Commonplace Book

'...I had imagined Bilbao was a place full of lovely sailors and ships, but in case any misguided person should in future console themselves during a night journey from Madrid with equally Castilian imaginings, I will here record in cold ink that of all ports on God's earth it is the vilest. Even the Spaniards are debased, and so hideous that I believe they must really be French. They all wear the most stupid clothes and are rude and ungracious. The town is unredeemed by a single building which one could call architecture. In short it is very like what one conceives a south American port run up in 2 weeks by a cinema firm would be...'

from a letter to Lytton Strachey, dated April 18, 1919, in Carrington: Letters and Extracts from her Diaries by Dora Carrington

The Man from America by Mrs Henry de la Pasture (1905)

This is Pasture-lite. The author's initially established mode was to present a typically late nineteenth century tableau of marriage and money, leaven it with a large cast and comedy, and then add some moral depth for gravitas. In her previous novel she began to alter the mixture with a reduced cast and comedy and more moral depth. In this one she has switched the emphases again; the moral depth is much less evident. It starts with an aged Irish-French Vicomte de Nauroy established at one edge of Pasture's favourite location, in this instance the Devon-Somerset borders. An idyllic valley brimming with green, two great houses and a couple of lesser ones. The Vicomte, quite fat and comfortable and a little distant from worldliness (who could play him in the BBC adaptation? well, yes, only David Suchet) is very relaxed in the manorhouse-cum-cottage Honeycott. We follow his two charges, Rosaleen and Kitty, his granddaughters, through losing their mother, gaining a terrible stepmother, losing their father and their home (one of the two great houses) in favour of the stepmother's daughter. There is brightness and comedy scattered throughout this journey, the story is dappled with sunlight, twisting lanes, kitchen gardens, vast woods, flowers. Also part of the mix are a huge cast of well-to-do locals and some incomers. The 'boys' of the other great house, their nouveau-riche parents, as well as a family of incredibly wealthy Americans, one of the patriarchs of whom was the Vicomte's youthful friend in days of war, and who has acknowledged his debt to the Vicomte by supplying him with business-tips ever since. So, yes, this novel is even more about money than many of Pasture's others, although it's always an important skein. There is only one life challenge to be overcome in this plot, for all the young ones to marry well: that is to say, to marry someone they love, and be very comfortable financially by the way. And needless to say, with much tearing around, and an abundance of comedic come-uppances, all turns out as it should, and previously hidden wealth is put to very good use! I have to reiterate a previous comment: that Pasture is nothing if not a born storyteller; her resounding belief in this tale materially bulwarks its entertainment-value. But this is very 'spangly' - I'd like to see her return to the fine balance of her earlier efforts.

Commonplace Book

'A crash - smash - shiver - stopped their whispers. A simultaneously-hurled volley of stones had saluted the broad front of the mill, with all its windows; and now every pane of every lattice lay in shattered and pounded fragments. A yell followed this demonstration - a rioters' yell - a North-of-England - a Yorkshire - a West-Riding - a West-Riding-clothing-district-of-Yorkshire rioters' yell. You never heard that sound, perhaps, reader? So much the better for your ears - perhaps for your heart; since, if it rends the air in hate to yourself, or to the men or principles you approve, the interests to which you wish well, Wrath wakens to the cry of Hate: the Lion shakes his mane, and rises to the howl of the Hyena: Caste stands up, ireful, against Caste; and the indignant, wronged spirit of the Middle Rank bears down in zeal and scorn on the famished and furious mass of the Operative Class. It is difficult to be tolerant - difficult to be just - in such moments.'

from Shirley by Charlotte Bronte (Chapter Nineteen)

Commonplace Book

'"A very dangerous dog that, Miss Keeldar. I wonder you should keep such an animal."

"Do you, Mr Donne? Perhaps you will wonder more when I tell you I am very fond of him."

"I should say you are not serious in the assertion. Can't fancy a lady fond of that brute - 't is so ugly - a mere carter's dog - pray hang him."

"Hang what I am fond of?"

"And purchase in his stead some sweetly pooty pug or poodle: something appropriate to the fair sex: ladies generally like lap-dogs."

"Perhaps I am an exception."

"Oh! you can't be, you know. All ladies are alike in those matters: that is universally allowed."

"Tartar frightened you terribly, Mr Donne. I hope you won't take any harm."'

from Shirley by Charlotte Bronte (Chapter Fifteen)

Commonplace Book

'They both halted on the green brow of the Common: they looked down on the deep valley robed in May raiment; on varied meads, some pearled with daisies, and some golden with king-cups: to-day all this young verdure smiled clear in sunlight; transparent emerald and amber gleams played over it. On Nunnwood - the sole remnant of antique British forest in a region whose lowlands were once all sylvan chase, as its highlands were breast-deep heather - slept the shadow of a cloud; the distant hills were dappled, the horizon was shaded and tinted like mother-of-pearl; silvery blues, soft purples, evanescent greens and rose-shades, all melting into fleeces of white cloud, pure as azury snow, allured the eye as with a remote glimpse of heaven's foundations. The air blowing on the brow was fresh, and sweet, and bracing.'

from Shirley by Charlotte Bronte (Chapter Twelve)

Commonplace Book

'...Tradesmen, when they speak against war, always profess to hate it because it is a bloody and barbarous proceeding: you would think, to hear them talk, that they are peculiarly civilized - especially gentle and kindly of disposition to their fellow-men. This is not the case. Many of them are extremely narrow and cold-hearted, have no good feeling for any class but their own, are distant - even hostile [-] to all others; call them useless; seem to question their right to exist; seem to grudge them the very air they breathe, and to think the circumstance of their eating, drinking, and living in decent houses, quite unjustifiable. They do not know what others do in the way of helping, pleasing, or teaching their race; they will not trouble themselves to inquire: whoever is not in trade is accused of eating the bread of idleness, of passing a useless existence. Long may it be ere England really becomes a nation of shopkeepers!'

from Shirley by Charlotte Bronte (Chapter Ten)