Oh Henry...

Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium

"the person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."- Henry Tilney, Northanger Abbey

One lovely summer day in Maine nearly 25 years ago, the telephone rang. It was a call from Boston for my grandmother. As I was sitting on the porch reading, and my grandmother was a loud speaker, it was not hard for me to overhear her portion of the conversation. What peaked my curiousity the most was her exclamation, "That's such a shame! She made such lovely doughnuts." When the phonecall was over, my grandmother joined me on the porch. I asked her "Who made such lovely doughnuts?" She laughed her trademark laugh and said, "No one. That's just something I always say when someone I don't like dies :That's such a shame! She made such lovely doughnuts." As she was still chortling, amused by her amusing self, I asked "I don't understand. Why would you do that?" "Because I like to do that." she laughed but under her laughter one could now easily detect there wasn't laughter, so wisely I chanced upon a passing losbster boat and asked her whose it was.

Many, many years later, on a lovely summer day in Michigan, the telephone rang. It was a call from Connecticut. When the caller informed me that my grandmother had died during the night, it took all the powers of sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit poured out during my confirmation to not respond with, "That's such a shame! She made such lovely doughnuts."

During our recent holiday out east, I spent some time poking around what is left of my late grandmother's books. My grandmother's choice in novels were much like her, notoriously bad. Among her books I found, as Mr. P described, potboilers of the old school, ie: Faith Baldwin's "Hotel Hostess", Gypsy Rose Lee's (yes the stripper) "The G-String Murders", Ilka Chase's "In Bed We Cry" etc... Potboilers are not high art but they are they are not without their pleasure as they are novels. And novels are meant for pleasure. As much as ladies would protest, many ladies do find pleasure in reading potboilers about strippers being garrotted by their own jewel-encrusted g-strings. But reading potboilers can be dangerous for the ladies. Dangerous because some ladies, particularly weak-minded ladies, easily confuse imagination with reality. As a result, their lives end up reading like potboilers.

My grandmother's life in many ways, started out like a potboiler. She was from a poor but hardworking family. Even though she was considered a bright young prune in school, her family believed college was for boys and not girls, so all the higher education she was alloted was a summer session at Smith or Mount Holyoke Colleges (I cannot recall which). After her summer at a proper educational institution for young prunes, she did something very few uneducated prunes are thought capable of doing by their much more educated sister prunes, she combined her two passions in her career choices; fun and money. By day, she was a vivacious young office girl in a bank. And by night, she was a ballroom dancing instructor. When she was 23, on the longest day of the year, she married an older, pleasant-looking, highly-educated, and well-dressed man. About 12 months earlier, he had let her borrow his new car. Then, he said, he had to marry her to get it back. But unfortuantely for her, soon after she was married, she found herself comfortable and, if not quite rich, very nearly rich. To make matters much worse, a bouncing baby girl arrived 2 years after the banns had been read. If only the baby girl had arrived two years before the banns were read, then my grandmother's life really would have contained some of the potboiler drama she craved. And she might have been cured of her cravings forever...

But being cured of what ails you was never something my grandmother was interested in. She was interested in drama and let's face it, if a heroine of a potboiler is struck with an incurable disease, then it is a far better thing for her to die in the arms of her beloved just after he has just renounced his wicked ways, than to be magically cured of her disease, marry her reformed bad boy and go on to live the indignity of living a life being married to a working stiff. So what was the young respectably-married prune like my grandmother was, to do when she a craves little potboiler drama in her life? Why dear readers, she adds the potboiler drama to her life herself. My grandmother certainly did. She always claimed she learned to drive a Model T in the middle of the Sacco-Vanzetti riots in downtown Boston. Why she was having a driving lesson in downtown Boston some 45 miles away from the small town she actually resided in, remains a mystery to this day. Before my grandparents' marriage, my grandfather had made the front pages of the Boston papers for being robbed of only a quarter. But to hear my grandmother tell the story you would think thought he had been robbed of a quarter of a million dollars. And that Al Capone had done the robbing. And Eliot Ness had been the arresting officer. Oh, and Roger Kimball would be so delighted (not) to hear of all the schools, colleges and universities our family endowed. My grandmother always was.

To believe the stuff in her life that my grandmother had made up, she had to suspend her judgement. And when she suspended her judgement, she suspended all of her judgement. That was when all the villains began entering her life through Stage Door Left. Because for some reason only known to God, real life villians are almost always are the better-looking men. And my grandmother had a knack for finding the best-looking villians. They were all out of Central Casting. The ironic thing was, she believed, most fervently too, her villians to be capable of good and noble things. Nope. They were capable of bad and dishonorable things. As a result, her life and the lives of the women around her became filled with more real life potboiler drama than my grandmother could ever have hoped to have imagined, literally.

It's such a shame for my grandmother that she never appreciated the charms of Jane Austen's novels. Had she spent her time on this earth more wisely by developing an appreciation for the finer shadings in life, then she would have discovered one of the true charms of reading of Jane Austen; Jane's men. Jane Austen's men, or heroes, are far different than most heroes as they are actually real men. I have been very fortunate to know men who bear an uncanny resemblance to several of Jane's heroes. From what I can detect, these men have not spent the better parts of their lives re-reading Jane Austen to learn how to be like her men, they were just made by God that way. Jane, the ever observant and clever lady, must have come across similar men in her day as well and just jotted them down. (Jane's heroines are real women too but that is a topic for another day.)

