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Physicians and Staff
Home » Patient Education » Sinuses » Sinusitic Questions
Sinusitic Questions
20 Questions About Your Sinuses
Q. How common is sinusitis?
A. More than 37 million Americans suffer from at least one episode of acute sinusitis each year. The prevalence of sinusitis has soared in the last decade due to increased pollution, urban sprawl, and increased resistance to antibiotics.
Q. What is sinusitis?
A. Sinusitis is an inflammation of the membrane lining of any sinus, especially one of the paranasal sinuses. Acute sinusitis is a short-term condition that responds well to antibiotics and decongestants; chronic sinusitis is characterized by at least four recurrences of acute sinusitis. Either medication or surgery is a possible treatment.
Q. What are the signs and symptoms of acute sinusitis?
A. For acute sinusitis, symptoms include facial pain/pressure, nasal obstruction, nasal discharge, diminished sense of smell, and cough not due to asthma (in children). Additionally, sufferers of this disorder could incur fever, bad breath, fatigue, dental pain, and cough (in adults).
Acute sinusitis can last four weeks or more. This condition may be present when the patient has two or more symptoms and/or the presence of thick, green or yellow nasal discharge. Acute bacterial infection might be present when symptoms worsen after five days, persist after ten days, or the severity of symptoms is out of proportion to those normally associated with a viral infection.
Q. How is acute sinusitis treated?
A. Acute sinusitis is generally treated with 10 to 14 days of antibiotic care. With treatment, the symptoms disappear and antibiotics are no longer required for that episode. Oral and topical decongestants also may be prescribed to alleviate the symptoms.
Q. What are the signs and symptoms of chronic sinusitis?
A. Victims of chronic sinusitis may have the following symptoms for 12 weeks or more: facial pain/pressure, facial congestion/fullness, nasal obstruction/blockage, thick nasal discharge/discolored post-nasal drainage, pus in the nasal cavity, and at times, fever. They may also have headache, bad breath, and fatigue.
Q. What measures can be taken at home to relieve sinus pain?
A. Warm moist air may alleviate sinus congestion. A vaporizer or steam from a pan of boiled water (removed from the heat) are both recommended (humidifiers should have a clear filter to preclude spraying bacteria or fungal spores into the air). Warm compresses are useful in relieving pain in the nose and sinuses. Saline nose drops are safe for use at home.
Q. How effective are non-prescription nose drops or sprays?
A. Use of nonprescription drops or sprays might help control symptoms. However, non-prescription drops should not be used beyond their label recommendation.
Q. How does a physician determine the best treatment for acute or chronic sinusitis?
A. To obtain the best treatment option, the physician needs to properly assess the patient's history and symptoms and then progress through a structured physical examination.
Q. What should one expect during the physical examination for sinusitis?
A. At a specialist's office, the patient will receive a thorough ear, nose, and throat examination. During that physical examination, the physician will explore the facial features where swelling and erythema (redness of the skin) over the cheekbone exists. Facial swelling and redness are generally worse in the morning; as the patient remains upright, the symptoms gradually improve. The physician may feel and press the sinuses for tenderness. Additionally, the physician may tap the teeth to help identify an inflamed paranasal sinus.
Q. What other diagnostic procedures might be taken?
A. Other diagnostic tests may include a study of a mucus culture, endoscopy, x-rays, allergy testing, or CT scan of the sinuses.
Q. What is nasal endoscopy?
A. An endoscope is a special fiberoptic instrument for the examination of the interior of a canal or hollow viscus. It allows a visual examination of the nose and sinus drainage areas.
Q. Why does a physician specialist carry out nasal endoscopy?
A. Nasal endoscopy offers the physician specialist a reliable, visual view of all the accessible areas of the sinus drainage pathways. First, the patient's nasal cavity is anesthetized; a rigid or flexible endoscope is then placed in a position to view the structure of the nasal cavity. The procedure is utilized to observe signs of obstruction as well as detect nasal polyps hidden from routine nasal examination. During the endoscopic examination, the physician specialist also looks for pus as well as polyp formation and structural abnormalities that will cause the patient to suffer from recurrent sinusitis.
Q. What course of treatment will the physician recommend?
A. To reduce congestion, the physician may prescribe nasal sprays, nose drops, or oral decongestants. Antibiotics will be prescribed for any bacterial infection found in the sinuses (antibiotics are not effective against a viral infection). Antihistamines may be recommended for the treatment of allergies. Antifungal medicine will be the treatment for any fungal infection.
Q. Will any changes in lifestyle be suggested during treatment?
A. Smoking is never condoned, but if one has the habit, it is important to refrain during treatment for sinus problems. A special diet is not required, but drinking extra fluids helps to thin mucus.
Q. When is sinus surgery necessary?
A. Mucus is developed by the body to act as a lubricant. In the sinus cavities, the lubricant is moved across mucus membrane linings toward the opening of each sinus by millions of cilia (a mobile extension of a cell). Inflammation from an allergy causes membrane swelling and the sinus opening to narrow, thereby blocking mucus movement. If antibiotics are not effective, sinus surgery can correct the problem.
Q. What does the surgical procedure entail?
A. The basic endoscopic surgical procedure is performed under local or general anesthesia. The patient returns to normal activities within four days; full recovery takes about four weeks.
Q. What does sinus surgery accomplish?
A. The surgery should enlarge the natural opening to the sinuses, leaving as many cilia in place as possible. Otolaryngologist-head and neck surgeons have found endoscopic surgery to be highly effective in restoring normal functioning to the sinuses. The procedure removes areas of obstruction, resulting in the normal flow of mucus.
Q. What are the consequences of not treating infected sinuses?
A. Not seeking treatment for sinusitis will result in unnecessary pain and discomfort. In rare circumstances, meningitis or brain abscess and infection of the bone or bone marrow can occur.
Q. Where should sinus pain sufferers seek treatment?
A. If you suffer from severe sinus pain, you should seek treatment from a physician who can treat your condition with medical and/or surgical remedies.
This information (with the exception of photos) may be freely used. Attribution to the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery is required.
© 2011 AAO-HNS/AAO-HNSF
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HOME INTRODUCTION STAFF RESEARCH RECRUITMENT CONTACT US 中文
Prof. Yi Chen
Prof. Lanqun Mao
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Bio-chromatography
Insight on research
Huimin Ma group has made important progress in the second near-infrared spectroscopic probe
Fluorophores in the second near-infrared window (NIR-II, 1000-1700 nm) have attracted extensive attention due to their better imaging quality and deeper tissue penetration than those in the first near-infrared window (NIR-I, 650？900 nm). Currently, NIR-II fluorophores are primarily based on inorganic nanomaterials, but their disputable toxicity hinders preclinical translation. In contrast, organic small molecular fluorophores have presented satisfactory safety profiles and have been used in ...
New spectroscopic probe and its application to fluorescence imaging of hydroxyl radical
Development of new spectroscopic probes and specific imaging methods is of great importance for various biological studies. Prof. Ma’s research group at the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS), has been engaged in this area for more than 20 years, during which a series of new spectroscopic probes and sensing methods for bioactive species have been developed by using various chemical reactions. Based on their important results, Prof. Ma and his colleagues have been inv...
New spectroscopic probe and its use in fluorescence imaging of monoamine oxidase A
Because of their high sensitivity and spatiotemporal resolution, excellent spectroscopic (chromogenic, fluorescent, or chemiluminescent) probes have attracted much attention. Prof. Ma’s research group at the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has been engaged in this field for more than two decades, during which a series of new spectroscopic probes and sensing/labeling methods for biologically active species have been developed by employing different chemical reactions. Bas...
New spectroscopic probe and its use in fluorescence imaging of tyrosinase activity
Due to the high sensitivity and high spatiotemporal resolution, the development of excellent spectroscopic (chromogenic, fluorescent, or chemiluminescent) probes has attracted much attention. Prof. Ma’s research group at the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has been engaged in this field for more than two decades, during which a series of new spectroscopic probes and sensing/labeling methods for biologically active species have been developed by employing different chemic...
2013 ACL Autumn Meeting Held
In 28th, Sep. 2013, the annual autumn meeting of ACL was held in Beijing. All the students and faculty attended the meeting. The safety knowledge lectures, scientific reports and the award ceremony were arranged in this meeting.
ACL Obtained the Fund of “National Natural Science Foundation of China Innovative Research Team”
The project of “National Natural Science Foundation of China Innovative Research Team” was set by Natural Science Foundation of China in 2000, which is aim to support the creative research team. Such a fund to our lab is helpful to establish the new platform for the development of analytical chemistry.
Professor Ping Yu Obtained Natural Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars
Recently, Associate Professor Ping Yu obtained the Natural Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars, which was supported by Natural Science Foundation of China. The total amount of this fund is ￥ 1 million. It is also the first Natural Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars in our laboratory.
Research achievements in ACL awarded the Science and Technology Awards of Beijing
The on-line in vivo analysis of bioactive molecules at the living animal level could reflect the chemical information change in real life process. Thus it is significant in the research of analytical chemistry and neuropathology. The Prof. Lanqun Mao’s group in ACL embarks on the research of new mechanisms and methods of analytical chemistry for living biosystems all the time.
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MAORI PRIVILEGE
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council, democracy, iwi, maori, maori privilege, National Party, Ngai Tahu, nick smith, racial privilege 1law4all, Councils, democracy, Maori, Maori Charitable Trusts, Maori Privilege, Maori Seats, Missuse & Abuse of Taxpayers Money, New Zealand, Racism, Tax Payer Funding 17
NZCPR Weekly:
By Dr Muriel Newman
Maori privilege is on the rise and at an accelerating pace.
Reports are now emerging from around the country of iwi representatives turning up at confidential local authority meetings and demanding a seat at council tables.
They claim their authority comes from the Mana Whakahono a Rohe agreements in the Resource Legislation Amendment Act that was passed by the National Government in 2017.
At the time we warned these iwi consultation provisions would have serious consequences for local democracy by enabling un-elected and unaccountable tribal representatives – pursuing their own self-interested agendas – to sit alongside elected councillors and officials in a co-governance role.
The Minister responsible for this misguided law change was Nelson MP Nick Smith. He not only designed these agreements with Iwi leaders behind closed doors, but he then manipulated Parliament’s rules so they could be imposed onto the country without notice and in such a way as to avoid the submission process and any form of public consultation whatsoever.
At the time the NZCPR asked the new Prime Minister Bill English to remove the provisions from the Bill. We published newspaper advertisements urging the public to contact the PM and call for common sense.
In the ads we explained the new iwi powers included plan-making, consenting, appointment of committees, monitoring and enforcement, bylaws, regulations and other council statutory responsibilities – including over fresh water.
We warned that once these agreements were in place they would be there forever – unless there was a law change to repeal them.
The fact that Councillors and communities cannot prevent these agreements from being introduced shows the fundamental protections of democracy and the rule of law have now been completely undermined.
As constitutional lawyer Stephen Franks explained at the time, “The Bill entrenches permanent race privilege and corruption… The provisions are a major constitutional change. They subordinate powers entrusted to elected local governments, in deliberately obscure words, to racially inherited power, beyond the reach of electoral recall.”
Another example of Maori privilege that has been extremely detrimental to the national interest is the changes to the Charities Act that were introduced by Helen Clark’s Labour Government to allow some of the biggest businesses in the country to register as charities and avoid paying tax.
Until that time, any group wanting to register as a charity not only needed a legitimate charitable purpose – such as the relief of poverty or the advancement of education – but they also had to meet a public benefit test to ensure that tax-free profits flow into the wider community, and not into the pockets of private individuals and their relatives.
Since Maori tribal organisations are kin-based, they failed the public benefit test and could not gain charitable status. To sidestep this hurdle, Labour introduced an exemption from the blood tie disqualification for anyone involved in the administration and management of a marae.
As a result, mega rich corporations like Ngai Tahu have been able to register as tax free charities.
This week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator researcher Dr Michael Gousmett, outlines the consequences of Labour’s ill-advised law change:
“It is interesting to read Ngai Tahu’s defence on their website of their charitable status and the income tax exemption that applies to its commercial empire: ‘The commercial success of Ngai Tahu needs no introduction. A $170 million settlement in 1998 has, in the space of 20 years, been turned into $1.3 billion (give or take a dollar or two).’
“The phenomenal rate of growth of their empire has been achieved through the significant acquisition of many previously income-tax paying for-profit entities which overnight, because of the income tax exempt status of Ngai Tahu Charitable Trust as the sole shareholder, also claims that fiscal privilege – yet those activities are unrelated to the charitable purposes of the trustee.
“Over the past 20 years, there have been, at one time or another, 70 limited liability companies, 18 joint ventures and 3 associate companies under Ngai Tahu control. Currently Ngai Tahu has 39 trading entities that are registered as tax charities. Today Ngai Tahu operate a substantial commercial operation that the taxpayers of New Zealand subsidise.”
With the Maori economy now topping $50 billion, Maori business corporations should not be subsidised by taxpayers. Their tax exempt status should be removed. It’s time they contributed their ‘fair share’ of tax to help build the country’s infrastructure and fund social services – just like everyone else.
In fact, when the Tax Working Group announced they intended looking into the tax treatment of charities, there was hope that Sir Michael Cullen would recommend what he proposed as Minister of Finance, namely, “Make trading operations owned by charities subject to income tax in the same way as other businesses, but with an unlimited deduction for distributions made for the relevant charitable purposes”.
However, recent comments by Dr Cullen that charities taking an “intergenerational” approach should be protected, may signal that more race based financial privilege lies ahead, not less – although it’s difficult to imagine what could be more generous than a zero tax rate!
Underpinning the growth in Maori privilege over the years has been the on-going battle for the Maori seats. These have become the political power base of the Maori sovereignty movement.
At present, sovereignty supporters are attempting to protect their power base through a Bill to entrench the Maori seats, so they can only be removed by a 75 percent majority of Parliament.
Labour MP Rino Tirikatene’s Private Member’s Bill, the Electoral (Entrenchment of Maori Seats) Amendment Bill is currently in front of a Select Committee, and he and his colleagues are busy travelling the country collecting submissions in favour of entrenchment.
To counter their contrived support, we urge anyone concerned about the growth of Maori privilege in New Zealand to send in a submission opposing entrenchment before the closing date of December 14th.
To assist readers, we have outlined a summary of the NZCPR submission to show the sorts of issues that can be raised.
But don’t forget, submissions to a Select Committee do not have to be complex – one that simply states support or opposition to a Bill for a single reason is quite sufficient.
Furthermore, since politics is a numbers game, the number of submissions received on a Bill is important. But don’t forget that submissions should not be reproduced word for word otherwise they may not be counted separately by a Select Committee.
The following format can be used – the NZCPR’s full submission can be seen HERE.
Committee Secretariat
Maori Affairs Select Committee
ma@parliament.govt.nz
Submission: Electoral (Entrenchment of Maori Seats) Amendment Bill
Thank you for providing the opportunity to make a submission on the Electoral (Entrenchment of Maori Seats) Amendment Bill.
This submission on behalf of ……… opposes the Bill on the following grounds:
1. The reason for the existence of the Maori seats has long disappeared
The Maori seats were introduced as a temporary measure in 1867 to give those Maori men who didn’t meet the property qualification, the right to vote. The seats were meant to remain in force for five years but were extended for a further five years and then indefinitely.
When all men gained the vote in 1879, the Maori seats should have been abolished.
Since the original purpose of the Maori seats has long disappeared, they should be abolished, not entrenched.
2. The Maori seats breach Section 19(1) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights.
In 1986 the Royal Commission on the Electoral System recommended abolishing the Maori seats to prevent an over-representation of Maori in Parliament, if our voting system was changed from First Past the Post to Mixed Member Proportional.
Since a quarter of all MPs in our Parliament – including the leaders or deputy leaders of all political parties – are now of Maori descent, the retention of the Maori seats following the introduction of MMP has resulted in a disproportionate over-representation of Maori in Parliament.
In 2010, a ruling by the Attorney General on the principle of proportionality noted, “In a representative democracy, it is important to maintain approximately the same level of representation for everyone.”
Since the Maori seats have increased the representation of Maori in Parliament to a level greater than their proportion in the population as a whole, they have become discriminatory and are in breach of section 19(1) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 – freedom from discrimination based on race. Accordingly, the Maori seats should be abolished, not entrenched.
3. The Maori seats are not suited to entrenchment.
Under section 268 of the Electoral Act, reserved provisions can only be changed through a special 75 percent majority of Parliament – or a binding referendum of voters. There are six reserved provisions, which are all constitutional in nature: the term of Parliament, the Representation Commission, the general electorates, the 5 percent electorate margin, the minimum voting age of 18, and the method of voting.
When the Maori seats were first introduced to give Maori men the vote, they were constitutional in nature. But once all men could vote, the rationale for their existence disappeared, and the reason they were retained was political.
Political provisions are not suited to entrenchment.
4. The Bill is in breach of Parliament’s rules
Parliament’s Standing Order 266 states, “A proposal for entrenchment must itself be carried in a committee of the whole House by the majority that it would require for the amendment or repeal of the provision to be entrenched.”
This means that a Bill to entrench the Maori seats should also be passed by a special majority of 75 percent of Parliament. The fact that the Bill does not specify this, means it is in breach of Standing Order 266 and should be rejected.
