The Story Girl; by L. M. Montgomery.

The Story Girl has a pair of brothers set forth to return to the ancestral home in PE, familiar through their father's takes, from Toronto, and arrive to meet cousins who live there with parents. The grandparents had over a dozen children, and the grandfather planted his orchard with one tree each in name of children as they came, and grandchildren thereafter, and visitors as well.

A cousin at a neighbouring house is the Story girl, with a magical voice that brings life to the stories  or anything else she says. But the stories are not only those of the family and clan.

The whole excitement of the cousins at Jerry Cowan selling the children a picture of god he tore from a book at home, and subsequent feeling of being punished when they'd seen the picture, quite priceless!
................................................................................................


One of the most delightful is An Old Proverb With A New Meaning, when the parents had gone out of town visiting relatives in Halifax, and one day a lot of visitors came, and Dan was left in charge of the sleeping two year old while everyone visited the cemetery after dinner; when they returned, the baby was missing, Dan hadn't noticed it but insisted it hadn't got out because he was sitting in the door reading,  and people searched frantically for the baby.

""This beats me," said Uncle Roger, when a fruitless hour had elapsed. "I do hope that baby hasn't wandered down to the swamp. It seems impossible he could walk so far; but I must go and see. Felicity, hand me my high boots out from under the sofa, there's a girl."

"Felicity, pale and tearful , dropped on her knees and lifted the cretonne frill of the sofa. There, his head pillowed hardly on Uncle Roger's boots, lay Jimmy Patterson, still sound asleep!

""Well, I'll be— jiggered!" said Uncle Roger.

""I knew he never went out of the door," cried Dan triumphantly.

"When the last buggy had driven away, Felicity set a batch of bread, and the rest of us sat around the back porch steps in the cat's light and ate cherries, shooting the stones at each other. Cecily was in quest of information.

""What does 'it never rains but it pours' mean?"

""Oh, it means if anything happens something else is sure to happen," said the Story Girl. "I'll illustrate. There's Mrs. Murphy. She never had a proposal in her life till she was forty, and then she had three in the one week, and she was so flustered she took the wrong one and has been sorry ever since. Do you see what it means now?"

""Yes, I guess so," said Cecily somewhat doubtfully. Later on we heard her imparting her newly acquired knowledge to Felicity in the pantry.

""' It never rains but it pours' means that nobody wants to marry you for ever so long, and then lots of people do.""
................................................................................................


Then there's the story of the sawdust pudding!

And just when you think it could get funnier, it gets colossal, because it's not only funny but a silent commentary on society and it's beliefs and prejudices as taught children, in the chapter wher the newspaper tells them that tomorrow would be judgement day according to a prophet in California - and they are frightened, arguing that since its printed it must be true.
................................................................................................


The whole dreambooks affair is amusing enough, but the lurid dreams to order recipe!

Peter Makes An Impression is really hilarious, beginning with his sermon.

""It's no wonder we can't understand the grown-ups," said the Story Girl indignantly , "because we've never been grown-up ourselves. But they have been children, and I don't see why they can't understand us."
................................................................................................


The Shadow Feared Of Man has Peter begin recovering from measles, after he was considered close to death, and the children's praying, fear, grief, and reaction of Sara Stanley when they hear he'll recover after all, is very affecting.

A Compound Letter has them writing to him. Cecily writes to say she's still praying for him in case of a relapse.

"We have got all the apples picked, and are all ready to take the measles now, if we have to, but I hope we won't. If we have to , though, I'd rather catch them from you than from any one else, because we are acquainted with you. If I do take the measles and anything happens to me Felicity is to have my cherry vase. I'd rather give it to the Story Girl, but Dan says it ought to be kept in the family, even if Felicity is a crank. I haven't anything else valuable, since I gave Sara Ray my forget-me-not jug, but if you would like anything I've got let me know, and I'll leave instructions for you to have it."

Rest of the letters are cute, too, personality of each writer stamped on it, and Sara Stanley's the most erudite, well written and spelled.

