Elizabeth and Her German Garden (Elizabeth); by Elizabeth von Arnim.

Very evocative of beauty.
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"There are so many bird-cherries round me, great trees with branches sweeping the grass, and they are so wreathed just now with white blossoms and tenderest green that the garden looks like a wedding. I never saw such masses of them; they seemed to fill the place. Even across a little stream that bounds the garden on the east, and right in the middle of the cornfield beyond, there is an immense one, a picture of grace and glory against the cold blue of the spring sky.

"My garden is surrounded by cornfields and meadows, and beyond are great stretches of sandy heath and pine forests, and where the forests leave off the bare heath begins again; but the forests are beautiful in their lofty, pink-stemmed vastness, far overhead the crowns of softest gray-green, and underfoot a bright green wortleberry carpet, and everywhere the breathless silence; and the bare heaths are beautiful too, for one can see across them into eternity almost, and to go out on to them with one's face towards the setting sun is like going into the very presence of God.

"In the middle of this plain is the oasis of bird-cherries and greenery where I spend my happy days, and in the middle of the oasis is the gray stone house with many gables where I pass my reluctant nights. The house is very old, and has been added to at various times. It was a convent before the Thirty Years' War, and the vaulted chapel, with its brick floor worn by pious peasant knees, is now used as a hall. Gustavus Adolphus and his Swedes passed through more than once, as is duly recorded in archives still preserved, for we are on what was then the high-road between Sweden and Brandenburg the unfortunate."

"From nearly all the windows of the house I can look out across the plain, with no obstacle in the shape of a hill, right away to a blue line of distant forest, and on the west side uninterruptedly to the setting sun—nothing but a green, rolling plain, with a sharp edge against the sunset. ... This girl is grieved at my habit of living almost in the garden, and all her ideas as to the sort of life a respectable German lady should lead have got into a sad muddle since she came to me. The people round about are persuaded that I am, to put it as kindly as possible, exceedingly eccentric, for the news has travelled that I spend the day out of doors with a book, and that no mortal eye has ever yet seen me sew or cook. But why cook when you can get some one to cook for you? And as for sewing, the maids will hem the sheets better and quicker than I could, and all forms of needlework of the fancy order are inventions of the evil one for keeping the foolish from applying their heart to wisdom."

" ... And while we were wasting our lives there, here was this dear place with dandelions up to the very door, all the paths grass-grown and completely effaced, in winter so lonely, with nobody but the north wind taking the least notice of it, and in May—in all those five lovely Mays—no one to look at the wonderful bird-cherries and still more wonderful masses of lilacs, everything glowing and blowing, the virginia creeper madder every year, until at last, in October, the very roof was wreathed with blood-red tresses, the owls and the squirrels and all the blessed little birds reigning supreme,"

" ... During those six weeks I lived in a world of dandelions and delights. The dandelions carpeted the three lawns,—they used to be lawns, but have long since blossomed out into meadows filled with every sort of pretty weed,—and under and among the groups of leafless oaks and beeches were blue hepaticas, white anemones, violets, and celandines in sheets. The celandines in particular delighted me with their clean, happy brightness, so beautifully trim and newly varnished, as though they too had had the painters at work on them. Then, when the anemones went, came a few stray periwinkles and Solomon's Seal, and all the birdcherries blossomed in a burst. And then, before I had a little got used to the joy of their flowers against the sky, came the lilacs—masses and masses of them, in clumps on the grass, with other shrubs and trees by the side of walks, and one great continuous bank of them half a mile long right past the west front of the house, away down as far as one could see, shining glorious against a background of firs. When that time came, and when, before it was over, the acacias all blossomed too, and four great clumps of pale, silvery-pink peonies flowered under the south windows, I felt so absolutely happy, and blest, and thankful, and grateful, that I really cannot describe it. My days seemed to melt away in a dream of pink and purple peace."
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"On some very specially divine days, like today, I have actually longed for some one else to be here to enjoy the beauty with me. There has been rain in the night, and the whole garden seems to be singing—not the untiring birds only, but the vigorous plants, the happy grass and trees, the lilac bushes—oh, those lilac bushes! They are all out to-day, and the garden is drenched with the scent. I have brought in armfuls, the picking is such a delight, and every pot and bowl and tub in the house is filled with purple glory, and the servants think there is going to be a party and are extra nimble, and I go from room to room gazing at the sweetness, and the windows are all flung open so as to join the scent within to the scent without; and the servants gradually discover that there is no party, and wonder why the house should be filled with flowers for one woman by herself, and I long more and more for a kindred spirit—it seems so greedy to have so much loveliness to oneself—but kindred spirits are so very, very rare; I might almost as well cry for the moon."
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Here is yet more evidence of castes of Europe, without using the word but nevertheless far more far more concrete, added to the even more concrete race and gender oriented discrimination deep rooted in Europe.

"All the labourers who work here from March to December are Russians and Poles, or a mixture of both. We send a man over who can speak their language, to fetch as many as he can early in the year, and they arrive with their bundles, men and women and babies, and as soon as they have got here and had their fares paid, they disappear in the night if they get the chance, sometimes fifty of them at a time, to go and work singly or in couples for the peasants, who pay them a pfenning or two more a day than we do, and let them eat with the family. From us they get a mark and a half to two marks a day, and as many potatoes as they can eat. The women get less, not because they work less, but because they are women and must not be encouraged. The overseer lives with them, and has a loaded revolver in his pocket and a savage dog at his heels. For the first week or two after their arrival, the foresters and other permanent officials keep guard at night over the houses they are put into. I suppose they find it sleepy work; for certain it is that spring after spring the same thing happens, fifty of them getting away in spite of all our precautions, and we are left with our mouths open and much out of pocket. This spring, by some mistake, they arrived without their bundles, which had gone astray on the road, and, as they travel in their best clothes, they refused utterly to work until their luggage came. Nearly a week was lost waiting, to the despair of all in authority.

"Nor will any persuasions induce them to do anything on Saints' days, and there surely never was a church so full of them as the Russian Church. In the spring, when every hour is of vital importance, the work is constantly being interrupted by them, and the workers lie sleeping in the sun the whole day, agreeably conscious that they are pleasing themselves and the Church at one and the same time—a state of perfection as rare as it is desirable. Reason unaided by Faith is of course exasperated at this waste of precious time, and I confess that during the first mild days after the long winter frost when it is possible to begin to work the ground, I have sympathised with the gloom of the Man of Wrath, confronted in one week by two or three empty days on which no man will labour, and have listened in silence to his remarks about distant Russian saints."