Recently, I've been re-reading Northanger Abbey. The hero of Northanger is Mr. Henry Tilney. Henry Tilney is a hero who had never really captured my imagination before. He is of a good family, a sound clergyman, a great reader, capable of great wit, plus he rides horses wearing a great coat and on top of all that goodness, he falls quite steadfastedly in love with the most unlikely of young heroines, Catherine Moreland. Hello? What's not to love about Henry Tilney? But, for reasons unknown to me now, I preferred to court Jane's other, more obviously gallant men. And that, I believe, is the secret to Henry Tilney. He's not obvious. Not to his lady, Miss Catherine Moreland, nor to the reader who goes on to fall off the cliff for him:

The master of the ceremonies introduced to her [Catherine Moreland] a very gentlemanlike young man as a partner; his name was Tilney. He seemed to be about four or five and twenty, was rather tall, had a pleasing countenance, a very intelligent and lively eye, and, if not quite handsome, was very near it. His address was good, and Catherine felt herself in high luck. There was little leisure for speaking while they danced; but when they were seated at tea, she found him as agreeable as she had already given him credit for being. He talked with fluency and spirit--and there was an archness and pleasantry in his manner which interested, though it was hardly understood by her...

However, when Henry Tilney catches your eye, he begins to capture your imagination:

"Now I must give one smirk, and then we may be rational again." Catherine turned away her head, not knowing whether she might venture to laugh. "I see what you think of me," said he gravely--"I shall make but a poor figure in your journal tomorrow."

"My journal!" "Yes, I know exactly what you will say: Friday, went to the Lower Rooms; wore my sprigged muslin robe with blue trimmings--plain black shoes--appeared to much advantage; but was strangely harassed by a queer, half-witted man, who would make me dance with him, and distressed me by his nonsense."

"Indeed I shall say no such thing."

"Shall I tell you what you ought to say?"

"If you please."

"I danced with a very agreeable young man, introduced by Mr. King; had a great deal of conversation with him--seems a most extraordinary genius--hope I may know more of him. That, madam, is what I wish you to say."

When Henry has caught your imagination, he can make you laugh out loud:

They were interrupted by Mrs. Allen: "My dear Catherine," said she, "do take this pin out of my sleeve; I am afraid it has torn a hole already; I shall be quite sorry if it has, for this is a favourite gown, though it cost but nine shillings a yard."

"That is exactly what I should have guessed it, madam," said Mr. Tilney, looking at the muslin.

"Do you understand muslins, sir?"

"Particularly well; I always buy my own cravats, and am allowed to be an excellent judge; and my sister has often trusted me in the choice of a gown. I bought one for her the other day, and it was pronounced to be a prodigious bargain by every lady who saw it. I gave but five shillings a yard for it, and a true Indian muslin."

Mrs. Allen was quite struck by his genius. "Men commonly take so little notice of those things," said she; "I can never get Mr. Allen to know one of my gowns from another. You must be a great comfort to your sister, sir."

"I hope I am, madam."

And then, when Henry Tilney has entertained, delighted, as well as kept you hanging on every word he utters throughout the book, he goes and does something that makes the reader believe, most fervently too, that he is the most charming, intelligent and noble man in England, after Mr. Knightley and maybe next to Mr. Darcy of course:

"But, in such a cause, his [General Tilney's] anger, though it must shock, could not intimidate Henry, who was sustained in his purpose by a conviction of its justice. He felt himself bound as much in honour as in affection to Miss Morland, and believing that heart to be his own which he had been directed to gain, no unworthy retraction of a tacit consent, no reversing decree of unjustifiable anger, could shake his fidelity, or influence the resolutions it prompted."

Jane Austen authority Lord David Cecil did believe that Henry Tilney was modeled after a real life Englishman:

Later in the year, by way of giving them a change, Mrs. Austen took her daughters to stay with their relations at Bath. This visit is interesting in that it may have provided Jane with a model for her fiction - and a celebrated one. In the winter of that year, there was staying at Bath a young clergyman called Sydney Smith, tall, pleasant-looking and extraordinarily amusing in a vein of humour pecularily his own. He was employed by a family called Hicks Beach as a tutor to their son; the Hicks Beaches knew the Austens. A year later Jane began to write a novel later to appear as Northanger Abbey, in which the heroine meets a tall, pleasant-looking young clergyman called Henry Tilney, extraordinarily amusing in a vein of humour very like that of Sydney Smith. Can there be any connection between these two events? Nothing, I'm afraid that can be called real evidence, no record that the two ever met - though, many years later, Sydney Smith was to profess himself an admirer of Jane Austen's novels. I fear that, in suggesting a connection, I may be yeilding to a temptation that often besets biographers, namely put forward a view on insufficient grounds just because I should like it to be true. But I cannot resist doing so. Sydney Smith was the most entertaining talker and Jane Austen the most entertaining writer of their time. Moreover their view of life at once unillusioned and good-humoured, robust and ironic, shows a close affinity of spirit. It would be delightful to think that one inspired the other. - A Portrait of Jane Austen

