Through Hell E-Book

Arthur Young

• Herausgeber: PubMe
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The hero of this hazardous exploration through Hell is Hiprah Hunt , a lecturer, reformer, ex-preacher, poet and president of a Dante Club. Hiprah Hunt has no tolerance for the modern philosophy that denies the existence of Hell. As a preacher he was what men of the present day call a “back number.” Despite “higher criticism” he continually and earnestly advocates the justice of future punishment , and for this reason is known in the town where he lives as “Hell-fire Hunt.” Not unlikely his belief in a Demon-haunted Hell ruled over by a personal Devil is in part due to atavism, for Mr. Hunt is a descendant of the illustrious Hunts who lent their aid to the extermination of witches in that part of New England where witchcraft once flourished. As President of a Dante Club he collected many books on the subject of future retribution. Among them (some 80 volumes) he chiefly prizes Dante’s Inferno. Whenever he is given an opportunity he will deliver a lecture on Dante and his work. In short, Hell books have so thoroughly absorbed his mind that he becomes convinced that the under-world is as much a reality as the upper one. As a result of continual thinking on one subject, and that subject a hot one, it was frequently hinted that Mr. Hunt’s brains were shrivelling up. Whether that is true or not, he became imbued with the idea that he must find the Infernal Regions and prove to the world that the place is not a myth .

Leseprobe

Arthur Young

Through Hell

a fully illustrated parody of Dante's Inferno

UUID: 9396784a-d382-11e8-a34a-17532927e555

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Table of contents

READ THIS FIRST.

CANTO I.

CANTO II.

CANTO III.

CANTO IV.

CANTO V.

CANTO VI.

CANTO VII.

CANTO VIII.

CANTO IX.

CANTO X.

CANTO XI.

CANTO XII.

CANTO XIII.

CANTO XIV.

CANTO XV.

CANTO XVI.

CANTO XVII.

CANTO XVIII.

CANTO XIX.

CANTO XX.

CANTO XXI.

CANTO XXII.

CANTO XXIII.

CANTO XXIV.

CANTO XXV.

CANTO XXVI.

CANTO XXVII.

CANTO XXVIII.

CANTO XXIX.

CANTO XXX.

CANTO XXXI.

CANTO XXXII.

CANTO XXXIII.

CANTO XXXIV.

CANTO XXXV.

CANTO XXXVI.

CANTO XXXVII.

CANTO XXXVIII.

CANTO XXXIX.

CANTO XL.

CANTO XLI.

CANTO XLII.

CANTO XLIII.

CANTO XLIV.

CANTO XLV.

CANTO XLVI.

CANTO XLVII.

CANTO XLVIII.

CANTO XLIX.

CANTO L.

CANTO LI.

CANTO LII.

CANTO LIII.

CANTO LIV.

CANTO LV.

CANTO LVI.

CANTO LVII.

CANTO LVIII.

CANTO LIX.

CANTO LX.

CANTO LXI.

CANTO LXII.

CANTO LXIII.

CANTO LXIV.

CANTO LXV.

SATAN.

King of the Infernal Empire, and President of the "Consolidated Penal Industries” of his realm.

A Series of Pictures and Notes of Travel Illustrating theAdventures of a Modern Dante in the Infernal RegionsAlso Other Pictures of the Same Subterranean World

BYARTHUR YOUNG

READ THIS FIRST.

The hero of this hazardous exploration through Hell is Hiprah Hunt, a lecturer, reformer, ex-preacher, poet and president of a Dante Club.

Hiprah Hunt has no tolerance for the modern philosophy that denies the existence of Hell. As a preacher he was what men of the present day call a “back number.”

Despite “higher criticism” he continually and earnestly advocates the justice of future punishment, and for this reason is known in the town where he lives as “Hell-fire Hunt.”

Not unlikely his belief in a Demon-haunted Hell ruled over by a personal Devil is in part due to atavism, for Mr. Hunt is a descendant of the illustrious Hunts who lent their aid to the extermination of witches in that part of New England where witchcraft once flourished.

As President of a Dante Club he collected many books on the subject of future retribution. Among them (some 80 volumes) he chiefly prizes Dante’s Inferno. Whenever he is given an opportunity he will deliver a lecture on Dante and his work. In short, Hell books have so thoroughly absorbed his mind that he becomes convinced that the under-world is as much a reality as the upper one.