But next, On The Edge Of Light And Dark, has Sara Stanley tell a story about a local man who had devil accost him because he went fishing instead of church on a Sunday!

Not funny, Montgomery!
................................................................................................


"Our summer was over. It had been a beautiful one. We had known the sweetness of common joys, the delight of dawns, the dream and glamour of noontides, the long, purple peace of carefree nights. We had had the pleasure of bird song, of silver rain on greening fields, of storm among the trees, of blossoming meadows, and of the converse of whispering leaves. We had had brotherhood with wind and star, with books and tales, and hearth fires of autumn. Ours had been the little, loving tasks of every day, blithe companion ship, shared thoughts, and adventuring. Rich were we in the memory of those opulent months that had gone from us—richer than we then knew or suspected. And before us was the dream of spring. It is always safe to dream of spring. For it is sure to come; and if it be not just as we have pictured it, it will be infinitely sweeter."
................................................................................................
................................................................................................

................................................
................................................

................................................
................................................

July 21, 2020 - July 30, 2020.
................................................
................................................

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow; by Jerome K. Jerome.

..................................................................
..................................................................
THE IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW

..................................................................
..................................................................


"What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this up for half an hour. It will be a change."
................................................................................................

ON BEING IDLE.


Author clarifies the difference between idle, lazy, and plain unoccupied - with much that's familiar to most people.

"Idling always has been my strong point. I take no credit to myself in the matter—it is a gift. Few possess it."

"It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen."

"Tobacco has been a blessing to us idlers. What the civil-service clerk before Sir Walter's time found to occupy their minds with it is hard to imagine. I attribute the quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely to the want of the soothing weed. They had no work to do and could not smoke, and the consequence was they were forever fighting and rowing. If, by any extraordinary chance, there was no war going, then they got up a deadly family feud with the next-door neighbor, and if, in spite of this, they still had a few spare moments on their hands, they occupied them with discussions as to whose sweetheart was the best looking, the arguments employed on both sides being battle-axes, clubs, etc. Questions of taste were soon decided in those days. When a twelfth-century youth fell in love he did not take three paces backward, gaze into her eyes, and tell her she was too beautiful to live. He said he would step outside and see about it. And if, when he got out, he met a man and broke his head—the other man's head, I mean—then that proved that his—the first fellow's—girl was a pretty girl.

"Nowadays we light a pipe and let the girls fight it out among themselves."
................................................................................................


ON BEING IN LOVE.


"And oh, how beautiful she was, how wondrous beautiful! It was as some angel entering the room, and all else became plain and earthly. She was too sacred to be touched. It seemed almost presumption to gaze at her. You would as soon have thought of kissing her as of singing comic songs in a cathedral. It was desecration enough to kneel and timidly raise the gracious little hand to your lips.

"Ah, those foolish days, those foolish days when we were unselfish and pure-minded; those foolish days when our simple hearts were full of truth, and faith, and reverence! Ah, those foolish days of noble longings and of noble strivings!"
................................................................................................


ON BEING IN THE BLUES.


"I can enjoy feeling melancholy, and there is a good deal of satisfaction about being thoroughly miserable; but nobody likes a fit of the blues."
................................................................................................


ON BEING HARD UP.


"There have been a good many funny things said and written about hardupishness, but the reality is not funny, for all that. It is not funny to have to haggle over pennies. It isn't funny to be thought mean and stingy."
................................................................................................


ON VANITY AND VANITIES.


"There she goes, now, gazing rapturously at her own toes and murmuring "pittie"—two-foot-ten of conceit and vanity, to say nothing of other wickednesses."

"We wish to become rich men, not in order to enjoy ease and comfort—all that any one man can taste of those may be purchased anywhere for 200 pounds per annum—but that our houses may be bigger and more gaudily furnished than our neighbors'; that our horses and servants may be more numerous; that we may dress our wives and daughters in absurd but expensive clothes; and that we may give costly dinners of which we ourselves individually do not eat a shilling's worth."
................................................................................................


