Funny thing happened today…
I received a lovely email from Eliza, who has been ’saving’ and ‘rescuing’ items related to the Tupper family. One of the items turns out to be a sketchbook by Mimi Smith’s daughter (Mary Gosling’s grand-daughter), Florence. As a coincidence, this turn-up is slightly astounding. Gearing up for a couple of talks in Hyde Park, Vermont (in August and September), my topic is lady artists – those who would never have thought to make a living at what they did, but who enjoyed drawing and painting enough to do it quite well. Unless the sketches can be dated (Mimi’s portrait is surely based on a photograph of her – though it may have been done long after the photo was taken; especially since the face looks quite young and the year of her death is penned in beside the biographical information the artist saw fit to include), it’s difficult to guess how old little Florence would have been. But as it seems a lesson in drawing (pen and ink) and coloring (watercolor), based on existing pictures, she must have been fairly young. A teenager, perhaps.
I thank Eliza for sharing her ‘find’ with me! Just proves my point that we never know what will turn up in someone’s closet or attic or rubbish bin…
Jane Austen Sewing
As a craftsperson, one notices the amount of ‘work’ ladies like Emma and Mary comment upon doing for themselves, gifting to others, or getting as gifts. The range of crafts practiced is broad. I remember well coming across a pattern for the embroidery on a night cap made for Charles Smith, and lovingly traced out in a blank portion of a letter that has survived from the period following his last illness.
From descriptions, Mary went into a decline after Charles’ death, losing weight, ignoring the house and the estate. So how wonderful to see a letter to her youngest sister-in-law, Maria Smith, in which she writes:
“According to your wish I send you the pattern of the cap my sister worked for Charles, though I found I had not got it in my pattern book, but I have taken it from the cap which is still in existence, and I must return you and Eliza many thanks for your letters which contained so much that is interesting to me to hear.” [written from Suttons on 10 August 1832]
Therefore, to find a book like Jane Austen’s Sewing Box is indeed a find!
Author Jennifer Forest has supplied a table of contents, showing the array of Regency projects: from a lettercase, to linen-work, to a workbag and huswife, to a bonnet and a reticule. Must admit that the ‘pin cushion and threadcase’ just reminded me of poor Mrs Smith, the friend of Anne Elliot in Persuasion, who eeked out a living making (for resale) just such items (see my review of The Letters of Mrs Lefroy).
I asked Ms. Forest what precipitated her book: “I love history and have worked in a couple of different professions relating to history – I taught at secondary school … then worked in a couple museums here – one an 1860s homestead”. She said, “I was re-reading Jane Austen’s novels and noticed that she mentions her women characters doing different sorts of craft like netting, knotting, etc…. [I]t was things like netting and knotting that got me really interested because they are kind of lost arts”.
Just have a love a book that notes on its inside cover that “the needlework of the spoilt Bertram sisters is ‘too ill done for the drawing room’.” Only Austen would have an ear for the meaning behind such a statement. Yet it is so easy to read over the comment and not digest its true meaning today.
I’ll be watching my post for a copy of this book with eager anticipation!
Experiencing Technical Difficulties…
In trying to upload a book jacket, and having a blank box appear instead it dawned on me that WordPress is experiencing one of those *rare* glitches – when all the image files become BLANK!
So I will save my post for later, but will comment here that I trust the illustrations (few that I use) will resume shortly…
A Quick Post…
…to tout a new book: Talking with Past Hours: The Victorian Diary of William Fletcher of Bridgnorth. New from the publisher (Moon Rise Press) that brought back the delightful Penelope Byrde book, Jane Austen Fashion, Fletcher’s diary promises a look at a young Victorian during the years 1857-60. Of especial interest to me, the comments he may have put down on the Severn Valley Railway; and (a nod to Goslings & Sharpe) anything written about his life in the Bridgnorth branch bank. This is a review copy (thank you, Jane Moon); so you will be hearing more about the book — just so many interesting titles and ‘people’ and so LITTLE time to sit back, with a cup of tea, and enjoy the wisdom kept in between their covers.
One curious thing: Why use a photo on the cover that is NOT William Fletcher??
Serving the Servants
In Montreal Sunday for a local meeting of JASNA, I just had to hit two stores. One was Bramble House, in Pointe Claire (west of downtown), which sells British food and teas and tea pots & cozies. The other, Nicholas Hoare, the Westmount bookstore at which I always find something to take away (to the detriment of my wallet!).
Sunday, the take away was Mrs Woolf and the Servants. This look at servants, in the household of the Stephens and Woolf families, traces the backgrounds and working lives of these little-recognized people.