" ... They herd together like animals and do the work of animals; but in spite of the armed overseer, the dirt and the rags, the meals of potatoes washed down by weak vinegar and water, I am beginning to believe that they would strongly object to soap, I am sure they would not wear new clothes, and I hear them coming home from their work at dusk singing. They are like little children or animals in their utter inability to grasp the idea of a future; and after all, if you work all day in God's sunshine, when evening comes you are pleasantly tired and ready for rest and not much inclined to find fault with your lot. I have not yet persuaded myself, however, that the women are happy. They have to work as hard as the men and get less for it; they have to produce offspring, quite regardless of times and seasons and the general fitness of things; they have to do this as expeditiously as possible, so that they may not unduly interrupt the work in hand; nobody helps them, notices them, or cares about them, least of all the husband. It is quite a usual thing to see them working in the fields in the morning, and working again in the afternoon, having in the interval produced a baby. The baby is left to an old woman whose duty it is to look after babies collectively. When I expressed my horror at the poor creatures working immediately afterwards as though nothing had happened, the Man of Wrath informed me that they did not suffer because they had never worn corsets, nor had their mothers and grandmothers. ..."

""Poor, poor woman!" I cried, as we rode on, feeling for some occult reason very angry with the Man of Wrath. "And her wretched husband doesn't care a rap, and will probably beat her to-night if his supper isn't right. What nonsense it is to talk about the equality of the sexes when the women have the babies!"

""Quite so, my dear," replied the Man of Wrath, smiling condescendingly. "You have got to the very root of the matter. Nature, while imposing this agreeable duty on the woman, weakens her and disables her for any serious competition with man. How can a person who is constantly losing a year of the best part of her life compete with a young man who never loses any time at all? He has the brute force, and his last word on any subject could always be his fist.""

""It is a universal custom," proceeded the Man of Wrath, "amongst these Russians, and I believe amongst the lower classes everywhere, and certainly commendable on the score of simplicity, to silence a woman's objections and aspirations by knocking her down. I have heard it said that this apparently brutal action has anything but the maddening effect tenderly nurtured persons might suppose, and that the patient is soothed and satisfied with a rapidity and completeness unattainable by other and more polite methods. Do you suppose," he went on, flicking a twig off a tree with his whip as we passed, "that the intellectual husband, wrestling intellectually with the chaotic yearnings of his intellectual wife, ever achieves the result aimed at? He may and does go on wrestling till he is tired, but never does he in the very least convince her of her folly; while his brother in the ragged coat has got through the whole business in less time than it takes me to speak about it. There is no doubt that these poor women fulfil their vocation far more thoroughly than the women in our class, and, as the truest: happiness consists in finding one's vocation quickly and continuing in it all one's days, I consider they are to be envied rather than not, since they are early taught, by the impossibility of argument with marital muscle, the impotence of female endeavour and the blessings of content.""
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"The peasant hereabouts is past belief low and animal, and a sensitive, intellectual parson among them is really a pearl before swine. For years he has gone on unflinchingly, filled with the most living faith and hope and charity, and I sometimes wonder whether they are any better now in his parish than they were under his predecessor, a man who smoked and drank beer from Monday morning to Saturday night, never did a stroke of work, and often kept the scanty congregation waiting on Sunday afternoons while he finished his postprandial nap. It is discouraging enough to make most men give in, and leave the parish to get to heaven or not as it pleases; but he never seems discouraged, and goes on sacrificing the best part of his life to these people when all his tastes are literary, and all his inclinations towards the life of the student. His convictions drag him out of his little home at all hours to minister to the sick and exhort the wicked; they give him no rest, and never let him feel he has done enough; and when he comes home weary, after a day's wrestling with his parishioners' souls, he is confronted on his doorstep by filthy abuse pasted up on his own front door. He never speaks of these things, but how shall they be hid? Everybody here knows everything that happens before the day is over, and what we have for dinner is of far greater general interest than the most astounding political earthquake. They have a pretty, roomy cottage, and a good bit of ground adjoining the churchyard. His predecessor used to hang out his washing on the tombstones to dry, but then he was a person entirely lost to all sense of decency, and had finally to be removed, preaching a farewell sermon of a most vituperative description, and hurling invective at the Man of Wrath, who sat up in his box drinking in every word and enjoying himself thoroughly. The Man of Wrath likes novelty, and such a sermon had never been heard before. It is spoken of in the village to this day with bated breath and awful joy."
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""But," said Minora, bewildered at the way her illusions were being knocked about, "the sick-room is surely the very place of all others in which a woman's gentleness and tact are most valuable."

""Gentleness and tact?" repeated the Man of Wrath. "I have never met those qualities in the professional nurse. According to my experience, she is a disagreeable person who finds in private nursing exquisite opportunities for asserting her superiority over ordinary and prostrate mankind. I know of no more humiliating position for a man than to be in bed having his feverish brow soothed by a sprucely-dressed strange woman, bristling with starch and spotlessness. He would give half his income for his clothes, and probably the other half if she would leave him alone, and go away altogether. He feels her superiority through every pore; he never before realised how absolutely inferior he is; he is abjectly polite, and contemptibly conciliatory; if a friend comes to see him, he eagerly praises her in case she should be listening behind the screen; he cannot call his soul his own, and, what is far more intolerable, neither is he sure that his body really belongs to him; he has read of ministering angels and the light touch of a woman's hand, but the day on which he can ring for his servant and put on his socks in private fills him with the same sort of wildness of joy that he felt as a homesick schoolboy at the end of his first term.""
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June 23, 2020. - June 26, 2020.
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The Cranford Novellas (Girlebooks Classics) by Elizabeth Gaskell.

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Cranford.
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Delightful, right off the start. And it continues the delight, reaching a very satisfying state before long, with the innocence and goodness described.
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"In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford. What could they do if they were there? The surgeon has his round of thirty miles, and sleeps at Cranford; but every man cannot be a surgeon. For keeping the trim gardens full of choice flowers without a weed to speck them; for frightening away little boys who look wistfully at the said flowers through the railings; for rushing out at the geese that occasionally venture in to the gardens if the gates are left open; for deciding all questions of literature and politics without troubling themselves with unnecessary reasons or arguments; for obtaining clear and correct knowledge of everybody's affairs in the parish; for keeping their neat maid-servants in admirable order; for kindness (somewhat dictatorial) to the poor, and real tender good offices to each other whenever they are in distress, the ladies of Cranford are quite sufficient. "A man," as one of them observed to me once, "is SO in the way in the house!" Although the ladies of Cranford know all each other's proceedings, they are exceedingly indifferent to each other's opinions. Indeed, as each has her own individuality, not to say eccentricity, pretty strongly developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation; but, somehow, good-will reigns among them to a considerable degree.

"The Cranford ladies have only an occasional little quarrel, spirited out in a few peppery words and angry jerks of the head; just enough to prevent the even tenor of their lives from becoming too flat. Their dress is very independent of fashion; as they observe, "What does it signify how we dress here at Cranford, where everybody knows us?" And if they go from home, their reason is equally cogent, "What does it signify how we dress here, where nobody knows us?" The materials of their clothes are, in general, good and plain, and most of them are nearly as scrupulous as Miss Tyler, of cleanly memory; but I will answer for it, the last gigot, the last tight and scanty petticoat in wear in England, was seen in Cranford—and seen without a smile."
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The delight continues, even through tragedies, including deaths, with the author's turning most into the living characters overcoming them and going on to bloom again, as and when possible.
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The chapter about Miss Matty taking the visiting author's help to read and destroy old letters that belonged to her parents, is boring until there was a son born. Mrs Jenkyns then had another letter from her father.

