THE ANTIQUARIAN: Tudor Codpiece

According to Beth Marie Kosir, “The codpiece came into existence during the Middle Ages, became popular during the reigns of the Yorkist monarchs in England [and] attained full prominence during the reign of Henry VIII.”  Portraits of Renaissance leaders, such as Francis I and Emperor Charles V, attest to its global appeal. 

The over-sized proportions of Henry VIII’s codpieces support the theory that as a fashion accoutrement, the codpiece represented “a statement of the virility of the individual” (Reed).  Acting also as a whimsical sex promotion object, it helped a man establish his rank among other males in competitive royal courts ranging across Europe.

The codpiece fell out of favour during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and, unlike many other fashion trends, it is doubtful that it will ever return to common use again.

Kosir, Beth Marie.  “Modesty to Majesty: The Development of the Codpiece.” Richard

     III Society: American Branch.  Web. 22 December 2014.

Reed, C. S.  “The Codpiece: Social Fashion or Medical Need?”  Internal Medicine

     Journal.  2004: 684-686. Print.

VIGNETTE: Seasonal Work, 2014

NOVEMBER 11: We Remember

Canadian soldiers at the front during WWI

Peninsular War:

Lieutenant Francis Milner Barry, 83^rd Regiment of Foot

Crimean War:

Sergeant John Stocker, 20^th & 25^th Regiment of Foot

WWI:

Timothy Joseph Kelleher, 81^st Battalion, C.E.F., machine gunner

 Thomas Charles Hammond, No. 2 Field Ambulance, C.E.F.

Samuel LaMount Metcalfe, C.E.F.

WWII: 

Joseph Salvatore Vittorio Vella, A.R.P.

 Flight-Sergeant Cyril Anthony Hammond, R.C.A.F.

Douglas Hammond, Merchant Marine

NOVEMBER 11: We Remember the ARP

Twentieth century warfare increasingly involved the civilian populace as military targets.  At the advent of WWII, Civil Defence responded to the bomber threat of air warfare with an organization called Air Raid Precautions (ARP).  This special unit guarded “the very heart and citadel of the city’s strength―its men, women and children” (Front Line, 39).   Amongst many other duties, rescue parties from the ARP were sent to the site of every bomb-fall to release the buried and care for the injured (Front Line, 39). 

Calling the rescue worker of the ARP the new technician of the blitz, the book Front Line outlines the dangerous duty that members of this special unit undertook on a daily basis. 

A member of the ARP….

            learned how to tunnel through shifting masses of rubble on unstable

            footings, using whatever head-support he could find….He learned to

            be very delicate with his big hands, for if he could not withdraw a

            lump of brick-and-mortar without disturbing by a hair’s breadth

            the broken timber beside it he might bring the tons of stuff above

            down upon him…His was the most laborious of all the tasks of

            civil defence.  He had been known to keep straining away at a

            difficult piece of rescue for seventeen hours on end.  His work had

            also its special risks.  Underground his fate was always poised

            precariously over his head.  Above ground he often worked under a

            tottering wall and lacked the time to deal with it.  What couldn’t be

            shored must be ignored.  In basements there might be water from

            broken pipes, rising steadily towards the roof as the parties struggled

            to get in and release someone, or to get out with him.  Gas often leaked

            from fractured mains or household pipes; it might make any enclosed

            space into an immediately fatal trap.  And so often there was fire, to give

            the rescuers minutes instead of hours, and threaten them as they hurried.

The ARP performed their heavy, dangerous labour in the pursuit of people trapped and struggling for life; in the endeavour to save someone’s child, wife, husband, mother or father.  The horrors witnessed by these workers could only be made worth while by the gift of life that each successful rescue provided, “as they struggled noisily forward” waiting for the party leader to “call for silence and they would strain their ears for voices, a muffled cry, even the noise of  breathing” (150).  As one worker reported afterwards, it was the prospect of “getting the old boy out” that kept each of them going (150).

My grandfather's ARP hatpin over maple leaf on "Front Line," a book dedicated to British civil defence in WWII

Front Line: The Official Story of the Civil Defense of Britain.  Toronto: J.M. Dent

            & Sons, 1943.

