A summary of seasonal articles

For anyone who is looking for something suitable for the holiday season, here is a summary to date of the articles that feature Christmas and the New Year.  

Christmas articles

King George V's Christmas speech features the first-ever Christmas broadcast by a British monarch. The King's speech was written by Rudyard Kipling.

An unusual Midnight Mass: the real spirit of Christmas?  contains the moving poem Eddi's Service by Rudyard Kipling.

John Masefield and the magic of Christmas Eve is about Masefield's wonderful children's book The Box of Delights. 

Cults and John Masefield’s Box of Delights highlights a a successful resistance to a recruitment attempt.

John Masefield’s Box of Delights and Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather lists some elements that these two seasonal books have in common, including an attempt to ruin the holiday spirit.

The Polar Express: a controversial Christmas film gives some opinions of the film that was my Christmas treat for 2004.  

There is another side to Christmas: it can be more stressful and depressing than enjoyable, and it is often a time when sinister forces are abroad.

Unseen Influences at Christmas has something to say about depression and describes some disruptive incidents at Christmas Eve services.

Depression at Christmas covers some causes of seasonal depression. 

Christmas pictures

Beautiful - and amusing - images can help to raise the spirits.

 A lovely picture can be seen in A beautiful Christmas card; another of the bargain cards that I scanned is shown in Another beautiful Christmas card. 

Some more lovely images can be seen in The Three Ships of Christmas; the seasonal article for the following year features The Twelve Days of Christmas.

There are also some seasonal pictures from Frank Kelly Freas. 

New Year articles

Rudyard Kipling's New Year's Resolutions features an amusing poem he wrote for New Year 1887 about his good intentions for the years ahead.

Ringing out the old year and ringing in the new features Tennyson's poem Ring Out, Wild Bells.

Charles Lamb's sad words about the New Year also mentions bells. This article features his poem The Old Familiar Faces. 

A little New Year poem from Ogden Nash contains his amusing little verse Good Riddance, But Now What?

Another beautiful old seasonal card from my collection:

Something about the Open Library

When I wrote about public libraries and the lockdowns around a year ago, I said that eBooks and other online material can help to compensate for the lack of access to physical library books. 

The library restrictions eased during the summer, but there is a possibility that stricter rules will soon be re-instated. If so, I will once again stop visiting the public library. The pile of my own books that I set aside last year to re-read and donate in batches has shrunk to almost nothing, but I have found a new – to me - online resource in the form of the Open Library, a not-for-profit project that operates very like a public library.

Project Gutenberg is a good source of digitised books, but in some ways the Open Library is better. 

Where Project Gutenberg has only older books that are in the public domain because their copyrights have expired, the Open Library's lending stock includes newer, in-copyright books; where Project Gutenberg's books are available in various modern formats, the Open Library provides online images of the original print versions: readers get scanned covers and text pages, and illustrations and photographs are often reproduced too. 

As can be seen from the labels, ticket pockets and date stamps on some opening pages, many of the books were provided by public libraries; this makes the reading experience even more like the real thing.

Where Project Gutenberg has lists, the Open Library also has 'shelves' that are organised and can be browsed like those in a physical library.  

The ever-growing Open Library catalogue aims to list all works by a particular author whether they are in the Library or not; it is possible to select only those that are available for Reading and Borrowing.

Some more Sagittarian writers of interest

I noticed a while back that a few writers of interest were born at the end of November.  

I found some good connections while I was looking to see what these astrological Sagittarians had in common.

A few more writers whose work I like or at least am familiar with and/or who are of interest for other reasons were born under the sign of Sagittarius – some before the end of November and some in December.

Most of them have been featured or at least mentioned in articles in the past; there may be more to say about a few of them in the future. There may also be some new names to add to the list.

Jane Austen was born on December 16th 1775.
Although her books don't inspire commentary, she has been mentioned on here in a few articles in connection with suspicious deaths. She also appears in articles about tangled webs of connections.

She mentions a witch on one occasion:

“Ah, Mother! How do you do?” said he, giving her a hearty shake of the hand. “Where did you get that quiz of a hat? It makes you look like an old witch...”

From Northanger Abbey

The Reverend Richard Harris Barham was born on December 6th 1788. 
His Ingoldsby Legends, which contain some stories about witches, are praised by Allan Quatermain in Sir Henry Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines and its sequel.

Lucy M. Boston was born on December 10th 1892.
She lived to the age of 97. One of her Green Knowe books features the witch Dr. Melanie Powers, who is mentioned in a few places on here, and her autobiography is the subject of an article.

Flying horses, which were mentioned in connection with writers born in late November, appear in The River at Green Knowe.

Frances Hodgson Burnett was born on November 24th 1849.
Her children's classics A Little Princess, The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy are her most famous works. They are rather dated but still selling well. She was involved with metaphysical matters; I will investigate this once the people and topics of current interest are finished with.