5. The Maori seats are no longer lawful
The Maori electoral population used in calculating the number of Maori seats is determined by the number of people who indicate they have Maori descent on their Census forms. However, in 1997, the Government Statistician decided to include a proportion of those who had not answered the Maori descent question correctly in his calculation. As a result, the number of Maori seats rose from 6 to 7. If the estimate had not been added, there would have only been 6 Maori seats since 1997.
Section 3 of the Electoral Act requires the Maori electoral population to be based on “the total number of ordinarily resident persons of New Zealand Maori descent as determined by the last periodical census”. However, since 1997 the calculation has been based on the census plus an estimate from the Government Statistician. That means the Maori seats are being calculated unlawfully. It would clearly be improper to entrench unlawful seats.
For the reasons outlined, the Electoral (Entrenchment of Maori Seats) Amendment Bill should not proceed. Furthermore, the Maori seats should be abolished.
Yours sincerely …
With Labour winning all seven Maori seats at the last election, we should expect to see new forms of privilege emerging, as iwi leaders make use of the negotiating leverage the seats provide. Not content with controlling local authorities, and potentially the whole of New Zealand’s coastline, they now have their eyes set, not only on the control of fresh water, but of government itself through the right to veto every Bill or regulation that is proposed.
The present system that is fuelling Maori privilege, has created a powerful ruling class that is having a disproportionate influence over government affairs. As a result, the tribal elite are prospering, while their relatives remain mired in hardship.
The Royal Commission blamed the race-based Parliamentary system for the marginalisation of Maori, arguing that if the Maori seats were abolished then all parties would focus on addressing the problems of persistent deprivation. In other words, Maori privilege and separatism are not an answer, equality is.
It’s time New Zealanders opened their eyes to what’s going on and started demanding the removal of the discriminatory Maori seats.
You can download the submission form here, fill in your own details and send: Download
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Human » People » Society » Organization » Religious Organizations » List Of Religious Titles And Professions » Monk
We finally made it under the Abbey gate a little before sunset, just as the monks were assembling for vespers so it was left to one of the lay brothers to establish us in the guest house and show us where the horses could be stabled. The Almoner came to visit us once the service was over - apparently they were remote enough not to have a separate obedientiary for the guest house - to ensure that we were comfortably settled and to make discreet inquiries into what business had brought us so far up into the mountains. He actually seemed surprised that we were here to consult the house's library, and promised to introduce Father Gabriel to the librarian as soon as we were recovered from our journey - even Gabriel agreed that it would be wiser to wait for daylight before actually starting his research.
A male member of a cenobitic1 religious order, dwelling in community with his fellow monks for some purpose that is intended to serve the aims of his faith. Such a community of monks is known, by default, as a monastery, although other names may apply. Note that a monk is not necessarily an ordained priest but is in some form of religious orders, unlike a lay brother, who is an ordinary rank-and-file member of the religion living in a monastery and working alongside the monks, usually as a servant or specialist craftsman.
Most of what follows will apply mainly to Church of Rome Christianity in Western Europe but monastic traditions occur in other Christian denominations and other religions (particularly Buddhism and Sufi Islam) - these will vary in detail and should be researched separately.
Traditionally monks were meant to live under codes which include such strictures as poverty, chastity and obedience - sometimes with a very restricted diet, rules of silence and other disciplines of faith. In practice the degree to which these rules were observed - and whether the spirit or the letter of the code was better kept - varied greatly and it was not unknown for some monasteries to acquire scandalous reputations for high living and debauchery.
The length of a monk's membership of a community could vary considerably - in the Church of Rome a monk generally enlisted for life, and in many cases could be entered into the community as a child (known as an oblate, whilst someone who joined as an adult was called a convert), although by the later middle ages most orders had greatly restricted the practice of accepting oblates. In some other Christian traditions, and even more so in non-Christian ones such as Sufi or Buddhist monasticism a man might spend only part of his life as a monk, before returning 'to the world' to play some other role, either as a layman or as secular clergy2.
The declared purpose of monasteries has traditionally been to provide a source of concentrated and continual prayer on behalf of the community or nation to which they are attached. Other common activities have included schooling, the maintaining of libraries and hand copying of the books in them and running hospitals of various kinds. In some cases they also served as retirement homes for a community with elderly men leaving the secular world to spend their final years in holy living (at least in theory). Monastery schools often evolved from the facilities set up to train oblates - these could then accept children from other sources as well, at first alongside the oblates and then, as oblation was increasingly phased out, instead of them.
Under the Roman tradition, a monastery would generally keep a cycle of eight services known as the canonical hours, starting before dawn with Matins and proceeding through the day until the Midnight Mass. These were observed to some degree outside monastic communities, but were normally only fully observed within.
Despite the normative rules of poverty, many monasteries were major landowners and were collectively wealthy - Buckfast Abbey in Devon was one of the largest wool producers in England and remains famous for its tonic wine and many continental monasteries are famous for their wines or liqueurs. Other monasteries have been well known for beekeeping3 or the manufacture of perfume but generally their economy was based around agriculture (as might be expected for anyone in the pre-modern period). Many of these practices actually derived from herbalism to one degree or another - especially where liqueurs, tonic wines and other plant extracting processes are involved. Beer making, by contrast, was merely a part of domestic catering for most of the period (as, in truth, might wine making be in some regions) - quality being a result of self-interest and extended practice.
A monastery was traditionally headed by an Abbot - and was usually called an Abbey if this was the case (in the Roman tradition, some Abbots were also Bishops of a diocese4) but smaller monasteries - often satellites of a larger house - were headed by a prior and known as priories. In an abbey the prior was the deputy to the abbot instead.
Below the prior were a group of monks known as the obedientiaries who had specific responsibilities for making sure specific jobs were carried out, these included:
The precentor: who organised and directed the worship services. Traditionally the monastery's director of music.
The sacristan: who was in charge of the monastic church, its vestments and sundry "worship equipment". Usually in charge of the sacred texts and therefore library (if any) and often the scriptorium (copying house) as well.
The cellarer: in charge of the monastery's estates and responsible for making sure the house was fully supplied.
The refectorian: ran the mess hall and was responsible for its fixtures and fittings.
The kitchener: in charge of the monastery kitchens, which could be a big job as a monastery could have several - often separate - serving the monk's refectory, the guest house, the abbot's lodgings and the lay brethren's quarters (although not all houses separated all of these functions).
The novice master: responsible for the training of new recruits and the running of the monastery school (if any).
The infirmarian: responsible for the infirmary where sick or elderly monks were cared for - and the monastic hospital if one existed.
The guest master: ran the guest house which provided hospitality to travellers.
The almoner: responsible for the giving of assistance to the poor (sometimes the same person as the guest master)
The chamberlain: who was in charge of the monks clothing and bedding.
Many of these offices had full time assistants, whilst others would borrow non-specialised monks as required or rely on the services of the lay brethren. Obedientiaries were usually elected by their brother monks for life or until resignation, deposition or incapacity.
Other jobs were filled by rota on a weekly or monthly basis. All monks were expected to attend the services if they were physically able - and most houses had an altar rigged in the infirmary for those who couldn't make it to the chapel - and in theory all were expected to work in the monastery fields or other forms of labour.
The female cognate of 'monk' is 'nun' - most of the above applies with slight variations regardless of the gender of the participants, although a convent of nuns was often used as a dumping ground for 'inconvenient' women.
Other forms of monk-like individual include the hermit and anchorite. Friars were monks who were not based in a monastery but travelled from place to place to work their ministry using the houses of their order - called friaries - as depots. Orders of monks in which all or most of the brothers were ordained priests were sometimes called canons rather than monks.
1. Brother Cadfael, monk and detective.
2. The Name of the Rose - a story about a monastery in need of a detective.
3. The Canonical Hours
4. "That Other" Wiki on monasticism in general
5. More on the Obediantiaries
6. The Rule of St Benedict - the original handbook on setting up a monastery.
In a medieval European campaign staying the night at a monastery on long journeys should be routine.
PCs might also want to visit a monastery library or take a book there to be copied.
Roger Bacon was a monk, as were a few other medieval occultists. Not all of the knowledge at a monastery need be entirely holy.
Some might be decidedly unholy, even. If you have a book of forbidden lore that needs preserving, who better to repair and copy it than people who are (at least theoretically) devoted to the powers of righteousness?
"Monastery full of creepy, evil monks" is a popular meme amongst such masters as Clark Ashton Smith… such a monastery may have always been a refuge for evil, or may have started off righteous and become corrupted.
A specialist monastery may also make something they need.
Given the size of monastic business interests, they may have entirely secular matters to discuss.
Indeed if the house is run by a mitred abbot, they may be very deeply mired in secular politics. Involvement in church politics is a given.
Indeed, the abbot may use the substantial pool of literate men at his disposal to set up a powerful administrative staff, of a kind that was otherwise hard to establish in the middle ages.
The kings of Spain managed something similar at El Escorial where they attached a royal palace directly to a monastery and benefitted thereby.
A PCs child may be accommodated at a monastery school - or they may need to abduct or rescue an NPCs child from such a situation.
Unwilling novices fleeing from a life of contemplation (or aspirant monks whose parents try to forbid them joining an order) make good plot points.
A monastery may be the best source of medical care in a low magic campaign.
A monk isn't really a good choice of PC unless you're planning to set the campaign in a very limited geographical area (Brother Cadfael was unusually wide roaming for a monk - but not for a PC) … friars, on the other hand, were like beach sand in some eras.
Due to the creeping abomination of popfinition players may expect all monks to know kung-fu. Refrain from slapping them - it's (probably) not their fault that they are ignorant. In reality this wasn't common even amongst Buddhist monks - the Shaolin temple stands out for a variety of reasons. That's not to say a monk is always a pushover - some may have taken Franciscan vows of humility, others may be more like the Sohei or the Western Martial Orders5 … and even if they're not, many a conversus was atoning for a life on the battlefield (like Cadfael) and even some oblates would have completed a squirage before taking the cloth (Susannah Gregory's Brother Michael for example … his grandmother the conversus nun is much scarier).
And Let's not forget Friar Tuck who looked like a sedentary butterball but who could kick righteous butt when some cocky greenwood outlaw tried to snatch his haunch of mutton. (I watched The Adventures of Robin Hood recently; can you tell?)
Or Turpin, the fighting Archbishop of Rheims from the medieval romance The Song of Roland.
And in a fantasy religion, the monks of a war god (if such a thing exists) may well practice combat as part of their worship.
Jackie Chan, perhaps predictably, managed to turn the business on its head in Armour of God with an extended fight scene between himself and a pack of what appear to be Benedictines, all with at least mook level kung-fu skills.
To the medieval mind, choir monks - even those orders who did essentially nothing but prayer and contemplation - served a useful purpose by essentially providing spiritual capital on behalf of the nation. For a game where realm level matters are considered, like TSR's old Birthright setting, a monastery may generate power for realm level theurgy by building up credit with the gods, or might provide a benefit to the realm (essentially a monk-powered buff).
Providing the seal to a can of evil is also a credible use for a monastery - constant prayer and holy ritual reinforce the bindings, holy and ascetic monks are better equipped to resist influences that might leak from the bound evil (unless it is especially subtle, has the right kind of malign influence or is patient enough to wait until the watch grows slack) and, in the final analysis, the monks may turn out to be able to physically defend their monastery and its ward from meddling cultists.
This sort of thing also plays well with "meddling idiot" scenarios, where invading armies decide to commandeer the monastery as a base and chuck the monks out, where rational modern governments have no patience with what appears to be an alarmingly well armed nest of religious fanatics …. that sort of thing…
There are also things like epidemic diseases and other natural disasters that could leave a monastery abandoned. By the living at least…
Consider also the monastery from the OD&D classic module X4-Master of the Desert Nomads - a foundation set to seal a can full of evil might fall from the inside. (This wasn't the case in the module - the monastery in question had simply been stormed and the monks replaced, but the whole module had a bit of a railroady air about it…).
1. Or possibly sketic…
2. This may sound oxymoronic, however in context 'secular' referred to those clergy who actually engaged in pastoral work rather than being solely concerned with internal religious affairs
3. And therefore possibly mead making…
4. These were known as "mitred" abbots after the head-dress worn by bishops.
5. Knights Templar, Teutonic Brothers, Capellars, Hospitallers, Knights of St James etc. - pick one
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Gwen Voicing “DJ Suki” in New Dreamworks Animated Film ‘Trolls’ (Updated)
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Photo courtesy of Dreamworks
Gwen has announced that she’ll be appearing and voicing “DJ Suki”, a “rockin’ troll” featured in the upcoming Dreamworks animated film, Trolls! The film is based on the iconic Troll dolls which have been popular since the 1950s and are predominately known for coming in crazy colors and sizes.
Co-directed by Mike Mitchell and Walt Dohrn, Trolls is set to be released ahead of the holiday season on November 4, 2016 and is being distributed by 20th Century Fox in both 3D/2D theaters and IMAX 3D. Gwen is joining an all-star cast including Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick, James Corden, Kunal Nayyar and Russell Brand for the family-comedy feature. Justin Timberlake is also serving as executive music producer, and besides writing original music for the film, he is also overseeing the creative direction for Trolls.
According to ComingSoon.net, “the film, which will be a grand scale musical comedy centering around how the Trolls came into their vibrant and colorful hair, will be produced by Gina Shay (“Shrek Forever After“).” TheWrap.com also shared more the plot saying, “[Trolls] follows hardcore survivalist Branch (Timberlake) and Princess Poppy (Kendrick) as they embark on an epic adventure.”
Hair we go! Meet DJ Suki! #DreamWorksTrolls #RockinTroll pic.twitter.com/6eOdaLKXuo
— Gwen Stefani (@gwenstefani) January 6, 2016
Being in Trolls is such a huge opportunity for Gwen and we couldn’t feel any more proud and excited for her! Hopefully the soundtrack has an open spot for a new song, too. We’ll keep updating the post with more information once it’s available.
21 Replies to “Gwen Voicing “DJ Suki” in New Dreamworks Animated Film ‘Trolls’ (Updated)”
yeahyeahyeah says:
Another big deal for Gwen. The Voice has opened so many doors for her. Hopefully she will also contribute some songs to the soundtrack.
This is definitely a big deal and sounds very exciting 😀
So exciting! According to wikipedia the movie will be a musical comedy. Icona Pop, Justin Timberlake will also be voicing other characters. I hope Gwen sings a song. That would be awesome!
I don’t know if you’ve seen, but Gwen was featured on Rolling Stone’s list of the 45 most anticipated albums of 2016!
I saw! Go, Gwen! http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/45-most-anticipated-albums-of-2016-20160106/gwen-stefani-20160105
ImHomeNow says:
Yay….. Something else to keep the record on hold!….
Lol I still am more doubtful than hopeful that this album will get released. I don’t think she’ll be releasing another single for awhile now that the voice is over
I don’t think Gwen’s the record is on hold at all… She simply wasn’t done writing and recording at the end of in 2015 and probably Interscope didn’t want to release her album next to Adele and Justin Bieber anyways… I am pretty sure this album will finally see the light of day in 2016 especially since UTLY did surprisingly well and turned out to be a real airplay hit. They should release this album around spring and send Gwen on the road in summer for promotion. If she returned to The Voice in fall, she could further promote the album and perform her thrid single on the show. I am very optimistic that 2016 will be a great year for us.
And if the Voice does not happen? She cant keep using releasing singles only cause she’s on the show. I’ve noticed she only talks about recording when she’s on TV, after that, something always happen. After all these years, I will believe when I see it for pre order. I love Gwen and ND, but being a fan for 20 years has thought me to wait.
Very optimistic too here 😀
I love this!!! All of those movies are big hits! Wish it wasn’t so far away though. And as far as her album… If she really is pregnant… I don’t see the album coming soon.. (Ndlover, ignore this comment please)
I’ve told you already she’s going to have triplets.
Thank God for NDLOVER… She’s not pregnant lol
And why are some of you worried the album won’t be released? It’s not like she’s gonna spend months voicing her character lol She’s not even the main character. Chill!
Rose Marie says:
Gwen must have some seriously resilient eggs lol. Very very unlikely.
I hope YYY’s prediction comes true. Stay inspired, stay focused Gwen !
I’m just saying, I don’t believe it either. But I was shocked by the divorce, shocked that she got with Blake… So idk… 3 magazine covers reporting it…
Maybe a surrogate… LOL
More like it…
I am happy for her. I don’t think this will have a major impact on the timeline of the record. I doubt the voice over work will take a a super long time. I bet she has a more minor role. Gwen has wanted to do this work for awhile, remember Madagascar? She was almost cast as Gloria the hippo. Good for her more exposure is always good.
But dj doesn’t say anything when I watched the movie.
Leave a Reply to Marion Cancel reply
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BOOKS, CDs & SAMPLE LIBRARIES
SORRY-ASS ORGAN
I like to report occasionally on instrument designs that were less than perfectly successful because, as we all know, there’s as much to be learned from the unsuccesses as from the successes. This is one of those reports.
It’s easier than you might expect to make a working version of the sort of beating reed found in organ reed pipes. In some very crude versions, reed pipes made this way can produce a sort of miserable-bovine sound that I find interesting and appealing. So I decided to make a tuned set of such pipes — in short, an organ.
[Inserted some months after the original posting of this article: The resulting instrument can now be seen and heard here.]