CINEMA SIDE: Self-Absorption & the Evolution of 'Sunset Boulevard'

In Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, the romantic relationship between William Holden’s character, Joe Gillis, and Gloria Swanson’s character, Norma Desmond, begins with the death of a monkey.

Needing a place to hide from pursuing police, Joe Gillis takes refuge in the driveway of faded movie star Norma Desmond.  While waiting for the police to be at a safe distance, Joe Gillis is misidentified by the residing butler as the representative of a funeral home that has been hired to help in the burial of Norma Desmond’s recently deceased pet monkey.  At once, the unsuspecting Gillis is taken to view the body and, as a consequence, meets his future lover, Norma Desmond.

An interesting insight into the film’s ill-fated love affair between Gillis and Desmond, however, is the direction that Billy Wilder (who co-wrote the film) gave Gloria Swanson concerning her character’s feelings for the departed pet.  In an interview with Cameron Crowe, the great director revealed that the relationship between the monkey and Miss Desmond was much more intimate than that of owner and pet:  They were, in fact, lovers!  Throughout the scenes involving the monkey, Wilder reminded Swanson repeatedly: “There goes your last lover;” and, after the animal had been buried in the garden, he continued to tell her, “Remember that your lover is in the garden”(Cameron, 304).

A point that movie critics have failed to properly appreciate in this classic film, then, is not only a transition between lovers that is unique in cinematic history, but also one that is supremely Darwinian in nature: Gloria Swanson goes from a monkey to William Holden—now that is evolution!

An even more important point that has been overlooked, however, is that through this vital piece of characterization the complete dysfunctional nature of Norma’s relationships is made more ironically clear: she treated her pet monkey as a lover and her lover, Joe Gillis, as a pet.  Thematically then, it is no surprise that at the end of the film she survives both and, as the final scene shows the faded star being escorted to prison, one of the film’s major themes is fully revealed:  Taken to its extreme, self-absorption both destroys and kills. 

Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond

Crowe, Cameron.  Conversations with Wilder.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.

ASIDE: On the Personal Anecdote in the Classroom

Since it can be viewed as a superfluous waste of valuable classroom time, a teacher is often tempted to forgo personal anecdotes in the day to day exercise of academic instruction.  As part of the human element of teaching, unlike other areas of instructive interaction, the influence of the anecdote can never be truly quantified and so its significance in the process of instruction never accurately measured.

In terms of the intuitive communicative link between two or more separate individuals, however, an instructor’s well-placed, well-spoken personal anecdote is often that necessary part of the teaching process that connects: the bridge or pathway to human meeting human, where two separate perceptions of inviolable individuality overlap to find common ground.  For some students, it is the vital starting point of the mind’s flower opening up to what the teacher, over time, hopes to pour into the root of it.

One caution: It must be appropriate and, above all, genuine.  Like most animals, humans can smell insincerity like an odour.

"In fact, it reminds me of the time I wrestled an alligator after making love to twenty women!"

INSIGHT, APHORISM & MAXIM: Incentive & Enticement, the First Rule of Bribery

In MGM’s 1973 production The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, Sarah Miles plays an abused wife who, while fleeing her husband, is abducted by a gang of outlaws.  At the mercy of four desperate men, and after being almost raped by two of them, she tries to bribe one of the abductors to help her escape. 

While sitting together by an open fire, she proposes her scheme to Jack Warden’s character, Dawes, and offers him two emerald earrings and one emerald pendant for his assistance.  The outlaw accepts the valuable items she hands to him and, without agreeing to help her, stands up and walks away.

At this point, Burt Reynold’s character, Jay Grobart, enters the frame and it is apparent that he has witnessed the entire scene; smirking, with his thumbs hitched lazily inside his pant pockets, he offers his devastated captive the following insight on the principles of incentive and enticement:  “Never try and bribe a man with something he can take anyway.”

Photo from, http://nothingiswrittenfilm.blogspot.ca/2012/06/man-who-loved-cat-dancing.html

THE ANTIQUARIAN: Pope Clement VII & the Art of Non-Decision

Throughout the ages, the politics and power-plays of popes have equaled or surpassed the very best (or worst) of the many secular political disciples of Machiavelli.  A prime example of such papal political maneuvering can be seen in the way Pope Clement VII handled the question of Henry VIII’s application to divorce his first wife, Queen Catherine.