The doubly-depressing biography of Jean Rhys

The depressing effect that reading some biographies can have on impressionable readers has been mentioned in several articles, in this one about balancing the books for example. 

Too much reading about people whose lives were mostly one long nightmare scenario and who seemed to be under a curse or evil spell can make us feel that we too are trapped in hell with no way out. 

Carole Angier's Jean Rhys: Life and Work is the worst of the depressing biographies that I have read to date.

Something that the novelist Rebecca West said about Jean Rhys's autobiographical book After Leaving Mr Mackenzie (1931) also applies to Jean Rhys's other books and to Carole Angier's biography - not to mention many other biographies and fictional works mentioned on here:

“It is doubtful if one ought to open this volume unless one is happily married, immensely rich, and in robust health; for if one is not entirely free from misery when one opens the book one will be at the suicide point long before one closes it.” 

This is exactly what I am talking about. Some books have an effect similar to that of the Dementors in Harry Potter! 

In addition to being overwhelmed by a general miasma of misery, readers may find some of the material acutely distressing: the details of the suffering that Jean Rhys's actions and lack of coping ability caused to others are very painful to read. The death from pneumonia of the tiny baby she put near a balcony door in the heart of winter, her physical violence against her husbands and the neglect of her dying third husband, who went unwashed and unfed, are some of the worst examples.

An important point here is that it may be even worse for readers for whom some of it comes very close to home. 

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XV: The artwork of Rex Whistler

The artist and designer Rex Whistler got a brief mention in an article about Beverly Nichols, some of whose books he illustrated. This was a good match: they had a lot in common. Both men were members of the Bright Young Things set for example, and both had a style that has been described as whimsical, quaint and twee. 

Rex Whistler was a very prolific producer of romantic and beautiful images during his short life. He illustrated a variety of books; he produced artwork for advertisements; he painted portraits of members of London society, decorated the homes of the aristocracy and created designs for the stage.

I like his elegant, baroque style very much. There are many images of his work online, so I will feature just a few good examples. 

This poster from 1928 is an advertisement designed to encourage people to use public transport for visiting the London Museum. The poster depicts Britannia arriving in a carriage pulled by a unicorn and being greeted by a policemen, a cherub holding a London Museum guide and a dog. Several statues, including Nelson on top of his column in the background, acknowledge her presence by bowing and doffing their hats:

Spring is from 1929:

Cults and the cutting of personal connections: Part III

The previous article gives examples of members of cult-like organisations who were ordered to cut their personal connections so that they could dedicate themselves to the cause. There is another angle to broken relationships between members and non-members: sometimes it is the non-members who cut the ties. They may feel that enough is enough when it comes to being treated badly; they may do it to protect themselves. 

From another old post of mine:

“There is another side to this. It could be that it is the family and friends who do the avoiding – or dropping. They may come to hate the pressure to accept the ideology, the recruitment attempts, the lectures and the preaching; they may get tired of being pestered for money while at the same time being told how inferior they are. There may be nothing in in for them.”

They may also not appreciate being frequently stood up or let down by unreliable people: cult members are not their own bosses and are often given errands or sent away somewhere with little notice. 

Someone who has been involved with a cult member may come to understand that they have been cheated, lied to and made a fool of: misrepresentation is common cult practice.

They may feel resentful when they realise that they have been exploited and angry when they discover that they have been tricked and used. For example, they may have been invited somewhere under false pretences just to get the numbers up and make it look as though there are many supporters. 

The cult members know very well that people wouldn't go if they knew the true purpose of and ulterior motive behind an invitation, so they bait the hook with something attractive.

I remember an occasion when people were lured to a venue by the prospect of hearing good music; they got political speeches instead! Some of them got up and walked out in disgust.  

Just as some members decide to leave a cult after a last straw moment, some people decide to stop seeing their member friends after experiencing the final straw. 

Witches in the air for Halloween

Pictures of Terry Pratchett's witches marked the occasion of Halloween 2019. 

This year's All Hallows' Eve is a very suitable time of year for a little more light witch material. 

Witches Abroad, which has been mentioned in connection with snakes, is one of the funniest of the Witches of Lancre series. This quotation is typical:

“On nights such as this, witches are abroad. Well, not actually abroad. They don't like the food and you can't trust the water and the shamans always hog the deckchairs.”

However, when duty calls the three witches take to the air for some long journeys involving 'foreign parts':

This special edition of Equal Rites reminds me of a poem:

This evocative little poem by Walter de la Mare makes the witches seem like a colony of swarming bats:

The Ride-by-Nights

Up on their brooms the Witches stream,
Crooked and black in the crescent's gleam,
One foot high, and one foot low,
Bearded, cloaked, and cowled, they go.
'Neath Charlie's Wane they twitter and tweet,
And away they swarm 'neath the Dragon's feet,
With a whoop and a flutter they swing and sway,
And surge pell-mell down the Milky Way.
Between the legs of the glittering Chair
They hover and squeak in the empty air.
Then round they swoop past the glimmering Lion
To where Sirius barks behind huge Orion;
Up, then, and over to wheel amain
Under the silver, and home again.