ON GETTING ON IN THE WORLD.


"Man is not given that godlike unselfishness that thinks only of others' good. But in working for themselves they are working for us all. We are so bound together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalf helps to mold the universe. The stream in struggling onward turns the mill-wheel; the coral insect, fashioning its tiny cell, joins continents to one another; and the ambitious man, building a pedestal for himself, leaves a monument to posterity. .... "

"Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before. I have not a word to say against contented people so long as they keep quiet. But do not, for goodness' sake, let them go strutting about, as they are so fond of doing, crying out that they are the true models for the whole species. Why, they are the deadheads, the drones in the great hive, the street crowds that lounge about, gaping at those who are working."
................................................................................................


ON THE WEATHER.


Amazing finale to a diatribe about weather being always unpleasant in cities, as he concludes about how it's the opposite when in country, communing with nature.

"We see but dimly through the mists that roll around our time-girt isle of life, and only hear the distant surging of the great sea beyond."
................................................................................................


ON CATS AND DOGS.


"They are always glad to see us. They are with us in all our humors. They are merry when we are glad, sober when we feel solemn, and sad when we are sorrowful."
................................................................................................


ON BEING SHY.


"All great literary men are shy. I am myself, though I am told it is hardly noticeable.

"I am glad it is not. It used to be extremely prominent at one time, and was the cause of much misery to myself and discomfort to every one about me—my lady friends especially complained most bitterly about it."

"Conceit, indeed, is the quickest cure for it. When it once begins to dawn upon you that you are a good deal cleverer than any one else in this world, bashfulness becomes shocked and leaves you. When you can look round a roomful of people and think that each one is a mere child in intellect compared with yourself you feel no more shy of them than you would of a select company of magpies or orang-outangs."

"Genuine conceit does not make a man objectionable. On the contrary, it tends to make him genial, kind-hearted, and simple. He has no need of affectation—he is far too well satisfied with his own character; and his pride is too deep-seated to appear at all on the outside. Careless alike of praise or blame, he can afford to be truthful. Too far, in fancy, above the rest of mankind to trouble about their petty distinctions, he is equally at home with duke or costermonger. And valuing no one's standard but his own, he is never tempted to practice that miserable pretense that less self-reliant people offer up as an hourly sacrifice to the god of their neighbor's opinion.

"The shy man, on the other hand, is humble—modest of his own judgment and over-anxious concerning that of others. But this in the case of a young man is surely right enough. His character is unformed. It is slowly evolving itself out of a chaos of doubt and disbelief. Before the growing insight and experience the diffidence recedes. ... "
................................................................................................


ON BABIES.


"Oh, yes, I do—I know a lot about 'em. I was one myself once, though not long—not so long as my clothes. They were very long, I recollect, and always in my way when I wanted to kick."

"It is only the first baby that takes up the whole of a woman's time. Five or six do not require nearly so much attention as one."

"Poor little feet, just commencing the stony journey! We old travelers, far down the road, can only pause to wave a hand to you. You come out of the dark mist, and we, looking back, see you, so tiny in the distance, standing on the brow of the hill, your arms stretched out toward us. God speed you! We would stay and take your little hands in ours, but the murmur of the great sea is in our ears and we may not linger. We must hasten down, for the shadowy ships are waiting to spread their sable sails."
................................................................................................


ON EATING AND DRINKING.


"My poor, dear mother used to say she liked to see me eat, and it has always been a pleasant reflection to me since that I must have given her much gratification in that direction. A growing, healthy lad, taking plenty of exercise and careful to restrain himself from indulging in too much study, can generally satisfy the most exacting expectations as regards his feeding powers."

"By the way, we never eat anybody's health, always drink it. Why should we not stand up now and then and eat a tart to somebody's success?"

"Ah! we may talk sentiment as much as we like, but the stomach is the real seat of happiness in this world. The kitchen is the chief temple wherein we worship, its roaring fire is our vestal flame, and the cook is our great high-priest. He is a mighty magician and a kindly one. He soothes away all sorrow and care. He drives forth all enmity, gladdens all love. Our God is great and the cook is his prophet. Let us eat, drink, and be merry."
................................................................................................


