Thomas Day, Victim of Theory

 One of the Lichfield luminaries featured in Anna Seward's wildly eccentric biography of Erasmus Darwin (which I wrote about here) is Thomas Day, whose History of Sandford and Merton, one of the first novels written specifically for children, was a big bestseller at the time, and later blighted many a Victorian childhood. Day had strong views on the raising of children – views which were, alas, coloured by his worship of Rousseau, who had cheerfully abandoned all five of his own children to a foundling hospital, leaving him free to tell the rest of the world how to bring up their offspring. Thomas Day, for one, was hugely impressed by Rousseau's writings, and joined another worshipper, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (father of Maria), in bringing up Edgeworth's son Dick in the manner prescribed in Rousseau's Emile.
  Judging this project a success, Day then went on to make his own Rousseauvian experiment: to train up a girl to be his wife. At this point the story gets decidedly creepy. Day applied to the Foundling Hospital in London to take two suitable girls to be, he said, servants in the Edgeworth household – a fact unknown to Edgeworth until several months later. The girls were aged 12 and 11, and Day immediately changed their names to Sabrina and Lucretia. After a short stay in London, Day took both girls to France – a move that put him out of the reach of English law and enabled him to isolate the girls, refusing to hire English-speaking staff or to teach them French. He soon decided that Lucretia, then aged 12, lacked wifely potential, so returned to England and placed her with a milliner's family in London – a lucky escape for her. Sabrina he took with him to Lichfield, where he leased Stowe House (a fine Georgian building which still stands overlooking Stowe Pool). Keeping Sabrina in ignorance of his plans for her, he set about giving her a thorough Rousseauvian training, which among other things involved conditioning her not to fear pain or physical privations. To this end, he would drip hot candle wax onto her arms, make her wade into cold water up to her neck, and shoot at her skirts with a pistol (which might or might not have been loaded; accounts differ). All of which sounds more like a case study in psychopathy than an experiment in philosophy. Fortunately, a year after bringing her to Lichfield, Day abandoned this Rousseauvian project and packed Sabrina off to a boarding school. 
  Day went on to write a heartfelt and influential anti-slavery poem, 'The Dying Negro', as well as his History of Sandford and Merton and the less successful History of Little Jack. He met his end putting another theory of his to the test – that the breaking-in of horses was a harsh and unnecessary practice. Thrown by an unbroken colt at Barehill, Berkshire, in September, 1789, he died almost instantly, perhaps having just enough time to wonder if he might have got that one wrong. 

'Malt does more...'

 If – which heaven forbid – there were to be only one (alcoholic) drink available to you for the rest of your life, which would you choose? Which would be the one that would get you through, even in the absence of all alternative bevvies? For myself, it would have to be Scotch whisky. Not only is it a drink that exists in a wide range of incarnations, of various ages, characteristics and qualities, it is also, I find, the most reliable pick-me-up or calm-me-down, or whatever is required to reconcile a person to existence (as Housman put it, 'Malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man'). To put it simply, as I often do as I raise a glass to my lips, I just love whisky (and, happily, it gives every appearance of loving me).
Recently I was pleased to discover that Igor Stravinsky, no less, felt just the same about whisky. 'My God,' he once declared, 'so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whisky.' And he had medical backing for his predilection: a doctor in Los Angeles once advised him, 'Drink plenty Scotch, it's the best thing. ' (Those were the days, when doctors took a sane and relaxed line on such matters.) Stravinsky's favoured tipple was Ballantine's 30-year-old, a blend that would now set you back around £300 a bottle. He was seldom without a flask of the stuff, and it surely fed his creative flame, as well as his general health and well-being (he lived to 88). Here's to you, Stra-whisky!

Happy Easter

A happy Easter to all who browse here!
And above is my favourite Resurrection painting again – Rembrandt's Christ and Mary Magdalen at the Tomb, which can be seen in the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace. It's surely the homeliest treatment of the subject, with the risen Christ wearing a broad-brimmed gardener's hat. 
'Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."
Jesus said to her, "Mary."
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" ( which means "Teacher").'

