CHARLES DICKENS  1812-70

The British writer generally considered the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.

In this extract from

DAVID COPPERFIELD

David entertains Mr. and Mrs. Micawber

At the appointed time, my three visitors arrived together. Mr. Micawber with more shirt-collar than usual, and a new ribbon to his eye-glass; Mrs. Micawber with her cap in a whitey-brown paper parcel; Traddles carrying the parcel, and supporting Mrs. Micawber on his arm. They were all delighted with my residence. When I conducted Mrs. Micawber to my dressing-table, and she saw the scale on which it was prepared for her, she was in such raptures, that she called Mr. Micawber to come in and look.

'My dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'this is luxurious. This is a way of life which reminds me of the period when I was myself in a state of celibacy, and Mrs. Micawber had not yet been solicited to plight her faith at the Hymeneal altar.'

'He means, solicited by him, Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, archly. 'He cannot answer for others.'

'My dear,' returned Mr. Micawber with sudden seriousness, 'I have no desire to answer for others. I am too well aware that when, in the inscrutable decrees of Fate, you were reserved for me, it is possible you may have been reserved for one, destined, after a protracted struggle, at length to fall a victim to pecuniary involvements of a complicated nature. I understand your allusion, my love. I regret it, but I can bear it.'

'Micawber!' exclaimed Mrs. Micawber, in tears. 'Have I deserved this! I, who never have deserted you; who never WILL desert you, Micawber!' 'My love,' said Mr. Micawber, much affected, 'you will forgive, and our old and tried friend Copperfield will, I am sure, forgive, the momentary laceration of a wounded spirit, made sensitive by a recent collision with the Minion of Power - in other words, with a ribald Turncock attached to the water-works - and will pity, not condemn, its excesses.'

Mr. Micawber then embraced Mrs. Micawber, and pressed my hand; leaving me to infer from this broken allusion that his domestic supply of water had been cut off that afternoon, in consequence of default in the payment of the company's rates.

To divert his thoughts from this melancholy subject, I informed Mr. Micawber that I relied upon him for a bowl of punch, and led him to the lemons. His recent despondency, not to say despair, was gone in a moment. I never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance of lemon-peel and sugar, the odour of burning rum, and the steam of boiling water, as Mr. Micawber did that afternoon.

I suppose - I never ventured to inquire, but I suppose - that Mrs. Crupp, after frying the soles, was taken ill. Because we broke down at that point. The leg of mutton came up very red within, and very pale without: besides having a foreign substance of a gritty nature sprinkled over it, as if it had had a fall into the ashes of that remarkable kitchen fireplace. But we were not in condition to judge of this fact from the appearance of the gravy, forasmuch as the 'young gal' had dropped it all upon the stairs - where it remained, by the by, in a long train, until it was worn out. The pigeon-pie was not bad, but it was a delusive pie: the crust being like a disappointing head, phrenologically speaking: full of lumps and bumps, with nothing particular underneath. In short, the banquet was such a failure.

'My dear friend Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'accidents will occur in the best-regulated families; and in families not regulated by that pervading influence which sanctifies while it enhances the - a - I would say, in short, by the influence of Woman, in the lofty character of Wife, they may be expected with confidence, and must be borne with philosophy. If you will allow me to take the liberty of remarking that there are few comestibles better, in their way, than a Devil, and that I believe, with a little division of labour, we could accomplish a good one if the young person in attendance could produce a gridiron, I would put it to you, that this little misfortune may be easily repaired.'

There was a gridiron in the pantry, on which my morning rasher of bacon was cooked. We had it in, in a twinkling, and immediately applied ourselves to carrying Mr. Micawber's idea into effect. The division of labour to which he had referred was this: - Traddles cut the mutton into slices; Mr. Micawber (who could do anything of this sort to perfection) covered them with pepper, mustard, salt, and cayenne; I put them on the gridiron, turned them with a fork, and took them off, under Mr. Micawber's direction; and Mrs. Micawber heated, and continually stirred, some mushroom ketchup in a little saucepan.

