Six Common Things by EF Benson (1893)

Although this was published in Osgood McIlvaine's 'Short Stories by British Authors' series, most of it isn't really short stories at all. The majority of these are essays, philosophical musings, some of them with vaguely fictionalised backgrounds. There is a small group which are more directly fictional. The overwhelming theme is melancholy and loss. This second book must have been quite puzzling for readers of his first, which had been published earlier the same year, and was a tearingly successful society comedy - Dodo. The pieces range around between loss of a child, loss of a wife, the terribly pathetic conditions of the poor and personal losses seen at a greater distance, those of others in our lives. There are a few which also incorporate a little humour, mainly involving children and animals, which lighten the load considerably. The few true short stories included tend to character study: one of a nurse-governess missing the welcome of a former charge returning home from school, and two of another governess being squashed flat by society's prejudices in the dining room and then later gaining her revenge when she marries well. The big puzzle is the title. I can't find a good reason for it. The phrase is mentioned in the last story as covering the ground of the fifteen which have gone before, so it's obviously not a bibliographic numerical reference. If it's thematic, I'm darned if I can find a clear group of six anywhere. Is it a reference to the seven ages of man, with the last story representing Death, the final one? It's definitely about that, but it's difficult to assemble the others into even vaguely coherent summaries of other stages. The only other option is that the phrase was more commonplace in 1893 than it is now, and refers to - what? A line from a hymn? A song? A poem? A proverb? Anyway, the twenty-first century is unlikely to fall in love with this sad little deeply Victorian book, in fact is likely to dismiss it out of hand. It is minor, but not so dismissable.