"The kind old grandmother was dead when a little boy was born, soon after the publication of the sermon; but there was another letter of exhortation from the grandfather, more stringent and admonitory than ever, now that there was a boy to be guarded from the snares of the world. He described all the various sins into which men might fall, until I wondered how any man ever came to a natural death. The gallows seemed as if it must have been the termination of the lives of most of the grandfather's friends and acquaintance; and I was not surprised at the way in which he spoke of this life being "a vale of tears.""
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Delightful, right off the start. And it continues the delight, reaching a very satisfying state before long, with the innocence and goodness described. Very very satisfying finale, too.
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June 13, 2020. - June 16, 2020.
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Mr. Harrison's Confession.
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This one is in similar mode to other two works by the author that one just read, Wives And Daughters, and Cranford, in that it's set in a village somewhere in middle of England and deals with life and society of the village, chiefly populated by women unmarried or widowed, with a few families, as far as castes above those of farmers and traders go. This one is written from point of view of a young doctor, Harrison, who is just beginning in his profession, invited to live and work in Duncombe by the resident doctor there.

Quite hilarious, despite all the tragedies, anxieties and more.
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June 16, 2020. - June 18, 2020.
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My Lady Ludlow
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The very beginning promises a delight as rich as the other three, unspoilt by the natural flow of life replete with various circumstances.

But this one is different from others, and gives a harrowing tale from the French revolution.
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"I am an old woman now, and things are very different to what they were in my youth. Then we, who travelled, travelled in coaches, carrying six inside, and making a two days' journey out of what people now go over in a couple of hours with a whizz and a flash, and a screaming whistle, enough to deafen one. Then letters came in but three times a week: indeed, in some places in Scotland where I have stayed when I was a girl, the post came in but once a month;—but letters were letters then; and we made great prizes of them, and read them and studied them like books. Now the post comes rattling in twice a day, bringing short jerky notes, some without beginning or end, but just a little sharp sentence, which well-bred folks would think too abrupt to be spoken. Well, well! they may all be improvements,—I dare say they are; but you will never meet with a Lady Ludlow in these days.

"I will try and tell you about her. It is no story: it has, as I said, neither beginning, middle, nor end.

"My father was a poor clergyman with a large family. My mother was always said to have good blood in her veins; and when she wanted to maintain her position with the people she was thrown among,—principally rich democratic manufacturers, all for liberty and the French Revolution,—she would put on a pair of ruffles, trimmed with real old English point, very much darned to be sure,—but which could not be bought new for love or money, as the art of making it was lost years before. These ruffles showed, as she said, that her ancestors had been Somebodies, when the grandfathers of the rich folk, who now looked down upon her, had been Nobodies,—if, indeed, they had any grandfathers at all. I don't know whether any one out of our own family ever noticed these ruffles,—but we were all taught as children to feel rather proud when my mother put them on, and to hold up our heads as became the descendants of the lady who had first possessed the lace. Not but what my dear father often told us that pride was a great sin; we were never allowed to be proud of anything but my mother's ruffles: and she was so innocently happy when she put them on,—often, poor dear creature, to a very worn and threadbare gown,—that I still think, even after all my experience of life, they were a blessing to the family. You will think that I am wandering away from my Lady Ludlow. Not at all. The Lady who had owned the lace, Ursula Hanbury, was a common ancestress of both my mother and my Lady Ludlow. And so it fell out, that when my poor father died, and my mother was sorely pressed to know what to do with her nine children, and looked far and wide for signs of willingness to help, Lady Ludlow sent her a letter, proffering aid and assistance. I see that letter now: a large sheet of thick yellow paper, with a straight broad margin left on the left-hand side of the delicate Italian writing,—writing which contained far more in the same space of paper than all the sloping, or masculine hand-writings of the present day. It was sealed with a coat of arms,—a lozenge,—for Lady Ludlow was a widow. My mother made us notice the motto, "Foy et Loy," and told us where to look for the quarterings of the Hanbury arms before she opened the letter. Indeed, I think she was rather afraid of what the contents might be; for, as I have said, in her anxious love for her fatherless children, she had written to many people upon whom, to tell truly, she had but little claim; and their cold, hard answers had many a time made her cry, when she thought none of us were looking. I do not even know if she had ever seen Lady Ludlow: all I knew of her was that she was a very grand lady, whose grandmother had been half-sister to my mother's great-grandmother; but of her character and circumstances I had heard nothing, and I doubt if my mother was acquainted with them."
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"She had been maid of honour to Queen Charlotte: a Hanbury of that old stock that flourished in the days of the Plantagenets, and heiress of all the land that remained to the family, of the great estates which had once stretched into four separate counties. Hanbury Court was hers by right. She had married Lord Ludlow, and had lived for many years at his various seats, and away from her ancestral home. She had lost all her children but one, and most of them had died at these houses of Lord Ludlow's; and, I dare say, that gave my lady a distaste to the places, and a longing to come back to Hanbury Court, where she had been so happy as a girl. I imagine her girlhood had been the happiest time of her life; for, now I think of it, most of her opinions, when I knew her in later life, were singular enough then, but had been universally prevalent fifty years before. For instance, while I lived at Hanbury Court, the cry for education was beginning to come up: Mr. Raikes had set up his Sunday Schools; and some clergymen were all for teaching writing and arithmetic, as well as reading. My lady would have none of this; it was levelling and revolutionary, she said. When a young woman came to be hired, my lady would have her in, and see if she liked her looks and her dress, and question her about her family. Her ladyship laid great stress upon this latter point, saying that a girl who did not warm up when any interest or curiosity was expressed about her mother, or the "baby" (if there was one), was not likely to make a good servant. Then she would make her put out her feet, to see if they were well and neatly shod. Then she would bid her say the Lord's Prayer and the Creed. Then she inquired if she could write. If she could, and she had liked all that had gone before, her face sank—it was a great disappointment, for it was an all but inviolable rule with her never to engage a servant who could write. But I have known her ladyship break through it, although in both cases in which she did so she put the girl's principles to a further and unusual test in asking her to repeat the Ten Commandments. One pert young woman—and yet I was sorry for her too, only she afterwards married a rich draper in Shrewsbury—who had got through her trials pretty tolerably, considering she could write, spoilt all, by saying glibly, at the end of the last Commandment, "An't please your ladyship, I can cast accounts."

