Santal by Ronald Firbank (1921)

This is a puzzling piece. It has much that is characteristically Firbankian - that sense of a very camp, slightly bitter, slightly flighty personality celebrating violent or victim-like natures in its characters; the love of an odd flourish of prose wrapped in simple but quietly decadent narrative. I hesitate to say that it seems like an initial enthusiasm of which he quickly bored. The north African-Arabic atmosphere in which it is suffused is alive and energetic in the long opening chapter, where the scene is fully set. The four which follow it, though they are not completely lacking in enthusiasm, are more elegiac and intrepid, as Cherif, the young main character, starts out on his journey toward the holy man he wishes to visit across the plains and desert and few oases and lush places. The fact that the story stops at the end of Chapter Five with Cherif simply imploring Lord Allah to show him compassion, and the feeling that he will go on searching for his goal even though he has been stymied thus far, seems to suggest that Firbank didn't think of this as a narrative at all, but rather something different - an allegory for the state of his life, perhaps? There is always that sense with him of the layer of the personal (and the acting out of it) underneath his overt narratives. Maybe this one took it one stage further. If so, it has to be said that it is beautiful but very unsatisfying.

Commonplace Book

'...The gradations towards vice are almost imperceptible, and an experienced seducer can strew them with such enticing and agreeable flowers, as will lead the young sinner on insensibly, even to the most profligate stages of guilt. All therefore that can be done by virtue, unassisted with experience, is to avoid every trial with such a formidable foe, by declining and discouraging the first advances towards a particular correpondence with perfidious man, howsoever agreeable it may seem to be. For here is no security but in conscious weakness.'

from The Adventures of Count Fathom by Tobias Smollett (Chapter Thirty-Four)

Commonplace Book

'...plausibility and confidence are faculties really inherited from nature, and effectually serve the possessor, in lieu of that learning which is not to be obtained without infinite toil and perseverance.

The most superficial tincture of the arts and sciences in such a juggler, is sufficient to dazzle the understanding of half mankind; and, if managed with circumspection, will enable him even to spend his life among the literati, without once forfeiting the character of a connoisseur.'

from The Adventures of Count Fathom by Tobias Smollett (Chapter Thirty-Two)

Commonplace Book

'...Slogging away at the Aeneid: the race and the boxing match are extremely funny - athel, bugger it I will spell it right, athletes have evidently behaved all through the ages with the same mixture of exhibitionism, hysteria and unscrupulousness.'

Cecil Day-Lewis, in a letter to Jill Balcon, 1950, quoted in C. Day-Lewis: An English Literary Life by Sean Day-Lewis (Chapter 4)

Commonplace Book

'...There is an affinity and short transition betwixt all the violent passions that agitate the human mind. They are all false perspectives, which, though they magnify, yet perplex and render indistinct every object which they represent. And flattery is never so successfully adminstered, as to those who know they stand in need of friendship, assent, and approbation.'

from The Adventures of Count Fathom by Tobias Smollett (Chapter Thirty)

Helene by Mrs Arthur Kennard (1883)

This is a novel of some contradictions. Many elements of it are standard for their time - it's a story of love, set in society in London and in great houses in the country. The heroine is beautiful and a little unaware of it, and her humility leads her into allowing a love to develop that her wariness would otherwise have prohibited. But there are more unusual elements here: the heroine is a French Catholic who adheres quite strongly to her faith; she is very badly off, and has to work as a reciter to get by. There are also some infelicities of style here: there is a sense of unevenness whereby some parts read a little flatly, whereas some are quite intense and fascinating. There is also a sense that Kennard intended that the society surrounding the main couple would be, at least in part, a comic chorus, and more urbanely portrayed. She doesn't quite set this adequately firmly in place; there are moments where it jars. With its sad final scenes set in the wilds of 1870s Canada and in the countryside surrounding a French convent, this slightly unusual piece is satisfying in much that it attempts. Kennard's career was slight - only four main pieces of fiction - I look forward to the others to see if she can iron out these rough spots.

Commonplace Book

'"...Go to Italy or to France. I myself don't think there is any place like Rome or Naples to "cure the mind diseased." Live there some months, impregnate your soul with the peace and stillness that reigns amongst her temples and her treasure-houses of painting and sculpture, and I will wager my reputation as a wise man and a philosopher that you come back cured in body and soul. Things in that serene atmosphere assume their just proportions. We see the extreme smallness of our own interests and sufferings, and we learn the insignificance of our own imbecile personalities."'

from Helene by Mrs Arthur Kennard (Volume II, Chapter XIV)

Commonplace Book

'"...follow we fate's ebb and flow, whatsoever it shall be; all fortune may be overcome by being borne."'

from The Aeneid by Virgil (Book Five)

Commonplace Book

'We never acknowledge the reality of our fate until it is inexorably decided. We always think a miracle will be worked to avert its decrees. The stream will run backwards, the sun will stand still in our case. It is only when we find the stream rushing impetuously onward, and the sun shining with brilliant indifference while our hearts are breaking, that we acknowledge how powerless we are to stop the relentless advance of forces beyond our power and ken.'

from Helene by Mrs Arthur Kennard (Volume II, Chapter IV)