society. Emerson states in his essay that he thinks that society is a silly thing. He states that "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members." Basically what he means by this is that by creating a society we force ourselves to conform to the mold of the society and therefore take away the manhood and individuality that each of us were born with.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Benjamin Franklin who believes that society is incredibly important and vital for our society. He believes that learning how to work together and form a society is a huge benefit for everybody.

Emerson says:

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Basically what he is saying in my opinion is that everybody thinks that society is important in order to achieve equality and the ability for each man to receive due, but truthfully it just punishes the individual by causing them to change and conform to the patterns of the society. So in essence what is supposed to be to the benefit of everybody is really taking away their freedom of expression.

Journal 20

Self-reflection and taking a break from society are very important to me. Sometimes I feel as though I am too reliant on all of the technology that I am surrounded by on a daily basis. I hardly ever go even a half an hour without my phone, for example. When I do not have it nearby to check about once every two minutes I kinda freak out a little bit. I know this because I tried to give my phone up for three days over the summer once. That did not end so well. I am pretty sure I made it maybe half a day tops. So sometimes I try to slowly limit myself and other times I just give in and use it anyway.

Sometimes things just do not go your way for a day or a week or a month or maybe even a year. You feel like everything is just unfair and people just constantly keep letting you down and you do not know what to do. It is these teams that I feel like I need to just kinda get away. That is where getting away from society comes in. If I cannot completely get away from everything, I usually go outside and jump on my trampoline for awhile. It is usually pretty quiet in my neighborhood and I just kind of chill out there and get my peace of mind back.

I also use writing for self-reflection. When I come up with something that is bothering me that I just kind of need to get out I write it all down in this book I have. I guess it could be considered a journal in a way but I don't write in it regularly, just when I need it. Then I go back later and read what was bothering me at the time and most of the time it has already been solved and everything turns out okay. But it's also nice to have when I have a problem and I can go back and see what I did in certain situations.

Journal 19

My ideal United States would simply be going back to the values that the people in our generation have tossed by the wayside throughout the years. I am a religious person, but I agree with the idea that state and religion should be separated. Freedom of religion, or lack thereof, is a very important part of what has made our country great. However, most of the other changes that we have made over the years since this country was settled by British immigrants are not good ones.

I wish for a world where we could go anywhere and still feel safe. I wish for a world where we did not have to lock our doors for fear of thieves coming in our houses and stealing things or harming us. I wish we could stop by the side of the road to help someone in trouble without worrying about harm befalling us. I wish parents could have peace of mind when their children left their houses when the sun came up on weekends and came home at dusk because nobody would ever dare harm them. I wish everybody could trust everybody to do the good and honorable thing all the time. I wish everybody quit worrying about things and just lived and helped each other instead of being obsessed with themselves all of the time. I wish the court systems were just and could always find the right verdicts. I wish for a country that kept their promises and therefore was not billions of dollars in debt because they spent money they did not have.

However all of that is an idea. There is evil in the world and therefore there will never be perfect peace and happiness as long as we are here. Nobody can possibly do the right thing all the time. But there was a time in this country when people did not have to worry as much about crime and sexual abuse and murder. There will always be worries, to worry is human, but they do not have to be worries like that.