References for the novel A Double Affair, by Angela Thirkell.
References for the Hamish Hamilton, 1957 Edition.
‘Relusions’ by: Jane le Cluse, June & Geoffrey Cox, Thelma Bignell & Penny Aldred.
Chapter 1
5 The Thunderer : The Times.
“presently gone” : archaic use of presently meaning immediately.
6 Lawk a mercy-on-me : this is none of I: Mother Goose, The Old Woman and the Pedlar.
8 Madame Sartoria, Sartorial = pertaining to a tailor, or clothes.
10 Je connais par coeur le corps de Mme Mérimanne : I know Miss Merriman’s body by heart. (ie size and shape).
11 as well as could be expected : usually the answer when a person asks after someone who is ill, rather than someone who is planning a wedding.
12 Youth must be served : “Youth will be served, every dog has his day, and mine has been a fine one”, George Borrow, Lavengro.
20 Sheepshanks = Woolworths.
Gaiters Circulating Library = Boots the Chemists, who had circulating libraries until the mid-20th century.
Happy and unhappy far-off days and things that were no more : “Will no- one tell me what she sings? Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow/for old, unhappy, far-off things.” Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper.
Throne speaking to a Throne “A Nation spoke to a Nation,/A Throne spoke to a Throne”, Kipling, Our Lady of the Snows,(referring to the Canadian Preferential Tariff, 1897. Frequently used by AT.
The precedent of Sarah Abraham’s wife who was long past the age of child-bearing. Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born.
21 Rory-Tory boy : tory-rory, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary is “roistering; uproarious”
Piano nobile : the main floor of a building, usually the first floor, especially
in Venetian palaces, where the ground floor was likely to be damp!
29 Shades of the prison house : “Shades of the prison-house begin to
close/Uponthe growing boy”. Wordsworth, Ode. Intimations of
Immortality.
30 The Daily Runner : The Daily Express.
31 As pleased as Punch : Mr Punch [Punch & Judy] is greatly delighted and
always singing with self satisfaction at the success of his rascally ways.
[Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable]
37 Jacquerie : Peasant uprising in France, 1358.
38 As bold as brass : Downright impudent; without modesty. Brazen faced is a
similar saying.
38 Doing his pools : Football pools; predicting the outcome of games of football and betting on it usually done via a form and the postal system. This was legal betting at a time when most betting was illegal.
In season or out of season : “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine”.
39 Prince Giglio : W M Thackeray, The Rose and the Ring or the History of Prince Giglio and Prince Bulbo.
Chapter 2
40 His affianced : AT frequently comments disparagingly on the use of “fiancé” or “fiancée”, using affianced or betrothed instead.
tempus does fuge; Cannot find which comedian used to say this.
41 Arundel prints : Between 1848 and 1897 The Arundel Society issued prints of works by the old masters, taken from specially commissioned watercolour copies, 300 of which are now in the V&A. AT often refers to them hanging in vicarage drawing-rooms. There are some at Downe House, home of Charles Darwin.
42 Gregorovius : 19th c. German historian, specialised. in mediaeval Rome Prodigal Son : having squandered all his money, lived on husks meant for pigs to eat, then was given a feast by his father on his return home. Luke 15. 11-32.
43 To sit up for him : Presumably a reveller doesn’t appreciate members of his household knowing what time he comes home.
44 Caused those behind to cry Forward and those in front cry Back : “But those behind cried ‘Forward!’ And those before cried ‘Back! Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome, How Horatius Kept the Bridge.
45 Noises Off : Stage direction. Michael Frayn’s play of that name was not written until 1982.
46 Of a Quixotic nature : idealistic without regard to practicality, from Cervantes Don Quixote.
47 223 Simony : buying or selling of ecclesiastical preferments, benefices etc , named from Simon Magnus, Acts 8 14-24.
48 Mea maxima culpa : through my most grievous fault.. From Confession in the Roman Catholic Mass.
49 An act of glad confident courage : is this connected with “never glad confident morning again”, from Robert Browning’s The Lost Leader?