ON FURNISHED APARTMENTS.


"Curious, that in lodgings the rule of life is reversed. The higher you get up in the world the lower you come down in your lodgings. On the lodging-house ladder the poor man is at the top, the rich man underneath. You start in the attic and work your way down to the first floor."

"Haydn grew up in an attic and Chatterton starved in one. Addison and Goldsmith wrote in garrets. Faraday and De Quincey knew them well. Dr. Johnson camped cheerfully in them, sleeping soundly—too soundly sometimes—upon their trundle-beds, like the sturdy old soldier of fortune that he was, inured to hardship and all careless of himself. Dickens spent his youth among them, Morland his old age—alas! a drunken, premature old age. Hans Andersen, the fairy king, dreamed his sweet fancies beneath their sloping roofs. Poor, wayward-hearted Collins leaned his head upon their crazy tables; priggish Benjamin Franklin; Savage, the wrong-headed, much troubled when he could afford any softer bed than a doorstep; young Bloomfield, "Bobby" Burns, Hogarth, Watts the engineer—the roll is endless. Ever since the habitations of men were reared two stories high has the garret been the nursery of genius."

" ... If all the wisdom of the world and all its art—all the spoils that it has won from nature, all the fire that it has snatched from heaven—were gathered together and divided into heaps, and we could point and say, for instance, these mighty truths were flashed forth in the brilliant salon amid the ripple of light laughter and the sparkle of bright eyes; and this deep knowledge was dug up in the quiet study, where the bust of Pallas looks serenely down on the leather-scented shelves; and this heap belongs to the crowded street; and that to the daisied field—the heap that would tower up high above the rest as a mountain above hills would be the one at which we should look up and say: this noblest pile of all—these glorious paintings and this wondrous music, these trumpet words, these solemn thoughts, these daring deeds, they were forged and fashioned amid misery and pain in the sordid squalor of the city garret. There, from their eyries, while the world heaved and throbbed below, the kings of men sent forth their eagle thoughts to wing their flight through the ages. There, where the sunlight streaming through the broken panes fell on rotting boards and crumbling walls; there, from their lofty thrones, those rag-clothed Joves have hurled their thunderbolts and shaken, before now, the earth to its foundations."
................................................................................................


ON DRESS AND DEPORTMENT.

Good. 

................................................................................................


ON MEMORY.


"I am alone and the road is very dark. I stumble on, I know not how nor care, for the way seems leading nowhere, and there is no light to guide. 

"But at last the morning comes, and I find that I have grown into myself."

Lovely. 

................................................................................................

................................................
................................................

July 27, 2020 - July 29, 2020. 

...............................................
................................................

Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green; by Jerome K. Jerome.

......................................................................................
......................................................................................

Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green

......................................................................................
......................................................................................


Reginald Blake, Financier and Cad
...........................................

The story is far too similar to another one, but the end here is quite different, and the twist unexpected.
................................................................................................


An item of Fashionable Intelligence
...........................................

Here the author tells about a Countess who manages the earl and his earldom, but wasn't born to the caste - was the youngest of a linen-draper's  brood of seven sons and eight daughters, and serving at a bakery as a waitress when she was first seen by the future husband. He gave a false name and identity in courting her, fearing his family's displeasure, so she fell in love and got engaged without any inkling about his status. But she had the old Countess to deal with, and how she managed, is the story.
................................................................................................


Blasé Billy
...........................................

This one, perhaps this author's finest, reminds one in the beginning of the famous story about Calvin Coolidge who responded, when a woman guest at dinner said she'd taken a bet she'd make him say more than two words, "you lose"! Here, the protagonist is all out to vex Billy at the club out of his cool reticence.

"I opined that conversation was not to his wish, but this only made me more determined to talk, and to talk to him above all others in London. The desire took hold of me to irritate him—to break down the imperturbable calm within which he moved and had his being; and I gathered myself together, and settled down to the task. 

