I drew a cover for my own JQA/HC fan fiction.
From JQA’s diary, [December 1824] 23. V:15:
I consider Letcher as moving for Mr. Clay; and this anxiety of a friend of Clay’s that I should obtain the election at the first ballot in the house is among the whimsical results of political combination at this time. “Incedo super ignes.”
“Incedo super ignes” is quoted from Horace, Odes, II.i.7–8: “trāctās et incēdis per ignīs suppositōs cinerī dolōsō,” which translates to: “You treat, as one on fire should tread, Scarce hid by treacherous ashen crust.”
The sentences appearing in the image are the preceding eight lines of the same poem:
*The broils that from Metellus date,
The secret springs, the dark intrigues,
The freaks of Fortune, and the great
Confederate in disastrous leagues,
And arms with uncleansed slaughter red,
A work of danger and distrust,
You treat, as one on fire should tread,
Scarce hid by treacherous ashen crust.
Some other elements (not super important :
2. Persephone’s pomegranate seeds
3. Sekhmet getting drunk on pomegranate juice as “blood-wine” (this comes from another pomegranate story my friend told me—I found it way too fitting…)
4. Please go read George Dangerfield’s book The Era of Good Feelings, page 341, which describes the “corrupt bargain” like this:
“Now, however, like a dram-drinker, whose ordinary life is usually spent in dull sobriety, he swallowed one intoxicating expedient after another; and the more intoxicated he grew, the more his doleful inner voice assured him that nothing good would come of it. Those who read his answer to the Committee of the House which came to inform him of his election, know that it is not really ungracious: it is really tragic.”
—I got so excited reading a history book that I literally screamed.