50 Scarlet Pimpernel : novel by Baroness Orczy, set at the time of the French Revolution.
51 Eliot, Middlemarch, and Eliot who wrote about religious things : Middlemarch is a novel by George Eliot, while TS Eliot wrote Murder in the Cathedral, about the murder of Sir Thomas Becket.
52 Becket seven feet high : He is certainly known to have been tall, possibly around six feet, which in the 12th century was considered to be very tall indeed.
League of Church Helpers probably a made up title, or could be 19th century.
54 I am hiding in thee : ‘Thou blest Rock of ages,/I’m hiding in thee’, from the hymn, ‘O safe to the Rock that is higher than I’, William O Cushing and Ira David Sankey, NOT AM Toplady’s ‘Rock of Ages, cleft for me/Let me hide myself in thee’.
Hobgoblin = Sprite. Austin Healey ‘Sprite’, 1952.
55 Dancing with tears in my eyes : No 1 hit song in 1930.
56 Four-wheelers and fogs : mix of 18thand 19th century.
Brave New World Aldous Huxley’s novel was published in 1931.
57 Post hoc ergo propter hoc : logical fallacy –after, therefore because of Tertium quid: A third thing that is indefinite and undefined but is related to two definite or known things : from late Latin, translation of Greek triton ti = some third thing.
58 274 If there were a garden path here, I would sit down on it : Betsey Trotwood in David Copperfield sat down in surprise when David turned up at her house. Frequently alluded to by AT.
Brigade The Brigade of Guards.
Ouida 19thC romantic novelist.
If it prove a girl, the boy/Will have plenty; so let it be Tennyson indeed, in Maud.
59 159 Lord Burleigh’s nod : Lord Burleigh, chief minister of Elizabeth I, is a character in Sheridan’s play ‘The Critic’, where he enters, preoccupied by affairs of state, shakes his head and exits. This shake gave rise to the expression “Burleigh’s nod”.
60 Démodé : out of date, (lit. out of fashion).
61 Circumambient : is an elaborate way of saying surrounding. Is this a quotation? I’ve found a few examples, the most likely seems to be “Out in the circumambient air.
“With grateful yelps he flew” : from The Ballad of the Taylor Pup, by the American humorist Eugene Field.
65 The Shop : Nickname for the military establishment for training officers, at Woolwich, which closed in 1939. Here he means the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.
69 prétendant : French: claimant or suitor (as in The Old and Young Pretenders to the English throne).
69 Detrimental : delightful expression no longer in use. Indeed it is, as I can trace nothing. Presumably a bit of Victorian slang like masher or bounder.
No bones were broken no harm done.
70 Her smalls are beautiful and real handsewn : Mrs Carter’s underwear was evidently of the highest quality (rather unlikely to have been handsewn in 1956).
Betsy Trotwood’s attitude to Mr. Dick Dickens, David Copperfield. Should be Betsey.
71 can’t turn to favour and to prettiness : Hamlet, Laertes about Ophelia.
Chapter 3
74 The nuptial hour : “Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour/Draws on apace”
Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream.Act1, Sc.1.
Journeys end in lovers meeting : Shakespeare, Twelfth Night. Act 2, Sc 3.
Every one said Oh. Robinson Crusoe : by Daniel Defoe. 1719. Ch.15. Man Friday said “Oh” when he addressed his god. Also in Enter Sir Robert.
75 carrying the “doings : as George describes the Dean and Verger. Probably a case containing litergical vestments , books, forms, etc.
76 Mr Gresham. Fob and blind mouths : The watchers thought Mr. Gresham had a fob ( a pocket watch on a chain). Not so, and they were incorrect speaking with “blind mouth” John Milton. Lycidas. “Blind mouths that scarce themselves know how to hold”
Sexton : Lay official responsible for the care of the church premises and might also help at services.