The catalyst behind The Great Matter, as it was known at the time, essentially, involved Henry VIII’s desire to have a legitimate son, his dissatisfaction with his wife’s inability to give him one, and, finally, his ardent desire to marry Anne Boleyn.  For the latter to occur, however, the King of England needed papal permission to divorce the Queen of England, Catherine of Aragon. 

England’s Great Matter, however, generated great personal and political risk for Giulio de’ Medici, also known as Pope Clement VII.  As David Starkey remarks in his book, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII, the pope had much to fear:  On the one hand, the troops of Catherine of Aragon’s nephew, Emperor Charles V, had just sacked Rome, leaving both the city and the pope at the mercy of an emperor who was actively pressuring him to disallow the divorce; on the other hand, the Lutheran rejection of papal power then taking hold in Germany represented a threat to the papacy itself and Clement was informed that if he did not allow the King of England to get rid of his wife, England would go the way of Germany (Starkey, 217).  On top of all this, the Medici family, to which he belonged, had been driven out of their “hereditary city-state of Florence” and Clement was responsible for saving the family from political oblivion (Starkey, 217).

So, how did Pope Clement VII respond?  The wily Florentine, as Starkey describes him, used prevarication as an art form (217).  With discourse of inordinate length, he confused, exacerbated, and avoided “ever reaching a conclusion;” in so doing, he bought the time he needed to improve his position (Starkey, 217).  Starkey states, Pope Clement “knew every word, in mellifluous Italian or fluent Latin, apart from ‘yes’ and ‘no’” (217).

At last, a Legatine Trial was set-up to deliberate over The Great Matter in England and Henry VIII, frustrated by delay after delay, and desperate to marry Anne Boleyn, was, eventually, forced to decide the matter on his own by breaking off relations with Rome. With the decision made for him, and at a time more advantageous to himself, Clement was now in a better position to, finally, give a definitive response: On 11 July 1533, he excommunicated King Henry VIII of England.

Starkey, David. Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII.  Toronto: Harper Perennial, 2003.

VIGNETTE: "On a Trip to Washington D.C."

LITERARY CORNER: Let Literature Be

                                      The reader became the book; and summer night

                                      Was like the conscious being of the book.

                                                                                   - Wallace Stevens

                                                

Using the Iceberg Principle of Ernest Hemingway’s Theory of Omission in his introduction to the 1^st edition of The Literary Detective, Glen Paul Hammond explained how storytellers use plot (which is analogous to the visible, smallest part of the iceberg that floats above the waterline) as a means to allow a good reader to perceive the deeper meaning of the text (which is analogous to the largest part of the iceberg that resides, invisible, below the surface of the water).

In the 2^nd Edition of the The Literary Detective, this essential part of the communicative relationship, between writer and reader, is more fully articulated in an expanded Introduction that demonstrates how layers of meaning embedded in the text creates an experiential connection that allows a book to speak to the modern reader and come alive!

The author uses Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to explain the process (Hammond, 4-6):

                    In a diagrammatical iceberg, Twain’s great literary masterpiece

              can be viewed in the following way:

          Above the waterline is the plot.  In the case of The Adventures

          of Huckleberry Finn, this can be summed up as involving a runaway

          white boy and slave, who travel down the Mississippi River together; it

          is simplistic and mundane.  Moving just a little deeper below the surface,

          however, is a common and acknowledged understanding of the basic

          theme of the novel, the great American sin of slavery.

                The theme of slavery is based in the historical time period or setting

          of the novel, which is pre-civil war United States.  In order to achieve the

          best position to understand the work, the reader must research the time

          period and culture being represented.  This will inevitably lead to an

          investigation of the culture’s deeply rooted racism.

               At this point, the reader begins to understand that by exploring the

          historical time period presented in the novel, the reader is able to free the

          novel from the constraints of a strictly historical perspective.  Essentially,

          by placing the novel in its historical time, the reader can bring it out of

          that time period and into the present.  The fact that the novel itself was

          written well after the end of slavery, suggests that the institution of

          slavery was not the essential matter that Twain was exploring.