When we had slices enough done to begin upon, we fell-to, with our sleeves still tucked up at the wrist, more slices sputtering and blazing on the fire, and our attention divided between the mutton on our plates, and the mutton then preparing.

What with the novelty of this cookery, the excellence of it, the bustle of it, the frequent starting up to look after it, the frequent sitting down to dispose of it as the crisp slices came off the gridiron hot and hot, the being so busy, so flushed with the fire, so amused, and in the midst of such a tempting noise and savour, we reduced the leg of mutton to the bone. My own appetite came back miraculously. I am satisfied that Mr. and Mrs. Micawber could not have enjoyed the feast more, if they had sold a bed to provide it. Traddles laughed as heartily, almost the whole time, as he ate and worked. Indeed we all did, all at once; and I dare say there was never a greater success.

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JOYS OF MEMORY

Thomas Hardy

When the spring comes round, and a certain day

Looks out from the brume by the eastern copsetrees

And says, Remember,

I begin again, as if it were new,

A day of like date I once lived through,

Whiling it hour by hour away;

So shall I do till my December,

When spring comes round.

I take my holiday then and my rest

Away from the dun life here about me,

Old hours re-greeting

With the quiet sense that bring they must

Such throbs as at first, till I house with dust,

And in the numbness my heartsome zest

For things that were, be past repeating

When spring comes round.

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JEROME K. JEROME 1859-1927 was an British writer and humorist who is especially remembered for Three men in a Boat, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow and Three men on the Bummel.

This is an extract from his essay

ON BEING IDLE

Many years ago, when I was a young man, I was taken very ill - I never could see myself that much was the matter with me, except that I had a beastly cold. But I suppose it was something very serious, for the doctor said that I ought to have come to him a month before, and that if it (whatever it was) had gone on for another week he would not have answered for the consequences.

It is an extraordinary thing, but I never knew a doctor called into any case yet but what it transpired that another day’s delay would have rendered cure hopeless. Our medical guide, philosopher, and friend is like the hero in a melodrama - he always comes upon the scene just, and only just, in the nick of time. It is Providence, that is what it is.

Well, as I was saying, I was very ill and was ordered to Buxton for a month, with strict injunctions to do nothing whatever all the while that I was there. “Rest is what you require,” said the doctor, “perfect rest.”

It seemed a delightful prospect. “This man evidently understands my complaint,” said I, and I pictured to myself a glorious time - a four weeks’ dolce far niente with a dash of illness in it. Not too much illness, but just illness enough - just sufficient to give it the flavour of suffering and make it poetical.

I should get up late, sip chocolate, and have my breakfast in slippers and a dressing-gown. I should lie out in the garden in a hammock and read sentimental novels with a melancholy ending, until the books should fall from my listless hand, and I should recline there, dreamily gazing into the deep blue of the firmament, watching the fleecy clouds floating like white-sailed ships across its depths, and listening to the joyous song of the birds and the low rustling of the trees. Or, on becoming too weak to go out of doors, I should sit propped up with pillows at the open window of the ground-floor front, and look wasted and interesting, so that all the pretty girls would sigh as they passed by.

And twice a day I should go down in a Bath chair to the Colonnade to drink the waters. Oh, those waters! I knew nothing about them then, and was rather taken with the idea. “Drinking the waters” sounded fashionable and Queen Anne-fied, and I thought I should like them. But, ugh! after the first three or four mornings!

I drank them neat for six consecutive days, and they nearly killed me; but after then I adopted the plan of taking a stiff glass of brandy and water immediately on the top of them, and found much relief thereby. I have been informed since, by various eminent medical gentlemen, that the alcohol must have entirely counteracted the effects of the chalybeate properties contained in the water. I am glad I was lucky enough to hit upon the right thing.

But “drinking the waters” was only a small portion of the torture I experienced during that memorable month - a month which was, without exception, the most miserable I have ever spent. During the best part of it I religiously followed the doctor’s mandate and did nothing whatever, except moon about the house and garden and go out for two hours a day in a Bath chair.