I often find myself thinking, 'What would Jesus make of it all?' All the 'vast musical moth-eaten brocade' as Larkin called it: the whole establishment of the Church in its various forms, the huge problematic mass of dogma, creed, canon and liturgy, the grand buildings, the accumulated wealth, the terrible history of religious conflict – all of it in His name. Jesus surely would be astounded and bemused by the very existence of Christianity, which was after all not his creation but largely that of the convert Paul.  
And what of Easter? What of Easter eggs? Well, to that one, Kay Ryan (who I suspect might now be our best living poet) has an answer in her wonderful poem, 'The Palm at the End of the Mind' –

After fulfilling everything
one two three he came back again
free, no more prophecy requiring
that he enter the city just this way,
no more set-up treacheries.
It was the day after Easter. He adored
the eggshell litter and the cellophane
caught in the grass. Each door he passed
swung with its own business, all the
witnesses along his route of pain
again distracted by fear of loss
or hope of gain. It was wonderful
to be a man, bewildered by
so many flowers, the rush
and ebb of hours, his own
ambiguous gestures – his
whole heart exposed, then
taking cover.

Ryan's poem takes its title from the first line of Wallace Stevens's great, late poem – one of his last – 'Of Mere Being' – 

The palm at the end of the mind,

Beyond the last thought, rises

In the bronze decor,

A gold-feathered bird

Sings in the palm, without human meaning,

Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason

That makes us happy or unhappy.

The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.

The wind moves slowly in the branches.

The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

Good Friday

 One of Giovanni Bellini's last (and greatest) paintings – Lamentation over the Dead Christ (1515-6), now in the Gallerie dell' Accademia in Venice. 
  And here, to go with it, is a short, enigmatic poem by R.S. Thomas – 

Pieta

Always the same hills
Crowd the horizon,
Remote witness
Of the still scene.

And in the foreground
The tall Cross,
Sombre, untenanted,
Aches for the Body
That is back in the cradle
Of a maid's arms.

Maundy Thursday

Today is Maundy Thursday, the day when, in commemoration of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples before the Last Supper, our monarchs used to wash the feet of the poor – a practice that was sadly discontinued early in the eighteenth century, replaced by the doling out of specially minted coinage to a selection of deserving recipients. The image above is Tintoretto's Christ Washing the Feet of His Disciples, which hangs, somewhat ravaged by time and restorations, in the National Gallery, and used to live in the church of San Trovaso in Venice, where it hung opposite a Last Supper by Titian (which is still there). 
  Talking of Last Suppers, the most famous image of that event is the most problematic – the mural painted by Leonardo for the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Because of the materials Leonardo used, various environmental factors and intentional damage over the years, very little of the original painting survives, and what we see today is the product of numerous restorations. Even in the artist's lifetime, his Last Supper was beginning to disintegrate, as Dick Davis recalls in his short, eloquent poem, 'Leonardo' (collected in Seeing the World, 1980) –

My years were given
To permanence –
The arrested dance,
Emblem of heaven. 

Decay invades
The icon of
Eternal love:
My emblem fades

Like human skin:
The wrinkles grow
As if paint too
Partook of sin.

Late, late I see
The meaning of
Incarnate love,
Eternity.

Beckett In Utero

 Today is the supposed birthday (in 1906) of Samuel Beckett. He liked to claim that it was not only Friday the 13th but also Good Friday, though in fact Good Friday did not fall on that date in 1906 – and, to add further confusion to the picture, Beckett's birth certificate gives his date of birth as May 13th (a Sunday). Never mind – Beckett tended to regard his birth as an altogether regrettable event anyway. As for what came before it, he claimed to vividly remember life in the womb – a dark, frightening and constrained space, from which his eventual expulsion was painful, even more frightening, and lastingly traumatic. He had one particular in utero memory, of being at the dinner table shortly before his birth and being obliged to overhear the banal conversation of his parents and their guests. That supposed memory surely plays into this passage from the first chapter of Watt, in which a respectable couple, 'Tetty' and 'Goff' (Johnsonian names: Tetty being Mrs Johnson's pet name – not 'Titty', a Macaulay has it in his unsympathetic essay on Johnson – and Gough Square the site of Johnson's house), converse with the hunchbacked Mr Hackett, another one who apparently remembers his own birth. Tetty and Goff regale Mr Hackett with the story of their son Larry's birth...