77 Lucy Ashton. The Bride of Lammermoor : by Sir Walter Scott. Lucy died tragically on her wedding night. Probably based on a true story of lovers Janet Dalrymple and Lord Rutherford. Forced to part and Janet made to marry man of parents choice. She severely injured him on their wedding night in an insane fit and died within a month.
78 “aside” : words spoken by actor which others on stage are not supposed to hear.
Henry Irving. 1838 : 1905. Great Victorian Actor-Manager. Dominated the stage for over 25 years.
“noble marriage service” : Book of Common Prayer. 1662. Old style language. In 1027 and 1928 the Church Assembly attempted to bring in a new prayer book but was defeated by a House of Commons vote. This was called The Deposited Book or the 1928 Prayer Book. A Resolution in 1929 gave authority for clergy to use parts of this and in 1966 parts of the 1928 Prayer Book were legally authorised for public worship.
81 Philavian : Lover of Birds (Latin)
Chapter 4
101 The Amazing Marriage : novel by George Meredith, published 1895.
Piljan’s Progress of a mortal wale : lit. Piljian’s Projiss, Mrs Gamp in Charles Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlewit, Chapter 25.
Moving round in their diurnal course : “rolled round in earth’s diurnal course/ with rocks and stones and trees”, William Wordsworth, A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal, one of the Lucy poems.
Fair Leslie : presumably a Scottish Ballad, but I can’t find it.
Mr Therm : cheery symbol of the Gas Board until the 1970s. I have a feeling that Colin worked on the Gas Board advertising account : see Lance’s memoirs?
102 Juno : wife of Jupiter, and presumably a mature goddess.
104 The coloured landscape : possible reference to “the coloured counties” in
A E Houseman’s Bredon Hill, from A Shropshire Lad.
105 121 crabbed age and youth cannot live together : from The Passionate Pilgrim, possibly by Shakespeare.
106 210 Vache-en-Ecurie and Vache-en-Foin, see Never Too Late.
113 very stupid book of Victor Hugo’s : Vingt-et-un, his last novel, published
1874, about counter-revolutionary revolts in 1793.
Love in the Valley, by George Meredith : “often she thinks/ were this wild thing wedded”
Épris, éprise : lit. “taken with”
117 Holman’s Vita-Sang : must be an in-joke connected with Holman Hunt?
121 Little Dorrit : Taking Advice is is Chapter 14 of Book 2.
Crabbed middle-age : see 105.
123 Riverside, SW3 : presumably in real life Chelsea, which is SW3, where AT
was living at the time.
124 Scandinavian prefabricated wooden houses : I remember these, there
were some in the suburbs of Nottingham around this time. They were later than and superior to “prefabs”.
Fly at the opening day : Hymn, Isaac Watts, Oh God, our help in ages past, “They fly together, as a dream / dies at the opening day.
Chapter 5
125 Rennie bridge, town hall on twelve stone legs : mixture of two Cotswold
villages, Chipping Camden and Broadway? See Northbridge Rectory 127.
127 The readiness is all : “If it be not now, yet it will come / The readiness is all”, Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act V Sc 2.
Rabbi Ben Ezra : “grow old along with me! / The rest is yet to be”, Robert Browning Rabbi Ben EzrA.
128 born in the reign of King Alfred : unlikely as Alfred the Great, was King of Wessex from 871-899 AD.
129 Comprehensive School : Introduced in UK by the Labour Government in 1965, but there were a few experimental ones from 1946 onwards. However, you wouldn’t need a scholarship to go to one, as they were state schools and were replacing the old eleven-plus examination system.
131 My husband’s grandmother and your great-grandmother were sisters : is this connected with Trollope, or The Brandons?
Madrepore : not a real place, means a kind of coral.
134 Wistaria, glycines, Glycerine Cottage : Miss Hopgood and Miss Crowder’s French was not very good . Glycine, is French for wistaria, not glycerine. And Virginia Creeper is parthenocissus quinquefolia.