One of my tasks is to do HALF as much for the staff members in the households at Suttons, Roehampton, etc etc. Given that many servants are entered into the diaries as one name only (first or last), this may be asking the impossible; yet a few people stand out as not only having a long history with the family, but also are mentioned in a manner that fleshes them out a bit.
And now I add to this post a bit, though names and examples come from the ‘can you help’ page. I’ve done more work extracting and “cataloguing” names from Mary (Gosling) Smith’s diaries, than from Emma (Smith) Austen-Leigh’s. That is a task yet to come…
From Mary’s diaries, therefore, we pull names names of women like Mrs Sandoz (seemingly Mary’s governess) and her daughter; Mr Sendall (tutor to little Charles, Mary’s son) and Mr Wyatt (another tutor). I pull out these people because tutors and governesses were not treated in quite the same ’servant’ category as others working in the household, never mind the estate workers.
Mary Adams; Barlow (I presume a lady’s maid – but what if Barlow was a man?!); Sarah Batch; Martha Finch; Ketcham (a maid); Betsey Thomas also get their mentions; I will cull the diaries and see in at context they are mentioned – and report back!
Men include Bowen; Conybeare (a real wonder about the spelling of this), who was hired as a new Butler in 1832 at Suttons; Davis; Foster; Godfrey; Hinds.
You can find more by looking in the files called ‘dramatis personae’, including the year-dates in which they appear in Mary’s diaries. For instance, Mary Adams found on the A-F listing, appears in the diaries in the year 1829 only, and I conclude her to be a ‘waged servant’. Why??
Searching the file (which contains transcriptions of all Lady Smith’s diaries), we find the following about Mary Adams:
She possibly replaced Betsey Furlong. On 9 June 1829, Mary (Lady Smith) writes “My sister came from London Betsey Furlong went away” [Yes, that is the ENTIRE entry for this day; you see, therefore, how cryptic are the originals I work with!] My surmising that Mary replaced her comes from the entry of 11 June: “Mary Adams came” and in the column, against the “pounds” (nothing in the shilling or pence columns), Mary has written “6″. Undoubtedly the girl’s wages!
But in March 1830 we see this notation: “Betsey went home to her mother” – could this be Betsey Furlong or someone else? Then, in July 1832, Mary notes, “Went with Furlong cutting many of laurels in the shubbery [sic].” No mention again of Furlong or Betsey or Mary Adams.
Am finding Mrs Woolf and the Servants of interest, but I’m not far into it yet (a couple chapters). Indeed, it sounds as if the author had more to work with: Virigina Woolf sounds to have written at length, at times, about her ’servant problems’. Stay turned.
Voice from the past
Today marks the 65th anniversary of D-Day. On the CBS Evenings News, a story covered a man’s quest to have his uncle declared one of its war dead. The uncle’s last moments happened to be uncovered in on-camera interviews with two survivors. The instigator of these video ‘diaries’ of men’s war memories carries such a powerful, purposeful reason for pursuing this project! But just seeing him interviewing veterans sent one thought to my brain: How I wish someone had taken the time to sit and record — audio or video — my Uncle Bob!
Uncle Bob was not present at the beaches in France; his war was served in Italy and Africa. How he loved to ‘talk war’ with his brothers-in-law! Looking back, I now wonder: I heard…, but did I ever LISTEN. Then came the thought: Maybe I did.
I may not pay particular attention to stories of battles, but in seeking stories of the homefront lives of women, or women who survived (or didn’t…) the death camps, there is something about the Voices of the Past that do haunt me. That do teach me and all of us. And being receptive to those voices is surely one reason to be on the earth now, to speak up for those who no longer have a voice. All we each want is for someone someday to say, This person lived, and here is something of his or her life.
Read the script, or watch the video of the CBS story of Amin Isbir, who died on Omaha Beach (”Setting the Record Straight“). Visit Tom Beaty’s ‘Witness to War‘ website. Preserve. Honor. Educate. No better reasons for being can exist.
Demise of the ‘Phone box’
I deliberately use the British Red Telephone Box, because it is so evocative of the ‘way things’ used to be. Yet, my post today specifically targets the American (of course!) phone booth.
It has been a good decade - longer even I suspect, since the old enclosed booths were around. As in the UK, vandalism wrought havoc with booths — and brought about their demise long ago. In their stead, the ‘walk up phone,’ as it seems called in this ad found on the useful site, The Phonebooth). [See below.]
After getting stuck with a whopping $70 phone bills for FIVE (SHORT) calls from JFK when my flight home was grounded in 2007 (gee, thanks! make me spend the night in an airport, then charge all outdoors for me to call home and tell loved ones what’s going on… great end to a trip), I am a proponent of cells phones!
