Being a reader is a habit, a good one generally. Many like to keep up with the cultural mood and they follow the received judgment of critics. Those critics are themselves influenced by the views of acknowledged writers of the first rank. Many good writers are thereby relegated to the second division. I have written about this before and the irony is that roles may be reversed as a later generation discovers the bias against the supposed lesser artist is not warranted. Such is the case of Hemingway and Sherwood Anderson. The cadences of the former to me seem literary and forced while the honest prose of the latter described an era with fidelity. Virginia Woolf depreciated Arnold Bennett for snobbish reasons and that has had its effect on his critical reception.
Clark Russell in his ‘Book of Authors’ (1871) has as its theme the judgments of authors on other authors. It’s a type of literary blood sport in which much ink is spilled to the delight of the reader. Probably faint praise from a contemporary is the most damaging to the frail ego of the average writer. Such possibly were the subtle discriminations, reservations and allusive pontifications of Henry James on the work of Constance Fenimore Woolson. She was a depressive and it is speculated that her dependence on James was a factor in her presumed suicide in Venice and thus she has tended to become defined as a footnote in the biography of Henry James. She is rather better than that as I discovered reading her novella ‘For the Major’ (1882/3: Harper’s) which Max Nelson writing in the New Republic characterizes as being about ‘an aging couple’. No it’s not which error demonstrates the careless reading, if read at all, of her work. I don’t know how I came across her but ‘Major’ was there in a load of epubs on an micro sd. ‘I’ll have a look’. And as I read it I began to discern a Jamesian vibe in the relation between the stepmother and the daughter from a previous marriage of the Major. Was a jealous stepmother attempting to create a rift between the girl and her father. As described the mother seems to be very young something like half the age of her husband, a wounded officer hero of the War Between the States. The year is 1868. Sara is 20, her stepmother is ?
But was she the elder? No sign of age was visible in all her little person from head to foot. She was very small and slight. Her muslin gown, whose simple gathered waist was belted by a ribbon sash, had a youthful, almost childlike, aspect, yet at the same time a pretty quaintness of its own, like that of an old-fashioned miniature. The effect of this young-old attire was increased by the arrangement of the hair. It was golden hair, even and fine, and it hung in curls all round her head—long curls that fell below the waist. These curls were distinct and complete spirals, each one perfect in itself, not intertwining with the next; a round stick passed through any one of them would not have been visible from bottom to top.
We associate those curls with Elizabeth Barrett Browning and spaniels. Madam Carroll is deeply devoted to the major and he though ailing makes his appearance at the soirees which she holds regularly as due her position in society. He is described by Woolson:
He was a handsome, soldierly-looking man, tall, broad-shouldered, with noble bearing, and bold, well-cut features. He was dressed in black, with broad, stiff, freshly starched white cuffs, and a high standing collar, round which was folded a black silk cravat that when opened was three-quarters of a yard square. His thin gray hair, moustache, and imperial were cut after the fashion affected by the senior officers of the old army—the army before the war.
Why does Madam Carroll hold these receptions:
"If we should drop them," answered Madam Carroll—"if we should drop them, Far Edgerley, socially speaking, would disappear. It would become a miscellaneous hamlet upon a mountain-top, like any other. It would dissolve into its component parts, which are, as you know, but ciphers; we, of the Farms, hold them together, and give them whatever importance they possess."
Into this regulated existence there comes the narrative catalyst, a troubadour, a strolling player lately of the West Indies whose talent as a musician endears himself to Madam’s salon.
He was apparently about twenty-eight or thirty years of age, tall, slender, carelessly dressed, yet possessing, too, some picturesque articles of attire to which Far Edgerley was not accustomed; notably, low shoes with red silk stockings above them, and a red silk handkerchief to match the stockings peeping from the breast pocket of the coat; a cream-colored umbrella lined with red silk; a quantity of cream-colored gauze wound round a straw hat.
What effect will he have on the Carrolls? He seems to have a special place in the affections of Madam Carroll. He comes and goes at will, visits her flower garden outside hours, so to speak. The rector (Episcopalian of course) Mr. Owen a young man visits often to confer with the Major who is the senior warden of the church. One feels that Sara may have something to do with this vigilance. He begins to have doubts about the bone fides of colourful Dupont. He seems too much of a good thing. He unearths a scandal in an outlying village further up the mountain. Has Dupont been trifling with the affections of a farm girl? Running with this tale to Madam Carroll to warn of the danger to Sara he is met with a strange coldness.
An excellent well told, credible short novel by an unjustly neglected author that as you read releases a hesperis like bouquet.
No comments:
Post a Comment