Large cup with Father on it : the large cup which was kept for Burne-Jones’s use by the Morrises is in the William Morris Gallery at Walthamstow.
136 Richmond … highlight : often mentioned by Angela Thirkell, but sometimes in connection with another artist, Raeburn.
George Richmond : 1809-1890, among whose best known portraits was one of Charlotte Bronte.
142 Blunderbore : Cornish or English giant of folklore, and one of several giants in a version of Jack the Giantkiller.
144 Pension Ramsden : I think there must be a joke here : one of Margaret Mackail’s best friends was a Mrs Ramsden.
Chapter 6
147 Fuller figure : Not surprising Sylvia couldn’t get into Edith’s clothes, as on p106 she’s clearly pregnant!
148 Francis Gresham : see Miss Bunting. Mr Gresham on p. 75 is his uncle.
150 John Leech’s Punch drawings. Cartoonist for Punch from 1841 : 1864 .
There is an online archive if you want to search for this one.
151 Battle of the Nile : one of Nelson’s most famous victories, at Aboukir Bay, 1798.
Sailor’s luck … no one was sure whether this… was complimentary or opprobrious : nor am I, though there was an uproarious 1933 pre-Code film of this name which Angela Thirkell may have known about.
152 Bracebridge Hall 0or The Humorists, : an account of life at an English country house was written in 1821 by Washington Irving who was living in England at the time.
Caldecott’s illustrations to nursery rhymes : often mentioned by Angela Thirkell.
Captain Boldwig : “A little stiff man in a black neckerchief and blue surtout … who … gave his orders with all due grandeur and ferocity.” Charles Dickens Pickwick Papers Chapters 18 & 19.
One of the ten commandments : taking the name of the Lord in vain, no doubt.
Gaiter’s Library = Boots.
153 Horace and Lesbia : Catullus, rather than Horace, wrote about Lesbia.
omelette surprise : better known nowadays as Baked Alaska.
155 Las Palombas : see Cheerfulness Breaks In. Presumably the Battle of the
River Plate, 1940, so is it Buenos Aires or Montevideo?
Sir Richard Grenville, the Revenge : Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Revenge, A Ballad of the Fleet”. See 206 below.
156 Puddingdales on Texington Avenue, : presumably Bloomingdales on Lexington Avenue.
157 Where the brook and river meet –
“Standing, with reluctant feet,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Maidenhood
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!”
Segregation of the Sexes : when ladies withdraw, leaving men to their port and cigars.
Lounge : (also 229). Definitely a non-U. See Nancy Mitford.
158 Beneficent Autocrat : this expression is often used, but I can’t find the
origin.
159 Female BBC : Joan Stevenson, see Wild Strawberries.
Lord Burleigh’s nod : see 59 above.
161 A nation once first of Europe’s children : now broken through its own pride
and folly. Germany.
Mr Frank Churchill …a second, slightly but correctly : Jane Austen, Emma. Frequently alluded to by the Thirkell.
Stirrup cups : drinks served to mounted huntsmen at the meet before the hunt moves off.
166 Cassone : an Italian chest.
169 Pottofur : Pot au feu.
Ein leiser Wiederhall : Ein Leiser Widerhall (A wistful echo), Nachtigall
(Nightingale), Songs, Op. 97, no.1, Johannes Brahms.
169 170 Langue d’oc, Langue d’oi : French dialects with different words for Yes. See Northbridge Rectory
171 Mr Walden Concord Porter Walden and Concord : presumably references to Thoreau and Alcott, but why Porter?
173 Mrs Petitot : What’s the significance of this name?
175 Thermogène : Thermogene was a medicated wadding used to treat chest
ailments. See Northbridge Rectory
Lady de Courcy : there is a Lady de Courcy in Jane Austen’s Lady Susan, but she would be long before Mr Downing’s aunt.
178 When Summer Time ends : surely it’s the other way round? Ten in Summer Time is nine in GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).