Jean Rhys and some 'good ideas'

Among the unseen influences that affect people's lives, there are what I think of as good ideas and 'good ideas'. 

In the first case, obeying an inner prompting results in unexpected but very welcome benefits; in the second case, making a  wrong assumption, making an unwise decision or obeying an inner compulsion results in unexpected trouble or even disaster.

I am very interested in these ideas; I have experienced both kinds many times myself. For example, on the good side I described how I went to a small town on impulse and found a book that I had been looking for everywhere; on the other side, I described how I went on a long bus ride on impulse and it turned into quite an ordeal. 

These ideas also apply to some of the people featured on here. For example, Stella Benson's 'good idea' of walking through the night led to a nightmare scenario. 

I found another example of an expedition that was expected to be exciting but turned into a nightmare in Carole Angier's biography Jean Rhys: Life and Work. 

Jean Rhys's 'good idea' 
When Jean Rhys returned to her birthplace of Dominica after a 30-year absence, she had what she said was a 'splendid idea': she decided that she and her second husband Leslie would cross the island by the old Imperial Road. He and other people were – very sensibly - against the idea as the road was disused; as was usual with her, any opposition to her plans made her even more - childishly - determined to have her own way. Eventually they gave in. 

She expected to have a 'wonderful adventure that would end happily'; it all backfired of course. Carole Angier even says that she nearly got herself and Leslie killed in the attempt.

Cults and the cutting of personal connections: Part II

The previous article described in general terms the cutting of personal connections by cult members. 

This specific example, which speaks for itself, comes from an ex-member of a religious cult:

“When my sister got married I was not allowed to go to the wedding. My biological family did not matter anymore; it was all merged into a greater unity. Secretly I thought it was terrible not to be able to attend the wedding. I found out later that my sister had also been deeply wounded by my absence.

It was even worse when my grandmother died. On her deathbed, she had specially asked for me. But Lella, who was  to bring me there, delayed everything so long that, when we eventually reached the hospital, my grandmother had already passed away. Other family members had been there on time—only I was too late. I felt an intense anger and pain inside. But I immediately knew to put a smile on my face, because my feelings did not matter. I knew that, didn’t I?”

https://www.icsahome.com/articles/i-really-believed-that-this-way-of-living-was-right-goudsmit-it-2-3

'Lella' obviously delayed everything deliberately. Subtle sabotage and undermining are common practices in cults.

I said this on the old forum:

“It is a very sad subject. The members who cut connections with their families might have a terrible awakening one day when they realise how much suffering they have caused and that it was all for nothing.”

I might add that it is just as excruciatingly painful when they realise how much of the suffering that they have endured was all for nothing.

Beverley Nichols and an ungrateful Conan Doyle

I came across some unexpected material while looking for information about the novelist Beverley Nichols, who is of interest here mainly because of his children's books: I found some connections to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that are worth highlighting. 

While Conan Doyle's best-known fictional character is a private detective, he also created a witch; conversely, while the witch Miss Smith is one of Beverley Nichols's best-known  characters, he also created a private detective: this was Horatio Green, who appears in five crime novels.

As previously mentioned, Beverley Nichols wrote a book to support the official British position on India; Conan Doyle too produced propaganda materials for the government - this was during the First World War.

Both Nichols and Conan Doyle were contributors to The Strand Magazine; incidentally, Winston Churchill, who was friends with these men and admired their writing, wrote several articles for this magazine.

Beverley Nichols hated his father, who like Conan Doyle's father was an alcoholic; Conan Doyle is said to have come to hate his 'son', Sherlock Holmes.

The mystery of the biography
Another minor mystery in Beverley Nichols's life involves a completely false rumour that he was writing a biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! 

From his 1948 letter to someone who offered to help him with the book:

“Dear Dr. Ernest,  Thank you so much for your kind offer of assistance. I do appreciate it as such, but I have to confess that this is the first I have heard about my forthcoming biography on Conan Doyle! The subject would certainly prove to be an interesting one, but he cannot imagine how the idea originated. 'It is all most mysterious.' “

Perhaps some people learned that Nichols had written an article about Conan Doyle in the past, and Chinese whispers turned this into writing a whole book about him in the present.

Cults and the cutting of personal connections: Part I

Another member of the old Conservative Conspiracy Forum highlighted a feature that is often found in cults when she said this: 

“Personal loyalty and love must be sacrificed for 'the cause'.”

This is very true. Such sacrifices are standard practice in many sinister organisations. 