My thought was not to make a keyboard organ, but to try and find some non-keyboard way to deliver air to selected pipes; a way that would be simpler to make than a keyboard (making a keyboard is quite a chore). This would give the instrument a different sort of character in its gestural qualities and in the nature of the interaction between player and instrument. I spent some time brainstorming and sketching out various possibilities, and eventually I came up with the following. First, the instrument would work on human lung power. Lung power should hopefully be good enough for such an instrument as long as you don’t intend to play more than one or maybe two notes at a time. And using the lungs is far easier, construction-wise, than other options such as building a pair of bellows. It also has great benefits in terms of minimal added weight and space requirements, less mechanical noise, less required maintenance, fewer human limbs required to operate, etcetera. To direct the air from the lungs to the individual reed pipes, the plan was that the player would use a flexible blow tube having a gasket-like pad covering the far end with a hole through it to let air through. By placing this over the open end of one of the reed pipes, the player could direct the breath into the selected pipe and cause it to sound. Moving it from pipe to pipe, one could play melodies. Very simple! … though admittedly slow and clumsy: it would be difficult to move rapidly and fluidly from one reed pipe to the next, and impossible to play legato. These limitations, I figured, would be in keeping with the sort of slow and unhappy nature of the sound itself — a quality I wanted to bring out in the instrument. I did consider making a dual blow-tube, one in which the tube from a single mouthpiece forks into a pair, one for each hand, with some sort of valving system to cause air to flow through one or the other. This had the potential to make melodic playing more fluid and facile. But a bit of thought told me that the creation of the valve was going to be awfully difficult, so I decided to stick with the single tube system, at least to start with.
So that was the basic idea for this very simple pipe organ: an assemblage of tuned reed pipes positioned in a frame with their open ends exposed, plus the blow-tube system to activate them. The ergonomics of this playing method — bringing the padded end of the blow tube down over the open end of the selected pipe — works best with the pipes arranged vertically, so you can picture the instrument as a set of upright pipes held in a framework in such a way that their open upper ends are positioned at a comfortable playing height of, say, about 40”.
From the start I found myself referring to this instrument as the Sorry-Ass Organ, and that has remained its name.
But there is another important layer of complexity to the way that the blow tube works with the pipes, and to explicate this I need to first discuss how the reeds work.
In this sort of reed pipe, the reed serves as an air-gate, rapidly opening and closing under wind pressure. This allows air from the player’s lungs or other source to flow into the pipe, but not in a steady stream; rather as a series of pulses. When things work as intended, the pulsing frequency comes into agreement with the resonant frequency of the air column within the pipe. This sets up and sustains the vibration and resulting tone.
More detail: The reed lies over an opening in the pipe. Due to slight curvature in either the reed or the surface below, in its rest position the reed doesn’t perfectly cover the opening; there’s a bit of a gap there. With greater air pressure outside the pipe, air flows through the gap and into the pipe. Through a combination of factors including the springiness of the reed, Bernoulli forces associated with the air flow under the reed, and periodic pressure wave fronts arising in the pipe, the reed commences movement, alternately slapping shut against the surface below and then springing back open to let another puff of air through.
This brings us to an important consideration for such pipes. You can’t just direct an air flow at or onto a beating reed pipe the way you can with a flute pipe. To see this think of the most common use of beating reeds, in instruments like clarinets and saxophones. In these, the reeded mouthpiece of the pipe is actually placed inside the player’s mouth, creating a pressure chamber around the end of the pipe. In instruments like bagpipes, which are not directly mouth-blown, a cap is placed around the reeded portion of the pipe, and air is directed into this little pressure chamber. In organ reed pipes, a similar but larger enclosure creates the chamber around the base of the pipe. The Sorry-Ass Organ, being of the same family of reed pipes, likewise required such an enclosure to maintain air pressure and create the pulsing air movement into the pipe. As I got into design and construction, this aspect of the instrument proved to be a bugaboo, as I’ll describe shortly.
The pipes for the Sorry-Ass Organ are pvc conduit in the nominal 3/4” size, with the commonly available schedule 40 wall thickness. To allow a suitable seating for the reed, a flat area is sanded into the sidewall of the pipe at one end, flattening it over an area about 5/8” wide and a few inches long (the thickness of the pipe wall is enough to allow for this flattening without sanding through). Also here at the pipe end is an inserted stopper which extends about a half inch into the tube. At a point little beyond that a 3/8” hole is drilled in the flattened part of the tube wall.
The reed is a strip of stainless steel, a half inch wide and a few inches long. I experimented with different thicknesses for the stainless strip; got results from thicknesses ranging from .005” to .018″; and settled on .010″ as about right for the current purpose. This stainless reed is positioned in the flattened area so that one end covers the hole when the reed lies flat. It’s attached at its other end by rubber bands or equivalent. (I used 1/2” sections snipped from latex tubing of suitable thickness and diameter — essentially, extra-strong, custom-sized rubber bands.) The stainless strip is given a slight curvature so that in its natural position the end is about 3/32” above the hole. With all this in place, you can place the end of the tube, reed and all, in your mouth and blow. (Seal your lips around the rubber band; make sure nothing in your mouth touches the reed.) If all is good, the pipe will sound.
It’s pretty easy to make a reed pipe that works this way with mouth-blowing. The sound, while not beautiful, can be convincingly strong. The next design step for the current purpose, then, was to provide such pipes with reed caps in the form of air-tight enclosures over the reed end of the pipes into which I could direct the air through a blow tube. But I found that pipes that worked fine when mouth-blown often proved unsuccessful when played through the blow-tube and chamber: sometimes they wouldn’t speak; sometimes they spoke but with noticeably poorer tone than when mouth-blown, and often the resulting pitch was inconsistent. I was surprised by this: after all, many reed instruments use such a system; why were mine so uncooperative? I formulated various explanations and wasted some time trying out various fixes. Eventually I decided that the most likely explanation for my problem lay in my use of unusually flimsy material for the reeds. In those early prototypes I was using very thin stainless steel strips for the reeds, at .005” thick, while other, more successful reed-cap instruments generally use stiffer materials. When I switched to stiffer reeds, I found that they did indeed work better in the reed caps. My best guess in explaining this is that the very soft reeds are more likely to be influenced by extraneous resonances arising in the chamber and blow tube, whereas such extraneous resonances are less likely to arise within the player’s mouth. These extraneous resonances, more often than not, would interfere with what would otherwise be the natural resonance frequency of the reed. Stiffer reeds would be more immune to such interferences.
The stiffer reeds, while functioning better, had a somewhat more refined tone quality than the floppy ones. This was not good news: as I mentioned earlier, I had been enjoying the crude and wobbly sound of the original reeds, and was sorry to convert to something more respectable. But the stiffer reed’s sound wasn’t hopelessly boringly respectable; the tone was still coarse enough to be interesting, especially if I went with ones that were just a bit stiffer but not too stiff at .010”thick. The somewhat stiffer reeds also required more air pressure to sound, but not to a degree that was problematic. In fact, there was an advantage in the fact that with the stiffer reeds it was possible to create a tighter air gap under the reed, with the effect that the airflow could be made more efficient with less wasted air rushing under. This makes more sustained blowing possible on a single lungful of air.
In the usual thinking about reed instruments, one expects to couple the reed to a pipe of a certain length to get a certain note. Things are never quite this simple of course, as a variety of other factors come into play in determining how the reed interacts with the pipe’s air column and what the resulting pitch is. For this instrument’s reeds in particular the pitch situation tends to be imprecise and fluid. Once again, this is probably because although I had switched to a somewhat thicker and stiffer stainless steel strip for the reeds, they were still relatively flimsy and bendable compared to other traditional types of reeds. So for a given pipe length, you can get a wide range of pitches depending how the reed lies and how long the active portion of the reed is. This is not hard to control: if you’ve strapped your reed on with rubber bands or equivalent, then you can shorten the effective vibrating length of the reed simply be repositioning the rubber band. But while you can get a range of pitches in this way from any given pipe length, it does help to have a suitable length to allow a decent coupling between reed and pipe at the intended pitch. With these reeds, however, the ideal pipe length doesn’t correspond closely to the pipe length that In theory would resonate at the intended pitch. That’s because the reed functions in part as the stopper at one end of the pipe, and these relatively flimsy reeds make for a pretty un-solid stopper. This affects the pipe’s resonant frequency. So in choosing pipe lengths for the intended pitches of my set, I paid only minimal attention to the lengths that pipe-resonance calculations would normally suggest. Instead I proceeded empirically and by ear. Basically, I messed around with a few random reed pipes, trying various reed adjustments to see at what pitches the tone came through strongest and showed the most stability. Having established a few nice-sounding prototypes, I extrapolated lengths for the remaining pitches from those.
I found my favorite tone in the lower registers, so I fabricated a set of 21 pipes tuned chromatically over a bit less than two octaves from E2 (that’s guitar low E) to C3. The pipes range in length from about 60” to about 24”. But, a problem: to put the upper end of the vertical pipe at a practical playing height while keeping the lower end off the floor, the longest pipe can’t be much more than about 34”; yet to get the low notes that I liked, the longest pipes need to be quite a bit longer than that. To get around this I made the longest pipes in two parts: the main pipe of rigid plastic conduit, 32” long, with an extension of corrugated plastic flex tube bringing the air column to the required full length. The flex tube bends and doubles back up the main pipe, allowing the required acoustical length without requiring as much height. I wasn’t sure that these flex tube extensions would work well (I was worried that the softer plastic and the corrugated interior form would degrade the tone) but the results were good.
With that resolved, I was able to make a frame to hold the 21 pipes vertically in a suitably accessible and playable array. I put them in a 6-6 configuration, as opposed to the more common 7-5. This refers to the positioning of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale: instead echoing the standard keyboard configuration having a front row with the seven natural notes and a back row with the five sharps and flats, the notes on the Sorry-Ass Organ are arranged in two rows of six each. There are lots of pros and cons to consider for this just as for any other possible pitch layout, but lately my philosophy on this sort of question has reduced itself to a simple “why not just try it?” In any case, 6-6 is good for saving a little space.
I made the blow tube out of corrugated plastic flex pipe. Choosing a large enough diameter avoided the potential problem of whistling in the corrugated tube. As touched on earlier, the end of the blow tube needs to effortlessly seal when pressed down over the top of the chosen reed pipe, and to achieve this I used a medium-soft closed-cell sponge rubber pad. The pad is a little larger in diameter than the pipe ends it is to cover, with a hole in the center to accommodate the blow tube and allow air through. I actually made two of these blow tubes, allowing the option of having two players.
OK, so now that I’ve finished the instrument and had some time to play around with it, what do I think of it? Well, as I’ve acknowledged all along, there are a lot of not-so-great things about it, most notably: it’s impossible to play with any fluidity or legato; it takes an great deal of wind; this makes it difficult to play long lines or even long tones, and it makes prolonged playing quite exhausting; the tuning is fidgety; the tone quality is variable from note to note; the reeds often need adjustment to keep them in tune and in good speaking order. On the other hand, the tone is fun, crude and comical in a way that, in the right sort of company, can be enjoyable; the player interface is unusual and yet works intuitively; and anyone can play it, no training needed. It works well with two players, and this somewhat mitigates the slowness and awkwardness of the playing. It makes people laugh. I’ve just composed and recorded a little piece to use as an audio clip when I get the instrument posted to the instrumentarium section of this web site, and I confess that I do enjoy the unique sound in this recording. But to make the recording, I had to cheat a lot, doing many takes and lots of editing to assemble a decent finished product when the original recordings inevitably were so full of glitches and errors.
Addendum: why not use the simple reed pipe making method described here to make a mouth-blown capped reed pipe with tone holes to vary the pitch? This is problematic because the pitch is so wobbly and variable that the tone holes tend not to produce predictable or stable results. (Consider that, with the pipes described above, I was able to get at least some agreement between reed length and pipe length in order to help stabilize the coupled system for a single intended pitch, whereas in a single pipe with tone holes you’re hoping to get multiple pitches from a single reed-and-pipe configuration.) And, given the cap, the lips are not directly on the reed; this means that taming an unpredictable reed through embouchure control isn’t an option. But I must say that just writing this now makes me want to revisit this possibility once more to see if I could come up with a tone-hole reed pipe that might be, if not effective in a traditionally musical sense, then at least unique and interesting.
You can also take the idea in a more clarinet-like direction: eliminate the reed cap to allow direct embouchure control of the reed; perhaps also use a stiffer reed for a more predictable sound.
← THE WINDOW OF AUDIBILITY NAMES AND APPEARANCES →
MORE WRITINGS
SOLOWAY SIREN AND SAXTON SAVART
FLOPPING OVER
MORE SAMPLE LIBRARIES
ICICLES AND MORE
SCHMEARY GLISSARY
SLOPPINESS
ADDITIONAL NOTES PERTAINING TO HOMEMADE WOODWIND MAKING
MORE ‘MOE
FORCED VIBRATION
NAMES AND APPEARANCES
THE WINDOW OF AUDIBILITY
INSTRUMENTARIUM HOPKINIS SAMPLE LIBRARIES
EVERYONE WANTS BEACH-FRONT REAL ESTATE
ELASTIC STRINGS
AGITATION PIPES
MUSICAL INSTRUMENT CATEGORIZATION SYSTEMS
ADVENTURES IN FRICTION
FUNDAMENTAL, HARMONICS, OVERTONES, PARTIALS, MODES
ALUMINUM DISK GONGS (Article #2)
ALTERNATIVES FOR PITCH CONTROL IN WIND INSTRUMENTS
SOUNDS AND SILENCE
ENGRAVINGS OF EARLY ACOUSTICAL APPARATUS
NORTH-SOUTH/EAST-WEST CHIMES
MASTERY VS. GO-FOR-A-RIDE
OVER-UNDER SCALES
THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN
OVERTONES HARMONIC AND INHARMONIC
THE TERRITORY BETWEEN CLEAR PITCH AND PURE NOISE
ORIENTATION OF THE OSCILLATION
MAN, WHAT A WEIRD WORLD THAT WOULD BE (Where would we be without Hooke’s Law?)
SYNTHESIS vs SAMPLING
SCALE AND TIMBRE
Back to Essays Home
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Posted on August 18, 2014 August 18, 2014 by Arleen
The virginity pledge that ‘nearly destroyed’ Samantha Pugsley.
In an essay called “My Christian virginity pledge nearly destroyed me”, which published on XOJane and Salon earlier this month, Samantha Pugsley vilified the pledge she signed in childhood at church. With it, she had vowed at 10 years old — while she still thought boys were icky — to maintain her virginity until marriage. And she did.
But “there was no chorus of angels, no shining light from Heaven” when on her wedding night, she finally had sex. Instead, she cried in the bathroom afterward. She dreaded sex for the first couple years of her marriage, she wrote, but obliged when her husband — who had no idea she dreaded it — initiated. When she worked up the courage to express her struggle to him, he was horrified to learn that she had “let him touch (her) when (she) didn’t want him to.” He suggested she see a therapist, and she did. That “was the first step on a long journey to healing.”
Pugsley’s widely circulated story has raised concern in some readers, who wonder now whether saving sex for marriage is a bad idea. It has “confirmed” for other readers their belief that what Christianity says about sex harms the people who hear it. But what Pugsley wrote — and what others who grew up in churches like hers have written — has not acknowledged a paramount truth:
What her church taught her about sex is not what churches are supposed to teach about sex, because what her church taught her doesn’t align with Christianity.
Somebody at Pugsley’s church taught her “it was entirely possible that (her) future husband wouldn’t remain pure for (her), because he didn’t have that same responsibility, according to the bible.”
First: Fairly certain that by “pure,” Pugsley’s church meant “a virgin until marriage.” But the definition of “pure” is not “a virgin until marriage.” Our behavior doesn’t make us pure. Jesus makes us pure. “Baptism confers on its recipient the grace of purification from all sins (CCC 2520).” The CCC continues: “But the baptized must continue to struggle against concupiscence of the flesh and disordered desires.” The deal was never “you are pure until you behave a certain way” but “you can be pure despite how you’ve behaved, because Jesus.” That’s what makes grace amazing. It is not our behavior that results in purity, but acknowledgment of purity that compels us to behave in certain ways, and to reconcile with Christ, others, and ourselves if and when — inevitably, in one way or another — we don’t.
Second: A church that says women are supposed to save sex for marriage but men aren’t is a church that makes me so grateful to be Catholic. In Catholicism, what compels us to abstain from sex outside marriage is the virtue of chastity, which is for men and women, regardless of whether they’re single, married, or religious. “Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person” — male people and female ones (CCC 2337).
People at Pugsley’s church told her “over and over again, so many times (she) lost count, that if (she) remained pure, (her) marriage would be blessed by God and if (she) didn’t that it would fall apart and end in tragic divorce.”
In other words, Pugsley was taught that if she saved sex, her marriage would last and if she didn’t save sex, it wouldn’t, which is an inadequate if not tragic way to prepare a person for marriage. To teach children that abstinence before marriage causes a marriage to last is to risk setting kids up to become adults who are wildly unprepared to be spouses, who’ll be blindsided by what arises in everyday life after their weddings.
Even if implicitly, to teach that encourages tunnel vision — a focus so solely on not having sex that young men and women don’t see whether red flags pop up in other parts of a relationship. But having saved sex for marriage doesn’t negate the problems you didn’t notice while you dated. Churches (and parents) have painstakingly identified sex as good or bad based on when it happens but have neglected to teach kids what sex is, or what marriage is, or what love is, or how to date in ways that aren’t completely dysfunctional. They grow up not knowing that love, not premarital abstinence, is what causes a marriage to last. Churches like Pugsley’s seem to teach abstinence and hope it inspires people to love when teaching love — real love — is going to inspire people to practice the virtue of chastity, which requires us to abstain from nonmarital sex.