""Go away, wench," said my lady in a hurry, "you're only fit for trade; you will not suit me for a servant." The girl went away crestfallen: in a minute, however, my lady sent me after her to see that she had something to eat before leaving the house; and, indeed, she sent for her once again, but it was only to give her a Bible, and to bid her beware of French principles, which had led the French to cut off their king's and queen's heads.

"The poor, blubbering girl said, "Indeed, my lady, I wouldn't hurt a fly, much less a king, and I cannot abide the French, nor frogs neither, for that matter."

"But my lady was inexorable, and took a girl who could neither read nor write, to make up for her alarm about the progress of education towards addition and subtraction; and afterwards, when the clergyman who was at Hanbury parish when I came there, had died, and the bishop had appointed another, and a younger man, in his stead, this was one of the points on which he and my lady did not agree. ..."

" ... Mr. Gray preached a very rousing sermon, on the necessity of establishing a Sabbath-school in the village. My lady shut her eyes, and seemed to go to sleep; but I don't believe she lost a word of it, though she said nothing about it that I heard until the next Saturday, when two of us, as was the custom, were riding out with her in her carriage, and we went to see a poor bedridden woman, who lived some miles away at the other end of the estate and of the parish: and as we came out of the cottage we met Mr. Gray walking up to it, in a great heat, and looking very tired. My lady beckoned him to her, and told him she should wait and take him home with her, adding that she wondered to see him there, so far from his home, for that it was beyond a Sabbath-day's journey, and, from what she had gathered from his sermon the last Sunday, he was all for Judaism against Christianity. He looked as if he did not understand what she meant; but the truth was that, besides the way in which he had spoken up for schools and schooling, he had kept calling Sunday the Sabbath: and, as her ladyship said, "The Sabbath is the Sabbath, and that's one thing—it is Saturday; and if I keep it, I'm a Jew, which I'm not. And Sunday is Sunday; and that's another thing; and if I keep it, I'm a Christian, which I humbly trust I am.""
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The author gets quite explicit about English or British - indeed, European - caste system, as firmly practiced in her day and prevalent for centuries, until - presumably - industrial era began to change things.

""And your ladyship really thinks that it would not be right to have a Sunday-school?" I asked, feeling very timid as I put time question.

""Certainly not. As I told Mr. Gray. I consider a knowledge of the Creed, and of the Lord's Prayer, as essential to salvation; and that any child may have, whose parents bring it regularly to church. Then there are the Ten Commandments, which teach simple duties in the plainest language. Of course, if a lad is taught to read and write (as that unfortunate boy has been who was here this morning) his duties become complicated, and his temptations much greater, while, at the same time, he has no hereditary principles and honourable training to serve as safeguards. I might take up my old simile of the race-horse and cart-horse. I am distressed,""

So much for pointing fingers at India for her caste system, or worse, the general identification of the very concept of caste system with India, and the pretence that such a social practice has been exclusively limited to India. This fraud perpetrated by colonial regimes and their religious institutions continues, despite every evidence to the contrary.
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"When we were not with my lady, Mrs. Medlicott looked after us; a gentle little woman, who had been companion to my lady for many years, and was indeed, I have been told, some kind of relation to her. Mrs. Medlicott's parents had lived in Germany, and the consequence was, she spoke English with a very foreign accent. Another consequence was, that she excelled in all manner of needlework, such as is not known even by name in these days. She could darn either lace, table-linen, India muslin, or stockings, so that no one could tell where the hole or rent had been. Though a good Protestant, and never missing Guy Faux day at church, she was as skilful at fine work as any nun in a Papist convent. She would take a piece of French cambric, and by drawing out some threads, and working in others, it became delicate lace in a very few hours. She did the same by Hollands cloth, and made coarse strong lace, with which all my lady's napkins and table-linen were trimmed. We worked under her during a great part of the day, either in the still-room, or at our sewing in a chamber that opened out of the great hall. My lady despised every kind of work that would now be called Fancy-work. She considered that the use of coloured threads or worsted was only fit to amuse children; but that grown women ought not to be taken with mere blues and reds, but to restrict their pleasure in sewing to making small and delicate stitches. She would speak of the old tapestry in the hall as the work of her ancestresses, who lived before the Reformation, and were consequently unacquainted with pure and simple tastes in work, as well as in religion. Nor would my lady sanction the fashion of the day, which, at the beginning of this century, made all the fine ladies take to making shoes. She said that such work was a consequence of the French Revolution, which had done much to annihilate all distinctions of rank and class, and hence it was, that she saw young ladies of birth and breeding handling lasts, and awls, and dirty cobblers'-wax, like shoe'-makers' daughters.

"Very frequently one of us would be summoned to my lady to read aloud to her, as she sat in her small withdrawing-room, some improving book. It was generally Mr. Addison's "Spectator;" but one year, I remember, we had to read "Sturm's Reflections" translated from a German book Mrs. Medlicott recommended. Mr. Sturm told us what to think about for every day in the year; and very dull it was; but I believe Queen Charlotte had liked the book very much, and the thought of her royal approbation kept my lady awake during the reading."

" ... She did not like to go out with a pair of horses, considering this rather beneath her rank; and, indeed, four horses were very often needed to pull her heavy coach through the stiff mud. But it was rather a cumbersome equipage through the narrow Warwickshire lanes; and I used often to think it was well that countesses were not plentiful, or else we might have met another lady of quality in another coach and four, where there would have been no possibility of turning, or passing each other, and very little chance of backing. Once when the idea of this danger of meeting another countess in a narrow, deep-rutted lane was very prominent in my mind I ventured to ask Mrs. Medlicott what would have to be done on such an occasion; and she told me that "de latest creation must back, for sure," which puzzled me a good deal at the time, although I understand it now. I began to find out the use of the "Peerage," a book which had seemed to me rather dull before; but, as I was always a coward in a coach, I made myself well acquainted with the dates of creation of our three Warwickshire earls, and was happy to find that Earl Ludlow ranked second, the oldest earl being a hunting widower, and not likely to drive out in a carriage."

" ... My lady hardly liked the opinions of any man who wore his own hair; but this she would say was rather a prejudice: only in her youth none but the mob had gone wigless, and she could not get over the association of wigs with birth and breeding; a man's own hair with that class of people who had formed the rioters in seventeen hundred and eighty, when Lord George Gordon had been one of the bugbears of my lady's life. Her husband and his brothers, she told us, had been put into breeches, and had their heads shaved on their seventh birthday, each of them; a handsome little wig of the newest fashion forming the old Lady Ludlow's invariable birthday present to her sons as they each arrived at that age; and afterwards, to the day of their death, they never saw their own hair. To be without powder, as some underbred people were talking of being now, was in fact to insult the proprieties of life, by being undressed. It was English sans-culottism. But Mr. Gray did wear a little powder, enough to save him in my lady's good opinion; but not enough to make her approve of him decidedly."
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The author gets quite explicit about English or British - indeed, European - caste system, as firmly practiced in her day and prevalent for centuries, until - presumably - industrial era began to change things.