               Indeed, racism as a fatal characteristic of human nature, which

          transcends time and place, can now be viewed as a deeper underlying

          theme.  Even though many discussions of the novel will delve no deeper

          than this important layer, it is evident from the very first chapter that

          Twain’s book means to go much further in its exploration on how societies

          operate.  Through repetition, the author introduces the existence of what

          social scientists now call functional requisites, which are basic functions

          that each member of society must observe if the society is to function in a

          particular way.  For a slave state society to accept the institutional law of

          slavery, racism had to become a basic function.

              Colonel Sherburn’s famous speech in chapter 22 and a cross reference

          to how it reflects Twain’s own view on “man’s commonest weakness, his

          aversion to being unpleasantly conspicuous,” introduces the even deeper

          theme of moral courage.  Once the individual recognizes that society

          requires them to observe certain basic functions, the individual is made

          cognizant of issues that involve the morality of accepting immoral

          societal norms.  As Twain remarks, only one individual in 10,000 is

          capable of the courage to stand alone against the larger group and, in

          the novel, that individual is the delinquent Huckleberry Finn.

               Since functional requisites, moral cowardice/courage and the dilemmas

          they represent are things that all individuals potentially face in various

          ways and in various degrees on a daily basis, the book is now completely

          relevant to the reader’s immediate life, and the deepest layer of any read

          has been accomplished: You!

Click to go to Amazon.com
Also available at Amazon.ca & Amazon.co.uk

Now with tables, additional text and exercises at the back, The Literary Detective, A Guide to the Study of Great Literary Works, 2^nd Edition is more essential than ever before. Anyone can become an expert reader!  Anyone can have great literature come alive!  In twenty short chapters, The Literary Detective shows you how!

"This book is so me!"

Hammond, Glen Paul.  The Literary Detective: A Guide to the Study of Great Literary

            Works.  2^nd ed.  Charleston: Create Space Publishing, 2014

CINEMA SIDE: Errol Flynn & the Russian Princess

Published posthumously in 1959, Errol Flynn’s autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways has never been out of print and has sold more than one million copies.  Once described as the handsomest man in the world, Flynn candidly talks about himself in the book and provides a sharp, intimate view of Hollywood in its golden years.

Among the many personal anecdotes given by the author/actor in his autobiography, is an incident that occurred following Flynn’s discovery in a Stratford-on-Avon festival stage production that resulted in a six-month contract with Warner Brothers in Hollywood.

Leaving England for New York, in 1934, on board the Paris, the young and still unknown actor found himself sailing with the up and coming stars, Merle Oberon, Louis Hayward, and Lili Damita (Flynn’s future wife).  Also, among this group, was a woman whom Flynn identified in his autobiography as “the Russian princess, Naomi Tiarovitch”(165)

Too shy to attempt an intrusion into their more celebrated circle, Flynn confessed that he watched the group from afar, his eye particularly drawn to “the beautifully dressed Damita arrogantly walking the deck” (Flynn, 165). 

After one failed attempt to ingratiate himself to his future wife on board the Paris, the young actor arrived in New York, checked himself into the St Moritz Hotel, and entered the hotel’s elevator, where, with only an elevator boy between them, he was surprised to find “the very alluring Princess Tiarovitch”(165).

Flynn recalled, many years later, that he and the princess had seen each other on board the Paris, but had never spoken, and that even in the elevator she gave him no sign that she recognized him from the ship.  In the elevator, Flynn reported, the princess only spoke to the elevator boy, asking him, “What floor is Room 801 on?”

Flynn continued to his own room on the tenth floor, but had understood.  He immediately called her rooms, and she immediately invited him down to them.  Shortly afterwards, Flynn remembered, “she was in my arms” (166).  They made love.  Then, after a murmur of soft male tones and the purr of little Russian whimpers, they began again (Flynn, 166). 

It was during this second bout that the dynamics of the encounter changed.  “Suddenly,” Flynn recalled, I lept up “with a yell, a real scream of pain.  I clutched at my buttocks.  It seemed as if I had been bitten by ten scorpions.”  Bringing his hand up, the handsome young actor saw blood all over both hands (Flynn, 166).  Staring at the princess then, he said, he recognized “a strange gloating in her eyes, a truly savage look” (Flynn, 166). 