What Pugsley’s church taught her meant that when she got home from her honeymoon, she “couldn’t look anyone in the eye.” She wrote: “Everybody knew my virginity was gone. My parents, my church, my friends, my co-workers. They all knew I was soiled and tarnished.”
To all who encourage nonmarital abstinence by telling children that sexual activity soils us: Can you not? “The union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator’s generosity and fecundity (CCC 2335).” Nobody told Pugsley that. Instead, in an effort to discourage sexual activity outside marriage, people told Pugsley that sex is dirty, which is why she cried in the bathroom on her wedding night. She had done a bad thing, as far as she was concerned, because of what she always had been taught. But sex is not bad. True Christianity never said it was. Telling kids that it is in order to prevent premarital sex is irresponsible.
While Pugsley began to undo the damage done by what her church taught her, she decided she couldn’t be both religious and sexual, she wrote. So she picked sex. Hers is one of several stories I’ve read about people whose experiences in this realm have resulted in their rejection of Christianity. The saddest part is that people who reject Christianity because people in their churches taught them what people in Pugsley’s church taught her have likely never been told that what people in Pugsley’s church taught her does not align with Christianity — and, to borrow a quote from Christopher West, “it’s important that we not confuse the mind of the Church with the mind of the people in the Church.”
Click here to read Pugsley’s post in full.
CategoriesSex
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You are here: Home / Books / Book Interview: Jewish-American Writer Bernard Malamud at 100 — Appreciating the Beauty of the Ethical
Book Interview: Jewish-American Writer Bernard Malamud at 100 — Appreciating the Beauty of the Ethical
“Bernard Malamud is the great sentence-maker, the great craftsman, and the sheer quality of those sentences has never perhaps been given its complete due.”
Bernard Malamud during the 1970s — He was a man who wanted to be good – good not only in the aesthetics of his writing but in its struggling moral content.
By Bill Marx
Flannery O’Connor, writing to Father James H. McCown in 1958, recommends that he read “The Magic Barrel by a Bernard Malamud. The stories deal with Jews and they are the real thing. Really spiritual and very funny.” She was not alone in recognizing Malamud’s brilliance — the volume beat out Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita for the National Book Award in 1959. Malamud’s morally probing tales and novels, including The Natural (1952), The Assistant (1957), and The Fixer (1966), put him in the front rank of postwar American writers. “Malamud can grind a character to the earth,” wrote admiring critic Irving Howe about The Magic Barrel, “but there is a hard ironic pity, a wry affection rather than wet gestures of love, which makes him seem a grandson of the Yiddish writers.”
Yet the mixed critical reaction to Malamud’s later stories and novels – he died in 1986 – contributed to a slump in his reputation, a downgrading that has pushed him below the marquee status of more swashbuckling Jewish-American writers such as Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, both rabid Malamud enthusiasts. In recognition of the author’s centenary, the Library of America has recently published two volumes of Malamud: Malamud: Novels and Stories of the 1940s and 50s and Malamud: Novels and Stories of the 1960s. These books (and a volume to come) offer readers and critics a valuable opportunity to appreciate (and reassess) Malamud’s distinctive contribution to American literature.
Via e-mail, I asked Philip Davis, the author of the fine biography Bernard Malamud: A Writer’s Life and the editor of the Library of American volumes, about the slide in Malamud’s reputation, the strengths of his writing, and his influence on contemporary writers:
Arts Fuse: This year marks the 100th birthday of Bernard Malamud. When the centenary has been mentioned, in the Times Literary Supplement and elsewhere, it is often followed with the lament that Malamud’s once impressive reputation has faded. Do you agree? And if you do, why do you think that has happened?
Philip Davis: Everything I have tried to do in relation to Malamud has been in pained response to the decline in his reputation, hoping that you will not mind a cry from a Brit across the Pond. But Malamud was never really fashionable for long. Saul Bellow described himself, Malamud, and Philip Roth as the Jewish literary equivalent of Hart Schaffner & Marx, the first-generation rag-trade, gone upmarket. But Malamud was the one of the three who was not glamorously intellectual or excitingly naughty in his attire. He was the man who wanted to be good – good not only in the aesthetics of his writing but in its struggling moral content. Thus, Frank Alpine in The Assistant, one of Malamud’s little people, the former thief seeking a second or third or fourth chance to get it right in life:
He had recalled her remark that he must discipline himself and wondered why he had been so moved by the word . . . With the idea of self-control came the feeling of the beauty of it – the beauty of a person being able to do things the way he wanted to, to do good if he wanted; and this feeling was followed by regret – of the slow dribbling away, starting long ago, of his character . . .
There it is – the beauty of the ethical, the being moved by the effort at last to get right and do good. This is Malamud territory. And I think it is this sense of feeling – ‘so moved’ by the word duty or self-control! – that is close to the heart of something in America arising out of the Depression and remains a classic ideal – beautiful but not glamorous, struggling not heroic. He was in that way easy to neglect, overlook, dismiss; but shame on those who do.
AF: Are there strengths in Malamud’s writing that were not appreciated when they were first published but that we can see now?
Davis: He is the great sentence-maker, the great craftsman, and the sheer quality of those sentences has never perhaps been given its complete due. I mean his extraordinary version of the ordinary. Here is Frank again, for example, thinking: ‘whatever had happened had happened wrong’: Malamud loved those little structures, those internal messes and pains. But also this: Malamud was not the great prolific thrower-out of thoughts that was Bellow. I remember Tim Seldes, Malamud’s agent, saying that he had asked Bellow what it was like – the exhilaration of being him in his fame, and Bellow said it was like holding onto an electric current and not being able to let go. Well, Malamud was not wired like that: he would have one or two thoughts, but they would change the lives of his protagonists, thoughts with feelings very close to the very origin of how thinking matters and how it is needed in an ordinary human life.
Philip Davis, editor of the Library of America’s Malamud volumes.
AF: Malamud’s stories were early examples of Magic Realism, combining Chekhovian nuance with fairy and folk tales. Is that his most important literary contribution to American literature?
Davis: Not from my point of view, much as I admire the wild take on life in say “The Jewbird,” begging a piece of herring, whilst squawking his fear of ‘Anti-Semeets.’ And I loved the mythic use of baseball in The Natural, in the pursuit of a comeback really called redemption but hidden within the game. ‘I like my comedy spiced in the wine of sadness,’ said Malamud, and he liked too his traditonal seriousness concealed in the wildness of invention. But the greatest works are the realist novels, The Assistant, A New Life, The Fixer and Dublin’s Lives. I interviewed Malamud’s great editor, Robert Giroux for the Malamud biography I was writing: Giroux knew these were the pinnacle and he said Malamud knew it too.
AF: Why do you believe that Malamud’s realist novels are his “greatest works”? The critical consensus is pretty much that Malamud’s stories, not his longer fiction, represent the pinnacle of his art.
Davis: What Malamud loved was the rhythm and the tests of time, lengthy time lived month after month with all its subtle changes or fearful repetitions. Ideally, when it was working for him, he spoke of being able to ‘live in’ his novels as he never could fully in the short work. But, of course, it also has to do with the lives of his protagonists. Think of Yakov Bok in The Fixer living in solitary confinement day after day, marking the days with straws or bits of wood, so as not to become wholly disoriented. Think of Dubin [in Dublin’s Lives] trying every day to walk or run off his depression in the midst of writer’s block. Malamud loved the tests of time, of resolves defeated by subsequent events; of reality continuing the same without recourse to sensational plot changes but only through the power of ongoing language; of the sheer stamina involved in a continuous effort at living. ‘Short Life, Long Work’ was one of his mottoes. It takes poor Frank Alpine a long time to begin his second life: that was where all the subtlety lies in Malamud’s seriousness – in the time it took to write well, live well, learn both. The novel was the height of that challenge, to live with and inside what I call Malamud’s People. Unshowy realism was the greatest austere challenge for his language and his invention.
AF: Author John Updike praised Malamud’s “sense of Jewishness as a mystic force founded on suffering.” How has shifting American perceptions of “Jewishness” shaped our appreciation of his fiction?
Davis: Malamud did not want to be I. B. Singer, known as a Jewish writer. He belonged to the great assimilationist tradition in the melting pot of America, and loved the fusions, conflicts and combinations. Jews are everywhere, he said, everyone is a Jew. For him I think this meant that the Jewish element in the human DNA had long represented suffering but also the fight for fulfilment through it, ethics, deep feeling and warm need, the law, the exile, the longing for return and for second chances and for forgiveness. Again as an outsider, an Englishman who is a secular Jew, this seems to me to stand for something hugely valuable in the American heart.
AF: LOA’s press release for the Malamud volumes includes a quote from Philip Roth, who suggests that Malamud has more than a little in common with Samuel Beckett. Do you agree?
Davis: Roth is generous and rightly generous in his praise for Malamud: for the young Roth, his fiction ‘meant the world.’ There is a wonderful sadness in the comedy, comedy in the sadness in Malamud and an austere crafting of the lines, but for me Malamud is not so protected by his art as Beckett was – he is more vulnerable, more warm, more common. And that makes me love him and the work – and his love of love, even as he struggled for it – more than most other authors I know. There is something defiantly anti-modernist in Malamud, in love with the old ways whilst adapting to a new world, and committed somehow to both. ‘For humanism, against nihilism’ he said.
AF: Which contemporary writers do you think Malamud has influenced? Are there writers that could be described as “Malamudian”?
Davis: There were the sons of Bern, as I call them – Jay Cantor, Clark Blaise, even (though more a younger brother) Daniel Stern. And I know writers from Cynthia Ozick to Boris Fishman have acknowledged a debt. But the real influence is to do with what I have just said: his keeping alive in glowing prose a certain tradition of feeling, waiting for his readers to acknowledge this inner life again.
AF: In a NYTimes article, Malamud’s daughter Janna said of her father that “he wanted privacy. One of the functions of writing is to transmute shame. What you present, when you present it, it’s your choice. Writing was a way to cloak his shame.” How autobiographical was Malamud’s fiction?
Davis: When Philip Roth once wrote against Malamud for his supposed over-commitment to suffering, to decent Jewish passivity, Malamud wrote back saying only, ‘It’s your problem.’ Malamud’s problem was not shame: if anything it would be guilt, for his was a guilt-culture, not a shame-culture – and he suffered from his own cloaks and reticences as well as needing those private defences. But he was also an innocent at the same time. I say again: he wanted to transmute not shame but trouble; he wanted, vulnerably, to make a good life in his books. He used to ask his students, ‘What have you made of yourself?’ And that is what his art was for – to make something out of the boy whose mother committed suicide. You can still see the original human materials, raw and common, out of which the art is created. He is not flashy or over-polished. So I love the ending of A New Life where the unheroic hero is asked why he is taking on the alleged burden of a troubled woman with two children and he replies unashamedly: ‘Because I can, you son of a bitch.’
AF: Do you feel that Saul Bellow and Flannery O’Connor have overshadowed Malamud?
Davis: Yes but not rightly so. It is not a competition but for certain The Assistant is a great novel that Bellow could never have written and “Angel Levine” or “The First Seven Years” great short stories of the ghetto heart. To be fair, Bellow recognised this, though their publisher Robert Straus told me that he thought of Bellow as filet mignon and Malamud as hamburger . . . In reaction against that rating, I once wrote an angry blog whilst I was in New York, advertising myself as the Malamud Street Crazy, offering his wares to the passing public. I am grateful that the Library of America has relieved me of that role: Malamud wanted his works in the series, he thought it was the sign of being accepted into the canon of the great. That is what the Library of America stands for at its most fundamental.
AF: Are there stories and novels in the collection that you feel have been unfairly overlooked?
Davis: “My Son the Murderer” is one such story, a father crying unheeded to his child, a youth who must ignore him. The Fixer is the great novel of solitary and unjust confinement, Malamud’s version of Dreyfus, just as The Assistant was his version of Crime and Punishment. Easy for them all to look small, but he hid the big things within the small till they burst out again – and I would argue that A New Life is great in that too. ‘Because I can.’
Bill Marx is the Editor-in-Chief of The Arts Fuse. For over three decades, he has written about arts and culture for print, broadcast, and online. He has regularly reviewed theater for National Public Radio Station WBUR and The Boston Globe. He created and edited WBUR Online Arts, a cultural webzine that in 2004 won an Online Journalism Award for Specialty Journalism. In 2007 he created The Arts Fuse, an online magazine dedicated to covering arts and culture in Boston and throughout New England.
By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured, Interview Tagged: American-Jewish fiction, Bernard Malamud, Library-of-America, Philip Davis
Harvey Blume says
interesting & intense interview.
>Malamud did not want to be I. B. Singer, known as a Jewish writer.
and yet, in some ways, malamud translates the ib singer of imps dybbuks demons into an idiom where the supernatural prevails without being credited by name.
“the natural” is the novel ib singer, the new york not the polish ib singer, might have written had he cared for baseball, which of course he couldn’t.
the supernatural animates that book but is unnamed. that accounts for some of the power of the novel.
as for malamud being “the great sentence-maker” let me suggest his best sentences were those caught between yiddish & english, caught between this expression and that.
bellows was the “the great sentence-maker”.
not Malamud. he was into the linguistic tension bellows it was the achievement of bellows to leave behind.
roth, well, i have no summary of roth except to say he combined the freedom of expression established by saul bellow with the intensity of malamud.
that roth don’t get no nobel prize is a shanda on the nobel prize.
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Bobby Rymer Publishing Weekend
Bobby Rymer of The Writer’s Den in Nashville is in Austin Thursday-Saturday, March 12-14 for a music publishing workshop “Listen Up: Songs That Are Getting Attention” plus private, one-on-one pitch to publisher appointments.
Bobby Rymer has been supporting ASG members for over 8 years now, both as a member of the annual Symposium faculty, and through his visits to ASG from Nashville to facilitate music publishing workshops and pitch to publisher weekends. This year, Bobby will be facilitating his new workshop “Listen Up: Songs That Are Getting Attention” at two different times to accommodate demand and members’ personal schedules. In addition, he will be available for a limited number of private pitch to publisher appointments throughout his visit on a first come-first served basis.
About the workshops, Bobby says, “During the workshop, ‘Listen Up: Songs That Are Getting Attention’ I will play and discuss songs from The Writers Den catalog that are getting attention from artists, producers and A&R reps. We will discuss why these songs are working and what it is about them that makes them stand out. We will explore everything from the subject matter to the structure, tempo, lyric, melody and more. This will hopefully give you some insight when constructing your songs for the musical marketplace.”
YOU MUST BE AN ACTIVE ASG MEMBER TO PARTICIPATE: If you are not yet an ASG Member, you can easily become a member for only $7.95 per month, and still be eligible for this weekend’s activities. Become an ASG Member for only $7.95 per month here.
The Workshop Times Are:
Thursday Evening, March 12 from 7:00-9:00 PM
Saturday Morning, March 14 from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
The Workshop Costs Are:
$35.00 for either Thursday or Saturday
$50 for both Thursday & Saturday
To Register for one (1) workshop, either Thursday or Friday for only $35, click the PayPal button immediately below:
To Register for two (2) workshops, both Thursday and Friday for only $50, click the PayPal button immediately below:
The Private Pitch To Publisher Appointment Costs Are:
$25 for each 15 minute session
LIMITED APPOINTMENT TIMES AVAILABLE & MUST BE SCHEDULED IN ADVANCE.
After you have registered for a Private Pitch to Publisher Session and paid through PayPal, schedule your private appointment time by calling Lee Duffy at 512-698-4237. If you have any questions or would like to register by email, send an email to Lee Duffy at leeduffy@austinsongwritersgroup.com
All Workshops and Private Appointments held at The Mockingbird Cafe.
For the Private Pitch To Publisher sessions, you can bring your instrument and play your songs or you can bring recorded demos on CD. The private sessions are only open to currently active members that attend at least one of the two workshops.
The Private Pitch To Publisher Appointment Times Are:
Thursday, March 12: 2:00-5:00 PM
Friday, March 13: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Saturday, March 14 2:00-7:00 PM
All Private Pitch to Publisher Appointments are scheduled on a first come first served basis.
To register for 15-minute Private Pitch To Publisher Appointment(s), click the PayPal Button immediately below.
Space is limited for both the workshop and also the private appointments. Do not be disappointed, register online today at the PayPal buttons below.
You can also register by sending your check in the appropriate amount for the workshop(s) and/or private pitch to publisher appointments for which you wish to register, made payable to ASG at:
4606 Burleson Rd. Suite D
Thank you for visiting the ASG website and we look forward to seeing you soon at one of our many upcoming events.