As a result of continual thinking on one subject, and that subject a hot one, it was frequently hinted that Mr. Hunt’s brains were shrivelling up. Whether that is true or not, he became imbued with the idea that he must find the Infernal Regions and prove to the world that the place is not a myth.

In the Fall of 1900 Mr. Hunt mysteriously disappeared from home. For six weeks nothing was seen or heard of him. When he returned he set to work immediately and wrote a poem consisting of sixty-eight cantos of blank verse, curiously mixed with prose, quotations and numerous foot-notes. This poem, he declares, is the account of a six weeks’ journey through Hell.

Mr. Hunt’s original manuscript which is in possession of the writer, together with odd charts, maps, diagrams and thermometric records, all of them bearing marks of having come from a very hot region, are strong proofs of the authenticity of his exploration.

Perhaps it is unnecessary to add that the author has taken many liberties with Mr. Hunt’s text. The condition of the documents necessitated certain guess-work, and he has freely added a number of Inferno pictures that were drawn long before Hiprah Hunt’s valuable papers came to his notice.

If he has illuminated the dark and serious subject with a suspicion of fun—it is meant to convey the hope he feels for all sinners like himself, that some relief of a slightly humorous nature may be found even in Hell.

A. Y.

There are many portraits of Dante giving a more soulfully poetic cast to his countenance and which are much more pleasing for admirers of the great Florentine, to look upon, than the one reproduced here; but this is the first portrait ever published which is intended to portray the way the poet must really have felt at the termination of his trip through the Infernal Regions.

A portrait of Hiprah Hunt in his library which contains the following well-thumbed books: John Bunyan’s “Sighs from Hell,” Jonathan Edwards’s pamphlet on “The Justice of Endless Punishment,” Christopher Love’s “Hell’s Terror,” William Cooper’s “Three Discourses Concerning the Reality, the Extremity, and the Absolute Eternity of Hell Punishments,” Jeremy Taylor on “Pains of Hell,” and Alexander Jephson’s “The Certainty and Importance of a Future Judgment and Everlasting Retribution.”

Besides these he possesses several histories of the Devil and many old prints pertaining to the same subject.

Yours InfernallyHiprah Hunt.

CANTO I.

In the beginning Mr. Hunt tells how he passed the day in a large city where he delivered his unique lecture on Dante, and spent the rest of his time sight-seeing and searching for literature on his favorite subject.

Tired and confused with the busy scenes and active incidents of the day, he is returning by night train to his home. As usual, when traveling, he reads his Divine Comedy. He has not read far when he is overcome by a sense of drowsiness. Sleepily, he reviews the events of the day in the bustling city while musing over the grewsome scenes in his book. What with the thoughts of high buildings, cable cars, of arch-heretics in their fiery tombs, slot machines, automobiles and gibbering ghosts, of swift-running elevators and headless spirits, of well-dressed gamblers and “Adam’s evil brood” at large, his mind is truly in a chaotic state.

DISORDERED MUSINGS.

CANTO II.

An irresistible impulse prompts him to walk to the rear platform of the car. A sudden lurch of the train as it turns round a curve in the track and he finds himself lying prone by the road side.

On either hand there stretches a boundless forest of the wildest desolation. Overhead a ghostly night wind ploughs through the tree tops and wails and sobs like a lost spirit. Amidst a whizzing of invisible bats and the hoots of melancholy owls, he struggles to his feet. Combing the gravel out of his long locks he sets forth in a southeasterly direction.

SOMETHING HAPPENED.

CANTO III.

Through briars and bushes, over prickly plants and vines that are laced together like a tangled mass of serpents in the innermost recesses of deep chasms and black ravines, he stumbles toward the Unseen. When his emotions have abated he finds himself alone in the heart of a forest, where trees are so thickly crowded that the air is dense and hard to breathe.

Finally, he comes to a projecting precipice from which he peers and discerns a dim light through the sluggishly rising smoke. As he crawls lower he hears voices, and a great commotion. An odor of burning brimstone fills the air. He swings out from an over-hanging rock and allows himself to drop.