Commonplace Book

'"It's all right about the proposal," she announced; "he came out with it at the sixth hole. I said I must have time to think it over. I accepted him at the seventh."

"My dear," said her mother, "I think a little more maidenly reserve and hesitation would have been advisable, as you've known him so short a time. You might have waited till the ninth hole."

"The seventh is a very long hole," said Jessie; "besides, the tension was putting us both off our game..."

from The Brogue, a piece in Beasts and Super-Beasts by Saki

Commonplace Book

'It is the little thing, the unrehearsed gesture, the catch in the breath, the droop of the lip, the start of surprise, which really reveals. We may analyze ourselves in volumes and remain undiscovered; and then - by a yawn, a tilt of the head, a sob of exhaustion, a flash of hate - we are betrayed and unmasked forever.'

from Confessions by John Cowper Powys (Chapter I), in Confessions of Two Brothers by John Cowper Powys and Llewelyn Powys

Place and Power by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler (1903)

Fowler, by modern standards, is an absolute joke. How could a writer have thought that it was possible to be both avowedly Christian and Wildeanly witty? Of course, she did, and her first novel sold in the hundreds of thousands. This later one is still in that mode, though the feeling of retreading old paths is beginning to dominate. The first half particularly is sluggish and a little uninspiring, but there is a sense that she may have recognized this; the second half benefits as a result, with the repartee much more evident and as sparkling as ever, and the plot hammering along much more soundly. My other criticism is in the arena of believability - never a major consideration in appreciating Fowler, but the reader's disbelief is not easily suspended in this one. The twist at the end, the results of an election in the last part, and, particularly, a plot-vital medical procedure earlier on, utterly strain credibility. This story of destiny and how it plays out across two generations of British family and politics in the late nineteenth century is underpinned by Fowler's Christianity and the moral background to the characters' decisions. In this she is on safe ground, though, I assume, this may be the most objectionable part to modern minds.

Commonplace Book

'"...The public man who chooses the ideally right rather than the conventionally popular, must be prepared for misunderstanding and misrepresentation and disappointment and personal failure; the truth will prevail in the end, but not each separate preacher of it. Nevertheless his life will not be wasted; he will have served as a sign-post upon that upward path..."'

from Place and Power by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler (Book III, Chapter XII)

Haunted Islands Part II by J. Redwood Anderson (1924)

I wanted a different experience of this volume, because its predecessor had felt a little dull-edged. I decided to read it aloud, and something clicked. Some of my criticisms of Part I still stand, but approached this way this volume got me going on many occasions. The quiet drama of Anderson's post-war work can be brought out by taking a good amount of time over each line, and savouring them to the full. Still sometimes when a line is a single word it's too much, or when a rhyme is just that amount too obvious it still jars, but a good number of these pieces impressed me quietly. A favourite is The Goat, a twin-engined meditation on those that head beyond the standard life to live in rarefied air, with its increased vision, which utilises both a goat metaphor (he escapes his twisted rope and heads for precipitous climes) and more straightforward human description. Another fine example is The Shed, a softer and richer piece of impressionism about a farm shed and its smells, quiet, dim light and animal residents. I am interested to find out if Anderson, having abandoned to some extent the more strong-voiced narrative poetry of his early period which was so effective, is here following a new master or mistress. Yeats, perhaps? Another reading-path beckons....

The Via Veneto Papers by Ennio Flaiano (1973)

This volume in the original Italian was called something like The Solitude of the Satyr, or, in a play on words, The Solitude of Satire. In any case, the most famous part, essays surrounding the making and genesis of La Dolce Vita, gave the volume its English title. They are a less effective part, leaving an aftertaste of ennui and world-weariness. Flaiano's main theme in all these 'essays' is the degeneration of society and its current tragic absurdities. After The Via Veneto Papers comes the main bulk of the book, and its finer part. These are the Occasional Notebooks, where his humour and belief in life is allowed much more sway, and the sparks of his mind really ignite. Musings of all sorts from zingy fictionalised satires on current mores to heartfelt journeys into the damage we are doing to our spirits in modern life give the true measure of his thought. Finally there are the few pages of his last interview (with Giulio Villa Santa of Swiss-Italian radio) in 1972. It has to be said that there are revelations in this which are not terribly complimentary - his interview responses sometimes show up a kind of blindness, a lack of vital goat- vs sheep-sorting. He still, however, with his faults accounted for, provides a strong-winded and robust cultural commentary.

The Spirit Watches by Ruth Pitter (1939)

The accent here is on contemplation of the gentle and the natural, and on personal reflections which arise from that. Some of these poems are a little low in impact, but many of them are truly inspiring, and more than a little heartbreaking, or perhaps, more accurately, heartstretching. The standout which brought tears to my eyes is The Stockdove, a typically Pitterian examination of a creature seen as a victim of human brutality and greedy thoughtlessness. The gentle rubbed out by the gross. Almost equally as affecting, but very different modally, is The Fishers, about two boys, gently described in their landscape and different personalities. Pitter's reflection includes the realisation of its own limitations - if these two had 'had a kill' her dream of them would have been destroyed - she revels in the peace and silence of their idyll and yet recognizes the pain in her wish for it to remain so. There are poems here about all manner of animals and plants, but they are in what might be called her serious manner. The contrast between these and the more skittish and humorous pieces on these subjects in other volumes is an expansive one. This volume is seemingly in the centre of Pitter's heyday, and I love her soft, sad spirit.

Commonplace Book

'"I wonder," continued Eileen thoughtfully, "if in teaching a woman to be wise, a husband acts as an example or a warning?"'

from Place and Power by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler (Book III, Chapter IV)

Commonplace Book

'"He would stoop in order to conquer - he would compromise in order to command: which is politics rather than statesmanship. But I go deeper than this. I hold that a statesman ought to do what is right, irrespective of whether it is popular or not: but I also believe that the two are not in opposition; and that, as a rule, the people would prefer the right course if only things were made clear to them and they were allowed, with their eyes open, to choose for themselves."'

from Place and Power by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler (Book III, Chapter III)

Commonplace Book

'...Everything we do is conditioned by the attitude of mind we bring to it. This is true in some degree of all human activities, not merely of works of art, though here the phenomenon is most easily isolated. An athlete may succeed, not because he has a better physique or is better trained than other competitors, but because he has more heart in the figurative sense. It takes a very passion of will to liberate the final reserves of the body, and a similar fierce desire on the emotional and intellectual plane to express from the mind its final achievement.'

from Plaque With Laurel by M. Barnard Eldershaw (Part III, Chapter III)

Commonplace Book

'...To part the house and the lands, or to consider them as separate, would be no less than parting the soul and the body. The house was the soul; did contain and guard the soul as in a casket; the lands were England, Saxon as they could be, and if the house were at the heart of the land, then the soul of the house must indeed be at the heart and root of England, and, once arrived at the soul of the house, you might fairly claim to have pierced to the soul of England. Grave, gentle, encrusted with tradition, embossed with legend, simple and proud, ample and maternal. Not sensational. Not arresting. There was nothing about the house or the country to startle; it was, rather, a charm that enticed, insidious as a track through a wood, or a path lying across fields and curving away from sight over the skyline, leading the unwary wanderer deeper and deeper into the bosom of the country.'

from The Heir by V. Sackville-West (Chapter VIII)