Flynn’s Russian princess had introduced what the author described as “a hairbrush with a long handle” that “looked like a miniature baseball bat,” and since he could not be sure whether the bristles were made of hair or some kind of thin steel, Flynn thought it best to back off, get dressed and immediately end the brief affair.

Disguised by Flynn in his autobiography, the true identity of the Russian princess has, for some time, remained unknown.  Just recently, however, The Errol Flynn Blog claims to have solved the mystery.  According to the site, her real name was Natalie Paley LeLong and she was both Russian and a princess.

Photo of Natalie Paley LeLong by Man Ray, 1934

Flynn, Errol. My Wicked, Wicked Ways. New York: Berkley Books, 1985

Photo of Natalie Paley LeLong courtesy of The Errol Flynn Blog

INSIGHT, APHORISM & MAXIM: The Human Animal

“You know, man is the only animal clever enough to build the Empire State Building and stupid enough to jump off it!”

                                                                        Rock Hudson as Robert L. Talbot from

                                                                        Universal Pictures’ 1961 production

                                                                        Come September

Photograph courtesy of www.leofuchsarchives.com

THE ANTIQUARIAN: Princess Nest, the Powerful Beauty

Nest, princess of South Wales, married twice; firstly, to Gerald of Windsor and, secondly, to Stephen, constable of Cardigan; before and during her marriages, she entertained many lovers, King Henry I of England foremost among them.  She is believed to have had twelve children by six different men, her first at the age of 15 and her last at the age of forty-five.  Of her famed allure, Gwen Meredith states, “Her beauty encouraged men to seek her bed, her favours, and her love” (20).

At the age of six, in 1081, Princess Nest was required to act as guarantor to a peace treaty formed between her father, Rhys ap Tewdwr, prince of South Wales, and William the Conqueror, King of England; as part of this arrangement, Nest left Wales to become a member of the royal household in England.  Consequently, it was both as political hostage and as a kind of ward that Nest came to know the future King, prince Henry, and it was through this intimate and familial proximity that the two became lovers.

By the age of 15, Nest had her first child by Prince Henry, a son, the famed Robert of Gloucester; a few years later, she had her first legitimate son, William fitz Gerald, by Gerald, constable of Windsor.  Three more sons followed: By her husband, David and Maurice, and through her continued affair with Henry (now King of England), Henry fitz Henry.

The notoriety of the relationship between Nest and Henry I is illustrated in contemporary records.  The writings of William of Malmesbury and Orderic Vitalis, suggest that the young king was under pressure to give up his “lasciviousness” and “meretricious pleasures,” by consenting to marry another princess, Matilda, the daughter of Malcolm III, King of Scotland.  This marriage occurred in the same year as the illegitimate birth of Henry’s second son, by Nest, Henry fitz Henry (Meredith, 16).

The chroniclers record that the King of England “ardently desired” the high-born Scottish maiden; however, his ardour for her did not seem to stem his lust for Nest; their child was conceived at either the time the marriage to Matilda was being negotiated, or after its completion and, most astonishingly, while the former Welsh princess was visiting Henry at his place of residence.  As Meredith states, “the records for 1100 do not indicate that Henry traveled into Wales where Nest resided at Pembroke with her husband” (16).

The incident demonstrates the independence of Nest, who was able to “keep lovers and husband separate, contented, and on mutually friendly terms” (Meredith, 16).  As Meredith explains, she “had to leave her husband’s bed, visit Henry, have relations with him, return home, give birth to the king’s child, and not worry about earning either her husband’s or the Church’s displeasure”(16).  Where it concerned the king, then, it appears that Nest must have had an arrangement with her husband and that, along with physical motivations, the affair was part of a stratagem meant to secure a formidable power base for her own household and that of her longtime lover.

In fact, contemporary documents illustrate that both the legitimate and illegitimate offspring of Henry I and Nest supported each other throughout their lives, and that these relationships were fostered and encouraged by all concerned.  According to Meredith, there is ample proof that Queen Matilda received her husband’s illegitimate children at court and encouraged their association with her own children (22).