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Vagabondia by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Last week I posted a short story of Burnett's, Racketty-Packetty House, in its entirety because: a) I find it delightful, b) it is out of copyright, and c) because it seemed a perfect introduction to today's review of Vagabondia, a romance novel. Both stories pit the bohemian against bourgeois. In Rackety-Packety House, the old fashioned, run down dolls make the best of their lot, even when their dear little old house is threatened to be disintegrated in flames. They dance and sing and have pretend feasts to buoy their spirits, in a manner much resembling the residents of "Vagabondia," which is what the Crewe family (apparently a favorite name of Burnett's) entitle their place in the world, living on the outskirts of society in impoverished gentility. Their parents being dead and the oldest son, Philip, being a struggling artist with a young family as well as his three sisters to support, the family maintains a carefree existence in their crumbling town home in an unfashionable area of London. At the center of the struggling vagabonds is our heroine, Dolly: an indomitable force of good cheer and industriousness, always up for a good fight with the "Philistines." Unfortunately, Dolly depends on one of this disapproving camp for her small salary, for she works as a governess for a distant relation. Lady Augusta thinks it inappropriate for Dolly to be so collected in her fallen circumstances, a sensation which costs the poor girl her job, early in the novel. No big deal for Dolly. She will have more time at home for her family and more time for Griffith Donne, her long time fiancee.
I adore Dolly, who has a great deal of an Elizabeth Bennet about her, as in this description:
It was a very fortunate thing for Dolly that she was not easily discomposed. Most girls entering a room full of people, evidently unemployed, and in consequence naturally prone to not too charitable criticism of new-comers, might have lost self-possession. Not so Dolly Crewe. Being announced, she came in neither with unnecessary hurry nor timidly, and with not the least atom of shrinking from the eyes turned toward her; and, simple and unassuming a young person as she appeared on first sight, more than one pair of eyes in question found themselves attracted by the white merino, the white shoulders, the elaborate tresses, and the serene, innocent-looking orbs.
Burnett introduces her in all her faults and glories, acknowledging her over indulgence of the vanity of the youngest sister, Molly, and her heartless flirtation with other men. This last vice is held accountable for Griffith's insecurities as he drudges his life in a thankless job, dreaming of the day he might afford to marry his love. My impression was that he was just a pea goose. I do not think Dolly's devotion to the man deserved or warranted. It becomes a flaw in her otherwise fascinating character. Unfortunately, the main romance is the worst part of this romance novel.
Much more fascinating are Dolly's attempts to maneuver her vulnerable family through a sometimes heartless world, particularly the adventures of the devastatingly beautiful and dangerously naive Molly and and middle sister Aimee, the only pragmatist is the family. I was hooked, turning page after page, hoping to see how the two older sisters would save Molly from what almost seems her inevitable fate. Vagabondia is an excellent exploration of class structure and character strength. I recommend reading it for Dolly's sake. She is a creature deserving of a better fate than that which her authoress subjects her, though the book does have a happy ending. It provided me with a similar sensation to that which I experience reading either Mansfield Park or Sense and Sesnisibility. The hero is unworthy of the heroine.
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Racketty-Packetty House by Frances Hodgson Burnett
I'm starting the new year with a detour from Burnett's romances to share with you Racketty-Packetty House (1906), a delightful short children's story that strongly invokes the economic disparity themes in her work in tidy parable form. This story also bears a strong thematic resemblance to the romance Vagabondia (1884), which I will review next. I love this whimsical tale of the social life between two doll houses in nasty little Cynthia's nursery. The happy-go-lucky residents of Racketty Packetty House are snubbed and shunned by the castle dolls, but they don't let that dampen their spirits. The tale is narrated by a fairy queen, features a princess, and a runaway marriage. Fun for the whole family! It won't take you long to read, and it is so wonderful. Enjoy!
(For a complete list of Frances Hodgson Burnett works by category click here)
As Told by Queen Crosspatch
Now this is the story about the doll family I liked and the doll family I didn't. When you read it you are to remember something I am going to tell you. This is it: If you think dolls never do anything you don't see them do, you are very much mistaken. When people are not looking at them they can do anything they choose. They can dance and sing and play on the piano and have all sorts of fun. But they can only move about and talk when people turn their backs and are not looking. If any one looks, they just stop. Fairies know this and of course Fairies visit in all the dolls' houses where the dolls are agreeable. They will not associate, though, with dolls who are not nice. They never call or leave their cards at a dolls' house where the dolls are proud or bad tempered. They are very particular. If you are conceited or ill-tempered yourself, you will never know a fairy as long as you live.
Queen Crosspatch.
RACKETTY-PACKETTY HOUSE
Racketty-Packetty House was in a corner of Cynthia's nursery. And it was not in the best corner either. It was in the corner behind the door, and that was not at all a fashionable neighborhood. Racketty-Packetty House had been pushed there to be out of the way when Tidy Castle was brought in, on Cynthia's birthday. As soon as she saw Tidy Castle Cynthia did not care for Racketty-Packetty House and indeed was quite ashamed of it. She thought the corner behind the door quite good enough for such a shabby old dolls' house, when there was the beautiful big new one built like a castle and furnished with the most elegant chairs and tables and carpets and curtains and ornaments and pictures and beds and baths and lamps and book-cases, and with a knocker on the front door, and a stable with a pony cart in it at the back. The minute she saw it she called out:
"Oh! what a beautiful doll castle! What shall we do with that untidy old Racketty-Packetty House now? It is too shabby and old-fashioned to stand near it."
In fact, that was the way in which the old dolls' house got its name. It had always been called, "The Dolls' House," before, but after that it was pushed into the unfashionable neighborhood behind the door and ever afterwards--when it was spoken of at all--it was just called Racketty-Packetty House, and nothing else.
Of course Tidy Castle was grand, and Tidy Castle was new and had all the modern improvements in it, and Racketty-Packetty House was as old-fashioned as it could be. It had belonged to Cynthia's Grandmamma and had been made in the days when Queen Victoria was a little girl, and when there were no electric lights even in Princesses' dolls' houses. Cynthia's Grandmamma had kept it very neat because she had been a good housekeeper even when she was seven years old. But Cynthia was not a good housekeeper and she did not re-cover the furniture when it got dingy, or re-paper the walls, or mend the carpets and bedclothes, and she never thought of such a thing as making new clothes for the doll family, so that of course their early Victorian frocks and capes and bonnets grew in time to be too shabby for words. You see, when Queen Victoria was a little girl, dolls wore queer frocks and long pantalets and boy dolls wore funny frilled trousers and coats which it would almost make you laugh to look at.
But the Racketty-Packetty House family had known better days. I and my Fairies had known them when they were quite new and had been a birthday present just as Tidy Castle was when Cynthia turned eight years old, and there was as much fuss about them when their house arrived as Cynthia made when she saw Tidy Castle.
Cynthia's Grandmamma had danced about and clapped her hands with delight, and she had scrambled down upon her knees and taken the dolls out one by one and thought their clothes beautiful. And she had given each one of them a grand name.
"This one shall be Amelia," she said. "And this one is Charlotte, and this is Victoria Leopoldina, and this one Aurelia Matilda, and this one Leontine, and this one Clotilda, and these boys shall be Augustus and Rowland and Vincent and Charles Edward Stuart."
For a long time they led a very gay and fashionable life. They had parties and balls and were presented at Court and went to Royal Christenings and Weddings and were married themselves and had families and scarlet fever and whooping cough and funerals and every luxury. But that was long, long ago, and now all was changed. Their house had grown shabbier and shabbier, and their clothes had grown simply awful; and Aurelia Matilda and Victoria Leopoldina had been broken to bits and thrown into the dust-bin, and Leontine--who had really been the beauty of the family--had been dragged out on the hearth rug one night and had had nearly all her paint licked off and a leg chewed up by a Newfoundland puppy, so that she was a sight to behold. As for the boys; Rowland and Vincent had quite disappeared, and Charlotte and Amelia always believed they had run away to seek their fortunes, because things were in such a state at home. So the only ones who were left were Clotilda and Amelia and Charlotte and poor Leontine and Augustus and Charles Edward Stuart. Even they had their names changed.
After Leontine had had her paint licked off so that her head had white bald spots on it and she had scarcely any features, a boy cousin of Cynthia's had put a bright red spot on each cheek and painted her a turned up nose and round saucer blue eyes and a comical mouth. He and Cynthia had called her, "Ridiklis" instead of Leontine, and she had been called that ever since. All the dolls were jointed Dutch dolls, so it was easy to paint any kind of features on them and stick out their arms and legs in any way you liked, and Leontine did look funny after Cynthia's cousin had finished. She certainly was not a beauty but her turned up nose and her round eyes and funny mouth always seemed to be laughing so she really was the most good-natured looking creature you ever saw.
Charlotte and Amelia, Cynthia had called Meg and Peg, and Clotilda she called Kilmanskeg, and Augustus she called Gustibus, and Charles Edward Stuart was nothing but Peter Piper. So that was the end of their grand names.
The truth was, they went through all sorts of things, and if they had not been such a jolly lot of dolls they might have had fits and appendicitis and died of grief. But not a bit of it. If you will believe it, they got fun out of everything. They used to just scream with laughter over the new names, and they laughed so much over them that they got quite fond of them. When Meg's pink silk flounces were torn she pinned them up and didn't mind in the least, and when Peg's lace mantilla was played with by a kitten and brought back to her in rags and tags, she just put a few stitches in it and put it on again; and when Peter Piper lost almost the whole leg of one of his trousers he just laughed and said it made it easier for him to kick about and turn somersaults and he wished the other leg would tear off too.
You never saw a family have such fun. They could make up stories and pretend things and invent games out of nothing. And my Fairies were so fond of them that I couldn't keep them away from the dolls' house. They would go and have fun with Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Gustibus and Peter Piper, even when I had work for them to do in Fairyland. But there, I was so fond of that shabby disrespectable family myself that I never would scold much about them, and I often went to see them. That is how I know so much about them. They were so fond of each other and so good-natured and always in such spirits that everybody who knew them was fond of them. And it was really only Cynthia who didn't know them and thought them only a lot of old disreputable looking Dutch dolls--and Dutch dolls were quite out of fashion. The truth was that Cynthia was not a particularly nice little girl, and did not care much for anything unless it was quite new. But the kitten who had torn the lace mantilla got to know the family and simply loved them all, and the Newfoundland puppy was so sorry about Leontine's paint and her left leg, that he could never do enough to make up. He wanted to marry Leontine as soon as he grew old enough to wear a collar, but Leontine said she would never desert her family; because now that she wasn't the beauty any more she became the useful one, and did all the kitchen work, and sat up and made poultices and beef tea when any of the rest were ill. And the Newfoundland puppy saw she was right, for the whole family simply adored Ridiklis and could not possibly have done without her. Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg could have married any minute if they had liked. There were two cock sparrows and a gentleman mouse, who proposed to them over and over again. They all three said they did not want fashionable wives but cheerful dispositions and a happy, home. But Meg and Peg were like Ridiklis and could not bear to leave their families--besides not wanting to live in nests, and hatch eggs--and Kilmanskeg said she would die of a broken heart if she could not be with Ridiklis, and Ridiklis did not like cheese and crumbs and mousy things, so they could never live together in a mouse hole. But neither the gentleman mouse nor the sparrows were offended because the news was broken to them so sweetly and they went on visiting just as before. Everything was as shabby and disrespectable and as gay and happy as it could be until Tidy Castle was brought into the nursery and then the whole family had rather a fright.
It happened in this way:
When the dolls' house was lifted by the nurse and carried into the corner behind the door, of course it was rather an exciting and shaky thing for Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Gustibus and Peter Piper (Ridiklis was out shopping). The furniture tumbled about and everybody had to hold on to anything they could catch hold of. As it was, Kilmanskeg slid under a table and Peter Piper sat down in the coal-box; but notwithstanding all this, they did not lose their tempers and when the nurse sat their house down on the floor with a bump, they all got up and began to laugh. Then they ran and peeped out of the windows and then they ran back and laughed again.
"Well," said Peter Piper, "we have been called Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Gustibus and Peter Piper instead of our grand names, and now we live in a place called Racketty-Packetty House. Who cares! Let's join hands and have a dance."
And they joined hands and danced round and round and kicked up their heels, and their rags and tatters flew about and they laughed until they fell down; one on top of the other.
It was just at this minute that Ridiklis came back. The nurse had found her under a chair and stuck her in through a window. She sat on the drawing-room sofa which had holes in its covering and the stuffing coming out, and her one whole leg stuck out straight in front of her, and her bonnet and shawl were on one side and her basket was on her left arm full of things she had got cheap at market. She was out of breath and rather pale through being lifted up and swished through the air so suddenly, but her saucer eyes and her funny mouth looked as cheerful as ever.
"Good gracious, if you knew what I have just heard!" she said. They all scrambled up and called out together.
"Hello! What is it?"
"The nurse said the most awful thing," she answered them. "When Cynthia asked what she should do with this old Racketty-Packetty House, she said, 'Oh! I'll put it behind the door for the present and then it shall be carried down-stairs and burned. It's too disgraceful to be kept in any decent nursery.'"
"Oh!" cried out Peter Piper.
"Oh!" said Gustibus.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" said Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg. "Will they burn our dear old shabby house? Do you think they will?" And actually tears began to run down their cheeks.
Peter Piper sat down on the floor all at once with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
"I don't care how shabby it is," he said. "It's a jolly nice old place and it's the only house we've ever had."
"I never want to have any other," said Meg.
Gustibus leaned against the wall with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
"I wouldn't move if I was made King of England," he said. "Buckingham Palace wouldn't be half as nice."
"We've had such fun here," said Peg. And Kilmanskeg shook her head from side to side and wiped her eyes on her ragged pocket-handkerchief. There is no knowing what would have happened to them if Peter Piper hadn't cheered up as he always did.
"I say," he said, "do you hear that noise?" They all listened and heard a rumbling. Peter Piper ran to the window and looked out and then ran back grinning.
"It's the nurse rolling up the arm-chair before the house to hide it, so that it won't disgrace the castle. Hooray! Hooray! If they don't see us they will forget all about us and we shall not be burned up at all. Our nice old Racketty-Packetty House will be left alone and we can enjoy ourselves more than ever--because we sha'n't be bothered with Cynthia--Hello! let's all join hands and have a dance."
So they all joined hands and danced round in a ring again and they were so relieved that they laughed and laughed until they all tumbled down in a heap just as they had done before, and rolled about giggling and squealing. It certainly seemed as if they were quite safe for some time at least. The big easy chair hid them and both the nurse and Cynthia seemed to forget that there was such a thing as a Racketty-Packetty House in the neighborhood. Cynthia was so delighted with Tidy Castle that she played with nothing else for days and days. And instead of being jealous of their grand neighbors the Racketty-Packetty House people began to get all sorts of fun out of watching them from their own windows. Several of their windows were broken and some had rags and paper stuffed into the broken panes, but Meg and Peg and Peter Piper would go and peep out of one, and Gustibus and Kilmanskeg would peep out of another, and Ridiklis could scarcely get her dishes washed and her potatoes pared because she could see the Castle kitchen from her scullery window. It was so exciting!
The Castle dolls were grand beyond words, and they were all lords and ladies. These were their names. There was Lady Gwendolen Vere de Vere. She was haughty and had dark eyes and hair and carried her head thrown back and her nose in the air. There was Lady Muriel Vere de Vere, and she was cold and lovely and indifferent and looked down the bridge of her delicate nose. And there was Lady Doris, who had fluffy golden hair and laughed mockingly at everybody. And there was Lord Hubert and Lord Rupert and Lord Francis, who were all handsome enough to make you feel as if you could faint. And there was their mother, the Duchess of Tidyshire; and of course there were all sorts of maids and footmen and cooks and scullery maids and even gardeners.
"We never thought of living to see such grand society," said Peter Piper to his brother and sisters. "It's quite a kind of blessing."
"It's almost like being grand ourselves, just to be able to watch them," said Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg, squeezing together and flattening their noses against the attic windows.
They could see bits of the sumptuous white and gold drawing-room with the Duchess sitting reading near the fire, her golden glasses upon her nose, and Lady Gwendolen playing haughtily upon the harp, and Lady Muriel coldly listening to her. Lady Doris was having her golden hair dressed by her maid in her bed-room and Lord Hubert was reading the newspaper with a high-bred air, while Lord Francis was writing letters to noblemen of his acquaintance, and Lord Rupert was--in an aristocratic manner--glancing over his love letters from ladies of title.
Kilmanskeg and Peter Piper just pinched each other with glee and squealed with delight.
"Isn't it fun," said Peter Piper. "I say; aren't they awful swells! But Lord Francis can't kick about in his trousers as I can in mine, and neither can the others. I'll like to see them try to do this,"-- and he turned three summersaults in the middle of the room and stood on his head on the biggest hole in the carpet--and wiggled his legs and wiggled his toes at them until they shouted so with laughing that Ridiklis ran in with a saucepan in her hand and perspiration on her forehead, because she was cooking turnips, which was all they had for dinner.
"You mustn't laugh so loud," she cried out. "If we make so much noise the Tidy Castle people will begin to complain of this being a low neighborhood and they might insist on moving away."
"Oh! scrump!" said Peter Piper, who sometimes invented doll slang-- though there wasn't really a bit of harm in him. "I wouldn't have them move away for anything. They are meat and drink to me."
"They are going to have a dinner of ten courses," sighed Ridiklis, "I can see them cooking it from my scullery window. And I have nothing but turnips to give you."
"Who cares!" said Peter Piper, "Let's have ten courses of turnips and pretend each course is exactly like the one they are having at the Castle."
"I like turnips almost better than anything--almost--perhaps not quite," said Gustibus. "I can eat ten courses of turnips like a shot."
"Let's go and find out what their courses are," said Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg, "and then we will write a menu on a piece of pink tissue paper."