That did break the monotony to a certain extent. There is more excitement about Bath-chairing - especially if you are not used to the exhilarating exercise - than might appear to the casual observer. A sense of danger, such as a mere outsider might not understand, is ever present to the mind of the occupant. He feels convinced every minute that the whole concern is going over, a conviction which becomes especially lively whenever a ditch or a stretch of newly macadamised road comes in sight. Every vehicle that passes he expects is going to run into him; and he never finds himself ascending or descending a hill without immediately beginning to speculate upon his chances, supposing - as seems extremely probable - that the weak-kneed controller of his destiny should let go.

But even this diversion failed to enliven after awhile, and the ennui became perfectly unbearable. I felt my mind giving way under it. It is not a strong mind, and I thought it would be unwise to tax it too far. So somewhere about the twentieth morning I got up early, had a good breakfast, and walked straight off to Hayfield, at the foot of the Kinder Scout - a pleasant, busy little town, reached through a lovely valley, and with two sweetly pretty women in it.

At least they were sweetly pretty then; one passed me on the bridge and, I think, smiled; and the other was standing at an open door, making an unremunerative investment of kisses upon a red-faced baby. But it is years ago, and I dare say they have both grown stout and snappish since that time.

Having taken the plunge, I went further and further into dissipation, going out for a long walk every morning and listening to the band in the pavilion every evening. But the days still passed slowly notwithstanding, and I was heartily glad when the last one came and I was being whirled away from gouty, consumptive Buxton to London with its stern work and life.

I looked out of the carriage as we rushed through Hendon in the evening. The lurid glare overhanging the mighty city seemed to warm my heart, and when, later on, my cab rattled out of St. Pancras’ station, the old familiar roar that came swelling up around me sounded the sweetest music I had heard for many a long day.

-o=0=o-

UNREALISED

Thomas Hardy

Down comes the winter rain -

Spoils my hat and bow -

Runs into the poll of me;

But mother won't know.

We've been out and caught a cold,

Knee-deep in snow;

Such a lucky thing it is

That mother won't know!

Rosy lost herself last night -

Couldn't tell where to go.

Yes - it rather frightened her,

But mother didn't know.

Somebody made Willy drunk

At the Christmas show:

O 'twas fun! It's well for him

That mother won't know!

Howsoever wild we are,

Late at school or slow,

Mother won't be cross with us,

Mother won't know.

How we cried the day she died!

Neighbours whispering low . . .

But we now do what we will -

Mother won't know.

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THE READING ROOM IS UPDATED EVERY SATURDAY

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Saturday, March 15, 2014

Alan Alexander Milne (A.A. MILNE) 1882-1956 was an English author and playwright, best known for his children's books about Winnie the Pooh.

This is one of his short essays -

ON GOING IN TO A HOUSE

published in 1920

It is nineteen years since I lived in a house; nineteen years since I went upstairs to bed and came downstairs to breakfast. Of course I have done these things in other people’s houses from time to time, but what we do in other people’s houses does not count. We are holiday-making then. We play cricket and golf and croquet, and run up and down stairs, and amuse ourselves in a hundred different ways, but all this is no fixed part of our life.

Now, however, for the first time for nineteen years, I am actually living in a house. I have (imagine my excitement) a staircase of my own.

Flats may be convenient (I thought so myself when I lived in one some days ago), but they have their disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is that you are never in complete possession of the flat. You may think that the drawing-room floor (to take a case) is your very own, but it isn’t; you share it with a man below who uses it as a ceiling. If you want to dance a step-dance, you have to consider his plaster.

I was always ready enough to accommodate myself in this matter to his prejudices, but I could not put up with his old-fashioned ideas about bathroom ceilings. It is very cramping to one’s style in the bath to reflect that the slightest splash may call attention to itself on the ceiling of the gentleman below. This is to share a bathroom with a stranger - an intolerable position for a proud man. Today I have a bathroom of my own for the first time in my life.