The article about the inversion of values in cult members contains some examples of people ignoring their personal responsibilities in favour of working for the cause; it is even worse when cult members cut their personal connections altogether. I have seen some examples and been on the receiving end of this myself. Many more examples can be found online, including admissions from ex-members. 

This article contains more recycled material from my posts on the old forum.

Why do cult members cut off contact with family and friends?
“So why would a cult member cut all contact with you? There are several possible reasons. We know that a non-member might be dropped for rocking the boat by saying the wrong thing, criticising the organisation, the lifestyle or the leader or asking awkward questions. This is unforgivable in their eyes.”

This applies to individuals who question various aspects of the organisation rather than a member's entire network of connections; it is what happened to me when I asked about some disturbing information I had read.

“They may be telling you indirectly that they have better, higher, more important things to do than socialise with an unbeliever. 

A few words about Beverley Nichols

The prolific novelist, playwright, journalist, composer - and many other things including political activist - Beverley Nichols was born on September 9th 1898, so he shares a ninth day of the ninth month birthday with this blog. 

His four childen's books that feature the witch Miss Smith are the main reason for his appearance here, but there is a little more to say about him to mark the occasion.

Beverley Nichols and witches
I am still wondering where Beverley Nichols got his ideas about witches and evil from. I also wonder why The Wickedest Witch in the World (1971) was written so long after the Woodland Trilogy – there is a gap of 21 years.

There is a story called Super Witch: A Story for Children of all Ages in his unpublished papers; it is dated circa 1971.

We will probably never know why he returned to writing about witches at this time.

Houses and gardens
Beverley Nichols wrote a series of books about his houses and gardens. 

I learned recently that his book Down the Garden Path was the inspiration for Sellar & Yeatman's Garden Rubbish.

These books, which are all very good reads and are now what he is best remembered for, were illustrated by the great decorative artist Rex Whistler.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and facing the truth

There is a price for everything, and dealing in the truth is no exception. One of the articles about Upton Sinclair covers some aspects of this, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle too had something to say on the subject of facing up to the truth.

In Conan Doyle's horror story The Parasite, Austin Gilroy says something that is worth highlighting:

“At least, I have shown that my devotion to science is greater than to my own personal consistency. The eating of our own words is the greatest sacrifice which truth ever requires of us.”

Some sacrifices can be very painful indeed. People who put respect for the truth above all else need great courage and endurance as it often involves dealing with very unwelcome, unpalatable, horrific and agonising even, information, insights, implications and conclusions.

Conan Doyle knew how much courage it can take for someone to align themselves with objective, unvarnished truths by discarding ignorance, illusions and wrong ideas.

Sherlock Holmes says this in Laurie R. King's tribute novel The Beekeeper's Apprentice:

“...there is no treachery in the truth. There may be pain, but to face honestly all possible conclusions formed by a set of facts is the noblest route possible for a human being.”

This quotation is often attributed to Conan Doyle, but no source is given. I couldn't find it in the Sherlock Holmes Complete Collection. Whatever the origin, it is very true; it deserves to be better known.

Another look at Beverley Nichols's witch Miss Smith

Miss Smith, the cruel and evil witch with a very deceptive appearance, is a character in Beverley Nichols's Woodland Trilogy and its sequel. She first appeared on here in the article about three fictional modern-day witches and has been referred to in a few other articles. 

I read the four books one last time before donating them, and I found some more material to comment on. 

The Tree That Sat Down (1945), The Stream That Stood Still (1948), The Mountain of Magic (1950) and The Wickedest Witch in the World (1971) are intended for readers of 9 years and upwards. The younger readers will concentrate on the story and enjoy reading about the talking animals and the adventures of the children; I am interested in the incidental references to evil and the characteristics of witches. 

I would not have noticed such things when I first read the stories as I was very young at the time, but now they are the main attraction. They provide yet more independent support for ideas mentioned in many other articles.

Good and evil
The Tree That Sat Down, the first book of the Woodland Trilogy, has something to say about good and evil:

“Evil is a very powerful force; there is only one force more powerful, which is Good. Evil is infectious; it spreads itself far and wide. If there is anything evil at large, all the other evil things know it by instinct; they rejoice and grow strong.”

“Miss Smith shivered and felt quite sick; real goodness always had that effect on her.”

Goodness and evil often do attract like and repel their opposite.

“Miss Smith...felt somebody coming, somebody very good, somebody so good that he might do her a lot of harm. She must go quickly, before it was too late.”

Miss Smith is very wary of anyone who isn't evil. 

Some characteristics of witches
Witches dislike  inquisitive people; they live in fear that their crimes and their deficiencies and differences from normal people will be exposed. They are always on the alert for threats. 

They can sometimes get themselves off the hook by improvising cover stories and casting spells to distract and silence people, but they are not always able to raise the necessary power and they just dig themselves in deeper in the long run.