"“Interesting paper the Times,” I observed. 

"“Very,” he replied, taking it from the floor and handing it to me. “Won’t you read it?”"

Billy, however, isn't to be manipulated. 

"An ancient nurse of mine had always described me as the most “wearing” child she had ever come across. I prefer to speak of myself as persevering."

"“Tried Central Africa?” I inquired. 

"“Once or twice,” he answered. “It always reminds me of Kew Gardens.” 

"“China?” I hazarded. 

"“Cross between a willow-pattern plate and a New York slum,” was his comment. 

"“The North Pole?” I tried, thinking the third time might be lucky. 

"“Never got quite up to it,” he returned. “Reached Cape Hakluyt once.” 

"“How did that impress you?” I asked. 

"“It didn’t impress me,” he replied."

And Billy is the delight of the story, to begin with. The twist is him falling in love, and being no longer quite so blasé. And, as this author does more than once, there are a couple of more twists. The story begins with great comic effect, but the twists bring it over love and cliff of tragedy where it simply takes flight.
................................................................................................


The Choice of Cyril Harjohn
...........................................

About a man who loves a woman saintly without being cold, but is pulled by desire for another who'd marry him only for money he'd have to make for her; he travels half the world away to escape the latter, but it's of no avail.
................................................................................................


The Materialisation of Charles and Mivanway
......................................................................................

The couple married young, quarrelled and was emotional without cool heads prevailing, separated, and his ship was reported sunk, his being alive not known. Their assuming one another dead, meeting one another in the same romantic spot and taking each other for ghosts, all very romantic. Then the classic added double twist - and he keeps the best one for last.
................................................................................................


Portrait of a Lady
...........................................

An author, in need of quiet for working, travels to Yorkshire wolds and takes up a room in a cottage of a mother and daughter, and discovers history of an earlier occupant of the room. There is a diary written by a beautiful young woman whose portrait he sees, and it looks familiar. The artist had made her renounce him so he could marry another, and the diary ends abruptly,  but through the letters of the artist the author discovers his name and realises he knows the man, his wife, his home - he's miserable, having married into society. And then, the authors twist, about the figure he'd seen in the window.
................................................................................................


The Man Who Would Manage
...........................................

"No human being worked harder for the enjoyment of others, or produced more universal wretchedness."

"He never spared himself. It was always he who would volunteer to escort the old ladies to the station, and who would never leave them until he had seen them safely into the wrong train. He it was who would play “wild beasts” with the children, and frighten them into fits that would last all night. 

"So far as intention went, he was the kindest man alive. He never visited poor sick persons without taking with him in his pocket some little delicacy calculated to disagree with them and make them worse. He arranged yachting excursions for bad sailors, entirely at his own expense, and seemed to regard their subsequent agonies as ingratitude."

Hilarious in the true form of this author.
................................................................................................


The Man Who Lived For Others
...........................................

Again, hilarious in the true form of this author - this one is about an English man who goes to a great deal of trouble to do exactly what others expect, just so they won't be disappointed. A subtle sarcasm about most people, at that.
................................................................................................


A Man of Habit
...........................................

It begins as a conversation on a passage, between the author and a man who forced himself to get used to cheaper cigars, cheaper claret, and so on, because expensive things are ruinous, and abstinence is unsociable. Then a third one tells a story, about a man of fixed habit so much they tell time by him - until he's required to relocate from Jefferson, U.S., to London and still does everything exactly on time, but not London time! He's unable to adjust to the six hour jet lag. So when he accidentally realised it, he changed his office hours and other routine timings to fit the Jefferson clock, instead. 

"At ten he mounted his horse and went for a canter in the Row, and on very dark nights he carried a lantern. News of it got abroad, and crowds would assemble to see him ride past."
................................................................................................


The Absent-minded Man
...........................................

It begins with description of a guy who, when invited Thursday for dinner, turns up Friday, half an hour before he has to board the express to Edinburgh; or invitesthree families to lunch on his boat, forgets all about it, and gives the boy a day off, with little food stocked on board.