""And your ladyship really thinks that it would not be right to have a Sunday-school?" I asked, feeling very timid as I put time question.

""Certainly not. As I told Mr. Gray. I consider a knowledge of the Creed, and of the Lord's Prayer, as essential to salvation; and that any child may have, whose parents bring it regularly to church. Then there are the Ten Commandments, which teach simple duties in the plainest language. Of course, if a lad is taught to read and write (as that unfortunate boy has been who was here this morning) his duties become complicated, and his temptations much greater, while, at the same time, he has no hereditary principles and honourable training to serve as safeguards. I might take up my old simile of the race-horse and cart-horse. I am distressed,""

So much for pointing fingers at India for her caste system, or worse, the general identification of the very concept of caste system with India, and the pretence that such a social practice has been exclusively limited to India. This fraud perpetrated by colonial regimes and their religious institutions continues, despite every evidence to the contrary.
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Lady Ludlow relates a story of a pair of French cousins, young and aristocrat by birth but not very wealthy, who were caught while trying to escape, imprisoned before they were guillotined, only because the errand boy had been taught to read by father of the girl, and thus could and did read the message from her cousin, telling her about the plan to meet to escape Paris.
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""Miss Galindo says she saw him going to hold a prayer-meeting in a cottage. Now that really makes me unhappy, it is so like what Mr. Wesley used to do in my younger days; and since then we have had rebellion in the American colonies and the French Revolution. You may depend upon it, my dear, making religion and education common—vulgarising them, as it were—is a bad thing for a nation. A man who hears prayers read in the cottage where he has just supped on bread and bacon, forgets the respect due to a church: he begins to think that one place is as good as another, and, by-and-by, that one person is as good as another; and after that, I always find that people begin to talk of their rights, instead of thinking of their duties. I wish Mr. Gray had been more tractable, and had left well alone. What do you think I heard this morning? Why that the Home Hill estate, which niches into the Hanbury property, was bought by a Baptist baker from Birmingham!"

""A Baptist baker!" I exclaimed. I had never seen a Dissenter, to my knowledge; but, having always heard them spoken of with horror, I looked upon them almost as if they were rhinoceroses. I wanted to see a live Dissenter, I believe, and yet I wished it were over. I was almost surprised when I heard that any of them were engaged in such peaceful occupations as baking.

""Yes! so Mr. Horner tells me. A Mr. Lambe, I believe. But, at any rate, he is a Baptist, and has been in trade. What with his schismatism and Mr. Gray's methodism, I am afraid all the primitive character of this place will vanish.""
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It all ends well, as this author's works do.
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June 13, 2020 - June 16, 2020

- June 18, 2020 - June 23, 2020.
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Wives and Daughters: by Elizabeth Gaskell.

When one thinks of well known women authors in English literature, few names stand out. Elizabeth Haskell deserves to be known at least on a second rung, if not on par, with them. But unlike male authors who get acceptance at topmost possible levels they could be accommodated at, or higher, women writers fare the opposite, and many fine writers like this are known perhaps to professionals in literature or humanities but not general public.

Unjust, but in a world still racist and antisemitic and incapable of letting go of worshipping abrahmic preferences, gender based prejudices would be the kast refuge of the incapable, since are the most primitive ones.
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The book begins seemingly with a chapter that deals obliquely with caste system of England as in a small town, Hollingford, with Molly Gibson, the little daughter of the doctor, being invited for the annual event at the Tower, the residence of the Lord Cumnor and his family. There is a traumatic day for the young girl, spent mostly without food, chiefly because the daughter of the house assumes that an ex-governess would feed and take care of her as asked, but the crafty woman eats the food herself! Fortunately the girl is rescued after dinner by her father coming for her.

It's only in the second chapter that the delightful wit and humour of the author make one appreciate how well this is written, and how much courage it must have required to publish this, even write it, during the era of such ingrained caste system.

But then the harsher aspects appear. A pupil of the doctor who falls in love with the surgeon's daughter - Molly Gibson is now seventeen - isnt good enough despite the friendship between the fathers, and the doctor sends her to visit a lesser squire's wife who has been inviting her for years. They like each other, since molly has no mother and Mrs Hamley no daughter, but the squire would rather avoid a son of his falling for a mere doctor's daughter, despite his liking her.

And now comes the danger, of Mrs Kirkpatrick the ex governess of The Towers possibly catching doctor Gibson because he's lonely! Indeed, they each see the other as a perfect solution to their matrimonial problem within the restrictions of caste and acquaintance circles, and each decides they couldn't do better.

But most astounding is the doctor's blindness to reality of Mrs Kirkpatrick's treatment of Molly when she visited The Towers, which he thinks was kind! Even more ironic is the lengths the doctor would go to in order to keep away from his daughter a young man who is passionately in love with her, and to this end he would rather give a stepmother to his daughter without any knowledge of her character other than that she was in service to The Towers, which qualifies as a character certificate! Caste system beyond belief indeed!

And yet it's more complicated, for Coxe, the young doctor, has been sent for by a dying great uncle whose estate he is to inherit! Gibson knew this, but still wouldn't consent to his match with Molly.

Is it merely that a father would rather compete when his daughter is old enough to marry, that he'd prefer to lock her up while he finds himself a new wife or an affair, and if neither is possible, then just get sadistic and beat her up, starve her, hit her head on wall, throw her forcibly on a bed, ...... ? Force her to marry someone as unpleasant and uncouth as he can find, so she is revolted for ever, unhappy, or suicidal? Make her life he'll, because he can't have her himself?

Are they aware of this, or do they generally pretend that their abusing the daughter is fair?
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With marriage of Gibson the household changed for worse for both father and daughter, until Cynthia Kirkpatrick arrived. She was a much nicer person despite having many of her mother's faults, but the two weren't close, had never been, and having been left to grow alone, had learnt to deal with her mother. She moreover liked Molly, loved her, and the two were happy together. But Cynthia's beauty and ways created some disturbances and her mother meddling to fix a good match for her made it worse, apart from opening Gibson's eyes.

Much of what follows is results of the differences in beauty and charm on one hand, and those of bringing up on the other, between the two girls so thrown together. But with all the complications and travails of a small English village and its usual quirks and gossips, it ends well, all around, and very satisfactorily. That it does so despite Cynthia's struggles and her mother's manipulations is quite a credit to the aithor.
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June 05, 2020 - June 13, 2020.

ISBN 978-1-62558-104-4
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A Lock of Silver Hair (An Irish Family Saga, #7), by Jean Reinhardt.

Volume six of An Irish Family Saga, this one begins with more grief for James and family - Thomas dies in N.Y. from being beaten up by men unknown, after taking place of a younger reporter, a colleague, at a public speech. Families in N.Y. have to deal with it, but james and his youngest son find it hard, the grief is so unexpected.

Broderick had dealt with talking to George about his being a son of Gilmore after Catherine and Tom visited, but neither admits that MaryAnne is the real mother, since she keeps up her lie and they choose to believe her.