Jean Rhys and her witchlike personality

Just as psychological black magic is a major topic in this blog, so are witches, fictional or otherwise, unconscious or otherwise.

Carole Angier's biography Jean Rhys: Life and Work, which is generating a whole string of articles, contains material that suggests that Jean Rhys was witchlike in many ways. This material includes the devastating effect that she had on people close to her and her attitude, behaviour and experiences throughout her life. 

It was interesting to learn that in later years she became completely bent over, like an old witch in a fairytale.

This picture makes her look rather sinister:

A witch for a neighbour
Jean Rhys said herself that her neighbours in Holt in Norfolk called her crazy and a witch, and that her neighbours in the Devon village of Cheriton Fitzpaine also called her a witch. She said that one of these neighbours was a witch herself, and that there was black magic in the village!

The evil witch in action
Carole Angier tells us that in later life Jean Rhys had dreadful moods in which she became sinister, witchlike and cruel. As mentioned in the article about Diana Wynne Jones's evil witch Aunt Maria, in one of these episodes Jean terrified her nurse/assistant by locking the door to prevent escape. Carole Angier uses an interesting expression when recounting this incident:

“Janet had 'never been so frightened', 'she'd never wanted to get out of anywhere more'. As though by black magic, Jean had transferred her own worst feelings of terror and entrapment to another person. She had made someone suffer like her.” 

Cults and the inversion of values

This article contains two examples of people who neglected or abandoned personal responsibilities in favour of working for the cause. Both cases involve the same, Catholicism-based, cult. 

The material is based on posts on the old Conservative Conspiracy Forum; it consists of extracts that I found online and comments that I made at the time together with a few afterthoughts.

Abandoning the sick and dying
“...I slowly realized that behavior opposite to my natural self was the most rewarded....When I as a devoted physician would leave my duties for a weekend, to cook for 80 people on a weekend meeting, that seemed to be the ultimate proof of my trust in the voice of Jesus in our midst. 

When I left a dear person who was dying and I had promised to assist, to help out practically in the movement and that person died when I was absent, that was the proof of my love for the forsaken Jesus.”

This is very horrific indeed, all the more as Christians are enjoined to heal the sick and comfort the dying.  Where are the Christian values of love and compassion here? 

The worst aspect is that not only are members encouraged or ordered to perform such actions, they are commended for it. They are told that it shows how superior and committed they are; it really shows how far under the evil influences they are. 

Neglecting children 
“We missed our son's confirmation, left a teenager for 3 weeks alone while we went to school in Rome because we were told it was the will of God. We missed so many family events and were told that 'we had to leave the family in order to follow God. We would find them again in Heaven.'”

This is typical of many cults. It confirms what I have seen and experienced for myself: “We must make sacrifices.”

The great and positive influence of Everyman's Library

While working on articles about Stella Gibbons's romance My American and the life of the novelist May Sinclair recently, I came across some references to Everyman's Library. 

The first was in J. B. Priestley's introduction to his novel Angel Pavement, which I suggested was the inspiration for My American; the second was in some online information about May Sinclair: she wrote introductions for the Everyman editions of the Brontë sisters' works.

J. B. Priestley: from Everyman reader to Everyman writer
J. B. Priestley is yet another voracious reader who later became a writer. This is an extract from his introduction to the Everyman's Library edition of his novel Angel Pavement:

“It was when I was in my middle teens that I began buying books...I had very little money indeed, and the problem was, how to buy books out of it? I managed this chiefly by economising on my lunches. In a shop in the covered market you could buy a bag of stale buns for tuppence...Out of what I saved, I bought books, and most of these books belonged to the old shilling Everyman series. I have some of them, chiefly the green volumes of the poets, to this day. 

No bits of silver ever bought more enduring enchantment. I wish it were possible to go back to that youth from the office, as he stands looking at the Everyman volumes in Mr. Power's bookstall in the Bradford market, to whisper to him that the day will come when he will write a novel that will find its way into Everyman’s Library...”

One shilling was the official price, so one brand-new volume cost the equivalent of six bags of stale buns!  

Louisa M. Alcott, Jane Eyre and the public library

These words about Jean Rhys and L. M. Montgomery also apply to Louisa M. Alcott:

“...were great readers and had access to a public library when young. As girls they read Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, which made a big impression on them and later influenced their writing.”

Unlike some of the other writers mentioned on here, Louisa M. Alcott was encouraged to read. As a girl, she 'lived in books'. Jane Eyre, which was first published in 1847 when she was 14 years old, was one of her favourite novels. She was inspired by the Brontë sisters' lives and achievements. 

She wrote this in her journal just after reading Mrs Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë:

“Read Charlotte Brontë’s life. A very interesting, but sad one. So full of talent; and after working long, just as success, love, and happiness come, she dies. Wonder if I shall ever be famous for people to care to read my story and struggles. I can’t be a C.B., but I may do a little something yet.” 