And if you'll believe it, that was what they did. They divided their turnips into ten courses and they called the first one--"Hors d'oeuvres," and the last one "Ices," with a French name, and Peter Piper kept jumping up from the table and pretending he was a footman and flourishing about in his flapping rags of trousers and announcing the names of the dishes in such a grand way that they laughed till they nearly died, and said they never had had such a splendid dinner in their lives, and that they would rather live behind the door and watch the Tidy Castle people than be the Tidy Castle people themselves.
And then of course they all joined hands and danced round and round and kicked up their heels for joy, because they always did that whenever there was the least excuse for it--and quite often when there wasn't any at all, just because it was such good exercise and worked off their high spirits so that they could settle down for a while.
This was the way things went on day after day. They almost lived at their windows. They watched the Tidy Castle family get up and be dressed by their maids and valets in different clothes almost every day. They saw them drive out in their carriages, and have parties, and go to balls. They all nearly had brain fever with delight the day they watched Lady Gwendolen and Lady Muriel and Lady Doris, dressed in their Court trains and feathers, going to be presented at the first Drawing-Room.
After the lovely creatures had gone the whole family sat down in a circle round the Racketty-Packetty House library fire, and Ridiklis read aloud to them about Drawing-Rooms, out of a scrap of the Lady's Pictorial she had found, and after that they had a Court Drawing-Room of their own, and they made tissue-paper trains and glass bead crowns for diamond tiaras, and sometimes Gustibus pretended to be the Royal family, and the others were presented to him and kissed his hand, and then the others took turns and he was presented. And suddenly the most delightful thing occurred to Peter Piper. He thought it would be rather nice to make them all into lords and ladies and he did it by touching them on the shoulder with the drawing-room poker which he straightened because it was so crooked that it was almost bent double. It is not exactly the way such things are done at Court, but Peter Piper thought it would do-- and at any rate it was great fun. So he made them all kneel down in a row and he touched each on the shoulder with the poker and said:
"Rise up, Lady Meg and Lady Peg and Lady Kilmanskeg and Lady Ridiklis of Racketty-Packetty House-and also the Right Honorable Lord Gustibus Rags!" And they all jumped up at once and made bows and curtsied to each other. But they made Peter Piper into a Duke, and he was called the Duke of Tags. He knelt down on the big hole in the carpet and each one of them gave him a little thump on the shoulder with the poker, because it took more thumps to make a Duke than a common or garden Lord.
The day after this another much more exciting thing took place. The nurse was in a bad temper and when she was tidying the nursery she pushed the easy chair aside and saw Racketty-Packetty House.
"Oh!" she said, "there is that Racketty-Packetty old thing still. I had forgotten it. It must be carried down-stairs and burned. I will go and tell one of the footmen to come for it."
Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg were in their attic and they all rushed out in such a hurry to get down-stairs that they rolled all the way down the staircase, and Peter Piper and Gustibus had to dart out of the drawing-room and pick them up, Ridiklis came staggering up from the kitchen quite out of breath.
"Oh! our house is going to be burned! Our house is going to be burned!" cried Meg and Peg clutching their brothers.
"Let us go and throw ourselves out of the window!" cried Kilmanskeg.
"I don't see how they can have the heart to burn a person's home!" said Ridiklis, wiping her eyes with her kitchen duster.
Peter Piper was rather pale, but he was extremely brave and remembered that he was the head of the family.
"Now, Lady Meg and Lady Peg and Lady Kilmanskeg," he said, "let us all keep cool."
"We shan't keep cool when they set our house on fire," said Gustibus. Peter Piper just snapped his fingers.
"Pooh!" he said. "We are only made of wood and it won't hurt a bit. We shall just snap and crackle and go off almost like fireworks and then we shall be ashes and fly away into the air and see all sorts of things. Perhaps it may be more fun than anything we have done yet."
"But our nice old house! Our nice old Racketty-Packetty House," said Ridiklis. "I do so love it. The kitchen is so convenient--even though the oven won't bake any more."
And things looked most serious because the nurse really was beginning to push the arm-chair away. But it would not move and I will tell you why. One of my Fairies, who had come down the chimney when they were talking, had called me and I had come in a second with a whole army of my Workers, and though the nurse couldn't see them, they were all holding the chair tight down on the carpet so that it would not stir.
And I--Queen Crosspatch--myself--flew downstairs and made the footman remember that minute that a box had come for Cynthia and that he must take it upstairs to her nursery. If I had not been on the spot he would have forgotten it until it was too late. But just in the very nick of time up he came, and Cynthia sprang up as soon as she saw him.
"Oh!" she cried out, "It must be the doll who broke her little leg and was sent to the hospital. It must be Lady Patsy."
And she opened the box and gave a little scream of joy for there lay Lady Patsy (her whole name was Patricia) in a lace-frilled nightgown, with her lovely leg in bandages and a pair of tiny crutches and a trained nurse by her side.
That was how I saved them that time. There was such excitement over Lady Patsy and her little crutches and her nurse that nothing else was thought of and my Fairies pushed the arm-chair back and Racketty-Packetty House was hidden and forgotten once more.
The whole Racketty-Packetty family gave a great gasp of joy and sat down in a ring all at once, on the floor, mopping their foreheads with anything they could get hold of. Peter Piper used an antimacassar.
"Oh! we are obliged to you, Queen B-bell--Patch," he panted out, "But these alarms of fire are upsetting."
"You leave them to me," I said, "and I'll attend to them. Tip!" I commanded the Fairy nearest me. "You will have to stay about here and be ready to give the alarm when anything threatens to happen." And I flew away, feeling I had done a good morning's work.
Well, that was the beginning of a great many things, and many of them were connected with Lady Patsy; and but for me there might have been unpleasantness.
Of course the Racketty-Packetty dolls forgot about their fright directly, and began to enjoy themselves again as usual. That was their way. They never sat up all night with Trouble, Peter Piper used to say. And I told him they were quite right. If you make a fuss over trouble and put it to bed and nurse it and give it beef tea and gruel, you can never get rid of it.
Their great delight now was Lady Patsy. They thought she was prettier than any of the other Tidy Castle dolls. She neither turned her nose up, nor looked down the bridge of it, nor laughed mockingly. She had dimples in the corners of her mouth and long curly lashes and her nose was saucy and her eyes were bright and full of laughs.
"She's the clever one of the family," said Peter Piper. "I am sure of that."
She was treated as an invalid at first, of course, and kept in her room; but they could see her sitting up in her frilled nightgown. After a few days she was carried to a soft chair lay the window and there she used to sit and look out; and the Racketty-Packetty House dolls crowded round their window and adored her.
After a few days, they noticed that Peter Piper was often missing and one morning Ridiklis went up into the attic and found him sitting at a window all by himself and staring and staring.
"Oh! Duke," she said (you see they always tried to remember each other's titles). "Dear me, Duke, what are you doing here?"
"I am looking at her," he answered. "I'm in love. I fell in love with her the minute Cynthia took her out of her box. I am going to marry her."
"But she's a lady of high degree," said Ridiklis quite alarmed.
"That's why she'll have me," said Peter Piper in his most cheerful manner. "Ladies of high degree always marry the good looking ones in rags and tatters. If I had a whole suit of clothes on, she wouldn't look at me. I'm very good-looking, you know," and he turned round and winked at Ridiklis in such a delightful saucy way that she suddenly felt as if he was very good-looking, though she had not thought of it before.
"Hello," he said all at once. "I've just thought of something to attract her attention. Where's the ball of string?"
Cynthia's kitten had made them a present of a ball of string which had been most useful. Ridiklis ran and got it, and all the others came running upstairs to see what Peter Piper was going to do. They all were delighted to hear he had fallen in love with the lovely, funny Lady Patsy. They found him standing in the middle of the attic unrolling the ball of string.
"What are you going to do, Duke?" they all shouted.
"Just you watch," he said, and he began to make the string into a rope ladder--as fast as lightning. When he had finished it, he fastened one end of it to a beam and swung the other end out of the window.
"From her window," he said, "she can see Racketty-Packetty House and I'll tell you something. She's always looking at it. She watches us as much as we watch her, and I have seen her giggling and giggling when we were having fun. Yesterday when I chased Lady Meg and Lady Peg and Lady Kilmanskeg round and round the front of the house and turned summersaults every five steps, she laughed until she had to stuff her handkerchief into her mouth. When we joined hands and danced and laughed until we fell in heaps I thought she was going to have a kind of rosy-dimpled, lovely little fit, she giggled so. If I run down the side of the house on this rope ladder it will attract her attention and then I shall begin to do things."
He ran down the ladder and that very minute they saw Lady Patsy at her window give a start and lean forward to look. They all crowded round their window and chuckled and chuckled as they watched him.
He turned three stately summersaults and stood on his feet and made a cheerful bow. The Racketty-Packettys saw Lady Patsy begin to giggle that minute. Then he took an antimacassar out of his pocket and fastened it round the edge of his torn trousers leg, as if it were lace trimming and began to walk about like a Duke--with his arms folded on his chest and his ragged old hat cocked on one side over his ear. Then the Racketty-Packettys saw Lady Patsy begin to laugh. Then Peter Piper stood on his head and kissed his hand and Lady Patsy covered her face and rocked backwards and forwards in her chair laughing and laughing.
Then he struck an attitude with his tattered leg put forward gracefully and he pretended he had a guitar and he sang right up at her window.
"From Racketty-Packetty House I come,
It stands, dear Lady, in a slum,
A low, low slum behind the door
The stout arm-chair is placed before,
(Just take a look at it, my Lady).
"The house itself is a perfect sight,
And everybody's dressed like a perfect fright,
But no one cares a single jot
And each one giggles over his lot,
(And as for me, I'm in love with you).
"I can't make up another verse,
And if I did it would be worse,
But I could stand and sing all day,
If I could think of things to say,
(But the fact is I just wanted to make you look at me)."
And then he danced such a lively jig that his rags and tags flew about him, and then he made another bow and kissed his hand again and ran up the ladder like a flash and jumped into the attic.
After that Lady Patsy sat at her window all the time and would not let the trained nurse put her to bed at all; and Lady Gwendolen and Lady Muriel and Lady Doris could not understand it. Once Lady Gwendolen said haughtily and disdainfully and scornfully and scathingly:
"If you sit there so much, those low Racketty-Packetty House people will think you are looking at them."
"I am," said Lady Patsy, showing all her dimples at once. "They are such fun."
And Lady Gwendolen swooned haughtily away, and the trained nurse could scarcely restore her.
When the castle dolls drove out or walked in their garden, the instant they caught sight of one of the Racketty-Packettys they turned up their noses and sniffed aloud, and several times the Duchess said she would remove because the neighborhood was absolutely low. They all scorned the Racketty-Packettys--they just scorned them.
One moonlight night Lady Patsy was sitting at her window and she heard a whistle in the garden. When she peeped out carefully, there stood Peter Piper waving his ragged cap at her, and he had his rope ladder under his arm.
"Hello," he whispered as loud as he could. "Could you catch a bit of rope if I threw it up to you?"
"Yes," she whispered back.
"Then catch this," he whispered again and he threw up the end of a string and she caught it the first throw. It was fastened to the rope ladder.
"Now pull," he said.
She pulled and pulled until the rope ladder reached her window and then she fastened that to a hook under the sill and the first thing that happened--just like lightning--was that Peter Piper ran up the ladder and leaned over her window ledge.
"Will you marry me," he said. "I haven't anything to give you to eat and I am as ragged as a scarecrow, but will you?"
She clapped her little hands.
"I eat very little," she said. "And I would do without anything at all, if I could live in your funny old shabby house."
"It is a ridiculous, tumbled-down old barn, isn't it?" he said. "But every one of us is as nice as we can be. We are perfect Turkish Delights. It's laughing that does it. Would you like to come down the ladder and see what a jolly, shabby old hole the place is?"
"Oh! do take me," said Lady Patsy.
So he helped her down the ladder and took her under the armchair and into Racketty-Packetty House and Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus all crowded round her and gave little screams of joy at the sight of her.
They were afraid to kiss her at first, even though she was engaged to Peter Piper. She was so pretty and her frock had so much lace on it that they were afraid their old rags might spoil her. But she did not care about her lace and flew at them and kissed and hugged them every one.
"I have so wanted to come here," she said. "It's so dull at the Castle I had to break my leg just to get a change. The Duchess sits reading near the fire with her gold eye-glasses on her nose and Lady Gwendolen plays haughtily on the harp and Lady Muriel coldly listens to her, and Lady Doris is always laughing mockingly, and Lord Hubert reads the newspaper with a high-bred air, and Lord Francis writes letters to noblemen of his acquaintance, and Lord Rupert glances over his love letters from ladies of title, in an aristocratic manner--until I could scream. Just to see you dears dancing about in your rags and tags and laughing and inventing games as if you didn't mind anything, is such a relief."
She nearly laughed her little curly head off when they all went round the house with her, and Peter Piper showed her the holes in the carpet and the stuffing coming out of the sofas, and the feathers out of the beds, and the legs tumbling off the chairs. She had never seen anything like it before.
"At the Castle, nothing is funny at all," she said. "And nothing ever sticks out or hangs down or tumbles off. It is so plain and new."
"But I think we ought to tell her, Duke," Ridiklis said. "We may have our house burned over our heads any day." She really stopped laughing for a whole minute when she heard that, but she was rather like Peter Piper in disposition and she said almost immediately.
"Oh! they'll never do it. They've forgotten you." And Peter Piper said:
"Don't let's think of it. Let's all join hands and dance round and round and kick up our heels and laugh as hard as ever we can."
And they did--and Lady Patsy laughed harder than any one else. After that she was always stealing away from Tidy Castle and coming in and having fun. Sometimes she stayed all night and slept with Meg and Peg and everybody invented new games and stories and they really never went to bed until daylight. But the Castle dolls grew more and more scornful every day, and tossed their heads higher and higher and sniffed louder and louder until it sounded as if they all had influenza. They never lost an opportunity of saying disdainful things and once the Duchess wrote a letter to Cynthia, saying that she insisted on removing to a decent neighborhood. She laid the letter in her desk but the gentleman mouse came in the night and carried it away. So Cynthia never saw it and I don't believe she could have read it if she had seen it because the Duchess wrote very badly--even for a doll.
And then what do you suppose happened? One morning Cynthia began to play that all the Tidy Castle dolls had scarlet fever. She said it had broken out in the night and she undressed them all and put them into bed and gave them medicine. She could not find Lady Patsy, so she escaped the contagion. The truth was that Lady Patsy had stayed all night at Racketty-Packetty House, where they were giving an imitation Court Ball with Peter Piper in a tin crown, and shavings for supper--because they had nothing else, and in fact the gentleman mouse had brought the shavings from his nest as a present.
Cynthia played nearly all day and the Duchess and Lady Gwendolen and Lady Muriel and Lady Doris and Lord Hubert and Lord Francis and Lord Rupert got worse and worse.
By evening they were all raging in delirium and Lord Francis and Lady Gwendolen had strong mustard plasters on their chests. And right in the middle of their agony Cynthia suddenly got up and went away and left them to their fate--just as if it didn't matter in the least. Well in the middle of the night Meg and Peg and Lady Patsy wakened all at once.
"Do you hear a noise?" said Meg, lifting her head from her ragged old pillow.
"Yes, I do," said Peg, sitting up and holding her ragged old blanket up to her chin.
Lady Patsy jumped up with feathers sticking up all over her hair, because they had come out of the holes in the ragged old bed. She ran to the window and listened.
"Oh! Meg and Peg!" she cried out. "It comes from the Castle. Cynthia has left them all raving in delirium and they are all shouting and groaning and screaming."
Meg and Peg jumped up too.
"Let's go and call Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter Piper," they said, and they rushed to the staircase and met Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter Piper coming scrambling up panting because the noise had wakened them as well.
They were all over at Tidy Castle in a minute. They just tumbled over each other to get there--the kind-hearted things. The servants were every one fast asleep, though the noise was awful. The loudest groans came from Lady Gwendolen and Lord Francis because their mustard plasters were blistering them frightfully.
Ridiklis took charge, because she was the one who knew most about illness. She sent Gustibus to waken the servants and then ordered hot water and cold water, and ice, and brandy, and poultices, and shook the trained nurse for not attending to her business--and took off the mustard plasters and gave gruel and broth and cough syrup and castor oil and ipecacuanha, and everyone of the Racketty-Packettys massaged, and soothed, and patted, and put wet cloths on heads, until the fever was gone and the Castle dolls all lay back on their pillows pale and weak, but smiling faintly at every Racketty-Packetty they saw, instead of turning up their noses and tossing their heads and sniffing loudly, and just scorning them.
Lady Gwendolen spoke first and instead of being haughty and disdainful, she was as humble as a new-born kitten.
"Oh! you dear, shabby, disrespectable, darling things!" she said. "Never, never, will I scorn you again. Never, never!"
"That's right!" said Peter Piper in his cheerful, rather slangy way. "You take my tip-never you scorn any one again. It's a mistake. Just you watch me stand on my head. It'll cheer you up."
And he turned six summersaults--just like lightning--and stood on his head and wiggled his ragged legs at them until suddenly they heard a snort from one of the beds and it was Lord Hubert beginning to laugh and then Lord Francis laughed and then Lord Hubert shouted, and then Lady Doris squealed, and Lady Muriel screamed, and Lady Gwendolen and the Duchess rolled over and over in their beds, laughing as if they would have fits.