I can see already that living in a house is going to be extraordinarily healthy both for mind and body. At present I go upstairs to my bedroom (and downstairs again) about once in every half-hour; not simply from pride of ownership, to make sure that the bedroom is still there, and that the staircase is continuing to perform its functions, but in order to fetch something, a letter or a key, which as likely as not I have forgotten about again as soon as I have climbed to the top of the house. No such exercise as this was possible in a flat, and even after two or three days I feel the better for it.

But obviously I cannot go on like this, if I am to have leisure for anything else. With practice I shall so train my mind that, when I leave my bedroom in the morning, I leave it with everything that I can possibly require until nightfall. This, I imagine, will not happen for some years yet; meanwhile physical training has precedence.

Getting up to breakfast means something different now; it means coming down to breakfast. To come down to breakfast brings one immediately in contact with the morning. The world flows past the window, that small and (as it seems to me) particularly select portion of the world which finds itself in our quiet street; I can see it as I drink my tea.

When I lived in a flat (days and days ago) anything might have happened to London, and I should never have known it until the afternoon. Everybody else could have perished in the night, and I should settle down as complacently as ever to my essay on making the world safe for democracy. Not so now. As soon as I have reached the bottom of my delightful staircase I am one with the outside world.

Also one with the weather, which is rather convenient. On the third floor it is almost impossible to know what sort of weather they are having in London. A day which looks cold from a third- floor window may be very sultry down below, but by that time one is committed to an overcoat. How much better to live in a house, and to step from one’s front door and inhale a sample of whatever day the gods have sent. Then one can step back again and dress accordingly.

But the best of a house is that it has an outside personality as well as an inside one. Nobody, not even himself, could admire a man’s flat from the street; nobody could look up and say, “What very delightful people must live behind those third-floor windows.”

Here it is different. Any of you may find himself some day in our quiet street, and stop a moment to look at our house; at the blue door with its jolly knocker, at the little trees in their blue tubs standing within a ring of blue posts linked by chains, at the bright-coloured curtains. You may not like it, but we shall be watching you from one of the windows, and telling each other that you do.

In any case, we have the pleasure of looking at it ourselves, and feeling that we are contributing something to London, whether for better or for worse. It is a solemn thought that I have got this house for (apparently) eighty-seven years. One never knows, and it may be that by the end of that time I shall be meditating an article on the advantages of living in a flat. A flat, I shall say, is so convenient.

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GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE

A Memory of Christiana C.

Thomas Hardy

Where Blackmoor was, the road that led

To Bath, she could not show,

Nor point the sky that overspread

Towns ten miles off or so.

But that Calcutta stood this way,

Cape Horn there figured fell,

That here was Boston, here Bombay,

She could declare full well.

Less known to her the track athwart

Froom Mead or Yell'ham Wood

Than how to make some Austral port

In seas of surly mood.

She saw the glint of Guinea's shore

Behind the plum-tree nigh,

Heard old unruly Biscay's roar

In the weir's purl hard by . . .

"My son's a sailor, and he knows

All seas and many lands,

And when he's home he points and shows

Each country where it stands.

"He's now just there - by Gib's high rock -

And when he gets, you see,

To Portsmouth here, behind the clock,

Then he'll come back to me!"

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Saturday, March 8, 2014

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (G.K. CHESTERTON) 1874-1936 was an English writer, poet, journalist and lay theologian, the creator of the fictional priest-detective Father Brown.

The following is an extract from his essay -

ON LYING IN BED

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. This, however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the premises. I think myself that the thing might be managed with several pails of Aspinall and a broom.

Only if one worked in a really sweeping and masterly way, and laid on the colour in great washes, it might drip down again on one’s face in floods of rich and mingled colour like some strange fairy rain; and that would have its disadvantages. I am afraid it would be necessary to stick to black and white in this form of artistic composition. To that purpose, indeed, the white ceiling would be of the greatest possible use; in fact, it is the only use I think of a white ceiling being put to.