But it wasn’t until yesterday, and a trip to Ballston Spa that it hit me: no phone booths… mean no phone BOOKS!
I usually do two things on a trip out of town: find a grocery store for food, and find a good used bookstore in the yellow pages of the phone book. Yesterday, I had the name of a store, but hadn’t anticipated being in Ballston Spa — which was next door to my target of Saratoga (’Then you get off at Saratoga, for the fourteenth time…’). And good thing, I hate to ask for directions, for the ’shop’ is in Ballston Lake, it turns out.
Not one phone booth to be seen; the only used bookstore listed in a chamber of commerce brochure had closed up its doors and a ‘for rent’ sign was in the window; and I hate to ask for directions – but as I had no street, the chances of finding anyone who knew the store I was looking for (which sells on the web and may not even have a physical store anyway!), was slim.
And that’s when it hit me: no booth = no book = no yellow pages.
Kinda sad…
Another ‘must have’!?
After receiving Eliza’s comment about her work on the Tupper brothers (see ‘comments’ on the right), I was looking up TUPPER and LE MARCHANT – and surprise! found this book.
Lucky Michael Boyes sounds like a man right up my alley: according to this Cotswold Journal article the seed for his book came ‘after he retrieved diary extracts written by the late Rev. Robert Le Marchant in 1997.’ [Robert was born in 1819 and died in 1915.] How familiar such thoughts as ‘”Although the diary in itself was not enough to make up a book, the entries provided a prompt to find out more about the social life of that particular period.”‘ And what ‘fortune’ Mr Boyes has had: ‘…the discovery of some missing diaries and a collection of journals and letters from the Le Marchant sons serving in the military forces provided a turning point for the author.’ And I’m so jealous when reading such as: ‘”The project took a further twist when I learned that family letters and journals had been auctioned in London [!]. I was able to contact the buyer [!!] and bought them off him [!!!].”‘ (Contrast this to my lack of luck in obtaining Richard Seymour’s diaries; see Where Art Thou?)
More later as I learn more (especially how the Rev. Robert fits into my Le Marchant family tree = whose son was he?). This article makes for interesting reading on the immediate family; and this article mentions the Christies! Though how funny to read ‘…he married Mary Christie, the daughter of a prosperous man from Glyndebourne‘. Indeed! (as an opera fan, I was thrilled to think of Elizabeth Gosling’s relationship to Glyndebourne!!) [Though a £20,000 dowery? Mary Gosling evidently had that amount decades before, in 1826!]
And Boyes is back with a book on five of the six Le Marchant sons (though I must say I have more interest in those Old Maid daughters…). There are also portraits at NGP (see, especially Adm. Evelyn Robert Le Marchant).
GOSH: Michael’s Boyes has an ‘illustrated’ talk on the Ladies of Little Rissington on May 31st!
Oh…. so little money… so little TIME! (and time to go to bed: it’s nearing 1:30 a.m. as I type this.)
A book by candlelight
Mary Augusta Austen-Leigh writes of her father (in James Edward Austen-Leigh: A Memoir; private printing, 1911): “Another evening enjoyment was hearing our father read aloud — and this he often did, most admirably as to tone of voice, manner, taste, and judgement. Nothing was wanted in his rendering either of light or of serious authors. When the subject was dramatic, he could always make the characters, to use his Aunt Jane’s expression, ’speak as they should do,’ yet neither the comic nor the pathetic parts were ever overdone by him.”
It is therefore of interest to me (who reads aloud to herself, sometimes…), to see the recent New York Times article by Verlyn Klinkenborg, with the rather prosaic title “Some Thoughts on the Lost Art of Reading Aloud.” The thrust of her article centers on audio books (my father loves them, especially when on a long-distance trip; I am less enthusiastic – but more on that subject below). Yet her argument includes this provoking thought: “…from the perspective of a reader in, say, the early 19th century, about the time of Jane Austen, there is something peculiar about it, even lonely. In those days, literate families and friends read aloud to each other as a matter of habit. Books were still relatively scarce and expensive [not a problem for the Smiths or Goslings!]…. [T]he thought of all those solitary 21st-century individuals hearkening to earbuds and car radios would seem isolating.” Never thought about reading in that manner, but we do treat reading as a ’solitary’ pursuit, rather than a group activity (think back to Gone With the Wind, when in the film Melanie reads from David Copperfield while Scarlett’s husband, Ashley and klansmen have gone out to avenge Scarlett…).
Klinkenborg then raises the spector of music-making at home, versus listening on the radio &c. As a non-musician (but exceptionally interested in classical music and opera), I envy the singing and playing Emma, Mary and their siblings are able to do during the odd evening home.