That Jane Austen would have drawn Henry Tilney from a real man like Sydney Smith (who besides being amusing, was a great cook -- I make his turnips--, a sound clergyman and suffered professionally but happily for his support of Catholic Emancipation) takes no stretch of imagination as Henry Tilney is so real that he jumps right off the pages of Northanger Abbey. Indeed, I concur with Lord Cecil, even if he is a Cecil and got all of his money from the biggest land grab in history, the English Reformation, that it would be delightful to think Sydney Smith and Jane Austen did meet and went on to inspire each other. It does not sully each others reptutation in the least to believe this so it is quite a safe thing to believe. All I can offer for the reason why I and the majority of my sex, including my late grandmother, never properly appreciated the charms of a man like Henry Tilney, is to repeat something Henry Tilney once said:

"'Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do. In my opinion, nature has given them so much that they never find it necessary to use more than half.'"

Comments

[Father M.]

This posting has, in a way, helped me to understand why my mother has named her newly acquired Boston Terrier, "Mr. Darcy."

[Lorraine]

What larks! I may need to return to Northanger Abbey. While long acquainted with the worthy Jane and her admirable real men, I've fallen into a limiting habit, reading only my favorites (Persuasion, Mansfield Park and Emma), and, of course, viewing at least twice a year the A&E Pride and Prejudice. Clearly, I ought to branch out and reacquaint myself with the delights of such selections as you posted here.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Lorraine, welcome. That is an interesting blog you belong to. Yes, revisit Northanger by all means. But also re-visit here too as some of the men associated with PP are very much like Jane's men. I won't say who, I'll see if you can guess. Oh, and there is indeed at least one, if not two, Henry Tilneys amongst us.

Father M., the name of your mother's dog does give very good insight to your excellent formation as well as fondness for French cuffs. I attempted to name Little Bertie "Fitzwilliam" but Mr. P felt it was too 18th century and gave him a 16th century name instead... If you are not aware, Fitzwilliam is Mr. Darcy's Christian name.

[James G. Poulos]

Thank God that somebody, firmly outside the context of ripping off Nietzsche, no less --, is still actively using the punctuation '--,'.

[Lorraine]

Mrs. Peperium,
Thank you for the kind welcome. I am glad you found the CR blog interesting. Although my sympathies lie with those of Luddite persuasion, in the case of blogging my hypocrisy knows no bounds. I can only protest that the prospect of an audience motivates me to write, which, in its turn, motivates me to read with steady purpose, an eventuality of no little consequence for a distracted reader like myself.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Mr. Poulos, you've returned. Are you married yet? I'm guessing it is me who is actively using "the punctuation '--,'." And I must say, how very Henry Tilney of you. As it is probably not a compliment but it most certainly sounds as if it is one. And a charming one too.

(Never forget I went to finishing school and art school. Punctuation is for other people, well, at least other women.)

Lorraine, Luddite? Most Luddites I know are very competent with the computer and I believe this means they are not Luddites. Besides, you have to live in Ohio to be a true Luddite and I've yet to meet a person who says they are Luddites and live in Ohio. I think you are perhaps one of those who feels the culture has passed you by, (very thankfully passed you by too). Fear not, there are many of those all around Patum Peperium and you will fit right in.

Here's are 2 true Luddite question:

1. Do you own a cellphone?

2. How many people have your number?

If you say more than 3, then technically speaking, you are not a Luddite. But you could still be Amish if you wish....:)

[Lorraine]

Mrs. Peperium,

I favor Distributism myself. Under that moniker one can legitimately pine for a simple life, without the dashed blight of wearing a Puritan bonnet.

[Mrs. Peperium]

I am not enough of an expert on Distributism to weigh in on it. GKC and Belloc can make anything sound interesting and most wonderful too but since I was born after the Holocaust and the Gulags, I'm quite fearful of anything run by any State...including libraries.

I'm very keen on Lord Acton on his understanding of things economic. But then with my education, economics is for other people too...

[Lorraine]

Not to mention that Fr. Vincent McNabb is one of the best kept secrets of British Catholic prose.

Heaven be praised, I am not a trained economist either! (: I only find that science interesting when 'tis considered by poets, theologians, historians or philosophers.

What little I know of Lord Acton's opinions was learnt through the institute bearing his name and entitles me to no opinion except, perhaps, the kind known as rash.

[James G. Poulos]

Yes, I'm here, again, in fits and starts, very busy, wedding almost precisely one month twenty hours away. Don't be impatient, you've got a good thing going here meanwhile--, even afterwards, one suspects. Group blogs of course are all the rage now but nowhere else has Distributism come up. A point in your favor, I think, like that funny puncuation...;

[Mrs. Peperium]

Mr. Poulos, may I extend my heartwarm felicitations with the news of your upcoming nuptuals. I hope you and your bride have a most joyous day. And marriage naturally.

[Christine]

Mrs P,
May I please have that lovely recipe for coconut macaroons? I think I'll make a batch this weekend.