Then Frank, a son of Francis who was a cousin deported to Australia, visits. His search for graves of his ancestors yields no result, though, except an opportunity for the author to finally give a terse description of reality of the famine.
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"“Did Annie tell you her own father is a farmer?” asked Jamie. “He took on more land just six months ago. I reckon he’s got near enough to twenty acres now. Am I right?” the young man looked at his wife.

"“Twenty-two,” corrected Annie in a hushed voice.

"Jamie was puzzled by the almost apologetic tone his wife used. Normally, the expansion of a relative’s farm would have been spoken of with pride, given the history of land ownership in Ireland, or more correctly, the lack of it.

"“Young Frank here, and his brothers, have inherited five thousand acres between them from their father,” said James. “My cousin Francis did well for himself. You should be proud of his achievements, son, and don’t fret over someone mistaking your pride as bragging. Anyone who does so is envious of your good fortune.”"
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"The Wyndham Land Purchase Act of 1903 set the conditions for the breaking up of large estates, giving tenants the opportunity to own the land they rented. It more or less ended the era of absentee landlordism in Ireland."

" ... In early sixteenth century Ireland, Catholics, both Irish and Anglo-Norman, owned all of the land between them.

"However, after three hundred years of colonialism, plantations and evictions, about ninety percent of the country belonged to Anglo-Irish Protestant landlords, many of them absentee, and Catholics were forced to become tenants of their own land. To pay their rent, they had to sell their agricultural produce and livestock, or face eviction.  Potatoes were nutritious, cheap to buy and grew quite easily in poor soil, without taking up too much space. This is how the vast majority of the Irish population came to be almost completely dependent on one crop."
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"“Ah, so you’re a fisherman, then,” said Mr. Rice.

"“I am, for my sins,” replied James. “My youngest son has his own boat now and it keeps a roof over our heads, thanks be to God.”

"“Were you here in Carrickmacross when Mitchell died?” asked Mr. Rice.

"James laughed and slapped his knee, “Indeed I was. What a night. Did your father ever tell you about that, Frank?”

"“Was it the time the bonfires were lit on every hilltop to celebrate his death?” the young Australian replied.

"Mr. Rice responded with a hearty laugh, “Ah! That was a wonderful sight to behold. Mitchell’s passing was the answer to many a prayer. He was a cruel, cruel man, who raised our rents the minute he took up his appointment as an agent for the landlord. My mother had always taken pride in her home but after that, she refused to let my father whitewash the walls nor paint the door.”

"“Why was that, sir?” asked Frank.

"“Because if your house looked too good, your rent went up, son,” said James.

"“Aye, and Mitchell was quick to spot any improvement. It was him that put a rent on the bogs that had always been free to cut,” Mr. Rice added.

"James sighed and nodded his head, “I remember that. Our family had to pay £18 for the three acres we had between us. As if it wasn’t enough facing the threat of hunger, Mitchell added the prospect of a cold winter and no way of cooking your food, if you couldn’t afford to rent a piece of bog.”"
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"Frank McGrother learned a lot in the few days he had been in Carrickmacross, as a guest of his distant relatives, but one very important piece of knowledge still eluded him – the whereabouts of his paternal grandparents’ grave. The blacksmith and his wife had been more than generous with their hospitality and even though they refused his offer of payment for lodging with them, they were grateful for the repairs around the house and forge, carried out by Frank during his stay. However, he was running out of time.

"Some older men of the town had quickly become used to the young Australian sitting alongside them as they watched the comings and goings of their neighbours. They had even shared their personal stories with him and Frank could hear the pain in their voices as they recounted a litany of tragic events that made his blood boil.

"Now and again, someone would pass them by and nod or shout out a greeting. This would elicit another sad account from the men about the person’s relatives. It seemed to Frank that just about every family in the town had suffered in some way from starvation, eviction or emigration.

"The years of blight from 1845 to 1848 destroyed potato harvests all over Europe. To prevent those who were starving in Ireland from eating crops, vegetables and animals intended for export by landlords for profit, the British Government increased its battalions there, by sending in another twenty thousand troops. This played a large part in the resulting Great Hunger, An Gorta Mór, and the starving poor, often sick with fever, begged for admission to the dreaded workhouses.

"Carrickmacross workhouse was originally built to house five hundred people but by 1851, with Ireland having suffered years of famine, almost two thousand men, women and children had been packed into the building, including many orphans."
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June 04, 2020 - June 05, 2020.
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A Time to Make Amends (An Irish Family Saga, #6), by Jean Reinhardt.

A Time to Make Amends, sixth in An Irish Family Saga, begins with Catherine bringing her son to visit Ireland. MaryAnne and George are living in Blackrock, and the reader who's read the five volumes before is bound to think, exasperated, what was Catherine thinking? Only, of course, she didn't know MaryAnne had a son, not having seen him before.

Tom on the other hand has received a letter in N.Y. in his absence from a lawyer and his father Patrick Gallagher sent him a telegram to Ireland informing him, and Tom having asked him to read it, Patrick discovered that Tom had been left a substantial legacy. Patrick immediately knew, and went to Thomas and Lily to ask if what he suspected was true.

Gilmore is bent on ruining Catherine's life even after his death! Not that different from standard English practice of dividing a country when they leave, after all - Ireland, India, Palestine,.....
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Patrick needs a release and goes into making speeches, even helping a Chinese family, which was then bordering illegal.

"Patrick drew his armchair closer to Thomas and spoke in a low voice as he told him about the young Chinese family he had given shelter to.

"“You must know somebody who can help them. I was hoping you might have a contact in Chinatown?”

"“The Chinese immigrants draw a lot of bad feelings upon themselves, Patrick. They work under conditions that no other men would put up with and for a lot less money, and they do not integrate with the rest of us.”

"“Did the Irish not do the same when they came here in their droves in the famine years? Many of them were unable to speak English and were taken advantage of in much the same way as this young Chinese couple. Are we not morally bound to help them, Thomas?”

"“Are you aware of The Chinese Exclusion Act, Patrick?”

"“I’ve never heard of it.”

"“It’s a law that forbids citizenship to the Chinese, even if they have permits to work here. It also prohibits the immigration of the wives and children of Chinese labourers. That is why we see so few of them here – and why the family you harbour in your home must leave immediately. You would be in serious trouble should someone report it.”"

And in case people think this racism is past, no, not quite. Late eighties, young students in southern California were accusing Chinese girls on campus of stealing their boyfriends,  and had nothing to say when one pointed out that the "stealing" wasn't necessarily unique to Chinese girls, and if it was another one like them, the pain would be no different. And judging from the riots resulting from murder of Floyd, racism is being protested around the globe, yes, but not gone. It was thriving during Obama years as much as during Reagan or bush eras.
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Catherine and Patrick manage to find peace together at the end of this one, helped by their family.
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June 04, 2020 - June 04, 2020.
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A Prodigal Return (Book 5 - An Irish Family Saga), by Jean Reinhardt.