From the journal entry dated June, 1857

Louisa M. Alcott and the Concord Free Public Library
Louisa M. Alcott had access to private libraries as a girl. She may have made use of public libraries too: her father Bronson certainly did. I am not sure when her involvement with the Concord Free Public Library started, but she is mentioned in connection with book censorship early in 1885:

“As the home of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts, the very name of Concord, Massachussetts, connotes sophisticated literary dissent. Yet a month after the publication of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the committee in charge of Concord's public library voted to remove the book from its shelves, fearing that Huck Finn's irreverence would undermine the morals of young readers. In full agreement, Louisa May Alcott proposed a more radical ban: “If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses,” she advised, “he had best stop writing for them.” “

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-mark-twain/banned-in-concord/6B50F2DD0F1276E8CB393B96DBDD4FC8

The Concord Free Public Library, which was opened in 1873, now holds a large collection of Alcott family material. It also contains a bust of  Louisa M. Alcott:

May Sinclair, Jean Rhys, L. M. Montgomery and the Brontës

After producing some articles about May Sinclair's novella The Flaw in the Crystal, I decided to investigate her background in the hope of finding some more material of interest. 

I found some very familiar biographical elements and other connections when reading about her life. I mentioned a blueprint for writers in an article in the Context and the Total Picture series; if I created a template for writers of interest, May Sinclair would tick many of the boxes.

I have seen, for example, the Celtic Connection in the biographies of many novelists, so it was no surprise to learn that May Sinclair had an Irish mother and a Scottish father.

It also came as no surprise when I found that she had some other things in common with Jean Rhys and L. M. Montgomery. May Sinclair too was interested in and inspired by the Brontës, whose works she may have first encountered in her father's private library rather than the local public library.

May Sinclair and Jean Rhys
May Sinclair was a very different person from Jean Rhys, but they had a few things in common:

They both wrote under assumed names. 

Both novelists lived for a while in Devon.

They both read voraciously as girls, partly for escape, and both later wrote Brontë-inspired books. 

They both had unsympathetic mothers who tried to force them to conform to the norm. They had some things to say about their childhood experiences that sound uncannily similar. 

Just as Jean Rhys's work is mostly autobiographical, so are some of May Sinclair's novels, Mary Olivier in particular. Mary Olivier's mother wants her to behave like a 'normal' girl:

“...you should try and behave a little more like other people.”

"You were different," she said. "You weren’t like any of the others. I was afraid of you.”

Cults and the restricted reading scenario

 A distressing article that I came across recently reminded me of yet another feature that is often found in cults of all kinds. 

This is the discouragement or even prohibition of the reading of unauthorised material. In some extreme cases, members are allowed to read only a few 'bibles' or the writings of the founder. 

By imposing such rules and practices, cult leaders make themselves into Sole Suppliers of information.

Censorship of a few controversial works is one thing; not permitting members to read anything much apart from the organisation's propaganda and other material that the cult is based on, generates, approves of, endorses and promotes is something else. It is criminal when any information Not Invented Here is banned because it is considered to be useless, irrelevant, distracting, dangerous or corrupting. 

Discouraged from reading literature

First, some past coverage. This is from one of my cult-related posts on  the old CC Forum:

This extract from an old blog by an ex-member is very upsetting:

“When I was a young girl, I was very interested in literature and poetry and I loved reading everything by many different authors, which, over time, gave me a lot in terms of maturation and culture. I wanted to talk a lot about this and I remember when, at one of my first meetings with pre-GEN (when I did not know to be a pre-GEN), I told that I read one of these books. I think it was a text by Erich Fromm. 

The girl who was the "white" smiled, almost casually, then dropped the subject and immediately turned to another girl. Over time, I realized that this was the way they were taking control of our interests. They encouraged us to read books by Chiara and the other members of the movement, while they subtly discouraged all the others.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920023204/http://blogfocolare.blogspot.com/

This has been translated from Italian, but the meaning is very clear. This is evil, just like their insistence that an enquiring mind is a handicap. 

Luckily the author got out at the age of 24, so there was plenty of time for her to make a life for herself in the real world and catch up with her reading.

Changing or dropping the subject and ignoring what was said are very familiar techniques. 

A last look at Walter de la Mare's Return

Walter de la Mare suggests several possible futures for Arthur Lawford, the main character in his horror story The Return. The ghost of the wicked Frenchman who is possessing him could slip away and he could be his old self again, free from the malign influence; his wife's circle of friends could declare him hopelessly insane and have him put away; he might leave his family entirely and go off somewhere else; he might even die, perhaps by his own hand.

The final outcome is unclear; the story ends suddenly without Arthur Lawford's fate being spelled out. However, there is still some miscellaneous material to comment on.