The practical benefit of this endeavour is most famously demonstrated through Robert of Gloucester, the illegitimate son of Nest, by Henry, who championed the royal cause of his half-sister, Matilda; ultimately, this led to the ascension to the throne by Matilda’s son, Henry II, whom Robert accompanied on his first crossing to England (Meredith, 22).  Likewise, a generation later, it was the son of Robert and grandson of Nest, William, who “interceded with Henry II” on behalf of Robert fitz Stephen, Nest’s son by her second husband, Stephen of Cardigan (Meredith, 19).  In return, when the castle of this same William was being attacked by the Welsh, it was the family of William fitz Gerald, son of Nest by Gerald of Windsor, who came to his aid (Meredith, 23).

That this powerful network of families was principally formed and supported by the women involved is suggested by the fact that even Nest’s illegitimate children by her cousin, Owain (who, in a fit of lust, abducted her from the Pembroke home of Gerald, her husband), were also welcomed into the politically active extended family that Nest had produced (Meredith, 23).  This is best illustrated through Owain’s son by Nest, Einion, who became the steward of his half-brother, by Henry I, Robert of Gloucester.

The cord that linked these families together was strengthened by the fact that all involved were of noble birth.  This allowed for advantageous marriages that solidified and maximized the effectiveness of the network for many generations to come.

The annals of time have testified to the quality of Nest, the woman, and the offspring she produced.  Through her descendants, Princess Nest not only changed the face of the Angevin empire, but also laid the foundation for Great Britain and its future empire.  The offspring of Nest helped establish a line of English kings that would survive into the Tudor period; they helped secure Wales for England, and became the progenitors of the great houses of Ireland, forging that nation through its invasion, in 1169, to modern times.  Her descendants continue to thrive, noble and commoner alike, till the present day. 

The cause and date of death of this remarkable woman is unknown.  What is certain, however, is that she was a princess, wife, mother, and lover who, through her beauty, strength, independence, and foresight, created the foundation for many of the great nations of the modern age.

"Princess Nest will see you now...Welsh Marcher Lords to the left and all regular Anglo-Norman Barons to the right, please!"

Meredith, Gwenn. “Henry I’s Concubines.”  Essays in Medieval Studies, Vol. 19,

            (2002), pp. 14-28. West Virginia University Press. JSTOR. Web. 23 Jun. 2013.

INSIGHT, APHORISM & MAXIM: The Qualities of Manhood

In Warner Brothers’ 1973 production The Train Robbers, John Wayne’s patriarchal character, Lane, outlines the qualities of manhood to the much younger Ben, played by Bobby Vinton.  John Wayne tells the young man that when you’re a man….

You’re gonna find yourself standing your ground and fighting when

you oughta run, speaking out when you oughta keep your mouth shut,

doing things that will seem wrong to a lot of people, but you’ll do them

all the same…You’re gonna spend the rest of your life getting’ up one

more time when you’re knocked down…

Photo courtesy of History Banter http://www.historybanter.com/the-top-six-myths-about-the-old-west/

THE THINKER: Cabaret & Corruption, Mayor Rob Ford

The continued appeal of Toronto’s mayor, Rob Ford, to voters is now viewed as an impenetrable mystery.  However, this is due to the fact that by only looking at voters themselves, political analysts have, by and large, been looking for answers in the wrong place.

When viewed from another perspective, it can be argued that, since either consciously or subconsciously, the public generally believe that all politicians are egotistical, ineffectual, negligent, self-interested and irresponsible, Rob Ford at least offers voters entertainment; he adds some cabaret to the usual political corruption.

As a result, the fact that Rob Ford is popular with voters is less a reflection on voters and more a reflection on politics and politicians.  Usually, the public has to wait for history to reveal the sordid truth behind the polished facades of political leaders.  With Mayor Ford, the public has the luxury of viewing all the unacceptable imperfections in present time, in present day. 

Now, instead of feeling embarrassed or ashamed years afterwards for having cast a vote for Richard Nixon or any other number of “defrocked” politicians that have come and gone, the Torontonian voter can proudly admit that by casting a vote for Rob Ford, he or she has, in fact, participated in a city wide co-production of a living Satire Against Politicians.