The fifth volume of An Irish Family Saga, this work deals with travails of Irish migrants in U.S. and with family back home, still avoiding pointing an accusing word at the English or British, but instead pointing at Irish themselves for not being beyond joining those extorting slave labour from migrants and keeping them not only miserable but in danger of life unless they complied.

Thomas is asked by his father to investigate about a son of a neighbour back home, and is now himself is in danger.

Family back home meanwhile is joined by MaryAnne, presumably the prodigal of the title, who's brought George, her own son by Gilmore, although she maintains she's adopted the orphaned boy who's care she was given by his dead mother. Gilmore was never enamoured with her, only used her, and she was shrewd enough to have used blackmail to get money and saved it, enough to buy her own place in Blackrock to open a lodging house and a tea room.

Her return has brought strife back, although Mary and James love their daughter, even though their youngest son Jamie and his wife cannot stand her. Jamie is upright, but James, who's proud of him, has to warn his youngest about staying away from wrong kind of rebels.

The author ends this one with Thomas and Patrick, having rescued Petey, have a chill between them about Patrick's killing of a dangerous man on trail of Thomas, and MaryAnne unnerved at her own reaction to sergeant Broderick courting her. James and Mary are still unaware about George being their own grandson, and Jamie has arrived at a compromise with his wife working for MaryAnne - Annie can cook in her own kitchen and deliver it without entering MaryAnne's home. 
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June 03, 2020 - June 04, 2020.
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A Legacy of Secrets (Book 4 - An Irish Family Saga), by Jean Reinhardt.

A Legacy of Secrets has Catherine and Patrick Gallagher return to Blackrock to live with Maggie, be near James and Mary, and give a better life to the children than the rundown tenements in crowded cities of an industrial England would allow them. They do well except for MaryAnne's  venom against the couple for marrying one another, her inability to accept that she never meant anything to Patrick, and her capability of making trouble.

Then Dr Gilmore and his wife appear, and it gets traumatic for Catherine by leaps and bounds - Gilmore persists in accosting Catherine and tormenting her, forcing his attentions and claiming her firstborn Thomas, until her determined keeping him at bay angers him into declaring he wouldn't bother her. But meanwhile he's playing with MaryAnne, who is not just delighted but thriving and has set her cap at him, knowing his wife couldn't survive another miscarriage. She's taken by them as her companion and leaves with them for England.

The saving grace is their brother Thomas and his new wife Lily visiting from N.Y., being loved by the family and helping Catherine in turn, until Thomas asks if Patrick wouldn't want to go with them, and Catherine tells him they'd go together. Its the best solution for the family to survive, away from dangers of encountering Gilmore again.

The scene between James and Catherine is particularly touching, as is James handsomely apologising to Patrick for not accepting him sooner. And there are other scenes involving the siblings that are done well too.
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June 02, 2020 - June 03, 2020.
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A Turning of the Tide (Book 3 - An Irish Family Saga), by Jean Reinhardt.

A Turning of the Tide in the affairs of men and women, of subjugated Ireland and her oppressed poor, is this work. Migrants return, some for good, others not so much. Yet others go further. And more.

This work, third part of An Irish Family Saga, begins with the ominous return of the family to Ireland despite the danger they are aware of, that from constable Armstrong and his hatred of all Irish, and his vengeful nature, with no thought for fairness or justice. James and Mary are back in Blackrock against all prudence, chiefly due to Mary being not happy settling in England for good. Her two elder children Catherine and Thomas are left behind, and she isn't happy about either, but they work, Thomas has a wife and a baby, and they couldn't be forced to return.

Things get worse soon enough. Michael Kiernan's son Francis is arrested and beaten badly by Armstrong the moment he sets foot on land at Dundalk to visit relatives, his American citizenship ignored, and when he's rescued by the Fenians, he dies on the way due to internal bleeding. Michael asks James to arrange the funeral he can't attend, and James agrees.

Meanwhile Patrick Gallagher escaping from a fight in Sheffield is taking refuge at Maggie's and not yet recovered from the knife gash, and does not reciprocate the young MaryAnne's feelings. One almost can predict he'd fall for Catherine.

And Thomas plans to relocate to N.Y., leaving his baby with his parents, since his wife died due to lung problems due to working at a mill. He's an atheist and a socialist, and hopes to survive better there than in England. Or Ireland.

One couldn't imagine it gets worse, but it does. And here the author breaks her thus far silence about treatment of Irish by their òppressors the English, but in a veiled manner at first, before bringing it out a bit more in the open in form of constable Armstrong and his hatred for everyone and everything Irish.

A doctor, a new neighbour of Catherine's employer staying at their house with his wife, rapes her, and has every intention of repeatedly forcing himself on her and declaring her delusional, except she slaps him with force in view of another maid, and leaves employment. Patrick traces her to her uncle's, but she cannot bear to see him, and tells him she's no longer of use for him. Their brief courtship is over.

Until Aunt Rose takes over. But all her efforts would be still in vain if it weren't for Catherine fighting back when forced to encounter the rapist doctor.
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June 01, 2020 - June 02, 2020.
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A Year of Broken Promises (An Irish Family Saga, #2), by Jean Reinhardt.

Sequel to A Pocket Full Of Shells,  the first part of An Irish Family Saga, this work changes course slightly from the earlier one which dealt with misery of Ireland due to potato blight, starvation, and resulting migrations, and goes into the continued misery of the poor with added travails due to rich and their servants, still keeping off the topic of any responsibility of the said misery being due to English domination of Ireland.

A Year of Broken Promises takes off a few years, and more children, after the end of the first part that left the family expecting a second child and hopeful of a better future. This one begins with death of Annie, the aunt that was mother figure to the couple, having left Mary depressed enough to have stopped functioning, and the first daughter Catherine looking after the home and family, until the children's aunt Maggie arrives from England and helps Mary recover.

But then comes trouble in form of a false accusation of theft of silverware against James and his uncle, the old widower Pat, engineered by presumably the actual thief who, one would think, must have been either a servant at the rich house, or, from the behaviour of the constable, perhaps him, or both, and the horror explodes - there is no satisfactory way to prove their innocence, and meanwhile the old man is held in lockup until the court session months later, wasting rapidly.

Then it turns to the larger background. The thief isn't a servant after all, nor is the constable directly responsible for the false accusation, however much the thereafter complicity of the constable in misery.

This time, one knows the cliffhangar the auþhor leaves the reader at - they are home with family in Sunderland, secure, with the money from sale of boat back at home in bank, but Mary still hankering after returning eventually, in which case the constable might succeed in getting James convicted of not only theft but murder, with paid witnesses swearing to anything that the constable might demand of them!
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"The failed uprising of the Young Irelanders in 1848 saw some of them going to America and others to France. James Stephens, John O’Mahoney and Michael Doheny, among them. Stephens came back to Ireland from Paris in 1858 and established the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a counterpart to the Fenian Brotherhood which had been formed in America by John O’Mahoney and Michael Doheny. They believed that armed insurrection was the only way to end British rule over Ireland and their members came to be known as Fenians."
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" ... “Your father tells me you have both been up to no good,” this was said to John and Daniel as soon as the door closed.