"Oh! you delightful, funny, shabby old loves!" Lady Gwendolen kept saying. "To think that we scorned you."
"They'll be all right after this," said Peter Piper. "There's nothing cures scarlet fever like cheering up. Let's all join hands and dance round and round once for them before we go back to bed. It'll throw them into a nice light perspiration and they'll drop off and sleep like tops." And they did it, and before they had finished, the whole lot of them were perspiring gently and snoring as softly as lambs.
When they went back to Racketty-Packetty House they talked a good deal about Cynthia and wondered and wondered why she had left her scarlet fever so suddenly. And at last Ridiklis made up her mind to tell them something she had heard.
"The Duchess told me," she said, rather slowly because it was bad news--"The Duchess said that Cynthia went away because her Mama had sent for her--and her Mama had sent for her to tell her that a little girl princess is coming to see her to-morrow. Cynthia's Mama used to be a maid of honor to the Queen and that's why the little girl Princess is coming. The Duchess said--" and here Ridiklis spoke very slowly indeed, "that the nurse was so excited she said she did not know whether she stood on her head or her heels, and she must tidy up the nursery and have that Racketty-Packetty old dolls' house carried down stairs and burned, early to-morrow morning. That's what the Duchess said--"
Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg clutched at their hearts and gasped and Gustibus groaned and Lady Patsy caught Peter Piper by the arm to keep from falling. Peter Piper gulped--and then he had a sudden cheerful thought.
"Perhaps she was raving in delirium," he said.
"No, she wasn't," said Ridiklis shaking her head, "I had just given her hot water and cold, and gruel, and broth, and castor oil, and ipecacuanha and put ice almost all over her. She was as sensible as any of us. To-morrow morning we shall not have a house over our heads," and she put her ragged old apron over her face and cried.
"If she wasn't raving in delirium," said Peter Piper, "we shall not have any heads. You had better go back to the Castle tonight, Patsy. Racketty-Packetty House is no place for you."
Then Lady Patsy drew herself up so straight that she nearly fell over backwards.
"I--will--never--leave you!" she said, and Peter Piper couldn't make her.
You can just imagine what a doleful night it was. They went all over the house together and looked at every hole in the carpet and every piece of stuffing sticking out of the dear old shabby sofas, and every broken window and chair leg and table and ragged blanket-- and the tears ran down their faces for the first time in their lives. About six o'clock in the morning Peter Piper made a last effort.
"Let's all join hands in a circle," he said quite faintly, "and dance round and round once more."
But it was no use. When they joined hands they could not dance, and when they found they could not dance they all tumbled down in a heap and cried instead of laughing and Lady Patsy lay with her arms round Peter Piper's neck.
Now here is where I come in again--Queen Crosspatch--who is telling you this story. I always come in just at the nick of time when people like the Racketty-Packettys are in trouble. I walked in at seven o'clock.
"Get up off the floor," I said to them all and they got up and stared at me. They actually thought I did not know what had happened.
"A little girl Princess is coming this morning," said Peter Piper, and our house is going to be burned over our heads. This is the end of Racketty-Packetty House."
"No, it isn't!" I said. "You leave this to me. I told the Princess to come here, though she doesn't know it in the least."
A whole army of my Working Fairies began to swarm in at the nursery window. The nurse was working very hard to put things in order and she had not sense enough to see Fairies at all. So she did not see mine, though there were hundreds of them. As soon as she made one corner tidy, they ran after her and made it untidy. They held her back by her dress and hung and swung on her apron until she could scarcely move and kept wondering why she was so slow. She could not make the nursery tidy and she was so flurried she forgot all about Racketty-Packetty House again--especially as my Working Fairies pushed the arm-chair close up to it so that it was quite hidden. And there it was when the little girl Princess came with her Ladies in Waiting. My fairies had only just allowed the nurse to finish the nursery.
Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter Piper and Lady Patsy were huddled up together looking out of one window. They could not bear to be parted. I sat on the arm of the big chair and ordered my Working Fairies to stand ready to obey me the instant I spoke.
The Princess was a nice child and was very polite to Cynthia when she showed her all her dolls, and last but not least, Tidy Castle itself. She looked at all the rooms and the furniture and said polite and admiring things about each of them. But Cynthia realized that she was not so much interested in it as she had thought she would be. The fact was that the Princess had so many grand dolls' houses in her palace that Tidy Castle did not surprise her at all. It was just when Cynthia was finding this out that I gave the order to my Working Fairies.
"Push the arm-chair away," I commanded; "very slowly, so that no one will know it is being moved."
So they moved it away--very, very slowly and no one saw that it had stirred. But the next minute the little girl Princess gave a delightful start.
"Oh! what is that!" she cried out, hurrying towards the unfashionable neighborhood behind the door.
Cynthia blushed all over and the nurse actually turned pale. The Racketty-Packettys tumbled down in a heap beneath their window and began to say their prayers very fast.
"It is only a shabby old doll's house, your Highness," Cynthia stammered out. "It belonged to my Grandmamma, and it ought not to be in the nursery. I thought you had had it burned, Nurse!"
"Burned!" the little girl Princess cried out in the most shocked way. "Why if it was mine, I wouldn't have it burned for worlds! Oh! please push the chair away and let me look at it. There are no doll's houses like it anywhere in these days." And when the arm-chair was pushed aside she scrambled down on to her knees just as if she was not a little girl Princess at all.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" she said. "How funny and dear! What a darling old doll's house. It is shabby and wants mending, of course, but it is almost exactly like one my Grandmamma had--she kept it among her treasures and only let me look at it as a great, great treat."
Cynthia gave a gasp, for the little girl Princess's Grandmamma had been the Queen and people had knelt down and kissed her hand and had been obliged to go out of the room backwards before her.
The little girl Princess was simply filled with joy. She picked up Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Gustibus and Peter Piper as if they had been really a Queen's dolls.
"Oh! the darling dears," she said. "Look at their nice, queer faces and their funny clothes. Just--just like Grandmamma's dollies' clothes. Only these poor things do so want new ones. Oh! how I should like to dress them again just as they used to be dressed, and have the house all made just as it used to be when it was new."
"That old Racketty-Packetty House," said Cynthia, losing her breath.
"If it were mine I should make it just like Grandmamma's and I should love it more than any doll's house I have. I never--never-- never--saw anything as nice and laughing and good natured as these dolls' faces. They look as if they had been having fun ever since they were born. Oh! if you were to burn them and their home I--I could never forgive you!"
"I never--never--will,--your Highness," stammered Cynthia, quite overwhelmed. Suddenly she started forward.
"Why, there is the lost doll!" she cried out. "There is Lady Patsy. How did she get into Racketty-Packetty House?"
"Perhaps she went there to see them because they were so poor and shabby," said the little girl Princess.
"Perhaps she likes this one," and she pointed to Peter Piper. "Do you know when I picked him up their arms were about each other. Please let her stay with him. Oh!" she cried out the next instant and jumped a little.
"I felt as if the boy one kicked his leg."
And it was actually true, because Peter Piper could not help it and he had kicked out his ragged leg for joy. He had to be very careful not to kick any more when he heard what happened next.
As the Princess liked Racketty-Packetty House so much, Cynthia gave it to her for a present--and the Princess was really happy--and before she went away she made a little speech to the whole Racketty-Packetty family, whom she had set all in a row in the ragged old, dear old, shabby old drawing-room where they had had so much fun.
"You are going to come and live with me, funny, good-natured loves," she said. "And you shall all be dressed beautifully again and your house shall be mended and papered and painted and made as lovely as ever it was. And I am going to like you better than all my other dolls' houses--just as Grandmamma said she liked hers." And then she was gone.
And every bit of it came true. Racketty-Packetty House was carried to a splendid Nursery in a Palace, and Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter Piper were made so gorgeous that if they had nest been so nice they would have grown proud. But they didn't. They only grew jollier and jollier and Peter Piper married Lady Patsy, and Ridiklis's left leg was mended and she was painted into a beauty again--but she always remained the useful one. And the dolls in the other dolls' houses used to make deep curtsies when a Racketty-Packetty House doll passed them, and Peter Piper could scarcely stand it because it always made him want to stand on his head and laugh--and so when they were curtsied at-- because they were related to the Royal Dolls House--they used to run into their drawing room and fall into fits of giggles and they could only stop them by all joining hands together in a ring and dancing round and round and round and kicking up their heels and laughing until they tumbled down in a heap.
And what do you think of that for a story. And doesn't it prove to you what a valuable Friend a Fairy is--particularly a Queen one?
Labels: Children's Lit, Francis Hodgson Burnett, Short Stories
Two Months in a Row!
I have had a story voted one of the five best completed at Jaff Recs! The Madness of Mr. Darcy was voted one of the best completed stories in November (it seems an edit at some point skewed the month it was completed), and Becoming Mrs. Norris was honored in October! Here is the really cool thing: the short continuing vignette I just wrote, Mr. Darcy's Christmas Present: The Madness of Mr. Darcy Continues, is up for nomination in the month of December. Voting runs through the end of the month, and there is more competition than in the previous two, but your vote might out me over the type! Cast your vote here: http://www.jaffrecs.com/?page_id=379. Some of my fellow Austen Authors are represented as well.
I just started posting a revised version of Being Mrs. Bennet last week. Sorry I never completed the tale here, but I got disgruntled when I lost half my Pemberley visit. If I can complete draft two in January, I might have a chance of winning four months in a row! Fingers crossed.
Speaking of Austen Authors, a preliminary, teaser post went up yesterday in which several of us share some of our favorite recent posts. Please check it out, and don't forget to enter the grand reopening, mystery prize giveaway! http://austenauthors.net/favorite-blogs/
Labels: announcements, Austen Authors, Becoming Mrs. Norris, Being Mrs. Bennet, honors, Mr. Darcy's Christmas Present, The Madness of Mr. Darcy
Fitzwilliam Darcy: An Honourable Man by Brenda J. Webb
My then Facebook friend and now also fellow Austen Author Brenda J. Webb asked if I would like to read one of her books last year, and I eagerly accepted a copy. According to the guidelines I imposed on myself in 2014, I let her know I would only post a review if I could write a glowing one, and I am very pleased to be able to do so today.
It was really rather ironic reading this book while still gathering reactions to The Madness of Mr. Darcy. I imagine if I got on Amazon and looked through Ms. Webb's reviews that I would find a lot of comments akin to those I have received. Like my book, Fitzwilliam Darcy: An Honourable Man has a very difficult beginning. We come upon an Elizabeth horrifically traumatized: mute and unresponsive. So hard to read! Our beloved heroine, reduced to such state by the machinations of a vile mother (Mrs. Bennet is a true villain in this story) and an unscrupulous husband (an Italian count, no less, right out of Radcliffe), is a nauseating spectacle. It's painful, which it should be, for it allows you to fully enter into Darcy's feelings when he returns to Netherfield, two years after being rejected at Hunsford, to learn the woman he thought he had expunged from his heart was dead (a lie spread by the Binlgeys to protect Elizabeth from her mother), yet to then come upon her in her disordered state! It is a heart wrenching moment as we learn the full sordid details of what happened to Elizabeth through Jane and Charles, but it also the beginning of the healing process, for though apart Darcy and Elizabeth prove so vulnerable, together they will overcome all that stands in their path to happiness.
One of my favorite aspects of this variation was that it positioned our meek and mild Jane to become a protective lioness in regards to her sister, even when that means cutting ties with her mother. I was very proud of this Mr. and Mrs. Bingley as I read the book. I really wanted to quote the passage in which it happened, or the one when Jane and Bingley first tell Darcy about Elizabeth, but all the passages considered seem to give too much away. The story holds so many surprises, and I would hate to reveal them. Rest assured Ms. Webbs prose are clear and artistically crafted.
The story ends very happily, but the road there is filled with machinations and impediments. There is a lot going on in this book with multiple layers of villains, all pursuing their own vicious ends, making things difficult for our beloved couple. Further, there are vivid portraits of the Darcy and Fitzwilliam families, complete with complex family skeletons, emotional trauma, and romance. I was impressed by Ms. Webb's ability to weave such a complicated tale while maintaining the personal, emotional connection between the main characters and the readers. Fitzwilliam Darcy is a rich and captivating story. A hard read for the feint hearted, but worth the effort. I look forward to reading more of Ms. Webb's work.
Labels: Austen Authors, Pride and Prejudice, Reviews, What If?
Where did the last several weeks go? 2014 was a wild ride for my family and I, and it went out par for the course when we buried my beloved grandfather. I started the year with a full contingent of grandparents and now I have one. Sad as that is, it was also an amazing year in many ways, and first and foremost in my mind stands the writing, publishing, and warm reception of The Madness of Mr. Darcy. It was book so unlike anything else I have ever even attempted to write. It demanded so much of me emotionally. It was a remarkable experience, but I am looking forward to concentrating on more lighthearted subjects in 2015 with my first children's book, The Prodigal Husband, Being Mrs. Bennet, and The Importance of Being Darcy. More on all these projects to come.
Some of the great treats of my holiday season came in the form of recognition for my writing. It is with pride and excitement I am announcing my inclusion in the new, re-born AustenAuthors.net. My next post will be on that subject. I was delighted to find myself the recipient of a wonderful review of Holidays at Pemberley by Jody at A Spoonful of Happy Endings (read it here). I was even more than delighted to then find myself included in her "Top 10 New To Me Authors" list for 2014. What an honor! Next, Becoming Mrs. Norris was voted one of the top five completed stories on A Happy Assembly in the month of November at jaffrecs.com! So cool, especially as it is Mrs. Norris we are talking about and reader nominated. Last but not least, I received a long coveted place on Meredith at Austenesque Reviews best of 2014 list, when The Madness of Mr. Darcy tied with KaraLynne Mackrory's Haunting Mr. Darcy for favorite Pride and Prejudice variation. Thank you, Meredith! It's absolutely thrilling.
As I look forward to a fresh new year, I have a ton of writing I plan on doing, but I also want to start doing more reviews again. One of the best things about 2014 is a started reading at my regular pace again for the first time since becoming a mother. I hope to now figure out how to balance reading, writing about, and writing books all at the same time. If I can master that by 2016, it will be time for another kid.
I hope everyone had wonderful holidays and happy New Years celebrations. Here's to 2015!
Posted by Alexa Adams at 12:01 PM 4 comments
Labels: announcements, Austen Authors, Becoming Mrs. Norris, honors, Original Fiction, Reviews, The Madness of Mr. Darcy Reviews, The Prodigal Husband
Fitzwilliam Darcy: An Honourable Man by Brenda J. ...
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Elizabeth could not sleep. She sat on the window ledge of her bedroom at Longbourn staring out across the lawn towards the long, irregular drive. It had been eight months since her sister, Lydia, had run away from Brighton, and they had no word of her since. Elizabeth was growing accustomed to a lack of sleep, and the long nights passed between painful contemplation and futile attempts to avoid such thoughts altogether –
thoughts of what might have happened to her sister.
It was nearly a full moon, and by its determined light, she suddenly perceived movement by the drive’s end, where the palings marked the entrance to the small estate. Staring determinedly in their direction, she was shocked to perceive a scantily clad figure running towards the house. She started, and quickly confirming the truth of what her senses perceived, secured her shawl about her shoulders and raced out her bedroom, down the stairs, through the hall, and unlocked the front door.
“Lydia!” she cried at the familiar face before all similarity to her youngest sibling disappeared beneath the spectacle of a disheveled creature, thrusting itself into her arms and sobbing violently.
The house began to rouse at the noise as Elizabeth half carried, half dragged the woman she was certain must be Lydia (though she still wished to look at her face again for confirmation of that distressing notion) into the nearest parlor, where she flopped upon the couch, a spectacle for the first servants to arrive on scene, and wrapped herself more tightly into Elizabeth’s arms, weeping yet harder.
It was impossible to get her to raise her head, but Elizabeth knew it was she. She wrapped an arm around the mound of tattered fabric in her lap and began to make a shushing noise, as to a baby.
“Lizzy! What is this?” Her mother’s voice demanded.
“Shhh!” she said louder, and then in quiet but shocked tones, “Tis Lydia, I think!”
“Lydia?” her mother repeated, blinking absently while her husband, at her side, clutched the door for support and grew remarkably pale.
“My God!” he exclaimed, his wife still agape and unmoving.
“What is it, Mama?” Elizabeth heard Kitty say, though she could no longer watch the tableau her family presented, all her attention being demanded by the person in her arms. “Why is Lizzy cradling a beggar?”
“Quiet, child!” her mother replied, suddenly stirred into action. She approached her youngest, dearest child. She knelt beside the sofa and reached for the crying creature's face with both hands, holding it up for inspection. The incessant weeping stopped, and Mrs. Bennet stared into her favorite’s face, dirty and tear-streaked. Tears welled in her own eyes as she said, “Oh, my darling,” and wrapped her arms around her, taking Elizabeth's burden beside her on the couch. The two women wept together in each other’s arms for several moments before Lydia suddenly, and with great violence, pushed her mother away and dove back to Lizzy, holding her far too tightly. The weeping was replaced by a strange whimpering noise, rather squeaky and frantic.
Mr. Bennet helped his wife to rise from the floor, where she had very unceremoniously landed. The lady rose while holding a hand to her cheek, which revealed a smear of blood when she examined it. “She scratched me!” Mrs. Bennet said in astonishment. “What does this mean, Mr. Bennet?”