Through the extreme example of Rob Ford as mayor, election to any public office is forever stripped of its status; never again can a politician be proud of acquiring position and power; never again should the titles that come with public office be automatically greeted with deference and respect:  It is no longer an accomplishment. 

Through Mayor Ford, the public perception of working politicians is finally and explicitly exposed. What voters are saying, consciously or not, is that until proven otherwise, politicians are all untrustworthy, narcissistic buffoons.

"I don't mind looking evil, but this guy makes us look like fools!"

INSIGHT, APHORISM & MAXIM: Giving Hope & Courage, A Father's Advice to His Daughter

“Folks have a way of living through everything: wars, famine, revolutions, unemployment, birth, death, even marriage; but you have to fight…fight mighty hard sometimes.”

                                                                        Henry Travers from Warner Brothers’ 1944

                                                                        production The Very Thought of You.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

THE ANTIQUARIAN: Love for Sale, the Beauties of Covent Garden

Published from 1757 to 1795, Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies is generally attributed to the pen of Jack Harris, the self-proclaimed “Pimp General of All England;” when Harris found himself in Newgate prison for debt, he arranged for publication to continue through the authorship of an Irish poet, then living in London, called Samuel Derrick.

Produced annually, as a pocketbook directory of prostitutes working in London, the 1789 edition introduces its list of available courtesans by describing the sexual impulse as an existential response of human nature.  The author says:

    In the succession of natural things, their progress, and their decay, 
    individuals seem, like atoms in the sunbeams, of little moment, in the

    great scale of Providence.  The preservation of the species in general

    appears to engross the whole scope and attention of nature; she is

    eternally busy in supplying the place of particulars that fall under the

    hand of time, and by a kind of plastic renown reviving in a blooming

    offspring the departed fire; and if you trace her through all the various 
    motions in her wide extent, she will be every where found to tend to

    one great act of love…

  

Amongst the more than one hundred listings provided, readers will find, the imperious and haughty Miss Thomas of No.28 Frith Street, whose dedication to the motto, “Days of ease and nights of pleasure,” demanded the same lewdness in all her clients that she, herself, possessed; the multilingual and musical Mrs Russel of Bolton street, who engrossed a man’s attention fully and would not offer her own attention for less than five guineas; Miss Smith of Rathbone Place, “so well proportioned, she might be styled symmetry’s truest self,” was never available when her favourite, the coach-maker’s son, was about; and Miss Maria Spencer of South Moulton Street, whose wicked black eyes spoke “the language of her mind.”

"I know, I told you to read something you're interested in---but this is unacceptable!"

THE ANTIQUARIAN: Irish Landed Gentry & "The Radleys of Knockrour"

                                                …Sing the lords and ladies gay

                                                That were beaten into the clay

                                                Through seven heroic centuries;

                                                Cast your mind on other days

                                                That we in coming days may be

                                                Still the indomitable Irishry.

                                                           

                                                                        Under Ben Bulben – W. B. Yeats

In the above lines, the seven heroic centuries that W.B. Yeats calls all Irish poets to continue to celebrate, refers to the seven centuries of British and Norman rule that, by the Elizabethan age, had been polarized through rebellion and religion.  After the Nine Years War and The Flight of the Earls, this ancien régime, which at one time included both Irish and English nobility alike, evolved into a powerful class of landed gentry that became known as the Protestant Ascendancy. 

For over two centuries, the Irish landowning class represented a link between England and Ireland that manifested itself in the Act of Union.  The Irish landed gentry, as Mark Bence-Jones states, “were, almost without exception, loyal to the Crown…”  As history, stereotypically, describes them, they were made up of ladies and gentlemen who existed in a world of wealth and manners that equaled the noblesse of Europe.

MISS MEADOWS: "Who are those men who have just come ashore in that boat, and are giving themselves such airs?  Peers?"
MR BRIMBLECORN: "Landed gentry, I think."

By the end of the First World War, however, most of the great houses of Ireland were in ruins; where manor homes and castles once stood, soon, only “a few bleached stumps” remained standing (Bowen, xvii). 

For the Radleys of Knockrour and many of the other families of the gentry, the decline had started with the agricultural disasters of the mid 19^th century; before long, the garden parties and dances ended in the Encumbered Estates Court.  By then, many of these families had put down roots that had been part of the island since the time of the Elizabethan plantation; through intermarriage with the native Irish elite and the great houses of the old Anglo-Norman families, many of these roots stretched even further back, to the Norman invasion and beyond. 