"“Well, to be fair to them, they were under the impression it was all in a good cause,” said Matthew.

"“Oh, the cause is indeed a very good one but their ignorance and naivety has created a big problem and led to a family’s unnecessary suffering,” the stranger with the mellow voice remained standing, his back to the window. “I know that both you young men are aware of how the Brotherhood is organized and that names are not given outside of your own circle, and I am an outsider. However, I have been told about a local man who has been trying to gain a lot of favour and recognition in the Brotherhood because of the large amounts of money he has been contributing to the cause. This particular person is a man of little means, yet seems to have raised prolific funds from his trips to England, where he claims he receives money from supporters of the Brotherhood. He has the same name as the man you have been working for.”

"John and Daniel looked at each other, beads of sweat forming on their foreheads. A turf fire was burning but not so hot that it would cause them to overheat. Daniel looked anxiously at his father, who was standing to the right of the man speaking to them.

"“Do you not realize that most of the money we raise comes from bonds sold to our supporters, and from donations generously made to the Brotherhood?” the voice was becoming less mellow. “Taking rifles and ammunition from soldiers and army barracks is acceptable. After all, they will be used upon our own people given half a chance. But robbing houses, no matter who the owner might be, is not something we encourage, especially when an innocent person is paying the price for it,” the man’s tone was much harsher as he finished his sentence.

"“Sorry, sir. That was why we confided in my father,” said Daniel. “Not because we thought what we had done was wrong, but because Pat McGrother is still being blamed for the theft.”

"The young men gave an account of how they had been instructed to retrieve stolen items, including Lord Devereux’s missing silverware, from various hiding places around the county. They were told to bring them to the man they called Flanagan. They knew he travelled to England with the goods but after that they assumed the money went to into the Brotherhood’s funds.

"“When Pat McGrother was found with stolen goods on him, we were sure him and his nephew had been part of it,” explained Daniel. “But Flanagan was the worse for drink the last time we met him and he laughed at his good fortune that Pat was in jail. When we asked what he meant by that, he said it was himself that had stolen the goods. He made a remark about the timing being perfect and said he would be calling a halt to the operation soon. We were warned not to breathe a word to anyone, as informers were everywhere and lives were dependant on our keeping quiet. I asked if my father knew about it and was told the only way to ensure a successful mission was if one hand didn’t know what the other was doing. It seemed to make sense at the time, so we went along with it, thinking we were helping the fight for freedom. Is that so, John?”

"“Daniel is telling the truth, sir. Flanagan brings trinkets over from England and sells them to the staff at the big houses. We think that’s when he manages to steal whatever he finds lying around the kitchens. Now that he is suspected of lining his own pocket, we can see him for what he is, but at the time he seemed genuine. We only wanted to help the cause, sir, and Flanagan gave us an opportunity to do so – or so we thought,” explained John. “If we had known what he was really up to we would never have gotten involved. You have to believe us, sir. Sure we never once took anything for ourselves. Did we, Daniel?” asked John.

"Daniel shook his head and the sorry look on both their faces was enough to convince Matthew Clarke that his son and his friend were telling the truth about everything. Whether the man standing next to him was of the same mind was a different matter. Men had disappeared for a lot less, never to be heard of again and for the first time Matthew felt a stab of fear for his son’s safety."
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"“What will happen to the boys? They meant no harm,” asked Matthew. “I think they have had enough of a scare but you must keep your eye on them, Clarke.”

"“I will to be sure and I won’t give them a minute’s peace. You have my word on that, sir. What about Flanagan?”

"The man with the mellow voice smiled, “He thinks he’s getting away with it but give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself. When your son and his friend are no longer around, Flanagan will have to retrieve the bounty himself now, won’t he?”

"Matthew’s heart skipped a beat at what was said, “What do you mean by ‘no longer around,’ sir? Surely you don’t mean to harm them.”

"“Not at all, Clarke. Not at all. Here, have a seat,” a chair was pulled out from a table in the centre of the room, “But for their own safety they must be sent away. You do see that, don’t you?”

"“How far? The West, or Cork maybe. Surely not to England, my wife won’t be happy about that,” said Matthew.

"“I’m sorry, Clarke. Even further – to America.”

"Matthew jumped up from his seat, “You can’t be serious. For how long?”

"“Indefinitely, I’m afraid. There are a lot of men, and quite a few women, who have had to exile themselves because someone has been too careless or too foolhardy. The Brotherhood is in its infancy and will no doubt have many problems such as this one to deal with. We handle these situations as best we can, even when sacrifices must be made. Go home, man, and prepare your son and his friend for what lies ahead. As far as anyone else is concerned, and I include your good wife and your family in this, the boys have been offered work in America. They must be out of the country before Flanagan is dealt with. If they were to remain in Ireland or even England they will end up behind bars. Better that they live as free men in exile than prisoners of the Crown.”"
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"As Matthew walked out of Paddy Mac’s he felt as if a mountain of guilt had been heaped upon his shoulders. It was unnerving how close he had come to telling the young fisherman the truth about his uncle. Giving out information like that, no matter how good the intention was, could get a man killed. Matthew had been assured that Flanagan would get what he deserved and Pat McGrother’s name would finally be cleared. The fact that justice would be served too late for the old man’s family, left a bitter taste in Matthew’s mouth. Add to that the forced exile of his own son, and it took all of his will power not to hunt down Flanagan and throttle him, until he had squeezed every last breath from the wretched man’s body."
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"As the solicitor left the building he was more determined than ever to convince James McGrother that he must not return home, under any circumstances. If the inquest found that Flanagan had been murdered, it would not bode well for James. On the other hand, even if the death was declared to be an accident, Armstrong might still try to link the dead man to Pat McGrother and his nephew. The old fisherman and the thief were both dead and it would be easy to find someone in need of money to swear under oath that they had been seen together in the past. There would be no one to refute it and William Harrington was not sure to what lengths the head constable would go, in trying to make a case against James McGrother. That his uncle may have been acquainted with Flanagan was a possibility, as the elderly man may not even have known he was in the company of a thief."
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"The previous year an Irish Cardinal had refused the lying-in-state of a Fenian leader, Thomas Bellew McManus, who had died in America. He had been given a state-like funeral by New York’s Irish exiles when his remains were taken to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue, before he was brought back to Ireland. In spite of Cardinal Cullen’s refusal to allow McManus’s coffin into any of the Dublin churches, some thirty thousand mourners attended his funeral at Glasnevin cemetery."
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May 30, 2020 - June 01, 2020.
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