But for the beautiful experiment of lying in bed I might never have discovered it. Nowhere did I find a really clear space for sketching until this occasion when I prolonged beyond the proper limit the process of lying on my back in bed. Then the light of that white heaven broke upon my vision, that breadth of mere white which is indeed almost the definition of Paradise, since it means purity and also means freedom.

But alas! like all heavens, now that it is seen it is found to be unattainable; it looks more austere and more distant than the blue sky outside the window. For my proposal to paint on it with the bristly end of a broom has been discouraged - never mind by whom; and even my minor proposal to put the other end of the broom into the kitchen fire and turn it to charcoal has not been conceded.

Yet I am certain that it was from persons in my position that all the original inspiration came for covering the ceilings of palaces and cathedrals with a riot of fallen angels or victorious gods. I am sure that it was only because Michaelangelo was engaged in the ancient and honourable occupation of lying in bed that he ever realized how the roof of the Sistine Chapel might be made into an awful imitation of a divine drama that could only be acted in the heavens.

The tone now commonly taken toward the practice of lying in bed is hypocritical and unhealthy. Of all the marks of modernity that seem to mean a kind of decadence, there is none more menacing and dangerous than the exultation of very small and secondary matters of conduct at the expense of very great and primary ones, at the expense of eternal ties and tragic human morality.

If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor morals.  Especially this is so in matters of hygiene; notably such matters as lying in bed. Instead of being regarded, as it ought to be, as a matter of personal convenience and adjustment, it has come to be regarded by many as if it were a part of essential morals to get up early in the morning.

Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before. It is the great peril of our society that all its mechanisms may grow more fixed while its spirit grows more fickle. A man’s minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, creative; the things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his ideals.

But with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; but our lunch does not change. Now, I should like men to have strong and rooted conceptions, but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes in the garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes at the top of a tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, but let them do it in a bed, or a boat, or a balloon.

For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed (like journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as, for example, the professional harpooners of whales), it is obvious that the indulgence must be very occasional. But that is not the caution I mean. The caution is this: if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it without any reason or justification at all. I do not speak, of course, of the seriously sick. But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it without a rag of excuse; then he will get up a healthy man. If he does it for some secondary hygienic reason, if he has some scientific explanation, he may get up a hypochondriac.

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JULIE-JANE

Thomas Hardy

Sing; how 'a would sing!

How 'a would raise the tune

When we rode in the wagon from harvesting

By the light o' the moon!

Dance; how 'a would dance!

If a fiddlestring did but sound

She would hold out her coats, give a slanting glance,

And go round and round.

Laugh; how 'a would laugh!

Her peony lips would part

As if none such a place for a lover to quaff

At the deeps of a heart.

Julie, O girl of joy,

Soon, soon that lover he came.

Ah, yes; and gave thee a baby-boy,

But never his name . . .

- Tolling for her, as you guess;

And the baby too . . . 'Tis well.

You knew her in maidhood likewise? - Yes,

That's her burial bell.

"I suppose," with a laugh, she said,

"I should blush that I'm not a wife;

But how can it matter, so soon to be dead,

What one does in life!"

When we sat making the mourning

By her death-bed side, said she,

"Dears, how can you keep from your lovers, adorning

In honour of me!"

Bubbling and brightsome eyed!

But now - O never again.

She chose her bearers before she died

From her fancy-men.

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Saturday, March 1, 2014

SUI-SIN FAR , the Cantonese word for narcissus flower, was the pen name of British-born Edith Maude Eaton 1865-1914. In the early 1870s her family moved to the USA and then to Canada.
As a young girl she wrote articles about the Chinese people and those were published by newspapers in Montreal.
After moving back to the USA she became known for her short stories and newspaper articles; the subject of many of them concerned the problems faced by Chinese people living in a country which had introduced legislation banning Chinese immigration.

This is an extract from

LEAVES FROM THE MENTAL PORTFOLIO OF AN EURASIAN

which was published in 1909

When I look back over the years I see myself, a little child of scarcely four years of age, walking in front of my nurse, in a green English lane, and listening to her tell another of her kind that my mother is Chinese.