The gentleman walked cautiously towards his daughter, whose face was now easier to see where it perched over Elizabeth's shoulder. “My God!” he said again. “She is mad!”
“It is as Mr. Collins said,” Mary interjected, thinking of everything she had ever read of womanly virtue. “It would have been better if she were dead.”
No one made any reply.
The fire split the sky, illuminating the people running about everywhere, doing everything possible to staunch the flames. Reports confirmed that old Mr. Sellers, in whose cottage the fire began, was dead, and the lives of three more of the small community of villagers who comprised Kympton parish were feared lost as well. There were fainter murmurings, and the words “arson” and “Wickham” could be perceived.
Fitzwilliam Darcy worked alongside everyone else, coatless and sweating in the heat, in which he had been laboring relentlessly for the past three hours. He was a known recluse, and the people were surprised to see him in their midst, but as he worked tirelessly through the night, they were thankful for his presence and help, and some recalled how well they used to think of him.
Those striving to quench the blaze could perceive the effects of their labors. While still unbearably hot and threatening, the fire was much diminished from what it was. Mr. Darcy tried to calculate how much longer it might take to reach their goal, a useful manner in which to avoid far darker thoughts, which insisted on intruding upon his speculation.
Two decades had passed since he last saw George Wickham, and at least half that since anyone had even mentioned the name is his presence. Yet now he heard it whispered beneath the roar of crackling wood. He might be mistaken; it could be some other name. Back, specter! Back to the past. Do not haunt me now. His heart cried out as old wounds burst open, coursing with fresh blood.
He heard a bustle coming from behind. Like many others, he paused his labor to see what new was astir. A crowd of men hustled along and abused a middle-aged man, of tall stature but sloping in form, poorly dressed, and clearly terrified. “Here’s the cause of all the trouble,” one of the men yelled above the crowd and roaring flames. “He’s your arsonist, Mr. Darcy.”
“Darcy!” George Wickham exclaimed, throwing himself on his knees in supplication. “You have to believe me! I was only visiting Sellers! We were talking and drinking, and I left him with a pipe in hand. He must have fallen asleep with it – there was a newspaper on his lap! He was a friend of my father’s! I would never harm the man!”
“A likely story,” snarled another burly fellow.
“Please, Darcy, my old friend! You have to believe me …”
“Enough!” the master of Pemberley bellowed, glaring down on the man who had been the cause of so much trouble to his life. He did not consider his options. He did not stop to think. True madness drove him as he lifted up George Wickham, hoisting him with strength no man his age should possess, and threw him, screaming, into the hungry flames.
The villagers rushed to the rescue, as bucket after bucket of water was directed towards the screaming mass of flames rolling on the ground instead of the cottages that still smoldered. The men who retained Wickham now moved menacingly around Mr. Darcy, who looked on, as if frozen, as the smell of his childhood friend’s flesh filled the air. He made no motion in recognition of the circle forming about him. He made no sign of protest, and as no one was inclined to manhandle the master unnecessarily, he was allowed to solemnly watch as the man stopped writhing, the flames fully doused, and something unrecognizable as human moaned on the ground.
“He lives!” someone shouted, and it was this that seemed to break Mr. Darcy from his reverie. He stepped towards where Wickham lay, but the men about him purposefully blocked his path. “Bring him to Pemberley!” he shouted. “Send Mr. Scott to the house to see to his wounds. Hurry! We might still save his life. We cannot let him die!”
The people looked at each other in question. Mr. Darcy had nearly murdered the stranger; could they trust him to see to his care?
“Hurry!” he cried, now pushing against a faltering wall of men. “There is a carriage over by the rectory. Get him to it at once! I shall lead the way on my horse.”
Unaccustomed as they were to disobeying orders from the gentry, Mr. Darcy was permitted to retrieve his mount, direct Wickham’s transfer to the carriage, and ride off at breakneck speed towards Pemberley.
“Should we report him to the magistrate?” a man asked.
“He is the magistrate!” another responded.
“Well, what do we do then?”
“Send over to Lambton for Squire Worthing. He handles such matters there.”
At Pemberley, the entire staff was dedicated to the emergency care Mr. Wickham received. Soon rumors began to spread of how the man got to be in the state he was in. These were confirmed some three hours later, in the early morning light, when a few men arrived in the accompaniment of Squire Worthing, once a frequent guest at Pemberley in the days before its master withdrew from society. The house was all chaos: the staff both providing relief to villagers in need and attending Mr. Wickham, by whose side Mr. Darcy had remained throughout, the still-burning fire in Kympton totally beyond his thoughts.
“Hello, Reynolds!” the squire greeted the butler. “I see you are already in some uproar, but I will need to speak with Mr. Darcy, if you please.”
“The master has not left the patient’s bedside since he came here, sir,” Reynolds anxiously replied, asking in an undertone, breath bated, “Is it true – how they are saying the man got that way?”
“I do not know what you heard,” the squire grimly replied, “but this is bad business. So the man still lives?”
“Yes. Mr. Scott says he thinks he will survive, if we can avoid infection.”
“Well, that will help some, if he lives and does not press charges. If he dies, I do not think I have any choice other than to take Mr. Darcy into custody.” The butler blanched, and the squire tried to explain himself better. “If the man were really the arsonist, maybe we could overlook it a bit, but reports are he was in Lambton at the time the fire started, though he was seen leaving Mr. Sellers’ cottage earlier. Probably, there was no mischief in the case at all, but Mr. Sellers merely fell asleep with his pipe, as I am told he was wont to do.”
Though these words were intended to sooth Reynolds, they merely increased his alarm. The squire left a representative at Pemberley, orders to alert him of any change in the patient’s condition, and departed, while the butler hurried to impart to the other servants the urgency with which they must attend the patient upstairs. He then went to his office, sat at his desk, and composed a letter to Lord Matlock, informing him of his cousin’s circumstances. He sent if off by rider, and though the boy chosen for the task was reluctant to leave the excitement of a fire, attempted murder, and arrest of a swell, he found motivation in a large tip from Reynolds’ own purse.
Lord and Lady Matlock’s estate was only thirty miles distant, and the earl and countess were on the scene by the very next day. They rode through the night with four horses and an entourage of outliers. When called to act, his lordship moved with military efficiency.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh had been dead for many years, and it was well before her reluctant parting with this world that she gave up on the notion of Darcy ever marrying her daughter, Anne. His increasing eccentricity and isolation lowered his eligibility for Miss de Bourgh’s hand, and when the eldest Fitzwilliam boy was foolish enough to break his neck in a carriage accident, Lady Catherine recalled how the late countess always wished for a marriage between Richard and Anne. The colonel, always more attentive to his aunt than either his brother or Darcy, suddenly presented a very pretty prospect. The two, being compliant by nature and not averse to each other, were soon convinced of their affection. The union proved a useful partnership, if not a marriage of true minds.
Anne, freed from her mother’s dominance, became a political force in society, taking a great deal more interest in both the pressing and petty issues of the day than her husband, who came into his title not long after their marriage. Lady Catherine lived long enough to see her daughter bear her grandmother’s title and hold an heir to one of the noblest fortunes in the country in her arms. Though she died against her will, which was rather intolerable, she was nonetheless pleased with herself and sorry for the world’s loss in her passing. However would the tenants at Rosings mix their whitewash correctly without her inestimable advice? Fortunate for them, the great lady had a daughter cast much in the same mold.
Darcy’s noble connections were not to learn the identity of the injured man until they arrived at Pemberley and his lordship questioned his stunned cousin. In stolid tones, he pointed at the mutilated body and named it George Wickham before beginning to weep: a dry and heaving noise. Richard was uncertain how to respond to this unprecedented spectacle. He had been deeply concerned for Darcy for many years, but never more so than when he left the sickroom that day.
He found his wife in the hall, busy telling the servants that they were going about their tasks the wrong way. She stopped her admonitions when she saw him, and a mutually exchanged tilt of the heads was all they required to retire to a nearby parlor for quiet conference.
“Well?” she asked when the door was shut behind them.
He sighed in response and sank into a nearby chair. “This is very bad, Anne.”
“I already know that!” she snapped. “I have questioned Reynolds at length. It is imperative that man not die, Richard, and I find nothing but incompetence in this house! It is badly in need of female management.”
“The man is George Wickham, Anne.”
“George Wickham,” she searched her memory. “Ah, yes. That steward’s son for whom Uncle Darcy had such a fondness. I do not see why that should matter. In fact, it might work in our favor. As long as he lives, we should be able to hush this up, but if Darcy is charged with murder, it will be everywhere!”
“It matters, Anne, because of the history they share,” he sighed, knowing there was no dredging up old scandals from the past, for she would not listen to them. “If it were anyone else, Darcy would not have behaved as he did.”
A gleam lit her eyes. “What are you suggesting, Richard? That he went mad?”
“Would a man not have to be, to commit such an act?”
“It seems to me men do terrible things to each other every day without anyone much questioning it. Perhaps we should consult a doctor. If there is a trial, an insanity plea might save us from the humiliation of seeing him hanged.”
“Anne! What of Darcy? You speak as if you care for nothing but the scandal and how it will affect you.”
“That is not true. I care a great deal for my cousin and have only his best interests in mind, but we must address the practical realities of the case. What is good for him is what is good for all the family.”
Richard shook his head. “This incidence of violence might be isolated, but you cannot continue to deny that there is something very wrong with our cousin! He is not in his right mind, and he has not been for years!”
“I will not have a lunatic in the family, Richard,” Lady Matlock affirmed shrilly, appending in softer tones, “unless it is absolutely necessary!”
“I do not think this is the kind of thing in which we have any choice, my dear,” he sighed wearily. “I shall write to Sir Frederick Wilson about him.”
“As long as Wickham lives, that should not be necessary! We must send for the best doctors we can find at once!”
A physician from Derby was called in, a more prestigious one from London sent for, and Mr. Wickham’s needs were attended to with the utmost care and consideration modern medicine could produce. That not being very much, it was somewhat miraculous that his wounds escaped serious infection. It was clear he would never walk again, his feet being horribly mutilated, but the medical experts soon came to the consensus that he would live. As soon as the patient was deemed fit for conversation, Squire Worthing reappeared to question him. The injured party refused to press any charges, much to the good man’s relief. Soon the matter seemed largely resolved, but for the gossip and conjecture of the villagers nearby.
Towards quelling that issue, Lady Matlock spoke privately with the squire, asking him to use what influence he might to confine talk of the incident to the immediate environs. In return for his hushing up the matter, she promised to assist his granddaughter, embarking on her first season the next year, when she made her presentation to society. In a few months, the only other people to express any lingering concern over the matter was Mr. Wickham himself, Lord Matlock, and Mr. Darcy, who struggled to understand what he had done, guilt working upon already weary emotions to turn eccentricity into something more. He began to drink heavily, eat less, and suffer from incessant insomnia.
http://www.amazon.com/Madness-Mr-Darcy-Alexa-Adams-ebook/dp/B00NLQQ47I/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413919702&sr=1-1
Work in Progress Reading Sunday
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We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True
One month before the release of the highly anticipated film The Birth of a Nation, actress Gabrielle Union shook the world with a vulnerable and impassioned editorial in which she urged our society to have compassion for victims of sexual violence. In the wake of rape allegations made against director and actor Nate Parker, Union—a forty-four-year-old actress who launched her career with roles in iconic ’90s movies—instantly became the insightful, outspoken actress that Hollywood has been desperately awaiting. With honesty and heartbreaking wisdom, she revealed her own trauma as a victim of sexual assault: “It is for you that I am speaking. This is real. We are real.”
In this moving collection of thought provoking essays infused with her unique wisdom and deep humor, Union uses that same fearlessness to tell astonishingly personal and true stories about power, color, gender, feminism, and fame. Union tackles a range of experiences, including bullying, beauty standards, and competition between women in Hollywood, growing up in white California suburbia and then spending summers with her black relatives in Nebraska, coping with crushes, puberty, and the divorce of her parents. Genuine and perceptive, Union bravely lays herself bare, uncovering a complex and courageous life of self-doubt and self-discovery with incredible poise and brutal honesty. Throughout, she compels us to be ethical and empathetic, and reminds us of the importance of confidence, self-awareness, and the power of sharing truth, laughter, and support.
Categories: Audiobooks, Books, For Women Tags: audiobooks, autobiography, black author, books, Gabrielle Union, inspirational, self love
Nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Root
Chosen by Emma Straub as a Best New Celebrity Memoir
“A book of essays as raw and honest as anyone has ever produced.” — Lena Dunham, Lenny Letter
In the spirit of Amy Poehler’s Yes Please, Lena Dunham’s Not That Kind of Girl, and Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist, a powerful collection of essays about gender, sexuality, race, beauty, Hollywood, and what it means to be a modern woman.
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Black Girl Magic Silhouette Westford Mill Promo Shoulder Tote Bag
Swept Away: An Epic Fantasy (The Last Elentrice Book 3)
Little Leaders: Exceptional Men in Black History
Slay In Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible
£8.99 Buy Now
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History
Hair Love: Based on the Oscar-Winning Short Film
© Black Girl In Dubai 2020
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Google Rolls Out Free Wi-Fi in NYC
From Business Week:
Google Inc., the world’s biggest Internet-search company, plans to offer free wireless Internet access in parts of New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, creating the largest public outdoor network in the city.
The Wi-Fi network, which doesn’t require a password, is available today, Google said in a statement. U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other officials attended an event to announce the service in Chelsea, where Google has offices. . . .
The new network is part of an effort to cultivate Silicon Alley, a concentration of startups in Manhattan. Wi-Fi will be available to thousands of New Yorkers between Gansevoort Street and 19th Street from 8th Avenue to the West Side Highway, according to a statement.
Posted by Madmin on 1/08/2013
Online Learning: A Bachelor's Level Computer Science Program Curriculum (Updated - Dec 2020)
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Everything Orchids
Growing Orchids for Beginners
Growing Orchids Indoors
Artificial Plant Light
Divide Orchids
Orchid Keikis
Orchid Light
Orchid Medium
Orchid Sheaths
Orchid Temperature
Orchid Water Requirements
Orchid Destinations
Arboretum of Los Angeles County
Hotel Bougainvillea
Monteverde Orchid Garden
Orchid Diseases
Orchid Name
Orchids by Color
Pink Orchids
White Orchids
Outdoor Orchids
Terrestrial Orchids
Types of Orchids
Angraecum Orchids
Brassavola Orchids
Brassia Orchid
Cattleya Orchid
Cymbidium Orchid
Dendrobium Orchid
Encyclia Orchids
Epidendrum Orchids
Lady Slipper Orchids
Maxillaria Orchids
Miltonia
Miltoniopsis
Odontoglossum Orchids
Oncidium Orchid
Vanda Orchids
Zygopetalum Orchids
Maxillaria tenuifolia
Maxillaria orchids are well-known, but not necessarily popular. There are over 300 species in this genus, but not many are grown by orchid enthusiasts, because only a small portion of the species produces showy flowers. Those that do, produce single flowers on short spikes. Some of them are magnificently fragrant.
Native to tropical America, this genus derives its name from the Latin word maxilla which means jawbone. This designation refers to the appearance of many of the flowers of this species. Normally, the lip of these plants looks like an arched tongue and has three unremarkable lobes. The result is a blossom that slightly resembles a jawbone.
Don’t let the criticisms of this varied genus, however, prevent you from investigating further. Several species are well worth taking a second look. Consider Maxillaria tenuifolia. The blossoms of this plant are small (approximately 1 inch in diameter) usually dark-red and grow on a spike of about 2 inches long. Tucked amongst the leaves, this flower is barely visible, but it still makes its presence known. It emits a scent which can only be described as coconut with a hint of cinnamon. As a result, these orchids are also known as Coconut Orchids.
Maxillaria picta is another special plant from this genus. Native to Brazil, produce flowers that range from 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter. These blossoms are usually yellow with the color fading to white at the tips. Dark red marks the edges of the sepals and petals, and the flowers are very fragrant. An epiphyte, this orchid grows fast and often produces several growths during one season.
A third Maxillaria orchid of note is Maxillaria schunkeana. Also native to Brazil, this orchid produces small, non-showy flowers. So what’s so important about this species? This orchid’s claim to fame is the color of its blossoms. No one has ever cultivated a black orchid, but with its dark purple-red blooms, this plant often gives the impression of being black.
The majority of Maxillaria orchids produce round or oblong pseudobulbs, usually with one or two central-veined apical leaves. In several species, these pseudobulbs cluster on a short rhizome, while in others they keep their distance on an elongated rhizome. Inflorescences sprout from the base of the pseudobulb and produce a single flower. The flower spikes are short (2-3 inches) and never grow longer than the leaves.
Because this genus has such diversity among its species growth requirements can vary widely. In general, Maxillaria orchids are epiphytes, which mean they grow well mounted on bark, on branches or in slatted baskets of equal parts fibrous peat and sphagnum. During the growing season, keep temperatures between 60 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit, water abundantly, mist daily and keep out of direct light. Sunlight seems to enhance fragrance production qualities, but the light must be filtered. After growth is finished, lower the temperature by 10 to 12 degrees, and reduce watering, but don’t let the plants completely dry out.
Red Beard Orchid
Aerangis splendida
Fascination of Orchids
Orchid Greenhouse and Garden Tour
Newport Harbor Orchid Society
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