180 Pauline feelings : St Paul felt that women should remain silent and submissive in church. See 1 Corinthians 14.34-35.
184 Sibyllic frenzy : Sibyls traditionally delivered their prophecies in an ecstatic frenzy.
185 How much you are allowed to take abroad : still only £50 at that time.
Chapter 7
187 Laurence Sterne had understood : Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey.
188 Thinking of the old’un : Mrs Gummidge, Charles Dickens’s David
Copperfield.
Spirits can steal from the regions of air : Irish song, The Kerry Dancers.
196 The great mound : if Barchester is Salisbury, this could be Silbury Hill, the
prehistoric earthwork.
In Town To-Night : BBC Home Service (or Light Programme) programme introduced by a signature tune becoming traffic noise followed by the words “once again we stop the mighty roar of London’s traffic to bring you….”
198 Eton suits : unlikely for someone of his generation to have worn one.?
199 Great-grandpapa … like a novel : indeed it is, it’s Trollope,
202 Peace, woman, to the Bishop’s wife : Trollope, Barchester Towers.
203 Nymph of the downward look and something eye : George can’t get the
quotation, but thanks to Google, it’s “Nymph of the downward smile, and
sidelong glance”, To G.A.W., by John Keats.
205 Mrs Bun the Baker’s Wife, Miss Bun the Baker’s Daughter : characters in
the children’s card game, Happy Families, where the object is to collect the whole family.
Kamerad (see also 223) : German for Comrade, used as a term of surrender in World War I.
Give him sixpence for being so handsome : is this some old custom?
Three beauties … the apple : the Judgement of Paris, Greek legend.
206 The Great San Philip : “their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen
hundred tons,” Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Revenge, A Ballad of the Fleet”.
Humph : Nursery rhyme, There Was a Lady Loved a Swine. Each verse ends with “Humph, said he”.
208 Matthew Arnold : “Is not, on cheeks like those,/Lovely the flush? : Ah, so the quiet was!/So was the hush!” Bacchanalia.
Oh love!, Oh fire! : “O love, O fire! Once he drew/With one long kiss my whole soul thro’/My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.” Alfred Lord Tennyson, Fatima.
She walks in beauty like the night : (see also 271), Poem of that name by Byron.
Black but comely : Bible Song of Solomon.
209 Mrs Grundyish emendations : Mrs Grundy is a name for an extremely conventional or priggish persons, appearing in various works of fiction including Dickens’s Hard Times.
The Drunkard’s Wife : can’t trace this. Possibly a Victorian moral tract.
Better to make one scream serve : ?
Mighty Daughter of the Plough :
“Then those eight mighty daughters of the plough
Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Princess.
Bent their broad faces toward us,”
210 carefree days at Vache-en-Foin : see 106.
Circumlocution Office : Dickens , Little Dorrit, Chapter 10.
Grinds slowly : “Though the mills of God grind slowly;/Yet they grind exceeding small,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Retribution.
Adscriptus glebae : lit. “attached to the soil”, meant that a labourer could be sold or transferred in perpetuity with the land they cultivated.
211 He either fears his fate too much : “Or his deserts are small,/That dares not put it to the touch/To gain or lose it all.” James Graham, Marquess of Montrose, My dear and only Love.
Affairé : busy, overwhelmed with work.
212 Odietamo : I hate and I love.
I’ll never have another Mother : also mentioned in Private Enterprise
214 We’ve ploughed, we’ve sowed : traditional verse at harvest time : probably remembered from Rottingdean.
Superovine : ovine means “of sheep” from the Latin ovum,, a sheep.
215 Teaspoonful of salts : a laxative, the cure-all remedy of those days.
217 Faint heart never won fair lady : old saying dating back to at least the 16th
century.
218 No bigod nonsense about her : …. Edmund Sparkler. Charles Dickens, Little
Dorrit.
222 We are two daughters of one race –
“We were two daughters of one race,
Aldfred Lord Tennyson, Sisters.
She was the fairest in the face.”
Aurea puella : golden girl.