"“Come with me if you want something to do,” said McQuae.  “I’m going to drive Leena down to Richmond.” (“Leena” was the young lady he recollected being engaged to.  It transpired afterwards that he was engaged to three girls at the time.  The other two he had forgotten all about.)"

"Everybody said he never would get married; that it was absurd to suppose he ever would remember the day, the church, and the girl, all in one morning; that if he did get as far as the altar he would forget what he had come for, and would give the bride away to his own best man. Hallyard had an idea that he was already married, but that the fact had slipped his memory. I myself felt sure that if he did marry he would forget all about it the next day."

And it gets better.
................................................................................................


A Charming Woman
...........................................

Satire about the society women who substitute charm for substance, thought, conviction or anything else, and mansge to convince most they meet of an understanding and sympathetic spirit, none of it with any reality. 
................................................................................................


Whibley’s Spirit
...........................................

"It came with a carved cabinet that Whibley had purchased in Wardour Street for old oak, but which, as a matter of fact, was chestnut wood, manufactured in Germany, and at first was harmless enough, saying nothing but “Yes!” or “No!” and that only when spoken to."

"Its idea of an evening’s conversation was to plump down a hundred or so vowels and consonants in front of you and leave you to make whatever sense out of them you could."

"The fame of Whibley’s Spirit became noised abroad, with the result that Whibley was able to command the willing service of more congenial assistants, and Jobstock and myself were dismissed. But we bore no malice. 

"Under these more favourable conditions the Spirit plucked up wonderfully, and talked everybody’s head off."

And here on the story takes flight into the realm of humour that npbelongs to Jerome K. Jerome.
................................................................................................


The Man Who Went Wrong
...........................................

About an outside bookie who's honest, generous to those in need, and willing to rough up a burly ruffian because hes hitting a woman and needs to be reminded it's wrong, and more. Then a young woman informs him he's going to hell, takes him to a revivalist meeting where they make him give up drinking and smoking and change his line of work; now he's a pawn broker, and his old parents are without fire on chilly afternoons. 
................................................................................................


The Hobby Rider
...........................................

About a genial young man who plays tennis ten hours a day ever day, and when he travels, he rates places by whether he could play tempnnis there - whether it's Tangiers or Zermat or Jungfrau! 

"The next year he dropped tennis completely and became an ardent amateur photographer, whereupon all his friends implored him to return to tennis, and sought to interest him in talk about services and returns and volleys, and in anecdotes concerning Renshaw. But he would not heed them."

Most of the side splitting story is about his photography. 

"It was in the early days of the photographic craze, and an inexperienced world was rather pleased with the idea of being taken on the cheap. The consequence was that nearly everyone for three miles round sat or stood or leant or laid to Begglely at one time or another, with the result that a less conceited parish than ours it would have been difficult to discover. No one who had once looked upon a photograph of himself taken by Begglely ever again felt any pride in his personal appearance. The picture was invariably a revelation to him."

A trip to Turkey cured him of photography, and he went on to golf, and thence to whist.
................................................................................................


The Man Who Did Not Believe In Luck
.........................................................................

A man who can't catch a break, and has everything seemingly lucky go against him, including a gift of a goose by his boss on Christmas eve -  and its hilarious until its suddenly grim.
................................................................................................


Dick Dunkerman’s Cat
...........................................

People waxing eloquent about love or ideals until the cat arrives are suddenly sceptical or sane, simply because the cat is there, looking at one! 

And their luck changes for the better, with prosperity, as the hypnotic influence of this cat is paid heed to!
................................................................................................


The Minor Poet’s Story
...........................................

About how society is governed by waves of fashion, whether in couture or thought - and whether ideas really originate with a person, or are simply there, and caught by several minds.
................................................................................................


The Degeneration of Thomas Henry
...........................................

"He was really a most gentlemanly cat. A friend of mine, who believes in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, was convinced that he was Lord Chesterfield."