The main reason for this post, however, is Klinkenborg’s comment that “But listening aloud, valuable as it is, isn’t the same as reading aloud.” She adds the point that “…one of the most basic tests of comprehension is to ask someone to read aloud from a book. It reveals far more than whether the reader understands the words. It reveals how far into the words — and the pattern of the words — the reader really sees. Reading aloud recaptures the physicality of words.”
Yes, yes, and again, YES!
I must confess that I read aloud, especially my own work. There is something about the ‘drama’ behind the spoken word that alerts me (quickly) if a phrase needs a little ‘umph’, or the pacing or rhythm of a sentence works — or doesn’t. Cadences, in speech as in music, are of utmost importance!
Klinkenborg’s article also makes me envision old books. The ones I have interlibrary loaned are small, the perfect size to fit in the palm of the hand. They are not heavy, probably could even have been slipped into the linen pocket of a young lady, yet (coming in multi-volumes) are not the slim nothing books often published today. The lines per page are also well laid out, uncramped. And what I love the most: that dangling word on the bottom of the page, giving a glimpse of the word to come so that the rhythm of the reader isn’t interrupted by the turning of the page!
Pity that publishing ever progressed from the multi-volume book to the trade paperback and now to the Kindle. I would be the first to applaud an entire library on one little hand-held device, but what a pain endnotes must be – even footnotes, if you can’t see an entire page at one glance! The best description of a book and how it feels in the reader’s hands just has to be the opening of A.S. Byatt’s Possession! There’s a writer who is also a reader, for she explains the passion for a book, its feel and smell, with such true feeling!
One part of Klinkenborg I must disagree with is her inclusion of Mansfield Park and the reading scene where Henry Crawford picks up Shakespeare. Klinkenborg’s assessment of Henry’s character is not in question, but the fact that she highlights this scene in which a PLAY is read aloud. Not quite the same thing as reading a novel, where one must become not only diverse characters, but the narrator as well.
I like best Klinkenborg’s comment that when one reads to oneself you lose ‘the life of the language’ — something Austen and Shakespeare each have brought to their audiences. The ‘life of the language’ is particularly important when reading diaries (very private thoughts) and letters (semi-private thoughts); we cannot always know what a writer means, given their shorthand, lack of punctuation, inner-thoughts, and also the language of their time when it differs (even slightly) from our own. Then there is the England English versus American English! I cannot always anticipate when my Norfolk friend Kate might take in when we read the same pieces; she brings her English background while I only bring my knowledge.
Anyway, I invite readers to delve into an Austen (see her first editions on books.google; links at right), and read her aloud! Even if only to yourself.
Oh yes! Audio books: I heartily recommend the couple chapters of Austen as read by Chris Goringe. Is it his accent? Partly. His enthuasiastic rendering? Definitely! Pity he didn’t record the entire Pride & Prejudice! But thank goodness for the few chapters (especially the opening chapters) he did record. Find the online audio book at LibriVox. I adore his rendering of the line “She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld!” (Bingley; about Jane Bennet, of course!)
A Trunk full of Letters
A couple years ago — thanks to the bibliography listed in Helen Lefroy and Gavin Turner’s (eds.) Letters of Mrs Lefroy, I purchased a hard-found copy of “Dear Miss Heber…” an eighteenth century correspondence (ed. Francis Bamford). This was not my first taste of Bamford’s editorial work. What a lucky life he must have led to work on the books that I have come across, never mind others I have never seen.
In the last few weeks I have been hard at work on an article about the Knyvetts (untangling Papa Charles and son Charles has not been easy), but in the past few days I have also been thinking about an article centering on the friendship of Charlotte Lucas and Elizabeth Bennet, for submission to Persuasions (since no one at JASNA wanted to hear my paper proposed on the topic of friends being akin to sisters [the AGM's theme being "Austen's Brothers and Sisters in the City of Brotherly Love {Philadelphia}]). And something last night made me pull from the shelves my Miss Heber.
What a delight! And so many sentiments a propos to discussions on our JASNA blog (janeausteninvermont.wordpress.com), especially the comments of Sylwia, about marriages and the state of singlehood; as well female friendships.
I am curious (although I plan, of course, to search!) to know if anyone has ever come across the ‘further publications’ that Francis Bamford promises when telling readers about the trunks and trunks and trunks of correspondence found by Georgia and Sacheverell Sitwell at their home, Weston Hall (Northants.). Please post, if you have knowledge of more in this vein, whether from Weston Hall or not. Am always interested in finding what I never knew existed.