Well, said the lady, that morning at breakfast Goff turns to me and he says, Tetty, he says, Tetty, my pet, I should very much like to invite Thompson, Cream and Colquhoun to help us eat the duck, if I felt sure you felt up to it. Why, my dear, says I, I never felt fitter in my life. Those were my words, were they not?
  I believe they were, said Goff.
  Well, said Tetty, when Thompson comes into the dining room, followed by Cream and Berry (Colquhoun I remember had a previous engagement), I was already seated at the table. There was nothing strange in that, seeing I was the only lady present. You did not find that strange, did you, my love?
  Certainly not, said Goff, most natural.
  The first mouthful of duck had barely passed my lips, said Tetty, when Larry leaped in my wom.
  Your what? said Mr Hackett.
  You know, said Goff, her woom.
  How embarrassing for you, said Mr Hackett.
  I continued to eat, drink and make light conversation, said Tetty, and Larry to leap, like a salmon.
  What an experience for you, said Mr Hackett.
  There were moments, I assure you, when I thought he would tumble out on the floor, at my feet.
  Merciful heavens, you felt him slipping, said Mr Hackett.
  No trace of this dollar appeared on my face, said Tetty. Did it, my dear?
  Not a trace, said Goff.
  Nor did my sense of humour desert me. What roly-poly, said Mr Berry, I remember, turning to me with a smile, what delicious roly-poly, it melts in the mouth. Not only in the mouth, sir, I replied, without an instant's hesitation, not only in the mouth, my dear sir. Not too osy with the sweet, I thought.
  Not too what? said Mr Hackett.
  Osy, said Goff. You know, not too osy.
  With the coffee and liqueurs, labour was in full swing, Mr Hackett, I give you my solemn word, under he groaning board.
  Swing is the word, said Goff.
  You knew she was pregnant, said Mr Hackett.
  Why er, said Goff, you see er, I er, we er ––
  Tetty's hand fell heartily on Mr Hackett's thigh.
  He thought I was coy, she cried. Hahahaha. Haha. Ha.
  Haha, said Mr Hackett. 
  I was greatly worried I admit, said Goff.
  Finally they retired, did you not? said Tetty.
  We did indeed, said Goff, we retired to the billiard-room, for a game of slosh.  
  I went up those stairs, Mr Hackett, said Tetty, on my hands and knees, wringing the carpet-rods as though they were made of raffia.
  You were in such anguish, said Mr Hackett.
  Three minutes later, I was a mother. 
  Unassisted, said Goff. 
  I did everything with my own hands, said Tetty, everything.
  She severed the cord with her teeth, said Goff, not having a scissors to her hand. What do you think of that?
  I would have snapped it across my knee, if necessary, said Tetty. 
  That is a thing I have often wondered, said Mr Hackett, what it feels like to have the string cut.
  For the mother or the child? said Goff.
  For the mother, said Mr Hackett. I was not found under a cabbage, I believe. 

Another Centenary, etc.

 The boy in the portrait is Oliver Postgate, who later in his life would create, with Peter Firmin and other gifted collaborators, some of the greatest, most enduring children's television programmes ever made. Indeed one of the lesser, but very real, pleasures of grandparenthood has been rediscovering the wonders of Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog (The Clangers never really did it for me – nor for any of the grandchildren, oddly enough). Postgate was born 100 years ago today, and this morning Radio 3 had a delightful tribute to him, focusing mostly on the music which contributed so much to the charm of Postgate's creations. 
  The portrait above was drawn by the Australian-born artist Stella Bowen in 1934. Bowen was one of the women in the life of the ever amorous Ford Madox Ford. She met him in 1918, when she was 24 and he 44, and they were together for nine years, in the course of which Stella gave birth to a daughter – none of which rates a mention in Ford's memoir, It Was The Nightingale, where Stella isn't even named. Bowen's life was never easy for long, and she struggled to make a living from her art. However, her career revived somewhat with the coming of World War II. She published a well received memoir, Drawn from Life (1941), and was appointed as a war artist.  Her brief was to chronicle the activities of the Royal Australian Air Force stationed in England. The remarkable painting below, Bomber Crew (1944), shows the members of a Lancaster bombing crew from 460 Squadron RAAF. Bowen sketched them on the day they set out on a raid over Germany, in which their plane, like so many Allied bombers, was shot down, and only one of the crew survived.  (In the course of the war, 460 Squadron dropped more tonnage of bombs than any in Bomber Command, and suffered the heaviest losses of any Australian squadron.) Bowen's picture shows men who knew that they were likely facing death.