Golden lads and lasses must : Shakespeare, Cymbeline.
Sixpence please : a forfeit for having had the quotation capped.
223 I will shake my bridle rein Upon the further shore ….Adieu for evermore, –
Are there any more at home like her :
Song from Florodora, an Edwardian musical comedy.
“Tell me, pretty maiden,
Are there any more at home like you?”.
Bring out the blondes, let joy be unrefined : “On with the dance! let joy be unconfined”. The Eve of Waterloo, Lord Byron.
Simony : see 47 above.
Barratry : in maritime law, barratry is fraud by a master or crew at the expense of the owners of the ship or its cargo.
Sent to the galleys or Botany Bay and branded on the shoulder : punishments for election bribery.
225 Cattle murrain : disease of cattle, thought to be the result of casting a spell or some kind of evil influence.
Reform Bill 1832 : The Representation of the People Act 1832, known as the first Reform Act or Great Reform Act. One of the changes brought by the 1832 Reform Act was the formal exclusion of women from voting in Parliamentary elections, as a voter was defined in the Act as a male person. Before 1832 there were occasional, although rare, instances of women voting.
The show in 1947 : see Peace Breaks Out
The Transit of Winston : there is a painting by Burne-Jones, The Transit of Venus, in which Venus is being pulled along in a chariot by adoring followers.
Quintus Curtius : Angela Thirkell means Marcus Curtius, a 4th C AD Roman who leapt into the gulf opened up by an earthquake in order to rescue the city He is often confused with Quintus Curtius Rufus, biographer of Alexander the Great.
Top-hole : anachronistic. At that date he would have been more likely to say “wizard”, or perhaps “super”.
Chapter 8
229 Lounge (see p. 157)
230 Had that day lighted a fire : presumably a reference to Latimer’s words to Ridley as they were about to be burned at the stake, “We shall this day light such a candle in England, by God’s grace, as I trust shall never be put out”.
King Edward the Seventh’s Coronation : had to be postponed in 1902 because the King had appendicitis.
232 Monsieur l’Ours : Mr Bear.
233 God : Bog. Angela Thirkell evidently thinks this is funny, but Bog really does mean God in some Slavic languages, certainly in Polish.
237 Madhouse in The Rake’s Progress : series of etchings by Hogarth.
238 Kitchen weel reed up : well cleaned.
239 “then the silence grows … its bosom so doth heave” : Robert Browning, The Fireside.
243 Children of Israel, Exodus 23 : “I will send my fear before thee, and I will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee,” etc etc etc.
244 Fine Shades : ?
Smitten with the jaw-bone of an ass : Samson slew a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass. Judges 1516.
245 Patria potestas : father’s power.
246 in loco parentis : in place of the parent.
247 Scene from Clerical Life : Scenes from Clerical Life is by George Eliot.
Curfew shall not ring tonight : Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight, a narrative poem set in the 17th century, written in 1867 by Rose Hartwick Thorpe when she was 16.
Books of Miss Arabella Buckley : Author of books such as The Fairyland of Science, 1879.
249 Mr Crawley’s Curtain Lectures : Mrs Caudle’s Curtain Lectures, by Douglas William Jerrold, first published in Punch in the 1840s.
Chapter 9
252 Sibyllic : (see 184)
256 Force a right-hand foot into a left-hand shoe … a-sitting on a gate : Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking Glass.
“It was the azalea’s breath and she was dead” : Coventry Patmore, The Azalea.
257 A monologue from Mrs Nickleby : Nicholas’s mother was given to garrulous monologues. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby.
258 Now lettest Thou Thy Butler depart in peace : “now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace” , the song of Simeon, Luke, 2 -29.
Koffo-Kure, Kuro-Koff : presumably much the same cough mixture but made by rival companies (as with Holman’s Phospho-Manuro, Corbett’s Bono-Vitasang, Washington’s Vimphos, see Jutland Cottage, pl 268)
261 Old pensioners never die : “Old soldiers never die/they only fade away”, British army song from WWI.
Le respect humain : respect due to all human beings.