"But every one has his price, and Thomas Henry’s price was roast duck. Thomas Henry’s attitude in the presence of roast duck came to me as a psychological revelation. It showed me at once the lower and more animal side of his nature. In the presence of roast duck Thomas Henry became simply and merely a cat, swayed by all the savage instincts of his race.  His dignity fell from him as a cloak. He clawed for roast duck, he grovelled for it. I believe he would have sold himself to the devil for roast duck. 

"We accordingly avoided that particular dish: it was painful to see a cat’s character so completely demoralised. Besides, his manners, when roast duck was on the table, afforded a bad example to the children."

The story is about the complete change when they took him with them to country. 

"Poor Thomas Henry!  It shows to one how a reputation for respectability may lie in the mere absence of temptation. Born and bred in the atmosphere of the Reform Club, what gentleman could go wrong? I was sorry for Thomas Henry, and I have never believed in the moral influence of the country since." ................................................................................................


The City of The Sea
...........................................

Saxons massacred Danes invading East Anglia, before rising oceans covered their city on coast.  ................................................................................................


Driftwood
...........................................

About men and women, civilisation and knowledge, love and marriage. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

July 25, 2020 - July 27, 2020. 

...............................................

................................................

Malvina of Brittany, by Jerome K. Jerome.

......................................................................................
......................................................................................

Malvina of Brittany (1916)

......................................................................................
......................................................................................

..................................................................
..................................................................

Malvina of Brittany
..................................................................
..................................................................

This collection of separate stories, published under two separate names - either as THE FAWN GLOVES, or, alternately, as MALVINA OF BRITTANY - is startling indeed if one has begun reading Jerome K. Jerome with the three men duo of hilarious adventures that leave one helpless with laughter. One scarcely expects so much sensitivity, such delicacy, albeit reading this one knows the other two were in every way just as delicate, however funny they were. And here lies the greatest success of the author - his profundity and his sensitivity and his delicacy is not of the tom-tommed variety, but rather something pervading his work as naturally as a gentleman of his time and place would carry his suit, his hat and his folded umbrella, without himself being conscious or making the viewer - in this case reader - aware of it.

Generally, the common thread in this collection of stories seems to be mystery, involving in each story a mysterious woman or a woman - or a female figure - of mystery.

......................................................................................

......................................................................................

MALVINA OF BRITTANY.

Malvina of Brittany,  the first in the volume that comprises of several different and separate stories, is a fairy tale from prehistoric times, written collected by the protagonist via the village legend, and it's interpretation, suitable for this time of scepticism, by a doctor and a professor who discuss it with the protagonist or author.

"It commenced, so I calculate, about the year 2000 B.C., or, to be more precise—for figures are not the strong point of the old chroniclers—when King Heremon ruled over Ireland and Harbundia was Queen of the White Ladies of Brittany, the fairy Malvina being her favourite attendant."

" ... The White Ladies of Brittany, it must be remembered, were not fairies pure and simple. Under certain conditions they were capable of becoming women, and this fact, one takes it, must have exerted a disturbing influence upon their relationships with eligible male mortals. ..."

Malvina was cast out by the Queen, for refusing to restore the Prince to his form, which malvina had changed on his wedding day.

"From that night the fairy Malvina disappears from the book of the chroniclers of the White Ladies of Brittany, from legend and from folklore whatsoever. She does not appear again in history till the year A.D. 1914."

She was found by Flight Commander Raffleton of RAF, and she flew back to England with him. He left her with his cousin Christopher, a professor at Oxford who knew about her history, and said hed come back for her.

"It was on the uplands between dawn and sunrise that Malvina made the acquaintance of the Arlington twins."

The story has to be read to fully get a glimpse of the awesomeness. One has to wonder if this is a legend thst the author collected as he writes, or did he create it, from a painting he saw thst he describes.

July 23, 2020. - July 24, 2020.

......................................................................................

......................................................................................

THE STREET OF THE BLANK WALL.