Arthur Lawford attacks a fat man 

There isn't much humour in The Return, but I was amused by one passage. When Mrs Lawford calls in a very fat friend of hers called Mr Danton, the French ghost attacks him through Arthur and makes some contemptuous and offensive remarks:

“Danton at heart was always an incorrigible sceptic. Aren’t you, T. D.? You pride your dear old brawn on it in secret?...Firm, unctuous, subtle, scepticism; and to that end your body flourishes. You were born fat; you became fat; and fat, my dear Danton, has been deliberately thrust on you—in layers! Lampreys! You’ll perish of surfeit some day, of sheer Dantonism. And fat, postmortem, Danton. Oh, what a basting’s there!”

The ghost of the Frenchman sometimes recedes leaving Arthur almost his old self, but the mischievous, saturnine, vindictive Nicholas Sabathier is definitely in the ascendant here. 

Other interpretations of the strange symptoms

It is possible that Arthur Lawford's  bizarre  behaviour was originally caused by a subconscious attempt to break out of his unsatisfactory life, the old 'deadly round'; 'Nicholas Sabathier the dark Adventurer' could be Arthur's shadow self, displaying all his repressed qualities and saying things that Arthur would not normally permit himself to say. 

More about Walter de la Mare's Return

The first article about Walter de la Mare's horror novel The Return ended at the point where Arthur Lawford, whose appearance has changed because he is possessed by the ghost of a dead Frenchman, has convinced both his wife Sheila and the vicar Mr Bethany that he is not an imposter.

They now have to decide how to deal with 'this awful business'.

They call in a doctor; he is not much use, which is not surprising as Lawford gives him only a modified version of what happened in the cemetery. 

They want to avoid comment or scandal so invent some cover stories for their friends and the servants: they tell people that Arthur Lawford is staying in his room and not seeing anyone because he is very tired and ill, and that the 'stranger' who has been seen in the house is a new doctor. 

From this point on, the story itself did not hold much of my attention. I couldn't find much to inspire commentary as I skimmed quickly through the details of the web of deception and Arthur Lawford's impersonation of the new doctor, the descriptions of Arthur's inner state, his disagreements with his wife and his excursions, not to mention the long philosophical discussions about life. I did however find a few more connections and a little incidental material of interest.

Another reminder of Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood 

Arthur Lawford makes a new friend, someone with the strange name of Herbert Herbert. This man believes Arthur's story about being possessed by the Frenchman when he fell asleep in the churchyard, and theorises that Nicholas Sabathier's restless ghost had been lingering on by his grave waiting for someone to ambush because he still has some living to do. 

Then, Herbert says, a godsend in the form of Arthur Lawford comes along. Arthur has been suffering from a dispiriting illness, he is half asleep, tired out and depressed; his weak inner state makes him a suitable vehicle for possession. This is spot on, and similar to what George Cubbins says to Lucy and Lockwood about ghosts homing in on vulnerable people in the previously mentioned article about Jonathan Stroud's Empty Grave.

Something about Walter de la Mare's Return

I like WaIter de la Mare's children's stories and poems very much indeed. I feel much the same about them as I do about the works of Eleanor Farjeon and Nicholas Stuart Gray. 

As is the case with many other poets and writers I like, nothing relevant about WaIter de la Mare came to mind when I was mining the past for people, books and other material of interest. However, I recently learned that he wrote a supernatural novel called The Return, a horror story about possession of the living by the dead that was first published in 1910. I am not a great reader of ghost and horror stories, but this one seemed worth investigating. 

I found a copy and soon saw that while The Return is not a particularly good read, it does contain a small amount of material of interest. There are some elements in it that remind me of May Sinclair's Flaw in the Crystal, and there are a few points and connections that inspire commentary. The Return rambles a bit and the story fades away; the quotable material comes mostly from the early chapters. 

The main character is called Arthur Lawford, who is a rather dull and conventional man. He is the object of psychic possession with its associated horrors.

How the horror starts

Arthur Lawford has been suffering from ongoing ill-health. He has taken to solitary ramblings because he senses that his wife Sheila has been finding his presence irksome and would welcome his absence from the house.

He wanders around in a churchyard and reads some of the inscriptions on the headstones. An unusual grave attracts his attention; the inscription is almost illegible but he tries to decode it. The grave appears to contain the remains of a French stranger called Nicholas Sabathier who died by his own hand in 1739. He kneels down to get a closer look; his heart starts to beat in an unusual way; he feels ill and weak. He decides to go home but falls asleep instead.

Jean Rhys, L. M. Montgomery, Jane Eyre and public libraries

The first article in the series about public libraries mentions the great debt that Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman said they owe to the libraries that they used as boys. 

Jean Rhys and L. M. Montgomery are two more novelists who were great readers and had access to a public library when young. As girls they read Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, which made a big impression on them and later influenced their writing.