262 Come here Charlotte and I’ll kiss yer : Dickens,
263 Glad confident morning : “Never glad confident morning again”, Robert Browning, The Lost Leader. See 49 above.
not ceasing from mental fight : William Blake, Jerusalem.
Miss Buss and Miss Beale : founders of girls’ schools in the 19th century. But why Mrs Griffin?
From which no traveller returns : “that undiscovered Country, from whose bourn/No traveller returns”. Hamlet, Act 3 Sc1.
265 Top-sawyer : the better of two jobs in a sawpit, where the bottom-sawyer has to go underneath.
266 What availed … if she had not charity : 1 Corinthians 13.
267 The Micawbers : Dickens, David Copperfield. A family living always on the brink of bankruptcy.
268 Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time : painting by Landseer, often alluded to by
Angela Thirkell.
269 Two French Hens : from the carol On the First Day of Christmas, My True Love Sent To Me.
270 These Petruchio manners : Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew.
271 She walks in beauty like the night : (see 208)
272 Immortal longings : “I have immortal longings in me”.
273 Took up enamelling : at Stanway we saw enamels by Lady Mary Elcho, thought to be the model for Lady Emily Leslie.
274 Sat down flat on the garden path : like Betsey Trotwood in Dickens’s David
Copperfield, see 58 above.
Chapter 10
280 Gwyn A Eur : Wine from gold. Thomas Love Peacock. 1785-1866.
Satirical novels : The misfortunes of Elphin, 1829. Also see Relusions for Northbridge Rectory.
284 Theoretical and practical work : Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby.
pity their ignorance and despise them : Nicholas Nickleby, Ch.15. written in a letter by Fanny Squeers to the uncle of NN accusing Nicholas of attacking and injuring Mr.Squeers and others of the family, and then having run away.
286 The year 1956. Quite a lot happened : It was in the period of the Cold War. 1947-90. Political and military tension between USSR and Western powers.
June 1956 Uprising : by Polish workers in Poznan against Communist rulers. Put down by Soviets.
Hungarian Revolution or Uprising : Oct.23-Nov.19. First major threat to Soviet control since Russia drove out Nazis at the end of World War 2 and occupied Eastern Europe. Revolt spread, but on Nov.4th a Russian force invaded and it was crushed. Hungary was suppressed for over another 30 years.
Suez Crisis : Oct to Dec. France and Britain had principal interest in the Canal. In 1956 col. Nasser of Egypt forcibly nationalized it. Israel, Britain and France invaded the area. There was widespread international censure, particularly from the USA, which resulted in a cease fire. This was not politically good for Britain and Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned.
289 Mary Seraskier. Peter Ibbetson, George du Maurier : who was also a famous illustrator and Punch cartoonist. Not surprising that Lady Fielding thinks the Duchess was a pure George du Maurier type.
291 Ills of Prospero : The Tempest, Act 1, Sc2. Prospero threatens Caliban, “I’ll rack thee with old cramps, fill all thy bones with aches…”
296 Monsieur Boullle : First met in Wild Strawberries. French professor. He and his family rented the Vicarage at Rushwater for Aug. 1933.
298 JS.Bach : Cantata No.22.(BWV 22) Mortify Us by Thy Grace.
303 Noble exhortation : In the Book of Common Prayer psalms were used as exhortations. Psalm 149 was one Praise ye the Lord, sing unto the Lord a new song.
”Peace that passed all understanding” : Phillipians 4 v7 “will guard your hearts and minds in Christ”. This does not really seem to fit with the situation in the church. Possibly Angela Thirkell was trying to show Edith’s state of mind.
She had been a troubled girl : but the beauty of the service and the awareness of Lord William so near had a positive and happy effect on her.
”Suddenly, sweetly, strangely blush’d” : Alfred Lord Tennyson, Maud.
Leave a Reply