This one is another mystery story that begins with a man slightly lost off Edgware Road, and having taken in, a mysterious woman and a murder story involving her, along the way, ends with a double twist, one foreseen by the reader and another - or two - not at all.

July 24, 2020.

......................................................................................

......................................................................................

HIS EVENING OUT.

It seems to be about a gentleman meeting a young woman in a park, dining out and taking her dancing, and after getting into a brawl, giving the name of a lawyer or a QC of his instead, and then going off on his routine vacation, but taking his cook with him this time!

Here, the mystery is not just the story, but the way its written, and even a bit of a puzzle as to why - quite an exercise for brain, this one. And this one, Jerome K. Jerome turns to his forte familiar to his readers, bringing in humour, but quite differently here, like a subtle infusion that explodes faintly.

July 24, 2020.

......................................................................................

......................................................................................

THE LESSON.

Here the author diverges from the until now common thread in this collection, and there is no mysterious woman, or even a fairy, although he gives the impression in the beginning there is one. This one is about the author meeting a man who has dalliance with memories of past lives, and their encounters over the years. It ends abruptly, unexpectedly, but quite well.

July 24, 2020.

......................................................................................

......................................................................................

SYLVIA OF THE LETTERS.

Wonder if this is the original story of two people who know one another personally as opponents thst are always at loggerheads, and through correspondence via different names as inspiration, sustenance and support for spirit, until they meet and realise who they've been!

The film adaptations do not deal with the long history of acquaintance and growth from childhood, but then that wouldn't fit a film. This one isn't as easy a romance as the films, but the thrill is a long undercurrent, not a sudden shock.

July 24, 2020 - July 25, 2020.
......................................................................................

......................................................................................

THE FAWN GLOVES

The short story that gives a collection of stories the name is about the fawn gloves that the gentle and sensitive man sees every day as he goes for his regular evening walk, and he begins to see her after he has passed, never talked or looked or met her gaze - which again is more sensitive than his own, her whole demeanour giving him courage to be the man and the strong one of the two, unlike the normal women he has avoided.

This is a courtship that belongs to the era that is gone perhaps - they sit together on a public bench or chairs in a garden, speak tentatively, exchange life stories in not much detail, but don't know each other's addresses and even names, height of sensitivity on part of both. Yet they know they are connected. Ultimate closeness, he goes on a knee and kisses a glove - she is always wearing the said fawn gloves, and reminds him of a fawn herself, shy and easily startled.

The daintiness of her attire and accessories is noticed by the protagonist, indeed of immense importance to the relationship, and is mentioned and described with matching daintiness by the author. Her fawn gloves seem merely a part of the whole picture of the dainty woman that reminds the protagonist of a fawn, until suddenly it is like a veil removed and the reason for the title clear.

Neither of them is rich, and this turns the story startlingly, albeit it is not an obvious factor mentioned - sensitivity of the author - when one day the protagonist asks the beloved fawn of a young woman to remove her gloves.

In the era when one was reticent rather than brazen, names and addresses not exchanged, and people not only sensitive but able to appreciate that quality in another, a relationship that seems to begin with a spring fragrance of tulips is just as delicately rendered into a gossamer veil of a tragedy - and one wishes the man were more sensible.

But there precisely is the point the author makes with his usual delicacy - the sensitivity of the protagonist is about his own sensibilities, and selfish, not extending to the woman he fell in love with for being so fawn-like. When it comes to it he shudders and goes away leaving her alone because he cannot stand anything painful, rather than realising what and how much she needs and spreading his caring and love to soothe and heal her.

He returns because he is unable to forget her, and has cornered a doctor he happens to meet to ask about the problem and whether it is possible to correct it - but he has left it too late, and she has vanished. If then he suffers, it is merely deserved, but one is left with the figure of the fawn woman in her dainty figure and sensitive, fleeting impression just as he is, long past her having gone from his life for ever. He cannot forget her and one does not know if one will.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014.

......................................................................................

......................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

..................................................................
..................................................................

Tuesday, May 13, 2014.

July 23, 2020. - July 24, 2020.
..................................................................
.................................................................. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................