Jean Rhys and the public library

As mentioned in the article about psychological black magic, Jean Rhys wrote a prequel to Jane Eyre: Wide Sargasso Sea is considered to be her finest work. 

Carole Angier says in her biography Jean Rhys: Life and Work that Jean Rhys was a member of the Hamilton Public Library in the British West Indies island of Dominica as a girl, and this was where she first encountered Jane Eyre. The course of her life might have been very different if she had not read this book at an impressionable age, and Wide Sargasso Sea might never have been written.

Jean Rhys had a lot of trouble with this book, which was probably started around 1945 but not published until 1966.

She said that she went to the local public library in Bude in Cornwall in 1957 to get a copy of Jane Eyre. She wanted to re-read it to refresh her memory of Mr Rochester's mad wife, whose story she was telling in Wide Sargasso Sea.

A last look at May Sinclair's Flaw in the Crystal

This article highlights some unconvincing elements in May Sinclair's The Flaw in the Crystal and lists some similarities between The Parasite by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and May Sinclair's novella. These similarities and some other connections I noticed make the effort needed to decode the obscurities in The Flaw in the Crystal seem worthwhile. 

First, two extracts that seem significant to me:

Playing the 'as if' game

There is no humour in The Flaw in the Crystal, but I find this passage where Milly Powell writes to Agatha about her husband Harding both interesting and amusing:

“She wrote as if it was Agatha's fault that he had become dependent; as if Agatha had nothing, had nobody in the world to think of but Harding; as if nobody, as if nothing in the world beside Harding mattered. And Agatha found herself resenting Milly's view. As if to her anything in the world mattered beside Rodney Lanyon.“

Off-the-mark, 'as if' messages are a special interest of mine. It was an unexpected treat to come across such a good specimen in a story written in 1912. 

It is a pity that the whole story is not written in the  straightforward style that we see in this passage.

Intention is everything 

Just as many other people involved with unseen influences have done, Agatha Verrall realises that there is a dimension where thoughts have power. There, the wish or intention to do something is at least as effective as actually doing it in the real world:

“...that world where to think was to will, and to will was to create.“

“For thought went wider and deeper than any deed; it was of the very order of the Powers intangible wherewith she had worked. Why, thoughts unborn and shapeless, that ran under the threshold and hid there, counted more in that world where It, the Unuttered, the Hidden and the Secret, reigned.”

Despite what Agatha Verrall believes, this dimension, this world, is not necessarily a good place and the Powers that can be contacted there are not necessarily benevolent.

Jean Rhys, Jane Eyre and psychological black magic

Psychological black magic, the illegitimate use of subtle forces, is an unseen influence of particular interest. This blog is full of examples of and references to it. I have learned what to look out for over the years, and I have recently seen some material in Carole Angier's biography Jean Rhys: Life and Work that suggests to me that psychological black magic was at work in Jean Rhys's life.

This article covers a small coincidence involving names that reminds me of something similar in the life of Charlotte Brontë, with whose work Jean Rhys was very familiar.

First, some basic information.

Jean Rhys and Jane Eyre

Jean Rhys read Jane Eyre as a girl in Dominica. It made such an impression that decades later she wrote a prequel in the form of Wide Sargasso Sea, her most admired and commercially successful novel. 

I suspect that her imagination was particularly stirred when she read that Mr Rochester's wife also came from the British West Indies – Mr Rochester brought Bertha Mason home to England from Jamaica.

I also suspect that Jean Rhys wished that an English gentleman, someone similar to the romantic Mr. Rochester, would do the same for her! He would rescue her; he would take her away from her unsatisfactory life.

She was sent away from Dominica to school in England in 1907, the year of her 17th birthday. She hoped to find a feeling of belonging there. She may also have hoped to meet the English gentleman of her dreams there. As Mr Rochester says to Jane Eyre:

“...the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so all you can do is to aid Mahomet to go to the mountain...”

Psychic powers in May Sinclair's Flaw in the Crystal: Part IV

I find some elements of the plot of May Sinclair's novella The Flaw in the Crystal contrived and confusing. 

The final resolution of Agatha Verrall's dilemma in particular seems unconvincing and unsatisfactory. She finds a solution to her difficulties that leaves some questions unanswered and some issues unaddressed.

Agatha Verrall's dilemma

We left Agatha Verrall in a situation where she is damned if she uses her gift to heal people remotely and damned if she doesn't.

Taking away people's suffering means becoming possessed by her subjects' former mental states: the psychic connection is a two-way street. The links that she creates between herself and her subjects may be also be cross-contaminated such that one subject can get at another.  

Cutting ties with people who have been healed means that their mental anguish returns. This entails watching them suffer and coming under both internal and external pressure to resume the healing. 

It would be an ideal solution to this predicament if Agatha could only use her Power without anyone involved experiencing any unpleasant side-effects.

This is much easier said than done, but Agatha eventually finds the way. Things get worse before they get better though.