The decision to leave Ireland, for many of these families, was a difficult one.  When my great grandfather, Richard Francis Radley Kelleher, announced his plan to immigrate to Canada in 1914, my great grandmother, Mary O’Sullivan (who claimed descent from the indomitable O’Sullivan Beare), went into what members of my family have called a fine Irish rage; beginning with tossing his life’s work of transcribed music onto the fire, she staunchly declared, “If Ireland isn’t good enough for you, then neither is her music!” 

Now available through Amazon.com /Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.ca is the full history of one of these great families of Ireland.  With its discussion on the Purdons of Ballyclough, the Barrys of Rathcormak, the Halls of Ballycunningham, the Leaders of Mount Leader, the MacCarthys of Dooneen, the Twiss family of Birdhill and many others, The Radleys of Knockrour provides both a record of the Radley family itself as well as a thorough and intimate portrait of the landed gentry in Ireland.

Bence-Jones, Mark.  “The Changing Picture of the Irish Landed Gentry.”  Genealogical

            and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland. Bernard Burke.

            London: Burke’s Peerage, 1958. 4^th ed.  xvii-xxi. Print.

Elizabeth Bowen from “The Changing Picture of the Irish Landed Gentry.”  By Mark

            Bence-Jones in Genealogical   and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of

            Ireland. Bernard Burke. London: Burke’s Peerage, 1958. 4^th ed.  xvii-xxi. Print.

Cartoon, courtesy of http://www.pictorialgems.com/

LATE NEWS: "Don't Kiss the Messenger!"

The following Anecdote was printed in The Hibernian Chronicle for 12 November 1772:

                        In the summer of 1771, a certain Baronet sent his Lady

                        from town to his country seat; but being himself

                        detained by business, he was prevented for several days

                        from following her.  In the mean time, one of his most

                        intimate friends and dearest companions proposed to the

                        Knight to pay his Lady a visit in his absence, with a view

                        to divert her in her retirement till the arrival of her husband.

                        The Knight not only gave his proposals a friendly reception,

                        but gave him the following introductory bill, addressed to

                        his Lady: 

                                               “My dear,                May 29, 1771

                                    “Please to pay to the bearer, on sight, the full

                                    sum or number of three kisses---value received,

                                    and place to the account of,

                                                                        My dear, yours for ever.”

                                     The Lady, like an obedient wife, honoured the bill on

                        demand; but the friend unluckily continued to draw such

                        large sums of the same commodity upon credit, that the whole

                        bank of love was at length exhausted, and the Knight, on his

                        arrival at home, found her to be a bankrupt.  In a word, the

                        affair was discovered, and a divorce was sued for and

                        obtained (Flynn, Vol IV, No 92, pg 726).

"Come now, Lady Crawley!  Though it's true the account has been settled, you would be remiss to ignore a rising interest!"

Flynn, William.  “Anecdote.”  The Hibernian Chronicle 12 November 1772. Print.

VALENTINE: For Tünde

“Because for me, all that inspires is in your eyes…”

                                                                                                                      Sketch, detail from “Tünde” by Glen Paul Hammond

THE THINKER: Responsibility & Religion

Gandhi once remarked something to the effect that he would have been Christian except for all the “Christians” he had met.

The failure of people of religion to model their beliefs is not one confined to Christianity; it can be argued, however, that the responsibility of those who profess a particular faith, at some point, is bound to their modeling of it.  This begs the question then, should a religion be judged by the quality and behaviour of its followers?

Concerning the perceived shortcomings of members of the Christian religion, Mark Twain, in his autobiography, made the following observation: “But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most…”

Ignoring theological arguments regarding the applicable validity of Twain’s statement, it is interesting to imagine the benefits a conversion of Beelzebub might have on a world that, many believe, is the result of a constant struggle between the forces of good and evil.

QUOTED ILLUSTRATION: Association

When a dove begins to associate with crows its feathers  remain white but its heart grows black.                              
                                                                            German Proverb  
                           

Detail from Hecate by William Blake (1757-1827)