“Oh Lord!” exclaims the informed. She turns around and scans me curiously from head to foot. Then the two women whisper together.

Though the word “Chinese” conveys very little meaning to my mind, I feel that they are talking about my father and mother and my heart swells with indignation.

When we reach home I rush to my mother and try to tell her what I have heard. I am a young child. I fail to make myself intelligible. My mother does not understand, and when the nurse declares to her, “Little Miss Sui is a story-teller,” my mother slaps me.

Many a long year has past over my head since that day - the day on which I first learned I was something different and apart from other children, but though my mother has forgotten it, I have not.

I see myself again, a few years older. I am playing with another child in a garden. A girl passes by outside the gate. “Mamie,” she cries to my companion. “I wouldn’t speak to Sui if I were you. Her mamma is Chinese.”

“I don’t care,” answers the little one beside me. And then to me, “Even if your mamma is Chinese, I like you better than I like Annie.”

“But I don’t like you,” I answer, turning my back on her. It is my first conscious lie.

I am at a children’s party, given by the wife of an Indian officer whose children were schoolfellows of mine. I am only six years of age, but have attended a private school for over a year, and have already learned that China is a heathen country, being civilized by England. However, for the time being, I am a merry romping child.

There are quite a number of grown people present. One, a white haired old man, has his attention called to me by the hostess. He adjusts his eyeglasses and surveys me critically.

“Ah, indeed!” he exclaims. “Who would have thought it at first glance? Yet now I see the difference between her and other children. What a peculiar colouring! Her mother’s eyes and hair and her father’s features, I presume. Very interesting little creature!”

I had been called from play for the purpose of inspection. I do not return to it. For the rest of the evening I hide myself behind a hall door and refuse to show myself until it is time to go home.

My parents have come to America. We are in Hudson City, N.Y., and we are very poor. I am out with my brother, who is ten months older than myself. We pass a Chinese store, the door of which is open.

“Look!” says Charlie. “Those men in there are Chinese!”

Eagerly I gaze into the long low room. With the exception of my mother, who is English bred with English ways and manner of dress, I have never seen a Chinese person. The two men within the store are uncouth specimens of their race, dresssed in working blouses and pantaloons with queues hanging down their backs. I recoil with a sense of shock.

“Oh, Charlie,” I cry. “Are we like that?”

“Well, we’re Chinese, and they’re Chinese, too, so we must be!” returns my seven year old brother.

“Of course you are,” puts in a boy who has followed us down the street, and who lives near us and has seen my mother: “Chinky, Chinky, Chinaman, yellow-face, pig-tail, rat-eater.” A number of other boys and several little girls join in with him.

“Better than you,” shouts my brother, facing the crowd. He is younger and smaller than any there, and I am even more insignificant than he; but my spirit revives.

“I’d rather be Chinese than anything else in the world,” I scream.

They pull my hair, they tear my clothes, they scratch my face, and all but lame my brother; but the white blood in our veins fights valiantly for the Chinese half of us. When it is all over, exhausted and bedraggled, we crawl home, and report to our mother that we have “won the battle”.

“Are you sure?” asks my mother doubtfully.

-o0o-

THE OLD GOWN
Thomas Hardy

I have seen her in gowns the brightest,
Of azure, green, and red,
And in the simplest, whitest,
Muslined from heel to head;
I have watched her walking, riding,
Shade-flecked by a leafy tree,
Or in fixed thought abiding
By the foam-fingered sea.

In woodlands I have known her,
When boughs were mourning loud,
In the rain-reek she has shown her
Wild-haired and water-browed.
And once or twice she has cast me
As she pomped along the street
Court-clad, ere quite she has passed me,
A glance from her chariot seat.

But in my memoried passion
For evermore stands she
In the gown of fading fashion
She wore that night when we,
Doomed long to part, assembled
In the snug, small room; yea, when
She sang with lips that trembled,
"Shall I see his face again?"

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"THE READING ROOM" WILL NORMALLY BE UPDATED EVERY WEEKEND

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